Category: Coupledom


It’s a little crazy around Casa de Julz y Rick right now. Probably not as much for Rick, but for me, yes, definitely. I have two 15-20 page papers due on the 23rd, which means two things: I don’t get to enjoy the Christmas season until it pretty much is Christmas, and I’m on the verge of having a nervous breakdown until then. This is when I try to get all the research done and neatly organized into notes, because I know that is the key to my writing style. If I can get those notes and an outline done, I will feel much better and be in good position to write. Until that happens, I’m a wreck. Never mind that I do, in fact, have a rough draft of one paper that means that 2/3 of it is basically written. I cannot focus on that, only how much I have left to do for the other one, and entire work days are spent in a state of panic because this is time I could be working! I have taken Friday and Monday off for this very reason, and I might take Tuesday off, too, although my bosses do not know this yet. Must keep 4.0 GPA!!!

Also, must find one more present for Amelia, who is the last person on my Christmas list that needs to be bought for. Feel free to comment with whatever you think a college freshman might like, bearing in mind that she has a lot of stuff. I could just get a gift card, I suppose, but because I got Sage two gifts (and no gift cards), that feels like a cop-out. Seriously, any ideas are welcome.

Finally, since I was completely panicked last night about my paper, I did the logical thing and watched Jeopardy with Rick (I have always been a procrastinator. You can ask my mom.) During that, this conversation happened, and I have no idea why.

Rick: What is a porcupine!

Me: What?

Rick: A porcupine! You would like a porcupine.

Me: Why would I like a porcupine?

Rick: Because you like all animals.

Me: So I would like a porcupine?

Rick: You would feel sorry for a porcupine out there in this cold.

Me: Well, yeah, actually I wou…wait a minute, why does this mean I would like a porcupine?

I seriously have no idea where this came from, and he never did answer me. It’s like the night before when I sat straight up and said “You know what would be a good Christmas present? E.L.O.!!!” Stuff like this happens all the time at our house. We must be at the vortex of random.

Now I go back to worrying about the paper and what to get Amelia. Perhaps a porcupine. She likes animals, after all.

I’ve found conversation posts are easier than writing actual posts, apparently, because this is the third one in a row. Hopefully I will have an actual written post tomorrow about my experience Four Loko. Yes, I drank some. I even have pictures. But that will be discussed tomorrow.

Last night they were talking about Prince William’s engagement on the news (big surprise) and one of the op-ed guys that Rick and I hate was wondering why so much media attention for this event. There are two reasons for this, Larry Mendte, the first being that we got rid of monarchy in this country over 200 years ago and have been the tiniest bit sorry ever since. The other is that since things turned out so tragically for Princess Diana, we’re hoping that her sons get the happy endings she was denied, and William is taking the first steps to that.

I told Rick that last night, and this followed.

Rick: “Yeah, we all want him to be happy. But he’s getting married, the poor sap.” (Rick has a jaded view about marriage, as you might imagine.)

Julie: “Well, they’ve been together eight years.”

Rick: “Yep.”

Julie: “We’ve been together eight years.”

Rick: “Yep.”

Julie: “You could get me a diamond and sapphire ring. You know, no marriage involved. Just as a gesture.”

Rick: “I could.” (he couldn’t keep a straight face after he got this out and started laughing hysterically)

And this is why I will never be married.

I went grocery shopping on the way home tonight for the second time in a week (I realized I wanted to make spaghetti and chili next week–not on the same night–so I needed sausage and ground beef). I bought a $.99 (really, how annoying is it that there’s no cent symbol key anymore?) bag of Doritos and ate half to stave off hunger on the way home. I rubber banded the remaining half and stuck it on the counter, meaning to take it to work for part of my lunch tomorrow. That was about four hours ago. Rick got in about a half hour ago, noticed I was doing homework, and went off to the kitchen to make a hot dog. He came back to watch a You Tube video with me, then went back to the living room. I thought nothing of my Doritos until two minutes ago, when I suddenly noticed Dorito crumbs on the bed beside me.

Me: What are these??

Rick: What?

Me: Where did these Dorito crumbs come from?

Rick: Oh. Probably from my mouth when I was back there.

Me: Did you eat the Doritos that were sitting on the counter?

Rick: Um…

Me: I was saving them for lunch tomorrow.

Rick: Oh. Well, they just looked so good, sitting there. I didn’t know you were saving them. I was hungry!

(I point out the entire fridge full of food we have as a result of my two shopping trips, including cheese, pickles, olives, and other snack type foods.)

Rick: I’m sorry?

“My lady”

Yesterday I told Rick that I had been referred to as his “lady.” I found this really funny, since Brian May is the only person I have ever heard refer to a woman as his lady. This conversation followed, which amused Sage greatly:

Me: I think you should call me that from now on when you introduce me. “This is my lady, Julie.”

Rick: Um, no. I could call you my old lady.

Me: I’m younger than you.

Rick: Well, yeah, but if we were bikers, you would be my old lady.

Me: We’re not bikers, so you can see how that wouldn’t work.

Rick:

Me: Exactly.

Someone at work today asked me how my Easter was. I said “Oh, you know, it was Easter in the house of an atheist and a pagan. We ate beef.” They seemed really taken aback by that, I can’t imagine why.

In reality, it was a very lazy day. Rick hit golf balls in the morning, I…didn’t do homework. (Spring Break mentality is killing me, people. I am so behind on the homework, but there I sat watching Project Runway.) In the afternoon, he came home and cooked us beef tenderloin for dinner, and then we flipped back and forth between the Sox game and The Sound of Music. He’s a good boy, letting me not only watch musicals but sing along with them. Although I wonder how much of it he was actually paying attention to and how much he was making up scenes in his head. Like this one, which flew out of his mouth because he has no internal censor:

Maria (on TV): “Which brings me to another transgression, Reverend Mother. I was singing out there today.”

Reverend Mother (on TV): “Only in the abbey do we have rules about postulants singing.”

Maria (on TV): “I can’t stop wherever I am.” (Rick cuts in, as Maria) “In fact, I made up a new song today! Would you like to hear it? ‘Dominique-nique-nique….’”

Rick as Reverend Mother (severely annoyed): Maria! That’s enough!”

I almost pissed myself because I was laughing so hard.

Other than that, we had a very lazy day, as shown in this photo montage.

Easter Cats

“Dude, what? I’m sleepin’ here.”

Easter Cats

“See? I has a tired.”

Easter Cats

“What the hell is the other one up to? Is he going to jump on me again?”

Easter Cats

“No, I’m just stretchin’!”

Easter Cats

“But I could kick your ass. I have thumbs, you know.”

Easter Cats

“I hate my life.”

Actually, that shows that three of us had a lazy afternoon. Freddie looks harassed. Somewhere in cat heaven, Joe is looking down and laughing because now Freddie knows what it’s like. Karma exists, even on the feline level.

Rick and I are in the car, listening to the radio, when a diet program ad comes on. It is a diet program I have never heard of, and they seem to be marketing to a particular demographic because the woman is talking like this (I cannot even begin to type the accent, but I think you’ll get the picture):

Ad Woman: “After the birth of my first child, I put on 150 pounds. And I was looking at my friend one day, and I said “Girl, you are so slim. How do you stay so slim?” And she told me about [said diet program] and said she lost the weight with them. I’ve been on it for six months, and I’ve lost 100 pounds. And when I look at myself in the mirror…”

Rick interrupts: “I think, “Damn, Latisha, you still fat, but you ain’t as fat as you used to be, girl!”

Me (gasping for air because I’m laughing so hard): “Oh my god. How do you think of shit like that?”

Rick: “Really? Because I think of stuff like that all the time. I often wonder how other people don’t think of things like that.”

Amelia and Sage are in London with their mom for June and part of July, so Rick and I pass info from them back and forth as we get it (him from phone calls, me from Facebook). This morning’s conversation degenerated quickly.

Rick: So I think Amelia had a date the other night. She told me she went out to dinner, and when I asked her who she went with, she said “Um…a friend.”

Me: Good for her, going out with an English boy.

Rick: Well, she does love that accent.

Me: Honey, let me tell you something about women. We all love that accent.

Rick: Really?

Me: Yes. How else do you explain Hugh Grant’s box office success?

Rick: I always wondered about that. I mean, he’s not like that other one. The other one can at least act.

Me: You mean Colin Firth?

Rick: Yeah, him.

Me: He’s got the accent and he’s Mr. Darcy. That’s why women like him. He changed for Elizabeth.

Rick: And that’s why that story is total fiction.

Me: I know. Elizabeth got results in a few months. I’ve been working at it for seven years and what have I got to show for it?

Rick: Exactly.

Brackets

Rick and I were drunkenly filling out brackets for March Madness last night. He picks based on the actual team’s record, I go on instinct with a strong preference for funny mascot names and with a bias for Pittsburgh teams. When we were finished, we compared brackets and discovered that although we had some wild discrepancies as far as who was getting to the Sweet Sixteen and Elite Eight, both of us had Pitt and UConn going to the final with Pitt winning the whole thing. I proposed that since we were projecting the same winner, we make our bet based on who had correctly predicted the most winners overall (I am up one at this point, because I said Morehead was going to get in and they did). Rick agreed, then we had the following conversation:

Rick: So is this for money? We’re betting money?

Julie: No. If you win, I’ll be your sex slave.

Rick: I like that.

Julie: What do I get if I win?

Rick: You’ll be my sex slave.

Julie: That doesn’t seem quite right.

Rick (with a leer): Oh, it’s right.

I was rudely awakened at 5 AM this morning by a flick to the head. When I asked Rick why in the hell he had done that (after a brief interval of crying, because seriously, one minute I was dreaming and there was a little conflict happening in my dream anyway, and then the next I was flicked in the head, and my sleepy emotional state couldn’t cope), he said “In the dark, I thought your head was the cat.”

Wait, what?

Apparently, I had been talking in my sleep and said “Hey!” pretty loudly. This woke Rick up, and in the darkness, he misinterpreted and thought the dark shape on the pillow was the cat, sitting on my head. Because my head, it is cat-shaped. And because Rick doesn’t like for Freddie to be on the bed, he flicked. This is generally a surefire way to get the cat off the bed. Except when he’s not actually flicking the cat, he’s flicking my head. That’s just a surefire way to make both of us miserable for the next few minutes.

Tonight when he gets home, I will draw visual aids to make sure this never happens again.

(Because that sounds nicer than: How I know Rick is well-trained.)

We were talking about Macbeth as we walked to the subway last night, and both agreed that it felt really long in the second act in spite of stellar acting. Rick then said “You know that really long scene between Macduff and Malcolm? They could have used a dramaturg there.”

Thank you, yes, they could have. This is the second only to last weekend when I showed Rick a scarf that I was knitting in a chevron pattern (which basically makes the scarf edge wavy instead of straight), and not realizing that it was designed that way, he commented “It’s really nice, but you’re going to have to block the hell out of that, aren’t you?”

He got some for that.

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