Uni-wiggle

These are my new shoes. They have individual toes. They are so fantastic that I can not help but hop up and down with excitement every time I put them on. I got them yesterday. So in the last 24 hours there has been a lot of hopping. A LOT.

However, there is a darker side to the shoes. They have brought to light my glaring inability to wiggle my toes individually. I must wiggle them all back and forth together in unison or not at all. A, uni-wiggle, if you will. It has been this way for as long as I can remember, and It bring Chris endless amusement. Oh sure, he can wiggle all his toes which ever direction he wants. He can even snap his toes. HE can play twinkle twinkle little star on the keyboard with his toes. I ask you, how is this fair? It is not.

So there we are at the shoe store and I'm trying on these shoes because they are so fun and weird that I simply must have them and the only real question is what color should i get. I stick my feet out in front of me to examine them and Chris looks and me and says "now wiggle your toes."

I do my sad little uni-wiggle and Chris starts to laugh. The sales person looks perplexed. "No" he says "like, really wiggle them. You should be able to move them all back and forth." At this point Chris has had to place both hand over his face to muffle his fit of snickering.

"Um" I say sheepishly, "I can't wiggle my toes like that"

"Oh well if you can't wiggle your toes then you'll need a bigger size you should definitely be able to move them all around. They are probably too..."

"No" I interrupt "I can't wiggle my toes like that ever. I can only wiggle them all together. Like this." I do the uni-wiggle again while simultaneously delivering an elbow jab to my husband who is TOTALY LOSING IT. Stunned, the sales person just stares at my feet. "So," I ask changing the subject, "Can I wear them out?"

Featured Neighbor: Automo-Living Room

There is a man who lives down the street from us and every single time I drive past his house (which is twice every day at least) he is sitting in his car. The car is running, the parking lights are on and he, well, he is just chillin' in the driveway. It goes without saying that this is weird. But the intriguing part is that it doesn't matter what time of day it is.

He is there first thing in the morning often reading the newspaper. In the afternoon sometimes he naps. In the spring his sits in there with the windows down clearly enjoying the fresh air. In the winter sometimes the car will sit there running with all the snow still on it. Which begs the question which would be weirder, to scrape all the snow off so he can see out the windows or not to bother since he is isn't going anywhere anyway.

Now, I don't mean to come off as if I am stalking the guy but this is impossible to miss. And once you've noticed, even more impossible to ignore. I decided that the whole situation would somehow be less weird if I could get him to wave at me. So I tried to get him to wave. I would wave as I drove by on my way to work in the morning. Nothing! I waved as I ran by with the dog on the weekends. Na-da. I even contemplated a friendly toot-wave combo. But I've already discussed how I feel about honkers so that was clearly not an option. I thought maybe if I rolled down the window and reached my hand out to wave that would work. Maybe he couldn't see my hand inside the car. It didn't work. I saw not even the slightest movement he just stared blankly through the windshield.

Unable to make any sense of this car-sitting madness I mentioned it to Chris. " Dude, he was just sitting there drinking a cup of coffee and reading what appeared to be the most enormous hard cover book ever in his car." Chris shot me a dubious glance. "So let me get this straight" he said " he just sits in his car? All.."

"With it running!" I interjected.

"OK, OK, with it running, all day long?"

"YES" I scream while jumping up and down like Rumpelstiltskin. "Isn't this weird?"

"Yes it is weird, please stop jumping up and down like that. You look like Rumpelstiltskin or something"

"NO! I mean the guy in the car! Isn't that weird?" I asked rolling my eyes. " He won't even wave. I've been waving at him for months and it's like he can't even see me."

Chris agreed to make a point of looking the next day when he drove by. When I got home from work the next afternoon, I burst through the back door yelling "Did you see him?? He is out there right now! Did you? Did you see?"

Chris fixed me with a very serious stare. "Yes. I saw him. Oh man, that is so weird."

"I told you!" I crowed. After which we immediately sat down to discuss all the possible reasons that this guy is using his car as an alternate living room. These are the possible scenarios that we came up with:

1. His wife is really, really mean and suffers from acute motion sickness. Thus, the car is his only safe haven.
   
2. He is not a real person but, in fact, a wax figure that the people living in the house pose in different positions to freak out their neighbors. *If this is correct, I would like to meet and befriend these people. They sound awesome.
3. He can not afford to heat his home so he sits in his car with he heater running instead.
4. His front seat is the most comfortable chair he owns.
5. He is crazy.

In the end we decided that scenarios 1)mean, motion-sick wife or 2)prank wax-man were the most likely of the 5.

Featured Neighbor: The Honkers

My neighbors (no not those neighbors, the ones on the other side) like to honk their horns. I mean REALLY like to honk. These people probably have to replace the horns in their cars because they get so much use that they wear out. Seriously.

This is why I call them the honkers. Arriving home? Honk! Leaving? Honk! Throng of children blocking the driveway? Honk! Garage door opener out of batteries? Honk! The wonder that is honking has not escaped their friends either. They think that a car horn is the same as a door bell only more convenient because you don't have to get out of the car. People come over constantly. If a quick BEEP doesn't get the attention of the people inside the driver may try a longer beep or even a series of beeps. Sometimes it starts to sound like a novel translated into Morris Code out there.

Recently, a giant truck pulled into the honkers driveway and laid on the horn just as I was in the middle of walking across the room with a bowl of molten soup filled right to the brim. The honk didn't startle me enough to spill, however, it sent the dog into a barking frenzy. He sprinted across the room, barking, and crashed into my leg. Then I sloshed my soup all over the floor. And me. And the dog. I put the soup down on the table and got a napkin. So now I'm kneeling under the table wiping up the soup and they honk again. Feeling a little edgy, I jump and promptly bang my head on the underside of the table. Warp does not bark. He is too distracted because he is busy trying to lick soup off his back. Rubbing my head I get up off the floor and sit down to eat. As I am lifting the spoon to my mouth I hear "Beep Beep Beep Beep Beep Beep". I start slightly but my will is ironclad. I inch the spoon closer. As I open my mouth they lay on the horn again only really loud this time and I jump. Again. And splash soup on my face. Feeling vaguely shell shocked and dripping soup, I decided to cut my losses and have a sandwich instead.

Not a monster truck... technically

This is our snow blower. Or as I like to refer to it, Ghengis Khan the snow eating machine. This thing has to be seen to be believed. It has gigantic monster truck tires that would make a redneck blush. So you don't get stuck it has 4 wheel drive and it is a stick shift. Like they put in sports cars. I have added it to the list of stick shift things I am not good at driving including Chris's last car. Until Ghengis came along, I didn't even know that they made stick shift snow blowers. But, evidently they do.

The handles heat up so that your fingers don't get cold, because, lets face it, if you need a snow blower this huge you live in the friggin' arctic circle. An since here in the arctic circle it is dark all the time, no snow blower could be with out a head light which we also have. This thing can eat through 18 inches of heavy wet snow with out so much as a shudder thanks to the churning auger of certain death. You just drive straight at the giant pile of snow and it just grinds it right up and shoots it out the top.

This brings me to the most notable feature of the snow blower which I believe was an after-market addition by my father-in-law the last owner. The automatic, wife-locating snow thrower with 20 foot range. If I got outside while Chris is clearing the driveway, it doesn't matter where I stand. I will be pelted with snow by a force equal to the launch of ten thousand snow balls. The black chute that throws the snow will swivel in circles searching until it locates me. It's like one of those heat seeking missiles. A wife seeking *snow* missile. Once it has locked onto it target, namely, me, it doesn't not matter if I bob or weave or even run in the opposite direction. I will be completely covered from head to toe in an icy white blast. Interestingly, the technology is so sensitive, it even works if I just stand at the window. Perhaps it has face recognition too.

Piece of my heart

This is the title of my all time favorite song, as performed by Janis Joplin, my all time favorite singer. Evidently, this song has also inspired my dog to become a kleptomaniac. Perhaps I should start at the beginning.

Sunday night Chris baked a heart-shaped loaf of English muffin bread as a Valentines day treat. It was cute. It was thoughtful. It was delicious. Well, the first half was delicious. The second half I can't vouch for because my dog somehow got it down off the counter while I was at work on Wednesday. He ate the remaining half loaf of bread. And part of the bag. I suspect he may have had an accomplice. We yelled at him, he acted all guilty and sulked around the house for an hour or two and that was pretty much the end of it. Until yesterday.

Valentines Day. Chris brought home a gigantic heart-shaped cookie and places it on the counter. We each ate a small piece and left to go grocery shopping. Two hours later we returned home to find one overturned paper plate, several small piles of crumbs and one small black dog having what appeared to be a mild psychotic episode in the middle of the living room. Crap. He ate the whole dam cookie! And he knew he was in trouble so he was hiding. Except, he was so ramped up on sugar that he couldn't hold still. So there he stood cowering under the table while simultaneously hopping up and down and wiggling. Chris and I looked at the dog and then, at each other. What is it with this dog and heart-shaped baked goods?

Featured neighbor

People say to me all the time your neighborhood sounds insane interesting! Are all your neighbors as weird as the ones next door? The answer is definitively, yes. And then it hit me. This whole town is a freakin' blog goldmine. Seriously! So effective immediately you can look forward to my "featured neighbor blogs" Each entry will describe one of my other many, many, weird neighbors who, until now, have been unknown to you. This will continue until 1) I run out of neighbors or 2) I'm run out of town. Both outcomes are equally likely. One thing is for sure. If he were still alive, Mr. Rogers would be heading for the hills!

An update is in order

I thought I would take some time off from blogging at Christmas and then a week turned into a month and a half. So here is an update on the latest & greatest:

The gondolas were a smashing success. No little children drowned while racing their tricked out Venetian gondolas down what used to be the gutters over my garage. Phew! It took until late January for me to forcibly coerce Chris to remove the rug he stapled to the ceiling. It is now back in front of the washing machine and true to his word, the holes from the nails are really tiny.

The laundry death shanty has been detached from the side of the neighbor's house. Please note I did not say taken down. I said *detached*. It has now been relocated in it's entirety along with it's contents (one dilapidated washer and dryer) onto a more mobile platform. The walls roof and wood braces are now wedged firmly inside the confines of a tiny trailer. You know, the kind with the sides that fold down? It's now a *MOBILE* death shanty. I can only imagine this thing tethered to the back of a rusted out van skipping down the highway at 70 MPH.


In other news, it is snowing here. And by snowing I mean, we are being buried alive. The snow is up to the mail box. This is our window:
We have to stand on the ledge to see out the top. You know, until the cruel mistress that is winter seals us in for good. I am reminded of that movie march of the penguins. Except where we live makes Antarctica look like something Jimmy Buffet would sing about. Over here on the left you can see our dog. The snow is taller than him so we have to shovel paths though the backyard so he can, um, go. His exact thought at the moment I snapped this photo was "Screw you. I am moving to Hawaii." And who could blame him?