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Anyone remember my post where I ranted about our neighbors next door who thought it was perfectly acceptable to have band practice (complete with microphone and amplifier) from 11pm till midnight? Well, thankfully, they moved out (or perhaps were kicked out- we don’t know for certain).

The new neighbors are nice-ish. They don’t talk to us, we don’t talk to them, it’s all good. And even though there seems to be a lot of them (teenage girl has about 6 friends over often, 20-something guy has a handful of friends over, and older couple- assuming parents- 20-something guy seems to have a wife and a baby and a toddler), we’re not really sure who all actually lives there, and who just visits a lot. Thankfully, someone in that house seems to be 3rd shift so we hardly ever hear them after whoever leaves soon after we come home.

This story is not about them, however. I’m just happy to have neighbors that we can live with. No, this isn’t about the Jamaican family that used to live across from us either, who would have loud wailing chants at midnight during full moons (and once on Friday the 13th). This is a story about a relatively normal neighbor across the way.

There was a bird. An insomniac bird. Possibly an insomniac bird with turrets. This bird, for God-only-knows-why would wake up about 9 pm and sing incessantly until about 4am, at which point all the other birds would wake up. Oddly, however, all the other birds combined managed to not be as loud as this one bird. Seriously, we hear big rigs and trains going by our house that this bird drowned out.

Several times we considered killing it. Sometimes we considered asking the landlord to rip out its favorite tree. One night, our sort-of-normal neighbor was out having a smoke just as we came home. We did the fake half-smile-just-in-case-he-notices-us-and-we-have-to-be-polite thing. But he didn’t notice us. Instead, he sauntered over to the tree and stared at it for a moment. And then suddenly shook the hell out of that tree! We, of course, started laughing and got out of the van.

Not-so-normal-neighbor sees us, shakes his head, and says “Bloody bird. I shut him up before and he’s already back at it! I may have to shoot him.” (sounded a lot funnier with his accent and body language).

Everyone knows what Husbands are, right? Those awesome back pillows with the arms? No? You didn’t know? That’s ok, I didn’t either for about 29 years- I always just called them “those pillows with the arms”.

Well, I don’t sit at a desk to work or play on my laptop, it’s either the bed or the couch. If it’s the couch, I sit sideways, not normally, and the stupid couch arms dig into my back. Hubs complains if I use the bed because I steal all of his pillows to prop my back up. So, I told him that I want a Husband, and if I get one that I’ll stop stealing his pillows (for that purpose, anyway).

So this weekend we split off. He went to his parents, I went to mine (we always do this for holidays). He remembered that he used to have a Husband at his parents house, and they’ve kept most of his stuff for him since we don’t have proper storage where we live. Apparently they don’t actually know where any of it is, though.

So he approached his brother. He says to his very straight brother, “I’m looking for a husband”. This earns him a rather suspicious look because his brother knows hubs is straight and thus this can not mean what it sounds like it means. Hubs explains, brother in law relaxes, but no one knows where it is.

So, they head out to K-mart to the pillow section where they find a man that works there. Hubs approaches and states “I’m looking for a husband”. That poor man. According to hubs, the man was very quick to point out that he’s already married (which when he related the story to me just made me respond that then he IS a husband!) and apparently became very nervous until hubs explained to him that it’s a pillow with arms.

And while I desperately wish that I could put this story down in writing the way hubs told it to me verbally (and the fact that without knowing my husband you can’t possibly know just how very funny this is) I’m just very happy that eventually my husband found a husband and I now can have two husbands in bed any time I want.

The end.

So, as is my usual habit, I started the dishwasher just before heading to bed. Hubs and I were laying in bed, reading our books (him- Birnbaum’s Guide to Walt Disney World, me- a chick lit by Kristin Billerbeck), and just drowsing to the point we were about to switch off the lights.

All of a sudden, hubs starts sniffing the air (sounded more like snorting, but, whatever) and then says “do you smell something?”. I do. “Smells like steak” I said. “Smells like steak on the grill” he said. I shrugged and went back to reading my book. After all, if we’re weird enough to be up at 3:30 am, why wouldn’t someone else be weird enough to grill a steak at 3:30 am? I would, if I had a grill.

But this is not enough for hubs, he heads downstairs. I head to the upstairs window to see if I can find said griller so I can invite myself over for a late night snack. I can’t see them, so I assume they must be on our side of the building, and therefore hidden from my view.

But hubs is still downstairs.

So I head on down, and as I hit the ground floor, the smell of steak just slaps me in the face. Weirdly- the smell of steak grilling in the rain (our family did this often). I walk towards hubs, who’s standing in the middle of the kitchen, sniffing in circles and we converge right next to the dishwasher, which is halfway through the cycle.

“Did you forget to wash off the plates before you loaded the dishwasher?” he demands asks. “No” say I. “Well it’s coming from the dishwasher” says he. He then promptly opens the dishwasher, mid-cycle.

Out wooshes the smell of steak on the grill, and what we took to be smoke at first, but surely was just steam?

Well, after several opening and shuttings and hearing the hiss of water dripping on the heating elements, and finally noticing that the white mineral build up on same elements had turned brown… we shut it down for the night. Also, apparently, I’ve kept the washing cyle on high heat for the past four years. Who knew that would be an issue?

In either case, we don’t seem to be having a problem with the dishwasher as long as I turn off the high heat setting, and with every load  the steak smell fades away.

To be honest, I kinda miss it.