Marriage Management

Let me set the stage for you.  Its about 10pm on a Sunday night and its time for bed.  We're wrapping things up, putting things away and getting ready to call it an evening when Nick gets up and goes into the kitchen...

L:  Hey, will you grab that cup and put it in the dishwasher before you run it?
N, standing in front of the dishwasher:  I had no intention of running the dishwasher.
L:  Exactly.
N:  Puts cup in dishwasher, inserts Cascade, locks it and presses the button.  

The end.

People of McDonalds

Today at lunch, I came up with a eureka of a website. PeopleofMcDonalds.com. You know, like peopleofwalmart.com, but not. My eureka came while I was innocently enjoying my #8 - Grilled Chicken Club, no tomato and a Diet Coke.  Yes, that's how I ordered it, because its McDonald's and they're all the same.  Being the same is also their claim to fame - if you're in another state and have a Big Mac attack, it will taste the same as the McDonald's down the street.  This brings me to McDonald's advertising.  If you've missed it, you must be living under a rock or in an old bomb shelter or something.  Even if you don't intentionally pay attention to their advertising, they advertise so much that inevitably, you learn through osmosis.  This brings me to my website.

As I was eating my lunch, I couldn't help but overhear a woman inquiring about the Angus burgers.  Her first question, "What is an Angus burger?"  The manager's response was "Its a bigger, better piece of meat".  Great.  So the lady asks, "Is it better for you?", to which the manager replies, "yes it is."  Side note - who doesn't know what the Angus burger is?  And if you didn't, could you not figure it out by the vibrant and large pictures on the menu?  I digress.  So the lady proceeds to order the Angus burger, since its obviously made of prime cuts of meat versus asses and tails.  Personally, I think that calling it an Angus burger is silly, since likely all burgers are made of Angus meat, its just a matter of how big the patty and what part of the cow.  So maybe Angus is made of the butt versus the butt hole.  Personally I think that its crazy, its like Steak and Shake calling their burgers "steak burgers".  If you really think about it, all burgers are made of steak.  Just sayin'.

Shortly after she orders her Angus burger, she comes back up to the counter, stepping almost behind it, rocking back and forth.  Ok last time I checked, McDonald's wasn't self-service.  You stand at the counter and wait until you are waited on by someone who could give two shits.  So she's walked onto the tile area, borderline running the drive thru, before someone comes to see what the heck she wants.  Turns out, she wants a fork and a knife.  As I went to refill my Diet Coke, I see her, daintily enjoying her Angus burger with her fork and knife, happy as can be.  

Second McDonald's observation.  Who in the hell orders a McRib sandwich?  Things that are wrong with this sandwich:
1.  Its a RIB sandwich.  Who wants to eat that?
2.  There are no ribs in this sandwich, but its RIB-SHAPED
3.  Somewhere, there is a factory that makes rib-shaped sandwiches

Finally, I was witness to a soft drink caper.  As I was waiting for my order and while the manager's back was turned, I saw the person in line behind me flop herself over the counter and steal a cup.  Really?  Who steals a cup?  Who doesn't know that you can ask for a cup for water and go hog wild at the pop machine?  Apparently this lady, because she just helped herself to the cup dispenser, behind the cash register.  Perhaps this is really a self service McDonald's and I missed the memo?  Either way it was an entertaining lunch, even if I was eating grilled chicken instead of an Angus.

Micro blogging turns macro

I haven't had any blog-worthy stories lately, but I have been doing a better job of keeping up on my Twitter updates.  I figured that I would expand on my 140 characters to give you more of an explanation as to what I've been up to in the last day or so.  Let's start off with my new ability to insert screen grabs into my blog.  A co-worker taught me about this awesome utility called Grab.  Grab allows you to pick a selection of a website and save it as a .jpeg.  This is life changing for the following reasons:  1.  no more screen shots, then cropping and resizing and moving and adjusting and squeezing, 2.  I can add fun website grabs into my blog - without it turning into a major production, 3. No more right clicking on images, only to get that annoying pop-up that tells me that the image is copyrighted to that website (ha-take that), 4.  Now I know the big boys and girls do it.

So that brings me back to micro blogging turning macro.  Here's a little snapshot of what I've been up to in the past few days, leading up to right this minute.

It seemed like I was chasing the sunshine on my way home, fighting for that last bit of daylight to soak in before it was time to curl up on the couch, in front of some bad TV.  I raced it home and saw the bright sunshine off to my left.  When I turned the corner into the last home stretch, over the water,  I was in awe of the beautiful sunset.  I took the best picture that I could, while safely driving, and I must say - it came out better than what I expected.  The glow was a beautiful shade of orange, one that I'd like to paint my spare bedroom, and the contrast against the sky and reflection off of the water was truly spectacular.  I think my mental picture is better than this, but hopefully, this helps you get the idea:

This next tweet was a re-tweet from the Lion Brand Yarn Twitter page.  I couldn't help myself when I saw it.  I re-tweeted only so I had the link available for when I got around to a project that WAS NOT a baby blanket:

See what I mean?  Mittens with eyeballs, lips and a tongue.  How could you resist that?  I think I would modify the eyeballs to be a bit more googly.  This is definitely on my list of things to make.  I think that a sandworm scarf would be pretty good too and probably safer for Nick and Chino, because you know that I'd be chasing them around with the mittens, making sandworm noises.  Hell, who am I kidding, that's what will happen with the scarf.

This is self explanatory  I heart coffee, I love the taste, I love the smell and I love how it makes me wake the heck up in the morning.  I've been trying to cut back on the caffeine, which is why I tweeted about coffee versus lattes.  Coffee wakes me up, lattes make me crazed. 

Now this brings me to Panera where I'm currently camped out in a booth, waiting for the next meeting to begin.  I've got email checked, a spreadsheet sent, facebook updated, news read and lunch eaten.  Its been a productive day thus far.  I'm pleasantly surprised at how a day out of the office is good to re-energize and recharge, while still staying connected just in case.  Thank goodness for technology, right?  Oh yeah, and Grab.  I love Grab.

Moose Policy

To the untrained eye, this might be one of the tackiest coffee mugs ever created.  To me, this is proof positive that my husband knows me better than anyone else.

Like fetch, but not

The following video is proof that Chino can be more than just a lazy mutt. He still has a streak of puppy, buried deep inside. It comes out once in awhile and when it does, its always good for a laugh. I was playing with him and Nick grabbed the camera to capture the silliness and to give me something to blog about. Its ironic that the way I'm playing "fetch" with Chino is the way Chino plays fetch with us. Its a little backwards, but gets the job done. In Chino's version of fetch - we throw the toy, chase him, grab the toy and repeat.  I suppose that this is good, since we all get a little bit of exercise.   In my version, I had originally planned to use our open floor plan to my advantage - whipping the gator across the kitchen for Chino to grab and bring back (he plays fetch properly in the house, go figure).  But, in my attempt to defy the laws of canine self control, I tried to make him sit before I threw his gator, so the gator would be his reward for being a good boy. Before I knew it, we were playing fetch and I wasn't the one chasing the toy. Go figure.

Revised blog title?

It was brought to my attention yesterday that people aren't aware that Chino isn't an only "child".  I happen to have two other pets -- red eared sliders named Larry and Tommy.  I say I because Nick refuses to acknowledge his step children.  They don't cause enough  antics to be added to the blog title, and I think that changing my blog to, "My life, his life, our life, a dog named Chino and two souvenirs from Myrtle beach that are still alive after almost 10 years" is a bit much, don't  you think?  But, for my adoring fans out there, here they are - in  their green glory.  We took these pictures while they were on safari in the backyard last summer.  Chino prefers that they be contained in their tank, where they belong.  But this post isn't about Chino, now is it?

Now here is a photo of them in their "natural habitat, causing a ruckus.  Shortly after this picture was taken, there was a turtle avalanche, with lots of flailing, splashing and thumping.  Again, not enough for a blog post.  They just flipped themselves back over, climbed back onto the rock and resumed basking.

Lastly, here is a picture of their current set-up.  We took an old farmhouse door, reinforced it with floor board, added legs and a plexi glass top - and VOILA!  A turtle tank stand + desk.  You didn't know I was that crafty, didja?!?  Pay no attention to the dog toys underneath - this post is NOT about Chino and I have nothing to say about the two bins of overflowing toys that he likes to ignore.  Nothing at all.  Well, I kind of want to point out how cool it is that I found vintage Coke and Pepsi crates to keep them in, rather than typical dog toy boxes, which are usually covered in paw prints, but this is about L&T, who are forced to live in the shadow of Chino, the wonder mutt.

So, how did I get to the point where I have two turtles, named Larry and Tommy, living in a 40 gallon reptile tank in my great room?  Well, I thought you'd never ask.  On vacation in Myrtle Beach with my family during the summer of 2000, I came across a ton of baby turtles for sale at a souvenir store called Wings (tourist mecca, tacky galore).  Actually, the turtles weren't for sale, their tanks were. Its apparently illegal to purchase baby turtles for anything but educational purposes due to the fact that they have salmonella on their shells, so here I was with my "free" turtle in a miniature plastic tank.

I get home from vacation and start doing research on turtles.  Apparently, they need more than a minature plastic tank, so I bought him one that was a little larger.  Actually, I think he moved in with a newt that I also had at the time.  Next came the filter, rocks, and basking light.  Lovely.  After that, the newt moved out because of a small run-in where Larry thought that the newt was food instead of a roommate.  In my infinite wisdom, I decided that Larry needed a friend, so off to Petland I went (FOR THE LAST TIME BECAUSE I HATE PETLAND) to buy Larry a friend.  The friend, turned out to be Tommy, named after the Olympic swimmer - Tom Malchow.  Tommy and Larry, who was named after my 8th grade civics teacher, now lived happily in a small aquarium on top of the TV.  The next year, they moved with me as well as the year after that, several years after that and a year after that.

Each year they got a little bigger and a little bigger, outgrowing a couple of tanks, leading me to the 40 gallon monster that they currently call home.  They've grown from about 1" to 6"-7" and it doesn't look like they're stopping.  They live a happy turtle life, eating turtle food and destroying their rock islands that we try to build for them.  They're messy creatures.  Their filter gets gross, really fast.  They belong outside.  I just can't bring myself to release them into the wild.  I think they'd be swimming around, looking for the magic blue lid to drop turtle food into their little home.  Now back to our regularly scheduled programming...

Let there be fudge

Two weeks ago, Nick and I headed off to a much needed weekend away to Frankenmuth, MI for its annual Oktoberfest celebration.  We figured that it was a good time to get away and it would be good practice for our own Oktoberfest, coming up on October 10th.  Fun fact:  Frankenmuth hosts the ONLY Oktoberfest which is officially sanctioned by the city of Munich. 

We each took 1/2 day off work, packed the car and began our trip up north.  Upon arrival, I was thrilled that the town was even more of a tourist trap that I had remembered.  Souvenir stores, restaurants, horse drawn carriages, crafts, coffee shops, themed plantings (FLOWER BED!!!!), photo ops and candy stores were plentiful and lining Main Street.  If you know me, you know that this is totally up my alley. 

How did we know that we were in fact, away for the weekend?  Well, when we walked down the street and saw this sign:

Nick and I have decided that we are not "away" or on vacation until we see the telltale sign offering its sugarey goodness to us as sustenance after traveling, window shopping, photographing and money spending.  Sometimes this gets a little dangerous. Normally we keep the purchases in check, except for that one time that Nick let me go into the Russel Stover store, unattended, during a sale.  For this trip, we started with a slice of chocolate peanut butter, which set the tone for a wonderful weekend.