Change is the law of life. And those who look only to the past or present are certain to miss the future.

I was originally going to write something eloquent, like what John Armstrong wrote, about this awesome day. Something graceful, full of meaning, faith and excitement for what the immediate and long term future has in store for us. Something that shows how awesome I think it was to have been able to cast a vote that lead to this historic event.

Then I decided on a whim to check my flickr stats for the first time in quite some time and I saw that the following image’s stats have shot up 300% in the last two days. And it dawned on me that WHO AM I KIDDING!? I’m neither graceful nor eloquent. So I leave you with the same sentiment and image from when I cast that first primary vote back in February of 2008:

*Title Quote: John F. Kennedy

Welcome, gentle Sir Knight, to the Castle Anthrax!

We had a big family gathering yesterday because my cousin Sarah is carrying a big plump BlueBerry in her belly which will miraculously manifest into a perfect baby boy as it is birthed into the world in about two months.

My family will look for any reason to throw a party and because we are so spread out all over California, it’s hard for me to get to attend a lot of them but every time I do I am reminded just how completely awesome they all are.

I’m writing today because on a few occasions, various family members mentioned the blog to me because my dad had talked to them about it. When this happens, when somebody from my real life tells me that they are going to be checking out my blog, I always have this double edge reaction.

Reaction 1: Awesome! It’s a great way to keep up with what’s been goin’ on in my life and stuff.
Reaction 2: Shit. Maybe I should start to rethink my habit of using the word ‘fuck’ as a verb, noun, adjective. adverb and Proper Name in pretty much EVERY SINGLE POST I WRITE.

Maybe.

Maybe not.

So I figured the best way to welcome any new readers who happen to share the same blood as me to the site is to finally write that post I promised about the newest edition to our family: the boob mug.

The boob mug was given to Ben by a good friend who picked it up for him on a holiday cruise trip to Mexico. I immediately fell in love with it and don’t know how we managed to live such a happy life for so long without such awesomeness being present within our blessed home. I’ve been racking my brain to come up with a decent but not completely skankerific 365 shot using it as a prop. So, if you have ideas, please let me know.

The best part of owning the boob mug so far was the following exchange I had with Cassidy when I decided it would be better to tell her about it than have her open the cupboard some random day and be accosted by the drinkable nipple jumping out at her:

Me: So, have you seen the boob mug yet?
Cassidy: The what?
Me: The boob mug. It’s a mug that looks like a boob. It’s in the mug cupboard.
Cassidy: Oh, it’s a boob?! I saw it this morning and thought it was a REINDEER.
Me: A WHAT?!
Cassidy: A reindeer!
Me: Bwahahaahahaahahaahahahahah.
Cassidy: What?!
Me: That’s just hillarious.
Cassidy: Well, a boob mug in lame.
Me: NO IT IS NOT AND YOU WILL NOT SPEAK OF IT THAT WAY!
Cassidy: Whatever.

Welcome, family! This is what I write about! If you manage to make it past this post, I’ll assume that means you think I’m as awesome as I think you are.

You are too much for me, Home Depot! I wish I knew how to quit you.

Last Satruday morning Ben woke me from a beautiful and blissful sleep to tell me that I was snoring. This doesn’t seem so abnormal except that he had been UP AND OUT OF THE ROOM FOR AN HOUR. I’m not sure the exact face I made at him at that time but I know what I was thinking. It was something along the lines of “I wonder how far into his ass my foot is going to be before it starts to register how terrible a mistake he’s just made”. Turned out he just woke me up to see if I wanted to go to Home Depot with him.

I should have stayed in bed.

When we got there we had two goals in mind. 1) Get him a set of calipers to measure my brake roters 2) Pick up a wallpaper remover tool and spray and some paint swatches, both for Cassidy’s bathroom. Other than a slight snag when the tool guy didn’t know what calipers were, we made pretty good time and I even got Ben to detour down the lighting isle to scope out some fixtures for ALL the bathrooms.

Then we got in line to check out.

Then 45 minutes later when we were still in line, actually the THIRD LINE, Ben’s cooling system broke and his rods reached critical mass and I had to slowly step back about 15 feet to avoid becoming collateral damage.

See,the computers were down. The were running around FRANTIC and OMG WHAT ARE WE GOING TO DO THERE ARE NO COMPUTERS HOW DO WE FUNCTION!? Because, you know, it’s not like you can actually SELL something if there’s not a touchscreen monitor in front of you telling you how which step of the check out process you are on, what to do next, and the amount of change you need to dispense.

So because they couldn’t use their fancy machines to hold their hands through the process let me tell you the genius system they devised.

Step 1: Stand in line so that ONE girl at ONE counter could write all of the items on a triplicate form while the 24 people in line behind you groan loudly.

Step 2: Stand in another line so that a girl can add prices to the form, then manually add them up, calculate tax and total it.

Step 3: Stand in ANOTHER line to pay using one of the old school swipe style credit card machines.

Step 4: Walk to power tool isle, pick up nail gun, place directly against head, pull trigger.

Of course we were in line #3 and next to pay and get the fuck out of there when… suddenly all the computers started working again! I slammed my stuff down, almost turned around and spit venom directly into the face of the man that tried to line cut me after he’d spent 45 minutes in line behind me and CERTAINLY should have understood that based on line hierarchy, my shit was getting checked out first and if you try to get in my way I am allowed to backhand you with a sledgehammer.

Then the check out lady took the receipt we should have gotten and slid it into her register before she realized what she was doing EVEN THOUGH SHE HAD A COMPUTER TELLING HER EXACTLY WHAT TO DO AND WHAT TO SAY AND WHEN TO HAND ME WHAT AND WHEN.

So it was another 15 minutes of standing there because she had to finish the next sale to open the drawer. Only the machine wouldn’t take the guy’s debit card. And then it wouldn’t take his credit card. So he had to go out to his car and get his check book. And write a check. With his hand. And a pen.

It was sometime between the failure of the credit card and the check writing that Ben’s head started to actually steam and I had to move further away because he was radiating enough heat to melt the plastic bags holding my nifty new $5.00 wallpaper removal tool. From 15 feet away.

When we finally got our receipt and got out of there we weren’t sure whether we should go to Starbucks and treat ourselves for not actually reaching critical mass or drive straight home and start drinking obscene amounts of tequila to forget the entire experience. We opted for the Starbucks.

My love affair with Home Depot is OFFICIALLY OVER.

At least until later this week when we go in to price flooring for downstairs.

We will open the book. Its pages are blank. We are going to put words on them ourselves. The book is called Opportunity and its first chapter is New Year’s Day.

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Oh wait, that was, like, a week ago. Lets start over.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!

I really hope that everybody had a FANTASTIC Christmas. Our was awesome. Five days of sitting on our asses being as lazy as humanly possible. One morning I ate chocolate ice cream for breakfast AND dinner. Not having a child around you have to set an example for is SO TOTALLY AWESOME.

We are having a few friends over but I wanted to take a few seconds to get a blog post out there before 2008 comes to an end forever. I’ve spent some time today in google reader reading all your wonderful 2008 recaps. Some are doing memes and some are listing important things that happened month by month but I kinda hate memes passionately and I’m blond so you can’t reasonably expect me to remember what I did last January. For serious.

So I’ll just leave you by saying that 2008 was one of the most awesome so far. I got married to my soul mate and we bought a house. Two things I’ve been dreaming about for years and years. And two things that totally made me not feel bad at all about not being able to buy Christmas gifts for each other because we are BROKE. Every day at least once I look down at my ring finger and get that little rush of adrenaline knowing that he’s MINE. FOREVER. And every day we come home from a long day at work and an even longer commute home and we pull up to our house and I think, “We are home. This is OUR HOUSE! We have a house!”

Everybody be safe tonight. Surround yourself with good friends and the ones you love the most and make sure you get a kiss at midnight. I’ll raise my glass of champagne to all my online friends. I love you all. Happy New Year!

Just Like A Tuesday.

At dinner tonight Cassidy asked about the relationship between cat and human years. I didn’t really know but I assumed that the general 7 years used for dog life would be close so Cassidy determined that KC was 70 years old. Her jaw dropped and she exclaimed that, “OMG KC IS REALLY OLD!” So I told her, “YEAH! Remember that next time you feel like chasing her around the house like a lunatic!” Then I told her that we’re really lucky that KC is still alive and with us because 10 is actually getting up there for a cat.

The conversation eventually turned to death and how it would feel to not have her around anymore which turned to:

Cassidy: I’d probably cry.
Me: I’d probably lose it, like, mentally. Seriously.
Ben: So it would be like… a Tuesday.
Me: I hate you.
Ben: *grin*
Me: And I’m totally blogging that later.

The ability to laugh at Ben making fun of my mental state is the best part of having a “normal” mental state.

And for the record, after doing some research I realized that KC is actually only 56 years old. Assuming she doesn’t get any fatter, or lazier, or bitchier, I think she still has a few good years in her.