In Which I Annoy You with My Trendiness

So, this was one of the things Dominic got me for my birthday. Happy birthday to me! I had previously occupied my time with excuses as to why buying an ipod would be too frivolous, too expensive, too everything for someone like me, but Dominic got me one anyway, and I'm now on my second day of trying to download all my favorite songs onto this sleek, teeny-tiny, razor-thin miracle of a device. It's so little and cute and it packs such a punch I've found myself trying to put it in my mouth like the sweet crispy delicious cookie it is. Here's a little internet game I had once scoffed at in bored disdain, but now that I am one of the annoying ipod-carrying, ear bud-wearing masses, I have become a raging hypocrite. Okay, enough with the adjectives.

Instructions: Set ipod to shuffle, write down ALL ten songs that come up first, try not to be embarrassed.

1. "Wouldn't It Be Nice" The Beach Boys.
Dominic and I are shamelessly avid re-watchers of 50 First Dates, a cute, funny, and surprisingly tender movie starring Drew Barrymore and Adam Sandler. Our favorite part of this movie (which we have seen approximately 127 times on HBO) is the moment when Adam says goodbye to Drew forever, and Drew's father gives him a parting gift of a CD of Beach Boys songs Drew loves, and as Adam sails away on his boat he sings this song and starts crying and says, "Why would you [give me this CD], you sick bastard!" Woo, we think that's funny. Er, maybe you'll just have to watch the movie.

2. "Never Know" Jack Johnson
This is Jack Johnson's newest CD, not counting the soundtrack he made for the Curious George movie. This is a good song, but not my favorite. I already have no recollection of downloading it.

3. "Alice Childress" Ben Folds Five
This is one of my favorites from Ben Folds Five. Dominic is inspired by the first lines which go, "Some summers in the evening after six or so, walk on down the hill, and maybe buy a beer." When we moved to Omaha we wanted to be able to live someplace where we could do that. Mission accomplished. I totally stole this song my freshman year of college in the salad days of Napster, but I bought the CD a little more than a year ago, so stop looking at me like that.

4. "Philosophy" Ben Folds Five
Again, one of my favorites. Again, I stole it before I bought it. Somewhere in the piano-frenzied middle of this song, Ben Folds borrows from "Rhapsody in Blue," which is wicked cool. I also used my affinity for this song to make boys think I was cool in college. It totally worked. Suckers.

5. "The Way You Move" Big Boi
This CD came out right before Dominic and I started dating. That last fall of college we went to the bar more than perhaps was wise, but I was freshly 21 and we were in love and it was a fun time. This song was played constantly. One time, Brooke and I were dancing to it in the bar we mostly frequented, the Porch, and Dominic came shimmying up behind Brooke and preceded to Drop It Like It Was Hot. I'm still laughing at that.

6. "Gone" Kanye West
This is one of my more favorites off "Late Registration." It's a good song. It samples from a really good song that I don't know, though I feel like I should.

7. "Time" Ben Folds
We were living in San Antonio when I bought this CD. I listened to this song on repeat for about a week. It's beautiful and simple. Noticing a pattern with the Ben Folds yet?

8. "I Just Don't Think I'll Ever Get Over You" Collin Hay
I find this song to be indescribably sad and very beautiful. It's one of those few songs where the writing speaks to me more than the arrangement of music. Dominic and I had an argument over whether this song is about a break-up (it is) and I had to patiently prove him wrong. I feel kind of dirty because I discovered it off the Garden State soundtrack, which is actually an incredible compilation of songs even if it is the poster boy CD for sensitive indie rock/emo and probably deserves to be made fun of.

9. "Caring is Creepy" The Shins
This is also from Garden State. Hardcore fans of the Shins probably hate that there are people out there (me) who only know about this band through the movie, but whatever.

10. "Could You Be Loved" Bob Marley
I thought this song was "Good to Be Loved" until I downloaded it into my ipod, so, yeah, the ipod is educational as well as recreational. I listen to Bob Marley because of Dominic. He's actually influenced my musical tastes much more than these ten songs show.

Graduations, Birthday Cakes, Promotions, and Sneezing Kitty Cats

Lots of big things are happening right now all over the world. Of course I don't mean trivial things like war, earthquakes, political strife and scandal. I mean these things: graduations, birthday cakes, promotions, and sneezing kitty cats.

All of these gigantic things have happened or are about to happen and Kate and I are super excited. First Kate's little brother just graduated from BRHS and Kate and I are super excited to see him and Carrie when they visit in two weeks. Kate' s birthday cake has been a gift from the heavens. A delicious German Chocalate cake from a fantastic local bakery called Sweet Magnolias that makes everything from scratch. I normally don't like chocolate cake(everyone thinks I'm crazy now), but this cake is so delicious. I also get promoted on the sixth of next month. I am super excited because I feel like i've been a 2Lt forever. Two years of training(stagnation). I hate 2lt's. Lastly, poor Mia has had a sneeze for about a week now. Such big sneezes for a little cat. It's funny to see her little kitty face get scrunchy before she lets loose a string of kitty cat sneezes. She has recently been in full stalker mode following Kate and I nonstop everywhere we go. Even when its dark and we can't see her she'll give herself away with a series of kitty sneezes. She's nuts. She kind of sneezed on the back of Kate's head once. That was hilarious.

Huge things going on around here. It's awesome. Oh yeah, it's hot now. Later!

Cold Spring

Here's the thing about living (much) farther north than I used to. It's not the long cold snowy winter I have a hard time abiding by; it's the Cold Spring.

Cold Spring can be defined as any kind of weather other than sunny and hot. 60 degrees, overcast, and windy, in the middle of May? That's Cold Spring. We hateses Cold Spring!

Anyway, when I'm not busy throwing temper tantrums over what's perfectly acceptable and normal weather in this part of the country, I'm busy going on runs and working so few hours it's like I have a phantom job.

Phantom job can be defined as any kind of job wherein you know you have a job and yet lack circumstantial evidence of the fact. Ex: You're in your pajamas and eating Reese's peanut butter cups on the couch at 10:30 on a Thursday morning and a commercial on TV just made you cry.

Lately, Dominic's been grilling me on what I might want for my birthday at the end of the month, and so far the only thing I can come up with is, ...Clothes? And then Dominic is like, That's not an acceptable answer. And so I say, ...Another cat? And he just looks at me. One thing I do think I want is pre-paid lessons at the yoga studio about a half a block around the corner from our house. I want these lessons mostly because the amount of coolness inherent in being able to walk to a yoga class is so much that the actually process of doing the yoga is a secondary entity in my mind.

One other thing before I go: Dominic has been really nice in the last couple of posts he's written when describing the process of my learning how to drive a manual transmission. In reality, I just cry a lot and proclaim over and over again, "Oh my god this is so scary I don't like this Oh my god this is scary," and Dominic just kind of rolls with it because he knows that having a wife such as I who will randomly suggest that we should have Filipino food for dinner one night because I love sharing the things he loves comes with downsides, like hating cars because they are Machines of Death.

But I'm trying to learn how to drive a stick anyway. Just in the midst of all the crying.

Farewell Old Friend!

My camera has died. It was a good camera, but it has gone the way of most things made in China and purchased at Wal-Mart. Into the garbage. The camera broke because I used a AC/DC converter that apparently had gone bad after a two years of use. How was I to know? It was a decent point and shoot digital while it lasted, and it introduced me to photography. I really like taking photos and have been pressuring Kate into buying me a fancy digital SLR(Nikon d70s) without much luck so far. It's a pretty expensive hobby...

Last night though was pretty fun, Kate and I went to a brewery with a friend who's in town on business. The food was really good and we got there during happy hour which was cool since I wasn't driving! Speaking of which, Kate went on another drive in the 350Z and did well. She got herself a little worked up, but stayed in control the entire time and did well even on a hill!

I wish I could show everyone the flowerbaskets Kate and I planted, but alas my camera has died.

Carrie, make sure you request the time off for your trip out this week! It's going to be so worth it!

Go Speedracer! Go!

After owning the Nissan 350Z for a year and a half, Kate finally got behind the wheel and raced up to a speed of about 10 miles an hour. FANTASTICO! Kate did so good driving the manual transmission her first time ever. She was stopping and starting like no other inside a half-hour! I'm certain when I learned my parents thought I was a dullard. Kate however, a natural. It was pretty ahhh...how should I describe it? AWESOME! And she made me another lemon meringue pie...how should I describe it ? SWEET!















Stephen Colbert bashing W. to his face at the White House Correspondents Ball/Convention...how should I describe this? KICK ASS!

Lots of cool things going on in case you didn't notice. Tomorrow is my last day of academics. That means test. This one is easy to describe. NOT COOL!

One more month until I get promoted and I can tell you it's hard to wait. I had my new rank sewn on my uniform, and I have to say I'm going to look pretty good with that silver bar on my shoulder. I hate to toot my own bugle, but it's the truth!

Oh Yeah! Birthday Ball Tickets: $60. Cab Downtown: $10. Cocktails during Social Hour: $40. Wine w/ Dinner: Included in Ticket Price. Slightly Inebriated Adult Prom Photo: Priceless...

Plumbing, Cell Phones, and Social Security Numbers

Not too long ago, I read a horror story on the internet about a couple with an older home who found sewage backed up in their toilet and shower one day and had to have their driveway dug up in order to have their entire sewage system replaced. "Wow," I said to Dominic, "maybe we should get a plumber out to run some maintenance on our lines!" Normally, Dominic is the one who thinks we should Do Everything to Our House All at Once, like knock down those limestone planters on our front porch and build new brick columns, or extend our front porch, or pull up all the billions of bushes in our front yard, or refinish the back deck, or put more lighting in our back yard, or put up a hammock, or buy a new grill, or put up planters, or any of about a thousand other projects that would collectively cost us about a billion dollars. So I guess all of that was just to say that I was totally not surprised that he was receptive to hiring out a plumber to "blade" our lines, because he was, oh yes he was. And now we've got plumbing free of the tree roots that could have possibly caused extensive, potentially irreparable damage to our sewage lines, (it's so difficult being responsible home owners sometimes) but we're out nearly two hundred dollars this month that could have gone to any number of valuable causes, such as:

1. Buying me a new cell phone because I destroyed my old cell phone going on two weeks ago now.
2. Buying a hammock stand for the hammock I bought Dominic, which led, ultimately, to the destruction of my cell phone.
3. Buying me a new cell phone, so I don't have to reactivate Dominic's old cell phone because it's craptacular.

Anyway, we'll see how long I can play this game called, Complaining About the Fact that I Have to Buy a New Cell Phone Without Actually Buying a New Cell Phone. I think I can last another week, at least.

This morning, at work, I forgot my social security number. Big deal, you say? I've used my social security number almost everyday for some reason or another for the past 10 years, ever since I was forced to memorize it for my 7th grade English class. For the past six months, I've used it to clock in at the computer every morning. But today? Today, I forgot it, and I had to have a manager clock me in. Later, she handed me a piece of paper with my number written on it, and I was all, "Oh, nevermind! I remembered it! I remembered it! I can't believe I forgot it!" And she gave a nervous laugh and said something to the effect of, "That's something I'm sure everyone does." And I said, "Oh no! That's only something I do!"

In other words, Kate Gaskin: Weirding People Out Since 1982.