I know Liz thinks it’s weird that I am sometimes awake or eating at odd hours. It’s not uncommon for me to be up some mornings at 3am checking my e-mail, watching some TV or even making a sandwich. On the other hand, I sometimes come home and take naps after work if I’m tired.
Well tonight, after getting home from Muncie, Liz decided to make Mac N Cheese and some sausage a little after 11pm. I didn’t want to say anything, but I think maybe Liz is starting to pick up on some of my good habits.
You might recognize this from a particularly excellent movie; a movie I wasn’t able to fully appreciate until I saw an even greater film, Ghost World. Tonight I tried to have a delicious and enjoyable dinner. I decided I would eat some of those left overs in the fridge. That chicken tasted really funny so I let the garbage disposal have its way with the offending poultry. I then decided I would eat the last of those fries Liz made. They were even worse off than the chicken. My last attempt was the chili. Bad News Bears - if you know what I mean.
It’s at times like these, when I need some relaxing times, I have to go back to my roots. I have to stick with what I know. Beef Franks. That’s right. I got out a plate, placed two hotdog buns down, inserted the Beef Franks, applied cheese to the top of both, and microwaved for 1.5min. Afterwards I garnished with ketchup and mustard. I won’t even go near saying they’re anything as amazing as a wiener wang, but since I don’t live in Japan I can’t exactly get my hands on some Suntory.
So Liz and I had a party of sorts for New Year’s Eve. There was a plethora of fondue stuff to eat, a plethora of people for our small apartment, games, guitar hero, Dewey the dog and Arya. If you don’t know who Arya is, she’s my niece, or more specifically - Liz’s niece. It was like I got a free upgrade to “uncle” when I got married. Arya isn’t quite two yet, but she’s pretty mobile and talks more than some 4 year olds. Like most kids her age, she doesn’t have the longest attention span.
We all kind of took turns keeping on eye on exactly just what she was doing and also watching to see how Dewey interacted with her. We weren’t sure if he liked kids or could handle being poked, prodded and jabbed by two little fists that could simultaneously fit themselves into a Pringles can.
Luckily, Arya and Dewey got along quite well. So well, that Arya started playing with his kennel/cage when Dewey wasn’t there. She put her Elmo in there and told him to go to sleep. Then, she decided to crawl in and play around. That thing is kinda dirty and disgusting. It’s not that bad, because we keep it inside, but I knew Karen, her mom, probably wouldn’t love the idea of Arya playing where the dog sleeps. So I said,
“Hey Arya, do you like playing in Dewey’s cage?”
“Ok.”
“Well, if you’re going to play in Dewey’s cage and go to sleep, I’m going to have to shut the door and lock you in there.”
That quickly ended her playtime in kennel-land and she ran off to do something else. Now fast-forward to a few hours later. I think it was going on 2am or so. Karen and Rajeev, Arya’s parents, were rocking it on Guitar Hero 3 and Arya was doing her classic scream-because-I’m-not-getting-what-I-want. So I took Arya, picked her up and said, “Hey Arya, you need to stop crying.” Nothing happened. “Hey Arya, if you don’t stop screaming I’m going to lock you into Dewey’s cage. That’s what happens at my house if people scream and cry.” Nothing happened.
I then took three steps towards the room with Dewey’s cage in it and Arya immediately stopped. She told me she’d be a good girl. So I let her down. Now, that didn’t exactly stick because about 5min later she was screaming again and Liz was trying to trick her with ice cream. It’s not like I was actually going to put her in there and lock her in, it’s just one of those things I’ve observed my mom do that almost always works on kids.
As many of you know, Liz and I have been fostering a beagle-ish dog that Liz named Dewey after the well known Dewey Finn, the temp, of School of Rock fame. Dewey was chucked out of a moving truck into the yard of some people that were standing there when it happened. Not too smart if you ask me. Our neighbor’s daughter works with local animal shelters, rescuing animals and placing them into good homes. That’s how we got Dewey.
Liz had been saying she was wanting a dog for a while and I told her I thought it wasn’t a very good idea for several reasons…money, no space, time constraints and responsibilities, etc. So, we kinda compromised and got Dewey on a temp basis instead.
At first Dewey was pretty scared and very cautious. Luckily we’ve won him over and have even taught him a few tricks. He loves just being around us and is pretty chill. He definitely likes Liz the best. With the exception of actually sitting on her lap, I’d say he was Liz’s lapdog. When she’s working from home he’ll sit at her feet all day and follows her into every room she goes. It’s kind of funny. I think the best part is that he drags these old t-shirts out of his crate, he didn’t have a blanket or towel so we used some old shirts, puts them in a pile, and then lays his head on them like it’s his pillow.
Dewey now has a home. A friend of Liz’s from Indy has signed the paperwork and everything. We’re just going to keep him for another week until he gets back from his holiday travels. Liz asked if I’d be sad to see him go. I really don’t know. We gave him back to our neighbor’s daughter when we were gone last week. I have to admit I didn’t really think of him. I do enjoy dogs and having one around, I just don’t feel like I have the time and energy to really take care of one at this point. We also don’t really have the space in our apartment for him either and we aren’t exactly to the point that we can just let him roam free.
Well, it’s been 24hrs and we now have a door that shuts easily, seals and doesn’t let it a breeze of cold air that can be felt on the other side of the room. What can I say? The Dude Abides.
Sometimes it takes certain circumstances, skills or people to get things done. If you need to put out a fire you might need a fireman. If you need your neighbors to shut up you might need a policeman. If you want fly around the city using spiderwebs you might need to be Spiderman and if you want your rug back - and I do mean a rug that ties the room together - you might need The Dude.
A lot of you know about how our last apartment ended with the great flood of 2007. That wasn’t a much of fun. We’ve been living in a new place that’s definitely better in a variety of ways. When we applied to live here, the owner seemed all impressed about Liz’s maiden name and some family connections and Liz has just communicated with him since we’ve moved in. There have been several issues with things in the apartment and at first they were fixed quite promptly.
Then there was a new maintenance guy that wasn’t necessarily real reliable about communicating and what not. We then found out he was originally hired as just the lawn guy and the main maintenance person was gone or something. Well the new guy is back and after weeks and weeks of bugging the temp, we got the main person to look at our front door which happens to be too big for the frame and leaks a lot of air. Well, that was about it. It was looked at, but nothing’s happened.
So this afternoon I sent an email to our friendly landlord. I received a response within a couple hours and after we got home, the maintenance guy called us up asking if we’d be around tomorrow. He’s coming by in the morning, he just has a show he needs to watch first. Liz was pretty surprised at the response to my request. I just told her I was the just the right man for this particular time and place.
Unlike Liz, my teeth and I have a good relationship. They’re strong and allow me to take large bites of food, masticate them thoroughly and magically make the food disappear from my plate.
Today I went to the dentist for the second time since I started up my regular visits again this year. The word “wow” was repeated several times, but not in reference to an almost emergency root canal. They kept saying I have perfect teeth. I brush daily. I floss maybe once a month if I think to. I drink way too much pop (it keeps me from shaking when I’m hopped up on asthma drugs) and I never try to keep that bar behind my bottom teeth cleaned. It must have good teeth genes.
The only complaint I have is that the lady that has cleaned my teeth these past two times is a compulsive talker. How am I really supposed to respond with your hands in my mouth?
So I’ve been told it sounded like I’m totally unhappy with my life here. I re-read it and can see how that could be taken. That wasn’t really my point of writing that, and I’m pretty happy with life. What I was alluding to, or trying to address was general unhappiness that I see around me. I’m also not a Stepford Wife, in that even though I’m happy with life, I’m not happy every second of every day I’m alive. Sometimes when I am unhappy I ask myself retrospectively, “What’s your deal?” because I do have a lot of good things going for me.
In other news, I got a couple new Lebowski books. The first would be the new book by the BBC Film Institute and the other would be the Coen interviews from the Conversations with Filmmakers Series. They both look pretty promising and I’ll definitely post a review after I’m done with them.
Tonight in our small group we talked a bit about happiness and learning from/living in/dealing with your past. A lot of interesting things were said. I think happiness is a weird thing. For some it seems to be as easy as anything and for others it’s as elusive as a North American yeti. Why is that so? Why is it so easy for some to be content with life and others aren’t able to find it?
I don’t really have these kinds of life answers, but I have a few theories. One thought/idea that was mentioned is that happiness just comes with age and maturity. Some older or elderly people just seem to be happy and content. When that was said, I immediately thought of certain bitter old people that have just been crabby for years. Does this mean they aren’t mature? I really feel wise, content and cool old people don’t just magically become that at the age of 65.
Some people also have different outlooks on life. Some people are always pining for the past. Things were always better in the “good old days” or when they were younger. Other people live so much in the moment they don’t make good long-term decisions. Other people live so much for the future that they don’t learn to appreciate or take advantage of the now. So how should we live? This is easier to say than do, but like with everything, I think moderation is the goal to strive for. We need to learn from our past; we need to enjoy the present; we need to plan for our future.
Personally I can look back on a lot of situations where I wasn’t happy and there were two easy solutions. I’m not saying these apply to every situation, but in most instances these could have fixed my problems.
The first would be my attitude. Sometimes I just have a bad attitude. Ryan and I were talking about when we were kids and our mothers would always get on us about our attitudes. It’s only as adults that we both understand this concept. I can’t even begin to count the times, situations, events, etc where I just had a bad attitude and wasn’t having a good time, wasn’t liking my lot in life, wasn’t enjoying a situation, got worked up, etc because I had a bad attitude. In many situations things could have been a lot better if I had just chilled out.
The second would be making a decision or just doing something. Sometimes there was something I could have very easily, or not so easily, done to rectify the situation. These can include talking to somebody to clear up a misunderstanding or doing something out of my “comfort zone” to branch out. There are even certain situations where I needed to stop or not do something. Maybe I was making bad decisions or being stupid. I can look back and see times where I’ve done these kinds of things knowingly and unknowingly. Some of this can be avoided by learning from our mistakes.
So what am I trying to say here? I think anybody can be happy if they want to be. I have it so easy living in the United States. I have a full time job with health benefits. I can pay my bills. I have more than enough food to eat every day. I even have extra money to buy stuff, go places and do things. I have friends and family that love and support me. I have the freedom to do pretty much whatever I want. So why am I unhappy with all my stuff filling my two-bedroom apartment, my freedoms, my social life, and my financial stability?
I don’t really have a fix-all answer for that. Why can’t we just be happy with our allotment in life? I know there’s lots of people out there and they don’t even have one of the good things going for them I mentioned above. Yet they’re still happy. Maybe not all the time, those people are just creepy, but they’re still happy. They’re content with life….something to strive for I guess.
I don’t have much hair on my head. I’ve been balding for the greater part of my life and I shave my head. Liz on the other hand has lots of hair. Not quite as much as she did as a kid, but still way more than I do. One of those things I had to get used to after marriage was finding Liz’s hair everywhere - on the floor, on the bed, on my clothes, on my backpack, on me, etc.
Our vacuum hasn’t been working very well for a while. I figured the bag was getting full. So I went online and found this deal where it was cheaper to buy 50 bags with shipping than it was to buy 15. Today I told Liz if she changed the bag (I didn’t want there to be a cloud of dust followed by me having a coughing fit) I would vacuum the house while she’s out with Lana. Liz changed the bag and I vacuumed. It still wasn’t picking much up.
On a hunch I flipped the thing over and realized the roller wasn’t even spinning. Then I saw some hair wrapped around it. So I turned it off, flipped it back over and started unwinding Liz hair. About 10 minutes later I had a pretty impressive pile…but the roller still wouldn’t turn. I then partially dismantled the thing and found there was so much hair wrapped around the drive shaft that the belt couldn’t stay on to turn the roller. I had to get my knife out and cut the hair off.
After I removed all the hair the vacuum works awesome - just like it used to. I left the pile on the coffee table for Liz to see when she gets home.
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