This is my baby brother Eric ...

I know it's sometimes hard to tell that we are related, given that he has a steady job, owns a house and knows how to cook, but our mutual love of bacon is a dead giveaway.

Yesterday we married him off, so I had to get dressed up all classy, and put on underwear and brush my hair, and act all sophisticated like, you know?

Which lasted for about the length of that (↑) exposure (the sophisticated-acting part, I mean. I managed to keep my underwear on the the entire evening ... )

Just for the record ... HE started it.

Actually, to be completely accurate, these two (↓) are the ones who ACTUALLY started it ...

They are the ones who, after being assigned as high school chemistry partners, thought it would be brilliant to ACTUALLY do some ... uhhh ... homework.

And NOW look what their little science experiment led to ...

They tried to undo their handiwork by marrying off us older girls, but then my sister just showed up with MORE of them.

But world, here's where the news gets really scary. Turns out this Bartleman thing is not just a reproduction problem ... apparently you can just voluntary convert.

Yesterday, THIS girl (↓) started off the day as Amanda Bernier ...

And then, halfway through, she just ... switched. Just like that. Some lady was like "Hey Amanda, do you want to be a Bartleman?" and then Amanda was like, "Yeah, sure, why not?" and then the lady asked Eric "You cool with that?" and Eric was all like "Sure, whatevs," and then the lady was like "Okey-dokey then, you are now a Bartleman" and by the end of the night Amanda was screaming "Wayne's World" lines and throwing grapes into people's mouths from across the room and planning a revival of the epic Who-Flung-Dung contest.

See what happens when I wear a dress?

So my wonderful husband gets the Pulled-it-off Award of 2009. After a great day of birthday lunching with friends, starting a new tradition of buying myself a birthday outfit each year (to cover my ... uhhh ... other birthday outfit ... ) going to the movies and blowing out the candles on my homemade Devil's Food cake, my sly husband pulled a spanking new iPhone from his pocket, minutes before the clock struck twelve.

I give you Rufus (from the German verb "anrufen" which means "to call") ...

And yes. I did indeed name my iPhone.

And my car (Fiona). And my laptop (Dexter). And our Bonsai tree (Takahashi). And the plants Jay gave me (Gertrude the Marigold and Ferdinand the Salvia). And the snail I once found in the backyard (Herman).

Why name a large portion of the inanimate objects in my life (along with the vast majority of animate ones), you ask?

For one, when I say things like "Oh, I can't, I have a date with Rufus tonight" or "Let me ask Rufus" people think that I have an exotic, foreign friend and not simply an extreme case of iPhoneurosis with a touch of appiphilia.

And for two, normal is overrated.

Rufus, on the other hand, is not. We have been seeing each other for a mere 17 hours, and it is inconceivable to me that I ever managed to survive three decades on this planet without this device. Are you aware that there is an app which mimics a Zippo lighter, complete with being able to flip the lid closed with a flick of your wrist? And one to see how much bubble wrap you can pop in a given time frame? Ummm ... hello ... these are critical life skills, people.

Today was our sixth wedding anniversary, which we celebrated by succeeding in having other people pick up the tab.

First, we headed up to Whistler where I cashed in a free nights stay at the Westin Resort and Spa, which I earned by helping them out at a conference back in May (the things people will give you for showing up in public places wearing spandex and trying to explain that riding an expensive cafeteria tray at 130 kph down an even more expensive frozen water slide really isn't THAT crazy ... )

Then we headed out to dinner, courtesy of Jay's parents. They will be happy to know that we didn't burn the money at Chuck E. Cheese's, but totally classed it up at a fancy restaurant called the Rim Rock Café, which not only required reservations and serviettes, and served food that looked like this:

... but also called for me to dig way to the back of my underwear drawer and pull out something that wouldn't cause me to suffer from VPL when combined with my spiffy white pants. It was THAT fancy.

Finally, after dinner (where we broke all cultural protocols governing taking pictures of your food at a four-star, Zagat's-rated restaurant) we headed back to the hotel and cracked open the bottle of bubbly that Jay's cousin Thorsten bequeathed us during his visit here last week.

Room, food, drinks ... and no bill drenched in guilt? Definitely a happy anniversary.

Last week, cousin Thorsten came to visit from Germany.

In case you aren't sure which side of the family he is from, maybe this will tip you off ...

So, it was a whirlwind ten-day visit, one in which I insisted that we do, visit and try anything and everything within a five-hour drive from us and that we HAD BETTER ALL HAVE FUN doing it. Which means that we spent a good 24 hours in cars, three hours on ferries, countless hours hiking/walking/complaining-about-hiking/walking, and one solid hour wondering if we were going to get strip-searched at a U.S. border.

And it is possible that there may have also been at least one instance where I was required to adamantly enforce the WE-ARE-GOING-TO-ENJOY-THIS rule.

Despite the occasional manifestation of the rather ... uhhhh ... let's go with 'obstinate' this time round ... individual that possibly takes my place when things aren't going according to THE PLAN (anyone who attended my wedding rehearsal may be somewhat acquainted ... ), Thorsten's visit was 10 days of großartige deutsche abgefahrenheit.

As ambassadors of our respective nations, I think it is fair to say that it was a successful cultural exchange, and that we left each other with valuable lessons in cross-culture communication and customs.

For example, I can now change my oil, oil filter, air filter, spark plugs and spark plug leads like a good German mechanic ...

But more importantly, I can now curse like a proper German garbage man.

Torte on the other hand, discovered the delicacy that is North American cuisine ...

However, I think the real success of the trip can be summed up in the fact that by the end of the ten days, I not only got him to stop looking so German in every frickin' picture (which seems to now explain the contents of my husband's family photo albums in their entirety), but I also managed to convince him that the 80s are over, and they REALLY want their fanny pack back.

You are welcome, Germany.

Once upon a time we had two cats.

The first was a small, stubborn green-eyed tabby named Tikos, whom we got from the shelter in Anchorage just after we were married. She was (and is) a cat by every definition of the word. She does what she wants, when she wants, how she wants. She is also scared of anything that moves, breathes, walks, crawls, twitches, makes a noise or is bigger than she. Needless to say, Jay and her don't get along very well.

The second was a huge, cross-eyed, Siamese Tabby mix named Psycho, who was the antithesis of Tikos. He was so laid back that we could vacuum him. Psycho was actually our foster cat, who was entrusted to our care when my old roommate left to take a teaching job in Japan.

Just an FYI ... if you are thinking about fostering a cat with us, maybe reconsider. Poor Psycho, who, while not particularly brilliant, was at the very least persistent, finally convinced us, through various means that involved a potpourri of bodily fluids, to let him go outside and roam the yard at night. He loved it out there. Right up until that time he met a cougar.

So, we have one cat ...

After Psycho ... ummm ... left for the Great Cat Tree in the Sky, Tikos seemed a little despondent. She started hiding again, her appetite waned, she slept all day long. Even though they got off to a rough start, Psycho and Tikos were inseparable by the end, except for that part where he wanted to go out and play with the cougars, while she did not.

I have been trying to convince Jay for the past year that it would be nice to have a second cat to keep Tikos company. Apparently my persistence rivaled that of Psycho's (minus the involvement of bodily fluids) because we finally went to the local SPCA this weekend and brought home a new friend.

This is Schrodinger ...