Help! It's a TICK ATTACK!

I know Jack is working on a post about his visit to Hickville, USA, but since he's a little slow at posting, I figured I'd humor you with a story about said visit.

As I mentioned, I grew up in the country. My hometown is 80 miles from a McDonald's, okay? I think we may be the only such community. And yes, I am using distance from a McDonald's as a measure for how rural a place is. In my case: very rural.

Well, as is often the case in the country, there is a decent amount of wildlife where I grew up. There are deer and moose and coyotes, all of which are beautiful and majestic creatures....and then there are the less majestic creatures, like wood ticks. They're pretty gross and I don't particularly enjoy them, but they're sort of a fact of life up there. Since Spot and his 2 doggy cousins were out and about exploring the countryside quite a bit, they were bound to get a tick or two. Or ten. Or thirty. So one afternoon Jack and I are lying in bed watching TV with Spot wedged between us. Jack is petting Spot absentmindedly and I'm nearly asleep when all of a sudden I get smacked on the arm:

"Honey, honey, wake up. WAKE UP. Is this a wood tick? IS IT?" (pointing at Spot's head)

Sleepily, I feel around on Spot's head and determine that yes, he has a wood tick. I pull the tick off and go to get rid of it. In the 30 seconds I'm gone, Jack has completely torn apart the bed, feeling all over for any sign of rogue ticks roaming around.

"Jack, ticks don't really like to attach themselves to lifeless sheet sets and comforters. They much prefer to be on a living being - like dogs or humans."

Immediately his shirt is off and he's running to the bathroom to get a look at his skin in the mirror. I follow him and he says "ARE THERE ANY ON MY BACK? LOOK! LOOK! ARE THERE? CHECK MY BAAAACK!"

Seeing none I say "no.....and are you okay?" Honestly, I was trying to control my laughter at this point. You would think he had just had a close encounter with a tiger or something.

"Well I don't want to get Lyme disease!! "

"You can't get Lyme disease just from seeing a tick, honey. They have to bite you, and then hold on for quite some time. I'm pretty sure you're going to make it there, tough guy."

We've been back for over a week and he was never actually bitten by a tick, but I wouldn't doubt it if he's still doing a pretty thorough check every night anyway. City boy.

Hawaii Recap

Hi friends! We have been back from Hawaii for nearly a week now, and Jack still hasn't broken up with me, despite having spent 5 days with my family (they are crazy - like me - but delightful - also like me), and having claimed he was just waiting for the trip to call it quits on us. What a jerkball!*

A couple stories about Hawaii before we continue with our regularly scheduled program (i.e., more nonsense):

• We learned that you should never rent a Dodge Charger. Did you know that all you need to break into one of those is a screw driver? Apparently there is a youtube video that shows you how. Anyway, Jack got a new pair of sneakers at Niketown in Honolulu and left them in the back seat of the car while we did some shopping in the Waikiki area. We also both had our digital SLR cameras in the trunk. Some d-bag broke into the car and grabbed the shoes, then opened the trunk to make sure he didn't miss anything. Upon seeing the much more valuable cameras, he left the shoes in the trunk and jacked our cameras! While you'd think Jack would be highly upset about this loss, he was actually more upset that the burglar didn't appreciate his good fashion sense enough to steal his very cool sneakers. He is thinking about wearing a shirt that says "Reject" whenever he wears the shoes now, and pouts a little when you mention that they aren't worthy of being stolen. (I mention that frequently, incidentally, because I'm sweet like that.)
• Our last night there we were lucky enough to witness a beat down. We were sitting on the porch of a restaurant and across the street some punks just started beating the crap out of another punk. Police were there within 2 minutes. Apparently they are great at catching violent teenagers, but not so great at finding our stolen cameras.
• I convinced a very hesitant Jack that we should do some snorkeling. He finally agreed, then promptly dropped part of the mask into the ocean. "Are you going to get that back, honey?", I asked, to which he replied, "You do it. I don't dive." We were in 4 feet of water - not exactly "diving", really. Anyway, after a little while with the snorkel, I had a Snorkeling Monster on my hands. It was all he wanted to do. It was fun, though, and we got to see a turtle! I named him Frank, and we followed him around for quite some time.
• Jack and I were together for 9 days straight, with almost no time apart. I bet we spent a total of 3 hours apart. In that short amount of time, Jack was hit on by a gay guy who did not believe him when he said he was there with his girlfriend (i.e. yours truly). He was also hit on by the girl who had been sitting next to ME at the pool for hours. I got up to go get a massage (mmmm, lomi-lomi) and she starts up a conversation with him, asking if he's married, and blahblahblah. The NERVE! I was hit on zero times....although being hit on by my massage therapist would have been pretty awkward, so I'm not complaining. Anyway, I can't let him out of my sight at all or the competition - female and male - swarms like a bunch of little sharkies! Hmph!

So, those were some of the highlights of the trip. We had an amazing time and would go back in a heartbeat. In fact, we wish we were still there...sigh.
__________________
*This is our new insult to each other. Jack made it up. He doesn't have the vocabulary of a sailor like yours truly, so his insults are always adorably child-like.

Staycation Report, Part II: ToxiCleanse!

For Staycation Report Part I, click here.

Jack is a pretty competitive person. And when I say that, I mean he is competitive about pretty much everything. For our second date, we played board games at his house, and he actually threatened to throw me out his 21st story window after I beat him. I think he was serious and maybe I should have run for my life at that point, but I didn't. So here we are: we compete over everything.

Jack and I both had full physicals a couple months back, and he even wanted to compete over that. "What was your cholesterol? I bet mine is lower"; "My potassium was SO good, the doctor was really impressed." Every single number he wanted to compare and compete. This is partially because Jack and I debate a lot over who has a healthier diet. I know that I'm the one with the healthier diet, but he can't accept that. Sure, his numbers were better than mine overall, but I chalk that up to genetics. Frankly, with my genetics it is amazing I'm not a raging alcoholic with diabetes and a weight problem, possibly also locked up in a mental institution. Oh, and I'd probably have a heart attack in that mental institution - because my genetics are THAT awesome. So the fact that my numbers are all within a healthy range is kind of amazing if you ask me.

Anyway, during our Staycation back in mid-December, Jack & I were each supposed to plan a day of activities. One of my chosen activities, because I am weird hippy and believe almost anything anyone tells me, was to go to this spa and get a ToxiCleanse. This means we went to this place and put our feet in buckets of water with some ion-cleansing-electro-magnetic-other-sciencey-words-that-confuse-people wristband thingy, and it purified our bodies over the course of a half hour (like magic!). The buckets of water turned murky with our toxins. Jack kept inspecting each bucket, proclaiming "your bucket is dirtier, you are so toxic!" and other comments like that. I insisted his was murkier, which he dismissed.

At the end, when the guy came to turn off our ToxiCleanse machines and dumped out the water, he said to Jack, "wow, yours is even dirtier than hers." I guess what I'm trying to say is I WON.

Jack's Two Cents: What the guy said was, "wow yours is even darker than hers." Darker, not dirtier. What Jill failed to mention was that each type of toxin had a different color (e.g., alcohol was black), so the fact that my water was darker does NOT mean that I'm more toxic. (It just means I drink more red wine, which is very good for your heart.) Jill's water included lighter but grosser and more dangerous toxins. Remember all of those white swirls that represented toxic flatulence (no, I'm not joking.) Didn't you also have flammable levels of yeast dripping out of your soles? I don't mean to be crude, but Jill's water was actually curdling!?!?! Hands down, I'm less toxic. So I win. End of story.

This just in: Jack makes things up. Love, Jill.

Staycation Report, Part I: When Jack Sold Jill Out

This past week Jack and I were on vacation. More accurately, we were on STAYcation. That's what you do when the economy is so bad you're not sure if you'll have a job next month, your student loans feel suffocating, and all you care about is being together anyway so why bother traveling? (Cue "awwww"s and vomiting). Instead of going somewhere sunny where we could sit on the beach and drink martinis all day long, we opted to stay in the frozen tundra we call home, where we were treated to several days in a row of below zero temperatures (you can see how happy we were with that to the right). Spot was also less than thrilled with the weather, but pleased as pie (can pie be pleased?) to have so much attention all week.

Anyway, Jack and I have a number of stories to share about our staycation, but one I'd like to discuss first is a trip we took to a local comedy club. Somehow when I bought my tickets I must have specified FRONT ROW because that's exactly where we ended up. This made me nervous immediately because comics sometimes like to mock the people in the front. I don't like to be mocked, you see, which I know is quite a unique characteristic.

About 30 minutes in to the main act, the comedian hadn't made fun of anyone yet, so I started to feel a little more comfortable. Well, it was that and the wine, which will always put a girl at ease (and make a girl easy - ba-dup-dup-dup - I'm here all week folks! Hahaha!).

HOWEVER. At one point, the comic - a lady - said something to the effect of "you men know how we women can be a little crazy at times...". Suddenly I feel Jack's hand leave my shoulder. In horror, I watch as he raises it above my head, almost in slow motion, and POINTS down at me, while sporting a huge grin. Did I mention we were in the front row? EVERYONE stared at me, and the comic even pointed out Jack's "hilarious" move - "look, this guy up here even pointed at his girlfriend!", she said. I think she did that just in case anyone in the entire room missed the fact that my boyfriend totally sold me out! I turned 16 shades of red.

Jack, of course, thought he was just about the funniest human being in the world. I elbowed him in the ribs and reminded him it's never a good idea to mess with crazy people. Muhahaha!

Jack's Two Cents

I must not have heard the comedian correctly. I thought she said, "you men know how women can be a little sexy at times." Sexy, not crazy. Sorry for the misunderstanding.