We are what you'd call LAME

Since it's New Years, while you're out doing crazy things, we're here doing lame things. Deal.

It was a nice, quiet game of Trivial Pursuit.


That ended in one kitschy gnome losing his life.

You're a mean one, Google Web ad generator

Dave was working and I was waiting for laundry to get done (which, by the way, is still in the basement ... I'm waiting for it to bring itself up here, fold itself and promptly put itself away). I was Googling something, and that dear old search engine, boy, does it ever know how to recommend sites where you lose entire hours of your life.

Such as the Real Age Test.

I'm young; 20-something, about to have a birthday, a few years away from that "30" thing. So I should be at the peak of healthy living. Huh.

This Web site has you answer all these questions about your health, your genetic predispositions, your weight, your activity levels, your diet, etc.

About two hours after you take this ridiculous test, you log in your email and it tells you how old you really are. My mom was in high school when she had me, by this site's estimate.

Dave would say this was Google's way of showing me I need to cut the macaroni, or at least jog to the store to buy it next time. I am four years older than my biological clock. Or would it be that my biological clock is four years older than I am? Whatever.

Either way, it's a big deal to me. Four years isn't a big deal when you're talking about the difference between 90 and 94. Heck, 60 or 64. It's not. But when you've only lived a short number of years, almost divisible by four, this is bad news.

And I just took this test when I swore off resolutions. Daaaang.

Dave will never be Zach Braff, and apparently he knows that.

True story, paraphrased, of our Friday night spent watching "The Last Kiss," where a 30-year-old Zach Braff freaks out about his pregnant girlfriend and is tempted to run off with Rachel Bilson's character, a college sophomore with distracting hand gestures:

"What would you do?"

"What do you mean?"

"You know what I mean. Rachel Bilson -- hotter -- or this other woman -- who you've been with three years? What would you do?"

Staring at me, silently.

"No, I mean if I were dead."

Staring at me, silently.

"No, I mean if I never existed and you were Zach Braff and this was your life."

Staring at me, silently.

This isn't a trap. Say what you want. There aren't any wrong answers. Unless you say "Go with Rachel Bilson's character." Because that would just be wrong.

I wouldn't call them "big" plans

New Years Eve is a huge deal for some people. They buy new clothes, they make elaborate alcohol purchases, they coordinate the watching of the midnight (or 11 p.m., if you're in central time) ball drop in Times Square around their partying.

I guess it is a big deal; it's a new year. And I must have some part of my brain that exists solely to file New Years parties, because I don't remember generic parties I went to on some random Thursdays in Toledo, but I can recall what I did for almost every New Years since I was 10. Well, I guess those random parties didn't have a ball drop with them or any distinguishing characteristics. Just some kegs and loud music and dirty floors and smokey couches.

New Years: There was the year we partied in a garage in someone's parents' house. There was a year we partied in some sort of tractor shed where someone actually found a friend with DJ skills. I use "DJ skills" loosely. It doesn't take a lot to play songs from iTunes on a big speaker system.

But the point is, outside of those nights (which I remember as being fun, but not monumentally so), I have pretty lame New Years stories. This year appears it may be no different. But see, this year, we get to call it "romantic."

Unlike years past where our staying home would be "lame," as newlyweds no matter what we do, our night will have this rosey haze around it, like in flashbacks in movies. I'm sure that's how my brain will remember it, too. If I allowed Kenny G music anywhere within 12 feet of me, it'd be playing in the background as we drank the champagne I don't like from flutes I don't own.

Yeah. It's gonna be a good new year, no matter where we end up watching Dick Clark. Woot, woot.

My, what an empty calendar you have

I am almost overwhelmed by my vacation days this year. Not the number of them. Just this plotting part. I mean, that's a whole year I have to think about, with a certain number of days to spare.

I don't have a wedding to save the days for. I don't have to worry about wedding showers, moving, or trips home to plan that wedding.

I don't have anywhere in particular to go. I just have that certain number of vacation days that I have. To. Use. Have to.

But for what? We don't "vacation." That's not the type of people we are right now. Those people have "some money," or "no problem using credit cards," or "like the sun." We tend to move in poorer, darker, colder circles. Circles around Wisconsin and Ohio, with straight, very quick lines to and from.

I don't have big events to coordinate days off. Sure, there are the holidays. I'll want to save a day or two for December. Blah, blah. But ... There's just nothing else, I think as I bounce my pencil on my empty calendar. My big, empty calendar. Dave is little to no help.

"Dave, where do you want to go?"

"I don't know. Tennessee? We can see my brother."

"OK. When?"

"I don't know."

"OK. Spring?"

"I don't know. Sure."

"Should you see if he's going to still be in Tennessee on (some random weekend)?"

"Yeah, I guess I can."

Silence. "Um, are you going to call him?"

"Oh, yeah. I will."

So I then threw my calendar on the floor, took the cap off my pen and started dropping it at the open year-ahead calendar. Let fate decide; we can't. But the pen kept hitting the floor or an area of no significance on the paper. See? Even fate says "I don't know." Sigh.

How do people do this in real life? I'm pretty sure our answers are all of the "I don't know" variety, and I'm guessing "I don't know"s turn in to "Let's take off a day in April and clean out gutters and shampoo carpets -- we can even do the stairs!" or "How about we make that weekend in September a long weekend and paint the garage and clean the basement! Think of all the time we could spend together!"

I just don't know if I'm ready for that kind of defeat yet.

Caution: Contains overuse of the word "awkward"

We have a three bedroom house, but only from the most generous viewpoint. Two rooms are great; accomodating, warmly colored, welcoming, nice floors.

The other, we've come to deem "the office," only because it has a filing cabinet we open about once a year to throw stuff in and an old computer we never use; not actually because we use the room for any office-related tasks.

It's an awkward, drafty, dark room that, should one insist on making it a bedroom, could hold a twin bed and a nightlight. As in the light that you plug in the wall. It's small. What makes the room more awkward, besides the ominous attic panel in the ceiling that centipedes crawl from and the bubbly carpet is the slanted ceiling/wall.

(Sidebar: I'm not sure how houses came to have these slanted ceiling/walls, but why. Seriously. Why. Could it save that much money? Did it come down to that wall, and construction workers were like "Guys, seriously. Let's call it a day. Just, here, lean that there and we'll plaster it all together. Let's go home. Cheese curds, anyone?" I want to know why.)

But, anyhow.

Cold room, slanted ceiling/wall, bubbly carpet. Now we're on the same page.

Step downstairs a moment and you'll notice a pile of CDs that Dave and I have accumulated (97 percent of which are his), which are getting pushed off the book shelf because of -- novel idea -- books (get it, novel idea? ha) (97 percent mine).

The CDs, ergo, must go upstairs. I put my foot down.

But, this awkward room doesn't leave a lot of space to put a shelf.

Enter Bob Villa. Bob, aka Husband Dave, will attempt to build -- yes, build, folks -- a shelf to run the length of the awkward, slanted ceiling/wall, using only his sheer craftsmanship, some screws and some wood. Or so he says. He's made shelves before. It's not hard. What's hard is the "get it straight," "this isn't shop class," and "mess this up, and that plaster will be dang unforgiving" parts.

Clearly, the awkward room is about to become more so, as I can only imagine the cursing, blood, sweat, tears and Elvis sing-alongs that'll come along with this task. If you need me, I'll be downstairs, pretending I don't hear a thing.

One-click shopping! Sign me up

I blogged yesterday about how I took my e-shopping cart all the way to the checkout line, just because I obviously NEED books that cost $0.01, even though my gift card didn't cover used book purchases.

I even felt ashamed of my purchases. When Dave came home from work, I confessed (not that he hadn't seen it on my blog anyhow) and tried justifying it ("But it's only a penny!"). He was relieved. He bought CDs yesterday. Well. Home free, then.

But I can't stop. Guys, seriously. Help. I logged back on tonight after work. See, I went to Waldenbooks with the gift card I had, and I browsed the shelves. I picked up books, carried them around, then stuck them back in their places when I thought "I bet I can get that book cheaper on Amazon.com. I just bet. And I bet shipping'd even be cheaper than paying this price." It was the most agonizing moment. I had the gift card. In. My. Hand.

The guy watching the security cameras was probably sitting there going, "Look, Hank, watch. Check this lady out. She keeps picking up 'The Falls,' then she puts it back. Watch -- SEE! I told you. Now watch, she'll go read the back of that other book again and put it ba- SEE!"

But online, I can get "Middle Age" by Joyce Carol Oates for $1.95. I can get "The Falls" for $0.80. I can get ... you get the point. And unlike the library (free books! weeee), I get to keep them, alphabetize them, lend them, barter them and let them make me look intelligent.

This e-shopping trip is completely permissible by my own rules. I have Christmas money and, gosh, there's that birthday coming up, and I haven't spent money on myself in a while. OK, really, I just made that up.

I need an intervention. Someone, disconnect my Internet.

I also LUVZMESOMEbUKS

I just defeated the purpose of a gift card. In order to sleep tonight with a clean conscience, I must rationalize this.

See, Borders/Waldenbooks teamed up with Amazon.com -- awesome, I thought. Look -- I can get "The Time Traveler's Wife" for $3! And I can get three Joyce Carol Oates books for $0.01! Holy Toledo! I thought, happily clicking the "add to cart" button. I was an "add to cart" fanatic, throwing books on there I didn't know if I'd like, but hey, they were $0.35, so I could use them as paper towels if I wanted! Cheap! Cheap! That's all the frugal me saw. CHEAP! Under a buck! Can't even buy a tank of gas to go to the library for cheaper!

Then, I went to check out my e-basket full of CHEAP.

My gift certificate kept getting rejected. "We're sorry, there's a slight problem."

I said some pretty un-Christmastime words that would've made my grandma's ears turn red, and kept re-entering the same digits, because (say through clenched teeth) I KNOW it didn't work LAST TIME, but it's GOING to work THIS time, because there's NO reason for it NOT TO, I said. My dog looked at me with a whole new respect as I used curse words for nouns, verbs and adjectives. He's so proud.

But, in case you were wondering, you can't buy used items from Waldenbooks/Borders online with a gift card. Not even if your dog thinks you're the most foul-mouthed arguer in the word.

And ... gosh. The books, they were in my cart. There they say, those images of the cover, all waiting to be mailed to me from user LUVZMESOMEbUKS, the seller rated 96 percent on Amazon.com ... I couldn't let LUVZME down.

So I loved me some books. ... I'd feel guilty if I wasn't, well ... Kind of glad I still had that $25 gift card to spend.

See also: Erin goes broke but keeps warm by using penny novels as fuel and Dave just shakes his head and says "Erin, Erin, Erin"

"Teammates"

She took it a lot better than I would've.

I admit. I'm young, but where I used to live, most women my age are pretty dang married. I was one of those "I'm going to get married young because that's what we do" type of women. I got nervous before major events, just in case there was a certain question popped, I got a bit jealous when my younger brother and his girlfriend got engaged before I did ... Yes. I was one of those people.

Dave's younger brother is not one of those people.

He's one of those party people. The good-looking, good-natured, fun-to-be around kind of guys. He's the college guy you think of when you hear the phrase "college guy."

He's dating a really cool woman who seems, from the little bit I know her, to fit well with him. She's fun, energetic, etc., etc. And "dating" is new to them ... Until recently they were "teammates," which is a funny way of saying "more than friends, but let's go easy on the b-or-g word there."

And Dave scared the crap outta her.

Since we weren't there to witness her reaction in person, we had to rely on the third-person accounts of the result of Dave's Christmas masterplan.

See, Dave thought "What better way to spread holiday cheer than to make my brother and his girlfriend suffer from a bit of anxiety?" That's Dave. I got a ring for Christmas; a Wasinger family heirloom. After the initial "Aw" moment and as the glow died down from our excitement over my ring, Dave got the idea to use that box as a gift for his brother's girlfriend. You know, as a planted "engagement ring" under the tree for her on Christmas morning.

This for the couple whose most serious talk revolved around the "should we be girlfriend/boyfriend" conversation.

Dave cut out a photo of himself, put it inside the ring box, wrapped it up and gave his family distinct directions to make sure she saw the gift, cleverly marked "To Carly from Joe."

And if my third-party accounts are to be believed, she eyed the tiny package and just kept saying "Uh ... Joe? Joe?" as the rest of the family sat around the tree.

Had I seen that package under the tree, I couldn't say I'd be able to sit there and calmly say "Uh, Dave? Dave?" I'd be the one crawling under the couch, cell phone in hand, ready to dial 911 for myself, should the gift ever make it into my shaking hands.

If Joe would've done that to me and Dave before we were married, you would've heard about it on a TV news blurb: "Woman spontaneously dies after receiving gag gift; details at 10." Because I may be able to dish it out, but I'll be danged if I can take much of the teasing.

Merry Christmas, 1987

Holiday memories: We saw Grandma kissing Santa Claus ... and Grandpa didn't care.

A Christmas bonus

I have been tagged , which in regular life means nothing to me since I find it hard to get out of list-writing mode once I've started ... But it's Christmas time, dang it. So, I apologize to all who find these boring. But for the rest of you, here's some things you may not know about me.

1. I eat green olives like some people eat M&Ms. Sorry if you just threw up reading that. I get that a lot.

2. When I heard I was going to be by a window when our desks got rearranged at work, my first thought was "I bet I can make it to March before I need a can of Raid." And that made me happy.

3. Last month, a group of "young professionals" called Propel came to where I work for a tour and whatnot. I met a man there who speaks Dutch; he was an exchange student in high school to Belgium (which has an Ohio State-slash-Univ. of Michigan relationship with Holland). He started speaking Dutch to me, and I froze. I was so bothered by my inability to say anything back but "Ah, goed" that I immediately went home and popped in a Dutch CD and made myself sing with it. Dave would say that was punishment enough.

4. In my next life, I want to be a preschool teacher; I miss my babysitting job in Ohio. The kid's name was Teddy, and he pronounced "peanuts" like "neenah," so when I drive through Neenah, Wis., I think of him.

5. I can recite a list of words my 6th grade teacher made us remember, but I don't remember what they're for: Be, am, is, are, was, were, being, been, appear, become, feel, grow, look, remain, seem, smell, sound, taste. But I can't remember birthdays, phone numbers or grocery lists.

Ah, and I tag Krista and Badger girl. I don't have to pick five. I say so.

Don't get me wrong, I love me some Christmas. But ...

I get on these kicks where I have to have everything just right. I want the floors to feel smooth when I walk on them, and I want the dirt I just swept up to be hidden in the trash can, and I want the broom to be put away clean behind the door I just wiped down with oil soap.

That kind of mood.

They usually come when I'm either really energetic (about once a year), or when I have something else I want to not think about. Today, it was the latter.

I realized when I was sweating in my work clothes while vacuuming between the couch cushions that what I'm trying to avoid is my own bad mood.

I don't have to point out how the holidays are stressful. The drive is stressful. The realities of dealing with divorced parents and their own wishes for Christmas; the first Christmas as that newlywed couple with the dog; the too-much food; getting no sleep. Then when Christmas day rolls around and I have to think about going to work, how it's all over and how I have to start putting away decorations, it just gets to be so overwhelming.

Now's not the time to point out that I was not forced to put up five trees. I know this. You're not helping.

So tonight I tiptoed around my house, trying not to wake the big, bad me. I am the enabler in my own problem. Like, maybe if I can get this bathtub to smell like lemons and maybe if I can walk on my dark blue carpet and not see white dog hair everywhere, maybe it'll be OK. Maybe I won't be as moody on Monday night.

Maybe if I did all these dishes, and Soft-Scrubbed the kitchen sink and even if I throw in a disposer care tablet or two ... then maybe there's hope for me when radio stations switch back to regular programming at exactly midnight on Dec. 26.

Or, maybe I'll just end up blogging about it in my Pledge-scented living room with my extra-dry, red, cracked, bleach-smelling hands.

Right now, it's looking like that may be the case. Ah well. At least the house is clean.

I heart these shirts

At work, I lay out pages sometimes days ahead of time. This means that today, Dec. 20, I am already done with Christmas and have moved on to almost-2007.

It's a weird, anticlimactic feeling, laying out Christmas Eve and Christmas day pages ... then moving on and laying out the food page for the 26th -- a New Years' page at that.

I feel like it's over, and I should take my trees down before it's the middle of January. At least in my work queue.

But, in the name of holiday spirit and staying with the rest of the world right here in Dec. 20, I need to show you the extremely fabulous gifts Dave and I got today.

We've had our eyes on these shirts since Oshkosh's monthly Gallery Walk a while ago. Some people would've thought that getting a foam cheesehead coolie cup, a bag of cheese curds or a Packers shirt would be the "you live here now" litmus test. Turns out, it's just wearing a "Fox Valley is for lovers" shirt from Stella & Finn.

A decade ago, I thought Oshkosh was just half of the fun-to-say "OshKosh B'Gosh," and because I was a self-absorbed teen then, I never gave thought to Oshkosh as a real place where people lived, ate, slept, worked, paid taxes and grocery shopped or Gallery Walked or borrowed books from the library. Oshkosh was just striped overalls to me. Now, I heart Oshkosh. Ha.

He's It Big now

Dear Mr. Big,

I'm sorry. I was just following Bob Barker's advice.

And please stop licking yourself. You're going to have to get one of those plastic halos, and all the other dogs in the neighborhood will laugh at you.

Sincerely,
Erin and Dave

No more shopping. No, no more! Please! Nooo

It's hard to stand in the mall with what feels like millions of people and try to think of that special gift to buy someone.

It's hard to think of anything but that one special gift when you remember you got them the exact same Perfect Gift last year.

It's hard to keep from losing your patience when a punk-rock Christmas carol is being piped through the crowded store, sung by someone who clearly isn't old enough to feel the rage with which he sings.

It's hard to find Bengals paraphernalia in a place where Packers isn't a team, it's a way of life.

It's hard to be original and buy someone something other than a gift card when they fit so nicely inside a suitcase, and come with the guarantee that you haven't gotten them a gift they already had.

It's hard to concentrate when you can tell by the sweat on your forehead that you should've left your winter coat in the car.

It's hard to buy a gift for someone when you know you only have an hour left to buy it, and your wife is hungry and standing there yawning with her hands in her coat pocket, pretend-smiling when you ask her for the 46th time "How about this?"

For that, I feel bad for Dave, my ever-procrastinating husband.

I do believe he'd buy all his gifts in the 30-minute drive from my dad's house to his parents' if I let him. But because I am the ever-anxious person I don't let that happen.

And because I've had it with moms yelling at kids in stores, carts being run into my heels by strangers who don't apologize, and most of all because we're now broke, I declare us done with shopping. Please, don't make me go back to the mall, where I have to park across the street and walk a mile to get the chance to be one of the thousands to squeeze through the overcrowded food court to the overcrowded stores.

Please, I beg you.

Secret Santa stress

I quickly but quietly unwrapped my present: a wooden box with lavender-scented potpourri and some purple nail polish. At the time, sitting in a circle of 30 eighth graders who all had their eyes on me, I blushed so hard my eyes started watering and my sweater caught on fire (or at least felt that way, as I was suddenly burning up in that room, right there with the picture of poets or saints or something looking down on me).

After my mini embarrassment, I had to give my present to the person whose name I'd drawn. It was one of the girls, I think; Stephanie or Katie or someone else whose interests I had to be aware of for a few days, long enough to get them my Secret Santa gift.

Just like I expected as a 13-year-old, this was the most important moment of my life and it's shaped the way I've lived from this point on. That's why I can remember in such vague detail the way I'd wrapped the gift of ... Um ... Well. I'm certain I was right about it being the most important, never-ending moment of my life.

And now, more than a decade later, I again signed up to be in a Secret Santa exchange. Yes, I willingly, with no coaxing at all, put "Erin Wasinger" right there on a line and drew a name out of a hat a few days later.

At the time, I was thinking about last year's event, and how it was nice and fun, and how at least I know these people at work, unlike in junior high.

Which is why I'm stressing a bit, of course, that I have to get my Secret Santa gift this weekend. I tried gifts.com. I tried staring into space. I tried remembering every insignificant detail I'd ever overheard. I'm sure it'll be fine. Just ask Stephanie. Or Katie. Or whoever it was. I'm fairly confident I didn't ruin their Christmases, and subsequently their lives. Fairly confident.

I am sorry, 1327. Whoever you are.

I'm that cruel and horrible, horrible person who puts sweatshirts on dogs. Just mine, though. I don't usually go around clothing other people's dogs. Mine is enough of a hassle to wiggle into a sweater or sweatshirt.

But, because Dave says I'm cheap (I say frugal, but it's a tomato, tomah-to thing), it's 62 degrees in our house. And our dog, with few body-heat-producing mechanisms, has to be cold, I tell myself.

And the only way to remedy that is to clothe him and then take embarrassing photos of him. Because I am that woman now. The one who clothes and photographs her dog.



In other news, because the subject desperately needs changing,
I am a criminal. There, I said it. Arrest me, FBI. I, Erin Wasinger, opened the mail from our own mailbox -- for SHAME -- tearing through the Christmas card without looking at the envelope.

Being a newlywed, I wasn't shocked to be standing in the living room going "Who ARE these people?" Dave has relatives in Tennessee, Missouri ... I figured it had to be one of them.

So I was shocked to see the return address label on the envelope that I so cheerfully tore through said the card was from a place none other than Oshkosh. I am Dave's only relative in Oshkosh. And, we expect to get about zero cards from people in Oshkosh this year. Oh, and our house isn't No. 1327, as the envelope says. Oops.

I threw the phony "reduce your student loan rate!" envelopes, of which I get about 3.7 pieces a week on average, on the table and Dave and I tried to salvage the envelope. We stuck in the card quickly, then giggled as we tried to get the adhesive to stick again. And there it sits, hours later, looking like the saddest, most dejected piece of holiday cheer.

It's like a bad movie; the card all bent in a ripped, soggy envelope (it rained today) sitting on a table all by its lonesome. The camera would probably zoom out to show you a cold, 62-degrees house and a poor, poor dog in a sweater.

Or maybe I just envision the card as being more depressing than it really is because I know one or both of us should take it to No. 1327 and introduce ourselves as the heartless jerks behind the Christmas card envelope fiasco of 2006.

Spam e-mail saves owners' and pet's lives

Dave's been a really good sport about the whole homeowner responsibilities thing.

He's fixed a leaky spray hose in the sink. He's stopped a toilet from running all night. He takes out the trash.

But I interrupt this domestic bliss with this: I'm often paranoid and convinced that the worst thing may always happen -- and this is just who I am and he knew it when he married me. I was convinced that a third fire incident was going to take place (catch up: microwave popcorn fiasco and the burning table episode). You see, having been raised Catholic, everything comes in threes. It's just how we roll.

And when I'm tired, I'm known to believe that every possible bad thing is going to happen: floods, hurricanes, the apocalypse ... that sort of thing.

So when a friend sent me one of those "My best friend's neighbor knows this woman who died while doing ..." something e-mails, my normally jaded self was sure that IT WAS A SIGN. Yes, our dryer lint tube thingy would too spontaneously combust. Of course! And wasn't that in Dear Heloise a few weeks ago? OH my GOD, I thought, I will go down sitting on the couch with our dog, watching bad TV dramas. Everyone will know I watch "Friday Night Lights." Oh no.

So I came home from work and started fretting one day last week. I cleaned out the lint trap, like always, but it wasn't good enough. Someone was going to have to take a few boards off the side of the deck and crawl under to clean out the dryer vent.

And that someone had to be Dave, because it's not yet 30 degrees and God only knows what lives under there.

He said "when it gets warmer." He said "it's fine." He said "ERIN, you're being paranoid," and even though he was right, I said "But what IF?" And I was so right that it got silent, and all we heard was the dryer, ticking away its last moments before it was doomed to explode.

That's when he took ... um, whatever tools you need to take off a few boards and put them back on, and crawled underneath. And that's how we didn't get blown up by dryer lint. I have to admit ... I feel better. Now I can worry about something else.

I think my dog is really 14.

It's really hard to sneak a piece of chocolate when the wrapper is so loud your dog can hear it, how in God's name can he hear it, three rooms away.

It's even harder to sit and paint details in with the tiniest brush imaginable, and you're holding your breath and not thinking about anything but how close to the line you're getting, so your hand doesn't shake ... And then the dog barks and, you swear, that dog was in the other room not one second ago. HOW DOES HE DO IT. And now you are wearing black paint.

Everything is new to a puppy: gravity, physics, etc. Especially a psycho puppy who, in the middle of learning something really important such as how to roll over on command, suddenly goes running around the circle the first floor makes. Seven, eight and ... yup, make that nine times before skidding on the wood floor, right into the wall.

But then when you want to play, suddenly your dog gets all adolescent on you and lays on the floor, looking at you like "Seriously, woman." And you swear you just heard "you're embarrassing me" through clenched teeth.

At least that's how my Monday night is going -- from infant-like fun to adolescent rage, all in 68 minutes.

This post brought to you by Bob Villa, the man my dad once threatened to sue after Dad cut his finger off following Villa's advice.

So that pipe from a few days ago, which was preventing Dave from installing a new light fixture in the living room, has us stumped no more.

After being advised to take a photo of the situation down to the local hardware store, we were informed that we have a very old house.

Whoa. No kidding. I mean, about 100 years old. Old.

The pipe, for all you who like to know about such things, is a gas pipe. As in, the pipe that carried gas to the gaslights installed in our home about 100 years ago.

If I could take it out of the ceiling, I'd take it to "Antiques Roadshow." But seeing as I'm afraid to step on the ladder, let alone extract the 1908-era gas pipe from the 1908-era lumber that's holding it in place, I think I'll just sit back here and admire that my house is still standing.

And also stare in awe at the light, which the hardware store worker was able to instruct my artsy-but-not-so-craftsy husband how to install. A real, working electric-powered light.

That's why I attempted to cook tonight ... I felt bad

All my childhood, I'd lay in bed every Dec. 5 with butterflies in my stomach. I'd fight to stay awake, kind of like on Christmas eve. After all, it was kind of like Santa Claus coming -- It was St. Nick's Day. Oh, yeah.

It was a pre-Christmas celebration, a chance to get some candy and maybe a small gift. And St. Nick just came no matter what in our house -- You didn't have to be good or anything. Mom never threatened to call St. Nick to tell him we weren't behaving.

Last year, I got Dave candy on St. Nick's Day as kind of a throw-back to being one of those little Catholic kids. Because we were, I suppose. It was cute, it was nice. Etc.

Last night on our way upstairs to bed, we passed our stockings hanging over the fireplace (read: our stair railing, as we have no fireplace). I stopped, turned around and said "We're not doing anything for St. Nick's Day, right?" Just checking.

He said no, he hadn't even thought about it being St. Nick's Day.

OK, fine, I thought. And I believed him because after I'm so tired, I'll believe anything.

So today, after doing my morning grumbling, scowling and other such daily unsociable behaviors that I allow myself from 7 to 8 a.m., Dave says "Aren't you even going to check your stocking?"

I stopped buttoning my coat and set down my purse on the table. I ran to the fireplace (stairs), and pulled out none other than Reese's Cups. Five or six of them. And a penguin gift card. And a Bright Eyes CD -- the newest one, "Noise Floor" (which is awesome, by the way).

And I was happy for about 2.3 seconds, 'til I remembered my manners and stopped reading the back of the CD case. "I didn't get you anything."

"I know. It's OK." And then he turned around and got the dog and went to sit on the couch; and he really wasn't disappointed. It was a good natured "I know, it's OK."

And that's why I like him. I can be utterly clueless about reading his signals; I can pretend to believe him when he says "I didn't even remember tomorrow was St. Nick's Day."

And I got a Bright Eyes CD that I was forcing myself to believe didn't exist so I wouldn't run out and buy it at midnight when it came out in October.

He has cometh.

And by "he," I mean "the tax bill."

It has come. We are now officially homeowning, property tax-paying citizens of Oshkosh. Well, we will be. Right now we're just homeowning people with a tax bill on the kitchen counter.

I think this is the part where I'm supposed to say a bunch of heartfelt one-liners about contributing to my community and how good it feels to give back; how when I sign away that check I'll feel like a better, more mature person.

But in reality, I'm kind of wondering what lunatic put Christmas and the tax bill season so close together. That's not even logical. How are we supposed to feel good about putting gifts on our credit cards if all we can think about is "escrow" and why it's our friend?

I mean, really.

Ah well. Better than paying rent for an apartment with a crazy fire alarm, moldy window sills and loud neighbors. I'll keep telling myself that the day I pay the bill: "No place like home. No place like home."

Old light fixtures do not a good time make

We decided that the old fashioned light fixtures had to go.

They didn't match our style (our style being "not too far out of college, mismatched furniture and hand-me-downs," not "probably an antique"), they hang down so I can't ignore them, and I needed a change.

We got a cool ceiling fan, Dave shut the electricity off (and you thought I was going to blog about him getting electrocuted. Sorry to disappoint) and he went to work on taking down the old fixture.

Not too much later, I hear Dave on his cell phone. "So, uh, split wood is bad, right?" Then the cell phone gets slammed shut and tossed to the couch. Apparently, split wood is very bad. And should I be getting the dog and some belongings out of the house, I'm wondering.

Then in starts the cussing, swearing and other such behavior coming from the living room telling me that it's just not going to work. The fan's too heavy for our original, 100-year-old frame to deal.

So, we take that back to the store and pick up a cool, lightweight fixture. I like it. He likes it. Split wooden beams should like it. (That sounds a lot more scary as I type "split wood beams" than it does when I just say it out loud.)

But as he climbs up on the stool to attempt it again, Houston (in this case, Cincinnati) is alerted of other problems. Namely, "WHAT IS THIS METAL ROD STICKING OUT OF THE ELECTRICAL BOX. And why is the electrical box so shallow?"

The dog runs from the room, probably feeling responsible for the depth of the electrical box and maybe even the metal rod.

Dave sends a photo message via his cell phone to his parents in Cincinnati for their input. We can't ask someone in our own area code to look at it, silly; that'd be cheating. And they'd probably be able to walk up to it, fiddle with some of the parts and, voila, we would all bask in the glow of the light.

So until he figures it out or caves in and asks for help (or hangs the old fixtures back up), I'll just be over here sitting in the dark, hoping the split wooden beam doesn't cave in. And putting "many, many flashlights" on my Christmas list.

Save The Plants: Don't entrust them to Erin

A friend of mine entrusted a lot of her possessions to my husband and me. She left her bike, her computer, her cats' toys and some random boxes in our basement for a month while she was, well, between homes. This past week, she also entrusted me with her plants.

This isn't a big deal to normal people, but I think she should've paid more attention to the vibes that my home eminates. "DON'T GIVE HER A PLANT. SHE KILLS PLANTS. GOOD WITH CHILDREN. GOOD WITH DOG. NOT PLANTS."

It's alive now, but I have no doubt that another week in my care, and we'd find its wilted body dragging itself to the kitchen sink screaming "waaa-ter," or else we'd see one plant hand the other a life raft, as I tend to go to extremes with that whole watering thing.

During college, my roommate and I would buy a plant every semester, it seemed. We'd name them, tend to them for about a week, then she'd tend to them while I tended to forget we owned Harry or Bob, or whatever its name happened to be. They'd die, and we'd sit there, shaking our heads, wondering why a plant that required light wouldn't like it in our sub-zero apartment on the third floor underneath some trees? And we almost died from the black mold in that place. We're fairly certain that's what did in our sophomore year plant. Charles? I don't remember.

Dave was surprised she entrusted us with the plants for a while.

"Wow, she left us her plants to watch? Doesn't she know about you?" my husband asked.

"Yeah, I guess not. I don't think she knows how many plants are dead because of me."

"You don't just kill them. You commit planticide."

Sigh. And this is the part of the blog post where I see my friend run across the office, grab my keys from my coat pocket and go save her plants before, God help us, it's too late.