Thursday, October 14, 2010

Unitasker and multitasker, sitting in a tree

I have been on the road for 4 weeks now (with at least one day home each weekend- I'm not that hard core).  I have been reduced to bullet points:
  • I love when technology is unintentionally sarcastic: "You beat your high score by a whopping one point!"
  • This has been a week of revelations for me.  I realized something about Travis on Monday: he is a uni-tasker!  That's the opposite of a multi-tasker, and a term introduced to me by the author of My Life as an Experiment (I did not read this book, but merely flipped through it in the airport bookstore.  College taught me to glean a lot from skimming).  This explains a thousand things about my marriage all at once.  I could fill an entire blog (not an entry- a blog) with things Travis' uni-tasking explains.  It is strange that this wouldn't be obvious, but Travis' brain is wired in a different way than mine.  He is wired to be extremely hard-working and focused, and is incapable of giving up an unfinished task and turning to another without great distress.  This is why Travis is a better driver than me, more observant, and quicker at getting things done.  It is also the reason why he doesn't love it when I talk during movies, try to discuss our marriage while he's fixing things, or suggest that he take a nap and come back to a project later.  I am the source of so much stress!  And this is just the tip of the iceberg that is "the ways I unintentionally stress out my long-suffering husband."
  • You may have noticed that the Rangers won their first post-season series.  Ever.  This is an occasion for great joy in our home.  Travis has all sorts of traditions about watching the games, most of which have to do with wearing Rangers clothes.  The rules seem a little amorphous, but the gist is:
    • Travis must wear a Rangers shirt, preferably a fresh clean one (I suppose this second part has more to do with hygiene than superstition, which makes me really glad I married Travis and not one of those "superstition over hygiene" guys).
    • It is very very bad luck for me to take the Rangers hat off Travis's head during the game and put it on my head.  (See bullet point above about ways I stress out Travis.)
    • It is, however, fine for Sasquatch to wear the hat . . .
    • . . . but only if Travis is the one that puts it on her head.
  • Lots of restaurants have delicious take-out, but some can make you feel sick the next day.  I've had good luck with Mongolian BBQ's taste-wise, but not stomach-wise.  Regular BBQ is usually fine on the stomach, but much more unpredictable in taste.  I have the second best BBQ of my life at Baldy's BBQ in Bend, OR last week (the best is Salt Lick BBQ, or Travis' brisket slow-cooked with Salt Lick sauce).  Tonight I had good-but-not-life-changing BBQ from Best Little Roadhouse in Salem, OR.  But it might have been better if they'd had pork ribs.  I always try baby-back ribs thinking I love them (years of Chili's commercial indoctrination is hard for my subconscious to ignore), but turns out I don't.  What I love are pork ribs.  Pork ribs in Salt Lick BBQ sauce . . . 
  • I always stay up too late if I start blogging!  It's not as if you can afford to come into work groggy when the first thing you do is talk to a group of high schoolers at 8 am.  On Tuesday I was tired and drove past the high school in the fog, and was late!  Time to go to sleep.

1 comment:

mom said...

Did you know that MSG makes your dad sick? He likes Chinese food but it's just not worth it. Some places stopped using it, but I don't know about Mongolian BBQ.