kris

Five years ago today

Blog kitt decided around 18:54 on 15 May 2009 to publish this:

Five years ago today, we were standing here.

Five years ago today, we were surrounded by over a hundred amazing, accomplished, wonderful people, who, magically, were here to see us.

Five years ago today, to the heavy shaking yes of my mother's head, I told you I would always use an argument not to win, but to understand you better.

Five years ago today, to the heavy shaking yes of your mother's head, I told you I would always be waiting outside of that cave, waiting for when you decide to come out.

Five years ago today, I promised you I would try my hardest to live up to the good I see in you.

Five years ago today, I promised you a baseball team for your 50th birthday party.

Five years ago this hour, I smooshed a cupcake up your nose.

I totally won that one.

Finally!

Blog kitt decided around 16:44 on 15 May 2009 to publish this:

We're finally on our way to the Valley of the Moon campground where we married five years ago.

Five years. FIVE years.

Wow.

One more day

Blog Written with a loving hand by kitt some time around 23:14 on 14 May 2009

Tomorrow, Kris and I will have been married five years.

The traditional gift for the fifth year is wood. While over at Keith and Katie's, we pondered this when I asked what I could purchase or make for for Kris for our anniversary.

Wood.

Dur.

A bat.

A baseball bat.

And Kris could buy me a tree! Whee!

Kris left his bats at home in Viriginia when he left for college. I've asked him several times to bring them back to California with him when he returns from visits back east, but either he forgets, or I forget, and the bats remain 3500 miles away.

So, while at her house, Katie and I looked for some bats, finding a bat signed by Willie Mays for $350. I thought about it, and realized that I'd rather have a bat we can use than a bat that sits in a box mounted to the wall.

When I dashed home and told Kris what I was getting him for our anniversary, and what he was getting for me, he laughed. He had already decided to get me a tree, but was waiting for when we could both go look for one together. I had to laugh. It's a good idea.

Tonight, however, we went to buy a bat. You can't buy a bat without purchasing balls. And you can't have a ball and a bat without any way to catch the balls you hit with the bat.

So, somehow I ended up with a new baseball glove. When I asked Kris how my gift to him became an odd gift to me, he replied, "The gift isn't so much the bat, as that you're going to play baseball with me. That's the TRUE gift."

Great. Only took him 11 years to break me down.

Baseball.

Indeed.

Happy anniversary, love.

The knee made it!

Blog Written with a loving hand by kitt some time around 14:48 on 9 May 2009

Bella, Kris, Annie and I went up to Fremont Older today.

Kris was going to spend the whole day, starting at 11:00 AM, playing World of Warcraft. I negotiated a hike and time spent with me in return for not complaining about his playing. In reality, I'm completely annoyed that he plays that game all the f--king time. I despise the inherent lack of a productive life that game, and all the other games he's been addicted to in the last 10 years, creates.

Right.

The hike.

I had originally intended on wearing my knee brace for the hike. When I put it on this morning, however, the brace caused my knee to hurt. Okay, not what I was hoping for. I thought about taping my knee, but decided against that, too, mostly out of laziness, partially out of a lack of belief the taping was actually helping.

So, off we went: Bella in her cone and beat up face, I without a knee brace, Annie and Kris with no issues we knew about.

The hike went smoothly. I ran some of the hills, just to get my legs moving and a faster rate than my usual walking. I had a hard time on several of the hills, with a heavy heart and gasping lungs. It's pretty clear that I haven't been exercising aerobicly for a short while now, a fact I intend to change. I figure, I can run around the block (a half mile loop) four times for a easy 2 mile run. I'll never be more than 200 yards from home, should my knee lock up or I need to go to the bathroom.

As well as my knee did on the hike, Bella didn't do so well. We kept her in the cone, since she immediately started scratching her face when we removed the cone. I don't know if the cone was an additional burden or not, but she ended up not moving at one point, so Kris carried her the rest of the way back to the car.

I think she might be getting old. We already know she's deaf.

On the hike, I noticed from one part of the trail near the beginning, you could see the other part of the trail from the end, so from both angles, nominally the same spot:

Pro-nun-see-a-shun

Blog Posted by kitt at 17:45 on 8 May 2009

"Try to pronounce these pairs differently: our/hour, hole/whole, Hu/who, your/you're, so/sew, cot/caught, bow/bough, night/knight."

David Weekly posted that line on his twitter stream, and I just had to laugh.

Aside from the fact that "Kris" and "Chris" have different pronunciations (no, not really), I actually DO pronounce cot and caught, as well as bow and bough diffferently. Cot is prounounced with an "ah" sound, with caught pronounced with an "aw" sound.

I'm told that's a Midwestern drawl that causes those words to be different, a lesson I learned way back at Amerigon when the telephone call speech recognition system never recognized my "call" keyword to initiate a call. I had to use "phone" to initiate a call.

They call it a drawl. I call it speaking correctly.

I've managed to correct some of Kris' speech patterns over the last decade. He forwarded an email from a friend who had written "one" instead of "won" in the email. He was laughing at the typo, even hours later when he arrived home. I asked him to pronounce the two words, one and won, only to be mortified as he pronounced "won" as "Juan".

It was my turn to laugh.

I have since fixed Kris' speech problems. He done do talk purdy now.

Kris' new toy

Blog Written with a loving hand by kitt some time around 21:20 on 6 May 2009

So, Kris has this habit of waiting for me to purchase some new toy and, after it arrives and I'm playing with it, says, "Hey! I want one!" That's usually followed by his co-opting my new toy, forcing me to purchase a new one.

I can't say I'm particularly upset by this habit, as it gives me an opportunity (an admittedly very SHORT opportunity) to play with the first one, and purchase a better or upgraded one when he's not looking.

He's been doing this since our first MP3 player (not an iPod) and our first digital camera (floppies!), and our Handspring PDAs.

Of course, that all pretty much stopped when I purchased him an iPod. Instead of being fascinated with my iPod, he could be fascinated with HIS iPod.

This would work well, for both of us, if he didn't keep losing or breaking his iPods. I'm on iPods two and three (one for long term listening and videos, the other diskless for running), having lost my first iPod to kris' magical touch.

Kris, on the other hand, is on iPod five or six, having broken his first one, worn out the battery on his second one and my first one, and lost the fourth one, possibly the fifth one, too. Honestly, I've lost count.

Actually, kris WILL BE on iPod 5/6 once I give it to him. It arrived today. I really should have had his phone number engraved on the back. Of course, if I had done that, all the chicky-poos would be able to hit on him via his iPod and he'd NEVER see it.

The good thing about the engraving is that if whoever finds this ipod googles for his name, they'll find this site and hopefully contact me. That assumes, of course, that said finder is resourceful.

And that he loses it in the first place. I hope he doesn't: I'm becoming quite tired at replacing iPods.

Of course, since I've licked it, they're all mine.