So I was on vacation. It was wonderful but now I am tired. Here, have an alligator:
A small gator is still a gator.
I really miss blogging. As in, writing blog posts. And reading OTHER PEOPLE’S blog posts. Especially yours.
Anyway. Randomosity is a good re-entry into posting. For me, at least. For you, probably not so much. But I GAVE YOU AN ALLIGATOR so get off my back already.
* During my vacation, I somehow fell into a wormhole of books about Russia. It started with Child 44 which I got from my husband for my birthday. It was soooo dark and horrible and fascinating that I had to IMMEDIATELY, while I was in Florida at my in-laws’ house, Amazon Prime myself the next book in the series. (The Secret Speech.) And I really really REALLY wish I had also ordered Agent 6, which is the THIRD book in the series. But instead I also Amazon Primed myself the second in ANOTHER mystery/crime/thriller series (the Sweden-based Henning Mankell series starring Kurt Wallander) called The Dogs of Riga which, well, it didn’t have do with RUSSIA but it did have to do with LATVIA and continued the theme of Stalinist-era culture. And THEN I read Snowdrops, which was about modern-day Russia and the lasting effects of the Stalinist era.
Of the four, Child 44 was the best. Closely followed by The Secret Speech and then Snowdrops. I was disappointed in The Dogs of Riga. Namely because the author/translator felt the need to keep talking about how “the dogs” (in Riga, obvs) were after the main character and other characters, as though to really drive home the fact that the title was chosen for a Serious Reason. Seriously. Every chapter after Wallander got to Riga mentioned the dogs. Sometimes there were dog mentions multiple times per page. I GET IT. These are the Dogs of Riga. STOP BASHING ME OVER THE HEAD WITH IT.
(The dogs are not actual canines, you know. They are the villains in the book.)
* Is it clear that I spent large portions of my vacation reading?
But I have a problem, Internet. When I want to read a book, I want to read it NOW. I was about 100 pages from being done with Child 44 when I noticed that it was nearly over (WOE!) and I’d be out of fascinating Stalinist-era reading before I knew it. So my husband and I went to Barnes & Noble.
Listen, I could write 10 bazillion words about the GLARING differences between my husband and me when it comes to books and book buying and book choosing and book reading. But I will spare you all that and just say: he is a price comparison kind of guy where I am an “if I want it and the price isn’t unreasonable, I will buy it” kind of gal. I guess this isn’t specific to books. But what I’m saying is, I wanted to buy The Secret Speech. At Barnes & Noble. Which is why we went there.
But my husband – who knew all this, and still drove me to Barnes & Noble for the PURPOSE of buying The Secret Speech – did not allow me to buy The Secret Speech at Barnes & Noble. (Note: I don’t mean “did not allow” as in he FORBADE me to do things. He’s not so much into forbidding me to do stuff. I mean it as, he advocated against buying it there and, partly in the name of marital harmony, but mostly in the name of I hadn’t yet finished Child 44, I went along with his plan instead of just buying the damn book. At the Barnes & Noble. In which we were standing. BECAUSE WE’D GONE THERE TO BUY THE BOOK IN QUESTION.) Instead, he pointed out that we could order it much more cheaply online, and with Amazon Prime, not only would we get free shipping, we’d also get the book in two days.
Fine. I get it. Saving a buck blah blah blah. BUT WHY DID WE HAVE TO GO TO BARNES & NOBLE THEN?
* We went to the beach one night to see the sun set over the ocean. I unwisely decided I needed to dip my toes in the ocean while my husband took photos with his camera (mostly amazing) and I took photos with my camera (mostly blurry) of the beautiful clouds rolling in.
It rained, so we sat in the car for most of the pre-sunset time. (I mainly spent that time trying vainly to brush sand off my feet so I wouldn’t get sand in my father-in-law’s car. I failed. Which is why I am very thankful for dustbusters.)
Anyway, it was raining and I had my camera all dressed up with nowhere to go, so I took a photo of the raindrops on the car window with the macro setting of my camera. See?
Ooh. Aaaah.
And another raindrop photo – this one with a palm tree in the background:
The rain did let up right in time for the sun to slip into the ocean in a wonderful photo-op-tastic way.
* What’s the opposite of the beach at sunset? Snow and fog in the mountains!
* That Zooey Deschanel show on Fox, The New Girl? I find it quite charming. But the theme song will NOT get out of my head.
And it’s not the whole theme song, either. It’s just the beginning. The “Hey, girl… Whatcha doin’?” part. Over and over and over. It is making me want to punch things.
Also, whenever I watch that show I feel an uncontrollable urge to get bangs.
* Have I blathered on sufficiently long enough to talk about the bug now? We have had a few of these bugs in our house:
OMG IT IS SO GROSS. (Picture not to scale, dear god no.)
Do you know what kind of bug that is? It’s horrifying, obviously. But, like, its name? Or how to make sure I never see another one ever again?
* Speaking of bugs, a giant, pudgy brown flying thing just helicoptered past my window. Outside, at least. But dude: What the eff is that?
And now there is a big swarm of bugs circling the tree in the back yard. I AM NOT READY FOR THIS. IT IS MARCH.
* You know what eats bugs? A turtle.
That is totally a turtle. I promise.
I could really use a turtle around here right now.
* It’s possible I’ve mentioned this before, but I have a tendency to get hooked on specific foods. As in, I get so obsessed with them, I eat them every day and I crave them constantly. My current addiction is wedge salads. There is something so intoxicating about a half-head of cool iceberg lettuce luxuriating in a lazy river of creamy parmesan ranch dressing, bejeweled with rings of soft pink shallot and squares of crisp, salty bacon. I have been eating about five heads of lettuce a week. And much bacon. MUCH BACON.
* Did my use of the word “luxuriating” make you think of Toddlers and Tiaras? No? Just me, then?
* The second best thing about the wedge salads (the first best thing being the salads themselves) is that I now have a nice steady supply of bacon fat in my fridge.
Do you think that’s weird? I mentioned it in the company of several people a few weeks ago, and some of them gave me the “she needs to be institutionalized” face.
I don’t think it’s weird. I think it’s WONDERFUL. Bacon fat can enrich so many things! I get all drool-faced when I think about how rich and velvety my onion soup is going to be. Once I get over my wedge salad fixation long enough to make some onion soup, that is.
I have used the bacon fat to make lentil soup, however. I’ve been recently obsessed with lentil soup, too. Lentil soup and wedge salads. I think that’s all I ate for a couple of weeks.
* I have finally found a reliable makeup remover. I don’t really wear a lot of makeup. Just a little blush and some mascara; eyeliner and lip gloss if I’m feeling fancy. But I have the HARDEST time getting the mascara off my stupid lashes. For pale stumpy things, they sure get a good grip on the mascara.
The makeup remover in question? Those Neutrogena face wipes that Jennifer Garner is promoting all over the teevee. I didn’t hear about them from JGarn, though. I am pretty sure I heard about them from the Internet – maybe from you? – because I get about 98% of my info from the Internet.
Anyway: these suckers work. At least on stubborn mascara.
* Last week, for the first time ever, I went snow shoeing.
(Those are snow shoe tracks.) (And a tree.)
I don’t know what I expected, but it was a lot like walking.
* I suppose I should clarify that my vacation was two weeks long. We spent the first week in Florida. We spent the second in Montana. Probably I should have mentioned that earlier.
* If you are a) married or b) not married, you will likely already know this. But going on vacation can be really good for a marriage. It was SO FUN to just… hang out with my husband. I mean, our parents were around for a lot of the hanging out, which was great. But we also got to do fun stuff alone together. And eat delicious food together. And brave far too many flights together. And go skiing and snow shoeing and alligatoring together. And just enjoy each other without the specter of Work and The Hospital and Household Chores looming over us. My husband is pretty fun to hang out with, you know.
* Also, we watched the entire first season of Downton Abbey and most of the first season of Game of Thrones together. There is really nothing that brings a couple together like World-War-I-era British society drama and some fantastical intrigue.
* Can we talk about the gators? My in-laws live in a gated community on a golf course. And the golf course abuts a pond of some sort. And there are LIVE WILD GATORS in the pondthing. GatorS as in Multiple Carnivorous Reptiles.
If you look closely at the left side of the water, you'll see TWO GATORS. They may look lazy, but they will bite you.
This is crazy, Internet. And yet, my in-laws have all these gators that just lounge near the golf course. Within simple slithering distance of golfers’ legs.
See! The top one is ACTIVELY BITING YOU! (Or cooling himself. Whatever. I'm not a scientist.)
The reason I have these photos? Is because we took our daily constitutional on a path that goes right next to the gator pondthing. And I had my camera because the gators were there EVERY DAY and I knew to expect them.
How is this… okay? How do the people in my in-laws’ development not constantly fall victim to hungry gators? HOW?
* My husband and his parents were very nonchalant about the gators. TOO nonchalant, in my opinion. Yes, I come from a part of the country where bears and wolves and cougars roam wild. So I get that The Wild is full of Wild Creatures, and that humans can totally co-exist with scary vicious animals who will for the most part leave you alone if you leave them alone.
But it’s not like there’s a field near my parents’ house that just has BEARS MILLING AROUND or anything. It’s not like my dad goes out to water the lawn and there are wolves taking a nap behind the shrubbery and he’s all “lah dee dah, wolves, whatever.” My mom doesn’t hear about a copse of trees that’s hosting a cougar family and purposely walk past it each day in order to get some sunshine and exercise.
No. If there are bears or wolves or cougars anywhere in the vicinity, they STEER CLEAR.
Are gators that different from bears and wolves and cougars? NOT TO MY KNOWLEDGE.
* I told Kristina about these the other day.
They have lemon curd INSIDE them!
They are the beautiful and delicious lemon-filled cupcakes I made for the Super Bowl. Yes, I realize the Super Bowl took place over a month ago. Errr… nearly two months ago. Nonetheless.
We had about ten people over for the Super Bowl party. Not a single person ate a cupcake.
Which means that I ate them all.
(Not ALL. There are four sitting in a container in the freezer, waiting for me to remember to take one out to defrost it BEFORE I am in the mood for a cupcake.)
(To be fair, we had a LOT of food at our Super Bowl party. And we had a LOT of desserts. As in, my husband made brownies and two flavors of homemade ice cream AND one of our guests brought an ice cream cake. So my beautiful cupcakes didn’t really stand a chance.)
* Have you seen those toilet paper commercials about the “backup roll”? The whole point of the commercial – other than to sell toilet paper, I imagine – is to push this little decorative toilet paper cozy (cosie? cozie?) that holds the backup roll. Or may the commercial is selling the decorative cozy? I don’t really know. I just know that backup rolls are important. Not important enough for me to buy or want a toilet paper cozy, mind you. But important. There is NOTHING WORSE than not having a backup roll. It’s either a problem NOW or it’s a problem LATER when you’ve skipped into the bathroom without remembering that you ran out last time.
That’s why I try to convince my husband that we need more toilet paper every time we go to Target. My goal is to have 50 rolls under every cabinet in every bathroom at all times. A sort of Extreme Couponers stockpile under all my sinks.
Yep. I think I’m ending there. On backup toilet paper.
This may be the most random thing I’ve ever written.
[Do I have to say this? I bought all the Neutrogena wipes/Stalinist-era novels/toilet paper/cupcake materials/Amazon Prime memberships mentioned in this post with my own money because I wanted to. I am not being compensated for talking about them. And all the opinions expressed here are my own. But please: feel free to send me all the makeup removal products or mystery books or cupcake paraphernalia you want. I would totally love that.]
[Also, you should probably know that the best photos in this post were taken by my husband.]
life of a doctor's wife 
The bug is a silverfish…they love books. As a book lover, I have been seeing them all my life. Freakishly, the run/slither away when you pick up a pile of papers or books. They’re gross, but inevitable.
Thank you for identifying that horrid creature! But ACK. Now I am afraid to read! And I rather LIKE reading!
(At least ours are smallish. The silverfish – with more legs – my grandmother used to have in Tennessee were GIGANTIC and so fast.)
Welcome back to blogland! You were missed! There’s another blog I read with a similar title, like, life of a something wife, and I always clicked on it all quicklike thinking it was you, and yet, it never was. Poo!
I LOLed at the snowshoeing is a lot like walking. Haha! I think I’d probably expect something totally NEW! and FUN! with giant baskets on my feet too, so I’ll know not to expect too much if I ever do that!
Aww thanks! Yes – I guess I thought it would be more… exhilarating? Like skiing? It WAS fun. But… fun in the way hiking is. 🙂
Welcome back! Sounds like you guys had a great vacation. Also, my grandmother used to live on a golf course in Florida with live gators and NO ONE BUT ME seemed to be in the least bit concerned about them. What’s up with that, floridians?
EXACTLY. What is UP with that, Floridians?
You have a silverfish on your hands there (I see someone else identified it for you!) They like old houses and usually show up when it’s damp outside. They don’t like powdered soap. We get them in lights and such and sprinkle some dry laundry soap in the lights and they die (without having to touch them! yay!). You could put some in the bottom of your cabinets/drawers etc.
Amazon Prime is awesome – I spend the majority of my money on Amazon! Sounds like you had a fun vacation – welcome back! Love all the gator pics. I think I’d be pretty concerned too.
Have you read Boris Akunin’s books? They are mysteries about Tsarist Russia (not Stalinist) but still totally fascinating. There’s a whole series of Fandorin books, so lots of potential for reading if you like the style…
Also, do you like Game of Thrones? I LOVED the first season of Downton Abbey (the second season, so far not so much…) and am looking for a new TV obsession.
As a former Floridian, I can answer your gator questions. There are several reasons. A) Because alligators are EVERYWHERE. When my husband used to work nights, they’d be all crossing the roads at night. And when we drove in Florida, we’d see them all the time in drainage ditches. They are even in the drainage ditches. You have to get used to them because they are everywhere. (In the pond outside Walmart!) B) Because alligators on land aren’t really a big deal. I mean, don’t go poking at them or anything, but an alligator on land will leave you alone in like 999,999 of 1,000,000 cases. That being said, I did not walk along the edges of lakes or rivers (or drainage ditches) because they are ambush predators and will jump out at you. (Almost never at people. Like at dogs and stuff.) And I DO NOT EVER swim in natural water in Florida. Ever. We had an alligator in the pond behind our house in Florida. I got us a nice fence to keep our dogs from being eaten.
Will you make me lemon curd cupcakes. Please?
You are amazing. And your husband IS fun to hang out with. I miss you guys.
Also, RE: Comment from herewegoajen, THAT IS WHY PEOPLE SHOULDN’T LIVE IN FLORIDA! Alligators everywhere, spiders the size of your head, humidity oooohhhh the humidity, sharks that come into 2 feet of water to eat you. It’s uninhabitable.
So happy you are back!
Also? If your tone is anything like the one I have in my head when I read these posts, I think we would make fabulous friends in real life. Creepy? Maybe. But I don’t mean it that way.
I also think that I would read a whole book (preferably a memoir or autobiography of sorts) by you if you wrote one, mostly because I find your tone super engaging and relatable.
Beyond that? I want to eat your cupcakes. I can’t believe NO ONE had one. If I go anywhere where there’s cupcakes, you can bet I’m stuffing my face obnoxiously. And not just because I’m pregnant. For real.
Anyway. So happy you had a lovely vacation with your husband! That’s the best. : )
I’m glad you had a nice long vacation.
My husband texted me a picture of an empty toilet paper roll last night along with the word HELP! Heh.
Oh, I’ve missed you!
My comment might be as random as your post, but when you reap what you sow. First, are you sure you did not post a picture of another alligator rather than a turtle (I mean the pic before the obvious alligators-on-a-golf-course pics)? It looks very much like an alligator. And I’m with you on the whole alligators should be avoided/fenced off/not lived near thing. But my in-laws also live in Florida, one on a lake (beside the lake, of course) and there are alligators. And I have terrible nightmares of alligators carting off the children all of a sudden, images of myself screaming from inside (’cause I’m not going out there with the alligators),”Run in a zigzag line! RUN IN A ZIGZAG LINE!” because I heard somewhere that that will slow them down, since they will follow. ?? I don’t really like it when they play outside there. It’s stressful. I have never actually seen an alligator there on the property, but I know that my husband’s older brother (when he was a teenager) caught a baby one and put it in their bathtub. Again… ?? This I would not allow.
Downton Abbey! I love. I hope you love it. It is…sigh. Love.
Cool raindrop pictures.
The bugs – [shudder]…I don’t do well with bugs. Not at all. I’m not sure if you have read any of my roach stories, but they will likely be the end of me.
I am a fan of having a lot of TP in each bathroom. Very wise. It is still a problem, though, because if one runs out while on the john, or sits down before realizing that there is a shortage, the cabinet in two bathrooms is not within reach. I appreciate very much the texting the word “help” idea. That is a good one to file away. But…I would have to remember to always have (always to have? otherwise it’s a split infinitive? what are the hard and fast rules about that these days? should I be capitalizing these sentences within the parentheses?) my phone handy. Hmmm.
Glad you’re back! And that you had such a good vacation…sounds wonderful!
Yes, silverfish are HUGE in Tennessee….so freaky!
I have seen so many shows with gators in them. Swamp People, Billy the Exterminator, Duck Dynasty…so I’d like to think if actually ever faced with one in real life I’d be all ‘whatevs, no biggie’. Maybe is that how your in-laws feel? Like it’s just a thang?
Okay better analogy. We got snakes here in the south. I figure people who have always lived somewhere posh-ish in New York haven’t seen too many snakes running up and down Wall Street so maybe they’d freak out. Whereas I’m all, hey wittle snakie..you stay over there mmmk?
Anyways, good to have you back!
Oh I’m so glad you’re back! And if it’s totally cliche to say that you make me lol, I don’t care because you really really do.
I could read your writing all day every day and that is all.
The very best part about having a toddler is that when I run out of toilet paper, I can now ASK her to get it for me and she DOES! Of course, she might be a little obsessed with toilet paper, but still, it is so awesome to have a TP servant.
That bug looks like the living incarnation of evil. You don’t need an exterminator, you need a priest who can perform exorcisms. Good grief, I am going to have nightmares about that frigging thing.
I love watching Downton Abbey with my husband. You are right. It is awesome.
The thing that convinced me to get a Kindle was the whole “I can order a book right now! Even if right now means 2 in the morning – because I have to read it immediately”. I would have bought the Barnes and Noble book.
Hooray! You’re back =)!
[…] the first one of which is called Child 44 and go buy it now. I discovered the series when Life of a Doctor’s Wife raved about it, so blame her when you stay up too late reading “one more chapter”. […]
Ok, now I NEED a wedge salad.