cindy's world

This morning, I made turkey curry, wrapped spoonfuls in croissant rolls, and baked curry croissants while Mr. W played a game on his computer.
(rest mouse pointers over photos for captions)
First, chopped onions are sauteed with ground turkey. Then curry is dissolved in hot water and stirred into the mixture, and simmered.

Then spoonfuls of the turkey curry are rolled into the croissant dough.

Then the croissants are ready for the oven, which has been pre-heated at 375 degrees F.

15-20 minutes later.

Really. Who needs an actual camera anymore when the cameraphone is easier to grab, click, and load? I just take my 2gig card out of my camera, stick it in the computer, and here are the photos.

After I was done baking 4 pans of the stuff, he was still playing his game, so I got bored and fell asleep in the La-Z-Boy next to him. Then I woke up, he was still playing his game, I complained once again about being bored, and as nothing came of it, I fell asleep yet again. The next time I woke up I was totally stir-crazy so I went upstairs and got dressed to go to the gym. When Mr. W saw me about to leave, he suddenly decided he wanted to go work out, too. But in the garage he somehow convinced me to take a bike ride first.

Turns out, we’re a 2.5 mile scenic bike ride from Cook’s Corner! I was too exhausted by the time we got there (hills, man) to enjoy it, and I also didn’t want all the bikers to snivel at our idea of “biking”, so I declined Mr. W’s offer to drop in for a drink. Instead, I chugged from the water bottle I had on the bike and we went back home.

We’re going to the gym next, because this morning Mr. W realized we don’t have hot water. As in, when you turn the hot water portion of the faucet, nothing comes out. Cold water runs fine, tho. Weird. The plumber for our home warranty isn’t available till Monday, tho, so that means showers will be taken at the gym. Yay. This reminds me of when Diana and I didn’t have hot water at our senior year apartment one day because the building was working on the boiler, so to get ready for our morning class, we brought our toiletries and went to a restroom in a building on campus. While brushing our teeth, she paused and looked at me through the mirror and said, “I feel like we’re homeless.”

Last nite’s dinner: Caramelized Onion and Mixed Wild Mushroom Soup with Blue Cheese Toasts

If this doesn’t look appetizing, blame my cell phone cameraphone. But it was crazy-savory! I used 6 hand-picked wild mushrooms: shiitake, black, oyster, wild boletus, and porcini wild fungi! I also finally got to use my cooking rice wine. The toasts are made from broiling sliced fresh French bread with gorgonzola cheese on top, a little sage sprinkled atop the cheese (after broiling so it doesn’t burn; I had to stop Mr. W from sprinkling prematurely, trying to be helpful).

I am slowly learning that making dinner for 2 is not enough to feed the husband. So today’s project: curry turkey croissant rolls. I’m making 32.

Mr. W and I went to take care of some business with our rental property manager Tom on Tuesday after work. We somehow got on the topic of being unfairly pulled over by the police, and Tom told us that when his son was 17, the son had borrowed the grandparents’ van, picked up some friends, and went to a local 18+ club. His son is the very responsible sort and always returned home before his midnight weekend curfew. This day, however, it was about 1:30 a.m. when Tom was woken up by his worried wife. The son hadn’t come home. As this was before the age of the ubiquitous cell phone, the parents made phone calls to each of the son’s friends’ homes, only learn from other frantic parents that none of those kids had returned home, either. So now at 2 a.m., our manager was out trolling the streets, even passing another of the kids’ fathers doing the same thing. Not seeing any accidents or oddities, Tom returned home at 2:30 a.m. to see that the van was now in the driveway and the son was inside talking to his mother.

Turned out that as soon as the son drove out of the club’s parking lot, they were pulled over by local sheriffs who, without telling the kids what they did wrong, had all of them out, searched, sat them on the curb, and then searched the van. Eventually, not finding anything, the sheriffs allowed the kids back in the van to go home. Tom was furious at this violation of the kids’ civil rights and drove his son over to the sheriff’s station the next morning. He ranted and raved to the sergeant in charge, saying that the officer did not have good cause to pull over the kids but did so anyway and detained them for hours for nothing. The sergeant called in the sheriff who pulled the kids over, and the sheriff explained that it’s often the case that when kids come out of that club, they have just purchased or sold drugs, and that the pull-over was to make sure that the kids in the van were not hiding drugs. There was still the civil liberty, no-good-cause stop issue, so Tom demanded a written apology from the sheriff to each of the kids who were in the van, saying these were good kids who don’t do drugs and don’t even drink. And the sheriff did it. Tom was obviously a hero to the other parents, until the next day.

The next day, before returning the van to his own parents, Tom decided to wash and clean the vehicle. He stuck the vacuum hose extension into one of the handle slots in the back, and heard a clink. Reaching in, to his utter horror, he pulled out a glass marijuana pipe.

This time, he was furious at his son and drove immediately to the son’s friend’s house, where they were hanging out. The son and his friend had no idea the pipe was in there, but they speculated that it must’ve been a particular kid who’s the friend of another friend they’d invited along, and described where in the van the kid sat. That was indeed where Tom found the pipe, although he never told that to the boys. (Tom also knew that if his son had known about the drug paraphernalia, he never would’ve let Tom clean the car.) Tom said that because this discovery made him an ass for going to the cops demanding apologies for something the kids actually WERE guilty of, he was now going to rectify the situation by bringing the kids to the police station to MAKE an apology. None of the other kids would go, but Tom’s son went, scared the whole time he was going to get arrested. Tom reassured his son that nothing bad would happen to him, but that for the sake of decency, morality, and fairness, this had to be done.

The son went to the same sergeant, explained about the pipe and how he had no idea it was there, that it didn’t belong to him or his friends, and that had he known of its existence, he would never have allowed that acquaintance kid into his car. He swore up and down he would be more careful with his company and that this would never happen again. And he gave a written apology to the sheriff who’d pulled them over, whom they’d made write apologies to the other kids. And Tom’s kid didn’t get in trouble.

As I was listening to this story unfold, when Tom got to the part about how he found the pipe, my immediate mental reaction was, “Whew, that was close! Good thing the cops didn’t find that, and how funny/ironic that they had just made the cop apologize for something he was right about! They got lucky!” So of course I was shocked that although I had thought how great it was they’d gotten away with it, Tom did not let his kid get away with it. I said incredulously, “You made him go back and tell the police what you found, even tho you guys were done scott free and going back made you look like an ass?”
He was like, *blink blink*, “Of COURSE! What kind of parent would I be, what kind of example would I be setting, if I made the sheriff do something for the sake of righteousness and apologize, and when the shoe’s on the other foot, I don’t do the same thing on the other end?!”

I’d like to think that although I fantasize about doing wrong things more often than I’d like to admit, that when it really came to decision/action time, I would normally take the high road. But now I don’t know what to think of myself that my instantaneous reaction was to sheepishly skulk off knowing I’d narrowly gotten away with something. Maybe I’d be an unfit parent.

It was 95 degrees Fahrenheit at home today, and triple digits in the previous hometown. Ah, autumns in Southern California. Hot days like this remind me of an email I’d received in college from an advertising ex-coworker who’d transferred to Cal. He wrote of the warming of the weather, his excitement in sensing the approach of summer, and then, “You know what it means when it gets hot, don’t you? The girls, man, the girls. They wear less.”

I was sore before I even worked out at lunch today. It dawned on me that the tight muscles are due to the furniture rearrangement Mr. W and I did last night. His son moved in on Sunday night, so we cleared out the downstairs bedroom which had been serving as a computer room, and hauled a giant solid oak desk from the garage into the dining room. We put the desktop computer on this heavy desk in the dining room, then changed the dining room into a sitting room/den. We then arranged the dining room furniture in a diagonal in the previous den, which was intended to be a breakfast nook anyway. Dodo walked downstairs after the two rooms were rearranged, and inspected the new nooks, crannies and hideouts. He seemed to approve.

Speaking of Dodo, Mr. W has already spoiled him. Because of the warm weather, Mr. W had taken to popping a few ice cubes into Dodo’s water bowl. Dodo loves this and will lap at the water and ice for 10 minutes, not even coming up for air. And now, Dodo will yowl, lead you to the water bowl, look discontentedly at it and then up at you, and yowl again, demanding ice. It’s gotten so Dodo won’t even drink tepid water anymore. He’ll probably break from this habit in the winter, and forget about the ice until Mr. W spoils him again next summer.

It struck me as odd that moving furniture around for half an hour could make me more sore than I had been weight lifting at the gym. And then I realized that sustaining heavy furniture in an elevated and balanced position while moving is way more taxing on my strength than the few weights I’d use at the gym, because when I drop the furniture, I’m completely spent, whereas at the gym, the weights I use are “light” enough that I could do a full range of motion with them for 10-15 reps. No wonder people lose weight when they’re moving, leaving drops of sweat stains on furniture and floors.

My poor tenants are moving into my house this week. Mr. W and I stopped by today to give them mail keys, and they had A/C on full blast. It must’ve been torturous straining and sweating moving heavy furniture in 105-degree weather.

This Saturday, I went to a Garden potluck hosted by a retired coworker. (I made a spinach veggie dip and brought Ritz crackers.) It was nice to catch up with my coworkers, old coworkers, and make new friends. These are the new friends:

This is TK. As a skinny stray, he’d wandered by the house when the hostess was nursing her ailing husband, and the two decided to keep him because all he wanted to do was cuddle with the husband and purr their worries away. TK walks around the house purring, kinda reminds me of Dodo.

When I opened the door to exit the bathroom, TK was waiting for me on the other side. I’ve never seen a 20-lb cat leap straight up in the air so gracefully, but that’s how he ended up on the sink, urging me to give him a drink with the faucet. So I did.

I forgot this big boy Himalayan’s name, but he was a sleepyhead. He’s also at least 20 lbs.

At the end of the evening, he looked up.

He wasn’t as crabby as he looked. I think.

The hostess’s gorgeous fairlyland back yard was full of planters that depicted fairy scenes, like this:

All her fairies had pets, like bunnies and deer and kitties. Some of them were fishing in a pond, others had friends, like the girl fairy above with the boy pixie looking in. I don’t know why the garden photos turned out so blue. All these photos were taken with my new enV2 cameraphone, maybe I haven’t figured out the setting quirks yet.

Today’s “lawyer joke of the day” that my judge put on my desk could’ve been a page out of a certain somebody’s certain psycho ex’s personal handbook. I’ve certainly been on the receiving end of such sophomoric behavior:
“At one time there was not only an etiquette of greeting people but also an etiquette of not greeting them. This ranged in degree from the coldly formal bow to the ‘cut direct.’ The cut direct was delivered by looking right at a person and not acknowledging his acquaintance or even his existence. This is no longer done. It has been replaced by the lawsuit.
-P.J. O’Rourke”

I have been text-messaging and checking internet sites through my Verizon Wireless phone in my courtroom. YAY! I don’t have great reception all the time, but it’s 100% better than what AT&T Mobility was giving me. It’s still a pain in the butt to do much typing or web surfing through a text cell phone, so I still leave much of the emailing, blogging, etc. for my home laptop, on which I have learned to truly appreciate the use of a mouse.

After work Mr. W and I went to Costco, where he was stopped by some guy demonstrating and selling his company’s vitamin energy drink. It’s in powdered form contained in cool little portable vials, and you simply pour the premeasured powder into a bottle of water, shake it up, and it supposedly replaces your daily multivitamin as well as your semi-toxic energy drink. It’s a cool concept; too bad the young sales guy was an ass to me. There was already an older white lady in front of him he was talking to about the product, then he got Mr. W to stop. And so I wandered by, joined him, watched the lady and Mr. W get handed drink samples in a little cup as the sales guy talked up his product some more, all the time totally ignoring me. He then opens up another flavor and pours the powdered contents into an entire bottle of cold water, giving a bottle to the lady and to Mr. W. By this time other people had walked by, all of whom received samples and if they like it, he does a full bottle for them. I got annoyed and tried to walk off a few times but Mr. W wasn’t following so I always ended up around the table again. The guy started citing some recent study done by UCLA about sugars and energy drinks or something; I was likely the only person within a 20-foot radius of the table who even went to UCLA. Mr. W didn’t end up buying the stuff, but he also noticed that I had been totally ignored. He brought it up in the car by asking, “Do you think it was racism? Or what was it?” I dunno. But I do know that I can still stand by Mr. W and have people confused about who I am to him, or flirt with him in front of me, thinking he’s alone.

I’ve taken advantage of some of these racist assumptions. I usually don’t get mistreated or anything, people just don’t automatically register that we’re together the way they do when he’s with a white woman, especially one closer to his age. For example, our Lake is private gated residents-only access. We both have a photo-ID card. Guests may enter with a resident, but are supposed to pay $2 per guest. Mr. W had driven up with his white friends before, flashed his Lake ID and been waved through. When he’s with me, if they look in the car, they’ve nodded at his ID and then asked if I had membership as well, so that I have to show my ID also. Well, last weekend we had enough friends over for a lake and boating outing that we had to take 2 cars to the Lake. I did it the easiest way possible to not have to pay: I had Mr. W drive his car with a carload of his white friends, and I sat in another car with his Korean neighbor and Gym Trainee (who’s black). After flashing his Lake ID, Mr. W was waved in with his carload sans question, as I knew he would be because the gatekeeper assumed everyone was family in the car, and when we were stopped, I waved my Lake ID, predicted correctly that the gatekeeper assumed Mr. W’s neighbor is my husband or some other relation, and he simply asked, seeing Gym Trainee in the back, how many guests are with us today to not sound TOO presumptuous. I lied and said one, so we only paid $2 and got 6 guests in.

Maybe I shouldn’t be admitting this publicly. But karmically, it rounds out. I get ignored and not offered energy drinks, my friends get free entry for the day to our Lake. We’ve certainly paid enough guests entries for half-hour strolls to have earned some free entries, anyway.

A normal and pretty girl, much like you and me (:P) if you happen to be a girl, made her choices of what men to date and what men to turn down as she went through life. In her early 30s, she finally settled on a nice, stable man and married him. They had a normal life, a nice house, a couple of kids, and every time someone asked her how life was, she shrugged and said “Fine.” Because it was.

One day, a magical woodland creature popped out of this girl’s morning smoothie, shook the frosty berry goo off her shimmering wings, and said, “Thanks for releasing me from this smoothie! I’ve been stuck here for awhile, I really shouldn’t have fallen asleep inside that banana. To thank you, I’m going to satisfy your curiosity. Was there any what-ifs you’d ever wondered about your life? Tell me one and I’ll show you the alternate reality of that what-if.”

The girl knew exactly what she wanted to see. There was a guy she’d considered dating before she’d met her husband, but had ultimately decided not to date him because at the time, it didn’t seem like they were on the same track. He was attractive and she was certainly attracted to him, they found each other to be fabulous company, but it just seemed like they wanted different things out of life. So looking at long-terms, she had reluctantly turned him down after getting to know him a little better. “I want to see what my life would’ve been like, if I had dated him,” she told the magical sprite.

With a wave and twist of a magical wand, shimmers appeared and faded as the girl saw herself years ago as if she were watching a high-definition plasma television screen. She watched herself laugh and play with the guy, watched them share serious and silly things with each other, attend sophisticated grande operas and jog through nature. It was the relationship she’d always wanted, and it was a relationship she didn’t have with her husband. And then, much as she’d been afraid would happen back when she made the difficult decision to not date this man, she watched the relationship end in the enchanted projection. He didn’t crush her heart, she didn’t cheat on him, they didn’t stop getting along. Their paths just diverged, much as she knew they would. Their ships had passed each other in the night after a relatively brief but perfect interlude. The girl watched herself then meet her husband, get married, and have the exact same kids she has now.

“You look sad,” the sprite observed with concern as the girl looked up from the fading projection and impatiently brushed a tear from her cheek. “Your life is in the same place now as it would’ve been if you had dated that other man. Is that not reason for relief?”

“Even so, I feel like I’ve lost something,” the girl sighed. “Even if there could never have been a future with him, I almost wish I hadn’t known of that perfect relationship.”

“Your people have a saying, that ’tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.’ At birth, you are given a string, and each of your experiences is a pearl or another precious stone to add onto that string. The totality of it is the valuable necklace you get to wear proudly as you age. All of your people’s necklaces are different, and they all uniquely identify you as who you are. But you look so sad that I can give you another alternate reality if you’d like. I can put you back to before you saw all of this, and you would have never known. Would you like me to take this pearl back?”

What would you do?

“OR…” the sprite interrupted with a glint in her eye, “OR…I can go farther back in the alternate reality and GIVE YOU that relationship with that other man. You know how it’ll end up, but you can experience it yourself. Would you like that pearl?”

Would you?

[written at 3:50p today at work, emailed to myself to post at home]

My judge is driving his son to UC Davis this weekend, so since he took the day off, I was floated to another courtroom that’s doing a civil jury trial. As I am so interested in this root-canal-gone-wrong dental medical malpractice lawsuit, I am simultaneously reading a magazine. And I JUST learned…

* Eating 5 servings of fruits and veggies a day, being active, not smoking, and drinking in moderation could add 14 years to your life, according to a new British study. Even just exercise helps a lot; a recent study by the Nat’l Cancer Institute found that older people who got at least 30 mins of moderate exercise most days of the week were less likely to die over the next 7 years than those who didn’t.

* A plain large soft pretzel with a little cup of cheese sauce (like the kinds you get at the movies) is 610 calories, and has 15 grams of fat. This is the SAME CALORIE AND FAT CONTENT as having a hot dog on a bun with a packet of mustard plus a 2-oz serving of cotton candy plus a 12-oz draft beer! How many girls, thinking they’re being good, would do the former and shake their heads at their men who pick the latter?

* My gym trainee is a genius, as you can see from the following email exchange:
Me: “There is, like, nothing to do here except eat chocolate.”
Gym Trainee: “should I come get the chocolate? I’ll just tell you a little story instead. Once upon a time the person who placed that bowl of chocolate on that desk was small. Then one day they realized that their clothes didn’t fit. So the person decide well what the hey they make bigger clothes. The End.”
Me: “oh.my.gawd. I’m gonna eat my apple now. =P”
[Cuz we know whose seat I’m filling in here, and small and pleasant would not be adjectives to describe her.]
Gym Trainee: “I was gonna remove the bowl but I figured the story would be effective. That and tell you your goal is to prove all the people who think you are gonna sit around and get fat and let yourself go wrong. As your friend it’s my job to help you.”
[Proving people wrong; something else I love to do.]

* It’s a good idea to make a list of non-food stress-busters, and resort to something on that list to do instead of eat, if you’re a stress-eater. My gym trainee told me at lunch that she used to keep a coloring book and crayons in her drawer. It was soothing to sit and color a page if she’s angry or stressed, and she also said that if she had to draw her own pictures to color, she’d be taken away to the psychologist, so the coloring book worked well for her. Some other examples: reading, hugging your dog/cat, a chair massage at the nail salon, and for me, blogging, emailing my friends, and playing a round of Bejeweled. Right before you go for the food, ask yourself, “Am I actually, physically hungry? Or just bored/stressed?”

* Apparently the big fashion trend this summer was “anything Asian.” Well then my bridesmaids were just right en vogue! Yay, me!

* A wedding speech by a man of the cloth could be inappropriate, as relayed by one wedding guest:
“During my friend’s ceremony, the priest explained that a man has to love himself before he can love a woman. ‘That’s why I can’t take a 5-minute shower,’ he said. ‘I’m a 20-minute man. And when I’m towel-drying my smooth, chocolate skin, I look in the mirror and I ask, Can anyone resist me? And the answer is no. No, they can’t.’ ”

* A wedding toast by the groom could be funny as relayed by another wedding guest:
“The groom stood up and announced, ‘The bride is now off the market, and if anyone has the keys to her place, now’s the time to hand them over.’ Then he put a bowl in the middle of the floor, and all the men started coming up and tossing keys into it. Obviously he had prearranged it, but it was still hilarious.”

* A wedding toast by the father of the bride could be touching, as told by this relative:
“My uncle said to his son, ‘When I came to this country as an immigrant, I wanted to give you a better life than I had. And I know today that the woman you’ve found is going to do that.’ ” Awww.

You can learn a lot sitting through a trial.

I caved and bought the new LG enV2 (in maroon) after switching to Verizon Wireless. Having been a loyal and avid Nokia fan for the last, like, 5 cell phones, I was leery about different organizational layouts of other phone brands. LG is a relatively new company to enter into the cell phone market. This is also the first time I’ve changed cell phone companies since my first phone in 1995, although in the interim my LA Cellular service was taken over by AT&T Cellular Services, then by Cingular Wireless, and now by AT&T Mobility. But I just get too many dropped calls and dead zones with AT&T Mobility to stay loyal anymore.

So far I’ve been impressed with Verizon Wireless phone service. I got the premium package cuz what’s the point of getting a texting, internet-capable phone without getting unlimited texting and internet? I didn’t realize it also came with an excellent roadside navigation program that incorporates traffic conditions. We were considering buying a portable navigation, because having the navigation in both our cars have made us kind of, well, street-dumb. I now can no longer imagine traveling to unknown parts and getting around without a navigational crutch. I’ve heard that AT&T Mobility covers a wider area than Verizon Wireless, so now when we travel, I guess we’ll have the benefit of both since Mr. W hasn’t switched out of AT&T.

I do have several complaints about the LG phone format, though. It surprises me that for such an integrated phone, the address book doesn’t let you enter addresses or notes. It only takes phone numbers and email addresses. No websites, no extension numbers, contact names, street addresses. That kinda sucked, cuz I didn’t want to lose so much contact information. It also only allows 10 contacts per Group. What if I have more than 10 people belonging to a Group? Too bad. I guess most people don’t have contact numbers for more than 10 coworkers, friends, family members, business affiliates…? Oddly, it also doesn’t allow a group ring tone. My complaint with Nokia before was that it wouldn’t allow individual ring tones, only Group ring tones, but then I simply created a group with just 1 name in it. Mr. W was in a group all by himself called “The Man.” And his ringtone was Mariah Carey’s “Always Be My Baby.” (Which I realized after putting it in place, that the lyrics were kinda stalker-ish, but oh well.) Another odd thing is that the instruction manual does not explain what the various symbol displays on the screens mean. The phone itself has an Icon Glossary you can bring up, but it tells you things like, the icon of the antenna with EV next to it with reception bars is “EVDO” and the antenna with a 1X next to it with reception bars is “1X”, and S is “SSL”. Well what the hell is EVDO and 1X and SSL?

The biggest downfall with the LG phone that I’ve discovered so far, though, is that there is no ringing profiles that I can set. This was very important to me in the Nokias. I had a “Meeting” profile that I’d put the phone on when I’m at work (which I hardly used because I didn’t have reception) or when I wanted to be discreet but still be notified when I get an incoming call, so calls would beep once and the phone would light up. I had an “Outdoor” profile that I’d use when I’m in loud places, and the phone would ring especially loudly and vibrate when I’d get a call. My “Normal” profile rang increasingly more loudly until I heard it picked it up. This LG only has the “Normal Mode” with sound at a volume you set manually to impose over all ringtones, and a “Vibrate Mode” to turn off all sound. The switch between the two is an easy 1-button operation, but I’d like other options.

I think the extra Verizon features override the LG programming shortcomings, though. I had just finished manually entering all the contacts from my Nokia into the LG, draining half the battery of both phones for the constant light-on, and I’ll have to invest more time in organizing and dividing up my Groups and assigning ring tones to each individual contact. Maybe that’s something to do tomorrow while I lay on the white sand of the Lake.

Gravity is especially strong for me today. I had a hard time getting out of bed and had to be re-woken a second time by Mr. W. I oozed over to the bathroom, brushed my teeth, washed my face, popped in my contacts, then oozed back over to the bed, where I was again pulled into horizontal position for about 10, 15 minutes. Finally, fearful of Mr. W’s reaction if he happened to come upstairs again to see me still in bed, while I try to explain to him that I’m not STILL in bed, I’m AGAIN in bed, which is probably equally alarming to him, I oozed over to the closet and picked out work clothes. Zomboid, I trudged downstairs and sank into a chair while Mr. W handed me a plate of tomato and jalapeno hummus omelet. From there, how I got to the car was a blur.

Then shortly before leaving for work, Mr. W trotted over to the side of the house and returned to the car, where I sat waiting for him, with a little white rose bud from our yard. It woke me up a little, because when I poked around inside the rose petal and peeked in, about to shove my nose in there and inhale, I saw a fat green worm curled up inside snoozing away. I did the ew ew, gag gag thing and Mr. W snatched the rose from my hand, stuck his fingers into it, and pulled the worm out. Then he opened his side of the car door and deposited the worm on the street. So I did the ew ew, gag gag thing AGAIN cuz now he TOUCHED it. He returned the rose to me and I gingerly and suspiciously moved around other petals, and saw another greenish grayish blob that resembled a tiny shell-less oyster. I decided I had enough of the rose even after Mr. W once again dug out the gray matter and flicked it out the car, so he put the rose into his cup holder instead. I know, I know, that’s gratitude for a guy trying to be romantic with his newlywed wife.

Gravity took over again, so instead of resisting, I lowered the car seat back all the way and went to sleep. After Mr. W went to work, I had the car to myself and instead of going to work myself, I instead lowered the car seat AGAIN and napped in the parking structure outside the courthouse for another 40 minutes.

But I DID have enough presence of mind to call both Dwaine AND Andrae to wish them a HAPPY BIRTHDAY! As usual, crazybusy Dwaine didn’t pick up his cell phone, but Andrae picked up and after I pretended like I was all awake and chirpy and stuff in calling him on his special day, he said, “You are a sweetheart! I can’t do stuff like this. The only birthday I ever remember is Dwaine’s.” I wish I had a twin so I could make twin jokes like that. Hippo Birdie, Dwaine and Andrae! You’re now MY AGE! MUHAHAHAHAHA!!!