Gotta Love 'Em

Whether you're married to a man or not, you have at least had boyfriends or brothers or hopefully fathers. You've been around men enough to know that most of their quirks are not unique to just them, but seem to come with the species.

This post is motivated, of course, by something my special husband did that may be surprising to some, but not to anyone who knows a man. Not just any man, but a man who finds himself helpless in seemingly simple situations. A man who, for some reason, though grown well into adulthood, finds himself vulnerable and childlike when in the presence of a woman. A man who is the epitome of the Youtube video "Man Cold." This man is the kind who will tell you he can't find something he has searched everywhere for, upon which you move one very obvious item to discover the missing "something." The man whose idea of doing the dishes is rinsing them with water and returning them to the wrong cupboards. The man who you won't even let do the dishes anymore because it's just too much hassle to undo the damage. My man doesn't do any of these things, but my attention has been brought to this question...are men really this helpless or are they manipulating us into thinking they are so we will give up and do the work ourselves?

I never considered the manipulation idea until I was enlightened by "Everybody Loves Raymond" a few years back. Raymond's brother, Robert, was getting married and he was semi-annoyed with all the pre-wedding tasks, but felt obligated to be a help to his fiance. Raymond offered advice from his own experience to just do a bad job, offer bad suggestions...basically do poorly whatever was asked of him. This way, the fiance would appreciate him for still trying, but would slowly let him off the hook. Genius, I thought. Do men really do this in real life? Was my husband one step ahead of me? A few nights ago, my question was answered.

Trey takes Ambien on occasion to help him sleep, but the effects can often be annoying to me, ie: he does/says weird things he doesn't always remember in the morning, until the moment he does fall asleep he won't stop talking, etc...) So I decided we should also try a more natural sleep aid called Melatonin. The second night we had the pills, I took one and left the bottle by the kitchen sink. Trey asked me a few minutes later where the Melatonin was and I told him where I'd put it. The next day, I saw some pills on Trey's nightstand. Walter, our dog, sometimes has a bad habit of eating his own poop. It's disgusting, but apparently not too uncommon. I went to the pet store to get some pills to remedy this and had left them on the kitchen counter...nowhere near the Melatonin. However, Trey picked up the first bottle he saw and popped the pills without a second thought. He did notice they were very grainy and pretty gross tasting but went right on swallowing. The second I saw the dog pills on his nightstand I knew what had happened. He'd mistaken the don't-eat-your-own-poop pills for his sleep aid medicine. I told him the pills were in the kitchen and he didn't doubt me for a second, not even enough to actually read the medicine label.

And that's when it occurred to me...men really are that helpless. They trust us women with their lives. They may not clean so great or find things so great or be sick so great, but they sure can trust us pretty well. We can't blame them if their natural inclinations are not to clean at the first sight of mess or take care of themselves when they have a minor cough. I love that Trey can rely on me for absolutely anything and he knows that I will always come through for him. I'd rather have a man who trusts me to the fullest than one who can clean my house. At least that's what I'll tell myself as I slave over the dishes.

And just in case you were wondering, the pills worked. Trey didn't eat his own poop the next day.

Where would I be without my iPhone

Right now I'm coming at you live from my iPhone, which on an everyday basis is, in theory, retarded in my opinion. No one would rather blog from their phone than from a nice Macbook. Today, however, I've run across some bad luck. After getting out of the shower, the doorbell rang. I went downstairs, turban towel and all, answered the door to a mean electricity man telling me he was shutting off my electricity since I haven't paid my bill since February. Funny, since I've lived here one month and the company takes care of my utilities. Too bad, he doesn't care that my name is not Collin Gehl. He doesn't care that my hair is still wet and could use the electricity to run thru my blow dryer. He simply flips the switch to the off position and leaves, not without showing me that Collin's balance is 420 something dollars. Normally, I could survive this situation. Normally, my husband wouldn't have gone out of town this morning and left me carless. Normally, I wouldn't be stranded in the middle of Kansas with no friends, family, Internet or cable. Aside from all that, I called the electrical company and luckily they can't come for two days. Goodbye delicious produce and other food I bought at Costco yesterday. Hello tears. I called Trey to see if he could rescue this damsel and sure enough, he did...mostly. I guess the company forgot to take care of the utility situation and were getting right on it because as the lady on the phone put it, I was in panic mode. Wouldn't you be? After waiting for an update, I learned that the soonest they can turn my power back on is sometime tomorrow. My survival skills kicked in as I loaded up a huge suitcase full of fridge/freezer food and dragged it down one flight of stairs and up another into our empty office fridge. I only spilled pickle juice and salsa everywhere. Other than that, no problems. Here's the part in my story where I'm proud of myself. I did dispose of most of the produce as I'm not going to walk to the office everytime I want something but I did decide to make the best of my raspberries by making some jam. Mom would be so proud. It's only been 4 hours and already I'm so bored. But, the moral of the story is, I love my iPhone. I'm a person that needs technology in any form. I'd even read a book if I had one. All I have is my phone and my two dogs to keep me company. And less than 3 hours of daylight until I'm just sitting in the dark. Looks like I'm popping a sleeping pill at 9:00 tonight. Tell me, how would you entertain yourself if you were me? Maybe you're better than me. Maybe you don't need a car or tv or Internet or friends or books or noise or cold food or lights in your bathroom or your hair done. If you don't, maybe you were born a century too late.

Update on Kansas

We moved from Atlanta to a suburb of Kansas City a few weeks ago called Overland Park and shockingly enough, I really like it here. I thought it would be desolate and lame like it sounds but it's actually very nice. We probably live in the nicest city in Kansas, which helps...so I guess the rest of the state could be lame. Where was Dorothy from? We got to visit some church history sites last Sunday. The one in the above picture is Adam-Ondi-Ahman, which is basically just a big green parky area if you don't know what went on there or what will go on there. I think we're planning to go to Liberty Jail this Sunday.

My job since we moved here is to babysit this little guy. His mom sells out here and since I quit that long ago, I'm available to watch him for 6 hours a day. He loves playing in this dog cage and sometimes I lock him in there when he's naughty. Just kidding Carrie :)
Life is going good. We move back to Utah in 2 months or so. Is that sad that the only reason I don't want to move back is because there are way better restaurants here?

The Bachelorette

This whole season I've always felt like Ed would be chosen in the end, even when I liked others better. Even when others had much better bodies and much longer shorts, Ed just stood out to me and I couldn't understand why until a few weeks ago. I can basically sum it up like this...Ed is a dork and Jillian is a dork. Together, they are perfectly dorky. Side note...Did anyone laugh as hard as I did when they showed the guys getting ready for the final rose and they showed Ed in his boxer briefs? He has received some serious leg time on this show. 

Kiptyn was a nice, cool guy. That second adjective is why he wasn't really in love with Jillian and why it never would have worked. He was cool. She was not. If those two met randomly on the street or got set up outside of reality tv (which I would like to discuss later), maybe they would have gone on two dates. Jillian would have wanted more, but Kiptyn probably wouldn't have given her the time of day. This whole season I felt like he was forcing it for the sake of the show. Maybe it was wonderful and magical at the time, but once their dates/trips weren't paid for by ABC, their relationship would have been over. Deep down, I think Kiptyn knew this and that's why he didn't propose. That's also why he accepted defeat much too easily. That's also why the cameras stayed on him awkwardly too long in the limo waiting for him to shed a tear and he just couldn't do it. Have you seen The Holiday with Cameron Diaz? That's what it reminded me of...like he was trying so hard to cry but he just couldn't muster out a single tear. 

Reid...nice try. You got dumped not once, but twice. The best part is that you were 100% certain she would choose you and those white shoes. You said that you had to pull some serious strings to come back to Hawaii but I'm going to call your bluff on that one. I guarantee ABC was just eating that one up. Oh, the drama! I feel bad for you because you were funny and made fun of Jillian to her face, but life goes on. Mine already did.

I think I laughed more during this episode than any one before it. Jillian's facial expressions were to die for. She kept reminding me of a beaver last night. Fast forward to the last 20 minutes and you'll see it too. Which kind of brings me to my next point...reality tv. Why do they call it that when it definitely isn't? They should call it semi-reality tv. First off, 30 attractive, successful men going after you at the same time is not reality. If it is, I got screwed. Secondly, reality is not traveling to Canada, Spain, Hawaii and wherever else with all these men you've known for weeks. And third and most important, I do not see reality every time Jillian stands on her balcony or a cliff and stares into the distance, pondering all that is before her. What I see is the producers saying, "Ok Jillian we wanna get a shot of you doing this or that. Go stand over there and look over there and pretend to be deep." I'm not buying it. 

I could make fun of this show for many paragraphs more but I will refrain. Many have asked if I will be watching More to Love, the overweight version of the Bachelor. That all depends on how desperate I get for entertainment, but I can tell you now I will not be blogging about it if I do!

Joey and Janice's Day of Fun!

On Sunday we are moving to Kansas City to finish out the rest of the summer so Trey and I decided to at least attempt to visit some of the places Atlanta has to offer before we take off. We started out at the aquarium, which is apparently the largest aquarium in the world. We went in this tunnel under a very large tank full of fish and I think it made me claustrophobic cause I was not feeling so hot afterwards. It was either that or the 8 foot dead squid they had on display. 

This whale shark is supposedly a big attraction here. They have 4 of them that were shipped over from Taiwan thanks to UPS and watching the video on that process was pretty cool. You can pay $225 to swim with them, but we weren't trying to get too crazy. Who spends $500 for one aquarium visit? Just go to the ocean and swim with the sharks for free. 

After the aquarium we walked over to the World of Coca Cola. Coke was invented in Atlanta so they've made an attraction out of it with some exhibits, a 4D movie theater (my favorite), and a tasting room full of different Coke products sold on all the continents. The majority of them made me gag. I think pee probably tastes better than most of the drinks I tasted. Here Trey is toasting his free Coke Zero that they hand out to everybody. 

4D movies are one of my favorite things in life and luckily we got to go see 2 on this day. Even though I always cover my face when the water sprays I can't stop laughing and loving it. The best one I've ever been to was with my mom out here in Atl. So far, nothing has come close to that, but the 2 from this day were still pretty fun. On a side note, I got an iPhone this week and I am in love with it. Why have I not gotten one before now when I am the second biggest Apple lover I know?

28 down, 1 more to go

Well well well. Look who the final two are. The two I initially liked from the beginning. Do I still like them? That's beside the point. I can tell you that I liked Kiptyn more after this episode and apparently Jillian did too. However, when those two are together they tend to turn into Mr. and Mrs. Winky McWinkster. What is it about them winking all the time? Ultimate cheesiness. 

Poor Reid just could not express himself if his life depended on it. I think maybe he'll do better though with a girl he actually has time to get to know and love. I don't blame him for being logical and not falling in love so dang fast. It was funny when they sat on the bench after he got dumped and Reid just would not take a hint and leave. Was he hoping she was going to take it back? He says, "So what do we do now?" And Jillian says, "We say goodbye." Ouch. 

Ok guys, let's not blame Ed for forgetting his swim shorts and having to borrow Jillian's. Wearing hers was better than wearing nothing, right? But seriously, that's where my laugh out loud moment came this week...seeing that first sight of Ed in those shirts and gasping aloud to myself, "What?!" Oh and also, I laughed when Jillian sat on the bench and cried after Reid left. I guess I laugh every time someone cries. Except when Ed's dad cried, that was cute. 

I see Jillian picking Ed in the end. Kiptyn doesn't seem serious enough and Ed is ready to propose and that seems to be the only thing Jillian cares about. She has wanted an engagement from the very beginning and hasn't really considered the possibility that she might need more time. The whole "leap of faith" speech is semi-retarded. I see that to a certain extent, but to take a leap of faith on a ridiculous reality show is one of the dumber things a person can do. 

Don't let the door hit you on the way out

Not only has Kiptyn slowly been climbing down the ranks in my bachelorette book, but after the Spain date, he took a major leap to the bottom. Somebody should sit down with Jillian and have her watch the movie "He's Just Not That Into You" so that she can get a clue as to what's going on in Kiptyn's head. In Kiptyn's defense, Jillian is an awkward girl who seems to fake sincerity so maybe it's hard to have a connection with her naturally. I decided that she is a tomboy who wishes she was more girly and genuine causing her to try too hard to be someone she's not. That's why she blurts out feminine phrases in manly voices. 

Reid actually impressed me more on this episode, but he may have had some help in the fact that he followed Kiptyn's date. I like that Reid jokes around and makes fun of Jillian, but I don't like that he can't seem to talk when it comes to anything serious. Reminds me of myself at 20 and luckily I grew out of that...mostly :) Maybe it's just annoying because Jillian has to fish so hard for compliments. 

At this point, I think it's hard to say who will win in the end. I still hope that it's Ed, but comparing to all previous bachelors, it almost seems that Jillian isn't close enough with any of the guys to be getting engaged any time soon. Who knows though? It could very well be Reid, the guy she said she'd normally never go for but the only one she can really be herself around. 

ABC wasted our time by even having a rose ceremony this week, except to show what a dirtbag Wes is, along with being a horrible dresser (is that brown jacket the nicest thing he owns?). Jillian should've said goodbye to Wes at the end of their date since we all knew he was going home anyways. That was an awkward dinner and I'm shocked it lasted as long as it did, but it was entertaining to see how uncomfortable they both were as Wes finally decided to give up the act. I did enjoy that he thought he might have a chance at going to the fantasy suite, though. That was funny.

No laugh out loud moments this week. Mostly just lots of awkward and uncomfortable ones, which still hold a place in my heart, right next to Michael. Speaking of Michael, why does Jillian let go all the guys that are actually falling in love with her? Have any of the remaining three even come close to saying "love?" Wasn't it cute when Michael said something about straight up loving that girl? She blew it. Move on, Jami.