But Nick has been a supremely awesome co-dog-parent with me for the last two years, and he deserves some props for that. There is no Puppy-Parent-Day, and so I’m co-opting Father’s Day a little.

As you can see, she clearly worships him.

And he’s pretty fond of her too.

Thanks, Nick. It means a lot to me how much you love our dog, even when she’s being an effing moron.

So, after getting out of the shower this morning, I ran upstairs to Nick (who was still sleeping) in my Shark Towel, climbed onto the bed and told him, “Shark Wakeup Service! The time is now… eight thirty.”

He tapped me on the nose and rolled over. Apparently I have a snooze button.

Justice makes an excellent pillow.

Note: If you’re looking for some entertaining phrases, google “was all over him like” — I’m particularly fond of “…and Pamela was all over him like a dog on Tommy Lee’s bone…” anyway, it made me laugh enough that I couldn’t come up with a good analogy, but be satsified in knowing that it was particularly trashy, forward, and the sort of slutty behaviour you might expect from me.

Anyway. So there we go, I just completed year two of my Interest In Nick. On to three!

Which means: I’ve officially broken my previous record for longest relationship. (I think. We didn’t really start dating until a few months later, but … eh, too complicated, screw it. I’m going with this date.) My former longest relationship lasted, I think, about 2 weeks shy of two years. I, uh, may have broken up with my ex fiance on Valentines Day, or darn close to it (albeit in 2000, followed up by a string of 5 month relationships that should probably have just been flings anyway… along with a lot of flings that were perfectly awesome as flings). Well, whatever, nobody said I was nice, but in my defense, neither was he. Regardless, that’s been my (rather pitiful) record until now, so I’m forging ahead in new territory of longevity.

Does anybody know what’s supposed to happen next? I’ve, uh, never been here before, so …

Anyway. I’m still ridiculously happy. There are the days where he drives me mad, and there are the days where I drive him mad, and the days where I’m sure we’d both happily suffocate each other with a pillow, but more important are the days where seeing him makes me grin like a fool, and the days where I race downstairs with Justice to greet him when he gets home from work, and the days where we laze about in bed and snuggle (and wrestle with the dog, who thinks the bed is her personal jungle gym), and the days where we wander around our neighbourhood arm in arm while the dog does a very good job of not trying to look like she’s going to kill other dogs…

At this point, it’s the little things. The big things, we’ve pretty much gotten out of the way. Now, it’s little stuff. When he comes home at lunch from work when I’m home sick and brings me more pepto bismal because I drank the last of it at 3am and I’m still in agony and terrified to go more than 30 yards from the toilet. Or when I bring him pre-warmed underwear, straight from the dryer. (Come to think of it, I’m not sure how well that was received, but come on — that’s fucking cute.)

It’s the fact that I don’t have to think long to find an example of the little things he does for me.

Happy 2nd-ish Anniversary, my love. Onward and upward!

Due to Nick being out of town, we decided to reschedule Valentine’s Day until yesterday: When I had purchased 2 tickets to see Jonathan Coulton perform at the Rio.

So. Awesome.

First, we got to experience Paul & Storm, and “experience” is surely the right word. You know, I hate the idea of opening bands, but at the same time I’m usually impressed by them — from Howie Day opening for Tori Amos, to Macy Gray opening for David Bowie… honestly, there’s a raeson the musical artists I see choose these bands, and it usually pays off in spades. And yet, I get all “Don’t go too long, and get the hell off the stage” … and to my delight, that’s a lyric from Paul & Storm’s first number: “Opening Band”. Okay, they had caught my attention at that point, and with amusing songs as “Nugget Man” (moment of silence for the Nugget Man) and my favorite, “The Captain’s Wife’s Lament”. (Amused Arrr.)

Of course, no matter how amusing and entertaining, they’re not who we came to see.

Jonathan Coulton was AWESOME. If you’re not already a fan, you should be. There was no disappointment, he was as good as I was expecting. Played almost every song I was hoping to hear, and even a few I wasn’t familiar with. How had I never heard Mr. Fancy Pants before? What’s wrong with me? Heck, I finally appreciate Beyonce. (Er, you may have to hear him live to get that.)

Anyway. Was faboo. Was a good evening, spotted the infamous Kimli, finally met (well, sort of) Renee, and wound up in the balcony sitting behind cas & kdot. Hooray for good people!

Also, I picked up an awesome t-shirt that reads “Visit beautiful Skullcrusher Mountain” on the front, and “What’s with all the screaming?” on the back. I approve.

Best of all, know all the good sneaky parking spots since I work around the corner from the Rio, and did not get trapped. Eek.

Happy Valentines Day, sweetheart. Hope you liked it!

Regardless, I remain absolutely head over heels in love with that fabulous boy that I share my life with, and I’m so, SO happy that he’s on a plane right this second coming home to me. I leave in about 15 minutes to go pick him up (with CUPCAKES!), and THANK FUCKING LORD. I am missing him so much.

He makes me feel fuzzy inside. And now, to go grab the cupcakes… and off to the airport!

In the last few days, Nick has:
- been bitten on the lip
- been peed on by a puppy
- been woken up in the middle of the night by pathetic cries (er, Jasper, not me)
- had his bed peed on. twice. and pillows.
- sniffled excessively due to puppy allergies
- had MORE PEE THAN YOU CAN IMAGINE flooding the place
- been a little neglected by his loving girlfriend in favor of a pretty blond boy
- not complained. at all.

He didn’t sign on for this whole puppy thing, and just sort of went along with it with my assurances that I would do my best not to inconvenience him with it. And I’ve been doing my best (I gave up on putting the mop & bucket away, we’ll just leave that in the corner and switch out the water frequently…) but still, is puppy. There’s a reason they’re amazingly cute — we’d leave them exposed on a hillside otherwise.

Don’t get me wrong, I adore Jasper, with his silly caterpillar-like wriggle up & down stairs, and his “I’m wearing pajamas!” fuzzy little body, and OH MY GOD SO MUCH LOVE with the lick lick lick lick chomp OW, but holy crap puppies are a TON of work, and having one in an apartment where “going for a pee” is a major production (making this housebreaking thing REALLY FUCKING HARD) is wearing on me a little. There’s a reason I prefer to adopt adult dogs! Sure, Justice might be an asshole, but she’s so.damn.easy!

Anyway, my point? Nick’s been fantastic. Thanks, hon. I think you’re keeping me sane in the face of the horrible, horrible adorableness. I really appreciate it.

I don’t even know who I am anymore.

This evening is totally full of fail. So, Monday night is my study night. Good thing, as I have a midterm on Thursday, so my goal was to study (with short 10-15 minute breaks every hour) pretty much from the moment I got home (well, I let myself have half an hour to build furniture, write a blog post, and be an ass on livejournal) until Nick gets home. So far, have studied for maybe 40 minutes. Am not even through Part 1 of bone, and still need to go over muscle, joints, nervous system, & endocrine system before Thursday evening. Planned on studying on Wednesday as well, but now methinks Tuesday is going to be a write off. And my commutes on Tuesday, Thursday & Wednesday. And lunch breaks. God damn.

Why did I not study? And for that matter, why am I not studying right now? Because this evening has been Total Epic Fail.

So I was doing pretty well, and decided to take a short break to go make dinner. I was making one of my infamous “leftover crap in a pan” bizarro meals, and was in the midst of adding everything in my fridge into a frying pan. Found a couple of eggs, thought hey! Eggs! Eggs go well with rice and random shit! Why not? (Have no veggies other than veggies from soup and such, so egg isn’t as weird as it might be. Or maybe it is. Whatever, I can’t cook, and I don’t have much in the way of taste anyway.)

Anyway, cracked egg, started to pour in, and holy mother of hell: It’s black. BLACK. I’m not even remotely exaggerating. The yolk was still yellowy, but all the rest of the non-yolk shit was SOLID BLACK.

I had a moment of insanity seeing half the contents of my fridge sitting in a pan with GROSS BLACK EGG, thinking I could maybe scrape it out, but then the smell hit me with the force of a thousand frying pans to the head. Yeah, no. Not even my incredible dislike for wasting food was going to save this one.

So, I went into the livingroom where there was a black garbage bag full of Ikea detrius. I scraped the food into an interm bag, then went to add it to the big black bag… and hey, it’s leaking? Weird, why is there anything liquid in there at all? I peek into the bag and hey look, that’s what happened to that mostly-empty jug of bleach we never use! Shitballs! Aaand there is now bleach all over the floor, and a curious black dog who seems to think bleach is fascinating, and hey can I smell that some more you’re so interested it must be really really great right? NO DOG GO UPSTAIRS RIGHT NOW.

Luckily, floors are concrete and difficult to damage any further than they are already damaged. At worst, there will be a spot near the couch that is slightly cleaner than the rest of our rather damaged (and, admittedly, grungy) floors, but can’t bring myself to care. It’ll grunge up soon enough I’m sure.

Anyway, after all that, I’m hungry and my back hurts from scrubbing the floor to make sure there isn’t even a HINT of bleach left on the floor for the dog to lick up (would be her way of getting me back for making her wear the wig, I’m sure), and I’m absolutely revolted at the thought of gross black egg and there’s no fucking food left in my house, and and and…

Damnit all to hell. I can’t look at my textbook, BRAIN IS FULL OF GROSS BLACK EGG.

Ok. I feel better now. Gross black egg notwithstanding… I think I have a tv dinner or some such garbage somewhere. I will eat that. And I will study bone. And I will stop making That Face Like I Just Poured Black Egg Into My Dinner.

BLACK. EGG.

So when Nick suggested we swing by Ikea on Sunday, I was only too eager to agree.

A few weeks ago, we had a mild… collapse. One of the shelves above our washer & dryer bit it, and tried to kill Nick by braining him. Apparently we’d overestimated the amount of weight the spindly little brackets could hold. Oops. So, since I eventually wanted to be able to do laundry without risking being stabbed by a rogue sword on top of the dryer, we ended up buying a lovely Besta cabinet, with matching doors. They’re awesome.

After an evening of swearing and sawing and lifting and cutting and cursing and lifting and weird sci fi shows and a bit more sawing and dremeling and lifting and dremeling again… we have cabinets! We had to do a little “ikea hacking”, as we needed a hole for the dryer hose to go through, as well as a hole for an odd pipe to poke into. No problem. Well, sort of no problem. We had to lift the damn thing onto the suspension rails (note: these suspension rails are super awesome) about seventy billion times to get everything cut & hung correctly, but in the end… totally worth it.

 

We also picked up a small Expedit shelf for Nick’s closet. I’m a huge fan of the Expedit shelves, and have a large one … at my parents place, since we haven’t got any place to put it. I miss that thing, it held SO MANY BOOKS. Mmm, books.

And finally, my favorite, our new Norrebo storage bench. It’s slightly different than the picture shown, it doesn’t have the shelf in the picture where the dvd player is shown. Instead, the drawer goes right to the top. It’s an awesome little bench with a rolling drawer that comes right out (it’s not actually attached to the bench) and best of all, it was not only on sale, but the very last one left in the store. Score! More storage space! I have a severe need for More Storage Space. We think we’ll be using this for all of our shoes and such. I’m terribly excited.