ruined again

Poor Tim. Sometimes when I try to feed him, it just doesn't work out.

The good news, though, is that in our new apartment, the smoke detectors seem to have a very high tolerance level. So when smoke was billowing from the oven, no alarms were triggered.

bang it

Today I was chatting with a coworker who is coordinating a project I'm working on. She was chatting with me to set up a due date for one of my edits. The following messages were exchanged after she asked me when I could complete my edit:

me: ummm, probably monday/tuesday sometime?

coworker: Okay :) Lets due [sic] Tuesday COB.

me: ok

me: bang it!!!!!!!!

coworker: bang it?

Errrr . . .

Tim is a champ at accidentally transmitting seemingly inappropriate messages to unsuspecting coworkers. In his defense, he thought his message was going to a friend we both know; he didn't mean anything crass by typing it. And he's kind of embarrassed it went to someone else. But the jury is still out on the meaning of "bang it": benign or raunchy? You decide.

Operation Ring Retrieval

Though he would probably say otherwise, Tim is addicted to playing with his wedding ring.

Behold:

Though I've told him to stop, there must be something irresistible about shiny spinning objects. I guess it is pretty cool and all.

One day while agonizing over finals, Tim could be found productively spinning his ring on the counter in the kitchen.

He looks so happy to be playing with his ring rather than working on yet another 15-page paper (see figure).

Suddenly, disaster strikes when Tim loses control of his ring and it catapults onto the floor from counter 1. After searching on the floor near counter 2 where Tim suspects it landed, he cannot find it. It has disappeared into oblivion! (A lesser person might be tempted to say something like "I told you so" here, but I'm too saintly and wholesome for that.)

"Son of a . . . !!!"

'

As you can see from the picture, Tim is not enjoying himself as much anymore. His ring is lost (and apparently his arms, face, and hair are too (Actually, that was an artist error. I created the second image before the first and decided to add more detail, but was too lazy to go back and replicate the details in the second image.)).

"Wife is going to kill me!" Tim thinks to himself as he explores the area thoroughly. He realizes there is something strange about the format of the kitchen here:

As you can see from the excellently rendered graphic description, there is space between the baseboard and the bottom of the kitchen cabinets. Tim's attempts to put his hand through the space are unsuccessful. He's lucky if he can squeeze his fingers in there past his knuckles. Apparently the ring is irrecoverable.

But Tim will not give up so easily (partially because I won't let him). Operation Ring Retrieval begins. The mission is to recover the ring without noticeable damage to the apartment so as to retain our deposit.

Upon further inspection, Tim discovers that the baseboards are covered by a facade that can be easily removed. There is no choice, of course, but to saw through the baseboard to access the space under the cabinets, get the ring, then replace the facade.

Let the sawing commence.

Notice the gap between the top of the wood and the bottom of the cabinets. It's not just that Tim has fat fingers; obviously it's a small spot. Visibility of all areas under the cabinets was severely limited. The ring remained aloof.

We questioned the wisdom of further damage-inducing ring retrieval attempts. After all, the ring is less valuable than the apartment deposit. Would Operation Ring Retrieval compromise it?

Good thing Meredith came back to town.

Operation Ring Retrieval was given new life when Meredith returned from her Christmas vacation, bringing along her super-human problem-solving capabilities and her new iPhone. She put the iPhone through the hole and recorded video, moving the camera around to reveal the hidden depths that had been invisible to our un-iPhone-aided eyes.

Look! There's the ring!

After cutting a new hole, Tim reached his skinny little hand through it and . . . well, see for yourself:

Operation Ring Retrieval: success! And best of all, after we put the facades back in place, you can't tell we did anything. Here's hoping the landlord never finds out (or finds this blog . . . good thing I'm publicizing this tale on the world-wide-internets, eh?)!

we got locked out recently

I got your back, Tim.

Kneaders fail

This morning we went to Kneaders. I was really, really interested in getting their all-you-can-eat chunky cinnamon french toast.

And despite our goal this month to not eat out on our own dime, I was feeling extravagant on this holiday weekend. What is Thanksgiving if not indulging in gluttonous impulses? Proof of this holiday's meaning to me: All I have been doing lately (besides preparing a Thanksgiving meal Wed/Thurs) is eating, sleeping, and thinking about food.

So we drove out to Fort Union, ordered two of all-you-can-eat french toast, got some water, and sat down to wait. Approximately ten minutes later, Tim stood to see what had become of our order. We had also heard a Kneaders employee saying they were out of chunky cinnamon bread. Whaaaa? That is what MAKES the french toast what it is. Travesty.

When I joined Tim at the register, he passed along the news: they had lost our order and they were in fact out of the chunky cinnamon bread. We got our money back and left.

Then we drove out to the Kneaders in West Jordan. But then we thought about how we didn't even get a free cookie from that last disaster, and we thought about our goal to not eat out, and we saw the parking lot and how crazy-crowded it was there, and we didn't go inside.

Our goal to not eat out is inadvertently kept. Maybe next month we can avoid purchasing premade foodstuffs (this is our working definition of eating out) due to our immense self-control rather than Fate thwarting us.

I do have to say that we've made a lot of improvement in this area. Tim and I got in the habit of "eating out" a lot when we were dating and engaged. It remains a weakness, though we've severely toned it down. It's a good thing, too, because we're pretty poor.

pasta pasta

So I have been on a pasta-making kick recently for reasons unknown.

Last week I made gnocchi:


Last night I made . . . ravioli? Tortellini? Some formless sort of stuffed pasta. That's better.

The dough was so easy to make, and when I was rolling it out, I said to Tim, "I should make all of our pasta myself!" But by the end of it all I no longer wanted to make all our pasta myself. It's laborious.

Formless, see?

I made a filling with ground chicken, spinach, mozzarella, and parmesan cheese, which sounds better than it actually was, but the best part was when I put two chicken breasts in the food processor to grind them up. I should have cut them into smaller pieces probably before I put them in the food processor, because when I turned it on, the lid came unscrewed due to the crazy balance in the bowl. The chicken shot up and out of the bowl and slammed into the wall, knocking out a tealight candle on its way.

I really want to see this moment recorded, but unfortunately this part was not caught on camera.



Still fun though.

had an itch

I hope by this point that Tim doesn't feel embarrassed for doing this, because I think it is HILARIOUS and just had to share.

Yesterday Tim was reading and had an itch on his arm. He scratched his arm with his pen but did not realize the pen was not clicked off (an honest mistake—those little clicky pens can be deceiving). The picture depicts the result. (Poor Tim, he looks so ashamed!) The best part was when he called me to come into the room and he confessed all. (I wish you could have been there.)

After laughing hysterically, I pulled out my camera to document it. Suspecting I would put it on my blog, he protested, saying it was embarrassing because he was actually conscious for "this one," as opposed to the other funny, random, and amazing stuff, which happens when he's only semi-conscious (and which you don't know the half of, unfortunately). On that note, can I just say that I love early mornings with Tim? I'm usually somewhat grumpy and he is the most hilarious human alive.

I love him because he let me post this.