Getting Out of the House and Bringing People Into It

Finally, I have a job! I was hired yesterday at an eye doctor's, and I start tomorrow at 8am. Both Jeff and I are really excited. He's more excited because I'll be getting out of the house every day and making some extra cash, and I'm more excited because I'll be accomplishing something every day besides cleaning the litter box. The extra money is always nice too, though.

Last night, we had the Mortensen's over for dinner. It was a lot of fun! We had stew and rolls (my first attempt at Grandma's roll recipe), and everything went over really well. Nathan especially loved the rolls and got so excited to get his next bite that he would rock back and forth on his dad's lap, gasping loudly. It was really cute.

After dinner, we ate chocolate chip cookies and Jeff and I held Nathan while his family played tennis on the wii. It was a lot of fun to watch Zach and Abby try to swing the wiimote in time to hit the ball, and after an hour of "Just one more game" they left to put their chocolate covered children to bed.

I'm really glad we were finally able to invite Karen and her family over for dinner after all the times they've had us over on Sundays. We'll definitely have to do it again sometime. :)

Presidential Debate

Cyndi and I were watching the debate tonight, and some things have been striking us.

First, Obama said that we need to stop letting down the middle class, which I don't think is happening. My experience is that the middle class is quite well off and don't feel like they're being let down. Just my $.02, but I think Obama's trying to appeal to a demographic that doesn't exist. However, I'm young and naive.

Second, Obama is an awful public speaker when he has to speak off the cuff. He stutters and has awkward word choices. Also, attacking McCain on the war in Iraq doesn't make a lot of sense, since Obama opposed the surge and McCain had been calling for the surge long before Bush proposed it.

Finally, McCain's a jerk. This is something I've known since the 2000 election, but in this he was talking over the mediator and Obama. Reminds me of Al Gore in the 2000 election debates, actually. Obama's been doing it too, and I wish they would show more class than that.

My favorite quote from Obama: "There are some things we need to do. We don't know what the tax revenue's going to be, and there are things that we need to do that we might not be able to do. But there are also things that we have to do."

Perhaps Mr. Obama should consider not categorizing things as either needs or things we have to have.

I hate both candidates. McCain's a jerk who left his crippled wife for a younger, richer woman. Obama's an elitist, inexperience, out of touch college professor. McCain blatantly lies in his ads and gets called on it by all the media outlets. Obama attacks McCain for not being able to use email when McCain's stated his inability stems from the torture he suffered in Vietnam. Joe Biden and Barack Obama are the two most liberal senators in the senate.

They're both awful choices. Unless something changes drastically, I'm voting Bob Barr.

Edit to add: My second favorite Obama quote: "Mr Lehrer, I have a bracelet too."

Odds and ends

Some random information about the past few weeks:

• In my defense, the columbian is big, scary, bald and columbian; I, on the other hand, am a coward. Perhaps I should get a gun. As Professor Farnsworth said, "Who needs courage when you've got a gun?" or, as Doctor Zoidberg said, "No, world, you put your hands up!"


• We bought a dryer to go along with our washer. One of our friends had one left over from her divorce, so we got a neary brand new washer for not too much money.


• I've now changed the plug type on the dryer and replaced our cracked garbage disposal. It's like I'm a real husband!


• Our lawn has started to come in. We have a really small amount of land, and we decided to see if we could get some grass growing before winter hit, hopefully making it easier to grow it next year. We'll be putting in some raspberry bushes, strawberries, and random garden vegetables next year. I'm pretty excited about it.

All told, things are looking pretty good. Cyndi's been emailing the counselor at UVU to square her schooling away, although she's not sure what she's going to major in. I'll be looking into going in january, or maybe just taking some courses online, we'll see. My job's going well, and my stock options are already worth quite a bit of money, so I've got a lot of incentive to stay and make the product better since they're not vested yet and I can directly affect the quality of the program. It's pretty wild for me to think that I'm one of around 20 guys who makes the product that makes our company worth $1.5 billion. Absolutely wild. I expect to be fired any day now ;) Just kidding, they seem to have some faith in me (for whatever reason).

An Experience I Could Have Done Without

Scene: It's a beautiful Sunday afternoon. Neighborhood children are playing across the street, a man is working on the underside of his car, and Jeff and Cyndi are enjoying the day inside their apartment with the windows open. The man working on his car is doing so with the radio blaring. This isn't the first time he's forced the neighborhood to listen to his car stereo, and Cyndi has finally had enough. She goes outside and kneels next to the car the man is under. Her conversation with him goes something like this:

Cyndi: "Excuse me, could you do me a favor and turn down your music?"
Man: "I don't think it's that loud."
Cyndi: "Well, I can hear it in my house, do you think you could turn it down anyway?"
Man: "I don't think it's that loud. If you don't like it, you can call the police."
Cyndi: "What? Seriously?"
Man: "Yeah. If you don't like it, call the police."
Cyndi: "Okay."

Tell me, what would you do at that point? I'll tell you what I did. I called the police. It's not something I've ever done before, and I hope I'll never have to again. An officer came and he and the man talked for about an hour. At one point the man was handcuffed, but they were talking and laughing again by the time the cop left. Thankfully, the music was turned down, and I was able to enjoy the rest of my day with my husband.

The next morning, the man was waiting for Jeff when he walked to his car to go to work. It turns out that he didn't turn down his music even when the officer asked him to, and that's why he was in handcuffs. It was considered an arrest, and was apparently his first. He was really angry about it and told Jeff we should have closed our windows if his music was annoying us.

I do feel bad that he was arrested in front of his family, but I never meant for that to happen. All I wanted was for the music to be turned down. I don't consider it my fault that he pissed off the cop.

Jeff recommended that I apologize to him so we could have a decent relationship with our neighbors, and my mother agreed that apologizing would be the best thing to do IF we wanted to get along with these people (I do wish I knew if they were renting or if they owned their town home so I could let it blow over until they moved out- I'm such a coward). So I said a prayer and went over that afternoon to apologize, but no one was home. I wimped out the next day, and I've been sick the rest of the week. I don't know if I can work up the courage to try again. :(

It doesn't help that they all apparently hate me, from before I called the cops. They think I'm a jerk because when I came to look at the house, I didn't wave at them. Honestly, I don't think I even noticed them. I was a little preoccupied at the time. Also, the guy thought I had an attitude when I asked him to turn down his music. I'll admit, I was irritated when I asked, but I thought I was pretty polite.

I was so proud of myself for going outside to talk to him at all. He's a big, bald, scary looking Columbian, and it took a lot of courage for me to ask him to turn down the music. I wouldn't have even thought about calling the police on him, except that he asked me to.

I think Jeff and I will make some cookies this week and go introduce ourselves to all of our neighbors properly. It's about time we made more of an effort to get to know the people we'll be living next to for a while.


On a lighter note, here's (another) picture of the cats. Our new home came with a doggy door, and the cats absolutely love it. I'm not sure what they imagine they see through the non-transparent flap, but I'm sure it's fascinating. :)

Quick Kitty Update

Since the cats are the only other residents in our new home, I can't help but post about them when they learn something new. :)

Sadie and Taffy have figured out how to open the bathroom drawers, and they love to lie in them and crawl behind them, when possible.

It's still a little disconcerting to be the only one in the house, and hear drawers opening and closing.

A Moment of Silence for Minion and Maude

The house is looking a lot nicer than it use to, and almost all of the boxes are unpacked (most of what's left are books). We finally got a fridge! We were both very excited about that. It is so nice to have a full size freezer and a shelf for milk, unlike the mini fridge we bought to hold us over until we could afford a real one. Now the mini fridge just sits in the bedroom and holds drinks for Jeff and myself. :)

We also finally bought a washing machine. It's going to be delivered today! Now all we need is our friend Emily's dryer, and we'll have a real home!

Jeff is teaching me how to program in php. It's really easy, and pretty fun. I've always been interested in programming, but I've never really committed myself to learning it. We're having "classes" Mon, Wed, and Fri while Jeff waters the lawn. Maybe I'll get good enough to be hired at a good paying job. I'm crossing my fingers.

We put the rats down last week. It was really sad, and it was really drawn out (the visit to the vet's, not their deaths- I hope). I had already gotten myself into the mindset that neither rat was coming home because a tumor removal surgery really isn't worth it for a pet who's average life span is 2.5 years, and there's a really good chance the tumors would come back anyway. I just wanted to let the rats go together before life got too miserable for them. Jeff came with me and he held my hand while the doctor kept us waiting for an hour, and then went on for another hour about surgery and people who have had multiple surgeries on their rats and how she would prepare the rats for surgery if we wanted it... It dragged on and on. She eventually asked if we wanted an estimate, and even though I knew we weren't going to get the surgery, I said yes just to get her to shut up about it. She left the room, and we didn't see her again. 15 minutes later, a tech came in with the estimates and left us alone to think about it. I started crying. Jeff eventually had to go up to the front desk and tell them we just wanted to put the rats down.

Before we went to the vet's, I was more than prepared to take the bodies home and bury them in the garden, but that visit had turned what should have been a quick and tearful goodbye into a two and half long lecture on other people who didn't murder their beloved pets, and I just wanted to get out of there. So we left Minion and Maude in their traveling cage in the exam room, and left.

For those of you who met my rats, I hope you got to meet them before they got tumors. They were so much happier and hyper back then. I'm really going to miss them.

This is the only other picture of the rats that I have, so please forgive my foot.

P.S.- What do you do with boxes after a move? Do you just throw them away? It seems like such a waste, but I have so many.