Grandpa!

I get e-mails from my Grandpa Schroeder every day in this list group he created. Some are supposed to inspire, but most are jokes - the kind you wouldn't think a grandpa would be sending to his grandchildren.

The new priest is nervous about hearing confessions, so he asks the older priest to sit in on his sessions. The new priest hears a couple of confessions, then the old priest asks him to step out of the confessional for a few suggestions.

The old priest suggests, "Cross your arms over your chest, and rub your chin with one hand and try saying things like 'yes, I see,' and 'yes, go on,' and 'I understand.'"

The new priest crosses his arms, rubs his chin with one hand and repeats all the suggested remarks to the old priest.

The old priest says, "Now, don't you think that's a little better than slapping your knee and saying, "No crap ... what happened next?"

They smell like permanent marker, but they're only a dollar.

Even better than an e-trip to Amazon.com's Used Books section is the trip I took today, in real life.

The used book sale at the public library here was amazing. It was my first trip to one. Do they have these in Toledo or my hometown? I don't know. Probably, but let me have this moment of discovery, OK?

If it weren't for the yellow signs outside and the ride from my friend, I wouldn't even have thought to head to the basement of the library.

Once inside, my chest did that over-excited heart/stomach flop thing, like when you're in third grade and waiting to use new playground equipment for the first time. I wanted to use EVERYTHING before anyone else, and I wanted to do it all at the same time. I couldn't scan the shelves fast enough.

It was like a garage sale, without the creepy toupee-holders shaped like styrofoam heads and the ugly blue dresses from 1987 that hang from a mishapen clothes hanger.

Enough analogies.

So, yes. It was good. So good in fact, that I had to leave some books behind, because I'd brought $5 as a way to enforce a limit on myself. I have no self control. If I'd had $10, I would've picked up books on rock collections. Because these books are so cheap, how can you NOT use all $10? Exactly.

Will beg for wordage. Preferably congratulatory in nature.

I'm really, really keen on details and rich with deep, intellectual thoughts on Mondays.

As I stood this morning getting ready for work with my head hanging upside down while I blow-dried my hair, a thought came to me.

In five months or so, I'll be this warm WITHOUT any electric blow dryers.

Wait for it. There really is a more intelligent part to this.

Then, I was thinking about this summer, and days off I have, and oh, those weddings I'm in.

Wait, wait. Weddings I'm in. I stood up and threw my now-short hair back and froze, blowing hot air on my face. Wait. That means ... I have only a few months left to a.) get some cash together for these three bridesmaid's dresses, b.) get fitted for said dresses, and c.) practice what I'm going to say when people clamor "speeeeeech, speeeeech!" and bang on glasses and bottles with spoons (this is the kind of wedding I had, anyhow).

I don't have to give three speeches, thank God. Just one. But this one, it's in front of everyone I know.* It's in front of people I went to high school with. People who've forgotten I exist until right then, when I stand up and say my words of wisdom.

I'm such a control-craving woman that I resolved to put together a few things to say starting right now. I don't want the "Ooooh, I think I remember Erin ..." moment to be punctuated by "Wait, I don't get it, is there a point to this speech? You know, that Erin, she really isn't very witty."

Because obviously everyone will hang on my every word at such a large wedding.

In any case, I'll just come up with a list now of things to say.

Like ... How neat it is? Or how fabulous it is? Or other adjectives you learn on a first-grade vocabulary quiz.

Help. Someone.


*Kind of. When your home county has like, 34,000 people in it, it's not hard to know a good majority of them. Or at least say "hey, I think I went to a party in that guy's barn in '99. Hm. He had more hair then ..."

Big hates baths

He looks like a wet rat. But I assure you he's a dog. All 14.9 pounds of him.

eBay, you sweet little thing, you!

I've been gone a while.

I apologize. But you see, I've been gone with good reasons. Two of them, to be exact.

One, being my stomach, and its inability to cope with itself and some chicken at the same time. Hm.

Second, being this: I spent three hours setting up an eBay account, taking photos of items I was going to give to my mom to put on a garage sale anyhow, and remembering my PayPal account info from six years ago (and then giving up and creating a new one altogether). EBay, when I last knew it, was free. OK, so it's not so much free anymore.

But still. Folks, I just made $74.28 (after eBay and PayPal's fees) on five items that were just in a box in my upstairs closet. And of course, what does a woman do with $74.28, but buy a pair of shoes. Which is exactly what I did.

But the shoes ... they didn't fit. I tried on two pairs, and put the wrong one back on the shelf in a moment of "OH MY GOD LOOK DAVE THEY HAVE THEM IN DARK BROWN." Dave was really, really excited, as you may have guessed.

Today, when I went to slide on these fabulously dark brown shoes, I noticed how my toes did the "oh, heck no, this isn't working, no way," move, curling themselves up from the pain. Wusses, I told my toes, jamming them in the shoes relentlessly.

I walked around the house for a minute, but then decided, I couldn't. Go. On.

And Dave? He's the hero of this painful tale. I took off the shoes with a dramatic sigh, went outside to where he was and said "want to go to take these back?", meaning "want to ride along?" He said "Sure, I will." No "yeah, right." No "Uh ... I think I have to, uh, floss." Nothing. He said "Sure, I will." As in "I want to do it, all by myself." So I handed over the shoes, and he just went. Just like that.

So I made about $74 AND got new shoes, AND found out that Dave is even nicer (more of a sucker?) than I knew. Whoa. Or, so I thought.

Turns out, Starbucks just happens to be in the same parking lot -- Wow, who knew? So there went the rest of the $74. Ah, well. There's more junk to sell where that came from.

OK, so not everyone gets a shirt. Some of you actually have to come to Oshkosh to get it yourself

Expecting a gift from me? Don't read on.

We're getting anyone who we have to get a gift for one of those "I (heart) Oshkosh" shirts because, well, it's funny (this does not include gifts for weddings; we do have taste). And why be funny with one person when you can repurpose the humor and use it on someone else?

(So, surprise! if you know me. You'll likely be getting a shirt. Hope you like it! Isn't it shocking! Isn't it just what you wanted and dreamed it would be!)

Dave's all about repurposing humor, but in the beginning he was a bit nervous.

"What if we have a party and everyone shows up wearing that shirt?"

"When do we have parties? And if we did, would they really ALL drive up at the same time and ALL wear that shirt?"

"What if they're talking and they realize we got them the same thing and they hate us?"

"How often does one talk to the other?"

"OK. Good point."

Well, it can't be any more likely, anyhow, than an accidental meeting of everyone who's gotten "Oh! The Places You'll Go!" for a graduation present, or the famed crystal dolphin on a mirror for a wedding present. We're on to you, repeat gift-givers. And copying your style.

(And now that I've gone and ruined the surprise, you're all getting cheese curds or something instead. Don't let it sit in your mailbox too long, though.)

Pass this post on to five of your friends, SOMETHING AMAZING will pop up on your screen. Wait, it's probably just a pop-up ad, actually.

Way back in the early 1990s, when Al Gore just invented the Internet, was there ever an e-mail that got sent that said "Pass this on to 5 of your friends within 10 minutes and watch what pops up on your screen. I don't know how it works but it's FREAKY" (only with worse punctuation) that actually had something that would pop up on your screen?

Just wondering.

Because I got a few of those kinds of emails this week, and Jesus, a laughing donkey, a "timeless" tune, and "something youll neveR guess!!!!!!" were promised to come up on my screen. Not that I passed them on to five friends. Really. I didn't. I swear.

But at some point, did that work? Anyone?

Because I'm feeling a little cheated that Jesus, the talking donkey and the rest didn't appear.

And don't get me started on the Backstreet Boys picture I've been waiting to pop up since 1998.

Juuuust kidding. I was more of an N*SYNC/Justin Timberlake fan.

The $240 million question

There's this cruel, cruel thing called the lottery, which is currently up to $240 million for the Powerball drawing. Your chance of winning is similar to the chance you'll wake up with the plague and be hit by a bus that was hit by lightening that was attracted to a meteor falling from the sky.

But, we are buying a ticket anyway.

Why? Because to a journalist, to the product of a single-parent family, to the woman who'll be paying off student loans for the next 30-odd years, $240 million seems like a dream. I can't even fathom what I'd do with $1 million. $240 million. Get real.

We posted a story and video about it on The Northwestern's site and a Talk question on the forum we have, asking what people would do with $240 million. I sat down and answered my own post (someone asked what I'd do with the money -- click the link above to see my answer).

It was frustrating coming up with the list -- new car, new house (hired movers to do all the heavy lifting ... and light lifting, for that matter), new clothes, newly paid off debt, a pimped-out crate for the dog (kidding), maybe some more books. And charity. I'd give some. And no, I don't think I'd keep working. And yes, I'd travel. And no I wouldn't move to Florida (alligators and heat) or California (too far away, no snow). No, I wouldn't paint everything gold.

And I could just go on and on. Anyone could.

That's the problem; at the end of the day, we'll all go home hundredaires (if we're lucky) instead of millionaires. And that's that. Just another day.

But dang, wasn't it fun to dream while it lasted.

What I mean when I say I make long-term plans

I love, love, love magazines. I love the smell. The feel of glossy paper. The way it's laid out, the fluffy, quick stories and blurbs. I love getting them in the mail, the diamond in the rough that is my usual daily student loan consolidation junk mail-slash-bills stack. I love reading them, borrowing them, keeping them in a musty stack in the closet, flipping through old ones at antique stores and searching the bookstore shelves to find one I've never heard of before. I hoarde them, I love them, I tear pages out, I dogear them, I abuse them, and then I wait impatiently for the next month's round.

It's love.

And I've got it down to a science.

I'm the content manager at work, which means I plan long term. It carries over into my home life as well; always has. I made the switch from Highlights to Weekly Reader to Teen magazine when I was 14; then Seventeen around my 15th birthday. I got Teen People for a minute, and renewed it until I knew YM and Cosmo would better suit my shallow needs.

That lead to me realizing I had shallow needs and subscribing to Psychology Today and Time for a while ... Both of which I set to expire or canceled to coincide with my leaving college, because hello, I don't need coffee table material to impress potential dates. I've already got a fiance. (You guys, I'm joking.)

So I found Jane, my latest love. It's music, newsy, fashion, life, etc., etc. Youngish woman, post-college-esque. But when my one-year subscription came due, I was faced with a mild sense of emotional pain.

I can't buy issue by issue on sales racks because, well, I'm cheap. I like receiving it ... But will I care who the newest Shins wannabes are when I'm two years older? I'm just not ready to make that kind of commitment.

So I did some soul searching, which kind of freaked out Dave.

I sat and thought long and hard, calling on my bank account and magazines.com as well as fate, and we all decided it was time to phase Jane out.

Jane. Move over for Domino. Domino will be joining us for the next two years. Jane, you'll be gone by fall.

And, asked Dave, what's up for 2008-ish, 2009-ish?

I smiled.

"Oh," he said when he heard. "Ooooh. Oh, wait. Wait, wait a minute," he said. "Wait, wait." I think there were 57 or 58 other "oooh, waaaait"s in there.

I don't know why he's all shocked; I told him he could keep his Esquire subscription.

Let's not do that again.

One of my favorite words is "let's."

It's the nice way of saying "do it" to someone; "let's make sure we pay that bill on time." "Let's set up that photo assignment today." It can make most situations sound like less of a command and more of a nice suggestion. "Let's all wipe our chins" sounds a lot better than announcing to a table of 35 "OHMYGOD Rita, wipe that huge glob of pudding off your chin."

Let's not wait to fold that laundry. Let's not wait to make that dentist appointment, Dave. Let's not watch Leno, honey. Let's get those movies back on time, Dave.

Of course, when I say "let's," I usually mean "you." Or, more specifically, Dave.

So when I said "let's take the cupboards down and sand them and paint them white," I meant "take the cupboards down and sand them and paint them white, Dave." Duh.

I love the library

While Dave was away this Saturday, the wife in me played with a list I'd like to call the "Five-year plan," which wasn't a plan of my life (because my five-year personal plans are all wastes of planning time) but a plan of renovations, items to buy, more-than-routine maintenance plans and and personal wishes for our house.

It quickly dissolved into one big sigh ... This is seriously going to take more than five years. And it's a lot of work (this part I knew, but as I kept listing, the chores and projects got more extravagant). What started as a vague "landscaping" turned into "fence for yard, patio furniture, grill, redo sidewalk." That reminded me that there was an issue with our front sidewalk; namely, it's covered in dirt from when they fixed the water line last fall. So, plant grass seed. Check. You get the point.

Before I was done, my list took me inside the house, up the stairs, bypassing the centipede-infested attic, back downstairs to the basement and outside again.

And that exhaustive plan lead me to the library, as in the public library (I'm not planning on building a library at home) where I quickly found three movies that had nothing to do with my house or home renovations, period, so I could pretend it was all done. Because, duh, Dave wasn't here.

Who would I get to do -- I mean, assist me in doing -- these things? Exactly.

These projects will have to wait. Maybe five years, actually.

And, the best part, seeing Dave laugh at the list when he came home. "Ohhh, I saw your list on the table."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah. Niiiice."

A great aunt of mine had one of these things as a decoration in her barn. I'm not really sure we ever concluded she was sane

I've been sorting through photos.

I found this one, by Dave.

Hate doesn't quite describe my feelings for it.

Creepy, scary, eerie, gross, intimidating, loathing, dislike.

Yeah, maybe that comes close.

Someone saved my life today ... Was it Google?

When I first got my new e-mail address, I found it slightly creepy that Google "knows" what's in my e-mail. I'm OK with ads appearing on the sides of my e-mails as a rule, but they've usually been harmless: "Buy 99 stickers, get 99 free, only $20 a month" or something equally odd that makes me wonder how much time that Web guy had on his hands to create THAT money-maker of a site.

Anyhow. I digress.

I don't have much to hide (Oh, OK, you got me, I'm addicted to those "pass this on to 15 of your friends in 5 minutes or less!!!" and "SEND THIS TO ALL THE WOMEN IN YOUR LIFE" e-mails ...); but that's not the point.

If the carbon monoxide level in my house suddenly skyrockets and I'm dead (suddenly -- remember), in the middle of an e-mail to my soon-to-be sister-in-law about my bridesmaid's dress size, not only will the EMS responders know what size I wear, but also that, somewhere in her original message, she joked about strippers. But she said NO strippers! You guys. Seriously. Why those ads. Why?

Worse ... My cousin was in a plane crash (not funny) last weekend (no one was hurt or killed) and my aunt sent out an e-mail detailing what they called my cousin's Bruce Willis-like action adventure on the runway.

Google, being the smart little bugger that it is, recommended this:
Hurricane Emergency Preparedness »
Emergency Preparedness Conference »

Because you can never be too ready, here in Wisconsin. Hurricane season is JUST AROUND THE CORNER.

This is the stuff Al Gore was dreaming of when he invented the Internet. Saving lives from hurricanes in Wisconsin.

Just as exciting as my Thursday nights get anymore

My dog is afraid of vents. Being that we have an old house, they're big, dusty, produce no real, warm air at all and return no cold air that I'm aware of (because it's all sitting right here on this blue chair) and are found around the perimeter of each room. Some are on the wall (heat vents), some are on the floor (alleged cold-air returns) -- he does not like either.

I do not like playing fetch for 45 minutes. Call me lazy, mean or just plain evil. But no. Mr. Big, I have thrown my last rope toy this hour, I said somewhere around Toss No. 582. And, because I'm plain evil, I threw it on top of the alleged cold-air return, right in the middle of the three-foot by one-foot rectangle. Because I could (read in that impending-doom voice of movie announcers).

He stood there, willing it to be blasted by a return of the returned air, back off the vent and into the safety of his carpeted world. And, again, being evil, I giggled as he then sat and watched his rope toy sit on the vent for about 45 seconds. It was the best 45 seconds of my night.

(And, before you start to think I've mistreated this dog by withholding from him another minute of my Thursday night game of toss-the-rope-across-the-dining-room, I did go get it from the vent. For the record.)

That's not like home at all -- their carpet doesn't even have any stains in it

Day three of my "YES! Let's do home-improvement" mood has, so far, included a few minutes spent tagging do-it-yourself projects in a book, staring at the kitchen with paint swatches in my hand, one arm extended and one eye closed; and looking through magazines for inspiration (or to get that inevitable "I'll never be that cool" feeling).

My conclusion, and what may be the buzzkill for my "YES" mood: Never will I ever live in a house that ever, ever resembles one of those pictures in those magazines.

I don't have Granny Smith apples in a bowl on my coffee table. Instead, my table boasts one empty glass, one strategically placed (and tilted) Frank Lloyd Wright book and some junk mail from last week. And dust. We've got that kickin' too.

I don't have the ability to construct a bed frame, even if I did have the tools to do so and I had the directions taped to the wall in front of me.

I don't have the creative intuition to put THAT color (pointing to one magazine) with THAT one (other magazine) to come up with THAT (third magazine).

I'd like to see a home magazine that has pictures of Dave's shoes laying by the door in a photo spread, or maybe one that has some dirty dishes in the sink. I need to feel like that model room is attainable; I need some dust, some fingerprints on the windows and some mismatched pillows on the designer sofa.

Am I asking too much? I guess so. Sigh.

So married, part 435

I spent the weekend being fabulously lazy.

I watched four movies. I read. I shopped; oh, boy did I shop. Usually, I'm not one to lay around and watch Dave clean the bathroom (though this weekend he did). But I took a vacation day, and there was a birthday in there, so I felt I had the entire weekend to do NOTHING. Because how many more years will I be able to do that on my birthday?

Not many, it's on a Sunday next year, a day scientifically proven to put me in a bad mood no matter what. It won't be on a Saturday, actually, until 2018 (Not that I am such a loser that I actually looked that up on this Web site or anything). I'm bound to have children or something by 2018, ergo I should not have had to do laundry all weekend this year. I make a convincing argument, I believe.

Anyhow.

Birthday, no one cares, etc.: Point of the matter is, I had all this time to do fabulous, exciting things ... and between watching those four movies, Dave and I blew more money than we'd expected to buying curtains and seat cushions.

Curtains. And seat cushions. Then, we ironed the curtains. Hung them up. Stood back at the glory of new, matching curtains and said "Wow. We are so married."

Yes. And now, color coordinated. Also newsworthy.

Funny thing is, there was a sale going on at one of my favorite clothing store, and I didn't even want to go in.

"I want to spend all our money on these seat cushions, Dave. Dave, I can't even explain it. WHY do I want these seat cushions, with their gold puffiness and their tie-backs so they don't slide? WHY, DAVE, WHY?"

He ignored me and pointed to another color of seat cushions. "Do you want that color? What about blue?"

"Oh. Well, gold. Now that you put it that way."

All I wanted was one glass. Just one. Is that so wrong?

I'm no wino. Don't get me wrong. But after a long week, I just wanted one glass. One. That's all. Just one.

So I grabbed a bottle from our wine rack (doesn't that sound classy) and set a glass on the dining room table with authority. You can almost see it, can't you? The perfect bottle with its purple label. The shiny glass. The cluttered table.

I peeled off the plastic from the neck of the bottle and put all my (weak) force behind getting the corkscrew inside the bottle, and then I pulled. Only instead of getting a purple-bottomed cork on the end of the corkscrew, I got nothing but a loose-flying right arm, empty corkscrew in hand.

No worries, I thought. I repeated the above steps six or seven times, convinced that even though something was crucially wrong with my technique (or the bottle was that cheap), THIS was the time I was going to get that dang thing to come out. Because LOOK how HARD I'm trying!, I thought.

(I should note that when I speak in exclamatory phrases, nothing ever turns out right, for future reference.)

The next six or seven times I tried were far more desperate; the depressing situation went from me laughing at myself to me talking-slash-yelling at myself, to me begging the bottle to PLEASE LET GO. It was going to be OK.

I knelt on the floor right there in the dining room, bottle between my knees, and pulled with both hands two, three times. I tried a different cork screw. I watched the cork come off in bits and pieces, and I was just about to punch the cork in with my bare fingers when I realized ... I had to stop.

Screaming "PLEASE WHY" at the ceiling will not make the god of wine bottles come down and open the $6 bottle for me. Besides, I was scaring the dog.

Water was looking like a better, more successful alternative.

Water and sleep. At least water was easier to get at.

But, just to show that wine bottle that it didn't get the best of me, I drank outta that wine glass. Or, OK, maybe it was because I was too lazy by this point to put it away and get a cup. Sigh.

Oh

I should probably clarify that the $5.27 discrepancy was due to an accounting/whatever error. On our part. I really do have $5.27.

Just, uh, thought I should point that out.

Tuesdays are the new Monday

It's one of those days.

Not a bad day. Just ... annoying. The computer freezes and you have to restart. Twice. The kind where nothing sounds appetizing and your wheat bread looks shiny and "fortified," which really means "nasty-smelling."

The kind where nothing fits right so you end up wearing pants that are too short with socks that don't match. The kind where your student loans leave a cheery message on your voicemail to tell you they'll report you to a credit agency if you don't pay NOW, RIGHT NOW MA'AM over the phone because you're $5 short. $5.27 to be exact. Me, the "ma'am" who used to cry when she got Bs on her report card and never handed in an assignment late, ever.

Yeah, the kind where you get called "ma'am."

The kind where it's cold but there's no snow. The kind where everything's annoying, and your car never heats up and someone left all the lights on in the house and is electricity free this month?

And you end up using lines like that that you used to roll your eyes to when you still banana-clipped your crimped hair and drank Faygo ...

Whatever. You know what I mean.

It's all little stuff that's no big deal, unless it happens to be going on right now, in which case this moment, this moment I can't WAIT to get over with.

Then you get to come home and sit on the couch.

And two "Law & Order"s are on, and suddenly life looks really, really good. Like Justin Timberlake good.

So critical

We usually just walk around Gallery Walk and pretend we know what we're talking about when we look at the other art hanging up in the stores downtown. Being married to a man who graduated with an art degree, I guess he knows more about talking about art than I do.

Either way, this month it was different because he got to actually participate.

Dave, who says he dislikes every project he's ever done, who criticizes his work more than most normal people, was freaking out. That's the nicest way to put it, freaking out.

He didn't participate on a large scale -- It was more like he put up six or eight photos while someone else was featured at Limelite Studios, where Dave freelances. One of the owners asked him on Friday afternoon if he could get a few things together for the 6 p.m. show on Saturday. I'm sure he said "Oh, yeah" like it was nothing, but when he got home that night, was pacing like a 13-year-old waiting for a telephone call from like, the cutest boy in school! The one with the jean jacket with the "Sixteen Stone" button on it.

He was a wreck. "This looks stupid. What do you think?" ("It looks great.") "No, it doesn't. But it's as good as it's going to get." (Sigh.) "What about this one?" ("Yeah. That looks good.") "No, this is bad."

Because it was a last-minute affair for him and one of our Ohio friends to go around getting frames, mats and glass, it reminded me of his last semester in college, when he was awake until 4 a.m. doing a project that was due at, like, 9 a.m.

There wasn't a grade this time; just people looking at them while drinking wine and eating olives. Which, to him, was worse. Apparently, he's going to show more pictures in the fall. I'm sure by then, he'll have worked himself into an ulcer.

(Photo: One he showed Saturday, of the Chateau Frontenac in Quebec, on our honeymoon.)

Let's play 20 questions

Courtney, my half sister: Is Dave spending the night?

Erin: Yes.

Courtney: Are you going to have babies?

Erin: Eventually.

Courtney: I think you should have babies. Is he REALLY spending the night?

Erin: Yeah, why?

Courtney: He's going to see me in my pajamas!

Erin: The outrage!

Courtney: Do you love him?

Erin: Of course.

Courtney: Good because I want you to have babies so's I can be an aunt.

Kind of reminds you of Flipper, doesn't it

Around the holidays, I admit. I was getting a bit depressed. Sorry if I was bringing you down, man. I didn't want to go to three different places in as many days, states away. I didn't want to be poor again. I didn't want to work much. I didn't this, I didn't that. Etc. Wah, I'm the only one who's ever felt this way ... Man, that got annoying. I apologize.

I'd like to report I'm feeling better now. I've stopped cleaning compulsively. The decorations have been safely stored in the basement since Dec. 26, when they were taken down in a fit of tidiness.

Moving on.

Tomorrow night, Dave and I get to play host to our first non-parental guests -- my best friend Becky and her fiance. Becky and I go back to sixth grade, when I hated her for grading my papers too harshly when we did peer grading. If we can overcome that ... Boy, there is hope for world peace.

Their visit is the opposite of my demeanor before parental visits in college; instead of walking around my apartment taking down pictures and mementos from the walls that would make my mother blush (not that I had any of those kinds of things, mind you), I instead feel I should be walking around the house looking for items that would make my friend cringe with embarassment.

"YOU have a crystal serving tray? What are you, married?" and then I'll blush and stammer and say "Oh, wow, look at the time. You know we're on central time, right? Aren't you tired? No?"

But at the moment I have no energy to lug my crystal dolphin-on-mirrors collection down to the basement,* so I'll just sit here and blog about it instead.


*No offense to the many crystal animal figurine collectors out there, but I don't have a collection of them. I don't even have one. I'd like to keep it that way.

Pardon me while I spend time with my husband for a second.

I am a newlywed, but it's about two nights a week I actually am awake when that new love of my life gets home from work. I'm one of those people who likes working 8-ish a.m. to whenever; he's the kind of person who likes working 2 to 11 p.m. No big deal.

One of those nights he catches me awake is because he works just until 5 p.m. on Fridays. I can, believe it or not, wait until 9:30 to go to bed. A lot of grocery shopping gets done on Fridays after 5. I'm telling you, it's quality time.

The other night I'm still awake is just a lucky night, I suppose, as we get to avoid this discussion:

Picture: I am sleeping on the couch, dreaming about such rational things as having to scan in medical charts under the watchful eye of a boss I had in 2000 when I was working in the kitchen of a nursing home, all while we're in my high school gymnasium, typing on a computer from 1987 (black screen, green letters!) while all my ex-boyfriends are there watching the game of PeeWee basketball ... Like that. (Real dream, not kidding.) Whew.

And I'm also under a warm blanket in my big sweatshirt and pajamas, with the dog curled up at my feet, snoring. The dog is snoring. Not me.

Enter Dave, home from work. He thinks I will regret waking up on the couch if he lets me sleep there all night. He actually wants me to leave the comfort of the nice, warm blanket and walk UPSTAIRS? What?? Does he KNOW it's 62 degrees in here?

So I, very sweetly, say "NOOOOOOO. GO AWAY. I AM COMFORTABLE."

And he says, "Erin. (Sigh) Come on."

"NO." Roarrrr.

"Erin."

"OK FINE." It's really, really romantic. I promise.

So tonight, when he got home at 8 p.m., it was like ... Well, I don't know. Like I am having a friend over for a slumber party. I feel like we should get out the sleeping bags with Rainbow Brite on them and talk about boys and eat marshmallows RIGHT OUTTA THE BAG.

So, if you'll excuse me, we're going to play a rousing game of Scrabble. Or Trivial Pursuit. Who knows. We are living like rock stars.