Do you think marbles are actually made of marble?

While it's really Justin's turn to post, I'm tired of waiting for him to peel his eyes away from his fantasy football standings on his iPhone to do something more productive. You know, like writing a thought provoking blog.

Actually, "thought provoking" is sort of the theme of this particular post. More specifically, I'd like to address Justin's passion for questioning the unneeded-to-be-questioned. In fact, I've been thinking about addressing this issue for a while, but have been trying to collect data on this before writing (I have been ruined by graduate school, I tell you!). I now have some concrete examples that I am ready and w illing to share with you, in order to prove my point (not that I have to be right or anything...).

To put the examples in context, I'll give you an overview. Basically, Justin is a person who does not simply "accept" things in his life - instead, he gives them the third degree (to which he is currently thinking as reading this, "Why do they call it the third degree, anyway?" See Google for the answer, involving Freemasonry and the like). As an example: Having recently moved to Philly, we are regularly in a state of "Where the hell are we?" Thus, we rely heavily on my GPS, a trusty little device that Magellan surely spent millions of dollars developing. However, Justin does not trust said GPS. Whatever Ms. British Lady tells us, he questions: "Don't you think it would actually be quicker to take the Boulevard instead of the Parkway?" or "Why is she taking us south before going east?"  To this I respond, Ms. British Lady knows this city a hell of a lot better than us, so why don't we just go with what she says instead of fighting her every step of the way? Granted, GPS's have, once or twice, provided misleading information (okay, okay... more than that). But really, should we go with a global system of satellites analyzing and interpreting the intricacies of maps, or Justin's "gut" instinct that we shouldn't have to go north before east to get to Pat's Cheesesteaks? Evidenced based practice, people... it's what it's all about, right?

Now some might take Justin's distrust of my friend Ms. British Lady as critical thinking, but before you make this misguided assumption, let me provide you with a few more examples of his never ending questioning...

A quite simple example occurred just the other morning when Justin and I were walking to spinning class at the gym. Once again, I have to provide some context. We live about three quarters of a mile from our gym, which isn't all that far except that it requires traversing a large hill, usually prior to sunrise, and while shivering and half awake. On this particular Wednesday, I was particularly tired for 5:45 a.m., walking sleepily along when Justin wonders, "Where do the people who work here park?"

"I don't know, Justin," I mumble, kind of hoping for a few more minutes of sleep while walking.

"Well, there never seem to be any of their cars here," he insists, looking at me incredulously.

"Uh-huh."  Please shut up!

"So what do you think they do? Do they all walk?"

"Not sure."

"Maybe they park over there. Do you think so?"

Oh my god! It's 5:45 in the MORNING! I don't care if they fly in on space shuttle from the freakin' moon! This is what I want to say, but instead: "Honey, why don't you just ask them?" I'm such a patient wife.

Sometimes, Justin's questions are admittedly somewhat thought-provoking, even causing me to take pause, at least for a nanosecond. But that's the point - I say, that's an interesting question to consider, and then return to my important work facebook stalking. But questions will haunt Justin until he can find an answer.

Recent examples: What if there were two dominant species instead of humans being the only one? Why are dogs not born in one particular season like certain other animals? Why do we say, "how come"? (On another day, weeks later) Why do we say, "because of"? Do cats in China run away from humans because they know that they will be eaten?

And the list goes on... and on... Sometimes I feel like the mother of a three-year-old who wants to shout, "The sky's just freaking blue, okay?!? It just IS!"

But then again, when I can take a step back, I remind myself that Justin's insatiable curiosity is one of reasons that I love him so dearly. He's infinitely interested in the world around him, which is a quality I truly admire and (don't tell him) which I aspire to have. It makes him eager, passionate, and is the basis of his desire to expand his mind in new ways. And so, I let him question away... nodding and smiling and referring him to Wikipedia.

Right Brain Experimentation

To change things up a bit, today I'm sharing a few photos from our neighborhood that I took and edited yesterday. Trying to tap into the other side of my brain. More to come soon. Enjoy!

- Ashley

 

A Treatise on My Distate for Halloween

In thinking about my next topic to blog upon (to blog on? to blog about?), I recalled one of my oh-so-favorite issues to discuss and debate... the misery that is Halloween. Now, I realize that Halloween has come and gone for this particular calendar year. However, since I saw Christmas trees for sale at Target in September, I have realized that holiday preparations are now permitted starting 364 days prior to said holiday. So in fact, this topic is extremely timely, as Halloween is only 346 days away....

So, Halloween... I really despise it. And, lucky reader, I'm going to tell you all about why...

Reason number one that I loathe October 31st: My first reason requires a bit of a history lesson on Halloween (or simply some common sense). The history lesson comes here... Halloween is often thought to have derived from the Celtic celebration called Samhain, which signifies the transition from the "lighter half" of the year to the "darker half" of the year (once again, thank you Wikipedia, purveyor of all useless knowledge). I really don't have to say very much about this. Who likes dark? And cold? And the coming of digging my car at 5:15 a.m. with a broom doubling as a shovel (yes, I will buy a shovel this year)? To me, Halloween is the key indicator that summer fun is behind us, fall is quickly turning into winter, and soon I'll have to buy my eighteenth pair of gloves in five years (I can't help that I always lose one of them!).

Reason number two: I don't like to be scared. I just don't. Another little lesson, this time on psychology, or neurobiology more accurately. Fear is an emotion thought be processed by the amygdala and evolved as a  response to a perceived threat. As we all know, it's related to a fight or flight response in each of us, and as I am a pacifist, I choose the latter. I tend to want to get the hell out of dodge when there's something frightening. And so I'm regularly baffled when people pay good money to have out of work actors jump out of them in goblin costumes. Justin will do that for free. As a side note, did you know that the Terror Behind the Walls - a haunted prison in Philly - is 40 bucks a pop? 40 DOLLARS to pee my pants!?!?! No, thank you. So in conclusion to this point, fear does not equal fun in my book.

Reason number three (and my most commonly cited reason): Costumes freak me out. Seriously. All of your friends and loved ones not looking like themselves, lurking behind face paint and hair dye, or, worse yet, wearing their grade school cheerleading outfit. I just don't need to see that. In general, costumes seem to fall into two categories, at least for women. The first is scary costumes. Please see above for explanation as to why I don't like these costumes. The other is the "sexy" costume. You know the ones. The sexy cop, or sexy nurse, or sexy baseball player. I seriously believe costume companies could make a sexy garbage collector and it would be eaten up. Why must "sexy" be in the title of 98% of the costume options for women (or "cute" for the other 2%). What if I want to be the brave cop, or the intelligent nurse, or the athletic baseball player? Nope, not at this store. Go down the street to the invisible Costumes for the Feminists store. You'll find quite a wide selection.

So there are the major reasons that I dislike this holiday that others appear to find so magical. Don't get me wrong, I will never turn down a Reece's pumpkin. Those things are like crack. But I'll pass on the dark coming of long winter months, the $40 fear factory, and the pressure to dress like a slut in the name of a holiday. Now, some of you (or all of you) might be saying, This chick really needs to lighten up! And you'd be in good company, and fairly correct. But I'll lighten up when Thanksgiving rolls around. Food and family and Christmas sales.... now that's a holiday I can get into.

Terrible Horrible No Good Very Bad Swine

Ashley and I have had many run-ins with emergency medical facilities, and by "Ashley and I" what I really mean is that I have driven Ashley for emergency medical treatment many times over the course of our relationship...

Typically these trips revolve around her eyes - I promise to write a blog about this in the future - but this time it was "an unproductive cough, a 100 degree temperature, a persistent headache, and a bit of nausea (which may or may not have been due to a hangover from the 1 beer she had the previous night, we are getting old)."

Because we literally just finished paying off the medical bill from our last little trip to the emergency room in January (by trip read I was driving Ashley), we decided to opt for the always dependable Urgent Care facility.

While she was not feeling well, them main purpose of the trip was to rule out the ominous swine so Ashley could go to work the next day... Ashley has this horrible habit of always needing urgent medical attention on Sundays during football season, I honestly think it’s a ploy to make me watch less football, and once again, here we were on a Sunday.

She gets checked out and diagnosed with the early stages of bronchitis or pneumonia. She is given some prescriptions and we are on our way. Ashley hadn’t had much of an appetite, so we decided to go to Dunkin Donuts while we wait for the prescriptions to get filled and get some donuts. I haven’t had a donut in about 6 years, so I’m pretty excited. Ashley brings over the box of donuts grinning like she just robbed the place, sits down, and apparently opened the box a little too quickly causing her to sneeze all over the donuts. All I could think was about the bronch she just sneezed all over my meal and I started to cry.

Crazy enough, I actually made it back home just in time for kick-off!!! This day was going to turn out all right, despite the fact that I didn’t get any donuts. The Bengal's won, and I'm ready for a good end to the weekend...

That is until I go upstairs to find Ash laying in a ball in bed with the thermometer hanging out of her mouth like a chain smoker getting in that last cigarette before bed. Her temperature is up to 102.7, so for the second time in the day, she needs urgent medical care… this time we aren’t messing around and go for the real hospital ER.

I’m nervous about her at this point, so I drop her off, drive 18 miles away to park the car, run back to the ER sweating, trying to catch my breath, and I’m told I need to put on a medical mask… They might as well have given me a plastic bag to put over my head to slowly suffocate… I find ash sitting in the waiting room, seemingly near death. After a fairly short wait in hospital ER terms, we were taken to see the doc.

So we are pretty scared that she has this terrible horrible no good very bad swine flu that you hear always associated with death and the devil. So the doc looks at her asks some questions and just says, “I’m pretty sure it’s the swine flu. And you aren’t pregnant or under 4 so I can’t really do anything for you.” WHAT? REALLY? I thought they were supposed to call in the helicopter, strap her to the gurney and rush her of to Alcatraz for quarantine. Can’t do anything? My mom has been calling me for months about the terrors of this flu. She told me to get a flu shot and when they ran out she told me to go to North Philly and ask on street corners for the hook up. Can’t do anything?!?!

In the end they gave her Tylenol, (yeah that stuff I take when I get a mild headache) and told her she was dehydrated. So they gave her an IV bag, to which Ashley tells me, “I don’t think they realize how little I am, that bag is as big as me!” I patted her on the head.

In the end I took her home with the windows open and my head hanging out so as to avoid the swine as much as possible. I put her in bed, and decided I should probably sleep out on the deck just to be safe. She was actually better in about 2-3 days, but I still hold my breath every time I’m around her just in case.

So in the end it was just like a normal flu, I thought she would at least grow a curly tail or something… I’ll just chalk the swine flu up to media propaganda while I keep holding my breath.

- Justin

A Trip to the Mall

Attention family... prepare to be awe-struck by the fabulousity of your super budget-friendly Christmas gifts. The budget-friendly part is probably a bit more exciting to Justin and myself than to you, but what are you going to do... 

We thought long and hard about not buying Christmas gifts this year, at the urging of both of our moms, but as many times as someone tells you, "Oh, don't get me anything this year. Just having you here is a gift enough," all I hear is "Blah, blah, blah, you got me socks? Seriously?"    

And so we ventured out to the mall today, well before the holiday madness should ensue, to find the perfect gifts for our loving family members. I wonder if you know how hard it is to find gifts for under 3.99 a piece?? Kidding! ..... sort of. 

Malls are overwhelming places to begin with, but throw in the largest mall in the United States of America (in terms of leasable retail space, says Wikipedia) and lingering swine flu, and you've got one hell of a day. At this point I'm feeling like someone tied a rope around my neck and drug me through the New York City Marathon. Or Boston even. Not Columbus though - much too flat to describe my tiredness. 


Anyway, we made it to the mall at 12:20 and by 12:50 we were leaving to get lunch (thanks to gift card found in the bottom of my purse - don't you LOVE that??). We're not mall people, I suppose. After eating a healthy meal with a total caloric content of about 10,000, we were ready to continue searching for the perfect gifts (and to throw up all over Bloomingdale's). 


Here's something you should know about Justin (assuming you don't know him as intimately as most of you who would bother reading this probably already do)... he's indecisive. And the worst shopper who ever lived. However, he's not the kind of male shopper that makes most wives want to pull their hair out (e.g. "I don't care! Whatever, just buy it. C'mon, the game's on!) Instead, he's of the variety that cares entirely too much.  

He will identify a shirt he likes and look over said shirt for, oh, 25-35 minutes? Then, once he's decided said shirt is acceptable, having stretched it, held it up in various lights, tried it on, put it on the floor and jumped up and down on it, and googled the manufacturer on his iPhone, he'll move on to color selection. And here's where things get interesting. He'll spend another 15-20 minutes debating the merits of every color option. ("What would you think if I walked in to an office wearing orange? What about into a bar? A Dunken Donuts?") And then, THEN!, once he has decided on the shirt and I'm saying a silent "Thank you, God, thank you for letting us move on," he spots ANOTHER shirt across the aisle. "Oh, Ash, do you like this one better?" I say no, of course, and try to gently guide him toward the cashier. But Justin is not that easily disuaded... "Wait ONE minute!" he'll say, "I need to check this out....." And thus the process begins again. You get the point.



So shopping with Justin for Christmas gifts is kind of like making a visit to the emergency room (with which we unfortunately have all too recent experience): you'd better bring a good book and be prepared to sit tight. There's no rushing it. And if you try, the mean lady behind the desk will give you a death glare that says, "Sit your butt right back down, missy. No, I did not call you. You'll know when I did." 


All in all, we spent about seven hours shopping today and spent probably the equivalent of most people's weekly gas budget. But we're done. DONE! And no one will go without a gift... assuming they like socks.

 

Ladies and Gentlemen...

Welcome one and all to our new blog... I wonder if anyone is actually going to read this? In case anyone does, I hope you enjoy it, I think we'll certainly enjoy writing it!

I don't think I really know what we are going to write about on here yet... maybe something some serious things like business, psychology, life, and H1N1... maybe some things that aren't serious also - travel, jokes, stories, etc. I think the basic idea is that we will write when we feel like writing, and we'll write about whatever we feel like writing about... nothing too specific. So I hope we get a good mix of materials so it doesn't become a psychology blog, I can only stand so much of people examining my brain each day. We will try to write regularly but no guarantees, we are pretty busy, but then again we don't have many friends in Philly so maybe we'll have more time than I might think. We have a lot of things going on in life and a  lot of things we've been thinking about doing, so hopefully you'll find it interesting and exciting. Let us know what you think... if you have any topics you want to hear our thoughts on, etc. Anyway, I hope you enjoy this... assuming there is a "you" our there that is reading this... 

- Justin