Daily life

Alarm goes off at 5:30 am.
I get up and hit snooze three times.
Finally Kath or I get up and shower while the other tries to catch a few extra minutes of sleep... usually I'm the one groaning and Katherine is one getting up.
Sometimes Puck or Ty bother us for food about this time... or at 4:30 am (because it's super fun to wake up your people an hour before they really have to get up).
We get dressed (because it's good not to go to work unclothed or in pajamas).
We drive to Starbucks and get coffee - we are now regulars - when we walk in, every barista knows our order: "2 grande bolds with room for cream". We particularly like the red-haired older male barista. I don't know why. He's just nice.
Kath drops me off at work.
We work.
Kath coaches.
Sometimes I moonlight after regular work.
We come home.
We sometimes cook or eat out or get take-out. (We are no longer as-regular regulars at our old favorite Red Stripe, which is a good sign.)
We may watch TV or read.
We sit on the couch.
I try to sneak in bed early... around 9:30. Katherine may catch me doing this and try to give me a guilt-trip but it doesn't work. When I'm tired, I'm tired and I fall asleep no matter what.
Katherine moves the car into our parking spot at 10pm.
We sleep.

It starts all over.
It's good.

No fault of her own

Poor Kats. I woke up angry at her this morning because I had a bad dream in which I was super angry at her. It's weird how we can experience emotion in our sleep, but I woke up and those images of my dream were so prominent and vivid... it was hard to let it go. She gave me a kiss on her way out the door, and I said "you're lucky I'm kissing you after that dream." Poor girl. I'm punishing her for things that never even happened. I guess that's the good part of it, though. I know my bad dreams will never come true.
Well, my mind knows it.... somehow, she still pays the price, though.

We're home!

We're getting our first guests in our new apartment this weekend.... Kath's sister La! And maybe a cousin. Finally... room for visitors. :) Then, one day after La leaves, my sister is coming. It's a windfall. Now it really feels like we're home.

Kath is so excited that she is having a dance party in the living room at 8am as I type this.

Hope's Elegy

I found that tiny grain of
hope
within and crushed it.
It was too much and not enough.
It was a virus that needed to be
Killed.
Now
Sadness, grief can enter.
For things that were, things that are gone, things that will never be.

And
joy for things to come.

Good things

Great day with family on Cape Cod yesterday - perfect sail and beach day.
Grilled brats for supper - 1st time since living in Iowa.
New featherbed topper.
Wickford art fest today.
Coffee in bed.
Kitty cuddling.
Harry Potter in 5 days.

I love summer.

(Photo courtesy of La.)

Sorry, I'm already married

Rhode Island just legalized civil unions, after failing to get same-sex marriage to a vote.
So, how does this work? We're already married. We have a marriage license from Massachusetts (somewhere-Kath put it in a "safe place" when she moved to Iowa, and we have yet to discover where that "safe place" is). Our marriage is recognized in multiple states.
So, there's no way I'm going to pay more money to the state of Rhode Island to have a second-class title given to our relationship.

Thanks but no thanks.

(Sometimes it's hard to believe that Rhode Island was founded on progressive ideals.)

It's a foregone conclusion

I used to wonder how I will die, or even what the best way to die would be. I've since stopped wondering how I will die. It will be one of two ways - aspiration pneumonia or choking.
I think Katherine has developed PTSD from the number of times that I've choked while eating... not choking as in doing the Heimlich, but choking/coughing requiring water or choking/coughing followed by a piece of food flying out of my mouth and my comment of "oops.. that went down the wrong tube." Every time I cough while eating, she has this look of trepidation as if to ask "Do I need to intervene? Quick... what's the universal sign for choking?" This has kind of become a running joke, except for the fact that Katherine heard about a newlywed couple in which the wife died suddenly from choking on a marshmallow. So, not so funny. That story was awful and sad.
So, last week when Kath was at her conference in New Hampshire and I was home alone, and I swallowed a chip that was apparently the exact diameter of my esophagus and I could feel the peristaltic contractions over and over and over but that chip was not moving, I did panic a bit. But, the good news was that it had gone down the correct tube, so I could breathe, and I just drank a gallon of water and softened that chip up and down the tube it went... after about 15 minutes.
But, I also had an important realization. Not only will I die by choking, but it will be a chip that kills me!

I need more ammo against these chips, because giving them up cold turkey just isn't working, and my chip baby is still hanging on. Maybe this knowledge will convince me to stop eating so many chips.

Hmmm... except for that old adage...
keep your friends close but your enemies closer.

Chips... we're about to get even better acquainted! (I'll tell Katherine I'm eating for my health.)