cat named pig

It’s been a while since Halloween, so why not break out the costumes for Father’s Day?

If you follow Matt on Twitter, read his status updates on Facebook, or have simply had a conversation with him in the last few years, you will know that he is obsessed with Surly beer. (And with good reason; it kicks a lot of rear end in the beer community.)

So recently I’d been noticing an… umm… accumulation… of tall Surly cans lined up by the sink in our basement. Since this seemed to involve more deliberate effort than simply forgetting to recycle them, I decided to ask Matt what was going on with the Surly cans.

Me: So, what’s going on with those Surly cans?

Matt: I haven’t decided what I’m going to do with them yet.

Me: You haven’t…  decided… what you’re going to do with them yet?

Matt: [shrugs]

Me: What, like, you’re going to build a raft with them or something?

Matt: Yeah, you wouldn’t need to use as many cans as with a regular beer because these are bigger….

I might have to help him with this project. I do love the Furious. And the Abrasive Ale.

Matt hates how bad my hearing is. I’m constantly asking him to repeat stuff, or just plain hearing it totally wrong.

Like just now, for example, when I overheard him talking to Siena, who was watching a travel show about Paris on public television. (That’s right, my daughter chose to spend her Saturday afternoon watching a TPT travel program about Paris. And also one about Barcelona. I consider all my goals as a parent officially accomplished.)

So when the show featured a nightclub with cancan dancers, I thought I heard Matt say:

“When this is over, I’ll let you watch a movie about Paris called Moulin Rouge that has lots of singing and dancing like this.”

Needless to say, I was shocked. I flew into the room shaking my head and gesturing at Siena, who was curled up in the armchair by the TV.

“Moulin Rouge? No way — she’s WAY too young for that!”

Matt rolled his eyes and peevishly repeated what he had actually said, which was:

“WHEN YOU’RE OLDER, I’ll let you watch a movie about Paris called Moulin Rouge.”

He then glared at me until I apologized. Well, excuuuuse me for not wanting to explain to my five-year-old what a prostitute is. Or why Nicole Kidman keeps coughing blood into her handkerchief.

I got a pay check on Friday (!) and, since it’s been a while since that happened, I was pretty excited. I think Matt was too; he even took a picture of me holding it. (If only it had been one of those giant novelty checks — that would have made for a better picture.)

Matt was a little less excited about what I told him next.

“We bought Elliot’s Halloween costume today. He picked it out, and it was on sale so I just bought it.”

[Eye roll. Matt is allergic to buying stuff.]

“Don’t you want to see what it is?”

[Shrugging.] “Sure.”

I reached into the bag and pulled out. . . a giant, puffy chicken costume.

“What? I told you he picked it out!”

“And you actually bought it?”

I think he has some concerns about how I’m going to spend the rest of that check.

[Photo kindly taken and e-mailed to me by Old Navy Store Manager, who was either a) just overwhelmed with the hilarious cuteness of it all, or b) attempting to capture my e-mail address in order to bombard me with SPECIAL OFFERS! and GREAT DEALS! Either way, I'm cool. This image will warm my heart for years to come, particularly when Elliot pretends not to know me as I take him shopping for an outfit to wear to a junior high dance.]

For our first anniversary, Matt and I spent the weekend at a bed-and-breakfast outside Madison. The year after that, we flew to Montreal and stayed in a charming hotel with a fabulous restaurant. We don’t do gifts, but every year since Siena was born we’ve gotten a babysitter and gone out to dinner.

Yesterday Matt and I celebrated our eighth wedding anniversary, but I use the term “celebrated” loosely here. “Briefly acknowledged it” might be more accurate, or even “survived it.” Not that the anniversary of our marriage required surviving, but the day itself sort of did.

We spent the weekend in Portland, OR, for my cousin’s wedding. The whole weekend was all kinds of fantastic, from the gorgeous hotel (stay here if you’re visiting Portland and like Mad Men), to the beautiful vineyard wedding, to the free public transportation in downtown Portland. Seriously, riding the street car and light rail made the trip for Elliot. We visited with family and checked out Powell’s Books, which you should also do if you’re in Portland (and have a spare suitcase to fill). We had a blast.

But then we had to get home.

Due to a staggering lapse in judgment and common sense, we had originally booked our flights without bothering to check Siena’s school calendar. You know, the calendar for the elementary school she is attending for the very first time ever, kind of a big deal, major life milestone, etc. Brilliant. So we had tickets to fly out on her first day of kindergarten. This obviously had to be fixed, which turned out to cost approximately the GDP of a small country. We ended up just changing Siena’s and my tickets. This meant Matt and Elliot left a day earlier and got home a day later than Siena and I did, and hooo-boy was that ever a mistake. If I had known what the emotional fallout of that decision would be like, I would have sold my house and all my belongings to avoid the hours of drama from Siena about the unfairness of it all.

She and I got home Monday night and I put her to bed around 8:00. At 11:00 p.m. she was still coming out of her room, alternately sobbing about missing the boys or raging about how they got a longer vacation and it WASN’T FAIR. Which it wasn’t. At that point, I certainly would have preferred still being on vacation to three hours of histrionics at home.

She finally went to sleep and slept later than she ever has in her life. I took her to the bus stop in the morning and then sent Matt a romantic and loving three-word text message to mark our eight years of wedded bliss. Then I went home and cleaned the litter box.

We picked Matt and Elliot up around bedtime, which meant Siena was even more tired and grumpy by the time we got home from the airport. She was thrilled to see Elliot though, and hug-wrestled him for about fifteen minutes before I pulled them apart. She had missed Matt, too, but chose to express it by being angry at him for being gone. They got into a battle of wills over pajamas that you could probably hear at your house. Or in space.

In the midst of all this, the toilet overflowed. (Never buy the extra-thick toilet paper if you have a child — they will not believe that you can use less of it because it’s thicker. No matter how many times you explain it to them.) After mopping up toilet water, I went downstairs to start a load of laundry and saw a centipede the size of a cat skitter across the floor in front of me. I screamed, then cursed when it disappeared into a corner.

“This is the worst anniversary EVER!”

I went upstairs and grumbled to Matt until we decided to watch Mad Men online. Watching shows on the computer is what we do most nights after the kids go to bed. This welcome return to normalcy (and the soothing sound of ice clinking in Don Draper’s cocktail glass) helped dispel my bad mood. Matt, as is usual for him, had never even gotten crabby.

I won’t ever book a trip where we fly separately again. Not just because of Siena’s reaction, but because Matt is my favorite travel companion. I missed squeezing his arm as the plane took off, and I missed his ability to stay completely relaxed while checking in and going through security. (I tend to navigate the airport in a state of HIGH INTENSITY until we get to the gate — then and only then do I chill out.) Mostly, I just missed him. After eight years of marriage, I still like having him around. And not just because he usually cleans the litter box.

(Laura’s note: Matt really needed an outlet, and since I’m on a writing deadline, he agreed to post to the neglected front page. Enjoy.)

Sorry for the length, but I need to process.

Brett Favre. The name that has been the rival for the Minnesota Vikings team and fans for 17+ years. Sure he played for the Green Bay Packers, but it was really Brett Favre that we, the Vikings fans, despised, loathed, and hated on the field. I’m sure he’s a fine person off the field and in the locker room, but in the green and gold, he was the enemy, the quarterback we needed Chris Doleman, John Randle, or the Williams Wall to absolutely destroy two Sundays each season. He is also the QB I wanted to lead the Vikings into the 2009 NFL season, but as he has done so many times before, he has left Vikings fans wondering what could have been.

Wanting Favre on the Vikings was a complete turnaround for me from last summer, before he went to the Jets. Then, it was too soon after he was a Packer. The team had Adrian Peterson, Antoine Winfield, Jared Allen, and a good-to-great line on both sides of the ball, so I was willing to roll without him and see what happened. This summer, I wanted Favre to see if he had anything left after arm surgery for one more season. The team needed him, instead of rolling with T-Jack or Rosenfels, in what could be one of the last seasons with this team nucleus that should be ready to explode for 11-13 wins.

And just like that, as of about 3pm on July 28th, three days before training camp opens, the Vikings are basically the same team they were last year. Now Favre is gone forever, Harvin is a joint away from being suspended, and the Williams Wall (Kevin and Pat), are at the mercy of a judge, or they are gone for the first four games. As Rick Pitino famously said when he was the coach of the Boston Celtics, “All the negativity that’s in this town sucks!” VIVA EL SENOR ROSENFELS!

The news was only a few hours old, and I was trying to put this whole mess in perspective when I put on Pink Floyd’s Pulse as I played with the kids Tuesday night before putting them to bed. Pulse is their two-disc live concert album from 1995, where the entire second disc is almost an exact replay of Dark Side of the Moon, plus three encore songs. As the disc played, and I sang far too many words while the kids spun around in the yard, I was thinking of the song titles and some of the lyrics and realized that, for me, they might be able to explain the whole Brett Favre flirtation. I know that you can start The Wizard of Oz and Dark Side of the Moon at about the same time and the music turns into a sort of soundtrack for the movie. I’ve never done this, but I’ll take others’ word for it. Indulge me a little as I try to explain this, being as brief as I can as I go from song to song.

1. “Speak to Me”: short song with few lyrics, but very powerful. “I’ve been mad for !@#$%^& years, absolutely years…been over the edge…” Favre tortured the Vikings for 16 years as a Packer and for two more the last couple summers. Fans can’t take him any more, and he may end up being the most hated sports figure in Minnesota history.
2. “Breathe”: Knowing Favre’s inability to make up his mind, the team and Vikings fans needed to breathe, deeply, after the Jets released him in the spring.
3. “On the Run”: As the summer wore on, the media was after Favre, hoping they could run him down and get an answer. The song is mostly instrumental, but has these lyrics, “Live for today, gone tomorrow, that’s me, HaHaHaaaaaa!” What a slap in the face to fans. Maybe this one should have been the last song in the saga.
4. “Time”: I’ll let the first stanza speak for itself. “Ticking away the moments that make up a dull day. You fritter and waste the hours in an offhand way. Kicking around on a piece of ground in your home town. Waiting for someone or something to show you the way.”
5. “The Great Gig in the Sky”: I think this song title equates to the main reason why Favre took so long to decide, and ultimately, walked away. He’s 38 years old, and if it wasn’t for the streak of consecutive games started, he may have walked away sooner. From what I read, he loves being at home in Mississippi. He’s ready to walk away from one great gig to another. But not playing may kill him.
6. “Money”: Possibly one of the reasons to come back and play another year. Who wouldn’t have a hard time leaving $10 million plus on the table. He has enough money, but the cash and chance at a Super Bowl ring had to be enticing. He wouldn’t have had the surgery if he wasn’t seriously thinking about the comeback.
7. “Us and Them”: This could go so many ways. Vikings fans versus Packer fans. Vikings fans wanting him to play and those who didn’t. Appropriate that a line of lyrics is, “Black and Blue, And who knows which is which and who is who.” This is how most fans felt as training camp neared. We just wanted it to end, so the bruising could heal.
8. “Any Colour You Like”: All instrumental. We waited…and waited…and waited for something to happen.
9. “Brain Damage”: Starts out, “The lunatic is on the grass…remembering games and daisy chains and laughs…” We all saw the footage when Favre could start throwing again after surgery, and he was on the field with the high school guys in MS. I really wanted him to remember the the games and the laughs in the locker room and on the field.
10. “Eclipse”: Something got in the way, so he retired. Song ends like this, “…and everything under the sun is in tune, but the sun is eclipsed by the moon.” This Vikings team is on the verge and in tune to do something special. Is Favre deciding not to play their eclipse?

I could end it there, but the three encore songs on Pulse might be similar to the stages of grief.
11. “Wish You Were Here”: I admit that I did. Who knows, training camp might leave us still feeling this way.
12. “Comfortably Numb”: How we’ll probably feel going into the pre-season games with TJack and Rosenfels at QB. The Vikings team is good, but we don’t know how to feel about these two guys leading it.
13. “Run Like Hell”: Sad to say, but what Favre better do if he encounters anyone wearing a purple jersey, if the Vikings don’t win their division and at least one playoff game this year.

Favre said that he didn’t think his body could handle the physicality of another season. I wonder if he had had the arm surgery earlier, if he would feel differently. Now, we’ll never know.

Note: to make sure I had lyrics correct, I visited this site.