Pickles & Dimes

Last night our treadmill died toward the end of Jason’s 4-mile run. I surprised myself by actually being sad about it rather then experiencing my expected reaction of dancing joyously while stuffing myself with Twinkies (they’re endangered, you know). Miraculously, the treadmill is still under the extended warranty we purchased, and I hope we can get it repaired (for free) before Jason’s nervous twitching over not being able to exercise gets any worse.

Last weekend, Jason and I took our annual trip to a casino in Wisconsin, which is the nearest place we can play roulette. We took Friday off and boarded Shorty (the lady there felt so sorry for my teary-eyed goodbye to him that she hunted me down in the dog food aisle just so she could give me a hug). Then we ran a few errands and came home to pack. The whole time we talked about how much fun this was going to be, how relaxing, how bad Jason was going to feel about losing at cribbage all weekend, etc., etc.

Then we drove to our destination, checked into our hotel, set down our bags in our room and immediately realized we forgot to bring our cribbage board. And our dice. And our cards. And basically everything else we needed to relax.

That was a crappy moment, especially since we realized we had stopped at a grocery store on our way that was conveniently located right next to a Wal-Mart.

So we backtracked 24 miles to that Wal-Mart, found our gaming supplies and ended up having a wonderful dinner at a supper club we always wanted to visit, so it all worked out in the end. (Not so much for Jason, who is currently losing this year’s cribbage tournament by 18 games already.)

For once, this year we both did well at roulette. I came home with the same amount of money I planned on losing, and Jason won $175. Since I forgot to ask his methods (I know he plays 13 and 31 every single time but can’t remember how he selects his other numbers), here’s my system for playing roulette for 3½ hours without losing any money:

1. Sit down at the roulette table five minutes before it is expected to open.

2. Choose the chair nearest to the wheel so you can implement your highly scientific method of picking numbers.

3. Exchange the $100 you brought (all from the spare change jar) for chips.

4. Promptly lose most of your chips in less than an hour.

5. Panic.

6. Cash in your emergency $40 you brought just for this scenario.

7. Decide that your highly scientific method of playing the numbers near the last number called and directly across from the last number called is not working.

8. Tell this to your husband, who is $90 ahead but does not want you to call attention to this fact because he is highly superstitious.

9. Listen as husband explains that he only plays numbers that are black.

10. Try this intriguing tactic.

11. Win.

12. Win again.

13. Win a third time in a row. (All on number 17.)

14. Feel vaguely like you’re cheating since it seems like there’s fewer numbers to worry about now.

15. Continue to bet on the black numbers nearest to the last winning number, as well as one or two black numbers directly across the wheel from the last winning number.

16. Win some more. This is fun!

17. Look meaningfully at husband’s growing stack of chips, while he begs you with his eyes not to jinx him, for the love of God!

18. Win some more.

19. Realize you’re both hungry and it’s a good time to quit.

20. Cash out with $140 while your husband cashes out with $275.

21. Celebrate by overindulging at the buffet.

22. Work off those extra calories by sitting in the hot tub.

After months of shirking technology, I finally got a Kindle Touch. My main objection was not wanting to spend a million dollars on books since I read so much (and so fast). So I waited until I made sure my library loaned e-books, bought a wireless router so I could buy the cheaper, wireless-only Kindle and went for it (I also wanted the router so I wouldn’t have to be tethered joylessly to the computer desk downstairs whenever I worked from home). So far, things like “work” and “existing” are interfering with my Kindle enjoyment, but this weekend looks promising, so do any of you have some good, free Kindle book recommendations?

Thanks to the Kindle, I now have a grapefruit-sized bruise on my shin. It is HUGE. I was napping with Shorty when the mailman rang the doorbell to deliver my Kindle, and somehow in my mad dash to the door (while shouting, “MY KINDLE IS HERE! MY KINDLE IS HERE!” over and over in my head), I injured myself. My last volleyball game is tonight, and I can practically guarantee that I will manage to ram my shin into something pointy right at the spot where my kneepad ends.

Hey, have any of you seen “Doomsday Preppers”? I saw the preview last week, excitedly told Jason all about it (while he reacted like he normally does whenever I talk about survivalist topics – by ignoring me), and then forgot all about it. Last night, I got a text from Artemisia, who asked if I had seen the show. I completely forgot, and now I’m not even sure if we get the National Geographic channel. Oh well. I can always watch episodes online, right?

You know what’s weird? When people follow my boards on Pinterest that have to do with packing survival bags or survival tips or whatever. I’m just really interested in learning this stuff, but besides once remembering to stuff a few beef sticks and handwarmers into my car’s glove compartment, I am about the WORST person in the world you’d want to depend on in any type of survival situation. (Although I can tell you which wild mushrooms are safe to eat.)

In tenuously related news, next week I have my first Gun Club meeting. My workplace sponsors a bunch of clubs and after wandering through the parade of booths fruitlessly searching for volleyball, I saw a banner for “Shooting Club” and practically shoved people out of the way to sign up. (Alas, there was no Archery Club.) The best part is that I get a great discount at the shooting range, and after I attend one class, Jason can come to the rest. So we’ll learn how to shoot different types of guns and it’ll be awesome. Then when the world ends and we have to fight off others trying to steal our stash of Mountain Dew and Spam, we’ll be somewhat prepared.

It’s so hard to get a photo of this plaque, what with its extra shiny, high-glare surface, but I would like it known that after FIVE YEARS, I finally ended Jason’s cribbage-winning streak. I would also like it known that I beat him by only 11 games, so toward the end of the year whenever he suggested we play, I’d run and hide and then claim it was too late in the evening. Try again tomorrow, sir!

(Also, when the plaque plate arrived, the font size was too large by about 3 points, so instead of matching the other plates, this plate said SHAUNA in gigantic letters. I didn’t see the problem with that, seeing as how I probably won’t win again for another 13 years, but Jason made me reorder.)

I made a scarf. With an intentional hole in it, so I can pull one end through for a snug fit. But I made two mistakes: I used scrap yarn in colors that don’t match anything I own, and our winter this year has been so mild, I’ve only needed to wear a scarf three times. Which is why I’m now knitting a purse.

I finally got around to taking a photo of my new Charming Charlie necklaces. The one on the right was the one I picked up three different times in the store. The one on the left I’ve only worn a few times because my winter wardrobe doesn’t have much aqua in it, but my summer wardrobe? I may as well sleep in this sucker then since I’ll be wearing it every day.

I was scouring Pinterest for cool necklace display ideas, and I really liked the idea of painted pegboard, but I wasn’t keen on putting a bunch of holes in my wall (and with that thought, I’ve turned into my father). I had been using a few of the 3M Command Strips, but with too many necklaces on too few hooks, they were a tangled mess. Once we realized the strips actually came off the wall without peeling the paint, I bought a bunch more and had Jason and his OCD eyeball them into a Jewelry Wall. Now my necklaces aren’t tangling anymore (it took me 3 evenings to untangle a particularly troublesome specimen) and I can sort them better by color and length (Jason is not the only person with OCD tendencies in this house). The only downside of this arrangement is that despite taking precautions to hang everything high enough to avoid cat shenanigans, Sunny gets angry at us for not getting up at 5:30 a.m. on the weekends, so she leaps off the bed to take an retaliatory, angry swipe at the wall. Every Saturday, after I’ve pushed her off the bed for the 907th time, I’m treated to a loud THWACK as she voices her displeasure. She is lucky that she is cuddly during the rest of the day because her behavior during the early-morning hours is truly awful.

Move heavy stuff
It’s nice that my husband considers me to be a strong, robust woman adorned with an abdominal wall of sculpted muscles, but the truth is that my abs are sculpted out of bubble wrap and pop in agony anytime I pick up something heavy. Jason always wants to move things in one giant, back-breaking swoop instead of using my preferred method of hiring burly, unshaven men to do it. It doesn’t help that whenever we move something heavy, the object never has a handy handhold, so I am always shuffling downstairs, hunched in half, while “supporting” a 500-lb. object with four fingertips. The entire time we’re moving something, I am complaining about how heavy the object is and suggesting alternatives that don’t involve my presence, and Jason is helpfully yelling for me to “Just lift it!” Result: it takes us forever and then we usually don’t speak to each other for at least 30 minutes.

Hang pictures
We have a laser level, but have never used it. Because we are idiots. Instead, we hang pictures by relying on our eyeballs. This means I proclaim that something looks “good,” and Jason responds to my statement by activating his OCD and staring at the picture for 15 minutes until he’s convinced himself it’s not 100% straight. The situation then devolves into two separate debates: one over whose eyesight is worse, and the other over “good” vs. “good enough” and whether the difference is that big a deal in the grand scheme of things because maybe one of us is hungry and could go for some pizza right now. Our worst fight centered around us hanging our wedding photos – OUR WEDDING PHOTOS, for the love of God – and arguing over the placement. Unbeknownst to us, one of us (he claims it was me; I will claim to my dying day that it was NOT) had set down the felt-tip pen we were using to mark nail placements on the wall. While we were loudly disparaging each other’s eyesight, the pen — which had been left open by the as-yet-agreed-upon-person — bled black ink onto our futon. The Discussion Level then shot up to SHOUTY BLAMENESS and resulted in me stepping backward into the open toolbox, scattering hammers and wrenches and screwdrivers and nails everywhere. Good times.

Ask questions while the other person is on the phone
As a little kid, I never understood while my parents shushed me all the time when I talked while they were on the phone. Then I married Jason. Whenever I’m on the phone, he is constantly popping into my line of vision and interrupting me to demand, “Ask so-and-so this…” or “What did she say about X?” or “Did you mention Z?” and it is MADDENING. If I shake my head or turn away or make an ominous throat-slitting gesture in an attempt to shut him up, he gets irritated that I’m shushing him and ramps up his questioning even more. So in retaliation, I do it to him when he’s on the phone. That way, we both win.

What are your silly, spousal argument triggers?