The evolution of our group

A few weeks ago, Nick and I had the privilege to host a celebration for one of my best - ok THE BESTEST friend that I have, Sheila and her husband, John. The party was in honor of the impending arrival of their "bump", who I affectionately call Lukifer - which is a combination of the boy name - Luke and girl name - Jennifer, that they have chosen for their bump. Note: LUKEifer - not Lucifer. Lucifer is Louis the yorkie-poo and shouldn't be confused with baby bumps. He's his own issue and a whole separate blog post.

I love to have parties and to have people over - especially for celebrations of this caliber and for people like Sheila, who is the one who is normally arranging celebrations, remembering birthdays, anniversaries and special occasions and who is always ready with a card or a nice note. She's one of those people. Also - did I mention that she can bake like a champ? Sugar cookies to die for, people. Take my word for it.

Anyway, my group of friends has stayed pretty consistent since college. In fact, most of us met freshman year as we all lived on the same floor of Scott House. We've added a few people since then, but overall, we're a tough group to crack. When you're in, you're in and we don't let go easily. Anyway - this group has seen each other through drunken binges, monster hangovers, campus housing, first jobs, first loves, marriages and children. The evolution has been happening for some time, although it never really hit me until we gathered for their party.

First and foremost, the party was at my house. Yes, house in the suburbs. Bedrooms and bathrooms and a 1/2 bath thrown in for good measure. Landscaping and lawncare services as well as perennials and a fence for our LAB MIX. Life comes atcha fast, right? Right.

Secondly, the party was for my best friend and partner in crime. This is the same girl who has drank beer with me out of a FRISBEE. Almost all of my stories from college and beyond start off with, "remember when Sheila and I..." or that one time "we". We've been on spring break together, lived together (on purpose!!!) and have more great stories than most friends deserve. Anyway - yes the party was for her, because she is going to be a MOM. Woah. Sheila's going to be a mom. She's going to be great at it - but I think I'm still having a hard time processing that the friend who I really bonded with because of an unfortunate incident involving VOMIT, is now going to be a mom. I can't wait - but its still wild to think about.

My tongue feels weird

Yes, these are those melty mints that you typically find inside of a wedding and/or baby shower favor that may or may not be shaped like a bell or a bottle. For some reason that escapes me, but that probably has something to do with a monthly hormone imbalance, *wink*wink, the craving for them consumed me for over 5 days. I have no idea why this was at the top of my NEED IT NOW list. I tried to resist, but after about a week of thinking about them, I gave in. Giant Eagle had them in its bulk candy section, meaning that I wasn't forced to buy and eat the 5lb bag that I had in my hand at Joann's.

I tried my best to ration them, but went on a melty mint binge yesterday. I even tried fooling myself by tying the top of the bag in a knot and "hiding" them in my desk drawer. Finally, I decided to stop kidding myself and just took the major caloric hit all at once.

I still have no idea why my crazy mind was obsessed with these puppies for the past week, but thank heavens that the craziness has passed. My tongue feels a tad weird after eating all of that minty goodness covered in weird white balls. Its not quite the pain you feel after ODing on Sour Patch Kids, but its close.

He loves us anyway

Yes, Chino is wearing a pair of Nick's old underwear. Why? Well because they were laying in the middle of our floor. Why? Because they had been deemed too damaged to put back into normal circulation. To keep them from accidentally finding their way back into the daily rotation, I insist that the waistband be ripped so that there is no temptation to revert back to rags in an effort to avoid doing laundry. We figured we'd give those undies one last ass to cover. The ripped waistband worked out perfectly since it hooked right over his tail. Speaking of his tail - can you see how curled up it is? That means he knew that we were laughing with him and not AT him.

Sangria on Sunday

I haven't reported on many incidents recently. Mostly because we've been busy, strangers passing in the night. Actually, workout buddies passing in the morning, but lets not get technical, right? Well, last night was a blog worthy incident, the star of which was yours truly. The incident? Corn. The reason? Sangria.

It all started innocently enough. We had leftover sangria from camping last weekend. It was just sitting in the fridge, in a pitcher, all lonely. I decided that it would be a nice and refreshing way to cap off our weekend. So, while Nick was mowing and my strawberry shortcake biscuits were in the oven, I poured myself a glass. When I say glass, I mean over sized goblet, but again - that's just a technicality. So there I was, in the kitchen, with my biscuits baking, sangria in hand, clipping coupons. It was truly a desperate housewives moment.

I had decided that whatever sangria was left after yesterday was getting pitched, so I continued drinking on the front porch. I just saved the aggravation and had Nick bring out the whole pitcher. Picture this - me on the porch, half drunk, frantically crocheting baby blanket #3 of 5. This would have gone better if I hadn't inhibited my coordination, which resulted in me having to rip a bunch of it out and redoing it. No worries, I just poured myself more sangria.

Time for dinner. I march myself inside - goblet in one hand, crochet bag over my shoulder, pitcher in the other. We sit down to eat and are having a nice conversation about something. We finish our steak, potato and ear #1 of corn. Nick finishes ear #2. I go back for my 2nd ear and bring it to the table to prepare - adding butter and salt and more butter and more butter and more butter. I don't know what I was thinking. There was so much butter on this thing that it wasn't even melting. It was spread like icing. It wasn't even butter, it was Smart Balance, which doesn't even 100% give you the taste of butter.

Nick looked over at me and did a double take. At this point, I'm already coming down with the giggles because of the sheer volume of butter covering this corn. He shook his head and said something about the quantity of butter-substitute that I was about to consume and told me to stop right there (because that much of anything isn't great for one's digestive system). He got up to get a paper towel that he was going to use to WIPE OFF MY CORN. So of course, me being Mrs. Drunky McDrunkerson, I begin INHALING the corn. Taking frantic bites across the ear, only because he told me not to. Think Looney Tunes character eating corn...that was me. I was probably snorting and breathing heavily. I don't 100% recall. At this point, there is now corn everywhere and butter-substitute all over my face. In his calm, cool and collected fashion, Nick comes to the table, takes the corn out of my hand and wipes it with a a paper towel. My mouth is full of corn, but I feel the inevitable laughing fit coming on. I'm trying to chew but its not working and Nick is standing there with the buttery paper towel, shaking his head, and this is making me laugh even harder. Then he tells me not to choke, and then its over.

I run over to the garbage can to spit out the corn because it was making its way into my lungs. This whole time, Nick is still calmly watching this whole thing unfold. I go over to the sink, still laughing. He said something funny and MORE corn shot out of my mouth onto the wall and cabinets. He calmly said, "clean that off of the cabinet."

The laughing fit had subsided and I went back to the table and finished my not-as-buttery-as-before corn and that was it. The incident had come down on our dinner like a summertime thunderstorm in 90 degree weather, as refreshing as a nice cold goblet of sangria.

This about sums him up

Flashback

The other night, Chino was in a playful mood and brought his tennis ball to me, ready to play. I told him to "let me have it" and then he dropped it into my hand, waiting for me to join in on the fun. I put the ball on the ground and made it do a back spin. He loves this game because he can lay down and bat at it with his paws, or grab it up before I can get it again. When he's watching to see what the ball will do, he'll look down, with his ears flapped over his face, ready to pounce. I love when he does this because I get to see the flashes of puppy that we fell in love with. The puppy that clouded our judgment (ok my judgment - seriously, who goes to just LOOK at a free puppy!?!?!?) and changed our lives for the better. So, you might see a giant, hairy, jumping, barking mutt, Nick and I still see that puppy who gave us a swift kick in the butt and who still makes us laugh every day.

Wait, what?

Last week was a big week. It was the seven year anniversary of my mom's valve replacement surgery. The whole ordeal was one lucky break after another, starting with a blue snow cone at the St. John's Church Festival at some point in July of 2002. For those new readers, she was running amok at the church festival, in search of BINGO and a blue snow cone. Somehow during her quest, she got a Charlie Horse and ended up passing out. Weird, right? She ends up going to the emergency room, where they hook her up to all sorts of machines to try to figure out why she passed out. Everything seemed ok and she wanted to go home. Luckily for us, one of the doctors took one last look at her EKG and noticed something funny. Funny turned out to be a bi-cuspid rather than tri-cuspid valve and perhaps the reason for her "episode" at the festival. Once this was diagnosed, a lot of years of random shortness of breath made perfect sense. It wasn't that she was out of shape, although she'd be the first to tell you that exercise isn't one of her favorite things, it was that her heart wasn't working the way that it should. The solution to this problem was that she had to have a valve replacement. She elected for a pig valve and set about getting her surgery scheduled for August.

At this point, I was in Columbus, living it up with my friends after graduating in June. I was working as an intern at SBC Advertising as well as working at the Columbus Zoo and babysitting on the side. I had also started dating this guy named Nick. He was sort of clueless, so I didn't have high hopes for the whole situation, especially since we'd been talking/hanging out since February (reminder: it is now July/August) and we had yet to figure out what we were. Wait - I had figured it out, he hadn't. Anyway, my mom asked me what my schedule looked like as I was planning to come home for the week. It turned out that my friend was hosting a housewarming party on August 4th and that guy from Dayton was planning to come. Leave it to my mom, she schedules her valve replacement on August 6th so that I could still go to the party.

It was at this party that Nick's friend Zach uttered those fateful words..."So are you two boyfriend and girlfriend or what?". I looked at Nick, he looked at me and he said "yeah, I guess so". That was it. It was before he graduated from college and before my first job. It was before we owned our own vehicles and before my first apartment. It was before I realized how big those words would be and how much it meant that we had been defined as a "we". It was before our first fight...technically. I say technically because I had yelled at him prior to us being official, but since we weren't an us, it wasn't OUR fight to fight. It was before we met parents and granparents and knew life stories. It was before all of my stories included him and before it was taken for granted that he'd be with me for events and celebrations. It was before mortgage payments, vet bills, 401ks, gym memberships, new houses, friends, weddings and babies. It was before I understood how people married their best friends and what it meant to find your someone and to be the other half of an &.

I mentioned this to Nick the other day - that it had been seven years since that fateful night. His response, "Really? 7 years? huh..." and then he went back to playing with his computer. Yep. Seven years. Time flys when you're having fun...and when you're a little clueless.

Simple Math

bribery = photogenic
beans = "smile"

Chino loves him some ice cream!

Ice cream is one of Chino's favorite treats. Its got magical properties, making him stoop to the level of obedience and showmanship. He will sit, lay down, remember his name, give you BOTH paws and even pose for pictures. This enthusiasm ends when the ice cream does.