Top Ten of 2008

It's that time of year: the top ten lists. Top ten books. Top ten movies. Top ten sports moments. Top ten rehab attempts by sleazy celebrity tarts. Top ten Obama gaffes. So what is left for someone who wants to create her own top ten list? While I've probably read more than ten books this year (it's my job), everybody does top ten books. I don't think I've seen ten new movies, and . . . sports moments . . . Was this an Olympics year? I'm definitely tired of tarts and politics. So that leaves me with only one natural choice: top ten personal surreal moments of 2008.

In a year filled with a middle-aged bride and groom, a bachelor (now married) merging with two teenagers, and a new house, there were more surreal moments than any one person deserves to dream about. So because I don't want you, dear readers, to be overwhelmed, I will give you five to start, and five more on Monday (hopefully). Here they are, as surreal moments should appear, in no particular order:

1. So many of my top ten surreal moments were, not surprisingly, wedding related. And so something that normally brings great joy--a shopping-type activity--ended up being not so pleasant. I had finally managed to convince my dear fiance to come with me to the mall to begin a gift registry. For some reason, I believed that Kohl's would be a good choice. It seems I always find things I want at Kohl's; in fact, I rarely walk out of that store without buying something. So we went to the counter and handed over my driver's license in exchange for a scanner. After a brief explanation about how to use the scanner, we headed over to housewares to decide just what we needed to make our new home complete. This was not such an easy task since we both had pretty much everything we needed to manage a household. We would look at an item like steak knives, discuss whether one of us had a sufficient set, and, if not, check them all out to decide which one was best, and then scan. (H is at the opposite end of the spectrum from impulse shopping, which is probably why he doesn't often go to malls. It's just too much work, and he needs something more to make a decision than just that something is a great color.)This was a rather lengthy process, and probably after an hour and a half of this, we headed back to the counter with a scanner filled with our hopes and dreams for kitchen utensils and small electronic devices. I handed the scanner off to a college-age young man, who carried it over to the kiosk and appeared to be doing what you have to do to transfer information from a scanner to a kiosk. However, the expression on his face lacked confidence as he looked at us and said, "You're not going to be happy about this." "Did you lose her license?" my ever-practical H asked. But it was far worse than that. A lost license would only require waiting several hours at the DMV on a Saturday morning and a replacement fee. He had somehow lost the gift registry list that had taken us so long to compile. He offered us nothing more than my license back and a mumbled sorry. The next day I called the store manager, hoping that there would be some sort of compensation for the incompetence of counter guy. After talking with a young lady from Kohl's IT who promised that this would not happen again if we came back and gave another piece of our life to the process, the manager offered us a whopping 15 percent off coupon. As a Most Valued Customer, I get better deals than that in the mail every week. Surreal. We registered at Bed, Bath, and Beyond, where we should have just gone in the first place.

2. We opened a gift registry because several generous friends and family members hosted showers for us. The first was from the women of the Gysen family: Henry's sister, nieces, mom, an aunt, several cousins, and my mom. It was my first time meeting most of them, and it was such a nice morning. My sister-in-law, Diane, had done a fantastic job. I noticed that as I began opening one gift in particular, one of the cousins made sure her camera was aimed and ready to fire. I opened the box to discover a very teeny crocheted lingerie set--perhaps only a little too large for a Barbie. It was hilarious, but a little surreal, to see my future mother-in-law carefully looking over my gift. Better yet was when H's cousin asked, "Want me to make you one, Aunt Sylvia?"

3. Katie passing her driver's test and getting her license. Enough said.

4. Jonathan's eighth-grade class trip in early June was to Cedar Point, and H and I (not married yet) decided to go along. I asked him if he liked amusement parks, and he said not particularly--something we shared in common. I'm not much of a ride person; a surreal Tilt-a-Whirl moment in high school where I lost my lunch on my friend sitting next to me kind of made me not so excited about rides. But--for Jonathan--we sucked it up and went. And what did I learn about my soon-to-be-husband that day? He is a roller coaster fiend. He'll ride any roller coaster any number of times and like it. And for those of you out there who are scratching your heads saying, "She's married to Henry Gysen, right?" all I can say is . . . it's surreal. And I do have Raptor video footage of H and J to prove all of this.

5. And now an explanation of the pictures, another surreal moment from this summer. In August, we decided a little family vacation to Mackinac Island was in order. When you think of Mackinac, you think of romance, lilacs, boats, quaint bed and breakfasts, horses and carriages, the majestic fort overlooking the lake, beautiful trails through the woods and onto the beach. Yet for our family, Mackinac has come to mean something even more: bats. As we started to enter the shop with the hand buzzers, trick dice, and funny sunglasses, we noticed this little black creature, who was not quite sure what to do. Maybe he'd had too much caffeine or couldn't find a spot beside one of his bat friends (also pictured, doing what bats should do in the daylight), or had too much to drink, but the lady working in the shop decided to rescue him and was carrying him around (ewwww!). And then the phone rang. That is a bat in her left hand. I do think in all my years I've never seen a person holding a bat in one hand and a phone in the other. This was worthy of a Poe short story. And interesting that her shirt says, "magic?" Photos by the talented Katie Selden.

Come back next week for part two of the top ten surreal moments of 2008.