blog-a-do

Most folks who know me know that I have a bit of an addiction to blogs. I read about 20 different blogs and that list is growing all the time. I'm impressed daily by these people who share their lives with complete strangers. They post about the good, the bad, the awful, and the absurd. What's really amazing is how much I care about these people who I don't even know. Reading someone's blog strips the nonsense away and you realize how much people really have in common. So here are a few of my favorite blogs:

Alice of finslippy is a phenomenal writer. She's witty, intelligent and fearless about her writing. I wish she had time to post every day.

Heather of dooce is the most famous blogger I read. She received notoriety in 2002 for being fired from her job because of her blog. She even discontinued blogging for a while. But now she's back and has made headlines again with her openness about her battle with depression, especially post-partaum depression, and the fact that she's making a living by blogging. Her husband Jon also has a blog at blurbomat.

Maybe it's the influence of my dear Okie friend Anne, but I've realize two of my favorite blogs are written by folks who are originally from Oklahoma.

The first is Sarah Brown at queserasera who is an Okie now living in Brooklyn. She's kind of like my "Sex and the City" blog series. She's a single girl in NYC but wears normal clothes and has real friends and relationships.

It was through Queserasera that I discovered Erin and Brian, also former Tulsans, over at byrneunit. They're married with a one-year-old son and recently moved to Chicago. Again they're very funny and complete pop-culture-whores.

There's also Tracey from Baltimore at sweetney who taught me about the blog phenomenon "Snakes on the Plane." She also introduced her friend Amy to me at amalah, who has some kick-ass beauty tips.

I could go on and on and talk about Melissa, Julia, Laid-Off Dad, Mimi, Maggie and Eden, but I'll just let you discover them by yourself.

the dream realized

spin

Taking the new KitchenAid mixer out for a spin: in this clip, we roll out onto a lonely, straight highway and rev her engine up past liquify. Seriously, though, this mixer is so powerful and stainless-steel-clad and intelligent its settings range from "brain surgery" to "devastation."

the eyes have it

Jen after a knock-down drag-out fight with her mountain bike.
















Kelly wide-eyed with sympathetic shock.

we're all grown up now

We received our first comment spam on the blog today. We're still feeling a little breathless and shaky, even now that the first exhilirating rush is over. We hardly feel violated at all. In fact, it feels like we've passed a developmental milestone, or somehow been initiated into real bloggerhood.

Let me tell you about our first spam.

It was so. . . sweet. Sweet and gentle. It came out of the blue. Our first spam was delivered in lowercase, in a soft, faintly-exotic Eastern European accent---it's hard to tell when it's barely even a whisper. Like the lost stoned hippie chick who wanders in from the rain and ends up in a pool of light on your couch, it started with a meandering apology. It said it had lost its way, stumbled onto our blog, didn't see what it was looking for, but wondered if we wanted to make some money? Hell yeah, we say. Sure we want to make money. Then suddenly she sprouts stainless steel talons that knock over the lamp, plunge into the couch (though in a panic, we still notice that the couch is covered in cat fur. . . oh, it is exactly these prosaic small things that keep us grounded and protect us from real harm) and grind right through the floor, and she instantly grows other tentacles and whipping appendages and spikes and plates like a technohorror chia pet. Humming alien ductwork runs everywhere. Someone somewhere has fired up a stage fog machine, dramatically blanketing the room in a knee-high layer of white dry ice smoke. Her metallic spiderbot body hovers, spinning. Her red eyes glare. We wait, unable to move or even blink, limp with. . what? desire? terror? Finally, sounding uncannily like Stephen Hawking, she commands us to visit a website. Do we want to make money? Yes! Yes! We move to comply. We point our browser. But suddenly we remember the small things that matter, precious necessities like pesky cat fur on the couch and ice cream and calls to pick up siblings at the airport, and we come back to our senses. Begone, beautiful dark lady of the spam world! And take your robot spiders with you! We'll put in our iPod earbuds and crank up ABBA Gold tunes to drown out your siren song of wealth and fame and splendid penis enlargement! Go away!

It was that close. But now we're older and wiser and we know better.

haiku by cat upon release from accidental imprisonment in basement

lock me in a hole?
your reward for such hubris:
fur on your keyboard.

Slackers no more!

Yes, yes, yes - it has been almost 3 months since we've updated the blog. Our excuse...we can't or don't have time to post while at work and our home computer was very, very slow (dial-up plus an eight-year-old computer). But that is all about to change! I am proudly typing on our new MacBook using our new wireless DSL connection! The Schwillig's are back. And to prove it here is a picture right now that I took using the built-in camera on the MacBook:



In keeping with the picture theme, here is a picture of Scott running at Grandma's Marathon a couple of weeks ago.



The picture is courtsey of Scott's father, Norm, and was taken less than a mile from the finish line, which explains the smile.

Whew...I think I've blogged before properly stretching. I promise this is just the beginning. We have so much to catch up on--the pets, the house projects, oh and yeah that whole wedding thing coming up in September...

creamer vs. creamer

flight or fight: automated response

The following is a work of fiction, an imagined transcript of exactly half of a telephone call placed to an automated flight information system. Any resemblance of characters in this work to real persons living or sleeping in the next room is purely coincidental.

KELLY dials phone. Waits.

KELLY: One.
KELLY: I don’t know.
KELLY: Arrivals.
KELLY: Today.
KELLY: Minneapolis.
KELLY: New York.
KELLY: New York LaGuardia International.
KELLY: Next.
KELLY: Next.
KELLY: Next.
KELLY (exasperated): Details.
KELLY (urgently): No, back up!
KELLY (hanging up): Screw it.

Tula doesn't want to live with the cats

On our recent trip to Zion National Park in Utah, Scott and I found our wedding bands. We found them at a Native American art gallery. They're two layers of silver with black markings symbolizing water made by the Hopi tribe. Very simple and they matched! Our two goals were met.

We returned home triumphant! I pulled the two jewelry boxes out of my bag and placed them on my dressing table. Since I'm in the process of moving into Scott's house this month I did mention to Scott that he should take them home so that the rings didn't get lost in the move. What fateful words those would turn out about to be.

Friday morning proceeded as normal. I got up, got ready for work, Scott came to pick me up and off we went. I did pick up on the fact that Tula seemed slightly peevish about our leaving. Granted we had only been home two days and had jump right back into work completely ignoring her needs (this is her opinion, not mine.) So I braced myself for finding some level of destruction upon our return home. Usually Tula manifests her unhappiness by eating part of a houseplant and then throwing it up on the living room rug. Annoying but not fatal.

Of course you see where this is all going.

We returned home Friday night to find a chewed up jewelry box and a spit-saturated blob of tissue paper on my bedroom floor. Wrapped within the tissue was my wedding ring. Now with more character! Tula must have chewed on the tissue a number of times before she decided that I had been thoroughly punished for leaving her home that morning. The ring was still wearable but no was longer completely round. It was slightly bent on one side and had multiple teeth marks.

Needless to say I was distraught! "Is it a sign?" I asked Scott and Jen who witnessed the discovery. I mean, both rings were on the dresser but she chooses to chew on my ring, not Scott's. Did this mean that Tula doesn't want us to get married? Or maybe it means she just wants Scott all to herself. She goes crazy whenever he arrives and if we come home together I get ignored while she jumps on and licks him with abundant joy. Or she doesn't want to move to Scott's house. Tula simply can't bring herself to cohabitate with another species. A species so foul and evil. Tula doesn't want to live with the cats.

In reality I know the real reason she chewed up the jewelry box and ring are because of one or all of the following:
1. She was mad that we left that morning and thus was going to act out in some way.
2. She discovered the jewelry boxes at perfect muzzle level. Heck, she didn't even have to work to get at them.
3. There is the possibility that the boxes smelled like food. They had been in my backpack co-mingling with chocolate covered espresso beans and yogurt covered almonds.

I think #3 is the real reason.

The ring has been sent back to the gallery in Utah and now we're awaiting word about its status. The owner was very kind when I spoke to her. Either the artist will be able to repair it or they'll replace it with a new one. Either way, it'll turn out fine.

Now getting Tula to live peacefully with the cats...that's another story.

simulated haircut

Enjoy this audio simulation of the haircut Kelly's getting right now at Moxie. As you listen, let your imagination run wild. See the orphaned clips of her hair floating gently to the floor. Feel the warm afternoon sun streaming in the windows. Hear the robust hubbub of Snelling Avenue traffic. Smell the Paul Mitchell hair products, bottles all neatly lined up in their racks, ready for action like a really stylish militia. "They gave us these raw kids, and we turned them into fashion soldiers," says General Mitchell, his voice husky with repressed emotion, his eyes teary beneath the shining helmet of his hair. "They didn't think they had it in them, but we knew they'd go far. I have to say, this group really gelled."

We have two urgent search objectives these days: a suitable chew toy for the Bucket, and an officiant for the wedding. For the former, we're looking for something that will give her a legitimate outlet for her oral fix and redirect her from chewing on cardboard, paper, or Flea. What is she, a dog? Apparently so. Anyway, she's been on a real paper-shredding tear lately. Hello? PetCo? Do you stock titanium mousies?

For the latter, we're thinking of something affordable, maybe with a dab of flair, and preferably in a non-denominational or secular model. Gender is not an issue. A meaningul connection to our lives would be nice. Friends who've always wanted to pursue their internet M.Div. are encouraged to apply.

flashback, spring forward

Daylight Saving Time. Tonight, for many of us, our fathers will wander the dark halls of our memories in their tighty-whities, resetting all the clocks in the house.

haiku for steve-o's element

over-fence branch sweeps
snow (tears?) from lime pumpkin cheek.
captiva postcard.

toupee

new livingroom rug
Originally uploaded by schwillig.

We got a new rug. It's in the living room. It's been pet approved.

experiment results

So I get up in the morning and find that, after her little photo op, she didn't touch the carrot. Or at least didn't chew it to pieces. There may have been licking involved but no visible evidence remains. Let sleeping carrots lie.

How does this advance our hypothesis? It doesn't. More experimentation required.

scientific method

Unkind hints have already been made in this forum about a certain sweet-tempered Bucket’s indelicate mass. Or how shall we say. . . weight problem? But before we libel the pudgy little marmot any further, let’s get the facts straight. What we know so far, scientifically speaking:

• She weighs as much as a squirmy bag of sugar.
• She chews and shreds paper products with great relish, especially cardboard. This is known as pica. This handy pathology saves us the expense of buying and maintaining a costly document shredder and keeps us safe from identity theft.
• She often steals toilet paper or kleenex, drowns it in her water dish, soaks it, and then gorges on the resulting tasty gruel. Nothing but empty calories, cat.
• She only gets 2/3 cup of crunchy food a day: 1/3 cup in the morning and 1/3 cup in the evening, both intensely anticipated and wildly celebrated.
• And yet she gains.

Hypothesis #1: She’s hungry.
Hypothesis #2: She’s bored.

This calls for experimentation and hardcore data collection. To that end, we’ve placed an unadorned carrot on a plate and placed the plate on the dining room table. We’ll leave it unguarded overnight and see what morning brings. Have at it, Bucket. Carrots improve night vision.

Elmo Care Bear Mash Up

When worlds collide.

good girl!

tula! what a good girl!

Save the Date!

We have a wedding date - Saturday, September 9, 2006.

The day will begin with a family breakfast at Savories Bistro in downtown Stillwater. The ceremony will be held at William O'Brien State Park just north of Stillwater. We'll have a picnic dinner at the park later in the day. Check out the Wedding Links on the right for details on locations.

haiku by cat with glowing eyes

your knees my batcave,
these blankets my lair. be warned,
mousies of gotham.