Redemption Song

After making some controversial statements about the type of person who enjoys Almond Joys and the subsequent backlash from my blogging public, I started to think I was maybe in the minority when it came to the love for Almond Joys. Rick was even getting a little gloatie with me about the whole thing. Needless to say I have had candy on the brain, which subsequently resulted in a mysterious reduction in our candy rations as the big day approached, so we made a last minute run to Target to replenish the supply.

At first I was bummed out due to the total lack of selection and the ramifications this would have on our Halloween Message. Then I took a closer look...
Well what do we have here? It seems as if the candy apocalypse has occurred and the only things that remain untouched (besides one stray bag of what appear to be pre-season mint M&Ms) are the bags upon bags of Almond Joys! HA! I told you guys they are horrible, and this proves it. Or it proves that serial killers don't shop at my Target. Either way, I come out ahead.

Happy Halloween everyone!

Tired of the updates?

Hopefully this is the last of the B-dog updates for a while and he will remain in stellar health (or get to stellar health and remain there). B had his spinal tap on Wednesday. This caused no small amount of anxiety on my part, and I am guessing my whole extended family as well. In case you can't tell, we are all a bit obsessed with this dog. No pressure. In an effort to thwart the post-sedation death march, we arranged for him to stay the night at the vet's after the spinal tap for supervision. To be honest, I can't even recall what we are looking for exactly at this point. I think to rule out cancer of the spine (sounds both comfy and easily treated) and/or find the causative agent for the possible meningitis. In other words: shots in the dark to figure out why our dog's acting crazy.

The good news is that he came through the procedure with little to no incident. Stephanie the vet tech reported on Wednesday night that he was doing well, a little wobbly, but was willingly accepting bites of Stephanie's bagel. That's our boy! He was picked up yesterday by Aunt Chaney and promptly wisked away to some fancy pet boutique to buy whatever his heart desired. Then he came home and was comatose for the rest of the evening.

This pic was snapped this morning and as you can see, both eyes equal and reactive (thanks ER) and ears are up and at 'em. These are all good signs. This is also his "wanna give me some treats?" face.

This is the only disturbing part of the spinal tap: the exposed neck skin. I felt it before I actually saw it and I was a little scared at first. But I have grown to love his strange neck skin. Judging by his hair growth, it should be gone by next week. He will be Friar Tuck for halloween.

The preliminary results were good, but we still have to wait for someone up the chain to review the info before we get an official ruling. But when the alternatives are brain cancer/tumors or cancer of the spine, we are keeping our fingers crossed for a "quirky old dog that likes to walk in circles" diagnosis!

Time for the Restraining Order

So, after my last post about Halloween candy, I learned a disturbing factoid that most of the people that read and/or comment on this blog like Almond Joys (thereby openly accepting that they may have serial killer tendencies). One of these people is my husband. And my brother.

Rick and I often joke about his "old man taste" in candy (it's seriously riveting conversations at our house non-stop) as his favorite candy is the Boston Baked Bean.

mmmm, mediocrity....

But all this candy talk did get me thinking of the awesome candies of our youth. I probably considered all candy awesome at the time because I had such limited access, but in looking back there were some real stinkers. I am looking at you slo pokes, necco wafers, and good 'n plentys. However your grossness was overshadowed by the greatness of thinks like Fun Dip, Mike 'n Ikes (I recently plowed through a HUGE theater sized box while not in the appropriate movie setting) and pop rocks.
Hopefully we can all agree that these little doggies are the most offensive of the old school candies. The effort to reward ratio is grossly skewed when it comes to the Candy Button. Let me take 5 minutes to try to peel this tiny little piece of candy off this waxed paper that it's likely glued on to with some sort of toxic waste only to get a mostly flavorless blip of crap. The more desperate (not me mind you, I would never) just took the whole sheet and ran it across our mouths like maniacs. I bet blind people hated these too.

Candy Buttons: making children insane with diappointment since 1973.

I guess the lesson learned is that everyone has different candy preferences and we just have to agree to disagree. I now know where to take any overstock of Almond Joys should they come my way. But I've still got my eye on you guys...

Decisions, Decisions

Sometimes being a grown-up is hard. You have to make important decisions that influence everyone around you. You have to decide to get out of bed and go to work, decide what to have for lunch, decide how to best not inadvertently kill your dog. Some are harder than others. This time of year brings one of the harder adult decisions....Halloween Candy Selection.

Those who take this selection lightly obviously haven't taken a good hard look at what your Halloween Candy Selection (HCS) says about you and your station in society. For instance, the house with Bit o' Honeys and Wax Lips are clearly serial killers. The house with apples and homemade knick-knacks made by the home schoolers are, well, also clearly serial killers (in training).

The ramifications of the HCS always weigh heavily on me during Halloween season. This is why I spent a solid hour in the aisles of Target trying to find just the right candy to send the message that we are fun, free-wheelin', non-serial killin' folks. But there is a new development on the HCS scene: the variety pack. After looking at all my options in the variety pack section, I am now convinced that the variety pack is Mars' and Hershey's way of getting rid of the inventory that didn't move the other 364 days of the year. There are usually 3-4 solid items represented in the variety pack (M&Ms, Snickers, Skittles, etc.) and then they throw in some loser candy like Almond Joy. Seriously. Now someone reading this is going to say, "But Kaly, Almond Joys are awesome!" Congrats, you are a serial killer. I look forward to your episode of America's Most Wanted (sponsored by Almond Joy).

After much debate, I finally settled on two variety packs that seemed pretty solid with one less savory option, but nothing that sent a message that I couldn't live with. We have one bag containing the aforementioned M&Ms, skittles, snickers, and starburst (the latter being the ugly cousin along for the ride in this selection) and then another with Rolos, Milk Duds, Heath Bars, and something called the "Take 5". This one was a bit of a wild card as I had never sampled the Take 5 and didn't want to have to pick all of them out should they not fall in line with the other awesomeness. The Take 5 was sampled on the ride home and IT'S GREAT! No need to segregate and we have a strong showing at Casa de Erwin this year. Now I just have to make sure there are some Take 5s still available by Sunday...

bERthday weekend

The weekend was kicked off with a nice, relaxing dinner with Liza, Amy, and David at Pi. I am going to make a very controversial statement here, because this blog is all about controversy. I am one of the only people in St. Louis that is not in love with the pizza restaurant Pi. I would much rather huddle up in Blackthorn for some super cheesy goodness. That was, until I had the specialty "Fire" pizza, which was a game changer. I had this pizza on the brain and rounded up a group to go back so I could get my fix. It was great.

We came home and were ready to hit the sack early, because that's how the Erwins roll. Rick woke me up around midnight to say that Bear/Bexar was acting funny and I came down to check it out (Rick was at what is now his customary post on the couch). Sure enough, he couldn't hardly walk, his eyes were all wonky, and he just looked bad. After pretty much zero discussion, we took him to the ER vet, where it went downhill pretty quickly. They kept him overnight for observation and again reiterated that they thought the problem was something neurological. Thanks.

I attended James Dolley's fabulous Star Wars birthday party on Saturday afternoon (post to come on this, it deserves its own day) and then that evening we headed back to the vet for visitation. Our boy could walk, but he looked like he'd blow about a 0.2 if he were pulled over. Lots of weaving and stumbling, and he could hardly get through his ABCs. The vet requested another night to see if he got any better or worse and then we would reconvene on Sunday.

Side piece of advice here: do not EVER listen to the conversations of the other visitors of the emergency vet regarding their pet's situation (feel free to listen to their personal arguments and discussions, those are quite interesting). It is the most depressing place in the world. I imagine part of B's ailments were related to the death vibe that permeated that place. So sad.

B still rocking the "wink", though his "third eyelid" was no longer visible. Thank God. And if you don't know about the third lid, consider yourself lucky. I think it's the last layer of skin before you get to their skull/brain.

B got to walk the yard with us on Saturday's visitation.

Which was followed up by a lengthy lap session.

Sunday was Ms. Parker Hagemann's 9th birthday. As part of her birthday present, I did not assault her with my camera. You are welcome P. Instead, I got a picture of Chloe singing the "birthday rap". You could have the option of a "normal" or "crazy" performance, with the crazy option including the tutu on the head. Why anyone would choose normal is beyond me.

The birthday rap was a huge hit that involved lots of booty shakin' and jumping, which resulted in Chloe proclaiming at the end that "This rap is killing the warts on my feet!" Sweet fancy Moses she makes me laugh.

We played kickball in Blackburn park and ate pizza to celebrate Parker's big day.

Shisha lining up at "bat".

Amy even came out and delivered some love to B-boy, who is under constant surveillance until we get this figured out.

All in all, it was an action-packed weekend. Let me tell you, action is overrated. I will take lazy kickball birthday party weekends over "ER action" any day of the week.

Deep thoughts

Just kidding. These aren't deep thoughts. But the Ricker and I do get ourselves into some strange conversations, so I thought I would give you a sampling of some of the more pressing issues that are debated in the Erwin household. Rick would probably say that I bring most of these up, but he secretly enjoys the discussions.

The first item is not really up for much discussion but more just something I notice every time I fly. And when I notice it, I have to comment on it. The word "flotation" always looks misspelled to me. I don't know where the "a" in "float" went when it became a device.

The second item has become a minor obsession since I was in college. In Charleston, there were two signs in a row, right before a bridge. One said "Busses must use right lane" and the second said "Buses must use right lane". I am guessing the DOT in Charleston couldn't figure out which was right and decided to split the difference. At least one of them was right. Well lo and behold, it would appear that this is a pretty common conundrum as evidenced by the photos below.

This doesn't look right, and I don't think it is. But again, I am not sure.

But this doesn't look right either. Shouldn't the "vowel, consonant, E" rule in phonics make this pronounced boooooses? Welcome to my world.

After four years of marriage Rick has finally accepted a personality trait of mine that's not really all that fun (I swear, this is the only one). I can't just take anyone's word for something. I have to see it or research it myself. This probably gets annoying. You say that we didn't forget the car chargers and they are in the bag? I don't believe it until I see it. You say that it's a right on Manchester? I have to look it up or see the map. So during another brain bending discussion in Miami with the parents, I expressed my concern that I had never seen an actual garbanzo BEAN itself, like in it's natural habitat (as this post goes on, I am slowly realizing that I might be insane and that the people around me are saints for putting up with this) and wasn't sure if there were multiple peas in a pod like a peanut or a green bean. Bigs quickly proclaimed that they came in individual pods (in hindsight, his quick proclamation was likely an effort to shut me up and get back to the lobster). He seemed so sure of himself that I didn't really question it. At the time. It has been lingering in the back of my mind for days now, so I finally looked it up and lookie loo...he's right!

One lone little pea in a pod. Aren't they cute?

Clearly it's time to up the meds...

Bienvenido a Meeyaamiii

Our 4th anniversary was enjoyed in Miami with GB and Bigs. True to form, they showed us a wonderful time and no calories were spared. No booze bottle went unturned. It was delightful.

Rick kicked off our first day with a 45 ounce mojito to prime the pump.

Our super-duper room. You could wash a small car in the shower and an average sized horse (or female) in this tub.

Round 2 of the festivities. Lunch, which would also suffice as dinner, at Nikki Beach.

Mojitos and Cuba Libres. You can almost pretend it's not fall in a place like this.

And then gravity was reversed for this photo. Luckily the weight of the lobster held the table up in the air. Clearly photo editing is not tops on my list of skillz.

Aaaaannnd we're back. This thing was prehistoric. Too bad it had to die.

Beach time! There were no fewer than 12 thong sightings within our first 45 seconds on the beach.

Daydreaming with Bigs about big boats and retirement. Some of us are closer than others, but Rick and I have offered our services as deckhands in the event of a boat purchase.

More Erwin self portraits.

90% of the calories consumed in Miami are from this little blessing that was first introduced to us on our honeymoon: the Miami Vice. Half Pina Colada, half Strawberry Daiquiri, 100% awesome. With a PBR chaser.

Sure, we were slightly miserable on the plane ride home and elastic pants were deployed, but it was well worth it! Thanks again GB and Big D!!!

Deadbeat Wife

I blame the dog. Somehow after documenting all the minutiae of our day to day lives, I couldn't find the time to get on here and wish my sweet Ricker a happy 4th anniversary. Of course, part of the issue was that I didn't count on the fact that he was planning on setting a new Erwin record for early arrivals at the airport (2 hours and 15 minutes this time!), which cut into my planned blogging time. And the dog. The dog had to be dropped off at Kennelwood Pet Resort (thanks GB and Bigs!), which further cut my time short. No matter. He's used to this by now.

So I wanted to wish my Ricker a Happy Anniversary. Thanks for being the most amazing husband and friend. I can't imagine what a bummer it is to be all the other husbands out there, knowing it's just a race for 2nd place. I love you dearly. Thank you for my wonderful life.

Cheers!

The saga continues...

Bexar/Bear update:

He is truly a mystery of modern veterinary medicine. First it was arthritis, then it was a slipped disc, then it was a brain tumor/cancer, then there was the great starvation scare of September. Did I mention that all of this was since May 2010? He went in for a follow-up exam and since we've ruled out brain tumors/cancer, there's a new (suspected) diagnosis, complete with a whole new set of symptoms: MENINGITIS!!!!

Yes, you read right, the doc thinks the lining of our boy's (pea-sized) brain is inflamed. Now what's causing that inflammation could be a host of things, but according to Dr. Buss, it's likely caused by a tic or bug bite. All of this based on the fact that he had trouble turning his neck 180 degrees to the side and snapped at the doc when he pinched his spine region. So in lieu of a SPINAL TAP (and the inevitable post anesthesia near death experience), we are just treating the most likely suspected cause of this suspected illness and keeping our fingers crossed.

If this turns out not to cure what ails him, I am going to try to get a 2-for-1 psychotherapist deal for our hypochondriac dog and his "crazy dog lady" owner.

Man vs. Wild

It was an exciting weekend of housework at Casa de Erwin. We cleaned out the space over the garage that was filled with stuff that we hadn't touched since the day we moved in. The hope is that we can someday turn this into a closet. In a house that has very limited storage, this is a HUGE deal.



Speaking of huge deals, for the third consecutive year, Rick again declared war on the squirrels that have taken up residence in the walls of our house. Efforts in the past have included poison, blocking entrance/egress routes with steel wool (and then a combination of steel wool and "Great Stuff"), and when that failed, just covering the hole with a sheet of metal painted white (as seen in the picture below). This seemed to be fairly successful until again this fall I started hearing the violent thumping and scratching that can only mean one thing. They'rrrreee baaaaaack!

Rick immediately sprang to action, armed with his glock (aka pellet gun) for intimidation and resumed his efforts to thwart the pesky vermin. Unfortunately, when he got to the top of the ladder he realized that there is a long section of siding that has "settled" and that's likely where they are getting in. One of the great things about the Ricker is that he knows when something is out of his vast skill set and agreed to bring in a professional. Unfortunately, with a professional comes the expense of a professional. God help us all...

And speaking of God, we took a break from house work on Sunday for baby Chase's baptism! And guess who got the most awesome godparents around??? If you said Baby Chase, you'd be right! Rick and I were lucky enough to be asked to be her godparents and we couldn't be more excited. She was a perfect baby through the entire service and Ricker busted out his best baby whispering moves to make sure there were good photo ops.

Cute smooshy Chase Face


And how cute are these shoes?!? Huge props to Ruthie (Rick's mom) for busting out these chic kicks for the event.

This week will be spent researching siding repair/squirrel removal contractors and how much it will cost me to get my name printed on the bottom of all my shoes...

Mi casa es su toilet

The honeymoon phase of Bexar's recovery has waned a bit. He's still on steriods which seem to be helping him, however an unfortunate side effect of the steriods is an increased urine output. And when I say "increased", I mean that the dog pees like a clydesdale about every 2-3 hours. We've managed this with Chaney and other friends/neighbors coming over to let him out during the day. This had been successful in the past. Until yesterday.


I am not sure what happened yesterday, but I was met at the door with a house soaked in dog pee (DP). To point, there was so much that it had SOAKED THROUGH THE HARDWOOD FLOORS AND INTO THE BASEMENT. I guess it's a little less dramatic that it found a crack in the hardwood and that's how it got through, but disgusting regardless. We were greeted later that evening with a similar scenario when we got home from the Daniel Tosh show. Nothing ruins an evening of hilarious comedy like returning to a DP-soaked house.


In an effort to avoid multiple repeat performances overnight, Rick returned to the couch to watch over b-dog and let him out every few hours. Bexar rewarded Rick's diligence and attention with a steaming #2 in the living room this morning. Our patience is getting tested for sure. He's lucky he's so cute...

"Sure I'm housebroken!"*wink

Lucky We're Friends

We all have them. The friends that are so capable, creative, and downright "together" that they make you a little uncomfortable. Mine is Emma. She's lucky I love her so much, because if I didn't, I would probably hate her a little bit. Emma has two beautiful kids and her youngest, Morgan Joy, just turned ONE! I can't believe how quickly time goes by with these babies.

Because Emma is so busy being crafty and making homemade butter cream icing, she does not have time to blog, facebook, etc, so I figured I would take care of that for her. These pics were pilfered off her shutterfly account:

She makes the icing herself, and if I know emma, there was no "box mix" involved in this monstrosity.

Super cute party hats for everyone!


I would smile like this if my birthday parties were half this awesome!

Oh, I am sorry. Did you think that was just a normal sized cupcake? No siree!

Happy Birthday Morgan! I hope you had a great day! I have been solicited to photograph older brother James' birthday party in a few weeks. I am already planning to make myself sick on cake/goodies and pray that some of this creativity/ability rubs off!

Glutton for Punishment

Though I have never experienced childbirth, I think I can safely say that running a half marathon is the closest thing I have experienced to pushing a human out of my lady parts. I recall hearing my friends proclaim things like "Never again!" and "much worse than I expected!" after the birth of their first children. Then, as the years pass, and the kids get cuter and cuter, I get the news that they are on board for baby #2! Now, as a casual bystander with no kids of our own, all I have to go on is our last conversation regarding how horrific the pushing, tearing, and subsequent stitching up all was. I guess a chubby cuddly baby softens the blow and the memory a bit, because in the absence of that, I cannot believe that they would revisit that experience.



I had a similar experience in April 2004 (or was it 2005?). Rick and I, in an effort to spend time together, had started running. Because I wanted to show that I could do everything that he could do, we signed up for the Music City Half Marathon. I admit, I thought I was ready. I remember getting to around mile 10 and feeling like my calf muscles were going to spontaneously separate from my body, along with my lungs and my heart. I made promises to sweet baby Jesus that if he got me through this, I wouldn't ever put myself in this predicament again. I recall the drive back from Nashville with my legs propped up straight in front of me, because it just hurt too much to bend them (Rick was a little better off, so he drove home). I walked like a prisoner that had a hard time holding the soap for about 4 days. It was not pretty.



Fast forward 4-5 years. My memory had softened and all I remembered about Music City was the feeling of triumph after having completed a difficult task, the bonding I felt to Rick and my brother, who was there to cheer us on. It wasn't until around mile 9 yesterday that a bunch of other memories came flooding back to me, resulting in instant panic. The rumblings of pain in my lower back, achy feet, sore knees and some dicey gastro sensations all resulted in some quick mental math and the knowledge that I still had 4 miles to go. Crap. After about 3.5 miles of internal swearing and self-loathing, I finally got myself together to snap out of it and appreciate the experience of the finish line. I realized that it was finally over with, that it was a beautiful day and that I got to run the race with the man I love. Maybe it wasn't so bad after all.