Well then.

Today was a bummer of a day...for me it was just one of those days where you wake up in a funk. Nothing seems to go right and nothing anyone can say makes you feel like your life is going anywhere....and one thing after another just add up...even minor setbacks feel like giant hurdles impossible to overcome. Then we got some bad news about Chris's grandmother's health and I would like to say that it put things into perspective, but it really only made today seem like one big giant poopsicle. We played a bit of Super Mario Bros. tonight on the Wii...and that was nice. 

Here's hoping tomorrow is a new day.

The Silent Killer

Hey! Like the new template? I appreciate it for it's clean simplicity. It makes me want to write in the blank spaces...and that's good since I have clearly been an absentee blogger.

I have another post prepped all about our Valentine's weekend...but that doesn't seem very timely now, does it?

I could also tell you about the amazing dinner I made on Tuesday night....Red Bean Chili and Buttermilk Chive Biscuits (from scratch...yeeeeeea. they are amazing.) But I have no beautiful pictures to share with you of my creations so that seems a little pointless....

So I'll tell you about our misadventure from last night.

We had a little visit from our friendly (and strapping) Burbank Fire Department. At around 8:45pm we were in the midst of an enthralling episode of Gossip Girl (as a sidenote: you've never seen a man more excited to get NetFlix in the mail than Chris when the second disc of Gossip Girl arrived yesterday. He likes to phrase it as "i bet you're excited for Gossip Girl!". We all know who's REALLY excited for Gossip Girl...but I digress). So around 8:45pm we hear chirping....a three chirped alarm going off in the hallway. We've been having problems with an unruly smoke detector who constantly mistook the steam from the shower for smoke, but we put him out of his misery a couple weeks ago and there was nothing cooking, no one showering......it was our Carbon Monoxide detector. Immediately we were both a bit flummoxed. I mean...what do you DO when your CO detector goes off? I hopped on the google and everything says to 'GET OUT OF THE HOUSE!! CALL 911!!! YOU'RE SLOWLY DYING!!!". I read off the symptoms of carbon monoxide poisoning and immediately Chris and I both start to feel light headed, nauseous and head achey. We contemplate that maybe it's just the battery, but there's a separate light to warn you if the battery is dying. Chris reads off the back of the alarm that says "CALL 911! DO NOT PASS GO! DO NOT COLLECT $200!". The only other thing I could find online was that we needed to have a "qualified technician" inspect our appliances before we could reenter our house....but no explanation of what KIND of qualified technician. We called an emergency HVAC company who seemed thoroughly confused as to why we decided they could actually help us in any way. We had opened up all the windows and turned on the ceiling fans, but you can't just go about your evening when you're pretty sure you're being slowly poisoned....You can't go to bed with a CO alarm going off! First off all you can't sleep with that chirping...second of all...we could die in our sleep! Carbon monoxide slowly filling up the rooms....Indy would be the first to go!

So after a call to my mom to reassure me it wasn't stupid to call 911 we made the call. Within 5 minutes the fire department was at our house....the first thing they ask us? "Did you try changing the battery?". I immediately felt stupid. "Uhhh no. we figured if it was the battery the BATTERY light would be going off and the thing wouldn't be chirping three times'. They made us swap the battery out but the only one we had was completely dead...so that wasn't very productive. They checked all our pilot lights and gave our house the old sniff test for any gas...and declared us SAFE. They promised us we wouldn't die and told us that we might want to go ahead and replace our alarm....since it had been there since 2001. "uhhh...thanks guys! sorry to bring you all the way out here!". After they left I picked up the alarm and gave the back a once over....where I found the following:

"1 chirp- replace battery
3 chirps- replace alarm
4 chirps- GET THE HELL OUTTA DODGE CUZ YOU'RE DYING!!!"

I don't want to place blame or say that the giant fire truck in front of our house could have been avoided, but I would like to point out that I was not the one that read the back of the alarm....I'm just saying.....

Only in LA....

...is this a real conversation between your friends on Facebook.

My dreams they are odd.

The night before last I had a dream that my dad, my fiancé and my brother all went out to get breast implants. My mom and I had gone shopping and were meeting up with them. As we strolled through the mall my mom turned to me and said "oh...you know...those men and their breast implants".

What a strange night....

Around what I can only guess was about 3am this morning I was in and out of sleep when I heard Indy whining and staring out the sliding glass door of our room into the backyard. The sensor activated light by the laundry room in the yard had gone on and Indy was on alert for whatever set it off. This isn't unusual...on occasion we just tell him to go back to bed and he begrudgingly obliges with a huff. At other times I've opened the door to let him go check out whatever was bothering him. This time I got up to pee and thought "one of these days he's going to bark. that's when I'll be concerned." As I headed back to bed from the hallway I heard him let out a loud bark. Then another. He rarely ever barks. Chris woke up and I looked out the window with Indy. I couldn't see anything...but then the light by the laundry room when off..and my eyes played tricks on me. I thought I saw something...someone by the laundry room.

I'm still not sure what my reasoning was, but I opened the door to let Indy go check it out....to reassure me that there was nothing there....but Indy had seen what was there...and he TOOK. THE. EFF. OFF. But not in the direction I was looking. He took off and I saw him full speed ahead tackle a small animal in the back of the yard. My mind raced. "Great", I thought. "He's gonna get sprayed by a skunk". He lunged on the animal. From the bedroom door I could barely make out what was happening. Then Indy backed up as the animal went still. I could only see the butt of the thing...it was smaller than I thought it would be. Indy stood above it...staring at it with an intense glare. It didn't move. I couldn't tell what it was, but I didn't see the large rat tail I was looking for to confirm it was a possum.

All the while I kept trying to yell at Indy in my loudest whisper to "come! leave it!". I was convinced he had killed whatever it was. I tried not to think that it might have been a cat. Indy moved away from it...then decided to go back and check on it...maybe he saw it move. The animal let out a loud HISS. My heart lept in my throat and I was convinced he had tackled a cat. My mind flashed back to an article I read about a woman who's dog chased down a kitten in their back yard and shook it to death. I grabbed a shirt that was close by (I have no idea what I thought I would do with it) and ran out into the lawn to enforce that Indy leave whatever it was. When the animal hissed it had hopped up and backed itself into the corner of the yard by the fence and a large planter box. I had turned on the light and could see the thing's face. It wasn't a cat. I was convinced it was a baby possum. The creepiest looking baby possum I've ever seen (I've only seen one other baby possum). It didn't have a long nose. It looked like an owl actually and it moved it's head back and forth. Even Indy was freaked out. He backed away when I called him. He clearly had decided this wasn't anything to be too upset about and, while keeping an eye on the possum, took a pee. Then follow me inside. Never relaxing too much. I just stared outside at the animal in the corner. I'm not sure why but the look of this thing really freaked me out...the way it's flat face moved side to side.

I'm impressed with the restraint Indy showed although I'm not sure what would have happened if the thing hadn't played dead at first. I do also feel safer knowing Indy is on alert....although chris and I have decided I shouldn't open the door for Indy to go investigate anymore. No good can come of that.

As I fell back asleep the light went back on and Indy let out another bark. We told him to shove it.

I had a dream after all the excitement that there was a crazy lady in our backyard in a giant possum suit. We had sent Indy outside and he caught her. She got away but he got her suit. In the furry possum suit were large quantities of drugs. Giant ziploc bags full of marijuana and tiny bags full of pills and powders. Her family came by the house with cops asking if we had seen her. She was mentally insane and dangerous and we were told to keep our windows and doors locked and drapes closed.

Needless to say it was a weird night.

UPDATE: So I went to google some images of possums (because what is a post without a photo) and have realized that maybe it wasn't a possum that Indy found. I think it was an owl. I didn't see a tail and this was a much smaller animal. After googling images of a Common Barn Owl I'm pretty sure that's what it is. The Owlets (baby owls) are known to play dead when attacked and they will hiss or rasp when startled or attacked.

Well that doesn't make this any less weird, does it?

UPDATE II: Apparently possums hiss when they are attacked too...and naturally they play dead when they are attacked.

I guess we'll never know.

Could go either way....whatever I saw out there....it was one of the creepiest animals I've ever seen.

Good morning ladies and gentlemen, this is your pilates speaking

Have you noticed that I've been, shall we say, absent lately? If you were to see me in person you would have noticed a slight glazed over, exhausted look on my face as I stumbled through the last four months of my life trying not to fall over in the middle of conversations. I've been working towards a new direction in life....one that I really hope makes me a happier person, a better partner and eventually (I said EVENTUALLY PEOPLE!) a more available mom...to both furry and not furry children. In addition to working full time I've been getting certified to teach Pilates. And that, my friends, is why this blog has fallen slightly to the wayside.....well and because in addition to the working and Pilates (which occupies every night after work as well as my Saturdays and Sundays), we have this little thing called a wedding we've been trying to plan...gah! Not to mention Christmas!

So my point is that is that last night I took my final test and PASSED!! YAY!!

I still have a lot of practice teaching and observation hours to complete before I'll be fully certified to teach and it's not like my life is going to get any less busy anytime soon, but last night I passed the test that I've spent the last four months working towards and that feels so good. Merry Christmas to me!

yay!

I don't know why I had to add this...it just made me laugh...

Grover On Marriage

Planning this wedding started off fun and exciting...but I admit.... I've hit a wall. I'm overwhelmed by the decisions and the seemingly vast number of tasks ahead of us and the very limited amount of free time we both have.  The problem is that there seems to be an endless to do list with each and every decision requiring careful thought, discussion, planning, meetings and hours of back and forth conversation. I find myself starting one task (DJs!), getting overwhelmed and moving on to a different one (HONEYMOON!) and then a different one (INVITATIONS!). It's easy to get lost in what it all means...and I'm trying to constantly remind myself that the important part is that we're getting married and that all the people we love most will be in one place cheering us on ( would it be tacky to give everyone foam #1 hands to sport during the ceremony?)...and that is awesome.

Well that sounds nice....I'll sign on for that!. :)