another way my husband and i are the same

I typed that headline mostly to make Brian shudder.  We are crazy about each other, but we aren't really 'the same' in very many ways.

Today, though, I joined his ranks.  He underwent psychological evaluations last year as part of his masters program.  I underwent psychological evaluations yesterday to figure out what, if anything, I can do to help my brain.

I really like the shrink.  He was recommend by my doctor and he's really easy to talk to - something like Jeff Bridges' inflections meet Edward Hermann's manner of speech combined with a benevolent older professor with a bow tie and funny socks.

I can't decide whether it'll be nice good or bad to know the ins and outs of my crazy.  Part of why I put off the eval for more than a year is because of insurance, but I might also be a little nervous to find out just how permanent the damage is.  You know how there's someone older in your life - a parent maybe - who sometimes refers to his/her youth with 'when I was your age, I could remember anything, and now I don't even know where my feet are'?  Yeah, that's me, now.  And I'm 25.  

I get the results back in a couple of weeks.

my love/hate relationship with jason mraz

I have been in love with Jason Mraz's music since the first time I heard him do an in-studio gig with Matt and Ramona. Wuv, twu wuv. Once I figured out his name (and how to spell it) I scoped his website and the merch store. He had two CDs for sale. One was a live recording for $12 (Live at Java Joe's) and the other was a studio recording of something or other (Waiting for My Rocket to Come, I think) for $15. Being the poor college student I was, I picked up the Java Joe's CD.

BEST CHOICE I EVER MADE, short of marrying my husband. I LOVE LOVE LOVE this CD, and incidentally I am shattered that I can't find it anymore. He is so talented, and you don't really get a good feel for what his music is really like if you're stuck listening to a studio track. This CD is just him and his hand-drummer. I am not a good reviewer at all, so I will leave my ravings at this: AWESOME.

The drawback is, I got spoiled. I don't really like most of his radio releases because I know how much better they would be, live. They're basic and crude and have so much potential but ultimately are a let-down.

I have been yearning to see him in concert, in a small or smallish venue, for a long time now. We're talking years. Like 6 years. That's kind of a long time. And the reason I've been waiting so long is that he has never come to my town. He's come near my town, but never close enough to be attainable for my tight budget and need for not driving back home at 3am. Resignation and despair.

NOW. Shift gears a little bit.

All the cool kids know about Pandora by now. If you're not cool yet and you want to be, the transformation is simple: check out www.pandora.com and enlightenment will come to you. On my pandora, I have a particular station that plays several of the songs on Jason's latest record, We Sing, We Dance, We Steal Things.

I definitely want to get this one, to bring my Jason Mraz CD Library to a total of 2 albums. I can already tell that I will love it. It's just a matter of time.


Enter my dilemma, with some dallying at the beginning.

We are having a whirlwind Thanksgiving. The plan is to leave town Wednesday evening to overnight with my family. Get up early and finish driving to Brian's homestead. Friday or Saturday, drive west to Asheville to hang out with (and in my case, meet) two of Brian's cousins - and oh yeah, attend the farewell concert of Brian's favorite folk singer, in his (the singer's) home venue, which is something Brian's wanted to do for more than a decade, he says. And then eventually we will end up back in Richmond sometime Sunday, to collapse and return to work.

Did you catch that? We are in an entirely different state on the day before and the day after Thanksgiving. To see family. Many hours away. For a holiday.

If you're smart, you know where this is going.

Jason Mraz is going to be in RICHMOND at the NATIONAL on the day before AND the day after Thanksgiving. In case you aren't paying attention, I live in Richmond. He's coming straight to my town. Not DC, not Charlottesville, not Virginia Beach. Richmond. (Well, maybe he's going to those places too. I don't know.)

I have waited for SIX YEARS for this day (these days) to come, and now that they are on the books, I won't be able to make it. I won't be able to go!! To a concert I've waited 6 years to come to fruition!!!

I love you, Jason Mraz, and yet I hate you, so so much, right now. You have toyed with my heart and I am growing weary. I have been loyal and supportive, defending you to nay-sayers and expounding on your virtues, but I don't know if I can last another 6 years.

YOU NEED TO SEE THIS

If I have done my research correctly, then my conclusion that this, ladies and gentleman, is a pheasant, and more specifically, a hybrid of a Golden Pheasant and a Lady Amherst's Pheasant, is correct.

If I have done my research correctly, then my conclusion that this hybrid is not found in the wild in the US is also correct.

So could somebody please tell me why this guy was in our back yard this evening?

I am not kidding.

My question is this. What would YOU do with an exotic pheasant hybrid on your premisis?

when hearing voices goes bad

So, yesterday I had a work meeting in the middle of a day, at a location 2 or 3 blocks from my house.  So, I decided to eat lunch at home after the meeting.  And a part of my lunch, I decided, should a hard-boiled egg.  

There are some weeks that feature a hard-boiled egg every day for lunch - these are the weeks where I have my stuff together on Sunday afternoon - and no matter how hard the weeks go, my hard-boiled egg makes life a little more bearable.

With this realization in mind, I decided to boil up 5 eggs, for lunch every day this week.  So I set everything on the stove and started cleaning up the dishes from last night (because, as you could guess, my stuff was not together on Sunday).

I was shifting some things around on the counter (lots of dishes, y'all.  It's embarrassing.) when I heard a funny noise, coming from the pot.  I got closer.  It sounded like cheeping.  I AM NOT KIDDING.  I turned the radio down, lifted the lid, and saw 5 eggs being boiled.  There were tiny streams of bubbles coming out from each one.  The cheeping was definitely coming from these eggs.

I told myself I was crazy, set the lid back on the pot, and turned the radio back up.  

About 20 seconds later, the cheeping sound was louder, and the pot was rattling around. WHOA.  I lifted the lid again and noted that the water wasn't boiling hard enough to cause rattling.  I looked at all the eggs closely to see if there was any commotion....nothing.  I decided that there was water on the burner and that it had started boiling and escaping, which caused the rattling.  (I have one of those glass stove tops.)

I turned the radio up really loud and left the kitchen.  I'll be sure to let you all know if I get any sad, disturbing surprises in my lunch. 

In other news, Eli apparently likes to eat egg shells.  Who knew?

chinese crested

I had a dream last night that I went to the mall, and there was some kind of doggie event going on.  I met a Chinese crested.  

In case you don't know the breed, I should inform you that they don't have much hair.  

I almost got a Chinese crested back when I was looking for the pet that ultimately became Eli.  I was down to cresteds, Italian greyhounds, and papillons as my breeds of choice.  Turns out I couldn't find a breeder that had the hairless cresteds, and I was afraid that an Iggy would be too fragile for my rough-housing family dogs, so papillon it was.  

Most days, I'm pretty happy with the choice.  And Brian would probably agree that of the three breeds, the papillon is the least 'heinous-looking' - suffice it to say that he and I have VERY different tastes in small dogs (ie, he doesn't have a taste for them at all).  We'll be adding a larger breed to our family as soon as finances and commitments permit.

This is the only real 'experience' I've had with a CC tho, other than watching dog shows.  Weird that it came three years late.

Booking Through Thursday

Name a favorite literary couple and tell me why they are a favorite. If you cannot choose just one, that is ok too.  Name as many as you like - sometimes narrowing down a list can be extremely difficult and painful.  Or maybe that's just me.

I had a surprisingly hard time thinking of any literary couple I particularly like.  And then I remembered - Mike and Rebecca from the Monk Upstairs.  She is busy busy busy; he was a monk for 20 years.  There are elements of Mike and Rebecca both that remind me of me, and also elements of both that remind me of Brian, so they make a really interesting read.  And I love the ways you see them compromise and stretch to support each other.  I think they really do make each other better people.

Monk Upstairs is actually a sequel (to the Monk Downstairs) and I haven't read the first book yet - in which they become the couple.  They were already well-established by the time I met them.  I imagine it will be fun to see their history play out!

introducing...

I would like you all to meet our pumpkin.  We picked him up at the Lakeside United Methodist bazaar last Saturday.  They had some GREAT pumpkins - all shapes, sizes, and various stages of smoothness and otherwise.  We were charmed by this guy's knobs and bobbles all over.  I'd never seen one myself, actually, and it was instant attraction.  We haven't discussed whether or not to put him under the knife.  It would require careful planning, but I know Brian has the skills and vision to make something fantastic, should we choose to interfere with nature.  

He is lounging on our front porch in all his warty glory while we debate his fate.

Eli's not sure what to make of his new friend.