Late at Night, While You're Sleeping. . .

. . .Poison Ivy comes a creepin' around.  (And she's a bitch.)

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Last Friday I thought I would keep myself busy all day without spending any money.  I was super productive around the house, and even took on a task that is supposed to be Matt's: I mowed the lawn.  Easy enough.  Just push the thing around the yard in lines.  I wore shorts and a tank top and flip-flops.  I did run over some plastic thing that shredded to bits and hit my leg and made me start to bleed, but aside from that, there seemed to be no other casualties.

After mowing the lawn, I took Mitch for a walk/jog to the park.  We didn't get far, though, because gigantic black storm clouds came rolling in, and lightning began to strike kind of close to us.  I kept having this awful vision of my little Mitchy getting struck by lightning in front of my face, so we went home before that would become reality. 

I was sweaty and gross, but then I was afraid to get into the shower because I had recently read this post by The Bloggess and I was afraid that I would get struck by lightning if I got in the shower and then Matt would come home to a fried wife and he would be sad.  So I fell asleep instead.  And then I woke up and Matt was home and we ate dinner and I drank too much wine.

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There was no shower.  And what good timing, since apparently I had walked through some poison ivy during my lawn-mowing endeavor (because, regardless of how many times I look at a picture of poison ivy, I can never recognize it in real life), and had opted out of the shower on the day that my body was covered in poison ivy oil.  Fantastic.  So it spread around, and instead of just having poison ivy on my feet, for example, I would scratch the back side of my knee, thus spreading the poison.  Again, fantastic. 

So now I'm covered in little patches of itchy hell, and I'm mad about it. 

It's a good thing that I went to the beach today, so that I could have some healing salt water to help out. (I thought that was just some myth that my grandma would tell me, but today I talked to my biologist friend Jen who told me that salt water does, indeed, help out poison ivy because it's a hypertonic.  She explained what that meant, but I forgot.) 

Between today's healing salt water, and the healing dog kisses that I'm sure Mitch will be providing (since I saved his life during Friday's walk/jog), I'll be better in no time. 

I hear that margaritas have that special healing power, too.

Handy Mandy

I'm cheap.  Really cheap.

And I'm resourceful.  Really resourceful. 

So when shit breaks (or when I break shit), I am loathe to call a repairman.  Instead, I insist that I can fix it myself. 

In the last few weeks, I've fixed:  Matt's dresser drawer, the kitchen sink (my bad), the dishwasher (still not really sure what I did), and. . .

Rewind to Sunday.  Matt and I went to the beach, got into a five-minute fight, got sunburnt, read magazines, headed home, bought a pineapple at the Piggly Wiggly, got home, took showers, and started a load of laundry.

Easy enough.

Except that when the washer had completed its cycle, I went to switch the load and the washer was still full of water.  Like full full.  Like "Oh shit, we're going to have to go buy a new washer" kind of full.

Crap.

So I asked Cris (Lost enthusiast and former roommate, mother of Reilly, pictured above) what she suggested, and we decided that it would be a good idea to just run it again.  Kind of a "turn the computer off and then turn it back on" solution. But it didn't work.  The washer was still full of water. 

And since I really didn't want to spend the rest of my evening emptying the washer with plastic cups, I turned to The Google, googled "washer won't drain," and discovered that there was a good chance that the draining hose thing was clogged.  Made sense, especially considering how much fur and how many coins and tubes of Burt's Bees have ended up in the washer.

So I pulled out the washer and unplugged it (figured that might be a good idea), and slowly removed the hose.  After I stared at it (much in the same way that Mitch stares at me when I ask him if he wants to order a pizza--slowly moving his head from side to side) for a few moments, Cris had another good suggestion: blow into it. 

Yeah!  Great idea!

So I blew.

And I blew, and I blew, and I blew.  (I blew more than the horrible episode of The Hills that I'm watching right now--Jesus Christ, Spencer, could you be a little more crazy?!)

And bubbles kept coming up from the bottom of the washer.  Just like farting in the bathtub.

I blew some more, at this point because I was impressing myself with my incredible lung capacity.

Then came the moment of truth.  We put the washer on the rinse or spin cycle (I can't remember), and held our breath.  Well, I didn't hold my breath.  I was kind of out of breath from all the blowing.

And. . .

VICTORY! 

And then, every 10-15 minutes for the next three days, I'd turn to Matt and be all, "Hey, remember that time I fixed the washer by blowing into it?"

Washing Machine, 0.  Mandy, 1.

It's that time again.

It's football season. Horray.

I wish that I was more excited about football, but I'm not. In contrast to how I felt about it during college, football is not about parties and hot chocolate and sitting on bleachers on chilly Friday and Saturday nights. Instead, the beginning of football season means frustration and annoyance.

For one, the beginning of football season coincides with the beginning of school. This time of year tends to be pretty stressful for me as I adjust to early mornings and full work weeks, students who be tryin' me, and the general knowledge that it'll be 10 more months before I can sleep in every day and drink boxed wine every night.

So as Matt gets giddy like a little schoolgirl about pre-season games and fantasy football leagues, I experience a feeling of dread about how much work is ahead of me.

This time of year, I have less time and energy to do things around the house, the same things I was happy to do during the summer months. And simultaneously, Matt's priorities undergo a dramatic shift. Suddenly, we are scheduling our life around fantasty football drafts (he's in THREE leagues!), and Saturday afternoon and night games, Sunday afternoon and night games, Monday night games, and the occasional Thursday night game (really not that much of a time commitment, Matt argues). Matt will occasionally forego watching a very important game (because, somehow, they're almost all very important) to do something else, but usually only after I get pissy about it.


Have I mentioned that he's a Buffalo Bills fan? THE BILLS? Being a Bills fan is like being friends with someone who punches you in the stomach every time you see each other.

We will have our annual beginning of football season fight, which is usually more about me being stressed than it is about Matt's watching football. (Sadly, it seems that too many of our fights are more about me being tired or cranky or just a bitch in general than they are about the actual "topic" of the fight.) Then things will begin to level out, and I'll cool down.


What I have to remember is that I signed up for this. Matt has been football-obsessed since he was a wee boy, and nothing that I do is going to change that part of him. And truthfully, I wouldn't want to. He loves it. He loves it the way I love The Hills and Forrest Gump and Dirty Dancing and cupcakes and Mitch combined. I'm happy that Matt's happy. I just wish that sweeping the floor, doing laundry, and cooking dinner were the things that made him so happy.

But I'd be lying if I didn't admit to some of the small joys that football brings me. For one, it allows me an opportunity to give really insightful commentary such as "Run to the yellow line!" or "The Patriots are so good at throwing and catching." Occasionally, I get to watch my favorite thing in football, an interception returned for a touchdown. Matt's three fantasy leagues often bring in some cash (for me to spend at Target!). But the greatest thing about football for Mandy? Football boyfriends.

First there's Trent Edwards, the quarterback for Buffalo. He's not the most handsome of the football boyfriends, but he's the smartest. T.E. went to Stanford!

Then there's Brett. Oh, Brett. Brett was my first football boyfriend, but we broke up a couple of years ago when he started being a drama queen.

The most handsome football boyfriend in the league today would have to be Tom Brady. He makes my heart beat fast.
But the one with the whole package, the personality, the looks, the charisma? It's Coach Eric Taylor from Friday Night Lights.

On those days when I'm frustrated with the way our life seems to revolve around football, I can just think of Coach Taylor's wife, and be happy that at least I'm not in her situation, and that football has the shortest season of any sport.

A Near-Death Experience

This will probably be my final blog post, since I was viciously attacked this morning by my worst enemy: a jumpy frog. He jumped onto my hand while I was switching laundry this morning, and proceeded to inject his deadly jumpy frog poison into my bloodstream. Then he jumped into my mouth and used his little sucker fingers to open and close my mouth and force me to chew him, then ingesting the poison. I might have a few more hours to live.

I hate jumpy frogs. Hatred in my heart. They're evil, and they always attack me and look at me. They want me dead.

It's been good knowing you.

PS--I tried a few months ago to make Matt be the one in charge of switching laundry. It didn't take. I bet he's going to be pretty sad when I die from a laundry-related attack.