Get a (Private) Room!

We decided to go on San Diego harbor cruise with my parents while we were visiting last month. It's kind of a cheesy, touristy thing to do but we had a good time nonetheless. So let me take you through it: You board the ship, get a complimentary glass of champagne (Martinelli's for us) and are seated. If you chose to pay extra during booking then you are seated at a window-side table for two, complete with special plates, champagne flutes, etc... We did not choose this option, so we were one table away from the windows in our cheapskate non-specially plated table. We shove off, the live band starts, socialization, appetizers, dinner, dancing, blah blah blah... It was fun for about five minutes until the man sitting across from us (at one of the "special" tables) moved his chair over and into the walkway so he could sit right next to his woman. PDA quickly followed (cue horror movie music). Obviously, this atmosphere lends itself to romance: pretty views, music and alcohol. Ah, love.

First, let me say that I believe in love. I believe that love is a positive and complex feeling that two people can have for each other. Physical affection is a natural byproduct that is necessary to propel and maintain relationships. Affection and sex are crucial for successful marriages. I believe these manifestations of love are special, private matters between the couple (unless, of course, there's problems that need to be discussed with professionals, but that's another topic). That being said, public displays of affection should, I think, be limited. Stifled? No. Just...limited. Holding hands, a peck here and there, little things that don't make others uncomfortable.

Let me go into detail about the PDA that grosses me out, specifically what we had to witness ALL NIGHT during our harbor cruise: making out for prolonged periods of time (more than three seconds); ear nibbling; sitting on laps (include arms around the other's neck for double gross-out); foot massages (bare feet in a food establishment?!); butt grabbing; cheesy "come-hither-just-wait-til-later" looks; seductive licking of the lips; the list goes on. When we first sat next to this couple we knew immediately that they were in love by the way they were, er, showing their affection. We thought they'd settle down after a few minutes.

Nope!!

We got to watch them all night, as they were sitting right in front of the window that was in our line of vision. So we stared, shot dirty glances, quit muffling our giggles and comments. This couple wasn't the only one on the cruise feeling a little frisky, however they were the most forward and long-lasting. By the end of the cruise she was hiccuping champagne bubbles and tried to shove her way in front of me to disembark. I took my opportunity to shove her back and stalked off the boat in front of her--without my husband. Oops.

Another funny story: There were two other couples getting married at the same time as Jason and me. We're all sitting and waiting for our marry-ers to come get us to start each of our own ceremonies. Jason and I are sitting on a couch holding hands and talking quietly. I don't know remember what couple #2 was doing, though I do remember they were very quiet and sitting rather stiffly. Couple #3 was on the other side of the room. She was sitting in one of the armchairs with her dress all fanned out around her; he was kneeling on the floor in front of her. They were staring fervently into each other's eyes and clasping hands so tightly I thought I could hear knuckles popping. Jason and I watched them for a while and they NEVER moved! They stared and stared and stared at each other with such a look of sappiness I will never forget it. It grossed me out and we will always have it as one of our wedding day memories. This isn't quite the kind of PDA I was describing before, but it was equally as disturbing--in a funny, I'm-always-going-to-make-fun-of-them sort of way.

Moral of the story: you now have a very clear idea of my take on PDA. The fact that I have written two articles about it (I wrote one in college that was actually quite funny--I think) tells you it's something that I've seen and thought about probably more that I should have. One more opinion from me you didn't ask for.

The Sum of All Fears

A not-so-funny-to-me-but-funny-to-everyone-else-incident inspired this post last night. We had just gotten Troy to bed and were settling down to finish a movie in the basement (where our TV lives). I was sitting on the floor in a banana chair and Jason was in the big chaise lounger. Here I am minding my own business, trying to watch the rest of Robert Downey Jr.'s Sherlock Holmes performance, enjoying myself... and out scuttles a HUGE hobo spider from under the TV stand. All I can do is take two hyperventilating gasps and point at it while jumping onto the computer chair and gasping, "Right there!"

**ALERT! ALERT!** Right now, at this very moment, while I'm typing--right now! out races another gargantuan hobo!!! From under the computer desk, where my feet have been! It just made a beeline towards my baby's feet. I grabbed the first thing I could find (Troy's Little Einstein DVD case) pushed Troy out of the way and whacked the life out of it. I grabbed Troy and whatever else I could carry and we ran upstairs, never to return. The carcass is still smushed into the floor. That'll be Jason's job when he gets up, as I'm still shaking too badly to do much. **END OF ALERT**

Anyway, Jason, always my knight in bug-killing armor, armed with the shoe of vengeance and wadded tissue of death, immediately knows what I'm freaking out about and moves deftly into action. (I believe he used the same DVD case I just did). One more spider put out of my misery and flushed, never to show its arachnid legginess again.

There are poisonous spiders everywhere and I'm scared, borderline phobic, of all of them. However, I am particularly disturbed by hobos. They look like this:

Even searching online and saving this picture has made my heart rate skyrocket and made me want to blow chunks. These effers are aggressive, fast, poisonous, and exceptionally sinister looking. I do not go anywhere in my house without scanning the floor, walls and ceiling for creepy crawlies. There are certain places in our basement storage room that I don't even go near for fear of seeing (and subsequently having to do battle with) bugs. Every little tickle on my skin, shadow, or inconsistent groove in the carpet is a potential spider. I spray the inside and outside of my home with anti-bug poison religiously and after these two encounters I will be re-spraying and also throwing a bug bomb down in the basement tonight.

The fact that I have a physical reaction to these creatures leads me to believe that I'm not just being girly about bugs. I hyperventilate, my heart rate goes through the roof, I get sick to my stomach, my eyes tear up, my arms and hands tremble for many minutes after encounters... I can't even pick up and dispose of dead bugs. Jason is such a gentleman to never tease me about my fear or to wave the dead ones in front of my face. I appreciate this so much. I'm not a fearful person; I'm a bit of a thrill seeker to be honest, but we're all allowed our one thing. Spiders and a few other choice creepies are mine. After the one making out to eat my son's foot a minute ago--this means war. Or avoidance, whichever keeps them away from me and mine.

Space: The-Final-Frontier-in-a-Galaxy-Far-Far-Away-Danger-Will-Robinson!

With the launch of the last shuttle up to space the other day, there's something that came to me that Jason's been saying for months now. Given the current state of our economy, and the world economy for that matter, Jason keeps saying, (imagine semi-yelling and a few fist pounds) "If I were in charge, the first thing I'd do is scrap NASA!" My first instinct was, "No! NASA's in charge of space!" Since then, when it's brought up, I've tended to flip-flop around on my opinion, as I'm sure I'll do here.

Against NASA: It doesn't really do anything. When's the last time the discoveries about the nature of space have helped us here at home? Has that red dwarf millions of light-years away told us how to better harness our natural resources? Have sunspots spelled out a secret way to end child hunger? Did the pluto-ing of Pluto help midgets feel taller? What I'm getting at is that the funds alloted to NASA (which is A LOT!) could be put to much better use here on our home planet. Money spent on researching black holes and dying stars should be put towards the federal deficit, into (necessary) committees that have been nixed, help to lower taxes, or into education, for example.

For NASA: But space is cool...

Against NASA: It's not like were in an arms race with the Soviets anymore. Who are we competing with, and why are we competing in space? Americans have already proved that we're better and ballsier than everyone else--many times over.

For NASA: But space is cool.

Against NASA: Who wants rocket scientists to make money actually working on rockets?! Put them to work elsewhere; somewhere that will benefit other earth-bound organizations. With all my sarcasm, I honestly have no idea where a rocket scientist would work. In the automotive industry designing cool, futuristic cars? Teaching about rocket science as a lost art in community colleges? Government energy programs? Who knows... In all my infinite compassion, I don't give a hoot where they'd work. I'm sure someone else will figure that out.

For NASA: Space is coooooooooool!!! I took an Astronomy 101 class in college and, while I didn't enjoy all that math stuff, I learned a lot about the awesome things that happen in space. Dying stars, galaxies, gaseous nebulas... All things that give us a glimpse of God's awe-inspiring creations. We recently attended a photography presentation of collages taken by Hubble. It was ama-za-zing! Huge systems billions of miles away, millions of galaxies in one snapshot, the colors, the energy, all those molecular interactions caught by a human-made telescope. It's humbling to see how truly small we are.

Considering the great Classic-style debate we've just taken part in, I have some solutions. They shall be implemented straight away, saith the Great Liz.

1. Scrap most of NASA. Get rid of the shuttle programs (done!). Unfortuately the cool profession that about 47% of kids growing want to be some day, astronauts, will become almost obsolete.
2. Keep overseers/maintainers/regulators for the satellites in orbit.
3. Keep a committee of people in charge of making sure asteroids aren't going Armageddon all up in our bizness.
4. Keep Hubble to take cool pics, but decrease the number of astronomists to analyze all the deep space happenings. Things happening that far away aren't affecting the needs of Earth at this point in time.
5. Keep the "aeronautics" part to help us become even more efficient while buzzing around on our little blue marble.

My point! Focus on the needs of those who live here on Earth! Spending millions and billions of dollars out there that could be spent here would be nothing but beneficial. But remember--space is cool. And I'm totally okay if they decide to keep programs, albeit on a smaller scale, to further our knowledge of the universe. This is a topic easily debated... please, discuss.

I Want to Live HERE:

And I want to live here FOREVER.

...With lots of money, a good tan, and a drink with one of those tiny umbrellas in it.

So Grateful for Good Neighbors

I complain about living in a tiny house, but our tiny house is in a great neighborhood. Our church group is awesome and our neighbors are even awesomer.

We live right next door to a little old lady and her older, single daughter. We try to help her with her yard and shoveling snow in the winter and she's always so cute when she calls us to say thank you. Jason helped her prune her trees last week and she comes over a few days later with a whole bag of strawberry shortcake fixins' for us as thanks. (We never look for thank you's, but I'm not complaining about strawberry shortcake!) She doesn't have a sprinkler system so we see her outside all the time during the summer watering her yard and sweeping sweeping sweeping her driveway. She loves Troy and is always up for a short conversation.

On our other side is an older couple. They work at the Museum of Idaho part-time and we see the husband outside all the time as well. He's kind of a quirky guy but I have never had a neighbor so willing to give of his time and resources for us. I would say that he does some little act of service for us most days. When they first moved in last year he told us he had every tool imaginable and that we were welcome to them should we ever need to borrow. Since then he's snowblowed our driveway, edged our lawn, helped us winterize our sprinklers, and helped stabilize our fence (which is due to blow away any day now). While he was looking at the fence he noticed that the latch on our gate is broken/missing and decided to also fix that for us. I had a recent breakthrough with his wife that I was so excited about. Whenever I see her I try to wave and say hello, but she never responds. I don't know if she's self-conscience about her weight or what... A few weeks ago she, out of the blue, came over and told us Troy was welcome to pick flowers out of their yard. Since then she's initiated hellos and short conversations a few times. Hooray!!

We have another little old lady across the street that loves the rhubarb out of our backyard. I took her over a huge bag a few weeks ago (we're not big rhubarb fans) and she was so excited. It looks like I'll be transplanting some of my plant into her backyard later this summer when I dig mine out. She likes to come across the street and chat while we're outside. She has this cute little shitzu dog that Troy likes to pet.

We have a few neighbors that haven't been interested in being too friendly. To each his own, right?

I just think back to our apartment-dwelling days and how miserable it was sharing walls with other families, some of whom were NOT pleasant. I could go on for an hour about horrible experiences we had with neighbors, but that's for another post. I'm just glad we don't have to deal with that crap anymore; instead we get to make friends and be happy in our little spot.

Woe is Me!

This is somewhat of a boohoo post. Start playing world's smallest violin background music. As most of my family is well aware, I am a severe allergy sufferer. I'll go into the boogery details in a minute, but first, here are some stats:

• About 55% of adults test positive for at least one allergen.
• Allergic rhinitis (nasal allergies) affects up to 30% of adults and 40% of children.
• From 2000-2005, the cost of treating allergic rhinitis went from $6 billion to more than $12 billion, with more than half of that being spent on prescription meds.
• It's estimated that allergic rhinitis affects more than 60 million people in the US.
• www.aaaai.org

I have been suffering from allergies from day one. I've seen doctors, taken the meds, been on shots, moved around, and have never experienced relief. I am allergic to any plant that lives outside (and cats), which means I'm doomed wherever I go. My symptoms include swollen, running, itching eyes; itchy, burning throat; boogery nose; sneezing; coughing; sinus headaches; clogged ears; fatigue... all at the SAME TIME! Also, when I was a teenager I developed growths in my nose, that, when inflamed, swell up and make it impossible to inhale or exhale (so blowing is hard). Great mental image... So, yes, I am as miserable as I sound. Last year, I had to stop driving because I couldn't see through my running, swollen eyes. I live with boxes of tissues in every room. It's hard for me to give Troy the attention he needs (especially when he wants to be outside). Sleeping at night is near impossible with a swollen nose and sore throat.

I had a visit with our local allergist last summer and that didn't go well. Not only was the doc rude and unsympathetic, he was also unwilling to work with my budget which means there was absolutely no way I could afford to even get tested. (Really?! It costs how many thousands of dollars to have a scratch skin test done?!) None of the sample meds he gave me made a dent. He lectured me on things I've known for 15 years now. Fast forward to this summer, I've already gotten so desperate for relief that I scheduled an appointment to see an Ear, Nose and Throat doc that says he also does allergy testing/treatment. I'm hoping he can do something about my swollen nose and maybe that will help with some of my other symptoms. Hopefully he has something positive to tell me. And it also helps my medical insurance deductible is already met from my gallbladder surgery in January.

The reason I'm posting this is because misery loves company, right? I don't know if anyone reads this page, but if you do I could use some advice--what's worked for you? Has anyone tried homeopathic allergy remedies? What locales are good for allergy sufferers? Are you as miserable as I am?

I sympathize with anyone who is chronically ill--it affects every aspect of your life. Come complain to me! I experience the WORST of EVERY symptom, so I can provide good understanding if no one around you quite gets it. Love to all!

Summer Is...

green trees

hot sun, cool breeze

open windows

ponytails

CCR

naps

swimming

neighbor kids playing night games

picnics

sodas

taking walks

shorts and flipflops

tennis

smell of sunscreen

sound of lawn mowers

soccer games

patriotism

seashells

feeding the ducks

BBQ's

reading on the porch

naked baby buns

strawberries

"Here comes the sun, do do do do..."

a feeling of contentedness

lemonade

no school

reggae

floating the river

otter pops

sandcastles at the beach

vacations

thunderstorms with the windows open

fresh flowers

block parties

melting ice cream cones

smiles!