Mr & Mrs Peters

It was my freshman year in college. My mom had moved out of state several months before. Honestly, her leaving hadn’t been the emotional upset I sort of assumed it would be… I think that moving into the dorms for the first time and living the fun “college life” distracted me from the fact that she was missing from my everyday life. I didn’t see my Dad or Colleen every day either, and they were just 30 minutes away.

One afternoon we decided to eat at the schools’ hamburger place for a break from the typical cafeteria lunch. I ordered a Grilled Cheese Sandwich and waited patiently. My number eventually popped up on the electronic screen and I hurried back to the table where my older sister/best friend/soon to be rescuer was already sitting. I took one bite of the Grilled Cheese Sandwich and burst into tears. You see, growing up, Mom’s Grilled Cheese was a comfort food- always served with hot tomato soup. This Grilled Cheese was “gourmet,” i.e. made with two types of cheese. Who wants two types of cheese on their Grilled Cheese?? What was wrong with these people and their fancy Grilled Cheese Sandwiches? Didn’t they know that Grilled Cheese Sandwiches were a simple meal, meant to comfort and soothe?

As I became more upset and distraught, Fran took me back to the dorms. (I cannot even begin to imagine what the other students thought of a young freshman blubbering wildly over her sandwich plate) It was as if every change and every adjustment from the past few weeks caught up to me in that moment. I cried not just because I missed my mom, but because life was different and new and strange… I learned my lesson and never again ordered a Grilled Cheese without properly specifying my desire for one cheese type only.

Today I had a Grilled Cheese Sandwich for lunch and smiled as I recalled this memory.

You know how sometimes you are driving somewhere that you go very often and all of sudden you think- “Wow, I don’t even think I’ve been paying attention!” It’s a slightly concerning feeling, but 99% of the time I know I haven’t run any red lights/cut anyone off, etc.

Earlier this week I was driving to work when I suddenly realized I was in the carpool lane. This obviously bothered me as I definitely didn’t start out there. It worried me that I might have swerved or something and not even noticed it. (Troublesome, right??)

The next day it happened again and I realized that the tricky Cal-Trans people had turned the number one lane into a carpool lane! I know I can’t have been the only one who was worried that they were going insane on the 5 freeway.

So, good news is- I haven’t lost my mind. Yet.

On a side note… I have a very exciting piece of news to share. No, I’m not pregnant… It’s even better than that! (Unless you’re my mom and are secretly hoping my birth control fails).

Justin and I are going on a cruise to Alaska in the fall!! We made the decision about a week ago that we would have to cancel our planned trip to Mexico, in light of all the escalating violence south of the border. We knew we wanted to stick with something that would be “all-inclusive,” as I love the feeling of not having to spend a dime on my days to relax!!

So, if any of you have any words of advice or wisdom to share- comment away! I am thankful to have my Aunt Patti who is a travel guru when it comes to cruises. I would appreciate anything ya’ll have to share!

Dear Department of Motor Vehicles,

Why do you hate me?

I can only assume that you dislike me and want to cause me stress. Why else would you issue Driver’s Licenses to people who are so very clearly undeserving?

I try to go out of my way to be a safe, aware, and defensive driver. I do not tail people. I do not drive in the carpool lane without a second person. I do not flash my high-beams at drivers to annoy them. I most certainly do not cut people off and endanger those around me.

In fact, I try to drive in a courteous manner. If possible, I let people over to my lane when I see their turn signal**. I try to show my gratitude with a wave or mouthed, “Thank you!” when someone shows me kindness by allowing me in a new lane.

It has become obvious, however, that I am in the minority. Most people are not nice when they drive. It seems they are too busy yelling at their kids/consulting their GPS system/checking out female drivers to be concerned with driving carefully. Apparently it is too much to expect that someone might drive in such a way that prevents accidents from happening.

I am hoping that you will take my concerns to heart and consider adding an “Idiot Clause” to the Driver’s Test. Basically, the Idiot Clause will prevent anyone from receiving a license to drive if they seem as if they might have issue with the basic laws of the road. I am even willing to design a test that will gauge someone’s potential “Idiot-ness.”

Sincerely,

A concerned driver

** You might want to teach people about the whole “turn signal” thing. I can only guess from my experiences on the Southern California freeways that most people do not know what they are for. Just a suggestion.

Fool me once, shame on you…
Fool me twice, shame on me.

Do you ever do something that just really makes you feel, well… stupid?
Every morning I take my pills along with my bowl of cereal. I will admit, most days I am in a rush and often forget to completely twist the lid of my enormous jar of multi-vitamins back on tightly. About 6 months ago I had an “accident” where I dropped the jar as I was grabbing it, and as the lid wasn’t completely on, vitamins went EVERYWHERE. I felt silly, but promised myself that it wouldn’t happen again. After all, we all make mistakes every once in a while. Then it happened again about 2 months ago. And, you guessed it, guess what flew everywhere this morning?

I often joke about being a klutz and always running into things, hitting my head on lamps/walls/etc., but I do genuinely get frustrated with myself sometimes. It seems like I can’t go a day without tripping, or getting a new bruise, or spilling food EVERYWHERE. My poor husband deserves a medal for the messes he has to help me clean up in the kitchen.

I know there are worse character traits to have than klutziness, but I wish I was more “graceful.” Maybe I can blame this all on my parents, for not sending me to some sort of finishing school. But, in their defense, they did send me to ballet and that normally helps kids with the whole coordination thing. I suppose I will just have to live with myself the way I am… Or, maybe we will just baby-proof the house a few years early. Our friends have special foam pads on the corners of all their furniture, and right about now, those are sounding like a lifesaver!

So this morning I was approximately 45 seconds into my morning commute when I noticed a piece of lint drifting in the air out of the corner of my eye. This didn’t seem too out of the ordinary because I got the car washed yesterday and sometimes little tufts of lint from the cleaning rags get stuck in crevices. I would say that it took me appoximately 2 seconds to realize that the “drifting lint” was in fact a spider coming down its web and landing less than an inch from my thigh. I will say this- I handled myself fairly well. There was no screaming, and no swerving of the car (although I may or may not have uttered a curse word and scooted myself as far away as the seat allowed me). Well, before I could kill him, the spider crawled down between the seat and the middle console.

For those of you who know how my mind works, you can fully picture how I spent the next 45 minutes freaking out and considering all the different horrible things that could happen… Scenario #1: One day I will be driving and all of a sudden hundreds of newly hatched baby spiders will start crawling out from under the floor mats, until I am covered by spiders and slowly die from all their bite marks. Scenario #2: I will never be able to fully relax in my car again. From this day on, I will flinch every time I feel the slightest itch on my body, therefore making it necessary to sell the car and start all over.

I was almost to work when I decided that instead of living in fear for the remainder of the time I own this car, I will instead turn this around and force myself to think of my new visitor as a friend and not a foe. So, blog readers, I want to introduce you to Earl, my Halloween spider. He is a single guy looking for love and I am confident he will be able to find a soulmate in the crazy huge spider that lives outside my garage above the fence. He has already promised me that I can plan his spider wedding when the time comes.

On second thought… I am just going to vacuum under my seats tonight. Problem solved!

What is wrong with this world?? All I need to find out now is that JTT (Jonathan Taylor Thomas for all those of you who weren’t obsessed with boys back in the mid to late nineties) has turned homo and the trilogy will be complete.

I will admit- I sort of saw the Clay thing coming. I very valiantly denied his homosexuality for YEARS, but the whole him impregnating a girl who isn’t his romantic interest made me start to wonder. The kid is cute though, if you ask me.

I STILL am shocked by this one…. I really feel as if he owes me back all those crazed love/fan letters I sent him.

So, in summary- if anyone hears talk of Justin considering a People cover, for the love of all things good, please someone warn me first!!