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There was a recent article about this in the Washington Post. What do you think ladies? Will you be adding this calendar to your Christmas wish list?
P.S. Now, now, before you go and start your own, a fan club already exists for these beauties.
More than three days out of five, Ron and I share the same Metro train from our jobs to home. He is a 50-something year old man who sports a funny mustache--belonging more in rural South Carolina than suburban D.C. With his three kids, past divorce, and motorcycle-driving lifestyle, we don't have much in common. He started talking to me one day when he noticed that I regularly beat him through the turnstiles at our destination. When I revealed to him that my victory is due to riding in the back of the fourth car so I can ride the escalator as opposed to his front-of-the-second-car-and-then-stair-taking that gives me the edge, well, I apparently opened myself to being his friend. We don't chat every day, but enough.
One day last week, before even saying hi, he approaches me and asks, "Are you with child???"
Is it that obvious?
I've blogged about some of the changes that had to come about once C and I married. One of which was that my eating habits had to change. Half a can of Campbell's soup with 10 saltines wasn't enough for dinner for C...how could I have known?! We recently returned from a weekend camping trip to Shenandoah. To illustrate the effect that being married has had on me and my eating habits, I created the following photo essay.
I found last week's poll picture picture here. According to that article, if you see the picture moving clockwise, you are right-brained and if you see it moving counter-clockwise, you are left-brained.
What a bunch of crap. As all of you who know us know, both C and I are left-brained. Enough so that we each doubt the existence of a right-brain in our skulls. While he has finally learned how to see this woman moving counter-clockwise, I am still completely unable to do so.It's certainly a cool picture...but a test of brainedness? I don't think so. Thanks for playing.
Which way is the dancer moving, clockwise or counterclockwise, or are you able to see both? (Apparently, you have to click on the image to see her move.)
I don't necessarily hate my married name, but I definitely don't love it either. Before getting married, I had a last name that was generally mis-pronounced and certainly misspelled. My new last name was, in my opinion, just a lateral move as it is also mis-pronounced and misspelled. My sister, however, definitely "traded up" when she got married, as did my friend Carrie. I feel that my poor cousin Natalie went down the last name ladder. Her married name is definitely harder to spell and far less common than our previous names. (Feel free to disagree Nat!)I've posted before about how I wish that I had at least thought about keeping my old last name after getting married. C, however, is glad that I didn't because who knows what the outcome would have been. But I have been giving this last name business a lot of thought lately. Does the Mullet have to have my (our) last name? Can we give it something entirely different? If so, I have a couple of ideas. First, "Lickliter." I love love LOVE the way this sounds. Second, "Powers." Think of the things you can do with this. Any child would be a shoe-in for class president with a last name like this. And finally, my favorite, "Sugarbaker." For obvious reasons.
Everyone remember this dream from a while back? Take a minute to reread the post and the comments, and then come back.Well, it looks like emily will now be able to tell Miles, "Mr. Mullet coming! Mr. Mullet coming!"For now, since we're not sure of the gender, we're just calling the fetus "the Mullet." When we can verify that information, be certain that I'll post updates about Mr. or Ms. Mullet. While I have no preference on gender, I do have preference on quantity. Given my husband's family history, let's all pray that it remains "the Mullet" and not "the Mullets."
My ability to dream the craziest dreams comes from my mother. If you think my dreams are wacky, spend a few minutes with her and you'll realize how unbizarre mine become.However, the other night I had one of my funniest dreams. But first the preface: recently, a friend of mine related her dream to me. In her dream, she was making out with a B-list celebrity, and enjoying it quite a lot. Upon awakening, she didn't feel that she could share this dream with her husband, so instead, she shared it with me.Now my dream: I actually had a dream within a dream. So the dream-within-the-dream was that I was making out with Will Smith. (C and I had recently seen an episode of "Fresh Prince of Bel Air," and I had commented on how pleased I was with the actor he grew up to be.) I enjoyed this making out so much that when I "woke" from my dream-within-the-dream, I started becoming amorous with C. Thinking he could handle the competition of Will Smith, I told him. This was not wise. He thought I was only enjoying him because I was coming off a "Will high." Of course this wasn't true, but I couldn't convince him otherwise. In the next scene of the dream, C and I are running with Bruno (running with Bruno, now that's funny). We start talking about my dream and C is getting even angrier. I can't understand why a dream would make him so angry, but it did. He eventually runs off ahead of me, yelling things like "Screw you!" and other like mean-things. I, of course, am left bawling with Bruno wondering what I am going to do--my husband just left me. (I will note that in the dream I did flip him off as he's running away. That kinda felt good.)So what happens? I wake up bawling, of course! C does a good job comforting and consoling me. When I am finally composed enough to talk about it, I just start laughing. I realize the hilarity of it, but I was laughing through tears for sure.
I found this AWESOME website that lets you upload your picture and then celebrities' hair styles on your own head. What do you think? Any that suit me?
Be careful! You are apt to spend a LOT of time here.
I received two phone calls this weekend. I'll relate the second call first, as it was far less harmless.C and I had been out of the house, and when we returned, there was a message from a brother in the ward asking if we "would be willing to clean the church tomorrow, since we missed our scheduled day last Saturday." Let me say that our scheduled day was certainly NOT that previous Saturday. It was a few Saturdays ago, and we were there. But I decided that when I returned his phone call I wouldn't mention this insignificant fact. When I called him and told him that I'm sorry, but we're unable to help tomorrow morning, he then said that "Well, it's our ward's turn again in December...blah blah blah." So, of course, I had to say something. I waited for him to finish and said, "Actually, did you say on the message that we weren't there last Saturday? You're right. We were there on Saturday the 8th, as assigned." He was silent for a second and then said, "Oh, I must have had you mixed up with someone else." Darn straight you do.Can I ask a couple of questions about this? I'm okay with him not being able to pick us out of a line-up, but we're talking names and numbers on sheet of paper. How can that get mixed up? Also, he never even comes on those Saturdays to see who is there and who isn't. How could he have even known if we had skipped out on cleaning the church? Maybe it's just his ploy to get people to feel bad for shirking their duty and guilt trip them into helping last minute. Ha! We're on to you Brother!
And now for the much more offensive call. It's easier if I report it in transcript form. I will be known as "me" and the caller will be known as "Miss Cleo," for reasons to become evident.
[Phone rings at the house of C and E. E answers. Please realize that we do not have caller ID at our house. Therefore the identity of the caller was unknown upon answering.]
me: Hello?
Miss Cleo: Good afternoon.
me: Hello??
Miss Cleo: Good afternoon.
me: Hello? [slightly annoyed]
Miss Cleo: Good afternoon.
me: Hello? [really annoyed and much louder]
Miss Cleo: Good afternoon.
me: Hello???? [I'm sure you can guess this one's tone.]Miss Cleo: You know, it's okay to say "good afternoon" to me. me: I didn't realize that I was supposed to say "good afternoon" to you.Miss Cleo: Well in my country, if someone says "good afternoon," you should respond with "good afternoon."me: Well, in my country, if someone keeps repeating "good afternoon" after I have said hello, I think it's because you can't hear me so I am going to keep repeating "hello." [Admittedly, I was probably getting a little snappy with Miss Cleo. But I really don't like people telling me how I should respond.]Miss Cleo: Well you don't have to be like that.me: Well I do. I'm just telling you that since we're in my country, this is how things work. I shouldn't be expected to know what you want me to say.Miss Cleo: [Almost chuckling] Well, you're certainly a Leo, aren't you?me: Well, yes, but that's besides the point....Conversation soon comes to an end. She made me so upset that I was in tears about this. Reason? She made me feel like I couldn't even tell anyone about this (not even C, but too late because he was sitting on the couch listening to the entire conversation) because I would come across as the insensitive, hot-headed, bratty, snotty girl who can't even return a "good afternoon" when given one.As a confession, I am extremely sensitive about this. I know that I'm not the same person I was when I was an undergrad in Utah. I know that living on the East Coast has made me really impatient of check writers at the grocery store, among other things. I have enough self-awareness to realize the changes that have taken place in me after moving to D.C, and possibly due to being 10 years older. Regardless of these recently-adopted quality traits, I still thought I was in the right. But I feared that when I told people this story, they would tell me to my face that that I did the right thing. Behind my back, however, they'd opine that I flew off the handle and should have just given her a "good afternoon."
And, how dare she then resort to astrology to explain this? Astrology?! What business is it of hers what sign I am? And how is that even relevant to our conversation!? ARGH. I vowed never to speak to her again. C is now on permanent phone answering duty.Of course these two incidents were not enough to drive me to inactivity. They came from two members of the ward with whom I have very little contact. However, I do wonder if this would have been different if Miss Cleo were the RS president? Would I stay away from RS until she was released? I honestly don't know. But given the hurt I felt from Miss Cleo, I now have a small understanding of how people can be offended enough to stop coming to church.
Happy October! I'm so excited that it's finally October that I can barely stand it. It is, quite possibly, my favorite of all the months. December is pretty good too.
So let's see how C and I are doing on our resolutions. The first one was that we wouldn't watch the television until after dinner. We're not doing so well on this one. What we are trying to do recently is not add to the already huge list of TV shows that we regularly watch. In addition, if nothing that we like is on, we are going to turn OFF the TV. We won't just keep it on for the noise. We are still eating dinner at the dinner table, most nights at least.
The second resolution was to do chores on a regular basis. We have a beautiful chore chart on the refrigerator and look at it some days. We're okay on this, but we could definitely work harder. I think we're still doing better than last year, however. Isn't that the point?
Third was working on spirituality. My calling in the Young Women has definitely helped with this. I am able to enlist C to help me make the decades-old lessons actually applicable to today's 12- and 13-year olds. Better, but still not great.
And fourth, virtuous thoughts for me. About the same as the last update.
Only three more months to go until we get a new set of goals!
