Whaaaaaaat???

MacGyvery made me take down the other post I wrote a few days ago.  I'll repost it soon, but in the mean time, I give you this:

These little minions from the movie Despicable Me are hilarious.  I saw a clip from an interview with Steve Carrell about this movie in which he said that the moral of the story is that everyone needs 10,000 minions in their lives.  I couldn't agree more.  

MacGyver bought a welder a few months back, and has been playing around with some scrap metal.  He made the cake topper for our wedding, in fact.  We had an dual tank old air compressor that died sitting around in the basement so he took it apart and was trying to figure out what to do with it.  I immediately thought of the minions.  

My little brother loves this movie and we thought it would be fun to make him a metal minion.

(uhh...please excuse the hoard in the background)

I just want to say for the record that I watched MacGyver bend a strip of steel around a piece of pvc pipe to make the goggle.  With his bare hands.

We put the minion in front of the fire to try to get the paint to dry a little faster.  Linus was unimpressed.

MacGyver did all the welding and painted him yellow.

I used Testors model paints to paint the rest.  He turned out pretty cute if I may say so myself!

Turbo liked him.  I have no idea what he's going to do with a giant metal minion, but that's not really my problem.  Also important to note: you can put a giant metal cylinder into your carry on luggage and fly across the country (to Washington D.C.) and the TSA will not question you.  

But leave the nail clippers at home.  

The Wedding: Act I, scene two: Final prep

Throughout the course of my entire life, I have put everything off until the last possible minute.  Growing up, I was famous for begging my mom to take me to Walmart at 10pm the night a huge project was due to buy markers and posterboard because I hadn't started it yet.  My mom was always shaking her head at me and saying that one of these times I was not going to pull it off and I'd have to deal with the consequences.  In college, we once had something like 8 weeks to work on this enormous research paper that was worth the majority of our grade.  In typical me fashion, I waited until the night before it was due to start my research.  I got off work around 8-8:30, high-tailed it down to the library where I spent upwards of $40 making copies of various journals and other materials to write my paper before the library closed at midnight.  I stayed up all night long drinking copious amounts of Red Bull and coffee and finished that stupid paper at about 8:30am.  My class was from 10:00 to 11:20, and I remember debating whether to grab a few hours of sleep, or just push through until class started, turn my paper in and ditch class.  The next thing I remember, I woke up to realize I'd fallen asleep on my kitchen table and the clock on my VCR said it was exactly 11:20.  After yelping a few obscenities that would have made a sailor wince, I dashed out the door on my bicycle and sped to my professor's office, hoping that I'd catch him on the off chance he would stop by there after class.  I caught him going in the back door of his office with a stack of papers in his hand.  He took one look at me and said, "this better be worth it."  I got that paper back a few weeks later with the following message scribbled on the front, "You should have gone for a BS instead of a BA".  He thought he was being so clever.  I got an A on that paper.  In fact, I always manage to pull magnificence out of thin air at the last minute.  BECAUSE THAT'S WHAT I DO.  I sneeze glitter and fart rainbows.  And just like that you're stuck with another retina scarring mental image.  YOU'RE WELCOME.

Everyone told me to take more than 2 days off before the wedding.  I swear I heard that a gazillion times in the months leading up to it.  Unfortunately, I picked this moment to be a defiant 5 year old and only took 2 days off out of spite.  SO THERE.  I sure showed them.

Right.

But considering that over a week before the actual wedding, this happened:

I felt pretty confident that I had everything under control.  Also, it's a good thing I have my ego in check.

We drove over to my parents' house from Cowtown Wednesday night after I got off work, and my brother and his girlfriend arrived on Thursday.  I had a stroke of genius at some point in the weeks before this and had already sorted out all the centerpiece items into bags so each table had one bag full of items for a centerpiece.  The plan was for my dad, my brother, his girlfriend and MacGyver to go over and set those up while we got ready Saturday morning.

On Thursday we went to the florist and picked up the flowers.  And by florist, I mean Costco.  A few dozen roses and a few bouquets of wildflowers later, we were good to go!  God bless Costco.

Shortly after arriving back from Costco, I realized I'd forgotten the contacts I was going to wear for the ceremony back at our house.  So while my parents went to the airport to pick up Turbo and his girlfriend, MacGyver and I drove all the way back to Cowtown the house to pick up my contacts.  While we were there we remembered a few other things we'd forgotten so it ended up being a good use of our time.  It was dark by the time we headed back, and we also may or may not have pillaged through the Cowtown forest with flashlights looking for ferns to use in the bouquets.

By Thursday night, the only things left to do were the flower arrangements, and the rehearsal dinner.  Both of which had to happen on Friday.  What was that about needing more time off?

Uh huh.  I got this.

The Wedding: Act I, scene one - Prologue

In the weeks and days leading up to the wedding everything kicked up into warp drive.  I worked part of the week before the wedding, and in my infinite wisdom, I took on several extra on-call rotations as well.  This meant I was not only stuck in Cowtown much of the weeks and weekends before the wedding, but I was also working.

I'm smart like that.

I have to say, for this being a mostly DIY wedding, and me being a mostly Put-It-Off-Until-The-Last-Minute kind of girl, I had mostly everything done about a week before the actual wedding.

Mostly.

I wanted to do the majority of it myself, in part because I have control issues, and also because I like doing this sort of thing.  And if I'm going to have to be there anyway, it might as well have my fabulous craftiness spewing out of every orifice!

Now there's a mental image I bet you weren't expecting today!  You're welcome.

However, I'm also not delusional, and I knew that trying to do everything ourselves had the potential for this Anti-Bride to find herself in the fetal position in some dark corner rocking back and forth and mumbling to herself in tongues only understood by aboriginal tribes in the deepest parts of the Australian Bush, and a few Evangelists in Georgia.

We're enterprising individuals, MacGyver, my family and I, and we did what any smart business-minded people would do in our situation.  It's called outsourcing, my friends!  Oh yes, though I can assure you 8year old children in Chinese sweatshops were involved in this negotiation.  Not this part, anyway.  We had the dinner catered, the bar tended, and a cake baked.

My mom already knew the caterer and we worked in the bartender as part of that fee and can I please get a Hallelujah! for that woman?!  I never had an empty glass in my hand the whole night.

When it came time to decide on cakes, I had it narrowed down to two styles.  One was fairly simple, elegant, traditional, etc.  But I was torn, as I really felt the other cake spoke to me on a very deep, esoteric level.

I'm curious to see, given the choices, which you would have chosen?

Cake #1:

or Cake #2:

You see my dilemma.

I showed both cakes to MacGyver, and he just looked at me hard for a minute, then he walked away.  He didn't actually say anything, but I'm pretty sure he was filing that moment away in his mind to bring back up someday in the future.

"You remember that time you almost brought a Darth Vader riding My Little Pony cake to our wedding?  Because I remember."

Maybe I'll do that for our anniversary.  I wonder what Darth Vader would taste like in Red Velvet?

. . .

Umm...okay that was awkward.  Well, we'll all have fun unseeing both of those mental images this weekend.  I'll try to control myself better next week.

Maybe.

A tribute to Daryl Strawberry and Superman

A few weeks before the wedding, I made an appointment with the event coordinator of our wedding location to go over set up and layout, etc.  I texted my mom, who had planned to meet up with me later that day in town to go do a trial run of my hair, to see if she wanted to meet me.  I never heard from her, so I assumed she didn't want to come.

When I arrived, I met the lady and we made introductions.  Then she made a reference to needing to wait for someone with the same name as my father to arrive.

My dad?  Whaa?

I asked her what she was talking about, and she said he told her he was planning to meet us here too.

Apparently everyone in my family has stopped communicating with me.

Sure enough, as I was dialing his number to see what the heck was going on, I see his truck pulling up the drive.  Right after noticing that my mom wasn't with him, and thinking that was weird to leave her at home when we planned to meet up anyway, I saw her car.

Right behind his.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank Greenpeace, the EPA, and Toyota for making the world a cleaner, less polluted place.  Because on this day, we sure weren't.

Nice Event Coordinator Lady showed us around where we'd be having our reception and the lawn where we'd be having the ceremony.  I'd provided her with a diagram of our wedding reception layout compliments of a brilliant little applet on The Knot She was very helpful in pointing out the things I didn't realize we'd need.  Like when she asked where we'd put the cake?  And I smartly replied that the cake would be on the cake table!  Then she asked me where the cake table was on my diagram.

Oh.

Nice Event Coordinator Lady scribbled in a few more things I'd forgotten on my diagram and we were on our way.

Mom and I had a few hours to kill before we drive up to Oregon City for the hair appointment so we poked around a few thrift shops in search of more table decorations.  I needed more frames for the table numbers and bottles for vases.  Do I have you scratching your head yet?

Remember the theme: Vintage G h e t t o.

We stopped at Baja Fresh for lunch.  They have this mango chipotle heaven in your mouth salad business there.  So, so good.   On our way over to the restaurant my car started making one of those noises that is akin to a human having chest pains.

Like, call 911 your car is about to blow up kind of noises.

Being the responsible car owner and mechanic that I am, I turned up the radio and kept on driving.  To my credit, when I parked the car, I did sort of kneel to the ground and look underneath the car to see if anything was hemorrhaging from up inside the guts part of the car.  I saw nothing.

I only know how to check 4 things in a car.

1) Windshield wiper fluid
2) Oil
3) Brake fluid
4) Gas

I quickly deduced that it was none of those things as it was sunny and 90 degrees outside, my first car was a Subaru with an oil leak so I know what that sounds like, my brakes were working fine (for once), and I had a full tank of gas.

So I did what any self-respecting girlfriend would do in this situation.  Texted MacGyver 15 minutes after he started his shift at work to tell him my car was "making a bad noise".

My mom and I spent lunch debating whether I should try to drive my car another 45 minutes away, or try to find a mechanic and diagnose/fix the problem.  The biggest issue was that I still had to get home to Cowtown at some point that weekend, and that was a good 2 hours away - much of it out of cell range.  I started having visions of my car going all Decepticon at 60 miles per hour, except instead of turning into a badass robot, it just flew into a million pieces scattered all over I-5.

We stopped in a Midas shop and this very nice guy offered to ride around the block with me and listen to my "bad noise".  After a few times of hearing it he told me what it was.

I don't remember now what he said it was, because all I heard was, "something something something your car isn't going to suddenly break into pieces while you're driving."

That was all I needed to hear.  I text MacGyver a quick, "just kidding!" and we were off to a hair appointment.  

I thought it would be a good idea to consult Shirley, my GPS goddess, for directions to this place as I'd never driven there from that direction.  But alas, Shirley failed me in the most epic of ways.

She took us hither and yonder, over brook and dale, over the river and through the woods to get to Oregon City.  What should have been a 30 minute drive with no traffic turned into a 90 minute ordeal of driving 20 miles an hour through every sleepy town between Salem and Oregon City.  I'm fairly certain we crossed the International Date Line at some point in that voyage.

By the time we arrived I was so frustrated I was shaking.  MacGyver's sister had asked me to bring some photos of the hairstyles I had in mind and after I finished telling her why we were late to our appointment, she asked me if I'd remembered the photos.  I realized that in my haste to JUST FREAKING GET THERE ALREADY, I had left them in the car, along with the hair pieces I made for the bridesmaids and for myself.

As I walked back out of the salon to my car, I was taking deep, calming breaths and telling myself that this day was already bad enough.  It would only get better form here.

And because I had to open my mouth and say THAT out loud, karma came and leveled me right on my ass.

I mean that in the most literal of ways.  Actually it was my face.

I'm still not exactly sure what happened either.  Just that one moment I was vertical, walking back inside with my box and my Marshmallow Man folder, and the next moment I was horizontal, face planted on the floor of the foyer in the salon.  I looked up at the two girls standing behind the counter frozen with their mouths gaping open.

What the hell...?!?!

Apparently my foot caught on the edge of a floor tile, or a leaf, or the air, or something, and I face planted in a most spectacular way.  My papers went fluttering, and my box flew across the room.  I don't know how those girls didn't lose it right there in front of me.  I don't think I would have had the same level of composure to not laugh hysterically had I been in their position.  Commendable, ladies.  Truly.

I started laughing, because I mean really, what else do you do in that situation?

When I went back to where MacGyver's sister and my mom were waiting, I told them the story and we all had a good laugh about that, though really neither of them were surprised.

I'm happy to say nothing is broken, though my leg and knees took the brunt of the fall and I'm pretty bruised up.

But my hair?  My hair is going to look soooo fabulous!!!

I'm baaaack!!!

Hello?

(*tap*tap*tap*)

Is this thing on?

My apologies for not updating this here blog in an unforgivably long time.  I don't want you to feel like I unceremoniously abandoned you, you see.  It's just...see, the thing is...well...I did.

I would like to say that my excuse for not writing lately is because an eccentric and anonymous benefactor gifted MacGyver and I with an extended honeymoon in a secret offshore tropical resort saved for only the world's most elite socialites.

But that would be a lie.  And we reserve lying for protecting a friend's self esteem, potential traffic tickets, and math placement tests.  Not that I would know anything about any of those things.  Especially that last one.

Nevermind.

The truth is, I put a lot of my regular (and extra) responsibilities on hold in the few months before the wedding because I wanted to be able to focus on getting everything done without losing my mind.  A feat I think I accomplished rather well, I will add.

In all the bride-to-be and wedding planning literature out there, there is a plethora of information about how to be calm, and ways to relax, and enjoy your special day, blah...blah...barf.

What the literature conspicuously omits is how to hit the ground running when the wedding is over and you wake up the next day to discover that your life is smuggling moonshine in the trunk from East Alabama all the way to the Bayou of Louisiana and the cops have been chasing you for the last 50 miles.  Why doesn't Louisiana make their own moonshine you ask?

BECAUSE ALABAMA MAKES SOME DAMN GOOD MOONSHINE, THAT'S WHY.

So the last few months have been a little hectic trying to get caught up on my regular work, trying to get my house put back together from the wedding that exploded into and out of every orifice, traveling to Spokane for Thanksgiving and the car blowing up, and studying for a big exam for work.

Sigh.

Also, I'd been sort of stalling/justifying my absence/whatever in hopes that I would have some of the photographer's photos back to share here, but she's been having some major computer problems and it's taking longer than she'd planned to get those to us.

But I can start without them.  It's not like I was going to recap the wedding in all it's spectacularness in one post anyway!

So now, without further ado...oh, who am I kidding?  There is always much ado.  Much ado about EVERYTHING on this blog.  And there will be more ado.  Much, much more ado.

Ado ado ado ado ado ado.

Okay I'm done.

Where did we leave off?

The bridal shower?  Seriously?  Good grief I really have been slacking.

The last time we talked I had just received a bridal shower from my coworkers of such epic proportions I am still in complete awe.

(LOVE YOU GUYS!!!)

My friend, Mrs. B, also wanted to throw me a shower for friends and family.  Mrs. B and I used to work together, and we became very good friends.  I love Mrs. B, and have developed some abandonment issues since she left, but I'm working through those.  Mrs. B is expecting a Baby B here in a few months!  It's all very exciting!  But I digress.

My mom offered to let us use her house for this shower, and my aunt (Mom's sister) who was unable to make the wedding flew all the way up from California to come!  Because she's awesome like that!  I saw her for a few hours a few years ago, and it was many years before that since I'd seen her so it was especially nice to get to visit for awhile.

Another aunt (Dad's sister), a few cousins, and some coworkers came to that one and we all had a really great time!!  Mrs. B did a month-themed shower and had each guest bring a gift that would be appropriate for the month they were given.  Super creative, and super fun!

I was overwhelmed with how much thought everyone put into each gift!  It was a really lovely shower and I had a great time.

If everything goes well, I'll be able to post pictures this spring of some of the bulbs I received as gifts from this shower.  I let MacGyver plant them to give them a better chance of survival.  Lets all keep our fingers, toes, and eyeballs crossed, shall we?

No toilet paper wedding dresses, please

Shortly after we started telling people we were getting married, I had offers from friends to throw bridal showers.  As someone who has thrown my fair share of bridal showers, I suddenly realized that there was indeed something about weddings that I hated more than the wedding itself: the bridal shower.

At first I vehemently refused to allow it, despite so many kind, generous people offering to throw one.  I know I sound ungrateful and rude, and maybe that's true.  But the thought of enduring hours of toilet paper wedding dresses and various phallic shaped party favors transcended all possible levels of patience I possess.

Then my mom found out I was being so rude and read me the riot act.  It's funny how moms can still have that effect on you.  I was immediately transported back to 7th grade and I was mortified at my own behavior.  I was raised better than that.  In so many words she informed me that indeed I would be attending whatever function my devoted friends wanted to drag me to, and I was going to like it.  Nay, I would revel in it.  And that's how that was going to go.  Period.  New paragraph.

I explained that it had nothing to do with my friends, and that I loved them all dearly, and even admitted how embarrassed I was that people were making such a fuss over this whole thing.  Plus, I hate the idea of my friends spending money on something as silly as a shower.

Then she pulled out the big guns.

Mom's famous last words in every argument since the beginning of my existence: "that wasn't one of your options".  She informed me that I am an anomaly, and that most women actually enjoy throwing their friends bridal showers.  I suspected otherwise, but I didn't argue.  I was going to shut up, go to that shower, and I was going to love it.

Now, if you're still reading this it means that you haven't written me off as a spoiled, self centered, ungrateful cur.  I'm not.  Not usually, anyway.  I'm shy, and I hate being fussed over.  I'm a much better fusser than a fussee.

Is that a word?

Anyway, I did as my mother instructed and I shut my mouth and accepted the lovely offer form my coworker to throw me a shower.  This coworker who offered to throw the shower is so much more than a coworker to me.  She is one of my very favorite people, and I know she doesn't even know the extent to which she fills an important void for me.  I could never say no to her.  Besides, the last time a coworker got married, we all met in one of the conference rooms at the office and ordered a cake.  I figured there could be no harm in that, and maybe a handful of my friends from work would show up.  I could totally do that.

Then she gave me the invitation.  Which at first I thought was weird, since I assumed we'd be having it at the office.  But no, she was having it at her house!  Which is about 20 minutes away from the office!  That's when the panic started to set in.  What if no one came?   She would have gone through all this trouble for a party of 5.  I love my coworkers, don't get me wrong, but I sincerely doubted any of them loved me enough to come to a bridal shower.

I was so very, very wrong.  There were so many people there I had to keep double checking my thank-you-note list to make sure I didn't leave anyone off.  I was so totally blown away by everyone that came!  Never in a million, bazillion years would I have expected a turnout like that.  It made me all emotional!!

Not only did they all come, but they compiled 4 CDs worth of music for the wedding (which was so unbelievably awesome because I may or may not have been putting that off with only a month left to go.  Eh hem...), and they got us Home Depot gift cards which we will be putting to excellent use and posting pictures here.

My friend explained that she feels the same way I do about traditional bridal shower activities and games - that they're ridiculous and humiliating - so she concocted an activity of sheer brilliance.  She also said that she is a bad loser and knew she would be mad if she didn't win the games.  See?  Amazing friends!!

They made me and the bridal party hats to wear at the wedding.  These hats are so supremely spectacular, achieving levels of awesome I can't even begin to describe with words, that I won't even try.  I will post pictures after the wedding.  But for now I will leave you with this: there were condoms and birds and feathers involved.  And paper plate pasties.

Oh yes.  I have the best friends in the whole world.

Thanks, ladies!!

My Pink Bicycle

This bicycle was a birthday present from MacGyver.  I love everything about this bicycle.  I got the basket with the illusion that I would be able to ride around with my dog in the front.  Because he's so well behaved, he'd just sit in the basket and enjoy the ride.

That didn't end well.

My friends know me so well

I once read a sign that said, "A friend will be the one to bail you out of jail.  A best friend will be the one sitting right next to you saying, 'Woo!  That was awesome!'"  My friend, Mrs. B, is the latter of the two.  She went on her honeymoon recently and brought me back what is quite possibly one of the most awesome souvenirs in the history of souvenirs.  Well, maybe the second best.  She bought me a magnet once that is slightly more awesome than this one, but that's for another day.

A little back story first.

We called the mechanic a few weeks ago because Bob, my car, suddenly stopped stopping.

Hoo doggie!  Say that three times fast!

Suddenly stopped stopping
Suddenly stopped sopped
Stoppingly suddened...wait, huh?


Anyway, they gave us a quote and an appointment to bring the car by to fix it.  The part we needed was a dealer-only part (of course) so it took a few weeks to come in.  We dropped the car off Sunday night and left the keys in the drop box as instructed.

I called them right as they opened at 8am the next morning to warn them that the car had no brakes so no one would hop in and slam into anything.  The receptionist assured me that they understood the situation and not to worry, that they would call me as soon as it was done.  I explained that I would be needing to pay them over the phone as I had to work all day and wouldn't be able to go pick it up until after hours.  She said that would be no problem and that I could pay when she called me to tell me it was done.

Fast forward to 3:30, and I still hadn't heard from them.  The quote on the paperwork said it would take an hour in labor.  In human hours that's like 10 minutes.  I began to get a little worried that something more serious was wrong with Bob than originally thought.  I had asked MacGyver and my brother if they are allowed to just rack up charges without calling first and I was assured by both men that this was not possible, and that they were required to obtain authorization.

When I called at 3:30, the receptionist explained that they were working on the car, and that they hadn't anticipated having to bleed the brake system and put new fluid in it.  To which I replied,

WHAT DID YOU THINK I MEANT WHEN I SAID, "THE CAR HAS NO BRAKES?!?!?!"

I said it pretty much just like that too.

She said they didn't think it was going to be as bad as I said it was.  Because she knows me so well and can tell when I'm being dramatic and when I'm being dead serious.  Right.

So I asked her if the original quote would still be the price, and she said that no, in fact it would be significantly higher than the quote because of all the extra labor and gold bullion infused brake fluid they had to put into the system.  We were looking at another couple of hundred dollars.

It's times like this when I'm glad I don't have a built in blood pressure monitor because I was about to go all sorts of Nancy Kerrigan on those people.

A few minutes after I got off the phone with the receptionist, the mechanic called to explain how he had no idea how we'd even driven the car to the shop and he had no idea it was going to take this much time, blah blah blah.  When I asked him why no one called me to tell me it would be a significant amount of money more than the quote, he gave me the lamest explanation in the history of explanations:

He said he didn't look at the car before agreeing to work on it, and only took MacGyver's word that all it needed was to replace the one part.  Plus, now that he's started, he is obligated to finish it because it's not driveble without brakes.

Really?

REALLY?!?!

I was dangerously polite when I responded that it would have been nice for someone to have called me to tell me what was going on and that my small job was turning into a several hundred dollar job!  And don't tell me that I have to pay for anything I didn't ask for!

AND HOW CAN YOU JUST TAKE A CUSTOMER'S WORD ON HOW TO DO YOUR JOB?!?!?!

I want to take my toaster in there and insist that it used to be my daily driver and I just don't know what could have possibly happened to it!  I'll tell him I suspect the flux capacitor and ask him to replace it to see if that does the trick.

Excellent businessman, this guy.

The car ended up having to stay another night and and cost me an extra $250 by the time it was all done.

We were given a quote IN WRITING of how much they would need in order to restore Bob back to working condition.  Then when I called to see where my car was, they explained that they would need more money, but that it was okay because it's really my fault it's taking them so much more time and effort.  And didn't I want the best brake fluid Swiss bank accounts can buy?

She asked me to give her my credit card number last night so she could run the total so far, and she'd just add on the rest of the expenses when they finished the job.

I fancy myself as somewhat clever, and I was not to be taken by this mechanic's wiles.  I refused to pay for the car until it was completed, and though I wanted to throw a gigantic fish flopping fit and refuse to pay for the extra costs that I had not been notified to authorize, I eventually paid the full fee.  Had I been in possession of cash I would have paid for it in cash.  Hell, had I not had to work I would have refused to let him touch my car another minute and pushed the stupid thing back home just out of principal!

We'll not be returning there.

Here is the gift Mrs. B brought back for me.

She knows me so well.

What About Bob?

All of my cars have had names.

My first car was a maroon Subaru grocery-getter station wagon.  His name was Harold.  You had to bang on the dashboard with your fist to get the windshield wipers to come on.  Harold also liked to overheat on the freeway late at night after I'd driven to Portland before work when I wasn't supposed to, and then my dad would have to come out into the driveway in the middle of the night in his boxers to check it out because there would be lots of scary smoke stuff coming out of the hood.

I loved that car.

I was without a car for a few years after that when I moved to college because parking was impossible near campus and we could ride the bus for free.  I had an awesome bicycle that I rode everywhere.  Now that I'm thinking about it, I never named my bike.  Huh.  Odd.

Anyway, after a few years of biking everywhere, I got another car.  She was a little blue Hyundai hatchback named Betty.  Betty was a little immodest.  She had some flatulence problems and a few other "wardrobe malfunctions", shall we say.  I had some car fanatic friends and they fixed her little exhaust issue up with some cardboard and duck tape, because that's really the only way to properly fix up a car.  She ran like a champ for a few years, and I even moved a few times with that car.  It's amazing how much furniture you can really cram into a hatchback!  We did have one small mishap where she dropped her muffler off in the middle of the road while we were driving.  I took her to Midas and gave her a stern talking to about leaving her bits about for everyone to see.  She did better after that.

Then I moved back to the city and was getting ready to go to graduate school.  My dad was worried about me driving Betty back and forth to downtown Portland, so he took me car shopping.  That's when we found Bob.

Bob is my little black Kia.  We got him at Bob Lamphere's Kia, and the license plate frame inserts said BOB on them.  My mom still teases me for naming him that.  I have tried to explain to her that he came that way, and he likes his name.  It would be impolite of me to ask him to change it.  Bob's therapist says change is not good for him.  It gives him ulcers.

In 2004 Bob and I were in an unfortunate accident (not my fault) and he was severely damaged, though I was miraculously unharmed.  I thought that might be the end of Bob, but after several weeks in ICU, he was resurrected and returned to his former spunky self.

Bob got new shoes last winter in what shall forever be named "The Great Tire Debaucle of 2010".  We don't speak of that in our house anymore for reasons I shall not detail here.  Maybe later, in say, 200 years.

Bob's is now pushing 96,000+ miles.  Which, in Kia years, is darn near geriatric!

As with everyone, things don't always work as well as they used to as we age.  For a while now Bob has had some trouble with his belts.  They get a little wiggly, and then the gaggle of screaming banchees that lives in Bob's engine bay lets loose when you turn on the AC.  Or start the car.  Or drive the car.  We're looking in to anger management classes for them.

I can't remember exactly when it started, but Bob began leaking brake fluid.  I'm going to say it was sometime in the spring.  It was only a little at first, so we did what any respectable, caring, responsible car owners would do and we topped off the brake fluid and ignored it.  We did this a few times a week for a few months.  Then one day after the car had been sitting for a few weeks while we were on vacation, I went to go leave our driveway to pick our dogs up and flew out into the middle of the road.

I had no brakes.

None.  Zip.  Zilch.  Nada.  No soup for you!

Apparently an air bubble had infiltrated Bob's brake lines.  Translation: Bob had a serious case of gas.

MacGyver bled the brakes and everything seemed to be back in working order.  That's when we started talking about maybe thinking we might want to consider taking Bob to the doctor.  Someday.

Then it happened again and MacGyver made the call.

Bob is currently in the shop getting tennis balls installed on his walker.

I hope that this makes him feel better.

Channeling 1924

I've been meaning to write this post for a long time, but alien squirrels from Mars keep interfering with my concentration.  I had to fashion a tin foil hat just to get anything done today!

My ring arrived at the end of June after several weeks of waiting.  MacGyver's mom happened to be in town the same weekend it arrived, which was a nice coincidence.  I was petrified that it wouldn't fit.  Because I know a whole lot more about sizing fingers than that sales lady who has been sizing fingers for who knows how long.

Right.

I had promised MacGyver I wouldn't just snatch it out of the lady's hand and put it on in the store.  I could be polite and patient a little longer.  So I had her put it in a box and give it to him.  MacGyver's mom offered to give us a private moment in case he wanted to do something special...

Haha!  Hahahahahaha!  Hee hee....

Hoo.

MacGyver?  Romantic?  Not hardly.  He proposed on the fly in the car, so it seemed only fitting that he unwrap the box and hand me the ring in the car too.

Here is the first photo, taken with my phone in the car.  MacGyver's mom was in the backseat and told him to kiss me.  MacGyver was mortified!  It was brilliant!  Thanks MacGyver's Mom!!!

Here it is in the box, all shiny.  I love the vintage look to it.  I keep getting asked if it's an heirloom.  While that would be awesome, I'm happy that it looks like it could be.  It's very me.

I am happy with this ring all by itself.  I can't really imagine it with another band, so I'm not going to have a wedding band to go with it.  Apparently it's weird to remove your ring so it can be put back on in the ceremony.  Whatever.  Whoever made that rule clearly hasn't met the Antibride.

The "proposal" was classic MacGyver.

I wouldn't have had it any other way.