The mediocre return of Kae and Bee!

I don't know why Kae hasn't been holding up the blog during my internet-less, motivation-less stretch. It's not like she has things to keep her busy, like I do. She just has five screaming, running, fighting, adorable little leeches to chase after. Jeez.

Anyway, as a recap in what has happened over our month-long hiatus: Um, nothing. I have been sweltering and wilting in the heat of my new home. I moved across base. Señor Marine stopped to visit on his way to his new home, still partially across the country from me. And that was about it for me.

I stopped my bedazzling adventures for the time being, but mostly because I have nothing left to bedazzle. I wore those blue high heels, and I was paralyzed for a couple days afterwards. I wore them out the first night Señor Marine came to visit, and he ended up carrying me home. Literally carrying me. I had bruises and blisters galore. They will not be making another appearance until they apologize and get some nice cushioning insoles installed.

Also, much to the dismay of Kae and the rest of the world, I have been watching Say Yes to the Dress almost non-stop. When Señor Marine reminded me that I don't have a need to watch it, we had the following conversation:

Me: "It's like if you were to go to a strip club. You have the perfect model woman already, but sometimes it's fun to look."
Señor: "So this means you want me to go to strip clubs? I don't want to. I'm confused."
Me: "No. You can't. Ever."
Señor: "So it's really not like strip clubs at all."
Me: "Okay, not at all. It's like a pretty actress?"
Señor: "I think you should stop trying to compare me to wedding dresses."

In other news, I made a scarf for Señor Marine, at his request.

As modeled by a friend

Now I just have to stuff the scarf, along with several other goodies into a care package for Señor Marine at his new, stricter base. He swears he will wear it. I will post proof later.

And before I sign off: you have been hipsterfied (except they played this at BWW, so I don't think it counts anymore) And also, doesn't one of the dudes in the band look just like a young Woody Harrelson? Or is it just me?

Now it's time to go get some burritos for dinner.

Bee out.

The downfall of Bee

Señor Marine yesterday was slightly concerned about my mental health and due to that concern, has now caused my downfall and the destruction of everything I touch. Allow me to explain.

Yesterday I spent much of my day sending texts to my long-suffering husband complaining. Complaining about the heat, about the girls who live in the dorm room next to me, about how the moving company has lost all of my belongings, about how he told me to buy these rocking blue heels to start building my shoe collection back up (and replace my poor lost blue boots) but I have nowhere to wear them to. He wisely suggested I find a friend to do something with so I can dress up in my heels. I responded I only have dude friends that go out with me, and it's a little weird to get dolled up to hang out with them. 

Not a shoe you can casually wear with shorts, in my opinion

He then suggested I find something mindless to occupy my time. Here is where it gets dangerous.

I went to the craft store. This may seem harmless enough, as the only craft I can do with any skill is knitting. Then I passed the aisle with all the puff paint in it, and thought, "I have been talking about how I need a new computer tote bag. Maybe I can decorate one."

And that's when I saw it. It was tucked in the back of a bottom shelf, but it was like a soft heavenly glow was lighting my path to finding it. I pulled the box out from behind some cheerleading patches and unicorn stickers, and gingerly dusted it off.

My bedazzler.

I went back to my room armed with a tote bag, the bedazzler, and assorted studs and rhinestones. I set it up on my bed, and proceeded to accidentally bedazzle my finger, the back of my hand, and my toe. Once I got the hang of it, I managed to intentionally bedazzle my tote bag with an anchor. The anchor because the bedazzler came with patterns and the only one that didn't involve stars, hearts or flowers was the anchor. And as I explained to Señor Marine, anchors are very in right now.

A (consolidated) text message exchange between me and Señor:

Me: "The instructions don't make any sense. I don't think I have a stud stuffing tool. Oh wait. I found it. HA! I just bedazzled my finger. I should just leave it. Now my finger is pretty. THIS IS SO MUCH FUN! I'M GONNA BEDAZZLE EVERYTHING I OWN!" 

Señor: "Wow. Take it easy."

Me: "I'm not very good at this. I'M GONNA BEDAZZLE EVERYTHING!"

Señor: "Maybe you should take a break."

And that was the start of the downfall. Although I did follow his advice and put it away before I bedazzled any clothing, or my uniforms, which I badly want to do. Maybe I'll just stick with bedazzling my new blue shoes, since my other glitter shoes sucked. Or bedazzle the rest of my hand. Or sneak into the dorm room next door and bedazzle that girl's uniform, because these studs are impossible to get out. Or maybe I should take a friend's suggestion and modify the bedazzler so it shoots rhinestones from afar, and can be used as a weapon. I need to go. I have lots to do now.

Bee out.

Listen up, Jacques Rogge

I'm surfacing from my new evening love- watching Olympic swimming and gymnastics obsessively- to share my thoughts on the Olympics. IOC, take note. (Don't worry, no spoilers here).

In no particular order:

1. Olympic swimmers should not wear nose plugs. If you're in the Olympics, thus one of the best 
     swimmers in the world, you should be able to handle a bit o' water up the old schnoz.

2.  The women swimmers are really good about congratulating their competition after a race. Hugs
      and all. I don't know if the men just find it awkward to hug in the pool while they're scantily clad
      in their little compression shorts, but I think they could pick up a good dose of Olympic spirit
       from the women's side.

 

3.   Gymnastics- will it ever end? I can't handle any more late nights.

4.    The media is fickle. I never realized just how desperately they want to shape public opinion until
       I watched their Michael Phelps coverage. ("Now we love him, now we speak with scorn of his
       lack of training, now we dredge up nasty comments from teammates, now he's winning so we
       need to respect his amazing Olympic record. And just for kicks, let's play up a little rivalry
       between Phelps and Lochte that may or may not really exist). How am I supposed to blindly
       follow whatever the media tells me now?

5. I don't think I'd make a good Olympian. I start finding myself cheering for other countries because
    hasn't the US won enough medals yet? Can't we spread the gold around? Also, I just don't like to
    work very hard.

5. Olympic commercials rock. Thanks to some commercial (that must not actually be that good
    because I've seen it a million times and still can't remember what it's advertising. Something
    related to computers) I have a new favorite song:

   

         And a new favorite commercial. I'm not going to admit to weeping. Maybe a poignant tear
         trickling down my cheek:

Sleep...I so desperately need sleep...must watch women's individual all-around...Jamaican sprinters...

--Kae--

The love of jalapeno Cheez-its

Kae has been nagging lovingly encouraging me to post for a few days. She didn't know Señor Marine just headed back to his side of the country yesterday afternoon and therefore I was ignoring not receiving her messages and hints. Apparently Kae promised you all (all three of you) an upbeat post, and was relying on me to deliver. Given that I spent my day doing manual labor in the 108 degree heat, Señor Marine is recently torn from me (again) and I am pretty sleep deprived, I can't make any promises.

I shall start off by letting you know the search terms from people that led to our blog this week. "Koreans compliment too much" was one search term on there. You're welcome, Kae, as that particular post about my Korean teachers telling my husband and me that our faces compliment each other has drawn quite the crowd. Still not as good as one last month, "Marine Corps glitter shoes." I really wonder if it was a friend trying to find our blog, but not remembering the name or anything about it, other than Señor Marine and that time I tried to glitter my own high heels. Impressive they found us, however, because I searched that term myself and didn't find our blog.

Señor Marine and I recently have started reading The Hunger Games together. By started, I mean he is finished with the trilogy and I'm about 100 pages behind him. The second and third books are pretty good, but the first book I found very disturbing for some reason. Without giving anything away and because we tend to draw a little bit of the sheltered, cut-off-from-the-world crowd (cough, cough, KAE), the basic premise of the book is about a post-apocalyptic-type United States where two teenagers from each section of the country are thrown into a fight to the death against each other, as a reminder that the Capitol is in total control of them. Read the book, the author explains it better.

Anyway, whilst reading this book, I had some crazy dreams. The most vivid one combined The Hunger Games with The Bachelor. My dream was twenty-some girls competing to the death for Señor Marine's love. Thankfully my dream wasn't too graphic. Whenever I beat up one of the other contestants, they didn't die. I would just mime hitting them and they would freeze. I fought wild dogs, I fought girls in leopard print fur minidresses, I fought rocks.

You try competing with this.

In the end, I knew what I had to do to win Señor Marine's love was buy him a motorcycle (which he has always wanted and I keep telling him no, as he will kill himself on one) and some jalapeno Cheez-its. Because I figured, Señor Marine must be tired and hungry and when he's tired and hungry, he really digs his Cheez-its. And jalapeno because, well, he's Mexican. Apparently dream Bee stereotypes a slight bit.

In my dream, I beat up these other girls to get him his presents. I set a date with him and he showed up to our date ... on a motorcycle. I was crushed. Someone else got him one, and it was better than what I had gotten him, so I couldn't give him my crappy one. I was left presenting him with the box of jalapeno Cheez-its. And just as he was about to tell me what he thought, my alarm went off and I woke up.

After this, I googled jalapeno Cheez-its. They don't exist. I called Señor Marine.

Me: "I had a dream about you."

Señor: "I love you. I love you a lot." (He always says this after I tell him I have a dream about him because frankly, Dream Señor is a bit of a tool. Actually, quite a tool. He knows this, and always precedes my recounts of dreams with a Real Life Señor reassurance.)

Me: "I tried to win your love with jalapeno Cheez-its. But I woke up before I found out if it worked."

Señor: "It would have."

Me: "I love you so much, I beat other girls to death to get you something that doesn't even exist."

Señor: "I love you so much, I'm going to pretend you aren't completely nuts."

My hair, slightly tamed for the night

Hopefully Kae deems this a worthy uplifting entry. If not, she can (um....I don't have an appropriate PG-13 insult here).

Minor surgery

Nope, no minor surgery for me. My brother deposited his wife, Emme, here earlier today after she had her wisdom teeth pulled. I'm not sure where she had them pulled, but I should ask. I'm thinking it was some guy named Snake that works out of his garage.

She was wheeled out in a wheelchair after having her teeth pulled because she was too out of it to walk. I'm glad Snake at least has a wheelchair and his garage is apparently handicapped accessible, but shouldn't he have let poor Emme at least regain consciousness before he tossed her out to make room for his next victim patient?

So, my brother Ricky Rescue (he's a firefighter/EMT/possible adrenaline junkie?) half carried Emme inside, got her settled on the couch, and gave me a rundown of the instructions Snake had given them.

If you are our lone reader who checks in regularly from Russia you a.) probably don't see anything wrong with dental surgery occurring in a back alley and b.) don't know that I'm a nurse. Not that I work as a nurse, but I have retained some knowledge. Which meant I thought these instructions were just as crappy as the post-op care. There were strict instructions in bold print to not take any pain medication for 6 hours after surgery. Because everyone knows it's a good idea not to take anything for pain after having permanent teeth extracted from your jaw.

Anyway, the high point of the morning was poor Emme on the couch after being here for about 10 or 15 minutes tearing up and asking for her youngest child. I thought she was just missing the little runt until Ricky Rescue reassured Emme that their baby was fine. She was sleeping soundly in the car. !? Emme, still more than a little gorked, just cried some more. I freaked out suggested maybe a one year old shouldn't be left in the car indefinitely and Ricky went to get her. It was my big leadership move of the day.

Ricky and baby went home to the rest of their kids, leaving Emme to recuperate in peace. (My kids were quietly occupied by children's television). The rest of the morning involved saliva, blood, gagging, etc. (not necessarily all from Emme), and culminated in watching What Not to Wear and having a deep discussion involving curly hair and mullets. Which I'm pretty sure Emme won't remember since she was under the influence of lingering anesthesia and against-sketchy-medical advice Vicodin.

*I'm sorry that this is the most boring post ever, but unless you want to hear in excrutiating detail how I've been on the couch watching the Olympics nonstop ("13 minutes into the water polo match between China and Spain, I decided I needed a glass of iced tea...") this is what you get. Also sorry to Emme, our most faithful reader, for featuring her entrance to the project in this inane, blathering post.

--Kae--

Knowledge is power...but only if the other guy realizes you're knowledgeable

I'm pretty sure I made some sort of half-hearted promise earlier in the week about an uplifting post coming. It will just have to wait until Bee returns to blogging after spending some quality time in a romantic locale (which may or may not be your friendly neighborhood Air Force base) with Señor Marine. Because I'm fairly certain she's not wasting one second of together time in front of the computer.

Today I had the pleasure of meeting a woman who firmly disproves any of Darwin's theories about evolution or survival of the fittest. Seriously, people, a person this dense should have theoretically been weeded out centuries ago. And yet she's here, she's nearing retirement age, and I can only assume has procreated. So explain that to me, Charles Darwin.

Our conversation started when I told her I had two sets of twins. And she was justifiably impressed with me. Then it came up that they were adopted. To which she replied, "So do you have any of your own?"

Let me interject here... I can guarantee any of my many adoptive mom friends (3 or 4 of whom read this blog) have had to answer this question. And, like me, have felt obligated to answer using the correct terminology. I've never been angry about someone asking this question, just glad to have the chance to educate Joe Public about adoption.

So, I answered with a smile, "Well, they're all our own. But, yes, all five of our kids are adopted."

Usually this is where the lightbulb goes on, the other party understands and the conversation moves on.

She nodded seriously. "So do you have any real kids?"

At this point, I'm pretty sure I just looked bewildered and she looked like the one who knew what was going on. (Can I point out that Aquaman was listening to all this right next to me and never once looked up from his magazine? Thanks for the help, hon.)

Kind of baffled, I kept smiling and said, "Our kids are all real. Their tantrums are very, very real."

And thus ended our session of Politically Correct Adoption Speak 101. I think we all got failing grades.

--Kae--

Monday, monday

Perhaps I'll do a nice uplifting post tomorrow (or next week, we're not known for our prompt and punctual posting here at the project). Right now I'm laying on the couch, ready to watch yet another episode of Burn Notice and recuperate from the day. Yes, the difficult day of the stay-at-home-mom. (I also have disc 2 of season 2 of Downton Abbey waiting, but I think the world of burned spies and counter intelligence is more in order after a day like today).

I spent the morning thinking about how much Mondays totally suck for stay at home moms, just as they do for the people who have to leave their home for work. Then one of my favorite bloggers dedicated a whole post to that thought and I felt (mildly) vindicated.

Tantrums. Just tantrum after tantrum after tantrum from child after child after child. And the tantrums don't stop. Ever. Except for Pipsqueak. Who after losing the tantrum battle with Mama and deciding it may be in his best interest, after all, to stop screaming, ran to his room and started singing a sweet little song that goes a little something like this: "Mama's a baby kaka. Mama's yucky. Ooohh ooohh, yucky Mama." So then I had to heave a huuuuuuuge sigh and trudge down the hallway to address that little gem of disrespect. Which led to another tantrum.



If he wasn't so absolutely squish-a-licious...



To end the day on a brighter note, Aquaman just asked Pipsqueak if he had a diaper ready to put on for bedtime. Pipsqueak immediately ran to his dresser and streeeeeeeeetched his arm behind it to pull out a diaper...soaked and obviously previously used. I have no idea why he has a stash of used diapers, but if we ever do have need of urine-soaked diapers, we won't be caught short.

Happy Monday, all.

--Kae--