Charlie the Wonder Hamster

In his last post, Kevin made it sound like I am a crazy person. And while it's true that I sometimes make up songs about Charlie (the latest sung to the tune of "Yankee Doodle," the lyrics too embarrassing to disclose here), Kevin failed to mention that he often picks Charlie up by her front legs and forces her to do something he has dubbed "the Charlie Dance." He walks her around like a little puppet while singing, "Charlie, Charlie, Charlie the wonder hamster..." to the tune of "Harvey the Wonder Hamster." He insists that she likes doing the Charlie Dance, but I think the expression on her little face indicates a feeling more along the lines of pained resignation. I mean, there's not much a 6.1 pound dog can do under those circumstances.

[Random aside: twice in the last month, I have come home to a sheepish-looking Charlie and a lollipop wrapper and lollipop stick on the ground. It doesn't take a genius to figure out where the lollipop itself went, especially when Charlie's breath smelled like cappuccino. We have since moved the lollipops from the coffee table to the kitchen counter.]

Also in his last post, Kevin portrayed me as a rigid, exacting person who has to plan out every single minute of our trip and will throw a tantrum when anything doesn't go exactly according to plan. I don't appreciate that description of me as it is completely untrue. In fact, I have included several periods of "unstructured fun" in the daily schedules. And when we're not having lots of structured (and sometimes unstructured, depending on the time of day) fun, I hope that we will be eating lots and lots of yummy food. Especially mango sticky rice. I will be sorely disappointed if I can't add at least two fruits to Kevin's repertoire over the next year and a half. Hopefully one of them is watermelon. I mean, really, how can anyone not like watermelon? It's delicious! What is there not to like?! The taste of watermelon is totally inoffensive!


But I digress. This post was supposed to be my list of things that I'll miss while on the road. But I had to qualify all those things Kevin said about me. And you can see how me having to qualify Kevin's statements about the crazy things I do could lead to me talking about how I wish Kevin would eat watermelon...can't you? ...

Things I will miss while on the road:
1. Reading the Modern Love column from the New York Times on Mondays.
2. Walking home from work indoors.
3. The way Charlie drags all of the toys out of her bin one by one.
4. My paycheck being deposited into my checking account automatically.
5. Getting a paycheck.
6. Ribs from Mac's.
7. Sweet potato fries from Big Daddy's.
8. Simon Cowell. And Randy. But probably not Paula, and definitely not Kara.
9. Lying on the couch while watching tv on the weekends. And resting my eyes. And if I end up falling asleep, then so be it!
10. Checking out books from the library (and occasionally reading them).
11. Taking showers every day. (When Kevin first read this, he protested, "But you don't take showers every day!" True. I don't. But he misses the point - I could if I wanted to!)
12. Ordering things online.
13. Extreme Plyo class on Tuesday mornings.
14. Cooking.
15. Trader Joe's chocolate covered pretzels. Mmmm.
16. My homemade yogurt/blueberry/granola breakfast parfaits. Note: these are three things that Kevin does not eat. Yet.
17. Watching Charlie army crawl around the other dogs at the dog park because she's too wimpy to play with them.

Things I will not miss while on the road:
1. Working.
2. Listening to the people on CNBC say "the Dow hasn't been this low since [dinosaurs roamed the earth/"Barbie Girl" was a hit song/those shiny pogs came out and everyone had them except for people whose moms wouldn't buy them because it was a waste of money - but I'm not bitter]."
3. Doing the dishes.
4. Watching Bernanke testify in Congress every day, and saying to no one in particular, "Hey, Bernanke used to be on my high school's board!" and no one caring. I'm still shocked that no one is impressed by that. I just don't get it. I'm still impressed by that, and I found out months ago.
5. Exreme Plyo class on Tuesday mornings.

There you have it.

So I had been thinking of a way to end this post for a few days now, but I couldn't think of one, so I went back to Kevin's list-of-things-he'll-miss post for inspiration, and lo and behold! (You know, I wish people would say "lo and behold!" in real life.) I noticed that Kevin also ended with "There you have it." Obviously, this could mean a few different things:
1. I subconsciously copied him.
2. We have been together so long that we are starting to become the same person.
3. He looked into the future and stole the way I am ending my post but didn't tell me so that I wouldn't accuse him of being a copycat.
4. I secretly enjoyed making these lists so much that I wanted an excuse to make another one.

The only possibility I can rule out with any certainty is number two, as I have definitely not grown at all since Kevin and I started dating. In fact, I may be a teensy bit shorter. Anyway, as I have obviously still not thought of a good way to end this post, I'll leave you with this - a list of things that we (Kevin, Naz and I) call Charlie, in no particular order:
1. Chuck
2. You little..!
3. Punkin
4. Honey
5. Cutie (Patootie/Pie)
6. Harvey
7. Charlie
8. Murphy
9. Charlie Barley
10. Sweetie (Pie)
11. Charles

Ok, so I do like making lists. Is that so wrong?
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Puzzles for Postcards:
We'll try something new with today's puzzle and see if we can work it into the rotation. We'll give you two famous related quotes with all the vowels and punctuation removed (VQs), and your goal is to respond with the quote. In addition, as further incentive we are now going to keep a list of past winners - hopefully we'll see your name here soon!

Build Me Up! VQs From a 1987 Movie Classic:
1) MYNMSNGMNTY
2) NCNCVBL
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Scrabble Games: 20 (full log)
Zhou WPLB: 11; 362; 486; InVOlVES, MANGOES
Kevin WPLB: 9; 359; 306; COASTER

Note: Zhou played InVOlVES on the triple triple for 158 points!