Greetings from the Twilight Zone

It all started yesterday morning when I picked up the phone to call Ben at work. Along with a faint dial tone, I could hear loud crackling noises on the line. I made the call anyway, hoping the crackling would go away, but instead I got an additional treat—a woman speaking Spanish between rings. She was loud enough that I said, “Hello?” and assumed she would say something back, but she just kept talking.

After a quick chat with the Spanish-speaker, the crackler, and Ben, I hung up the phone and picked it up again. This time, instead of a crackling dial tone, all I heard was a crackle. Thinking it must be a problem with the cordless phone, I picked up the corded phone in our office. Still no dial tone. In fact, now all of the phones were saying, “Your call cannot be completed as dialed…please hang up and try your call again,” no matter how many times I hung up in between.

Each time I picked up the phone after that I got a random busy signal, a recording, or silence. Ben did some investigative work when he got home and still couldn’t figure out what the problem was. We decided we would call the phone company in the morning.

Then, at 10:00 last night, the police came pounding on our front door. They said they had received a 9-1-1 hang-up call from our house, and that nobody answered when they tried to call back.

WHAT?!!

We’ve already established that the phone is freaky, but freaky enough to call 9-1-1 on its own? We apologized to the cops and told them we would call the phone company immediately. After setting up an appointment for someone to come check out our lines in the morning, we picked up the phone one last time and heard this: “Thank you for calling KWED…”

And He's Never Even Been to Småland

Liam knows how to spell his name because he has the wooden letters L, I, A, and M hanging in his room. The only other word he knows how to spell is Ikea. Don't ask me why he knows that one. I swear we don't go that often.

The other day I asked Liam where he wanted to go that day. Here is his response:

Lesson Learned

Last night Ben wanted me to feel how cold his contact solution was after staying in the freezing car all day. Only instead of saying, “Hey Kim, feel this,” he just squirted it on me. Obviously I had no choice but to drizzle face wash all over him.

He didn’t think that was a fair trade-off.

In His Dreams

Everybody’s best friend Rebecca came to town last weekend, so we had a Sunday dinner party in her honor. Liam had so much fun while she was here, he wanted to leave home and be adopted into his dream family with Becca G. as mom, Dan V. as dad, and Maggie Q. as big sister.

Being a Mom Has Turned Me into a Sissy

I just got back from our local high school's production of Beauty and the Beast. I'm a little embarassed because I cried at the end. But instead of crying when the Beast turned back into the prince or when Belle and the Beast kissed, I cried when Chip, the little teacup, turned into a boy.

Trick or Treat

Happy Halloween! I'm excited to start what promises to be a rewarding tradition of dividing Liam's trick or treating stash into candy with and without peanuts, and then properly disposing of anything with peanuts. And by properly disposing, I mean eating. By myself. There's no need for everyone to suffer, right?

The Only Place on Earth Where It's Cool to Touch Pigeons

Look. I know I've been home for over a week and I haven't posted a single thing, but I keep forgetting to take the Italy photos off of Ben's laptop. I finally got the last photos off the camera today, but the only ones on there were from our last day in Venice. Don't get me wrong, Venice was cool, but I had planned on doing some kind of recap of the whole trip. Instead, all you get is this:

A Few Things You Should Know About the Villa Passalacqua

• Vincenzo Bellini lived here for four years while he wrote three of his most famous operas.
• George Clooney has a house nearby, where he lives for four months out of the year.
• It is currently owned by a couple from Utah, who live in all 80 rooms of the house with just their two daughters, except for six weeks out of the year when they go on vacation and rent it out.
• Right now, I live here.

We’re in Italy with Ben’s boss and his wife, and I honestly didn’t know there were people who took vacations like this. Here’s a picture of the villa from our boat on Lake Como:


It’s the giant white one right in the middle. Can you tell that I’m feeling a little out of place here?

The Truth Is...

30 Rock is even better than The Office.

Tagged

Honestly, who starts these things? My former friend Kat tagged me, and unlike e-mail where I can delete whatever I want and no one will ever know about it, I'm afraid I might get arrested for not participating in a public game like this. So here goes:

Where did you meet your husband?
Deseret Towers, freshman year at BYU. Ben was one of those smart kids who graduated from high school early. He was in Rebecca’s freshman ward, and when all of the other guys left on their missions after freshman year, Ben was still 18. I lived across the street from him and one day Rebecca introduced us. We looked like this:


What was the first thing you said to your husband?
No idea. Get real, that was 10 years ago. “Hi”? “Nice to meet you”? “Your roommate is weird”? “What’s with all of the National Enquirers hanging on your walls”? Probably something like that.

Where was the first kiss? First date?
The first kiss was outside the dorms, January 21, 1998. That’s four months after we met. First he dated my roommate for a few months. I guess you could say it wasn’t exactly love at first sight. And I have no idea where the first date was, if there was one. The romance is killing you, isn't it?

Did you have a long or short courtship/engagement?
We dated on and off for 5 years (including the mission), then officially got engaged on Easter Sunday 2002 and married on June 28, 2002. I’d say that means long courtship and short engagement.

Where did you get engaged?
Red Rocks Amphitheatre, Colorado

Where did you get married?
Los Angeles Temple. We looked like this:


How did the reception go?
Fine, thanks. If I had it to do over again, I would get cooler flowers, but it was pretty fun. A string quartet played for the first hour and my all time favorite band, the Boney Mountain Mamas, played for the second hour. You really can’t go wrong with the Mamas.

How was the honeymoon?
Fun! We went on a Caribbean cruise and ate a lot. Also, we snorkeled, scootered around Cozumel, and gambled a little bit. If I had that to do over again, I would definitely find a cruise ship with a Flowrider.

I tag anyone who wants to play. Is that too lame?