Things've been busy on my end as of late. This Saturday we had our big four-way birthday party in combination with our even bigger housewarming party, so in addition to my going back to work we were both super busy getting our house ready & preparing for the parties. Also, I'm crazy sore. But the point is I apologize for the lack of activity on here & I hope to be posting something sorta new on here in the next day or two, tops.
Til then, kids!

New Thing #5--Mehndi!

New Thing #5—Mehndi!

I’ve always wanted to get a henna “tattoo,” but never really had the opportunity to get one.
As you’ve probably guessed, a few weeks ago (I only have one more backlogged “thing” left, then we’ll get to more current issues that hopefully don't start with that phrase!) I finally had the chance to get one!

I went to the restaurant India with my friend Shannon & it was a dinner of excitement. Not only was the food delicious--as always-- & the sangria plentiful, they had belly dancers & an artist doing free mehndi. We totally took advantage of the opportunity. The lovely henna artist (who was also a painter & a doula, I believe) did an Om on Shannon & a lotus on my wrist. I only managed to remember to take one photo, so here it is at the end of the night, mid-flake. Also, it's upside-down. Over the next day or so the orange color intensified to a sort of burnt sienna, if you will. You know you will!

I really loved it! It was beautiful, I got lots of compliments on it & I loved the placement. We can now put a “check” near mehndi. Yay!

Additionally, when I got home I looked up lotuses on Wikipedia & in my reading learned that “Padma” means “lotus” & there is a Hindu goddess called “Lakshmi” who is the goddess of many things that lotuses represent, such as wisdom, fertility, & beauty. Also, Lakshmi is often depicted standing on a pink lotus. Padma Lakshmi’s parents must have had an intense lotus love, oui?

Til next time!

new Thing #4--Determined Seagull

New Thing #4--Determined Seagull

D & I sometimes drive down to the beach for a pre-sunset stroll. It’s so relaxing, nice & cool out, plus it’s also a little less crowded at that time. And we don’t have to pay to park, so how can you not like that?

A few weeks ago (seems like all of these entries start with that, huh? ;) ) we seemed to be there during seagull dinnertime. The tide was going out, & tons of seagulls were on the shore watching the waves & presumably waiting for something to swim close to shore. Just as we were talking about the major influx of seagulls on the beach, we noticed a GIANT seagull in the water, swimming to the shore, but backwards. Like butt to the beach. It’s head was down sorta in the water & upon further inspection we saw that the hugest seagull known to man was pulling a large,live, creepy skate fish out of the ocean!


I’ve never seen anything like it; it was crazy! It took the gull a good 3-4 minutes of fighting against the waves, the current & the fish until it got to land. The gull dragged the struggling fish onto the sand, where it flopped a few times until the seagull administered a precise & somewhat brutal beak peck & killed it. Holy moly!!

It was kind of sad seeing the fish struggling, but as Mufasa says, “It’s the ciiiiiiiiiiircle of liiiiiiiiiiife.” It was actually really, well, cool, to see the seagull in full-on hunt mode. That‘s rare around here. Usually Rhode Island seagulls are eating McDonald‘s french fries in a parking lot, or are lurking around beach go-ers, hoping for Cheet-O‘s or a crust of sandwich. And to see the seagull swimming with such force & determination was something I’ve never really seen before. And that killing blow--whoa!

Dinner was served.

In looking up seagulls, I found that some seagulls live off of whales. As whales surface the gulls peck out some blubber. WHAT!? They also engage in kleptoparasitism, which is stealing another beings’ food. Now that we know that fancy term we can stretch the meaning a bit to impress our friends the next time a gull takes off with our bag of chips at the beach! As long as seagulls don’t start pecking at my blubber as a means of survival, me & seagulls, we cool.

New Thing #3--Life & Times of a Glass Tabletop

New Thing #3--Life & Times of a Glass Tabletop

So, a few weeks ago Derrick & I were sitting outside having dinner on our cute little patio on our quite-new outdoor table. We’d only had the pleasure of eating outside a handful of times & this was only our second or third time enjoying our time outside alone.

We had very little food-food (isn’t it funny how sometimes it seems like all you have is canola oil, half a rotted onion, frozen fruit & stale sugar cones?) in the house & we didn’t want to spend money on food or even really feel like going out, so I scrounged around & threw together a dinner of whole wheat spaghetti with tomato & chick pea sauce, a little bread that I found in the freezer & a kinda random salad. You know how triumphant you feel after managing to slap together a meal when you thought you didn’t really have anything to eat? Yeah, I was feelin’ it.

So anyway, we go outside with our plates & get all settled. D was scheduled to have some friends over for a game in about an hour, so we relished the time we had outside together. We’re both chomping on our salad (I even sliced up the THREE kalamata olives we had left, C’MON!), chatting & catching up on the happenings of the day when--

*BAM*

--what the shit was that?!? There was a huge explosion-like sound. We both immediately looked up at the sky, looking for the tree that fell on our house or the shotgun round that was fired in the air or the plane that crashed in our front yard, & then we both looked down, feeling the tinkling of glass on our legs. And then noticed the spaghetti and broken dishes and lettuce on our feet.

We were both frozen in time--I still had my fork in my hand on the way to my mouth--staring at our laps & the ground.

“What the hell just happened?!?” I stifled a laugh of disbelief as D yelled out something a bit more vulgar for the first of many times that evening.

This is what happened:

Awwwesooooooooooome.

So, as Lucy yowled from the window (aw, nervous for her human parents!) D canceled the game (he was also bleeding) & we went to work cleaning up this horrible mess. To add insult to injury, Derrick hadn’t even had a bite of pasta yet so he was extra pissed, if that is even possible. The whole thing was just completely & utterly ridiculous.

Hours later, after we cleaned up & went out to pickup a pizza & ice cream (farewell, healthy dinner) I did some research & found that tempered glass table tops are not covered under warranty or guaranteed because extreme temperature fluctuations, inclusions in the glass during the manufacturing process, slight chips & a host of other things can cause the glass to shatter. Of course there’s no warning on tempered glass table when you buy them. Crazy that they still sell them, right? Oh, business. So yeah. It’s totally not unheard of & upon venting to people on good ol’ Facebook & D talking to people at work, we now know that this has happened to a bunch of other people, too…though not while they were sitting at the table, eating dinner.
Know what else we know now, too?

Never, ever buy a table with a tempered glass table top, unless you want things to get real, real fast.