Tuesday, May 27, 2008

A Pirate's Life For Me!

Call me Ishmael! I am setting off on a great blogging journey and not for the obvious reasons most of you would suspect, such as being able to keep family and friends updated on the state of affairs in the great state of Washington. No, this blog is a shameless attempt to gain enough readership to merit sponsors on my blog who will pay handsomely to have my subscribers exposed to their advertisement. The resulting millions will then be transfered to a college fund for our children, thus leading to their careers in either professional sports or world domination. (I'm holding off on any other retirement plans until this one falls through.)

In other words: Mom told me I should start a blog. I think she may be under the impression that this will someday lead to a live video cam, strapped to my forehead, focused on her grandbaby 24 hours a day...but lets not get ahead of ourselves.

I guess it's kind of appropriate that I start this now, since John and I have just celebrated our 1st Anniversary. We went non-traditional and decided to forgo most of your typical 1st Anniversary celebrations. For instance, neither of us chose to bestow a present of "paper" upon the other. The only real present we received involved candy and I would like to suggest that be the tradition for at least the first ten anniversaries. According to the rules, you don't start getting into the good stuff until at least the 25th anniversary anyway. I, for one, would be much more content with some rolos and raisinettes than a gift of wool after seven years of marriage. And as far as wool goes, unless we're talking live alpaca here, I'm not interested.

Even if we knew where it was, we also decided not to eat the top layer of our wedding cake. I'd like to think that perhaps it has found a home with all those other lost objects: Maybe it's become buddy-buddy with a rogue pack of mismatched argyle socks from the dryer or The Poky Little Puppy book Joe decided to test the laws of aerodynamics on as a child. The most likely explanation, however, is that my mother will find it one day in her deep freezer next to some freezer-burned venison or frozen blueberries. If that happens, she can have it bronzed and gift it to us for our eighth anniversary. I'm sure it'll taste just as good then.

Other than avoiding traditional anniversary hubbub, John and I spent the weekend in Seattle with John's Brother-In-Law Jeff. We took advantage of the beautiful weather and bummed around Pike Street Market and the waterfront, ate a lot of good food and decided that we should most definitely take a cruise to Alaska, since...lets face it...we're already in the closest state to it anyway: we'd be silly not to.

We also took a boat tour of the locks which was great--definitely worth the bright red sunburn on my nose. For any Discovery Chanel fans, we got to see three of the boats from The Deadliest Catch: The Wizard, The Northwestern and The Time Bandit were all docked in Lake Union. It was like spotting a celebrity in the grocery store; I'll admit to being giddy.

In other celebrity news, John's year was pretty much made when we saw Erik Bedard (his favorite pitcher for the Seattle Mariners) at our favorite breakfast place Monday morning. I told him breakfast with Erik Bedard was my anniversary gift to him. He didn't buy it, so I went back to my happy little world filled with delicious blueberry pancakes.

So, now we're back in the good 'ole Tri-Cities, gearing up for the baby. John's sister is throwing us a shower in a few weeks. As per my request it is officially titled the: Not-a-baby-shower-barbecue. This basically means that I don't want to be exposed to any stork paraphernalia, frilly lace, or games involving the horrifying combination of diapers and chocolate pudding. My plans are to eat barbecued ribs until I think I'll explode, try not to get melted marshmallow in my hair while making s'mores and then happen to open some presents that people coincidentally brought with them for the baby. I'll keep you all updated as far as whether I end up staying awake through the festivities and the inevitable story about how I almost poke *insert name here*'s eye out with a flaming marshmallow.

10 comments:

Schyhart said...

The "Breakfast with Bedard" gift counts if; 1) if he was in the same resturant at the same time, and 2) you saw him eating.

Liz said...

I do have your wedding cake top in my freezer and I think that it has self bronzed.(They now package freezer burned blueberries and sell them as dried fruit! Had I only known!) I will attempt to bring it to you when we visit the precious grandbaby in August. If I can get it by the security people."EAK, what is leaking out of that Package?!? Arrest her!!!"

Lady Kathryn said...

Thank you Gillian for starting a blog! I will be embarking on my once again once I am settled in the great northwest. I commend you and look forward to many more readings that I will get ALL the way througgh.

Unknown said...

I have one of those wedding cake tops in my freezer too. It's taking up an awful lot of space actually...so if it tastes that good....what's the point. Jinnie, if you read this can I just go ahead and eat it? I'd go for the sweets any day.
Gillian, I do love your writing. Thanks for sharing. I'd even click on bad advertisements to read your blog.

Josie said...

Hi Gillian,
I have to admit that I was equally giddy to read about your encounter with the Time Bandit, Northwestern and other Dealiest Catch Participants. I can't wait to tell my friends!
love your writing, Josie

Unknown said...

Hi Gillian! You may not know how the word "Blog" got started. Most people don't. It was actually the name of the youngest of three cave man brothers named Grog, Glog & Blog. The two older brothers ridiculed Blog about his name all his short miserable life & the word was lost to obscurity until just recently, when a distant relative of Blog's with a decidedly lower IQ brought it back into use in its present form.

Emily said...

Ahh.. I think this is going to be very amusing, especially with mom and dad's awesome comments. (Love you guys!). And now for my real comment: Wool is awesome and I can't believe you disparaged it! You will be getting it from me on whatever anniversary that is, and possibly every other one (though it may be conveniently shaped into items for your child/children). Love you! P.S. this thing does not mean you can stop returning my calls!

Julie said...

I have to say, I agree with Emily on the wool comment. I was appauled to read your dis of a very wholesome, soft, cuddly fiber. You won't be getting any knitted wool masterpieces from me, because you would never give wool the gentle love and care it deserves. Hmmph.

schweigh said...

I would just like to say that I was in attendance on the morning Gillian's posted pirate picture was taken (wow "posted pirate picture"...sounds like a tongue twister I could use for the baby. Is tongue twisting considered abuse in today’s fragile world? We shall see)and prior to the snapping of this legendary photo, we noticed that a mid-sized propeller driven aircraft was "coming in hot" on our location. I noticed that it had a big red "sun" on the side which caused me to immediately initiate paternal instinct, shielding my pregnant wife and unborn child as I screamed

"The Japanese are invading again! Take Cover!"

You see, we were overlooking the Pacific Ocean so if the Japanese were deciding to invade again, this would be a prime location. But, it turns out that the plane was a vintage model and it was just a WWII vet taking a joy ride. I was embarrassed by the incident but relieved that we were all safe to enjoy the majestic ocean, walk on the beach and eat an abundance of seafood, the normal routine on an weekend coastal excursion.

Point of this story: Gillian and I have fun despite the ever present notion that an Asian nation-state could wreak havoc on us peace-loving "west coasters".

Good Day and I wish my wife happy blogging

AuntChris said...

OK, I am going to try this again.
I have written lots of very clever posts, but alas, I can never seem to get past the goobly gop letters and make the post stick. HELP Grandkids - I need to catch up with technology :)