The Exciting Life of Tony

Tony spends approximately 20 percent of every day staring at the fish tank. That's a lot of time when you consider the 75 percent of his day that he knocks out with sleep, eating, and playing in his kitty litter box. This is pretty impressive considering most of the fish died two summers ago, so there are only five fish left in a huge tank. But, even so, Tony is absolutely enthralled with the almost non-existant activity in the tank. Yesterday, though, something happened. One of the fish boldly jumped above the surface of the water and made a splash. I could literally see Tony's world shake. In Tony's world, it was the equivalent of Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes's wedding in the life of the paparazzi. I was so happy for him in all of his little shaky, wide-eyed excitement. I'm pretty sure it was one of the best days of his life.

PUPPIES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

A family at our church recently discovered that their dog had given birth to what they thought were 11 puppies underneath their house. Since BJ and I are pretty much the only people at the church in good enough condition and small enough to crawl under a house, we were elected to go out this morning a help get the puppies. We had a blast.

I have never crawled underneath a house, and that was really fun, ecspecially since I'm short enough I could get on all fours while BJ and Reggi were scooting on their bellies. Once we got to the back corner, we started stacking puppies into a Rubbermaid container. We then scooted them out and rolled them in a wagon to a shed where we counted them: 6 girls and 6 boys. That's right: 12 PUPPIES!!! I was pretty excited, and continued to cuddle with them. Here are a few pictures of the adorable puppies...

My Valentine's Day card from BJ

After my last post, I thought that the Valentine's Day card BJ got me was particularly appropriate.

The outside read:
"I'm not interested in a nice, normal relationship..."

And when you opened it, it read:
"I like ours better!"

Perfect.

Wondering why I said "I do"

During the first year of a marriage, I think everyone has moments when they can't believe how lucky, and then there are those moments when they wonder what in the world they have gotten themselves into. Tonight was one of the latter.

BJ was playing World of Warcraft with his friends, which I generally don't mind, especially on days like today when I'm doing homework. But for some reason, I decided to measure his devotion to me today to see which is more important: WoW or me. So I did what any wife who has lost all self-respect would do: I flashed him like a beadless girl at Mardi Gras.

At first, it seemed that he hadn't even noticed. I got irritated, but when I look at the conversation block on his screen I saw that the situation was far worse that him not noticing; he had written, "hey guys, gotta go. Kalyn is showing me her boobies." All the guys wrote their haha's, and then a moment later BJ wrote "I just got slapped", to which Dave responded, "Note to self: get a wife. Minus the slap."

I guess I should be proud of myself that BJ definitely chose me over quests and trolls and the race to level 70. But when BJ returned, there were entirely too many jokes about boobies, more specifically my boobies. This was disturbing. When Dave beat BJ to level 70 by four minutes, Dave did a little good-natured gloating, to which BJ responded "but I hit level 70 with boobies". After this, Dave had to admit that he would "take level 70 with boobies any day over just level 70." This has officially been one of the more embarrassing nights of my life.

Marriage counseling on the road to DQ

Every Sunday evening after church, about eight to twelve of the congregation members pile up in cars and drive to the Dairy Queen in Anson. Despite the Super Bowl being on, tonight was no different from any other night, except that we got the whole DQ to ourselves.

On nights like tonight when we have a fairly big crowd, the women pile in one vehicle while the men go in another. This has become a time when I have gotten to observe these women the most and communicate with them more openly than we do in church pews before service starts. I love hearing them talk about their past lives and their plans for the week and how adorable their great-granddaughter was when family came to visit over the weekend. But the part that interests me the most at this point in my life is when they talk about their husbands.

They have all been with their men for more years than I've been alive, and the glimpses I see of their marriages are simultaneously inspiring and exciting and terrifying. For example, Ann, who is nearly blind, talked a few weeks ago about what a hard time she and Mac are having finding the right shades of make-up for her. As she is going blind, her old trusty brands are changing shade names, so they are going through the trials and errors of shades that wash her out or leave dark lines. In some ways, I just want to say "how cute" and think of me and BJ growing old together, but that would be overlooking the profundity of what I am guessing if frustration on Mac's part as he tries to understand the labels on the mysterious products his gorgeous wife has effortlessly used for so many years.

Tonight, there was another one of these humbling moments. Ada's husband mysteriously became ill right about the time BJ and I first started going to Nugent. They are just now figuring out was is wrong and finding a few ways to relieve his pain. The women in the vehicle were discussing whether Medicare would pay for one of the treatments he is receiving this week, and Ada, who is about sixty-five with health issues of her own, said with her teeth practically gritting together, "If I have to go digging ditches, he will get that treatment." And she would.

I've heard a lot about the honeymoon stage which apparently BJ and I are experiencing, and how it's the happiest time of your life and so on. And I love this time, as one can tell by the numerous sappy posts I have written about the surprise I constantly experience as I see how much love grows daily within this covenant. But tonight left me speechless. I love BJ a lot tonight, but it is impossible for me to even grasp the depth to which this love will grow after fifty years of good memories, bad memories, funny moment, stretches of boredom, and all the other complexities of marriage. All I know is that when this body of mine starts getting tired and frayed, and the random gray hair I now have has taken over the rest of my head, I hope I am willing to take up a shovel and dig a ditch for BJ. I'm pretty sure I will.

Tony's is now attacking the drawstrings on my pants as I write this blog. It is punishment.

I have always considered myself a friend of nature. I try not to pollute, and I have always like taking care of God's little creatures. Take for instance when I took in Tony a year ago when he was a disease stricken kitten living in a bush. If I hadn't done that, today there would probably be 20 illegitimate kittens from five single mothers who were savagely raped by Tony and would be cheated weekly out of child support, but I saved the stray cats of Menard from such distress.

Anyways, it has come as quite a shock to me to find that 2007 is proving to be the year I became an enemy to nature. On New Year's day, I killed a deer. And last night on the way to church, I hit a rabbit. It died. I'm a bad person.