Remember The King’s last King Friday post? He wanted to hear what wisdom you’ve learned in your life. Not only did he want to hear it, he was offering a very awesome prize for the “best wisdom”.

Dude, he’s offering his best prize yet.

(Past winners of awesome prizes can verify that The King gets his prizes in the mail in a timely manner. Janet should have received her’s by now and I promise that I mailed MK’s yesterday. I promise.)

If you’ve forgotten what the prize is, let me remind you:

“This week’s winner will win an all expense paid, one year subscription to their choice of the following magazines;
glamour, self, or successful farming.”

Successful Farming? Sounds awesome.

(Except that I heard a very alarming NPR story this morning about farm kids dying in horrible tractor accidents. I will not be linking to it, because really, nobody needs to hear it. It was awful. It said something like every 3 days a child dies in some freak farming accident. Dude, keep your kids away from tractors. Or hay balers.)

So, either leave your words of wisdom in the comment section for today’s post, or visit the original entry and leave it there.

Do it NOW!

(Please feel free to also leave me your comments on how upset you are the Veronica and Logan broke up on this week’s episode of Veronica Mars. And also please assure me that they will be getting back together soon. Hopefully before next week’s episode airs. And if you can’t promise me that, please promise me that Logan will still be on the show. And that he won’t be a rapist or a murderer.)

(Please.)

I got to work this morning and began my usual routine:

• take off my coat and get my laptop out of my backpack
• turn laptop on
• while laptop is “warming up” go into the office kitchen
• make a cup of hot chocolate
• make a bowl of instant oatmeal
• fill up my water bottle
• come back to my desk and open the internet
• begin reading (personal) e-mails
• respond to (personal) e-mails

It’s the same thing everyday. And it’s very exciting.

NOT.

(Love the 90’s reference there!)

Today was a little different. While typing out an e-mail to TVGoddess I heard a very loud fart. So loud that there was no denying what it was.

But where did it come from?

The 70+ year old guy that sits in the office near me.

I had to just keep typing and act like I didn’t hear anything. But I know that he knows that I heard it. I mean, there’s no way I couldn’t have.

I love going to Canada. Once you cross the border, everything changes. Your cell phone automatically changes to Canadian service, the road signs are in meters and things are written in both English and French.

Things are just different and I love it.

Unfortunately we picked a bad weekend to go. Vancouver had been having abnormal amounts of rain, thus causing their water to cloudy and contaminated. Which means you couldn’t drink the water!!

Did you hear me? You could not drink the water.

This is not a good thing when you are staying in a hotel without the option to boil your water. Fortunately our hotel provided us with bottles and bottles of free water. Our room was so full of empty bottles it looked like the morning after a huge frat party. You know, only sober.

Then on Friday the bank machine went down. All of them. In the entire city. Also not good for foreign travelers with no Canadian currency. Oh well, the exchange rate wasn’t that hot, so we weren’t doing a lot of shopping anyway. But it would have been nice to be able to buy food to eat.

Eventually the system wide bank failure was corrected and we were able to buy food again. Babboo has recently become addicted to Cheerios was jonesing for a fix. We gladly paid $7.00 (Canadian) for a box. I think the extra money was for the translation of the box into both English and French. It was well worth the money.

Babboo was super into the Cheerios. The poor hotel maids are going to be cleaning up Cheerios in that room for months to come. They were all over the place. You’d think the kid could be a little better about actually making it into his mouth. He also enjoyed some jarred pois. Which are just peas. But pois sounds so much better, don’t you think?

The hotel had an awesome spa area. The King and Babboo swam and swam and swam some more. Me on the other hand, well I just put my feet in. Damn that contaiminated pool water was cold. (I guess that bikini wax I just had to get the night before we left was sort of wasted on the fact that I didn’t spend that much time in my bathing suit. Oh well.)

We spent a lot of time at our hotel just being a family. Something that we’ve never really had the chance to do. There we two beds, so The King and I both had our own bed. We took turns sleeping with Babboo and sleeping with each other. It was an odd set up, but it worked.

(Note to The King: I would love one of those hotel pillows for Christmas. Just a thought.)

Our Thanksgiving dinner was enjoyed at our favorite Vancouver restaurant The Sandbar , and consisted of their glorious Dragon Boat Platter and their daily pizza special. I’m sure the pilgrims ate seafood at the first Thanksgiving, right? Babboo had a jar of mashed turkey, so at least one of us had some turkey.

The snow started Saturday night. We decided to brave it and wait to head home on Sunday as planned. Sunday morning it didn’t seem too bad. We were on the road by 10:00 am. We even decided to try out a new border crossing to save some time (the border crossing wait is usually the worst part about trips to Canada).

Dude, we should have just stayed inside our hotel for another day. It was a freakin’ blizzard out there. The normal three hour drive to Seattle took no less than five hours. The King didn’t go over 20 miles an hour for most of the drive. We saw too many cars off in the ditches to even count. Thankfully it didn’t look like anybody was hurt, just a little shaken up while they waited for somebody, anybody to come and pull them out. We figured the odds were against us and we’d be next.

We never were. We made it home safely. All thanks to The King and his ability to stay calm. One more item to add to his list of Hero Traits. The man can drive confidently and safely protecting our precious cargo.

Contaminated water, broken bank machines and blizzards aside, we had a great trip. One we’ll probably never forget. And like I said, things in Canada are always different. And I like the change.

So tell me, what all did you do this Holiday weekend? I’d love to hear about all the sales I missed.

Last Sunday in Church they asked us to try to say one prayer this week where we didn’t ask for anything. We were to simply thank the Lord for our blessings. No more, no less. I think they thought this would be hard to do. It’s wasn’t hard at all.

This past year I have been so thankful. We are blessed and I know it. I feel like I haven’t done anything to deserve the blessings in my life, but I thankful for them none the less.

I have a wonderful husband, who I love and who loves me. He works so hard for our little family.

I have a perfect little baby who brings me more joy then I could ever describe in a simple blog post.

I have Faith.

I have a great family who has taught me love and respect.

I have friends that make me laugh and support me.

I have a good job where I make enough money to live.

I have a warm apartment.

I have food in my cupboards.

I have a coat and hat to keep me dry in the rain.

I have a body the allows me to do the things I need to do.

I have the ability to laugh and many things in my life that afford me the chance to laugh often.

I am happy.

Happy Thanksgiving to all of you. We’re off to Canada for the weekend. Catch you on the flip side.

When I was in high school I had a car. Which means I ended up giving rides to school to kids in the neighborhood. There was the girl who lived a few houses down that showed up early in the morning with her blonde curls and book bag. I was pretty jaded, even back then, and made her pay me $1.50 for gas money every week. She would give it to me on Fridays. I probably started asking for it on Wednesdays.

There were a few months where the blonde girl showed up extra early so that I could curl her hair in ringlets in time for us to head to school. She loved they way I curled her hair. Eventually I had to tell her that she would have to learn how to curl her own damn hair. I needed those extra 15 minutes of sleep. Even back then.

Sara, the blonde, rode with me for all of high school. She was at my doorstep every morning and waiting by my car in the parking lot every afternoon. She must have forgiven me for charging her gas money because we’re still friends today. Just yesterday she sent me a little something in the mail.

I also took Ben to school every morning. Ben was tall and liked to play basketball. He was new to the neighborhood and we all liked him. He often talked about the show Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego. Ben had even seen the group Rockapella recently and bragged about it to Sara and me. (We weren’t impressed, by the way. If it would have been Bon Jovi, then I would have been impressed.)

Ben always wore the same maroon Members Only jacket and had his hair combed over to the side. I liked to tease him in a friendly way and he would always say “Oh Isabel” and roll his eyes at me. I don’t think I impressed him much. When I would walk out to my car after school, Ben would be standing there waiting patiently. Everyday.

One day I had to stay after to make up some assignment in math class. I arranged for my friend Lance to take Ben home. I told Ben to make sure to wait by Lance’s car and not mine. He promised me he wouldn’t forget. Two hours after school was out I walked to my car and found Ben waiting for me.

“Ben, you were supposed to ride home with Lance today.”

“I forgot to find him.”

“You’ve been waiting for me for two hours in this snow?”

“Yes. I thought you forgot about me.”

Ben was developmentally disabled. As cute and tall as he was, he had the mental capability of a 3rd grader.

My high school had recently implemented a mainstream program for handicapped students so we had quite a few of these students. I loved it. They were so upbeat and full of life. It wasn’t unusual to hear one of them running through the halls during classes. There would always be a teacher close behind. Trying to catch them.

Since Ben was my neighbor and went to my same Church, we ended up spending a lot of time together. We ate lunch together; we played basketball together after school. And like I said, we rode to and from school together everyday.

One of the best things about Ben was that he did what he wanted to do. If he wanted to sing along to the radio, he did it. If he wanted to talk about Rockapella, he did it. He just didn’t get embarrassed like the rest of us did.

This also means that he didn’t buy into the hype.

Winters were fierce when I was growing up and my car didn’t fit in the garage. I had to park it out on the street. There it was free to get covered in snow and ice. I would start my car early in the morning and give it plenty of time to warm up. (Good thing Sara was paying me gas money so I could afford to let my car idle for so long.) All this bad weather also meant that I had to scrape the ice off my windows.

Scraping the ice off my windows was probably my #1 least favorite task in the entire world. I hated it. I would beg Ben to help me. But he never would. He would get in the warm car and just sit there holding his book bag while I froze my butt off scraping the ice.

Sometimes Ben would take a break from singing to the radio and wave at me through the window. No matter how cold it was or how mad I was that Ben wasn’t helping me, this always made me smile.

I can still picture his cheesy grin looking at me through the windshield and waving.

It’s a memory I hope I never forget.

My cousin and his fiance girlfriend are in town this week. They originally planned this trip to come and see family for Thanksgiving and check out the plans for the small open house my aunt will be throwing them in Januaray after their December wedding (which is was scheduled to take place in a different state).

This trip to Washington was planned a while ago. Long before my cousin called off the wedding. To be fair the wedding wasn’t called off. My cousin just postponed the wedding. No future date has been set. I’m pretty sure that means there will be no wedding. I’m not sure that’s what they think it means, but that’s my take on it.

My aunt called me last week to inform me of the canceling of the wedding. She didn’t want me to say anything to my cousin and his bride girlfriend that might upset them further. You know, like ask her about her dress. Duh. How do you not talk to a bride about her upcoming wedding!

I really didn’t give this whole thing much thought. I mean, we hadn’t planned on flying out to the wedding (although my parents have bought plane tickets). And since there was going to be a small open house in January, I just had that date in my mind. But then I realized their wedding was schedule to take place in less than a month! Wow, that’s cutting it close.

Invitations haven’t gone out yet, but I’m sure they’re ordered. I haven’t seen her dress, but I’m sure she has it. I’m sure they have a place to live all staked out, and they know where they’re going on their honeymoon. I mean, less than a month away. Holy crap.

The whole thing make me just a little sick to my stomach.

Apparently my cousin is nervous. I don’t blame him. Getting married is a big deal. A very big deal. Getting cold feet happens all the time. My aunt told me he asked her if she had been nervous when she got married. She told him it was so long ago that she didn’t remember.

I remember when I got married. And I can assure you that I was nervous.

Both times I got married.

Nervous as hell.

That’s normal, right? I think it’s normal. Why my aunt can’t remember is beyond me. Maybe because it was over 20 years ago.

Sweet Babboo and I went to my aunt’s house this weekend to see my cousin and his lovely fiance girlfriend. I hadn’t met her before, so I anxious to hang out with them. She’s very nice. And sweet. And pretty. And seems to love my cousin to pieces.

She’s much nicer than I would be. If some guy I was engaged to canceled my wedding mere weeks before the date, I wouldn’t be all snuggled up to him on the couch. I wouldn’t take a week long trip to hang out with his family for Thanksgiving. I definitely wouldn’t be nice to his goofy cousin and her little baby. No matter how cute said baby was.

So either she’s a dreamboat of a fiance girlfriend, or I’m just not a very nice person.

I’m thinking it’s probably a little of both.

I’m hoping they work through whatever issues they are having. And I hope that they come to a mutual agreement as to what to do. I hope that they don’t feel pressured to get married just because plane tickets have been bought. Or because my aunt spent over $200 on custom M&M’s with their names and wedding date printed on them.

I mean that’s no reason to get married.

Do you have any good calling off the wedding stories to share? It seems like everyone at my work does. I’ve been listening to them all morning.