happy anniversary . . .

so today . . . is my wedding anniversary.

i was going to post some wedding pictures in honor of the event, but when i checked last year's anniversary blog, guess what i found? yep, wedding pictures...

then i thought i would write about how wonderful my husband is. but i frequently mention his wonderfulness and even wrote a whole blog about it on valentines day a year ago...

and yet, it is our anniversary, and i hate to let it go by without writing something. but we had a very low-key type of day...

we started talking about what to do to celebrate our anniversary a couple of weeks ago. we talked about going out of town for a few days. we talked about going to catalina just for the day. but neither idea worked out for us... i thought about going to the beach, or maybe to downtown disney. but then today turned out to be HOT! really, really HOT!!!! so doing anything outside was not going to be an option for me...

instead, we went to wood ranch bar-be-que for lunch. the food was delicious, and it was air-conditioned. that made it an excellent choice for today. then we went to see a movie.

(this sounds simple doesn't it? but you know, if it was that easy, i wouldn't be blogging about it...)

before we left for lunch, we looked at the movie listings to decide what to see and where to see it. we were each looking at different programs on our phones. my phone said our chosen movie was not playing at the theater by our restaurant, but rollie said his program said it did. and he is so rarely wrong, that i just figured i had misread my movie listings. so when we were full of steak and salmon, we headed off to the theater. on foot. in the heat. all the way across the burning asphalt. but it was ok, because i knew the cool of the movie theater was at the end of our trek...

while rollie went to buy our tickets (at the outside window,) i found a tiny bit of shade to stand in. i could almost taste the cold soda i knew was waiting for my just inside those glass doors... and then rollie came toward me. ticketless.

my movie listings were right. our movie was not playing at this theater.

i wanted to gloat, really i did, but it was so HOT! and now, since we had foolishly decided to walk to the theater instead of drive, we had to walk back to the car. on foot. in the heat. across the burning asphalt. without setting foot in the cool of the theater lobby. only now we had to hurry if we were going to make it to the mall in time to see the movie...

i was driving. i cranked up the a/c and took off. we made it just in time, and spent the next hour and a half laughing in the coolness of the dark theater. when the movie was over, we were glad we were at the mall, because rollie wanted frozen yogurt. i pointed him toward yogurtland...

rollie had never eaten at yogurtland, so i explained to him that he needed to get a bowl, fill it with whatever flavors of yogurt he wanted, and then top it with whatever he wanted on top. when he was finished, they would weigh it to determine it's cost. then i went to find a table.

when i get frozen yogurt at yogurtland, i always get cheesecake yogurt with strawberries on top. always. and i only fill the giant bowl half full. rollie had blueberry yogurt and peach yogurt and a tiny bit of mango yogurt and green apple yogurt. AND it was topped with mango and kiwi chunks. AND his bowl was overflowing!

he likes fruit.

he took about three bites and got brain freeze! not good, considering he had quite a lot of frozen yogurt left in his bowl. and none of it was cheesecake, so i wasn't going to be helping him eat it. he worked his way down through the layers of fruit flavors until he finally reached the bottom of the bowl.

"now what?" he said.

i wasn't really in the mood for shopping. my intestines are still not happy from the ordeal i put them through last week. but we were at the mall. so i said, "how about the apple store? would you like to go visit the apple store?"

the apple store is new at our mall, so he had never seen it. and it is huge and full of apple toys to play with. i said, "i will sit on those couches over there outside the apple store, and you go in and play. i'll be perfectly comfortable until you come out." this seemed like the best plan to me. and it would have been, if rollie had seen the apple store instead of walking right past it...

have you ever seen an apple store?!?!?! they are big and bright and shiny! they scream, "COME IN AND LET US MAKE YOU DISSATISFIED WITH YOUR CURRENT ELECTRONICS!!!" it is like a vortex that sucks you in when you walk by... how can you miss that?!?!?

i don't know, but when i looked in through the big glass doors, i couldn't find rollie. i looked all around the store, but did not see his head towering above the rest. "oh well," i thought, "he must be behind one of those big signs." and then i went back to playing games on my phone.

ten minutes later, there he was in front of me. "wow, that was fast," i thought. only he informed me that hadn't been in the store yet. "i saw you sitting on the couches, but i walked right by the store," he said. "i walked clear down to the intersection where there was a directory, and then i saw i had to come all the way back!"

uh huh. ok.

he finally made his way into the bright and shiny apple store and came out half an hour later wishing for an ipad. (you see? that is what the apple store does! all you have to do is walk in there, and suddenly you think you can't live without something that has a glowing apple on it...)

and that was the end of our celebration. i know it probably doesn't sound very exciting, but it was. it was exciting, because we enjoy just hanging out together. it was exciting, because after all this time, we still choose each other. it was exciting, because i know rollie will always be there for me.

so, our anniversary...it isn't about what we are doing--it is about being together. hopefully for a long, long time!

unselfish? maybe yes, maybe no...

so today . . . i chose to spend the day with my family instead of going to the gem show by myself.

i am kind of selfish. no, really, i am. i have finally admitted this to myself. i like to have things my way. and much of the time i get to have things my way. but i think this is not a good character trait, so i am trying to change and be less selfish sometimes.

i'm still not very good at it.

rollie is really good at it. he is the reason that i get things my way much of the time. in fact, he is the reason i was even considering going to the gem show today. he knows that by the end of the summer, since i don't get a paycheck when i don't work, i am pinching my pennies. so he handed me some cash and said, "why don't you just go to the gem show this afternoon. you could go all by yourself so you wouldn't have to hurry. you could just take your time and look at all the rocks and have fun!" so that was my plan...

but yesterday he had mentioned going to the movies today. and i knew diandra wanted to go too, so instead of going to the gem show by myself, i went to the movies with my family. we went to the cheap theater to see "knight and day." rollie picked the movie. this gave diandra a reason to say, "uh oh." because every time the two of them go to the movies, and rollie picks it, it turns out to be a terrible movie! half the time, they end up getting up and walking out.

i would just like to say, this never happens when i choose the movie.

rollie says it isn't his fault. he says that when it is just him and diandra, he tries to choose something that i wouldn't enjoy seeing, which severely limits their choices. which i guess technically makes it my fault, but still...

the critics hated this movie--which was good news for us. we frequently love movies the critics hate. (we also frequently love tv shows that get canceled in their first season.) we are not big tom cruise fans but we love cameron diaz. (ok, i like tom cruise, even though i think he is a little bit out there in real life. but i like him in movies--i can't defend it, i just do. diandra does not agree with me. but then, she likes those vampire boys--yeah, explain the appeal of that to me. and we both like cameron diaz. rollie is oddly silent on his movie star preferences...)

so there we were.

we had a great time. it was fun and entertaining. there was romance--sort of. there was intrigue. there were good guys and bad guys--but we weren't always sure which was which. stuff blew up. there were unbelievable car chases. and cameron diaz's eyes shone bluer than blue clear through to the end. yes, it was far-fetched, but it wasn't supposed to be a documentary! it was a movie!! i know there were impossible coincidences and stunts, but i didn't care! it was fun!! i don't go to the movies to feel other people's pain or drama or difficulties--i have enough of my own to deal with. i want to laugh. and hear my family laugh. and have rollie and diandra saying the same thing into my ears at the same time. and high-fiving each other in front of me and behind me. (yes, i was in the middle this time.) i want to eat my hot dog and drink my soda and walk out into the sunshine feeling good! and today i did :)

i sort of thought i would try to go to the gem show after the movie, but it was late enough that traffic was going to be an issue. and diandra wanted me to go with her to get her hair cut. so, still practicing the whole unselfish thing, we went to the mall...

i watched diandra get her hair cut--practically one hair at a time! she just wanted it trimmed, and the hair stylist took her very seriously. i kept looking at the floor to see the results, but the floor looked clean to me. when she got done, i said, "it doesn't look any shorter! if i was paying that much for a haircut, i would want it to look shorter!" "mom!" she replied, "i pay that much for a haircut so that it doesn't look any shorter!!"

ok...

we spent a little time wandering the mall. for the first time EVER i came out of american eagle with a bag and diandra didn't! we braved forever 21, and managed to get in and out without security being alerted. but my american eagle victory was short-lived, as diandra made a second trip in, and came out with, yes, jeans...

i may go to the gem show tomorrow. or i may not. the gem show comes to town several times a year, but days like today are not going to happen forever. families grow and change, and ours will too. but for now, for today, my unselfishness paid off. oddly enough, what started out as an unselfish choice actually ended up paying selfish dividends, because i got to spend the day with two of my favorite people.

and i didn't have to share them :)

the influence of a guinea pig spy

so today . . . my school kids were on a roll. some days their conversation centers on toys and characters that i have no idea how to spell--bakugon? i'm sure that isn't right, but whatever it is, their tiny little lives seem to revolve around it and it's exploits. maybe i need cable tv.

but today they seemed to have guinea pigs on their mind--super spy guinea pigs.

if you haven't seen "g-force," go to your nearest video store and rent it some night when you just want some cute, fun entertainment. we saw it in 3-d, which is what i recommend (although i don't know if the dvd comes in 3-d.)

anyway, at one point in the movie one of the guinea pigs says, "we may be small, but we're mighty!" and my kindergarteners find this line fascinating. they will sit around their table repeating it over and over to each other in tiny little guinea pig voices. it drives me crazy!

but today there was a new twist. i don't know who started it, but this is what i heard . . .

"we may be teachers, but we're kids!"
"we may be carrots, but we burp a lot!"
"we may be small, but we're elvis!" (ok, i know i said i was going to change the names of the kids when i blogged this year, but i can't change this one. this name belongs to one of the nicest, happiest, most pleasant little boys i have ever had in any of my classes. i love him!!)

"we may be green broccoli, but we're polka dots!" (this is starting to remind me of when diandra's sense of humor was developing at this very same age. her humor form of choice was knock knock jokes. they would go something like this--knock knock-who's there?-car-car who?-our car is in the garage! and then she would laugh hysterically. we, of course, would laugh too, because even though the joke was totally meaningless, she was so funny laughing at her own joke!)

"we may be groundhogs, but we are groundhog kids."
"we may be princesses, but we are kings."

does any of this make sense to any of you? does it make you laugh?? me either. but let me tell you, they were cracking each other up!

and then in the midst of all the laughter, one of the boys said, "we may be carrots, but we're mighty carrots." and all the kids laughed except for one little girl, who stopped, looked at him and said, "no, that doesn't make sense."

are you kidding me?!? that doesn't make sense?!?!?!? this is where she draws the line????? none of it made any sense! and she happened to be the one whose contribution to the conversation was "we may be princesses, but we're kings!" tell me that makes sense! sheesh!

while the kindergarteners were having this riveting conversation, the pre-k kids were talking about their dads. since i was busy listening and writing down what the kindergarteners were saying, (on the back of this paper i found . . . i'm sure this isn't a picture of me!) i wasn't paying that much attention to the other conversation. until i heard one little boy say, "yeah? well, my dad can take off his head and juggle it!"

after i got done laughing, i thought, "yesss! i have my blog for today!"

and then at the end of the day as we were cleaning up our last activity, i was making sure their names were on the three-cornered hats we had made. michelle said, "can i put my last name on mine? because there are two michelles in after school care, and the other one might take my hat."

i said, "sure, put your last name on it, because someone might take it--it is pretty cool."

"yeah, and she might kiss it." michelle said.

"oh, i don't think she will kiss it," i said.

"she might," michelle insisted. "i saw her kiss a book once."

fun (to the third power)

so today . . . i went to the movies with rollie. and diandra.

going with either one alone is fine. we buy our tickets, get our sodas, find a seat, enjoy the movie, and go home. this is not what happens when i go with BOTH rollie and diandra. for some reason, the two of them together are like mentos and coke. seriously. i don't know what happens when they go without me, but when the three of us go i feel like i am in the vortex of a whirlpool, threatening to be flung into the swirling fray . . .

it always starts out innocuous enough. we get our tickets and sodas, and head into the theater. the trouble begins in choosing a seat. if the two of them sit together, they will not shut up during the movie. rollie will make comments to diandra and she will laugh and then he will laugh. while all this hilarity is going on, i cannot hear the movie. neither can the people around us. (this is one reason we usually go to the matinee--the theater isn't so crowded in the afternoon.) but, if i sit between them, the same thing happens except rollie leans over me to talk to her. plus they both make comments to me, which i am then expected to pass on down the line. you can see how it could be hard to follow a story with all this going on . . . it's like they are not really there to see the movie--they are there to entertain each other.

one time it was so bad, i had to get up and move. fortunately, we were the only three people in the theater that day. which is probably why they were so out of control . . .

today i sat in the middle. today we watched a movie diandra had already seen. this added a new dimension to the experience--diandra's premature giggles. i always knew when something funny was about to happen, because she would start giggling in anticipation before it happened. so there were very few surprises. and then there was the heartwarming ending. she leaned over to me and said, "it's ok. you can cry." of course, diandra cries when she sees the previews for movies. she cries whether the movie is happy or sad or animated. if the music swells, she has an almost pavlovian response to cry.

today i didn't cry. but i did laugh, more than once. and not just at the movie. because i have to admit, rollie and diandra are funny. and somehow they are even funnier when they are together. even when i sit between them . . .