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I need to come up with a good way to celebrate our upcoming anniversary, other than just dinner somewhere.
I am grateful for meatloaf sandwiches!!!
I smacked my thigh on the spicket in the back yard when I was rolling in the garbage container, and now I have a MASSIVE bruise that hurts to look at.
Probably old news to most, but Pamie got engaged. Also, Elle finished a marathon, there's a new bitchin' advice column out there, and Dana is having yet more fun with scammers. I love the journaling community.
My brain is blissfully silent of any kind of annoying song or jingle. Which will change as soon as I drive home tonight and listen to the radio.
See the previous entry.
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May 17b, 2004
Interrogated!
A WordGoddess Collab
This month for WordGoddess, we exchanged questions with one another, all of us posting the answers on our websites. I wrote some questions for Nance, and Carrie wrote some questions for me...
1. What is it about holding a bird that freaks you out, specifically? I ask this because birds are my absolute biggest phobia, and it's not often I meet somebody who can commiserate.
Heh. You know? I don't know. I've always been that way, except for the little lovebird that Marie used to have (that I inadvertently let escape). Even then, I was a little leery. Like I was afraid I'd squish it. It's funny you should ask this particular question, because last night Marie brought in a little "pinkie" (barely-hatched sparrow) that had fallen out of its nest (how it survived the plummet from the eaves of the garage to the pavement is beyond me). She was almost in tears and made to bring it over to me, and I yelped, "Don't bring it to me! Go find your dad!" Wussy. It's their little buggy eyes and wobbly heads that freak me out.
2. I'm afraid of the dentist, too - like, in a major, heart-palpitating kind of way. Was there an event that precipitated your fear, or have you always been afraid? (You mention one instance here - http://www.snerkology.com/08_02/08_13_02.htm - but I can't find anything else about it.)
~Shudder~ Even now, I'm thinking about the wisdom teeth I should have removed, but have yet to schedule an appointment. It's weird - I never was afraid at all, as a kid or during the whole braces thing which was SO not fun, when I was a teenager. Just the time that I mentioned in that entry, when the stupid oral surgeon traumatized me. Gah.
3. How did the lobster Christmas tradition start?
This started the very first Christmas that Calvin and the kids and I were together. Calvin and I had gone to Maine that summer to visit my family, and the kids couldn't come because of issues with their mom. We showed them all the pictures, and they were most envious of the lobster cookout we had at my Grandmother's. So I ordered lobsters from Cape Porpoise Lobster as a surprise Christmas gift for them. They were such a hit (complete with the dramatic killing ritual at the lobster pot) that we decided right then and there to make it a yearly tradition.
4. You've mentioned that you don't have any desire to have kids of your own. Have you ever been pressured by friends or family members to change your mind? How have you responded to them?
Funny, I got the e-mail with this question just an hour after writing the other entry. So, to summarize, I do have the desire to have kids of my own, but I don't think it's in the cards for us. My mother-in-law is adamant that I should have children of my own, but she understands the unique relationship I have with Michael and Marie. That makes the regret that I might have had somewhat less than it could have been if I didn't have them to thrash my thwarted maternal instincts out on. Usually, though, I just tell people that my sister is doing her best to populate the world (with her four kids), and that's quite enough of my family's DNA wandering the globe.
5. Going back (way back!) through your archives, I loved the pictures and stories about building onto your house. Do you think it was more or less overwhelming than just buying a new house and moving? If (when!) you do get to realize your dream of running a bed and breakfast, do you think it will be harder to leave a home that you've personalized like that?
God. When we started the whole HIPFH(tm), we thought it would be easier than buying a new house and moving. HOLY CRAP, were we wrong! The most important thing to us was that we had enough room for us all (my original house was 1400 sf, we built it up to 2300), and that the house be in the same school district as the kids' mom's house, so we could do the week on/week off schedule that we were originally going to stick with. They ended up moving in with us full-time in short order - Marie did so, in fact, the very week the house was completed, and Michael several months prior to that - but we still didn't want them to have to change schools. Looking back, it probably would have been easier to find a different house that met our criteria, than to go through the six months of living hell that we went through. But we love our home now, and we love it even more because of how unique it is to us. There is not one square inch of that house that hasn't been personalized. So, yes, WHEN we buy a B&B (heh), we'll find it hard to sell. We'll probably keep it and rent it out, if that's a possibility when the time comes.
6. Poof! Your debt's gone, and you have sufficient funds for whatever the next step would be that you'd like to take in your life. The question is: where will you take it? (Assume Calvin *might* be amenable to changing his mind about staying put, if the right kind of persuasion were put to him. Heh.) Will you stay in Arizona? Go back to Maine? Move to the other side of the world? Buy a houseboat and just roam?
Oh, why thanks so much! Heh, I think Calvin would move if such an opportunity dropped in our laps like that. What I'd REALLY like to do is buy an RV and drive all over the country, before deciding on just the perfect spot to settle down. I just know that it has to be in the country somewhere, and I'd prefer to be near the ocean. But I'd give up the ocean for a 50-acre ranch in Wyoming or something. I think I'd prefer to stay in the US, though one of those little rose-and-vine covered cottages in England or Ireland appeals to me, too.
7. Do you mainly cook because you like to or because you have to? (Most of the time, I mean; special meals and celebrations are different.)
Lately, I've just been cooking because I have to. It strikes me like that, when the hot weather comes. I cook more out of a desire to do so in the winter. But last month we took a good look at how much money we've been spending on going out to eat, and after our heart attacks were over, we vowed to cook EVERY NIGHT, and only hit Taco Bell once in a while. It's easier now that I'm done with school for the semester - I can go home at lunchtime and throw something in the crockpot (like I did today - meatloaf), so I don't have to worry about it when I get home from work and I'm all tired. I mustn't create the impression that Calvin never cooks - he's usually good for one or two nights a week, if I've already figured out the menu. The fact that saves our lives (and our budget) more often than not is the fact that I plan out what we're going to eat weeks in advance (for the past few months I've been figuring out the menu for the whole MONTH and putting it on the calendar in the kitchen). Then come Sunday I already know what to shop for, and there's no thought involved when dealing with dinner for the week.
8. If you had an extra hour every day, of which nobody else knew and which nobody else could touch or make demands, would you use it for personal enrichment or simple relaxation?
#1. Nap; #2. Read; #3. Bubble bath. So, yeah. Relaxation, apparently. Personal enrichment is overrated.
9. I laughed when I read about how Calvin equates activity and excitement with happiness more than you do; for my husband and myself, it's the opposite. Do you ever get frustrated, as my husband does, with his need for things to be happening? What do you do when his boredom runs up against your contentment, say, on a quiet Saturday morning?
Oh man, what a question. This is likely to spark a debate in the household tonight. Yes, I like quiet and relaxation a GREAT DEAL more than Calvin does. I think we've struck a fairly good compromise - most weekends we have one day of activity, and one day of relaxation. But if he's really wound up and he's driving me nutzoid, I ignore him for as long as I can to see if he'll get the hint and take his annoying self elsewhere. If he doesn't stop being a pest, my recourse depends on the mood I'm in. If I'm really tired, bitchy, or PMS-ing, I'll tell him off, holler and screech as he escalates the teasing, slam a door somewhere, and shut myself away in Michael's old room, our room (if he'll stay out of it), or out in the back yard. If I'm in a more cheery mood, I'll ask him what he wants to do, and then get annoyed when he says, "I don't know, you think of something." Because THAT usually entails me listing eleventy-thousand things of potential interest, only to have him say "ih" or "no" to each and every one of them. Dammit. Just let me read my book. (Calvin: "Books are stupid.")
10. How do you like your burger?
As big as, if not bigger than, the bun. Two kinds of cheese - preferably pepper jack and american. Medium to medium-well. A slice of onion practically as thick as the burger. Ketchup and mustard on the top bun, the aforementioned onion and relish on the bottom bun - relish on top of the onion so it doesn't soak through and make the bun soggy. Garlic salt and pepper. Cut in half, with a squirt of ketchup on my plate to dip it in. Man. Now I'm hungry.
Thanks, Carrie, those were fun questions!
There's another entry up for today, too.
Comments on this entry? Head on over to Colloquial!