Old Couches

My best friend did a fly-by visit last night -- she picked up her eldest from college for Thanksgiving, and stayed over since he's in school up here. It was short, but lovely (minus my alarm being on 10% volume and sleeping until 7:00 am, which is WAY LATE). 

Bryce cooked a delicious dinner for us and we had gluten free carrot cake for dessert. We ate it in the living room, and Bryce apologized profusely for the state of our couches. "They're so old and gross, it's like we have old man couches! So embarrassing!" 

They're a bit saggy and one is just hemorrhaging feathers from every cushiony surface, but they're not actually that old. 

My best friend asked, "when did you get them?" and Bryce said, "I'm not sure, a while ago?" and I said, "2017." 

Bryce is always freaked out by my creepy memory, and he was like HOW do you KNOW that? 

Well. 

I know that because we bought the white/oatmeal/ecru couches in 2017, as part of our "things we can have because we'll never have children" campaign. 2017 was when our parenting dream officially ended. And so 2017 is when we bought couches that would have been highly ill-advised with small humans. 

They just looked at me and were like, "Oh. That makes sense." 

Yeah. Sometimes my creepy memory can make me sad. But also, that was less than 9 years ago, really the couches should hold up better than that!  

Anniversary Ghoul 2025

Having our fun wedding anniversary on Halloween means that every year, I get an Anniversary Ghoul from Bryce. 

It's a tradition that's super important to both of us -- a hand-drawn ghoul that Bryce selects and executes in my Halloween card (we do an anniversary card on the "legal" date, and then a Halloween card on the fun one). Past ones include the Babdook, Mothman, Pennywise, Marianne (from the French Netflix horror show, so scary!), a spider, a chipmunk morphing into The Thing, a werewolf, the faceless lady in the pond from The Haunting of Bly Manor but instead of that pond it's our pond... I look forward to it every year. 

This year, it was something no one else will ever have. I may have to copyright it. 

The envelope gave me a clue: 

Pay no attention to the tiny smudge of guacamole in the upper left corner...

Any guesses? I looked at it and was like, whaaaa? But then, I burst out laughing. I knew exactly what it was going to be.

Ever seen one of these? It's a Cthulhu Walrus. With a vestigial fin. 

Why is it so funny? 

It's based on something I drew for a student in my 7th grade Social Studies class, who was wailing during a review on the Arctic Native Americans "I don't even know what a walrus iiiiissss!" I assured her she did, and drew what I thought was a pretty good walrus on my board. I am famous for drawing very bizarre things in the name of education. You will see a slight difference between my drawing and Bryce's...

I had to take a picture and bring it home to show him, because it's frankly terrifying. Although, recognizable enough for the kids, who were indignant when I said in a slow, low voice, "Bye Buddy, hope you find your dad!" and one of the students yelled "that's not a walrus, that's a unicorn whale!!!" If you haven't seen Elf, this will all be gobbledygook to you, so go watch Elf and come back, haha.

This may be my favorite ghoul, as it is completely custom. And we have a little thing for Cthulhu (see fun picture of a crochet Baby Cthulhu our friend made Bryce below). As a childless couple, traditions are important. Marking the passage of time and celebrating those years is important. Celebrating the children in ourselves... important! 

Eggi is way into the cute little demon. And she went totally into that bag 2 seconds later. :)