Dude, I've changed. Sort of.

I should be packing right now - and I will - but first I wanted to appropriately SCREAM WITH EXCITEMENT THAT two things:

1. It's time again for the Annual Finny & Donk Adventure which means that cocktails/vacation/old time friend catching up/cocktails are close at hand.

2. I'm going back to Montana and this time I will see Dig.

DUDES, I'm stoked.

And if there happens to be river swimming, good food eating and mountain hiking, well then I'll be the stokedest (new word alert) person in all the land.

Though I'm not sure how or if those things are going to happen because HOLD ON TO YOUR FUCKING HATS, PEOPLE - I haven't planned shit.

Seriously.

Girlfriend here who usually plans all trips down to the mode and speed of transportation between each event/site/restaurant/mysterious hot spring in the middle of the woods hasn't planned a fucking thing beyond the flight to the place and the hotel at the place.

Granted, it's a 4 day trip and most people who are not insane will usually just go, "Yeah, well, it's two days, what's to plan?", but I'm not those people and I'm certainly insane plus also really anal retentive and control freaky, so you'd think - HELL, I'd think - that I'd have my packing spreadsheet filled out and a daily itinerary for our trip in digital and physical form so that I could guarantee fun filled days, but alas...I've changed.

I don't do this anymore.

At least for short trips, anyway, I don't plan what I'm packing or what I'm doing at every minute.

Now, to be fair, the other short trips for which I did not plan were actually planned *for* me, so there wasn't anything for me to do but show up and not be a pain in the ass (very difficult, requires effort), so this will likely be the first trip of its kind where I didn't plan activities or packing lists or make restaurant reservations or spa bookings so that we could both get our nails done at the same time followed by massages and meeting up in the lounge room to compare notes on our massages and OH how I hope that the Donk has patience with my new vacationing ways.

The good news is that, despite my lack of planning, my priorities are the same. So, you know, there will be cocktails at any and all hours, good food to eat, endless chatter and lots of inappropriate jokes and many swears.

Beyond that - who the fuck knows? Moreover, who the fuck cares?

So, you know, I haven't really changed that much.

See you in a few days with stories of a trip that hopefully didn't fall apart due to my lack of ridiculously A/R planning.

I can sometimes use my anal retentive powers for good. Sometimes.

Every fall, for as long as I've done the gardening, has been all, "OH SAD. It's fall. The garden is over. I shall perish." and shit.

I believe I've even threatened people and you with death or a sound face beating for mentioning the forthcoming of fall before I've deemed it time.

There have been rants and specific fingers thrown up in protest of fall.

Because I love the summer garden.

Because, duh.

I love the tomatoes and the harvesting of a billion green beans and making pickles from the never ending supply of cucumbers sproinging off the plants and the watermelons taking over all reaches of the property and having to dodge crazed bees while scooping Jada's doots and losing most of the walkways around the garden because of ever-reaching vines and looking at the crispifying nasturtium when temps go into the 90s and putting up shade cloth to keep fruit from sunburning and refilling the bees' waterer every day because they're sucking it down while trying to make honey meanwhile not die from the extreme heat and remembering to water and care for the potted plants that I knew better than to plant but in spring time I can't be trusted with orphaned seedlings so I just put them in a pot because "OH I CAN'T LET A SEEDLING GO INTO THE COMPOSTER even though I totally don't have room for it so I'll just put it in a pot and totally remember to water and care for it just like the other plants" and oh wait some of that stuff is not fun.

Hi. May I use that walkway or bench? Oh no. No I may not.

Ah, volunteer tree sunflowers propped up with scrap lumber. That's classy.

Why yes, it has been hot. Thanks for noticing.

Really have no idea why I let this dill just grow wild and awkward except that I can't make it down this path to prune it.

Green beans - the awkward months.

So sunflowers, tomatoes and green beans, you're just going to grow all together then? OK, got it.

Don't worry tiny supposed to be manageable watermelons, I don't need to walk there IN THE WALKWAY or anything.

Nah. I don't need that bench. You use it, cucumber bullies.

Yeah. That's what I meant for you to do, tomatillos. Just grow wherever the hell you like and everywhere at the same time.

As it turns out, there are things about the summer garden that are annoying as fuck.

Because, as you well know, I'm anal retentive as fuck.

And things like crispy plant leaves, never ending watering tasks, vines growing all over the place and in my way as I try to navigate my way to the never ending watering tasks and potted plants getting chewed to shit by monsters that settled in while I was absolutely not paying attention get fucking annoying when you're super anal retentive and like things neatly and tidily growing to perfection.

So I *don't* remember to take care of the potted plants that I plant in spring? Oh right.

Within the confines of their pre-determined-by-me space. With the luster and vigor of young plants. In the mild and agreeable weather of spring.

The spring garden looks awesome, is what I'm saying. It's just the way I'd like the garden to always look because when you're as anal retentive and Type A and batshit crazy as I happen to be, having a garden that's growing green, healthy and within the lines is GOOD and promise of the food to come is GOOD and the not-a-huge-time-taking-mess is GOOD.

Sunflower at a size where, if I were a smart person, I could still transplant it elsewhere.

Cucumbers INSIDE the beds.

Yes, tomatillo. I prefer you like this. AKA - NOT EVERYWHERE.

No wayward branches just needing to be tied up RIGHT NOW OR ELSE? Yes. I like this.

Which is why I've decided/realized/finally-come-to-peace-with-the-fact fall is GOOD.

WHAT THE FALL?

Yeah. After all these years of being all DON'T YOU DARE SAY FALL UNTIL IT'S, LIKE, NOVEMBER, YOU SHITBITCHING ASS BASTARDS, I've changed my mind.

You can say fall. Shit - you can say it in August for all I care. I just did, anyway.

Because if fall's coming then it means I can clean up the damn garden and reset it to Awesome.

I can take down the volunteer sunflowers that have grown into trees, getting into my way every time I go out to look for watermelons.

It's a good thing you're so cute.

I can rip out the tomatillos that grew 8 feet tall, had to be reined in by multiple means and then fell over and cascaded freely all over the place any way as though to taunt me with their growing-all-over-the-place power.

That's a start.

I can dial back my watering tasks to once a week and finally toss that potted tomato plant that I had no business growing in the first place even though its tiny fruits are really quite tasty and it turned out to be the perfect tomato plant to grow in a pot, in case you're in the market for one next spring and you're a person that can grow shit in a pot without leaving it for the caterpillars to demolish.

The nasturtium will bounce back and not look like total fried shit anymore.

Mmm...not fried shit.

I can clear my walkways and not have to circumnavigate the globe to get back to my spying chair.

So what you're saying is that no, I may not go back to the chair? Got it.

I can maybe see the beehive again from the patio.

Yeah. Not just yet.

And I can have NEW plants that are green and healthy and living within the confines of their raised beds like good little crops with their promise of food to come.

One day you'll be huge and crazy, but now...now you're just awesome and new.

So, yeah - I'm totally using my anal retentive powers for good now. In order to be not depressed by the summer's end times approaching, I'm choosing to instead be glad that I can clean this place up and have new little green plants to stare at.

Bonus is that I can do this WHILE eating all of the summer's stuff because I'm a fucking traitor like that.

An anniversary story about barfing.

I should be packing my overnight bag right now.
And then packing the dog's overnight bag.
And then walking her and feeding her and feeding Rocket who keeps trying to rip my face off.
I should be making jalapeno jelly from all of the peppers busting off of my plants.
I should be doing a bunch of workish things.
I should be cleaning up the kitchen from a day entirely spent (save for 1/2 hour when I ate lunch with Bubba and 45 minutes when the "dental hygienist" pretended to clean my teeth) making and canning salsa verde, peach jam and dill relish.

I should be doing all of those things but instead I'm here on this blog because yesterday was Bubba and my #9 anniversary and it feels wrong to not post an ode to Bubba on this blog for all of you and also him to see.

Even if it's a day late.

Though, technically, I think our anniversary extends through Monday now because that's when we're picking up Jada from dog daycare after our Surprise Carmel Beach Anniversary Surprise Weekend Away Holy Shit I So Need This Right Now Trip SURPRISE.

Bubba surprised me with a weekend in Carmel for our #9 anniversary and I'M FUCKING STOKED.

Seriously. I don't think I've been this excited about a weekend away - or a trip for that matter - ever.

Like, not even when we were going to Maui or Kauai or Oktoberfest in Munich.

OK - maaaaaaaaaaaybe when we were going to Amsterdam, but obvs.

Anyway, the point is that after surprising me with this badass weekend getaway that I so sorely need for the sake of my ever dwindling sanity, I felt an anniversary post coming on.

So here goes...

Bubba and I have been married for 9 years. Together for 13. Known to one another for 17. And I swear it deep down to my beefiest swearing parts (and you know my swearing parts are BEEFY AS FUCK) - this is *the* funniest dude that I know.

And want to know how we measure funny in our house?

With barf.

Yeah. You think something's funny? WELL DID YOU LAUGH SO HARD THAT YOU BARFED?

No?

Not funny enough.

Because once upon a time in the early on days of Bubba and I, when I was just getting to understand the depth of this man's sense of divine humor, we were on our way home from Idon'tknowwhere and turning the last corner in our little shitbag neighborhood before arriving at our shitbox duplex in which we'd lived for some extended period of time that felt like forever and Bubba turned the right corner rather sharply and managed to ramp the curb on my side of the car.

And then he looked across the car in the direction of the ramped curb as though it had sprung out of nowhere unannounced to pounce in his path that dastardly devil!

Like he'd had some sort of pact with the curb and it had betrayed him.

Like some evil Caltrans crew had come out to our shitty street during the howeverlong we were gone and reworked the street to move the curb in about 6 feet to get in his way.

Like gremlins had torn up the sidewalk and thrown it at the truck as we were passing innocently by.

Like there was just no way in the world that he'd actually, without any mystical magical mysterious intervention and inexplicable circumstances befalling, cut the corner too sharply and bashed the curb like a loon.

I still wish that I had a photo of the look on his face because it was so sincerely shocked/taken aback/horrified/betrayed/stunned that I laughed and laughed and laughed and nearly peed and laughed some more and then we got to the house and I was still laughing and I was laughing all the way to the back of the house to where our "kitchen" was and BLARF! I totally spewed in the sink.

The dude made me laugh until I barfed and LO that it is his proudest moment.

Because as I may have said before, he lives to entertain me. Which I enjoy. I require regular entertainment and this dude is really REALLY good at it.

And since this was his proudest moment, it was in our wedding vows.

Me to Bubba: "I love you because you can make me laugh until I throw up."

If that's not love that I don't know what is.  And nine years later it's still love, though thankfully less barfing.