Saturday night, around 3:30am, I stepped in a pile of cat vomit. Barefoot, of course. Squish.

Just wanted everyone to know that.

Tai-Pod

Our ipod (Poddles) was only about 3 years old when she died, tragically, last weekend. But in "ipod years" that is ancient, since they now come with color screens and play videos and all sorts of fancy shit. Still, our monochrome 20GB Poddles served us well until the day she died.

It was an accidental death, of course. At least that's what I'm told. I'm told this by the man who was hoping she would die (so he could get a fancy new one). The story I was given was that he accidentally left her sitting on the mailbox after doing yard work all day. And then he accidentally turned on the sprinklers. And then he accidentally forgot about poor Poddles for 10 solid minutes, by which time she was soaked.

Ipods and water don't mix.

Having owned Poddles for a few years, we've become dependent on her. So of course we needed to run right out and get a replacement. Poor Tai was lost without her. Bedtime just isn't the same without Transitions.

So yesterday, after 5 long days of mourning, Minh came home with our new little bundle of joy, Tai-Pod. He's slimmer than Poddles was and he has a color screen that can play videos. He holds 30GB. And he's black. We love him already.

What Stumps?

Last weekend, Minh took the next step in his continuing "war on trees." He and a neighbor of ours spent the whole day grinding tree stumps down to hide all evidence of the mass tree murder that took place last fall. Minh claims it has something to do with making the yard more usable and being able to plant flowers.

But really it was just an excuse to rent and use yet another giant tool -- The Stump Grinder. This tool is essentially a spinning disk with giant teeth that whittles the tree stumps down to nothing. Here it is in action.

It sounds easier than it was, though. I think it took them a good 30 minutes of serious manual labor to get each stump below ground level. And I think they did about 15 or 20 stumps between the two yards. It was a long day. Despite being alot of hard work that left the guys sore for days, this process actually seemed to work quite well.

Now you see a tree stump.....................















............................Now you don't!

Who Sleeps Like This???

The Flip Side

And now for the top 10 reasons I know that Minh and I are, deep down, still the same people we always were.

10. We still own, and use, plates stolen from college dining halls. They happen to be the perfect size for a Mama Celeste Pizza For One.

9. We still eat Mama Celeste Pizza For One.

8. We have private jokes dating back 10-15 years. Some are so old that we can't even remember how they started. Having such a rich shared history happens to make us unbeatable at Taboo. Anyone reading this is welcome to consider that a challenge. Bring it on.

7. We still enjoy a good joint-nap. Only now, sometimes there are three of us snoozing in the bed.

6. Minh still procrastinates -- he does his best work in the 24 hours immediately preceding a major deadline.

5. I still follow Minh around the house and shut off the lights he leaves on....sometimes while he's still in the room, using the light.

4. We still "jinx" each other. Often. This is a byproduct of being able to finish each other's sentences.

3. We still cook dinner together, usually.

2. I'm still a morning person and Minh still takes a solid hour to "warm up" each day.

1. We still play Maui. If you don't know what that is, come over sometime and we'll kick your butt....er, I mean teach you to play.

Identity Crisis

Most of it is because we now have a baby, but some of it might just be that we are getting older. Either way, sometimes it seems like we're not the same people anymore.

Top 10 Reasons I No Longer Know Who We Are....

10. We employ a dog walker.

9. We now spend money as if we were wildy rich. For example, I think nothing of buying Tai a $13 Lamaze toy, just because all the other kids at baby group have something similar. And we're not just spending ridiculous amounts of money on Tai either (see #8).

8. We recently purchased a $100 kitchen trash can. Yes, that's right....$100 on a trash can. In our defense, it's a really cool trash can.

7. I am one of those people who has to have their cell phone on them at all times. While I'm at work, it sits out on my desk. If I have to go into the conference room for a meeting, it comes with me. I used to mock these people. Now I am one of them.

6. Our dog walker is distraught about her upcoming 20th birthday, because she doesn't want to be "old." If 20 is old, what does that make us? I try to picture what we look like to her... an old married couple with a house, three pets, and a baby. We probably look like we have our shit together. But really, inside we are still just teenagers who have no idea what we are doing and are making it up as we go along.

5. Our living room tables are littered with gardening catalogs and baby magazines.

4. When Minh and I use the words "baba ganoush" and "mulligatawny" out in public, we're not ordering food. We're talking to Tai about the two stuffed animals that hang from his car seat handle. Those are their names. We named them.

3. Minh has started drinking wine. Gone are the days when he would ONLY drink Sam Adams, due to his discerning taste for beer. And gone are the days when he would ONLY drink PBR, due to his concern for our household budget. Now each night, as we prepare dinner, he goes to the wine rack and selects a bottle to go with the meal. Who is this man?

2. We cook dinner in a crock pot.

1. Locking myself in a little room with the industrial-sized printer and milking my breasts provides a nice little break from work a couple times a day. Even better, I have to coordinate these "breaks" with another co-worker who uses the room for the same purpose. And I used to think it was inappropriate to discuss such body parts in the workplace....