THAT Chicago isn't chic, white prefab Swedish furniture

"I have an idea for a daytrip," Dave said this morning.

"Uh, what?" I wasn't listening 100 percent, because it was like, 8 a.m. I listen 100 percent from 8:30 a.m. on, only.

"A daytrip," he told me as I found nothing appetizing in the cupboard for lunch and slammed it shut.

"See ya."

"OK, I'll tell you about it later."

And this time, he remembered.

"Soooo, I say we go to Chicago."

"To go to Ikea! We can buy more stuff! Stuff!" I jumped up, suddenly interested. Why didn't you tell me CHICAGO! We can go shopping! How wonderful of an idea!

"Oh, well, no. The Reds are playing at Wrigley Field."

Disinterest spread across my face. "Oh. THAT Chicago." Because there is more than one. And that second one? It's just dirty and full of road construction. At least mine smells like pine.

Don't say "Is it hot enough for ya?". You know the answer is "Stop talking. You're creating more heat."

As soon as it turns 70, I'm out of function.

I'm not hungry. I can't breathe right. Everything is so hot. My shoes make my feet hot, my clothes get all thermal-like and don't hold my hand, Dave, it's so HOT. And that's how it continues from the first day of 70 degrees through September.

Last year, I had a landlord who paid for my air conditioning bills; I didn't care for him one iota, so naturally, the thermostat was set at 62 degrees at all times. I wore sweatshirts in July. I wanted to see icicles on the doorframes, and I wanted to huddle under blankets and wake up with sore throats.

And now that I know I single-handedly added 2 more degrees to the heat of planet earth, not to mention how I killed the environment, I do feel badly about that, for the record.

But this year, it may just be a nightmare. We're going to try to not turn the air on until it's necessary, because we like money, and we love hoarding it away in piles of gold coins that we get out and stack like Ebenezer Scrooge every once in a while. (Not actually true.)

You'll note "when necessary" is purposefully undefined, because 72 to me is necessary; 90 is juuuust about right to turn on that oscillating fan over there, Dave says. One more degree. Ooone more. ... "OK. But keep it on low."

"You know we're not going to be able to turn on the air conditioning like last year, now that we're paying it, right?" he asked.

"I KNOW," I snapped. Lovingly.

"Geeez, chill out, I was just saying tha--"

"I KNOW. It's going to be HOT and I'm going to HATE it and I don't want to think about it in March." Growl. Scowl. Other "owl" words.

"OK, OK. Just point-"

"Daaave."

"OK. Sorry."

So when it's 75 for real and you see heat coming off my roof, don't assume it's just because the sun is beating on it. Assume it's me, fuming in front of all three of our horrible, noisy fans with my feet in a bucket of cold water while I eat ice cubes.

.... Erin says as she notices it's 30 degrees outside. Never can be too ready ...

The only thing worse than having "Thriller" in your head at 8 a.m. on a Wednesday morning

... is having one stanza of "Thriller" mixed with "Smooth Criminal" at the same time.

That's how I knew ... This Wednesday was going to rock. Ye-Ooow! (Michael Jackson-style.)

Orange you glad I didn't say banana

In high school, I tried the ol' self-tanner lotion. I wanted to look tan for my prom, but I was too cheap to go tanning, so I glopped on that stinky stuff a few times a week, and lo and behold, I was orange.

In the bathroom light, I thought I looked OK. Mom said I didn't look so sickly. But in gym class, playing softball outside in real light, there was some pointing and laughing going on. Ha, ha, it's the late '90s, look at you, look at us! We're all orange ...

And so I was afraid to try it again.

I'd relied on the sun and fake sun to tan since then, but that whole skin cancer thing? It's scary, so I picked up some orange-ifier.

I mean, "skin tone enhancing" lotion. Whatever that means.

So, it could enhance the pasty white we all have right now, making me look closer to Frosty than to anything else, but I'm willing to take that risk ... I think. It's sitting on the bathroom counter. If I get brave enough to try it out, maybe on my feet or something ... Maybe. Or, it'll look really, really nice sitting next to my toothbrush.

See, it's Wisconsin and something that people who live in sunny climates will never understand is, we have 45 seconds of warm weather and sunlight. We need to catch all 45 seconds, burn ourselves and then wear the residual tan for as long as we can ... Ah, the Midwest. One day of 70 degrees and we all grab our capris. Or, if you're like some I saw in the grocery store, your tube tops, short shorts and high-heeled sandals. Whatev.

"Well, first it didn't snow, then it did, and then it got sunnier and now you're back!"

Our neighbor's back after a four-month stay in a sunnier climate. As I laid down on the deck, waiting for the dog and trying to enjoy the heat that is March 26 (seriously), she pulled in and came over to say hello.

She asked what was new ... I paused. In four months, Erin? You could come up with nothing better than "nothing"? But really, how do you sum up four months' worth of life when it was the slowest four months of the last year?

"Oh, well. The dog grew ..."

And I guess that's what looking down the rest of my life is like. Hm. OK.

Still kickin'

I'd like to apologize for my dramatic post last night. I don't like storms, especially being alone during them. I was hoping to win a Bloscar for that performance. ...Get it? Blog, Oscar.

OK. I'll get off the Internet now. Sorry.

I just threw up in my mouth

Tornado watch for Winnebago County? Oh no there is NOT a tornado watch right now. No. I refuse to believe it. You guys. I am home alone. With a dog who barks at thunder.

I am over here not-so-silently freaking out, and Dave's not even here to say "You're not going to die," like no one's ever died from a tornado before, and would I stop being so unreasonable and just hold this metal pole in the air? Gosh.

"If it makes you feel any better, maybe we'll get out of work earlier tonight," he said from work.

"Early enough to pick my body out of the wreckage? Or early like picking me up at the morgue?"

"The morgue. (CSI's) Gil Grissom and I will get to meet."

Not helping. I'd go to the basement if I weren't, well, more afraid of its centipedes at night than I am of dying.

I'm being too dramatic, I know. I'd like to see you try blogging about butterflies during a tornado watch.

Comes back to haunt Dave

"Dave, whenever you're having a bad day, and life's getting you down," a guy named Stephen said at the bar, "just stop and tell yourself, hey, this is life."

"What?" Dave said.

"This is life? Your wife's column?"

"Oh. Yeah. That."

Where everybody knows your name

It was the weirdest thing.

Dave and I don't know more than a handful of people outside of where we work here in Oshkosh. We don't have huge groups of friends; most people just aren't that receptive to our nine-hour "CSI" marathons, I guess. Or, those nine-hour marathons aren't that conducive to meeting people. Whichever.

But we wanted to go out this past weekend because, well, after nine hours of anything on TV, you're bound to want to stretch your legs.

We and a friend went to a Mexican restaurant, had our margarita and our poorly pronounced dishes, laughed about stories we told and about, well, work, because that's what we do. Then we decided not to go home just yet, and instead we went to another bar.

When we walked in, there sat another guy we know; and then later, another group of guys we knew walked in. And they weren't just like "I think that guy's in my English class" kind of acquaintances, either. They were like "we've hung out before. We played Scene It and he was on the other team. And that guy, he crashed on our couch once."

"Did you have fun?" I asked Dave in the car on the way home.

"Yeah! We actually ... knew people." And we didn't laugh, because it wasn't really meant to be a joke. More of a "can you even believe it? And they didn't even pretend not to know me! That guy! He knew my name!"

Dysfunctional? I prefer "not mainstream"

When I saw the high-school-drama flick "Mean Girls," I wondered if the girls I knew in real life to be similar to the mean girls in the movie would understand that the Lindsay Lohan characters in the world hated them, too; or, would they just think "that was a dumb movie" and go on making fun of someone's hair or something.

Like, evil people in real life wouldn't understand how evil a villain was in a movie. That sort of idea.

Then I read a review of "Little Miss Sunshine," about it being this story about this wildly dysfunctional family, and it gave me pause. Dysfunctional? What? What did you call us? I mean, them?

I found them endearing ... Normal. What does that make me?

Sure, my grandpa doesn't snort heroin in the bathroom, but ... are they really dysfunctional? Really?

And the rest of the world is standing there pointing at me going "you didn't get it! Ha! You didn't get it!" Dang.

Awesome

If I'm alone, there are other natural occurences I am more keen on than thunderstorms.

Sunshine, clouds, even wind. I'm down with those. I like thunderstorms ... but I need someone here in case the power goes out, and then we may as well go into "Survivor" mode because all my ancestors' cool-as-a-cucumber genes were lost decades ago.

And Big? He's pretty sure thunder is eeev-il. As in "BARK! I WILL PROTECT YOU ERIN, BARK, Wait, no, heeeck no, that's loud. I'm out! See ya!" All 15 pounds of him dashed into the closet with his tail between his legs. Really, really awesome.

It's not the noise or even the dark that bothers me. It's all the creepy things that've happened during storms. Bad horror films, centipedes in the bathroom, village sewer lines breaking and backing up in our basement, flooding creeks, toilets that don't flush because we lived in the country, no air conditioning in August in Michigan and no refrigerator for hours so don't even think about opening that, Erin, don't, don't, I SAID DON'T.

It's really great. The power didn't go out tonight, it thundered for only about 15 minutes that I was aware of, and it's not a big deal.

But it may be a long spring if I'm coaxing a chicken dog out of a closet with a flashlight with dying batteries. Just sayin.

I'm sure you were wondering what the scene was at my house at 6:45 a.m. Well, OK, here it is

We have an agreement. Whomever must awaken first must sleep nearest the alarm clocks.

Or, so I decided last night when, for the first time, I decreed "Whomever must awaken first must sleep nearest the alarm clocks, from this day on, amen."

It really just means "Erin sleeps next to the alarm clocks, except March 21, when Dave will have to get up a full 20 minutes before Erin."

Notice I said "alarm clocks," plural. We have three. One is a clock, set 45 minutes fast to go off when it's "pretend" 6:30 a.m. Another is my cell phone, set at "the real" 6:45. I get up at 7:30. It's a long, tedious process full of cursing under my breath and slapping the top of the alarm.

Use of the third alarm is strictly verboten when I'm home, as it's a record of Dave's voice screaming "wake up you lazy jerk" (only in meaner, less family-friendly words) over and over. Not really how I want to wake up. I don't care how effective it is.

So, Dave slept on my normal side this morning, manning the two remaining alarms.

And he really, really stinks at it.

You'd think, hearing me yell-whisper "SHUT UP" at the beeepbeeepbeeepbeeep alarm first would alert him that "oh, must be that first alarm. The big one." And that song? Moonlit Haze or whatever it's called? It's second. And that $5 alarm clock does not play Moonlit Haze.

So at 6:45, it's hazing moonlight all over and Dave's beating the alarm clock -- the alarm clock that obviously only beeps, and does that very loudly and surely. And the moonlight won't. Stop. ERIN! It won't stop!

"It's the other one, Dave, the phone, turn it off!"

And it shuts off.

But he must have hit the "switch to vibrate" button, because there was no more Moonlit Haze to be heard nine minutes later, as it should. Instead, it was me, in a cold sweat, going "God what time is it??!"

To add insult to injury, someone in the building where I work has Moonlit Haze as their ringtone. And hearing it, I instantly got angry. "It's the phone, Dave, turn it off!" I wanted to say, but didn't.

And that concludes Dave's reign as alarm clock keeper.

Love: (Noun) The ability to not say 'duh' whenever the urge hits

"So we're letting the dog out of his crate when we're gone now?" I asked.

"No, why?"

"He wasn't in his crate when I came home from work."

"Yes he was."

"No, I'm pretty sure he greeted me at the door." And I'm pretty sure you weren't here.

"Oh. Maybe he dug an escape hole in the back of his crate."

Silence.

"Or maybe he has opposable thumbs now."

Silence.

"Or maybe someone broke in our house and let him out and then decided not to steal anything."

Sigh. Silence.

(Ten minutes later.)

"I guess I didn't shut the door all the way," he said.

"Well. I was about the buy into the escape hatch theory, but I guess if you want to be all logical ..."

I guess this career will do

When I have a particulary boring, long or difficult day at work, I like to entertain the idea of quitting and working somewhere where I could flip hamburgers again. A job where I could leave all my worries at work when I clocked out. A paper hat. Etc.

Then tonight, I got home from work early and decided to make hamburgers and fries for us for dinner -- which is a shock on many levels, the most important being a.) I never cook real, actual food, and b.) I define food as macaroni or PB & J.

But the grease was splattering and I was having flashbacks to the summers I worked behind a grill and an ice cream machine, and just like that I felt better.

Don't bother telling me how many calories are in those cookies, either

I'd like to say that when I came home from Ohio yesterday afternoon, I felt all nice and warm and cuddly inside that I still had eight hours 'til bedtime, and thus eight hours of sweet, sweet vacation time.

But I'm not like that. I'm much grumpier. When it comes to vacation days, I'm a "glass half empty" kind of person. It's just how I roll.

I was thinking "Hey, I bet tomorrow won't stink so bad if I hopped on the Internet now and checked my work e-mail."

Then I proceeded to punch myself in the gut because, let's face it, what kind of nerd does that on a vacation day so her next real day at work won't stink so much? So the intelligent woman in me sat on the couch and enjoyed the rest of my vacation day by watching "To Catch A Thief" twice and eating five or 12 Girl Scout Cookies. Tagalongs.

Obviously a better use of my time.

'I was walkin' with a ghost ... I said please, please don't insist'

A man walked over to the table in the bar where my mom, stepdad and I sat, and I immediately waved and smiled.

"Hey, how are you!" I said, and I meant it. I liked this guy; I remembered all the nights he and his friends and I and my friends would hang out or drive around.

"Hey, Erin! Good, how are you?" he asked. He smiled, and I noticed he didn't have braces on his teeth anymore. He looked ... older? But good. He looked good.

"I'm doing fine ... What have you been up to?" I'd not seen him in five years.

"Oh, not much. Just working. Living around here. Where are you at now?" Here, being Columbus Grove, hometown of both Man and I.

"Wisconsin, working. Yeah ..." We did the polite head nod, and "Shook Me All Night Long" came over the jukebox.

"Well, good seeing you."

"You too!" and really, it was. I meant it. He's a great guy.

But his name. ... His name. What. Is. It.

I remembered jokes with him and his friends, and playing games in Jill's basement. I remembered that he was always nice, but not too nice. Nice for a guy, I would've said five years ago. Not mean like the others. He never threw my friend's car keys in a ditch at night.

But his name. ...

Then I remembered. Josh. Yes. Josh. Josh. I blushed even though he was back at the bar, turned away from me, and probably couldn't see me anymore.

Weird, I thought, how people who are stuck in the same part of their lives hang out together, then move on, and even though you're kinda good friends, you just don't remember all the details.

Ohio's filled with those ghosts for me. There's the Bed, Bath and Beyond this classmate of mine in college and I went to once. She had a perm. Not a bad one. But that's how she'll always be remembered to me. And that Taco Bell In Perrysburg? Ate there with a Miranda after an exam. Miranda who, I don't know.

And that guy, the one from English class sophomore year at college; my roommate and I went to his house, hung out with his friends. I only remember that his AIM name has a "wolf" in it.

Ghosts, man. Everywhere. Ghosts. It'd be kind of eerie, if I weren't, well, one of them to someone, I guess.

Shopping is bonding

Shopping isn't unlike dancing. You've got to have the right partner, or else it's just frustrating. Some won't give their opinion at all. Others seem to be so bored with your quest for the Perfect Purse that they seem near tears. A few give their opinions on ev-er-y-thing, so you think that maybe, your breathing? Is it too shallow? Too loud? Can you hear it? Is it OK? Am I breathing right for you?

And that's just tiring.

Shopping with your mom? It's honesty, free space and just enough politeness to avoid getting in huffy arguments.

Dave's a good shopper (really!) and I wouldn't trade going shopping with Becky for much, but with Mom I can tell it like it is.

"Mom. Two words: Ugly. Uglier. No, one word. 'No.'"

And that's considered welcome feedback. Isn't it awesome.

This post brought to you by a blog-hackin' husband, Dave

All I've been thinking about all week is Ohio.

And no, it's not because of basketball. Basketball. Hmmphf.

I've been thinking about making the drive alone, about what I'm going to pack, what I'm going to have to remember to bring with me, what I want to do while I'm home, what CDs I want to bring, that I have to update my iPod and grab my iTrip.

Oh, and how I'm going to surprise my mama. She doesn't know I'm coming. Well, she didn't know I was coming. Dave'll be posting this post-moment of shock. I don't Internet in Ohio. They haven't invented it yet there. (I kid, Ohio. Gosh, why do you have to be so sensitive all the time ...)

I'd planned in January with my stepdad's help to make a trip home for no reason other than I could; but because we live in Wisconsin, where it can be 60 one day and snow the next (see: today), I didn't tell Mom because weather scares me most times. Especially when I'm facing in eight-hour car ride by myself.

I know. I'm such a jerk. And as I write this Wednesday night, I just finished packing (almost!), and I keep going over these grandiose plans of surprising her. I considered a helicopter, but I don't have one. Then I thought about a marching band. But I don't have one of those, either. I'll probably end up just walking in. It seems pretty hard to mess up.

I just hope she doesn't have the same response as my brother when we arranged for his fiancee to meet him a week before he thought she was coming home from London. "WHAT? Why are you here? YOU GUYS." And he was angry. And he stormed to his room because he hates looking like he doesn't know what's going on AT ALL TIMES. "I AM DERRICK AND I AM IN CONTROL OF EVERY SITUATION." And he didn't.

Ah. Memories.

Wednesdays are the new Mondays

I'd just been getting married to Dave again in jeans and a T-shirt -- and I was angry about having to miss something (probably work, I'm pretty lame) -- because our priest forgot to file our marriage certificate the first time, so it didn't count.

Stay with me, it gets worse.

Then the "I know I'm supposed to be somewhere" feeling when I just figured out after a minute of staring at the clock that "... wait a minute, I wake up at 7:30! And it's 8! And that's AFTER 7:30!"

Then it was that feeling of just-woke-up, dizziness as I run down the steps to get clothes out of the laundry basket (clean, I promise).

And then yell-whispering to my first and second husband "Dave! Move your car! DAVE. WAKE UP," and then dropping everything, phone, moisturizer bottle, my jacket, everything on the way out.

And calling "come here" to our dog on my way out to the car, who then sits down in a pile of mud in the back yard and stares at me like he only responds to one specific command phrase and, oh, it's in Latin, and woman! that ain't it.

... I don't like that.

Coincidentally, "Crossroads" did not make it to the garbage can

We're reaching a critical point in my life.

A point of decisions. A point riddled with emotional landmines.

You guys. My iPod is just about full. I had to delete some of the CDs I had on there tonight to keep some free space on my little iLifesaver. I could just upgrade my iPod to a 30 G. But that would only spoil me, wouldn't it? This builds character.

At least that's what my mom used to say when I had to do things I didn't want to do ...

Dave would call this period of removing files from my iTunes playlist "the happy period." That's why I call him "he who hath no appreciation for kitsch."

Oh, I get it

I was the one who came home on Earth Day with a pine tree no bigger than a tiny branch and planted it every year in the yard (where Dad would inevitably run over it with the lawn mower). I am more afraid of global warming than others because well, it's hot. And I hate hot.

See, I get "save the earth" stuff.

But Wisconsin's pretty hard-core about its recycling. That's a good thing, don't misunderstand. It's a law that we have to recycle. In Ohio, how I remember it, was "hey, the Boy Scouts'll be up town once a month with a truck. Bring your newspapers and milk jugs. Woo! Look at us!"

Dave and I'd been recycling the basics up until two weeks or so ago when we got a letter on the door from the city with recycling guidelines. You can recycle almost everything! You guys! Wow.

Having to recycle and putting said recycling on the curb is like a new game for me. "Ooh! This cereal box, I can recycle. Junk mail? Cardboard?! Paper towel rolls! All of it! And this plastic? Can I recycle it? What about this! I bet I can recycle this!" I found myself picking paper out of the garbage can to put in the recycling bin last night. There's no going back.

I am such a nerd. A green nerd now, though, I guess.

It's a Jump to Conclusions mat. It's a mat ... that you can jump to conclusions on!

When events are on the horizon (as in through-a-high-powered-telescope horizon, not "next month"), I start preparing. Unnaturally early.

In elementary school, I'd go to bed and think about where I was going to sit on the bus the next morning. In high school, I'd filled out three or four college applications (and subsequently threw them away) before senior year started, just in case Bowling Green State University called to ask me what I'd gotten on my ACT. And I didn't even go to BGSU in the end. Shows what I know.

In college, I'd plan out classes for all four years. Start packing when our lease was four months from ending. I was that woman who was secretly (not publicly) planning her wedding months before she got an engagement ring. I knew what color I wanted our bathroom to be before we bought a house (sage green).

I'm that kind of person, OK? So don't even think for one second that I'm trying to tell you something. I'm not. OK? OK. May I continue?

Dave and I went antiques shopping for a bit on Saturday, with the intention of burning some time before completing another seven-hour "CSI" marathon (gawsh).

I know Golden Books and Playskool are antiques just like, say, eight track tapes. But the toys, they were there. And cheap. And we got one. Two. OK, OK, there were three. God, there were three. Ah! Please, don't pull my fingernails out. I admit. There are three. OK? STOP ASKING. Dave carried one around, I had two; and together we probably weren't noticed by a soul. But I sure felt like a crazy. Hey, you just can't be too prepared for the next five, six years of your life. Plus, I could find someone to baby sit for at any moment.

Don't be too alarmed.

If someone offered me a good, sturdy cane I'd probably take that, too, just in case I need it in the next half-century. You just NEVER KNOW.

Doesn't take a CSI to realize I could've managed time a bit better

I'd be embarrassed to admit this if I were the only one on the couch. But Dave was there. See, I'll be really busy next weekend, so I felt like I should do next to nothing this weekend.

That's how I rationalize my doing nothing all weekend.

I had really good intentions. But I'm just not used to waking up at 8:15 on a Friday and Saturday, so when I did sans an alarm clock, I took it as an opportunity to get some things done. Cleaning, laundry, taking the dog for a walk; you know, weekend stuff. So by 5, I was done.

Dave and I stood in the living room, looking at each other. Now what?

We should've organized the basement or cleaned out the sink drains or something really mundane and homeowner-ly. But instead we sat down to watch an episode of "CSI."

Seven hours later, we went to bed.

It was so mindnumbingly, disturbingly fun. Of course this has turned us into guilty criminals.

I cut my leg shaving and immediately pictured CSI Sara taking apart my shower drain and deducing I'd been murdered or something. I'm positive reasonable people wouldn't be thinking that. I should stop being so honest on here.

What are YOU doing here?

We ran into a friend of ours last week in the cookbook aisle at the library, and for a moment I was confused. Friend? Here? We can say hi? And chit chat?

Someone I know? At the library? It's this place I go where I just wander around, avoiding eye contact because to me, native of a town of 2,000, I still find it weird and either lonely or liberating (depending on my mood) to go someplace and not know anyone there. So I daydream and I wander and I pick out books and movies and CDs and I go on my way, saying only "thanks" when the librarian hands back my card.

It's like when you see a former teacher at the supermarket after not having lived in that town for a while; "You don't belong in this compartment of my life. You should still be in the 1993 pile, stuck at St. Anthony's."

This is probably where I should divert and go into this speech about feeling a swelling sense of community when I saw my friend at the library. But I didn't really feel that. I was just more or less pleasantly surprised.

The shining sun is just a lie. You still need a coat.

In the spring, the grass will grow greener in our own back yard, in the shape of a horseshoe around the fire ring. It's no one's fault but our own, as Dave carved a path through the two-feet of snow so Mr. Big wouldn't have to dig tunnels every time he went outside.

The stones from the landscaping in the front yard still sit on our front porch, albeit covered in snow, where they've been since the previous owners had to dig up the water line.

The rocks in the back yard need some serious weedwhacking time, and a trip to the rock cemetery. The path to the garage is coming apart, too, leaving Big to think the pieces of stone are toys! Wee! Let's see if I can bring it inside this time! Woo!

The kitchen can get re-started when it's warm enough for us to work outside on sanding and painting. Til then, the cupboard doors remain in two stacks leaning against the dining room wall.

Everything is waiting on it getting warmer. E-ver-y-thin-gk. The snow melting. The spring to be here. I'm getting restless, bored and cranky. And ask Dave. Cranky is bad. I love snow. In December. Enough! I'm out! I've had it! I'm moving to a bubble, where it'll always be 70 and partly sunny, with the exception of a rainshower and a single snowstorm, which I can control with the flip of a switch.

I need a vacation.

Not my first choice, but I'm not a cheesehead

Dave shoots weddings, and they've taken him to celebrations where he's seen our own weddings crawl in a hole and die of shame. We didn't really have linen and lace and ... money. Our wedding rocked, don't get me wrong. I wouldn't trade it for anything and it's still the best day of my life so far.

But you should see these weddings. They're like low- to mid-grade Wedding Channel weddings. Weddings that would have The Learning Channel viewers in tears. Beautiful. Gorgeous. Make a lot of us look like we got married in cut-off jean shorts.

If I were mildly rich, I'd have married at a country club on a lake somewhere, too. But the American Legion in Columbus Grove, Ohio, did just fine, too. Better, I might argue.

But then someone else's wedding had to go upstage ours, in Wisconsinite's eyes.

He'll be shooting another wedding sometime in the next couple months ... at Lambeau Field. (To those of you who, like me, don't bleed "cheese," uh, that's where the "almighty" Packers play.)

Well. At least it's not the Bengals' stadium, because then Dave would want to renew our vows, and we're just five-ish months into our marriage. Plus, my dad raised me to hate the Bengals at any price. It'd be a horrible affair, what with Boomer's memory lingering in the city. Shudder.

It's the 'jump off' right herre

I was just sitting here going through songs on my iTunes to waste time before it's acceptable for me to put on pajamas, and somewhere on shuffle, I ended up in 2002. Summer. Dancing on a patio.

With Lil' Kim.

What just happened?!! Where am I?? Who am I? I hope Dave doesn't read this. He wouldn't understand.

(By the way, it's one single itty bitty song out of 3,534. One Lil' Kim song that obviously got on there on a mixed CD. But. Ah, that was a sweet, sweet summer.)

And you should be aware that I am so cool that I just had to check urbandictionary.com to make sure "Jump Off" wasn't some term that I shouldn't put in a blog title in case Mom stops by.

Hi, Mom. "Jump off" is harmless, so ya know.

Aaaaand, there. It's 7:30 p.m. Pajama time. No wonder 2002 seems like five years ago.

Just walkin' around

My mom walks miles every night. She could walk circles around most of us. I didn't inherit that desire to get up and walk, or one to run for that matter. I like to walk, but usually just to places.

But maybe that's changing now, as I'm getting more comfortable in the neighborhood, and more in tune to the, uh, aging I'm doing here. (I'm not old, but it just occured to me the other day that when I say "I ran some 5Ks the other year," I mean "I ran two 5Ks eight years ago," and I just can't deal with that. And I only ran them for the T-shirts.

Plus, it doesn't get dark at 4:30 p.m. anymore. And Dave's paranoid he's getting -- his word, not mine -- "fluffy."

Wait, wait, wait. Just so we're clear ... You won't find me on JogBlog talking about marathon training routines. I just went for a walk. I'm no poseur.

Let's not get ahead of ourselves.

But the three of us -- Dave, the dog and I -- went for a walk before dinner, and while I didn't feel any endorphins or whatever it is that you're supposed to feel, I did feel good enough about it to say to the blog world, "Oh, I walked today."

Fascinating, I know.

The more interesting part to me is seeing my neighborhood from the sidewalk instead of from the driver's seat. Besides walks through the park last year when we lived by Menominee Park, I don't think we ever got out in a neighborhood to walk. All new experience, or at least all-new since 1999, when I lived in a town where I may have walked with my mom on occasion, when I wasn't too cool to do so (Gosh! Someone might have SEEN me! In public!).

It felt kind of ... homey? Is that the word to describe today? I'm not sure, but I felt it.

'E-mail printer box'

My grandpa embraced 20th-century inventions like most people would embrace cacti, with the exception of those great big TV satellites in the backyard that brought him the all-Westerns channel until John Wayne and the rest moved their wagons to digital satellite.

No cell phone, no computer; and no real negative attitude toward it from my perspective. Just a general disinterest, I suppose.

But no more.

I thought it was a joke when I first read it: "Grandpa now has an e-mail printer box." I was thinking "you mean a computer?" No, my aunt meant an e-mail printer box.

Dave described it as 1950s meets 2007: It's a box that literally just prints letters the family e-mails him, like a fax machine would, I suppose. He can't send email back, and I'm pretty sure it's not a computer thing (I can't picture that grandpa with a mouse in his hand ...). Like a phone without a speaker. A TV without a remote. It's printer without a computer.

But I suppose it's a good thing. I e-mailed him already.

But this concept, this e-mail printer box.

Where did that come from? Who thought of that? Who sat there holding the phone under their chin and thought to themselves "You know, Aunt Edna's all right, and I feel like I should call her, but I don't want to sit here and talk about joint pain and her lousy son-in-law all night. EUREEKA. Let's build a box! A printer box! I can e-mail her! And she can't even e-mail back! It's the contact without the 'personal' part. SUCCESS."

Though I should point out for the record, my grandpa doesn't talk about joint pain or sons-in-law, that I know of. Just John Wayne.

The man does laundry, too. Lucky!

He begged me Saturday: "Gallery Walk? You and me? Let's go."

Which was just like him asking me Friday night: "Let's go see (a band) play -- will you go?"

Which was like him trying to reason with me Friday afternoon: "We can go to the bar, just for a little bit. One drink."

But I wouldn't move from the couch. Work is tiring. Life is tiring. I just want to lay here, on the couch, my facial expression said. What I said was something like "Uggggh, no, Dave. Please, no. YOU go. Really."

I tell him reasonably that I'll be more than happy to read or watch a movie if he wants to go. Unlike the conniving girlfriend image you're conjuring up in your imaginations right now (the one that just happens to look just like your college roommate's ex-girlfriend), I mean it.

Really. I have this book. I have three movies. I will be fine. Look, my hands aren't even on my hips. I don't have that "test me" sound in my voice.

"Just go for a while, it'll be fun for you," I said, book in hand.

"No, I'll stay," he said. "If you don't want to go ..."

Some might jump and say "he's whipped." I like to think of it more as "he just likes to be home." Or, more likely, "he wants me to go so I will stand up from the couch and take my down blanket with me, thus providing him with enough motivation to follow." Or, the near-truth, "he doesn't want to go, but if he says it's because of me, then he looks like the perennial cool guy."

And I'm OK with any of those three responses right now.

Either way. We didn't leave the house but to shovel, have a snowball fight, and run to the store to grab some chocolate milk and toothpaste all weekend.

That's what I was thinking of when I decided to get married. Chocolate milk-and-toothpaste Saturdays. Though not at the same time.

I feel like I've been denied a nighttime of knowledge

I have another season of "CSI" on hold at the library. I have cult favorite "The Nightmare Before Christmas." I have "I Like You" by Amy Sedaris. I have "Rachael Ray's 365 Days, No Repeats" cookbook. All on hold.

I'm really, really excited about this. They're ready to be picked up, sitting on a shelf with some masking tape on the binding with my last name on it.

After working 'til 9:45 p.m. last Thursday, I was more than a little stoked about getting out of work at a normal-first-shift time, 6 p.m. (After having a mild panic attack, certain there was SOMETHING I was forgetting. I'll sit in bed tonight and wonder, and come up with something, then waste all day Friday and Saturday thinking I'm going to get fired ... Ack.)

I planned to go to the library since I got done early, pick up my video-reading material stash, throw on the ugliest pair of yoga pants I own, pull my hair into a messy ponytail and hide on the couch all weekend. All. Weekend. Starting NOW.

I even thought about going to Wal-Mart in my yoga pants and bad hair, just to complete the experience. Scrunchie socks. Scrunchie in my hair. Hi-tops. I was totally excited.

So when Dave and I pulled into the empty public library parking lot tonight, "anger" and "disappointment" weren't strong enough words to describe my feelings.

"But I vacuumed behind the dressers and under the bed last week! I cleaned both bathrooms! I vacuumed the stairs, under the couch, the ceiling corners! I swept! I dusted! WHY! I deserve this!"

"I think they're closed," he said. Oh, Captain Obvious. Isn't he cute.

It's not like it's even that horrible outside. Just some rain and mush (scientific word for "melted snow and dirty, almost-ice").

I can appreciate people putting safety first. But sometimes, to unreasonable, tired minds, safety means taking a break from harsh chemicals used to clean bathrooms. It means reading cookbooks for bland recipes, watching "CSI" episodes from 2003 and doing nothing else.

I hope the library's open tomorrow morning. I don't think I could take that kind of rejection if they're not. Ha, ha.