Tuesday, June 30, 2020

Pants Optional


Update June 22- 28

Hi Friend!

I’d say the main takeaway from this week was that I started a “diet”, tried to eat healthy, limit alcohol, work out, and go to the dog park every day, and after 6 days of this I had gained ten pounds – so that’s depressing.  But the good news is I actually lost weight in the beginning of the pandemic when I was depressed, anxious and drinking every night so I guess I have a choice right now… and the health of my liver is in the balance.   The meeting at the park every day again has been really nice though.  Percy and I are big fans. 

My nephew, Patrick is on the left in this amazing recreation photo: 


I decided it was time to meet for some social distanced sipping and sitting because I had not seen Dr. Rach since February.  This is a peek into the planning of said event:




(Each = Rach)
And now we see why Becky needed to bring her own chair... 


Our third and final round of Harry Potter trivia happened on Wednesday.  Now the first round we had placed 12th and then on the second round we placed sixth, I think, and on the last round we placed third!! I think it’s fair to say that I had some time to study and got real lucky on the questions.  Here are a couple of them that we did get

What is the name of the band that plays at the Yule ball?
What does the US president call the Ministry of Magic in his head?
Why was Harry Potter going to the teacher’s lounge when he saw Quirrell tending to Snape’s leg in the first book?

I’m not gonna lie, on Saturday I slept until noon, and it was glorious and then I was doing some chores around the house in a very short dress that I had slept in without any underwear underneath (yes I’m setting the scene) when Percy starts barking and I kind of went to look to see if someone is at the front door but I didn’t see who it was I thought maybe someone is dropping off a package and then suddenly Zach and Fran walk in. Now, I love having visitors but I usually like having visitors when, you know, I’m wearing underwear and also when I don’t have stuff all around at my house getting ready for a trip. So we’re talking and chatting and then Fran basically asks “why are we here?” I offer to maybe play a game (Zach was totally up for that of course) then I said, “Great! Why don’t you grab a game while I go put some pants on!”

Saturday night Becky and I went to Rachel’s for some social distancing fun (and I’m not even going to tell you who was wearing pants). I laughed hard and number of times during this evening as you can imagine but I think I left the most when Rachel was telling us about helping someone with their phone and having to teach them how to delete open pages of Safari and how many pages were open and I was able to open my phone and show her that I had copious amounts to scroll through that were all open - and I know how to close a tab!

Sunday, I felt very accomplished because I managed to replace the broken toilet seat that my cleaning person had broken earlier in the week and then I went to get my oil changed and found out that sometimes when you go early they just top off your oil which is pretty rad (free charge - thanks Jiffy Lube!) and then I vacuumed my car and got it all clean so that I could sleep in it this week. Then I went to pull out all the supplies I would need including my Pee pockets (which past me had folded little pieces of toilet paper and a wet one into each pocket!!)

After five years of living in my home without incident I had an incident. I had some groceries delivered on Sunday night and as I was showing my ID my next-door neighbors boyfriend passed by. We said hello and then both the neighbors boyfriend and the Amazon delivery person left.  This all happened with my door open as I always do, and I went to grab my groceries and suddenly my dog goes running out and immediately beelines to sneak underneath the neighbors fence and then apparently he got through the barrier that was put up for their dog not to get into their front yard. Percy gets into the backyard and is surprised by 100 pound dog barking at him so he made a quick U-turn and ran back through the fence and then the other fence and back into my house...All before my neighbor could come outside and say “What the hell just happened?” I apologized profusely, and she just said “Well, I guess the dogs have met!” And we laughed (me very nervously) and then went inside to have a serious chat with Percy.

And then just as both of us were calming down, Janette called to finish up the weekend perfectly! (Did I find out that one of the things she checked off her to do list was calling me? Yes. Was I incredibly proud and happy to help check something off her to do list? Also YES)





2019
It was again Emmett and Anderson’s birthday party – and I remember Emmett taking each adult he could get a finger hold on inside the house, showing them his cake and asking them to get him a piece.  Amazing work here, Emmett.  You made the adult feel special, and you were so cute, I’m surprised anyone was able to say no to you. 

2018

In 2018, I went to a commercial shoot for Halo: Fireteam Raven (the arcade game I worked on).  I met the voice of “KILLTACULAR!!” and learned what “Lady Drinks” are.  And also went to Emmett and Anderson birthday.



2017
“Ugh, Mom!  Why did you give me these genes! You know I like khaki’s!” Sounds like something Lucas would say.

And I can only imagine that this can of German potato salad from 2012 attached to a box of salt is from my dad, but I honestly can’t imagine my mother allowing a CAN of German potato salad into the house.   

That’s it, y’all! Love you, mean it!
T O’B

Monday, June 22, 2020

Real-Life and Clickety-Click Graduations


Update 6/15- 6/21

Hi Friend!

I started the week sleeping in my car.  Lucas got some new camping gear for the trip, and as I did as well, and he asked if I wanted to come over and try it out together.  Like a parallel play sleepover.  The only thing missing were the walkie-talkies.  When I told Jordan, he was like, “So you can have an extra night of being miserable?” Kind of… but with access to a bathroom.  My lil Renegade is about 6 inches too short, so it only really works if I sleep on an angle and don’t change positions (which is something I love to do.) When I first got settled, and for about an hour after, Percy sat on my chest looking at me and then staring at the house as if to say, “Did you know that the house is right there?  There are beds in there, too.  Like, right over there.  Maybe you’re not looking where I’m looking.  Not here, here is not a place where we sleep.” Eventually, he settled in, but then woke up at 5:30 am to tell me, “This counts as a sleepover, and know what I like to do for sleepover’s?  WAKE UP MY OTHER MOM AND HUMANS.  Let’s go, I’ll show you where they are.  They are apparently smarter than you, because the are in the warm house.  In real beds. Remember those?”  Then I spent an hour and half holding a whimpering dog until Dawne and Nala got up.  What did I learn?  My new double North Face sleeping bag is amazing.  And It’s going to be a long, uncomfortable road trip – and I might need to pee outside like an animal.  An animal that has a bunch of Pee Pockets that they didn’t use in India. 

Continued discussing Me and My White Supremacy, but this time, without crying (yay!) and did virtual Harry Potter Trivia TWICE.  Both times, the questions were very challenging, but we went from like 12th place to like 6th place so I feel like we’re definitely getting better.  In between those two days, I watched a rat slowly, very slowly, like over the course of 6 hours, slowly die a painful poisoned death.  During this time, I wouldn’t let Percy out in his back yard, and if you thought the whining was bad during the sleepover, try to tell a dog he can’t go in his own damn yard. 



I met Joey and Becky a couple of times at the dog park – basically every time it wasn’t raining.  And then on Friday evening I went over to Dawne’s for dinner, and to find out that she totally has everything you could ever think of packed for our camping road trip so I just need to bring myself.  Which, is super weird, b/c I’m usually the over packer, prepared one.  I mean, I’ll still pack 1000 different types of wipes, antibacterial gel and weird random things that only extra non-campers would back.  But basically, I just need to bring myself at 90 when I’m 6 inches shorter. 

Saturday, I woke up to a text saying that Patrick was graduating!  So I clickety-clicked the link and watched my oldest nephew graduate from good ol’ Lakeland High School! Best (and fastest) graduation I’ve ever “attended.”  Bailey and I opened out Accio box to find it was totally Kitchen themed, which is super fun!  Especially, b/c last month it was bathroom themed, complete with Granger Dentistry toothbrushes! And then I missed an awesome fondue dinner prepared by Bailey.  So instead, I continued celebrating Juneteenth by watching Chris Rock, Wanda Sykes, and Becoming on Netflix. 






Convo with Zach on Friday Night: 


Some Random Funny:




In 2019, I went to the WA beer fest with Becky.  A classic Father’s Day event! I don’t think it was this time (but maybe it was!) I went to this festival, got there and found out that I totally forgot my ID.  So I showed a police officer a picture of my passport, and my maturity, and they let me in.  (This might be what they were talking about with the whole white privilege thing…)

Oh and I saw Zach eating a breakfast of champions!


This week in 2018, Lucas graduated from Evergreen State College.  As we were sitting there, waiting for the event to begin, and I was looking at the program, Zach leaned over to me to ask, “Can I see who is speaking? I’d be really happy if it was no one.”

We all stayed at this little casino / resort near by but no one could handle the smoke inside the casino.  Jordan asked for some used card decks, and then we found every chair on every floor, and brought them all to one floor that had a couple of tables outside the elevators and we played our own poker game.  Jordan footed us all the cash to play (it was all about quarters.)  I ended up ahead (in that I didn’t lose EVERYTHING I was given, and Jordan said we could KEEP the winnings.  I was THRILLED because I had been wanting to vacuum my car, but never had quarters on me.  (The all caps really emphasize how excited I was to win some change.)  Meanwhile, Lucas couldn’t even have the quarters from poker long enough before he was running to blow it all on a vitamin water. Not quite adulting yet… 😊



2017

Momela: Your father was responding to a text from June 10 2013 and wants you to know he does respond to messages.

I think we might have had an oreo tasting party to celebrate the loss of not winning the oreo flavor content (I’m still bitter.)  And what I remember about this particular party is that I ate so many oreos on an empty stomach that I needed 2cc’s of string cheese to balance things out so I didn’t get sick.  I also think I was re-reading Harry Potter – which is fun b/c I’m doing that again now!

I also made a couple of notes from this week that I don’t understand, but I really want to – so I’m going to leave them here and hope someone can fill me in:

1) I dropped my wallet and thought ugh waids. Got a new wallet.

2) Chlamydia = Iceland handshake.

3) Wolverine though! (Knives)

https://photos.app.goo.gl/3m9phZMJo12m2PKRA

And that’s about it folks!  Hope you are all safe and happy. 

Love you!
T O’B

Tuesday, June 16, 2020

Constance Reassurance


Update June 8 – 14

Hi Friend!

Sorry, I’m a lil late but I got distracted yesterday!  

I'm not going to lie - the most exciting thing that happened to me all week was tiktok teaching me how to make a quesadilla in the toaster.  I can't wait to eat these for every meal until I never want to have a quesadilla ever again! 

Monday, a dude came out and was here until 10PM putting in a new water heater. 

Me: (trying to be a pollyanna about the whole thing)…. There was only like 2 or 3 towels of water…
Becky: I like your new measurement of liquid: Towels of water.  Jared wants to know if that’s a metric towel or an imperial towel.

Tuesday, I dove deeeep into educating myself on white supremacy and then you know, felt awful and cried.  I’d be lying if I said this only lasted one day.   Mission accomplished?

Wednesday, Jen made a surprise visit and we walked around my little parking lot for like 30 minutes.  So lovely!  The sun was out and we were able to make an exchange with Claire (6 dozen Brookies for some magical brown butter salted chocolate chip cookies.)  It was such a nice day out that my left shoulder got a bit of color.  That’s right, just the one. 

Also… Sean & Stacey’s 25th anniversary was actually on Wednesday, and my mom continued her tradition of bringing ice cream over to celebrate.  (Sounded like that was a good thing because Stacey was a bit disappointed over the weekend when only balloons were delivered after the parade and they didn’t come with ice cream.  Expectations have been set and they must be met!)

I decided to do a HP trivia, so I asked my two HP buddies, Dr. Rach and Bails.  And then I got this:



Thursday, it turned out to be gorgeous, so at around 4:45, both Percy and I had HAD IT with being inside and we called Lucas and Dawne to meet us at the park.  A much much needed walk. 

We had kind of a rainy weekend, so there were a lot of hugs for Percy.  We found a break of sunshine on Saturday so I dragged Fran and Zach out to the dog park, and then shared a ding dong with Lucas over an intense discussion of the times.  And then Sunday was declared “Jordan’s day!” AKA early Father’s day so there was swimming, games, steak and Artemis Fowl. 



In 2019
Apparently, super boring and I spend most of this week at E3.

In 2018
I’m including pictures one of the greatest car decoration I have ever seen and the two buddies, Casper and Percy.  (I also went to E3 and stayed at a wild and weird hotel and got to have breakfast with the Smalls.)


Raptorific:
              If I were Harry Potter I would have addressed Voldemort as “Tim Riddle.”  He’d be like “IT’S TOM RIDDLE. ALSO, IT’S NOT TOM RIDDLE,  IT’S VOLDEMORT.” Ahahahaha classic Tim.

Slaphat:
              The epilogue for the last harry potter book should have just been thirty-year old harry forwarding dozens of cat videos a day to mcgonagall with the caption “if this u” on all of them.

In 2017, I decided to put together an extra special baby shower present together for my godson-to-be.  The most significant part about this present is that while trying to seal the envelope with fancy wax I managed to light the wax, card and myself on fire.  This magic stuff can be dangerous without proper training!




Monday, June 8, 2020

Tiffany Stanley


Update 6/1 – 6/7

Hi Friend!

Last Monday, Liz dropped off the prettiest bouquet of yellow roses.  Totally random and deeply appreciated surprise.  (Oh! and Percy got a hair cut!)



During a HH this week:

Claire: My husband called me a dungeon troll the other day, so I told him to get out of my dungeon.
Rick: Jennifer told me after several weeks of wearing sweats and an undershirt, that I had to get it together.

I got an antibody test this week.  Not going to lie, I had zero confidence in the whole thing.  My doctor definitely sounded like she was placating me, and then she said, “Good news!  It was negative.”  I’m not sure how that’s good news?  And then she called me back in on Friday to do another blood test, about 2.5 hours after she called me.   I generally have a terrible time having blood drawn.  To prepare for Monday’s draw, I drank water for three full days.  So, in a total panic, I drank about 120 ounces of water in less than 2 hours.  The phlebotomist thought I was crazy, but I didn’t pass out when she took blood, so you’re welcome.  I obviously spent the rest of the day peeing.   I also went in worried something was wrong, so I quickly confessed to my doctor that I have been abusing my body with bad food and lots of alcohol for the last three months.  She said, “Yeah, everyone has.  You’re fine – I just need to check to see if you need a vaccination.”   When I got back to Dawne’s, she made me scones (like the kind from the fair) and we had an impromptu tea party!




When I go to Dawne’s on the weekend, I try to bring some snacks with me.  A couple of weeks ago I brought a shareable size of Reese’s Pieces. And then the following week I brought a shareable bag of Mini Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups.  Jordan walks in the house, sticks his hand in, and pulls it out quickly, as if his hand touched something offensive, and said, “Ugh.  Those aren’t Reese’s pieces.  Those are work!” and then walked away, because he didn’t feel like opening the wrapper.  While I thought this was vastly amusing, I started to really crack up when Zach walked in 20 minutes later and literally did the exact same thing.  Jordan then returned an hour later, took one and said, “Now I’m ready to put the work in.”

Sean and Stacey’s wedding anniversary is on the 10th so, over the weekend they were surprised twice.  Once with a car parade and again when there was a whole dinner party waiting on the lawn of my parents house.  Kenny came and photographed the whole thing, and my face at least was in most of the pictures. 





Speaking of my face, I got a lot of the Tiffany equivalent of Flat Stanley this week.  I thought I would share some highlights:

Becky: What did I do last night? Oh, just spent some time with a friend...








Bre: The kids have really enjoyed playing with your face.  Olivia said the Marian Drew quote "made her think," and that you resemble her SIM character :) Which I guess is like, a huge compliment? 



Water heater started leaking today during my most important meeting of the day – luckily I was sitting right next to it or I might not of heard it at all (or I guess in an alternate universe I might have been at the office.)  For folks counting at home, this means that since stay at home orders my non-covid related “Oh Shit” moments been one a month - including:  

  • Carpet Beetle Infestation
  • Flooded my bathroom
  • Exterminator for the baby rats
  • Water heater leak. (This is the 2nd time I’ve had to take everything out of this closet.)
  • (Percy got really sick, which isn’t house related but was definitely a distraction from the outside world.)

I think it’s best not to include the covid related stuff b/c that’s a thing we’re going through as a community!

This happened back in May, but I think I might have forgotten to mention it.  During the zoom 80th birthday party for my Uncle Jack, Aunt Shirley said: I told the person at the story I had to go inside because my husband is 80 and almost blind and I have to show him what to buy.
Me: You’re a priest's wife!
Aunt Shirley: I had my fingers crossed. 
Uncle Jack: It’s really hard to deal with all the old people. 

Funny from this week:




2019 – I spent this week at licensing show – remember when vegas and conventions were a thing?

June 2 2018 I officiated Rick and Jennifer’s wedding (so I guess it’s appropriate that I talked about them earlier.)  Part of the vows were overshadowed by a jetfighter up above us, but other than that, it was a pretty perfect wedding!

2017
I have a note about “That’s Elvis singing his medley” which I think has to do with me going to my co-worker Chelsea’s house for the first time to hang out at “The 50” (which is what they call their home bar.) I got invited for one drink and ended up staying until 11 – whoops!  We also had a team event to go to the Mariners where some people, but not this person, ate *Free* grasshoppers.  

And that wraps it up folks! Hope you’re all doing well! 



Monday, June 1, 2020

Pray Very Very Hard


May 25 – May 31

Hi Friend!

It’s 9:30 on Monday night, and I am struggling to start this weeks update.  I don’t know why, but I am suddenly remembering the part in It’s a wonderful life, when Janie asks, “Shall I pray for him?” and her mom responds, “Yes, Janie, pray very very hard.”  There are many tough things happening all at once, and I am trying to be a good ally, and safe and responsible, and also sane.  I am also praying.  I am praying very very hard that all humans unite against racism, and that all of the people protesting right now, don’t also get sick on top of all of the other very real struggles. 






As you all know by now, when I am stressed or sad, I focus on others.  So, I sent out a lot of snail mail.  Like a LOT of snail mail.  (someone has to support the USPS!)



Wendy texted me and told me I needed to watch sweet Magnolias because it’s supposed to be like Gilmore Girls (It isn’t. It’s more like if GG was made for Hallmark, maybe.) I had already watched two episodes and gave up, but Wendy convinced me to give it another try.  It was pretty cute.  Here’s the main story, though: my mom told me to watch Council of Dads bc apparently my parents love it, especially Frita. She was like “it’s like party of 5” and I was like “so you cry every episode?” Halfway through the first episode and I can confirm it’s totally true. But I watched all 5 of the current season (on Hulu) and it’s lovely.  (You should know that my mother tells me to watch a lot of things, and I go, sure sure, and then wait years before finding out she’s right *ahem* Harry Potter *ahem* Gilmore Girls *ahem* West Wing *ahem* Madam Secretary … and the list goes on and on…)

Okay!  Monday, super rainy and dreary, with a day off, which is basically a readers dream scenario.  Tuesday, I stressed out about work and people relaxing their vigilance about social distancing. (I just talked to my next door neighbor and she said that the hospital is getting a new wave of covid patients all in their 30’s and 40’s who she suspects were doing exactly that, so I’m not totally off base to worry, but I still need to chill.)  Wednesday, it was GLORIOUS out.  Like truly a perfect day.  I had to deliver some pantone books to folks on my team, so I started with Claire, who had made us all cookies, and her daughter had made us all cool drawings.  She even made Scott a “birthday happy beer”drawing (after saying, “Oooh! Scott! What an unusual name!”) Then, I got to see Joey and the birthday boy (and their adorable pups!) And then, Rick, Jennifer and Allie (who had just gotten her wisdom teeth out, but was still standing, impressive!) and Sarah, too!  When I got home and actually tasted the cookies I found out that they were the most bomb cookies ever.  Basically, all the other people are lucky I waited until I got home to taste them, b/c they would have just gotten cute drawings from Mei. (Claire sent me the recipe, and I will pass it on to anyone willing to share what they bake with me.) 



Back on top of life after being rejuvenated by sunshine and responsibly distanced socialization, I thought I could handle what the rest of the week had in store for me!  Boy were we all wrong about that, huh?  I mostly worked, had a couple of happy hours, and then spent the rest of the rainy weekend with Dawne, or holding Percy safe from thunder – oh and we went to Marymoor. Lucas made roasted butternut squash and some yummy pasta (even though it wasn’t green, Dawne still said it tasted like a vegetable.)  I was just impressed that Lucas made us all dinner!  And we watched the news unfold, and tried to figure out how we could help and generally contribute to progress.  And also we had chocolate and beer.




Here are some additional fun bits, including some pics from the 80th birthday we threw Frita this week three years ago!







Much Love,
T O’B