The Mouth Of Babes~

Background: Jack's six year old son is playing a dirt bike game online when a random gaming pop-up opens up advertising a game to kill Bin Ladin - complete with disgusting graphics. This leads to this question:

Boy: Dad, did they really cut off Osama's head?

Jack: (trying to skate over the question) Mmmmm....I don't
really know....

Boy: Oh. That must be why he wears a towel on his head.

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Genius~

I chopped my hair off, about seven inches anyway. I did it for many reasons - mainly that I was bored and that I was too lazy to do more than pony tail it anymore. I am blessed/cursed with my father's insanely thick hair so when I reached the point of a half an hour blow dry time it was time to amputate. For the record, I loved it when the girl styled it and I still cannot yet dulicate it- so it is beautiful and hip and sexy in this picture but slightly less so right this minute. However, I shall prevail...eventually.

I was slightly concerned about Jack's reaction since on several occaisions he has voiced his approval of my long hair, but he has yet to tell me I am anything less than hot (with the exception of creating a rule about not wearing my unattractive, white tube socks to bed) so I was not seriously worried. Which turned out to be correct. Jack's reaction to my new hair? After saying he loved it, he told me our relationship was going to be so much more work now because he was going to have to fight other men to keep them away from me. Smartest. Man. Ever.

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Mistaken Identity~

So at the end of the school year Jack's nine year old daughter brings home a cup of dirt. Supposedly this cup of dirt contains a sunflower seed. Daughter forgets about this cup of dirt ten minutes after she excitedly tells us all about and runs away. Jack does not.

Being a good dad, Jack waters it every couple days til it sprouts. After a few weeks he transplants it into a little pot and the sprout now takes up residence on the front porch patio table- the same table where Jack and I sit frequently at night and have a conversation that goes something like this:

Me: I don't think that thing is going to flower.

Jack: Maybe it is a late bloomer.

Me: It looks like a weed.

Jack: No matter, I am going to continue to water it daily until, through sheer will and super dad powers, I transform it from a suspicious looking weed into a beautiful sunflower that my daughter grew from her own hands.

Ok, so he didn't say that last part - I inferred it from the look on his face. And the fact that he did continue to water it daily for the last three months, even though it has become glaringly obvious that this thing is not a flower.

Fastforward to present day where I have been walking around with a Kleenex box for the better part of two weeks because of allergies. We are sitting outside at the patio when Jack says, "Look! It flowered!" And indeed it had, except 'flowered' is the wrong word - what it actually was doing was 'seeding'. Daughter's pretty little sunflower is actually.....ragweed. Jack has been harboring and feeding my worst allergin all summer long, right outside the front door. Of course, by this time he has invested way too much time and energy into this devil plant - so even after I showed him identical photos proving it was ragweed.....he continues to water it. While I continue to sneeze. Don't be surprised if Monday while he is at work a huge jungle cat jumps on the porch and eats it - pot and all.

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August~

Holy cow, August is almost over. And I have blogged....uh....zero times. I am ashamed, I am embarassed, I am mortified, I am......actually just busy. I wish that I could tell you exactly what I am busy doing but no great accomplishments leap to mind. So while you have been hovering over your keyboard refreshing the page to see what I am going to blog, only to be disappointed over and over (you know it) I have been:

Doing laundry.

Cooking at least 42 but not quite 74 grilled cheese sandwiches.

Watched an entire season of Project Runway on On Demand.

Read several no-brainer, beach reads while not on a beach - excluding my actual book club book, which I did not read.

Attended book club - where I covered the essentials of socializing, eating bad-for-me food, drinking beverages that cannot be served in sippy cups, and...this month...bowling.

Completely planned, researched, and sketched out my city garden that I plan on planting year since this year seems to be a check in the 'fail' column.

Planned on celebrating my one year anniversary with Jack by dressing in clothing other than pajama pants, drinking some whiskey and dancing like an idiot to super loud music.

Actually celebrated my one year anniversary with Jack by dressing in clothing that was pajama pants, drinking Sprite because it is caffeine free and doesn't keep me up all night, and eating take out pizza pockets in between demolishing a box of Kleenex due to my hate/hate relationship with ragweed and pretty much Mother Nature in general.

Began a new hobby of bird watching which basically means being able to sit on the porch and appreciate the difference between a sparrow and a chickadee. Which I am doing now, while blogging. I am such a multi-tasker.

So there ya have it. That is what you have been waiting for. I would like to promise you more adventure in the next week or so but to be safe I will just say that I promise....one day...to again post a great adventure. Or at least something witty that involves more plot that just bullet pointing my mundane, monthy minutiae. (Notice that I left you with clever alliteration which changes this blog from stolen minute rambling into a literary piece of art. Enjoy)

Update: Giraffe Butt~

This is a follow up to the previous post about the hazards of being lulled into safety by seemingly kid friendly television shows.

So to avoid explaining the giraffe birth process I channel switched to America's Got Talent - for the most part a family friendly show if the kids don't realize that the acrobat man in high heels and glitter is actually a stripper for gay bars by profession. So tonight we sat down together to watch.....no problems....commercials begin......and a preview for a fall show comes on that ends with a man in bed yelling, "That's not your sex face! I wish it was!" Ugh.

Maybe we need to switch to mad libs before bed and avoid all parts of prime time.

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Giraffe Butt~

I am fairly vigilant about the tv remote control. Jack has parental control settings on the television and I frequently google different shows that his girls talk about to see if the content is age appropriate. I should have been less worried about ABC Family teen soap operas and paid more attention to the steathily treacherous Animal Planet.

Here is what went down:

I was watching tv with Jack's six year old son, desperately trying to avoid watching any more cartoons. So I started channel surfing and came across an Animal Planet show where they were talking about snakes and crocodiles. Win! Boy is equal parts thrilled and disgusted. I am quietly peaceful that I have dodged an hour of cartoons with characters such as the giant gumball head man. Believing all to be right in the world, I set down the remote and go the kitchen for a drink refill.

When I come back to the living room Boy is sitting wide eyed in front of the screen. He looks up as I enter and says, verbatim,

"Whoa! A big giraffe just pooped a little giraffe out of his butt! How did he do that?!?"

I have no idea.

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Cupboard Takeover~

I know I haven’t blogged in a while. I am very sorry but I have been busy slowly taking over Jack’s house, one cupboard at a time. I jest….kind of. I have been busy and most of that busy has been at Jack’s house. Also, I am invading all the cupboards. So I guess I don’t jest. It is completely true.

Reorganizing is a compulsion/skill/flaw that I have inherited from my mother and then chose to expand upon. I cannot count the number of times in my childhood that I have seen my dad open a random cupboard looking for a glass for his Coke addiction and instead finding cereal. This was usually followed by a string of yelling along the lines of “where did the damn glasses go THIS time?” I think my mom dreamed this up as payback for all the times when she would come home from grocery shopping to find a wall ripped out or all the cupboards without doors and my dad grinning and covered in sawdust explaining that he just felt the need to start a project. I can just see her brain working…..you wanna mess with my cupboards without warning? Fine. Good luck finding anything in said cupboards.

Anyway.

I do it, too. Not as form of payback but because I love the way it looks when a cupboard is new and shiny and everything is lined up in a logical order…spices with spices, cereal boxes with cracker boxes, whiskey next to vodka. And I love it when I know exactly what the contents of the cupboards are and exactly where to find them. When you really need a mixed drink the last thing you want to do is shuffle around things hunting for the Jack Daniels. And I love, love, love the entire process of organizing and simplifying.

So slowly I began at Jack’s house. Because of course I have organized my own house so much that I reorganize things that don’t even need it anymore just to see if it is possible that I could invent an even better way to organize the cookbooks. Or the bathroom shelf. Or my closet. I consistently reinvent my systems, always crossing the line between orderly and insane. One of the major perks of a new relationship is a whole new house of unexplored and unorganized territory. Even if something is organized, it hasn’t been organized by me so it is still considered virgin ground. It is like a food addict suddenly moving into a bakery. Pure bliss.

I didn’t start right away, because that would be just crazy. Hi, how are you, I like you, let me reorganize your bathroom closet because you don’t fold your towels the right way. Not the best idea. So I held it in and just kept reorganizing my desk drawers at home. After a while though, I attacked the bathroom closet. I think Jack was equal parts amazed and terrified at the speed at which I whipped through it and moved everything to a new place. I gave him some down time to make his peace with my crazy before I moved onto new ground. Then I warned him about twenty five times that if he gave me the green light to play with the kitchen I would turn it upside down on a regular basis. He, being the brave or naive man that he is, said to do whatever I wanted. Whatever. I. Wanted. Ahhhhh…..

So I have been gutting the refrigerator, completely rearranging the cupboards, meal planning, and banishing clutter as I basically stamped my name all over his kitchen. I was so satisfied that my smile barely faltered when Jack came home that same night grinning from ear to ear over his ‘finds’ at his parent’s rummage sale – which filled his entire truck and included a full size bowling pin, a stuffed wolf wearing a skirt, and foam fingers. Game on.

Join~

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Saving My Pride...with Pulled Pork~

I believe that I have mentioned a few times that Jack can cook. I think I have even mentioned that Jack pretty much always cooks for us. I am never in charge of dinner – unless I am picking it up from the pizza place and bringing it over, of course. I offer input on dinner, I make a killer queso dip, and I have been known to rub down a steak or two over the last few months – but the responsibility for dinner has pretty much been on Jack most of our relationship.

I didn’t mean for it to end up that way, it just kinda happened. I am at Jack’s house seven days a week and in the beginning, I just didn’t want to mess around in his kitchen. Then Jack’s work schedule changed up and for the last six months he has had a much more flexible schedule than mine. He can start dinner earlier than I can, so we can eat sooner. Especially on weeks when we have the kids, he can feed them whenever and whatever and they aren’t waiting on me. I don’t think it bothers him that he cooks – having kids pretty much meant he was used to cooking already – but I didn’t realize until the other day that he thought I couldn’t. The conversation went something like this:

Me: So if your work schedule switches back, then I guess I can make dinner instead now.

Jack: You do know that cooking dinner doesn’t involve a drive thru, right?

Burn. And while we laughed about it and I half heartedly protested that I can, in fact, cook – I think he truly does believe that I can’t. Or at least that I can’t cook well, I suppose. Now, he does have good reason to think this. Like I said, he always cooks and I never cook. Any time I have a meal that is not with him, I do usually grab a slice of pizza or hit a drive thru or eat a bowl of Cocoa Puffs. It’s true. But not because I can’t cook – because it is easier. I hate to cook for one. Especially when that one is me, because I am the pickiest adult eater in the state of Michigan. There are only so many ways you can cook ten different ingredients. Also, even if I halve a recipe there are still leftovers for days which mainly get wasted. And why would I go buy all the ingredients to build myself a lonely burger when I can run through the drive thru and get a fully assembled hamburger for 89 cents? It isn’t cost effective. So to recap: Cooking for one is a lot of work, it is expensive, and I am picky. Thus my fast food habit.

However, I love to cook. I love to try new recipes, I love to party plan and feed people, I love creating a menu and cross referencing it with my cupboards to create grocery lists organized by aisle….wow, I do have an organizing problem, don’t I? But I love the whole process of cooking. It is like life applicable math that when done correctly gives me brownies. What is not to love?

So today, to defend my honor, I am cooking. Well, not only to defend my honor but also because today is going to be a long day for Jack and I have a mother hen complex that makes me want to take care of him. And also because I spent much of nap time last week reading through scores of online recipes to find half a dozen to try out over the summer. Did I mention I love to try new recipes? So I have new recipes for pulled pork, for chicken manicotti, and for red wine rosemary steaks. I had to talk myself out of making all three this week. It would be so out of character for me that Jack would laugh at me for days – around all the delicious food I would be making, of course. So I picked one.

Today’s winner? Slow roasted pulled pork. Because Jack loves pulled pork and because it is something I can cook in the slow cooker and just take over to his house already done. Also, because I don’t do things half way – rotini veggie salad and banana nut bread. Both also new recipes (yeah!) that hopefully are both awesome. Of course, I don’t eat either one of those things so if they aren’t awesome all that is hurt is my pride and Jack’s tastebuds. But I have high hopes. I will be sure to let you all know the outcome, but I would just prepare yourself to hear the many accolades now if I were you.

Herb Garden Photo~

My latest venture into thinking I can do anything....the cinder block herb garden. It is by far the coolest thing to even grace my yard.

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