What's That Now?

Since I no longer had my niece Kate to entertain this week, Jared and I were able to get back to working on my dining room.  The wainscoting is now like 25% done and the tin ceiling has been totally sealed with silicone.  Here's the wainscoting:

I'm getting so excited to have the room done that I sent some pics to my family to brag a little.  Some of my siblings had some nice things to say but my dad just asked why I sent him a picture of some buckets.  This insensitivity came despite the fact that I have been very engaged and supportive with all the pictures he has been sending me documenting his drive cross country with his boyfriend Alan, which I might add look mostly like this:

What do you want?  Some people are jerks I guess.  Anyhoo...  While I was inside doing the ceiling silicone but mostly doing my homework instead of helping work on the wainscoting, Jared was outside cutting wood and making a buddy.  This buddy lives kitty corner to the back of my fence in the following house:

This buddy also asked if he could step through the giant hole in my fence to go talk to my other neighbor who lives to the right of me (from this perspective, he would be the unseen house to my left), while telling Jared his theory for why the fence is broken.  I might add that he never thought to mention that maybe it's because the fence is old and shitty and wasn't replaced on time by the previous owner...  I thought it was kind of hilarious he wanted to crawl through the fence, and since I am replacing the fence this year, felt generous enough to let him use my gaping hole while he still can.  I asked Jared if he had a new boyfriend upon which, Jared agreed the man was just his type:  old, smoker, with a thick Rhode Island accent.  I replied I was glad I moved to RI so he could find his perfect mate...  I digress...

After talking to the Jared, the neighbor walked back home and in a bit, he was back through the fence again with a gift...  3 new raspberry starts, probably because he noticed I am working on expanding a raspberry bed right in front of the fence he just tramped back through.  Jared also mentioned at some point that he had learned from his new boyfriend that his wife IS MARIA'S COUSIN!!!   Yep.  That Maria.  The same Maria I have vilified for 2 years.  And man am I glad I wasn't the one out talking to him when he discussed my fence because it would have come out what I thought of Maria and Jared's boyfriend and I might not have had a chance to become friends.  I of course tried to stalk him for you dear readers.  But this is all I got:

That's the top of his head on the right next to the fence pole.  I had to take the pic through my living room window because I was naked from my shower, had clean underpants upstairs, and couldn't stand on my deck to get the better shot.  Plus, I was also trying to be covert and not let him know I was spying on him.  It reminded me of some other spying I used to do a lot of when I first moved to the Ocean state:

I might try to learn Jared's boyfriend's name, or I might just call him Joe 2.  I haven't decided yet.  Either way, I now have a new friend I need to be nice to and since that friend brought me some plants, I probably ought to send some cookies his way.  Maybe one of these days stupid Maria will show up at his house and Joe 2 can tell her what a nice person I am.  And maybe I'll finally be able to answer the question of what would happen if I saw Maria again.  Like specifically, whether I really would tell her what I thought about her while strangling her to death with my strong bare hands...  On second thought, maybe I better tell Joe 2 to keep his damn mouth shut about me...       

Wedded Bliss

Yesterday was my 21st wedding anniversary.  Even after all the time Jared and I have been together, there's still a lot of magic and romance floating around.  If you're wondering what someone in such a long term commitment plans for their lover on such a special day, you're in luck, cause I'm about to blog about it!  The day started quite nicely:

Don't get excited. It was just some innocent snuggles and some quick words of congratulation about our milestone.  Then we had to get Bub up and out of the door so that we could get our day trip started.  This year we decided to go to the Statue of Liberty.  Why the statue?  Well, an extra special gift for our anniversary was sent to us by my thoughtful sister this year.  This sister wanted to give her daughter a gift for Christmas, so sent her to me for my anniversary, so that I could show her around the Ocean State.  Since my anniversary present had also never been to the statue, I decided my anniversary would work out best since Jared was off that day.  I know...  I have the best family.  My romantic snuggles were followed by a romantic breakfast of Fluffernutter and banana toast...

And Kate....

After breakfast, the anniversary trio hopped in the car and met up with horrible traffic because of an accident on 195.  It took us an hour to get out of Providence.  I spouted a prophesy that this did not bode well for our trip to New York...   But on Jared and I pressed...

With Kate...

We made good time until we got 5 miles away from the George Washington Bridge and then traffic halted us again.  Our appointment for the Statue was at 1 pm, but we sat in traffic for about 2 hours before we finally made it to the bridge.  It was horrible.  I said a lot of swears through my teeth, and mentioned to Kate about 2,000 times that I had skipped getting my regular mug of Diet Dr. pepper and also needed to pee hours ago but had held it so that we could get to the Statue on time and look what it had gotten me...  Then I started to complain to Jared - A LOT - who tried to be Mr. Cool as usual.  I finally called the ferry service to ask just how late we could be and still get on the ferry to the statue so that I could decide whether just to cut bait and turn around.  The ferry dude assured me that as long as we were at the screening area by 2 pm, we could still use our tickets.  At about 1:20, we almost got onto the bridge with actual hope of making the deadline, when the GPS took us off the bridge and guided us right along the Hudson River - thus effectively guaranteeing that we would not meet our commitment.  I could see the green lady mocking us from the harbor, and tried really hard to be only a little mean to Jared about the detour.  I knew the GPS had directed him, but this was one time where I knew it was picking the longer route.  At about 1:40, Jared finally realized someone had switched the GPS to "avoid tolls..." hence the predicament we now found ourselves in.  I said a few more swears and mentioned again that I really needed to pee...

We decided to drive to Liberty State Park on the Jersey side anyway so that at least Kate could get some distance shots with the lady and arrived at about 2:10.  I had the bright idea to run in and ask if they would still let us on the boat - and to see if they would let me use a toilet.  Wouldn't you know it... they let us on the ferry!  Look how happy Jared and I are to have tickets in hand and to be waiting in line for the statue....

Of course you guessed it...  Kate was happy too...


We rode the ferry over and spent the anniversary with the green lady...

And Kate....

Then we took Kate into the museum and found out that nearly everything inside had been removed for restoration.  Just our luck for the day.  More disappointment.  We didn't have time to see Ellis Island this go round, but if Kate wants to see that someday, she can come back and crash another one of our romantic trips to New York...

We finished up our travels, rode the ferry back out to the Jersey side, then headed to Shake Shack for dinner.  I wanted to give them a try since people on the East Coast are nuts for them.  How was it?  Ok.  But I'd still take Five Guys Burgers any day of the week.  Kate offered to pay since it was our anniversary, but her cheap mother only sent 100 bucks with her instead of the million I requested.  I told Kate she didn't need to waste my time offering to pay for something she couldn't really afford.  Then I told her to stop crying about it and drink her milkshake.  I forgot to take a pic of Kate crashing our romantic dinner so you will just have to imagine that part...  Sorry...

We finally made it back into Providence at about 10 pm, only to find that there was night road construction.  So we spent the last 5 miles going about the same speed as we had 14 hours earlier.  The one highlight in that last five miles was we got to smell the weed a greasy dude with a beard was smoking in the car next to us.  It was great let me tell you.  Overall, Kate enjoyed the trip and insisted she be allowed to come back next anniversary....  but I think she just wanted more second hand weed...

I almost had a moment to think I might finally see some romance, but ended up getting in a huge fight with Hannah, had to wash some dishes my rat kids left, then collapsed into my bed at nearly midnight.  Did I get some naked time?  Not this year buddy.  Just more snuggle time because Bub and I had a deal about her sleeping with me and I had forgotten that I had negotiated for her to sleep with me on my anniversary...

Oh well.  Happy 21st anniversary Kate!