Two weeks

I know, I know. It's been two weeks since I've posted, it's Friday, and I have nothing random to say. To keep you from yelling at me, I decided to distract you with a video of a kangaroo riding a unicycle. But then I couldn't find one. So, I'm going to post a few pictures of our recent trip to Hawaii instead.





I promise I'll write more about the trip later. Right now I'm so jetlagged I'd probably forget to tell you about all the good stuff.

Random Fridays

1. Do you ever wonder why you always see just one shoe on the side of the road? How do they get there? Do that many people chuck shoes out of car windows while driving down the road? And if so, why only one?

2. I think they should invent an ultrasound/doppler application for the iPhone. How cool would that be for pregnant women?

3. Have you ever sat on a beach and tried to wrap your mind around how many grains of sand there are on the planet? It makes my brain hurt when I think about it.

4. On a related matter, how do we know that no two snowflakes are alike? I really don't think anyone's actually analyzed every snowflake that's ever fallen and run it through some crazy snowflake database.

5. Some days I think the person who invented cubicles should be forced to wear underwear two sizes too small for the rest of his or her life.

That'll teach him to shoot at my house

We were enjoying a nice dinner last night when we heard what sounded like someone opening a champagne bottle in our living room. I got up and checked, but there were no rogue sommeliers in the house, and I saw nothing out of place. We went back to eating, and two minutes later there was a knock on our door.

Apparently our next door neighbor happened to look out his window at the exact right time and saw the neighbor punk from across the street shooting at our front door with a paintball gun.

Long story short, there were no parents or adults home; this 12 or 13 year old was home alone with his much younger sister. We made him wash off the paint, called the neighborhood mall cop (who was at least 18 himself - glad our HOA dues are going to good use!) and I put the fear of god into him about playing with guns of any type.

The good news is he was a horrible shot and missed our dormer window three times. The even better news is he seemed contrite, and promised me he would never handle a gun again without adult supervision. Who knows if he was telling me the truth, but if our little adventure with him prevented a serious gun-related accident in the future, it was worth it.

Now we just wait and see if the father responds to the note J left for him. The only other time we've talked to him was the day he moved in and backed into our friend's car. It's a beautiful day in the neighborhood!

Five years

Five years. Long or short? In five years a child can go from a squeaking newborn to a well-spoken kindergartner who reads and counts. A cherry tree can grow twenty feet. A five-year old gerbil is positively ancient.

Tomorrow, my marriage will be five years old. Some days it feels like we're newlyweds. Some days it feels like I've known him my whole life. Every day I'm thankful for him and that we found each other.

We won't go out for a fancy dinner, or spend the night in a swanky hotel on the beach. It's opening night at my husband's theatre, you see, which means he has to work. The good news is, I can be there with him. I know it's not the most romantic way to spend an anniversary, but it works for us. And honestly, it's kind of fitting. We met through the theatre, after all, six years ago Saturday.

Don't tell him, but I'm thinking about sneaking in a bottle of champagne.

J, baby, I love you. Happy anniversary!

So much for second opinions

The RE I saw yesterday was all about the outpatient surgery, until he did an ultrasound. Apparently I'm carrying around a tennis ball-sized cyst attached to one of my ovaries. The good news is, the other ovary looks perfect. Which was the only good news I got yesterday.

He's going to have to do a laparotomy, which is major surgery. Two to three days in the hospital, and they won't release me to go back to work for four weeks. Oh, and there's a good chance I'm going to lose that ovary entirely, because there's so little healthy tissue left.

I just glanced at my employee handbook, and apparently whether or not I get paid during that time is completely at the owner's discretion. (And before anyone starts the FMLA chant, we're too small to qualify.) Unfortunately he's on vacation until early August, so I guess I'll just have to wonder. At least he's usually in a good mood when he gets back.

So, fingers crossed that my cyst stays put until after our vacation next month and that I won't lose four weeks of pay. As the "Sugar Mama" of the house, that would put a bit of a crimp in our little ol' budget.

Oh, I have one important question for my loyal readers. I haven't spent the night in the hospital since I was three. Do they give popsicles to the grown ups, too?

It's that time again

Friday. I'm feeling lazy today, so I only have one random thought to share. But since I'm being lazy, I decided to doctor up the post with a link. And a picture. Ooo, pretty pictures!

Today's random thought is more of a random fact. Did you know Minnesota has a law on the books that bans Dakota Indians from living within their borders? Obviously it's an old law, and not enforced, but it's crazy that it's still there, none-the-less.

Here are two more related random facts. I'm a descendant of Pocahontas on my mother's father's side. (But I haven't seen the Disney movie. I say it's because it's factually inaccurate and disrespectful to my ancestors, but it's really just that I haven't gotten around to it.)


And I had a great-grandfather that was half Cherokee. I always thought that was pretty cool, but didn't realize until relatively recently that my grandmother was greatly ashamed of this fact. That same great-grandfather fought in the Civil War, but that's another post for another time. (But think about that, those of you who were lucky enough to know your great-grandparents. He and I didn't exactly overlap on the whole timeline thing.)

(That's supposedly Pocahontas with her son, Thomas Rolfe, although the authenticity of the photo hasn't been proven.)

Giving it up

Laundry. I'm seriously thinking about giving it up. It's honestly my least favorite chore, and I'm getting increasingly bad at keeping up with it. There's very little job satisfaction in doing it well, unless you count being able to wear your favorite underwear because they're actually clean.

I find myself doing emergency loads so I can actually wear jeans on Fridays, when we're allowed to wear jeans to work. Not that I don't wear them on other days as well, from time to time, but it seems wasteful to not wear them on Friday when they're actually sanctioned by the employee handbook.

And in this day and age of super duper streamlined appliances and robotic vacuums, does it seem right that we're spending almost the exact same amount of time on housework as we were in 1900? I don't think so, but we are.

I want someone to invent a washing machine/dryer combo that actually simplifies the process. Or shortens it. Or makes it so I don't have to go search for hangers in my husband's closet.

Is that too much to ask?