Grazie!

This post is not addressed to any future husband who may or may not ever come calling, but to the wonderful person/people who gave me the amazing surprise yesterday afternoon of leaving my favorite ice cream on my doorstep.

The day started out horridly for me due to reasons I won’t get into on here, but in the midst of the whirlwind, I received a mysterious phone call from a woman saying she was an “elf” and that I should check outside my front door. Before I could ask who it was, she hung up. Sure enough, outside the front door of Andalasia was a plastic bag containing “Joe’s Italian Bliss”, a heavenly hazelnut ice cream that has since been christened as “Giuseppe” (Giuseppe being the Italian rendering of “Joseph”) and jokingly referred to as my “husband” on this blog. Attached to the top of the ice cream carton was a white post-it-note with the following message:

“Dear G-pers,

God loves you. Phil. 4:19

~ Your blog fan club”

Awww!! How cool is that?!

After quite a bit of detective work, I was able to put some of the puzzle pieces together, but there are still some holes to be filled in. One thing I figured out, however, was that whoever sent me the ice cream a) reads this blog/has read my post on Giuseppe ice cream and b) is friends with me on Facebook as they saw that I was having a bad day via my status, and then sent the ice cream my way.

So, whoever you are, thank you, grazie, spaciba. I hope your identity doesn't always remain mysterious though because you deserve a proper “thank you” in-person. As life would have it, the thing I was mentally spazzing about yesterday turned out to be absolutely nothing, but I still deeply appreciated the ice cream (as did the other Andalasia ladies). Anything with chocolate and hazelnut cures a multitude of ills, even if they turn out to be unfounded, pseudo ills by the end of the day. Your kind and thoughtful gesture definitely did not go unnoticed.

A recent midnight encounter.

After my roommates and I found some of these on our deck, we decided to do some research to see how we could make them live. Turns out we probably won't do anything and be masochistic fish killers. Mind you - we found these fish at midnight on our deck encased in a tall large clear tube about 5 inches in width. This large tube was a giant light that shot up spinning bubbles from the bottom. So basically we had a really awesome light with a lot of dizzy smoothie drunk fish.

What kind of fish you ask? Feeder Guppies. And this is what we learned:

"The males are absolutely horrible fish. They will chase around the females 24 hours a day. They will move from female to female and chase them around. The females will swim around in circles trying to get rid of the males. Fancy guppies do not do this as much as feeder guppies. The male feeder guppies are absolutely obsessed with the female guppies. They will even stress them out until they become weak and die from an illness. The males are also very fast and they will steal all the food as well."

The response of an unnamed roommate: "Why am I not suprised?"
I believe at that point we all said, amen.

To all of you good intentioned men, who only mean well, I'm sorry that all the cruel unthoughtful boys have cast such a horrible light on your gender. We do realize there ARE men out there who are NOT feeder guppies.

Of Spiders and Damsels in Distress

Dear Man of Mystery,

I really could have used your assistance last night when I encountered a ginormous spider in a bedroom. It was trying to be sneaky and hide in the shadow on the edge of the carpet and hug the baseboard. Alas, it was no match for my eagle eye, which is always on the paranoid lookout for creepy crawlies (yet another reason why I dislike summer--apparently, bugs like air conditioning, too). Maybe I should just marry an Orkin Man. I hear they bring in the big bucks.

At any rate, I occasionally have moments of bravery where I can kill things, so I took the chance that this might be one of those windows of grace where God decides to help me control the pest population. I grabbed a shoe, and sure enough, it was on the move almost immediately. I guess his spidey senses told him death was hovering with his ominous, black hood and wielding his sickle of justice. I have a piece of flair on Facebook for good reason that says, "I'm paranoid because the spider I just saw five seconds ago isn't there anymore."

Sure enough, the little cretin outsmarted me by wiggling his way into a rather large crack in the wall of the neighboring bathroom. It didn't even move that fast. I totally could've gotten it, but I froze and decided to yell instead. So much for bravery.

I'll admit, I then stared at a crack in the wall for a good 20 minutes during most of the length of the 10:00 newscast being broadcast from the living room. Thus, I waited simultaneously sitting on the edge of the bathtub with a big, clompy shoe on one foot while being informed on current events. Then, somewhere during the sports report, I got a genius idea. Hark! A large, orange spray bottle sat on the bathroom vanity! I could still see where the spider was in the crack of the wall by the floor. Perhaps if I just sprayed the crack, it would coax the little demon out and I could clobber it with my shoe!

I filled up the bottle and tested it out. The water jet was like a lazar and not all fanned out like some spray bottles, and the distance it could shoot was impressive. I therefore could keep my distance from the beast. Sure enough, with one squirt, the spider zipped out into the open, froze in place, and *whomp* it was reduced to a greasy spot on my shoe. Victory!!

By no means does this mean you're not needed, dear future husband. I could have gotten back those precious 20 minutes of life if you had swooped in and killed the darn thing in the first place. I mean, men love to feel needed and like they can fix and rescue things, right? Well, I can't imagine anything more heroic than saving a gal from something with fangs and eight legs. Ok, so I can think of a few more things that are more heroic, but this would be a good place to start. I hear Kohls is having a sale on capes. Don't bother on the spandex.