An Ode To Manwife and Dudes everywhere

So somehow Manwife is becoming One of Them. Or, er, us.












Manwife before "the Change"

Manwife's future, complete with freaky beard and armhair. Actually...Dick, is that you?

Now, don't be fooled by the silly pictures, this bothers me not in the slightest. It's simply amazing. My husband is the one that turns out to be the only person I've dated who shows an interest in turning a few wrenches, and isn't too bad at it. He can do manly things that I always had to do like haul appliances and fix them and cook omlettes. He shows an interest in things of a mechanical and dudely nature, like motorcycles, monster trucks, demo derbies, and tattoos. Yes. Unlike the former geeky wet blankets I dated, he shows more interest in things I like aside from proper bong cleaning and the best RPG to play for gore factor.
This is probably one thing that clued me into the huge, neon sign with an arrow pointing at him that hovered about that read KEEPER DO NOT FUCK THIS UP LADY.
The Manwife is a Dude. With a capital D, yes. Beer drinkin, cigar smokin', snowboardin', video game whuppin, lawn mowin', speed-lovin', grill-masterin', stand up guy and daddy-man-ing Dude. He is, as many of my former co-workers (which would be his present co-workers, we met at work, awwwwz) would say, A Guy's Guy. Not like a guy kept by guys, he is probably the straightest guy I've met, with no questionable sexuality issues - which were, btw not MY issues, but the formers. I'm pretty ok with cute boy kissy cute boy, even if it is my cute boy. Anyhow. Not Manwife. He is a Coloradoan almost to the core...I don't believe he fucked any bison in his day though, as many do. or is that Montana....

So it should be no surprise to me that this Dude of Dudes aspires to be a mini-Y. Biker (aka Dear ol Dad and Dude of First nations). I can think of worse role models for a fellow. Shit, I can think of worse role models for a lady, too! I wanted to be my Dad when I was growing up, and I have the facial shaving scars from when I was 6 to prove it. I was even going to be in construction like Dad, and drive hot rods and muscle cars. Then as I got older, I realized I'd end up being like his crusty ol obstinate ass whether I wanted to or not, so here I am, crusty and obstinate before my time.
But for Manwife, Dad is an important fellow Dude to have around. He is a Mentor Dude of sorts. Manwife's dad was a judge back in the tiny town he grew up in in CO (let's just say the TV show South Park is very close to reality...and geography... in that town and leave it at that), and didn't have much to do with the common folk out there, what with everyone hating him for throwing them in lockup for DUIs and posession charges. No car shows or demolition derbies or football games for MW, except for the football games he was IN. A shame, really. His dad I think was a bit distant and distracted with my crazy MIL and being the law and whatnot.
So now MW has me, and along with me comes the flock of black sheep. Mom and dad both, plus assorted "family" we've acquired, plus big bro and SIL...we're a big group of outcasts and folks that people scratch their heads and wonder what the fuck to do with, so Manwife fits in well, being the former rotten delinquent should-be-felon of significant intellect he is. It's nice MW has Dad around to remind him what being a Dude is, and that step-dads are relevant and important (yes, Dad is technically Step dad, but I am not a huge fan of Bio Dad and Dad is a bigger man in that dept so there we are), and that bike building is a good way to channel those former delinquent tendencies in adulthood.

Bike parts stripped and sanded by MW, painted by daddy-o

So here's to you, Manwife, Dude of Dudes and husband of awesomeness. Way to not be a douche and be a great goddamned Dad. Congratulations on your bike endorsement!

San juan Island, what the fuck is wrong with the culinary part of your collective hive brain thing? Fucking islanders.

Dear San Juan Island,
Your restaurants FUCKING SUCK.

The italian place made marinara by dumping a can of stewed tomatoes in a pot and heating them up. No spices, no mushing of said whole stewed matoes, just tomatoes. your chicken was ok, but serving it on SPAGHETTI noodles is pretty goddamned ghetto. This is not dinner at aunt mary's house, this is a restaurant. pay the 20 cents more for some fucking fettuccini. And next time, try not to serve me stewed BEES in my food. That would be awesome. But on the off chance it does happen again, don't have your twatty bartender laugh and throw the food away (no apology, no nada), and don't have the waitress practically ream us out for asking that the dish be taken off of our bill. Grow the fuck up and learn how to be a business.

The weird place that had sandwiches across from the market...why is your restaurant in a warehouse? a carpeted one? i felt like i was in a ups depot. it had office carpeting, ugly and low-pile, with puke green walls and institutional grey accents. also, you do not know what the fuck lava cake is. THE CHOCOLATE IS SUPPOSED TO SPEW OUT OF THE CAKE, YOU DO NOT JUST HEAT UP A DAMN CUPCAKE AND CALL IT THAT. And $2.25 is too fucking much for ONE cup of lousy coffee, I do not care that you are on an island and water costs more out there. i don't. suck it the fuck up. And a tiny slice of pie ala mode should not be ten dollars, who do you think you are, applebees?! That place is redneck chic at least. You are like office depot chic.

And finally, dear ale house. What the hell are you thinking, putting bacon in beer? or peppers? what the flying fuck is wrong with you that you can't make a decent enough beer without resorting to novelties to draw people in?! I came in wanting a beer, saw the paltry non-gimmick offerings, and had water instead (which i was also charged for(!)). Your salad looked like it had been run over, then tossed in a tub of mayo with italian seasoning dumped on it, and your dinner rolls were literally hard enough to knock on. And then shatter into mouth-stabbing shards. And the manicotti...well, i should have known better than to order that at a damned pub. but everything else was dead cow with extra lard on top. I don't eat dead cow, you need to learn about the wonders of chicken and pulled pork. Seriously. Also, hubby's mushroom swiss burger tasted like a big fried egg, how the fuck did you pull that off? Wash your damned dishes once in a while, perhaps!

And to all of these places, your waitstaff fucking sucks! they are either too dumb and slow to remember two coffees and pie in a dead slow restaurant, too bitchy to function, or too weirdly hostile to make you not want to bolt out of the place and go take a shower to wash the creepy off.
waaaaaaaay to be a tourist spot. go to lynden, ignore the religion, and learn from the tourism masters. or even anacortes. or even la conner, for fuck's sake.
TOURIZM INDUSTREE - UR DOIN IT RONG

Let's talk about body mod, defining ourselves, finding tribes, and judgemental folk.

Before we start, let's read this:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/lindsay-mannering/tattoos-the-need-to-stand_b_115521.html

I'll wait.

Read the comments, too.




Ok. Done? Meeeeeee toooo. I am SO done. Wow. That was an amazing pit of hate, no? That's ok, that's what huffpo DOES is hatehatehate and be snotty upper middleclass east coast folk.
So. Tattoos.
A need to stand out?
Sure, for some.
Just like grandma with her bleach job and hip huggers and surfer girl (and i mean GIRL) sweatshirt.
Just like the dude over there with the horrible combover.
Just like the asshole in the jacked up pickup covered in redneck/"calvin" peeing/confededrate flag stickers.
yes. We all like to DEFINE ourselves by calling attention to our interests, our tribes, if you will.
Do we do it purely for the sake of making people LOOK at us? Maybe, but usually with the intent of seeing if we can identify kindreds or opposition. It's how we know where we stand.
It's why some women deck out in full make up and high heels to go by groceries, and others schlep in wearing sweats and hangover hair and even others still just wear jeans and sandals and no makeup. Don't forget hairy pits in the summer. That's attention grabbing. Just like that guy over there in the day glo short shorts and mesh tank top. Or the dude with the mohawk. Or the guy in the ferrari.
Now.
Don't get me wrong. I understand tattoos are permanent identifiers.
Just like plastic surgery.
Or laser hair removal.
Or scars (which are a badge of pride in many circles...is that just an american thing...?).
Or high heel use - permanant foot deformities, there.
Huh. Do I judge anyone and claim to know as some of the HuffPo commentors do that 'women look trashy in high heels' or that 'people who drive that car/wear those clothes/color their hair that way are idiots and therefore beneath my notice or respect'...????

ABSOFUCKINGLUTELY NOT.

Well, why not, you ask?
Because. I am an adult, and I don't give a fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck what you look like, how you dress (or don't....nudists are ok too), or what car you drive. Most people have shitty taste, and that ain't their fault, they were just raised too far away from art and nature or were taught to believe that the more you spend the hotter/better it looks. I'd much rather judge you by the tv shows you watch, the books you DON'T read (coz most don't read AT ALL), the choices in life you've made (cult member, oooo, bad call, BioDad), and how you treat me and mine.
Other than that, it's none of my damned business, and I have my own life. I don't need to worry about you and your silly tasmanian devil tattoo. It ain't my taste, but it ain't my skin. I don't care.
Manwife is in posession of a tattoo I personally find a silly silly thing...dragon, skull, etc. Oh my. BUT. It isn't my skin. I will not be wearing it to the grave, and it is not mine to attach meaning to. No. So I am cool with it, not that it matters one iota. Again, it is not my skin or life or choice. As far as bad choices go, I'd prefer someone with a bad tat over someone with a felony assault rap. Fo sho, my friends.
I should disclose and mention the only ones in my fam (ma, pa, bro, sis in law, cousins, husband, self, uncles, even some aunts) who do not posess tats are all under 18. Even my dorky uncle has one. Some of us maybe got them to fit in, some got them to be rebelious, or badass, or to commemorate sobriety, or to mark milestones. Mostly we like the way they look, just like that lady with the bad frost-dye job likes her hair, or the dude in the jacked up toyota likes the way his truck looks.
I personally got the tats because in my fam, they are a marking of the tribe - we are the black sheep tribe, the amassing of hippies and freaks and grease monkeys and brainiac rednecks from about four or five different places. My parents have tats. My husband. My cousins. My bro. And we are middle class, some of the extended folks are even what you'd call "upper middle class WASPS" except they are not anglo saxon OR protestants, despite our DAR memberships.
So it isn't an issue of class. It's a method of communicating to your people, the style and content further identify one thus. Do i get down with the crew sporting rockabilly icons? Not really. More the kids with the psychedellic buddhas and picasso pictures and ancestral art and japanese fresco-y thingies.

So, basically, if you don't like them, cool. There are things people don't like about your social/cultural identifiers, too. That's why we don't all wear the same grey shirts and pants, we want to find our matches out there in the crowds and express who we think we are and what we feel a part of or where we want to or do belong. It's not a signifier of personality, or content of character, or intellect, just like the lady with the bad knock off fendi is maybe a sucessful doctor who doesn't like to pay designer prices, OR a poor student lady with fashionista tastes. who the fuck knows, and who the fuck are you or I or anyone to judge that? C'mon now. Grow up, y'all.

Excuses, excuses...bite me crank, matey!

Sooooooooooooooo yes. we're moving NOWNOWNOWNOW, it appears. My house is filled with teetering stacks of cardboard boxes, all of my fun crafty and arty stuff is stowed, i have only three books to read, and my house is a fucking mess with nothing for me to do about it except wait. Fuck this, it sucks. I am not someone who handles a shitty looking house very well, I get a good deal depressed, actually!
Well, and moving depresses me enormously, what with the stuff being packed and the looking for new places and being made to compete with other potential tenants at open houses, like a charisma-deathmatch. Fuck this action so hard. I hate landlords pitting people against each other and making you dance like a little dancing monkey thing for their amusement and shit. Also I dislike having my records and stuff being peered at by strangers, not that I have anything to hide but still. I know, it seems like I should have a few arrests or debts, but no! I have good credit and owe nada to no one, and have only been arrested when I was 14 for shoplifting. I am lucky.
STILL.
Feeling a bit like my bubble's being ass-raped at the moment. Especially since our CURRENT landlords are scofflaws who wander over to our house with NO 24 hour notice a lot lately...and then there are the contractors working on the house that I am pretty sure can hear me pee and yell at my kid and judge my furniture choices and and and and AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGH


phew.



Hopefully all will be settled by the last week or so of August...just in time for a birthday (mine)! An orderly, clean home with lots of things to do (not just stare at boxes and things left to sort and toss out and pack and then weeeeeeep) will be a superb birthday gift to meself. That, and a pony. Just kidding. Screw ponies. Not literally. We have laws against that in WA now.

New Post, New Post, Newwwww Pooosssst

Well, it's been a busy month and a half around here. Last month, Manwife, Squidge and I packed up and headed to Brosef's down in Oregon, then continued with our combined clannage to Yosemite and Kings Canyon. Well, we stayed like right in between, right next to Madera out at an army corp lake. Very fuckin' pretty, and I felt the healthiest I have been all sunny season long. Mostly that is due to the lack of humidity, certain trees, and green grass down in the central valley. I was seriously tempted to stay forever. I found out while we were there, the temps were in the upper 90's the entire time, and I never noticed. see...because up here in the PNW, you notice heat. Because it descends upon you like a heavy hot wet wooly komondor dog and sits on your chest.
And then there are the afforementioned allergies. Which blow. I fucking hate Western Washington about mid November through late July. Which is a long time to hate a place, it's really taxing.
Needless to say, I came home pouty and ready to move far, far away from my near-bed-ridden allergic hell of humid suckiness up here.
Which was fortunate, I suppose, since our landlords decided they're selling the house we're in by next March. Oh joyous day. That only means we need to get out by fall or so. Gooood. So any plans we had to move to, say, Oregon, for Manwife's degree completion, are fucked. Hooray! I just get to move us across the county to an even wetter - but far less putridly yuppified (in a horrible hippie-new-agey-yuppie way) - area with MORE allergens. Oh I am excited. And I get to do it in October, which is...oh yeah. Good times. Lemme tell ya.

That's enough sarcasm for now.

Anyhow. Let's see, what else. We're STILL trying to get knocked up, and I SWEAR, if one more person makes some smartass comment about "all the fun practicing making babies hur hur hur" I am going to scream like Xena and skullfuck them until their eyeballs turn to snotty puddles and their tongues fall out of their jaws.SERIOUSLY. We've been at this for seven damn months and I am pretty sure something is wrong, so it's not silly or exciting, it's fucking frustrating and sad. I am tired of crying every month when I hop on the cotton pony. I hate it, and I just want to know what's wrong...we're both under 30 (24 and 28), don't smoke (anymore), don't do drugs (some things I do not consider drugs, ok?), don't eat horrible food, don't drink heavily at all, DO get a good amount of outdoorsy exercise, DO eat our fruit/veggies, DO eat meat and DO know that I am not having ovulation issues. Maybe his swimmers are tired. Who the fuck knows.
Maybe our bad attitudes aren't helping, like some What The Bleep Do We Know quantum Secret shit. Who knows.

Let's see what else. Been spending lots of time with the fam, the 4th was good, my Dad (YB to Nationites, ew) grilled up about two cow, a pig, and 5 chickens' worth of meat. That actually worked out ok, Manwife eats lots, and then Ayd's goddad Coondog and godma SuperCPS Lady were there too. And of course all the males sacrificed some plants to the debauchery gods, so they were plenty hungry. Fireworks are better when one's a bit loopy, don'tyaknow.
OH! Kitty is still around. His name is James, and he has the dangliest dang balls you've ever seen on a cat, it's fucking amazing. they hit his little kitty knees.
He is pretty young still, even has some baby teeth and tries to nurse on our fluffy chenille blankets, so we'll let him keep em a wee bit longer. Animals get strange if you clip em too young, just ask Mom's Girldog. Whoooooeee.

More later, I plan on bloggin more...trying to fight off the depression that comes with being a SAHM and in my mid-twenties (shouldn't I be taking a year off from school to find myself in an ashram right about now...?! in my alternate life, I mean) and unemployed and uninspired craftyness wise. Though i did just get some new fabric.
Anywhoooo. See y'all soon, even though...you know...I've totally been lurking. So I've seeeeeeen you...heh heh heh.

bloggin' II

So no, there has not been much by way of blog. Lately, all the interwubs have been for would be comix and buffy the vampire slayer episodes. Seriously. I'm on the last season. Next is Battlestar Gallactica. The mini series movie of that KICKED ASS.
Other than intarwub shunning, I've been doing fambly stuffs, planning my Yosemite/Fresno vacay with my SIL, which is in a week or so and looks to be a bitchin time for all. Anything to get out of this damned rain! We haven't had blue sky and warm weather here in about a week and I am goin' nutty. Some June this is so far! So escaping to kaleeefornya I will go. I am trying to figure out where to go that won't be horribly crammed with people (if you know of good secret spots, lemme know).
Other than that, my life's pretty boring.
No zygote news, I think we have some fertility issues or whatever, but then Manwife DID just quit smoking after ten years or so, maybe his soldiers have gone retarded from the tabbaccy. So to make up for lack of smelly poopy pants babies, we got a kitty. More like kitty picked us and decided he would move in, but whatever. At least he's magically housebroken.
Ummmm ok. Off to make bohemian pork chop noodley things! huzzah!

Where I yank the stick out of dark unmentionable orifices.

Ahhhh. There is nothing like waking up to....birds. The smell of coffee. And nothing else. No husband lecturing the kiddo, no kiddo falling off the potty across the hall from my bedroom, no neighbors running a table saw at some ungodly hour for the second year straight, no shitty crotchrockets revving for twenty damn minutes at 5 am across the street, no NADA ZIP ZILCH.

Why am I blessed with silence and good smells of roasty caffinated delciousity?

Because there is SWIM CLASS. *cue choir of angels descending and yodelling their little wings off*

Swim class (or tee ball, or gymnastics, or really anything that gets the kid out of the house, including grafitti on overpasses and playing craps in a dark alley) is a godsend. It is at 9 am, which means Manwife and Squidge have hopped the bus or putted down in Old Blue at about quarter til, much earlier than SSAs like myself are even expected to function properly or are *able* to wake at all. Except perhaps to wee.

So while those two creep out, I have my large bed and all the pillows and quilts TO MYSELF. I can sprawl without being kicked, I can roam about in my sleep without getting too close to the swampy sleeper (manwife!) and getting sticky and damp and basted in Manwife sweat. I can kick half the covers off. I can sleep right in the very middle of the bed, where the pillows form a sort of massive pillow-crack (cleavage?) and I can bury myself to hide from the blinding light coming in through our twin skylights over the bed. Whoever thought skylights in bedrooms was a good idea needs to be slapped repeatedly.
Another good thing, I don't have to deal with the Backyardigans, or Blue's Clues, or Spongebob, or any asinine kid's show, or whining about not being able to watch said asinine kid's shows. No. Why?

THEY ARE GONE! It is quiet. There is coffee, a deep lack of responsibility (including pants-wearing), and I am glad.

JEEBUS BLESS YOU, YMCA SWIM CLASSES. Now please be two hours long instead of a 1/2.

Bakin a pie of lost souls

So it's monday, and I have a kid update.
He's eating. He's not puking. We've had a few break days ("fuckit, let's have macaroni for dinner", etc) but other than that, he's eating much better. Dunno. Maybe the toy deprevation and a week of early bed with no dinner or desert worked for now? We're still fighting the fight.
But the puke....the puke has blessedly ended.

Here's my thank you gift to you, fellow blog friends:

Sweet For Brak



"Sweet for Brak"


That's all for now.