Another Interesting Question

This question comes from the same author as the last hypothetical question that was asked.

You work in an office performing a job that you find satisfying (and which compensates you adequately). The company that employs you is suddenly purchased by an eccentric millionaire who plans to immediately raise each person's salary by 5% and extend an extra week of vacation to all full-time employees.
However, this new owner intends to enforce a somehwat radical dress code: every day men will have to wear tuxedos, tails and top hats (during the summer months, men wil be allowed to wear three piece grey suits on "casual Fridays"). Women must exclusively work in formal wear, preferably ball gowns or prom dresses. Each employee will be given an annual $500 stipend to purchase necessary garments, but that money can only be spent on work related clothing.
The new regime starts in 3 months.
Do you seek employment elsewhere?

Post your comments. I really want to find out what you would do.

Hypothetically speaking

A friend of mine once read me an excerpt from a book by Chuck Klosterman. In it he details 23 different hypothetical questions he asks people to better get to know them. I'd like to pose some of these questions to you.

-At long last, someone invents “the dream VCR.” This machine allows you to tape an entire evening’s worth of your own dreams, which you can then watch at your leisure. However, the inventor of the dream VCR will only allow you to use this device if you agree to a strange caveat: When you watch your dreams, you must do so with your family and your closest friends in the same room. They get to watch your dreams along with you. And if you don’t agree to this, you can’t use the dream VCR. Would you still do this?

the 411, the low down, the skinny

july 14th: i went in to labor at 1:00am

1:00pm rolls around and because of some
scary complications the doc thought it
would be best to do a c-section

2:00 rolls around and cute sweet little
bennett is born and greeted by lots of anxious
family and the happiest mommy and daddy

july 15th: feeling great - a little out of it
but happy that everything went well, excited
about going home in 2 days

july 16th:
bennett: yellow, test were done and they found
he had a super high level of jaundice
catie: freezing, chills, then super hot
and sweaty
test were done and they found out i had an
infection...tack on 2 more days to our hospital
stay to get the antibiotics needed (that is, if no
fevers come back)
davey: the perfect comforting daddy and husband
who stayed right by our side making the stay a
ton more tolerable..on not a lot of sleep

july 17th:
feeling good, feeling excited to go home,
feeling happy bennett's jaundice is going down

july 18th:
bennett's jaundice is gone
catie's fevers are back (way bummed)

july 19th:
catie's fevers gone...but now has pnuemonia
new realms of bummed

july 20th:
things are looking up and we are getting really
anxious to head home tomorrow

july 21:
home at last! and with a crazy hospital experience
to tell

it wasn't all bad... i hate to sound negative
the doctors were amazing and knew exactly what to
do for us. the nurses were even more amazing. we
got to know several of them quite well because of
our lengthy stay and i can't tell you how impressed
we were.

we had family and friends calling and coming all week
to visit us. i got to talk to my sister, krissy, who is
all the way in germany. we couldn't feel more blessed and
loved and supported. we're so excited about our sweet little
baby boy. thank you everyone for your prayers.



ps another positive/funny thing is that dave got to
see catie on pain medication...i hardly ever take any
medication and they were handing them to me left and
right...anyway, apparently i carry on conversations
in my sleep.

The rainbow at the end of our storm

Catie just caught the sweetest moment with her camera.


Despite all the problems we've faced with this birth, we are so happy to have this little miracle in our family.

The world is my toilet

Yeah, we're still in the hospital and will be until Sunday night at least.
We have loved spending so much time with our new beautiful boy. Everything he does is so cute or funny to us. Like this for example:

I swear he knows what he's doing. Why else would he choose to pee at the exact moment his diaper is off? Or why does he poo 5 minutes after we change him? I think it is his idea of a joke.

The infinite hospital stay

Bennett wanted to let everyone know just how well he's feeling and how grateful he is for all your visits and prayers and support.

Catie will fill everyone in on the details of this amazing crazy experience we've been through.

Speedy Delivery...

Check this out

Bennett The Flash Pilkington

The contest we set up at the beginning of this blog is now officially over. I found out our child's name today. Allow me to explain.

You see, I feel our baby will be born on the opening day of The Dark Knight. This is due to the fact that he will be a superhero. and today, it just hit me:... Batman.

Think about it. Batman Pilkington.

Kids are often unhappy with their names. What little boy wouldn't want to be named Batman?

I was also toying with the ideas of The Flash (on the condition that it is always pronounced "the flash" not just "flash") Cable (aka Nathan Scott Summers- the time-travelling son of Cyclops and Jean Grey) and Hank McCoy (the Beast from X-Men).

So thank you everyone for your input, but we've got it all figured out.

Some names that were shut down:
Anferny - Cory
Wolverine - Catie
LeGrand - Dave
Esquire - Catie (wasn't originally aware that it is actually a title and not a name)
Rex - Dave
Curtis - Curtis
Cory - Cory
Don - Don
Leon - Matt
Aquaman - ...

happy feet

no these are not the feet of the pillsbury doughboy
sadly these are my feet
i'm now about three weeks from having
our sweet little baby boy and
the heat+pregnancy=crazy swelling for catie's
feet...and what were once ankles
my feet may be horrifying to look at
but please note the fabulous paint job
cory willey surprised me with a
fantastic pedicure (and was patient enough
to sit through my laughing fit...i'm a bit ticklish)
so thanks to cory for the pedicure and
dave for the endless foot massages
my feet might make it to the very end

ps i got fitted for compression hose today because
my doc thinks my swelling's a bit outrageous...wonder
what those are going to feel like

"Made in China" - a 4th of July celebration

We had an unforgettable independence day celebration last night.
Like much of the general public, my Dad spent over $90 on fireworks and we went to my grandpa's house to light them off with the whole family watching.

Fireworks are funny.
They are all the same. Then, when one stands out amongst the rest (usually the ones with the random purple sparks), someone says, "ew, that was a good one. Remember to get that one again next year." But that, of course, never happens.
So I took it upon myself to write down the name of this particular firework. It was "Mystery sparkling fountain". Then I read the rest of the names. "dazzling fountain", "giant burst", and other such generic names. No wonder these things are never remembered. I want to meet the Chinaman who's job is to look through a chinese-english dictionary and come up with these names.

But one particular firework stood out this year. Highly recommended by the 14-year-old booth manager.
It is a hexagonal box with a giant tail made of fire crackers. So you light the tail and when it gets to the top, it spins. This is what the instructions on the back say:


My favorite part is the first frame "Hang up in the open area". Yeah, as if every household has a random horizontal metal poll, 15 feet away from anything, to hang a bursting firework from.

This very issue posed a problem for my Dad who was so excited about this firework in the first place.

Solution: hang up firework in a tree directly above shrub bushes.

I don't know which is funnier, the excitement over this solution, or the surprised look on my dad's face as my grandpa's precious shrubs started on fire.
This is one firework we will never forget.

Anyway, fireworks are funny.

Buyer's Remorse - 3 short stories that are somehow connected - by David Pilkington

We were amongst family the other day and an interesting subject came up in our conversation. Spencer Coleman stated that he could never be a gambler because he would live in a constant internal battle over buyer's remorse. The thing with gambling is that you can never take back your bet like you can a big screen TV to Wal-Mart after the super bowl.
Then Catie piped in with her perfume story.

Apparently, Catie bought the most outrageously priced perfume I have heard of (to the tune of +$100/ 2oz.) from Nordstrom once, only to find the fragrance totally unappealing to her back at home.
So she tries it on over and over again, hoping it will magically change with age (like a bottle of fine wine), to no avail.
So 2 years later, she takes this used bottle of perfume back, and they give her a full refund.

Are you shocked? I was. But not to the extent as when I heard that Spencer's friend bought $30 shoes from Nordstrom Rack and took them back to Nordstrom for an $80 refund.

Which brings me to my final story- The G-Star shirt.

I bought a long sleeved, G-star shirt last fall from Pib's Exchange for $9. I wore that shirt more than any other shirt in the history of my wardrobe. It ripped, Catie patched it, it ripped again, Catie made me throw it away. I still miss it. The shirt made me feel like a super hero.

-The opposite of buyer's remorse

brazilian lemonade - from our kitchen to yours

*ingredients:
2 limes (ends cut off...rind left on)
1/2 cup sugar
3 tablespoons sweetened condensed milk (or as cory would call it...nectar of the gods)
3 cups water
2 cups ice
1 pinch of love or a bead of david pilkington's sweat

*blend





isn't he adorable?






*pour through a strainer


*hire professional taste tester
and watch the incredible flavors
knock her socks off