Valentine’s Day was yesterday and, unlike in many years past, Rob and I actually went out and did something. (Well, something more than feed our faces full of steak and lobster tail. As in many years past.)

See, I entered a contest over at one of my favorite websites, Tasha Does Tulsa, and won a pair of tickets to Skate Date 2010 at the BOK Center. The tickets entitled us to hours of fun of falling ice skating, as well as a horse and carriage ride around beautiful downtown Tulsa.

I even took many, many pictures of the fun-having to show you because I love to show you my pictures, the proof of which is that I carried an actual digital camera ONTO THE ICE to take said pictures, risking smashing the camera into thousands of tiny digitized pieces should I slip and fall to the cold, wet, hard ice beneath me (which I did. three times.) and drop the camera in the process, but I took that risk ALL FOR YOU. Because I love you.  And because I am a risky risktaker. And because it was my Mom’s camera. (The brand new red Nikon Coolpix I bought her for Christmas. YOU ARE SO WELCOME, MOM!)

Anyway, ONTO THE PICTURES!

THE PRIZE:

THE ICE SKATING:

THE HORSE AND CARRIAGE RIDE:

THE HAPPY COUPLE:

Hope your Valentine’s Day was just as sweet. Smooch.

Dear Rob,

Remember that day I agreed with you when you said you needed some new t-shirts for working out? You were all, “Every one of the t-shirts I workout in has holes in it. I think I’ll run to Walmart or Target and grab a few new ones, cheap ones, just for wearing to the gym,” or some such? And I was all, “Yeah, the t-shirts you have are looking pretty raggedy, you should get some new ones.”

And then a few days later, you brought me a Walmart receipt for two t-shirts at $4.97 each plus tax and I was all, “WOW. You found some new workout t-shirts, huh? And CHEAP. Nice work.” And you smiled, nodding, proud of your accomplishment.

And a few days after that, you yelled through the house that you were going to the gym and I yelled back for you to come give me a kiss goodbye and as you approached me where I stood scrubbing plates coated with the previous night’s dinner of polish sausage and Velveeta Shells & Cheese, I noted that you were wearing one of your new t-shirts. Or rather, I should say, NOTED WITH HORROR, because the t-shirt you had selected from the hundreds or possibly thousands of choices of t-shirts on Walmart’s shelves was adorned with a picture of Homer Simpson.

And the words I CAME FOR THE BEER.

Remember that I was all, “UH-UH. NO WAY. You did NOT buy THAT. NO WAY did you pick THAT T-SHIRT.” And you were all, “What? I don’t see the problem.” And I was all, “Honey, we do not need to wear t-shirts that advertise our already so obvious redneckedness, do we? I mean, Homer Simpson is kind of Fashion Statement circa 1990, right?” And you were all, “Nuh-uh, this is not a redneck shirt.” And I was all, “Yeah. Right.” And you were all, “Whatever. It doesn’t matter either way since I’m only going to wear it when I workout anyways.” And I was all, “Yeah. Right.”

And a few weeks passed during which you did keep your word to wear the Homer-Simpson-I-Came-for-the-Beer-T-Shirt only to the gym. Until you didn’t. Keep your word, that is. Until yesterday.

Because yesterday, you returned from running “a few errands” and I noted, again with horror, that you had been meandering the streets of Tulsa county while wearing THE SHIRT. And I know the look on my face spoke the thousand words I was thinking but before I could garner enough breath to utter a single one of them, you, again with the smile-nod-proud-thing said in a condescendingly sing-songy voice, “Guess what. The guy at the auto parts store said he LIKED my t-shirt. Uh-huh.”

Remember how the look on my face turned to pity as I shook my head from side to side? Remember how I stayed silent and never unleashed the fury of judgment which boiled inside me?

That’s because you? You proved me right, big guy.

Thanks. Love ya.

Jenny

For the past four or five days, the same woodpecker* has been making regular visits to a couple of our family room windows and banging his** beak ferociously against the glass in ten minute intervals. This happens multiple times over the course of the day mainly between the hours of asscrackofdawn-o’clock and waythehelltoolate-thirty.

I for one sort of enjoy watching the little bird expend so much energy on what I imagine (and hope) to be such utterly fruitless labor. True, the racket made is rather repetitive and annoying (which is a redundant description since noise + repetitive = annoying) but I figure any distraction from my usual daily routine of caffeine ingestion and internet surfing childcare and housework is a good thing. Keeps the ole brain alive.

Rob enjoys the birdwatching not so much.
As in Iamgonnablowthatgahdamnbird’sheadoff not so much.
And hence a Bird Death Mission has been set in motion.

I’ve tried and tried to appeal to Rob’s softer side saying “You CANNOT kill the woodpecker. He is obviously homeless and friendless and sees us in here interacting in our own little dysfunctional way and wants to be part of our family and besides the kids have fallen in LOVE with him.”

But to no avail.

And if only I could speak Avianese I would tell the little guy that his lifespan is about to be shortened to the approximate amount of time it takes Rob to remember to go by the Wal-Mart Supercenter for a tube of BB’s, so if I were a woodpecker I would knock that crap off because Rob already has the BB gun. But, alas, my high school only offered Spanish, French, and German and I already tried but he didn’t seem to understand my Francais.

Comment ca va?
Oui, ca va. Et toi?
Ca va, merci.

Anyway, gotta bolt. He’ll be back soon and I need to practice my Birdie Sign Language. And I hope to God that he gets it or else I really think it’s only a matter of time before I’m raking a pile of feathers out of the front flower bed.

And I hate doing yard work.

——————

* Rob emphatically denies that the bird in question is technically a woodpecker on the grounds that it isn’t blue and red and doesn’t make the requisite ha-ha-ha-HAA-ha! sound. Hard to argue with THAT sound logic.

** I’m taking license here to assume that the fowl in question is of the MALE persuasion because it is so very like a man to expend energy on utterly fruitless labor. Like trying to talk his wife into performing the occasional back rub. UTTERLY.FRUITLESS. Don’t waste your energy (Rob). ha-ha-ha-HAA-ha!