Such Great Heights

My face was broke out. I was wearing pajama pants and The Tall Drink of Water had just run six miles.

We were lying on the couch. I think Sports Center was on. Or maybe it was a game. It was around midnight last Monday.

At first I thought he was kidding. TDW said that he'd had a conversation with the cats (this isn't unusual - we often pretend to have lengthy conversations with the cats) and that they'd all agreed that we should get married.

I, of course, cracked a joke. "All four of us? But they're boys. Isn't that illegal?"

"No, not them. Us," he said, and his voice cracked. That's how I knew he was serious.

Then the Tall Drink of Water handed me a groovy little ring. It's a double band with a hammered center and no other woman on this planet would consider it engagement ring. So of course it's perfect. (It's great fun to show it off. The reaction starts out with "Ooh!" Then drops to a short, "oh." Then a quick, "It's very you," is added. I can only hope that our wedding gets a similar reaction.)

And that's the story of how we got engaged 10 days ago.

This photo is completely unrelated to the moment. But it says it all - rapture, unbridled passion, commitment, my inability to not lick his face at parties.

Thanks to The Postal Service for the title of this post. Though TDW and I both prefer the Iron & Wine version. See, we're totally soulmates.

The Daugherty Farm: Cornhole Edition

The first ever Daugherty cornhole tournament was this weekend, with the Tall Drink of Water and my mom on a team and my dad and I on another.

The games were tight, but ultimately my dad and I won two out of three games and a fourth just for fun. But we all threw good bags. (That's lingo I learned from the cornhole tournament story I wrote a while back.) My dad kept calling my mom Cornholio because she got the most cornholes out of everyone. And it would make her laugh and mess up her throws.

This all started because Saturday I drove home to Indiana with the Tall Drink of Water to watch an IWU baseball game with my dad. With me I had directions for how to make a cornhole set that I'd printed off the Internet.

My plan was to drop off the directions to my retired, woodworking dad and roll on outta town the next day and let him go to work. But no sooner than he'd examined the instructions did he get a gleam in his eye and say, "This is gonna be exciting!"

Ten minutes later TDW, my dad and I were all three in the front of his pick-up truck driving to the lumber yard. About two and half hours later, we were playing cornhole in the front yard under the street lamp.

Thanks to Mike Brungs of Florence for typing up the instructions and putting them on his Web site for me to Google and find. They were perfect. The only mistakes we had were mine. I thought we needed two sheets of plywood. We didn't.

And even though we had a jigsaw, a circular saw, a drill and various other tools, we didn't have a sewing machine. We went to Tractor Supply and bought a bag of whole corn to make the bags but realized sewing the bags without a sewing machine would take longer than it took to build the things. But low and behold, a Marion sporting goods store sold the bags. They also sell cornhole sets (called Bag-O there), for $130.

All told I spent about $40 on materials, with $20 of that for the store-bought bags. (Outrageous!) And I took back the extra sheet of plywood and the corn.

Of course my dad really built them, with TDW and I doing a lot of standing around and holding things. (Much like my childhood: "Here, Gina, hold this." Three hours later I'd be numb and still holding a flashlight, a piece of wood, the hood of a car, etc.)

With this set built, my dad is already imagining ways to make the legs collapsible. I imagine it won't be too long before he's tweaked the instructions to make the cornhole set lighter, slicker and more compact. Just like the fancy ones at the store.

No. 1.

Missing

A week ago yesterday I took off my watch and my Livestrong bracelet at the same time, put them on the bathroom counter, shut the door and took a shower.

When I got out the Livestrong bracelet was on the floor and I couldn't find the watch. I haven't seen it since.

At first I didn't think much about it. I figured maybe I left it on my dresser or somewhere. Nope. I've searched everywhere, even in the trash cans looking for it.

I considered that one of the cats might have gotten it but I've ruled them out as culprits. For one, they're too fat to get onto the bathroom counter and two, they're too lazy to play with anything, let alone a big Ironman watch.

The only time I ever take off my watch is when I'm showering, so it isn't possible I took it off for another reason and left it somewhere. It didn't break off or I would have noticed it missing when I went to take a shower.

So where the hell is it? And why was my bracelet on the floor?

Baffling.

Behind The Seams

On Thursday there was a fashion show at Entertainment Solutions in Rookwood co-sponsored by CiN.

We girls at the office got it in our minds to attend, and of course that meant dragging our boyfriends along. (Hey, drinks and appetizers included with price of admission. What's not to love?)

And though at first I thought the location was suspect (Entertainment Solutions is a kind of posh TV store) it turned out to be the perfect place for a fashion show and miggling. Mainly because it's set up like a dozen little living rooms, only with nice furniture and plasma TVs. It was like being at a friend's house, if you have the type of friends who have giant leather coaches, monoghany entertainment centers and giant TVs. (Obviously no one I know, but you get the idea.)

My favorite Right Said Fred "I'm A Model" moment came from one of the male models, who strode down the "runway" (that'd be the main floor of ES) and upon coming to the end stuck his thumbs in the pockets of his stovepipe jeans, thrust his hips out, shifted his weight from side-to-side a few times and then scowled at everyone.

It was awesomely ridiculous, and, needless to say, we laughed uproariously. I had taken along the staff video camera for such prized moments, but somehow in all the footage I was editing, I lost him and was too sick of it by then to hunt him down. So he's not the video I made, but there are some other "hightlights," including some of my coworkers (for example, Julie here in the photo) doing their best catwalk.

Other "walk-offs" include The Tall Drink of Water, Melissa (Shana's sister), Sue, and Ronson performing what he called "Blue Indifference," where he struts, shrugs his shoulders and then walks away.

There's a model collision at the end too, which is delightful. I'd recommend watching it several times to fully appreciate the annoyance of the model who got crashed in to.

See it for yourself. (Good for IE or Firefox users only.)

Hoosiers Do All Right

Kurt Vonnegut was an Indiana boy. The first book I read of his was Cat's Cradle, and I felt pretty smug when his character, Hazel, delights in the many successes of Hoosiers. Which probably isn't the point of that exchange, but I'm a fan none the less.

So here's to Hoosiers everywhere and the great Hoosier Kurt Vonnegut.

From Cat's Cradle:

“My God,” she said, “are you a Hoosier?”I admitted I was.

“I'm a Hoosier, too,” she crowed. “Nobody has to be ashamed of being a Hoosier.”

“I'm not,” I said. “I never knew anybody who was.”

“Hoosiers do all right. Lowe and I've been around the world twice, and everywhere we went we found Hoosiers in charge of everything.

“That's reassuring.”

“You know the manager of that new hotel in Istanbul?”

“No.”

“He's a Hoosier. And the military-whatever-he-is in Tokyo . . .”

“Attaché,” said her husband.

“He's a Hoosier,” said Hazel. “And the new Ambassador to Yugoslavia . . . “

“A Hoosier?” I asked.

“Not only him, but the Hollywood Editor of Life magazine, too, And that man in Chile . . .”

“A Hoosier, too?”

“You can't go anywhere a Hoosier hasn't made his mark,” she said.

“The man who wrote Ben Hur was a Hoosier.”

“And James Whitcomb Riley.”

“Are you from Indiana, too?” I asked her husband.

“Nope. I'm a Prairie Stater. 'Land of Lincoln,' as they say.”

“As far as that goes,” said Hazel triumphantly, “Lincoln was a Hoosier, too. He grew up in Spencer County.”

“Sure,” I said.

“I don't know what it is about Hoosiers,” said Hazel, “but they've sure got something. If somebody was to make a list, they'd be amazed.”

“That's true,” I said.

She grasped me firmly by the arm. “We Hoosiers got to stick together.”

“Right”

“You call me 'Mom.”'

“What?”

“Whenever I meet a young Hoosier, I tell them, 'You call me Mom.”'

“Uh huh.”

“Let me hear you say it,” she urged.

“Mom?”


I'm glad Kurt was able to goof around in Indiana.

Scruffy Sexy At Bat

Watching the Royals play the Blue Jays. (On the free preview of MLB Extra Innings, says The Tall Drink of Water.)

Being that the Royals are my new "team" since I like one player, I thought I should watch my boy have one at bat.

Yep. Smokin' hot, as usual.

He looks good in blue, but he looked better in Red.

Another Golden Moment

I had to go to the laundromat yesterday.

I washed three loads of clothes in my apartment complex's laundry room only find them in pools of water when I went back downstairs to put them into the dryer. Seething, I called the maintence guy who had me pry into the workroom with a butter knife (the room is "locked") and flip the curcuit, which has apparently been going out whenever anyone does laundry.

Now, it seems to me it would be easy enough to put a sign up in the laundry room saying something to the effect of, "Hey, if you do more than one load, it might trip the circuit and leave your clothes in a pool of water. You might want to wait until we get it fixed."

But no. There was no such sign or directions on what to do if that happens. Rather than wash them again and not know if they'd actually rinse and spin, I just dragged them all the Oakely laundromat. Being that they were all wet still, my two baskets weighed about 900 pounds and I liked to killed myself dragging them in there.

And let me tell ya, the Oakley laundromat on Saturday was packed. Misery loves company.

But there was a bit of sweetness in the suffering.

Everyone's baskets were too heavy, so someone would hold the door. The washers were all full, so everyone took care to move their stuff as soon as possible.

It was pitiful really. The Oakley Laundromat is like any laundromat in Anywhere, USA for the most part. Dirty and sagging and sad, with washers that remind people not to put their kids in them.

There was a sign that said "No Pets," but a ridiculously small dog shook and skipped behind its owner who was walking around with a bucket collecting all the coins from the machines.

Lucky bastard. The place is a gold mine.

I called the worthless but genial rental girl and let loose a string of obscenities on her voice mail venting my frustration with having to piss away an entire Saturday doing laundry - twice. I feel kind of bad about it now. Sort of. This is the same girl who knowingly rented me an apartment that floods and never bothered to do much to fix it.

That's their thing. They know when things are broken, they just don't bother to mention it. So like I said, I feel a little bad, but not much.

Adorable Donkey Alert - Try Not To Melt

I watch too much TV. Mainly too much American's Funniest Home Videos and When Animals Kick Your Ass. Or whatever those shows are called.

This morning I went to Gorman Farm in Evendale for a story about eating locally grown foods. I hadn't been to a farm since I was a little kid.

My dad grew up on a tobacco farm and when I was little we'd go visit my papaw (who still raised tobacco) and there were always cows and mules around. Though mostly all I remember were chickens running around in the yard.

Thinking about that makes me laugh... There were chickens in the front yard.

And I went to a farm in grade school of course, during one of those programs where they drag you to a farm and make you milk a cow. If I recall, I was none too pleased about that. Anyway, that was a long time ago.

So today David (our photographer) and I traipsed around Gorman Farm in the cold, and it was pretty fun. There were baby chicks and chickens, a big steer, a calf, an enormous pig, a field of lambs and goats and a couple miniature horses.

I'm sure the woman leading us around could tell we hadn't been to a farm or seen farm animals in years because we kept oohing and ahhing like little kids and saying, "Oh! It's sooo cute!"

But this donkey was the most adorable thing I've ever seen. I practically melted at the sight of it. And it was very friendly. To David anyway. I wouldn't actually touch any of the animals, even though I wanted to, because in my mind I was convinced they'd unleash a fury of animal anger on me.

David was petting a very cute goat and the whole time I kept waiting for him to get pushed over or head butted. Then he was shooting photos of a turkey, which the woman said saw David as a threat because it was positioning itself between David and its hen and was getting kind of bent out of shape over the experience. Though I can't blame the turkey. David was getting right in its face (though through the fence) and I was certain he was about to get done in its by its huge feet.

He never did.

Which brings me back to why I think I watch too many of those TV shows where people get attacked by animals. The whole time I wanted to pet the donkey but didn't because I envisioned it kicking me in the chest, just like on that show, When Animals Kick You In The Chest.

I guess sometimes you just have to risk it.

There was an adorable farm cat there that I petted though. It was all black except for a white spot on it's chest, just like Cassady. Only this cat was about 15 pounds lighter and wouldn't be afraid to tussle with a mouse. I'm not sure I can say that about Cassady.

The Video You've Been Waiting For

My dad's (formerly) totalled truck is actually a geyser of windshield wiper fluid. You can see it better from the front view.

And check out that sweet wood bumper.

Rooftop grilling.

Awesome. Kickin' it King's Island style.

And this one belongs to the Reds.

Mmm.

Nice.

New hat. Paul says it's not "old school" enough.

Bumped into an old friend!

Dunn homers!

Super fan.

Juuust a bit outside. Hilarious.

Nerd alert.

One row from the top. It's breezy up here.

First of many trips.

Paper tickets. Boo.

Suckers.

Weird.

Parade!

Skyline time.

View from the skywalk.