kerewin's whine cellar

What A Wonderful World It Would Be

Each and every evening the Husband walks up the hill to the local coffee shop to get his favorite blended drink. Occasionally he deigns to ask if there is anything I would like. Most of the time I don't want anything. However, tonight I wanted a soda water with some orange zest. It is the perfect evening beverage because it has good flavor and no caffeine.

"You just had one of those," he said.

"No, I had a Limonata."

"Well you could just have an Aranciata, instead," was his reply. (FYI we had both of those in the fridge from a recent visit to Trader Joe's.)

How LOVELY to have this man around who apparently knows even better than I what my needs and desires are. The next time I go shopping I will have to keep him within celluar distance to verify if I really need a new pair of shoes, or underwear, or even if I want coffee in the morning. What an amazing convenience. I recommend that every woman go out and get one of these immediately. You could start in the yellow pages under J, for jackass.

Apparently he had an epiphany on the way home since he just arrived with not only my soda water but also a pint of yummy ice cream. There might some life in that old dog, after all.

Do We Have Cooties?

I was grilling dinner tonight, because it was too hot to cook in the house. I noticed our neighbors just finishing up their dinner in the yard next door. Due to my work, I have a lot of open wine and usually give it out, so I went in and grabbed a favorite bottle and headed over.

"Do you want this wine?"

They did and they had news for us. They bought a house and are moving in September, likely. This is SO sad. In the almost 6 years we have lived here this is the 4th set of neighbors. They have all been great, and we always hate to see them go. STOP MOVING. Our previous neighbors whom we have had the most in common still own the house, but are renting it out while fixing up this other house they bought. Sure would be nice of they moved back and rented out the other house.

Meanwhile we have sorrow at losing yet another set of cool neighbors.

In other news: My insomnia has taken a different turn. I fall asleep wonderfully and wake up at 4am. Wide. Fucking. Awake. Until around 6am when I fall back into hard sleep. Of course, I am supposed to get up around 7. The last couple days I have utilized the awake time to do housework or work related activities, but really, I just want to sleep. I have a very important day ahead of me, I want a full night's rest. Should I go to bed at 9pm to make sure I get all the hours I need?

True Love

Last September my best friend moved to Arizona. Surprising considering that back in 1987 she wasn’t my friend at all, even though we knew each other. Lisa was my friend. My "High School" best friend. Tall and amazing, intelligent, and a super sports star, I have no idea why she was friends with me. Lisa was so busy all the time that I barely ever got any time to hang out with her. I took anything I could get, even church. I was not exactly a true believer, even then, yet I went weekly just to have any time that I could.

My only serious competition was Christie, the pastor’s daughter. I think that was what made me the most jealous of their time. That they shared the church, in which I would never truly believe. I never realized until this very minute the true nature of my jealousy. That through birthright Christie had a closer tie to Lisa than I ever would, if I was really true to my myself.

So when I moved to Seattle and was looking for a college roommate Lisa told me that Christie was also looking for a roommate. I didn’t think it was a good match. However, no other offer ever came up and we ended up together. I think we were real uncomfortable for at least two months until we realized that we were like twins. Christie was my female soul mate. We had all the same likes and dislikes, and indeed had seen each other as competition for Lisa's friendship. God, High Schoolers are so ridiculous.

From that point on, we were joined at the hip. We shared clothes and shoes and once even a bedmate (not at the same time!). We worked together, went to school together, had all the same friends, and spent every spare moment together. Good lord we were trouble. She is amazing. I miss her so much. Which is why it is such a wonder that I never called her on her birthday. Why I forgot to send her a card. It is just a flaw inside me, I think about those dates and times way in advance and then forget to celebrate them in time.

Tonight when I called her, I actually had to call her PARENTS first, because I only had her cell number. They, of course, don’t really care for me. I am the bad seed who turned their daughter from the church. Can you imagine, “Hi Mr, D, it’s kerewin, um I need Christie’s number since I can’t seem to find it…”

I MISS HER, I miss her so much. I can’t wait until October when we go down to see her and her husband and daughter. Is there anyone like your first real love?

Parallelogram

This weekend while my parents were visiting, I got the thrill of startling my Dad while driving. Since he used to race cars on a quarter mile track in Spokane that is a fairly unique accomplishment. We were at the grocery store to get food for dinner and there was a lovely spot right in front of the Over Priced Snooty* store. As long as I was willing to parallel park. Thanks to my High School driver's ed** teacher I have that ability. That and years of having to park in Seattle.

So, I sidle up the car parked ahead of the open spot and Dad says, "Jesus! You're so close you could drive that car!"

I pulled my patented©*** "One Smooth Reverse" and put it in park. Right up next to the curb.

He said, "Wow, I'm impressed!"

That's right, SUCK IT, DAD, I can park better than you.

*My Mom is allergic to the yeast they use to make wine, but she can have wine coolers because they are actually malt beverages. Since we were having wine with dinner, she asked us to pick her up some so she would have something similar. Snooty store doesn't carry these because, "A lot of those have artificial coloring and flavoring." Now I am very much into natural products but the tone used was so utterly annoying and pretentious. Aside from that, I bet I could find at least one product they carry that has artificial coloring.

**He was a total jackass that guy. I found out later from my college roommate who strangely was in the same Summer Driver's Ed class that I was, even though we were in different schools and grades, that he used to suggest that she and her friends grab their suits and stop by his house for a swim in his pool. They were too creeped out and never went. Still, I wonder if he ever got any complaints?

***You have to drive up until your steering wheel is even with the steering wheel of the car in the spot ahead of the space (presuming that your car is even-ish length). While stopped, but in reverse, turn your steering wheel 100% to the right. Reverse until your steering wheel is even with the bumper at which point you turn the steering wheel to be straight and back up until your bumper is even with the other car's bumper. Then you crank the wheel all the way to the left and back up until you are in the spot. Until you get comfortable with it, you have to do it in stages. Eventually you can do it in one movement. I can't always get it totally right, I usually screw up when someone else is in the car.**** Also this works for spots on the left, too, you just have to reverse the directions.

****BTW, you're welcome*****

*****OMG, could I be more into the ASTERISKS, lately?.

My Pleasure To Connect You

I get the opportunity to call many hotels and private clubs each week for my job. Each receptionist is exactly the same. They answer the phone and speak in fast-forward voice, so that you can't understand them. Then you ask for your party's extension and they always say, "It would be my pleasure to connect you."

LIARS! They certainly don't sound like it is their pleasure.

Pillow update: Last night I slept like total shit and had weird pillow dreams all night long. If history is anything to go by if I tried to sleep with my old pillows tonight they would feel like less than air and I wouldn't even be able to look their way ever again. Which is why I gave them to the Hub. That and we have a pillow exchange policy. I get the new ones, he gets the ones I don't want and his get thrown away. That is why I am extremely happy to mention that I took a nap today and the new goose-free pillows were absofrickinglutely amazing.

Vignettes

1) Site stats are indicating that a small number of people each day are arriving here looking for information on how to clean a moldy tent. Here's my piece of advice for you:

THROW THE GODDAMN THING AWAY.

2) The parents are in town this weekend and we had a good day. After dinner we all went sight seeing in Kevo's convertible Thing. We drove to West Seattle and watched the sun set over the Olympics. It was amazing. Then we saw a bus tag the bumper of a Jetta that was parked in the bus zone and all I could think was, "Thank god that wasn't me hitting that car."

3) I tend to give my Mother gift cards on her birthday and for Mother's Day because I never remember early enough to send packages. Anyway, I found out today she has this cache of gift cards she hasn't used (hello, all from me). So we headed to the mall to try to spend some of them. While there I decided to get a couple of new pillows for the bed, as my old ones were rather over smooshy. I really believe that you shouldn't skimp on pillows or sheets as you spend a good portion of your life in bed and it should be ultra comfortable. So I spend 30 minutes weighing the merits of three different kinds of pillows and finally choose a set that seems best.

Tonight when I went to put pillow cases on them I read the ingredients. How in the hell did I buy a set of hypoallergenic pillows? I mean, for $35/pillow you expect a goose to give their life for you. They should come with a huge warning sticker, "NO GEESE WERE HARMED IN THE MAKING OF THESE PILLOWS." I guess next time I will have to look for the $75 pillows.

With A Fringe On The Top

Yesterday I had a pretty busy work day that started fairly early. So I had my usual cup of coffee and a Luna bar before heading out. At my first stop it turned out that one of the wines I was showing was corked. Since it was the basis of most of the rest of my day, I drove by a grocery store to get a new one. In line I saw the value pack of beef jerkey and thought to myself, "Hmmmmm, lunch on the go?* Perfect!"

So that was the extent of the food I had during the day, some jerkey and a luna bar. I was home around 5:30 and I was STARVING as you might imagine, but I didn't eat because we had been invited out on a friend's sailboat and there was supposed to be food involved. The Hub gets home, we get ready, get to the boat around 7pm. Have a lovely 2 hour cruise and the host whips out a pack of smoked salmon as a snack.** I hate salmon so I was pretty much out of luck as food goes. Since the friend is also a wine vendor, we have a couple of glasses of wine each. Not too bad because the whole "water motion/lack of food/don't want to be too drunk" thing. After the cruise we decide to go out and eat. Oh yeah, and drink more wine. So I finally get dinner around 10ish. By the end of dinner I am feeling pretty tipsy. We got home somewhat past 11 and I pretty much go straight to bed, because I have an 8am meeting (ugh alarm set to go off at 6:15am, what kind of a glutton am I?)

So what's better than waking up at 4am and not being able to go back to sleep? Getting up to do housework. Better than that? Getting ready for work meeting and while brushing teeth, hitting the gag reflex in the back of my throat and spending the next 20 minutes dry heaving. I try to drink water or eat something just to see if it will stay down. No such luck.

And better than 4 hours of sleep, dry heaving and nausea, drive in rush hour traffic to work meeting at 8am? Oh yeah, having 6 different vendors come in and taste us all on their wines. Do I look a little green to you?

*When you drive around in your car all day, unless you have a client to take to lunch you generally miss the middle meal. I was complaining about this to a friend and he suggested I keep some jerkey in the car.

**He just put the smoked salmon on one plate with one fork to break it up with. Everyone ate with their fingers. Ewwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww, fishy fingers.

Iced Tea Carrie

One of my favorite accounts on my list just happens to be one of my favorite restaurants in the city. Therefore, I like to spend money there whenever possible. Since I am going to lunch with a client next week I said we should go there. Very handily I had to make a call on a restaurant right next door today and on my way out stopped by to make reservations.

As the owner was taking down my information he told me that there were a couple of different Carries on the rez book today. Apparently one of them called to change the time and he asked, "Is this Wine Karri?"

"No, this is the Iced Tea Carrie," she replied.

"Oh, that's much less interesting."

So in the book he wrote Wine Karri down next to my time. Can you see why I love that place?

The Sidewinder Sleeps Tonight

I was on the freeway this morning driving to work. It was pissing down rain and contrary to popular belief it hadn't done so in some time so the roads were extra slick. Since I had just gotten my car back from the body shop I was giving an extra 2-3 feet of safety space to cars ahead of me. Don't get me wrong, I'm no Grandma. But there was a semi in the right lane signalling to get over into my lane. Since I already had a nice bit of space, it was rush hour, and I didn't imagine him getting over any time soon I slowed down a little to let him in. Just a little, mind you.

You would think that I stomped on my breaks and took my car to a standstill based on the reaction of the guy in the Toyota truck behind me. He immediately laid on his horn and kept it on until the semi was in our lane. Then he started tailgaiting me and turned on his bright lights. With a semi just barely ahead of me, and an enraged driver practically driving on my bumper in back, I decided it was time to change lanes. I then moved into the right lane and as the lunatic passed me he laid on his horn again and gave me several rounds of the bird. Good thing the semi didn't have to brake on short notice. As he went by I turned to my left, smiled my biggest smile and waved.

The driver of the semi had my back, though. After lunatic fringe was done flipping out on the left, the semi driver slowed down and kept the creep blocked in as I sailed blissfully on by.

Isn't 8:30 a.m. a bit early to have a full blown case of road rage?

Parking Violations

So a month, or so, ago, I had a flat tire. No biggie. Except that it was a work day and I had an emergency delivery to make downtown. Due to my work I have commercial plates and a commercial parking permit. Long story short, I drove my husband's car and ended up getting a parking ticket for parking in a commercial zone. I decided to contest the ticket and my appointment with the Magistrate was yesterday.

I came equipped with a copy of my car registration, a picture of the flat tire, and several check stubs to prove I work for a wine distributor. He looked over my evidence and took the time to give me a lecture.

"Get yourself a handtruck, you want to be legal with the city." Hello? I *am* legal with the city. I have all the right paperwork, I just had an unfortunate set of circumstances.

He must think that I routinely park illegally in commercial loading zones. Maybe he means that I have flat tires 4 out of 5 days of my week? I have no idea. Anyway, he was pushy and a bit grim. I guess his premise is that I really had no right to park in those yellow zones and subsequently I should have parked 5-10 blocks away with 200 pounds of wine. Anyway, why would I want to be legal with the city?

My response?

"Thank you, sir. Thanks for lowering my ticket. Yes, I am an asshole. Slit me open on the spot."

Yeah, that's how is went.

I paid $15 which is a helluva lot better than the original $44. But still...I hate being lectured by someone who refuses to understand.

We Bowled Under A Full Moon

When my work team was in Salem for a wine event, we decided we would go bowling together. [For their sake, let's just call them B, M, and the Boss. B is the youngest of our group and probably the most wine snobbish; M is the most staid one, with wife, kids, nanny, mortgage, the works; The Boss is, well, the Boss. Also he used to sell me wine and is just sincerely one cool guy – yeah, I am a big suckup, can you tell I just gave him the url for this site? There is also A, the other girl on my team who couldn't go to Oregon because of personal issues.] We had talked about going bowling together several times before but it never worked out. In Oregon we were all hanging out together with not much else to do but drink. We do that for work, so who wants to do that outside of work? (ahHAHAHhahahahahaHAHAHa, ahem. No, you can't have my job.)

The bowling alley was about 5 miles from the hotel we stayed in and since no one could give us very good directions we took a cab there. The driver was a complete freakass. He went through alleys and made serious suggestions about taking us to Bingo. We got there unscathed and then B dropped the bomb. "I think we should make this a drinking game, or at the very least, if someone bowls under a 69, he has to drop trou."

Um, hello? I was the ONLY GIRL and I have the fattest ass of the group, too. Everyone else readily agreed and I had no choice. My only saving grace was that in the 7th grade I was in a Saturday bowling league, so I have a general idea of how the game works. Still, I was a little nervous. Turns out I had nothing to worry about. Both B and M are simply the two shittiest bowlers I have EVER seen. I get the feeling they were patronising us, though. The Boss did add an adendum to the bet, in that we only had to see underdrawers and not actual skin.

There weren't many people in the bowling alley when we were playing, although we had to finish up by 11pm (stupid midnight bowling). Somehow we managed to draw the attention of the management who kept on coming up to us and asking if we were ok, or if we needed something. I think they were trying to find us doing something worthy of kicking us out. Seemed odd, we weren't loaded out of our minds, we weren't THAT obnoxious, we certainly weren't rude, I didn't know what to make of it.

After the first game B was well under 69 and he went to show us his talent, so to speak and we postponed because we thought with all the extra attention that we might get tossed out. (By the way, I bowled a 122 or something like that! yay me!) The second game I was starting to tire out and get grumpy so I only bowled somewhere in the high 80s. The Boss kicked serious ass that time and I think it was due to the pointers I gave him. That will teach me. M was the major league underdog this time, I think his score was somewhere in the low 40s.

We took another taxi back to the hotel and decided to have one last drink at the bar across the street. At that point I figured the whole "drop trou" thing was merely a bit of fun and would never actually come true. We ended up at the bar talking for about 2 hours and at one point M left the table to go to the bathroom. As he gets back to the table his pants are undone and he stands in front of us and pulls his pants down a bit and shows us his boxers, with pants about half down, from the front.

"That's not good enough," I sais, "We didn't get to see your behind!" I merely meant we didn't get to see his flannel boxer covered ass. He then turns around, leans over, and drops his unders. I picked that unfortunate moment to lean over to grab my purse that fell to the floor and almost got a full-on face full o'ass. HOLY SHIT! I didn't think he would take me literally.

About 90 seconds after mister exhibitionist finished his show the bartender came up to the table. We all held our breath. "Sorry kids, last call," she said.

Whew! I thought we were busted for sure. Since it was 1:30a and we started that morning at well before 5am we got the tab and headed out. We stood on the sidewalk across from our hotel waiting for this car to pass before walking across. Suddenly B starts running across the street, with his pants and underwear around his knees. The pants make him run kinda like a monkey across the street and I might be mistaken, but it seemed I saw his shawdowy bits flopping around a little bit.

"I've been thinking about doing that for the last hour!" B yelled at us from across the street as he pulled his pants up. Needless to say, it was a super-fantastic evening.

Thank god I didn't lose, though. I couldn't have even competed, theatrically.

My White Trash Story Versus Yours

(I really feel as if I wrote about this once before but I am too lazy to read through EVERY post. I did a search on the post based on the word "Aunt" and didn't find a matching story so here we go.)

My Mother's Grandma had a heart attack in the early 90s. She lived in Sandpoint, Idaho, as did two of her daughters (my aunts). My parents live(d) in Spokane, Washington. There are great heart hospitals in Spokane so she was airlifted there for bypass surgery. The sisters living in Sandpoint hopped in a car to get their asses to Spokane (I can't rememebr rightly but it is something like 90 minutes), they called my Uncle in Kelso, WA (6-7 hours from Spokane). They didn't, however, call my Mom. She found out from her Step-Father, who called to let her know. She got in the car and made the 10 minute drive to the hospital in time to meet up with the two sisters who had just arrived.

As I have said before (I am also too lazy and tired to provide a link) my Grandmother played all her kids against each other and they tended to fight. So they all meet up at the hospital. Everyone is stressed out and worried and at least on my Mom's side, all sorts of pissed off. In times like this people tend to fall back into family stereotypes and act accordingly. My Mother faces off with my Aunts Joanne and Carole. Accusations and anger about not calling ahead.

My Aunt Joanne starts poking my mother in the chest as she is making points. Mom tells her to stop. She doesn't stop. Mom tells her again to stop or she'll be sorry. Again, Aunt Joanne doesn't stop. So Mom reaches out, puts her hands around Aunt Joanne's neck and shakes it a couple of times, then lets go.

As Mom says later, "She just wouldn't stop, so I just did that to make my point. And it worked."

For the next year or so everytime I hung out with my cousins (daughters of Aunt Joanne) we would have the same old argument.

"Your Mom strangled my Mom!"

My only argument to that was, "Tensions were high, feelings were hurt. Remember, we all tend to fall back into those old family habits in bad times." I would like to note that all my cousins, my sister, my parents, and I all get along famously. Not entirely certain you could say the same for my Aunt Joanne and her daughters. I am SURE the choking had nothing to do with that.

Disfunction, what?

And Speaking of Spokane

Apparently I am not quite done talking about my little trip to SpoVegas with my sister. While we were driving over we started talking about your cooter, and what to call it. H-star is more fond of cookie. whereas, I prefer taco (and have occasionally used pineapple). I mean, come on, look down, does it not have the shape of a hard taco?

Since we were already being entirely inappropriate, I decided that from that point on, we should call lesbians taco eaters. Which I promptly forgot and kept talking about the excellent tacos I ate just a couple of day before. This, of course, put us in hysterics.

Seriously people, Taco Eaters. It logically follows that when seeing a lesbian couple it would be entirely appropriate to wonder which of the two was the hard taco vs the soft taco.

Tomorrow I am off to Oregon for a 2 day work trip to visit a winery my team reps. Hard life, isn't it?

As If That Wasn't Enough

You know, I ended with the weakest Spokane story. The night the sister and I got into Spokane and forced our Mother to tell our Father that she wanted a divorce we also stayed in a hotel. You know, to give them their PRIVACY. Since we spent most of the night trying to get her to tell him, we didn't get there until after midnight.

When you are about to do something you really don't want to do, you act like a nut and everything is extremely funny. Therefore our drive to Spokane was a but guster. Seriously. So when we went to the hotel, there was a lot that just made us laugh. When we checked in, the barely-old-enough-to-work kid asked, "How many nights are you staying?"

We looked at each other and said, "Two."

"Sorry, we're booked tomorrow night," he replied.

Huh? Just exactly WHY did he ask, then? Yadda, yadda, then we give up the AAA card, give out a credit card just in case, and then ask, "Can we just split it on two cards tomorrow morning?"

"Sure, as long as you check out after 7 am."

...

Of course, he's brand new and gets off at 7am, therefore we are in happier hands at that point. As he gives up the form to sign I notice on either side of his desk at cups FULL of pens. Long story short, a pen is always a good thing to have and something I never have. Therefore, I covet this bounty. I don't even remember what I said but it was something about wanting to take all his pens and he says, "Hey, if you want, you can take the whole box."

He then proceeds to take a box out from under the counter that would hold HUNDREDS (500? 1,000?) of pens and passes it over the counter to me. Hmm, tempting. I look inside. "Oh, these are black pens? Sorry I only want the blue ones."

Can you imagine if he had a box of BLUE PENS???????

The next day we are driving around town trying to find a hotel to stay in. At one place we go to see if they have space and scary toothless girl says, "No problem. Just one bed?"

I'm sorry. I love my sister and all, but do we look like a COUPLE?

We ended up at the Red Lion near Riverfront Park. They had the best pillows and mattresses (note the plural) of ANY hotel, ever. I love how they were concerned about how much the room might cost. "That will be $120, is that oookaaaay?" Just WHAT is in the water over there?

Seriously.

Would You Like Parmesan With That?

So when we were in Spokane we ate at one of those faux-Italian restaurants, like Macaroni Grill. No reservations allowed, huge wait, paper and crayons on each table so that the server can write his or her name there, just so's you don't forget. Being a former server, I tend to be annoyed by such a thing. I never gave my name out, unless it was requested. It falls into that whole concept of, "waiter as actor."

I do happen to like Tomato Street (we aren't talking fine dining here, I mean, this IS Spokane after all). They have this disgustingly good greasy, garlic bread that probably has about 400 calories a slice. Everyone is always friendly and while it is always too busy and too loud and full of way too many children, my family tends to have a nice time while we are there. So it was the parents, sister and me. We sit down, get our water, and start messing with the crayons. H-star starts drawing this huge oblong circle on the edge of the table. Then she draws a line through it, the universal symbol for, "don't." I was busy trying to figure out what she wanted me to stop doing so I just stared at it. Finally I said, "Don't what?"

Then she started writing in the circle. She slowly wrote out, N-A-M-E so that it was facing anyone who approached the table. My parents looked at us like we were lunatics when we busted up laughing. I had completely forgotten that who knows how long ago I had told her how much I loathed the whole name thing. So our poor waiter walks on up to the table, crayon in hand and as he leans in to write his name, he kinda stops and looks at us with a puzzled expression.

"You...you don't want to know my name?"

The poor thing, he looked so crushed. Of course, when it came down to ordering you could tell the Seattle apart from the Spokane (sorry Mom and Dad). H-star, who just had a baby, was going more healthy which pretty much left her with just minestrone soup. I was craving some sauteéd spinach with my entreé and tried to order some on the side. "Are you sure you just want it on the side? It is kinda small," he-who-shall-remain-nameless said.

"Well maybe I should get two sides put together. How much would it cost?"

"A side of vegetables is 99 cents." [this is not even the most jaw-dropping event] Was he worried I couldn't afford it?

So they bring the salads out and offer pepper and parmesan. That's a nice touch for SpoCompton, I was impressed, but decided to hold off. "No thank you." During dinner my sister, father, and I were in this really surreal state of mind because my Mother had told my father the night before that she wanted a divorce. Yet here we were, all sitting at a restaurant, talking and acting like NOTHING WAS WRONG. I could see times when my Dad's head did one of those strange cartoon things (the kind where if you typed out the noise that it makes it would be stupid - like wubba-wubba-wubba). My Mom seemed not to notice that anything was out of the ordinary, which was extra freaky.

So they bring out the entreés and say, "Would anyone like any pepper or parmesan with that?" Since my dish is a baked pasta I decide that would be a good thing. Quick as a flash the food runner whips a shaker out of his apron and presents me with...wait for it...a shaker filled with the kind of parmesan you can find on the table of every pizza joint in the country. If I had asked for pepper would they have just handed me a shaker filled with the pre-ground stuff? I mean, how bizarre is that?

I got a little flak from Dad about the whole No-Name event and the hard time I gave our poor server about my side of sauteéd spinach (which was the best part of the meal). So to make it up to the waiter, I decided to compile a list for all of the employees' amusement later on. I mean, when you are waiting in the lobby you see a bunch of drawings from previous guests up on the walls. Therefore, they might look at the paper on the table before they throw it away.

Waiter Truisms

• If they know your name, they'll (over) use it
• All women at a table = separate checks, all water and everything on
  the side.
• Family friendly restaurants are the best form of birth control, EVER
• No one wants to wait on the table of Germans, Brits, or Canadians
• People always forget their boxed up food
• When a table says "you are the best server EVER," that *is* the tip
• When you are waiting for the last entreé to come up, the kitchen always says "just two more minutes"
• People always ask for more of that 'good' bread (because if they didn't ask you would likely bring them the crappy, day-old bread).

I hope it brightened their day. That and the HUGE tip we left. Speaking of tips, if you want more fun restaurant bravado, check out my newest online addiction.

The Surreal Spokane Life, Part I

Last weekend I travelled to Spokane with my sister to do a family thing. While we were there we went to the local Fred Meyer. My sister was getting a box of granola bars and some foundation. When we got the checkout line the woman put the foundation in a plastic bag and set it up on the little counter between us and the register, like they do for things they think you want right away. Then she started to put the granola bars into a larger grocery-sized bag when H-star said to the cashier, "Oh it is ok, you can just put them in one bag."

The cashier, who is SO very SpoCouver (SpoVegas, SpoKansas, you only really get the reference if you are from these here parts) seemed incredulous.

"Really?" she asked.

"No problem," the sis replied.

So then the cashier took the bag with the foundation and tossed it into the larger bag and then the granola bars and handed off the double set of bags with the receipt. Is it possible that this woman didn't understand that we were trying to be more environmentally friendly? Is there some makeup-can't-touch-food-in-a-box law that I don't know about? I just stood there with my mouth open.

Weird.

This isn't the only truly bizarre thing that happened while we were there, it is just the first thing I have time to write about. More later. Just what is in the water over there?

When It Feels Right

I once wrecked my boyfriend's (now husband's) car. It was a silly mistake of not paying attention. He was never anything but supportive, never said anything at the time except that he was glad I was alright. Yet, later if the accident ever came up in conversation, I always assumed that he had a lot of blame to lay at my feet, and I responded by getting upset, post mortem, so to speak.

But I always assumed he felt upset at me from the beginning, he was just saying all the right things because that is what you do. What came out later was the truth. Because it just feels right to be bitched out for messing up. That whole, "I am just glad you are ok" is true but it has this hidden second message of "and I sure hope the _______ is ok, too!" So when I fucked up today and made the call to tell what happened, when the response was anger and frustration, it just felt right. I felt very admonished. Even though I was more than punishing myself.

I wasn't mad about the anger towards me, it was expected. It felt like the agreement blanket I was already wearing.

Is this totally fucked up? Should we only want total backing of every single thing we do, whether good or bad?

The Tent

When I was first in college, my Dad bought me a tent. It was a lovely tent. A four-person, one-room tent in blue. I used it a couple times, it was great. It went up easily, it wasn't too big, nor too small. It would have been the perfect tent for years to come. Except that somewhere, sometime between moves, some roommate swiped it.

Sometime after that, my Dad asked about the tent and I had to admit that I didn't have it anymore and why. He was so cool, and he went and got me a new one. This was about the time that the Hub and I were first dating. Dad said he was torn between a round tent and the one he ended up getting. It was a two room tent, it held EIGHT people! It was SO cool! The Hub however, was less enthusiastic.

"It's too big," he whined.

"It's hard to put up!" (yeah, when you lose the directions!)

Whenever I suggested getting a new tent though, oh nooooooooooooooooooooooo. In fact, I ended up using the tent fewer times than the good ole Hub. It was always offered as a loan out to friends whenever they went camping. It was damn handy! Even with only two people camping I loved that you could have a room to put all your stuff, and then a room for just your sleeping bags. I don't know about you, but when I was camping with my parents, as a kid, we were warned over and over and OVER about NOT TOUCHING THE SIDES as then rain could GET THROUGH THE TENT AND GET US WET! With this huge tent, it was guaranteed that nothing would touch. You could practically park the Beetle in one of the rooms and still have room for a small couch.

This last March is was unseasonably warm here in Seattle (helloooooo high 80s) and the Hub wanted to go camping with his friends. Gosh, I wonder what tent they wanted to use? So the man and his friends go out, use MY tent and have a (semi)good time. Of course, if they had thought to pack along some DRY WOOD for camp fires, or even the gas can for the lantern, their fun would have increased tenfold, but hindsight and all. They ended up going to bed just past sunset because they got too cold standing around the fire in the dark. Later, I asked why they didn't get out their sleeping bags and sit around the dark fire and chat. D'oh! Brainiacs, they are.

So the Hub comes home with my tent and proceeds to splay it out on the lawn. I was a bit confused since according to my Father the MOST BASIC tenet of camping is the tight rolling of (dry, clean) equipment before leaving the campground. The Hub felt it needed an 'airing out' since the bottom was damp and he didn't want to put it away wet. He swore on 8 stacks of Bibles that he would roll up the tent the next day. Of course, it rained buckets that evening. And the next 3-4 days.

It got sunny again and we tossed it over the fence that separates our yard from the neighbors yard. After a day or two of sun I created a winter storm warning in Seattle by saying, "Honey I think the tent is dry, can you PLEASE roll it up, NOW?" This is about the point that The Principle kicks in. The one that prevents me from shaking the tent out and putting it away, myself. In fact, I must be coerced to assist in moving it around to potentially dryer spots. For the last month or so the tent has been laying on top of a huge wooden box that lives at the end of our carport.*

I swear that EVERY. SINGLE. TIME. I even think the words, "you should get that put away while it is dry," it starts raining. Let's be realistic though, it has been since late March since this tent was used. I am sure that it was dry maybe once or twice along the way. This is partially my fault, because I am working really, really hard against the nagging gene present in my family and I refuse to nag him about it each and every day. Of course the real blame lies with the Hub and his complete and utter lack of regard for my tent.

So he went to Vancouver B.C. yesterday, for the rest of the week. When I got home from work yesterday I decided to mow the lawn. I am certainly not perfect, it was definitely a few days overdue. In fact, the time before last it was a couple months overdue, but I am trying to stay on top of it. So, I got out the mower and got into this zen mode. DANDELION KILLER. Until I got to the back yard and the tent was very much in my way. I considered just mowing over it and ruining it. It was very tempting. After two and a half months of ghetto yard I was a tad bit tired of it. (Oh my god, how did we turn into THOSE neighbors?????????) I resisted the temptation and instead, lifted it up to mow under.

Oh. My. God. The bugs, and the SLUGS, and the shit flying around under there and the SPIDERS!?!?!?!!?!? I can't even begin to tell you about the pink, moldyish goo. So I grabbed the damn thing and pulled it into the driveway and thought about what I was going to do with it. *CRINGE* Not one single chance that I was going to clean it. Therefore, that would make it difficult to clean and dry and fold up and put away. Instead, I opted for the corner.

I live on the corner of a not-so-busy and decently-busy intersection. It is some miracle yard sale space. We have put stuff out there that we wanted to give away and while we were in the house making the "Free" sign, the stuff was taken. It is June, the start of camping season, a tent shouldn't last 5 minutes out there. So I haul the damn thing out to the corner, touching the dryest, cleanest portion possible. Then I go inside and find the bag with all the poles and tent stakes. Out it goes, too. Then I find a box and attach a FREE sign to it and toss it on the heap.

Then I call the Hub and tell him about my moldy find while I was mowing. He asks if I would be kind enough to shake it out for him and lay it on the driveway to dry out. AHAHHAhahahahHAHAHAHA. Ahem. So I break the news to him that if no one claims it by Tuesday evening, then when he gets back HE will get the opportunity to clean it out, himself.

This morning the damn thing was still there. The marketing stoolie inside me asks, "Why?"

Hmmmmm, Well maybe the heap of nylon with a sign on it hardly looks like a tent. So I get out another piece of paper and with my Sharpie, print, "TENT." I take it outside and tape it to the other sign.

FREE TENT

When I got home from work today the only thing left was the box with the sign. SUCKERS. I feel on top of the world. Looks like we are in the market for a new tent. (Sorry, Dad!)

*Large wooden box? Could it possibly have held a pinball machine that the Hub bought a year and a half ago? I want it gone by this weekend, but I don't know what to do with it. I could chop it up and put it on the corner, but somehow, I doubt anyone wants this "FREE WOOD."