It's not a Toomer.

Friday night, we went out. Here are some pictures of what we look like when we go out.

I'm watching football today. Well, it's on tv. I'm not really watching it. I just have it on hoping the Redskins will lose. Because I lived in DC when I was little and all I learned in that four years was that the Redskins were EVIL (not the red-skinned people, mind you, but the team. I was a child, but I know the difference. People underestimate children sometimes.) So, yeah, there's a guy on one of the teams, I think the Giants (I know they're not really Giant - where does that name come from, anyway? Are they trying to psyche out the other team? "We're HUGE! You can't beat US, midgets!") and there's a guy named Toomer. I hope that when he and his wife have a baby, they announce it by telling their friends and family that the doctor told them that his wife's got a Toomer growing inside her. I think that would be funny.

P.S. I odered a soft taco supreme last night. I think they thought I said soft taco WITH BEANS because they put beans on it and charged me $1.40 in stead of $.89 or whatever it normally costs. If there were any doubt, wouldn't you go with what people NORMALLY order? grrr...

My Husband, the Cook

The other night, Chouaib invited some friends over at the last minute (surprise!) for dinner. Fortunately, he was the one making dinner. Usually I cook, but I wish he would more often, because he's Moroccan. And Moroccan food is really yummy. I don't have a lot to say about the evening, except that it was a nice time with his friends and the food was incredible.



Azedin and Lisa got engaged and married about the same time we did.



Chouaib's friend Moustapha and a little glimpse of our bookshelves. (I realize that's a sentence fragment).



Tagine rhymes with a female body part in French. It's fun to interchange the words.



A yummy yummy labor of love (ok, homesickness).



I'm almost used to my husband eating with his hands.



Relaxing after all the guests were gone. I told him that next time we're inviting my friends over.

P.S. We found out that signing up with T-Mobile will save us some money, so we did. They gave us free new phones and free plane tickets! All these pictures were taken with my new cell phone. I can also make music videos on it. Here is my first one. I call it Tired Cowboy. Watch carefully. There's a suprise ending!

Oh, and RIP, Cricket.

Vampire Pizza

I went to Costco today. I think it's physically impossible to leave that store without buying a slice of cheese pizza from the snack bar. It's my heroin (I just saw Twilight last night - otherwise I wouldn't be able to come up with a decent metaphor. I've recently discovered that I'm metaphorically challenged). It's a good idea to stay at the snack bar while eating Costco pizza, that way when you're done you can refill your drink. It's such a great deal, a slice of heroin-laced pizza as big as your head and 2 22 oz. drinks for less than $3. As I sat there this morning, I decided that when I am famous and touring the country with my entourage, we will make stops at the local Costco for pizza. Costco will love it so much that this super-cool famous woman makes regular stops at their stores with her entourage, that they'll give me a free lifetime membership. When they ask for my card, I'll frame my face with my hands and say "this is my card." Then the secretly annoyed cashier will be thinking "I can't SCAN your damn FACE, jerk." The irony of it all will be that I'm so insanely rich, I won't need a free Costco membership. Ain't that the way it goes?

Oh, and Twilight. I loved it. Although I'm not sure how much I would have loved it if I hadn't read the book. While reading the book, you get your own images of what the characters look like in your head. Then in the movie, when they don't look the same, it's like "who IS that person? Oh yeah, it's Charlie. He's not supposed to look like that." That's about the only think that bothered me about it. Well, except that I really wanted to be able to lust after Edward like all the women. I admit he's good -looking. But he looks too much like my brother (one of them has better hair). That would just be weird.

Top 10 things I am really excited about every day.

1) my awesome man
2) gas - watching it get cheaper and cheaper every day.

I actually wanted to post how excited I am every day when I see gas prices going as low as $1.85/gallon. It's probably cheaper than that now. But I didn't want to overshadow how great my husband is and how excited I am that he really wants to spend the rest of his life with me. I guess this really only a Top 2 list. Other things get me excited (not like that), but not every day (this is getting worse - I should just stop). Yay! Thanksgiving is a week from today!

"Hello, Suri?"

"It's me, Kristy. Yeah, I just want to tell you that your look is so 35 years ago."

One of the first things we did after announcing our engagement was register. I was so excited that after years of living with roommates and family, I'd have my own kitchen, with my own pots and pans, dishes and kitchen gadgets. I love to cook. I love to try to make recipes based on meals from my favorite restaurants. So, once we got into our new place, and got married, and got many many gifts of kitchen stuff, I began to cook. I've cooked a lot. It's only been a month, and I've cooked so much that Chouaib and I can't fit into our favorite jeans anymore (he his and I mine, we didn't share a favorite pair). Chouaib took a picture of me trying to get mine on.

The good news is that a new gym just opened up near the salon where I work. Saturday, I stopped in for their open house, filled out a form to win some stuff they were giving away, and walked out with the 'grand prize.' It included a giant canister of protein shake, two travel bottles for my protein shake, complete with little whisking balls inside (aren't you glad I didn't say whisker? gross) that mix it up really well, some tanning lotion and regular lotion as well as some free tans from a local tanning salon (I already called and asked, and yes, I can subsitute mist-on tans for the coffins), and some supplements. Oh yeah, I almost forgot to mention, that includes two weeks of free personal training. I don't think two weeks is long enough to take off what I've put on, but it's a start. I hope my husband realizes that me trying to lose weight = no more gourmet meals for him. It's peanut-butter jelly time! Maybe I could just buy him fish to eat. That means we're both happy. He gets to eat and I don't want to. WIN WIN! And the bonus? He won't end up with a wife who looks like this (except we don't - will never - have a cat and I don't smoke). Maybe I should just get pregnant, then I'll have an excuse. JUST KIDDING, MOM.

Reason #496 I love him

This morning we were talking about how we need a new bed since we've been sleeping in my old full-size bed that only has a frame on wheels. The floors in our new place are hardwood, so because it has no headboard, no 'anchor,' if you will, it tends to roll away from the wall while we sleep and we're always losing our pillows between the bed and wall. I mentioned that since we just got all this great new bedding when we got married, I'd love it if we could get a queen so we don't have to get all new stuff as well (yes, I said that - marriage has made me a new, more responsible woman). He agreed with me, saying that he, too, would want a queen size if we got a new one. Because in a king, we'd be sleeping too far away from each other. :)

Book Worms

Both Chouaib and I collect books. I do for a few different reasons: because I like to think I will read all of that classical fiction, history and philosophy someday, because I like to look like I'm smart, because some are really old and everyone knows that really old books are valuable, and because I'm really going to do French grammar drills again (and brush up on my Spanish, Russian and German). My husband collects them because they were free at school and he thinks he can sell them and make a profit and because he had to buy them for school and he thinks he can sell them and make a profit (the latter is more likely than the former, in my opinion). A couple of days ago, we finally got around to listing his books online to see if we could get any money out of them. He listed his, and, as an afterthought, I grabbed Are You There Vodka? It's Me, Chelsea, which I had just finished and wasn't going to need to reference anymore, and listed it as well. Today we got an email notification that one of our books sold! YAY! Cost Accounting? Quick Books Pro 2005? Nope. It was mine. Some chick on Long Island bought it. I think I will include a note with her book letting her know that Java Programming and Using Linux are still available, just in case.

They Know That Santa's On His Way

He's loaded; lots of toys and goodies on his sleigh...

I don't want you to hear this song the same way ever again.

And from my husband:

"We are Mormon and Muslim."

"Yeah..."

"So that means we can do polygamy!"

Imagine!

I just heard this on the news:

"Imagine walking in a parking lot in broad daylight and someone underneath a car reaches out and grabs your ankle and then being brutally raped! Well, this is what happened to one Salt Lake City woman..."

WTF? That's how you'd open a story if someone woke up to their car buried in snow or found a squirrel in their garbage can. I can just hear the woman telling her friends over coffee, "oh my gosh, I almost forgot to tell you what happened to me today. I had just parked my car and was walking to work when this dude hiding under a car grabbed my ankle and then just totally brutally raped me! Can you believe how IGNERNT? People are just crazy, I tell you. Can you even imagine that?"

I Ain't Been Droppin' No Eaves, Honest!

"All our ice cream is low-fat, sir."

"Well, we're gonna need something, well, non-dairy."

Overheard at Dairy Queen.

Later that day,

"So were you a cult or a bangle?"

I started to wonder if he was asking what kind of 80's music she liked until I heard the answer,

"Actually I was a Viking."

For further explanation, see here and here.

How Do You Know When It's Love?

When he buys fish at WalMart because he thinks it sounds good tonight. When you get home and he starts asking you what kind of pan he should cook it in, so you take over. Even though you'd rather poke your eyes out with a butter knife than smell, let alone eat fish. It's love when you nicely saute the tilapia in butter and lemon juice with freshly ground pepper and a little salt in order to avoid whatever disaster he was going to turn it into. It's love when you're really proud that you've actually made it seem somewhat not only edible but maybe even tasty. You start to think maybe it's not so disgusting and maybe, since you are a such an amazing gourmet chef, you might try a bite. Then you really, truly realize how much you love him when he gets out the ketchup and Cholula and instead of trying a bite of the fish, you just chomp down nicely on your tongue.

For My Chunky Friends

I finally broke down and bought Are You There Vodka? It's Me, Chelsea. I was going to buy it at the airport on my way to Prague this summer to read on the plane, but Twilight was 1/3 of the price. Since I'd heard great things about it and the trailer looked pretty good, I ended up getting sucked in and distracted by the series for the rest of the summer. Then I had to plan a wedding. Besides, after reading all those vampire books, I was spent.

So Saturday night, I went to Utah County for a wedding reception, following Google Maps instructions to The Bungalow and got lost. Just so you know, 89 in Utah County, I hate you. You change cities and street numbers WAY too many times in just a few short miles. It's like a funhouse with trick signs, except it's not fun. Couple that with Google's directions and Happy Halloween!

Oh yeah, so I remembered that when I got off the freeway, I had seen a Target. Some shopping therapy would do me some good since I was so traumatized from Highway 89. So I went in and walked around for at least a good hour. I'm just gonna say that I prefer Super Targets to regular old Targets. I usually shop at the Super one in Midvale, so I was pretty disappointed that this one was just a plain ol' Target. Thank goodness it was there, though.

I ended up passing all the discounted Halloween crap, but made it out of there with some TP that we need, anti-dandruff shampoo for the hubby, a giant spatula, a whisk, and some Crystal Light that is supposed to make your body burn calories faster (yeah, right, but it makes the water taste better). And the Chelsea Handler book, all paid for by generous wedding donations (FREE Target stuff!). I guess my whole point in writing this is to share the funniest thing (so far) in her book. Chelsea gets a DUI and, because of an unfortunate string of events, ends up in a women's prison, not just jail, but priZIN, complete with an anal search and orange jumpsuit (I feel so close to her). During the brief incarceration, she meets Lucille, who - despite having a very small frame - eats all Chelsea's food, then tells her she's in for hammering her sister to death. About her, Chelsea says, "this woman/killer was a testament to my theory that the crazier you are, the more calories you burn. That's why psychos are always so skinny." She's right. Just look at Hollywood...