Ooooh, moving pictures

I hate bad smells. So Mom says I'd hate Ohio right now, or at least Ottawa.

The Putnam County Sentinel's Web site used to have a clip art photo of two girls circa 1960 whispering into each other's ears above some purple links for obits and sports schedules. It's a weekly and it's pretty small-town. For all its flaws -- and if you saw the design and read a lot of the copy, you'd know what I'm talking about -- it is local, and it's the only newspaper in the area.

So, I know I talked about the flood before, but still. I didn't know they had video in Putnam County. Just kidding. I did live there for, what, 10 years. Anyhow, here's the shaky video.

My JFK story

... has nothing to do with JFK. This Diana woman, she was my JFK, because like 9/11, I know where I was when I heard (Glandork Park Fest, 1997; skipping Spanish 101 in 2001).

But more importantly, her divorce and messy separation were my first experiences with anyone I knew buying those magazines for a reason bordering on obsession.

My parents were building a house in Kentucky with my grandparents' help. When we got doughnuts at Rehmke's Market each morning, breakfast of champions, my grandma would pick up a copy of People ("because it seems the most trustworthy"), just to get the inside info those crazy Brits were doing. Mom and Grandma would tsk-tsk, saying "Camilla? Really? Have you seen her?" and I'll look at the pictures of William and go "Reaaaally? Tell me more. I'm interested," the I'd squirrel the magazine away for cutting out pictures.

It was the oddest thing, to hear people walking by our little circle at Park Fest, talking about the car crash. I thought my mom was going to cry. I got goosebumps and did that uncomfortable eyes-watering, shivering thing that's really, really attractive and composed.

And we bought People again, and this time I kept the magazines not for William, but just because. I saw the tunnel six months later, in Paris, and I did that eyes-watering, shivering thing again. See, she kinda reminded me of my mom, being the same age, the whole divorce thing, the ever-present paparrazzi. I might have imagined the last part. But still. I hate it, so I watch Dateline and read the wire stories and do my own tsk-ing about Camilla.

I'm a liar

We didn't see Smash Mouth. Not that we didn't want to, but we decided fried chicken and grocery shopping was a muuuuch better use of Dave's first night off in like, three weeks. People? Who wants to be around people? You see them all the time. Dave? Not so often.

Ha.

Everyone should have a Dave

Dave got a day off work today (yay!) and he's spending it doing the following things:

1. Baking zucchini bread.
2. Our laundry.
3. Trash out, etc.
4. Dishes, if he's smart.
5. Or at least wiping the zucchini dough off the counter.
6. DEAR GOD he'd better, because that stuff sticks on there like cement.
7. Please?
8. Then killing me for telling you all that he spent his day off doing househusband things.
9. Then coming to Waterfest with me, to see Smash Mouth. Oooooh yes.

Yeah, you read that right. SMASH MOUTH. You should read that interview Sarah Owen did with them. Kinda weird. In a good, fun, couldn't-publish-it-all-in-a-family-newspaper kind of way.

Books are healthier than cookies

While I have all this free time, I've been trying to be productive.

I did jumping jacks the other night. I don't really know why. It kind of just hit me. One minute I was sitting on the couch thinking about how skinny some woman was on TV, and the next I was doing jumping jacks. It didn't last long. Maybe 45 seconds. But I felt skinnier.

Then last night, conversely, I made cookies. Or, um, I tried. Only something went horribly wrong, because they were like cement. I threw them away.

Tonight, I was feeling luckier. I opted for Grandma Schroeder cookies because they're so baaaaad for you and have 1 cup of shortening in them. I mean, those puppies shouldn't stick to anything except arteries. Only they did. Hm.

I should start studying Portugese or something.

Productivity is really overrated.

Thank God I have the dog. I think I mean that.

Dave's been incredibly busy at work; he works pretty much seven days a week, and when he's not there yet (he works second shift), he's logged onto his work e-mail or reading our Web site or e-mailing me about work. It's all work, all the time. Makes for really interesting dinner conversation. Naaaaht.

That's where I draw the line. We're not allowed to talk about That One Place when we're both at home. I see him at That One Place; I go to That One Place at 8 a.m. and he comes in at 1:30-ish and I go to bed at 10:30 and he comes home at midnight. So. See, that one hour dinner break is what keeps us related. And I mean that literally. I'd divorce him if it weren't for that.

I've noticed a few things since he's been so busy. For one, I don't see him unless it's that five-minute window between blow-drying my hair and curling it, that I yell down that hall "DAVE! Can you iron my pants?!" and then when I'm done with my hair, I yell "DAVE! Can you move your car?"; or dinner time.

For another, my life's taken on this weird college-like feel to it, in that I feel like when I come home from work, my roommate Becky should be here, and we should watch "Law & Order" and she'd be on the couch with her Notre Dame blanket and I'd be on the floor with my pile of blankets, and we'd eat Jell-o shots from ice cube trays, just like old times. Ah. Then Dave'd call when he gets done at the record store, on his way to hang out with his friend Rob at the bar. Then he'd drunk dial me at 2 a.m. Oooh, those days.

Only Becky's, like, married and in Ohio. I'm here, watching TV. Network TV. "Most Outrageous Moments" on TV. And Jell-o shots are so Christmas party. Awesome.

I feel so rich. And bored.

I've been garage saling my life away, which means the last few weeks I've been dumping things that I don't see a great return on and emptying shelves of their ne'er-watched movies and once-read books. So far, it's made me ... oh, $20.

But I've decided to take it a step further. I canceled that joke of a Glamour magazine subscription they tried to give me in place of Jane. Then I got rid of Domino. Then Real Simple and Cincinnati magazine. Then Netflix. Now I just wait for my $7 checks to come back, and then I'll get myself some bubble gum or something, and wonder what I'm going to do with my guilt that I used to feel over not being able to read magazines fast enough.

I'm sure I'll find something. Plus I've got like, $50 to invest. That should take some time.

If you don't get a card that you thought we should've sent you, just assume it's in Dave's back seat

I had a package and two cards that needed to be mailed last week, and Dave generously said he'd take them to the post office for me. What a swell guy.

So, Saturday when I asked him if he wanted to take the dog on a walk with me, the shifty look on his face made me question his sincerity.

"Why not?"

"I, um, sort of have to um, go to the post office."

Hm.

"The post office? Why?"

"I kind of didn't mail those packages yet."

"The ones I thought you'd mailed Wednesday?"

"Yeah. Those."

"Dave, one was a card for my dad. His birthday was YESTERDAY."

"I know! I'm sorry. They're in my car ..."

"Why didn't you just tell me? I could've gone to the post office myself."

"I didn't want to get yelled at."

"How'd that work out for you?"

"Not so well."

Oh, he's so cute. I could just scream he's that cute.

So my mom's birthday's next week. I think I'll just take the card to the post office myself, because, well, what fun is getting a card a week later, after I'm already worked back out of the Circle of Trust. There are jars of jelly and cookies in it for me, ya know.

Put this on that list of things I will laugh about later in life

"Don't let him sit down!" I heard Dave say as Big jumped up on my body, horizontal on the couch and two seconds away from dreaming. The back door slammed and Dave's footsteps awoke me from my coma.

Dave ran in the room, Big jumped back down on the floor and Dave pointed out Big's major hygiene issue as the dog ran around the coffee table, then the living room like "Weeee! Hi-Jean what? Weeee!" Around and around the kitchen, back in the dining room, back in the living room, all while Dave yelled "Big! No! Stop! Don't sit! NO DON'T SIT!"

"Come on, he needs a bath," Dave said, trying to get my leaden body off the couch to catch a rabid dog.

"What?" I may have been slightly crabby chasing both of them walking upstairs, Dave holding Big out like you would a toddler with a dirty diaper. "Can't you do it?"

"I have to go back to work!"

"What? Can't you just wipe him up?"

Big plopped down in the bathtub as Dave practiced Teaching Personal Hygiene 101 as I got the towels out of the closet.

"There."

"There."

"OK, got to go."

And that's how I ended up with a wet, shaking rat in the tub. God. Gross.

I asked my mom if they'd gotten the olive leaf back from the dove yet. I think I found it more funny than she did.

My mom and stepdad and the rest of Those Who Share DNA And/Or Memories With Me are living like Noah right now -- or maybe just stuck in that "up a creek without a paddle" saga. They're all underwater. Not like, "Katrina" underwater. Just this kind of underwater. But seeing where all the flooding reached in cell phone snapshots of my uncle "rescuing" my cousin in his canoe, and by listening to my mom talk about her hour drive to work (it's usually 15-ish minutes), it felt really unreal.

And for once, I'm glad I'm not there in Ohio with them.

To add injury back to this insult, in July when I was there, the lack of rain was so apparent that the grass crunched under bare feet in the yards, and running across the lawn kicked up little cartoon-like clouds of dust. My stepdad bought a rain gauge with some sort of beeper on it, so it'd go off as it filled up. "If it ever rains again," chuckle, chuckle, we said.

I'm guessing they disabled that function sometime before they started singing "I'm an Island."

I hate floods. Fires. Tornadoes. Really, anything out of my control. But what can you do? Grab a paddle I guess.

My stepdad told me one Christmas as I held my new firebox that no, Erin, they don't make houses out of that stuff. Hm. Well. They should. And then they should encase it in home-sized life preservers.

A little birdie told me

My youngest brother started his first day of college today and my mom, whom I talk to on Saturdays, called me tonight.

"I just got off the phone with Derrick," she said about the middle brother. "I told him now that I'm an empty nester I need to check up on my little birdies more often."

And we chatted for a while ... Then when my stepdad came home, she immediately said "I have to go! My big bird's home!"

I wonder if that's hereditary?

I kid.

I'm so sure

When I was a child care teacher, when one kid got pink eye, everyone panicked, grabbing toys and jumping out windows. Or something like that. Maybe my memory's a little off. Maybe we just freaked out and cleaned all the toys in bleach and sent kids home and washed our hands 'til they were chapped.

And now, my dog has it.

Yeah, my dog has pink eye.

Dave sent me a photo on my phone of him on the exam table this morning, and tonight when I came home I found Big's tube of cream that I'm supposed to rub over his eye at 10 p.m. I look forward to that intimate moment.

I mean, what's this? Pink eye? In a dog? How does that work?