Molly and Dexter

Before we got Molly, my brother had her for nearly 5 years. Even when she was a pup, she was easily manipulated. Vince’s Chihuahuas Rocky and Toots (pronounced: tuts, like, “hey toots, you looking to get lucky?”) would enlist Molly in their never ending attempts at springing from the joint. The funny thing is, Molly would dig a hole underneath the fence just big enough for the little guys to get out and then spend the rest of the day wondering where they went. Vince would get home from work and see his 5 pound dog on the median of a very busy road.  Till this day we can’t figure out if Molly was dumb or brilliant with this trick of hers.

Molly is still very crafty (but only with not so gentle pushing from a roommate) and our cat Dexter has managed to get her into some major trouble. Dexter is a fat fatty and is always hungry so he loves to get Molly to use her dog height and strength to open the pantry where his food (used to be) and treats are. Then (we guess by looking at the evidence) he climbs up the shelves, pushes whatever it is he wants ripped open down and he and Molly get to it. What’s left is scraps of wrapper (both shredded and gnawed on so we know it was both of them) and NO food.

So,  guess what Molly and Dexter got into the other night? My darling, husband-to-be forgets to feed the animals their dinner. He let them out to go pee, but did not feed them. We realize this at 9:30 when we are on our way home from the movie. No big deal for most people, but we are dealing with escape artists here. We get home and of course, the cabinet door to the treats is wide open. At first glance, no damage. I walk over to the living room and there it is. The SCREW CAP lid to the cat treats and the label from the canister, in shreds. The fact that the lid is off means Molly is in on it, and the shreds are definitely Dexter. No sign of treats, no sign of canister. Jim looks under the couch and finds the now empty canister. He holds it up and an excited, tail wagging Molly drops to the ground tail down, eyes averted. Busted. He walks over to Dexter, shows him the canister, Dexter looks right at him as if saying, “what? You forgot to effing feed us!”

Here is a video of Molly desperately trying to get Dexter out of my shoe box.

Our Very First “Ask”

In Utah, there is a strong tradition (like decades old) for the way one would ask another to a high school dance.  When I first heard of this, I thought: oh, like when Ian asked me to Homecoming at a pep rally that one time senior year. No. The point is not to ask that special someone with a somewhat romantic gesture in hopes that she’ll say yes and you’ll get lucky. No. in Utah, it is elaborate, expensive, obnoxious, at times gross and ultimately hilarious.

For the last three years, the Elyse White Foundation has put on a Pink Prom benefiting the Huntsman Cancer Research and Foundation.  So Emily asked us if we wanted to go. Sure! It’s a few days after my birthday, and I want to save boobies so let’s do it! Jim: I hated my prom, why would I go to this one?

No biggie, I’ll go solo!

Last night as Jim is hammering a nail into the wall to hang our AWESOME engagement photos, our doorbell rings.  Now, he’s hammering right where the doorbell is so for a second we think we’ve lodged a nail right into the wires making it go berserk. Jim opens the door, hammer in hand, to find no one. Then he looks down. There is a cat litter box full of what appears to be cat poop. He brings it in and we both think the same thing: our neighbors are fed up with Dexter pooping in their gardens and we are getting a death threat. But, the cat box smells...really good! Then we notice the note:

It hits me right away because Emily has written an awesome paper on this odd Utah tradition so I tell Jim: I think they are “asking” us to prom! We dig through the mess and sure enough, there are the names of the culprits: Tony, Michelle, Matt, Emily and Dawn Marie. Wait, what the hell is my name in there for? Apparently, since I wanted to go to Prom, this “ask” is for Jim only.

Oh, another part of the tradition? The askee must “answer”. What? So now we need to find an equally obnoxious way to tell them yes or no. Jim is silent for nearly thirty minutes. Jim’s never heard of this “asking” so you can imagine how an academic overachiever deals with the unknown. Finally, he says: what if we answered with…

Muahahahahaha!

For more photos, check out the story of the “Ask” here.

They Say it’s Your Birthday

Yesterday was Jim’s birthday (yay!) and so we celebrated for nearly a week straight and I think I’ve gained fifty pounds but whatever. But last night was just us. We went to The Copper Onion and then to see the movie, I Love You Phillip Morris.

The Copper Onion was fabulous, a high end twist on comfort food can never be wrong. And neither can a $25 bottle of Chardonnay, right? I just loved our waitress too. She had two piercings in her face, was that heroin chic kind of skinny but knew more about Shishito Peppers than you can imagine.

I Love You Phillip Morris or, “the gay Catch me if You Can” as Jim called it was also fabulous. I think I smiled the entire time. It was funny, it was romantic, it got sad, but then it got funny again. And, this film right here is how you “ease in” gay romance in main stream film. The intimate parts were beautiful. It wasn’t shocking like Brokeback Mountain, but rather underplayed and very, very sweet. It was romance that anyone, straight or gay could relate to.

He can’t end his birthday without one more Jimism so here goes: when we get home I give him his last birthday gift. A very cute Hallmark and....drum roll…a Dremel! Yawn, but it was what he wanted…I think. Anyway, after getting excited about it, plugging it in, pulling the trigger, putting it back carefully in its cardboard box he kisses me on the cheek and says, “thanks, baby you’re the best.  And don’t go pretending to die from AIDS on me now that you know how.”

(Sidenote: you’ll have to know the story behind I Love You Phillip Morris in order to understand that Jimism – Google: “Steven Jay Russell”.)

A bit of inspiration…

Last night I started my Science Methods class (where we learn how to teach science to kiddos).  Is it safe to say that I had my first teacher-crush moment since Mr. Schlaak, the Psychology/Spanish teacher in high school? It’s not that my teacher was good looking really (neither was my high school teacher), it’s that he inspired me to a point where I had some dumb, love sick-puppy look on my face the entire two hours and thirty minutes.

First, the man is incredibly credible. 15 years experience in any kind of science and math education you could think of; from elementary school to a government position.  Second, he STARTED his own Science focused charter school! Hello!? I would KILL to teach there when I grow up! Third, he seems to respect the enormous amount of religion and faith in this state but believes it has NO business in a science class.

At one point during last night’s class he said, “raise your hand if you have ever had a lights out-amazing teacher?” Nearly everyone raised their hands.  “Now, keep them raised if you have had more than one? More than two? Three?” And as you might expect, hands went down drastically. “So,” he says “they say you have about 40-60 teachers in your life depending on how far you go in your education, and there are about 40-50 of you here tonight. I would say that based on scientific evidence, most of you won’t be lights-out amazing teachers. In fact, many of you shouldn’t really be in this profession.” Ouch. True, but ouch! Then he says, “being a likeable person is easy, and something your born with. But being good at something, that takes intent. And the way I see it is, I have 16 weeks to teach you that.” Swoon!

I’d like to take this moment to thank the “lights-out amazing” teachers I have had. I feel very lucky that my hand never went down last night, I truly  have had some really good ones in my life time.

Ms. Tinsley – Kindergarten teacher

Ms. Bissell – Fourth grade teacher

Mr. Bonnell – High school English teacher

Ms. Dougherty – High school biotech teacher

Mr. Schlaak – mentioned above

Professor Eichler – SDSU social work department

Dr. Hohman – SDSU social work department

Dr. Swan – U of U education department

Dr. Butcher – U of U education department

and

Professor O’Brian – U of U education department

Crossfit

I couldn’t even come up with a catchy title for this one. I am still that dead inside.

At the recommendation of a few friends, I went to Ute Crossfit last night for a free introductory class.  I’ve managed to hit my wedding weight loss goal but am still very unsatisfied with the amount of me that jiggles when I walk so I thought: maybe I need a personal trainer? At nearly $100 a week? No thanks.

Since I really suck at self discipline, my friend Jerilyn told me about the team atmosphere at Crossfit and so I made it my New Year’s Resolution to try it out.

So, I show up and there are four other people at this free introductory class. All of which seem rather healthy, fit and are somewhat my age (youngest was 22 and the oldest was mid forties but whatever).  After Tommy, the owner goes on and on about what Crossfit means (it is NOT a get fit quick program, mind you!) and what to expect (do not expect to look like a body builder!), he gave us a taste of what a workout would be like.

500 meters of rowing

40 squats

30 sit ups

20 pushups

10 pull ups

All TIMED.

I come in last. Dead last. At 7 minutes and 18 seconds and I am nearly vomiting. Seriously. I even did cheater pushups and cheater pull ups! What the hell? I’ve been to spinning class at least once a week for the last year almost…why am I this out of shape???  The “rant” that I reference above?  Tommy is so dead on.  This workout is geared toward endurance and strength and will rock every aspect of your body in different ways each time.  It is practically a lifestyle change (I will not be giving up beer and french fries, but plan on making this a 3-4 time a week gig for me).

As I try, very hard, to not vomit on the gym floor I tell one of the trainers, “you are NOT selling this to me. I feel like hell.” He laughs, “I felt that way at first too, but I promise you: you’ll get in your car, calm down and say to yourself, ‘next time I will do it faster’.”

I get home, still trying to not vomit and Jim cannot believe how worn out I look.  He tells me to take a hot shower (totally helped), and while I was in the shower I thought: that wasn’t that bad! Jim gives me a hug later on and says, “it’s really kind of sexy how hard you worked out.” I signed up for boot camp this morning.

The Robbery That Keeps on Giving

So over the last few days Jim realized that his new-ish, nice-ish ski goggles were missing. And I noticed that one of my favorite purses (le sport sac) was missing.  Ahhh, Robbery.  But yesterday, I received a package on my doorstep from my dear friend Emily.  Inside was a bunch of costume jewelry (since I have to start from scratch there), an adorable card, and a CD with literally hundreds of photos from the last 5 years on it.  The photos just cracked me up…so I thought I would share. (sidenote - one of the photos had a shot of my beloved le sport sac which made me sad)

BUT: no one wants to see good pictures on a blog, they want to see embarrassing pictures on a blog! Here we go!

I don't think much explaining is needed here...but we did have fun!

I think I look rather good in this one...Stacey is a different story...

Check out the gum in Mark's mouth, hahaha!

NOT my finest hour. I think we did this on purpose?

This isn't me. I swear. But it is funny, right?

I don't know if you can tell, but this is my Costco card in which I look like a toothless hobo.

I literally use this as my party trick. Or, having a bad day? I whip this baby out and the laughter just comes natrually.

Teehee, they just got married :)

And this, this is the man I am going to marry.

I don’t even want to say what I am thinking for fear that it will confirm that I am an awful person.

Happy New Year! I had a great new year’s weekend because my friend Megan and her sister Sara were in town (their husbands were here too but you know I really just care about them). 

On a slightly hung over and very tired-cause-I-went-to-bed-at-4-AM New Year’s Day we decided to spend a whopping $1.75 and see the movie Red at the local B-list movie theater.  Red is that flick where Bruce Willis (how dumb is Demi to let that one go?) plays a retired CIA agent who is now on a hit list. It also has a great performance by John Malkovich and stars Nancy Botwin as the leading lady…love her. Anyway, aside from that, the movie was exactly good enough to make us not care that we parted with $1.75 and wasted 2 hours of our lives.

A what I thought was a young girl in front of us found the movie to be incredibly hilarious.  Throughout the film she was laughing very, very loudly and even stomped her feet at times.  I wish Google Blogs had sound bites that I could embed because I just don’t think I can describe the high pitched almost fake sounding laugh; but I am sure you can imagine.  Toward the very end of the movie, the laughing and feet stomping got so loud and frequent that Megan, Sara and I found ourselves cracking up as well.  As the ending credits are rolling, I am almost tempted to tell the girl that her laugh really made our experience. Almost.

She stands up, a solid 300 pounds, pigtails (on a grown woman NOT a young girl) and in a freaking Twilight T-shirt.  The three of us seem to have a silent “a-ha” moment and head for the exit.  A friend had texted me so I start to respond (yes, as I am walking out of the theater but the cattle herd is going so slowly it seems very appropriate).  The Twi-Hard is right behind me and literally talks very loudly, at me: “don’t you just love the people who can’t seem to wait until they are out of the movie theater before they begin texting and holding up the line?”

I am shocked. Totally shocked.  I am immediately transported to high school where one would find it appropriate to engage in such behavior.  The women who read this know: this is a tactic a girl uses when she wants to lash out but doesn’t have the guts to say it to someone’s face but does have the comfort of sidekicks who will provide her with an obligatory laugh because they too are in on this form of cowardly bullying. So what do I do? I say (very loudly):

“I do! And don’t you just love when someone laughs incredibly loud throughout the entire movie ruining it for everyone?”