Why I Love My Husband

A few months back my husband was able to figure out how to fix a $600 wall mountable TV for about 39 cents. He hung the TV proudly, and rightfully so, in the den/computer room. Ever since then he's been talking about adding a DVD player to the setup. I have, on multiple occasions reminded him that we don't need a DVD player in the den. As proof, I asked him to recall a time that he wanted to watch a DVD, and was not able to do so on the main living room TV. Of course he couldn't name a single time.

When he came home from work today, he began adding the DVD player to the den TV. He was walking in and out of the garage, drilling holes in the wall, and the whole 9 yards. As he crawled under the desk I was trying to work at for the third time, here's how our conversation went:

ME: (Seeing the DVD player and knowing full well what he was doing) What the hell are you doing under there anyway?

HIM: (Pointing to the wires hanging from the TV to the DVD player that sits below) That is ugly, I'm running the wires through the wall from here to there so you can't seem them. Whaddaya think of that?

ME: I think it's riddiculous and uneccesary.

HIM: (In an honest and playful tone) Yes. But it's not ugly.

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The Eyes of A Cynic

For the past several years, every time I've left the Sam's Club I've wondered if the little lady checking the receipts as you leave has ever actually busted anyone for stealing something. A few bulk shopping trips ago, thinking I'd get a good story, I asked in a playful tone, "So, have you ever really busted anyone for trying to steal something?" She looked at me seriously with a stern face and said, "No, just once in a while we'll find something that a checker forgot to ring up." As I headed to my car I tried to remember the point in my life at which an honest mistake became an impossibility.

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Damn you msn.com!

Here I am having, a decent time on a Friday night. Listening to music, making a birthday cake. I jump on line, check my email, log out and then....

The story in the middle of the page reads: "A Final Look Up for a Little Girl: Pixar fulfills dying wish for 10 year old."

Decent time over.

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Pictures

I've recently started taking pictures again. I'm not sure why I ever stopped. It's not as though one day I said, "Screw you pictures I quit you." I think it's quite simply, taking pictures requires a certain level of commitment that often eludes me. All of the "Low Battery" and "Memory Card Full" jibber jabber is super demotivating. Consider:

MOCK SCENARIO 1: What? Something cute is happening? Oh hold on, let me get my camera. Ah shit where did I put it? "Bren, where's the camera? On fridge...okay got it." Hold on kids! Keep doing that cute thing you're doing! I'm almost there! Oh man hold on, the batteries are dead. Let me change them quick. Keep holding that pose. Triple A, Triple A, 9 Volt, C...."Damnit! Bren do we have any more double A batteries?"

MOCK SCENARIO 2: What? Something cute is happening? Oh hold on, let me get my camera. Ah shit where did I put it? "Bren, where's the camera? On fridge...okay got it." Hold on kids! Keep doing that cute thing you're doing! I'm almost there! Sweet! Full battery! "Okay, say cheese" "Sonofabitch! What do you mean Memory Card Full?!" Ahh, let me see (reviews pics in play mode). Should I delete the one of the girls holding hands on the swing, or the blue sky with a cumulonimbus formation?

Despite the inevitability of the above scenarios, I've pushed forth in the face of adversity and I have to tell you, I'm happier. Over the past 3 weeks I've taken more pictures than I have in the past 2 years and it's fantastic. Our 10 day, 2 state family vacation was better than I had imagined and I've got over 150 pretty damn decent pics to look back on. Yippee, hooray, good for you one might say, but what is the point? Precisely this: Life is better when you take pictures of it. People can experience wonderful things, almost anything they want to, backpacking through Europe, watching the sun set from a mountain top, witnessing the birth of a child, whatever. But I ask you, what good is an experience without an embrace? Actively taking pictures requires an engagement that validates the moment. It's the affectionate acceptance of a memory.

And so, I encourage you to hug your memories - take more pictures!

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Sing It

I think a woman who complains that her husband never listens to her and/or forgets important things that she tells him would benefit greatly from adjusting her presentation style to one based on song. Success would be most probable if the information were sung to the infectious melody of an already existing song, however, I'm sure more talented women could pull it off with their own original melodies as well. Imagine it....

To the tune of "I Would Walk 500 Miles" by The Proclaimers: We must go to dinner at your moms house a week from Sat-ur-day.

To the tune of "Rehab" by Amy Winehouse: Dentist appoint-ment on Tuesday, you must GO GO GO!

To the tune of "I'm Too Sexy" by Right Said Fred: Our kid. Just bit someone at school. Her teeth did not break through. Teach was dis-plee-eased.

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Virtue

If a person, who eats and enjoys chicken, one day decides that eating chicken is wrong unless the chicken is an organic chicken raised on a Utopian chicken farm, what does she hope to gain? If ever such a chicken could exist, would it's death be any less tragic simply because it was raised under optimal conditions?

Is the acceptance of immoral actions solely under idealistic pretenses not the grossest form of arrogance?

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Notes from my pocket

From time to time I tend to write down my thoughts in little pieces of paper and then jam them into my pocket. Sometimes I pull them out and think about the ideas again, sometimes I forget about them all together. Here are a few recent ones that managed to elude a tragic fate that constantly lurks in the washing machine:

I've decided I'm going to try to tell people to enjoy things instead of have nice ones. I've based this on the fact that just because you have something good doesn't mean you enjoy it. If I tell you to, "Have a nice day." You may have a perfectly wonderful one, but unless you enjoy it, what's the point?

If Texas left the Union, how much would it be missed?

To the people who don't think global warming is real - what's the harm in pretending it is? At least this way we'd have ourselves covered just in case it was. Imagine your child is locked in a room that may or may not be slowly filling with smoke and fire. Wouldn't you do anything and everything in your power to bust that door down or at least contain the flames? Our kid's kid's kid's kid's kid's may essentially suffocate one day. But then again, maybe this is all part of a greater evolutionary plan and the human race will one day have super human lungs or something.

Do I love the people whom I love dutifully or freely?

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