Unhinged

"All living beings have actions (Karma) as their own, their inheritance, their congenital cause, their kinsman, their refuge. It is Karma that differentiates beings into low and high states."

I suppose this might be true. I was driving home yesterday, and somehow severely ticked off a woman behind me driving a Mercedes. I'm not positive why she was so ticked, but I think when our lane was ending, and myself and another driver merged over - she had been trying to accelerate and cut us off.

Anyways, her reaction was pretty surprising, given that I wasn't even sure of the crime. She was screaming in her car, flipping me off repeatedly with one and and then another, just off the scale as far as reactions go. Thinking I didn't necessarily want to get shot that day...I stayed in my lane, and waved cheerfully as she zipped by, screaming obscenities like a crazy person.

Whatever, I went back to singing to my music and tra-la-la-ing down the freeway.

Until about 5 miles up the road, I see some traffic doing not-normal things, people are slowing down and a car is quickly manuevering to the side of the road. It was her. Crazy Woman. She'd blown a tire....badly. Bits and pieces of it were flying down the road in her wake.

Perhaps the rage was just too much and the universe could no longer contain that energy, perhaps whatever energy you expend you also attract.

Or perhaps life is full of strange coincidences and it was just her day for a flat tire.

I felt badly, but was too scared of her to go see if she needed help.

The garage sale part deux

Greg has been gone on his trip, but of course we're still communicating by phone and IM. And apparently he's found my ad on Craigslist for the garage sale.

Ring, ring.

ME: 'Hello?'

Greg: "Hey babe, it's me. Guess what? I was searching on craigslist for 'coleman' and found an ad that said they had a garage sale with some camping gear for sale, and I got all excited until I started reading and found out it's MY camping gear!!! haha! It's a pretty good ad, I'm reading it now....(Uh oh, I think to myself) You're selling the area RUG??? I really like that rug, why are you selling it?"

ME: "Well, I don't like it that much and it doesn't match with the living room and that's why I figured I'd just sell it off"

Greg: "I don't know why you would sell it though, we just bought it, I mean...YOU LISTED THE TV?!?!?"

ME: "Yeah, but you agreed to that!"

Greg: "Well I did, but I thought we'd sell it seperately, in a little while. I can't believe you're selling that - what else is going to be sold that I need to know about???"

ME: "Oh, not much...just a few odds and ends, the post is a really good description overall, you know."

Greg: "Well, make sure you get a good price for the rug and TV, I'm really attached to those things, and I really like them and would rather they didn't go anywhere."

ME: "OK"

And then we chatted about other things...but he's been monitoring the cragslist postings ever since - I just know it. I can't wait for Saturday, I sure hope a lot of people show up early...he might just catch the first flight home to make sure the selling doesn't get out of hand. :)

The Garage Sale

This weekend, I plan on having a garage sale. We have way too much stuff in general, and as I paw through various rooms in the house, I'm astounded at how much we've accumulated over the past 4 years. Greg is gone this week on a business trip, and that is part of the scheduling for the garage sale (though he is aware it's happening). He has this strange attachment to every little household item we own.

I'd already gone through the kitchen (MY territory, he really doesn't do much work in there) before he left, and there was much wailing and gnashing of teeth as he went through the various items that were in the 'to go' box. A ladle was rescued, a serving spoon saved, much conversation was had about various bowls until I re-directed his energy and sent him upstairs to clean out his closet instead.

He disappeared for about 4 hours and came back out with a large garbage bag full of clothes that no longer fit him - he's a bit thinner now than he was when we were first married, but still has the larger clothes in his closet. Really, up until a few days ago - his closet spaced dwarfed mine by far. A few clothes turned up in the laundry hamper that I've not seen in a while, and there was an emotional conversation when he wanted to know if I had saved my matching Hawaiian shirt we bought for our honeymoon (no, was the answer - though I did offer to save it for a uqilt someday).

He left on Sunday with a lighter heart and fewer things in his possession, and now I've been tackling the rest of the rooms, chucking more things that we've acquired and just don't use.

It's funny how attached we become to things, and how much those things can get in the way of simplicity.

Our Camping Weekend

We just purchased a pop-up camper this weekend. It was a heck of a deal, because the guy who was trying to sell it lived about 3 hours out of town…and we got it for about $2200 below NADA. So – off we went to buy it, and we finagled it to where we could pick it up Friday to have an inaugural camping trip over Labor Day weekend.

We went to our favorite camping spot way out of town (there was a LOT of driving last week), and set up camp. Because it’s relatively unknown, we had no problems with space, it was us and 4 other campers (yes, it’s a great spot). But one of these campers didn’t fully understand Camping Ethics. They ran their generator for hours at a time, placing it far away from their spot, but very close to ours with the help of an insanely long extension cord. Greg and I let it slide. They turned it off for 2 hours, and then ran it for another 4…we took a deep breath and decided to go for a quick 4-wheeling trip.

When we returned, they had turned on a baseball game on their car stereo and were blasting it into the forest. Loud, deep, sports-sounding voices and crowds screaming. Far too much noise for any sort of camping ‘peak’ experience.

I was frustrated, and paced around camp thinking whether or not it would be worth going over and asking these people to turn down their noise. Greg and I went over to the truck we had borrowed from my dad to pull the camper (no, we don’t have one of those yet) and looked to see what he had by way of obnoxious CDs that I could use as ammunition. Good ole dad never lets us down in the obnoxious CD category. He travels a lot and had a wide assortment of middle-eastern music as well as a few ‘Learn to Speak Hindi’ CDs.

Greg looked them over critically, and then looked at me.

“I’m going to go over there, and ask them to turn it down. If they don’t, today we’re learning Hindi.

We’re ALL learning Hindi.”

And with that he marched down to their campsite. I watched the gestures, and heard a “SURE! Not a problem, really sorry!” And I suppose I was a bit disappointed, because really, revenge is so much sweeter…initially. But I really didn’t want to learn Hindi, I just wanted silence. And my manly husband grabbed the bull by the horns and dealt directly with the problem rather than indirectly.

Which caused me to look at myself and my actions and realize that I’m getting way too ‘city-fied’ for my own good. And it also made me look at Greg in a whole new light.

And laugh each time I think of the line “We’re ALL learning Hindi”.

A Revelation

Sometimes, it's the tiny things that can really make you smile. Listerine makes these little spray pumps...I forget what they're called, but they're powerful. It's all part of the agony our culture likes to call ‘Freshening our Breath’.

That whole trend has been rather fascinating to me. I remember growing up gum, tic tacs and those little pink and white peppermint candies were the main tools (aside from brushing) that one could use to keep from offending others when your expelled air was less-than-savory.

Well, SOMEone invented a rather painful mint, marketed it brilliantly, and a whole slew of tastebud-erroding breath fresheners filled up the candy section of the supermarket for the public to buy.

I occasionally am one of the public - little gimmiks, neat packaging, I'm a sucker for such things. Thus, I have this Listerine spray that sits in my car for months on end until I work up the courage (or forget the anguish) and use a bit.

And I've found that it always makes me sneeze. However many times I pump that spray is how many times I can be expected to sneeze. This brought on a bit of experimentation...Altoids (mint) also make me sneeze, as do the really powerful square pieces of gum. Fascinating.

Greg thinks its hilarious, and will often offer to spray my mouth for me (what a gentleman!) and then wait expectantly for the oncoming sneeze. He did that in the car yesterday....and it's crazy how funny something like that actually is.

At least to us.

Four Years Later....

You know you are (still) in love with someone when, for your 4 year anniversary….you volunteer to go to The Simpson’s Movie…because HE’S a big fan and the producers of the movie thought July 27th was such an auspicious date that they had to release it then.
And really – for such a momentous occasion (the movie – not the anniversary), it’s really much better if you’re in line with everyone else waiting to be among the first to see it.

I remember when we heard this movie was coming out a year and a half ago…and I thought to myself – if he thinks we’re going to see THAT on our anniversary – he’s got another thing coming.

It’s funny how things change, and how you mellow out as even small bits of time go by. It’s only been 4 years, but we’ve come a long way.

Culvers

My husband loves the fast food chain, Culvers. When we go on roadtrips, he likes to plan our stops around Culvers locations because we don't have them here in our part of Colorado. Their butter burger and the peanut butter shake is enough to make him weak in the knees.

So imagine our surprise when we were driving through a seldom-visited part of our town this morning in search of a quick breakfast sandwhich...and there it was - a brand new Culvers. I didn't notice right away....until, that is, Greg yelled:

"OOOOOOOoooooohhhhhhh MMMMMMYYYYYYYYYYY!!!!!!"

I just about dropped breakfast and looked around wildly to get a last look at the oncoming car that was clearly going to take our lives.

But no. It was the Culvers dining facility that caused such an outburst and then an excited conversation.

And then at work, a serious of excited emails.

And now, this evening, guess where we're going out to dinner?