Brilliance

Tessa: My niece Taya, who is six, spelled the word intestine. I think that's brilliant.

The List of Irritations

Tessa: Sometimes I ask Dave what he loves about me. And because he is who he is, he almost always replies even though he's a bit tired of the whole thing. First he sighs and then with a look of deep weariness he goes down the list of my lovable attributes. He's a good guy. Other times, just to shake things up, I ask him what irritates him about me. And because he is also a wise man, he never answers. So secretly I have been collecting what turns out to be a rather long list of things that I know bug him about me. Here goes:

1. I snore. Heavily. Consistently. Nightly. I often wake up in the middle of the night to find Dave jumping up and down trying to wake me from my heavy snore-filled slumber. I'm positive this irritates him.
2. As noted in a previous blog, I am a sissy. I cross roads to avoid on-coming dogs, I never turn left on busy roads, like a true British Columbian I can't drive in anything less than perfect conditions. I am also afraid of scary movies and even not-so-scary movies.
3. Cost estimates based on nothing: This is also another sensitive issue. Often, during conversations about how much something will cost, for example, our home beautification wish list, I will bravely offer up a cost estimate based on nothing. No research or experience goes into it I just pull a number right out of my head. This can be done with just about anything from car repairs, a new roof, the budget for a small start-up business or the cost of running a small country. When this happens, which is frequently, Dave just looks at me and asks how I arrived at my number. Actually, he doesn't even do that anymore. He looks at me and ignores me.
4. I am a picky eater. I didn't know this before Dave but apparently this is what I am. Panagopoulis in a squeeze just won't cut it and why bother eating Milky Ways when the Swiss and the Belgians do so much better with chocolate.
5. Dave says I'm noisy. Apparently he was going to complain about our neighbour''s noise but in light of my own noise making he feels he can't. My noise making allegedly consists of slamming kitchen doors shut, never being able to find my inside voice, and running into things and snoring loudly.
6. He'll never admit this but he can't stand the amount of water I use to boil pasta. According to D. there should always be lots of water in the pot. I lean towards using less rather than more.
7. I never put my shoes back in the cupboard neatly on the bench he built for just that very thing. I am working on this.
8. Sometimes I poke him when he's sleeping because I think he's awake. It turns out that often he isn't so he thinks I'm trying to wake him up when all I'm trying to do is see if he is already awake and ready for nocturnal conversation.
9. I sleep in the middle of the bed. This is true.
10. I walk in the middle of the sidewalk. This is true.
11. I can't drink and stay up all night like I originally advertised on Lavalife. The first year of our relationship I didn't sleep at all because I didn't want him to know that I snored. But since the time I snored when I was a awake and talking to him its all over. Which means bed at 9:00 pm if not earlier.
12. He thinks that I don't think this bothers him but it does. I forget to brush my hair for weeks on end. I often have a big knot at the back of my head which I think is fashionably unkempt but he thinks looks like I never brush or wash my hair.
13. Five minutes before we leave the house I run around vacuuming, washing the floors and doing the laundry while he waits outside the door. I didn't know I did this and am doing nothing to change this habit.
14. I snore.

I love you like raisins

Tessa: This last Sunday was a lovely quiet day after our Saturday night dinner party bomb when our friend hijacked our cedar plank salmon and conversation with the 46 inch HDTV with 900 channels at full volume. Okay, the Ali G. marathon session was highly entertaining but nevertheless Sunday was a welcome reprieve. I was happy to have a nice quiet day and read on the couch while Dave photo shopped our friend's wedding picture for the 900th hour in a row. Deanna's head has been coloured, moved, removed, sampled, stapled, highlighted well you name it. But I digress because I was talking about my peaceful Sunday. From time to time Dave would rip himself away from his task sit on the couch, pat my feet, plant kisses on my forehead and say thing like"I love you like slfjdflkdflsj? " "Like what?" I said? "I love you like raissdosdrs." I'm positive I heard raisins. I love you like raisins. “Raisins” I asked. “You hate raisins.” "Yes, I know." he said walking away enigmatically...back to touching up his pictures for the 902 nd time.

A few hours later he would re-emerge from his cave, saunter over to the couch and whisper the same sweet nothing in my boggy ear still ringing from the Ali G marathon. But this time I thought I heard green peppers. I love you like green peppers. Green peppers. He hates green peppers. Ohhhh it’s all getting a bit cryptic now. How am I supposed to read when he’s busy photoshopping without me and telling me he loves me like raisins and green peppers. How can I fully concentrate on my zombie book with disturbing thoughts flying through my mind like an electrical storm. So I get up from the couch and travel to his lair. The photoshop lair. Now I’m beginning to understand that he’s not re-doing these pictures out of necessity which is one thing. He’s doing them because he LOVES DOING THEM. That’s why all of a sudden I’m a raisin and not a hamburger. He knows I’m on the couch reading my zombie book just waiting for him to finish with that filthy photo manipulating program so he can play with ME. Yes, ME! That’s right. I don’t want to read, I want to PLAY. He knows that. He knows I’m slowly seething. I’m turning into Ali G. I’m becoming the monster in my werewolf book because I want attention. Yes. I DO!

So I wrap my arms around his shoulders, bend down and nestle my face in his neck and whisper sweet nothings in his knobby ear. "I love you hot pants,"I say. "I love you like XFCXFG+KJHKHKJHLH." "Like what?" he shouts trying to escape my body hold. "Like raisins."I say sweetly. Like raisins.

Irritable blogging syndrome

Dave: Tessa and I decided about a year ago that we wanted to do something creative together, two brains into one idea. We set out and bought a gallon of bright yellow paint, a gallon of bright orange paint and a gallon of vodka... and at around four in the morning we had our first finished project: our bedroom had two bright yellow walls and two bright orange walls, not to mention a lot of mixed yellow and orange on the carpet and bedspread (I guess when you're so inspired and full of martinis, drop cloths don't come to mind). Of course this led to the realization that to prevent blindness and/or madness we would have to turn the room into the guest room and move down the hall. The next plan was to dye our white living room curtains a nice burgundy. So once again after a few warm-up martinis we filled the bathtub with dye and proceeded... what came out of our "great" idea was not a set of funky hip burgundy curtains, but a color that I don't even know how to articulate.... pinky, salmony... dried pepto bismal vomit? The funny thing is is that they still hang in the window of our old rental apartment. If you live in Vancouver I'll give you the address and you can drive by and see them for yourself, it's worth the trip. Our next idea was a little better, maybe due to the fact we didn't warm up with our usual barrel of drinks. We decided to buy a dozen pink (maybe the curtains inspired us) and a dozen white baby shirts. We drew a big green and pink flower and silk-screened it on the front. We decided that we'd sell them on e-bay and make millions so we could buy a huge farm and adopt all the dogs in shelters...... we still have all the shirts except the six we've given away, I don't know why they didn't sell.

When we discovered blogging it was another way we could create something together, something we could look back on one day and laugh... and the colors we chose for the site are not even orange, yellow or pink. It doesn't even matter if anyone reads this, we're just having fun and have discovered yet another way to play.