happy first anniversary to us!

We're spending our first anniversary in the most romantic way possible... dealing with crowds, airlines, and airplane food as we fly home from New York. We've had some of our favorite times together traveling (We even used to blog about it), so we probably wouldn't have it any other way.

heard at a small (ish) town farmer's market

"Hey, there's my little brother's friend's dad selling coffee and beignets!"




"Oh! There's my high school math teacher!"


"There's my friend's mom selling soap!"



"Hey! She went to my high school!!"

"There's my med school professor selling bonsai trees!"


- all quotes said by Y

this blog is hitting the big time!

You guys.

We're Just Dandy just got reviewed. By a real, live, blog critic. And... it wasn't pretty.

In our house...

...this is what happens when you finish a big test:

Brown paper packages tied up with floss...

1. You get a gift that doubles as a passive aggressive commentary on your flossing habits. Not that Y doesn't floss -- sometimes I kind of wish he didn't -- but he tosses his floss wherever he feels like when he's done. And yes, I have found it on me before. And before you tell me how immature and ineffective my tactic is, I would like you to know that I haven't seen floss in any place it's not supposed to be since. Hmmmph.



2. You get a [really, really, ugly] cake.

This is why I should never write a food blog.

USA! USA!

scenes from the first day of my late mid 20s

Happy 26th birthday to me!

There's Something about Cameron

For as long as we've had him, Ike has been scared of hats -- or, more specifically, anything that you try to put on his head while saying, "Hey Ike, want a hat?" Bowls, cups, baseball caps, knit caps, plastic bags -- he doesn't discriminate. We thought this was a pretty strange fear for a dog to have.

Then I brought home an exercise ball. Ike alternated between being afraid of it and swiping at it, until he eventually swiped a hole in it. Tilt your head to the left and prepare to be amused:





Hats and exercise balls are not even half of the weird things he's scared of. He's terrified of the mop, the broom, the vacuum cleaner, the trash can, and the big blue Ikea bags we take grocery shopping. When we took him to Dallas for our engagement pictures, he was scared of one very specific log.


Recently, I heard Ike bark his "frightened bark" from the other room. Afraid we had left a hat unattended, I rushed to help him. There, I found him cowering in fear of this:

Do you recognize that...that.. monster who dare scare our sweet little prince?

That's right - one Cameron Diaz, as seen on the cover of the July 2010 InStyle. I have to say I don't understand his beef with the charming, adorable, well dressed Ms. Diaz, although maybe he was just expressing his distaste for her string of boyfriends since Justin Timberlake. I can't say I blame you on that one, Ike. I mean, really, Cameron? Who hasn't dated A-Rod? Can't you be a leetle more original?

I digress. I haven't seen Ike so terrified since the Great Exercise Ball of 2009. I had to get a video.


Before I show you this video, though, I have to pause and tell you that We're Just Dandy isn't always rainbows and puppies. A lot of hard work, sacrifice, and the proverbial blood, sweat, and tears goes in to putting together these blog posts. Keep that in mind as you watch the following video. The whole thing.




It has come to my attention that the ending of this video isn't as clear as I thought it was: I fell. Flat on my face.





**By the way, if your dog ever develops a hatred for a particular celebrity, and you think it may have to do with their ex/current boyfriends, but you're drawing a blank on who exactly those boyfriends are, and you're too lazy to type "cameron diaz relationship" into Google like I did, this site is calling your name. I had no idea there was an imdb of celebrity relationships! http://www.whosdatedwho.com/

Dear Dad,

In honor of Father's Day, I decided to take this opportunity to apologize for a few things:

First and foremost, I apologize that it took me 25 years to appreciate how nice it looks when the bed is made.



I apologize that I could never get into golf, however you'll be happy to know that I found a great use for the sport. I like to have a little background noise when I study, but it has to be something that is too boring to even have the slightest possibility of distracting me. So thank you, dad, for introducing me to the Golf Channel.

I did always think the ball washers were pretty cool, though.

I'm sorry that my dog hated your dog from the moment they laid noses on each other's butts.



My sincerest apologies for making fun of your fanny pack.


They are everywhere these days!



I apologize for letting Ike rip up my old stuffed animals.



I'm sorry I'm not always in the mood for your signature dish. It is delicious, though!



Happy father's day! Does posting a picture of the card I gave you for your birthday count as a father's day card? If not... well, I apologize for that too.

"Someone stole Ike from our house!!"

You're probably thinking to yourself, What's with all the puppy love? This is so odd, D never mentions her dog. In fact, I didn't even realize she had a dog! This is new information!

Or not.

Anyway, there has been some excessive puppy snuggling going on in this house after we had a slight scare. Last night we went out to dinner. Before we left, as usual, we closed the doors to the bedroom, the office, and the bathroom so that Ike couldn't get into my shoe collection (which, yes, spans three rooms at times). As usual, Ike was free to roam the kitchen and the living room. Y threw him a treat to occupy him and we went on our merry way.

An hour later, we got home, expecting to see this as we walked in the door:

But there was nothing.

Panicking, we ran around his area -- the kitchen, dining room, and living room -- and didn't see him anywhere.

Then I noticed we had left the back door unlocked. Naturally, our reaction was that someone had stolen Ike. Naturally.

I would love to see a slow-mo replay of our reaction. We ran out into the street, screaming for Ike. My next door neighbor happened to have just pulled up in her car, and I knocked on her window and blurted out something like SOMEONE STOLE IKE FROM INSIDE OF OUR HOUSE!! We ran back and forth through the house a few times, and then Y opened the bedroom door.

Somehow Ike had opened the bedroom door, gone into the bedroom, closed the bedroom door, and eaten one of Y's shoes.

Sidebar: Why does Y's shoe get a little hole, whereas mine gets devoured?

I suspect this isn't the first time he's snuck in when we weren't around -- the other night I found a bone buried underneath my pillow.

I think our reaction says a lot about how highly we think of our dog. For 2 minutes, we were absolutely positive that someone had gotten into our house, seen various electronics, appliances, 3 rooms worth of shoes, stacks and stacks of med school notes, and a homemade chocolate cake, and left with only Ike. Crazy dog people, much?

Bob

The other day, this arrived in my mailbox:




There was no note, so naturally, I assumed it was laced with anthrax. No matter that it was the day after my birthday and several people had asked me for my address and one of those people happens to be JUST the type of person to send a plant with no note.




Sometime before I put two and two together, but after I determined that the plant was not anthrax and didn't seem to be ticking (because I assume all weapons are made by Acme) I started to feel bad for this lonely plant. Like it had wandered onto my doorstep, whimpering, desperate for a home. I had to take care of it. So, I did the only thing I knew to do: watered it, dressed it up in Anthropologie, and named it Bob.



Of course, eventually I realized that Bob The Plant was a birthday gift and it hadn't chosen me to nurse it back to health. But I like my story better.

KimKam

Would you guys shun me if I told you I had an imaginary friend? If it helps, she's only sort of imaginary. She exists, I've just never met her. If we're getting specific, she's more like a pen pal from the past.

Kam/Kim/Karen Hefstader/Heferstader/Hofstad -- the previous owner of my law and ethics textbook.

While my classmates are arguing about whether or not Boomkeisha is an acceptable name for a baby, or while my teacher discusses how "Jews may have Ramadan, but they're still white and therefore have no history", or while I explain to the class why chain letters are not a valid source of information -- you, KamKimKaren, are the voice of reason in my class.





You always have a relevant comment to the stuff we're supposed to be learning, whether it's "indeed." or "well said!" or "WHOA!" or "***ASK MOM!" or "BUUUUSH!" which I can only imagine being said like this:

I kind of feel like I already know you, KimKam, but there's so much more I need to know. What makes you underline words like "but", "if", "also" and "because"? How can this possibly be helpful? Also, are you a pirate?



And, who uses the word "yipes"?




But really if I could tell you just one thing, whoever you are, it would be that after a long day of work, and an additional 4 hours of class, nothing brightens my day more than one of your exclamation mark faces.



Basically what I'm trying to say here is, SOMEONE BE MY FRIEND SO I'LL STOP TALKING TO WRITING.