How'd they fit the body in the fountain, though? BECAUSE I TRIED THAT.
The bridal shower went wonderfully. Everything was beautiful and there were lots of games and gifts and decorations. I think. I don't really know. Because there was also this chocolate fountain on my counter with a gravitational field comparable to Jupiter and I couldn't seem to break free of the dark liquid siren song crooned by its marshmallow mermaids. I pretty much hung out there the entire time. I'm lucky I had the shower at my house because I had to change my clothes twice; FYI, regardless of what your frontal lobe bets your occipital lobe, that fountain isn't big enough to climb into.
And it's also hotter than you think-- I burned my shoulder pretty badly. I didn't get to bed until nearly one in the morning (I probably could have cut that down by a few hours but it takes a really long time to clean a whole chocolate fountain with your mouth) and then I got up at five to drive Randy to the airport. When I got home from that, right around dawn, I of course immediately crawled back into bed. Mere seconds later when I pried my sticky eyes open, the alarm clock read "12:06". Which, you know. I'm better at sleeping through an entire day than probably anyone-- and
probably hell, I'm just being modest-- but with every year I add to my repertoire, the guiltier I feel about sleeping past noon. So I dragged my chocolaty ass out from under the now sort-of-chocolaty comforter and down the chocolate-spattered hallway and into a kitchen that looked, seriously, like the nucleus of a chocolate apocalypse. Chocolate hand prints on the wall, chocolate footprints... there was actually a giant delicious chocolate streak on the floor leading into the garage that looked suspiciously like someone had dragged a chocolate-covered cadaver out of the line of sight.
I went to the refrigerator to get a Diet Coke, hump-shouldered, mentally tallying the hours it was going to take me to lick the entire house clean, trying to shrug off the sleep-in shame, when I saw the clock on the microwave. And then I remembered! The bedroom clock is
totally wrong! Randy keeps it wildly inaccurate on purpose to limit the number of jobs I lose and flights I miss! Oh, I felt so redeemed! My shoulders unhumped almost instantly. It wasn't 12:06, shit, it was 11:54! Goddamn! Wait, 11:54?? No wonder I was still so tired! My god, who am I, Superman?! It's not like I have any fucking fields to plow over here, I'm not a ROBOT, for Christ's sake. Obviously I shut the fridge and immediately went back to bed. It was hard to ignore all the roosters crowing, but I managed.
Okay Everybody! It's Time for the Rinse Cycle!
The bridal shower is tonight, and as luck would have it I had a brand new washer and dryer delivered yesterday. Ninja black, front load, shiny as the gods.
I've decided to host the entire party in the laundry room. It'll be a tight fit, so everybody's going to have to stand.
So get over here. And bring some friggin' wine, already, damn.
I've been buying a lot of stuff on the internet the past few weeks because after selling a bunch of
sock zombies, I had all this money in my PayPal account and it didn't seem right to pay my Discover Card bill or student loan payment or something. I mean, it
never does, but now it
really didn't. So here's what I now have instead of bearable credit:
The Plug Anthology: Volume 1. I read a lot of this standing up in my kitchen yesterday; I found it helped dull the pain after my washing machine exploded. Laughter through tears. I think my favorite part is that when you finish it and you realize you desperately need more The Plug you can go to the
website and there's absolutely nothing there to ease the craving. I guess I'll just have to read the book seven or eight more times. Today.
These
Shaun of the Dead notecards I found on
Etsy. Apparently this person knits the characters and then takes pictures of them. If I find out the actual knitted people are for sale, god help us all.
This necklace from
Amy Choppa. See, it's a little blue soap! On a pretty beaded rope! I'm going to wear it today in lieu of showering. (That last sentence took me four minutes because I had to type "lieu" eight thousand times using every possible variation of
e,
i, and
u. I got it, though. Don't you worry.) You don't have to go with the soap, though; maybe you actually showered but you want to feel like Chinese food
. You should get the little
takeout box. Or if you want to feel like a fruit salad, you can get the little
lemon. Just don't get the little tooth because that one's mine. I always wanted to be a dentist.
Last night I took every glass we own out of the cabinet to clean.
It didn't even seem like a good idea at the time, it seemed like a crappy idea. I think I may have even
said that as I was doing it, "This is a really dumb idea." And this morning, in the light of dusty day, it seems like it was potentially the worst idea I've ever had in my entire life. I once ran through a busy Mexican hotel lobby dripping wet and dressed in nothing but a threadbare hand towel, and I felt better about
that decision the next morning than I do about this one.
A little while ago, another contractor showed up to pretend like our backyard is remotely fixable, and I decided to hide in the house while Randy meets with him. I've been cleaning out closets all day in my pajamas and I look like a giant moth wearing green sweatpants. I know if I go out there I'll end up getting fly-swatted in the back with a clipboard or something. So ten minutes ago I was vacuuming, right, peering out the window every so often to see how long this guy can keep a straight face, when suddenly the vacuum cleaner revved up to a fever pitch, gagged on something serious, and spit out a giant fireball. I yanked the plug out of the wall and sprinted the thing down the hall where I could safely pitch it out onto the front stoop. Ordinarily household items that catch fire are ejected into the
backyard, where the hose is, but the contractor's still back there and I didn't think flinging a Hoover upright fifteen feet through the air like a flaming discus would make my mothhood any
less conspicuous. So I set it on the front porch to smolder while I ran a load of laundry and waited for this guy to lose his shit and leave already.
And then like two minutes later the washing machine started going "
EEEEEeeeeEEEEEeeeee!" When I ran in there, the laundry room was full of smoke and it smelled like I'd just set a hundred towels on fire. Which, in essence, I guess I kind of had. I reached around and unplugged the thing so it wouldn't burst into flames, but I don't know what else to do.
I'm just going to sit here and wait for Randy to come inside. Shit, what
else can possibly happen today? I hope the ceiling doesn't collapse or something. Because then Randy would come in to find me struggling to support the weight of the entire house with my back and I'd be like, "Hey, what did he think about doing a tumbled paver walkway?" and Randy would slap me in the face with a rolled up magazine.
I forgot to get the drool attachment.
I rented a Rug Doctor this morning to clean the furniture in my family room.
I hope it takes out pure evil.
I should get a pie for the strippers next year.
Whenever Randy and I are prepping for a long car ride, Randy always insists I go to the bathroom before we leave. "We're not stopping every twenty minutes,
Erin." Then while I'm in the bathroom trying to coax out spinal fluid, Randy apparently runs out back and drinks directly from the hose. The man can't make it out of our zip code before he's scouting for a toilet. Several weeks ago Randy and I set out to spend a night in
Crown King, and as soon as we were safely in the middle of nowhere, he yanked us off the I-17 at some bland, innocuous exit touting facilities so he could do his business and maybe, if he was lucky, refill his 92-ounce iced tea.
I waited in the car. One, my body was still playing catch up from my mandatory liquid evacuation at the house. Two, the building looked low and scary. And three, I am not above peeing behind the car on the side of the road. I am actually way
below peeing behind the car-- and in point of fact will pee pretty much anywhere, any time, in front of anybody-- a character flaw that reached a glorious crescendo the night two friends and I, stumbling home from the bar, decided to mark our territory just outside the movie theater exit fifteen seconds before a small and surprisingly conservative army finished watching
Armageddon.So I waited.
Randy was beside himself when he got back to the car.
"I've never seen so many pies in my life," he said, strapping in. "That place... they must have had hundreds of pies."
I didn't think I'd heard him right. Pies? What? We were out in the middle of the desert, there wasn't even another gas station for twenty miles.
"You wouldn't believe it. Every kind of pie you can think of. Who are they selling all that pie to?"
We looked around as Randy pulled back onto the highway. Shrub brush, low desert, four houses. This did not appear to be a high pie demographic.
"So, wait. Pies? Seriously? Like what kind?"
"Every kind!" He was exuberant, effusive. Overwhelmed with rapture. More so than usual after he peed.
"Did they have lemon pie?"
"Lemon? Hell yes, they had lemon.
Lemon," he scoffed. "Please. They had
every kind. Who's buying all that pie?"
Well, clearly now I was pissed I'd waited in the car. If I had known there were going to be large quantities of baked goods I would have gotten off my ass. I might have squeezed out a drop while I was in there, too, and thus might have spared Randy the inevitable sight of me crouching awkwardly in a dirty puddle because being
down with peeing outside doesn't necessarily make me
good at it.
A tiny light bulb flickered in my brain. "Or," it whispered, dimly, "Maybe this is like when Randy tells you how sexy you look pushing the two-hundred-pound grocery cart around at Costco. Maybe this is like when Randy lets you carry all six bags of groceries so he can stroll behind unencumbered and
'admire your biceps'."
"Maybe this is like the rope at Lake Powell!" Light Bulb and I said in unison. Then the Light Bulb turned off and went back to sleep probably forever.
This summer at Lake Powell, Randy, Christopher, Erin
2 and I took a mini-excursion to this particular cove where people can climb a slimy rope up a slimy wall to jump in a ridiculously cold pool of snow runoff, and then you can climb another slimy rope through a tiny crevice to walk around on top of a rock the same temperature as the sun in hell.
We did this the year previous, too, and that year I climbed the slimy rope up the slimy wall and fell in the frigid pool, and it was everything I thought it would be and more. I didn't need to do it again this year. Deaf to the pleas of the menfolk, Erin
2 and I waited at the slimy base while Randy and Chris did the slime climb. They made it up and over and into the pool, and then up and through the crevice onto the sun, and they disappeared. Randy in a golf shirt emblazoned with swordfish, yes.
Erin
2 and I skulked around the loser base camp, peering up, kicking wild onion stalks. Two other girls appeared, and we watched open-mouthed as one of them scaled the rock face itself, clambering with bare hands and feet to the top like a nimble, blond gecko. Erin
2 looked for something to sit on after that, and I don't know, I probably went to find a place with more people so I could pee in front of them.
Chris and Randy finally came back down.
"You should have seen it!" Chris yelled. "There was a Starbucks AND a Cold Stone Creamery up there!"
Erin
2 rolled her eyes. Obviously there
wasn't, I mean
obviously. But the mere mention of ice cream and lattes... she couldn't help but look a trifle wistful. I laughed. Unphased.
Randy turned to me. "There were slot machines up there, rows and rows. Wheel of Fortune machines, dollar ones," he said. "And we got a bonus spin on every turn."
My soul is powered by dollar coins, this is true. "Oh yeah?" I laughed, "Where's all the money you won, then?"
"We used it to pay the strippers."
Oh ho! My soul is specifically powered by dollar coins and strippers! Who looks wistful
now? Game, set, and fucking
match, my friend. Total bullshit, given, but it's total bullshit that's going to get my lazy ass up the rope next year. Randy's a genius.
Which takes me back to pie. Was there really a pie wonderland perched on the side of the highway, an oasis of deliciousness handily equipped with an indoor plumbed restroom? Or was there just the restroom. If there wasn't pie, this was a trick that would only work the one time; I'm an idiot and all, but you can only convince me to go inside a place because it's a bakery
once before I figure out it's not really a bakery. Or twice. Or... shit.
That whole weekend in Crown King, when I wasn't peeing behind something I was trying to break apart the tale of the mythical pie shack. I held my breath the whole way home, waiting for the now fabled exit to Nowheresville that would either lead us to pie or give me just cause to punch Randy in the sack.
And you know what?
No one had to get punched in the balls. It was a
pie bonanza unlike any I have ever seen, and believe you me, I have been around the pie block.
Banana, chocolate, coconut, German chocolate, peanut butter, blackberry, apple, peach, cherry, rhubarb, blueberry, two kinds of lemon, two kinds of pecan... I looked at Randy with renewed trust and admiration. The man had led me to pie. I had a slice of the best lemon pie I've ever eaten in my life and got a whole Jack Daniels pecan pie to go. And then I used the restroom. It seemed like the least I could do.
Who knew Jesus smelled like bad fajitas?
If you come to my house, you will be told two serious and solemn things: do not use the knife that looks like bread, and under
no circumstances use the wooden cutting board that pulls out of the wall. This last part is more of a lecture, and I'll probably sit you down for it and then quiz you afterwards. Randy cuts (raw) poultry on a built-in (wooden) cutting board and then slides it stickily back into the wall. Until he needs to slice some cheese or some prosciutto, and then he pulls it back out. I try to be on hand to slap some plastic down between the board and the food, but Randy's pretty quick when it comes to doing shit he knows drives me crazy. And I can only haul that thing outside and scrub it with a wire brush in the driveway so often (never). When the monster germs come to kill us all, I plan to yank the whole thing out and strap it to my chest, a crucifix against the monster germ vampire. People will think I'm Jesus.
I'm still a little sweaty, I won't lie.
Randy has this bread knife he bought in Paris with the woman who tormented him a few months before I started tormenting him.
See? It's shaped like a baguette. Because it's from France. Which is fine. I'm down with bread and obvious bread representations associated with bread devices. Would it have been awesome if he'd instead picked out the serrated bread knife sheathed in a carved wooden salmon? So awesome I don't really want to talk about it, but hey-- that's what happens when you take some new home salesperson with roots so dark you could block an eclipse to Paris.
The first time I naively machete-yanked it open, no doubt hoping to cut something fresh and wholesome, the edges of the knife were tinged green with moldy bread.
One more time: I opened the knife, and the entire blade was coated in a mold film because Randy had at some point decided (probably while New Home Salesperson was out pretending to get her hair done) that when you use the knife from Paris, you don't have to WASH it. Not a difficult deduction, really, as Randy feels very strongly that cleaning utensils does nothing but weaken our immune systems. One day half the country will be knocked down from some giant, obscure food-borne illness and I will survive solely because Randy believes that cheese is its own cleanser.
Ever since that first time, my relationship with Bread Knife has been tentative and perfunctory. But recently, Randy seems to have "rediscovered" the joy of Bread Knife because he's using it all the time. I think this is because I put it in the dishwasher after he uses it instead of sliding it back inside its bread coat, and Randy's always pleasantly surprised when he eats something that doesn't taste like penicillin. The more Randy appears to enjoy Bread Knife, the more I appear to detest it. To perhaps a cartoon-esque degree; I twirl an invisible mustache and stomp around murmuring about knifenapping, and Randy used it last week at the table to cut his steak. And then kissed it after.
There's no point to any of this, except that the power went out earlier for a couple of hours and I-- hovering uncertainly in that space between the morgue and Nintendo-- did
this to Bread Knife:
I replaced its wooden baguette-like jacket with an
actual baguette. It was the funniest thing in the world at the time, when I was mildly sweaty and my ears were ringing from the NOTHING, and its still pretty funny now. Surprisingly. I'm envisioning the big "unveiling", right, where Randy picks up the knife to cut a lime and he looks at me and laughs and I laugh and we laugh. But I can't get my hopes up as it's entirely possible he won't even notice. It'll be like that time he happily ate
Snausages for an hour: heart wrenching, awkward, and smelly.
As I understand it, New Home Salesperson was way into numerology. So it stands to reason she has this whole Bread Knife scenario all mathed out on a chart somewhere.
"Hey! Nice Rack!"
I went to Jamba Juice this morning because I wanted 44-ounces of dessert but I wanted to lie to myself about it, and the little cashier girl behind the counter had the most adorable haircut. It was short and tousled and fit her cute face perfectly.
"I love your hair," I told her, as she handed me the sugar equivalent of a bucket of pie with a straw in it. "I wish I could pull off something that short."
"Thanks!" The cashier smiled, running a hand through it. "I don't know how it would look on a girl, though."
At which point I immediately ground my brain to a halt before I could ask what perfume he was wearing or if he got his pants at The Limited.
Prototype #1:
That's a negative, Captain.
Aw, you're welcome.
Tomorrow, Tuesday, September 11th, is Randy's and my 7-year anniversary. Of our first date. If we celebrated the
other anniversary, the R-rated one, it would be Saturday the 15th. We
should celebrate that one, now that I think about it. Do they make a "Thanks Again For Not Making Me Work Very Hard For It" card?
Anyway. It'll be seven years on Tuesday, which is great because that means on
Wednesday I can start saying we've been together
eight years. And Randy can start saying five.
Etsy.
I'm running out of room over here so I did, actually, open an
Etsy shop.
I just put a few on there to test the waters. I hope it works out; I have this thing I want to try with a sock boa constrictor smothering an innocent sock. And a sock alien bursting from a sock belly.
But I'm saving that one for my brother's wedding gift.
Enabler.
It makes Randy uncomfortable when the eyes don't match.
And he thinks we should try a pirate zombie with a wooden leg. I say that's crazy talk. "But
how?"
"A dowling rod, a tiny drill bit, some upholstery thread... come on, we got this."
Any further doubts on my part were quelled by thoughts of glittery zombie gangrene.
"Oh my god," I realized. "I could hang bloody severed limbs from
his mouth."
"I'm going to Home Depot. You get online and try to find a tiny parrot."
You think you're ready, but you're not ready.
Hey. Check it out. Sock Zombie.
I threw it at Randy while he was napping because he's old.
"It's like my worst nightmare is having a nightmare," he said. Trying to pull the tongue off.
I'm going to pretend he was talking about the sock zombie.
It's a holiday weekend. Hide your socks. And go get me some thread.
And it's also hotter than you think-- I burned my shoulder pretty badly. I didn't get to bed until nearly one in the morning (I probably could have cut that down by a few hours but it takes a really long time to clean a whole chocolate fountain with your mouth) and then I got up at five to drive Randy to the airport. When I got home from that, right around dawn, I of course immediately crawled back into bed. Mere seconds later when I pried my sticky eyes open, the alarm clock read "12:06". Which, you know. I'm better at sleeping through an entire day than probably anyone-- and probably hell, I'm just being modest-- but with every year I add to my repertoire, the guiltier I feel about sleeping past noon. So I dragged my chocolaty ass out from under the now sort-of-chocolaty comforter and down the chocolate-spattered hallway and into a kitchen that looked, seriously, like the nucleus of a chocolate apocalypse. Chocolate hand prints on the wall, chocolate footprints... there was actually a giant delicious chocolate streak on the floor leading into the garage that looked suspiciously like someone had dragged a chocolate-covered cadaver out of the line of sight.
The Plug Anthology: Volume 1. I read a lot of this standing up in my kitchen yesterday; I found it helped dull the pain after my washing machine exploded. Laughter through tears. I think my favorite part is that when you finish it and you realize you desperately need more The Plug you can go to the website and there's absolutely nothing there to ease the craving. I guess I'll just have to read the book seven or eight more times. Today.
These Shaun of the Dead notecards I found on Etsy. Apparently this person knits the characters and then takes pictures of them. If I find out the actual knitted people are for sale, god help us all.
It didn't even seem like a good idea at the time, it seemed like a crappy idea. I think I may have even said that as I was doing it, "This is a really dumb idea." And this morning, in the light of dusty day, it seems like it was potentially the worst idea I've ever had in my entire life. I once ran through a busy Mexican hotel lobby dripping wet and dressed in nothing but a threadbare hand towel, and I felt better about that decision the next morning than I do about this one.
Erin2 and I skulked around the loser base camp, peering up, kicking wild onion stalks. Two other girls appeared, and we watched open-mouthed as one of them scaled the rock face itself, clambering with bare hands and feet to the top like a nimble, blond gecko. Erin2 looked for something to sit on after that, and I don't know, I probably went to find a place with more people so I could pee in front of them.
Banana, chocolate, coconut, German chocolate, peanut butter, blackberry, apple, peach, cherry, rhubarb, blueberry, two kinds of lemon, two kinds of pecan... I looked at Randy with renewed trust and admiration. The man had led me to pie. I had a slice of the best lemon pie I've ever eaten in my life and got a whole Jack Daniels pecan pie to go. And then I used the restroom. It seemed like the least I could do.
