battle of the bathtub

*flick* no light

*flick flick*

"that's odd," i muse aloud. the light in my bedroom doesn't turn on. being human, i must test it a few more times, to assert my humanity.

*flick flick flick flick flick flick flick flick flick flick flick flick flick*

still nothing.

*flick flick flick flick*

half-blind i wander through my room, looking for light. finally, i find a small lamp and plug it in to the wall socket i can barely see by the dim light filtering through the slats of my window blinds.

the night is cold. the wind is still. a quiet surrounds the house.

when i turn the switch on the small lamp in my hands i feel a buzz and see a flicker before its weak light steadies. through the doorway my light reveals movement in the bathroom. but what could it be? i am alone here.

with faltering steps i shuffle toward the doorway to see what awaits me. something arrests my progress, it is the cord on my lamp. do i stop? do i press on to unknown horrors?

my curiosity pushes me forward, it hastens me to set down my light and press on. when finally i peer beyond the curtain, i let out a sigh of resignation. it is as a suspected: there is a zombie in my bathtub.

he does not move.

he sits there, watching me with a baleful glance.

he waits for me.

with lightning reflexes honed from years of fighting off these demons, i go for my one weapon against such beasts. the only thing i have at hand: water.

in moments, his corpse has shriveled into a pose i know can mean only death. it floats on the surface of the water and circles the drain. victory is mine. its warmth curls my lips into a sneering smile only seen at the demise of ones enemies.

thus victorious, i make to return to my lamp. to fix my light. to go to bed.

but what's this? what is that sound i hear coming from the drain? could it be?

i glance back. my nemesis is crawling from the pipe.

how can this be? i saw him....i saw his corpse.

i have again succumbed to the machinations of this vile beast. he feigns death to murder me in my sleep. he ruins my light and blames the bulb. is there no end to his trickery?

but i am wise. wiser perhaps than his last victim. it is a hope i hold dear as i turn to face him once again.

his claws tear at the porcelain as he tries to free himself from a watery death. the slick metal beneath him can offer no purchase. still he pushes, strains for freedom. were he not a zombie, i might be impressed.

and yet he and i cannot remain here together. so it is with grim determination i turn the water on again. its burning heat scalds him as his miserable carcass slips back into its final casket. the metal and soap and hair will trap him there. i put the final nail in his coffin, as it were; the plug slips into place with a final clink.

the bathroom is safe again. the bathtub is mine. no zombie will claim it this night for his own.

he will have no feast of brains.

i have defeated him and saved my small portion of the world from this one specimen of the plague that surrounds us. follow me, learn my story and benefit from it. they have won many times, we will will many more.

and by 'zombie' i mean spider.

amber's wedding

yesterday, my former roommate, amber, and her fiancé, carlos, got married. yay!

of course, i woke up late so i had to really hurry to get to the temple in time to watch amber's niece, sarah, so that her parents could go into the session. i made it just in time. sarah (3) is very friendly, she told me all about the bolt toy she was holding and that she looked very pretty today. then she said, 'you're matti.' as this was and still is true, i agreed. then she said 'you're amber's sister.' not really true, but we share a brain so it's roughly the same.

we had a lot of fun playing skating across the tile which turned into running back and forth across the very 'skatey' tile. then sarah and i and her cousins played monster (me) so i chased them until one cousin asked what we were doing. i told her we were playing monster and asked if she'd like to join. she said she'd think about it.

when the marriage ceremony stuff was over we all went out for picture-taking. it was SUPer windy and the photographer said he *really* wanted to get a picture of amber chasing her veil since it kept trying to fly away. it would have made an awesome picture, but alas, we stuck in some more bobby pins and it stayed in the rest of the time.

after a bunch of pictures we all left to go takes naps and eat. i enjoyed my chic-fil-a and my nap, though i had strange dreams. when i woke up i was all set to go pick up my dad from the airport. except that his flight was delayed. it was supposed to come in at 5.30 (leaving me plenty of time to get to the 6.30-9.00 reception) but it actually didn't come in until 7.20 or so. which means he didn't get to my car until almost 8. which means i had less than an hour to find the reception in a place i'd never been to before. and my instructions were for coming from the freeway, when i was already on bangerter.

so dad and i were driving (i made him come with me since i was already low on time) down bangerter, turned onto redwood as the instructions indicate. but i could not for the life of me find 5800 north. seriously. the street just vanished from all human knowledge some time after the instructions were written but before i needed to follow those same instructions. finally, after driving back and forth on redwood a few times, i just pulled in to amber's sister's subdivision and hoped i'd find it.

you know those times when you are trying so hard to do something and you are pretty sure you're going to fail? this was one of those times. i was seriously almost in tears that i wouldn't make it back in time to see them off. and because i was trying so hard and i have such great skill at getting lost, and because i am fully aware of this gift of mine, i was very sure it just wouldn't happen. by the grace of some insane street engineer-guy somewhere, i actually found a street with the right name, which turned out not to be the right street, but connected to the right one? anyway, i made it with about 10 minutes to spare, just in time for the bouquet toss (no, i didn't catch it but amber's sister-in-law confided that amber was probably aiming for me).

i saw them off to the sound of party blow-horns and a barrage of bubbles. i am so glad i made it, even if i was incredibly late. but hey, amber said i could be, i asked her and everything.

to commemorate the occasion, i made sure to get a lovely keepsake that will stay with me for roughly one week: