Hey, Y'all!

It's Like I'm A Magnet

I sometimes attract weird people in weird places. I come by it honest--my parents are the same way.  My dad sees zany stuff every day as he goes into people's homes for inspections. (He's a claims adjuster for an insurance company.) I think my favorite of his experiences was the time he went in to inspect a kitchen fire to find his clients had a pet monkey in their house...and the monkey smiled at him.  People love my mom, especially older people, so she finds herself in a lot of conversations with strangers.  I  must have one of those faces that makes people think I really REALLY care (Not that I DON'T care, but, um, yeah, ok, sometimes I just don't). Over the years, I've found myself in some truly bizarre conversations with complete strangers.  I've also had the pleasure of meeting several versions of "that person." You know the one...he/she has no "edit" button.

A few weeks after Dean was born, we visited my in-laws in DC.  Every time we visit them, one of the top items on my trip agenda is "Visit Costco." I LOVE Costco and we are not members, so I have to get my sample fix while I'm with the in-laws.  So, there I am, walking around with tiny baby Dean snoozing in his Baby Bjorn when a woman practically jumps out from behind an enormous box of cat litter screaming, "LOOK AT THE BAYYYYYYBEEEEEEEE!"  She then says, "Hold on!" and runs an aisle over to retrieve her shopping cart which contains a huge bundt cake and her three year old twin daughters.  "THIS IS WHAT THEY LOOK LIKE WHEN THEY'RE THREE!!  RIGHT HERE!" Um, yeah, lady. I've seen children.  I smile, answer a few questions about his birthdate and weight and such, then politely walk towards the croissants.  A few minutes later, I'm standing in line to grab myself a free buffalo wing when this woman literally materializes out of nowhere and screams, "ARE YOU BREASTFEEDING? Because if you are, spicy stuff is not good for our baby!" OUR baby? Call me crazy, but I'm fairly sure she had NOTHING to do with the creation of Dean Lane.  As I stood there, searching my brain for a reply, the man serving the hot wings pipes up with, "Oh, no! My wife ate tons of spicy food while she was breastfeeding! It helps increase your milk supply!"  At that moment, and this is not just my imagination about 20 sets of eyes were pointed directly at my, uh, "girls," shall we say, so I did what any self-respecting new mom would do...I grabbed myself a hot wing and hid behind a vat of olive oil.

My encounters with strangers are not usually quite that dramatic or traumatic.  In fact, some are quite pleasant.  There's a delightful older gentleman in our town whom everyone refers to as The Judge. He is, in fact, a retired judge turned cattle farmer.  When we first moved here, we frequented our one coffee shop a lot because you can do that sort of thing with one immobile baby. Now that Dean's his own man? Not so much. Anyway, nearly every time we went in for months, The Judge would come and sit at our table.  Sometimes he'd ask to hold Dean. (And we'd let him. He has 14 grandkids and knows what to do.)  He'd always tell us, "Now when he's older, you'll come out to the farm and he can ride a pony, ok?"  Those were nice encounters. I still run into The Judge in town and he has become more of a friendly acquaintance than a stranger, which is nice. That one had a happy ending.

Over the summer, we went to the new Sno Biz in town. I was very excited to get a shaved ice and enjoy the tacky tropical decor.  I worked at a Sno Biz in high school, so I knew the menu and didn't need any time to select my flavor. Dean always gets strawberry, so I walked right up to order. (Marcus stared at the wall for 15 minutes trying to pick a flavor and ended up with blue raspberry and grape mixed together.)  The guy at the counter rang me up, then stopped and asked, "What'd you have for dinner because MAN do you guys smell! Is that curry?"  We'd had something involving Cajun sausage and onions and, ok, we DID smell, but dude. You don't say that to your customers!

My most recent stranger moment was a doozy. But I did get a pretty good recipe out of it, so there's that.  It will be featured in my Friday post over at Food Lush.  Tune in and hear, as Paul Harvey would say, the rest of the story.

Got a freaky stranger story of your own? Tell us!

Pardon me while I refer to my favorite Monty Python quote*

SO! Since yesterday's post was sort of heavy, I thought I'd lighten things up a bit today.   I have to tell you of a sort of Twilight Zone-esque, freaky thing that happened. Our union  (Actors Equity) sends out a quarterly publication called "Equity News." I always look forward to getting mine so I can read about the  goings-on in theatres  around the country and look for people I know in the pictures. They do a lovely feature on the back page called "Final Curtain," a place to honor Equity  members who have recently passed away.  I always skim the list, but this month I made sure to look because I knew my dear friend Sonja's name would be there. I found her name (which was misspelled...grr...), then kept glancing down  the list. Imagine my surprise when I saw this:

 
That's my maiden name.  Here's the thing: In our union, your name has to be completely unique. When I was unmarried, I was Jen M. Nelson because this lady was already using  my "regular"  name.

I'd better go update my Facebook status so people will know I'm still around.

*I'm not dead yet!

Time Suck

Marcus and I are going through a breathtakingly mature phase that involves us sitting on our couch eating cookies and watching Autotune the News on Youtube for at least an hour each night after Dean goes to bed. (If you're going to hit that link, be sure you scroll down and watch their "Bed Intruder Song.")  We also spend countless hours Facebook stalking people and cruising the net for little useless nuggets of wisdom.  Tonight I spent close to 30 minutes searching for a good chicken pot pie recipe, even though neither Marcus nor I even LIKE chicken pot pie. (And you know Dean's views on poultry.)

I visited Cake Wrecks 3 separate times today because the most recent post featured "Dueling Banjos" as background music.  Marcus is sitting here playing some game where you build little towns.  When we first got married, we would sit on a trivia site, a site whose name escapes me right now, taking pop culture quizzes.  In fact, we got so into it that we started writing our own quizzes to submit to the site and they liked them so much that they gave us an award.  Could we please be a bit more geeky?

I say all this so that I can ask you to tell me your favorite time-sucking internet sites.  You know you have them.  You can look over at my blogroll and see where I spend a lot of my time, but you should also know that I've almost always got my Skype window open so I can chat with Shannan and my Tweetdeck is rarely closed.

What's your favorite guilty pleasure website? 

OUCH with a side of EW

It started out innocently enough.  It was Monday evening, the 5th of July, and we'd just returned home from a rollicking good weekend at my parents' house.  Marcus had rehearsal, so we decided to go to Wendy's for a quick dinner before going our separate ways for the evening.  I was jazzed about getting a taco salad, one of my favorite fast food meals EVER.  I get it every time we go to Wendy's. I can't even tell you the last time I looked at a Wendy's menu, in fact, because we always get the same thing:  Taco Salad for me, "Lady Burger" combo for Marcus (my pet name for his Single, no cheese, with ketchup, mustard and pickles ONLY), and hamburger kids' meal with oranges and milk for Dean.  I approached the register, which was being run by a trainee named Britney, who had a less-than-pleasant attitude, and began spouting off our order.  Rufus, the manager training Britney, looked at me like I'd sprouted an extra head and said,"Ma'am, we don't have a taco salad." Um, WHAT?  "We have a Baja Salad, but not a taco salad."  Now, we ate at Wendy's on June 9, which was the day we returned from vacation, and guess what I had?  TACO SALAAAAAD!  So I was all, "HUH?  When did this happen?" and Rufus was all, "Uh, I think a couple of weeks ago" and I was all "Why did no one contact me!?!?  I haven't even seen a commercial about this!" which led Rufus to ensure me that I'd like the Baja Salad, especially the red jalepeno dressing. (NOTE TO SELF:  Next time someone offers you red jalepeno dressing, BACK AWAY!)

Anyway, Rufus talked me in to trying the Baja Salad and it only took Britney 7 tries to ring it up on the register.  It looked ok, mesclun greens covered with raw tomatoes (GAG), chili and a giant blob of incorrectly-colored guacamole.  I was not presented with tortilla strips, much to my disappointment, but Britney threw in an extra packet of red jalepeno dressing for good measure, I suppose.  Long story short, it was nasty.  I do not recommend it.  Bring back the Taco Salad.

Dean and I were so disgruntled by our dining experience (his hamburger was literally drowning in mustard) that we didn't even get a Frosty.  When we arrived home, he bolted for the backyard.  We spent some time playing on the deck with some rocks he'd found,then he headed over to Marcus's boat.  Just as he reached for the hitch, I saw a wasp swarm at his little baby head.  I scooped him up and swatted him pretty hard on the side of the head just as a wasp stung the fire out of my knee.  Dean was screaming, I was screaming, wasps were swarming, so I started running (very hard to do in flip-flops carrying a 30 pound child and limping).  We ran inside and straight upstairs, where I grabbed the phone and did all I could think to do while I checked Dean's head for a sting:  I called BJ the Manny.  Marcus was already in Birmingham and I was terrified I was going to go into shock and die or something.  Dean suddenly stopped crying and jumped off the bed to go and play with my robe, so I figured he must be ok. (plus, I never found a sting on him)  Meanwhile, poor BJ was driving like a maniac to get to us because here's what I told him:

Hi, I need you to come over NOW! Some wasps attacked us and I think I'm allergic and my EpiPen isn't here and...there just needs to be another adult here!

I put a cold washcloth onto my sting, then flicked the stinger out with a gift card. And  OH MY GOD PAAAIN.  I was sure I felt wasp poison travelling up my leg and I assumed it would make its way to my throat eventually.  I took a Benadryl and prepared myself for respiratory distress. Finally, BJ burst through the front door screaming "LET'S GO TO THE HOSPITAL!"  I told him I thought I was ok, considering shock had not yet set in.  He then bolted to the kitchen and came back with a box of baking soda, which he proceeded to pour onto my sting because apparently it didn't hurt QUITE bad enough. (Very thankful I'd shaved my legs that morning.)  After a while, the enormous bump began to stop pulsing, the sharp pains got less and less, and the Benadryl kicked in.  BJ insisted on staying with us until Marcus got home, which was good since the Benadryl kicked in! (Was loopy! Should have blogged then!)

It's 3 days later now and the sting itches like you would not believe. Every time I get a little twinge or pain on the left side of my body, I'm sure it's wasp poison trying to kill me, but Marcus disagrees. All I know is we bought the biggest can of wasp and hornet spray you can find and they are going DOWN. (Marcus will be doing the spraying, of course.)

HEY, Y'ALL now has a Facebook page!  Click on over and "like" it, won't you?

A Dean by any other name

Dean has a lot of nicknames. Marcus and I like to fancy ourselves a bit like Sawyer from LOST and give people and things special names.  There was a little convenience store just outside our apartment building in NYC that Marcus called the Hootie Mart.  That's not what it was actually called, but I always knew what he meant.  He actually referred to 3 different stores as Hootie Marts, and I always knew which one he was talking about. (Sweet or sad?  The world may never know.)  His creative naming has certainly carried over to things we call our child.  Here's a list of some of our greatest hits:

Deano the Bambino:  My dad actually coined this one right after Dean was born and it stuck.  In fact, most of our friends call him "Deano."

Gangsta Dean:  Another one from tiny babyhood, inspired by this hat:

If that ain't gangsta, nothing is.

Dean Bean:  My mom and her friend Pauline gave him this one.  Pauline's British and refers to herself as "Old Bean."  She calls my mom "Kidney Bean" since her transplant, so when Dean came along, they naturally gave him a bean name of his own.  How convenient that it rhymes.

Sham-Wow:  I'm actually responsible and VERY proud of this one.  Dean sometimes licks the side of the bathtub, which earned him this moniker.

Dingo Warrior:  Marcus's favorite of Dean's pet names.  He says it's his wrestling name.

Gigabyte:  For when he gets the giggles.

Sancho Panza:  Dean once picked up a wooden spoon as if it were a sword and he were going to help slay a windmill. That earned him this one.

Spinderella:  When he spins around and around and around.  Not to be confused with Tiny Dancer when he's doing ballet or Irish Step Dance.

Nermal:  World's cutest cat. (nephew of Garfield)  Short for Sweet Sweet Nermal Muffinhead.

Coco Chanel:  Who knows.

Senor Stank-pants:  If you'd ever changed one of Dean's diapers, you'd understand.

Frat Boy:  Because he looks like one when he hasn't had a haircut in a while.

Hugh Heffner:  When he wears flannel PJ's with the shirt unbuttoned.

Nudist:  Self-explanatory, but usually involves him escaping a clothing or diaper change.

Evel Knievil:  When he stands on his tricycle.

Poor sweet, innocent baby born to two crazy theatre people.

Dean head-butted me in the mouth and knocked out all my "create a clever title" cells

I got home from my week of freelance work on Saturday.  We had the hotel room through Sunday, but the bed was awful (meaning SOFTY MCSQUISHY SQUISH) and they didn't have cribs (!!!!!!!!), so Dean was sleeping between us, which is never a good thing.  SO we decided to head home on Saturday evening.  Marcus and Dean had re-joined me in Montgomery on Friday and Dean was MAD AT ME! This is the longest we've been apart since he was 9 weeks old, so he wasn't thrilled that I'd been away.  I held out my arms to take him and he buried his face in Marcus's chest and clung to him.  Hello, broken heart because my baby stopped loving me while I was out of town! Ok, so he actually got over it pretty quickly, especially once he figured out I was the one who knew where the milk was.  Friday evening, we had a lovely dinner with some friends I worked with in grad school and their adorable daughters.  Dean started to crash around 8, so we headed back to the hotel. We bathed him, gave him some milk and read his bedtime books, then tried to put him down to sleep.  He jumped up, slid off the bed and commenced to run around the room for THREE HOURS.  He went to sleep just after 11.  He was wild. He tried to eat my hairbrush, unpacked all the socks from the suitcase and threw them in the bathtub, hid all his books in a dresser drawer, demanded that I spin him around in the swivel-chair again and again and tried to play in the toilet.  We finally caught him and bundled him in a towel picked him up gently and put him in the bed and turned off the lights.  We tried to be as still as possible and FINALLY, he fell asleep.  I'm pretty sure it was after I fell asleep, though.

The play I worked on was fun.  I had a great cast and an awesome director.  The play itself was very interesting and sparked a lot of discussion. It was a truly collaborative process, which I love, and I think we all gave valuable input that will help the playwright with his next step in the writing of this play.  Our reading for the public was on Saturday and was followed by quite the post-show discussion!  Folks get passionate about these plays, which is what makes the project so much fun.  My only disappointment of the week is that I didn't get to eat at El Rey, my favorite burrito place in Montgomery.  They have stopped opening for lunch and that was the only free time I had to go.  So sad.  That means we'll be making another trip soon.

On the way down last week, guess where we stopped for lunch and shopping?

 

OMG, can you believe there's ANOTHER one?  This one's south of us.  We actually had a great lunch at the Islamorada Restaurant inside Ye Olde Bass Pro Shop.  Dean likes fish and chips, apparently. This trip also inspired Marcus and Dean to pick me up a little prize while I was gone:

 

Why, yes, that IS a pink and purple fishing rod!  I plan to use it on vacation next month.  Even if I don't catch anything, won't I be cute and prissy?

By the way, THIS Bass Pro Shop had some "bling" for the camo truck we saw at the last one:

Yep.  For $29.99 you too can own antlers for yer truck.  Go git u sum!

God bless the deep south.

On Wednesday, I head to North Carolina for a training session at the SETC central office.  I'll be learning the software for my job as state-auditions-coordinator-chickie-with-the-pink-and-purple-fishing-rod.  But what I'm REALLY excited about is my first IRL meet-up with one of my blog friends!  On Wednesday evening, I will have the pleasure of Ilina's company! Ilina writes for Deep South Moms and Foodie Mama, as well as her own awesome blog.  She is extremely fiesty, smart, funny and just plain cool.  This makes me feel somewhat better about not being able to go to Blogher this year.  I'm seriously considering figuring out ways to get my job to send me to all of the towns where my favorite blog friends live so that I can visit more of you.  Tis a good plan, I think.

And finally:  Grey's Anatomy season finale.  Holy cow.  Discuss.

Why you will all be getting pre-packaged Easter cards from me

Soooooo, yeah.  I decided last year that THIS year, I was going to buy Dean some bunny ears for Easter.  Then it dawned on me, wouldn't it be cute to put them on him and take a picture so we could do an Easter card!!?!?!?  Well, sure it would!  I trapped him  buckled him into his booster seat and tried to put the ears on him.  What happened next reminded me of this LOST A SOCK post that Molly did just before Christmas.  Poor lady could NOT get her three kids to pull it together for a Christmas photo.  I should have known this would never work.

 

Mooooooooooooooooooooom, I'm trying to drink my milk!  Quit puttin' ears on me!

 

Sadly, I think that's the best picture I took, milk goatee and all. Just leave the ears on for a minute, Dean, so Mommy can get a picture.

 

You mean theeeeeeeeeeeeese ears? 

I then realize that maybe I should give him Stu, his favorite monkey/constant companion, to hold.  Perhaps having a handfull of Stu will keep him from ripping the ears off his head.

 

Not so much.

Then I think, Hey! How cute would it be if we spelled out an Easter message on the fridge with letter magnets?

 

Extremely cute! Now let's see if we can get one with the baby actually IN the picture.  Look at Mommy Dean!

 

No, Dean, look at MOMMY.  Over here.

Yep. That's mommy over there.  Nope, she doesn't want to wear your ears. YOU wear the ears.

 

Uh, dude.  Could you get Stu out of your mouth so I can take the picture, please?

 

Wait! Come back! I said NO ESCAPING!

Maybe a change of venue is what we need.  Let's go downstairs.

 

Yay! Now I can rip my ears off in the family room, too!  Here, Mom.

 

Thanks.  Maybe if I hold them on your head...

 

Please...just...one...picture...

 

Uh, except it would be nice if you were FACING THE  CAMERA.

Wait, Dean, what are you doing?  Don't...

 

Very good, but I don't think people will want an Easter card with Jonathan the monkey on it.

One more try...

 

Oh, forget it.

 

Happy Ea ter, y'all.

Spring break wrap-up

I'm writing this on the eve of our return to "normal" life.  This week has been nothing short of perfect.  We had no set schedule, no agendas, just each other.  We were able to spend a good, long weekend with my mom and dad, then come home for what turned out to be a great week chock-full of family fun and really good food.  This week solidified the fact that we made the right decision by choosing not to work this summer.  Marcus and I both understand what a privilege that is and we intend to make the best of our time.  If this week was an indicator of the fun to be had, we are in for a very good summer!  These are the times I want Dean to look back on when he grows up.  Obviously, he won't remember this particular week, unless of course, he reads my blog archives.  Then he will probably die of embarassment when he reads my Bass Pro Shop post from yesterday. :)  Someday, I'd like him to look back on lots of family time together with leisurely lunches, trips to the park and lake, fun times on the boat, vacations, homemade dinners and even just fun days hanging around the house.  I hope he will like the fact that he has parents whose jobs allow them the same breaks from school that he will get.  Eventually, he'll get sick of us and want to go his own way more, but for now, it's been nice to live in our little universe of three all week.

 

Spring break is totally rad...

 

Swinging at the park.

 

Fishin'.

 

Playing in the straw.

 

Grilling up some andouille, peppers and onions to put on our pasta. MMMMM!

(Apparently spring break means everything in your kitchen gets to have a vaction right on the countertop.  Look at that! Fryer, crock pot, parchment paper, baby cookies, travel mug, chopper, even bubbles, all out!  GAH.  It's not usually like that, I promise. )

 

Playing with our fun new magnet set.

 

My plant babies!  (Casey, if you're reading this, LOOK AWAY!!!  She kills plants via the internet.)

 

Is it just me, or is this one even better than the other one?

UBP Continues...BOAT PARTY!

Let the party continue!  I thought we'd do something a little different today for two reasons.  First, you all deserve a cool party location.  Second, I want to tell you all about our trip to the Bass Pro Shop this week. (Yes, I am a good wife and actually SUGGESTED we take a day trip to the Bass Pro Shop an hour away.)  Take your seasick meds (that's for me), slather on some sunscreen and climb aboard this little beauty:

 

This picture really doesn't do her justice.  There are speakers.  There are TWO chaise lounges.  There's running water, a shower, a fridge and a cooktop.  She is beautiful.  Anyone wanna guess how much she costs?  Only $52,000.  I should buy two. (HAAAAAAAAAAAA!)

No, that boat's not in my near future.  But I did get to hang out in the captain's chair for a bit.

 

So, the Bass Pro Shop.  Marcus had a gift card he got for Christmas and I figured our spring break week was as good a time as any to make the trek over to look around and see what all the hype was about.  If anticipation counts for anything, this place has got it going on.  You have to wind up this crazy-long trail to get from the highway to the store.  Then, once you reach the parking lot, it's like a theme park. A theme park of outdoor stuff.  Marcus was happy, but I was actually more excited than he was!  Dean was just happy to be out of the car.  As you can see in the picture, the sky was clear and blue and the weather couldn't have been better.  Outside, there were a few boats and some awesome vehicles painted with a camo pattern. (Oh, yes, they were.)  It was like I'd died and gone to redneck heaven. I have not yet decided whether or not that is a good thing.  You walk into the giant wood doors, complete with deer antlers for handles, and are greeted by a sweet old lady.  She went nuts over Dean and told us where to find everything we were looking for.  I couldn't stop giggling.  It was mostly funny that we were actually in this place, but even funnier that I was having such a good time.  We visited the boat showroom first, where I found the lovely lady you see me "driving" in the photos above.  Marcus got all logical on me and gave a 5 minute speech about how our money would be better spent on a pontoon boat.  Uh, dude, we don't have $20,000 to spend on a boat.  And...YOU JUST GOT A BOAT, so you're not getting another one. Especially not for $20,000.  Unless we win the lottery.  Then it's a whole other story.

We wandered around, looked at the t-shirts, showed Dean the big aquarium, which is NOT as impressive as they make it out to be, and got a few things for our boat, like life jackets and bait.

I think my favorite thing we saw in the shop was this:

 

That there is a CAMO CROCKPOT!  You know, so the deer won't see you while you're making your chili?

They also had a wide variety of toy firearms for the little ones:

 

You do understand that this is one of THREE four-sided display cases, right?  Just makin' sure.  There's also a shootin' gallery on the second floor.  And stuffed animals (the kind who have had a visit to the taxidermist) EVERYWHERE.

 

Wow, a wild boar!  I feel just like one of the castaways on LOST!

The shop also has a general store where you can get a sandwich, some ice cream or homemade fudge. I sampled several different flavors of fudge, caramel praline being my favorite.  Overall, it was a really fun time.  I feel like I should add that I am in no way making fun of the shop or anyone who patronizes it.  We were obviously there shopping and we are outdoorsy geeks.  But this place? WAS A RIOT!  Maybe because I'm me and sort of prissy sometimes. But if Marcus wanted to go back, I would probably not argue much.  It would give me another chance to test drive my next car:

 

Moooooooooom, you're embarassing me!  Do they have macaroni and cheese here?

With this ring...ugh

Disclaimer: The pictures in this post are fuzzy. All of them. And they weren't even taken on the same camera or at the same time. This is proof that my photography skills have not improved, even though I have a better camera. Alas.

This is my engagement ring. (The whole wedding set, actually.)

 

 

 

I think I took this right after we got married. Anyway, I love my engagement ring. LOVE it. It's beautiful and Marcus picked it out all on his own and it's perfect. I bent the prongs around the diamond once and the diamond fell out into my laundry basket, but then we got it re-set in a four-prong setting instead of the weaker six-prong setting it originally had. It looks gorgeous sitting atop my wedding band and is super-sparkly.

That was my engagement ring right after we got married.

Here is my engagement ring now.

This actually happened two weeks ago, but until now, I just haven't wanted to talk about it. It makes me want to cry. Here's what happened.

About 4 months into my pregnancy, my finger got too fat to wear my engagement ring, so I put it away and just wore my wedding band. I should point out that my engagement ring is a size 5, my wedding band a 5 1/4. Why I didn't get my engagement ring re-sized to fit on top of my band, I don't know. I'm sure it was partially laziness and partially money, or lack thereof. Anyway, it was never a problem before I got pregnant. SO. Everyone knows I swelled up like a balloon at the end of my pregnancy and my fingers never quite got back to their usual shape and size, what with losing most of my baby weight, then gaining again, then losing again. But I HAVE lost some and my wedding ring has been sliding around a lot. Two weeks ago I noticed that my wedding band had spend most of the day facing backwards. (It has channel-set diamonds and I had been seeing the back of the ring.) I thought to myself "WOW! I must have lost enough weight to get my fingers back to normal! I wonder if my engagement ring will fit?!?!" So upstairs I went. I got my engagement ring out of the jewelry box and slipped it, almost effortlessly, onto my finger. I was so happy to see it there again. I ran downstairs to show Marcus. Then I tried to take it off. You can guess the rest.

Here's the part where we talk about all the different ways people and the internet tell you to get a stuck ring off of your finger:

 

SOAP. Should make it slippery, right? Not enough.

LOTION. Tried three different kinds. None of them worked. The ring would turn around, but wouldn't move up and off.

PREPARATION H. It's an anti-inflammatory, right?

COOKING OIL. See lotion.

BUTTER. See cooking oil.

KY JELLY. See Jen blush that her dad knows what that is.

WINDEX. Apparently it's a miracle worker. Every website I visited (and you'd be amazed at how many there are) said to spray your finger with Windex and the ring would twist off in less than a minute. Of course, I was out of Windex, so I tried the other options first. Eventually, after the other options FAILED, I went to the store for Windex. By this time, I'd been smearing stuff on my finger and pulling at the ring for almost two hours. My finger was turning very red and getting chafed. We gave it the ole college try, but Windex, too, failed me.

SO...off to the jewelry store I went where a nice lady cut my ring off my finger with a tiny saw. And then I cried.

Poor Marcus. I think we've officially reached the "this thing has cost more for repairs than it cost for me to buy it" point. I haven't dared to ask when we can get it fixed.