23 Going on 26

So not once, but twice in the same week, Seth has referred to me as being 26. The first time was when he had taken some pictures of the staff at work, and I was busy dissing myself in my picture cuz that's what I do (I can't resist the chance to release some self-loathing into the world). Anyway, as a way of comforting me (or at least shutting me up) about a certain feature I was most repulsed by, Seth said "Oh, don't worry, everyone over 26 has that." I paused a moment. "I'm 23, you know." Then, yesterday at lunch he did it again. That's right, way after I clarified the whole I'm three years younger than that thing. He says it's because Brandon and I hang out with a lot of older people (it's true; most of our friends are 30+) and y'know. We're married and stuff. He claimed it has nothing to do with how I look, which I believe. Here's why.

On the plane en route to lovely California after visiting Alabama for my sister's wedding in May, I struck up a conversation with a girl sitting next to me. "So what high school do you go to?" she asked. I paused. Blinked a few times, and explained that I'm in college. And married. And flattered in an odd way, because I'm probably going to be in college for a looong time, and it would be beneficial to not stand out as the token geezer in my classes.

I don't think I look like a teenager, and I don't really think I look 26 (not like the three year difference matters anyway). Since most people their age don't look their age anyway out here, I'm not too worried about it. I've met mothers who honestly look maybe a couple years older than their 20-year-old daughters. Once I get to be old and wrinkly and actually need to dye my hair, maybe I'll worry about it more.

98 Degrees

But it feels like 97. Seriously, it's hot. I wonder if the good Lord is giving us this kind of weather to prepare me and Brandon for the heat we will soon endure in "Hotlanta GA." I love that name, Hotlanta. It sounds like something a creepy uncle would say. But see, the heat will be far more unbearable because we'll also have humidity. Actual humidity that you can cut with a butter knife. Indeed, it will be like living in a big bowl of humidity soup, garnished with mosquitos and ants.

But I'm actually very excited about moving, and finding out what it'll be like when we get there. I'm going to miss California though, don't get me wrong. It's beautiful here. The beach, the mountains, the crusty desert. It's expensive, but it's really not so bad. Brandon and I have gotten along just fine. I love that it gets cool in the evenings and even though it can get hot, it's a dry heat. So it's like sticking your head in the oven rather than sticking your head right over a pot of boiling water.

We have the songs "Sweet Home Alabama" and "California Dreamin'" on our ipods. I guess the latter will hold more significance for Brandon when we move.

Say Your Prayers

We thought this was pretty funny, since it has dual meaning. What was your first thought: sweet reminder or scary command?

So I found myself adding two classes the other night. Until June 30, I'll be going to class every night of the week except Friday. I know, the classes will be over soon. But still. It's summer. One hopes to be slightly lazy.

I'm taking Career Exploration and something along the lines of college planning. They're both classes that are required to get my prestigious AA (just as most of my friends are polishing off their bachelors. But I'm taking a little longer what with working full time and being married. However, if you'd like to be my patron and give me lots of money for being such an excellent student and citizen, feel free). Besides, I've noticed that many of my peers who have their bachelors degrees are still doing jobs that people without degrees could do. So I'm hoping that somehow I'll be different.

Taking this career exploration class has, of course, gotten me thinking about what I really want to do. I have pretty reasonable desires for my future career. I want to get paid well for a job that I do well and not feel guilty about taking vacations. I figure that being a college counselor or college professor will eventually earn me those things (I know, you start off not making much but then you work there 50 years and ka-ching! Right in time for retirement). I would also like to be a writer. I really enjoy writing, and I figure if I have a job where I get a few months off out of the year, I would be able to do that. Plus I don't expect to make enough money as a writer to continue in this lavish lifestyle of living in an apartment, eating, and having clothes. For one thing, I'm not sure how great I'd be. I don't really feel any pressure writing here, because people know that I probably took ten minutes to do this, so it's not top quality. But it's quality. Like, medium maybe. On to something else.

I'm taking Math for Liberal Arts Majors beginning in early July. I'm not dreading this class terribly, because judging by the name, it's a math class for people who hate math. That's so me.

Two months until we move to the ATL. I'm starting to get excited. Perhaps, much like grief, there are steps to accepting the aspect of moving.

Step one: Joy. I'll get to see my family more often! I'll get to experience seasons! And maybe, just maybe, we can get a cat. Yaaaay cats!
Step two: Fear. Where will we work? Where will we live? CAN WE REALLY DO THIS?
Step three: Excitement. Yaaaay something new. Just two more months! And maybe I can get a cat!

Yeah, so that's what I've been up to. What about you?

I think "my printer is broken" is the new "my dog ate my homework."

The Great Coconut Project of 2006

What happens when Brandon and I go grocery shopping together? For one thing, we buy way more food than normal, because rather than just me running around, checking prices and worrying if peaches for $1.29 a pound are too expensive, there's Brandon as well, who's running around going "why don't we ever buy these prickly mango things? They're $6? Woah, no way." And he also says "Ooooh! Let's buy some salmon! And pineapple! And coconuts!" And I play mom a little by responding "Sure, let's get some fish. No, cake is bad. We're trying to be healthy. Why do you want a prickly mango?"

Anyway, we bought our first coconut. For one thing, the outside smelled like it had been buried a while. And OH MY GOSH IT WAS SOOO HARD TO CRACK OPEN. Seriously. So I thought I'd document it for your viewing pleasure. Oh but first, let me give you the instructions. Here's how it should have went down, according to some website:

1. Hold coconut over a bowl in one hand such that the "midriff" rests in the middle of your palm, with the tip on one end and the eyes on the other.
2. Whack the coconut with the back (that is to say the blunt side) of the cleaver a few times all around the center until it cracks open cleanly into two nearly equal halves. Make sure you use the blunt side of the cleaver.
3. Catch the juice in the bowl as it drains from the cracks.



Here's the coconut resting in one of my favorite mixing bowls. May it rest in peace... and in pieces.


And here's Brandon, posing before taking a swat. Notice he's not using a meat cleaver, because we don't have one. Believe me, it's not because we don't want one. We just never really thought of it, what with not being butchers. Oh, and the mountain lion calendar? We just have it because it was on sale, and normally we scrawl captions on the pages with a sharpie. We used to have a teddy bear calendar (one that a middle aged spinster lady would LOVE) and it was so much easier to mock.


Here's Brandon taking a swing. Goodbye, bowl.


Success! (By the way, his t-shirt says "totally fresh". Hee!)


Ah the taste of sweet victory. Except it was more watery than expected. And there were pieces of the outside of the coconut floating inside. And yeah, it was nothing like we expected. And if we were on a tropical island, we wouldn't waste our time on coconuts. Other castaways beware.

Wow, junkmail is getting creative. I was glancing over the spam folder (since my filter sometimes thinks emails from coworkers are spam) before emptying it, when I noticed an email that had the subject line "I'm so very angry about Wednesday." It was from Kathy Fields, which is a great name if you're going to come up with a fake one. If I worked at a large office I might think a coworker that I vaguely knew was emailing to vent about a meeting or something. But I noticed a pattern. Karla Ruffins said "I'm so sorry about Tuesday." Another email said "I'm worried about Thursday." They all used days of the week and hint of conflict. I'm pretty sure if they'd actually advise me of the latest enhancement pills or tell me how to get the best home mortgage had I actually opened them.

I suppose there is a possibility that Kathy Fields is so very angry about Wednesday. But it's good for her to work out conflict on her own. I'm helping her to grow.

The first time I met my brother-in-law, he probably thought I was rude. It was during my first visit to California in the spring of 2002. Brandon and I had just arrived at church and we were slightly late. So as we made our way toward the stairs through the crowd loitering outside, Brandon quickly introduced the people we passed. "And this is John." He said, gesturing to a guy in his late teens. "Hi, I'm Wendy." I said, and turned to continue inside, seeing as how I'd probably never remember him or anyone else I was introduced to that day (I'm horrible with names. And faces). Turned out, it was Sean, not John, and I am slightly deaf. He was also 14. So as you can see, it's not my fault that I had no idea this was Brandon's little brother.

Sean was slightly surprised that I was so aloof, as we'd talked on AIM numerous times and I knew him well enough to have gotten mad at him twice. Real quick, here's why: The first time was shortly after Brandon put up my first site, FizzyBlueSoda. On my links page I'd written a short description of each person I'd linked to. For Sean's, I'd written something along the lines of "He seems like he'd make a really cool younger brother." To which he said something like "that's not appropriate" since it sounded to him like I was saying "I'm totally going to marry Sean's brother because we are totally in love and stuff" and saying this at a time when the wounds of my ex-boyfriend had barely had time to heal wasn't cool. Of course, that's what I was saying, but since he offended me by saying the truth, I went ahead and changed it to something like "he smells". If you haven't noticed, if I can think of no other way to take a shot at a person, I resort to insulting their scent. It works, you know.

The second time was after a friend (who also chatted with Sean on AIM) came to me concerned about my safety. You see, Sean told her about how Brandon punched his sister once, which indicated that Brandon would probably be an abusive boyfriend. When I inquired about this incident, I found out that Brandon was 11 and his sister was 13 at the time. When my sister and I were that age, we did far worse things to one another (like that time she knocked down my door and held me down and spit on my face cuz she wanted to borrow $20 and I wanted 50% interest on it). For the record, Brandon has never beat me nor would he hurt a fly. If I'd been his sister or a classmate in elementary school, that may have been different, but as it stands I'm safe and unharmed.

So there you go. That's a little about my brother-in-law and our first meeting. I was reminded of this because he blogged on his old site recently. I believe it's the same site I linked way back when. And I was right in my description. He does make a really cool younger brother (in-law).

And he smells.

You know how salads at fast food restaurants generally cost the same amount as a normal meal that includes fries and a drink? I think I figured out why that is, other than the whole "only rich people deserve to eat healthy and be skinny" thing. If a girl gets a salad, (notice I didn't say "if a guy gets a salad," because no guys do unless their wives are glaring them down while ordering and saying "remember what the doctor said?") then she'll probably order a water with it, what with water being free and all. That way she pays as much as she would for a regular combo, and she's not messing up her diet with a soda. So it's sort of good. In a lame sort of way.

Since we're both out of school right now, Brandon and I have had a little more time in the evenings to spend together. Last night we made a 9 pm run to the grocery store. It reminded me of the first year we were married, before we both started back to school and things got incredibly busy, when we'd do everything together including grocery shopping. I still remember how weird it felt to shop by myself the first few times. I had to lift the 24 pack of water myself. The only thing worse was pumping my own gas.

When we were ready to check out Brandon stood in line while I ran to grab some bagels. There were only two check out counters open and both had atrocious lines. But there was something odd about the lines. The first one on the way back was nothing but women. The second, the one that Brandon had chosen, had nothing but men. I pointed that out to him with a laugh as we were leaving. Then the idea crossed my mind that perhaps the cashiers were attractive to each group. I glanced at the women's line. Yup, attractive male (but oh no, not nearly as attractive as my hot husband). I glanced back at the men's line to see an elderly lady cashier. So um, I guess my theory didn't hold up after all. Unless old women are making a comeback, which would be super.