I had been debating whether or not to just go ahead and wrap my own presents from my husband, since I’m the one that picked them out. But I went ahead and asked him to do it anyway, even though I told him what boxes to put everything in, what type of paper to use, and he’s doing it about 5 feet away from me as I type.

During this, the following conversation just took place, when I saw him wrapping the second gift in the same paper with which he wrapped the first:

Me: “You’re going to us all the same paper?!?”

Kyle: “NO! I just happened to have the perfect amount left over from the first one.”

*pause*

(With a look of amused exasperation) “I would NEVER do that to you. I’ve lived with you going on 10 years. I know perfectly well what using the same paper would do. That would RUIN Christmas.”

Me: (laughing in self embarrassment) “Point taken, dear.”

While still sitting on the floor, surrounded by JoAnns, another conversation takes place, this time regarding fabric.

Me: “I can’t use the satin, because it isn’t stretch satin.”

Kyle: “We should make sheets out of stretch satin!

…

That, or leather.”

Me: “Leather?!?”

Kyle: “That would be quite a way to tell a lady you mean business.  ‘How’d you like my leather sheets?  Get ready for some lovin’!”

Me: “Even better, would be leather vinyl.  Then you can just wipe it down.”

Kyle: “Oh, it would be easy to wash down if you had one of those 1920’s sinks!  Or just a drain right in the bedroom floor!”

Me: “We’ve been watching too much Law and Order: SVU, haven’t we.”

Kyle: “Appears so.”

While sitting on the floor, surrounded by half the contents of any given JoAnn Fabric store, my husband began to talk about the race this weekend.

Kyle: “I think Dave (who will be dressed as Batman) should only address the judges as “Commissioner” or “My Good Man.”

Me: “Did Batman ever call anyone “Good Man?”

Kyle: “I have no idea. I convince myself that people say lots of things.”

Me: “What have you convinced yourself that I say?”

Kyle: ” ‘Yes Kyle, you’re completely right!’ and ‘No Kyle, I can’t think of a better way to do that at all!’”

Yeah.  Point taken, dear.

It all started back in August.  Hard to believe now, but it really was August.  It was innocent enough.  Our Lemons race team had just come off another great race, where we finished in the top 5.  We were all, and I mean ALL, including 4 guys, dressed as French maids that time round, accompanying a Molly Maid car.  All was right with the racing world.

New race, so obviously, new theme. What to choose, what to choose.  There was scattered talk of us possibly even being followed by a documentary crew, so we needed something that fit these criteria:

• showy costumes
• flashy car
• warm enough for NorCal in late November

and most importantly

• enough characters for four men and four women

Perhaps that doesn’t sound that daunting.  Believe me, it is.  We’ve already been pimps and hos, where we naively realized that T&A helps make you popular at an event mostly attended by men.  A team of eight Elvi in Reno with a pink “Caddy” was gaudy enough to win the race. And now French maids that alternately turned on and mentally scarred the other male participants in turns. So how do you top all that?

It came to us, I’m not even sure how, on the same day, but in separate locations.  I emailed my husband, a driver on the team, a simple message: “What about classic Batman?”

His reply: “I thought of that too!”

We carefully crafted our email to the rest of the team, regaling them with the wonders and delights the Batmobile possessed, the plethora of characters from which to choose, the campy nature, and by god, the tights!

Amazingly, all eight people agreed it could work!  And trying to get eight people to agree on one thing is amazement indeed.  We were off.

I should have seen the warning signs when it took everyone a month to just agree on their character.  Little did I know what other things would suddenly take two, three, four times longer than expected.  *Dum, Dum, DUUUUMMM*

Short conversation with my husband while watching grown men beat each other to a pulp in Fight Club over the weekend:

Me: “I just don’t get men.”

Kyle: “And I don’t expect you to, dear.”

So obviously blogging hasn’t exactly been a priority this year. I think I’ve had about 10 entries in the last 12 months. The whole reason I even started this thing (the 101 in 1001 list) has been thrown out the window.

I’ve thought about writing now and then, maybe even signed on to do so, and in my typical fashion, didn’t, assuming some other day would suffice. That day is today. But mostly because I’m too tired to sew, and too awake to sleep.

The start of 2008, as documented by one of my few posts below, was hopeful, and looking quite good. I think the ensuing months is what cements myself as an eternal pessimist. When you think everything will go wrong, and don’t really expect good things, you’re always pleasantly surprised when they pop up.

Enough of foreshadowing. Here’s a quick run down of my bell curve of a year so far. I’m penning it in list form, because I’m lazy. That much hasn’t changed.

The first part of the year (aka, the highlights):

1. Had an awesome birthday, which was totally unexpected, considering the number being “celebrated”, and my slew of birthday disasters from years past. Disneyland,  asurprise party and lots of cake was involved, so how can one lose?

2. I continued to get straight As in all my classes.

3. I survived starting up “real” classes on campus, and even made friends the very first day, almost like I was a normal person or something.

4. Our race team went to a Lemons race in Reno, where we dressed up in our hand decorated Elvis jumpsuits and wigs (our most awesome outfits at that time) and finally freakin’ won it! It only took 7 tries. Felt AWESOME, even if I was just decoration for the team.

5. Continued to make straight As in my classes. (I still astonished at this, so I figure I can include it more than once, for each quarter I completed.) I enjoyed this especially, because I was finally able to come to a tenuous peace with myself for having so royally botched my previous go round with higher learning. Realizing it dealt more with personal circumstances, rather than personal defects was quite freeing.

6. My husband was also doing very well in his MBA classes, and his company was paying for all the tuition.

That’s roughly where the highlights end, and the lowlights kick in:

1. In April, my husband’s company decides, in its infinite wisdom, that they will revoke an incentive they’ve had for 30 or so years, and no longer pay for tuition for anyone but those in the executive programs, not even allowing the employees currently enrolled to finish their degrees. So, after a year of a hell of a lot of hard work, Kyle had to drop out, because suddenly having to come up with $30,000 turned out to be rather difficult.

2. In his fit of disgust with said employer, Kyle also realizes that adjusted for inflation, he is making $3000 less a year than when he started almost 5 years ago. This was alright when he was getting $15,000 extra a year for tuition. 

3. My dad becomes ill again, very seriously, and spends most of May in the hospital. It’s even worse, because I can’t be there with him or my mom to aid in any way, which is a horrible, completely helpless feeling. Luckily he had some surgery, and is doing much better now.

4. In June, the handyman that works for my landlady (who lives upstairs) bumps into Kyle’s motorcycle, knocking it into his car while trimming a tree, and leaving a large dent and scratch right down the hood.  He proceeds to not inform Kyle that he did so, even though Kyle is going in and out the apartment while he grills hotdogs. Kyle figured out what happened a few days later, and had to confront the handyman (named, I can’t help but chuckle, Jesus) who first tries to deny it, and finally admits it. We will spend the next 2 1/2 months hearing him continually promise to get Kyle money to fix it “next week”, our landlady tell us lies about how the bike is unsafe because now she bumped into it and it started falling over but she managed to keep it upright (even though Kyle can’t keep it from falling over, and he’s got about 60 lbs and a lot of muscle on her), how Jesus shouldn’t have to pay because the bike has flat tires, and that makes it more unstable than if the tires had been inflated (um, perhaps a remedial science class covering surface area is in order), all of which finally ends in a fun little episode in our living room, where Jesus tries to insist he did tell Kyle he knocked the bike over, and we get gypped out of $50 because he “lost” the quote we gave him, and we forgot to make a copy. From that first day forward, I hate going outside my apartment, because I just want to avoid the both of them, they make me so angry. Whew.

5. Over the course of a month, we ended up having to spend a ton (and I mean a ton) of money to keep two of our three pets healthy. For once, Mabel was the one not giving us problems.

 5. On July 9, I got laid off. Probably don’t need to provide too much else on that one.

6. Because I got laid off, no part of my tuition was covered any more, and with my only income now coming from unemployment, I had to make the very difficult decision to quit school. I most likely won’t try for interior design again.  I think it not working out on four different occasions might be a bit of a sign.

 After losing my job, and Kyle basically loathing working for his asshat of a company, we realized that we aren’t going to make it very far out here, and we can leave. This is both good and bad. Bad because we had hopes when we both started school that we were finally on the path to gaining some sort of financial security, and we might be able to make it out here, where the cost of living is so freaking high. Good because we could move to a place where it was much cheaper to live, and start thinking about buying a house, going on vacations, being able to replace Kyle’s sad dress shoes.  And, try to move closer to family, especially so I could be there if either of my parents became ill and needed help again.

So, we’re looking to move back to the midwest. We’re focusing mostly on the Louisville area, to be near my parents, but also including Indy, Cincy, and maybe St. Louis. I’ve ruled out Chicago because I don’t know if I can deal with all the lake effect weather.  So we’ll see.  It’ll probably end up being much more dependant on where Kyle manages to find a job. I’m not even sure what occupation to look for. If I stick with admin, which I despise, there’s no way someone’s going to hire a person living 2000+ miles away, so we’re focusing on Kyle for the moment.

I’m tired now, so I leave this as the general run down of the last 9 months. I determined to keep writing here again, so I’ll leave my sentiment about leaving LA for small town midwest, new Lemons racing updates, and the glorious adventures of my cats and dog for another sleepless night.

I haven’t blogged since March 11th.  That sure is a long time.

I just read that 16 year old Miley Cyrus has recently put out a memoir.

Really?  REALLY?!?

I think my head just exploded.

Because my husband has been pestering me for at least 2 and a half weeks, I am finally updating my blog.

I turned 30.  I did not die.  I cried during the last hour of my 20’s, but then I was fine. It was actually a lot of fun.  I went to Disneyland with a friend, and even got in free.  They give you a pin with your name on it, stating it’s your birthday, and I must admit, I liked it when all the “cast members” we passed would call out “Happy Birthday Katherine!”  I’m sure it’s drilled into them that they will be punished by death if they do not do this, but I liked it all the same.  I’m still a bit of an attention whore. I also rode Space Mountian 3 times; one for each decade I’ve been alive.

I’m in my second quarter of the interior design program at UCLA.  I got As in my two previous classes, which made me feel much better wbout this whole idea.  I also finally met with the advisor in January to talk with her about advanced standing.  Turns out 12 of me previous IU classes transfered, and the program will take a full 2 quarters less than I thought, for a total of 2 1/2 years. So far my two new classes are going well too.

I’ve noticed the my new offices lobby plays very odd choices in Muzak.  I’ve heard everything from Take Five, Live and Let Die, When You Wish Upon a Star, and the worst, Penny Lane.  I hate hearing Beatles in Muzak.  It’s even worse when it’s one of the few songs I don’t have yet on CD or mp3, so am unable to wash such sacrilege from my eardrums when I get home.

There, husband of mine, happy now?

I just glanced at the calendar, and realized I will be 30 in under a week.

*panic attack ensues*