Things That Make You Go...GAH$*&%##@!***!!BRAHSHSFF!

Well, not really, but kind of.

While Sarge is not exactly True Wife Confessions worthy, there are some things that he does that leave me wondering.

Exhibit A:
I guess someone could not find the small ziploc bags this morning. I know I'm crafty like that hiding them by placing them directly in front of the large ones!
I think that it's time that someone had a promotion from Sarge to CAPTAIN OBLIVIOUS!!!











Exhibit B:
I find this every day when I wake up. Notice the hamper is not three feet away from the discarded shorts. This is actually not that bad because usually there are some undies and socks along with the shorts, and sometimes a t-shirt.
Sarge did actually explain this phenomenon to me later. He says that the stuff on the floor right next to the bed is stuff that he is going to wear later. It's not actually dirty. So all this time I have been picking up the clothes from the floor and putting it in the hamper. Sarge has been wondering where his "after work shorts" have absconded to, and I'm wondering why he uses so many pairs of underwear a week.

Granted I'm not perfect. I'm sure Sarge hates that I keep all my unfinished crossword puzzles filed in a pile next to the bed. And that I refuse to maintain his orderly shoe filing system in the hall closet, when I bother to put my shoes in there at all.

I guess we're even.

Why I Am Mommy de Gallo

I used to be known as Piko's Mom. That's what all of Piko de Gallo's friends call me. However I never really thought about how Piko herself thinks of me. So, I asked her.

Hey, what's your name?

"Piko de Gallo!"

What's Daddy's name?

"RealFirstName de Gallo"

What's MY name?

"MOMMY de Gallo!!!"

Apparently I as a person have ceased to exist.
I am Mommy, Mommy am I.

Midweek Observation

I saw a commercial for a new show that Discovery Channel is putting on this season. It's called Man Vs. Wild. It's along the vein of Stranded, and Survivor Man. Guy gets dropped off in the wild with only the basics, and teaches you how to survive.

What I thought was really appealing about this new show is the host. Bear Grylls. Totty plus survival skill, YUM!

And then the more I saw of the show, I began to notice something.

Hot-cha-CHA! And I get to stare at him every week. Hopefully while sliding down a mountain his shirt will get ripped off or something equally exciting.

Eye M Stoopid

So Sarge and I were driving around Fairfax yesterday after taking Piko de Gallo to the 18th Century Farm Market at the Claude Moore Colonial Farm (a strange but fun experience in and of itself)(Which is next to the George Bush Center for Intelligence!!! We laughed...and laughed....and then I had to stop, because of my own stupid). Sarge is applying for a job in NoVa, up near Dulles Airport, so we are toying with the idea of becomming first time home buyers. Sarge says he does not want to be 40 and never owned his own home. Me I'm content to live in whatever housing the military gives us. It's a whole comfort zone thing I guess.

Anyway, on to the stoopid.

I'm looking at the map and I ask in all seriousness.

"So, West Virginia. That's it's own state right?"

"YES!" Sarge replies. "Way to go college girl!"

In my defense, the map we have has a little map that says WESTERN Virginia.

Edited to add: Actually that justification makes me look even stupider as really, I should just know that West Virginia is a state.

The 20 Longest Minutes of My Life

Naturally a de Gallo trip to Maine can't all be good eatin' and crack.

There was the 20 minute ride to "The Island" (Bar Harbor). 20 minutes I will never get back. 20 minutes of brain cells dying a slow and painful death. 20 minutes of wishing I was in a room filled with people, being forced to remember names.

What could have been that bad?

I'll tell you.

A 20 minute conversation about the leaves turning.

So I'm not a country gal, but I can admire nature's beauty, and the loveliness of the season. I like the fall, I like the golden leaves. FABULOUS!! However, 20 minutes of talking about it can grate a tad.

And the participants in this conversation were not people who are not used to seeing this phenomenon (like me, I'm from Hawaii, the leaves never change there. On my first winter trip to the East I actually asked why there were so many dead trees. I failed to grasp the concept of leaves falling off for the winter.). These are East Coast lifers, people who have spent up to 80 years watching the leaves turn.

I'm just an ass, because these ladies were just trying to be nice, but my brain still melted.

Crack

There is something about Piko de Gallo that cracks me up (hur-hur).

Because she has no waist, her pants just will not stay up. And I think that we teased her a little too much about wearing her pants "like grandpa" that she tends to pull them low on her hips.

That killer combo leads to many incidences like this

A little lobster in my pot

Other than the lack of Starbucks, and over abundance of Dunkin' Doughnuts, Maine was pretty darn cool, fattening, but cool.

The in-laws have a new neighbor who is a (very hot, in that no collar, working class kind of way, plus he is a redhead.)lobster fisherman, and gets them their lobsters on the cheap, $3.50 a pound. Father in Law (FIL) decided that upon the glorious return of his golden boy son a lobster feast was in order. The man ordered 20 lbs of lobsters!! That's right, 20 lbs!!! That came out to about 22 lobsters. 22 lobsters for 5 adults and 2 children!! I think that I ended up eating about 3 tails and 1 whole body, and maybe 4 claws. With about 1/2 cup of butter of course. Surprisingly I did not get the lobster shits the next day.

Food at the in-laws (IL's) is just crazy. I feel like all we do when we go there is eat and eat some more. And that bastard Sarge introduced me to the wonders of fried dough at the Fryeburg fair. I had never heard of such a thing. Whenever we have gone to a county fair there has only been funnel cake, which I am not that big a fan of. But fried dough, it's heaven in hot oil. I was very excited to know that Sarge's grandmother makes a killer fried dough, and that she had plans to make some for us. I had my notepad at the ready to capture her secret recipe. I was a bit disappointed when she pulled a bag of store brand white bread dough out of the freezer. However I was not sad the next morning when she had the Crisco a bubbling and a slab of fried dough with butter, powdered sugar and cinnamon waiting on the counter for me. Deep fried heaven.

Eating out in Sarge's town is great as well. Only 5 minutes from his parent's house is Jordan's Snack Shop. They make the best chocolate shakes, crab rolls, crinkle fries, fish sandwiches, cheeseburgers, and onion strings. The past two times we have been to Maine it was Christmas, so Jordan's was closed. Lucky for us they were open until the end of October this year. And you know we were there just about every other day.

The day that we spent at the Freyburg Fair was a nutritional diaster. Other than the glasses of orange juice that we had for breakfast, we did not eat a single healthy thing. Fair food was the menu of the day. Pizza, Fried Dough, Kettle Corn, Ice Cream, Cotton Candy, Gyro's. My arteries are hardening just thinking about it. And then we went home and had a marshmallow roast to round the day out.

In the end the only member of our family who lost weight on our trip to Maine was the dog. Here she is having a swim at the IL's camp...brrrr that water was cold. Well, there would be a picture if I could get one to load.

Coffee

Well, I can report that there is no Starbucks in Ellsworth, Maine.

They do have Dunkin' Doughnuts, and one of those Coffee-On-The-Go drive thru shacks.

I'm just not that desperate. It's not like the in-laws don't have a working coffee maker, it's just that when they brew, it's usually a 2 Tbsp. grounds, to 12 cups water ratio. So I have to drink about 5 cups to get me through the morning, 10 cups if I know we're going to go a visitin', and if I really wanted to pee that much, I'd just drink tea. When I brew it up at home, my spoon practically stands up in my cup.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not exactly a huge fan of Starbucks, it's a bit pricey for me, and I think I make a better cuppa at home. It's just one of those conveniences that I enjoy on occasion. I suppose that I could just go to McD's as they are now serving iced coffee. Probably much cheaper too. I guess to me a Starbucks on every corner is a symbol of civilization. Does that make me some kind of snob?

So I mentioned that Ellsworth has a Dunkin' Doughnuts. Well, every single little town and hamlet here in "Downeast" Maine has at least one, sometimes even two. I am serious. The first time I came to Maine 7 or 8 years ago, I made a joke that it's all pretty much the same. Each town is School, Main Street, Church, Dock, Blueberry field. Lather, rinse, repeat.

These days it's School, Church, Dunkin' Doughnuts, Main Street, Curves, Dock, Blueberry patch. I think Dunkin' Doughnuts and Curves have entered into some kind of evil covenant here in Maine. But by the looks of things around here Dunkin' Doughnuts is coming out ahead in this deal.