Here and Everything In It

Sleep Walker/Talker/Puncher

You remember when Brad and I lived in Ottawa, and we had that giant bed made out of two double mattresses? And I had to custom-make double-double sheets to fit? And we used two separate comforters?

(because I had recently punched Brad in my sleep, and he couldn't handle being within 3 feet of my prone body anymore?)

Well, after we hit the big leagues and became fully employed, we splurged and bought a European pillow top KING-sized bed. Oh, heaven. We also bought a king-sized down duvet (and had a second one given to us as a present) and so now luxuriate in feathery goodness every single night. That's pillow top on the bottom, three feet between us, and two feather duvets on top. Like I said, heaven.

For a while there, we were allowing some pets to sleep with us, but eventually decided to walk the hard line and kick all those moochers off our mound of fluffy goodness. Having all that room in bed is no good if you have a cat on either side of your head, a dog lying lengthwise along your torso, and another curled up behind your knees. Like I said, moochers.

So when the furred beasts were banished, Brad and I were looking forward to some uninterrupted, peaceful, deep and satisfying sleep.

But we forgot that I'm a sleep talker. And not just a sleep talker in the regular sense, but an angry one at that. Perhaps it's a comment on my general attitude, but it doesn't take much for me to get angry while sleeping and then wake up in full-on fight mode. Especially if the witness to my waking dares to tell me that I was dreaming, and that there is no spider crawling in my pajamas, that none of the puppies have escaped from the puppy pen, and that said witness did not just place a very long, red, shiny and disgusting lobster leg on my pillow, just to gross me out.

Because I'm half awake, you know, the whole time I'm flopping my pillow up and down, pulling the sheets off the bed, jumping and shaking out my pajamas just in case the repugnant object has somehow managed to cling to my clothes, or worse -- my hair.

And this whole time, I'M CONVINCED THERE WAS A GODDAMN LOBSTER LEG ON MY PILLOW (IT WAS JUST THERE!! YOU CAN'T TELL ME YOU DIDN'T SEE IT!!!) AND THAT MY SPOUSE IS JUST BEING DELIBERATELY OBTUSE ABOUT IT.

And then there's always that moment when I realize that I was dreaming, but don't want to admit it. In fact, I usually flat out REFUSE to admit it until the lights are all on, the bed is stripped and I cannot for the life of me find the object of offense.

But, you know, I still don't think that shrieking at Brad for putting a crustacean's limb into my personal face-space is foolish (this is coming from a girl whose husband once chased her into their apartment complex hallway with his own poo in hand just because she told him she didn't think he'd do it). No, it's ... justified. Honestly, if given the chance, Brad would put something really horrific within my general periphery, just to get a laugh.

But the truth is, the only time Brad will ever be happy about being woken up in the middle of the night is if I'm having a nightmare and he can laugh at me in all my ridiculousness. Sometimes, if I'm sleep talking and he's awake enough, he'll join in the conversation, just to mess me up. It's not like I ever remember these conversations in the morning (unless I end up waking up in the middle of them), so a part of me always wonders what psychological trauma he's been inflicting on my poor, defenseless brain in the darkest hours of the night.

He could be the real reason why I'm crazy, after all. All those spousal cliches aside, he may just be the key to my insanity ...

February, You Hit The Hardest Where It Hurts

Dear February:

You are certainly promoting yourself with false pretenses. What you'd like us to believe is that you are a month of love and coziness, of wood fires and snuggling and outdoor romps in snow-filled wonderlands, while in fact you are nothing but a cold-hearted, self-indulgent charlatan, bent on drawing your twenty-eight days out to the longest possible extent.

Shortest month, my foot! You are four solid weeks of bitter cold, driving wind, exorbitant energy bills, and dry skin. You laugh at us poor humans in the northern hemisphere, smirk as we foolishly, through our optimism, celebrate each slightly longer day and how much closer we're getting to springtime and summer and walks to work in less than three layers of insulated duck-down.

But you know. You know that spring is another month and a half away for most, and three months away for me and Brad in particular.

You and your hearts and lace doilies and love messages!! Faker!

Next year, forget about all this leap year business, we should just skip you altogether. Go straight from January to March. Meet that lion head on, and then make way for the lamb.

And while we're on the topic of you, February, I say get rid of Valentine's day, too! We wouldn't need a whole day to remind us about love if it wasn't so damn cold outside. I'm sure we'd all love each other more anyway if we didn't have snot hanging off the tips of our noses and flakes of dandruff falling gently to our be-sweatered shoulders.

Hallmark can just make another holiday. Let's call it Early Springtine's Day. We can still give cards. They'll just be made out of energy bills that we've already paid in full (they were so minimal! Like nothing!) and all those leftover Hannah Montana Valentines that didn't quite make it off the shelves.

The only thing missing will be you, February. But you'll get over it once you've grown an appreciation for sunshine, warmth and physical comfort. Even the hearts of the Grinch and Scrooge melted eventually.

Sincerely,

Your Vitamin D Deprived Critic,

Katherine

Damn You, Costa Rican Paypal-Like-Service!!!*

So, turns out booking a place to stay for our Costa Rican adventure has been kind of like scraping off our big toenails with shards of splintered glass. We thought everything was going well, we thought going through a major Costa Rican travel agency was the easiest, potentially stress free-est way to paradisiacal bliss, we thought processing our rental fees through a verified by VISA transaction provider was the most fool-proof way to protect our money.

Ahem.

THEN, said major Costa Rican travel agency screwed up our booking to the point where WE were calling the condo management company to make sure the travel agents had forwarded our money before the deadline (they didn't, but lucky for us, the condo management people extended the deadline -- after WE ASKED FOR IT), but of course, even though we did all the phone work, we're still paying the imbedded agency fee.

Ok, but that's not all. It gets worse. The first time I tried to process our order online, the Costa Rican Paypal-like-service failed mid transaction. I got an Error screen, so I waited to see if the travel agents had received our payment before I tried again. They assured me they had not received any money from us, my VISA showed no transaction had taken place, so a day later, I attempted to process the order one more time. It went through, everything was cool, and then I looked at my VISA statement again.

Of course, faux-Paypal charged us twice. They are not responding to our emails (duh). Now we've filed a charge-back complaint with VISA, with no guarantee that we'll actually be refunded the $2090 USD.

And remember when I was bragging about using our Avion points to pay $720 for our tickets instead of $3000? That's KARMA, dammit. I never should have opened my big stupid mouth.

GAH.

Stupid Costa Rica. You better be AWESOME, or I want my money back.

Oh, wait.

*This wasn't actually a Paypal site, but I don't want to call the online Costa Rican transaction provider by name, because that would be mean, and calling it Paypal is just the closest approximation to describe what the company actually does. So, NOT Paypal. Just to be clear.

More Christmas Shenanigans

These photos are courtesy of our lovely, talented, photografabulous sister Victoria: