We're 1!

We made it! We've been married ONE year! Turns out one year IS diamonds. I like diamonds. I wonder what you get for two years?!? Wow. I might have to hang around and find out. I've never been married for two years before.

Carl's First Blog Comment

Today I sent Carl the following mushy forward via email:

Hot Chocolate

A group of graduates, well established in their careers, were talking at a reunion and decided to go visit their old university professor, now retired. During their visit, the conversation turned to complaints about stress in their work and lives. Offering his guests hot chocolate, the professor went into the kitchen and returned with a large pot of hot chocolate and an assortment of cups - porcelain, glass, crystal, some plain looking, some expensive, some exquisite - telling them to help themselves to the hot chocolate.

When they all had a cup of hot chocolate in hand, the professor said: "Notice that all the nice looking, expensive cups were taken, leaving behind the plain and cheap ones. While it is normal for you to want only the best for yourselves, that is the source of your problems and stress. The cup that you're drinking from adds nothing to the quality of the hot chocolate. In most cases it is just more expensive and in some cases even hides what we drink. What all of you really wanted was hot chocolate, not the cup; but you consciously went for the best cups... And then you began eyeing each other's cups.

Now consider this: Life is the hot chocolate; your job, money and position in society are the cups. They are just tools to hold and contain life. The cup you have does not define, nor change the quality of life you have. Sometimes, by concentrating only on the cup, we fail to enjoy the hot chocolate God has provided us. God makes the hot chocolate, man chooses the cups. The happiest people don't have the best of everything. They just make the best of everything that they have. Live simply. Love generously. Care deeply. Speak kindly. And enjoy your hot chocolate.

This is what I got in response:

That's nice but I'm sure Hugh Hefner's Hot Chocolate is much happier driving around in a limo and wearing silk PJ's than Pepe who's Hot Chocolate wears Wranglers and rides around in a rusted out Ford Festiva.

Italian American Sicilian Jesus Killer, I am

Carl will tell you I'm nosey. I prefer the words investigative or intuitive, but he's got the right idea. Anyway, for some time I've been questioning my Sicilian heritage so I decided to do a little research (and I was hoping to find a little dirt about my ancestors along the way). I contacted an Uncle from my father's side of the family because I'd heard he did some research of his own years ago while vacationing in Italy. Here's just a taste of what I translated from the documents:

1) The Sicilian in me is actually half Sicilian and half Italian. Confused? Maybe that seems insignificant to you, but Sicilians hate Italians and Italians hate Sicilians. Well, all except these two ancestors apparently. I can only say that explains my personality. Oil & Water. Fire & Ice. If you know me you probably don't need any further explanation;

2) Our family home was bombed during WWII and only portions are still standing. It was built from ceramic (common in Italy) therefore it has never been reconstructed. I guess in Italy when something falls (or leans) they just leave it that way. That's one way to embrace life - release the death-grip on it;

3) The original trip to America (NYC) from Abruzzi has been attributed to Grandpa Giseppi in 1905. (Cute name, huh? I tried. Carl doesn't like it. There is NOT a Giseppi Bottolfson in our future.) The rest of the family emigrated to San Palo, Brazil from Pescopennataro;

4) There is something in the documents about the family having a "good heart". Since my grandfather has had several open heart surgeries and I'm pretty sure there's a pig valve in him somewhere I don't think they mean the organ;

and the most interesting piece of evidence

5) Our family surname originated from Ponzius Pilatus. That's right - the Roman Judge that sentenced Jesus to death. You know him as Pontius Pilate. So even though, in a way, we all killed Jesus, Carl has taken a liking to this part of my ancestry. Now whenever he does something wrong he says, "Well at least my ancestors didn't sentence Jesus to death." Yuk Yuk. Laugh it up Carl. You might go to Heaven, but you'll be lonely up there without me.

Thats Our "Business"

Carl & I married later in life (in case you care, this is NOT the cool thing to do in the military) and while we both had significant experience in business, management, household functions, etc., we had little experience living with another adult! It proved to be much harder than we planned since we were both SO SET in our ways. About two months ago I came up with a plan - Weekly Partnering Meetings. We prepare agendas, send meeting requests, take minutes, and have action items. Our friends laugh and say our marriage won't make it. They might be right, but we have a wicked good time at our meetings. Last week Carl did a Power Point presentation for the meeting and even had a laser pointer. We might be taking it to far, but if we don't make it we'll have photographic evidence to prove to the judge that we gave it one hell of a try!

What is Carl doing, you ask? I'd be willing to guess he forgot to bring paper to the meeting and he's showing me that he's going to write on his hand AGAIN. He'll tell you he's sick of me taking pictures all the time.

All family members must attend. Even the cute ones.

What? You're cute too.

Gettin' my learn on again

Last week I got the wild and crazies and decided to go back to college. I actually decided around 3:00pm that it was a good idea and by 6:30pm I was sitting in class. One small detail I had forgotten about college - I continued to age, freshman, in general, didn't. As I sat in my too small desk (apparently the college didn't realize I was going to continue to eat after my first go 'round) I noticed that I am SO OLD! The other students are just "kids". Oh, and there is a girl in my class that makes me think scraping my eyeballs out with a rusty soup spoon would be easier than listening to her talk. There's one in every group. She's young and not really all that bright. What's worse is that she is flirty with the boy on the other side of me. He plays basketball for the college and so she's taken to throwing wads of paper over my head into the trash can so he notices her athleticism. Then she does that silly giggly girl thing that I never learned. She also asks really dumb questions (ex. "If I get two A.A. degrees isn't that the same as a B.A?" "Can we read the entire book and do the homework this weekend instead of following the schedule?", etc.) and I cringe when she raises her hand. Of course, she ALWAYS raises her hand. I"m back to class tonight for another round of "that girl".

Lake Bottolfini

Last week we had terrible storms on the Central Coast. We took a poll to see what the trees on base thought of the storm. Here are the results:





I'm surprised anyone noticed at all.

This is why you DO NOT plant tall trees in sand (says my mother). These trees were up all over base, and when they fell, they took power lines and cars down with them! If you look closely, you'll see how tall these roots are in comparison with the houses and fences (about 14 feet in the air!) Cool, huh?

Not so cool is our backyard.

We got a little rain on our porch. Carl tried to dig a trench in the mud/sand mix to help (don't ask) but it didn't go well. Now we're asking for a french drain. Oh, I mean a freedom drain. Whatever. I understand before they can do any work on the drains we'll be required to gather animals two-by-two, just in case.

Lompoc Hospital, Rm 127

So it took exactly 4 months for me to need an emergency room visit. Not bad by my record. A small headache led to loss of vision and my husband's first real scare of living alone forever! I thought it was funny. Carl was not amused. It really wasn't that big of a deal.

My day started off normal (imending migraine as usual) when I noticed that my vision was blurring. I passed it off and worked until I couldn't see enough to type anymore. I called Carl at work to ask if he could drive me up to the Urgent Care to get a shot of Toradol. I'm not sure what happened between the first shot of Morphine and the MRI at the hospital but a couple days later when I'm finally back to "normal" Carl tells me I was HILARIOUS! The drugs worked. Either way, I'm fine. No brain tumors. No anurism. Just a bad migraine from sharing a small space with my husband at night and my boss all day. I'll be okay.

Speaking of sharing space with a man - We've almost made it to our first Year. Celebration will be in order. One year is a LONG TIME! I hope one year is diamonds. I love diamonds.

Barkley Bottolfson 1994-2008

Man's Best Friend.

Britney? Be serious.

One of the guys at work has been calling me Britney for a few weeks. Today, when I saw him in the tech area and he said, "hey, Brit" I wondered 1) why aren't any of the other techs correcting him and 2) do they all think my name is Britney? Let me tell you, if someone has been calling you by the wrong name for over a month, you really should consider a legal name change. That way no one feels awkward or so what I'm about to tell you never repeats itself. Okay, it goes something like this:

Fernando says: "I have a confession to make. I've been calling you Britney since I started working here. "


I think: Okay, no big deal.


Then he says: "Not because I think your name is Britney"


I make a weird face that I'm sure looked like: huh?


He finishes: "but because you look like Britney Spears."


Me: Dead Silence.


Now, I'm not the shy type and I usually am not at a loss for words, but I'm pretty sure I didn't say much after that confession. Just in case you've been living in a cave with Bin Laden lately, Britney isn't hosting her "A" game right now. I really don't care to be her "twin". He tried to rescue his confession by telling me that he meant before she went crazy but I'm pretty sure she was white trash then too. Either way, I can't find the resemblance. What do you think?

In case you are having a hard time telling the difference, the one over here is Britney (Looks to me like Pre Mental Breakdown)





And this one here. This is me. Breakdown Pending.

Oh, and it should be noted that if I was Britney Spears or even knew her I would suggest that she find a better hairstylist. Apparently no one in her posse is brave enough to tell her that her extensions look cheap.

Happy New Year!!!

Welcome 2008! 2008 is here and it's going to be a great year for advertising. I just know it. Think of all the words that rhyme with eight. Go ahead, I'll wait.

To ring in the New Year we stayed up until 3am (we weren't even sure we would make it until midnight) playing wii and Cranium. We had a blast. I included photographic evidence in case you think I wasn't really up - or that I wasn't having fun. See if you can guess what this is:

That's a tri-athlete. I'm surprised you didn't get it right away. Okay, here's another one:

It's an umbilical cord-duh. The legs in the stirrups (Matt has wicked attention to detail) should have given it away. Here is Carl's reaction when he found out what stirrups were. That's a vivid image coupled with too much Vodka. It equals nausea!

NOTE: Carl dressed himself that evening. He is allowed to dress on his own anytime we will be in the company of close friends. I did not select the Chuck Norris shirt for his wardrobe. He picked it out on his own.

Here is more about the New Year. I made the following resolutions - because I felt some pressure to do so. I wanted to make sure they were resolutions I could stick to so they are pretty easy. Here goes:

1) I WILL NOT fail on a diet this year. To avoid doing so, my resolution this year is to NOT GO ON A DIET.

2) I will go to book club one month this year for something other than the snacks. Maybe I'll go in February when we see a play.

3) I will be on time to work every single day this year. Since I live less than a block from the office and I shower pretty fast I'm certain this is a resolution I can keep. I can always eat breakfast and put my make up on when I get here.

4) I will learn how to correctly pronounce the name of the new guy at work without laughing. I'll let you know how that goes.

Is that enough? 4? How long is the typical list of resolutions? I better keep them all. One failure will seriously lower my success percentage.