The passports arrived with incredible expediency on January 17, making it one of the last wondrous feats of George W.'s administration. We had applied on December 27 and were convinced that we would get them in the knick of time for our vacation in March, but alas, they arrived in all their federal government glory. As disappointed as I was with the passport photo that I submitted, I was pleased to see that I look much better with a watermark over my face. It does wonders for a pale complexion. Neal still has obvious bedhead in his photo. Nothing can camouflage that.
In other news, we have completely succombed to technology. Over the past few weeks, we have discovered all that Facebook has to offer, caught on to this texting craze, and met lots of new online "friends" through XBox Live.
I resisted Facebook for as long as I could. Quite honestly, I had not visited my MySpace account in months because it has become so skanky on there that I felt I needed rubber gloves to touch the keyboard whenever I was logged on. And furthermore, I didn't really miss it that much. In short, it had run its course. But every time I checked my e-mail, there was an invitation from someone to join Facebook so I reluctantly took a peek. That was my first mistake because it has resulted in major time suckage ever since. I can kind of justify it though because it eliminates the need for high school reunions and other such events. In fact, I can log onto Facebook and see what a classmate from 20 years ago is doing this very minute (or within a few hours, usually). I haven't seen this person since we left our graduation ceremony and probably never will again but I know what they had for dinner. Who wouldn't want that information?
I have long scoffed at texting -- the logic being that however long it takes you to text information, you can accomplish the same thing in a fraction of the time using your voice. The few times I attempted to "fit in", my thumb was "textually challenged" and I was ridiculed, usually by my daughter or sister. My theory was that perhaps texting was not made for people over the age of 30. After all, we grew up in the 70s and 80s when there were no cell phones or internet and you actually had to interact face-to-face on occasion. I kept that theory in my pocket and then whipped it out whenever someone would ask me why I don't text. ("Because I'm not a socially-retarded moron!") But let's be real for a moment...there are plenty of people out there that I really don't want to talk to. This is my get-out-of-jail-free card. So the fact that my daughter surpassed her allotted number of texts per our cell phone plan gave me the excuse to institute unlimited texting for all of us. (Forget punishing her, right?) So my new theory is...if you got it, use it.
Playing "Rock Band" via XBox Live has been completely irrisistable to Neal and Megan. They are constantly joining musical forces with people whose handles include "Stinky Hobo" and "Here 4 the Buffett" to create auditory magic. Our crew here at the five acres is known as "The Labricorns", named after the offspring that would result from the mating of our dog and a mythical creature. Normally, Neal grinds the lead ax, Megan comes in on bass, Trent provides a rousing vocal, and I bang the skins. It's pure bliss until one of us drops out, then we search for a sub online. "Stinky Hobo" is a recurring player who got on the mike looking for Megan. Neal picked it up and in his deepest voice said "She's not here and this is her dad." We haven't heard from Stinky since.
Mine and Neal's 15th anniversary is just around the corner, then two weeks later, it's Trent's birthday. Plenty of blog fodder awaits.
Thursday, January 22, 2009
Sunday, January 4, 2009
Cruisin toward possible disaster
Well, it happened. Neal hit his mid-life crisis. First, the Mustang convertible. Now, he has met a "lady" on the internet who has captured his heart.
Her name is Trixie and she's part german shepherd and part huskey. I'd like to say that I'm as fond of her as he is but her fur (which is white, thick, and very whispy) has saturated every square inch of the house. In fact, I have witnessed her hair floating through the air like snowflakes. She also has some less-than-desirable habits which have led me to nickname her "white trash."
However, she tolerates Trent well which is the most one can ask of a dog. It has been our experience that about four out of five dogs are terrified of Trent upon first sight and the rest are at least half-leary of him until they realize he's fairly harmless.
As usual, I have an uncanny ability to point out the negatives in every situation and didn't hold back with this household addition. So far, I have enumerated at least five of her bad habits. She drinks water from the toilet and then lets it drip out of her mouth, forming a trail that details her whereabouts since leaving the bathroom (that's technically two bad habits). She becomes incontinent when confronted with attention after having been left alone for an extended period of time. She invites herself onto the furniture. She has attempted a couple of escapes but her efforts were botched.
Then, there are the added complications of a second dog: double your vet bills, double your pet-sitting bills, double the fur tumbleweeds in the house. But on the flip side, there's double the wags, double the kisses, and double the companionship. That's a fair trade, I suppose.
I'm already dreading leaving the dogs for a week while we go on vacation for spring break. We finally broke down and booked a cruise since, from all accounts, we appear to be the last family on earth that has not cruised. It's almost a requirement these days. I can't communicate with certain people sometimes because I can't relate when they use a cruise simile in the conversation. For instance "That's a nice house but the master bath is like a cruise ship bathroom" (judging from the context and using my common sense, I can deduce that a cruise ship bathroom is tiny but I'd like to check it out firsthand). Or "That buffet is the best one since our cruise last summer!" (I'm so old-school I still use Vegas references when discussing the superlative in buffets but apparently cruise buffets are in contention for the ultimate prize).
I'm hoping and praying that I don't get kidnapped in any of our foreign destinations. Not just for the obvious reasons, but my passport photo is the absolute worst picture of me that has ever been captured digitally (I've had worse ones captured on film but between the two mediums, digital can at least be enhanced so there's really no excuse). I can just picture myself sitting with my captors in some dirty hut in Central America while they turn on their little TV and my passport photo is all over the screen. That's my idea of torture. The photo is so bad that people would probably just assume that my captors had already tortured me, forced me to read propoganda, and then snapped my photo to send to the media so that it's evident to everyone that these guys mean business. Maybe I'll dig up my Glamour Shots from thirteen years ago and put them somewhere that Neal can easily access them if I turn up missing. Unfortunately, I have aged since then and I don't make it a habit of wearing satiny green jackets and heavy makeup but at a minimum, I'd look nice and airbrushed. That's the image I'd like people to take away with them.
"It's too bad they never located that woman with the smooth, ideal complexion and the gorgeous shiny jacket!"
Her name is Trixie and she's part german shepherd and part huskey. I'd like to say that I'm as fond of her as he is but her fur (which is white, thick, and very whispy) has saturated every square inch of the house. In fact, I have witnessed her hair floating through the air like snowflakes. She also has some less-than-desirable habits which have led me to nickname her "white trash."
However, she tolerates Trent well which is the most one can ask of a dog. It has been our experience that about four out of five dogs are terrified of Trent upon first sight and the rest are at least half-leary of him until they realize he's fairly harmless.
As usual, I have an uncanny ability to point out the negatives in every situation and didn't hold back with this household addition. So far, I have enumerated at least five of her bad habits. She drinks water from the toilet and then lets it drip out of her mouth, forming a trail that details her whereabouts since leaving the bathroom (that's technically two bad habits). She becomes incontinent when confronted with attention after having been left alone for an extended period of time. She invites herself onto the furniture. She has attempted a couple of escapes but her efforts were botched.
Then, there are the added complications of a second dog: double your vet bills, double your pet-sitting bills, double the fur tumbleweeds in the house. But on the flip side, there's double the wags, double the kisses, and double the companionship. That's a fair trade, I suppose.
I'm already dreading leaving the dogs for a week while we go on vacation for spring break. We finally broke down and booked a cruise since, from all accounts, we appear to be the last family on earth that has not cruised. It's almost a requirement these days. I can't communicate with certain people sometimes because I can't relate when they use a cruise simile in the conversation. For instance "That's a nice house but the master bath is like a cruise ship bathroom" (judging from the context and using my common sense, I can deduce that a cruise ship bathroom is tiny but I'd like to check it out firsthand). Or "That buffet is the best one since our cruise last summer!" (I'm so old-school I still use Vegas references when discussing the superlative in buffets but apparently cruise buffets are in contention for the ultimate prize).
I'm hoping and praying that I don't get kidnapped in any of our foreign destinations. Not just for the obvious reasons, but my passport photo is the absolute worst picture of me that has ever been captured digitally (I've had worse ones captured on film but between the two mediums, digital can at least be enhanced so there's really no excuse). I can just picture myself sitting with my captors in some dirty hut in Central America while they turn on their little TV and my passport photo is all over the screen. That's my idea of torture. The photo is so bad that people would probably just assume that my captors had already tortured me, forced me to read propoganda, and then snapped my photo to send to the media so that it's evident to everyone that these guys mean business. Maybe I'll dig up my Glamour Shots from thirteen years ago and put them somewhere that Neal can easily access them if I turn up missing. Unfortunately, I have aged since then and I don't make it a habit of wearing satiny green jackets and heavy makeup but at a minimum, I'd look nice and airbrushed. That's the image I'd like people to take away with them.
"It's too bad they never located that woman with the smooth, ideal complexion and the gorgeous shiny jacket!"
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