Crinkly and Lightly Waxed

Ah, yes...

The management is looking out for me.

So kind of them.

I always feel so protected when I have one of those micron-thin pieces of paper between me and the contagion that is brewing and breeding on the surface of a public toilet seat.




(I must confess I do use them...)

My Latest Fashion Dilemma

I am no fashionista.

If I was, I would undoubtedly squeal delightedly over the following photos:



Whatever...

Ahem...regardless of my lack of true fashion sense, there are a few fashion rules that I do know:

1. Don't mix "busy" tops with "busy" bottoms--If you're wearing a floral, plaid, striped or any other "busy" top, counteract the "busyness" by wearing a solid colored bottom. The reciprocal is also true. Too much busyness is visually obnoxious, even if all the colors match.

2. If it shouldn't be seen, keep it covered--Pregnancy turned my belly into a Thomas Guide's worth of stretch marks. Therefore, I will not wear low-rise jeans. (Yes, yes you're very welcome.) If someone has an obvious "muffin top", then crop tops aren't their best option. If one's glutei tend to sag a bit, then short shorts should have no place in their wardrobe. It's nothing to be upset over. We've all got less than fantastic aspects to our figures, but that doesn't mean we have to stock our closets with burquas and mu-mus (sp?). Just figure out what ought to stay covered and keep it under wraps.

(Thinking...thinking...)

Okay, so I only know two fashion rules.

Now, on to my dilemma...I can't figure out what socks I'm supposed to wear with my mules?

I refuse to go sockless in anything but sandals. (My poor feet don't need to add "have the odor of a city dump" to their list of unfortunate attributes.)

Are there specific "mule-shoe socks"? I tried on nearly all the socks I own and they all look ridiculous:








(Feel free to snicker.)

Do some of the above look cute and I'm just oblivious, 'cause I'm just not seeing it.

Suggestions???

Confessions of a Reluctant Housekeeper

My abhorrence for cleaning goes way back.

When I was about five, my exasperated mother (love ya, Mom) shut me in my room and said I couldn't come out until my room was clean. I remember falling to the toy and clothing strewn floor, sobbing and thinking, "I am NEVER gonna get outta here!"

I don't recollect how that situation ended up, but I'm quite certain it wasn't with a truly clean room.

Many years later, Jeff and I were checking out an apartment into which we were considering moving. My mother-in-law happened to be with us, so imagine my horror when Jeff walked into the kitchen and loudly called out, "Hey, Aimee! There's lots of counterspace in here for stacks of dirty dishes!"

Thanks, Babe.

On many a Mother's Day, I've been known to make one simple request: No gifts, please, just someone else clean the shower so that I don't have to. (Seriously.)

Back in our impoverished newly-married days, I actually cleaned a few other peoples' houses to earn some money. (Ha ha ha--That's a good one!)

I decided to end my ill-suited entrepreneurship when a lady called me back to reclean a few areas in her home. I hadn't tried to do a sloppy job. It all looked clean to me! (It was certainly cleaner than my own house.)

However, I realized that my lack of true understanding of cleanliness could easily be interpreted as trying to rip people off, and that's not very Christ-like, so after I cheerfully went back and tried to improve on my first attempt, I threw in the towel...and the mop and the scrub brush...

Poor Jeff. He does have a good cleaning eye, so life with me is less than sparkly. Sometimes I'll enter the living room to see him dusting the furniture.

"Doesn't this drive you crazy?" he'll ask, showing me the big smears of dust on the dust rag.

Uh...not really.

I do think, though, that even Jeff would agree that I've improved a bit over the years. (Or perhaps he has simply given up after 16 years of marriage...I'm not sure which.)

Don't get me wrong. My house isn't disgustingly filthy. I'm certain that no visitor has ever fearfully lowered their hindquarters onto my couches, wondering what lurks between the cushions...half-eaten candy bars perhaps or...small mammals. Neither does anyone need to fear using my dining ware or eating any food I prepare. (I use lots of hot soapy water on a daily basis in the kitchen.) If something spills, I clean it up immediately and if I ever detect a foul odor emanating from somewhere on the premises, I will diligently seek it out and obliterate it promptly.

I do clean...just rather reluctantly.

Dust collects.

Spots on the tile floor remain there for awhile (unless they are sticky).

Our shower looks like the before example on bathroom cleaning product commercials. Even when I do clean it, it never quite achieves the sparkling appearance of the after on the same commercial.

And all of this, brings me to the real purpose for this entire post. I want to share with you something clever that my ever creative daughter accomplished, but I had to ready you for the unfortunate state of my tile in the photo you are about to view. (It honestly doesn't look nearly this bad in real life. The flash seems to have intensified its putrescence.)

First, I must explain what you are about to see. You know how when you wash your hair, a bunch of it falls out and sticks to your hands? Well, Delaney has a tendency to transfer the hair from her hands to the shower wall where it clings until I remove it when I'm showering. (Yes, she seems to have inherited my negligence in cleanliness.)

A week or so ago, she called me into the bathroom after having finished her shower, pointed at the tile wall and happily said, "Look at what I made!"

In order to discern her piece of "art", you will definitely have to click on the photo below to enlarge it. Her carefully placed hairs define the outline of a specific object. Can you tell what it is? It was quite remarkable in real life. (Oh, and don't be surprised by the squalid state of the tile grout.) Happy viewing!

A Doggone Miracle

Every now and then a product comes along that must have its praises sung. Today that product is...

...the Gentle Leader dog collar. (Sing! Sing!)


This thing is amazing.

Duncan, our rambunctious 8 month old puppy, is very difficult to walk. He pulls whomever is walking him along at dangerous rates of speed. I don't know how many horsepower he is packing, but I think he could pull a toboggan to an Iditarod victory single-pawedly.

He has gotten so strong and determined that I got to the point where I wondered if it was bad for my body to take him for a walk. Knowing he needs exercise, I went to the pet store and bought him a "correction collar". (That's the nice name for a choker collar.) You know, it's like a chain and it tightens on the dog's throat if the dog pulls. The unpleasant sensation of being strangled is supposed to motivate the dog to stop pulling and to instead, prance along at a leisurely pace.

Well...it helped a little bit, but not much.

Duncan simply grew accustomed to not being able to breath while he yanked our arms out of their exasperated sockets. We, the walkers, not only experienced the physical pain of near dismemberment, but also the social embarrassment of walking a loudly gasping dog AND the guilt of being a bad dog owner because the desire to ruthlessly yank on the leash in futile attempts to tame the wild beast was sometimes overwhelming.

Then...the Gentle Leader came along. I won't bore you with the specifics, (I'm not sure I even understand the specifics), but as you can see, the collar goes over the bridge of the nose and around the base of the skull, sort of like a horse bridle (though there's nothing in the dog's mouth). The leash attaches to a ring under the chin as seen below:

(Ignore the blue collar. It's just there to sport his tags.)

Somehow, this new arrangement of things makes it virtually impossible for the dog to pull.

I'm telling you, it works. On Duncan's very first walk with the new collar, his pulling lessened about 90%. Additionally, his crazy, nearly rabid response to other dogs we encountered on the walk improved greatly.

He did paw at his face and rub his nose in the grass quite a bit the first few times he wore it because it was a foreign object, but you could tell it wasn't hurting him. Now, whenever he sees us coming at him with the collar in our hands, he happily sits down and stays still while we affix it to his head because he knows he's going on a walk.

Walking the dogs is fun again!

Beeping Update:

Andrea, perhaps you were right and it was a neglected water softener, vying for attention. Oddly, since I wrote that last post, I haven't heard a single mysterious beep from next door. Maybe our new neighbor is one of this blog's 5 readers and she felt compelled to stop the beepage.

(Yeah, right.)

The Case of the Beeping Neighbor Lady

There is a house right next door to us that is positioned on its lot in such a way that its inhabitants can bring us much grief. You see, our house is a mere four feet from their backyard. More specifically, my bedroom window is only a dog-run away from whatever is happening next door.

In our six years here, there have been some trying times due to this unfortunate arrangement. If there are nice quiet neighbors living there then all is good, but if the home is inhabited by people who like to smoke pot in their backyard with their 5 charming friends and loudly role play comedy routines at 2:00 in the morning...well, you get the idea.

Several months ago, we noticed that the house was for sale and we fervently began praying for neighbors who don't have excessively noisy dogs, don't throw drug fueled gatherings, don't blast music late at night and don't mind a 14 year old next door banging away on a drum set for about an hour a day. (Yes, I do see the element of hypocrisy in that last sentence.)

I'm very pleased to report that all of our pleas were answered. A nice woman moved in a few weeks back whose dog barks about as often as our dogs do, who does watch TV late into the night, but not at unnerving volumes, and who says she loves music, so Tobias's drum pounding doesn't bother her a bit!

There is one little bit of mystery, though. Almost every night since about the time she moved in, I've heard a strange beeping sound. It is a medium pitched beep that lasts about half a second and repeats every 7 or 8 seconds. It goes off at all hours of the night. My hearing is a bit better than Jeff's (fewer concerts attended, perhaps?) so he didn't discern it for a while.

"Right there! Did you hear that? Oh, wait, wait.............there! Did you hear it that time?" I'd ask, laying next to him in bed.

He would patiently assure me in a muffled mouth-in-the-pillow voice that no, he had not heard it and promptly fall asleep.

I knew I wasn't going crazy, but I was happy that he knew I wasn't nuts when he finally did say to me one evening, "Hey! I hear your beeping sound!"

I've been tempted to yell out, "Popcorn's ready!" and listen for a microwave door to slam shut and the beeping to cease. But somehow, I don't think anyone eats popcorn every night.

Seriously, I have no idea what it is and although she's a nice woman, I'm not about to ask. Nancy Drew could probably tactfully figure it out somehow, but her I am not.

Double Take

Is that a panda?

Nope, it's a...



...poodle! (No, really, it is.)

So are all of these:






Pretty amazing, huh? (The panda is my favorite.)

Olfactoral Enlightment

I wore glasses from the age of about 7 until I was 13. Once I began wearing contact lenses, I discovered something...I didn't like my nose.

It looked fine from the front and I knew I should be thankful for its smelling capabilities, but once the bridge of my nose was liberated from the burden of spectacles I saw that the bridge had a distinct bump. Since then, I have tried to face cameras straight on when my picture is taken to keep my shameful feature from being accurately documented.

Something happened a few days ago that lessened my mortification over my bumpy profile.

I read an article about a new cosmetic procedure on noses that costs a fraction of rhinoplasty (aka a nose job) and doesn't require any cutting of bone or cartilage. It's for people who don't want to whack off major portions of their face, but rather who would like to smooth out little bumps or fill in little divets.

That's me! I thought and read on.

This is achieved by injecting "fillers" such as Restylane into specific spots around the unwanted bump to smooth out the overall line. I guess that technically you're making your nose a little bigger!

The cost of this procedure was low enough for me to at least want to educate myself more, so I googled (you have to love the availability of info online) some cosmetic surgeon's offices to see before and after pics.

Now comes the shocking part. (Shocking to me anyway.) Looking at picture after picture, I saw a bunch of decent looking noses in the before shots and a bunch of slightly altered noses in the after shots that certainly would not be described as vastly improved.

There were some testimonials, too. One gal said that catching sight of her profile used to send her into a tail spin for the rest of the day (or something to that effect).

Wow! I thought, seeing that her before looked just as good as her after. I guess I need to get over myself. So my nose isn't perfect. So what?

Additionally, I looked at pictures of rhinoplasty patients. The funny thing about that was that it appeared they had all been given the same nose! Apparently, the surgeon only had one pattern to follow when wielding his scalpel and reshaping noses. Seriously, all the patients looked like they could be siblings.

Please don't misunderstand...I'm not anti-cosmetic surgery. I understand a very unendowed woman wanting to actually look like a woman and I have witnessed some afters that made me want to give the surgeon a standing ovation, but looking at all those photos made me realize that my nose isn't hideous...and the bump probably keeps my sunglasses in place, too. :)

(However, you will notice I did not include a picture of my profile in this post!)

Sixth and Ninth

Today is the day the kids have been dreading all summer long...the first day of school.

I'll show you the cute, normal child first:


Here she is, ready for the sixth grade, complete with her homemade jingle bell necklace. (I wonder how long it'll be before her teacher asks her to remove that.)


And here is the equally cute, but abnormal child who insisted on carrying a briefcase (which he purchased at a garage sale) to school:

I recommended that he wait a couple weeks to exhibit his true nature (weirdness, that is) and utilize the backpack with which we provided him, but he wouldn't hear of it. Doesn't the briefcase go perfectly with his skull t-shirt and shorts? (Ha!)


Aren't you curious about the briefcase's contents? I knew you would be, so I photographed them:


Note the wadded up gym shirt next to the insulated lunch bag. Oh, dear, there's no room for text books! Perhaps today is the only day that a briefcase would be practical. Good thing he's making a fashion statement while he can. :)

I can't wait to hear all the details of how their first day went...

I Am Ruined

Something happened yesterday.

Something wondrous.

Something astonishing.

Something...regrettable on a few levels.

Whilst visiting Jared and Lena in San Diego, the subject of our love for good chocolate came up in conversation.

Lena's eyes began to glow as she turned to Jared and said with a hint of mischief in her voice, "We should take them to Eclipse."

Thus began my ruination.

Since I was a small child, I have loved chocolate. Back then my object of affection was milky and mild, but as I matured, I began to appreciate the more defined taste of pungent and dark confections.

This place, Eclipse, to which we wended our way yesterday, was stocked with chocolate, chocolate, chocolate, but not chocolate for the faint of heart.

They had the most exotic concoctions I've ever heard of. Unbelievable. In fact, I won't even tell you some of them because you might wrinkle your nose and decide to go check your emails instead of finishing this post.

Though I can not vouch for everything sold by this chocolatier (I tried none of the baked goods nor the truffles), I can say (with as much emphasis and exuberance as your imagination will allow) that their chocolate is by far THE BEST I have ever had in my ENTIRE LIFE.

After sampling four different flavors of their chocolate bars (which are all made there in the little shop's kitchen) I felt as if I had used my taste buds for the very first time. Seriously.
...And my foremost thought upon swallowing the fat-laden wonderment was--How can I get more of this?

If crack cocaine came in chocolate form, this would be it.

Yes, I am ruined.

Dove, my former paramour, is now a paltry offering.

See's I now render as a second rate product which will do only in a chocolate pinch.

But now...now my allegiance is to Eclipse, a hardly known brand which is quite pricey and can only be purchased at a tiny shop located hours from my home. Alas...

The four flavors we had the extreme pleasure of tasting yesterday were: Sea-salt Nib (through which Eclipse gets about 50% of their sales), Orange Peel Anise (Jeff's favorite), Blackberry Sage and Gingerbread Crumb (my favorite).

Weird? Definitely, but weird in a marvelous, bewitching sort of way that one will never forget...can never forget.


No, I did not receive free products from Eclipse for penning such a glorifying review on this obscure blog of mine. (I wish!) I typed this up because I couldn't keep myself from doing so. And, in case you are wondering, it's not just me. Jeff is head over heels for this stuff, too.

Join us in our newly acquired vice if you will (2121 El Cajon Blvd, San Diego), but be warned, it will awaken you to a whole new world fraught with impending dangers (a fatter butt and a thinner wallet). Visit there at your own risk.

Day 1

Our much anticipated vacation began around noon on Monday. (I've found that I sleep better the night before if I know I'm not leaving on a trip until later on the following day.)

Here we are, about to pull out of the garage:


(Try not to notice how much I resemble a Brontosaurus in this particular pic.)

We drove deep into the Cement Jungle which confused Jeff considerably. As I doled out the directions, he kept saying, "I have no idea where you're taking us." Of course, this pleased me greatly.

Finally, we ended up at the parking lot of a major airport, though not the same one as last year. Naturally, my family assumed we were about to climb on a plane. I did nothing to discourage them from this notion.

At one point, Tobias asked, "Should I put my Swiss Army knife in my checked luggage instead of my carry-on?"

"Yeah," I said. Hee hee.

The gig was up, however, when I asked the shuttle driver to take us to the car rental area.

Last year, the only cars the rental company would allow us to take and leave out of state were ones that got 17 and 18 miles to the gallon. We chose the SUV and although it guzzled gas, it was nice to have all that room. I was ready for the same thing to happen this year, but it didn't. This year, we were given a Pontiac Vibe.


All of our stuff fit in it perfectly. Good thing we didn't bring one more bag!

Off we went through the yucky traffic and smog. A few hours later, we saw this:


My family ate here a few times when I was a kid. I have fond memories of finding Hap-Pea and Pea-Wee at the bottom of my bowl of soup and I wanted to share that with my family (although I'm the only one who ordered soup this time around!)


The kids posed as the pea-splitting duo:


After dinner in Buellton, we continued north to Santa Maria where we played some miniature golf. Jeff played the worst game of his life, but it could have been due to his form (or lack thereof):


I had a special surprise planned for the final adventure of Day 1. You have to see it to truly appreciate this famous landmark in San Luis Obispo. It's...




...Bubblegum Alley!


Unbelievably, this five-foot wide alley is completely plastered with decades' worth of gum that thousands of people have smashed onto its walls.


Don't worry, Jeff's only trying to gross you out. (Is it working?)

Seriously, there must be millions of pieces of chewed gum on those walls. (After we left, there were four more.)

Some people have created little works of art:


Tobias played limbo with a fresh wad that stretched from wall to wall:


Sorry, folks, just a tacky bit of unecological, true Americana that families such as ours get a kick out of.

...and that was Day 1.

Day 2

The next morning, we drove to Morro Bay. The preceding week at our house had cooked us in 100 degree plus temperatures so we were delighted to read the Vibe's thermometer as we pulled into town.


Morro Rock is under there somewhere:




If you ever go to Morro Bay, you have to have to have to go to the Aquarium Gift Shop on the Embarcadero:


Normally, I avoid gift shops, but this place offers much more than tacky t-shirts and overpriced coffee mugs. The owners have saved and rehabilitated a sea lion and a harbor seal. If you walk through the shop, and pay a dollar or so per person, you can feed these animals. Believe me, they put on quite a show to get the food you're offering.

This guy is LOUD and hilarious:


If he catches sight of a little white bag in your hand, he knows you have fish for him and he lets you know that he wants some.


He sings, swims and practically dances to impress you.

This other guy is very quiet and sweet:


Delaney fed most of her bag o' fish to him because he had such adoring, lovely eyes.

Once you're out of fish heads, you can mosey into the inside aquarium and look at all of the cool sea creatures they have there:



(What shade of lipstick is that?)

Of course, while we're on vacation, we dine on only the finest fare:


Our next stop was sweet indeed:


In Fairfield, there is a magical place called the Jelly Belly Factory. They offer free tours of the plant and at the tour's end, they pass out free bags of Jelly Bellies. However, there is a slight bit of humiliation involved. Before entering the factory, you must don either a paper propogandized hat or a hair net that needed to remain on throughout the tour:


Jeff was delighted to comply:


Unable to choose between the fashionable hat and the nifty hair net, Tobias opted to wear both:


Once we had our stylish headgear on, we were led in a rousing cheer by our guide. It went like this:

Guide: Jelly!
Us: Belly!
Guide: Jelly!
Us: Belly!
Guide: Jelly!
Us: Bean!
Guide: Jelly!
Us: Bean!

(I began to wonder if we had just joined some weird cult, but then the factory doors were opened to us and all my fear melted away due to promises of free candy.)

It actually was interesting to learn about the candy making process. I kept looking around for Oompa-Loompas, but alas, they were all hiding. No photographing was allowed inside the factory (lending credence to the cult theory) so I have no pictures for you. You'll just have to go there yourself.

At the end of the tour, they spit you back into their gift shop (of course) where you can purchase even more of the goods they produce. Do I dare admit that we spent $27 on jelly beans??? Hey, they have some amazingly good ones. My favorites are grapefruit, pear and caramel corn. Don't try the vomit flavored one. It tastes quite authentic. (Yes, I am serious.)

For dinner, we met up with John and Rosie (my former piano teacher). I could kick myself for forgetting to take a picture of them. (You'll just have to believe me that they look great.) They were a very influential couple over me during my teen years, and my life, even now, is better due to the wonderful example they have always been.

...and that was Day 2.

Day 3

The third day of our adventure began at a disc golf course in Woodland.


It was a lovely park, and apart from me nearly stepping in some freshly tossed vomit, there were no mishaps.

In addition to the course, there was a nice play area, complete with a tire swing:


Then we were in the car again, pushing further north.

Amazingly, the temperature soared to 106 degrees! We were very thankful for a functioning air conditioner as we zoomed past Mt. Shasta:


Jeff concocted a new treat that we filled up on in the car--fresh blueberries and M&Ms:


About five hours into our drive, we found ourselves in Oregon though I never did see a sign that signified the border. We descended into Ashland, a very beautiful city.

For dinner, we went to one of our favorite places:


They really know how to stuff a pita at the Pita Pit.


Ashland is home to a very old and gorgeous park called Lithia Park. A stream flows right through it. There is a duck filled pond, lots of walking trails and beautiful lawns.

The guys played some frisbee:


Delaney and I scoped out a spot for a photo shoot:


After visiting Ashland last year, Jeff and I agreed that we'd love to live there. This year's trip changed that a bit. Although it is absolutely gorgeous there, there were a lot of people that made me feel quite uncomfortable. They were...shall we say...very natural. (In fact, I felt positively elegant amongst them (a foreign sensation for someone such as myself) and that was due only to my shaved legs and my wearing of mascara and a complete set of feminine undergarments.) However, it was not the au natural aspect of the Ashlanders that unnerved me.

Before you label me a xenophobe, let me explain myself: I'm not offended by people dressing or eating differently from me, but I am made squeamish by people who are acting in such a way that makes me wonder if they are high on more than just granola and organic strawberries. Being unsure of the chemical influences on the people around you is not a very appealing social dynamic.

Sigh...I guess we'll have to find another Oregonian city to which we want to move.

We ended our walk through Lithia Park with some gelato from Zoey's and smiles all around.

...and that was Day 3.