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Home Alone… The Thriller

~ wasabiapple ~ Leave a comment

Me: When’s your next business trip?

Graham: I don’t know.

Me: In the next two months maybe?

Graham: Probably not. Why do you ask?

Me: I have a horror book I want to read and a movie to watch. I want to make sure you’re going to be around while it’s still fresh in my head.

_________________________________________________________________

Most people probably outgrow their childhood fears, but I still have severe existential hang-ups and paranoia of the paranormal. In all fairness, I really do it to myself. I grew up watching horror films with my grandmother in her bedroom. Since my grandmother spoke almost no English, horror films provided an unlikely way for us to bond. Visual suspense and fear bridged successfully across the linguistic divide. I’ve grown desensitized to some subgenres (slashers, monsters, zombies, etc.), but then there are the ones that burrow into childhood fears and metastasize into my imagination.

I’ve always lived in close proximity to other people. Family, apartments, roommates/housemates, and now, husband, so even if my paranoia choked back sleep, I at least felt some comfort knowing that there was only a thin wall or door that separated me from other people, and sleeping with your significant other in the same bed eliminates the dilemma of whether to sleep facing the door or the closet. In the end it doesn’t matter since your S/O’s logic brainwaves will drive away the boogeyman.

However… panic always sets in when Graham has a business trip.

Once upon a time though, when we first started dating, I asked Graham that if we were ever living together.. and I suddenly got bad vibes about a place, if he’d promise to let us move. I’ve seen The Omen, Rosemary’s Baby, Insidious.. and in all of those movies, Lee Remick, Mia Farrow, and Rose Byrne are never taken seriously and then all hell breaks loose as their fears are proven. Graham promised we’d move.

Last night, on a whim, I asked him if he remembered that promise.

No.

Shoot. Now I have to add “Pod People” to my list.

Stacy

Domestic Jedi Mind Tricks

~ wasabiapple ~ Leave a comment

Monday’s post was all about the changes we made to our living room when we moved to Mount Airy. You might have noticed the white rug in the photos. That little piece of fabric got me into some trouble with Graham. After the floors were refinished, I spread out the new rug to test how it would look. I was pretty pleased. On the way back to our old house to finish up some packing, the following conversation occurred:

mt1mt2mt3mt4mt5mt6mt7anotationmt9mt10mt11mt12mt13mt17mt15mt16mt17mt18

 

Stacy

 

An Open (Ransom) Letter To My Brother-In-Law

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First, I’m going to say how disappointed I am that I couldn’t do a cut-out letters ransom note since we don’t have magazines at home.. or glue that isn’t dried out.. and you know who this is anyways so that already defeats the purpose.. in short, I’m disappointed. Anyhow..

*We have your Lillet.Lillet1It is currently unharmed.. really… proof of life as of today, September 7. 2016.Lillet2

But whether it continues existing in its current state depends on your ability to meet *our my demands.

Your Lillet will be returned to you unharmed if you successfully exchange it for a dozen of your homemade macarons.. any flavors will suffice with the exception of those listed here. 

Failure to comply will force a fate on your bottle similar to its friend:Lillet3That one is nearly empty… only a fraction of the bottle that it used to be.

Tell your parents, and the Lillet will suffer the consequences. You can start saying goodbye to it piece by piece at a time.. again.. like its buddy..Lillet4

You have 72 hours. Clock starts now.

 

Stacy

*Your brother did not approve this message. 

 

Review Of Graham

~ wasabiapple ~ Leave a comment
areview1
My favorite photo of Graham from our wedding

areviewaareview3

Happy Anniversary, Graham! Thank you for a wonderful year.

areview2

Stacy

PS. Apologies for the crappy formatting of this post. There were a lot of technical difficulties.. I finally gave up because I already lost an hour and a half working on this post instead of spending time with my husband on our wedding anniversary. Did I mention he’s patient?

In The Mood For Summer… Indoors – Film Watch 2

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badlands3I finally got Graham to watch my other favorite summertime film Terrence Malick’s Badlands from 1973. Like a lot of Malick’s other works, it’s divisive. You either love it or hate it. 

The film is loosely based on the 1957-1958 murder spree of teenage couple Charles Starkweather and Caril Ann Fugate and stars Martin Sheen and Sissy Spacek. It starts out in small town Port Dupree, South Dakota with what seems to be the innocent meeting of Kit (Sheen) and Holly (Spacek), but as Holly’s voiceover foreshadows, “Little did I realise that what began in the alleys and backways of this quiet town would end in the Badlands of Montana.” Continue reading →

In The Mood For Summer… Indoors – Film Watch

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I’ve been suffering from brain-melt the past few days thanks to the heat index pushing the temperature over 100 in Philly. We’ve been trying to spend as little time outside as possible. It’s been a good excuse for me to pull out my two favorite summer films. Just as winter never feels complete without watching A Christmas Story all the way through at least once, there are two films that have become a summertime tradition for me.takethiswaltz7Today, I got in my annual viewing of Take This Waltz (2011), Sarah Polley’s second feature length film as director. I love watching this film every year because it’s so… PRETTY. Continue reading →

Everything’s Coming Up Milhouse

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The best part of being in Seattle wasn’t seeing old friends (if you’re reading this guys, sorry.. although you were in the Top 5), showing Graham around, having drinks again at Unicorn, or a bunch of other things I was excited about during the trip. No, it was this:An UpdateThe fact that my old QFC Advantage number still works!

I didn’t think that feeling could be topped so soon, but then this happened:Everything's Coming Up MilhouseYes.. those are the trypophobic-inducing asiatic lilies.. and yes, that’s a compost bin. Thank you, Graham for helping me pry those suckers out of the ground and for being so much less of a jerk than me that you didn’t chase me around the yard with them.

Stacy

Do These Pants Make Me Look Fat?

~ wasabiapple ~ Leave a comment

Like a lot of people, I have insecurities about my physical appearance.. like my underbite.. and my lack of a butt.. and my weight. I can’t really do much about the first two on that list, but at least I could follow my cyclic ritual of getting into shape..

Spring = Jogging -> Summer = Jogging-> Autumn = Jogging (maybe) -> Winter = Binge myself into hibernation

This summer, however, I’ve been incredibly frustrated. Thanks to my herniated disc, I haven’t been able to go running since April. Although my back has been getting better, working out has been confined to physical therapy exercises that are absent of any kind of cardio high. Without being able to go jogging, or walking everywhere, or even tackling housework other than sweeping and washing dishes, I was convinced I had been gaining weight.

So I was pretty surprised to notice that my shorts seemed looser, and I was having to tug them up a lot. I didn’t think too much of it until I started having to pull up my underwear too.

YES! In spite of missing out on the cardio and upping my burger intake (thanks, grilling season) I’m losing weight! A follow-up visit to my doctor confirmed that I’d lost a few pounds.

I went through my closet and found a dress I wore 2 summers ago, wondering if it just might fit this season.

Do These Pants Make Me Look Fat

YAY!!! That’s also a new haircut =)

Actually.. that totally didn’t happen.. at all. It went like this instead:stickdress2

No, that’s not me pregnant. It’s me – hello, summer, I didn’t lose any weight and that scale at the doctor’s office was lying.

That’s when I realized though…

Do These Pants Make Me Look Fat

And…Do These Pants Make Me Look FatI’d lost weight all right. All of it from my butt!.. that thing I’ve had to sit on for most of the summer while participating in marathons… of Investigation Discovery. I had lost weight in the one place I really needed to gain it! =(

If the above model wasn’t helpful in explaining, maybe this simple line drawing will help:Do These Pants Make Me Look Fat

That would be me on the right.. without the butt. Not that I ever really had one.. but at least I had just enough of one to keep my underwear up. I think Graham just bought some duct tape on a Home Depot run.. I also found this website:

34 Ways to Use Duct Tape for Survival

And if you click on the link and checkout the domain name, I’ll tell you this.. No, the irony did not escape me. And I’ve just created usage 35.

Stacy

How I Spent My Summer Vacation – Fear and Regret

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How I Spent My Summer Vacation - Fears and Regret
Not an album cover mock-up

Yes, that’s an illustration of the fear Graham developed while we were in Seattle. And no, it isn’t the color “coral”.. I’ve already cultivated that fear in him thanks to my insistence of bringing “pops of color” to the 3rd floor landing by way of throw pillows and prints.

When I asked Graham what he’d be most interested in seeing during our trip, he said he wanted “A Tour Of Stacy’s Seattle.” He wanted to experience the city the way I did when I lived there from 2006-2011. What he didn’t realize was “A Tour Of Stacy’s Seattle” translates into a lot of walking (my preferred method of travel being my own two feet), eating, and drinking (Graham made the comment that he felt like he was back in college during our visit).

By our first morning, he figured out the full implications of his request and wanted to take it back. We had brunch at my favorite spot Toulouse Petit in lower Queen Anne, and after sufficiently weighing ourselves down with the rich Bayou Fisherman’s Breakfast and Dungeness Crab Eggs Benedict, I told Graham I wanted to show him the view of Seattle’s skyline from Kerry Park which was a short walk away.

Now, what I didn’t tell Graham about this short walk was that not only would it be all uphill, but that this street was also featured as one of Seattle’s top 20 steepest inclines.How I Spent My Summer Vacation

This image could stand to be slightly more accurate..

Like this…How I Spent My Summer VacationAll was forgiven once he saw the view..1469217930816

How I Spent My Summer VacationHowever, forgiveness did not mean he wasn’t going to do everything possible to avoid the hills in the city. But one of the things I love about Graham is that he’s a trooper. We’d walk 5-8 miles a day without a complaint from him.. well.. unless it was uphill.

Although I lived in Seattle for almost 5 years, I never visited the Space Needle. Showing Graham around the city provided the perfect excuse to remedy that. From the top of the tower, I pointed out how far we’d walked that morning and afternoon.mapHow I Spent My Summer VacationAnd as a thank you, I agreed we could take an Uber back.. at least partway.. to one of my favorite bars…How I Spent My Summer VacationAnd then walked the 1.6 miles back to the Airbnb.

Stacy

PS. In case you’d like to see other views from the Space Needle including Lake Union and Elliot Bay and the unscribbled original of the photo above..