blue jean blues

Yesterday is going down in the history books for me.  See, about three years ago, around the time we left California, I got rid of my jean jacket.  As far as I'm concerned, jean jackets were the best thing about fashion in the 80s and 90s, and I have always kept one to throw on over summer dresses or with a skirt and top.  I have only two rules concerning the jean jacket: 1) Keep the sleeves rolled up at all times, and 2) Never pair it with another denim clothing item.

When I got rid of my last jean jacket, I figured I would just pop into a store or two, take a little look-see, and grab another one.  {I mean, I would still have paid for it.}  Little did I know that it would take me until April 17, 2013 to find one I really liked.  But find one I did, and I even got it for half the normal price thanks to a couple of coupons.

{Off topic, but do you all pronounce that word "cue-pon" or "koo-pon"?  I use the former pronunciation, but JLR uses the latter.  This is probably a difference we should resolve before we have kids, yes?}

{At least neither of us says "nucular" when pronouncing "nuclear."  And if any of you reading this do (George W., I'm talking to you), please stop.  It hurts my ears.}

Speaking of JLR, he's not actually a fan of the jean jacket.  And while most of the time I like to think that he is pleased with my wardrobe, there's just no way he's going to separate me from a good jean jacket permanently.  To his credit, however, he went with me to the mall and didn't say even one disparaging word about what we were going to buy.  What he did say, as we walked by a car display in the middle of the mall, was "That's a really big rack!"  A split second later, he realized what he said and cracked himself up.  He followed it with, "And I like the one on the Mini Cooper, too."

Well played, JLR.  Well played.

Even though he doesn't fully support my love of the jean jacket, when we walked out of the mall about 20 minutes later, JLR was carrying my brand new piece of denim outerwear.

Can you hear my sigh of bliss around the nation?

And now speaking of the nation, I just have to say that as a runner--and, well, as a human--I am horrified by what happened Monday in Boston.  It boggles my mind to think that someone would actually be purposeful about something so depraved.  I wonder if we will reach a point where we have to be concerned every time we walk out the front door.  And then I feel guilty for wondering that b/c I know that people all over the world experience that very type of worry on a daily basis.  America may not be a perfect country, but we are still fortunate to live here {until it's time to deal with medical insurance, but I think that's probably a rant for another time} and to have it good enough that we're still shocked by senseless acts of violence.  I'm relieved to say that all of my Bostonian friends, including a few non-Bostonians who ran the marathon, are hale and whole.

I saw a quote on Facebook after the bombings that was {allegedly, at least} made by Mr. Rogers himself.  He said that when he was young and something bad happened, his mother would tell him to look for the helpers, b/c there would always be helpers.  I'd say that's little comfort to people who lost limbs or loved ones, but a little is better than none, right?

*Song by ZZ Top

oxford comma

I sometimes have a hard time deciding what information is appropriate for posting on my blog and what information is, as my friend Brittany would say, for private {see that, Brittany? see what I did there?}.  We've had a couple of odd experiences related to the blog world, so I'm wary of putting too much detail, but at the same time I realize that the detail is often what makes the blog worth reading.

Unless you ask our family friend Rick, who, upon first reading my blog, sent me an e-mail that basically said, "My goodness, you are certainly verbose."  I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that he's not one of my ten or so regular readers.  But since his wardrobe has never contained an item of clothing that was not black, navy, grey, or white, I will take his opinion on my creative abilities with a grain of salt.

Rick and my dad were friends in the military, where they served in the Vietnam War together and had a pet mongoose named Killer.  They transported Killer around in their flight suits sometimes, even taking him in the air with them.  Apparently Killer required a different level of oxygen than a human (which makes sense b/c he was, you know, a mongoose), b/c he would pass out once the plane reached a certain altitude and not wake up till the plane descended again to land.

Killer was obviously vicious.

Not.

Those incredibly tough airmen treated that mongoose like it was the unit's token kitty-kat, and I've seen the pictures to prove it.  Pictures in which those airmen are wearing a lot of polyester and some really tight tank tops and some really tall socks.

I've never questioned where I get my fashion sense.

But I am beginning to question whether or not this post is going to have an actual topic, and I believe the answer is no.  I'm off to enjoy this weather and get some work done and then figure out dinner since our cook hasn't shown up once in nearly eight years of marriage.

{How did I do, Brittany?  Did I say anything that should have been kept for private?}

By Vampire Weekend

mercy mercy me (the ecology)

I had some samples of beauty products in my bathroom drawer recently, one of which was an oil that you're supposed to apply to your face and hands after cleansing "for better looking skin."  Well, I didn't get to apply it to much of anything b/c I opened the drawer one day to find that the miniature bottle no longer contained any oil...the oil was instead covering the bottom of my drawer and other products.  I took it as a sign that I needed to clean out the entire drawer, so I did just that, and only when I was disposing of the things I didn't want anymore did I find the tag that was on the oil bottle.

It reads "Marula: The Leakey Collection."

You're telling me.

*Marvin Gaye

the hissing of summer lawns

I really think there's no need for acorn squash.

I keep getting it in my CSA box of produce, and it just sits on my counter, taunting me.  I don't know how to use it, and I wasn't even sure what type of squash it was until today (call me naive, I don't care).  All I knew was that it was hard to peel and therefore pointless to have.

Give me a spaghetti or butternut or zucchini or yellow squash ANY. DAY. OF. THE. WEEK. over an acorn squash.

And really, that's just about all I have to say on that topic.

{Except that soon I will be growing my own dang squash and you better believe there's not going to be an acorn squash anywhere in my raised garden beds!}

JLR and I are fortunate to have purchased a home where we are surrounded by good neighbors.  A few people in our little area, however, are a tad overzealous when it comes to yard maintenance, thus making the rest of us look bad.  The man on the corner mows and rakes and trims and weedeats all the livelong day and into the night {no joke; we've heard him out there mowing until 10 p.m. in the summer}.  The man across the street has perfectly placed foliage and neatly trimmed trees and a good-sized garden in the back yard.  The couple on the south side of us is very traditional: He does all the yard work, and she stays inside where it's cool and bug-free.  He's always out there inspecting his trees or picking up sticks or pulling weeds or some such busyness.  And the man on the north side of us may let his yard look like a rain forest before he mows it, but he's got a huge, flourishing garden every single year.

But here's what I appreciate.  Yesterday when I got home, Darrell (the south side neighbor) was out working on something on his driveway.  Someone at the house directly behind me was weedeating, and I looked at Darrell and said, "I'm just not ready to start mowing my yard yet."

He stopped and shook his head a little bit and said, "Let's give it three more weeks."  And then he went back to his tinkering.

I just liked that he would consider it a combined effort to wait as long as possible before resuming the task of mowing once a week to keep the grass from overtaking our houses.  {That's maybe a bit extreme, but it does get unruly very quickly once it really starts growing.}

Maybe soon our neighbors will point at our yard and say, "Do you see those raised garden beds?  They look great!  They're putting my little garden to shame..."

But probably not.  Because there will still be weeds in our flower beds and sticks in our yard and a driveway that could use some more pea gravel and bushes that need to be trimmed.

Progress, not perfection.

That's my motto.

my own worst enemy

Tonight, JLR and I are having some friends over to watch The Bachelor season finale.

Excuse me while I hang my head in shame.

Let me start by saying (probably not for the first time) that we don't have cable.  So a few weeks ago, we were flipping through our antenna-based channels, and there was really nothing on, but all we wanted was to sit on the couch for a little while and relax at the end of our day.  We settled on The Bachelor.

Cue the serious female drama.

We caught it a couple more times, and then we had seen enough that we figured we might as well watch the end, so here we are, having people over so that we can all sit and gawk at the absurdity of using a reality television show to find love.  Or whatever.

In preparation for the evening's festivities, I am making dinner.  And to finish dinner, I had to stop at the grocery store after a work appointment this afternoon.  Between the work appointment and the grocery store, I came to a conclusion: I...um...struggle with being nice.  And by that, I mean: I am not always.  Nice.

{This is where my brother would say something profound like, "You're just figuring that out?"}

The couple I met with for the work appointment was perfectly pleasant, but the woman kept getting in my personal space {I don't have general boundary issues, but maybe it was b/c she was a stranger and I was feeling persnickety?} and telling me all kinds of things I didn't care about or need to hear.  Like that she painted a room slate grey.  And she's very handy.  And she's an artist.  And my boots are cute.  And their house is 4,000 square feet.  And her bathrooms are dated.  And on and on and on.  All while standing about 8 inches away from me.

Too close.  Too much.  Go away.

From there, I went to Kroger, where I apparently channeled my inner Adrian Monk.  All I could see were the kid picking his nose {I looked away before I could find out where he wiped whatever he found}, the other kid running his hands all over the computer at the front of the store, the wet marks on the conveyor belt, the scuffs on the floor, the obese child being handed a sugary beverage, and the unnaturally colored icing on the store-made cupcakes.  I couldn't get out of there fast enough, and I came home and scrubbed my hands with hot water.

Now I think I'll put this Monkness to good use and scrub the guest bathroom before guests are actually here to use it.

Is it any wonder JLR loves me so much?  [Snort.]

But seriously, who do you all think is going to win?  Lindsay or Catherine?

Not that I care.

the garden was crowded and outside

JLR and I are in the process of planning some raised garden beds for our back yard.  Figuring out exactly what we want, where we want it, and how much it's going to cost {I have a knack for ensuring that the answer to this question, no matter what it's regarding, is usually "a lot"} has been kind of a hassle b/c we don't have a lot of personal knowledge, so we ask a lot of questions and take a lot of notes.

A couple weeks ago, we were watching TV, and a Home Depot commercial came on that thoroughly underwhelmed JLR.  A couple moves into their first home together with no lawn maintenance equipment, and  the next thing you know, they're walking out of Home Depot with a mower, a weedeater, pavers, plants, grass seed, and all the other things they need to do a complete yard makeover.  You see them mowing, pruning, and watering, and in the final shot, they stand back to look at their pristine yard.

"Pssh," JLR said.  "That's absurd.  They make it look like a Saturday afternoon project.  That would take days of work!"

I'm hoping that our raised beds don't take us days, but if they do?  Oh, well.  I told my grandpa what we were planning and how JLR was so unimpressed by that commercial.  He said, "Well, Rome wasn't built in a day...but then again, you weren't the boss of that job!"

True.

He also said that yard work is fun...until the first drop of sweat forms and falls.  That, apparently, is when the fun ends.  {In New Orleans in the summer, using that as the standard for measuring, I could have fun doing yard work for approximately 48 seconds.}

Last weekend, JLR and I went to the local coop to find out more about seeds and pre-planting and that kind of thing, and there were a couple of guys working who were more than willing to provide us with all the education we could want.  {One of them was a very "good ol' boy" southerner, and I could tell by the blank look on JLR's face that he couldn't understand a blessed word the man was saying.  My suspicion was confirmed when we got home and JLR asked, "What on earth were those other kinds of strawberries the guy mentioned?"}  Now we have to decide things like which varieties of tomatoes we should plant and whether we want our beans to climb or crawl.

The fellas sent us home with a magazine that has a lot of good planting information, and JLR was looking at it as I got ready to go somewhere that evening.  He hollered to me from the living room, "Hey!  I know we weren't planning to grow corn, but it says here that it keeps away smut!"

I said, "I don't know what 'smut' is!"

JLR yelled back, "Come on, Carmen; just log on to the Web!"

I'm pretty sure there's not enough corn grown in this entire world to keep away that amount of smut.

amelia {continued}

It's March 3.  This is a hard day for me.  This is the day my best friend was killed in a car accident 11 years ago.  I wrote about it here two years ago.  I didn't plan to write about it again today.  But here I am, doing just that.

Every year, starting around the beginning of February, I anticipate this day.  Last night, just before we went to sleep, I said to JLR, "Tomorrow is going to be 11 years."  It doesn't seem possible that more than 4,000 days could have passed since Amy's mom gave me the horrible news that Amy was dead.  That was one of those events that changes you forever.

Every now and then, I still have dreams that Amy is alive.  In the dreams now, I'm usually irritated with her for leaving and not telling me where or why she was going.  And then I wake up and have to remember all over again that it's just in my mind.  I'm sure there's a shrink out there who would love to analyze the you-know-what out of that.  Or maybe it's as simple as me wishing I could have my best friend miraculously returned to me.

Getting it through my head that Amy was gone was the hardest part of the whole mess.  She was the queen of the two-minute phone call.  My phone would ring, I would see that it was her, and I would pick it up.  "Have you seen that new [insert brand here] commercial?  The one with the girl and the bike and the dog?"  I'd say yes or no, and she'd say, "She looked just like you!  I just had to tell you that.  Talk to you later!"  And that was that.  When I first became good friends with her, I thought that was so strange, but later I appreciated it.  And when it was no longer possible, it was a huge adjustment.  I would reach for the phone, and then I would remember.

After Amy died, her mom, Syndi, told me that she had been going through photos of Amy and that she noticed how happy Amy was in all the photos of Amy and me.  And when I got married, Syndi said that she was glad I was marrying someone Amy knew and approved of, and I'm glad of that as well.  The first time I cracked a smile after Amy died was more than a day later when JLR skipped a class to take me to dinner at Malibu Chicken.  It was so out of character for him to miss class that I couldn't help but laugh, just a little.  And then we almost got locked on the Malibu Pier.  It was just the absurdity I needed.

My friend {and maid of honor} Jenn made me a scrapbook for my birthday several years ago that she titled The Three Amigas.  I look through it every year on this day and I'm so thankful that she did such a good job of capturing the little bits of our friendship that I wouldn't want to forget.  Jenn and Amy were roommates our freshman year at Pepperdine, and we spent countless hours in their dorm room, listening to music, being ridiculous, doing each other's hair, making plans, irritating the RA and SA in the room next door.  We also went to Mardi Gras together, took a road trip to northern California for a friend's wedding, shared countless meals in the cafeteria, and spent lots of time and dollars at Old Navy.  The last page of the scrapbook Jenn made me is a fantastic picture of Jenn and me from after we graduated college.  It was hard on us to lose the third member of our trio, but there are some people you never outgrow, ya know?  So I still cherish that picture, even if one person is missing from it.

Time to get outside and soak up a little bit of sunshine before it disappears for the evening.  After all, it's what Amy would have done.

swing life away

Well, there goes the New Year's resolution to post at least twice per week.  Ah, well.  I'm back at it now, and the six of you who read this will at least be thankful for that.

Things have been kind of crazy around here, and to top it all off, I could basically be a full-time floor cleaner with all the fur our crazy dog is leaving around the house.  At one point over the weekend, JLR looked down at my feet and then looked up at me and said, "Wow, Carmen.  You've got, like, a Yorkie attached to your foot."  He wasn't wrong.  The clump of fur hitching a ride on my sock could've kept a Chihuahua warm.  Thankfully this amount of fur shedding only comes around twice a year, so we just have to power through and know that cleaner days are coming.

Or I could vacuum and Swiffer the floors twice a day.

Which, let's be honest, is not an actual option.

I'm getting things back under control today after the craziness of last week, and it's nice to just be marking some things off my to-do list.  I'm still reeling from last night's viewing of the last two episodes of Season 3 of Downtown Abbey, however.  A friend sent me this to try to cheer me up:

If you watch the show, you get it.  If you don't watch the show, start.

That's all, folks.