The Graduate....Three Months Ago....

So, Mike graduated! Three months ago! (I dropped and busted our camera at graduation, so it took some doing to get the photos off of it....). He finished his course work back last fall, but didn't feel a particular need to participate in the pomp and circumstance. Once we realized that it's an important rite of passage, that we could lure family down for the event, AND take some days off of work, we were sold. Many thanks to all the family that came!

Aunt Becky and Grandpa Carruth

Grandma and Grandpa Taylor

The Bunnell clan

Katie and Mike

The conquering hero

The whole pahty

Jayson, Victoria, Mike, Nate, Alana
Mike and Karen

Three Hours

Last night I left Mike alone for three hours while I went to Deja's bridal shower. When I came home I found:

1. Mike watching his surf video. Couldn't say how many times he'd watched it. Whimpering after waves.

2. A pan of piping hot brownies. Surprisingly untouched. Waiting for me to indulge.

3. The bat signal shaved into his chest. His chest hair (no coincidence in his opinion) naturally grows in a bat signal pattern. He brought the bat to life. He showed me while humming the batman theme, arching his eyebrow with significance.

4. A bowl of hot, savory spaghetti waiting to fill my belly.

5. The laundry and the dishes done, the house spotless.

The one that surprised me the least was the bat signal.

Slithering...

Mike and I have started taking long strolls in the evenings before we hunker down into our feathery cocoon for sleep. The sun has generally set and its last rays gleam just barely over the western mountains, leaving us in the cool, purple haze of dusk. The other night as we were coming around the home stretch, I stopped dead in my tracks. In our path lay a large snake, still as sin, watching us. Mike, oblivious to my sudden stop, continued walking into the fiend's deadly lair. With a flick of his slick tongue, the snake revealed his lurking, causing Mike to yelp, run 20 feet into the road and hunker down into a kung-fu chopping stance. I remained still, then ran like a banshee around the slithering beastie. Mike later asked me why I didn't care to mention the fact that a serpent, nay, Satan himself, lay in our path. I have no idea. Perhaps I was hovering in the breath of metamorphosis: prey or huntress. I told Mike that I was talking to the snake in parseltongue about vacating the premises or suffering the cruel crush of his mighty blows. We felt skittish the rest of the walk home. Every branch, crack in the sidewalk, or stir in the bushes nearly revealed a legion of slithering villains surreptitiously plotting our deaths (we've watched too many utube videos of animals the size of Back Street Boys being swallowed whole). As my protector, Mike gallantly walked on the side of the wilderness, sending his beady glare and his Crocodile Dundee animal charm into the darkness to inspire proper fear in their chill, death-like hearts. The beasts stayed at bay, whispering along the edges, and we returned safe and unscathed to our apartment.

It really was bright

Michael took these at Clarie's reception. I like that you can see him bent down low and aiming in the reflection of my J Lo glasses. Most of the time, it's better that we don't know what we look like in sunglasses...unless you're Mike and get mistaken for a celeb all the time...