What's in a miscommunication?

For those who know or don't know, today is the third anniversary of the night I finally worked up the gumption to send a message to a cute-looking girl with an interesting profile on a dating website.  Three years from that day, and I'm now sitting on her couch while she takes a brief nap on the couch next to me.  I look across to her and see.. well it's not her face, she's turned to face the back of her couch.  But if it were her face, I'd tell you of the angelic bliss I see in her visage as she slumbers peacefully.  As such, the current view is also quite gratifying.  Boy, she's gonna be mad at me when she reads this entry.  What can I say?  Being a stinker once in awhile is part of the fun of sharing a love with someone.

So you'll be happy to know that barring her being upset with me for the above paragraph, the eponymous miscommunication is not about us.  It's a work snafu.  See, originally, the plan was for me to work this morning.  And if I'd worked this morning, I wouldn't have been able to be with her until late this afternoon or possibly this evening given traffic (they really need to add more lanes on the Trans-Canada between the Cloverdale exit and the Highway 7 exit, but I digress).  Thankfully, there was a foul-up in communication, and someone else is working today.  It would've been nice to work today, make a little extra money, but the fiance was really excited about me coming up this afternoon because it's the first anniversary that we've actually been able to be together in person rather than on the internet or over the phone.  So if she was excited about having the last maybe 7 hours of the day with me, imagine her excitement when I showed up at her door last night ready to spend ALL of today with her!  She's excited, even if her sleeping state doesn't scream enthusiasm.

So, whether you believe that all things happen for a reason or just love a good mix-up, the point is when I called the other person to discuss the schedule foul-up, she said she'd planned on me working this morning, but would be willing to do it if I wanted it off.  So, when an opportunity strikes grab it.  I  did.  It's how I got to spend the whole anniversary with the woman I love.  It's how I got my fiance in the first place.

Happy anniversary, Erica.  I wouldn't switch lives with anyone because I have you.  I love you.

What's in a joke or five?

Five Jokes With Which Drew Carey Is Ruining “The Price Is Right”

No question about it: The Price Is Right is one of the greatest, arguably THE greatest, and most enduring game shows of all time.  A lot of this has been due to the fun of playing along at home with the games, a lot of it has been allure of the models over the years, but undeniably, the greatest factor was the show’s host who will forever be directly associated with the program, Bob Barker.  And a lot of good people were dismayed when the reins were handed over to comedian and star of two retired shows on ABC, Drew Carey. 

In all fairness to Drew, Bob Barker is irreplaceable, and Carey was a better choice than some of the other ones the rumor mill was predicting, such as Rosie O’Donnell.  It’s never fun to be the man to have to fill a legend’s shoes, knowing you’ll always be in his shadow.  Drew realizes that, even taking it as a compliment for the first couple years, when people kept calling him “Bob.”  It places you in an instant catch-twenty-two.  If you try to carry the torch by imitating the master, then you’re ridiculed for just being a copycat; if you try to add your own twist to the job, you’re reviled for taking away from the show and not honoring the master’s legacy.  To that end, Drew Carey’s had the good sense to bite the bullet and make the job his own, trying to maintain a balance between the tradition and the reality that Bob’s not coming back, which to his credit, he actually does a good job of.

One of the ways he does this is in the jokes he makes.  Bob made jokes on the show, but as a professional comedian, Drew has a different style that makes the job his.  However, as any professional comedian will also tell you, making your stuff translate to network TV is no small task.  Drew Carey has found this out the hard way, and thankfully he has adjusted the jokes, and has even stopped telling ones that were just bombing (“Ezekiel Barker” when playing the old Barker’s Bargain Bar before that game got a makeover; joking about two completely unrelated products going together).  Here are five more that desperately need to go:

#5: “The ol’ Price Is Right clock on the wall”

When you hear it: before they call the final contestant down to Contestants’ Row.

Why he does it exposition really.  For those just tuning in who aren’t sure where in the program they are.  It also calls attention to the fact that there’s one pricing game left, trying to instill a sense of urgency in the one who’s called down and the three still there.

Why it needs to go: for starters, there’s no clock that we see.  When he does that joke, they cut to George Gray at the announcer’s podium, and they show a computer image of a clock with the hands going round.  Maybe I’m alone in this, but I kinda miss the less-computerized things they did: from the giant backdrops depicting a prize trip, which have been replaced with LCD screens; to the old lights on the Temptation game that now show scrolling numbers.  This display of a clock just irritates me further.  I’d rather they have a prop clock with the cuckoo bird holding a sign that reads “One More Contestant!” than see that digital display.  But more importantly, The Price Is Right is too well established as a television institution for this joke.  People who are just tuning in know that the show is winding down by this point.  We know it by heart now: three games, showcase showdown, three more games, another showcase showdown, and the final showcase.  This joke is more of an insult to the audience than a bit of humor.  Lastly, this joke ruins the illusion of relaxed pacing that we’ve all enjoyed.  It’s about fun, not making the show run on time.  With a few exceptions, like urging a contestant who doesn’t know what to bid and takes awhile to decide or the games that run on a timer, the show has always had the illusion of a Jack Benny kind of “We get there when we get there” pace to it, even incorporating the timer games into that pace so it never seems rushed.  This joke erodes that tent pole in the festival of fun.

#4: “One of our luckiest models!”

When you hear it: when playing a game that involves one of the models doing something functional in the gameplay and/or one of the games with a higher chance factor involved than other games.

Why he does it: to give the contestants more confidence, to create and nurture an atmosphere of well-wishing that includes not just him, but everyone, including the models.

Why it needs to stop: in all fairness, this joke really isn’t supposed to be all that funny, so the fact that it’s not funny really isn’t a strike against him.  What is a strike though is the execution of the joke, as quite often he’ll engage said model in baiting banter, asking her if she’s feeling lucky.  Right on cue, she says, “I feel lucky!”  This is irritating because we know what she’ll say.  I mean, what else is she gonna say?  This is just unnecessary dialogue.  I’m not against having the models speak or anything chauvinistic like that—I actually like it when Drew pauses for a sec to ask the model what song she’s pretending to sing when the item up for bids is a karaoke machine.  But the fake enthusiasm the model is expected to exhibit makes high school cheerleaders look like Flavor Flav-league hype-people.  And also, of all the ways luck comes into play, the involvement on the part of the model is really the least of them.  Not to mention that there are some people who will take that joke seriously and attempt to calculate the Model’s Luck Coefficient. .  Lastly, making the models out to be little more than good luck charms is more objectifying than pure chauvinism, as they’re no longer eye candy, but bracelets on the wrist.

#3: “The greatest game in the world!”

When you hear it: when they play Rat Race.

Why he does it: it’s a game that he helped create and develop.

Why it needs to stop: for starters the game pretty much sucks.  It’s one of the most chance-determined games they have.  You can do everything right and still end up with the least of the three possible prizes.  It’s not the most popular game; that would be Plinko, which ironically enough is even more chance-riddled than Rat Race.  True you can win three prizes, including a car, but you can also do that with Master Key, Ten Chances, and even better than that with Switcheroo.  For anticipation, there have been better ways to do it than watching wind up mechanical rats, such as watching the mountain climber ascend during Cliff Hangers.  The joke’s not funny because it’s obvious the humor comes from his pride of ownership.  Also, claiming one game as the best of all is insinuation that there are games that aren’t fun.

#2: “Look out!  Try not to collide!”

When you hear it: when the models have to switch sides in the game Switch?

Why he does it: the thought of two models possibly colliding seems somehow funny to him.

Why it needs to stop: where do I start with this one?  Is it the assumption that on a 2-D television screen, the viewer will forget that life happens in a three-dimensional world?  Is it the thought that the models aren’t smart enough to walk and carry a sign at the same time?  Is it the fact that it’s a completely unnecessary gag during the filler music that plays while they switch places?  Is it the fact that if the contestant doesn’t wish to switch, Drew jokes about a potential crisis averted?  You guessed it, all of the above.  This joke is a failure on just about every level.  It was even funny the first time he did it, it’s still not funny now.

#1: “Oh, mighty sound effects lady…”

When you hear it: when they play One Away

Why he does it: it builds anticipation and tension, and Bob Barker did this joke, too…sort of.

Why it needs to stop: let’s start with the fact that this takes Bob’s original bit to ridiculous proportions.  Bob made the contestant ask nicely using “Ladies” or “Gentlemen”, and say please, or say a specific phrase.  And that’s fair.  The sound effects people are union, work-a-day people, and when Bob asks on their behalf that the contestant address them politely, that’s just looking out for the little guy.  By contrast, Drew makes the contestants flat-out grovel, to the point of deifying the sound effects lady.  The sound effects person does not have THAT much control.  The sound effects person just lets you know how many numbers you got right.  That’s it.  They’ve got higher-ups to answer to if they don’t do their damn job.  There’s no need to humiliate the contestant (any further than they embarrass themselves that is).  Also, it drags the game on forever.  Remember the clock on the wall that tampered with pacing by instilling a false rush?  This is the joke that drags the pace of the show down by Drew actually slowing it down.  He demonstrates how the contestant needs to ask with slow enunciation, and as expected, the contestant emulates the very slow beseeching of the sound effects lady’s favor.  This bit is so annoying that it has wrecked the game for me.  One Away used to be one of my favorite games on The Price Is Right, now I mute the TV when they play the game, and sometimes change the channel, because even without sound, it’s painful to watch.  If the mighty sound effects lady had as much control as Drew makes her out to have, she’d play some goofy sound effects over Drew Carey’s demonstration so the rest of us could get a genuine laugh, for a change. 

What's in a vacation?

Last week, I finally had the opportunity to introduce my fiancée to my family.  I can’t tell you how nervous I was about it.  While I’m not completely attached to my family, I discovered that it was extremely important to me that they at least be able to be happy for me.  I didn’t quite need their approval of her, just that they be able to be happy for me.  That seems easy enough, but it hasn’t really happened before.  My first girlfriend, they were less than thrilled with.  My second girlfriend, I never even told them about while I was dating her (well, two of my siblings knew, but the rest of the family remained oblivious). 

Now, this is a tightrope to walk to explain: my family aren’t flint-hearted villains who don’t want me to be happy, and I’m not the kind of guy who’d be devastated and would break it off if they didn’t approve or couldn’t be happy for me.  But if the family isn’t happy for me, then there’s probably something I’m not seeing or considering, that love is blindsiding me to.  So I was a little concerned as to how the week would go.

And it was a hectic week.  The main purpose of the visit wasn’t for them to meet my fiancée, but to attend my little sister’s wedding.  And also, my brother was in town with his wife and kids, and while I’d met them, my other siblings hadn’t.  So this was a full plate for the family, and we could very easily have gotten lost in the shuffle.

In some ways we did.  We stayed in a hotel since the aforementioned brother and family were staying with my parents, so we were separated from the family in that way.  And much of the time was spent seeing sights that at one time or another meant a lot to me.  Still there was time for the family, all four siblings and almost all my nieces and nephews (and one smelly rat disguised as a dog).  I don’t know which sibling got to know my fiancée best, or if my parents got that chance the most.

All I can really tell you is the results: one brother said he would start calling my fiancée “sis”; the other brother said he’s never seen me happier than I am with her, one sibling has added her as a Facebook friend (as did the sister’s fiancée and two of her children), the other sister….well she ‘s the one that got married, so let’s let the lovebirds finish honeymooning first, shall we?  (Though the new bro-in-law has also friended her on FB too).

As for my parents?  Well, they’re parents.  They have concerns a-plenty.  Most of it entails either the legal falderal that awaits us or things that are directly affected by aforementioned falderal.  They're happy for me though, and they're looking forward to our wedding.

Normally when I post to this blog, I try to have something learned along the way, or something important to say.  I don’t know if I have that this time.  I learned some things this past week sure, but nothing too grandiose that could be the moral lesson on an episode of “South Park” or anything like that.  To be honest, I’m not sure what to make of the whole experience.  I really wish I’d had more time to spend with my siblings to get them to know my fiancée better.  And the major upside of it all is that we feel ready to start planning our wedding, hopefully in April,

So um.. I guess the moral is get your passports renewed, because it’ll probably be in Canada.

What's in an anthem?

On the episode of Glee that focused on anthems, among other things, we witnessed the character of Loren Zizes singing, “I Know What Boys Like”, which she called her anthem, because it spoke so well to and about her.  If that’s the definition of an anthem (and it really isn’t on any level) then before two years ago today, my anthem would have been Uncle Kracker’s “In A Little While.”  To me, the song speaks to every level and age plateau in life, at least for those with a hole in their lives.

              

“Here’s to the good life, or so they say”… an expectation of the best being yet to come.  “All those parties and games that all those people play”—what to expect and what we should hold as an end unto itself.  “They tell me this is the place to be”… and these are the best years of your life.  “All these beautiful people, and nothing to see”: the realization that it’s all a façade and nothing of substance.  I felt like this was my life, first high school, then college, then when I moved to Lansing as a young adult; I’d finally gotten to where and when I was told that I needed to be to really enjoy life.  Of course, I knew from my Christian upbringing that this wasn’t necessarily going to be true, but I still hoped that the sentiment would still be truer than it had been before, and be less of a lie, that reaching a certain age meant a leveling out of how much life sucks.

But the bridge, or second half of every verse, is the part that really made the song mean so much to me.  “Sometimes I feel like something is gone here, something is wrong here”, something’s missing and it sure ain’t right that way.  Then where he sort of exclaims, “I DON’T BELONG HERE.”  Not just the line, but also the way he sings it.  You just want to scream, “THIS IS NOT WHERE I’M SUPPOSED TO BE!”  Similar to the way Freddie Mercury screams/sings “LET ME OUT” in “Under Pressure.”    I can’t tell you how many times I just felt like I didn’t belong where I was.  Every dayjob I’d had since leaving college, every group of roommates (except Edwin), at the radio station during the day when almost none of the salespeople had any clue who I was—even at church of all places, where I felt out of place at the various ministries I was in or tried to be a part of, or during the early morning service because I was the only one under thirty not with their parents or in college, or at the later morning service where I wasn’t moved by the contemporary praise songs to lift my hands to Heaven (that’s more my problem though… I was raised in a conservative worship tradition, and raising hands still feels weird to me).  I did feel comfortable at the evening services, which were smaller, but even then that was only when I could make it.  Going back home to my parents place to visit, I felt like I belonged at home, but there was always the issue of how I didn’t feel comfortable in the rest of the town just because it’s changed so much over the years, and even being at my parents’ place carried the reminder that I’d soon have to drive back to Lansing, so there was no point in getting too comfortable.  Which bridges nicely into the line, “Sometimes I feel like a stranger in town”… duh, not just my hometown, but Lansing too.  I was supposed to have been just passing through.  “And I’ve lost what I found, it’ll all turn around.”  Maybe just about having to make sacrifices to set the things in motion that you want in motion and in the desired vector.

“In a little while, I’ll be thinking about you.  In a little while I’ll still be here without you.”  For me, the desire for love and to be loved.  “You never gave me a reason to doubt you.”  Can’t have a reason if you don’t have they who’d give you the reason. 

“On the other side of the coin, there’s a face, there’s a memory somewhere that I can’t erase.”  Past love?  Past memories?  We’ve all got them, and they still come back to us.  “And there’s a place that I’ll find someday, but sometimes I feel like it’s slipping away.”  The destination that you feel called to, but that’s coupled with the doubts that you’ll actually arrive there.  And the last verse.  “Some things are lost, some left behind, some things are better left for someone else to find.”  Let the past be the past, and have someone else learn the lessons for themselves, too.  “Maybe in time I can finally see, I just wonder, wonder do you think about me?”  Maybe I’ll get over it, but are you struggling with the memory of me as I do with yours? 

As I said, this was my theme song.  I identified so very strongly with that song… up until two years ago, when I finally found the nerve to approach a girl I was interested in.  And eventually I got her interested in me, too.  It’s proven to have been the best thing I ever did.  This girl has turned my world upside-down.  I mentioned a bit of it last year in a blog on this date, but it’s still true, maybe even truer, to think about how she’s just changed my world.  I’m now living on the other side of the country, making plans to move to another country to be with her.  This year has definitely been a harder year for the both of us.  But I believe I can speak for her as well when I say that this past year’s struggles were much harder and nearly tore us apart a couple times, that we’ve both had to step up more and work harder to make this work, but that we’re also both happy that we did and happier to have each other in our lives, and that we very much look forward to a life together, a future, an eternity.  And any time I start to doubt it, all I need to do is call and hear her voice, even if it’s the recording on her voice mail, and everything returns as to how I know we belong together.  And I don’t know if she’s ever felt any kind of creeping doubt (at least not since I moved to Washington), but hopefully there’s something about me that she just needs to see or hear again to spark her memory about how much I love her and how much she loves me. 

So, sorry Uncle Kracker, your song is no longer my anthem.  I still love the song, but it’s no longer as meaningful as before.  This woman has made me feel like I belong somewhere, that nothing's wrong here, what's best lost and left behind has been, and that I am indeed getting close to the good life.  I don’t know what my anthem is now, probably don’t have one (at least not one that I’ll readily admit to), but it’s not a song about depression and resignation, and it probably won't be "Smile" either.

And to you, Erica, my love, Happy Two-Year Anniversary.  I’ll always be thankful to God and to you for your presence in my life.  I love you.

What's in the front yard?

The short answer to that question would be: leaves.  It's autumn out here, and even here in the Evergreen State, deciduous trees are losing their leaves.  It's pretty everywhere else, but not so much in your own front yard.  Which is precisely when I was almost/sorta beaten over the head again with the roommate agreement.  The agreement states that I will help with the care of the yard.  The head roommate put this clause in because she is on disability and cannot be doing things like mowing the lawn, and shouldn't be raking leaves.  Well, I have two more roommates, a married couple, and the husband usually does the yardwork.  When it comes to the yardwork, he prefers to do it by himself for a couple reasons: one, he's got a particular way of doing it that he wants done that way every time; two, it's his "me time"... when he's away from his wife, the head roommate, and even me.  He gets to be left to his own thoughts and just get lost in his thoughts. 

Nonetheless, this past week, it apparently took him four hours to do the leaves in the front yard.  He was out there with a leaf blower, and just blowing them away the whole time.  The day he did this was a day off for me, so I was inside my room the whole time, in my own little world.  A few hours later, the head roommate came to me, upset, asking me why I wasn't out there helping him.  What could I say?  I don't mind helping out, but I've lived in rental areas for the past eight years where only ONE of those eight years was I actually required to rake the leaves, and before that, living with my folks where if they wanted me to rake the leaves, they took away the Nintendo controller and told me to get out there.  Suffice to say, raking leaves is just not something I think to do.  Just doesn't even appear on my radar.  It's almost a pointless task, really.  At least, that's my opinion.  Anyway, I said defensively and plainly that since I don't have a door from my room to the outside (like the others do), and my blinds and curtains are always drawn (because it's not very sunny this time of year), if there's yardwork to do, they'd have to tell me, because I won't notice and won't think to do it.  She was still pretty huffy about it when we finished talking, and I even went to the roomie who'd been out there and apologized. 

He and his wife both said to ignore the head roommate's admonishment, but nonetheless, it's a lesson in what it means to be living with a woman who has expectations of you: if she has to ask you to do it, you're already on her shit-list.  In this case, I don't think it's particularly fair, but since I hope to be married by the end of next year, it'll soon be a love situation, and like war, all's fair.  The transition from bachelor to husband is definitely more than a matter of standing next to a woman and having a clergy or justice, in the presence of at least one witness, declare you each other's poor sucker.  It's about realigning your antenna (not a euphemism) to pick up signals that are sent just as tacitly and perhaps just as electromagnetically as real analog transmissions. 

This lesson was compounded further by today's day off.  I had seen that there were indeed leaves on the front lawn again, and had made plans to do them.  Even coordinated with the leaf blowing roomie about letting me help him out just to keep Head Roomie off my ass.  I planned to do it at 1 in the afternoon.  It'd be about as warm as it was gonna get, and there's nothing on TV from 1-7.  But at 12:45, on a premonition of sorts, I peered out my window, and sure enough, someone was already on it.  This time, the head roomie!  The last person who should be raking leaves was out there, raking her heart out.  Well, that last thing I wanted to do was give her any more grounds to holler at me, so I went out there and told her she shouldn't be out there, and that I'd take over.  Pretty pointless gesture actually, because she was about done.  But I kicked a few leaves in an effort to "help."  She didn't get on my case about not having been out there sooner, but nonetheless, I learned today that I would very soon be, if not already, living on WST, Woman Standard Time.... meaning it gets done when SHE wants it done, and my plans to do anything later in the afternoon don't mean diddly if she (whomever "she" refers to at any given time) wants it done at a different time, be it sooner or later.  It gets done when she wants it done.  And that's definitely something that'll be a factor in my eventual married life, though in all honesty, the woman I intend to marry is going to have to concede a little bit, not for my sake necessarily though.  But yeah, better synchronize the watch and calendar.

What the hell am I getting myself into, I sometimes wonder.

What's in a vacuum cleaner?

“I lived with you … and your definition of ‘table settings’ was a six-pack of beer, a gallon of ranch dressing, the top of a pizza box and a roll of paper towels!  We had two forks, and we didn’t wash those everyday!”—My friend Ben, about a former roommate of his… NOT me.

This past week I’d gotten a note from the “head” roommate, so dubbed because she writes the amalgamate check to the landlord, serves as liaison to aforementioned landlord, and all the utilities are in her name.  She said we needed to talk about my roommate agreement, and I knew pretty much what it was she was specifically referring to.  I was a little bit upset.  Actually, I was more upset about the passive-aggressive means she took to address the situation.  We never actually talked per se; she left her copy of it out circling the issues in question and writing a footnote about what it was that was upsetting her.  I felt that was pretty disrespectful to just not talk directly to me about it.  But that’s not the point… the issues are.  All but one were petty, and were actually pretty defensible for me.  The one that was really bothering her regarded the carpet.

The roommate agreement stated that I would keep in mind that the carpet was new and would treat it with respect.  I’ve been living here for just a hair over a month now, and had at that point not yet vacuumed my room.  She had tried to suggest that I do it earlier that day in a subtle way, and I did catch her drift, but I got engrossed with other things and it clean slipped my mind.  And I still had something of a mess on the floor.  There was a little bit of dirty laundry, one pizza box (I’ve actually been really good about throwing out anything involving food like cans, bottles, containers, wrappers, etc.), and mostly my bed sheets.  The blankets were the big eye-catcher.  In my defense, I hate having to make my bed, not because it’s so annoying to do, but because literally ALL the sheets and blankets you tuck under the mattress are sized for my old mattress, which is approximately half as thick as my current one.  So if I make my bed, getting in at night will be like getting into a short-sheeted bunk.  Add some tossing and turning and most of the blankets are on the floor each and every morning, including the sheet that’s supposed to hug the mattress and stay under me while I sleep.  And I don’t want to bother putting upthe money to buy all new blankets for a mattress that’s at least eight inches thick.  So making my bed is pretty pointless: just put on a pillowcase, get my much bigger comforter, and off to dreamland I’ll go.  But having nowhere else to put them, I pretty much left them on the floor.

All this rendered the floor unable to be vacuumed.  Which put the roommate in a snit, apparently.  Normally I would tell her it’s none of her business, but she went out of her way to make this part of the roommate agreement, so I could tell this was a hill she was willing to die on, whereas it really wasn’t for me.  And as I said, I was more upset that she left a note rather than actually talk to me.  Seriously, that dang note didn’t even mention the fact that the landlord was expected to pay us an inspection this month as part of renewing his insurance on his rental properties.  If she’d even just mentioned that, it’d have been done before she could have finished her sentence.  But no… a note.

Baaaaack to the focus of this: the floor, the contract, and the meaning of words.  See, the contract said, “Respect the carpet.”  What the contract didn’t take into consideration is that for the past eight years, I’ve lived life with a style that was a hybrid of “grad student” and “bachelor pad”, mainly because two of those years were with grad students as roommates and six with the landlord as my roommate, he also a bachelor.  Living as such, phrases like that mean something else to me.  For the past eight years, if the rental agreement had said, “Respect the carpet”, it would have meant: a) don’t torch it, b) don’t pull it up, and c) use Resolve and a paper towel if you spill.  That’s it.  Vacuuming was an “oh crap, we’ve got company coming in 20 minutes!” kind of thing.  Seriously, I went at least a year or two between the penultimate occurrence of vacuuming at my last place, and the final time when I was getting ready to move out.  It was a veritable dust bunny ranch.  It just wasn’t something done with any regularity

It would seem however, that the phrase “respect the carpet” means something entirely different to my new roommates.  It seems that vacuuming is supposed to be a weekly occurrence.  And maybe using this “Carpet Fresh” stuff on the odd occasion is recommended.  Pizza boxes are supposed to go out the next morning instead of being converted into writing surfaces or lap tables, and trash bags should be inside a plastic or metal can of sorts while they’re being filled up.

Okay, in all fairness, I didn’t expect to continue living like I had or even being allowed to.  I moved all the way across the continent to be closer to the woman I intend to marry and start a family with.  To continue to live with a bachelor mindset would simply destroy the marriage we plan to have.  So I knew that I was going to have to change a lot regarding my lifestyle.  Boxes will no longer be stacked to convert into the TV stand, the bathroom will need to be maintained a little more attentively, and “for now” will mean less than a week when it comes to temporarily placing something someplace. 

Strangely enough, I kinda expected much of this to happen automatically.  From the minute I moved in, certain changes happened instantly.  Probably because I was conscious about them and trying to make sure I took care of them.  But there’s stuff below the obvious (at least what wasn’t obvious to me).  Just to state for the record, vacuuming was NOT one of the “below the obvious” things.  The frequency with which it was expected to be done probably was, though, even though vacuuming ^was^ something my parents made me do on a weekly basis

Overall, I’m thinking of the time I’m in Everett as something of a purgatory.  I’m where all the sinful habits of bachelorhood must be purged away before I can ascend, both metaphorically and geographically, to the paradise of a marriage with a wonderful woman.  I know, “paradise of a marriage” is probably a contradiction in terms, but don’t spoil the metaphor.  Thanks.

So, on the horizon, more nagging and constant reminders that I’m far from a perfect roommate.  But better to drive a temporary roommate crazy with old habits that I’m trying to quell than the woman who’d have to put up with them for the rest of her life if I didn’t curb them now.  And looking at the floor now, I see it needs a going over again, because time has passed since I did it last, and it needs to be maintained.

Right after I get all my blankets off the floor and make the bed again.

What's in a road trip summary?

Now that I'm in Washington, I thought I'd talk a little about the trip.  We'll see how much.  On a pseudo-poetic whim, I’ve decided to sum up my little excursion across the country with this ersatz acrostic.

A is for Alexander and Aiden, the two nephews I finally got to meet.

B is for Boise, the only stop I made in Idaho.

C is for Coca-Cola, which I drank a lot of while behind the wheel.

D is for the dolly upon which my car was towed.

E is for Erica, the very reason for the move.

F is for Flying J, which has surprisingly good pizza for a truck stop chain.

G is for the Great Salt Lake in Utah, which I got to visit.

H is for Hamilton, Michigan, still my home though I’m so many miles away.

I is for Iowa, the first state on this trip that I’d previously never been in before.

J is for Jerome County in Idaho and Joliet, Illinois: the former, where the longest road construction backups were for me; the latter, where the construction actually forced me off the interstate at one point.

K is for Kennecott, the copper mining facility we went to visit.

L is for Laramie, Wyoming, the first city with serious downgrade warnings.

M is for Mark, the brother with whom I reconnected.

N is for Nebraska, the only state I didn’t see a sign welcoming me into, because I was driving into the sunset and through a work zone at the time.

O is for Oregon, which had the most beautiful mountain scenery.

P is for Penske, the company that rented me the truck.

Q is for quesadillas, which I had for dinner my second night.

R is for the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame series of homemade CD’s I listened to in the truck for most of the trip.

S is for Sandra, my sister-in-law whom I finally met.

T is for TomTom and TracFone, the two technological presents that made this trip a lot easier.

U for Umatilla, both the only stop I made in Oregon, and the reservation with the deadliest stretch of road the entire trip.

V is for the Vocal Group Hall Of Fame series CD’s, the other homemade disc set I listened to while driving.

W is for the wounds that reconciliation have finally healed.

X is for the Xanadu Restaurant, where I ate my first breakfast in the state of Washington.

Y is for Yakima, which was the projected hit point for day five (or seven depending on how you looked at it), and where I should have stopped that day, since I found myself driving into the sunset after that point.

Z is for zero, the number of regrets I have for having done this.

And the Top Ten significant numbers of this trip:

10. States I drove in.

9.  Days of the truck rental lease

8.  Days I actually used the truck

7.  The time I usually woke up each morning.

6. Motel chain I spent two of my three motel nights in.

5. Maximum number of states driven in within a single day (Michigan, Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, Nebraska).

4. Relatives in Magna, Utah visited.

3. Time zones moved across

2. Times we readjusted the wheel straps to make sure my car was secure on the towing dolly.

1. Woman who made all this worthwhile.

Hammy and cheesy, yes, but hold the wry.