Walking in the Rain

Yesterday evening I took the dog for a walk in the park. Right after we got out there it started raining. It was only a light rain, so we decided to keep going and just ride it out. The path through the park has trees that hang over most of the trail, so they blocked most of the rain from hitting us. All we really got was the large slow drops of water that would randomly fall from the leaves of the trees. It wasn't long before the rain picked up and even the trees couldn't completely block it from hitting us anymore. Getting wet was unavoidable at this point, so we decided to just keep walking.

Walking in the rain is one of those often overlooked beauties of life. You can feel the air getting cooler. You can smell an earthy freshness that comes from a world being cleansed. You can watch puddles form, and then watch raindrops splash into those puddles and then jump back up into the air. And you can look up into the sky and watch the rain fall. This was particularly fascinating yesterday since the sun was still shining and there were relatively few clouds in the sky above. The rain seemed to fall from the sky itself.

On days like this I like to tilt my head up and close my eyes and just feel the rain running in trickles down the sides of my face and through my hair. I like the soothing pattering that it makes as it bounces between the leaves of the trees or splatters onto the concrete. I like to watch people scurrying for cover, holding shirts, newspapers, or purses over their heads to help keep from getting wet.

On our walk we go past this little grill with an outside deck. Yesterday they had a live band performing outside. All along the deck little tables with giant umbrellas were scattered here and there with people huddling under the brightly-colored mushrooms, eating their dinner and listening to the band. The scene and the music added a certain ambiance to the evening that just sort of fit.

We completed our walk, making it back to the car at the exact moment when the rain finally stopped. The dog and I just stood there looking at each other, drenched in every aspect of the word, with a certain understanding that can only be summed up with the phrase, "It figures."

The Sliding Pretzel

The nice lady at work that cleans up after us slobs takes special pains to come by and clean my desk for me. She sprays this cleaner on it that is supposed to dust, polish, and repel future dust. But I have also noticed that is has the added effect of making my desk very slick. I set paper or CDs on it and they just start sliding around.

This gave me a bright idea one day. I wondered if it was slick enough for me to slide across it.

(Side Note: I was suddenly reminded of the first day my wife brought home satin sheets. She was trying to be sexy and romantic. So, doing my best job to add to the effect I decided to wear my silk boxers to bed that night. As I jumped into the bed in my most playful and debonair way, I started sliding across the sheets. It didn't take me long to realize that I wasn't going to stop. Ziiip! Right off the other side of the bed and off onto the floor. It is hard to be sexy when you are sprawled half on and half off the bed, folded like a pretzel between the bed and the wall. The moral of the story is that satin sheets and silk boxers don't mix.)

So, one day I got up the nerve to try sliding across the desk. I figured I would take the corner so I wouldn't have to go very far. It worked beautifully! I looked like the Dukes of Hazard sliding across the hood of the General Lee. On my way back to my desk, I won't lie to you, I was cocky. I decided to try it again. Only this time something went horribly wrong. I lost my balance and went shooting off the desk straight for my chair. As I slammed into the armrest feet first, the chair was so kind as to roll out of my way, and allow me to plummet to the floor.

When the nice lady came to clean my desk that day she found me laying half on and half off the desk, folded like a pretzel between the cubicle partition and my chair. The moral of the story is twofold. If you have a great idea like sliding across your desk, just forget about it and go back to work. Also, me and sliding across things don't mix.

Driving on the Wrong Side of the Car

I thought I would use the blog entry today to impart an interesting fact on you. Did you ever wonder why we drive on the right side of the road, but we sit in the left seat of the car? Until I heard the answer, I for one had never really noticed that this phenomenon was strange. I guess we grow up with a certain reality and really never question the oddness of it all.

Well, the answer is that we actually DID sit on the right side at one time. You have to go back all the way to the days of when we drove horse-drawn carriages and buckboards. (If you are interested in the difference between a carriage and a buckboard, I would be happy to entertain you with that answer as well. Throw in a wagon to the mix and you can have quite a discussion.) Men driving their carriages and buckboards down the street carried whips to prod their horses on. As they swung their whips out in an arc, they would unfortunately hit pedestrians walking down the sidewalks as well. To remedy this situation men started sitting on the left side of their vehicles so their whips wouldn't reach all the way to the walks.

The question you might ask now, which was the next one to pop into my mind, was why is it that we drive down the right side of the road and the English drive on the left? I have not researched it, but from my limited knowledge of history I would conjecture that it has something to do with the Revolutionary War. Early Americans were so eager to have nothing to do with Great Britain anymore that they strove to do things differently from their English cousins. So, if the English are going to drive on the left, then we shall drive on the right!

If anybody has different answers to these questions, then please feel free to voice your opinions here.

Division of Labor

C.D. was telling me about the division of labor that she and her husband have with the chores. I have to say that it makes me laugh, not because her husband’s only jobs are taking out the trash and mopping the bathroom floor, but because I have no division of labor in my house.

Ever since my wife moved to Missouri I have had to take over all of the chores in our place. This is a new experience for me since it is the first time I have ever lived alone. Before that I always lived with my parents, so we all had our assigned tasks and chores. Even in college I had roommates to divide the labor between. (Of course, truth be told, it wasn’t so much a formal division of labor as it was whoever got tired of seeing the mess and finally broke down and cleaned it up. I have to say that I was quite good at holding out longer than my roommates. I even got it down that I would intentionally only wash one bowl and one spoon to use every morning, so I didn’t have to do all of the dishes.)

After I got married my wife and I went through the typical mutually-agreed allotment of tasks. Which basically consisted of her telling me what my jobs were and me whining about how it cut into my “sitting around” time. I held out in the beginning, delaying the jobs to see if she would break and just do them herself like my roommates, but she would always pull the wildcard out on me. There were things I needed and wanted from my wife that I hadn’t previously needed or wanted from my roommates. Like food. Needless to say the strike didn’t last long, and I would be mumbling under my breath all the way out to the trash can.

But as I said before, now I have to do it all. I can’t leave it for someone else to do, because there is nobody else to do it. I tried just buying more dishes or underwear to delay having to clean, but eventually I ran out of space to put them all. So, now I cook, wash dishes, take out the trash, do the laundry, clean the place, buy the groceries, run the errands, pay the bills, and generally deal with any problems or other tasks that might come up. I am both wife and husband now, doing all the chores that both of us split before. Maybe I will be a better husband for my wife later on.

Until then I will just laugh at all of these men that complain about having to do two simple chores. They just don’t realize how good they really have it.

Seeing the Stars in a Banana

I had a banana that had spots that sort of looked like the night sky. The spots looked like a random arrangement of stars. They were dense and clustered. They were all shapes and sizes. Larger ones that looked like planets and moons. Surrounded by an endless assortment of smaller ones that filled the peel with a comforting banana light. If you looked hard enough you could even pick out constellations and patterns. I was mesmerized for several minutes, imagining I was flying through the stars.

Then I peeled back the yellow heavens and ate the banana within.

The Official Royal Decree of Marriage

I was explaining to my wife one day about the finer points of our relationship. I was telling her that the Official Royal Decree states that first and foremost I am the King of Our Domain. She tries to counter that she is the Queen of Our Domain, so we are equal. My reply to this is that she is the Queen by marriage only. She was a Princess when I met her and stayed a Princess after we were married until her requisite 2-year probationary period was over. Therefore, as a Queen by marriage only she is not entitled to as many votes as I am, and therefore we are not, in fact, equal.

This of course leads me to the second point of the Official Royal Decree. I have two and a half votes to her one vote in the Family Counsel. After exclaiming that that isn’t fair at all, she asks me why two and a half votes. To which I reply, “That way even if you get a friend to side with you, I can still veto the vote.”

This transitions us into the third point of the Official Royal Decree. For every child that is born to us I get another vote awarded to me in the Family Counsel. That way no matter how many children she gets to side with her on a given point, I will still hold absolute veto power.

Completely flabbergasted by this whole conversation she asks me when the Official Royal Decree was written, because she never agreed to it. To which I calmly reply that it was in the fine print of our marriage contract, and so she did, in fact, agree to it and should have gotten a lawyer to check the details before she signed it. As she profusely claims that it was not there, I look her straight in the eyes and ask her how she missed it since it was written in 0.02 font!

So it shall be written! So it shall be done!

European Toilet

We must have a European toilet in our bathroom at work. Just about every other toilet in American has the flushing lever on the left side of the toilet (as you are facing it). This one has it on the right! What the heck is that about? So, since there are countries in Europe where they drive on the other side of the road, I figured this toilet must have come from over there.

I thought a European toilet was a nice pun too. Get it? Yu'r-a-peein'. I know...old joke in a new context.

All New Episode...

Maybe somebody can explain this to me. A new show comes out on TV. They have the big premiere, maybe a two hour premiere show or something. And then during the next week you see advertisements for the show tauting "Tune in for an all new episode of..." That irritates me! It is the second episode of the show...I would hope it is new! Are they going to start panning off re-runs on us already?

Can anybody explain to me why I have to sit through this every single time...week after week of the entire first season?

The Man in the Photograph

My cousin shared with me an interesting point that he learned in one of his Philosophy classes. He said that technically we can’t look at a photograph of ourselves when we were younger and say that that is us. The basis for his statement is that we aren’t the same person now that we were then. Our personalities have changed. Our likes, dislikes, desires, knowledge, identity are all different. It is like that person is a complete stranger to us now. We have grown up and experienced life, and those experiences have shaped us into different people. So, technically the person in the photograph is not really the same person that is looking at it anymore.

Of course the flip-side to this statement can be argued as well. There are still things that are the same. For instance we are still made up of the same DNA. Supposedly our eyeballs are the same size from birth throughout our lives. There are certain inherent values that we are taught early in life that stay with us even as they shape and mold our identity and moral character. We still have the same family (If not adding to it.) and the same genealogical roots.

It seems the debate really boils down to whether you are viewing a person from their mental makeup or from their physical makeup. Is it the psyche that makes a person or the body? So, what do you think?

Sleeping in the Woods

While traveling this weekend, I happened to pass the Doubletree Hotel. My first thought was, "I wonder what happened to the Singletree Hotel. Did the Doubletree Hotel run them out of business?" For that matter if I started the Tripletree Hotel, then would people stay at my hotel instead of the Doubletree because they thought it was better? Would it only be a matter of time before someone started the Quadrupletree Hotel to put me out of business? If the number of trees is really that important to indicate the quality of your establishment, then why stop at three or four?! I should start a hotel called "The Woods." Then I would have an infinite number of trees. I would like to see someone top that!

My second thought was, "I wonder if the first rooms for this hotel were actually in trees. Otherwise why would you associate trees with a hotel? Was the first bed actually a hammock and that is why it is called Doubletree, because you had to have two trees to hold up the hammock?"

I can just see the weird looks someone would get for staying in my hotel. 'So, where are you staying tonight?' 'Oh, I thought I would just stay in The Woods.' 'Uh...okay. If you need to, you can just bum with us.' 'Oh, where are you at?' 'We're in the Doubletree.'

The Exit Ramp to Insanity

Have you ever gotten off the freeway on one exit ramp and then immediately gotten back on it at the next entrance ramp? I am not talking about because you picked the wrong exit and realized you had to go further. I am talking about doing it just because. Just because deep down you want to be different. Just because on some level you want the passengers in your car to question your sanity. Just because you have thought about it and always wanted to know what it felt like to just cast aside your inhibitions, to just travel beyond the unwritten rules of normal behavior, and do something completely crazy and yet totally harmless.

The Statue of an Owl

B.M. has a statue of an owl in his office now. The owl has notoriously been used throughout history as a symbol of wisdom and intelligence. I wonder if he is trying to send a message to the rest of the people in the office. Something along the lines that he is smarter than the rest of us. That we aren’t worthy to even touch the air that touches the aura of his clothing. That he is a god among men, imparted with such a higher intellect that we couldn’t even possibly begin to understand how fortunate and yet trying it is to be him. That he only works this job to hide his greatness among the ordinary and mundane.

He would never outwardly thrust that belief on anyone, but maybe it is just a quiet knowledge that he holds to himself. Maybe the owl statue is his way of quietly laughing at all of us lesser mortals. Then again, maybe he just likes owls.

Unseen Laws of Restraint

I think people are funny. They will walk around something in their way hundreds of times, but never take a moment to just move it to the side. There is an area at work where we keep the common office tools, like the paper cutter and hole puncher. During the process of someone getting new furniture, a large rectangular table was deposited right in front of this area. A small gap was left to allow someone to be able to slide through and thus get to the tools behind.

I must admit that I am guilty of sliding through this gap three or four times before I became highly agitated. I then stopped and assessed the situation. After doing some mental calculations, I realized that the table could be rotated ninety degrees and still fit in the space. This would also open up the area to the tools, so nobody would have to slide through anymore. It took me all of twenty seconds to rectify this problem, but this table has been sitting here like that for months. Countless people have slid through that gap multiple times and nobody even once thought to just move the table.

It is almost as if people feel the need to unconsciously adhere to these unwritten laws of the environment. Laws that cannot be broken. Laws like always riding on an elevator facing the door, or never walking up a moving escalator, or walking around an obstacle rather than just moving it out of the way. People will actually expel more energy, walk further, waste more time following these “laws” than they would just simply changing the environment. They seem to overlook the simple, more obvious solutions to problems in favor of adhering to these un-imposed restraints.

I once received an e-mail about testing for admission into an insane asylum that went like this:

During a visit to an insane asylum, a visitor asked the Director what were the criteria defining whether or not a patient should be institutionalized.

"Well," said the Director, "One test is that we fill up a bathtub and offer a teaspoon, a teacup and a bucket to the patient and ask him or her to empty the bathtub."

"Oh, I understand," said the visitor. "A normal person would use the bucket because it is bigger than the teaspoon or the teacup."

"Well, no," said the Director, "A normal person would pull the plug. Do you want a room with or without a view?"

A Lifetime to Decide What to Eat

I was talking to C.D. today about not liking to make a decision about where I go out to eat with my wife. My wife asks me and I always start out by saying, “well, what do you want?” She then proceeds to give me suggestions which I promptly shoot down. She complains that I need to either be more decisive or less picky. So, C.D.’s theory is that we haven’t spent enough time together to have figured out our likes and dislikes as a married couple. I said that we have been married for over 3 years! She said, “but how much of that time have you actually spent together?”

So overachiever that I am, I decided to break out the math and do a little figuring. Okay so I figured that from the day after our second wedding until the day she moved to Missouri we were married a total of 2 years, 8 months, and 13 days. So that is the starting point for how much time we have spent together.

In an ideal situation, meaning we were together every possible conceivable moment, we would spend about 6 hours together every day during the week. That is accounting for 8 hours of sleeping, 9 hours of being at work, and 1 hour of traveling to and from work. (I understand those numbers are ridiculous, but in an ideal world we would all find time to get 8 hours of sleep and it wouldn’t take us any longer than 30 minutes to get to work in the morning. So work with me here.) So 6 hours of possible time to get to know each other. Let’s say that we spend the entire weekend together. So on Saturday and Sunday we would spend 16 hours a day together, removing only sleep time. Now we have the framework to figure this thing out.

A whole lot of number crunching later leaves us with 1 year, 0 months, 21 days of actual time together over the course of that 2 year, 8 month, 13 day span. That isn’t even half the time we have been married. So, needless to say we are virtually still newlyweds. At this rate it will take us the rest of our lives just to decide what to eat!

Mesmerized By Green

It is humorous to me that people have such a lack of ability to drive in the mornings. Either they are in absolutely no hurry at all, unlike myself, or they just don’t care. I find myself driving down a road with numerous stoplights. Everyone knows that when you are in a hurry that the stoplights are entirely too short, and this is precisely how I usually find them. This morning I noticed something different, though. I watched the lights turn green and the people at the front of the lines just sat there, presumably mesmerized by the green light. I can just picture them eyes transfixed, mouth agape, saying, “Look at the pretty colors.” It takes the yellow light to break the tracker beam and release this phantom hold it has on them. Then they gun it through the intersection. Of course the person behind them guns it through the red so they don’t have to wait another light cycle, and we have just experienced two people get through a green light.

So, since there were 18 people in front of me and everyone seems to fall prey to the same phenomenon, eight cycles later I finally make it through the light. I then get to the next light and we start it all over again. Green light. “Look at the pretty colors.” Yellow light. Gun it. Red light. Gun it. Repeat.

The Other-Handed Smoker

There are several people at work that smoke. I have stood outside while they were smoking and watched them go through the same routines every day. Some take out the cigarette and tap it on the box. Some flip over a certain cigarette in every new pack. They all hold the cigarette exactly the same every time and with exactly the same hand.

I wonder what would happen if they were to switch hands one day. Would they not be able to find their mouths? Would they end up sticking the cigarette up their nose or in their ear? Would the changing of this routine be completely catastrophic to their ability to smoke a cigarette with any kind of dignity?

Would it be like when I hurt my hand? I had a hard time trying to do even the simplest things like brushing my teeth. The motion was so foreign to my hand that I found myself holding my hand still and just moving my head. I finally got so frustrated with that that I ended up laying the toothbrush on the sink and just moving my teeth back and forth over it. I wonder if switching smoking hands is kind of like that.

The Three Rules of Conversation

Have you ever been having a conversation with someone and been annoyed at something they were doing? (Like someone’s eyelids drooping while you are talking.) And whatever that thing is it makes you want to stop talking to that person and just walk away? I have a pet-peeve, if you will, called the “The Three Rules of Conversation.” I tend to get annoyed and stop talking to someone if any of these things are abused during a conversation. In case you ever talk to me, I thought I would forewarn you. These are in no order of importance since I value them all equally offensive.

1.) I don’t like to be interrupted. I understand that this is sometimes unavoidable as you may need to ask a question of clarification, point out something on the side of the road that will be gone in a matter of seconds, or state some fact before the direction of the conversation has drifted too far away for the comment to have meaning anymore. But as a rule I hate to be interrupted.

2.) I don’t like to repeat myself. I understand that there are exceptions to this as well, like when the person you are talking to is hard of hearing or the venue is noisy. But as a rule this just comes off as whatever I was saying wasn’t important enough for you to be really paying attention to in the first place.

3.) I want your undivided attention. If it is important enough for me to say it, then it should be important enough for you to REALLY listen to it. I want eye contact. I don’t want you paying attention to everything else going on around us. If you agreed to go out with me, then be there with ME and not everyone else. I want to feel that you are truly interested in what I have to say and that you would drop everything to hear it. (Even if this isn’t true in reality, it is good to feel that way.) This is probably the biggest cause of irritation for me since it usually leads to me having to repeat myself and being interrupted so someone can ask me to repeat myself.

I am sure everyone has these kind of pet peeves. I would be interested to hear what irritates you in a conversation. Then maybe I can avoid doing them to you when we talk!

Technologically Challenged

Last weekend I snapped my phone in half, yes that is what I said, I snapped the phone into two complete pieces. So, I had to get a new one. I am still not used to the new one yet. For instance the phone came with a camera on it. Apparently there is a button to take pictures on the outside of the phone. While I was trying to adjust the volume, I apparently pushed this button and took a picture of my crotch. Then while I was trying to delete the picture I think I accidentally sent it to my grandmother! I can just imagine her face when she gets that message. I hope she doesn’t recognize that it is me.

The Mannequin

I was thinking the other day that it would be cool to get one of those department store mannequins for the trailer. I could change its clothes every day, move it around to different places, and talk to it. That way it won't seem like I am so alone out there. It could also be a way of justifying eating twice as much as I should!

The Pack Mule Service

I was shopping for clothes with my Mom last weekend. As I walked around the store loaded down with the clothes she wanted to try on and buy, I couldn't help but wonder why department stores don't offer you a basket or something to shop with. Are they trying to reduce the amount of stuff you go home with?

Whatever their motivation it almost forces you to have to go shopping with someone else. You need someone to hold your stuff so you have free hands to dig through the clothes for more stuff. It is funny how many couples I saw doing the same thing. The guy was tagging along behind his wife or girlfriend, toting her clothes around with a completely bored expression on his face. Occasionally, you would get the "newbie" who would say something stupid like, "Don't you have enough stuff already?" or "How much is all of this going to cost?" or "How much longer are you going to be?" Which every guy knows only serves to make the woman pick up more stuff, spend more money, and stay in the store longer. Amateurs.

Lucky for me that I actually enjoy shopping, so I can stand around and laugh at their miserable states. I have found that to truly enjoy shopping you have to get involved in the process. You have to have and give your opinion about styles and colors. And you can't just say whatever it will take to get you out of the store faster. You have to have well-thought-out, good suggestions. In a sense, you have to care. In the end you might actually enjoy shopping too, and the person you are with will love you all the more for it.

The Dried-Up White Grapes

You know, ever since I was a kid I have wondered why my fingers and toes get pruny if I sit in the shower or bath too long. I always thought it was funny that they would take on a "dried out" look after being in the water for too long! And why do they call it pruny? Why not raisiny? I know for one that my fingers look more like dried-up white grapes than purple prunes.

Well, in case you want to know the medical reason for this phenomenon I have hunted down the answer for you:

"Our skin has a kind of waterproof oil on it called sebum. That's why water rolls right off your skin in the bath or shower. If you spend too much time in the water, the sebum washes away and guess what? You're not so waterproof anymore. Your skin soaks up the water causing it to swell in some places which makes it look wrinkly. Now, this only happens on your toes and fingers because they don't have any hair. The hair follicles on the rest of your body are able to keep making enough sebum so it doesn't wash away."

- Contributed by Dr. Lisa Thornton http://healthcorner.walgreens.com/display/128.htm