Our new house, which is our nicest and favorite one yet, has brand new wall-to-wall carpeting (except in the kitchen and bathrooms, the latter being much more common than and just as disgusting as one might think). And because we’re the most awesome renters ever, we do things like make people take off their shoes and, you know, occasionally vacuum and stuff.

So our house rules go something like this:

House Rule #1—Should the need arise, we say “shut your piehole” instead of “shut up. ” (Or, if you’re talking to one of the cows with the incessant mooing, “shut your grasshole.”)

House Rule #2—At the beginning of every Monopoly game, Tony has to give every other player $500.

House Rule #3—Absolutely no spilling stuff on the carpet.

Which of course means that as soon as I get a beverage in my hand, particularly coffee or grape juice, I’m gripped with the (probably irrational) fear that I’m going to have some kind of seizure or muscle spasm and spill it all over the carpet in as wide and destructive a swath as physically possible.

Besides the obvious drawbacks of having to clean up after myself and ruining our reputation as Best Renters Ever, I’m mostly afraid that after an event of this nature, we would be perched at the tippy-top of the slippery, slippery slope leading to the gross violation of our other house rules. And I for one am just not ready to deal with the sudden revocation of Rule #2, my personal favorite.

If you’ve ever played Monopoly with Tony, you understand.

That guy.

With the winning.

Man.

There were lots of pelicans there. Seriously. It was almost scary, like in The Birds, or in a short story of a similar nature I read this one time in which the protagonists exhibit concern for their bird-surrounded circumstances with the classic line, “But was it only a semicircle?” (No, no it was not.)

Chilling, I tell you.

So then, in real life, this more or less happened:

Stephan: I’ma go down there [where the pelicans are] and get me a baby.
Person 1: Don’t you mean from a stork?
Person 2: No wonder [you guys] don’t have any kids yet! Stephan doesn’t know where babies come from!

So good.

BONUS: then put it in your favorite new thermos that your totally awesome favorite friend(s) sent you from home in a package that also included a bag of the Mother’s Cookies Circus Animals that you have been craving I WIN.

Kind of like when I was little and would play house with Tony during recess, only when he wanted to pretend that he owned Disney and that all the rocks on the playground were his money, presumably so he could swim around in them à la Scrooge McDuck, I would repeatedly tell him that that would never happen in real life. [Note: A healthy dose of reality which in all probability is true, but which he begrudges to this day and wholly blames for the fact that he does not currently own Disney.]

The point is this: I’m pretty firmly grounded in reality. Except for these two tiny, irrational fears,* which I will now reveal with hopes that you won’t exploit them, dear Internets:

1. That I will be compelled to pick up one of the very sharp Victorinox knives Stephan bought me and lick it for no other reason than that it exists and that this makes no sense in any possible world.

2. That if I leave the shed door open whilst drying clothes after dark, one or more neighborhood squirrels will enter the aforementioned shed unbeknownst to me and then attack me when I unintentionally corner them.

Who knows where thoughts come from? They just appear.

* Note to Big Brother: Just kidding! I’m so not really afraid of these things!

Replica graphite mine! Old pencils! New pencils! Pencil-making machines! World’s largest pencil!

The best part was the secret WWII pencil: regular type pencils squirreled away from the factory under cover of darkness so that they could be hollowed out and have one of four tiny maps of Germany inserted. A compass was added under the metal piece that holds on the eraser, and then the pencils were distributed to RAF pilots in case they were shot down over Germany.

2. Learned the phonetic alphabet, including numbers. Comes in quite handy, we’ve found. My personal favorites: foxtrot and niner.

3. Introduced the second verse of “Cenaida (Mexican Flan)”:

Cenaida, Cenaida
Your name isn’t Vlad
Cenaida, Cenaida
Best roommate I ever had
Cenaida, Cenaida
When I didn’t clean the bathroom you’d get mad
Cenaida, Cenaida, Cenaida

4. Pushed Stephan and the car up a giant hill in the snow all by myself and Tony and Cenaida.

5. Spent all Thanksgiving cooking with Cenaida and sending Tony to the grocery store no fewer than three times. All we missed was pecan pie and the Special K casserole.

6. Tricked a ton of English people into liking pumpkin pie. I sent one to work with Stephan, and the initially skeptical are now converted. Apparently he had to skip the 2nd floor entirely because the 25 pieces into which he cut the pie would only go so far. I did have an English person later suggest that using canned pumpkin was “cheating,” but, as any American will tell you, that couldn’t be further from the truth. For whatever reason, pumpkin pie from scratch is just not tasty. And it’s like I always say: why would God make canned pumpkin if he wanted us to use the fresh kind?

His scarf features the colors of the mother’s football club. He also has one in the colors of the father’s football club, but I figured that mum has put in the most work thus far, so she wins.

2. Instead, we wholeheartedly embrace Bonfire Night. Technically the 5th of November (as in, “remember, remember the”), but aside from a few fireworks last night, the celebrations tend to be moved to the weekend before or after. We’re looking forward to our first potential effigy burning (apparently, this is beginning to fall out of favor) on the 8th.

3. U.S. Election Day. Marking the end of making excuses for and/or avoiding the topic of our President. At least until January 20—until then, Obama can do no wrong. It was pretty frustrating waiting for all you Americans to actually roll out of bed and vote, though, and then I had to stay up until 4 a.m. to learn the results.

4. Poppy Day (aka Remembrance Day, Armistice Day, Veterans Day). It seems to be a much more visible commemoration here, and I find the poppy emblem already appearing everywhere to be both meaningful and aesthetically pleasing.

5. Super Stupendous Camping 2008-3: Tony and Cenaida Come To Visit. (2008-1: boating down or perhaps up the Columbia, camping on Government Island, and firing a potato gun at things; 2008-2 [cancelled]: October yurting.) Had I been consulted, I would have voted for a 2008a, 2008b, 2008c nomenclature, but I was not. I guess that’s what I get for leaving the country.

At any rate: HOORAY. The aforementioned Tony and Cenaida will be here for Thanksgiving, so I will be roasting a turkey for the very first time and tricking some English people into coming over for a very important lesson in pumpkin pie.

Mmm, pumpkin pie. One of my favorite Cenaida’s mom stories is that she (who works for the Department of Health and whom I automatically implore people not to tell when I eat something that may have fallen on the floor or taste what I’m cooking and then put the spoon back in) used to let Cenaida eat pumpkin pie for breakfast when she was little–technically, it is a fruit. My other favorite story is that when she first moved from El Paso to Portland, she was sincerely flummoxed by why all of the women wore white nylons all the time before she discovered that, no, that’s just what your legs look like when you live under a perpetual cloudbank.

Nothing like what it’s like here, no sirree.

She was not, contrary to my persistent belief, at any time a math major.

Sometimes she would fall asleep doing her math homework, though, and try to answer her calculator when the telephone rang, which almost makes sense considering that our telephone was usually in the closet where she had left it while dressing.

Once, we sang “Frere Jacques” in four different languages. And then played racquetball in our dorm room.

She was in a traumatic stage-falling accident that year, which required some college boy to take off his shirt to bandage her wounds, prompting another college boy to write “I’m sorry that I did not take off my shirt, as did my friend,” in her get well soon card.

I taught her how to say “I have many boy-toys” in German.

The next year, I moved out of the dorm and onto Catherine Street, and she came to my house on Fridays to make food and watch Passions.

When I went home for 2 weeks that summer, she rode her bike across town every day in the superheat to take care of my plants, Ali and Ali’s Sister, and my fish, Jeff the God of Biscuits and the one whose name I’ve forgotten.

Sometime after that, I graduated and she let me move in with her mom, although she did not allow me to watch Gilmore Girls with said mom. Then she moved in too.

Then we moved out, to our downtown Luxury Apartment, where Cenaida planned on knowing the Chinese takeout delivery guy on a first-name basis but instead settled for frequent Pizza Schmizzas from downstairs.

“Let’s make some brownies,” she’d say. “Yes, let’s!” I’d say, and then continue to sit on the couch while she made all of the brownies and then let me eat some.

In 2006, we took Best Road Trip Ever 2006 to San Francisco. In 2007, we took Best Road Trip Ever 2007 to Canada/Glacier National Park.

She slept by the door of the tent so that she would get eaten by the mess o’ bears first, and she freely admitted that the McDonald’s breakfast burrito that she had been complaining about since not getting to eat one on Best Road Trip Ever 2006 was not all it was cracked up to be after all.

And I got married this one time, and Cenaida was the Best Maiden of Honor Ever.

The night before we left for the wedding, I woke up at 3 a.m., and Cenaida was still up in the kitchen putting together boxes for people staying at the lodge all weekend. She told me that she had stayed up to watch tennis because she just really, really liked tennis.

Cenaida planned our almost-surprise going away party at the end of last month. She and her brother made us this:

Through all of this time of being completely awesome, Cenaida has patiently waited for me to write her a song.*

And so now it is my great pleasure to present:

Cenaida (Mexican Flan)

Cenaida, Cenaida,
You don’t look like a man
Cenaida, Cenaida,
You’re my favorite Mexi-can
Cenaida, Cenaida,
Now let’s go make some flan
Cenaida, Cenaida, Cenaida

*You may be familiar with my earlier work, such as “Geneva in the Mint Green Stall” and “You are Karen All Day Long” (cir. 1996).

We are gearing up for a full holiday season. I’ve always heard people, mostly my close personal friends in women’s magazines, complain about how busy they are during this time of year, but I’ve never experienced it until this year. Christmas parties! Cookie exchanges! White elephant parties! Plus actual Christmas!

And also, and more important than usual: my birthday! A big one! The only present under our tree, which was thoughtfully provided by Tony in spite of Stephan’s bah-humbuguity and which has heretofore not infested our apartment with spiders, is my birthday present from Stephan. “It’s a secret,” and whenever I make a guess as to its identity, I get “maybe, maybe not.” This is because last year, I (correctly) guessed that I was getting the complete Calvin and Hobbes set based on a) they’re books and b) it’s a trilogy.

Don’t tell Stephan, but I think I might like the guessing part better than the actual receiving part.

To sum up my absence:

Super Stupendous Camping 2007! Our annual camping trip with Eric, Cenaida, and Tony. Sometimes we let other people come too. This year, we went to Lower Falls Campground on the Lewis River, and I would venture to say it was our best location yet (others: Cape Lookout, Fort Stevens, Wallowa Lake, Memaloose, Silver Falls, Cape Disappointment). The campground is in Gifford Pinchot National Forest, way out of cell phone range. We drove around to the north side of Mount St. Helens and up to Windy Ridge. We went walking along the Lewis River, and Eric disobeyed some sternly worded signs and dove into the (completely undangerous) pool of glacierlike water at the top of some dangerous falls. No pictures from me, but Stephan just got a new camera, and here is what it does.

Temporary and Accidental Dissolution of Library Boycott This one was completely out of my control. Way back on Labor Day weekend, we went to Walla Walla for my grandpa’s birthday, and while we were there we visited some friends and had a great time geocaching and playing games. When we were leaving their house, the conversation turned to a book that I should borrow and read, a retelling of The Phantom of the Opera by Susan Kay. Only I’d never read the original book, seen any of the movies, or attended a performance of the highest-grossing entertainment event of all time. So after I finished the borrowed, retold book, I had to borrow the original from the library. Clearly, this whole ordeal is all Ethan’s fault for loaning me the book in the first place. But then he (and/or his wife, who, truth be told, did most of the work) brought an adorable child named Oliver into the world less than a week ago, so I guess we’ll let this one slide.

Obscure Film Festival We’ve already done the Star Wars and Lord of the Rings (extended) festivals, so this time we decided to pick a theme and make other people than me bring food when it’s their turn to bring the movie. So far, so awesome: Keeping Mum (Matt’s) and Clue (mine).

Geocaching and General Frivolity We had my mom, dad, and brother over for an excellent lunch that my mom made a few weeks ago. We’ve also taken my dad geocaching a couple times–we’ve ended up in some cool places that we otherwise would not have ever thought to go, but somehow this is always preceded by stomping around in a random gully in Marquam Nature Park or Forest Park in a futile search for cache that is somewhere completely different because we entered some numbers incorrectly. It is then that we really appreciate my dad’s presence because he will boldly go where we just don’t want to.

Not Cooking Dinner This has also been the month for eating out. Not only did we make a new rule that I don’t have to cook if I work more than 9 hours in a day, but in this last month, Stephan’s employer sold most of his business, Stephan’s MBA class met for dinner with some professors, and my boss relocated to Boise. So there have been plenty of excuses to go out and celebrate (business sale, MBA) or not (boss relocation).

Other, Secret News No, we are not pregnant.