Rejected Book Proposal #1

Given the success of Julie and Julia, wherein some regular Joe tries to imitate somebody well known for fame and fortune, then blogs about it; I have decided to pursue the same path.

Starting next week Lisa and I will be making costumes and actively trying to recreate all of William Shatner's love scenes. It will probably be a Wednesday night thing - so please no phone calls between 9:30 and 9:32 pm - because it is BUSINESS TIME (Making Love for 2, Making love for 2 minutes, because when you are as intense as I am, 2 minutes is all that you need).

We will probably start with this because we already have the outfits and it is pretty close to Lisa's normal hair style.

I suspect Amy Adams will also play me in the movie too.

Honey I think I missed a spot

Nothing will make your evening more than being woken up by a child with explosive and uncontrollable diarrhea. Luckily his room was littered with dirty clothes because that made the clean up a little easier as a lot fell on them. But I still had to strip the bed, pick up the clothes, clean the carpets on the landing (of the stairs) and hallway, and shower the kid. Then I remade the bed and got the laundry started, so all in all a long night – if you don’t count the stress of thinking “Maybe it was something he ate?” Because you know that you and everyone else ate the same thing.
All ended well and he felt better in the morning and nobody else got sick. Then I went into the small bathroom to take a shower before work. Upon shutting the door is when I saw it – the brown smears down its length. Maybe I am a bad man or just a bad father/husband, but I got dressed went downstairs and as I headed out the door said …

I can’t have all the fun; that wouldn’t be fair (or equitable).

Things forgotten

I realized this morning I forgot shaving cream, and my back up plan failed as Rick uses a electric razor. I did learn that you can have a decent shave with hand soap.

But the best is illustrated by this conservation*** from Saturday morning's packing.

Me: Hey, Lisa, where is my card reader for my camera?
Lisa: I packed it already.
Me: Where? I usually pack it with my carry on with my camera.
Lisa: (Said in an EXTREMELY condescending tone) I Packed it in my video camera bag so all the rechargers and readers are in one place. If I left you responsible for anything we would never have anything. Thank goodness that I, the GREAT Lisa, is here, or NOTHING would ever get done. By the way, you are an Idiot for even asking - loser!!!!
Me: What about my battery recharger?
Lisa: WHAT DID I JUST SAY BUTTHEAD!!

Fast forward to about 4 hours into the flight, somewhere over Greenland.
Lisa, popping up from a nap: I forgot the camera bag.
Then somehow she made it into my fault for not packing my own stuff.


***Even though I am pretty convinced this is a word for word conversation, Lisa seems to think it was slightly different. To be fair I will admit I removed the profanities she used when answering me, just because I love her too much to show the rest of you the unvarnished truth.

I Have Smelled the Future

And it isn't good.

Last week Lisa is doing her exercises (you go girl) and she asks me about her gluteals and her hamstrings. Apparently she wasn’t feeling the burn and wanted exercises to activate them. I suggested deads, split squats, and lunges; but I did offer this caveat:

Me: Remember, feeling it doesn’t mean it is working better. In fact it might just mean you are pushing for an injury. Be careful and take it slow.

Lisa (being very, very condescending): Yeah, Yeah, Yeah. I know.

Anyways by the time I get back from work she is basically crippled with several pulled/strained muscles from her lower back through her butt down into her leg. She didn’t get out of bed until Tuesday.

But back to my smellavision. When I get into bed and lift the cover the odor is almost overpowering. The scent of old age and sadness. Lisa reeks of it and in that moment I see our future laid out in front of me, like Paul on the road to Damascus.

If you want to experience it yourself, just rub Ben Gay all over your damn ass, and then cuss.

Even More Fun

Do you know what is more fun than trying to talk your Mom through instant messaging on Facebook through the phone? (and I know that is hard to beat)

That would trying to talk your wife through folding an origami box through the phone.

Lisa: Hey, do you remember that box you should me a few weeks ago?
Me: Yeah
Lisa: Can you tell me how to do that, I am teaching a class on geometric shapes.
Me: Okay

And so the fun began.

Anyways, here it is the directions for those of you want to play the home game.

Well, she finally did it

That's right, Lisa has left me. The real surprise is she was true to her threats all these years; she has stuck me with the kids. I thought for sure she would take at least one of them.

I Can't Win

Lisa asks me at church "How do I look?"

I respond "You look thin"

To which she gets mad at me because obviously she was trying to look cute/sexy, not just thin.

So yes, I got in trouble for calling my wife thin.

Deep Thoughts from the Shallow End #1

I have been on the facebook (I like saying “the face book”) pretty heavy the last few weeks, getting caught up in the excitement of seeing people I haven’t seen in 20 years. I am especially amazed at how many old people I went to high school with. While it has been nice to see the great successes in others lives, either professionally or personally, I have also caught up on some of the tragedies. I have learned that the cute little 12 year old girl who lived next door to me had such a hard time that in the end she took her own life. Since I wasn’t there for the bad times, to me she is still the happy 7th grader and it is hard to bridge that gap in my mind. Just this week a very good friend of mine let it be known that he is getting divorced, and another person shared with me that my pictures of some happy couple 20 years ago are now broken apart.

Now I don’t know the stories about these particular people and wouldn’t pretend to guess, but it has got me thinking about some stuff I have read or experienced. About half of those in love couples you see get married will get divorced. Now sometimes they probably should, but occasionally it is an accumulation of a lot of little steps in the wrong direction. What gets me the most, and again I am speaking generally (and absolutely not about anyone specifically), is when I here someone say we are married in the Temple (i.e. an official Mormon wedding) so we have a better marriage. I know quite a lot of people who not only believe this, but have said it out loud. While a temple wedding statistically speaking has better odds of surviving, it is no guarantee of success, or that it will be a happy one at that. Too often people use that ceremony as an excuse to get lazy and not do all the work to keep a marriage up. It is hard work to have a successful marriage,and there if you believe for one second that your temple certificate has given you a free pass you are probably in for a very tragic surprise one day. Any two people can be happily married, just some require a hell of lot more work than others.

What am I trying to say? I don’t know except if you were to talk to most divorced people I feel they would tell you how hard it was on them. You should marry well to begin with and do not ever assume for one minute that you will always be as happy as the wedding day; be working every minute to shore up the weak parts. Because up until the second the I35 Bridge collapsed, everybody assumed it was secure, safe, and would last forever.

I So Know What You're Thinking

Actual conversation with the wife

Lisa (Who is thinking of following our Area Church leader's advice to be prepared by having a sum of cash in small bills in the home): After work tomorrow can you stop by the bank and pick up $200 in ones.

Me: A forty year old male, picking up $200, in one dollar bills, on a Friday, after work? I so know what that bank teller, and thus the rest of the bank, and probably town will be thinking.

That's right

The Strip Club!

Story of Lisa

Inspired by the talk at church yesterday, I feel now would be a good time to share a story about Lisa from before we had the kids. We went to the wonderful Movies 8 in Provo with some friends. In those days Movies 8 was a dollar theater showing movies after general release but before they come out on VHS. Well we went to see Three Men and a Little Lady, which starred a few of the more well known male actors of the day. But one of the female supporting actors was the delightful Fiona Shaw, who most of you now know as Petunia Dursley. In this movie she played a befuddled school mistress who was shamelessly flirting with (and throwing herself at) Tom Selleck's character Peter (who was an architect). In the scene she sees Peter staring out a window at a building and tries to make flirty small talk and says the following:

Miss Elspeth Lomax: I'm sure that's nothing compared to some of your other marvelous erections!

You must remember this was an audience of 200 quiet and reserved BYU (i.e. Mormons) students all trying to make a good impression on their dates. So the little side joke almost slipped by, except one lone soul in the whole place busted out with uncontrolled laughter. After that everyone in the place started laughing, but I think they were laughing at her.

That is one of the reasons I love her. The ability to say situation be damned, I am going to laugh at a good penis joke when I hear it.


PS - I tried to find a video clip online so you could see it, but Googling "marvelous erections" IS NOT A GOOD IDEA.

18 years and counting

Twenty-one short years ago Lisa and I first met at BYU and she relentlessly begged me to go out with her. Three years and one mission later I finally gave in and we met up at the Chicago temple 18 years ago today. I do not want to wax poetic on how lucky she has been, but instead I want to address the question that most people ask; "What is your secret on being such a phenomanal power couple who are way more blissfully happy than we are?"

Well I will tell you it is not as hard as people think. After two years of struggling we spent the money and bought two separate, but equal duvets. That is the true inside secret to an enduring and happy marriage - each having your own blanket at night. Everything else like kids, money, and work will just take care of themselves.
Here is to 18 more.

Why I am not CEO yet

It is all Lisa's FAULT!!

Survey says - men whose wives kiss them good-bye in the morning will earn a higher salary than their non-kissed counterparts.

Actual untouched picture of the one time Lisa kissed me good-byeTypical morning
Me: Hey Lisa, do you love me?
Lisa: Yes
Me: So you are going to get up and see me off.
Lisa: Makes snore sounds and pretends to be deaf.

ALL HER FAULT!!

TV Shows are too farfetched!

There is no way a guys like this would ever get a girls like that.
Totally Fake!

Unrealistic!

Oh wait. Nevermind.

It's Only Fair

If Spouse A comes home for lunch, and during their limited time have to let the dogs out, proceed to slip on the steps because they were not shoveled correctly, then shovel the steps out in the cold; all because Spouse B is still in their pajamas, wrapped up in a blanket, sitting on the couch watching TV and didn't do it themselves because they do not want to be cold -

Is it Spouse A's God given right to warm up their freezing hands by jamming them inside of said Spouse B's pajamas?

I won't tell you who is who in this story, but let's just say Lisa and I disagree on this.