Stuff and things and pictures

Paul left on Sunday for Tucson for a conference. Even though I took him to the airport, I'm such a dork that twice now, I have been pleased that Paul was home when I saw his car in the garage. I'll chalk it up to it being summer and apparently having lost my brain. What can I say but I miss the boy. Before our vacation, he thought he wouldn't have to go and was thrilled with the prospect of a week at work without interruptions since everyone else would be gone. He sounded so glum when he called last week to let me know he had to go and he sounded even more glum on the phone last night about being there. It is the first trip he's had to take for work since May but I think part of his resignation is caused by the fact that he is about to start traveling quite a bit again. Never fun for either of us. When he's gone so much for work, he doesn't want to travel for fun. In the meantime, I'm hanging out at home and would like to go some place, preferably with my husband. Because I like him pretty much OK.

In the meantime, I've got a week left of hanging out in the library for Summer School. At least it gives me something to do rather than sit at home pining for my husband. Yesterday, however, I got cranky. I know I'd been warned about my cranky nature but open defiance is just something the rankles me. I told a student (who was a student here a few years ago) to put out his cigarette. Not even two minutes later, I look outside and he's smoking again. And he was not on fire. I was so mad, I started shaking. If he hadn't kept trying to justify it (I didn't relight it, it just wasn't completely out. I was only taking one more drag. Miss, you've known me forever--I can't believe you're doing this), I might have been slightly less mad as I dragged his ass down to the Summer School office. I think the principal only kept him down there until I calmed down, which is fine. I'm not sure what punishment I was expecting since pretty much anything goes around here. I am now determined to remain in the safe confines of the library and not venture out much again lest I encounter more smokers or other ne'er-do-wells.

There are a few things I'd like to get done around the house before school starts back up in August. I've started a few of them since Paul's gone this week. I'll have two weeks between the end of summer school and the regular school year starting but part of that time, I think I'm going to visit grandparents. Paul has a trip that will be over a weekend so I think I'll go to Texas then. That should still leave plenty of time to do the deep cleaning and cleaning out I try to accomplish each summer. Our house is small and the walls start closing in as we accumulate more and more treasures.

Speaking of our trip, while we were abroad (hee!), I ate a couple of sandwiches with rocket on it. Because I'm clever enough to identify what foods I eat, I quickly determined that rocket was the green stuff on my sandwich but I couldn't place the flavor. Not unpleasant in my opinion and similar to something I'd eaten before. I asked a couple of people in England what it was and the only explanation I received was that it was a salad green. Um, thanks? When we got home, I headed to Trader Joe's for groceries and saw, ta-da!, rocket in a sack with the other salad greens. And it's arugula.  That's the flavor I know but couldn't place.  I bought a sack of it to spice up the salads I frequently eat for lunch and also tossed some imported Irish butter into the cart even though I know it was 10 days of Irish butter and beer that caused my vacation weight gain. (And I heart Trader Joe's even more now that I found these treasures.) Given that it's been cooler and rainy here since we got home and I found yummy butter, it's almost like we never left vacation.

And a few more pictures from the trip because I can. Here, we are at the Guinness Storehouse, which again I say wasn't that great and I saw on MSN's Travel Tips that it was one of the 15 Tourist Traps to Avoid. I think we would have avoided it had we known what the tour actually consisted of and that it wasn't an actual brewery tour. We probably would have gone to see the bog people exhibit at the Natural History Museum and the Yeats exhibit at the National Library, both of which are free. (The Changing of the Guards at Buckingham is also on the list but we expected the hordes of tourists there and at least it was free.) At Guinness, there was displays about each of the main ingredients used in making Guinness and water was represented with a big artificial waterfall.

I liked the signs in the UK the best. Even if you can't read it, you can get from the rather life-like figure that this is a tripping hazard.
Just in case you're wondering who that fellow is. . .
Thankfully, these were not part of the "authentic old Ireland experience."
I want a sign outside my library in Gaelic.

Someone's missing this

When I got home from the grocery store this morning, this was in one of my bags.

Fillet of Herring in Real Sour Cream. Blech. It could be great stuff but blech. As I have never had an overwhelming desire (or any kind of desire) to sample herring in real sour cream, I'm fairly certain the person in front of me at the check-out is now missing a portion of his/her purchase. When Paul saw it, he declared it the "Most Disgusting Looking Stuff Ever." I'm tempted to try it just because but Paul has vetoed the idea of even opening the jar. (And I was trying to think of some clever/witty joke about red herring but couldn't do so. Please feel free to do so yourself.)

And just in case you've ever been sitting around wondering just what, exactly, is in the refrigerator of Paul and Carrie, behold:

I know your life is a little more complete because you've seen this. We have an Amana bottom freezer and way too many condiments. When we purchased our fridge seven years ago, these were fairly new on the market. I wanted one because I remember my grandparents having one when I was a little girl and Gran loved it. Plus it does make more sense to me to have the fridge part on top. Paul wanted this refrigerator because he liked the commercial. It was something about eating more grapes because the grapes were where you could actually see them. He still doesn't eat the grapes.

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I went shopping this afternoon to see if I could find any clothes for our upcoming trip to Hawaii. Have I mentioned we're going to Hawaii? Less than a month now. . . Anywho, we haven't been on a vacation in four years and so I haven't bought anything for summer in as many years. I have, like, three summer outfits. I'm honestly the worst dress person in the world during June and July. I think I only wore my workout clothes last summer. I don't even own many t-shirts that should be worn in public. As I'm not a shorts person, I usually were these terribly comfortable and terribly unflattering cotton drawstring pants from Target with the ugly, worn-out t-shirts. I'm a sight, really. My mother would be so proud.

All of that was to say that I went to Old Navy today to purchase some suitable-for-public t-shirts and capris or skirts. In the dressing room, one of the little helper people was showing me to my room and had to write my name on the white board on the outside of the door. Normally I spell my name but this time I didn't. So today at Old Navy I was "Keri" with the i dotted with a circle. I feel so much cuter now.

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Further proof our cat wouldn't survive on his own in the great outdoors--I bought food for His Royal Highness today. As I was pouring the food into the plastic container where we keep the cat food, a few pieces of food fell on the floor. Jubjub walked over to the food, sniffed it, and walked away. Apparently, he is too good to eat off the floor. (He does this with food from his dish as well--he's a messy eater but he won't eat any of the stuff he drops on the floor.) I'm sure I did something to make him this way but good grief, that cat is spoiled.

We're still not sure he actually won

On a recent quiet, otherwise uneventful, evening, Jubjub took on one of his many nemeses--the dreaded Plastic Sack.

"What? What is this? A sack? On me?"

At first, it appeared that the sack would have the upper hand...

Pausing just a moment to catch his breath in this Battle Royale.

He plots a new scheme to overcome his attacker.

Perhaps this angle will be more productive...

"Ah ha! I will use the coffee table to overpower it! It cannot outsmart me! For I am JUBJUB!"

Of course, this one was of no help whatsoever in the Battle of the Sack.


Tune in another evening when that hateful Emery Board gets it.