Seagull Rock!

Today I got the opportunity to officiate my friend's wedding. I find it personally a little weird that for this marriage to be legal, I couldn't just go do it for her. I had to spend literally thirty seconds online to fill out a form to get credentials, and then I could do it. Something is wrong with that system there.

Anyway. It was a beautiful typical misty day out. Señor Marine and I picked up Ocean Princess and King Neptune (names in honor of their wedding spot...and let's face it, Ocean Princess looks like beautiful windswept mermaid royalty).

We drove out to the giant rock formation on the coastline that they had chosen to get married on. The giant rock formation that was adorned with a dead seagull and surrounded by seals and their babies.

Baby seal!!!

Anyway. Once King Neptune and Señor Marine were able to be pulled away from the baby seal (which, look at it...it's pretty tough to pull yourself away from that), the wedding got underway.

It was a nice, simple ceremony. It was just those two, their two witnesses and Señor Marine, so I could have a date for lunch after the ceremony.

After the ceremony ended with the traditional, "And by the power vested in me by the state of California and a Jedi master..." They were married! Man, I feel powerful.

So off we went for some photo ops and then some completely delicious Benihana's.

Look closely beside King Neptune.

Classy.

 So that's all I got for the day. I'm so happy for Ocean Princess and King Neptune. Yaaay!

--Bee--

Bedtime reading

Every now and then, Aquaman and I like to jump on the bandwagon. But not until the wagon has long since rolled past and everyone else has hopped off.

So, right now we're sitting on the empty bandwagon that is The Hunger Games (the books, not the movie. Because we might actually be part of the crowd if it were the movie I was talking about).

Anywho...we are reading the first book together. And by together, I mean Aquaman reads it out loud to me at bedtime while I periodically interrupt to fill him in on 'how that happened in the movie'.

But we only made it through chapter one before Aquaman left for a week in the tropics. And I'm pretending that's the reason I'm feeling a little left behind. Not because I'm at home with the five cyclones and no root cellar to hide in. Nope, not that at all.

Health nuts

Maybe you heard this little news story...

http://finance.yahoo.com/blogs/the-exchange/today-food-finance-nutella-not-broccoli-162956191.html

The people who make Nutella are paying out $3 million in a lawsuit because it turns out some people were misled about the actual nutritional value of the delicious, chocolatey spread. Read: it's advertised as delicious and healthy and some people didn't actually read the label to verify this.

Before everyone starts mocking our lawsuit-happy society, etc, etc, I'm just going to say that some people are easily advertised to. And some people were well aware it's the equivalent of chocolate frosting with a retro label, but some people convinced themselves (or herself) that it's actually better than chocolate frosting because it's made with nuts. And nuts are healthy.

I intend to hide this news story from Aquaman who watched in horror  fascination as I ate a spoonful (or three) of Nutella for a bedtime snack (and then gave him my 'it's like healthy chocolate frosting because it's made with nuts' line). And no, Aquaman, I'm still not going to classify it as chocolate frosting just because of a silly lawsuit. Although I may jump into this class action business and claim my $4 as part of the duped public.

--Kae--

Foot-poppin' fun

So I bought some blue knee high boots. Blue knee high boots with ruffles. This was on a whim, as I ended up at an outlet mall and they were the last pair at Charlotte Russe and therefore ten dollars. Before I go further, you all need a visual.

So initially I wanted to wear these boots on Monday. That didn't pan out. So I had to wait all the way until Thursday (THURSDAY) to wear my blue boots. I came home fresh and sparkly from work with somewhere to go (trivia night with some of Señor Marine's friends) and got dressed. Imagine, if you will, these boots with leggings, a white skirt and a gray lacy shirt. Cute, right? I walked out of the bedroom and Señor Marine's reaction was, "Well, that's hippie of you." (Yes, I realize this sounds mean when it's written and not him saying it, but he didn't mean it that way.) Probably right with a flowy skirt and ruffly boots and whatever. Take two was just skinny jeans, boots, shirt.

So we headed out, and once we got to trivia, I did everything in my power to have someone comment on my boots without flat out saying, "Hey! Boots! Look!" I tried crossing my legs so my foot stuck pretty much straight out in everyone's line of sight. I tried casually standing up with my foot popped as I talked to someone. I imagine it looked something like this:

You know, cute and casual.

So after an entire night and not a single comment, I looked around and realized: we were with a group of entirely male friends. And not a single one of them was going to say something about my shoes. I had struck utter failure.

I'll wear them again and damn it, someone is going to comment on my blue boots without me forcing them. If that doesn't work, I'll jam that cute little stiletto heel into their foot until they do.

Crabby I'm not

Lanky informed me today that if he was a grown-up girl he would make sure he had a job. Because that would be a lot better than staying home and being crabby with his kids. Food for thought...

I did correct the dear boy that I'm not crabby today, in fact I'm baffled by why he would think such a thing. Then he told me he was thinking about yesterday.

Aaaahhhh yes, yesterday. Yesterday was the day I was stern (NOT crabby) and told the five feral children at Target not to touch anything. Nope, not even the squishy toys in the dollar section.

As I was running around after them, grabbing things (that they were CLEARLY not touching- because my little people always listen- because I'm that good of a mother, thank you) out of their hands and telling them in a whisper/hiss to "get over by the cart! Just stand by the cart!", we heard the shatter. The 'glass-is-breaking-and-you-didn't-bring-anything-glass-into-the-store-with-you-so-why-is-there-the-sound-of-glass-breaking' shatter.

And I turned to see the remains of a piggy bank at the feet of Specs. The sound of glass breaking was much more effective than all my instructions so all the little lambs turned instantly obedient and ran to the cart. Good job, kids. (The random two year old who had been wandering the dollar section was grabbed- snatched really- by her mother and rushed to safety away from me and the pack of wolves I travel with).

I took a minute to check out what the piggy bank looked like pre-Specs.

Pretty much like this. So I couldn't really blame Specs for picking it up and throwing it with mighty strength on the floor to see if it bounced. It didn't (see above story)

But, the moral of the story is: I'm not crabby. Just stern. Even though the stern-ness is getting me nowhere. So maybe I'll try crabby.

Picky

I guess the split pea and curry soup I made for supper last night (and am forcing the kids to eat as leftovers for lunch) is quite an abomination to Lanky's discerning palate. He told me that he wishes he didn't have a tongue.

Then Matilda cheerfully (gleefully?) offered to cut Lanky's tongue out for him.

No pictures for your viewing pleasure. I'm sure you're quite heartbroken about not seeing five kids smeared with green soup/paste and coated in pink sprinkles from the marshmallow Peeps that bribed them through the soup.

In other news, so far I've accomplished nothing more than shoveling the soup down five gullets today. But I'm about to put a bandaid on Specs' knee, so I'm sure at the end of the day I'll be able to bask in the glow of a productive day.

Swept out to sea

I know, I know, you all have been waiting anxiously for Bee's triumphant return to The Blog. Yes, I have been silent, but only in English. I have been working too hard in Korean that my English doesn't work well anymore. Although apparently my Korean is wavering between sounding like Sassy Pant's level of speech (but in English, of course) and my own level of speech (also in English). Fun times.

Also, two friends from home came to visit, which was pretty badass. Señor Marine and I did all the touristy things we only do when we are entertaining the rare out-of-town guest. We went to Big Sur, fell down rocks and cliffs, and generally had a great time. It was really nice to have people I knew from home come visit, even if it did make me way more homesick.

This past week, Señor Marine had to work overnight, so I was left to my own devices. After getting over my annoyance that the Marines, like a needy clingy wife, stole him from me so I had to sleep on my own, I proceeded to lie in bed, eating potato chips and rewatching a few Arrested Development episodes. Which led me to think what life would be like, had I joined the Army instead.

If only....

What I have to report on for the weekend is Señor Marine is going scuba diving tomorrow for the first time in a long time, and the first time in the ocean. If he gets swept out to sea, I'll be pretty pissed. If I can brave the cold without a wetsuit, I'm going to try going under (not like, open sea diving, but like barely off the shore diving).

And now for my favorite music of the week. Watch Penguin Cafe Orchestra and soak up the 80s hair and talent.

Combat

If you give your sibling a bloody nose, I don't think you should be allowed to yell when his blood drips all over your shirt.

And I was foolish enough to laugh when 2 of the kids were wearing sparring helmets-complete with face shields- during math today. Well played, strange little children, well played.

--Kae--

Out on the town

Friday night, I did something that I like to do once a decade. I went to a concert for the first time since I went to see Kelly Clarkson and the rest of the season one American Idol singers. I was just so sure nothing could top that group of singers, it wouldn't be worth it to shell out the bucks for anyone else's concert. Until...

Needtobreathe. (I'm going to try to withstand my overwhelming desire to write this entire post with only! exclamation! marks!)

I only had to email my way cooler awesome cousin, three or four times to get instructions on how one attends a concert.

Let me start my thrilling tale with what I wore. After THIRTEEN DAYS of actually getting out of pajamas and putting real live effort into looking human-ish (pretty sure all of Bee's readers are now vowing to never have children, and all my stay-at-home mom readers are super impressed with me) I missed my first day. And then didn't leave myself enough time to find something to measure up to the embarrassingly low standards of fashion I've been striving for over the last two weeks. Part of the problem was finding something to go with my orthopedic shoes. Because the Awesome Cousin informed me I would be standing at this concert. But, whatever, I was clothed and even went all out and put on eyeliner. And three, yes three, colors of eyeshadow. Fancy-schmancy.

The four things I will take away from this concert:
1. Needtobreathe is as awesome as I always thought.
2. I will now require a banjo to be played at every concert I attend.
3. Every band should turn off their amps/microphones and sing so you can hear their real live voices.
     Awesome move, Needtobreathe. Way to raise the bar impossibly high for everyone else.
4. I will also require a man dressed as a lumberjack to play ukelele at every concert I attend.

(I couldn't actually find a picture of the guitarist for the opening act, but just picture Paul Bunyan about 5'2" with a ukelele and you've pretty much got it.)

My only complaint was the middle-aged woman in the zebra-print shirt who blocked my every view. But only during the best songs. I finally gave in and rested my chin on the shoulders of the girls in front of me so I could see around the drunken flailings of Zebra Woman. I don't think it was at all awkward. Nor was my compulsive apologizing to the girl behind me who I obsessively worried about blocking. (Until I figured out that it's just every girl for herself at a concert and why oh why  did I not ask Awesome Cousin about the rules of personal space at a concert?)

Ooops, my cheerful, never-complaining self just thought of my other complaint. Old people and PDA. Just because they're surrounded by fresh-faced youth does not make it okay to rest their hands on one another's tushies. This is made even worse if one of those tushies is encased in mom jeans. You'll all be happy to know that Aquaman and I stayed a respectable five feet away from one another as is fitting for two junior-high students at an awkward middle school dance.

So, there you have it. I'll report back on my next concert/date with Aquaman in 2025. I'm sure it will be just as awesome.

--Kae--