Safety First

Last night I was reading a book to Leif. Ok, he picked out a Christmas book about decorating for Christmas. I read the page about the little girl putting the star on top of the tree.

Leif stops me.

"But this is very dangerous, she is standing on top of the ladder and that is dangerous and not how you use a ladder properly. You should only climb about this high and still have space to hold on with your hands," he tells me.

"AB!!!!!" I yell!

AB and the chickens

We both have our "things" that we refuse to cook. I have overcome a few of my fears in the kitchen... namely rice (amazing what moving to sea level has done for my rice cooking abilities) and pie crusts (I am now the queen pie crust maker). What I don't do is cook steak and I don't buy fish. Those fall in AB's realm.

Before dinner on Sunday AB declared once and for all that he is never cooking a whole chicken ever again. Ever. And I assured him that he would never have to cook a whole chicken again! Because I won't let him!

Roasting a chicken really is an art - cooking the entire chicken through without burning the skin, drying out the breast or undercooking the thigh. AB's fear lies in the last part - uncooked chicken seriously freaks my poor husband out.

Ok, he has a point. I certainly don't want to ingest the stuff.

I think I understand my husband's neuroses here. He cooks fabulous meat. Really he does. Roasts, tri-tip, filet mignon, every type of fish imaginable, pork loin and tenderloin and oh... ribs... the ribs...

Given this there should really be one meat out there that confounds him. You can't master everything can you?

In AB's case it is the roasted whole chicken.

(Insert chicken joke of choice.)

Out of character

Yesterday AB and I went to Costco to pick up Skadi's Christmas present:





Of course we picked up some more stuff too. But we had a plan. I checked out the kitchen, agreed with AB that it was perfect - amazingly he was the one who had found it, after I had spent an hour or so one day on the internet finding every.single.little.kitchen out there.

So after seeing the kitchen and letting Skadi play a little with the sample kitchen, thus assuring us it was the right gift, I headed out to the car with the kids while my MIL and AB purchased it and got it loaded into his car, then we met up at our next destination.


AB informed me then that I should probably look at transferring money from savings into checking. I told him we had plenty of money in the checking account right now, the kitchen wouldn't be a big deal.

He said he spent a little more than the dollhouse.


"Well of course you did, we got diapers, a pizza, laundry detergent and a few other things," I said.


"No, I spent more than that," he said. I should have picked up on the vaguery, but when he cited the amount my jaw dropped.


Then he added, "so no snooping around the house either".


A little while later he mentioned that he had also picked up gifts for both my dad and stepdad there too.


I think my jaw may have dropped open further there. AB not only bought a gift for me more than the week before Christmas, but also for members of my own family? People I am normally stressing over buying for?


Who swooped in and stole my husband?


He did tell me not to snoop around our daughter's closet too much. My reply to him was of all the closets in the house, that is probably the worst one to pick to hide the gift.


"How about using the utility room closet with the vacuum cleaner in it," I said knowing he wouldn't miss my reference to the fact that I just don't vacuum, like ever.


"I already put something in there," he tells me, "so no snooping in there either."


So not just ONE gift but TWO!? Hmmm.... I am very curious.

The cat has earned his keep

My husband has finally found worth in our cat.

He isn't a cat person, never has been and probably never will be.

However, our house hasn't been inundated with flies yet.

Only 5 minutes later Lucky was stalking a fly and had it in his black little paws in seconds. Then down the hatch it went.

AB suggested that the lack of bugs has earned Lucky his keep.

My husband rocks

My friend, V, on Mother's Day shared with the rest of us a book one of her coworkers got her called "P0rn for Wives". (I was going to find this book and provide a link, but very quickly realized what exactly would result from such a search. I covered my eyes quick and scrambled for the back button.)

Anyways, the book was hilarious. Male models, scantily clad with liners like, "I just vacuumed the floor". We all laughed, but there were a few that reminded me what a wonderful husband I have. See I hate the vacuum. I get foot massages whenever he is in front of the TV. And then there are evenings like Friday night when I walked in the door that are almost verbatim out of "the book".

"Hi honey, come sit down, I made you smoked venison medallions on a chanterelle mushroom and wild boar bacon ragout with garlic mashed Yukon gold potatoes with a boar bacon gravy. And I was thinking this 1998 Sandhill Cabernet Sauvignon will go well, do you mind if we open it?"

Love him.

And not for the reason you would think!

Yesterday AB told me we needed to get Skadi some more summertime pajamas. We have put her in fleece most of her life to this point. And can I say that while I love the fleece, I really, really love the summertime Carter's little girls lines.

I told him it was good he mentioned this as I just got a coupon for Kohls in the mail today.

"You will have to go there yourself then!" he tells me.

But not for the reason you would think...

See I had $4o in Kohl's cash a few weeks ago. AB went with me and spent it all, plus more...

on himself.

Being that this IS Kohls (i.e., inexpensive) he walked out of there with 6 shirts.

And now he is afraid to go back. Afraid he will find something else he likes and lose his reputation of being a "non-shopper".

In the meantime... I get a trip to Kohls by myself! With the intent of buying itty bitty cute pajamas... but I am sure I will come across something else to spend my money on.

Into the Wild and into one's head

I finally got around to watching Into the Wild this weekend. AB and I had every intention of seeing it in the theater, but it never happened. We finally sat aside a night when we got both kids to bed by 8:30am and were able to stay up and watch it.

I loved it. I really, really liked it.

Of course this comes as no surprise given that it is one of my favorite books ever.

We read this book for book club about a year or so ago where I was flat out surprised that the vast majority of my book club, did not hold the book in the same regard as I did.

The phrase, "dumbass" was thrown around with wild abandon that night. Most people liked the writing and the fact that Krakour did an amazing job with investigative journalism. But very few people could identify with the protagonist and therefore, had little interest or regard for the book.

Have you ever longed to walk away? To survive? To test the limits of your body? To reject social stature? To know what it feels like to scrape by? To move yourself where the wind carried you? To escape the criticisms looming over you?

Both as I read the book and as I watched the movie I marvelled that my husband hadn't done more of this growing up. He IS that type. He is fascinated by survival and the wild. He grew up in Alaska where I think you need to have a little of that survivalist nature within you to love the place. My husband has A LOT of that in him.

After the movie AB did remind me that when Chris (the main character) died in the backwoods of Alaska, he was in fact sleeping on a beach in a tent in Alaska. AB worked and earned a good wage that summer, but saw little point to having a roof over his head when the money would go better towards tuition. For Chris, the money he had would go better to feed someone.

When we were in college, AB would head out walking by himself. He would walk into the foothills of Boulder and make his way around. After we had been dating for awhile I often went with him and I loved walking without really knowing where we were going or how long we would be gone. One trip in particular I remember walking in the hills outside Steamboat for about a day. Another time it was Moab.

I get Chris.

I tend towards being the solitary type and I think AB does as well. I understand finding peace within nature and the desire to live off the land.

My dream of living off the land has always been in retirement where few people will depend on us for their needs or worry about us. The last thing I would ever want to do is worry someone. In my dreams I see a cabin in the mountains with a garden where I grow food and preserve my own food. But I also see having a vehicle and a town to drive to for groceries... and an internet connection... and an airport nearby so I can go see my kids anytime I want. Still, some level of self-sustainability under my own energy is something I want to experience.

Chris was finding himself. I found myself at a few different points in my life. First was a conscious decision in college to quit dating and figure out who I was and what I liked. It scared me when I realized I could name my ex-boyfriend's favorite bands, but couldn't name my own. The next time I found myself was when I left Colorado and in a more urban sense than Chris, was forced to figure things out for myself as a grad student living paycheck to paycheck.

Where my criticisms come of Chris are in points left off of the movie. In the book, it was known early on that the Bus he died in was about one mile from a regularly traveled road. I am sure this point was neglected in the movie to escape the notions of "what a dumbass" instead of sympathy for the lead character dying alone and lonely. Still this was a criticism in the book, that he landed at the Bus and never ventured far enough away from his home point during those long months, to really know what surrounded him.

AB added to this notion the other night when I told him the Bus was a mile from the road by saying, "well duh, anyone could have figured that out. Buses don't just get dropped out in the middle of nowhere Alaska. There HAD to be a road nearby."

Oh yeah. Good point.

Second, Chris was unprepared. My friends and I have routinely teased my husband about being prepared for anything. When we have gone camping with friends, AB will frequently pack every coat in our house. Not because we will need them, but someone else might not have one. He carries boots in his car and gloves nearly all the time. And we always have food in our car for long trips - and not just because we get the munchies. In case of emergency. AB is my ultimate boy scout. Prepared for anything.

So while I "get" Chris, I also feel he should have been smarter. And he should have let his parents and sister at least know he was alive.

When he was.