BANG!

Last Monday we missed our first Intermediate Dog Training class because Kumo was having some ‘potty issues’. In order to be in this Monday’s class we had to first make up that missed week and because Amy loves Kumo more than most parents love their kids, she let us come in last Sunday for a private lesson.

Have I mentioned how much I love Amy before? Because I do, a lot. She’s absolutely adorable. Kumo loves her even more though. When we get into the parking lot at PetSmart he starts to whine and attempts to climb out the window. I can’t exactly see his thoughts but I imagine it’s Kumo and Amy running towards each other in slow motion with Bolero playing softly in the background.

We got through the basic new commands rather quickly so Amy was teaching us some tricks to work on with him for fun. One of the tricks was pointing your finger at the dog and giving a loud verbal “BANG” which the dog responds to by laying on his side and playing dead. Ben was giddy watching this new trick. He had a huge grin on his face and I could clearly imagine him at the dog park showing Bob, and anybody else who showed up, this awesome new trick that Kumo had learned.

Amy mentioned that she had worked on the same trick the week before so while all the other dogs had a whole week to learn it, we’d be back the NEXT day so in order to not be shown up by all the other dogs, we’d have to get on it!

Amy: All the other dads had all week to practice!
Ben: We’ll get it!
Amy: Yeah, he’s such a smart boy! He’ll have it in no time!
Ben: Because he’s a GOOD BOY!
Amy: Yes he is! He’s a good smart boy!
Me: Yeah! And Ben will be home all day tomorrow BANGING THE DOG!
Ben: ….
Me: WHAT!?
Ben: HONEY!
Me: OH! OOPS!
Ben: *glare*
Me: *giggle*

And that is why often times when Ben has to leave the house he tries to lock me in the crate and take the dog with him instead.

In which I use bullets to distract you from the fact that I haven’t posted in a month.

People Updates:

• I have a very small hairline fracture on my ankle. That in itself isn’t painful. The severe sprain has me still limping around in a brace over a week later. I wish there was some awesome story or explanation how I was doing something REALLY COOL and REALLY FUN and REALLY NEAT but there isn’t. I fell getting out of the truck. In front of people. Who just watched me fall, severely sprain my ankle, and fracture it a little, and then they all turned around and walked away. THE END!
• Cassidy is totally turning into a TWEEN. There are a lot of things I looked forward to when I became a mom… first steps, first words, first day of school, it was going to be all fun and smiles and swings and cartwheels. Then she turned 10 and was all HA HA JOKES ON YOU, SUCKER! There’s too much to post about this under the scope of a single bullet. THE END!
• KC the cat and Hans are complete and total lazy asses. Hans spent ALL DAY SATURDAY on our bed asleep. KC hasn’t moved off the same couch cushion in two days. THE END!
• Ben is the most patient, understanding, ball of fantastic ever to grace the face of our fine planet. And also, falling asleep next to his warm body is the highlight of my day. THE END!

House Updates:

• We ordered blinds from Home Depot. Yes, I own Home Depot a letter of apology. Six blinds to go on the upper windows all over the top of the living room. We also paid for installation because ladders, heavy awkward wooden blinds, and blond don’t mix. I’m really excited for them to get here and be installed. They will help a lot with the sunlight that you can’t escape in the afternoons and also keep the heat out some in the summer.
• We also have a quote from a landscaper to come in and fix some sprinklers and clean out the pond, install a new pump and get it all up and running again.
• We’ve been slowly cleaning out the yards. Trimming bushes, mowing lawns, cutting down trees, this list is really endless so I’ll just stop there. It’s looking good and will only be getting better as the weekends pass!

Misc Updates:

• I forgot to mention the severe hives attack I had for about two weeks. It sucked. I went an ENTIRE WEEK with ZERO wheat, the hives went away, I laid in the bed in a fetal position and cried. I’ve very slowly started introducing some back into my diet, but not much. MUCH less than I was eating before. Being allergic to wheat is about a fun as having your teeth knocked out one at a time. With a jackhammer.
• I have become slightly obsessed with YouTube. Specifically, makeup guru videos. I have a few favorites and I have a blog post half written to point you to some of the best ones. Also, I finally broke my six month No Makeup Buying Binge and got a few things. I also have a blog post partly written about that because I’ve found some AMAZING stuff for AMAZING deals and I want to share.
• If I were a teenage girl, I’d totally have a poster of Adam Lambert on my wall. Best Idol by far this season. He makes it seem as if singing is just… effortless. TEAM ADAM!
• If you haven’t yet, check out Castle. Nathan Fillion is so awesome. I’ve had a nerd crush on him since I fell in love with Serenity and Firefly and he’s every bit as awesome in Castle.
• Heather Armstrong is going to be in Mountain View tomorrow and I’ve been trying to fit her book signing into my schedule but it’s so late and 40 miles from home where I’ll be then. It’s only 12 miles from work but I’d have to find something to do for five hours before the signing. DILEMMA!
• I need to charge the DSLR batteries. For serious.
• THE END!

That’s what she said.

Last last night, possibly very early this morning as we were getting into bed:

Me: If you get up before 9:00AM I am going to kill you.
Ben: That wasn’t nice.
Me: …

4:43AM this morning:

Me: SHIT! Honey, it’s 4:43!
Ben: It’s SATURDAY!
Me: Oh.
Ben: So should I kill you now?
Me: Shut up.

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.