Me: I love “House.” I want him to be my bestie.
Dan: I don’t think he would.
Me: Why not? I’m like-able.
Dan: Because you use words like “bestie.”

—-

Dan: I really like “Hell’s Kitchen” and “Master Cook.”
Me: Me too. Gordon Ramsey is hilarious and seems genuinely nice even through all his yelling.
Dan: …
Me: …
Dan: I want him to be my bestie.

—

Me: While driving, looks over to see Dan reaching for an imaginary object and pulling it towards him. What on Earth are you doing?
Dan: I’m excited about this vacation. I’m full of nervous energy.
Me: But what are you miming?
Dan: I’m practicing for the slot machines. Gotta be ready for Vegas.

—

Me: Via text Have fun in Vegas! No prostitutes or circus midgets.
Dan: Ok, I promise no prostitutes.

—

Dan: I think he’s Polynesian. That’s Asian, right?
Me: I think it’s technically considered Pacific Islander.
Dan: I thought Pacific Islanders were the …you know… big guys. Holds his hands out to the side and pretends to waddle.
Me: “Big guys?” What do you mean? Like, Samoans? Or sumo wrestlers?
Dan: Yeah, Samoans. Those big guys!
Me: The racism in this conversation is incredible.
Dan: I’m not racist, just ignorant. *proceeds to laugh hysterically at himself*
Me: You’re a dork.
Dan: A good joke is a good joke, no matter who it hurts.
Me: You made fun of yourself!
Dan: I repeat, a good joke is a good joke…

—

*High fives himself.* That’s right. I just high fived myself. That’s how awkward this conversation is.

We have a gift closet. Let me rephrase that. Dan has a clothes closet that I have taken over and filled with gifts. Where his jeans used to be, lovely items grace the shelves, waiting to be wrapped and handed over to the intended recipients. If you open the sock drawer, you will find the makings of Christmas cards. The top shelf alone is jam packed with gifts for our niece and nephews. Anytime I find something cool that I think they’ll like, I buy it. It goes on the shelf, patiently waiting for a celebration of some sort.

I made a stop at Michael’s today, planning on buying just stuff to make a cake and nothing else craft related. (More on that story later, after Dan’s birthday has passed.) Instead, I found myself wandering through the kids’ craft aisle. There were some neat storybook kits, paint-your-own piggy banks and temporary tattoos that caught my eye. I only bought one thing, a Disney Princess art kit for our niece. As I paid, I patted myself on the back for finding her birthday gift so early in the year. As I drove home, I mentally ticked her name off my gift list. As I proudly carried the gift into our gift closet, I eyed the shelves to find a safe spot to store it.

Hm…there’s the bedside lamp I bought for her birthday. I guess this will be a Christmas gift.

Oh…there’s the art book and finger paint set I bought for her Christmas gift. I guess this will be a random “yay for you” gift.

Oops…there’s the exact same Disney Princess art kit that I am currently holding in my hands.

Alright, so maybe there’s a teeny tiny flaw in my system. I buy the gifts so far in advance that I forget I’ve purchased them. However, I’m choosing to view this as a good thing. Now I get to return the item and spend the money at Michaels for something else crafty! Yay me!

I’m all about positive thinking.

I consider myself a talented person. I am good at math, can do almost anything crafty, make a delicious lasagna from a recipe I stole from my mother and can come up with over 1,000 reasons why I should not cook. Not even that infamous lasagna. So it really bugs me that there’s one thing I want to be good at, but I fail miserably.

When my parents moved, we inherited all of their plants- indoor, outdoor, landscaping, the works. The outdoor plants died immediately, mostly because I am allergic to mosquitoes and our neighborhood seems to be Mosquito Central. I never went out there to water them due to fear of softball size welts on my skin. The landscaping survived, thanks to landscapers at first and then thanks to Dan after I got laid off and we cancelled our landscape service. The indoor plants? Well, they weren’t so lucky.

I tried to remember to water them, I really did. One died almost immediately after my parents left. I picked it up off our bathroom counter to clean and saw a bug. This freaked me out of course, so I moved it into another room, near a window. Apparently, plants can be picky about too much sunlight. The others started to slowly die due to lack of care some strange force of nature that was out of my control.

As of December, only two remained. A lone palm and a pothos, both of which are described as “easy to care for.” Sadly, these easy to care for plants are also easy to forget to care for. The pothos droops, but I can revive it by an emergency watering. The palm was looking a little brown, so I decided to trim off all the dead offshoots and just leave the new growth. Turns out there was no new growth. I ended up with three dead trunks sitting in the pot.

Panic set in when I realized my mom would be coming home in May to celebrate my graduation. I didn’t want her to notice that I had killed all but one of the plants. I immediately asked my husband, who happens to work in the gardening department, to bring home an identical plant.

Yes, the irony of his line of work and my inability to keep plants alive is not lost upon us.

Dan said no. He said he would not be an accessory to plant murder. He also said he didn’t want to waste money on stuff he knew I was going to kill. Touché. So I decided to blog about the poor dead palm as a roundabout way to let my mom know that she gets to buy all new plants for their new home. You’re welcome, Mom.