Operation Pink Herring

Charitable giving under duress

(Credit for the Law and Order-esque title belongs to Defiantly Definitely RA’s comment from yesterday.)

(Credit for the rant below belongs solely to me…all hate mail can be sent directly to operationpinkherring@gmail.com!  Happy Friday!)

So, I have this cousin.  Second cousin thrice removed, actually.  She’s always been into sports casually – she was on the soccer team in high school, she plays in her office’s softball league, that sort of thing.  In the past few years, she’s taken up unicycling with a well-known organization that raises money to help Kids Who Can’t Read Good and Wanna Learn to Do Other Stuff Good Too.  She’s really into it, and I want to be happy for her – except she’s always asking me for money.   And her unicycle races are always in warm vacation spots.  And she comes back with great pictures and stories about what a great time she had at the last race. 

Lord knows I’m not one to knock vacations.  And I’m certainly not against helping Kids Who Can’t Read Good and Wanna Learn to Do Other Stuff Good Too.  I like my cousin.  I’m glad she’s happy, and I’m thrilled she’s found a worthy cause she’s passionate about.  So what’s the problem? 

Well, first of all, she’s never expressed any prior interest in kids, reading, illiteracy, or volunteering. However, she does enjoy sports, teams, working out, and going to warm places. So, I suspect that she’s more dedicated to the actual unicycling race aspect of the organization than the fact that it is helping Kids Who Can’t Read Good.   That would be fine with me, except for the fact that she barrages everyone she knows with emails asking for us to support her next vacation race.  First, it was just a mass email with a link to her personal unicycling webpage asking for donations.   The webpage and email gave some statistics about illiteracy in America, details about her training, pictures of the last race she went to and a little thermometer that showed her fundraising progress. Across the top of the page, a banner proclaimed, “Anything you can give helps!  This is a really great cause.” 

And this is the first of many, many emails requesting financial support for her vacation race, and as we get to the fourth or fifth round of “please donate” messages, I notice that the address line is dwindling because she’s weeding out those who’ve already donated and only targeting the delinquents.

Asking for donations?  Fine.  Even sending a reminder email to everyone right before the deadline for donations is fine.  But specifically targeting people who’ve not donated and continuing to request contributions from them is not okay.  By choosing not respond to her initial request, I’m politely saying “no thanks”.  Sure, maybe I just forgot, but that’s what a reminder (ONE reminder, not weekly “reminders”) is for.  I feel that continuing to request “anything I can give” is akin to coercion, and I don’t like it. 

As for the repeated reminders that “it’s a really great cause!”…well, of course it is.  Who would argue that Kids Who Can’t Read Good and Wanna Learn How to Do Other Stuff Good Too aren’t worthy of support?  But there are hundreds and thousands of other causes that are every bit as worthy and deserving of my financial support, and I am perfectly capable of deciding which of these many, many causes my money will go to.   I find it insulting to have the platitude “it’s a really great cause” thrown in my face time and time again, because that’s a non-issue. Of course it’s a great cause. So when someone tells me that repeatedly, I can’t help but feel like A) They think I’m too stupid to realize what’s a great cause and what isn’t, B) They think I would not donate to charities without their prodding, or C) They think their “great cause” is better than mine. 

I'm sure that there are lots of people who don’t donate to charities. But that’s their prerogative. I probably don’t donate as much as I should, and I could make excuses like “I’m saving up for a wedding”, or “Max’s vet bills were really high this year”, or “Hey, how ‘bout the price of gas these days?”, but the truth is, I don’t have to make excuses.  It’s my money, and I choose how to spend it.  If I want to blow my paycheck at Ann Taylor and Barnes and Noble instead of helping Kids Who Can’t Read Good, it’s my conscience that will have to deal with the consequences.

I’m not trying to say that no one should try to raise money for charitable causes.  And I’m not trying to say that people shouldn’t value one cause more than another.   What I am trying to say is that constantly being asked to give to other people’s pet projects – which logically must come at the expense of donating to my own favored causes - grates on my nerves.   It leaves a bitter taste in my mouth, and it makes me feel selfish. And I don’t think that’s fair.

Here’s a real-life example (we all realize that I don’t actually have a unicycle-racing cousin, right?  I just made that up!  Right out of thin air!  Maybe I should write a novel!):  A few weeks ago, our house phone rang, and thinking it might be Joel calling to tell me when he’d be home, I picked it up.   Normally, I don’t pick up the house phone because land lines are SO 1992 only telemarketers and wrong numbers call us at home.  And often times the wrong numbers are calling collect.  From the County Jail.  Awesome.

But the phone rang, and stupidly I picked it up.  “Hello?” I said (original, I know).  There was a pause, and then I heard the telltale din of a call center in the background.  “Hello, Ms. Herring?” a cheerful young woman asked.  “Um, yes.” I said, bracing myself for the pitch.  She proceeded to delve into her script about how she was calling on behalf of Some Cancer Charity, whose mission is to help cancer patients afford the medications they need during treatment .  I cut her off as soon as I could, and told her that I wasn't interested in the politest tone I could muster.

“Well, let me just tell you a little bit about what we do,” she continued, undaunted.  “Like I said, we help cancer patients and their families to afford the basic – “

When I insisted (politely) that I just wasn't interested, she hit me with this zinger:

“But Ms. Herring, how can you not be interested in helping cancer patients?”

And that’s the point where I hung up on her.  I refuse to be made to feel guilty for exercising my right to chose where my money goes.  Of course I want cancer patients to have the help they need during treatment!  I also want Kids Who Can’t Read Good to learn how to read.  I want to save every little crab in the Chesapeake Bay and I want to stop global warming and I want to help orphans in Indonesia.

I also want to be able to pay my mortgage.

I understand that every charity needs to raise funds somehow. I wish everyone had a cause that they felt so passionate about that they’d want to tell their family and friends about it.   But I don’t want to be made to feel guilty for choosing to support the causes that are closest to MY heart.   If my coworker wants to send around the link to her Avon site and invite anyone from the office to talk to her if they’re interested in buying something, I'm fine with that. If parents want to leave their kids’ fundraising catalogs in the break room with a sign up sheet, that’s perfectly wonderful.  But when an employee barges into my office every day for a week jangling a bag of change and asking for donations (to support a very worthy cause), I feel coerced.   I think there’s a difference between a passive and an aggressive collection campaign, and I think it’s a fundamental one.  I’m sure that the aggressive strategy raises more money in the end, but at what cost?  I feel embittered over it, and I know that I’m not the only one. 

It makes me sad that I feel like a bitter charity-hating hag sometimes, and that I have enough angst and anger over this issue to fill three Word document pages, but unfortunately, that’s how it is.  I’m sure that organizations employ these tactics because they work, and because they feel that raising enough money to serve their mission is important enough to warrant such aggressive strategies.  But I hate it, and I’m not going to be guilted into to donating my money to any cause, no matter how “great”.  Charitable giving isn't all that charitable if it's forced.

Whew.   As good as it feels to get that out, I'm afraid to post this for fear of offending the great wide interweb... but I'm going to do it anyway.  But in case it wasn’t obvious, let me just say this:  I’m not talking about you. I’m not talking about any person or organization in particular.  I’m talking about a trend that bothers me.  I've thought a lot about this, and I welcome (respectful) dissenting opinions, but please know that this is not a personal attack against anybody. 

Things I wish I could say to people

“You’re going to do premarital counseling, right?” is not an appropriate response when you learn that I am now engaged.

I don’t want to hear about your daughter. I know she’s my age, but I’ve never met her and I don’t care what she is making for Easter dinner.

Yes, I got your email. I haven’t responded because I’m trying to think of a nice way to say “no”. Sorry to keep you hanging, but I really don’t want to go.

I don’t want to donate to your charity.

Telling me to smile just makes me frown more.  Smiling should be illegal at 8am.

Your awesome staff keeps me coming back despite your high prices. Please give them all raises.

You’re really, really mean.

You are the reason I happily pay $15 for a yoga class. 

Your wardrobe is awesome. I wish I dressed as nicely as you do.

“Computer” and “internet” cannot be used interchangeably.

“Definitely” and “defiantly” have very different meanings.

You are so skinny. It kills me that you think you need to lose weight.

I love your stories about crazy people on eHarmony. Please don’t stop telling them.

You are so genuinely nice to everyone that sometimes I wonder if you have a secret rage outlet at home.

When leaving a voicemail, leave out the chitchat and actually SAY WHAT IT IS THAT YOU NEED.

I hate you. I dream of the day when I’ll know that I never, ever have to talk to you again.

And, finally:

You're the best mom a person can ask for.  Sorry I didn't get to talk to you yesterday.  Happy birthday!

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Well, I feel much better now!  Thanks to whoever gave me this idea by posting it first.  I can't remember where I saw it, and I swear I searched my Google Reader. 

Why didn't anyone tell me about this before?

There are three things you can't escape in life: Death, Taxes, and... something else.  Maybe there were only two things.  Who can be sure?

Death is depressing, so let's talk about taxes instead.   I'm done with mine. 

Whew, that was an easy entry! 

I've been doing my own taxes like the big grown-up girl that I am for the past four years.  The first year, my mommy did them for me helped me, so it wasn't as bad as I was expecting the whole experience to be.  Why is everyone so gloom and doom about taxes, I wondered?  Taxes are awesome!  All I had to do get the W2 like my mom told me to, write some numbers on some papers, and viola!  I got a refund!  That was easy.

Turns out it was so easy because I made so little money at my work-study job that I didn't actually have to pay any taxes.   I just got a refund for what had been taken out of my paychecks, which wasn't much since I was making about 25 cents an hour.   At least that's how I remember it. 

The next year I was on my own.  Also, I had an actual job that paid about $2 an hour (that's what it felt like at the time, trust me).  Also, Joel and I had decided it would be a good idea to buy a house.

I was a little confused.  But, still, I got a refund.  And I only spent a couple of weeks waking up in a cold sweat after dreaming that the IRS had audited me, and when I tried to explain to them that it was all a mistake, that I hadn't intended to embezzle all those funds, I just didn't understand the forms, they laughed at me. Anybody who can graduate from college can fill out a tax form, they said.  You're either really stupid, or you're lying.  Either way, you're going to jail.

And then my refund came in the mail and I stopped worrying about being audited.  Instead, I started lying awake at night worrying that I had missed deductions and promising myself that next year I would do a better job on my taxes.

Things happened this way for a few years, until last year's straw finally broke the camel's back.  Not only did I mess up my taxes last year, I was TOO LAZY TO DO ANYTHING ABOUT IT and knowingly sent in forms with an adding error.  And I forgot to sign my return.  And I wrote down my bank account number wrong.   

To say that I was dreading doing my taxes this year would be a massive understatement.  I was actually wondering what would happen if I just didn't file any tax forms this year.  The government could just keep my  money, I don't even care as long as I don't have to bang my head against the wall for an entire weekend afternoon trying to add numbers, since we all know by now that I am not very good at "math".  I say "math" because it's just adding and subtracting that kill me (fine, and multiplication, too) -- I actually like algebra and calculus.  That stuff makes sense to me.  I took Calc III FOR FUN in college.  And yet I cannot add numbers.   I'm talking WITH A CALCULATOR.

Every year I fantasize about going to a certified tax professional, but something about the idea of paying someone else to do something that, theoretically, I can do perfectly well myself doesn't sit right with me.  It would be like paying someone else to wash my car.  Oh, wait -- I do pay someone else to wash my car.  But that's different.   It would be like giving up on something really annoying, something that drove me crazy on a routine basis but that I really wished I could figure out how to do myself.  THAT'S WHAT IT WOULD BE LIKE.  GOD.

Also, having all my stuff together to hand over to H&R Block (or whoever) seemed like a lot of work.  And I bet you need an appointment, too, right?  Sigh.

And so this morning I logged onto Turbotax.com just to see what it was all about.  When they offered to let me get started for free, I thought why not?  Half an hour later, I entered my credit card information and... that was it?   Seriously?  What about the hours of crying and looking for forms and trying to find last year's copies? 

I know other people have had bad experiences with ol' Turbo, but as far as I'm concerned that was the best thirty bucks I've spent in my life.   Tonight when I start to have that dream where the IRS comes to repossess our Tivo because I owe two million dollars in back taxes, I'm whipping out my printout and telling them to take it up with The Interweb Tax Peoples.   Imagine if I'd shelled out for the extra "Audit Protection", I might even sleep through the night.  But that would be too extravagant.  Sort of like paying someone to cut my cat's claws for me.   Oh, wait.

A stern talking-to

I thought that we had an understanding, but I'm so deeply disappointed in your behavior today that I can't even muster an appropriate response.  Passive-aggressively staying in bed until 7:50 and carrying a grumpy attitude around all day is a start, but we haven't even begun to scratch the surface of my disillusionment. 

The rules we set out were clear: I would muddle through winter as best I could, holding my complaints about the weather and the cold and the dry skin to a minimum.  You would, in return, supply at least one day off from work between the months of December and February.  Preferably the storm would be big enough to justify staying in the house all day, wearing pajamas and sitting on the couch with a mug of hot chocolate.   

Things were going well.  Today was to be the agreed upon Snow Day, and I had plans of scrapbooking, working through the Tivo cash, cleaning, and maybe even sleeping in.   

And then you went and raised the temperature just a few degrees.  And the snow turned to rain.  And everything was ruined.

I don't know how we're going to handle this, young lady.  When I think of an appropriate punishment we'll sit down and talk about how you can earn back your privileges.  Until then, I don't want to hear a peep out of you. No -- don't even say it -- not a single temperature under 40 degrees.  Don't even ask about using the phone.  February is over as far as I'm concerned.  Bring on March and spring and even the oppressive humidity of July.  I'm done with you, winter.  Done.  This conversation is over. I expected more from you. Now go to your room and think about what you've done.

 

Worth smiling about

As all of my fellow flickr lovers know, every time you log into the world's best photo sharing site you're cheerfully greeted in a different language.  Taiwanese, Zulu, French, you name it.  But when I logged in this morning the greeting looked suspiciously familiar:

OH HAI operationpinkherring! Now you know how to greet people in Lolcat!

Lolcat is now officially a language, at least according to flickr. 

**********************************

My coworkers have taken to calling me "The Oracle" because of my ability to predict inclement weather closings, but I was thrown for a loop yesterday.  I'd predicted a "very good chance" of an early closing, and when we received a notice that Baltimore City schools had cancelled all after-school programs and evening classes, I thought we were golden.  "And so it begins...", I said in an email, sure that we'd get the green light to go home at any minute.  3:30 at the latest, I told them proudly.  What I didn't realize was that the cancellation of after-school programs precludes the cancellation of school itself, and the school closings are what we need to get out of work.  In other words: NOPE. 

I've got that out of my system now, and  I have a feeling that tomorrow's forecast will hold some very good news for us:

Fri, February 22

4am

Snow 29°F

21°F

70%

24°F

78%

From ESE 8 mph

5am

Snow 29°F

21°F

80%

25°F

82%

From ESE 8 mph

6am

Wintry Mix 28°F

19°F

80%

25°F

86%

From ESE 9 mph

The timing (starting just before the morning commute, but not so early that the city actually gets off its ass and sends out the one salt truck it owns), the chance of precipitation (needs to be over 50%, preferably over 70%) and those beautiful, all-important words ("wintry mix")... all the signs are there.  I'm predicting a delayed opening at the very least, with the strong possibility of a full-day closure, whether it be liberal leave of an all out office closure.   Wait and see, my pretties.  Wait and see.

***********************************

We watched the eclipse last night from our rooftop deck, and although none of my pictures came out very well, the actual sight was amazing.  I've never seen a full eclipse before, and I'm lucky this one was visible at all considering that we were getting snow with a 100% cloud cover just a few hours earlier. 

***********************************

But more exciting than the eclipse itself is what happened during: my brother and his lovely girlfriend fiance joined Joel and I in the engaged-but-no-date-set-thanks-for-asking club!  Congratulations, K and JAMIE!  So, when's the Big Day?  When do you think you'll have kids?  Have you bought your dress yet?  Who's the maid of honor?  WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU DON'T KNOW, IT'S BEEN ALMOST 24 HOURS!

PS - Pick a date for us too, while you're at it. 

MISSING: BELOVED COFFEE GIRL. GRIEVING OFFICE DISTRAUGHT. PLEASE HALP.

BHG is gone.  We haven't seen her in weeks.  At first, my partner in crime caffeine addiction and I weren't too concerned.  She wasn't always there when we went up for coffee.  Sometimes she had the day off.  Sometimes she was off hauling sandwiches in from the hallway or dragging food-service sized bags of coffee beans from the storage room.  We were never really worried if she wasn't behind the counter on any given morning.  She always came back.

Except, nope.  She's gone.  I don't know where, but I think at this point it's safe to assume she's not coming back.   Have you seen my BHG?  Should I put up LOST BHG posters on the bulletin boards and lampposts near the office?  Would that be slightly creepy?  Yeah, that's what I thought.  Plus, I don't have a picture. 

She's been replaced by an overweight, unhappy man who speaks in whispers and gets visibly annoyed when asked to repeat what he just mumbled.   I don't like him.  He doesn't like me.  It's not a happy situation.  He was not at all amused yesterday when the customer in front of me in line went off on a tirade about how awful hazelnut coffee is, how the mere word hazelnut makes her shudder with disgust, how she'd rather chew coffee grinds than drink hazelnut coffee.  Oh yes she did. And then I stepped up and said "Um.  Hazelnut, please!" in my most cheerful voice, and the hazelnut-hating woman turned bright red and started apologizing for insulting the best part of my morning, and we all had a good laugh because to each his own, you know?  You drink your French Roast, I'll savor my Hazelnut Blend, and we'll all be happy in our own way and respect each other's different views on coffee flavors. 

You know who didn't laugh?  Unhappy coffee man.  And if there's one thing I do not need in my life, it's more bitterness in my mornings.

But wait: it gets worse.  This morning, after a particularly shitty night of sleep, my partner (in caffeine, that is) and I went upstairs earlier than usual for our fix.  We were pleasantly surprised to see a very short line waiting for us.  We were far less happy to learn that the unusually short queue was due to the fact that there was no coffee to be had this morning.  The water line broke, or something.  I wasn't really paying attention, because I thought that surely Unhappy Coffee Man didn't just whisper that THER IS NO COFFEE TODAY.  That can't be!  This is a coffee shop!  Sell me coffee!  PLEASE.

In the end, we donned our coats, hats and gloves and went down the street to the other branch of the same coffee shop and we got ourselves some coffee.  The water line upstairs is fixed now, so everything's OK.  But I'd be lying if I said I didn't hope we'd see BHG happily serving customers down the street.  In my heart I've been hoping that she was just transferred, perhaps even temporarily transferred due to some sort of barista shortage down the block, and that one day she'd reappear to ask me if I'd like my usual, and whether I'd care for a slice of free pizza that they were going to throw away anyway.

You want me to think of a title too? Sigh.

I hope it's not totally lame and way too late and completely repetitive to say thank you again to those of you who organized the little online party shindig, and thank you as well to all of you who participated.   I loved reading everyone's particular takes on the wedding theme.  And I checked out those knot.com message boards.  And now I am terrified for my life.   

Not only do you guys rock, but you made me an honest woman.  I DID need my ring back early for my Fake Totally Real Online Engagement Party!  The universe must have sense this white-lie-turned-truth, because on Saturday morning we picked up my newly sized ring.  The rest of the weekend was spent trying to take a decent picture of it.  I am not even kidding.  Apparently I am incapable of taking a picture with one hand while simultaneously holding the other hand still.  And also incapable of taking pictures in non-natural light.  Or using a flash.  Or finding the battery charger for the camera.

The results of that thrilling quest are here.   I officially feel like a self-absorbed bridezilla now, as if I didn't before.  But my mom the people, they demanded photos.  And my mom the people, they will not be denied.   

Hmmm.  What else?  Last night I spent the evening painting the room Joel's team uses for indoor practices, a task Joel has been asking me to do for approximately one billion years.  I put it off for months before finally getting down to business last night.  And it was fun!  Why don't I do stuff like this more often, I wondered to myself.   And then we spent half an hour looking for a parking spot when we got home and I remembered, oh yeah.  That's why.   

In other news, anyone who had President's Day off yesterday officially sucks.  And by that I mean please trade lives with me.  And also please contact Superman to turn the earth back so that I can enjoy yesterday.  As you.

It's been a long week.  Already.  It's Tuesday, for those of you keeping track.

Peace out.

Blown away

When I started blogging almost two years ago, I wasn't really sure what to expect.   I signed up for a typepad account, picked a domain name and started publishing "The Chronicles of Baltimore".  My tagline was The housecats, the girl and the ghetto.  I had seen The Chronicles of Narnia that weekend, could you tell?

By the second day, I'd figured out how to post pictures of my cats.

After a year of blogging under a url that included my last name, I packed up my interweb boxes, threw them into a virtual U-Haul and moved everything here.  After agonizing over what my new site should be called for months days hours, "Operation Pink Herring" finally came to me between episodes of Lost (which kills me with all its red herrings) and The Unit (where everything is a Top Secret Operation).

This website has come to be a bigger part of my life than I ever would have imagined two years ago.   It's a place for me to organize my thoughts.  It's an outlet for my frustrations.  It's become a wonderful way for me to keep my family up to date on the daily goings-on in my life and a way to stay connected with friends.  It's been my savior from boredom on many a dreary afternoon. 

This is what I hoped a blog would be when I started out naively two years ago. 

But what I didn't even know to expect was that I would make new friends through blogging.   That I would become emotionally invested in the lives of people that I knew only through our shared  hobby of writing about our lives on the internet.  That I'd come to consider them as friends.

What I'm trying to say is, I love you guys.  When I logged into Gmail this morning and saw a post dedicated in my feed reader dedicated to a virtual engagement party I was confused.   And as I read through that post and started clicking the links to the other party "attendees", I was dumbstruck.  The internet can be a really wonderful place sometimes, and I don't even know how to say "thank you" for such a lovely gesture.  This is the best Virtual Engagement Party a girl could ask for, and I am totally blown away.  Thank you to the sneaky masterminds who dreamed this up and planned it, and thank you to all of the other lovely and amazing bloggers who participated (I hope I didn't miss anyone.  Please leave your link in the comments if I did!).  And thank you to everyone else, too, for being so nice to me as I ramble about wedding nonsense and insisting that you actually sort of maybe like it.

But dudes, you should have told me. I would have registered. 

Valentine Resolution Check-in

Thank you guys for all of your lovely comments and emails over the past couple of weeks.   I don't know why I feel like no one wants to hear about weddingweddingwedding stuff.  I like it when people talk about their weddings... I liked it even before I knew I'd be having one of my own!  Why I think that the same would not apply here, I'm not sure.  It's a little thing I like to call insecurity, I guess.  So, thank you.  Will you guys be my valentines?   

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It's been almost a month since I posted my long list of 2008 Resolutions, and I went back to that list to see how I'm doing so far.  Overall, I'm pretty darn pleased!

Exercise at least 5 times a week. Make up deficit (8 workouts) from last year.  Thanks to the approximate 17,000 miles we walked and hiked in Barcelona, I am on par with the 5x/week (on average) and I've made up 4 of those missed workouts from last year. Oh, yeah. And I also won the Get Active. Get AWESOME! Challenge for January as a side effect.  I am usually not into group exercise thingies, but I like GaGA because it's 1. focused on activity, not dieting/calorie burning/weight loss, and 2. really easy to keep track of.  I think I've admitted before that I write down my daily exercise in a tiny little 5-star notebook just so I can feel like I've accomplished something and be held accountable (to myself), so the only extra thing I've had to do specifically for GaGA is to add up my total minutes each day and type it into a handy google spreadsheet every week.   That extra layer of accountability has motivated me to get up a go for a walk on days when I really just didn't feel like going to the gym or going for a run, and that's been great for me.

Plus, winning is awesome.

Lose 10 pounds. 1 pound down, nine to go!

Go to yoga at least once a week. So far, on par. (Hey! That rhymes!)

Read at least one book a month. Um... oops. Isabel Allende, this is all your fault. I simply could not do you the injustice of not finishing Ines of My Soul, but it took me two and a half painful months to get through it. Snore. I started The Good Earth this week, and things are looking up already.

Continue book journal. Consider posting reviews on GoodReads or on blog to encourage putting more thought into book journal entries. Yeah, that 2007 Book Post is still coming. Soon.

Write more often in my personal journal. I meant to, but then I brought the wrong one (an old one) with me on the train last weekend. Foiled!

Keep credit card bill under $750/month (on average). I am falling down in a big way here. $750 laughs in my face. But I do have some big returns to do, so that should help. A little. Not enough.

Get all three cats up to date on shots and healthy.

Madison: check.

Max: repeat bloodwork is pending, but I did everything on my end, including holding down my poor fatty while he trembled with fear at the blood draw.

Henry: Appointment scheduled for March!

Buy some freakin' work biznass pants.  I need to sort through my recent AnnTaylorLoft.com purchases and see what's getting returned, but I already have at least 1 pair of new black pants.   Thank God.

Finish growing out brassy highlights. Two more haircuts to go. Three at the most.

Actually do something with my hair at least once a week. Blow dry, flat iron, use a hairbrush whatever. SOMETHING. Once a week. Dude! I have done this!

Do my own nails on a regular basis. And take off the polish when they start to look bad. I will be much more motivated once the ring comes back.

Get new curtains for front room. The current ones were purchased at Walmart as a temporary solution. In 2004. Done! Thank you Target!

Be an excellent bridesmaid for my two friends getting married in the fall. I ordered my bridesmaid dress for the Labor Day wedding, found a 15% off online coupon, and emailed the coupon code to all the other bridesmaids. I also saw one of the dresses my October bride-friend is considering in the mall, tried it on, and sent her a picture with my phone. How do you like THEM apples?

Write more cards and letters to my grandmother. Postcards totally count.

Stop picking my fingers. You'd be amazed at how easy this became the second I had some real motivation. With that ring on my finger, EVERYONE was looking at my hands. The picking stopped almost immediately. Now that it's been gone for two weeks, picking has resumed but I fully plan to stop again the minute I get it back.

Learn how to use our camera. Read the manual, experiment with different shots. Look into photography classes. I found a 4-week Introduction to Digital Photography class that starts on March 10th and I am officially registered!

And since I wrote the original list in January, I've added several million additional things, such as:

Do our taxes.  I realize that this isn't really a resolution and that it's going to be on my list every single year until I die, but I need to get credit for crossing it off somewhere.

To-be-revealed crafty project (summer)

Paint logo on the wall of Joel's practice room to make it less drab.  Joel has told people that I'm "artistic".  This may have been a mistake.

Find vacuum manual, figure out how to clean it/if it needs maintenance.  If there's anything more exciting than reading a vacuum manual, I don't want to know about it.   

I'm going to try to go back and look at the original list from time to time during the year, because if there's one thing in life that I love, it's crossing things off lists. 

Just one more wedding-related post. Then I'll find something else to talk about.

Soooo... hi.

I have returned from a long weekend in New Jersey.  I had to attend a work function on Thursday and Friday in a town that just happens to be approximately 20 minutes from my mom's house, so I'd planned to go home and visit for the weekend before You Know What took over our lives.  And then You Know What happened, so the weekend sort of morped into an informal celebration weekend instead.

I really have been trying to think about something non-engagement/wedding related to write about, but... hrmm. 

Max has a vet appointment tonight.  It's sure to be thrilling.   I'm not sure where my car is and it's likely to be in the single digits temperature-wise by 7pm, so that should make things interesting.

Oh, and we switched back to an enviroment-killing strip mined cat litter for one litter box becaue Henry likes killing the planet.  I almost forgot about that particular peice of excitement!  Who doesn't love a good story about (more) cat piss on the carpets?

BACK TO THE WEDDING STUFF.

We had a very small, semi-engagement party on Saturday night.  It was lovely.  My mom made dinner for our family and a few close family friends and Joel and I answered every wedding-related question with "Durr.. I don't know".  And then we all fought about religion and we found out that my Dad is Lutheran.  Not that there's anything wrong with that.   It just seems like I should have... known that?   Or something?

Welcome to the family, sweetheart.   We like to live by the "learn something new every day" rule.  Apparently I'm half-Lutheran.  Hope that's cool.

Oh, and also:  I have officially now shopped for wedding dresses. 

My mom and I were going to go hiking on Saturday, but when I woke up at the early hour of 11am it was sleeting and knowing my mom, she probably still secretly wanted to go hiking but she managed to scale it back for me.  What should we do instead, we wondered?   Simultaneously my mom mentioned that she would be happy to go dress shopping with me "some time".

I called her bluff and said "Well, how about right now?"

And so we went dress shopping, and even my mall-aphobic mom had fun.   I found a few dresses I liked, got an idea of what styles look better than others on me, and all in all, fed the wedding fever.  We survived the fancy-pants Short Hills Mall without getting any dirty looks (we did dress up for the trip, it shoud be noted) from the Fancy Peoples.

This concludes this installment of OMG YOU'VE ONLY BEEN ENGAGED FOR THREE WEEKS WEDDING TALK, coming to you live from the all-wedding, all-the time (even though we are still miles away from setting a date) channel.  Tune in next week when I tell you about how I bought two bridal magazines and am now terrified of becoming a "wedding identity theif"!

Or I could take a video documentary of Max's vet visit, if you'd prefer.   Ha, just kidding.  I would never do something as boring as that. 

I promise, this isn't going to turn into a wedding blog!

I am terrified of inadvertently turning into a bridezilla.   I thought I was pretty safe in this category, as I'm not the type of girl who's been secretly cutting out pages from Modern Bride magazine and furtively pasting them into a Top Secret Dream Wedding Scrapbook so that all I'm missing for My Dream Wedding is that pesky groom.   I've thought about weddings, sure.  Who hasn't?  But I don't have a detailed plan about what I want, what I don't want.  I honestly thought I didn't care that much.  It's just a party.  What really matters comes afterwards, right?

But all of a sudden I find my mind occupied by wedding-related thoughts far too often.  It doesn't help that I've been getting emails about the three weddings I have coming up this year (I'll be a bridesmaid in two), but honestly... looking at wedding dresses online for two hours this morning is probably too much, don't you think?  Especially since we're not even at the Setting the Date Stage yet?

I had a Bridezilla Panic moment this morning when I decided to join TheKnot.com, having heard that they have excellent checklists for brides-to-be.  I love a good checklist, and I thought it would be a good place to begin quelling some of the anxieties that are already keeping me up at night.  Feeling prepared always makes me feel better, and I think that the only reason I'm stressing out about anything right now is because I have this overwhelming feeling that there is stuff I'm supposed to be doing, stuff that I'm NOT doing because I don't even know I'm supposed to be doing said stuff.   Theknot.com wanted me to enter all sorts of information like "wedding date" and "wedding location", and it wouldn't let me continue with the required without filling in something for every field.  Don't worry, it said.  You can change this information at any time.  Just estimate if you don't know for sure.   It's sort of against my religion to knowingly enter information that is not 100% correct, but I did it anyway.   And the next thing I know, a pop-up window appears telling me CONGRATULATIONS! Your wedding webpage has been added to your profile on facebook.com! 

Commence the panic, since I had entered a fake date, fake bridal party, fake location, and fake, um, EVERYTHING.  How it knew I had a facebook profile is a mystery to me (I guess they just assume everyone does nowadays? AND THEN TAKE THE LIBERTY OF POSTING STUFF ON YOUR PAGE THAT IS INCORRECT?), but please ignore any announcements that Joel and I will be tying the knot on September 1st, 2009.   And that you are all my maids of honor.  Please.  Just pretend I didn't do that.

Also, while browsing the Nordstrom site for bridesmaid dress ideas (FOR MY FRIEND.  NOT FOR ME.  I SWEAR) I stumbled upon this dress, and friends... I think I may have found my wedding dress.

Of course, there's the problem that I might very possible look pregnant when I try it on because baby-doll cuts and my body type... they do not agree.  But maybe my body will change!  And maybe my skin tone will become a lovely shade of gorgeous, just like the model's!  And I'll grow five inches!  Hey.  You never know.  I really do love that dress, and for that $158 pricetag, I can certainly afford to have enough plastic surgery to make it look good on me.   A certain fiance of mine thinks it "doesn't really look like a wedding dress", but what does he know, anyway?

(Random aside:

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA my real-life friend Lizzy just sent me this picture and OMG!  It's so perfect!  OCD cat is making lists!  Get it?  Because I'm a crazy cat lady and I am going nuts over lists?  Get it? Get it?)

So, you see why I am becoming a wee bit concerned for my sanity and that of everyone around me?  And I haven't even told you about the story of the Fake Engagement Party that I an NOT having, but don't tell that the jeweler who is re-sizing my ring because I may have told them a teensy white lie in hopes of getting my ring back in less than the FOUR WEEKS they estimated.   I swear to Jeebus, that whole scam was Joel's idea in the first place, I just took it and ran with it and placed the actual phone call and said the actual words "we're having an engagement party on February 16th AND I NEED MAH RING BY THEN OR ELSE."  Haha.  Just kidding.

But our fake engagement party is on February 16th, who wants to come?  Do you think I should have invitations printed up?  Would that make the story more plausible and thereby help the chances of me getting the ring back in less than FOUR WEEKS? 

Speaking of invitations, I like these.  (I do not like the prices, however.  WTF, $400 for INVITATIONS?  Are they kidding?) 

OH MY GOD.  I am obviously going to have to create and entire blog devoted to blathering about all things wedding-related before I have to change the title of this one to OPERATION CRAZY BRIDE-LADY.

But I know that I still have a shred of sanity left.  Do you want to know how I know this?  I know because when I saw these gems on the Michael's website while browsing for a suitable Engagement Scrapbook, if such a thing exists (I think it should exist, and that it probably does exist, but I fear that anything I find won't exactly be... my style, if you know what I mean) I snorted out loud.  Behold:

This page is for Skill Level 2 crafters and above, according to the Michael's website.   LEVEL 1 CRAFTERS, ATTEMPT AT YOUR OWN RISK.

This one is for Skill Level 3 Crafters.  It takes extra skillz to be able to spell UR and use brackets all artistic-like.

Sometimes when I am concentrating real hard I'll forget a word.  This apparently makes me a Skill Level 3 crafter, because I always try to make it look like I totally meant to do that, too!  It makes the page more interesting.  And builds character.  And stuff.

When I progress to buying things like this, I'll officially know that I've gone over the edge.  Until then, I'll just be here laughing my ass off at things like this, instead:

moar funny pictures

(HAHAHAHA, IT'S A PROPOSAL LOLCAT!  GET IT?)

Live blogging the Super Bowl

I know I really can’t complain because this is really the only football game that Joel watches all season, but GOD.  The Super Bowl is so boring.  We’ve already gone through the Sunchips, Gardetto’s snack mix, nachos AND tequila-wings (uh, every single food I just mentioned was purchased yesterday at Sam’s Club.  Is that strange?) and there is still a whole quarter left.  I really don’t think I can eat any more. 

So let’s talk about more interesting things, shall we?   Like perhaps The Proposal Story?

So, Joel and I went to Barcelona a few weeks ago.  Perhaps I mentioned this?  Seventy thousand times?  Before we left I took a larger than usual dose of “good natured ribbing” from, oh, EVERYONE I KNOW, about wh ether we were going to come back from this trip Officially Engaged.   No, I told them.  Absolutely not.  People can just go on vacation, you know.  There doesn’t have to be some underlying motive for a fun trip.  We got a really good deal on Hotwire and we just like to travel and Joel’s never been out of the country AND JUST LAY OFF ME ALREADY WITH THE PRESSURE.   I even have a half-written post saved as a draft about how annoying, rude and incredibly offensive I find the “So, when are you getting married” question.  Seriously, I know that people are just trying to show a good-natured interest in my life (most of the time), but as a public service to all Committed But Not Engaged persons, please do not say things like “When are you going to get engaged, already?”  It’s not cool.  It makes us feel bad about ourselves and it makes us want to punch the asker in the face. 

Ahem. 

So, off we went to Barcelona.  After our four-hour layover in scenic Newark, NJ, our flight landed without incident in Spain and we were reminded just how real jetlag is.   We found our hotel and checked in around 10am Barcelona time (4am our time) and immediately collapsed for a 2-hour nap.  “No more than two hours!  Any more than that and we won’t be able to sleep tonight, and the jetlag will just go on and on and on,” I insisted.  You see, I’ve done this before.  I’ve been to Europe a few times.  I worked in a sleep lab. I know all about circadian rhythms and sleep stages and I consider myself somewhat of an expert.   Two-hour naps are the key! 

Three hours later Joel had to drag me out of the bed.   

We walked around the city in search of food and I realized just how much Spanish I’d lost when I broke into a cold sweat trying to order us two croissants for breakfast.  We found a reputable ATM and took out some Euros.   We walked around, amused by the tininess of everything in Europe: tiny cars, tiny toilets, tiny (but lovely) hotel room, tiny bed.   We finally collapsed into bed for the night at a reasonable hour (not too early!  You need to get on a regular schedule right away or you’ll never adjust!) and slept harder than I have in a long, long time.

The next morning we woke up and scouted out a few more croissants for breakfast (never have I eaten such heavy breakfast every day and LOST WEIGHT.  We walked a minimum of two and half hours a day, every day.  The Europe Diet, you should try it!) and Joel suggested that we go check out the Palau Nacional (National Palace), which also doubles as the art museum.  I said “sure”, and staggered along after him like a jet-lagged, coffee-less zombie (by the end of the trip we knew where every Starbucks in the city was located, but this was our first morning and I was still under the delusion that “I can go without coffee for a week”).  We walked up the million steps to the front of the palace and admired the view of the city below us.  We wandered around the grounds, watched a little black cat that reminded us of Henry chasing an imaginary bird up a tree.   We walked over to the other side of the grounds, which turned out to just be a bus parking lot, and I suggested that we sit down on one of the benches provided for a short break.  Or maybe a short nap.  I really would have been fine with either.

“Let’s walk back to the center and sit there, where we can enjoy the view,” Joel suggested.

Sigh.  More walking?  I agreed.  The view was pretty.

We sat down on the stone benches in front of the palace and looked out over the city.   Tourists posed for pictures in front of the balcony with the cityscape behind them, couples sat together on the steps poring through travel books, a street performer set up his speakers and guitar while off to the side an older man carefully arranged his necklaces on a blanket to attract buyers.   The morning haze hung over the city beneath us.

“I think we should go inside and see this museum before I fall asleep right here,” I told Joel. 

“Let’s just sit here and enjoy the nice view for a little while.” he replied.  After a moment he added, “And enjoy the company.”  (I am not joking.  He said that.  Feel free to gag, I probably would if someone else were telling this story).

“OK, we can stay as long as you want.  I’m just going to lie down here and take a little nap, wake me up when you want to go in,” I said.

“Before you do that, I have a question for you,” Joel said, and in a flash he had whipped a ring out of his pocket and bent down on one knee.  “Will you marry me?”

I’m not kidding when I say it happened in a flash; maybe it just seemed that way to me in my jetlagged state, but I thought that when life-changing moments arrived things were supposed to slow down, not speed up.   My brain started reeling and I honestly could not comprehend what was happening.  “Are you serious?” was the first thing that came out of my mouth.  Joel assured me that he was completely serious, but I just kept repeating things like “are you kidding?” and “is that [the ring] real?”  I was crying and shaking.  I can’t remember having such a visceral reaction to an event since I took my driver’s test when I was seventeen and almost failed because my leg was shaking so hard that I couldn’t properly brake. 

And of course, as soon as the shock wore off I said YES!

I could not tell you one thing that we saw in that museum, which we did go into afterwards.  I remember that when I took the ring from Joel, I put it on the wrong hand, and then when we realized that it wouldn’t fit on my ring finger we moved it to my middle finger for safekeeping (it would certainly have fallen off the ring finger; when we had it resized it turned out to be almost two full sizes too big for my freakishly skinny fingers).  I remember that they checked our tickets at every single exhibit in the museum, and that every time I took my hand out of my pocket I was mesmerized by the rock on my hand.  I remember how heavy the ring felt. 

I remember that the after we had lunch at Telepizza, we were walking down the street when it really hit me.  I looked at Joel and said “We’re going to get married.”

We had the whole rest of the week to adjust to our new status and it was kind of nice to have that time to keep our little secret just between us (and the entire city of Barcelona).  It was hard for me to check my email and not reply to everyone with “OMG WE’RE GETTING MARRIED”.  I checked every single picture that we uploaded to flickr to make sure that the ring wasn’t visible because I wanted our parents to be the first to know (and I sure didn’t want them to find out by seeing a picture on flickr with no explanation).  When we got home on Monday night, the first thing we did (after devouring a frozen pizza) was call our families to tell them the news.  I knew they would be nothing but happy for us, but I couldn’t stop myself from shaking the entire time.  I was just that excited.

My parents were pretty excited, too.  My dad said that he couldn’t be happier, but I think that might he might be pretty freakin excited right now, seeing as his team has just won the Super Bowl.

It’s been a good week.