Operation Pink Herring

This has probably been a long time coming

Hey, so you know what I did last weekend?  I went to my brother's wedding!  It was the most lovely wedding in the history of weddings.  Here's a picture of the newlyweds.

And that's the only picture I actually have with people in it (and by "people", yes, I mean "their hands") because, huh, that weekend went by at a supernaturally fast pace.  Possibly that shot of vodka my other brother and I did at 1:30 am in the hotel bar had something to do with it.  We were just trying to determine how drunk we were.  You all know the foolproof How Drunk Are You Test, right?  You do a shot of vodka.  If you need a chaser, you're not drunk enough.  If you accuse the bartender of putting water in your shot glass instead of vodka, who does he think he istrying to cut you off, you're fine and you KNOW water when you taste it THERE IS NO WAY THAT WAS VODKA SHUT UP OMG: you're probably drunk.  Seriously, this test works every time.  Try it!

Ever since we got home from my brother's lovely wedding, a sense of general panic has been slowly building up.  You see, I'd been using that wedding as a landmark in my head.  Every time I'd have one of those nagging thoughts about how I really probably should be figuring out whether we need to order table numbers and escort cards and maybe we should register at more than one store, I'd shrug it off because we still have lots of time -- and besides, we need to focus on K's wedding!  And his wedding is much closer!    Every time I'd start to worry about something for our wedding, I'd think about how stressed they must be and I'd go Google chat with my brother about how things were going and we'd exclaim over how fast the time was going by and how much fun the wedding was going to be.  I felt like I knew what I was talking about.  Don't worry about this, forget about that, all that matters is the two of you and your happiness blah blah blah. 

And now that their wedding is over and the newlyweds are off honeymooning in Hawaii, I'm starting to freak out.  There is no other way to put it.  There are a million seemingly simple decisions that need to be made and I just don't know.  Should we extend the reception by an hour?  On the one hand, we have people coming in from very far away to celebrate with us and I feel like the least we can do is give them a party that goes past 10pm... and on the other hand, I don't think I can live with myself if we spend $850 for one hour of time, and that's how much it would cost us to tack on extra time with the venue, the caterer and the DJ.  

Should we have table numbers printed?  What about programs and menu cards?  And what about shuttles from the hotels to the wedding and back again after the reception?  Will people be upset if we don't offer any transportation? 

And have I mentioned that we haven't booked a honeymoon, or even decided on where we want to go?   Or that my dress, which I ordered from a Very Reputable Bridal Shop in November hasn't arrived yet?  I was pretty much OK with both of these facts, but it seems I'm the only one who feels that way.  Everyone I've told about the MIA dress has been horrified.  What do you mean it's not here?  The wedding is six weeks away!  Uh, yes, I am aware.  But what am I supposed to do?  I have been faithfully calling the dress shop every week and they've assured me that everything is fine and the dress will be here in time.  And after all... we still have six weeks!  Six weeks is plenty of time to do whatever needs to be done with wedding dresses.  I'm annoyed that it's late and I'm aggravated that I cannot squeeze a definitive delivery date out of them, but there's no need to panic... right?

And the honeymoon... I mean, I don't' even know what to say to people who say things like "what are you waiting for?  I planned my entire honeymoon to Jamaica in two hours!"  That's great, but we're not interested in an all-inclusive lay-by-the-pool resort vacation.  We're considering all sorts of places: Ireland, Iceland, Canada, San Francisco.  Sure, we're a little behind the traditional schedule, but we've booked entire trips in far less time than six weeks.  In fact, if we book something this weekend as planned, I'm pretty sure it will be the farthest in advance we've ever booked a trip.  We booked the Barcelona trip less than a month ahead.  I only had about three weeks advance notice about the Scotland. So... we're fine, right?  Then why do I feel very much NOT FINE?

Worst of all, I hate myself for feeling this way.  Up until now, I've stuck to my mantra: if it's stressing you out, CUT IT.  I've caught myself a few times this week thinking "wow, it will be kind of nice when this wedding is over", and that is totally unacceptable.  I refuse to feel that way.  I refuse to spend our money and our time on something that isn't at least 90% enjoyable all the way through.

And so... yeah.  So that's how things are going!  I have been hesitating to write this entry because I'm afraid it'll sound whiny, I'm afraid it'll sound like I've lost focus on what really matters and I'm afraid I'll cringe if I re-read this a year from now.  Also, I'm a little bit nervous I might start crying.  I don't know how to write about how stressed I am without sounding like I'm not tremendously excited, which I am.  But I just feel like if I get another email from Macy's with helpful "last minute" wedding registry advice I might kill someone. 

Honestly, I cannot wait for our wedding.  I am so excited and so thrilled and so completely in love.  I know that's all that matters.  But I'm having trouble convincing the rest of the wedding industry.

249 days

It's been awhile since we talked about The Wedding, hasn't it, Internet?  

Lately I seem to alternate between having wedding on the brain 24/7 and, um, not.  I'll spend about a week doing nothing but looking at wedding stuff online, calling wedding-related places, flooding my Joel's inbox with links and ideas and sending my mom seven hundred picture of possible DIY centerpieces we could make.  And then... I'll get tired and look at some lolcats.  I've been telling myself this is fine, no worries!  We still have nine months until The Big Day!  That's enough time to grow a baby, so surely it's plenty of time to plan a low-key wedding.   Except I just counted, and it's actually eight months, so, um, nevermind about that baby thing.

Every time I look at my online checklist and see all the little red exclamation points screaming at me, my inner worrywart starts to panic a little.  What are do you  mean you still don't have an officiant!, the annoying little voice screams at me.  You'd better get Googling, STAT!  

But really, I think we're making excellent progress!  With 249 days to go, here's what we've accomplished so far:

1. Met with a caterer.  Still no idea on what we'll actually be serving at the wedding, but pish posh.  We met with the caterer!

2. Got the entire bridal party set.  Check and CHECK!

3. Met with a florist and gave them general guidelines for the bouquets and boutonnieres. This is what our bouquets will look like:   

They'll be using these pictures as a guideline when they make the bouquets, except they'll be using flowers available locally at the flower market the week of the wedding to replicate the looks above.  (Better for the environment than shipping in specific blooms from California or South America, and also better for our budget, since this option costs about 60% less than dictating the exact flowers for all the bouquets.)

Our centerpieces will look like this:

We'll be using cut hydrangeas in antique mason jars that I've been staking on ebay.

4.  Made a Save-the-Date card.  Just waiting for Joel to approve it and I'll be ordering it from Tiny Prints with my 20% off holiday coupon!

5. I ordered a few samples of invitations to consider.

6.  I bought a dress.  Now, perhaps you remember me saying something back in May about buying a dress.  You'd be correct, and that's the problem with archiving my life here on the internet.  As much as I like that dress and as much as I love a bargain.... I just loved another dress so much more.   So I bought it last week, and I LOVELOVELOVE it.  Itwill be here in May-ish.  Just trust me, OK?  It's perfect.  (Anyone need my other one?  Paloma Blanca, new with tags!)

I know that there is still much to be done, but things are really starting to move along!  Dare I say that this whole wedding thing is actually kind of fun?  

Subversive Crossstitch

Since I'll be a wife in just nine short months, and I figured it was time to start learning some domestic crafts.  And so, while Joel was in Boston this weekend, I sat down and taught myself how to cross-stitch.

Now I just need to find out where I can buy a French maid costume to wear while I'm cleaning the house with a feather duster and I'll be all set!

How I went out on my lunch break for zit cream and came back with a wedding dress

So! This morning I was dragging myself upstairs for coffee when my coworker stopped me to tell me she’d seen a sign for a “Wedding Extravaganza” going on in the thrift store up the street.Huh, I thought. No thanks. I think I’ll just have some coffee instead. Besides, am I really going to buy a wedding dress at the same place I bought Tiny Grim? I think not. My coffee buddy and I went upstairs, got our delicious caffeine juice, and went back to work.

At noon, I told my boss I was running out to the pharmacy. After I picked up my prescription zit cream, I figured I might as well go over and sign up for a slot at the gym while I was out. On my way to the gym, I passed the thrift store and saw the “Wedding Extravaganza” signs my coworker had mentioned. Huh, I thought. It looks like they actually have a lot of dresses in there. That’s weird. And then I walked by, went to the gym and signed myself up for a date with elliptical machine #2.

On the way back, I passed the thrift store again. Huh, I thought. There sure are a lot of people in there. I guess it wouldn’t hurt to stop in and look.

It turns out that by “Wedding Extravaganza”, they actually meant “Big Charity Event,” (I should mention that this thrift store is affiliated with a major hospital, and that all proceeds go to the hospital) which in turn meant, “An upscale bridal boutique donated a whole bunch of brand new designer dresses and we’re selling them for $250 each. Oh, and half of them are from the line you’ve been drooling over since you went wedding dress shopping with your mom back in March. Take a look!”

And so, I looked. I found. I tried on. I purchased. I love.

(Pictures after the jump)

Vindicated

Hey, you know that fear of turning into a bridezilla?  Still there. 

When we picked up the newly sized ring a few weeks ago I was a little bit skeptical of the fit in the jewelry store.  When we’d dropped it off, they sized my finger with their little key-ring sizer thingy and I was officially declared to be somewhere between a size 4 and 4.5.   The consultant we talked to recommended that I go with a size 4.25 since that would be tight enough to keep the top-heavy solitaire ring in place, but loose enough to provide some room for hand swelling once summer rolls around.    That all sounded very sensible to me (and besides, I was sweating through my shirt just by being in the presence of so many fancy people), so we handed the size 6 ring over and started counting the days until my new 4.25 ring would be dropped off by the ring-stork.   

We waited and waited, made up a story about a Fake Engagement Party to cut the wait down a bit, and waited some more.   Finally, on February 15th, we got to pick up our little bundle of joy ring and everything was great.  Except for one thing.   The ring still felt too big to me.  The customer service girl assured me that it was a good fit, that I’d get used to it, that we needed to leave some space for hand swelling in the summer.   We walked out happy as could be and I crossed “get ring re-sized” off my to-do list.

Every day since then I’ve spent a fair amount of time trying to assess whether the ring is really too big or if I’m just overanalyzing things.  In the morning it would fit well and I’d tell myself that all the fretting was silly.  Then, when I got to work and went to wash out my coffee mug, it would be practically falling off my finger.  Every time I washed my hands or put on lotion, it would feel extra slippery -- to the point where I was actually afraid it would fall off and be lost (good thing that insurance paperwork got sent in, huh?).  At the gym it would move around and irritate me while I was running or using the elliptical machine.  When I got home, I’d have to take it off before I showered because there was no way it would stay on my finger with water and soap on my hands.   And then it would just stay in my jewelry box until the next morning because it was impossible to do dishes with it on, and I was too afraid to sleep with it, lest it be lost in the bed and spirited off by feline jewelry thieves (Henry likes to hoard shiny things.  He is part dog, part magpie).  I’d fall asleep thinking that it was definitely too big and pondering how that could be remedied without my looking like a total bridezilla. 

And then in the morning it would fit pretty well again and I’d decide that all that worrying the day before had been nonsense.

This cycle has been repeating on a daily basis for the past two weeks, and let me tell you, I FELT TOTALLY CRAZY.   But when I was tossing wet laundry into the dryer my ring actually slipped off and flew into the dryer!  That can’t be right, can it?  And so, finally, I got up the nerve to go back to store filled with well-dressed, big-busted sales ladies tell them I know this may sound crazy and annoying, but I think this ring is still too big and could I possibly have it sized down a teensy bit more?   Oh, and could that be done without surrendering my ring for a month this time?  Please?  Is it hot in here? Is anyone else sweating?

The customer service dude (who was no less intimidating than the gaggle of sales ladies) gave me a little speech about how it had only been two weeks, I mean, he was happy to see if they could size it down, but he didn’t want to be stuck with a too-small ring once it gets hot out in the summer, and you know how hot it gets here in July, right hon?  I nodded and told him I still wanted to have it sized down a little bit, maybe just a quarter size.  So we sized my finger AGAIN, determined AGAIN that I fall between a size 4 and 4.5 and that a 4.25 would be the best bet for  me with this type of ring.  And then he sized the ring.  And it was a size 4.5, a quarter sized bigger than I’d ordered.  He was very quick to explain that sometimes the manufacturer doesn’t actually make quarter sizes and in those cases they just have to choose the closest half size and let me check, yup this manufacturer is one of those and that’s why they sent a 4.5 instead of what you ordered, hahaha oops!

I would be annoyed if I weren’t so relieved BECAUSE THIS MEANS I’M NOT COMPLETELY INSANE.   I also think that I sort of asked for this when I requested that they get it back to me in two weeks so I’d have it in time for my Fake Engagement party, and I completely understand that they’re not going to manufacture a special size just for me – but it would have been nice to KNOW that it was a quarter size bigger, you know?  But, whatever -- the important thing is that the ring really is too big and I’m not crazy.  I’m taking it in on Thursday morning to be re-sized, which is apparently different than re-ordered, so I’ll have it back by Thursday evening.  And then I’ll have a ring that fits and everything will be great and I cross this off my list and move on to wondering if it’s just me, or is there a pea under this mattress?

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. 

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.   

Phantom cat odor, keys, and pickup lines

When we arrived home on Monday night, I was braced to be hit in the face by a wall of Phantom Cat Odor when we opened the front door.  Every once in awhile I'll catch a whiff of PCO in the front room, undoubtedly from the period of time last year that I like to call Hell On Earth, when Henry was peeing on EVERYTHING with no explanation.  I've treated spots he peed on with hundreds of dollars worth of Resolve, Nature's Miracle, Arm and Hammer Pet Odor Treatment, regular old Arm and Hammer sprinkled (dumped) liberally all over the carpet, Special Enzyme Cleaners Ordered from the Interwebs, and basically tried everything known to mankind to get rid of the smell, and STILL. Still we smell it sometimes.  I even ordered a black light to find hidden pee-spots (which was a total waste of money) and soaked pretty much the entire carpet in gallons of enzyme cleaner and STILL.  I smell it, sometimes.  And that's the problem: I only smell it sometimes.  Which I take to mean that most of the time, I've become so acclimated to PCO that I don't even notice it.  When we returned from Lake Tahoe this summer after being away for over a week, we were bowled over by the stench upon returning home.  Oh my God, we realized, This is what our house smells like to normal people.  And that is why you'll find me burning seventeen different strategically placed scented candles whenever someone is coming over.

Before this turns into an entire entry about cat pee (which I'm sure would be thrilling, but I've got more important things to tell you about) my point is: when we came home from Barcelona on Monday night I did not notice any tangible cat odor upon walking through the door.  Success at last!   Nor did I find any passive-aggressive pee spots anywhere in the house.  Nope, all we came home to was an excessive amount of cat litter tracked through the Poop Room and one pile of barf.  Not bad, not bad at all!

But that would just have been too easy.  There is always a price to pay for going away and having a fabulous time, and for this trip that price was hopping into Joel's truck on Tuesday morning to find the battery had mysteriously died while we were away.  We abandoned ship truck and Joel and I switched keys so he could borrow my car for the day.   When I went to the grocery store that evening I took my spare set of keys, rather than be bothered with walking all the way upstairs to get my primary set back from Joel.  When I got home, I remembered that I hadn't been able to get into my office that morning because my office keys are on my primary key set, so we switched back. I gave him his keys, and I took back my keys. But the spare keys remained in my purse, and so when I kissed Joel goodbye on Wednesday morning and told him, "Sure!  Borrow my car again!  Of course, darling!", I waltzed out the door with both sets of keys to said car. 

This is what Joel has to look forward to FOR THE REST OF HIS LIFE. 

But whatever, it was a good excuse for me to meet Joel downtown for lunch to deliver my spare keys. 

I borrowed my coworker's metro pass and rode it one stop, which left me a few blocks from Joel's office.  As I was getting off the train, the guy behind me mumbled something.  I ignored him, which I believe is standard protocol for such situations.  He caught up to me on the escalator and mumbled again, slightly louder, "So, just getting off for lunch?", which I'm sure you'll all agree is the most original pickup line EVER.  I told him "yes" and tried my best to walk away, but he was having none of it.  He walked with me for three blocks, chatting me up with conversation about his business, how important he is, blah blah blah, but since he was just full of himself and not a total dangerous-looking psycho, I figured there was no harm in it.  He was asking me about my job, and then it turned out that we went to the same college, and then he told me he was looking for someone just like me to come work at his big important company.   I realized exactly how lame this line was at the time, but I figured what the hell -- maybe he really does want to give me a fabulous job and pay me lots of money to work from home in  my pajamas.  So I gave him my card.  (After he asked for it, I didn't just throw it at him and tell him to call me, anytime, day or night.)

What should really shock you about that statement is not that I gave my card to a total stranger who tried to pick me up on the shady Baltimore metro, but that I actually had a business card with me.  The only reason I did was because I had re-organized my massive wallet the night before to remove all the Euro coinage that was weighing me down.  God, I'm so professional.  Except for the fact that I'm pretty sure I gave him my outdated card with my old position title.  Whatever.

And then he asked if I'd like to have lunch with him at Panera Bread, and I told him that I was sorry, but I couldn't because I was meeting my fiance for lunch.   It was the first time I've said that lovely French word in a real conversation (as opposed to the many conversations I have with myself in my head and the conversations that I have with the cats when I get home at night, who's my schmoopy kitten-head?  You are!  Yooou are!)

Then I got to tell my fiance that we couldn't go to Panera like he wanted to because I'd just given my card to a random stranger in there. 

So we went to Chipotle instead.

And thus ends the most discombobulated entry in history.  I had my usual, a vegetarian burrito with both kinds of beans and corn salsa, in case you were wondering.  And yes, I do know that the pinto beans have pork in them and I don't care because I'm not really a vegetarian.

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PS - Thank you all so so very much for breaking this site's comment record with your congratulations.  In return, I promise not to become an Interweb Bridezilla.   And I will write The Proposal Story, but be forewarned that it might induce gagging and diabetic comas because it is just that sweet.  Don't say I didn't warn you.

PPS - OMG WE'RE GETTING MARRRRRRIED!!!!

PPPS - I promise, that's the last time I'll do that.

PPPPS, Confidential to Ruthie: Dude, you have to leave an email address when you comment so I can reply!  Yes, I heard, and CONGRATS to you too!