Transitioning: A Skill In Writing.

Thanks for all the concerned emails. The coffee situation is under control.
Twine Ball Days were a huge success by every account, including the fact that our Spanish visitor tried water skiing for the first time ever and totally lived to tell the tale. Except for the "terreeble pain in my focking ash." We forgot to tell her about the free enema.
[Speaking of deals, let me introduce you to puellagirl.com. Roommate Nicki and I each took the $150 challenge and ended up with 10 solid items prime for self and regifting. Get your name on the waiting list.]
[Speaking of waiting lists, I present you with a mental image of my dad's birthday celebration yesterday and the Wii we bought him. Then Lucy, with her increasingly cryptic English, pulls out the day's big winner: "Mateo, how to tell some person happy birthday?" and totally steals the show.]

Let's Troll

My weekend is pretty full.
A cooler of beer from Jimmy Keeler's

and we are off to Darwin, MN for Twine Ball Days. You can find me on the lake. I'll be the one trying to explain Francis A. Johnson's vision to a Spaniard.

Free, Or Best Offer

It was all good until it was less good and then it was just bad.
When Matt entered the room, he didn't notice until he got close to the walls; the rug; the couch; Her Majesty, the blessed womb chair.
Lucy had called in a panic. "There is a coffee everywhere. It was an essplosion on the walls. Everywhere."
"Have you told Matt?"
"No. No. I did not."
Carly and I rushed over wielding a magic eraser, but the damage was done. Little brown specks covered the entire room.

As a stand-alone incident it would have been bad enough, but there was already the garbage- disposal-spoon-eating incident (parts 1-4), the wrong-detergent-in-the-washing-machine disaster, and the randomly-turning-off-the-air-conditioning self-appointment of 2007 (ongoing).

She Has a Little Notepad for Vocabulary

I returned home last night from Family Jesus Camp to be immediately greeted by my favorite Spaniard.
Now that we're on home turf, the English Language rules all conversation. Matt constantly complains that I am too lax in my corrections of her habitual mistakes. Any, none, verb tenses, etc. English is *%&^ing complicated. It's not me.
Lucia and I spent about 10 minutes talking about how surprised she was that our streets were so clean of rabbits.
I tried to explain that rabbits are more common in the suburbs, like where our parents and our married friends live.*
She says to me, "We are talking about rabbits or we are talking about garbage?"
And I'm thinking that she's asking whether rabbits live in garbage: "Heh?"
I'll spare you the remaining 30 seconds of sentence-pause-sentence before we discover the word is rubbish. When we return to Matt's, Lucy is trying to find a new bag for rabbits and I explain it's pronounced "rub ISH" before Matt interrupts me to say that we don't even use that word here.
I blame the British.

*Zing!

Light-Colored Wine

Conclusion: bookclub weekend was a total success. Thanks to Lori's parents and some very caring husband/father types, we seven stole away Up North... with our matching beach towels and a supply of Chexnilla.

Which is obviously Chex mix plus one melty bag of white chocolate chips.
And a year's supply of gas.

My bookclub, for which less than half the women actually read the book and even fewer discuss it at length.
We are so grown up.

Association Fees

In all the excitement* of the last few weeks, Matt moved into his muchly awaited condo. I present his piece de resistance: the Womb Chair.

Isn't that a curious name? If I were a chair, I wouldn't want my name to indicate lady parts. Maybe that's just me. And I would be called "Sweet Chair-ity."

Now, I haven't run this by its owner (hi, Dear), but I'm thinking that we should put newborns in the chair and survey them. "This chair is:
A. Exactly what I remember.
B. Red. I remember red.
C. Like a time machine.
D. Not remotely equivalent to the inside of a uterus."

*I accidentally held down the x key and this post took a decidedly inappropriate turn. Which is funny since I am about to reference female reproductive organs. Yesssss.

So the Cup of Coffee said to the Anxiety Disorder

"I was supposed to tell the one about the two strings who walk into a bar, but then I totally butchered it. A frayed knot, or whatever? And then, What's red and white and black all over? Er... A newspaper. But it was supposed to be a zebra on rollerskates or something. I don't know. I'm tired."
"It's ok. Some people can't do jokes."
"Uhhhhhh."

P.S. Heartburn. I bought a new camera today.

We Called It "The House on Poop Corner"

In the elementary years, we walked home from school because it was just a few blocks; passing by the house on the corner of Remington and Mound that stank all the time. We were not particularly athletic kids, but we always ran past it and the one with all the vines and the untouched newspapers.

Wedding with a View

Ash and Mike got married on Saturday. I brought out the point-and-shoot camera for some low-resolution documentation. Check out the happy couple, and this lady's back!

We celebrated their union by hoisting our personalized beer coozys (cozies? cooties?). Later I pretended--with incredible dexterity--that they were my hands. If anybody got a picture of that, best leave it under wraps. Then my secret would get out and someone would steal me for lab work on beer coozy hands.
Brent models the salad course. Leafy greens and strawberry vinaigrette:

Not sure what caused this extended blink. Perhaps I was moved by a toast and I didn't want anyone to see my crying. Yeah, that's it.

Now tell me, does this centerpiece not look like a giant beer?

Katie told me to delete this just as soon as I had taken it, which I could have done, but then how would I have remembered the look on her face? This girl loves shoes. [Please donate to Sara's finger-reattachment fund, and dial 911 if you see this girl with a crazed expression running around in these shoes.]

I guess this picture was to prove that they are a totally proportional couple.

It was a beautiful day and I'm very proud of everyone (else) for enjoying it responsibly. Congratulations, Newlyweds!

Happy Hour

Tuesday night I got together with some ladies for some drinks. Both the ladies and the beers will remain anonymous, so you won't judge me for drinking Miller Lite with olives or hanging out with beautiful people like Maggie.
Most of the conversation centered around marriage and weddings and the pets which allegedly prepare us for the eventuality of babies. Good God. I took a minute to calm my central nervous system before even typing that.
With these women, I fill my assigned role in the group dynamic. I am the theater one, the one who overreacts to the natural progression of life (see above), and suburban living; the one who gets her hair all chopped off just to have a very tiny ponytail and then forgets to tell anybody about it. Hello, you are my cute mini ponytail and I love you.

When I told them about my plan for an entire sleeve's worth of Virgin Mary tattoo, they abandoned years of saying "yes, I'd still be your friend if you [wore an eyepatch/spoke in tounges/had three nipples/_____]" and said no. But I know what that really means is that they TOTALLY approve.

*This is the only self portrait I took with my mouth closed. Like plucking eyebrows without tearing up. It's nearly impossible.