• Checkmate! The water bowl situation has been solved. Behold the almighty bowl stand:

  

  Oh yes, that's right, Maylee - the outwitter has become the outwittee! Sucker.




• The Redneck Valley Target's grand opening is October 9. BUT, someone told me that they are doing a soft opening on October 6. That is like, next week!! I am so there. Of course, this begs the question - is it lame to take off work for this?




• Why is it always when one's husband is not home, late at night, that the phone rings and the person on the other end hangs up?




• Last night the ER song made me teary. WTF? I don't even watch that show. I mean, I just had the tv on as background noise since I was home alone and then all of a sudden the music starts and I'm having a major emotional moment. What the hell is wrong with me? Women are weird, y'all.




• I have felt an emptiness since...May, I guess. I wander around aimlessly in the evenings, without direction. There's a void in my life. But now, as of last night, I have once again found fulfillment. Because...ALIAS IS BACK. Hell yeah. And Jennifer Garner and her pregnant little belly are kicking some serious ass. And Lost? Oh, we are full-force down the hatch, people. And let's not forget The Office (makes me laugh and cringe simultaneously - brilliant) and Scrubs (rumored to come back mid-October instead of January - score!) and JOHN STAMOS IS GOING TO GUEST STAR ON ER.

Rob and I are in serious need of some couple time.

See, we are used to spending a lot of time together. A LOT. We started dating in high school and went to the same college, so we have spent time together on pretty much a daily basis since I was 14. Well, except for that first summer when his family took an 8-week vacation out west and he wrote me ONE letter. (ONE! Fucker.) And since he is a year older than me, we spent both my senior year in high school and my senior year in college 3 hours apart and only got conjugal visits every other month or so. (I'm kidding about the conjugal part. Maybe.) That time apart was rewarding in a lot of ways, but mostly it just sucked.

Since we've been married, we've been fortunate to have similar work schedules and so we've grown accustomed to spending our evenings and weekends together. During our second year of marriage, the amount of time we spent together was a bit...well, extreme. I had switched jobs and we actually worked in the same office. As in, our desks were about 6 feet from each other. A lot of people told us that was really unhealthy, and to those people I would give a detailed explanation of our schedule - how we did, in fact, often spend every moment of the day together - how we woke up together, showered together, ate breakfast together, went to work together, ate lunch together, came home together, ate dinner together, went to bed together. Yeah, that freaked those people OUT. And I think for a lot of couples such a schedule would be really unhealthy - fatal, even. But oddly enough, we never got sick of each other. In fact, it was kinda nice.

Perhaps a year of that was all Rob could take, though, because our third year of marriage he switched jobs which pretty much fucked up the whole quality time thing we had going. He spends MUCH more time at work now. Which is fine - he loves his job and I love the several hours of Me Time I have each day before he gets home.

But this week Rob is super-busy at work and has come home every day even later than usual. So late that we've just skipped having dinner together, which is rare because dinner - the cooking together, the sitting at the table and not in front of the tv, the conversation that ensues - has become an essential staple of our marriage.

And this week has been a real drag for me. It's just been so slooow and joyless. Last evening as I was sitting on the deck watching Bridget chase grasshoppers, I realized why this week has sucked a big toe: I miss my husband. It sounds so silly that I hate to admit it, but damn if I don't miss the dude.

I draw a lot of strength from Rob. I guess that's probably an obvious thing to say about one's spouse. But I mean, the best part of our trip to Europe wasn't the markets in Notting Hill or the amazing French food or the boat ride down the Seine. It was just getting to spend the entire day with Rob. Every day. For like, over a week! And turns out, when I don't get enough time with him? Everything is just a little off-kilter.

It's been way too long since a really good tag has bounced around the blogosphere. Am I right? Thanks to LadyBug for tagging me - this one is FUN!

The Rules:
1. Go into your archive.
2. Find your 23rd post.
3. Find the fifth sentence (or closest to).
4. Post the text of the sentence in your blog along with these instructions.
5. Tag five other people to do the same.

Okay, first I need to say that 23 and 5 are MY FAVORITE NUMBERS. Because I was born on the 23rd, and 2 + 3 is 5. (Shut up - I came up with this when I was like, 6, okay?) So how cool is it that those are the numbers in this tag?! FREAKY. However, I was a bit bummed as I dug through my archives because my 23rd post was a bliss bit and so not 5 sentences long. Not even one sentence, in fact - more like a phrase. Same for my 24th post. But my 22nd post? Mucho sentences. And...not only mucho sentences, but mucho sentences about JOHN STAMOS! Jackpot!

So then, here we go:

The true love affair began the day he sang “Forever.”

(From john stamos, my lifelong obsession - 11 feb 2004)

Is it me, or does that pretty much sum it all up?

Bente, twig, Amy, Ern, and Raz? Consider yourselves tagged, yo.

We were standing outside, chatting. Tables were covered with food, buffet-style. And then someone felt a drop. And then a few minutes later, someone else felt another.

"Anybody else feeling raindrops?" someone asked.

"Yeah. Think it's going to storm?"

Faces lifted to scan the skies. Thick clouds swirled above us. They looked harmless enough, but were darkening to gray in some places.

"Nah," someone replied.

"Looks like it might to me."

"Even if it does, it won't last long."

We continued to stand around, chatting. A few more people arrived. A few more drops fell. And then a few more. And then a few more. A few people exchanged uncertain glances. Nobody moved.

And then the warning drops, the ones we had so stubbornly ignored, stopped. At least one smug grunt was heard, at least one sigh of relief.

And then the rain came. Hard and fast.

It sent us scrambling, whooping and laughing and cursing, towards the barn. Parents scooped up children, women uselessly tried to cover their hair with their hands. Several people grabbed the ends of the tables and hurried them to safety under the roof of the barn. A few men stood, unmoved, talking in the midst of the rain as if to state their certainty that it would end as soon as it had started.

It didn't. The drops fell harder and faster until they formed sheets. The men who remained out in the rain moseyed slowly toward the barn - a defiant surrender.

Someone had tied the dog to the doorway of the milkhouse. She gazed through the rain at us with a look of longing. She was dry, but lonely. No one was willing to submit to the pelting rain long enough to untie her - not even the ones who were already soaking wet.

We clustered together for a moment at the open side of the barn and watched the rain in silent awe. A few people chuckled softly. A few people shook their heads.

We stood around, chatting. We had to raise our voices in order to hear each other over the sound of the raindrops pounding the metal barn roof.

And then someone felt a drop. And then a few minutes later, someone else felt another.

"Did you feel a drop?" someone asked.

"Yeah, I thought so."

Faces lifted to inspect the ceiling. Thick wooden beams rose in angles above us, reaching to the metal roof. It looked impermeable enough, but the rain was finding ways to trickle through in some places.

"I don't think it could rain any harder than it is right now," someone said.

But it did. The drops came even faster. They splashed onto the saturated ground outside the barn. The gutters overflowed and torrents rushed down the gutterpipes. The pounding against the roof grew louder. And then even louder.

More and more water seeped through the barn roof, drops falling steadily around us. Conversations stopped as everyone moved apart to stand on dry patches of floor. And then, as the downpour grew yet more intense, and a rainy mist blew into the barn, shoulders were shrugged and dry places were abandoned - a collective surrender. Everyone chatted as the rain fell, both inside and out, and we shared knowing smiles as shirts became dotted with raindrops.

Gradually, puddles spread across the concrete floor. A little girl splashed through one, then through it again. As darkness surrounded the barn, candles were lit and carefully placed to avoid the raindrops within.

The rain continued to fall throughout the evening, the pounding on the roof tapering off just to crescendo back again. Conversations grew louder, smothering the rat-a-tat-tat of the rain until it was just a drumbeat in the background, until no one noticed its final fade.

Sensing the silence, I took his hand and lifted my face towards him.

"It's really over this time."

"How are you sure?"

I pulled him toward the edge of the barn. "Listen."

The crickets' song had taken over the rhythm of the rain. We stood together for a moment, soaking in the sound.

phone date with my bff

(WTF? Tuesday is brought to you by the haiku-spouting twig.)

• At the party we went to last weekend, this guy brought his 10-month old son, Emmet. He was standing near Rob and I, holding Emmet, and as his son drooled on his shoulder, the dude looked at Emmet and said in his best talking-to-baby voice, "Rob needs an Emmet. Yes he does! Yeah, I think Rob needs an Emmet." And then he looked up at us and sorta smirked and I gave Rob The Look - The Look I give at certain weddings when the minister talks about how the purpose of marriage is to procreate and then prays for the union to be blessed with children - The Look that says Hold me back before I rip this impertinent twit's eyes right out of his sockets. Rob chuckled uncomfortably and as we slunk away I said a special heathen prayer that Emmet might spit up all over his dear ol' dad. What does it take, people? What does it take to get people to NOT say shit like that to us? Somebody make me an "I hate babies" tshirt. Drastic times, drastic measures.




• And then there's Maylee. Speak of an impertinent twit. I am at my wit's end with this cat. You see, she loves water. And shiny things. And just recently she has discovered that the water bowls are an endless source of entertainment. Because she can splash her paws in the water. And OOH, look! When she moves the bowls, the water sloshes, catches the light, and is SHINY!! And so she slides the bowls all over the kitchen floor, spilling the water as she goes. I CANNOT keep water in these bowls. Our kitchen floor is always wet, the cats are always thirsty, and I am always a very grumpy mommy. We have tried heavier bowls, we have tried putty to stick the bowls to the floor, we have tried boards to wedge the bowls against the wall. But where there's a will, there is a way to spill the water all over the fucking floor. (What we need is a stand for the water bowls, but I haven't been able to find one yet.) Wit's end, I tell you. Wit's end.




• Gun-toting dolphins? You're shitting me, right? Just...NO. Leave Flipper out of it, people. I mean, that's like tying a dagger to a kitten's tail. Shit ain't right.