The reappearance of Fun Jeff

One of the great things about our anniversary trip was that “fun Jeff” showed up, as opposed to “less fun, but still tolerable Jeff”  or “Jesus Christ, could his mood get any worse? Jeff”.    I see more of that guy than I care to, but it’s usually because of something I did. Or didn’t do.  Or broke.  Or drove into the side of the house (but that only happened once).

Jeff’s mood is directly related to the amount of sleep he gets and he was working nights the week before we left for vacation, which meant he’d had crappy daytime sleep for a solid week.   I was naturally concerned that the Jeff I’d find on vacation might not be the Jeff with whom I really wanted to spend 24 hours a day for several days in a row.   Thankfully, he was in great spirits for the entire trip.

As part of his good spirits, Jeff took me to a jeweler in Savannah that had a bunch of funky jewelry in the storefront window and told me to pick something out.   He never does this.  Never.  We usually agree beforehand how much we’ll spend on gifts for each other and we don’t deviate from the agreed-upon cost.  Plus, there’s a moratorium on jewelry purchases in our house.  There’s also a moratorium on sourdough bread, but that’s a story for another day.

But last week he walked me into the jeweler and over to a display case that had gold, silver and semi-precious-stone items in it (all very reasonably priced) and told me to pick out anything I wanted and it could be my anniversary / early birthday present.  I thought for a minute and asked “Anything”? 

It was at this point that Jeff made a tactical error.  He doesn’t make them often.  May be he was a little tipsy, I’m not sure.  But without thinking, he replied “Sure”.   In 2 seconds flat I took one giant step away from the reasonably-priced items and stepped up to the diamonds.  Hello, my pretties!!!  I didn’t really expect to get away with it, but a girl’s gotta try!  Turns out, “fun Jeff” is also “easily amused Jeff” and he coughed up for a nice gift for me (not too nice – I went easy on him).    Guess I’ll keep him another 10 years.

Senate Bill 10: revisited

So by now you probably know that Senate Bill 10 passed (SB 10 is outlined at the bottom of this entry for the uninitiated).  Finally.  Many Georgians will be allowed to vote in November on whether or not to allow retail package sales of beer, wine & liquor on Sundays.  Others will have to wait until the next scheduled election in their municipality, which could be as late as November 2012.  Sucks to be them.

But that’s not what I’m writing about today.  Today I want to tell you about the little civics lesson I received by following the live feed of the Georgia House of Representatives Session on April 12. 

Holy crap, people.  The GA House is a clusterf*ck. 

SB 10 was presented late in the day on Tuesday the 12^th.  As I recall, it was after 9 p.m., but I’m not sure of the exact time (alcohol was involved).  Anyway, I had been watching the live feed with great boredom, just waiting for SB 10 to be called.  When I finally heard the magic words, I immediately perked up.

The bill was introduced and the Speaker asked “will there be any questions”.  Due to the late hour and the number of issues left to discuss, several Representatives mumbled (not too quietly) “Noooooooo”, which I thought was all kinds of awesome.  But alas, several Reps had questions.  There was the normal back & forth until one Representative (and I wish to God I knew who it was, it was an older lady dressed to-the-nines in her ridiculous Sunday-go-to-meeting hat) stood up and said…and I shit you not…”Is this the jobs bill”?  Jesus. H. Christ.  He just read the damn thing in its’ entirety.  Did it *sound* like the jobs bill?

There was a moment of silence in the chamber and then the Rep who read the bill from the well said “No.”  Crazy lady, still standing, replied “Will it create jobs?”   Rep in the well said “Ummm. It could.”  Crazy lady sat down.   Seriously.  The people we elected to represent us in the GA House can’t even be bothered to pay attention to the issue on which they’re voting.  And it’s not like it was some bullshit bill about waste management or renaming a street.  It’s one of the most controversial bills introduced this year.  It received an enormous amount of press coverage.  Everyone from the Christian Coalition to the Liquor Lobby had piped in on it.  So no, lady.  It’s not the jobs bill.

After the questions, we got to the Speech-a-fying.   Two reps made rational comments about how the bill isn’t about religion or alcohol and was really focused on citizen’s rights.  One rep asked to be excused from the vote (big baby!).  We had the requisite son-of-an-alcoholic Rep who spoke about how his shitty childhood justifies his opposition to the bill (apparently his Dad was always sober on Sundays because he was too dumb to plan ahead).  We had the standard Christian Coalition kiss-ass make his point.  Blah, blah, blah.  Not exactly “must see TV”.

But later, I heard the most convincing argument yet against the bill.  A representative stood in the well and said that his issue with the bill was that the Legislature was pushing decisions down to the citizen’s because they were too chickenshit to make the decision themselves (I’m paraphrasing here).  It actually made sense to me.  His point was that if they’re pushing this issue out for a vote, why aren’t all decisions made by local referendum?  It was a valid point, but it was made much too late.  And frankly, I’ll take my rights however I can get them and local referendum works just fine for me.

The bill was finally put to a vote, and easily passed 127 to 44. Not even close.  The whole thing took less than 30 minutes.  It was equal parts riveting and appalling to watch.  I stopped watching the stream immediately after the bill passed, but I still wonder if crazy lady stood up when the jobs bill was introduced and said “Is this the liquor bill”?

From the Georgia Senate Website:

Senate Bill 10: A BILL to be entitled an Act to amend Code Section 3-3-7 of the Official Code of Georgia Annotated, relating to the local authorization and regulation of sales of alcoholic beverages on Sunday, so as to provide that in each county or municipality in which package sales of only malt beverages and wine by retailers is lawful, the governing authority of the county or municipality, as appropriate, may authorize package sales by a retailer of malt beverages and wine on Sundays from 12:30 P.M. until 11:30 P.M., if approved by referendum; to provide procedures; to provide for applicability; to provide for related matters; to repeal conflicting laws; and for other purposes.

It's 3 a.m. Do you know where your husband is?

I’m still sorting through my vacation stories trying to determine what’s “funny funny” (i.e. Jeff’s encounter with the Lady Chablis in the hotel lobby) and what’s “you really had to be there funny” (i.e. busting a sales clerk asleep on the floor under the display cabinets of a mall kiosk), although it’s all hilarious to me.

First let me explain why we chose Savannah as our destination.  Since Thursday is our 10th wedding anniversary, we originally wanted to go somewhere really cool (as in out of the country), but the economy and my job in real estate have us spooked so we decided to lower our standards (which is fitting, since that’s what Jeff did when he finally agreed to marry me).   

Savannah was the obvious choice for one very good reason.  When you enter a bar in Savannah and order a drink, the bartender replies with the following magical words: “For here or to go”?  Oh, hells yeah people!  Those five little words put a song in my heart (and a stumble in my step).  In Savannah you’re not only allowed to gad about in public with an adult beverage in your hand, it’s practically required.   You can take your drink everywhere you go as long as it’s in a plastic cup.  It’s tragic that I’m not already a permanent Savannah resident.

The first night of our stay, it finally hit me what it means to be married to Jeff for 10 years.  Jeff was coming off a week of working the p.m. shift, so we knew he probably wouldn’t sleep well the first couple of nights.   I wasn’t at all surprised to hear him get up around 3 a.m.   We booked a suite for this very reason, and he went into the living area while I slept.  About 30 minutes later I was awakened by the strangest sound coming from the living area.  It was like a long, low screech and then a kind of a ripping noise.  It almost sounded like huge pieces of packing tape being ripped off the roll.  And it happened again and again and again.

Any woman in her right mind would be concerned by this noise.  But not me.  When you’re married to Jeff, you learn to expect the unexpected.   We’re 10 years in people.  Nothing surprises me.  If he was out there wrapping up a dead body in a spare blanket for disposal, I was sure he had a good reason.  So I did the obvious thing and went back to sleep.

When I woke up the next morning, I asked Jeff if he was making a strange screeching, ripping sound overnight.  His response?  “Yep.  I decided to shave but the cold air was blasting out of the ceiling vent in the bathroom.  I didn’t want to turn off the A/C, so I taped over the vent with packing tape.”

See?  Perfectly reasonable explanation.  Don’t all husbands take a giant roll of packing tape on vacation and get out of bed at 3 a.m. to tape over a ceiling vent and shave?  No?  Well, mine does.

Fit for a dog

Since my tragic rejection by the USO, I've pretty much given up on the idea of finding a volunteer opportunity.  Most of the opportunities I was interested in weren't a good fit due to my work schedule or were already fully-staffed with volunteers (lots of folks out of work these days).

So I've decided to find a new hobby that I can do on my own.  Today's venture?  Homemade dog biscuits.  Check it out, peeps.  And my pooches like them, too!

The Second Best Typo Ever

Jeff and I just got back from our vacation to Savannah (which I didn't mention previously because nothing screams "Free Flat Screen TVs - first customer only!" like announcing online that your home will be uninhabited for a few days).  While on a side trip to Tybee Island, we came across the second best typo ever. Don't get me wrong: "Persue Perfection" will always be the gold standard of typos.  No question.  But the #2 slot has officially be filled.

On the advice of Trip Adviser, we stopped for lunch at Gerald's Pig & Shrimp on Tybee.  On the back of the menu was a little blurb about the owner (the aforementioned Gerald), which noted that he was a former "Thesbian".  Spelled exactly that way.  I'm assuming that it meant that he was a former Thespian, but I'm open to the idea that he was a former actor who liked the ladies (Thespian + Lesbian = Thesbian).  You never know.

Whenever I come across such a misspelling, I like to hit up the Urban Dictionary website to see what awesome definition they found for the word.  And I wasn't disappointed:  Thesbian - A woman who isn't really a Lesbian but is just acting gay, either as a response to negative learned behavior towards men or not wanting to be alone due to unattractiveness.  Urban Dictionary, I think I love you.  Although I should note that the UD entry is grossly unfair to imply that Lesbians are unattractive.  Based on my (none of your business) experience, there are some smokin' hot daughters of Sappho out there.