Third Anniversary

Three years ago I married this person at the Church of St. Mary in Lake Forest:

And I was really jazzed about it:

And today, I still am. 

Straightforward, unambiguous, full throttle love. We're all in.

Geoff, I thought about posting a poem about love for you. Then I thought about you raising your eyebrows and saying, "Hmm. A poem."

So here's a joke instead. 

Happy Anniversary!

A newly married couple decides to honeymoon at the Watergate Hotel in Washington. The bride is concerned and asks, "What if the place is still bugged?" The groom says, "I'll look for a bug." He looks behind the drapes, behind the pictures, under the rug. Finally, he says, "a-ha!" Under the rug was a disc with four screws. He gets his Swiss army knife, unscrews the screws, throws them and the disc out the window. The next morning, the hotel manager nervously asks the newlyweds, "How was your room? How was the service? How was your stay at the Watergate Hotel? Was everything alright?" The groom says, "It was fine. Why are you asking me all of these questions?" The hotel manager says, "Well, the couple in the room under you complained -- the chandelier fell on them."

2014 Garden Report

Garden Report

2014

Sunflower seeds planted: 250

Sunflowers: 3

Sunflower seeds enjoyed by neighborhood animals: 247

Strawberries: Purchased from Lake Bluff Garden Club Garden Market

Planted in partial shade (dumb)

Strawberries: 4

Lavender: Purchased from Home Depot

Going strong, has plenty of room to grow (see: Sunflowers)

Basil: Dead

Watermelon: Dead

Bachelors Buttons: Dead

Black Beauty Zucchini, grown lovingly from seed in my basement starting in April

Zucchini blossoms: 100

Actual Zucchini: 4

(What am I doing wrong?)

Tomatoes, grown even more lovingly from seed by my Master Gardener mother

--Better Boy, Big Beef--

Tomatoes galore. Caprese salad every day. Tomato sandwiches.  Salted tomato slices for snack. We're starting to take on a slightly pinkish hue from eating all of these tomatoes.

I find myself rearranging the tomato bowl every day, bringing the ripe ones to the top.

The One about a Minnow

Do you know any good fish jokes? Let minnow.

My 30th Birthday

This is me on my 30th birthday.

I spent the weekend at Maquoketa Caves State Park in Maquoketa, Iowa, which is coincidentally about 30 miles west of the Iowa-Illinois border. I was accompanied by my steadfast camping companions, Geoff and Cubby Dog. We piled our gear, a few blankets, our headlamps, some beverages, and plenty of good cheer into my old Jeep and headed west into the setting sun.

Liberty road warrior

If this sounds poetic and romantic, it wasn’t, because we also left the printed directions and all the information about our campsite on the kitchen counter at home. And also I burned all of our paper maps the last time we were camping and didn’t have any kindling and I said, “Oh these old things? We’ll never need these stupid maps. Twenty-first century, dudes.” And once we veered off the interstate and onto county roads, our smartphones went from a few bars of service, to one bar, to no bars, to a message informing us, “NO SERVICE – YOU’RE LOST, YOU DUMMIES.”

We finally stumbled upon the state park in the pitch black night by sheer luck, and two friendly Iowa DNR rangers riding around in a golf cart in the dark (??) very kindly pointed us to our campsite. So actually I guess it was pretty great, and now I know I can set up our tent by myself in the dark of the night using only the light of the moon. Hashtag empowered.

The next day we hiked all the trails. We got to the park early and seemed to have it almost to ourselves for a few hours, which was a real treat. We scrambled up and down cliffs and bluffs. We leapt across a small river. We put on our headlamps and crawled in the caves, sometimes far, and sometimes not so far. We were adventurers for the day.

In the late afternoon we hopped back into the car and visited the nearby Tabor Family Winery. They let us taste just about everything. I’m no wine snob (I drink table wine on the regular), but I will opine that wine made from Iowa grapes is nothing to write home about. The fruit wines, though, are another story: Tabor gave us their cranberry wine, raspberry wine, and blackberry wine made in the port style, all of which were excellent and all of which we bought to serve ice cold with cheese as a final course at future fancypants dinner parties. We bought a bottle of the sparkling wine called "The Toast of Iowa” and drank it on the spot, outside, overlooking the Grant Wood-esque landscape.

We spent the night under the stars with a fire to roast our mallows, and we got the chance to talk about our dreams for our 30s.

I was sad to leave the next day but very happy to go home. My family made a birthday dinner for me, and my sister decorated the house like a boss:

There are so many things I like about this birthday: reconnecting with nature, unplugging from the constant pull of email and the internet, and plugging instead into the people in front of me. The luxury of having unscheduled and unstructured time. I like the beginning of feeling more comfortable in my own skin.  I can’t wait to see where my 30s take me next.

The One about a Snail

A snail slowly slimes his way into a car dealership.

"Can I help you, sir?" asks the salesman.

"I hope so," says the snail. "I'm looking for a really fast car."

"We have many cars that go fast," replies the salesman.

"Do you also do specialty paint jobs?" asks the snail.

"Why, yes, we do. What are you looking for?"

The snail says, "I'd like you to paint a large letter 'S' on the door." 

"That's a strange request," says the salesman. "Why would you want that?"

The snail says, "When I drive by, I want people to say, 'Look at that S-car go!'"

The One about Dinosaurs

What do you say when you see a blind dinosaur?

Do you think he saurous???

Try

This is great. More of this please.