A couple of weeks ago, I opened up a box of See's truffles that Linda had given me for Christmas. Rob and I munched on them while watching a movie. I left the box on the table with about 5 truffles left. The next night, I wanted one for dessert and lifting the box, realized it was empty.

Harsh was the wrath of the indignant wife, whose husband had eaten the last five chocolates without offering her one -- when they were hers, too!

"But you left them on the coffee table!" he protested.
"You didn't even ask me if I wanted one before you powered your way through the box!" I wailed. "You owe me a box, Mister."

Last night, Rob wandered in from work and tossed me a little box of chocolates with cherry filling. He knows I don't like them. I reminded him.

"Fine," he replied, grabbing the box and tossing it onto his desk. I grabbed it back.
"Well, if this is the only repayment I'm getting from you eating all my See's, I guess it'll have to do," I snorted.
"Fine," he said again. "Guess that means I'm stuck with these."

'These' was a box of Mrs. Fields chocolate truffles.

"Heeeeeey!" I screeched. "You can have your chocolate cherries back!"
"Oh, no...you wanted them. Now I'll have to eat these instead."

And then he started laughing...because of course he had planned this all and he knew exactly how I'd react. He should've gone into the theater; I've never seen anyone who could play a scene like that and keep a perfectly straight face.

Rob's been watching the Stephen King miniseries, Rose Red, because one part of it was filmed at his work place. He's not in the film but he's curious to see how it turns out and he also reads Stephen King stuff.

I haven't read any Stephen King books since..uh, Carrie. The last Stephen King movie I saw was, I think, Stand By Me. I'm not big on his stuff and listening to the powerfully lame over-acting from the TV behind me, I don't think I'm missing much by skipping Rose Red. Sunday night, I worked late and headed to bed in time for the last fifteen minutes and watched in amazement as the clueless dweeb who entered the house, finding himself locked in, rattles the handle of the greenhouse door and doesn't bother trying to break the glass. Now I know how Rob feels while watching Antiques Roadshow...gleefully waiting for some poor sap to believe he owns a true antique only to find out it's a reproduction. I kept expecting the word "SUCKER" to write itself across the dweeb's forehead.

Granted, we all have our clueless moments but still... even Rob chuckled as I bristled about this idiot's impending doom: "For crying out loud, just kick out the glass! Gah! What an idiot!"

Well, yes. And we recognize the symptoms because we have been that idiot. :-)

A clueless Tracy story... In high school, I had a crush on one of the guys I hung around with after school. This was during my rifle drill team phase, and the guys were part of a skilled performance team who worked at King's Alley (now King's Village), where I worked in an ice cream shop. Leonard was a really nice guy, cute, friendly and taller than me (always a good indicator of potential boyfriendship). One night, the group of us went to a movie and as we walked back to the Alley from the theater, Leonard and I were clowning around and so the rest of the gang was much further down the street than we were. I walked faster to catch up with them and Leonard said, pulling my hand, "Hey, where's the fire?" I blinked and looked around, mystified. "Why? Do you smell smoke?"

Doh.

Needless to say, Leonard never did end up being my boyfriend, probably dismayed that I was such an idiot. And you know, it was several days before I even realized what he meant. Double doh!

Rob likes to exploit the clueless side of my brain. He will say something and I will gibber and foam and rant and suddenly turn to find him chuckling soundlessly to himself. He likes to do this in front of my cherubs who have also developed into silent chucklers. The dweebs.

Hehehe...Things my girlfriend and I have argued about... He must've said, "I could write a book..." and then proceeded to do so.

Corey... did you really mean to follow up an observation of G-I issues with the sentence starting, "Hopefully they'll pass..."?

Sorry...sorry...hehehe...it caught the funny bone of my eye :-)

This weekend I took all the boys to see these guys. I've always wanted to see them live, although I it turns out that my memory is mixed up. The Karamozovs had done Shakespeare on TV and I distinctly remembered watching it when I was in high school. However, the program from Saturday's show gave the year as 1987, which is after I'd already graduated and heck, Chris was one year old.

Which brought to mind the movie Memento, which Rob and I rented last week. I really liked how it unwound itself, presenting just enough at a time for a new question to formulate in one's brain before the next bit unfolded and inspired new questions.

Looking at the date of the actual TV presentation in the program, I suddenly saw myself in the house we had in 1987, watching the performance...instead of seeing myself in the home I grew up in watching it. Which version is right? Which memory is correct? Obviously, since the TV show date can be determined with some accuracy, it's my memory of watching the show while in high school that's incorrect. I wonder why I remembered it the wrong way? Or had they done more than one TV presentation of a Shakespeare play and listed only the 1987 performance in the program? I noticed they left out their involvement in the film "The Jewel of the Nile" as well.

At any rate, it was a fun show! They sing! They dance! You haven't lived until you've seen the Polish Appalachian Coal Miners' Clogging!

And as we left the theater, snow fell and it felt like Christmas.

Last night Rob and I saw the Winter Olympic torch on its run through downtown Seattle.

My original concern was that traffic would be horribly messed up as they were closing roads for the torch runners to weave through. Rob wasn't feeling well, but he's a good guy and could tell I wanted to see this big event. After all, it's the first time the Winter Olympic torch has ever come through Seattle (apparently the Summer Olympic torch has, although I don't remember seeing it).

We got coffee at a shop near 4th avenue and sat discussing the PetaPeople who would be protesting because of how bulls are treated during rodeos (Rob and I have the most interesting discussions). As the time drew nearer for the torch to come by our stretch of the road, we saw a couple of trucks rumble down the street -- Coke trucks! And Coke is a sponsor of the Torch Relay! Rob and I headed outdoors.

Everyone had little flags that said "Coke" (of course) and "I Saw The Flame!" I wanted a flag. Rob noticed a man waving a nice handful at the corner and plucked one from his hands. Turns out he was another spectator and Rob had mugged him. Hehehe! Fortunately, he did have quite a few flags so it's not like we took his last one.

For the next freezing, windy 45 minutes, we stood on the street. The PetaPeople drove by in a truck with video screens showing a rodeo in progress, but if Rob and I hadn't had our conversation earlier, I wouldn't have thought of it as a protest. The Chevy folks drove by in fancy cars as they are also sponsors of the Torch Relay. We were cold and miserable. The police motorcycles drove by and we thought the torch would be right behind them. Folks cheered like mad...and then the cops passed and still no torch. Finally, about an hour after it's scheduled time (Rob said it was late because of the female runners, so I smacked him), we could hear the crowds further down the street cheering and could see the flame. There was a hand-off of the torch on the block right before it reached us. I waved my little stolen flag as the new torchbearer ran past. I have no idea who he was. He waved and held the flame aloft as he continued down the street to a wave of cheers.

And you know, I didn't feel anything. Maybe because it was so cold and my feet were frozen? Maybe because I knew Rob was sick and yet he was standing out there because I had wanted to see this event? It was over so quickly, the crowd quickly dispersed and Rob and I got in our separate cars and drove home where I went to work and Rob made supper for us.

Beside us as we waiting in the wind, a couple of young boys were hooting and hollering excitedly at pretty much any car driving by, jumping up and down and waving their flags. I wish I had felt that way.

Steph's new site looks really awesome! Only she's blocked the comments box for those of us using Netscape ;-)

I have a couple ideas, Melissa, for your dress's backside... leave your hair up like it is because it looks so nice! Get yourself a very long rope of pearls, knot it and wear it backwards so the long part hangs down the back. This may or may not work with the front of the dress, though. You could alternatively take ropes of pearl beads and drape them across the back like swags, using pins or simple stitching to hold them in place at the shoulders (if your dress has shoulders -- don't affix the strands to your own shoulders!).

Now I'm itching to see the dress! Maybe you can email photos? :-)

I had a moderately busy weekend, considering that Saturday I had some sort of 24-fever/flu and went back to bed soon after breakfast. Sunday, I was much better and Rob had sneezes. We spent a quiet, low-key day together anniversarying. Yesterday, Rob went to work but I had the day off so I spent it finishing up the tasks I couldn't complete while I was sick on Saturday.

Worked very late in the little game last night. One of my hero GameMasters redid our survey verb so I could solicit free-formed answers if need be. That makes the verb very flexible for future use!

I used to keep detailed a detailed dream diary. The first entry was sometime in 1978 because I thought that dream would make a great story someday and I didn't want to forget it. Over time, I started writing in every dream upon waking and the little book filled so that I was reduced to writing in very tiny lettering and started reusing the white space at the bottom of the first pages.

Of all the things I've lost over the years, I miss that diary. Sometime in 1981, a "friend" of my Army roomate's and mine swiped it, for reasons unknown. Maybe she thought it was a real diary and she'd learn some cool gossip. By the time I realized it was missing and knew who'd taken it, she'd been transferred elsewhere and I mourned the loss and never kept another diary as detailed. Still, when a dream came to me upon waking, sometimes I jot it down on scraps of paper. I still find these scraps sometimes when I dig through boxes and as I read them, I can see the dream unfolding again.

Over time, I've noticed that I often dream about the road I grew up on in Hawaii. The buildings along it change, the placement of the high school is sometimes different, but I know that road. I also dream about being at my high school and less frequently, my grade school. When I first separated from my exhusband, my dreams started including my new second floor apartment, usually with me standing in the bedroom which overlooked the parking lot and something tragic unfolding -- fire, floods, the end of the world, the other half of my apartment being torn away and leaving me at the top of my stairway.

And then there is another place. I've never seen it in waking life but I often dream of it. Sometimes the buildings change but I always recognize it. When I see parts of it, I can in my dreaming and waking minds place that particular location within the larger map of this unknown city. It is built on rolling hills and is very urbanized, with homes and apartments along the upper slopes and as the roads wind down and around, they invariably lead to a 'downtown' area with a couple of hotels, some restaurants (I was at the Korean one last night) and shops. Sometimes, a bay is on this town's edge and other times not. I wonder why my brain chooses to recreate this place for me so consistently that I know it by heart. On occasion, it seems like Seattle, and sure enough those are times where I'll be standing on the intersection of Pike and Boren, overlooking downtown but the rest of the town will melt into "my place" and the distinction is blurred.

I like this place, though. It's comforting to me to be dreaming about having sushi in the Korean restaurant with my cousin and thinking (in my dream) that when we leave we can step across the street to the shop that I know is there.

My eyelids are weighted by little fishing leads today. I almost tumbled out of bed when Rob did but when I glanced at myself in the mirror with little dark bags beneath my eyes, I hoped that a half hour more of sleep would help.

It did, somewhat, but I am going to have one of those drag ass days again.

Bright note: Liz plans to take me and Tom out to lunch to celebrate her five year anniversary and my four year one with the company. We're thinking Benihana's. Hiiiii YAH!

Rob got so mad at FFX last night he tossed the "cheat book" across the living room. Not that it had far to go, since we rearranged the furniture to accomodate our desks. Hehehe! He blames this fixation on me. As I blame the Sims on him. We are equal and I am less frustrated because I have unlocked my own secrets to Sims without any books. ::preen::

Melissa and I had a good little brainstorm session last night. I am fired up! Jazzed! Ready to rock! Or I would be if my eyes weren't so droopy. I spent some time last night looking at other Greek-themed games on the internet. The one game I managed to get out of the training area and into a live area had nine players. A sign on its wall listed the top ten players and the banner entering it said, "Highest total player count - 20 players, August 17, 2001!" Well! Nice thing about it was that as I stumbled out of the training area, someone immediately came up to greet me and offer help. Kinda like our mentors, but I couldn't tell if he was another player or a staffly person.

Now I am going to try to prop open my eyelids, maybe with a quadruple grande non-fat, no foam, extra hot, sugar free vanilla latte. Varoom!

In the spirit of the Bridget Jones-styled Very Secret Diaries, but not as funny yet still entertaining, you can find out your Very Secret hobbit name.

Sincerely yours, Orangeblossom and (her husband Grigory) Sandybanks.

I only hope when I look up our names in the appendix we're not brother and sister or some other incestuous relationship.

Thank you, Corey, for this. I spewed coffee into my keyboard, v. bad. ;-)

When you're stuck in traffic you get to study other cars, mostly from behind. Today Liz and I were stuck behind a Chrysler 300 and I commented that it looked like a buck-toothed bunny.

It reminded me of when I was a little girl, I'd look at cars and saw different faces and personalities based on the way their headlights were positioned in the grill. Some car grills were downward slanted, giving the car a mean look. Others were slightly V-shaped upwards, making them look surprised. We had a Rambler, with round headlights that made it look friendly.

Over the years I realized cars lost that personality as they shrunk into more energy efficient models. Suddenly, instead of having distinct faces they all looked alike. Seeing the bunny-face on the rear end of the Chrysler makes me wonder...

Are car designers now sure that we'll all be stuck in traffic so they design their cars' personality to be seen only from behind? Hmm.

Hehehe... yes, the photo was a nice touch, Corey :-) I particularly liked the gold panties at the far end of the spread (hmm...this could be read a couple of different ways, couldn't it?)

Rob does not like Settlers. It is all my fault. For lo! Recall last Fall, he and I visited Suz and Broos and due to the unfortunate timing of his wielding the monopoly card and me using mine on the next turn, he lost and Suz won and now Rob does not like the game for I am out to get him when we play.

He might be right. I have a competitive streak.

We took Settlers over to Jean and Brian's house. They'd never played before. Jean opted not to, so she and Rob played dominoes. Brian, my cherub Chris and I played Settlers. As Brian observed, Chris and I are not good at teaching someone else to play. Eventually, Rob dug the rule book out of the box to officiate because some of our rules didn't sound right to him.

We are guilty of the same rule bending that created the sub-level of Monopoly where you put your fines on the Free Parking space and get to claim them when you roll double six...or however it goes. My family didn't play it that way but I've played with others who do.

At any rate, Brian thought he'd enjoy playing Settlers again, if he read the rules for himself first. Jean said it looked too complex (no doubt because the rules had to switch mid-way through as Rob pointed out my mistakes). It was a nice outing for the family.

Thanks to Jeff, I now know that I am Mr Do.

I am sedentary by nature, enjoying passive entertainment, eating when the mood takes me, and playing with my food. I try to avoid conflict, but when I'm angered, I can be a devil - if you force me to fight, I will crush you. With apples.

Our Drama Queen spent New Year's Eve in Las Vegas. One day, one night. This amuses me because it is now she is a qualified expert on how much fun Vegas is and what are the best things to do while there. The other day someone else in the office listened to DQ discuss the fabulous New Year's Eve she had and asked if DQ had gone to such and such or seen this or that, to which DQ replied, "Uh, no. But I had the best time!" Hehehe! Ah, to have the confidence of youth!

Jaime brought Stirfry, now known as Bubba, into the office today. I wish I had my camera so you can see how big he's gotten. He is Mitten-sized and lion-colored with a fluffly brush of a tail. When he walks away, he looks very much like a fox or a golden skunk. He is not very cat-like. Instead of purring, he growls. Jaime said he's never quite got the purr habit but when he likes something, he hisses too. I went over to visit him and he did both at me. He sniffed me and allowed some petting before leaping onto Jaime's desk and surveying me from there. Bubba's fur is soft and luxurious. He does not groom himself, no...Jaime's two other cats do that for him. Bubba never learned to clean himself as a kitten and he's not going to learn now. Not when he can simply hop into the shower with Jaime and rinse off with her.

Tomorrow night, Rob and I are taking the cherubs to Jean's house. Rob reminds me of Brian, Jean's husband. They use the same swear words. It should be fun!

Stupid family catch-phrases. You know, those little sayings where one person in the family will glance at another and say, "Ketchup!" and suddenly everyone is busting a gut but the outsiders have no clue why.

When I was in fifth grade, I read a biography of Helen Keller. What fascinated me was that the endpapers were covered with drawing of hands spelling out the alphabet. My friend Rosalind and I borrowed the book several times from the school library and became adept at signing across the classroom. She and I sat in different desk groupings, so we faced each other but were not close enough to pass notes and stuff. I am ashamed to admit that we used our 'secret language' to cheat primarily on multiple choice exams but during spelling tests as well. We had no idea how deaf people signaled the end of a word, so we would simply slash our hand the same way you'd signal that your throat would be cut...only we did it beneath our desks so as not to attract Sister Bernadette's attention. It was during many of these signing sessions that Kip, the boy I had a crush on, would grin at me from his desk, which during this time was near Rosalind's.

I told my sister about me and Rosalind and Barb also read the biography. What came out of her reading wasn't the alphabet but a catch phrase from the book that we used for several years until we lost the innocence of our youth and thought it sounded embarrassingly naughty.

In the book, Helen said about signing to Annie Sullivan, "I am bored. Finger game is no fun." and so Annie Sullivan taught her to read and write. Well, Barb and I thought this quote was a scream! Anytime we were bored and feeling silly, we'd say to each other, "I am bored. Bored stiff. Finger game is no fun."

Hahaha!

Liz and I were talking about our most embarrassing moments yesterday. Apparently, on the TV show Survivor they'd had a challenge where the contestants' families recalled moments and they had to match the contestant's moment. Neither Liz nor I could come up with something so horribly embarrassing that we figured our families would remember it. Not that we've never had our moments but some of the moments I thought of, no one else would know about. I mean...they're embarrassing to me but probably no one in my family would think so. And if they're that embarrassing, you can be sure that I didn't tell anyone who wasn't there!

One memory she shared was from her early business days in Los Angeles, where she and several business associates attended a dinner and Liz had overimbibed. As they caught the elevator in the hotel, George Hamilton the Ever-Tanned got on with them. Liz peered at him and said, "Boy, you sure look a lot older in person!" (( I wouldn't dredge this up as an embarrassing moment for her, but she blushed to recall her little outburst.))

The embarrassing moment I recalled happened when I was about 19. I woke up late, frantically dashed around to get ready then caught the bus to work. My neck was itching and I scratched it and realized in horror that I'd forgotten the application of spot-treating mud mask I'd applied the night before. I had washed off my face but in my haste had left some of it on my neck. I spent the rest of the ride surreptitiously rubbing the mud off and hoping no one noticed.

So, come on...what embarrassing moment would you be willing to share with the public, hmm?

Corey -- you tease. How can you possibly drop a hint of Wonderbra mayhem and not give any details? ::pout::

Mittens is a dog in cat's clothing. No, really. He is!

Like a puppy, he is overjoyed to see Rob and me first thing in the morning. Maggie couldn't care less and might turn her head to regard us with disdain (or to see if we'll either let her outside or are carrying kitty treats), but Mittens puts himself underfoot, walking in front of us and glancing back to make sure we're still coming his way. It's a pleasure to see him take such joy in our mere presence.

He loves to carry small toys around in his mouth, from little foam balls to stuffed animals to his latest fetish, plastic wire bread ties. He'll walk around with one of these hanging out of his mouth, then drop it to the floor, dash off and then crouch low, tail twitching before pouncing upon it. He'll then stand up in a dignified manner and walk over it -- but oh ho! accidentally on purpose! -- one of his hind paws will step on it and he gets to spin around and pounce again! It attacked first! He is justified! He is victorious!

Rob lies on the couch. Maggie approaches him and will take several minutes to decide first if she can get up there and second, where she will fit. After she makes her decision, she will daintily hurl all 20 pounds of herself onto the couch and then spend another five minutes massaging and kneading a spot so that it's juuuuuuust right. Mittens sees Rob on the couch. He jumps up on it someplace and *floop* falls over into a graceful reclined position, usually outside of Maggie's reach but close enough to piss her off. Mittens will lie by Rob for a few minutes, working up a frothy purr, then spies me across the room and comes over to ooze into my lap and *floop* down.

Mittens and Rob share a computer chair. Rob will get up to get a drink or turn on a light and *whoosh!* a flash of black and white speeds across the room to zip into the chair and immediately curl into a snug little roll. It doesn't matter how long Rob has been sitting or where Mittens is, the moment Rob stands, Mittens is on that chair. And when Rob returns, Mittens will either ignore him ("If I don't see him, he's not here!") or roll over onto his back and wave his paws in the air, inviting a belly rub (and hoping that his cuteness will distract Rob from the chair).

Every morning Mittens waits for me outside my bedroom door to follow me into the bathroom and sit on the counter while I wash my face and brush my teeth. When I am ready to go downstairs, he waits at the top for me, then runs down before me. If I stop halfway, he'll turn around and run back up to get me. Seeing him waiting for me, I'll greet him with, "Hullo, FamiliarCat." If we had a cat leash, I'm sure he'd carry it in his mouth and beg to be taken for walks. Maybe I should invest in one!

I've often commented that Mittens is not a very smart cat. Well, maybe he isn't. But he makes a pretty good dog.

How to have a spontaneous Sims baby: Broos, Broos, Broos. I know you're a single man, but I don't think I need to tell you how folks have a baby! ;-)

Lael and Drab aren't the only pair of my Sims to reproduce. It happened to Bob and Betty Newbie, only I accidentally sent both of them to work one day leaving no one at home to take care of Bunny Newbie, therefore Bunny was removed from the home by the child protective services. ::cough:: As I gasped in horror at this situation it dawned on me that this is probably why the Sims receive random phone calls asking if they want to adopt a baby. To get enough adoptable babies, they rely on stupid people like me who leave their own babies unattended. Rob observed that of course he had never had this happen to him. No wonder he stopped playing Sims; the game was not as exciting for him as it is for me!

After three Sim-days of life, if you don't get repossessed, your Sim baby becomes a child. They apparently never become adults, the ultimate in Peter Pannism.

And unlike with real children, when you tire of your cranky, whiny Sim child, you can wall them up or send them to the pool and then remove its ladders to be rid of them and no one comes to take you away! Not that I have done this, but it is mentioned on the official Sims website and is a method Phil subscribes to when kids interfere with his redecorating.

I had lunch yesterday with Rob, who is working on a building a couple of blocks away. He and his coworker met me at Westlake's food court. We glance over the filled tables, looking for a seat. "If you only find two chairs someplace, she'll stand," Rob says to the coworker, who quickly glances at me to see how I take this comment. I continue to scan the area for seats and say cheerfully, "Do you want to keep your lunch money or not?"

Oh! I almost forgot!

Lael and Drab Goobers, my Sims family, had a spontaneous baby over the weekend! It was a healthy baby boy. I named him "Broos."

Bwahahahaha!

Sometimes I look at the Sitemeter referral page to see why folks come to this blog. It's absolutely fascinating to know that somewhere in Google, someone sifts through this stuff and so when you type in your search string, they'll occasionally find my nest and stumble in.

They are all probably severely disappointed.

Seventy-five percent of the search queries that end up here are looking for shoes. :P Others are probably curious about what this blog has to say about some of the things they've typed in. Once in a while, I'm intrigued by the search string (which Google reports back via the Sitemeter) so I'll see what else is mentioned when someone stops by my place while looking for online tickets for the Cinerama, or the Legend of the Christmas Pickle, or Elswyth Thane.

I'm sorry if you're here looking for hot+navy+chicks or nude+army+wives because search engines are not perfect and you will be unhappy.

I am exhausted today. My eyelids are dragging to the ground. Sunday morning, about 2AM or so, I woke up and could not sleep again. After a bit, I went downstairs to sleep on the couch so I wouldn't toss and turn Rob awake. Downstairs, I still could not sleep. I read. The Sunday paper was delivered. I fretted. Finally at 4:30, I put on the coffee. Might as well be caffeinated if I were going to stay awake.

I did take a nap yesterday but it was one of those deep, three-hour-long ones that leaves one more groggy than refreshed. Last night, Rob and I went to bed early to watch those Discovery channel shows about forensics; we find them fascinating. However, I was wide awake and couldn't sleep again. When I did sleep, my dreams were dark and of the sort where I wanted to awaken but my eyelids would not move. Today, I am dragging. I feel heavy, ponderous, thick. Bleech.

It is nice to see a note from Suz this morning. :-)

I cleaned out the spare room yesterday, vacuuming up the dust of a room that's been sacred to holiday wrapping paper for two months. I pulled apart the futon and vacuumed up both sides of it. Chris likes to sleep in that room, but he's allergic to Mittens and the concentration of Mittens' hair in the room (this is where Mittens convalesced after busting open his paw) would have been overwhelming. The sheets and blankets normally on the futon need to be washed though. I ran out of energy to get that completed but at least the room is relatively clean again.

I joke about it being part of my obsessive-compulsive disorder, but I really do get agitated when a room is disordered for too long. By nature, I am cluttery so I try to organize myself so that the clutter can be somewhat hidden/controlled. Some days, all I want to do is come home and sit at the dining room table and look around and admire how tidy the place is. During the holidays, tidiness sort of goes out the window so my goal is to get it back again.

Rob is a goober. He may not be The Goober, but he is a Goober nonetheless.

Last night he wanted to go out to dinner. He suggested Black Angus (which, in a side note, he and his boss had wondered if this restaurant chain has someone on call 24/7 in case the "G" in their neon signs ever goes out). I didn't want to eat there. I protested all the way to the car.

"You never want to eat at the same place twice," he grumbled. "What's tonight's excuse, 'We just ate there two months ago!'? Bah! Get out of the way, I'm driving."

Note how tenderly he treats me ;-)

As we're heading down the street, he made a wrong turn, as usual. "You turned too early, you have to get back onto 320th," I groused. "At the next light, turn right."

At the next light, Rob was droning on and on about his day. "Heeeeey!" I shrieked, "You're missing the turn! You goober! Now we have to go all the way around the whole stinkin block!" This is not a small block to go around, as it contains along with a supermarket, a couple of strip malls, a car wash and a Walmart, so my shrieking wasn't unjustified. Much.

"Excuse me, I'm telling you about my day," Rob said in an injured tone, going straight through the light. He turns into a driveway of one of the strip malls, which naturally set me to shrieking again since we can't cut through this lot to get to Black Angus and getting back out of the lot would be harder than getting into it was.

As he pulled the car through the lot, he casually pointed to the Mongolian barbecue place and said, "Besides, we're eating here."

Men. Goobers. Rob. He knows where all the buttons are and exactly how I cannot stop rising to the bait every time. We walked toward the door and he admited as much, chuckling the whole way. Some day, I will not begin foaming and shrieking at him. Some day.

Taxes suck. They really suck for married people.

By tradition, I usually spend a day over the holidays working on my taxes. That way I know if I need to, say, buy a new computer or something for the write off. This year, I put it off until January 1st. Rats. Of course, we might not be in such bad shape as my pessimistic estimates of Rob's Virginia earnings have it. Until we get all our little 1099's and W-2's, we won't know for sure.

This is one area where Rob and I do a turnabout on our usual personalities. Generally, he's the pessimist and I'm the optimist. Where finances go, we switch. I fret over every nickel and dime and he shrugs it off. I wring my hands and fuss and sweat about making ends meet and he's sure we'll turn out okay. I have no reason to believe it won't be okay, but I like to know exactly how not-okay things are before I can relax. Before he moved out here, we went over our respective bills and seeing the sums written out on paper made his brow furrow in concern whereas once I could see how things were, my tensions relaxed about it. Looking at the situation and knowing where we stood put me at ease, while it agitated him.

It's like oatmeal. I make mine with the cooking stuff, where you put water and oats into the pot and stir them together with a pinch of salt and some pitted dates until they boil, then you set it aside for a few minutes before adding in brown sugar, maple syrup, cinnamon and sometimes Y. Er, milk. Sometimes milk. It is creamy, sweet and filling. I made some for me and Rob on New Year's morning. He looked at his bowl in horror.

"You cooked it."
"You're supposed to, these are the five-minute oats."
"You...cooked...it."
"What did you expect?"
"I put the instant packets in the bowl, add a drop of water and eat it that way. I like it crunchy. I forgot to tell you. But you...cooked...this." He poked at the bowl with his spoon. "You made it into gruel."
I smacked my forehead. "Doh! I should have realized since I like oatmeal smooth and creamy that you'd like yours dry and crunchy!" Of course he does; he's my exact opposite. :-)

In a couple more weeks, we'll be celebrating our first anniversary. Wow. What a year!

Thank you, Corey. ::hug:: You seem to say what I mean a lot more meaningfully than I say it.

Rob was on call from 12/31 through this morning. Being on call depresses him so much, more because of the anticipation of receiving calls than anything else, I think. We couldn't plan anything so he worked through FFX and I spent time defragging the PC and then reinstalling the Sims and all the expansions we've bought.

Although I must say, Hot Date is bug-ridden and it annoys me to have a Sim downtown, not blocked off by anything, unable to move. Their website's suggestion that a Sim "needs at least two spaces to move freely" is meaningless in these instances. I rant, "Dagnabit! Parker's just standing there, not buying a damn hot dog for Lucy and she's going to pitch him now. Oh, swell, there she goes and all this time I've invested in their relationship is in the toilet. This happened when I had Lael down here too, and she needs those twelve friends...." Rob laughs at me, "You talk about them like they're real people." Bah, buggy games! :-)

I have found that I am more interested in fostering relationships than I am in moving upwards in their careers. Phil uses that money cheat and spends his time building palatial residences. Chris builds them up and makes friends specifically to advance his primary family. Me, I like introducing couples and getting them married. Hopeless Romantic Strikes Again!

My old boss called on the 31st to wish me and Liz a happy new year. He and I chatted for a while about this and that and when we hung up, I realized this is what makes him successful. Larry genuinely is interested in people and keeps in touch with folks. Sure, some of it might be motivated by other things, as in whenever he needs computer help he always calls me first, but he also calls out of the blue to talk. I liked working for him. He was demanding and tough and volatile yet with a big, warm heart. My first month here, I was not in the payroll cycle so didn't receive a paycheck. He fumbled opened up his wallet and said, "Here, do you need some cash? You and your boys need to eat." The first year I worked here, he had me in angry and frustrated tears several times when he'd lose his temper. It was so difficult for me to adjust because his needs were hard to anticipate -- sometimes, I don't think he knew what he wanted, just what he didn't want. Then suddenly we hit an understanding of what each of us could and would be able to do and we worked very well together; I teased him that in the last year we worked together, he'd only made me cry once. He'd dictate or scribble notes, I'd translate it and fix up his grammar and phrasing and then he'd catch my typos. He gave me his extra Symphony tickets and last year gave me seats to see Itzhak Perlman for Christmas. If he sent me out to buy a latte, he always told me to buy a round for the rest of the staff too. Occasionally when he and Liz went out to lunch, he'd bring me back dessert, or coffee if they went to Starbucks. Some of the folks outside our department were always surprised that I'd go out to buy his lunch or make him coffee, but I honestly never minded. He was appreciative and never hesitated to thank everyone around him for doing their jobs. The week he was let go, he called me at home from New York to tell me. Now he's doing consulting work and is happier than I ever saw him while he worked at our company, so the change was very good for him and I'm glad.

Still, I don't think I'll mention to him about the meeting I'd planned for the managers in Denver where his room overlooked the parking garage while mine had a sweeping view of the golf course. Some things are better left unsaid. :-)