Because it's just that good

Five Things You Didn't Know About IKEA (courtesy of mental_floss)

I love IKEA. If only for the fact that every time I say IKEA my husband goes "What did you say?" And then I give him a pointed stare as my way of saying "I know where this is going, and stop it." And then he goes "Ay...ay....ay....KEA!"

Thank you, America

Thank you, The Amazing Race. Thank you. Thank you for making me almost shoot wine out my nose when that stupid-ass blonde "singer," while driving in Dubai, said "Wow, it's funny here how you can be driving 120 miles an hour but it only feels like you're going 60."

And then her boyfriend said "That's because it's kilometers per hour, not miles. You are going 60."

People like you are too stupid to exist. Thank you.

In which my 60 year old uncle drunk-dialed

First things first. The cat is alive and well.

As I mentioned previously, Edgar and I went to Simi Valley this weekend to drink it up for Octoberfest and watch an old man in liederhosen play the accordian while coaxing people to do the Chicken Dance. Suck it, old man, I will never do the Chicken Dance for you.

We went to a restaurant in Ventura called Old Vienna, and they know how to Octoberfest in style. They have this huge platter of food that's called "A Feast for Two," but the two that they are referring to must be inhuman, because eight of us couldn't even finish 3 orders. Two times three is six, just to remind you. I can only imagine that the two is comprised of a very large German couple ripping the meat off of huge turkey drumsticks while yelling "Meat! We need more meat!" These Feast for Twos include bratwurst, polish sausage, chicken something or another, spare ribs, pork shank, pork chops, sauerkraut, red cabbage, spatzel, potato pancakes, and German potato salad. And they also start you off with these huge pretzels. To eat while you begin drinking many pitchers of beer. And then when you leave you get to listen to your husband and your cousin bemoan the fact that when they get home they're going to have to give birth to twins.

Weekends spent up at my aunt and uncle's house are often interesting, even if only for the fact that my cousin makes it his mission in life to never let me finish speaking any sentence that might come out of my mouth. I always wake up with a sore throat from having to raise my voice to yell over him because HE IS CONSTANTLY INTERRUPTING ME. The sore throat also might be atrributed to the fact that we often end up drunk there and when I'm drunk I'm loud. But who isn't, really, when you think about it? This weekend was no different. I actually started off the drinking quite slowly, only having one mug of beer at dinner since I had to drive our car back to the house. I had a few more beers after we got back......

......then came the bourbon.

Oh, bourbon. I'm not usually one to drink liquor in any other form than a vodka tonic, a margarita, or Jack and coke. Generally, I find the taste of things like scotch or bourbon just too strong for me; the alcohol smell with the burning taste must be acquired, and I'm just too impatient for that. But a few months ago my uncle introduced me to Manhattans, and I was craving one on Saturday evening. Content to use the Maker's Mark that was in the liquor cabinet, my uncle saw me and said "Oh, Amanda Suzanne, don't use that, I have something better for you." And he produced a bottle of Blanton's Bourbon. Delicious. DEE. LISH. US. I had three Manhattans that night, and Edgar even had one or two after he tasted mine. I was also making vodka tonics for my uncle all evening, and they were progressively becoming stronger because the more I drink, the more alcohol I think should be in each drink.

Our fun evening turned in to a late night. My aunt and uncle introduced Edgar and I to this card game called Wizard, which is really impossible to explain, so I won't even try, except to say that it's fun. Especially after several beers and bourbon. We were finally winding down around 2:45 in the morning, when my aunt made the offhand comment that if we stayed up much longer that my parents in Indiana would be awake, and oh, wouldn't it be funny if we were going to bed at the same time that they were getting up for the day. Of course, being sane people (and despite the bourbon, not really drunk at all), my aunt, husband, and I laughed about it, said something about the fact that it was still too early in Indiana, being only 5:45 there. And no sooner had we expressed this than my aunt cried "Gary! What are you doing?" and I turned around to see him dialing the phone. Which he then shoved in my face, where I could hear my mother's sleepy voice mumble "Hello?" I froze. "Uhhh....Uncle Gary made me do it!" My mother was a good sport about it though. I fully expected a retaliation call a few hours later, but my dad decided to hold off and told me when I talked to him at a more appropriate hour of the day on Sunday that he would be making that call to my uncle once he stops expecting it.

Never a dull moment in Simi Valley. And how awesome is it that my uncle drunk dialed my parents? How many people can have that story to tell?

Will we survive?

We staged our most aggressive attack today in waging The Battle of the Flea. Edgar and I walked over to our friendly Wal-Mart (here is where I totally take back my previous bashing of the Wal-Mart; I hadn't been in this one before and DAMN was it nice!) and picked up Adams Water-Based Flea & Tick Mist as well as Enforcer Flea Spray for Carpets and Furniture.

When we got home, Edgar sprayed the carpets and furniture while I kept the cat quarantined in the bathroom. The back of the spray can has all these warnings about not breathing the spray in, but they don't tell you why. WHAT COULD HAPPEN HERE? I've decided that we are going to have to put off trying to have a baby for an additional month in order to avoid growing one with extra limbs. Edgar covered his mouth and nose with his shirt while he was spraying, and I was in the bathroom with the cat, but I'm worried that some of it may have gotten in his system and his sperm are now toxic. I'd like to avoid the toxic sperm during the baby-making process. Not too much to ask, I assume? We kept the windows open during this whole process, so I'm hoping that at least provided enough air flow to keep it from hanging around too much.

The next step was misting the cat. He was not pleased, and Edgar and I have multiple scratches and lacerations to show for it. We tried to follow the directions on the back of the bottle, I promise. The first thing you are supposed to do is cover the cat's eyes and quickly and decisively spray his head and chest, then rub the product into his face. I think that I sprayed way too much when doing the chest spray, because while we were struggling with the rest of his body and trying to keep ourselves from bleeding out there were these thick ropes of bubbly drool coming out of his mouth. Like a rabid dog. Have you ever seen a cat drool? I DIDN'T THINK SO. Something was not right here.

So I was freaking the hell out, totally losing my mind, absolutely sure that he was going to die. I still am. No matter how much I wiped away, when we would move on to the rest of his body, it would start again. He wasn't freaking out about it, though, which I find kind of weird. He was only freaking out whenever we would spray his body again, recoiling at the mist hitting his fur.

We were supposed to wait five minutes after we sprayed him to dry him off and brush him. I was waiting in the bathroom with him, wanting to keep an eye on him in case he started foaming at the mouth again and convulsing. However, the chemicals in the air started to make me feel dizzy, so I had to go wait outside the apartment door for a few minutes to regain my head. Which is probably another reason why we should wait for a new egg in my cycle before trying to have a baby. The one that's floundering out there right now is probably drunkenly stumbling around one of my fallopian tubes wondering where the party is at.

Once I was able to come back in, I immediately googled the Adams mist to see if it can cause any adverse reactions in pets. I didn't find any horror stories in the first 10 pages of my Google search, so I have to assume that he's not going to die from the amount that had clearly gotten in his mouth to cause all of that drooling. Since the directions say to wait five minutes before towel drying the animal, and animals, by nature, can't go 5 minutes without licking themselves, I can only think that it can't be toxic for that reason alone. The manufacturers would know that animals would lick their fur and therefore get the product in their mouths. Right? RIGHT?

Edgar started vacuuming the apartment not long ago to pick up the hopefully dead fleas that the carpet and furniture spray should have rendered helpless, and as soon as he heard the vacuum, Fiyero immediately ran into the kitchen and got up on top of the cabinets, which is totally his thing. So he's still acting normally. But I'm still really worried about him. We already had plans today to leave this afternoon and head up to Simi Valley to visit my aunt, uncle, and cousins that live there. We have a yearly tradition of visiting this restaurant in Ventura for Octoberfest, and the plans were made weeks ago. I'm scared to leave him; I'm picturing coming home tomorrow and finding him dead from toxic poisoning from this flea spray, and he'll be alone during the whole horrifying death experience for what? For me to drink Spaten Oktoberfest and eat bratwurst while watching a 65 year old man wearing shorts and liederhosen dance around playing the accordian while teaching us German drinking cheers?

I can only hope that when we come back tomorrow I will be greated with a pile of shit on the bathroom floor and a hairball in the living room, as is his usual punishment for us to be ever so insolent as to leave him alone overnight. Let's pray for shit and hairballs, people.

It was my choice, too

I told Edgar yesterday that I wrote about how we met and started dating.

He mimicked casting a fishing rod and reeling me in.

You never know

I met Edgar on October 3rd, 2006, having arrived in California merely days earlier on September 30th. It was the day before my first day of work in my new office, having relocated over two thousand miles from home. I had my roommate, Jason, as well as an uncle, aunt, and two cousins 70 miles away. That was all.

I remember the first time I saw him. Jason and I had stopped by the office so that he could show me how to get there and we could find our desks and meet our bosses. Jason was to be Edgar's supervisor, and their desks were located very close to one another. He was standing up, talking across the low cubicle wall to the person at the desk that faced his. He was wearing a button down shirt with the cuffs rolled up. His hair was longer than it is now. We didn't speak, but a smile was exchanged and I remember thinking "Hmmm, he's definitely the cutest guy in this office." I would find out later that his thoughts at that time were "Hmmm, nice ass."

The next two months were spent in a holding pattern. As employees of a call center we were chained to our phones, only released from those shackles for brief reprieves in order to pee and socialize for a few minutes with others. On my breaks I usually found my way over to Jason's desk, happily sparing a smile to Edgar whenever our eyes would meet. Our normal encounters happened on the phone; he was a part of the 'escalation team,' so whenever some bitchy ass caller wouldn't listen to me and wanted to speak with a supervisor, I called the escalation queue. And always got him. The universe was already trying to tell me something. THANK YOU, UNIVERSE. Every time he would answer he'd be all "Jeez, you again?"

He enjoyed those calls as much as I did.

During that time there was a subdued amount of flirting going on. He would sometimes stop on his way out in the afternoon to talk to another employee whose cubicle was next to mine, and that's when I spotted the Steelers lunchbox. Ouch. Being born and raised in Indiana, I am an Indianapolis Colts fan, and at the time was still smarting from the playoff loss in the divisional round to the Steelers the previous season. The Steelers had gone on to win the Super Bowl, and were currently floundering through their Super Bowl hangover while the Colts were tearing through the season that would end in their own Super Bowl ring. It allowed for some good natured ribbing and would ultimately lead us into our first date.

At the end of November, Edgar scored a promotion to be a supervisor in another department, a move that also landed him in a different office. On his last day, his friends in the office had a going-away party for him at a Dave & Buster's near the office. Jason was going, and since we carpooled together, I was going too. While discussing the impending plans for the evening, another employee involved in the conversation informed me that Edgar was engaged and cheating on his fiancee with another girl in the office. Considering my history with men, I was not phased by this (shockingly untrue) revelation.

I pleasantly found out while we were out that evening that he was not, in fact, engaged; he had recently come off of a three year relationship that ended badly. Score one for Amanda. The 'other woman' story hadn't been resolved yet, but hey, no ring, no problems. Edgar and I clicked from the beginning. He was visibly impressed that I was drinking dark beer in the biggest size draft that was offered, and pleasantly surprised when we started talking football that I could hold my own and knew what I was talking about. He, being a non-smoker, even went outside with me while I smoked a cigarette, what with me still being in my smoker phase. The next time he went to work, he even got some "Hmm, so, you and the new girl?" questions. We were clearly hooked. I drove home from the party that night with a smile on my face, normal smitten-girl scenarios playing out in my head about first dates, first kisses, marriage and babies. YES, GUYS, WE ALL DO THIS.

I didn't hear from him after that, but I never expected to; we were no longer in the same office, and we hadn't exchanged phone numbers. I thought my little fantasies would exist only in my head. Except it didn't stay that way. Thank God it didn't stay that way.

A couple of weeks after that party, I got to work one day to find an email in my inbox from him, saying that he just wanted to thank me for coming to the party and to tell me how much fun he had talking to me. Thus began a frenzied exchange of emails over the next several weeks, starting out innocuous enough but always having that flirting subtext. He bet me a dollar that the Colts would lose to the Dolphins the next Sunday; I took that bet, and upon winning came to work the next day to find a dollar under my keyboard--he had stopped at my office on his way to work to leave my prize for me.

He invited me to come out with him and another co-worker one evening to watch the BCS Championship game. I have no interest in college football whatsoever, but went in order to spend the evening with him, hurriedly reading up on the teams that were playing during my free time at work so that I could sound like I actually knew something about it. The other co-worker magically had to bail out at the last second; I still to this day cannot get Edgar to admit if he had a hand in that or if it was actually for real. We had beer and pizza at the Alcatraz at the Block of Orange, and after a tight hug upon leaving, we both went home alone. Obviously not the most ideal end to the evening, but I was proud of myself; I had turned over a new leaf in life that mainly consisted of not putting out until he bought me dinner.

The Colts went to the playoffs that year and the day before the wild card game, I got an email from Edgar asking me to text him during the game to let him know what was happening during the game; he and his brother were taking his mom to Disneyland that day for her birthday. Phone numbers were exchanged; a rapid flurry of texting happened during the football game, and thereafter the art of texting became an open form of communication in the increasing game of flirtation. The Colts were playing the Ravens in the playoff game the following week. He bet me the Colts would lose, I bet they would win, and he tasked me with setting the stakes. I took a deep breathe and I plunged. Happy Hour. Winner picks, loser pays.

I won.

We look back now and have officially chosen that Happy Hour as our first date. We met after work on that Wednesday night. January 17th, 2007. I knew by the time that we left the restaurant that I had just spent an evening with the man I wanted to marry. Neither of us wanted the date to end, so we walked to Starbucks and got some coffee. I made the move there of setting a second date: I invited him to come to my house that Sunday to watch the Colts versus the Patriots in the AFC Championship game. He walked me back to my car. He gave me a hug and kissed me on the cheek. I kissed his cheek back.

Then he kissed me.

THREE WHOLE TIMES.

I was in love.

He came over that Sunday to watch the game. The Colts won. So did I.

Remembering

When I was eight, my sister Emily and I made up a dance to go with "Unchained Melody." It was understandably horrible.

Emily like to watch "Little House on the Prairie," so it follows that I, too, would watch "Little House on the Prairie." People kept giving us these long skirts that we could wear to act like we were pioneers. And my mom bought us slates one time on an outing to kitsch-y Nashville, Indiana.

Sometimes I look back and shake my head.