Tuesday marked the 13th year my husband and I have been legally married.

Through thick and thin, we have remained married.

And now we are older.

I should be a writer for Hallmark, I know.

And, once we thought about it, since we dated for 5-6 years, we have been together

FORFUCKINGEVER.

Love him.

But it’s kind of crazy. I mean, the internet was barely around when we first met.

We felt we were old when we’d walk to BLOCKBUSTER to rent each season of The Sopranos and then, since, occasionally, the last copy of a particular season on DVD was checked out by someone else, we’d ask Blockbuster employees when it was due back and sometimes get them to tell us who they were, in case we knew them and could call and hassle them directly.

And we would schedule life around that.

I mean, it’s like we lived in another historical time period.

And had absolutely no social life.

But it was winter in Wisconsin. You just kind of stay inside and drink and watch TV during the winter here.

And we did live in another historical time period, technically.

In any case, it’s less about us being married for so long and more about how we haven’t been married for that long and, yet, it feels like we’ve time-traveled only because we were born in the Oregon Trail generation and sort of just fell into a technological tornado which was awkwardly, messily, clumsily trying to ravage/transform the world without most people even realizing it.

(I tried to find and insert a sinister sound bite from the CD-ROM version of Where in the World Is Carmen Sandiego from 1985 here but I’m too old for the internet to remember the physical insertion of hard disk and the subsequent noises made.

Because that was almost seven hundred years ago now.

In any case, it was:

Duh-duh-duh-duh daaa… DUH!

Sort of sinister but I think the sound was meant to signify progress in the game.

Holy cats. That was a secret message in CD-ROM Carmen Sandiego: in life, all worldly progress will come at the cost of your soul.

Pretty dark and on point, DOS Apple IIc game.

The CD-ROM version of this game also required more attention span than many of us now have because it took forever for the game to even start.

😴

Though, if you want to hear the Sinister Sound of Progress, it’s at 3:25 in the YouTube video above.)

In any case, speaking of sleep, my husband was lying down at 11:30 A.M. the morning of our thirteenth wedding anniversary because we are old and he felt he had to.

And then I started sleeping at around 5 P.M. later that day because we decided to not get dinner the night of our anniversary because people in Kenosha, which is where we were briefly staying, largely don’t wear masks and COVID rages on so…

yeah. There was a lot of sleeping on our anniversary before we found out the jacuzzi tub was broken and found ourselves sitting in a cold bath.

And then we went back to sleep.

Our first night in Kenosha was a bit more lively. Hell, even the clergy was out which felt like a bad omen.

No offense to the clergy but there was just something weird about that unmasked black-robed man walking into a pizza place full of unmasked people who weren’t in robes.

Ominous on all counts.

But besides the powder coffee creamer being expired (can powder creamer really expire? It’s just chemical dust. It turns out… yes. Holy shit, yes) and the washer/dryer being out of order and the WiFi password not working and the jet streaming tub being broken and there not being any beach supplies or condiments or hot water though each of these amenities were stated as being included, according to the VRBO description…

it was lovely to spend a full day not where we live.

We also got to sit outside in privacy.

Apparently, this is life-changing to us.

We felt so much better for a short while.

Also, my husband and I got along better and I could breathe.

Breathing is a big deal.

This is kind of why we want to move from Milwaukee to Racine which is known for meth.

Because the air is better and the water at least looks clearer in Racine.

Kenosha is like Racine but it feels cleaner and neater with more yachts and more extreme townies.

We were only in Kenosha for one full day so obviously I can’t generalize and don’t honestly know. It’s also a pandemic so… I didn’t get a genuine assessment of the cute little town.

But I prefer Racine. I mean, I don’t even know where to begin to find meth in Kenosha.

Kenosha and Racine both have rather nice, spacious beaches on Lake Michigan but only Racine has a botanical gardens zoo which has a bar in it.

If you Mozilla “Racine zoo has a bar,” the first two results are “Bloody Mary Fest” and “Animal Crackers Dining Options”:

Racine! Racine! Racine!

In any case, we already knew this but we need to move to a place with fewer gunshots and better air.

I didn’t hack up dark brown even once during our brief stay in Kenosha.

Heaven.

However, our Kenosha lake rental was supposed to have an unobstructed lake view.

Yonder is the lake. It’s unobstructed when you look that way.

Otherwise, the view is mostly trees but they’re just as good as the lake which is beyond the marina and parking lot and park to the east.

Trees are the best.

On the night of our anniversary, it was also really nice to lay and sleepily look out the window at the towering trees, matte black and pressed against the clear night sky.

And the rental had this print on the wall which pretty much made it the best rental ever:

In any case, now we’re back in our overbearing, self-regulating Milwaukee neighborhood where I need my inhaler so trees and obstructed lake views are a distant memory.

Specifically, now I’m back to asking: dogs or gremlins?

Last Sunday night, I’m not sure if our dead dog visited me or I was being hassled by an 80s movie.

I ask because my TikTok Real Ripple effect picked up this:

I first assumed it was our dead dog because she was a mastiff who was always right up in my face.

Our dog was ridiculous. If you’re interested in learning more about her, check out my earlier blog:

https://epileptaste.wordpress.com/2020/05/19/homage-to-our-dead-dog-hemi/

+SELF PROMOTION+

Or maybe it wasn’t our dead dog or a gremlin as it looked a little more like Gizmo.

Hm.

I like the Gizmo option the best. Not our dead dog, not a gremlin, not just some more bullshit TikTok is responsible for… but Gizmo.

I would share my couch with Gizmo.

Also, the last blanket my mom crocheted for me lit up for the first time.

It was very much in my personal space.

So I’m just sitting here on the couch and I have all this going on right in front of me and…

I didn’t want to be rude or anything but I got bored with holding up my phone to see these rainbow creatures occupying my personal space in an apartment that has no air conditioning and which is already too hot.

Seeing rainbow blobs just makes this apartment hotter.

So, real or not, the rainbow blobs and I hit a wall because… it’s not like we could communicate or hug.

All we can do is stare.

I mean, there’s nothing else to do. Therefore, I just wished them well and put my phone down and went back to watching Dark, season three.

When we were briefly in Kenosha, I walked my phone around the rental and picked up absolutely nothing.

Sooooooooooooooooo… meh.

I’m hoping it was a glitch/TikTok bullshit because having a gremlin or a pre-gremlin in one’s apartment feels like an extreme rodent problem that most extermination places probably wouldn’t commit to.

Or wait, perhaps Jabba the Hut when he was young and thinner?

And also, sticking with the Star Wars theme, maybe those little creepy cool short hooded scavenger people (or “Jawas” …yeah, I asked David and he of course knew)?

Maybe a Jawa was hanging out?

So I maybe had a younger, thinner Jabba the Hutt and a Jawa and a gremlin and/or Gizmo and/or our dead dog on the couch with me the other night.

Typical Sunday evening.

If this keeps up, I can start charging admission to our apartment.

If the global pandemic ever ends.

In any case, I am working on getting my Etsy store up and running and I was also recruited by an insurance company yesterday and did my first interview today and I also have a bone scan, MRI and EEG scheduled after a great deal of hassle as my insurance did and then didn’t cover two of them and did you know geneticists have a bit of a reputation of not ever returning calls? All this time I thought it was just me.

In short, post-Kenosha anniversary has been a bit batshit.

And, starting tomorrow, I’m going to be entering hospitals like how the Invisible Man rolled when he’d go out in public.

I’m pretty sure my former neurologist’s office had a breakout of coronavirus as it was suddenly closed for weeks and is still not quite open so I probably have to do another 72-hour EEG because I can’t get him to professionally exist.

All I gotta say is I’ve never before received a gift basket and this is really the best timing to have received a gift basket full of wine and other amazing edible stuff because it’s all a lot to think about.

Don’t think. Just drink…

motherflipping wine.

That’s not professional advice. ALWAYS THINK WHEN YOU DRINK.

However, as was lettered on the marquee board at Cork and Bottle in Madison a couple years ago:

Wine does help.

Friends/family are genuinely keeping me/us afloat right now and… so grateful.

Because even the TikTok-sponsored rainbow ghosts know about wine and want a piece of that.