That wasn't everything!

Not even close. Dang. Clearly I should do this more.

We read: Packing for Mars, by our fave science writer Mary Roach. She's so funny and makes science (which I hate) interesting and engaging. Love love her. Might love her books NOT about Mars with even more love. The only thing I want to hear about space is David Bowie's "Ground Control to Major Tom" song. Now we're reading Second Shift and one of my figs is going back to school to study sociology and being a women's studies professor. Another is writing about my awesome marriage and being paid money to live my awesome life and write about it. That seems...unlikely. :) But it's a nice fig.

I read: Game of Thrones. I probably HAVE been reading it for 4 1/2 months, haha. Those books are S O   L O N G. Of course I left Dragons at work when I only have 120 pages left. I could've finished this weekend! Curses.

We watched: Orange is the New Black. We actually just finished tonight. We also are watching Masterchef, The Office, etc. We switch back and forth a lot, mostly cos we forget what we watched the night before. We're also watching lots of our childhood movies. We watched The Incredible Journey last weekend. Fuck I love dogs. I want a million billion of them. Newfoundlands & mastiff puppies especially.

Moxie got fleas. We went camping (Moxie swims now!). I organized our entire house. I (almost) wrote blogs comparing the movie Warm Bodies to Twilight and Zombieland & David & me arguing about the word "retarded." And our second shift. And lots of blogs about work. Maybe I should make this my private journal instead. 

Seriously?

I'm just embarrassed at this point. It's been 4 1/2 months! Gah. Now watch as I proceed to catch you up on e v e r y t h i n g that's happened in one blog. Except my battery has 11 minutes left so not that much more time to edit, oops.

Here's a checklist of important things that have happened in my life since April 1st:

1. I started a(nother) new job. I've been working as a mortgage broker loan processor since tax day. Some parts I really like; some I'm not too thrilled with. It depends on the day.
2.  I like my co-worker, Beth. She is hilarious and "shares her feelings" with me, as my ever-patronizing and loving husband would say. I also like having my own office and staring at the picture of Moxie that is my background and pretending I get to hang out with her all day and play with her like stupid DAVID does. (I am incredibly jealous of his stay at home with our psuedo-kiddo job. I know this is not true, but I imagine his work day being broken into several periods of cuddles, plays, and, well, conversations with Moxie. I talk to her always when I get home, sometimes realizing I am having a stream of consciousness talk with/to her while taking her out to do her business. Stop judging me, neighbors with the bee flowers that freak me out.)
3.  I really hate the stress of my life now, one aspect of which is my daily commute through both tunnels during peak traffic hours. I'm trying to think of a solution that will make me like driving, or at least tolerate it. (I hate driving & will hate it, always. Sometimes on very grumpy commute days I think this and the negative thinking makes me grumpier. Slippery slope.)
4. I used to have the best solution! This shouldn't really get its own number but my beautiful ipod was stolen. :( It had a commute playlist with silly bouncy songs on it that cheered me up. I literally think about how much I miss it every day when NPR gets all staticky in the tunnel. I hope you're happy, ipod thief! I hope you see my silly songs marked "commute playlist" and feel really guilty for taking it (and the tin of quarters). Jerk. (But maybe they needed $ from the ipod more than I needed to listen to those particular songs at that particular time. Maybe they aren't mean at all. Poor ipod thief!)
5. I cut my hair. I mean, I can't even remember how many times. Five seems excessive, but not too excessive. (This amuses me to no end. I need to start investing in wigs. I think it might actually save me money at some point.) I hate taking pictures of myself or I'd show you the progression. It went from very long, thick, frizzy, & my natural light boring brown colour to very short, simultaneously poofy & spiky (enigma), and what I perceive to be just unbelievably different from my natural hair colour (reddish brown) but what others perceive to be my natural hair colour (meanin they never perceived a difference at all, lol). I want Baratheon hair or Lorelai Gilmore hair but my dye jobs always lighten to the same reddish brown. To give you a better idea of what it looks like, David said my hair is a boy haircut no matter what I say about it. Debbi said I look like Peter Pan. Jeff (through Debbi) calls it my rebel haircut. I actually cut it so short because I thought it'd be easier. Imagine my sadness when I realized it actually takes me more time in the morning because I have to constantly wet it down so it doesn't stick up everywhere. It's very Harry Potter (if only I had his COLOUR!).
6. David started his own law firm and now he doesn't love me anymore. No, I'm just kidding. He's VERY excited about everything. I am, too. (Sometimes secondhandedly through his long & complicated stories about his work day and some arcane ((to me)) aspect of law.) 
7. I might be going crazy. I need a life coach or something. I want to do everything at once, like - f---. Where's that passage from? The Bell Jar.  
   
   

   "I saw my life branching out before me like the green fig tree in the story.  From the tip of every branch, like a fat purple fig, a wonderful future beckoned and winked.  One fig was a husband and a happy home and children, and another fig was a famous poet and another fig was a brilliant professor, and another fig was Ee Gee, the amazing editor, and another fig was Europe and Africa and South America, and another fig was Constantin and Socrates and Attila and a pack of other lovers with queer names and offbeat professions, and another fig was an Olympic lady crew champion, and beyond and above these figs were many more figs I couldn't quite make out.  I saw myself sitting in the crotch of this fig tree, starving to death, just because I couldn't make up my mind which of the figs I would choose.  I wanted each and every one of them, but choosing one meant losing all the rest, and, as I sat there, unable to decide, the figs began to wrinkle and go black, and, one by one, they plopped to the ground at my feet." 

Easter

Easter is my second favorite holiday. I'm not ready for it to be over. There are some parts of it I find weird or not that fun (dyeing eggs, for instance - messy and smelly and showcasing my uncreativeness). There are other aspects I don't think I'll ever get over - I love the bright, happy colors, eating a different sort of meal with the family, and my absolute favorite part of Easter - the egg hunt.

I know, I know - I'm 23 years old. I shouldn't love egg hunts as much as I do. As David says, Heathers are particularly good finders - other than that, I can't really explain why I love it so much. We have our first hunt of Easter at Steve and Debbi's - they hide the goods while the "kids" (26, 23, 22, 22?, and 16, respectively) wait in the basement. Each egg has a dollar - sometimes, they hide larger eggs with two dollars. And we all compare at the end to see who got the most. This year, Nicole cleaned up, but I got the last elusive egg (which is really all that matters, right?). Then I stopped at the store on the way home last night (and felt really guilty for doing so - I don't want to encourage stores to stay open on Easter! - but it was an emereggcy) to stock up for my egg hunt with David. Instead of dollars, we put love notes in them (he doesn't want to spend our money getting me all glittered up for Easter). He'll have to think up quite a few reasons why he loves me this year - I got 48 eggs.

I'm sure lots of people get that sad sort of feeling when Christmas is all over and you have to pack up the wrapping paper and take down the lights. I'm not so sure many feel that way about Easter. In the meantime, I'm thinking up ways to integrate egg hunts into the rest of the holidays. Maybe I'll hide the fireworks over the 4th.

Tattoo

I got a new tattoo a few months ago. It's my third tattoo, but my first that's almost always visible (it's on my forearm). It says "I fear no fate for you are my fate," which is from a poem by e.e. cummings (it's also my blog! What a strange coincidence). I planned this particular tattoo for over a year before I got it, and I'm really happy with it. The only thing that I wish I'd known before I got it was how often people would comment on it. This blog is partially to let off some air, partially to share my amusement at what people will say without realizing how awkward it is, and potentially to educate someone about tattoo etiquette.

I frequently cashier by myself at work, which is usually fine, but sometimes makes me sad. One guy caught me by myself one morning right after we had opened, saw my tattoo, barked "Why did you do that to your arm?", and started lecturing me about how I was going to hell for desecrating God's temple and my satanic peer group. That's awkward for anyone, but especially so because I was at work and didn't feel comfortable telling him to back off. I'm sure my tattoo wasn't the only reason he felt he could talk to me like that - I'm young, he was older; I'm a woman, he's a man; and I wasn't in a position of authority (I'm sure he wouldn't have said that to a manager). That's definitely the most awkward and hostile situation I've been in yet, and I don't think there's any way I could have been forewarned to expect stuff like that. So weird. 

Other favorite comments about my tattoo have been:
"It gives the reader too much power." (Said to me after he requested to read the tattoo - so I shouldn't have let him per his own comment? I don't know.)

"I really like that - it looks like you wrote it on there yourself!" (Trust me, my handwriting is not this good.)

"And did you find your fate?" (When I briefly explained that it was self-empowering and also for my husband, she literally shrugged her shoulders and walked away.)

And now to the etiquette. "I'm sure you'll be tired of that in fifty years!" I don't get my tattoos on a whim. You're not calling my attention to anything I haven't already considered. I get my tattoos because they mean something to me and because it makes me happy when I see them. That's enough. It's rude to tell someone else that they'll regret something that is obviously their choice and permanent.

"How do you expect to get a job with that?" Yes. Someone said this to me. While I was at work. As far as I know, having ink etched into my skin hasn't affected my capabilities or intelligence, but I'll keep an open mind.

Most importantly, please don't grab my arm when you see I have a tattoo so you can read it. I mean - really? Does it really need to be said?

I know that tattoos are still taboo for some generations, and that's fine. There are definitely some choices that people make about their physical appearance that I myself would not do (like wear leggings as pants. I would be so cold!). But I am willing to keep my judgments to myself (or, ahem, my blog) and would never walk up to someone and berate them for how they look. That's just weird. I'm sure none of my blog-reading constituency would do that, but now I have others who can appreciate the strange comments I get working retail.

Moxie & Co.

Debbi and Steve recently got a puppy of their very own - Maya, a Boxer/Golden Retriever mix. Don't google that to see what she looks like - she looks like very few of those dogs. She darts in and out of a video I posted a few blogs back if you're that curious. Anyway, we went with Steve and Debbi to visit Maya while she was still living with her mom and littermates. It was really interesting (for me) to compare her with her brothers, and it made me wonder what Moxie behaved like with the two brothers she has who were already adopted by the time we became interested in her. (Maya was significantly cuddlier than her brothers and also looked to Debbi and Steve to protect her if anything was scary, which was adorable. Now she is still pretty cute, but we can't wait to see how she and Moxie will play when she is Moxie's size or bigger instead of 1/5 of her size.) 

I sleuthed around a bit until I found their old petfinder links. We didn't know anything about them except that they were bigger and looked a little more like Newfoundlands than our girl - I must say, after seeing their pictures, both those claims have me skeptical. Here's Adam and Andy (and Moxie for reference). They're so cute and fluffy! I emailed the shelter to see if they could give me the contact information for the people who adopted Moxie's brothers, so we'll see how that goes. I'm curious to know if they are that much bigger than Moxie now that they're almost full sized (Moxie IS full sized, we think) - if they have similar personalities - and if they're also terrified of random household objects like trash bags and hampers.

Also, I can't help but wonder if the pups were named for April and Andy from Parks and Recreation - Adam Scott is also in that show, so maybe they went for the alliteration instead of the pattern? Kind of a stretch, but I love that show, and that would make Moxie even more awesomesauce.

Oscar night

I know the Oscars were several nights ago, but I'm pretty sure nobody expects live blogging from me (because I usually forget I have a blog).

Before I actually get into the Oscars, let me say this - it is one of my favorite things when David drives me to work. I think it's a holdover from when he drove me everywhere because I was am terrified of driving stick. Now I am genuinely surprised every time he says something like "No, Heather. Stop asking. I am never taking you to work because it is a ridiculous waste of my time. You're an adult! Adults do things like this!" Anyway, he did drive me to work (yaaaay!) on Oscar Sunday because I had a low-air tire on my car. I was thrilled - and extra surprised when he told me after my extra long shift that he had planned a little Oscar party for us, complete with a stop at Sheetz for snacks, little voting sheets, and champagne.

That's already really nice, but you have to know something about David to fully appreciate this - he knows absolutely nothing about celebrities. He was shocked to learn that Rachel from Friends was once married to Brad Pitt. But he knows that I know a little about celebrities and am pretty good at recognizing them in weird roles, and being as good-spirited as he is, he tries to play along (resulting in his guessing that Jennifer Lawrence starred as Eponine in Les Mis). So it was especially nice for him to devote an entire night to watch a show based on people he doesn't know, like when I watch election night. 

It's not entirely fair to say that I won the Oscars by predicting the most categories out of the two of us, because I think the only people he knew were Ben Affleck, George Clooney, Jennifer Lawrence (because I talk about her), and Bradley Cooper (because I pointed out that he was in Wedding Crashers). Still, it was a really fun night and demonstrates one of the things I love best about David - we have fun hanging out together even when one of us is totally out of their element.

Cookies and puppies - these are a few of my favorite things.

David loves to make sugar cookies and I love to eat them. It is almost a perfect combination except that he painstakingly decorates his - down to picking out particular colors from a sprinkle mixture - and I want to make them assembly line style to pump out as many as possible for eating. I tried to post a picture of my favorite cookie ever, an island themed one that Brian's girlfriend Nicole made, but blogger is having issues hacking my protected facebook (so just go there).

The point of all this is that David promised we could make cookies today (my day off!) and now he is blustering about there being a "mess." Little does he know there's going to be a mess if he doesn't make cookies - his face after receiving several blows from my (ringed!) fist. And there's the REAL reason I picked out this wedding ring - maximum pain.

Moxie has mostly stopped growing, topping out at 52 pounds. She is a very nice size - I can still (pretty) easily carry her and fashion her into a lapdog. We did buy her a slightly too large collar, having assumed her neck would get even thicker and fluffier than it already is, but that's ok - now the Maneses puppy Maya can dangle off the extra collar material in a particularly adorable way. Apparently there are no pictures of this, which must be rectified immediately. Here's a video of them playing to bide your time.