kinky turtle. for those of you who aren't familiar with houston sarah i'll explain this briefly. rozi and john wrote this worship song awhile back called "king eternal," but every time rozi says "king eternal" in the song, if you listen closely it sounds like "kinky turtle." this was something sarah pointed out to me during our day of shopping on christmas eve that i thought was freaking hilarious. when she and i were at the mall she took me on my first visit to a build-a-bear workshop store, where you choose and stuff your own stuffed animal. i remember her saying that she loved penguins, so i tried to arrange for a penguin, but build-a-bear didn't have them anymore. so i opted for a turtle. and really i think it ended up being cooler anyways. i found some valentine's day wear; a toga, a bow and arrow; then i made my own sound to put inside of it. sarah you have no idea how many times i recorded that damn phrase. "hi! i'm kinky turtle!" seriously. they told me to do it in the bathroom, as to avoid excess background noise. i was trying to do it clearly, but also softly, because i figured it might be kind of weird for a build-a-bear employee to walk by the bathroom door and hear me repeatedly chanting, "hi! i'm kinky turtle!" psycho. so finally i just decided to stick with the take you hear now, and i took out the sound deal to the chick who helps with the stuffing and she put the sound thing in kinky's arm, and as she was doing so she kept pressing the button to make it go off. which, let's be honest, is a little embarrassing. i'm trying to look like a build-a-bear professional and yet the only sound in the store is that of me saying "hi! i'm kinky turtle!" over and over again in a high-pitched voice. of course i feel the need to explain why i said such a thing. sarah i told her the story and she just gave me a fake laugh and a look that said, "you pervert. how dare you come into a children's store and utter such a thing." i don't think she believed me.

anyway, all that said, i didn't actually buy it on christmas eve. it would have been pretty cool if i had, but i don't think i could have slipped that past you. i put christmas eve on the birth certificate because that was the day that we talked about kinky turtle, so it just seemed fitting that it should be kinky's birthdate. :) i'm glad you liked it. WHEEEEEE.

i love inside joke gifts. during my senior year of high school i took this photography class and my omaha sarah was helping me out with part of an assignment i was doing. she had some pretty plastic drinking glasses at her house and we were out on her front lawn taking pictures of water pouring from these glasses. at one point in time i get this bright idea, wouldn't it be cool to drop the glass full of water on the sidewalk and take a picture of its moment of impact with the ground at ground level. i mean the glass was plastic, so i figured it would bounce. well, it didn't. i got my picture alright-- of sarah's beautiful plastic glass shattering on the pavement. we thought it was so funny that the glass broke. seriously. it was PLASTIC. but anyway sarah was creative and kept all the pieces and superglued them back together and gave it to me as a gift on christmas. i thought that was great. to this day that glass sits between the front seats of my car and holds my toll change.

this past year we had a rummage sale at my church and i found this FANTASTIC oil painting of frank sinatra that i bought and sent to sarah for her birthday this past year, because she and i totally dig sinatra. this thing was amazing. it was so hideous that it was the coolest thing ever. i took it into starbucks one morning to show it to my manager, and no joke i had people asking if they could buy it for hundreds of dollars. i hope someday i can find another like it to add to my collection of artwork. that would be great.

i'd like to say that in commemoration of presidents' day and our nation's heightened state of security which was raised to an orange colored alert a little over a week ago, i am wearing an orange sweater today. thank you goodnight.