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Posts Tagged ‘husband’

As Pictured Below: View from the Top

Posted in As Pictured Below, Home, Photographs, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , on October 5, 2009| 3 Comments »

bricks

So what the real estate agent doesn’t point out when you’re buying a two-story house is the blatantly obvious: The second story is awfully far from the ground. Far as in go buy a 32-foot ladder far.

Luckily, the husband and I aren’t afraid of heights (these kind of heights, anyway), so we were able to caulk a leaky bathroom window this weekend. Tragically, it doesn’t seem to have been the leak we were looking for. To find that one, it looks like we’ll have to remove the bathtub from the master bath a few months earlier than planned.

The American Dream: It involves more drywall dust, cursing and soldering than you think.

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As Pictured Below: Watercolor Cat

Posted in As Pictured Below, Photographs, tagged , , , , , , on July 20, 2009| Leave a Comment »

cat of your dreams

I didn’t see this coming: I LOVE the camera on my new iPhone.

I barely get along with the family digital camera, so I didn’t think I’d have much going for this one. It is four shades of AWESOME, though. It’s always at the ready, and I can use the images without dragging out USB cords and the laptop for the transfer process.

As a bonus, it has some very cool special effects – note blogger bbum’s observations and examples of iPhone images shot by watercolor artist Paul Jackson. Movement of the subject or the camera can result in a gorgeous, stylized blur. Of course, it can also result in a simple bad-picture blur, but that’s what the trashcan button is for.

My husband shot the image above with his iPhone and e-mailed it to me while I was out of town for the weekend.

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Convenience FAIL, cat care WIN

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , on July 10, 2009| Leave a Comment »

I found out the hard way yesterday that my mobile vet isn’t so mobile anymore. He sold his RV since our last visit.

Don’t you hate it when a great, well-thought-out endeavor fails?

I mean, what’s not to love about a mobile vet? For an extra $40, he shows up at the end of your driveway in a sparkling, sterilized RV packed with all the stainless steel instruments and medications that your dog or cat could possibly require – even an X-ray machine. Instead of driving around with my neurotic, yowling cats for 20 minutes, an act sure to cause both a rise in my blood pressure and a stress fight with the spouse, I could pack them in their carriers and walk them 20 feet from front door to RV door. I never told the good doctor, but I would have paid twice the fee to get him to park his RV outside my house.

But no. The one DYI that everybody in this city is apparently willing to do is to pack up their pets and drive them across town.

The one upside to this: I found The Cat Hospital of Madison, which I was extremely impressed with. Dr. Stephanie G. Gandy-Moody is compassionate and analytical, all in one rare package. The staff was superb, and the facilities were gorgeous. Even the clinic cats were fun.

Now if only they’ll buy that RV I’ve got picked out for them.

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No place I’d rather be

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on June 10, 2009| Leave a Comment »

I just realized my watch is still set on New York City time. I want to go back.

We spent our days and nights navigating subways and buses, seeing as much of the city as we could. We avoided shows and anything else with long lines, and ate whatever we wanted with no concerns over calories. Given that we inevitably seemed to exit and enter the underground via routes devoid of escalators, these extra calories turned out to be essential.

The streets teemed with vehicles bursting into aspirational 10-second sprints between intersections. The sidewalks were packed with people in a hurry, navigating their way through rare congregations of people inexplicably NOT in a hurry.

I had mixed feelings about getting back into my car alone Monday morning and driving 8 miles across town to work.

More on New York City later. I need to check on my husband, who either came back with a bad cold or swine flu. I wonder if I can blog from quarantine?

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Shaggerty and the Bandit

Posted in Photographs, tagged , , , , , , , , on May 12, 2009| 2 Comments »

Me on my wedding day

Me on my wedding day

My mom on her wedding day.

Mom on her wedding day

First of all, how much of a babe was my mom on her wedding day?

I was flipping through old photos on Mother’s Day, and it occurred to me that most brides get the same wedding-day advice from their mothers – stand up straight, blot your lipstick, don’t drink more than two glasses of champagne every hour, etc.

My mom didn’t load me down with nitpicking advice. On the way to the ceremony site, she sat next to me and explained that she really liked my fiance and thought he was the perfect man for me. She added, though, that if I had any idea that I didn’t want to get married, for any reason at all, then we would just keep driving.

I was never clear whether this “we” included my future father-in-law, who was chauffeuring us both around. My mom is the queen of Plan B, so for all I know she had a black Trans Am hidden behind a billboard, ready to make our getaway a la “Smokey and the Bandit.”

Trust me, if the woman ever got behind the wheel of a V8 muscle car, no one would catch up to her until she hit the Texas state line.

I didn’t take her up on her offer, and neither one of us has regretted it. If I hadn’t married my fiance, I think she may have tried to adopt him.

I don’t know that I ever told her how much I appreciated the thought, though, knowing full well that she was willing to risk a museum full of angry out-of-town relatives if I needed an out. And if I had to let anybody drive 130 miles an hour while I was stripping off wedding gown parts and letting them fly into the wind, it would be my mom.

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Marry the weird girl. She’s fun.

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , on March 3, 2009| 7 Comments »

Soon after we started dating, my future husband and I were walking around the local mall when we spotted a three-sided dagger in the display window of the tobacco/knife/dreamcatcher store (every mall used to have one – it was written in city codes). He said something like, “Weird knife, huh?” So of course I said, “Yeah. It’s a three-sided dagger. It makes a wound that doesn’t close.”

He laughed a little and led me into the store, where he told the salesman, “My girlfriend says that a three-sided dagger makes a wound that won’t close. Is that really what it’s for?”

The salesman dropped to his knees and asked for my hand in marriage. Or at least he should have.

Seriously, he looked at me a little cockeyed and nodded. “Yeah, that’s what they do,” he said.

The boyfriend paled only slightly, and we continued our mall rounds.

It’s still an episode that both of us remember in detail. He found out that I knew more about knives than perhaps a proper young lady should, and I learned that maybe you don’t blurt out all the weird things you know.

Maybe.

(Note: I have since learned that a three-sided dagger doesn’t necessarily make a wound that doesn’t close, but instead makes a wound that is more difficult to close than one made by a single- or double-sided blade. Also, please note that my knowledge of knives comes from a few years of D&D play and more than a few sci-fi/fantasy books. I have never stabbed anyone. Unless the dice told me to.)

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25 Things I’ll Admit to in Order to Make the Tagging Stop

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on February 8, 2009| 2 Comments »

Fine. I gave in. Here are 25 Things About Me. If Facebook can suffer through it, so can you.

  1. I love coffee. I drink more coffee than anyone knows.
  2. I drive my dream car, a Mini Cooper S. It’s cute, fast and fun, and more affordable than most people seem to realize.
  3. I work out with free weights three times a week. A former co-worker who calls his muscle-bound arms the “pythons of death” used to call my arms the “blue runners of death.”
  4. I can’t wait for warmer weather so I can go caving again. I have never felt stronger and more dexterous than I do when scrambling over giant piles of rock.
  5. I always thought I’d have dogs, but I have two cats instead. They’re hilarious.
  6. I judge people based on how they treat animals.
  7. I’ve always had more male friends than female friends. I may be from Mars instead of Venus.
  8. My husband is the kind of guy I would be friends with. I’m pretty sure this is why we’re still married.
  9. I’ve been to England, France, Honduras, Nicaragua and Mexico.
  10. I have no children. This is neither an accident nor a tragedy. I’m cool with other people having kids though, and love my nieces and nephew.
  11. Hurricane Katrina flooded a third of my house. It’s barely worth mentioning compared to the damage other people had. That said, rising water and high winds still give me a little punch in the gut.
  12. I’m still pissed off about what happened to the people of New Orleans.
  13. Since childhood, I’ve had a recurring dream in which I had to walk across a yard while avoiding snakes of every type and size every few feet. That dream has been replaced by one in which water is rising in my back yard and I’m trying to move things higher in the house.
  14. I’ve never told anyone about No. 13.
  15. I had a casual smoking habit for about six years in high school and college. Nasty habit? Sure, but I miss it and wish cigarettes weren’t so bad for me.
  16. I miss clove cigarettes the most. A friend tells me it’s because I’ve always aspired to be Eurotrash.
  17. I’m really proud of my little brother for being such an awesome husband and father.
  18. I’m not sarcastic ALL the time.
  19. I decorate with objects that I love, which range from an old Royal typewriter to tea tins.
  20. The first concert I ever attended was Bon Jovi.
  21. I’ve seen Metallica in concert six times.
  22. I exhibited multiple signs of OCD when I was a kid. I remember wishing somebody would notice so that they could figure out what was wrong with me AND hoping that nobody would notice that there was something wrong with me.
  23. I think that my remaining obsessive-compulsive tendencies make me a better copy editor, writer and coder.
  24. I took Spanish in high school and French in college. When I try to speak either language I end up with a mishmash of both. Sacre gato!
  25. I’m pursuing my master’s degree in English mostly because I really enjoy the classes.

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Overheard in the Haggerty household

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on January 11, 2009| 5 Comments »

In a recent discussion of “Why doesn’t Chewbacca get a medal too?” my husband suggested that maybe Wookiees don’t like medals. I maintained that Chewbacca wouldn’t mind wearing a medal because he already wears a bandolier and is thus used to sporting a little bling. Now I’m having second thoughts, because the medal might smack against the bandolier, irritating the Wookiee and maybe even damaging his ammo. 

I hear some people discuss politics at dinner.

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Sometimes I am totally from the South

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , on December 5, 2008| 2 Comments »

I almost fainted one night this week after bending my injured elbow. According to my husband, Bill, aka Mr. Science, bending it may have released some toxins that had been stored up, toxins that went coursing through my bloodstream with malicious intent. It certainly wasn’t the blood-and-guts factor, or I would have passed out while bleeding on fancy towels.

Whatever the reason, as the gray cloud crept in from the outskirts of my vision and I slowly and safely dropped to the bathroom floor, I realized the depths of my Southern upbringing. All I could think of was the saying, “I think I’m getting a case of the vapors,” a most hilarious sentiment, and one that would have had me giggling on the floor had the crippling nausea not overtaken me.

I was fine a few minutes later, thanks to patience and a few sips of Coca-Cola. The dizziness retreated, and my Seinfeld-like eight-year record of not throwing up remains intact.

My inner Southern belle is relieved.

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These stitches did not stay in Vegas

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on November 30, 2008| 3 Comments »

If you’re not the type of person who enjoys being the center of attention, then I have to advise you not to slip and fall like a cartoon character on the pool deck of a four-star hotel in Las Vegas.

I do hate to be fussed over. So standing around in bikini, half wrapped in a towel and bleeding on a couple of other expensive towels while waiting for the hotel’s EMT, was not the start of a grand Thanksgiving morning or a fantastic end to an anniversary celebration. Three hours and seven stitches later, though, I was back on vacation.

Kudos to the lady behind the towel counter, who didn’t freak out when I started bleeding on her fancy linens. Also kudos to the hotel EMT, who hastily applied a butterfly bandage to my gaping elbow laceration and sent me to the nearest doc-in-a-box for further repair.

Most of all, special thanks to my husband, who despite being way freaked out and worried about me, actually mopped up a little pool of blood when I asked him to (I hated to freak out the other guests). Later, after witnessing my one-handed eating efforts (can’t bend your arm with elbow stitches), he cut up my turkey for me. You can’t buy an anniversary gift like that.

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