Misadventures at the Mailbox

So today I checked the mail after getting home from work. I unlocked our mailbox, grabbed the mail, locked it, and I began to walk away as I started to pull out the key. The key, however, refused to come out. Since I was already moving, my hand slipped off the key and my finger scraped across the sharp end of the thin key ring. This wound up cutting my finger, pulling the key ring apart so that it disconnected from the rest of the keys, and also pulled the stubborn mail key out the lock. The key then fell onto the ground, bounced, and somehow managed to land in a thin crack between the curb and the concrete the mailbox was on. To illustrate:


Fortunately I was able to rescue the key by using a metal hanger to reach into the gap. Between this and The Green Tea Incident, though, I'm tempted to create a file called "Things I've Dropped In Unusual Places".

In semi-related news, today is our 3 and 1/2 year anniversary. While I was putting a Spongebob Squarepants band-aid on my finger, it occurred to me that instead of celebrating our full year anniversaries, which occur during the holidays when we're visiting family, we should instead celebrate our half-year anniversaries, which occur close enough to the July 4th weekend that we could have an extra-long vacation. Wendy thought this was an excellent idea. It's too late to plan a long trip for this year, but we do still have a 3-day weekend coming up. Perhaps we can find a cool place in Northern Illinois/Southern Wisconsin to visit.

We Only Love Saturday!

This was a really nice weekend.

Saturday morning, I discovered some really excellent programs on our local access cable channel, apparently aimed at native Indians and Pakistanis. I came in toward the end of a program that seemed to involve the inhabitants of two apartments across the alley from each other arguing about whose music they were going to listen to, only exclusively in song (and Hindi). It was almost totally incomprehensible, but I couldn't look away.

That segued into a program that was ostensibly about the over-use of certain Hindi phrases in music videos, but which really seemed to be an excuse to show music videos. I mean, they were taking requests. And giving shout-outs. My favorite video (which they played twice!) was "Chak de Saturday" by the Balle Balle Boys. It was a Matrix-inspired, computer-animated video that showed the Balle Balle Boys' computerized alter egos running down a hallway, entering doors marked "Wednesday" or "Thursday" and doing battle with a buxom female version of Mr. Smith. It then cut to the real Balle Balle Boys dancing with a Trinity look-alike and singing the catchy chorus: "No Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday/No more Thursday or Friday/We only love Saturday!" It was the only part of the song that was in English. Anyway, the programs were excellent. You can, if you want, read more about them at Namaste TV and Chitrahar.

We also bought bikes this weekend! Honestly, this was more exciting than the South Asian tv programs, but I think there's less to say about it. There are a lot of parks with bike trails in them nearby that we're looking forward to exploring.

We also saw Batman Begins, which was very dark and very cool. We both really enjoyed it, and I would highly recommend it to everyone. (Except Mom, who won't like it.) We went for a late-night bike ride after we got back from the movie. It was really nice, with fireflies everywhere.

We're (Almost!) Famous

We're in the paper today! Yesterday, a columnist from the paper called and interviewed me as well, so there's the original article about newcomers to McHenry County as well as a column about blogs. You can read them online here and here. Let us know if you want a clipping and we'll mail you a hard copy.

Also, my interview was yesterday. I think it went pretty well, but it's hard to tell sometimes. I've thought other interviews that didn't get me the job went well, too. The only one I was ever sure about was the interview at Naropa - I remember being almost certain that I had the job after I left the interview. (Luckily, I was right!) I guess I'll just have to wait and see...

Fireflies!

They were everywhere tonight. We first starting noticing fireflies a few weeks ago, much to our excitement, since we didn't see any the entire time we lived in Colorado. But tonight we went for a walk and they were out in force. It was very pretty. This evening was noticeably warmer than it has been recently, so perhaps that had something to do with it.

We both very much enjoyed Steven Wright's show. Here are some of our favorite lines:

"I have a theory that the end of the Cold War is what started global warming."
"I got food poisoning today. I don't know when I'll use it."
"If heat rises, then heaven's going to be a lot hotter than hell."
"Why is it that it's a penny for your thoughts, but you have to put your two cents in? Somebody's making a penny somewhere."

Exciting Things Are Afoot

So here's the scoop: Tuesday was quite a good day for us. The fun started when we got tickets to see Steven Wright perform tomorrow night in Crystal Lake. If you're not familiar with him, he's a comedian with a monotone voice and a very dry sense of humor (not to mention some wacky hair). He's absolutely hilarious. A quick google search will pull up plenty of his one-liners.

Later that day, we were contacted by a reporter from the local newspaper who was doing a story on people settling down in McHenry County (see the comment on our previous blog post). She was very nice and wound up interviewing Wendy about why we moved here, what our impressions are, and what we've been up to. So, if it makes it through the editing phase, Wendy will be quoted in the newspaper! We're not sure when the story will run; possibly not until next week. We'll let you know when we see it.

Finally, that afternoon, Wendy got a job interview! It's for a part-time job, which is what she's looking for so that she can continue her writing. The interview is early next week, so please be sure to send good thoughts her way.

Happy Anniversary!

My parents spent their twentieth anniversary washing windows.

They don't actually remember how they spent their tenth anniversary, but they had a five year old and a two year old, so I can only imagine it was equally as romantic. Their thirtieth anniversary is today - and they have no special plans.

My sister and I decided to give them a new dishwasher as an anniversary gift. Clearly, I joked, we inherited our parents' sense of romance and passion. Or their distinct lack of it.

What we have inherited from them, though, more than makes up for the dearth of wine and roses. Not that we don't all appreciate flowers, but flowers eventually die, no matter how diligently you water them. With proper care and feeding, a good marriage can last forever.

From growing up with our parents, my sister and I have learned the valuable lesson that love for your spouse isn't enough. (Although it's certainly a good start.) We've learned that you also have to acknowledge your spouse's faults while somehow still ignoring them. You have to let wife know that she has your unwavering support. You have to laugh with your husband, and occasionally, you must also laugh at him.

My husband and I married in our early twenties, as did my parents. People sometimes say to us, as they must have sometimes said to my parents, how young we are to be married. We may be young, but I’ve never felt unprepared to be married. Thanks to my parents, the thing I know, possibly above all others, is what makes a good marriage.

I see in them a couple who not only love each other, but like each other, and laugh together on a regular basis. My sister and I are incredibly lucky to have grown up with their example, and to have learned early on that there are more important things in a relationship than flowers.

I hope, in another few decades, to be washing windows with my husband on our anniversary.


Happy Anniversary, Mom and Dad.

A Novel Idea

As some of you know, I'm working on a novel.

My major in college was Professional Writing, which required a class called Writing the Novel for graduation, in which you (surprise!) write a novel. Although I did well in the class both times I took it, I wasn't at all happy with my first two novels and thought that I could have written something better, or at least something less monumentally stupid. After graduation, I kept thinking about trying again with a different genre, or better characters, or a more intriguing plot, but I couldn't ever quite come up with the discipline required to write a novel that wasn't being graded.

Last October, Randy found a mention of an event called NaNoWriMo, where participants write a novel (or at least the first 50,000 words of one) in a month. It sounded intriguing, and I decided to give it a try. I was even, maybe, just the teensiest bit smug about my chances of succeeding, since both of my previous novels were about 50,000 words and I had written each of them in about a month, completely disregarding my professors' advice to spread the writing out over the full semester.

It was exhilarating, at first, to fling myself into a novel with no outline, no plan, only a few characters and a very hazy idea of where I was headed. But after about 17,000 words, I started to lose steam. I was writing myself into corners and I still didn't know where my plot was going, and I was really starting to like the story - I was worried that I was going to screw it up. So I didn't finish it, and then November ended and real life intervened.

I still really liked the story. I had good characters, and I thought the plot had promise. Best of all, this novel was actually interesting, in a way that the first two just really, really weren't. Since November, I've thought of it often and worked on it rather less so. But recently, I've come up with a plot - a complete plot, with no gaping holes or fatal flaws, and good characters doing interesting things. (I hope!) I'd like to finish it up over the next few months, in time for this year's NaNoWriMo.

So, I wanted you all to know I was working on it. Please, feel free to ask me at frequent intervals how it's going. Be disappointed in me when I haven't written anything since last Tuesday. Be pleased for me when I've gotten four chapters and a plot twist done since Thursday. It's a young adult fantasy novel. I won't be posting any of it online, since that's tantamount to publishing it and I could then only sell re-print rights. But I can tell you that it contains: a heroine with a mysterious past, a hero with a tragic past, an evil prince, a mystical necklace, a black fortress, and a legendary dagger lost for centuries. I'm really excited about it!

Trees Rule!

Wendy and I have always been big fans of trees, so on Memorial Day we decided to visit the Morton Arboretum, which is in Lisle, IL, about an hour away from us. It was founded by Joy Morton (of Morton Salt fame), and it turned out to be a fantastic place to visit. There are over 1,700 acres of trees, 9 miles of roads winding through the various forests, and 14 miles of hiking trails. We spent most of the day there seeing all the sights. We walked through a hedge maze, rode a tram touring the site, hiked one and a half miles through an Oak forest to see a giant boulder that was deposited by a glacier, ate lunch, and then walked around a bunch more. And there was another section that we didn't even get a chance to explore. We did get a slight sunburn, and a few mosquito bites, but overall we loved it and would totally go back again.

While we were there, I decided to purchase a book at the gift shop called "1001 Questions Answered About Trees". Here are a few things I've learned so far:

• Trees as we know them today first appeared during the Coal Age 240 million years ago.
• Animal inhabitants during the Coal Age included "dragon flies with a 29-inch wing spread, enormous scorpions, spiders, and cockroaches 4 inches long."
• Hawthorne is the tree genus with the greatest number of species (165).
• There are trees in the Florida Keys with bark very poisonous to the touch.
• The title of the book is misleading; it's actually 1,044 questions answered about trees.