Until now. The othe day I came home and saw this on the table:

Normally it doesn’t look like this. Normally it is all in one piece hanging by the garage door organizing things for us and holding my keys. Apparantly it came down in a big crash when Devon came in an hour or so before I got home. I asked him what happened and he explained how he didn’t even touch it before it came crashing down beside him as he came through the door. He did smile a little smile as he pointed to this:

A little nail, in a hole it had ripped for itself in the wall. To Devon’s credit, he never said, “I told you so.” He just smiled a little and asked if I had put it up in a stud. Which of course I hadn’t. There are never studs where it looks good to hang a picture. I accepted my failure without an argument, because the evidence was against me anyway. Devon didn’t say anything more about the issue, except about an hour later, when out of the blue he said, “I was starting to think I’d never see the day when it actually mattered. . .”

He’d better not look behind any of the other pictures I’ve hung up recently.

This picture was actually taken last summer, but technically it’s still a “before” picture, and I don’t have one from this summer because I came home from work one day and Eric was halfway done.

After:

Pretty, huh? Plus we don’t have to worry about the trick-or-treaters wandering off the edge of the deck. Bonus!

Yep, no packages here. . .

I think for Christmas we should make his day and do this:

Here’s what we ended up doing:

Shopping at the outlet mall

Watching baseball. (I know, I know, we drove five hours to be in Las Vegas and we watch baseball on TV? Hey folks, it’s way hot in the middle of the day and we were tired.)

Walked from Paris  . . .

. . . to New York.

Took a million pictures of the fountains at the Bellagio.

If you’re into photography and wonder how Devon got the night shots of the fountain without a tripod, he didn’t. We carried around a big tripod like total nerds, but basically we didn’t care because what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas. I’m pretty sure that’s what the ad campaign was talking about.

And spent an evening hanging out with Ryan, Aubrey and the kids.

So it ended up that we did pretty much what we do here, but in a different location full of women wearing lingerie like it’s regular clothing.

Twice this summer, once on the way to Vermont and just last weekend on the way to New York, I got to take an overnight flight. I had never taken one before but after a year of practicing sleeping on the bus to and from work every day I figured it would be awesome. I’d get on the plane, fall asleep and arrive at my destination refreshed with the whole day ahead of me. So efficient! No time wasted on the plane! Well, I have to say that I was sadly mistaken. There were some things that went well. For one, JetBlue gives everyone eye masks and ear plugs, dims the lights and does everything in hushed tones like it’s nap time in kindergarten.

This works great to lull you almost to sleep so they can cruelly wake you up once they start clanking around with the drink cart. (Also, if you want your husband to pretend like he doesn’t know you, just put an eye mask on under your glasses. What I considered an ingenius method to wear the eye mask without squishing my glasses into my face was apparantly pretty goofy looking.) Despite all my practice on the bus, the eye mask, ear plugs and inflatable neck pillow, it took me a long time to fall asleep. I ended up getting only a couple hours of sleep, and pretty much whined about it the whole time I was awake. As Devon said, after we finally arrived in Vermont, “I would pay twice as much for a ticket not to do that again.” I assumed he meant that he was tired, but I’m thinking from the look he gave me that I might have something to do with that.

The trip last weekend was on Delta, and they didn’t give us eye masks or ear plugs but they did give us a cheap fleece blanket that got my clothes all red. I was determined that this flight would go better, but I didn’t count on the man next to me falling asleep and gradually encroaching on my leg and arm space. I hadn’t realized that the arm rest wasn’t down until this started to happen and with his whole shoulder blocking it I couldn’t reach over and pull it down. It also meant I couldn’t recline my seat either. One hour into the flight I was pressed as close to the window as I could be to avoid touching the sleeping man who was halfway into my space, and my savior in the form of the drink cart came by. The man woke up and once he sat up to drink – BAM! I pulled that middle arm rest down, reclined my seat and slept peacefully for the rest of the flight.

In all, there were some things I really liked about flying overnight. I liked how un-rushed and relaxed everyone was checking in and going through security. It’s nice to be at the airport when it isn’t busy and hectic. I also like that when I got in, I had the whole day ahead of me. That’s about it.

Can I see your credit card?

Sure, here you go.

Peon compares signature on credit card to hastily scrawled signature on electronic screen.

These don’t appear to match.

I’m in a hurry . . .

Peon, still examining signatures closely.

Can I see your license?

Sure.

Hands license to her.

Peon compares signature on license to signature on electronic screen.

Still not a match.

Devon dumbfounded for a second.

You can compare the names on the credit card to the name and picture on the ID. It’s me.

I don’t know. The signatures don’t match. Driver’s licenses can be forged anywhere.

Umm, I’m pretty sure I’m going to board a plane with that same license in a few hours. It’s real.

Well, I just don’t know. The system suspected something, which is why you got the see cashier message.

You don’t think it’s because I had to swipe my card over three times to get it to work?

I don’t think so. Why would you think that would cause an error?

Because I write software all day and that’s what I would make the system do. You know, to catch all the identity thieves.

Peon is now eyeing Devon even more suspiciously because he just acknowledged that he was a hacker.

I just don’t know why the signatures don’t match . . .

You’re right, I stole a credit card and got a fake license so I could but $18 worth of thread tape, travel sized bottles and a razor.

Peon is now eyeing Devon even more suspiciously because he just admitted he had a stolen credit card.

Do you have a manager I can talk to?

Peon disappears and comes back with a worker who is clearly a friend and not a manager. She is explaining the story as they walk back.

Peon friend examines signatures on screen, card and credit card.

Yep, the signatures don’t match.

Devon is now pinching himself to make sure he’s awake and wondering how much he values his travel bottles and razors.

I’m sorry, the signatures just don’t match.

Are you serious? I was charged for this stuff. I’m not going to leave without it.

Peon looks unsure what to do.

. . .

Get Loss Prevention over here.

Peon looks at Devon dubiously like he is tricking her, but retrieves the Loss Prevention man.

Can I see your license, sir?

Devon hands Loss Prevention Man his license. Man compares face and name on license to Devon and the name on the credit card.

So what’s the problem?

Absolutely nothing.

Devon takes his bag and leaves.

Fenway panorama. Ryan took a much nicer one but I could get it to work for some reason so you’re stuck with my own pictures.

Target Field panorama. We all got there a couple hours early to eat and walk around the park and were suprised to see that lots of other people had the same idea. That certainly didn’t ever happen at the Dome.

Outside Fenway on the left and outside Target Field on the right.

Concourses of Fenway (left) and Target Field (right).

Models of Fenway (lego; left) and Target Field (right).

Stairs to upper levels in Fenway and escalator in Target Field.

Wally the Green Monster and TC the Bear.

Manual scoreboard in Fenway and huge scoreboard in Target Field.

You can’t go wrong watching a game at either place. We were lucky enough to have perfect weather for both games, our home teams won each time, and we got to enjoy watchin them with our families. We couldn’t have asked for a couple more perfect evenings.

That, my friends, is an O-ring. Except right now, it looks like a C-ring. It’s supposed to look like this:

Let me tell you the story of all the trouble caused by this little O-ring. So Devon is at home on break, minding his own business, when Pleasant Grove Water Works knocks on our door and informs him that our east sprinkler section was running too long so they shut off our irritgation water. This section of sprinklers has on occasion been known to get stuck on, but this year it has happened a couple times and this time Pleasant Grove noticed before we were able to manually turn it off. We call the city and have them turn the water back on, but we realize something has to be done because we are leaving for vacation in a few days and with hot weather ahead it would be very bad if the sprinklers got stuck running and the city turns off the water again. We research online and talk to people and it seems like the valve is the problem. We find the valve box, open it and lo and behold, one of the valves is dripping. See the water between on the ground between the first and second valves? (Also see the giant spider web in the corner of the box? Ick. It housed a giant spider, which we sprayed the heck out of with spider killer spray. No, we’re not humane.)

We figure this is the problem, and go buy a new valve. Devon installs it the day we leave while I’m frantically packing and getting ready for our trip. Installation is successful, until we turn on the water and now the new valve is dripping too, and even more than before. After a minor freakout by me (“Aaaaaahhh! What are we going to do!!!!! It’s not fixed!!! We can’t leave the water shut off!!!”) we run over to our kind and wonderful neighbors and hire the neighbor kid to turn on the water for that section manually every other day and have the rest of the lawn water automatically. Good neighbors are priceless, and ours are more than good.

Flash forward, we come back from vacation and the drip has now almost filled the whole box with water. We (and by we I mean Devon) turn off the water and take the whole valve manifold apart and find that the leak is the broken O-ring. Yay! We found the problem! We run to Home Depot to get a new one. Sadly, they don’t have one. By the way, probably the most annoying place to be in the summer is the irrigation aisle at Home Depot. It’s always full of people walking around with glazed looks on their faces holding a broken piece of sprinkler equipment. No one knows what they are doing and it’s impossible to find anything. Anyway, we decide we’ll need to look at an actual sprinkler store, so the next day Devon runs to Sprinkler World. The friendly people at Sprinkler World (they really are friendly. And knowledable. It’s a great place that you hope you don’t need to go to.) give him the bad news. They don’t carry that kind of manifold because – and here’s the fun part – when one part of it breaks you have to replace the whole thing. That’s right, folks, the WHOLE thing. Even just for a little O-ring. So Devon buys a new manifold. Brings it home, realizes the manifold is too big for the current box. Buys a bigger box. Digs out old box, moving a lot of water-soaked clay soil. Fun. Realizes the tubes to connect to the manifold are now too short so he needs to add extentions. Needs glue for that. After two trips to Sprinkler World and two trips to Home Depot, he finally has it looking like this:

He hooked it up just as it was getting dark and we tested them. They work! We filled in the hole and hope we don’t have any more sprinkler repairs this year. All because of one little O-ring.

It’s an awesome surprise to welcome you back from a week away.