All Shook Up

Tiffany and I went to the California Academy of Sciences a few nights ago. If you haven't been, it's amazing. Right now it has this exhibit about earthquakes with an earthquake simulation called the Shake House. The Academy has been advertising the Shake House all over town, almost like it was an amusement park ride.

There's nothing really amusing about earthquakes. I've only been in a couple of mild ones, but Tiffany was in a terrible 8.4 in Peru, and so I could not, for the life of me, get her to stand in line to be shaken on the magnitude of San Francisco's massive earthquakes of 1989 and 1906. Not even by first taking her through the exhibit about safety (FYI, in case of an earthquake, toilet tank water is safe to drink. Toilet bowl water is not. Also, peanut butter really is a good item for your earthquake preparedness kit, just like I thought.). We got out of line.

It was a special night at the Academy. In celebration of gay pride, there was a drag show going on and we decided to experience that instead. Only, when I went to get drinks, they closed the doors to the drag show and wouldn't let me in, even when I made my most sad face. I pressed my forehead up against the glass and Tiffany did the same on the other side and I mouthed to her that I was going to the Shake House.

"What?" she yelled soundlessly.

I shook my body from head to toe.

"Oh," she nodded. She made her most sad face.

It was a lonely walk to the Shake House. But Tiffany and I have an emergency plan for what would happen if we were not together in a real earthquake. Not being together in a fake earthquake seemed trivial in comparison. Besides the drag show was just a few exhibits away.

I had only been waiting in line a couple of minutes when Tiffany appeared at my side.

"Hi," she said.

I broke out into a grin.

"You don't have to..."

"I know."

The Shake House was not too scary to me, except for the fact the there were 30 other people in the tiny space with us. Tiffany didn't like it. She gripped my arms with sweaty palms and almost ran over some poor woman on her way out the Shake House door.

Afterwards, we roamed the rest of the Academy and happened on an exhibit with pictures of the animals that have lived on the earth over the ages. It was the strangest thing... one of the animals looked just exactly like Tiffany in the Shake House.

Tiffany in the Shake House.

Bag Lady

I hate purses.

They fall off my shoulder and, because I don't use any one purse regularly, I can never find anything in them. Usually Tiffany and I share a purse and she carries it because she likes purses. She likes funky purses and classy purses and sophisticated purses and colorful purses. Normally, it's not a problem to share. But there's a certain sharing limit. Like, she'll draw the line at my water bottle.

"It's not a backpack, Rebecca," she reminds me.

Anyway, on our recent trip to New York, I took my own bag. You couldn't call it a purse. It's a satchel, really, and as soon as our friend Teresa saw it, she gasped in horror.

"What is this?" she cried.

"A bag," I said.

She touched it gingerly with two fingers.

"Did it used to be this color?" she asked, flipping the inside flap over.

"Ohhhh, wow!" I said. "I don't even remember that!"

Teresa refused to let me out of her house with my bag. So she ran upstairs and got one of her extra purses, a blue leather number. Tiffany loved the purse at first sight.

"You carry it," I told her. "I'm good with mine."

"Absolutely not," Teresa said.

I took the purse. I put it over my shoulder and dug through it at various times throughout the day to find my hotel room key, my sunglasses, my eye drops and, yes, my water bottle. All of that was annoying. But the purse was great looking. It looked funky and classy and sophisticated and colorful ALL AT ONCE.

It looked, as soon as my friend Zac saw me when he arrived,

"absolutely nothing like you, Rebecca."

I'll Say a Little Prayer For...

You know how competitive I am when it comes to children's affection.

Well, a couple of weeks ago, Tiffany and I made a quick trip to New York to see family and friends, including our old college buddies, Teresa and Bobby, and their two children, Peter, 2, and Julia, 4.

Even though we've spent time with both kids on several occasions now, at these tender ages I always feel I really have to make a strong No-Longer-First-First-Impression. That's why this time I made sure I was the one who handed Peter and Julia the Cookie Monster cupcakes we picked out for them at the bakery. And why, much to Teresa's horror, I didn't correct Peter when he held a teacup upside down and dumped pretend water all over a doll while demonstrating how he would feed his future baby brother or sister.

"That's so nice," I cooed.

Early in our relationship, Julia called me by name (okay, by my college soccer nickname, which is a syllable shorter) but seemed incapable of remembering Tiffany's.

"Mommy, remember when Rebo and That One came to visit?" Teresa told us she would say.

But this time Tiffany had me beat. Bad.

After our first night, Teresa broke the news that Peter had included only Tiffany in his evening prayer, right after his mommy, his daddy, his sister and the Berenstain Bears.

I Just Called To Say...

My brother and I called our almost 88-year-old grandmother on three-way for the first time a few weeks ago. One member of our five-member nuclear family was out of the country, so it felt like a little more solid way of staying in touch.

It took a while to explain that we were both on the phone and then, all of a sudden, Nana got it:

"Am I on a conference call?" she asked, incredulous. "I've never been on a conference call!"

"You are on a conference call!" I said, talking through my grin. "A family conference call."

"I have never in my life been on a conference call!"

"Well, I've never actually used the three-way button on my phone..." I began, trying to share with her that I was experiencing a first too.

"Never!" Nana shrieked. "Oh my goodness, I love you both so much."

We didn't get to say much to each other on the call. Every time Brandon or I began to speak about something in our day, Nana would let loose with an "Oh my goodness, I never! I love you both so much!"

So we just kept saying we loved her that much too.

Which really was the whole point in the first place.

On Gift Giving

I feel like in relationships couple-halves should get points for the degree of separation between what they want to do and what they actually do for their partner's birthday.

Last year, I took Tiffany up in a sea plane for a tour over San Francisco for her special day. I don't even like big planes. The thought of the tiny one had me in a panic for weeks after I booked the trip. I kept telling myself:

"At least we'll die together. And Tiffany will be happy. And I'll be... with Tiffany while she's happy."

But it turned out the sea plane tour was fantastic. It was less scary than a big plane--maybe because I convinced myself I could practically do a dive into the water beneath us. Plus, we looked adorable in the gigantic ear phones he gave us so we could talk to each other without shouting.

For Tiffany's birthday this year, I made reservations at a super fancy restaurant near our house.* That was after I suggested we go bowling with friends.

"Rebecca, you're the one who wants to go bowling with friends," Tiffany reminded me.

"Oh, right," I said.

At first, I didn't like the restaurant (mostly on principle--who needs fancy)? It was covered in drapery and had thick, plush carpet.

"What kind of restaurant has carpet?" I whispered.

Then we realized all the decor was designed to provide the optimum acoustics for dinner conversation. Just like on the sea plane, Tiffany and I were able to talk to each other without shouting all through the meal. Mostly we talked about the people in the restaurant and how one of these things (us) was not like the others.

My first course came with a spoon that had been flattened out. It also had a chip in it.

"I think it's defective," I told Tiffany.

But we decided it was supposed to look that way. We didn't know why, but we also didn't think this restaurant made a habit of putting down broken silverware.

I finished my appetizer without touching the flattened spoon. I was too embarrassed to ask what it was for. Plus, my fork worked fine.

Later, Tiffany asked the waiter.

"It was for your fish," he said disdainfully, like it was a stupid question.

But there are no stupid questions. Only stupid utensils.

*For the record, the food was delicious and we had a great time.

And How Would You Like that Cooked?

It took Tiffany and I a long time to figure out the most convenient way to use our crockpot besides for cooking steel cut oatmeal. (That, my friends, is the easiest thing ever: you combine the oats, water, and, if you're feeling a little fruity, whatever berries you've got on hand, and turn the crockpot on while you sleep. In the morning, fresh oatmeal.)

Anyway, when we first got our crockpot, we bought a book of healthy crockpot-specific recipes. But I found that most of them might as well have been prepared the regular way--on a stovetop--what with all the pre-cooking of the meat and sautéing of the vegetables.

"What is the point of this thing?" I grumbled.

It was my best friend Zac who let us in on the secret of crockpot chicken.

"Just put the chicken in and turn it on," he said.

"By itself?" I asked.

"Or with some carrots and celery or broth or whatever," he said. "It cooks in its own juices and is ready when you get home."

It really was that simple. The first night we came home I breathed in deeply and said:

"It smells just like Nana's house!"

because my grandmother always used to bake a chicken when we came to visit.

But Tiffany and I can mess up even simple things. The second time we tried the crockpot chicken, I got a call just before I left work.

"How long do you think is too long for a raw chicken to sit out?" Tiffany asked me.*

"Oh no," I said. "Did we forget to turn the crockpot on?"

*According to an informal poll of our family members, the answer to this question is: "Don't you dare eat that chicken! Toss it out immediately-- what, are you trying to kill yourselves?"

I Said A Hip Hop...

Tiffany and I took a hip hop dance class last night.

Before I left for work, I put my outfit on the bed for her approval: bootcut spandex, a tight tank top and an off-the-shoulder sweatshirt made to look vintage 80s that I bought brand-new for $12 at T.J. Maxx.

I left a note on the fridge:

"Check out my hip hop dance outfit. If it's okay, please bring to class for me. If not, pick me out another! :) "

Then I went to work.

Tiffany approved my outfit. I want that fact to be clear from the start. She approved my outfit and a similarly tight-fitting one for herself.

At the dance studio, we entered a room filled with girls who looked to be 5 and 6 years old. They were in ballet slippers.

"Are we in the right place?" I whispered to Tiffany.

We were not. Hip hop was a few doors down where we found a group of mostly more age-appropriate people, including a pair who looked as lost as us.

"I didn't even know what to wear!" I confessed, gesturing downward at my lycra-clad thighs.

"Me neither," the woman said. "My hip hop friend said to wear baggy."

I looked at her sweats, which hung off her hips, and then I turned a glaring eye to Tiffany.

I wish this blog post ended well. I wish after the class began I had suddenly been less white--more hip and less awkward hop.

But I didn't know a single move when I went into that class, and I didn't know a single move when I went out of that class an hour and 15 minutes later. I did learn to count more rhythmically: AND five, six, seven, eight AND one AND two...

"Does anyone have any questions?" the woman teaching the class kept asking. She was wearing an off-the-shoulder sweatshirt. I had left mine in my bag at the start of class, filled with false confidence in my spandex.

YES, I thought to myself in the back corner behind a middle-aged Asian man who had better moves than me and wore one of his sweatpant legs up around his kneecap. How about: Can you please slow down? Can you please show me that move 100 more times before you ask me to do it while watching myself in the mirror?

But I tell you. The class was fun.

Mostly funny.

But fun enough that I already know what I'll be wearing next week