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So, I went to Conneaut last week…

There were bugs, including this beetle and a flying ant that I inadvertently ate while celebrating my cousin’s birthday. Said ant landed on my chocolate ice cream which I inserted into my gaping maw. I felt a little pinch, which I guess was the ant’s way of saying, “WTF ARE YOU DOING?” I spit him out, but it was too late. He was dead. I mourned him by eating more chocolate ice cream.

There were also bug parts, like this wing that landed on my towel and captivated me so.

You recognize my kid, of course, but the short, drunk-looking guy in the foreground is my baby cousin. He is very cute and likes to cuddle, but he drools a lot. He is the youngest of seven (SEVEN) boys.

I’m kind of over babies at this point in my life, which isn’t to say that I don’t like them, but before I had one I would always go apeshit over them and want to hold them and change them and blah blah blah. Then I had a baby and let me tell you, the novelty of all of that wears off somewhere around 3 a.m. the first night. Now I hold a baby for about 30 seconds and I’m like, “Yeah, I’m good. Here, take this. Is there more beer?”

But this little guy had me quite captivated. It might have something to do with the huge (moist) hug that he gave me. My heart might have melted a little.

Ring Pops for lunch…because we were on vacation and I just couldn’t care.

I scored 100% on “My Name Is Jonas” on the medium level of Guitar Hero III. This may not be an astonishing accomplishment, but the husband and I have been trying to best each other at this song for awhile. I took a picture because he was not around when it happened and I knew he wouldn’t believe me. We have a healthy relationship.

My kid and another of the seven brothers (who will need seven brides at some point, I guess). They look all sweet and precious here, but they were actually in the middle of an epic whinefest that included the longest recitation of, “STOP IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIITTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTT” ever.

Ain’t it quaint?

I don’t know this guy, but he sat on this bench for the longest time, just quietly taking everything in. I like to think that he stared at those clouds and watched the kids play and reflected deeply on his life.

Or maybe he was just taking note of how hot the lifeguard was.

On our last night we went to dinner at the Stable Pit and Pub, which is this Western-themed restaurant and bar smack dab in the middle of Pennsylvania. It’s very corny and I love it. They have one cottage that they rent out and you can get a romantic getaway package that features champagne service, a Jacuzzi and a mirrored ceiling. I reminded the husband that we never went on a honeymoon, so maybe he’ll surprise me for my birthday. Because what better way is there to turn 30 than in the countryside of Pennsyltucky with cowboy paraphernalia a few feet away? Fingers crossed!

Anyway, they arrange their creamers in this little flower formation and I just thought that was the cutest thing ever.

As soon as we got home from Conneaut, the husband and I headed to Alto Lounge to hear our friend Tony play records. He was headed back to the Navy on Sunday and it was his birthday, so it was all kinds of bittersweet.

Yeah.

This French guy was there and told everyone that he had traveled to Pittsburgh, “in ze canoe,” and demonstrated his rowing technique through some interpretive dance. The sister-in-law found his antics hilarious, but then realized that she probably sounded exactly like that dude during her time in Argentina. “Me llamo Bolt. Yo me gusto Pittsburgh. N’at.”

After we left the club, we saw the French dude approaching random people sitting on their porches. The husband, who had heard all about ze canoe at length, hissed at us to cross the street. Luckily, Shadyside has plenty of alleys that one can sneak through when escaping odd French men. And I think Pittsburgh needs to promote that aspect of our fair city much more.

Ahhhhh….tee-ball is over. And I finally got a shower for the first time in, uh, a few days. This day is shaping up to be a success, provided I can kick this writer’s block for the paying gig to the curb. And if the husband can rouse himself from this epic nap that he’s taking, we can go to see Wall-E.

Speaking of my husband (the charming guy making that interesting face in the picture above), he almost got into it with one of the moms this morning. We were watching the baby’s team practice, and the coach tossed the ball at a kid who held his glove out all weird and nearly got his block knocked off. The husband commented that it was a lousy throw, but that the kid needed to hold his glove up better. Just observations, not, “Oh my god! That kid needs to step it up or we’re going to lose the championship and then I’ll have to berate my kid to ease my insecurities about my failures in life.” Like, TOTALLY NOT being one of those parents. But apparently, the coach’s wife was sitting next to us and said, “Hey! That’s my husband and my kid out there! Thanks a lot! You know, everyone has a bad throw from time to time.” The husband and I just kind of stared at her. We all sat there uncomfortably for a few minutes until she finally huffed off.

Yeah. I’m really glad that tee-ball is over. Even if it means that I have to wait a whole year to see the baby in those huge helmets.

Thanks for all of the happy anniversary wishes yesterday. We didn’t do anything “special.” Just went home, ate dinner, and watched Ocean’s 13. Before going to bed, I convinced the husband to dance in the dining room with me to our song. About halfway through, full of glowiness and mush and la-di-da, I sweetly whispered in his ear, “Is this hurting your back?”

“Ugh, yes. It is.”

“Here, I’ll get on my tip toes.”

“Why do you have to be so short?”

Very romantic.

Anyway, I’m not sure how much love this space is going to get from me in the next few days. I have some important crap coming up and I will certainly be having nervous breakdowns in addition to my already existing nervous breakdowns. What can I say? I’m a busy woman and am feeling the head-in-the-sand urge.

That’s us, just married, two years ago today. I don’t think we’re planning on doing anything special today, but since cotton is the traditional gift for the second anniversary, I refilled the container in the bathroom with Q-tips. I’m all about the romance. The traditional gift for the third anniversary is leather! Wooo!

We watched Funny Games last night, which turned out to be a really interesting choice as the clock ticked past midnight and it became Father’s Day. Funny Games is a shot-for-shot remake of the Austrian original from 1997.

Another interesting thing about Funny Games is that it is quite possibly the must fucked up movie ever. I felt completely disturbed when it was over and am contemplating never leaving the city ever again.

What made our viewing even weirder was that the husband happened to look out the window and notice that this intense fog had descended on our neighborhood. But not like nice misty fog, dense soggy fog. Like The Fog. I tried to take some pictures of it but my camera isn’t really made for taking very low light pictures. You can kind of get the idea, though.

The husband ran his fingers up and down the screen to show that it was completely soaked.

I did not take this picture through the screen. Those are droplets of fog all around me. Check out the glow from the streetlight.

Dark and creepy street view.

Anyway, Happy Father’s Day to those of who are of the paternal persuasion. The baby and I gave the husband some fancy facial scrub and lotion hoping to remedy his dry, flaky skin situation. I’ll make a metrosexual out of him yet!

I’ve been extremely productive so far.

That’s me, grabbing my cat’s face. He hates that. Note the wet hair, though. I showered!

That’s him getting up to leave, since he doesn’t really like having his picture taken. Plus, he’s pissed at me because I promised to replace the litter in his box and I haven’t yet.

Not pictured is the baby who, at the time that these pictures were taken, was downstairs in his pajamas at 3 p.m. and watching corny movies about snakes that are not Anaconda (and all star Pat Morita for some reason) on the Sci Fi Channel. Clearly, I’m setting him up for success in life. At the moment, he’s upstairs yelling his argument for wearing the same underwear for the second day in a row.

We’re supposed to go to the record store later to partake in their “grand re-opening festivities,” which I imagine consist of the husband arguing with Arnie in Squirrel Hill as opposed to East Liberty.

Since I started grad school, there have been certain periods that are more hectic than others. There’s more homework for both the husband and I or a test or a paper is due and conveniently those periods tend to coincide with especially hectic periods at work. During those times, I chuck real cooking to the side and feed my family convenience foods, stuff not purchased from the healthy, whole perimeter of the grocery store, but rather in the bloated and evil middle shelves where the processed and boxed and pre-cooked items that shamelessly flaunt their preservatives and their sodium and their high fructose corn syrup live.

This week we have a perfect storm of food challenges: busy at work, busy at school, taxes for tuition are coming out of my paycheck, and we’ve not yet received our tax refund or heard any word on the student loan that I applied for. So we’re busy and kinda poor (more than usual). Last night we had to go to the store. Not only were we out of dinner options, I was out of contact lens solution, the cat was out of litter (stink), and the baby was out of waffles and dear lord that kid can not go a day without waffles.

Since we weren’t going to get home until about 7:30, I grabbed a boxed, Complete Meal to make for dinner. I started “cooking” that while the baby and the husband worked on homework. The box called for 2 1/4 cups of hot water. I measured that out, then had to pour it out because there was a cat hair in the measuring cup, then once again because I used cold water instead of hot.

Dudes. Cooking is hard.

I decided to add some “nutrition” to our meal by heating up a can of green beans and then we sat down on the couch to watch TV and eat our all-American meal by the light of the Penguins game.

Looking at the bright orange Three Cheese Chicken and the dull green beans, I felt pretty bad I wasn’t feeding them all things fresh, organic, and nutritious. But the baby dug in and turned to me and said, “You cook things the best, Mum.”

And that right there made me feel like Anthony fucking Bourdain. Sure, the food is shitty, but I cook it with love. And that’s what matters.

Plus, we don’t starve to death. Always a good result.

Later, after I started to drool in bed, the husband came in and whipped the covers off of me to “fix” them, since he insists that I don’t do it right. I groaned at the shock of the cold, but in my sleepy state, I felt him lay the covers back down on top of me and then brush the hair out of my face.

I think those guys might keep me around, even if I’m not going to win any Woman/Mom/Wife of the Year awards.

The husband has a new mix up here. The baby and I are listening to it as we assemble skeleton knights for some Lego castle.

Tax preparation went well last night. I called to let them know that we were running late and the woman that I talked to said, “Okay, thanks Kerry!” Then when I got there I was called up by another woman who referred to me as “Kayla.” I’m just going to adopt multiple personalities to go with all of the names that people call me.

The lady who handled us was Russian and kind of awesome. I don’t know if I mentioned this on here or not, but I used to be a ballet dancer and she reminded me a lot of one of the Russian teachers I had when I was little, not only because they had the same name (Valentina), but also because they both had long, intimidating fake nails and odd shades of lipstick.

Anyway, I totally blew the mind of Valentina the tax preparer when I told her that my husband would be joining us in a few minutes and that, no, we didn’t need to wait for him to get started because I am the primary taxpayer. “Well, there’s no ‘Mrs. & Mr.’ categories in our software. Only ‘Mr. & Mrs.’ because not many women are in charge of the money.”

I instinctively straightened my poodle skirt and wondered if the other girls from the typing pool encountered this same problem.

But whatevs. Valentina got us a pretty decent refund AND taught my son how to say “how are you” and “good-bye” in Russian.

We ended not going to the movies because the roads were sucking and the husband’s cold was reaching new, grosser proportions. He sneezed in the car at one point and snot was splattered on the steering wheel, his shirt, and dangling from his beard. It’s really not appropriate in public.

The baby’s school is killing me with these two-hour delays. And how is it that the weather only gets really crappy on Friday mornings, when I have a 9 a.m. lab? I wasn’t that late this morning, only about 10 minutes. But I had to rush to get set up in Dreamweaver, which I’d never used before, with the help of one of the assistants and then I missed some crucial step so that uploading my edits to the page just wasn’t happening. Or something. And I didn’t know how to explain this problem other than, “Ur doin’ it wrong. No, actually, I’m doin’ it wrong. Halp!”

Also, the rain and cold are making my knees ache so bad. I’m feeling about 300 years old here.

The husband and I are going to go see Be Kind, Rewind tonight. I’m so excited! I kind of hate Jack Black but I feel like the presence of Mos Def and the direction of Michel Gondry will help balance him out.

We were going to make a whole date out of the evening and use these gift cards for Morton’s that my grandparents gave us. But the husband has this disgusting cold and can’t smell anything. And there’s really no point in getting a steak if you can’t taste it.

Besides, we’re getting our taxes done right after work and I’m sure after all of that excitement we won’t have much of an appetite.

Speaking of movies, we watched Basket Case the other night. Oh my god, so awesomely wonderfully bad. There’s claymation AND full-frontal wang. And that, my friends, is what makes America great.

Almost forgot: MamaPop is having an Oscars extravaganza on Sunday night. Come hang out n’at.

Guess what I did on Friday? It involved wheels and lots of testosterone and patriotism. Indeed, I went to Monster Jam with the husband, the baby, and the sister-in-law.

It was…alright. Certainly, the most interesting part of the evening was the prelude, in which the announcer came out and started paying tribute to all of the firefighters and policemen and “the troops in Iraq who are fighting for our right to be here at Monster Jam tonight.” No, seriously. He said that. That’s why we’re over there. Monster trucks. Now, I’m a cynical bizatch but if I was a soldier and someone told me that I was fighting for a bunch of jackasses to go see monster trucks, I would probably kill a whole bunch of people. Or myself. Of course, they then brought out an enormous flag for the national anthem.

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