Operation Pink Herring

When pigs flu

After dissecting a series of increasingly confusing emails, it seems I am now eligible to receive a free H1N1 vaccine through my workplace. In the spirit of Christmas Giving, I’d like to offer this vaccine to someone who needs it more than I do. Please present your arm for stabbing between the hours of 7:30 and 4pm tomorrow.

In all seriousness, I will get the shot. I got a seasonal flu shot this year too, for the second time in my life. I work within a hospital system, and although I have nothing to do with patients or patient care, I do breathe the same air they do. A flu briefing I attended last month basically equated not getting the vaccine with killing innocent babies, and while I’m willing to take my own chances with the flu… I am not willing to kill other people. I have a whole host of reasons why I normally don’t get a flu shot: I am not at high risk! In college I got flu-like symptoms from the shot and that sucked! I want my body to develop its own defenses! I don’t want to contribute to the development of vaccine-resistant strains! I don’t want to put unnecessary medical stuff in my body! But honestly, it all boils down to one thing: I really hate shots.

Please, don’t try to tell me “it doesn’t really hurt” or “it’s not that bad”. Yes, it is. I got the seasonal shot, and you know what? It hurt. A lot. It was exactly as bad as I thought it was going to be, and I realize that’s because “it’s all in my head”, but you know what? All pain is in your head. It’s just neurons firing off messages to your brain, so theoretically we could all get over it and walk on hot coals, right?

Yes, possibly I’m feeling a little defensive because people have insinuated lately that I am a big, giant baby. And yes, possibly, they’re right. But nevertheless, I am scared.

I really hate all types of needle-ing, but shots are my least favorite. If I have to choose, I’d rather have something taken out (as in, blood) than have something pushed in. I swear, I can feel the vaccine pushing into my arm, and oh my god I need to stop talking about this. But to all of the people who I am not killing: I really hope you appreciate it. I took a needle for you. Or, I’m going to tomorrow, when I’m not wearing a new sweater. It would just be too much of a shame to get this one all wrinkled by pushing up the sleeve, you know?

Have some more pie, dear

Because of travel and surgery and general busy-ness on the weekends the past few months, we realized last weekend that we’d very nearly missed our chance to go apple picking for the season. Because I am four years old, I like to go to the pick-your-own farm every year. We pick apples off the tree, dig our own spinach and broccoli out of the dirt, take a ton of pictures and before leaving I elbow some small children out of the way so I can pet the resident goats and llamas. So last Saturday we went off along Route 70 -- despite the fact that I swore I’d never again travel that cursed stretch of highway after the wedding was over -- to pick us some apples.

It was the very last weekend they were open for the season and there were hardly any apples on the trees at all, but no matter, we’re not too proud to pick apples off the ground. In fact, we managed to find twenty-two pounds of suitable Granny Smiths to take home with us (the price goes down when you get over twenty pounds and we like bargains). We passed on the spinach and beets because we’re overloaded with spinach from our CSA farm share and I don’t know what beets are – uh, I mean, I don’t care for the taste of beets, how dare you suggest otherwise -- but stopped by the sad, deserted pumpkin patch, filled with poor Jack O’ Lantern rejects. We like pumpkins, right? We could get one or two of those and… do something with them. How much are the pumpkins, we asked. Free, the girl said. FREE. We bought twenty-two pounds of apples to save a few cents per pound, so certainly we were not going to pass up the chance to give these poor, dejected (FREE) pumpkins a home.

We took home eight orange adoptees. I had no idea how many pies a single pumpkin would make, but eight seemed like enough to have fully taken advantage of their free-ness, without quite crossing into hoarding territory. Happily, my first foray into making pumpkin pie out of actual pumpkin went quite splendidly. I found directions on how to cook a pumpkin online, followed them to the letter (!) and turned the first two pumpkins into two pies, a cookie sheet full of toasted seeds, a loaf of pumpkin bread and a gallon-sized Ziploc bag of frozen pumpkin puree. 

So now I just have six more pumpkins sitting in the kitchen. Since I don’t really like pumpkin pie (a fact that I should probably have taken into account before we started heaving free pumpkins into our trunk) and I refuse to throw any food away, I’ve obviously got to clear out some room in our crowded freezer for another bag or six of pumpkin puree.

And that, internet, is how I came to eat four vegetarian sausages whose best-by date was December 2008, two Eggo waffles and a vodka-lemonade cocktail for dinner last night. Lunch today was half a box of Morningstar Veggie Bites. I only have another box and a half of the sausages left, two boxes of the Veggie Bites (they’re not good, in case you were wondering, and the fact that we’ve had them longer than the sausages isn’t helping), a Sam’s Club bag of boneless barbeque chicken wings that I purchased for last year’s Superbowl (also not good), a box of Trader Joe’s eggplant cutlets (these are actually very good) and 1/3 a bottle of vodka to go. Yes, I suppose that I could take the vodka out of the freezer, but truthfully, we don’t have any space in the cabinets either.

Four posts in one

Can someone please shut my cat up?

Henry has never been a quiet animal. The politically correct term is “vocal”. He does a lot of meowing. He meows to announce his entrance into the room, he meows while he’s jumping onto the couch, he meows when I come in the door.

But he also does this very, very loud meowing. It’s more like howling. Yowling. Screaming like he’s stuck in a bear trap. He used to do it from time to time, maybe once a day at the most. It’s a little weird, but cats are strange animals. He also perches himself on the banister like a goat and plays fetch with a keychain. Whatever, right?

But lately, oh my god. The howling is every day for HOURS. He’s howling while we watch TV. I go up to make sure he’s not actually stuck in a bear trap and he’ll just be sitting on the floor, staring at the wall. Sometimes he’s in his cat condo, pulling himself around in a circle. What the hell? Does he miss Max? It’s not exactly like he and Max were cat-BFFs. Our cats are not friends; they largely ignore and just barely tolerate each other. So why the mourning? The very loud, very annoying mourning? Or is he just having a heated discussion with the brick wall? I don’t know what to think.

I feel guilty because he must be sad to be howling like that all the time, right? Or maybe something is just broken in his brain? He also spends a large amount of time pushing around the water bowl in the bathroom, eating hair elastics and chasing his own tail. At least those activities are QUIET.  Now he’s like a screaming baby, he just cries and yells and oh my god I don’t know what is wrong. Have some food? Some treats?  Head scritches?  Want to chase a toy mouse?  Want to get picked up?  Want to bite my hand?  Eat this hair elastic?  Here, there’s some dental floss you can pull out of the garbage!  Tip over the recycling? Chew on some plastic bags?

Nothing. Works. I am going crazy.  If I can find a cat psychologist, what do you think the chances are it will be covered by pet insurance?

The knee bone’s connected to the other thing

Some rare yet serious side effects of knee surgery:

I’ve become so used to treating my left knee gingerly (and being reminded quite indelicately when I forget) that I can’t help cringing when I see people on TV doing things that would hurt it. Jumping on trampolines, are these people crazy? Running through an airport? Sliding into second base? People, you’re going to hurt yourselves! Be careful!

My right knee, by comparison, now feels like a bionic super-knee. I’m constantly amazed at how far and how well it can bend, how I can sit with it tucked under me and go up the stairs and use it to kick the laundry basket out of the way and it doesn’t even hurt! It’s insane! The human body, it’s a miracle, you know?

I get a lot of dirty looks riding the elevator down one flight to my office. I used to similarly judge the people who were too lazy to take the stairs down one flight, so I deserve it. Judge not, lest ye become that person punching the button for basement while all the other people in the elevator sigh and eye-roll.

And it's even pink 

After carefully waiting until both of our contracts were up and then waiting again for the new crop of phones to be released, I have a new cell phone. It has internet and email and it is the best thing to happen to me, technologically speaking, since Tivo.

The one bad thing is that now when I log on to the computer in the morning, all the fun of checking my email/twitter/facebook/Google Reader and seeing what the world has been up to while I’ve been offline is gone.  It kind of makes mornings less fun, if that's possible.  But I forgive it, because it's just so cute and smart and I can't stay mad.

I kind of liked staying home better

One of the things I learned while I was at home with absolutely nothing to do is that, if left to its own devices, by body would like to get no less than 10 hours of sleep a night. At the time I felt like a lazy slouch for spending so much time in bed. What I realize now is that’s how it feels to be rested. Weird. For reasons related to circadian clocks and the conspiracy of the working world against non-morning people, I usually get about 6 hours of sleep a night, and I can manage on that pretty well. But my God, it felt good to sleep right on through to 11am. My brain, like, worked. Faster. Like I said, it was weird.

Not as awesome as I thought it was going to be

So!  Surgery.  It went well, in that I didn't wake up in the middle of it, they operated on the correct knee and I lived.  That's all very, very good.  Surgery on the whole, however... not as cool as I thought it was going to be.

"How much fun did you THINK it was going to be?", NPW asked when I proclaimed this on twitter last week.  Well, I thought it was going to be kind of... fun?  I mean, not the surgery itself, obviously the surgery was a last resort.  But after ten months of orthopedic surgeon visits, physical therapy and rest, it was a necessity.  So, since I didn't have much of a choice, I was more focusing on the fact that I was getting an official order to sit on the couch for a week and do nothing.  No cleaning!  No going to work!  Nothing but me, my couch, my Tivo cache and a giant stack of library books. 

But it wasn't so much "you don't have to do anything" as "you CAN'T do anything."  Let me tell you, there's a world of difference between the two.  Not having to cook, clean, or do laundry sounds quite nice.  Having to smell what your cat has lovingly deposited in the litterbox all day because you can't bend down far enough to scoop it, watching the pile in t the hamper slowly grow and eventually start to spill over the sides... it's, um, frustrating?  Maddening?  Worthy of crying a few times?  All three, if you're me.   

I also forgot to factor in the whole feeling like hell part. I spent the first two days asking Joel if it had been four hours yet and when I could take more painkillers, although I stopped even bothering with the hydrocodone after day two because it did nothing but give me insomnia.  It certainly did not help that I simultaneously had a cold, and when I say cold, I mean one night I coughed so hard that I threw up.  In the bathroom sink, because I couldn't bend my knee enough to barf in the toilet.  So.  Yes.  That was both enjoyable and attractive, as you can imagine.

And on top of this whole pity party, I was bored out of my mind.  I reached the end of the Tivo cache and my Google reader on the same day and from that point things started getting desperate.  I absolutely love days at home by myself, but it turns out that's contingent on my being able to, like, do stuff.  Sitting around all day, getting absolutely nothing done (because I'm recovering, I tell myself!) is difficult for me.  It makes me grumpy.  I didn't start this post to complain about my tragic state of boredom.  I'm just saying, surgery: not as awesome as I thought it was going to be. 

What is awesome, however, is working from home.  People, it's got to be the most glorious thing on earth, the perfect balance of yoga pants, coffee and productivity.  Technically I'm still on sick leave, but I felt so guilty pushing all my work onto my coworkers -- especially just three months after I happily dumped a stack of work on their desks and took two and half weeks off to get married and go on a honeymoon -- that I brought my laptop home.  I'd normally be opposed to this -- if I'm using sick time, I should be devoting all efforts to sitting in bed with a cup of tea and a book -- but this has actually provided a perfect reprieve from the boredom and the guilt.  I'm still at home with my knee propped up, ice pack in place for twenty minutes every hour, but the anxiety that everyone at work is mad at me is gone.  I don't need to worry about all the things that might be going wrong in my absence.  I don't need to have a panic attack before starting up my email, wondering how many red-exclamation messages will be waiting for me.  Oh, internet, if only this were an option without having to have surgery first.  Do any of you get to work from home?  Is it as fantastic when you get to do it all the time?

Sea lions, surgery

I was on yet another business trip this weekend, this time to San Francisco. My god, I am happy to be home. But I had a pretty fantastic time in California. Want to see?

On Holly's recommendation, I went down to the Ferry Building for brunch. I actually have similar pictures from the last time I was in San Francisco, about a year ago. But, uh, I didn't realize you could go inside. Turns out, you can!

I made myself a little picnic and sat outside to enjoy my gingersnaps and iced coffee (I could definitely get used to 75-degree weather in October), overlooking what I’ve now determined is the Bay Bridge. As in, not the Golden Gate Bridge. (The whole time I was thinking, wow, I really thought I remembered it being more… orange.) 

 

Then I moseyed my way down to Fisherman’s Wharf, saw Alcatraz, the real Golden Gate Bridge (It IS orange!), and saw the sea lions.

Now, the last time I was in San Francisco, my sole mission was to see these sea lions. I walked all the way to Fisherman’s Wharf, looked all around, and could not find a single goddamned sea lion. Maybe they’re only here part of the year, like whales that migrate! I told myself. Or, maybe I got the neighborhood wrong. Maybe they’re actually in San Diego.  Maybe they're in a zoo. I was walking, dejected and bitter, back to my hotel when this creepy dude jumped out of what I thought was a bush and scared the living daylights out of me.  (Later, I learned this guy is somewhat renowned for doing this to tourists.)

Anyway, this time I had the address (even though I’d left my hand-drawn map in the hotel. Along with my room key, for the second time that day), and I saw me some sea lions. 

I’d say something like, “I can’t believe I missed them; there are so many and you can hear them barking their heads off a block away,” but… I was sincerely confused about the color of the Golden Gate Bridge, so I do believe it.

Anyway! I had a fabulous time on my own, managed to get back to my hotel (on the cable car, no less!)without getting lost even on and now I’m back home. Oh, and did I mention that I got to meet Holly in person? I did, and she is even more lovely in person than she is online. I also managed to get myself locked in a cage on the street before meeting her, but that’s another story for another time because I have to and shove as much food in my face as I can in the next twenty minutes because I’m not allowed to eat after midnight, in preparation for my knee surgery tomorrow.

I realize I’ve neglected to mention this surgery here, and I’m not really sure how that happened, but here’s the really, really short version: remember that car accident? Yeah, well my knee is still messed up. Hopefully it is getting fixed tomorrow. I am very nervous, mostly about the whole no eating or drinking after midnight thing. And also, the needles and scalpels and what if they accidentally operate on the wrong knee (dear doctors: it's the left one!) and such. But really, I’m sure it will all be fine, and hopefully I’ll be able to do things like walk normally and do yoga again after this.  So, it's a good thing, I'm scared anyway because I'm a wuss, and I have to go eat an entire pizza right now.  

Yup, it's another wedding post

I swore up and down that I wouldn't become one of Those Brides that let themselves get so stressed out about the wedding that they stopped enjoying things.  And, well.  That, um... worked out.   I also promised I'd never refer to myself as a "bride", so... yeah.  I give up.

I was a pretty much prepared to fail at Not Getting Stressed Out.  I stress out when the laundry basket is too full or if there are too many un-folderized photos on my Nikon's memory card or when I'm at page 400 and and Edward still isn't back, even though I'm pretty sure he's going to come back because there are two more books in the series. 

But I wasn't prepared to fail quite so spectacularly. 

The things I'm worried about now are things I have absolutely no control over, which actually kind of makes sense.  If I can't do anything productive about it, I should at least worry myself sick over it!  It's the least I can do!  I know this is counterproductive, but knowing that doesn't make it easy to stop.  I focused on making my lists, checking things off, and trying my very, very best to STOP WORRYING.

And then I started getting dizzy.  Once while I was driving, which was... scary.  But since I've been subsisting on coffee and instant oatmeal and lettuce (from our farm share!  because we needed one more thing to do every week this summer!), I guess it's not exactly surprising.

And then I came down with some sort of ridiculous July flu, which of course I immediately assumed was of the swine variety.  I had to call in sick to work on Tuesday because I felt THAT awful.  I call in sick to work less than once a year.  The last time was about two summers ago, when I almost got hit by a truck trying to walk in to the office after a three-day stretch of particularly brutal insomnia. I HATE calling in sick.  I just feel so guilty (for no reason other apart from my own neurosis) that it negates the entire point of staying home.  But at this point, I didn't have TIME to battle a drawn-out recovery.  So I stayed home, slept for thirteen hours and finished my shower thank-you notes.

And then I got a rash on my face.  And my lips started to feel sort of numb.  And then I developed these ugly looking sores on the inside of my lips AND I got a zit right in that little crease between your top and bottom lip, which made it really hard to do things like, you know, eat.  And talk.  And drink water.

Dudes, you don't even have to say it.  I KNOW that it's psychosomatic.  I am 100% sure that all of these random ailments are stress-related, but you know what?  Knowing that it's all in your head doesn't make it any easier to STOP.  In fact, it makes it harder because now you can start freaking out about how OH MY GOD I'M SO CRAZY I'M ACTUALLY DYING.  But before I keel right over, I need to finish updating that wedding website and find space for all those shower gifts and find twelve of those stupid picture-clip things that can hold up three sheets of 5x7 cardstock and whose stupid idea was it to make the table numbers out of cardstock anyway?

That was the state of things when I went outside this morning to drive to my second dress fitting and realized that I didn't know where Joel had parked the car that morning when he got up at 6:30 to move it to a legal spot.  My friend Liz and I roamed the block, but after ten minutes we had to give up and walk down to get her car because Joel wasn't answering his phone and we were going to be late for the Russian seamstress (who, during the last fitting demanded NEXT TIME YOU BRING FRIEND.  FRIEND MUST LEARN BUSTLE.)  As we raced up I-83 in Liz's Mini Cooper, with my Spanxx and my wedding shoes on my lap, I could actually feel my face starting to swell up. 

But... then the dress fitting was actually pretty good.  I didn't get yelled at by the Russian seamstress this time, the dress still looks perfect and at least my lip didn't LOOK swollen (although at that point they were totally numb).  I did sweat through my t-shirt, but that's why I love those JCrew tissue tees.  They dry REALLY fast.

We drove out to Frederick for what feels like the millionth time this month, and when stopped into the wholesale liquor store to confirm the alcohol order for the wedding (because they refuse to return my phone calls) and the team of teenagers working at the counter promised that they'd definitely give my printed-out list to the dude in charge when he came back, like, TOTALLY, no problem lady, I had this sort of out of body experience.  So what if they don't give him the order?  So what if they don't show up on the day of the wedding?  We know where the store is.  My dad has a truck.  It'll be fine.

When we arrived at the salon for my hair and makeup trial and discovered that on the outside it strongly resembled a trailer, I didn't really care.  It was nice enough inside.

And the hair lady totally understood what I was talking about.  And she didn't even judge me for coming in with hair that hadn't been washed for, uh, a couple of days (dudes, I am not kidding about NOT HAVING TIME TO SHOWER LATELY).  She just spritzed on some dry shampoo, gave me a bottle to take home since I'm all out (and I HAVE NO TIME TO GO BUY MORE) and did my hair exactly the way I wanted in about 20 minutes.  She didn't try to hard-sell me on a more formal updo, she didn't roll her eyes when I asked Liz to take pictures to send to my mom.  She was perfect.  And the makeup lady, who I was even more nervous about (since I don't wear makeup or like wearing makeup and makeup scares me), was even better.  If that is possible.

By the time we left, I was actually smiling. 

Huh. 

When we got home, I realized I could feel my lips again. 

Hi.

I've seen this happen with several other bloggers in the final run-up to their weddings and I really didn't understand it.  They just stopped posting!  Didn't they have millions of things to tell us about?  

And now here I am, doing the same thing.  I have TONS to talk about.  We have a honeymoon!  My dress came in!  I had a bridal shower!  I'm still hung over from my bachelorette party!   So why have I written about none of it?   You guys, I have just been so. busy.  No, seriously.  More busy than I thought was possible.   I'm doing far better on the anxiety front, but there is just so much to do and so many people to meet with that it kind of blows my mind.  (It doesn't help that I also have to go to physical therapy for my stupid knee (because of the stupid car accident) twice a week.)  How busy could a person possibly be, you ask?  Well, let me put it to you this way.  We still have five (FIVE) episodes of LOST in our Tivo.  The show ended in May.  Don't tell us what happened in the finale.

But there's another part of it, too.  I feel like these things -- these huge, monumental once-in-a-lifetime events  -- deserve a well thought-out paragraph at the very least and I just don't know how to put them into words.  The silent horror of watching a Russian seamstress slash two feet of crinoline out from underneath said wedding dress with a pair of shears.  The excitement of getting our marriage license and then the sinking distress of LOSING IT BETWEEN THE COURTHOUSE AND THE STARBUCKS WHERE WE MET THE MINISTER.  (Joel found it.  Phew.) The creeping panic that there are twenty-seven days until the wedding and the caterer isn't answering my emails.

There are so many emotions sloshing around in my brain that I don't even know where to begin.  I'm still anxious about a lot of things, but that's just par for the course.   I had a dream that the antique picnic basket that we bought to use at the reception for gifts and cards didn't have the aluminum lining when we got it home and I went back to the store and demanded they give me that goddamn lining.  The guy tried to argue that I hadn't paid an extra fee for the aluminum lining, so I didn't get the lining.  This dream ended with me yelling I WANT THAT [EXPLETIVE DELETED] LINING in an antique shop, and just think!  Two days ago I had no idea that antique picnic baskets even HAD lining.  I am anxious about how the final details of the wedding day timeline are going to come together, I'm anxious about missing tux measurements, I'm anxious about our two very different families meeting for the first time under such emotionally charged circumstances.  Basically, anything that I can't control and track with a spreadsheet makes me anxious.  But this is nothing new.  It just... is.

When I'm not too busy feeling anxious, I am so happy and excited that I want to cry.  I was overwhelmed this weekend at my bridal shower (which was the most lovely event I've ever been to ever) by the outpouring of generosity and love.  The instructions I gave requesting a low-key, quiet bachelorette party were completely ignored, my sister in law went home with some extremely incriminating videos WHICH SHE PROMISED NOT TO SHOW MY BROTHER, and I am pretty sure I still have a hangover.  Who could ask for anything more than that?

I have been thinking a lot about why I am so keyed up when I know, I KNOW, that none of these details really matter.  I've concluded that the details are just taking the hit for the larger, underlying issues that go along with a wedding.  I'm excited.  I'm terrified.  I'm ecstatic, and I'm sad.  I feel like I should care about things like giving up my maiden name, but instead I cried over selling my Jetta.  Things that were supposed to be hard are easy and things that weren't even on the radar are impossibly difficult.   Every day I think about writing, but I struggle to find the right way to describe how I'm feeling and then it's 11pm and we haven't eaten dinner yet.   I understand now why so many blogger brides go MIA.  I'm not sure I can explain it, but I understand.  (I won't, though. Promise.)

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.

Sticks and Stones

If I ever got around to making one of those 100 Things About Me Lists, two of the things that would be on it are the fact that I've never broken a bone and never had a cavity.  I'm really proud of both facts, although I'm less and less sure that they're attributable to anything but dumb luck.

Witness: What started out as a scrape on my knee from the car accident in January has morphed into some mysterious injury that is not responding to ice, rest, ibuprofen or cortisone injections.  I counted myself as lucky to have walked away from that accident relatively unscathed, but now I can't help but thinking that a simple broken leg would have been healed by now, goddamnit.  I know, I know.  Stupid.  Unbroken bones are always better than broken bones... but still: WAH.  My knee hurts and I haven't been able to run or work out for months.  I couldn't even go to yoga this week.  Not.  Good. 

I was forcing myself to lift weights 2-3 times a week just to get in some semblance of exercise, and then I went and did this:

I was mauled by a polar bear that mysteriously jumped out of the woods.  And Sawyer was riding on its back.  Shirtless. 

Fine, fine, that's a lie.  I was actually hit by an 18-wheeler carrying a load of smuggled bio weapons that careened out of control when Jack Bauer shot out the front tires and singlehandeldly saved the day. 

FINE.  I tripped on a curb and fell, alright?  Stone cold sober.  But it was raining and kind of slippery SO THERE.

Wait, there's more.  That nasty looking scrape slowly turned into an even nastier looking bruise:

Which then took over my arm...

Which refused to fade ELEVEN DAYS AFTER I FELL WAS MAULED BY A POLAR BEAR... 

Don't worry, though, I'm juuuust fine.  I had four x-rays taken of that bad boy and it's "just" a "bone bruise".  Just like the one on my knee!  I match.   Awesome!

Pardon me, I have to go and compulsively brush my teeth now.  The never-had-a-cavity thing is all I've got left.

Lately

I've been feeling pretty crappy lately.   I feel guilty even saying that, because all things considered my life is pretty fucking sweet. 

I have a job.  It pays me, I get to leave at 5pm, it's a fifteen minute walk from my house and I get a shitload of vacation time.  All things considered, it's pretty goddamn cushy.  But I don't enjoy it, I'm frustrated and I'm bored.  I half-heartedly think about other options, but I am then overcome with fear about starting a new job so soon before the wedding.  And we want to move out of the mid-Atlantic, and I just don't know what I want to do with my life.   And I feel guilty for allowing myself to wallow in this sort of apathetic self-pity, because it could be so much worse.  I am so lucky.

I'm relatively healthy, but my knee still hurts me every single day.  I can't work out, I have to go to the chiropractor twice a week when I'd rather be doing something - anything - else with my evenings.   I think about the kid who ran that red light in January every day, and I wonder if he knows how much he still impacts my life on a daily basis.  I fantasize about going to his house and punching him in the face.  I think of Charlotte Yorke telling Mr. Big that she rues the day he was born, I plan out what I'd say to this kid if I saw him in the street.  Would I go on a tirade?  Would I show him my scar?  Would I cry?  Would I lecture him on how he very nearly cost me me life and how I hope he's more careful now?   I think about these things, and I feel guilty for spending so much time feeling angry and vengeful.  It could have been so much worse. 

I have a comfortable home, but it always seems to be a mess.  Laundry overflows the hamper and cat litter coats all the floors.  I have piles of picture frames I've been meaning to hang and supplies for a yet-to-be-started project sitting in our front room.  We need to replace the window in the litterbox room and the front window has mysteriously developed a huge and growing crack.  The window above the front door still needs to be finished and the bathtubs need to be resealed.  Boards on the deck are warped and need to be replaced.   It seems like every time we finish one project, three more jump up to take its place.  And I hate myself for daring to feel frustrated over the house that we are so lucky to own, that we can still afford.

I have three cats that I adore, but one of them has a fucking roundworm.  Again.  I just took a poop sample from all three of them to the vet for annual parasite testing and they all came back clean, but someone threw up a worm on the carpet three weeks ago and it wasn't me or Joel.   I'm proud of myself because I've almost become numb to this -- last year I could hardly think, I was so grossed out by the idea of worms.  This year I'm just tired, I'm sick of dumping out their litterboxes and washing them every night.  I'm tired of having them spit and gag and run away from me when I try to give them the medication.  I don't particularly want to spend my evenings squirting goo down their throats, either, and I certainly didn't want to spend $120 for the dewormer and take a plastic bag full of poop to the vet's office.  I should be relieved, because Max is doing so well on chemo and Madison's cancer/mystery illness seems to have just gone away, but I'm so goddamn sick of these worms. 

I'm getting married to a wonderful man, but I feel in a constant state of anxiety over the wedding.  I promised myself I wouldn't do this; I swore to myself that the minute the wedding started to stress me out, I'd scale whatever it was back, I'd let it go.  But now that the time is here I'm finding that I can't help myself.  This is what I do, it's who I am.  I worry about things.  I've become adept at managing this part of my nature by figuring out what's stressing me out and either doing something about it or making a conscious effort to let it go... but when it's just this general state of anxiety, there's not much I can do.   I just know that I hate feeling like this.  And I hate that I'm allowing myself to feel like this.

I have more to say on all of these topics, but I just don't know how to do it right now without turning into a weepy, self-indulgent mess.  I really thought that these feelings would pass once spring finally arrived... but they haven't.  I don't like whining like this here, but I am hoping that by getting it OUT I'll start to feel better.  I'm hoping that I'll look back on this entry in another two weeks and laugh at how dramatic I was feeling over nothing.  Because really, it is nothing.  I know that.  That's why I feel guilty on top of feeling crappy. 

Grumble, Part 3... and let's all hope there's no part 4

At the risk of turning this into an all-bitching, all the time blog... let me just tell you about my doctor's appointment yesterday.  

I went to an orthopedic surgeon last month to have my knee checked out, because it was still feeling awfully sore and ache-y, six weeks after The Accident.   It didn't hurt per se, but it felt really sore when I did certain things, like "yoga" and "sitting cross-legged," and if there's one thing I learned from years and years of competitive running, it's that you don't mess with your knees.   So, the lawyer that I have obtained to deal with the paperwork nightmare that is a personal injury claim set me up with an appointment to see an orthopedic surgeon that they work with.  Now, I've seen more orthopedic surgeons than I care to remember (see: years of competitive running), and I have yet to find one that I didn't want to kick in the teeth with the various malfunctioning parts of my body, so I was fine with going to whoever the lawyer recommended... especially because this meant they arranged the appointment for me and the bill went directly tot he lawyer's office (see: paying a lawyer to deal with my hassles for me).   I went to the initial appointment and the doctor said he thought that what I had was a cartilage bruise, which would eventually heal on its own.  Just to be sure, he sent me home with some prescription-strength NSAIDs and orders to obtain an MRI and return in a few weeks.   Fine and dandy.  I think that, including the time I spent filling out the load of insurance paperwork, the entire visit probably took 40 minutes.

Now, this is embarrassing because I used to live in the general neighborhood of this doctor's office, but I sort of got lost on my way to the follow-up appointment yesterday.  The short story is that office is on a street that's one way running south, and I was coming up a street that's one way running north, and I thought I turned the right way to loop around past the office but I didn't.  The longer story involves a panic attack as I tried to drive slowly down the (wrong) street, looking for the office's street number, driving about a mile in the wrong direction, a lot of cursing, and a long history of not being able to navigate my way out of a paper bag.  When I finally got my bearing, I decided to just park the damn car and walk the two blocks to the office because I was really, really getting tired of wasting my entire afternoon off from work driving around one-way streets.  Besides, I rationalized, there were all these signs up the last time about parking in this lot instead of that lot and how anyone who parked in that lot would be towed immediately, and you know what I really don't need?  To have my car towed.  Right, so I'll just park here behind this moving truck and would you look at that, the last person overpaid the meter and I still have an hour and forty-five minutes of time left.  And... I guess I'll put the club on my steering wheel and take the radio face-plate off because wow, this area is a little more ghetto than I remembered. 

Since I was running late by this point, I took a shortcut through an alley.  This was, to say the least, not smart, but by this point I am sure that no is surprised.  What's important is that I made it to the doctor's office with ten minutes to spare during his open clinic hours.

And then I waited.  And waited.  And waited some more.  People, I sat in that horrid waiting room for nearly an hour and a half.  To make matters worse, not only had I forgotten my book at home, but I was also the only person in the room who wasn't 1) faking a worker's comp claim, 2) suing Walmart, or 3) both.  I was also the only person who noticed that one of the many screaming children in the "play area" had taken to throwing around duplo blocks, one of which hit me squarely in the back of the head as I was flipping through a year-old Time magazine article about the Dalia Lama.   And the only person who was perturbed by the fact that there was not a scrap of toilet paper to be found in the single bathroom stall in the waiting area.  Also: the only one without an iphone.  Right.

After I'd given up all hope of getting anything done for the rest of the afternoon, I was finally granted my thirty seconds of doctor face-time.  Happily, I do not have any torn ligaments.  So... that's good. 

I walked back to my car in a petulant mood, thinking of all the enjoyable things I could have done with that last two hours of my life when I realized that I'd indeed been gone for two hours. As in, fifteen minutes more than my parking meter allowed.  Oh, shit, I thought.  PLEASE let me have a parking ticket.  Please let me have gotten a ticket in the fifteen minutes I was over the limit, so I can put it in an envelope and mail it to the lawyer's office with a note that says "PLEASE ADD THIS ONE (1) PARKING TICKET, ALONG WITH TWO (2) HOURS OF MY LIFE TO THE SETTLEMENT.  AND ALSO ONE (1) DUPLO-SHAPED BRUISE ON THE BACK OF MY HEAD."

I walked closer and closer, with a sinking feeling in my stomach as I noticed that there were now far fewer cars parked on the street.  Oh, shit, I thought (again).  Was this a no parking between 4 and 6pm zone?  I didn't even think to look since I thought I'd be out of there by 3pm at the latest, but yup, even the moving van I parked behind is gone. 

And then I noticed that my car was gone too.  And for one heart-sinking minute, I thought I'd been towed. 

But then I found my car behind a white van that had just done a terrible parking job.

I got in and drove away. The end.  

Good story, right? 

I'm OK, you're OK. We're all OK!

I talk to cats! You talk to cats! If we ALL talk to our pets that means we're all normal, right? Well, at least that's what Max told me last night. After we finished our nightly Harry Potter book club discussion.

In other news, I'm pretty sure this video is relevant to your workday.

(Link via The Bloggess)

Carry on.

Bluebird on my shoulder

So I have a confession: I talk to my cats. 

I say hello when I come home from work and ask how their day was.  I tell them to calm the hell down when they swarm me in the morning looking for food even though their bowl is filled with perfectly good food and what, do they think food grows on trees?  Well, yes, Max, you have a point, some food does grow on trees but I'm pretty sure that no farmer in Florida is harvesting 10-lb bags of Science Diet.  

You get the idea.

I always tell them goodbye when I leave in the morning.  This morning I was in a chipper mood, and instead of just telling them "goodbye", I said "see you cats later".   I meant "cats" in the cool-cats-50s-slang way, but then I laughed my ass off the whole way to work because CATS!  THEY ARE CATS!  HAHAHAHAHA.

Either someone slipped some Prozac in my coffee this morning or I am really, really ready for this almost-springtime weather. 

If you guys are not on twitter, you're seriously missing out

That is some thrilling, high quality content, right there. And I didn't even go to the grocery store OR the gym today!  Joining time-wasting social media sites while slightly delirious = BEST IDEA EVER.

Or something.

Getting bangs, on the other hand.... not so much a good idea.  Well, you know how the song goes, two out of three ain't bad.  So now I just need to find one other thing to be right about and I'll be all set.

/SLOWEST FRIDAY IN THE HISTORY OF THE WORKING WORLD

I now declare it the weekend.  AMEN.

And we won't even get into the Battlestar Gallactica obsession

Thanks to a combination of clementines, snow days (finally!), sleeping late and Harry Potter, I seem to have finally kicked the persistent cold with a side of feverish delirium that has been plaguing me for the past week and a half.  But not before I (1) went for a haircut and ended up with side-bangs, and  (2) joined Twitter.

So, yes.  Twitter.  You may have previously heard me saying that I just don't get it.  Who needs to know when you're going to the grocery store and when you're at the gym?  No one, that's who! Right?  Right! 

But then I read a comment on Janet's site referencing something she'd twittered about, and I wanted to see that particular post (or "tweet," if you will), damnit!  But Twitter wouldn't show it to me until I created a username.  So, fine, I created Twitter username.  (This was a particularly slow evening, in case you couldn't tell.)  And then the next thing I knew I suddenly I had a Twitter "account" and was following 20 people.  And now I am addicted; the end.

Let's talk a bit about everyone's favorite boy wizard.  I have had Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone sitting on my shelf ever since I bought it at a garage sale several years ago, but I never felt compelled to read it.  I finally picked it up in December, hoping it could save me from a particularly rough patch of post-Twilight depression... and I have to tell you, I was not that impressed.  It was a cute kid's book and a quick read, but it was no Twilight; THAT's for sure.  I felt the same way about Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. 

Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, however, I really really liked.  Really, really, really.  I panicked a bit when I realized on Thursday -- just as I was leaving for a 2-hour train ride to New Jersey -- that the collection of Potter books I'd borrowed from my friend was missing Book #4, but I've now procured my brother's copy and I daresay I'm close to being completely hooked.  I really didn't think it was possible to get any nerdier than being a 28-year-old Twilight fangirl with three cats and a blog, but it turns out I was wrong!  You can also be a 28-year-old vampire nerd who texts in Twitter updates about Harry Potter! Five years after liking Harry Potter was cool!

Not dead, but getting there

Ah, yes.  Hello.  I have a blog. 

I've been feeling rather uninspired lately.  Blog-wise, that is.  Other areas of life remain unaffected.   We got some new kitchen shelves and they are very beautiful!  I bought a watering can that's cute and all old-looking and I'm going to use it at the wedding somehow, someway, so help me God.   Joel planned us a surprise mini-staycation when my weekend plans were canceled at the last minute and we got to stay in the Presidential Suite at the Marriott!  And then he got up early and went home to feed the cats and get me coffee.  He is awesome.   Now you know!

So... things, they are a-happening, but I've not felt much like blogging.  Until today!  Today, my friends, is a sad day.   Today was supposed to be a snow day, but then the snow stopped.   And today was also going to be a sick day, except I had a conference call to be on at 9:30 and it seemed kind of pointless to go home when I was already all dressed and all here and stuff.  Except I have some sort of cold/flu/deadly virus that kind of makes me extremely slap-happy.  My head feels like a helium balloon that could float my body up into the sky.  My coworkers seemed to think that wasn't good but I say, hey, it feels better than yesterday when my throat was all sore and scratchy.   Whee!  Also I am all woozy but that's fine because I sit in a chair all day and do computer stuff.   I am very busy.  Goodbye.

PS - I swear to Jeebus, I have not taken any drugs today except for one (1) Mucinex DM and two (2) Alleve.  I am also about to take some Tylenol, but that doesn't count because Joel told me to and he's a doctor.   Not really, but close enough.  Someone should bottle up this virus thing and sell it on the street, because I'm telling you!  Things, they could be worse.  Hey, italics!  Cool.  

In other news...

Hi guys.  I am not quite sure how to come back from such a gloomy post, but I'll try.  First off, I am OK.  Thank you all, SO MUCH, for your comments, emails, texts and phone calls.   And if I said anything nonsensical to you in response to those messages, um... sorry.   I didn't think that the muscle relaxers were having any effect other than making me pass out in slack-jawed coma for a few hours every afternoon, but I don't exactly remember posting some of the thing I did on facebook or sending some of the texts in my phone's sent folder (not that I said anything outrageous, I just don't remember saying it at all)... so I guess they were working after all?   I'm still pissed off because my coworkers both got sent home with some grade-A quality painkillers and I got stuck with some bullshit muscle relaxers that my doctor-friend told me are pretty much placebos but WHATEVER.   We're all OK, and that is what matters.

I felt pretty much like hell on Thursday and Friday, but I think I'm steadily getting better.  I am back at work today, woohoo.  Life goes on, and I am very, VERY grateful for that.

Moving on...

After the return of Jack Baur on Sunday night, I found myself at Sam's Club yesterday purchasing, among (many) other things, a 15-lb bag of rice and a 5-liter bottle of olive oil.  Then I went through the pantry and pulled out things like peanut butter and told Joel "we need to get some more of this shit.  This never goes bad."  

And then I told him I thought we should get a gun and he spent the rest of the evening on the computer looking at tactical rifles.  

The thing is, I love shows like 24 and Jericho... but they scare the living shit out of me, to put it mildly.   And I can't even tell you how terrified I was after reading The Road.   I used to have nightmares that revolved around there being some sort of natural disaster and my being unable to wrangle all three cats into a carrier before being evacuated.  Now I'm afraid of riots and survival in a post-apocalyptic breakdown of society.  

(After we decided we need to get a gun, I also realized we also need to get a goat, at least two sheep, and some chickens as well.  And a fallout bunker.  Joel will commence looking at real estate in  Wyoming as soon as he finds the perfect gun.)

I'm either the smartest person I've ever met or the craziest.  If it's the latter, I'd like to blame everything on "the amnesia", which is what I have taken to calling the drop in IQ I've experienced after the accident.  Don't get mad when I can't remember what happened last season on Battlestar Gallactica!  It's the amnesia.  I think I may have over-inflated my front car tire, but I can't be sure.  It's the amnesia!  You know how it is. 

Yesterday was my last day home before returning to work and I was very excited about the prospect of being home at 5pm to watch the entire hour of Gilmore Girls on ABC Family (instead of the last half hour, which I usually catch at the gym).  No missing the first half of the episode, no laughing too loud because I have headphones on while I"m on the treadmill... just  me, my couch, and Luke Danes.  And then I turned on the TV to find Kyle XY on instead!   If that's not a sign of the upcoming apocalypse I don't know what is. 

Good thing we have enough soup to last us through the nuclear winter.

This Really Old House

Over the past few weeks, I have become somewhat obsessed with completing some of the home improvement projects that have been hanging around on our to-do list since, oh... we bought our house?   Which was in 2003?  I am not really sure what triggered this particular compulsion in my brain, but it has been activated and there is no going back.  Last week I had a plumber come over and fix our kitchen sink, which leaked occasionally under some unknown set of circumstances.  I never could get it to leak on purpose, and trust me, I tried.  I turned the water on super hot, ran the garbage disposal, tried the dishwasher on various different cycles, did all of these things at the same time while wearing a blindfold and hopping on one foot -- NOTHING.  And yet the pan I put under the pipe would have water in it from time to time.  Not every day, not every week, but sometimes.  If there's anything I hate, it's a pipe that doesn't even have the decency to leak consistently. 

Anyway, the pipe is hereby fixed.   I still have a pan under there, just in case.  Obviously this pipe cannot be trusted.  But I feel better, it's fixed, box checked.  NEXT!

We have finally purchased a new window for the broken bit of glass over our door that's been serving as a convenient escape route for all of our heat for the past five winters; now Joel just needs to install it.   Joel has also fixed the broken weatherstripping around our front door and scraped off all the chipped paint around the doorframe so we can re-coat it with paint that is actually intended for outdoor use.  Sigh.  Have I ever mentioned how much I hate the assholes who rehabbed our house?  HATEHATEHATE.  I am trying not to project this hatred onto the house itself, but oh, it is hard.

Tomorrow I have a dude coming over to clean and tune up our furnace and clean out all the air vents and most importantly, the dryer vent.  When Mr. Dude came over to take a look and give me an estimate earlier this week, he seemed very concerned that our dryer is packed on top of the washing machine in a closet that has about an inch of clearance on each side.  When I informed him there was no possible way that the dryer can be pulled out from the wall because it doesn't fit through the door frame and there's no way in hell I'm taking that door frame off again, he seemed to think this was going to cause some problems.  Have I mentioned that sometimes I really hate our stupid 107-year-old house?  And the rehabbers who made a laundry closet that's too small to fit any machines manufactured on this planet?

Next on the list is to find a good roofer to come over and determine if it's our roof or the neighbor's roof that is leaking water into the litterbox room when it rains.  Because, yes, water, it is leaking into our house.  I discovered this when I was vacuuming out the poo-room and the vacuum brush was suddenly leaving wet marks across the uber-dusty surfaces of the plastic storage containers we keep in there.  My first reaction was to round up Henry and Max into separate interrogation rooms and then force one of them to flip on the other and tell me who had managed to piss on the rug underneath a pile of junk, because that takes considerable skill.  But upon a complicated forensic investigation, my nose and I determined that it wasn't cat piss soaking the rug, it was rain water.  So, yeah.  Anyone know a good roofer? 

Last but not least, we had a handyman come over to see about replacing three of our windows.  Two of them are permanently fogged up inside, which has been the case since we moved in, but suddenly it has become absolutely intolerable.  Joel need to call the manufacturer to try to get us some replacements for free, and that better happen soon because those windows and their foggy trickery are driving me insane. We also need to buy a new window for the poo-room because the one that's in there... well, it's the wrong size.  The propped-up drywall that's holding it in place was serving quite well until a few weeks ago, when a heavy sideways rain storm resulted in a huge bubble of water behind the paint.  DEAR PEOPLE WHO REHABBED OUR HOUSE:  ROT IN HELL.  So, yeah.  Windows.  Need to buy some.

And when the handyman/window installer is here again, I'm going to get him to re-seal both of our bathtubs too, because all of a sudden the DIY job we did a few years ago after the great Water Leaking Out of Tub and Through Wall Incident (HELL. THE REHABBERS ARE GOING TO HELL.) is now driving me crazy as well.  It is working, but it looks crappy and it must be fixed.  Soon.

All of these minor-ish (with the exception of the water leaking in, that's a real problem) repairs are suddenly driving me nuts and I am not really sure what my problem is.  Joel is out of town for a race this weekend, and last night I found myself moving all of the furniture in the front room (which is heavier than I remembered) so I could roll up the carpet in search of the source of the mysterious cat piss odor.  The phantom cat odor has been surfacing at irregular intervals for years, but last night just seemed like the right time to move all the couches (by myself) and roll up the rug (by myself), wash the floor underneath and carefully inspect for signs of cat piss (none found) and then move all of the furniture back (by myself). 

The really strange thing about all this is that these minxy fogged-up windows and a less-than-professional (but fully functional) tub sealing job are really weighing me down, while the fact that we haven't had a bed frame since we sold our old bed (in JUNE) doesn't bother me a bit.  And until we have a new bed frame, the new mattress and boxspring (which are not really that new anymore) are just resting unattractively on the floor.  I am OK with this.  And because the mattress is sitting on the floor, the storage containers full of clothes that used to go under the bed are stacked up in the hallway, serving as a cat condo for Henry.... also, fine with me.   I have a stack of picture frames next to the nightstand, still waiting to be hung and a drawer full of fall clothes begging to be organized and donated to Goodwill. 

But all of that seems unimportant when there are dusty air vents and magically foggy windows to be dealt with. 

How to pretty much guarantee you're never asked to give a toast at a wedding again

A Step-by-Step Guide

Step 1: Start off with some sentimental stories about all the good times you've shared.

Step 2: Break into a choreographed dance based (very) loosely on your friendship.  

Step 3: Have a grand finale that involves displaying the bride and groom's names on your asses.

Step 4:Try to wrap up with a quick, sentimental statement about how happy you are for the bride and groom.  This may be difficult because you will be extremely out of breath from all that Running Man.

Step 5: Proceed immediately to the bar. 

Etc, etc

I got an email yesterday from one of my favorite people from college, asking what my current address is, if I was still with Joel, and if so, what was Joel's last name again?  He is getting ready to mail out save-the-dates for his own wedding in May, and it totally made my day to hear from him.   I'm not sure why, but I have been absolutely terrible at keeping in touch with people since graduation.   I could theorize that it was because I had such a terrible time transitioning to Real Adult Life that first year out.  Maybe it was just laziness.   Maybe it was the crushing insecurity I felt over not having even an iota of career ambition after four years at a prestigious college, when everyone else seemed to either be heading out to grad school/ med school/law school or an impressive-sounding job.   Whatever the reason, it's one of the things I would change if I could rewind my life. 

It was so nice to get the thirty-second update on his life, and I'm already looking forward to his wedding.  I'm not positive why this excites me, while the thought of my five-year college reunion made me want to vomit with anxiety, but, again, if I had to guess I'd say it was a combination of 1) The fact that a wedding will be much more contained than a reunion - the guests will be his friends and family, not every damn person in our graduating class, 2) Now that we've set a date, I feel like I have something official to report; evidence that I haven't just been wasting my life for these past five years.  I hate the way that sounds, because I am not at all one of those girls whose goal in life is to get married as soon as possible to the first willing guy that comes along.  It's more that I suffer from a self-imposed inadequacy complex and I am very, very crazy.  Anyway, whatever stars are responsible for reconnecting with long-lost friends must truly be aligned, because this morning I ran into my sophomore year roommate on the street.  

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In other news, As of Monday the OPH household has officially moved out of the dark ages:  we now have DSL.  And lo, it is glorious. 

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I've been having a divine time playing with my new camera.   Dudes, I can't tell you how much I love it.  I've been taking a ton of pictures, pictures of the new flowers I got for our window box, pictures of trees in the park, pictures of taxis and buildings on a quick trip I had to make to NYC for work.  

I don't know how we lived before digital cameras.  I'd be broke (er, more broke, I should say) if I had to shell out cash to have all these rolls of film developed.  God bless America!  Or whoever invented the internet!  Or whatever!

And of course, there have also been a lot of cat pictures. 

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I'm off tomorrow to a wedding in Ithaca (sister-wife Bethy has opted for a more traditional marriage), and it promises to be a fun-filled, utterly exhausting weekend.   Do you have anything relaxing planned?  Please tell me about it.  I miss my television.

This and that, here and there

My new camera, let me show you it.

So, I bought myself a new camera.  It's a Nikon D80 and I am in love with it.   Our cute little point-and-shoot is still quite useful for carrying around in my purse and taking self-portraits in hotel mirrors, but my Nikon, it is my baby.  And now, just imagine!  Instead of seeing crappy pictures of my cats, now you'll be seeing crappy pictures of my cats in 3872x2593 pixels.  Like this!

Plus, the in-camera processing is pretty much The Shit.

Oh, yes.  I foresee many good times ahead.

Oh, crap.  I have to go to class tonight.

The impetus to finally up and buy this new camera, which I've been salivating over for months (ever since I realized that our cute little point-and-shoot did not have the ability to adjust f-stops manually) was that I'm taking another photography class.  It's noncredit and not a big deal at all, but it's already 100 times better than the last class because the teacher is not insane.  One week down, and so far that hasn't been a single picture of a stuffed pig dressed up in an Attila the Hun costume! 

Hey, guess what!  I went to Utah!

I got to try out my new camera in Utah this weekend.  I had a meeting in Salt Lake City on Friday, and I got to meet the fabulous Heidikins on Saturday.  I am on a roll with meeting up with bloggers lately!  Heidi took me on a whirlwind tour of the SLC area, and dudes.  It's pretty out there.   We went up to Snowbird (where my little brother worked for approximately one week earlier this year) and on the way down we saw a storm passing through the canyon below.   It was awesome and scary and beautiful.  We also saw a sphinx with the face of Joseph Smith and the famous Temple Square and topped it all off with lunch at Cafe Rio.  Now, I've carefully considered the statement I'm about to make, and I want you to know that I take food very seriously.  The burrito I had at Cafe Rio was the best I've ever had.  It was better than Chipotle.  As I said to Heidi while we were eating (at 11:30am, after we'd already made trips to both a Starbucks AND an Einstein Brother's Bagel shop earlier in the morning), the only thing that could have made that meal better is if I had been really, really hungry.  Is there anything better than eating something truly delicious when you're really, really hungry?  I think not. 

Boob tube

I think I'll need to dedicate an entire post to my thoughts on the return of TV, because my thoughts.  They are many.  But it's nice to actually have new shows to watch!  I sort of forgot what that was like.  Now I'm back to bemoaning the terrible decision to get the Tivo that only records one show at a time.  But still!  New stories to watch! Also: Wild card, bitches!  YEEEEHAW!

I don't know if I'm becoming even more cranky now that I'm nearing twenty-eight or if commercials are really stepping out on a limb nowadays, but there are three commercials on right now that not only annoy me, they offend me.   The first one might only be a regional commercial, and in that case you should feel very lucky if you don't live in the Baltimore metro area.  If you do, though, have you seen that Comcast commercial that's on EVERY FIVE SECONDS singing Get what you want!  Get what you need! while a series of attractive, hip-looking people (mostly women) jump on a trampoline in the background, whipping their head around like they're having the time of their lives at a rave?  Does it make you want to kill something, too?  Because I hate that commercial so much that I can't even fast forward and ignore it.  I have to watch it, every time, and every time I come to hate it that much more. 

The other two shit-list commercials are the two variations of the High Fructose Corn Syrup is Actually Quite Good For You Campaign. 

I think that these commercials are personally offensive to me because they are so well done.  If they were just filmed in someone's basement with a camcorder, they wouldn't be so goddamned convincing.  And the thing is, I consume my fair share of High Fructose Corn Syrup.  But at least I KNOW I'm making a Poor Food Choice when I do so, and I sort of feel bad about it for a second or two before enjoying that delicious cinnamon frosted Pop Tart!  Now I'm all kinds of confused.  I should go on a high fructose corn syrup boycott, just to protest this ridiculous campaign, I think to myself whenever they come on.   But how is that fair?  I don't WANT to give up cinnamon frosted Pop Tarts!  NOW I AM CONFUSED ABOUT POP TARTS, THAT'S WHAT THESE COMMERCIALS HAVE DONE TO ME.   I hope those bastards burn in hell, that's all I'm saying.

And on that note, I think I'll get back to work.

Or break something.  WILD CARD, BITCHES!

Out of the office reply

So.... it's the eighteenth of August, my calendar tells me.  That means I am leaving for Scotland, um, tomorrow!  How about that?

I have not even opened the lovely Frommer's Scotland book I so studiously borrowed from the library three weeks ago.

I realized this morning that we probably should obtain a power adapter or converter thingiemabober, but I have no idea which kind.

I have not packed. 

I have not finished reading Twilight for the third time.

I think it might be cold in Scotland. 

I am not sure where my passport is. 

But most importantly: despite several diligent web searches, I have not been able to find Ewan McGregor's address. 

HALP. 

So, internet, I may not see you for awhile.   Don't rob our house, we have three vicious attack cats armed with a pink piggie and an arsenal of Aflac duck keychains.  

Be afraid.

Post #2 of what I assume will be many - New Moon

You guys have no idea how hard it was for me to resist staying up all night to finish New Moon.   My coworker and I made a pilgrimage to Barnes and Noble yesterday at lunch -- which required us borrowing Metro passes and coordinating lunch hours -- when I realized that with the $6 Amazon was charging plus $3.99 for shipping, it would be cheaper to just fork over $10.99 to Barnes and Noble.   Plus, let's be honest: I really could not wait 3-5 days for Amazon to ship this book to me.

(SPOILER ALERT!  SPOILER ALERT!  DON'T READ ANY FURTHER IF YOU HAVEN'T READ NEW MOON) 

Dude, where's my UPS box?

I had my first wedding-related nightmare last night.  (I say "first" because I'm sure there will be more... worrying, it's what I do.  Even in my sleep.) 

In the dream, we were apparently having our wedding in some sort of island destination.  My family and friends all went out to this island about a week before the wedding and we were having a great time until I suddenly realized that the wedding was the next day and holy shit, I'd forgotten to do everything that I was supposed to do during that week. 

First, I realized that I'd never ordered any wedding bands, and I sent Joel off to find something we could use for the ceremony in a one of the local shops.  Then I started running around the island looking for florists and photographers when my mom reminded me that the dress was still way too long - I'd never had it hemmed.  I ran and found a tailor who said she'd happily fix it that same day... for $1,000.  The flower ladies were spouting on about some island rock (yes, rock) had made traditional bouquets impossible BUT they could do this weird thing with rope instead when my two friends came back with long faces on.  The local butcher had no idea how to cut up the wild hog I'd brought for the wedding feast (I finished Omnivore's Dilemma, in case you couldn't tell), they said.  We'd have to find a caterer instead.  Joel came back, saying he couldn't find anything but a pair of gold hoop earrings for us to use for the ceremony, and at that moment I realize that I had never found an officiant.

This whole time someone (who shall remain nameless because I know she would never do this in real life) was laughing.  Just as I was screaming "this isn't funny, STOP LAUGHING AND HELP ME!" I woke up and realized that I was mega-late for work.

See, I told you.  Breaking Point!  Officially reached!

In other news, I cannot find my car.  I was going to drive to work this morning so I could go to the grocery store after work, but car = missing.   Does anyone know where I parked my car?  Black Jetta covered in pigeon poop?  Anyone?

Lastly, I came home last night to find a note from UPS saying that they'd left a package my brother had shipped here with some last-minute stuff for his bike trip "BY FLOWERS -->".  I looked in in the shrub that the United States Postal Service so enjoys abusing, but there was no box to be found.  Someone stole it, which isn't all that surprising since UPS basically left a nice shiny box on the sidewalk on our heavily foot-trafficked street.  I am officially adding "mailbox" to the list of requirements for our next house, right after "closets", "designated parking", and "more closets". 

Whip THIS

I have officially hit The Breaking Point.  I knew this was coming, but it still sucks.  A lot. 

I feel like our house is falling apart at the seams.  Somehow we have no food (again), even though we got up extra-early on Saturday and went to the Farmer's Market.  There is cat litter everywhere and a layer of dust an inch thick on every surface.  I put in a load of laundry last night, and when I went to put it in the dryer I discovered it was full.  So that's where all my underwear has been.

Nothing major has happened, but we're leaving for our trip to Vermont on Saturday and I just feel like I don't have time to breathe.  I have to get the house cleaned, get a haircut, decide how I want my hair cut,  do the laundry, book my work trip to Chicago later this month, get ready for my BFF's bridal shower, and book a trip to Scotland.  Yes, Scotland.  As in, land of kilts and bagpipes and the Loch Ness Monster.  And Ewan McGregor. 

So, I'm a little bit stressed out.  And I also feel like a hugely hypocritical asshole, because the reason I "haven't had time to breathe"?  Is because I was at Penn State all weekend with my friends, drinking $1 Long Island Iced Teas and getting milkshakes at the Creamery and doing things like this:

Because I need something fun to focus on (and I'm still too busy feeling like I"m going to puke about Scotland, does anyone else get queasy when they click "book ticket"?), let me tell you what I am going to make for this week's Whip It Up challenge.  My little brother (remember the one who drove cross country by himself?) is off on his latest adventure: biking across the country with two of his friends. 

They left northern New Jersey on Monday morning, and if all goes to plan, they will arrive at my house in Baltimore sometime on Thursday.   I will then provide them with showers, a place to sleep that has four walls and a roof, and cram them as full of vegetables and protein as I can before they get back on the road and return to eating pasta at a campsite every night.

My menu, so far:

• Salad crammed full of veggies
• Blade Steaks with Mushrooms
• Roasted Red Potatoes with Rosemary
• Grilled Portobello Mushrooms (I was going to make grilled corn on the cob, with fresh corn from the Farmer's Market, but Joel very wisely pointed out that corn on the cob + riding a bike all day with very limited bathroom access = an uncomfortable situation)
• Homemade Iced Tea
• Homemade Chocolate Chip Cookies

I think that should hold them over for four thousand miles or so, don't you?  At the very  least, it will keep me occupied with something other than having a nervous breakdown until we board our plane to Vermont on Saturday.

Two down, four to go

I've got two weekends in my six-weekends-out-of-town marathon down, and so far... so good!  I was a hot, cranky, tired mess when I rolled into Baltimore around 6pm on Sunday evening, but since then I've done some vacuuming and some laundry and caught up with some emails, and I feel fairly recovered.  

In terms of a quick weekend recap:

• My three side dishes for the fancy bridal shower came out wonderfully (if I do say so myself)

• I FINALLY went to see Sex and the City (loved it... totally cried during the Brooklyn Bridge scene)

• I had two servings of ice cream cake at the Fancy Shower to combat the brutal heat and GOD WAS IT GOOD.  How come no one reminded me how good ice cream cake is?

• I went to a swanky clubin NYC for the bachelorette party, where I did not pay for one thing.  It is good to have friends with connections, it seems.  Also, bottle service is the best thing ever.  Especially when it is free.

The one real snag of the weekend occurred when we arrived at the apartment we'd graciously been given access to for the bachelorette party.  As I walked in with my suitcase, dragging a cooler of leftover food and drinks from the shower, I saw a very large fish tank in the middle of the room.  Please tell me there is a fish in that tank, I said to my bride-friend.  Please, please tell me there is a special fish who doesn't need any water in that tank.  A fish who looks a lot like a snake.  Because that cannot be a snake in that tank.  NO ONE TOLD ME THERE WAS GOING TO BE A FUCKING SNAKE.

In case I have not mentioned it lately, I HATE SNAKES.   "Hate" isn't a strong enough word.  I fear them, loathe them, wish they did not exist on this planet.   And the snakes I fear most are those of the constricting variety.  I do NOT DO nine-foot, 50-lb boa constrictors.  Absolutely, positively, no way in hell.  I don't love anyone enough to sleep in the same room as a boa constrictor, sorry but THOSE THINGS CAN KILL PEOPLE YOU KNOW. 

And then the funniest thing happened!  I had about nine drinks, and all of a sudden the snake didn't seem so scary anymore.  I made a tentative peace with the snake, and I even tried to get the bride (who happens to be a professional snake handler) (seriously, that's not some kind of bachelorette party humor... she handles snakes and other reptiles for a living) to feed the poor snake a sandwich when I learned that he only eats once a month. 

I slept not more than an arm's length away from him and he didn't strangle me in the middle of the night.  I guess that's what you would call "progress".  Or, "passing out".  Whatever.

A midsummer night's breakdown

If it's not too late to post about the weekend, perhaps you'd like to know that mine was fabulous.   We drove to New Jersey to celebrate my mom's birthday (which is actually in February, but that's how we roll in in my family), and spent Saturday hiking in New Paltz, NY.  When I remarked, after seeing a bride being photographed in the formal gardens at Lake Mohonk, that this would be a beautiful place to get married, my mom's jaw hit the floor.  "What! Don't you remember, the last time we were here, I said this would be a great place to get married, and you said 'Sure, maybe if you're old"", she asked. 

Um, no I did not remember saying that at all.  And I take it back, the place is lovely.

Throughout the day we had several more exchanges in which my mom recalled how scared I was of a cliff, how I cried on a hike (more cliffs), how I generally just had a terrible time.  Still, no recollection from me.  I was a bit unsettled that I could completely block out an entire experience like that, but I chalked it up to the fact that I must have been really, really terrified of all those cliffs.  (My fear of heights (without a railing; if there's some sort of protective rail, they don't bother me) is eclipsed only by my fear of constrictor-type snakes.)  (The fact that all my irrational fears have specific criteria is a topic we'll have to discuss another day). 

Finally, after about the fifth time that my mom asked if I really, seriously did not remember saying what a horrible old person place this mountain paradise was, I thought to ask when exactly this alleged previous visit took place.  Turns out it was when I was somewhere between the ages of twelve and fifteen. 

I'd like to make a rule right now: all snotty statements about old people places and horrible times should have an expiration date, after which no one can hold them against you.  Five years, perhaps?  Ten years?  Maybe we could say that upon graduation from high school, all previous bratty behavior is expunged from our records, and the same thing would go for college graduation and other milestone achievements.  Any of you lawyer-types out there, feel free to get started drafting up some legislation to that effect.

I feel much better knowing that my memory hasn't been completely erased by all those alien abductions -- I just, understandably, don't have crystal-clearn memories of every single hike and every remark about old people places that I made fifteen years ago.  And besides, by the standards of my twelve year old self, I AM old.  Don't mind if I do add yet another venue to the ever-growing list of  Places We Should Get Married.  

So, throw in some torrential downpours on the ride home and some great BBQ, and that was my weekend.  How was yours?  OK, great, now that I've politely pretended to be interested, I can move on to The Complaining.

Internet, this past weekend marked the beginning of my summer marathon of being out of town.  This coming weekend we have Bridal Shower/Bachelorette Party #1 in New Jersey.  After that, I'll be spending the 4th of July in State College, PA visiting some college friends.  The weekend after that, we leave for a week-long trip to Vermont to visit Joel's family.  When we return from that, I'll be driving straight up to NJ for Bridal Shower/Bachelorette Party #2.   The weekend after that, I'll be helping Sister-Wife Jenny move from Williamsburg to Richmond.  For those of you keeping track, that's six consecutive weekends that will not be spent on my couch at home.

True, most of these out of town activities are for fun.  But, still.  I'm the type of girl who needs enough quality time with my Tivo and a good half-day each week spend organizing and compulsively cleaning the house to feel balanced.  When are we going to look at the remaining wedding venues on our list?  When am I going to do laundry? Go grocery shopping?  More importantly, when am I am going to watch that new ABC Family show with Molly Ringwald and lie in my new magical bed?

I am really, really going to try not to let all of this stuff stress me out, and to remember that most of this IS FOR FUN.  SO IT SHOULD ACTUALLY BE ENJOYED AT THE TIME.  But honestly, I'm not sure I can make any promises that I won't be curled up in a corner sucking my thumb when August rolls around. 

I survived.

If you are wondering why I was so stressed out about this reunion weekend, let me explain:  I am crazy.  I have problems.  And have I mentioned that I'm crazy?

In general, I just hate these sorts of forced functions.  I got one email (among dozens regarding this reunion because I made the mistake of accepting the invitation to join Reunion Facebook group) last week about a networking event on Friday and the phrase "break out your business cards" was actually used.  I almost threw up reading that - do I need to explain, or have I sufficiently covered my hatred of networking in over the past two years of blogging? 

Because I still live in the same city as my alma mater, I've gone to Homecoming events every year.  It was never great, but never that bad.  The Young Alumni tent is an overpriced frat party, but it can be entertaining if you're drunk enough.  The homecoming lacrosse game is still a boring lacrosse game, but it can be entertaining if you're drunk enough.   

I've never panicked the way I did this year because there was always the possibility of just ignoring homecoming altogether.  If there were people I cared about coming back, I'd show up at a few events, pay my $20, collect my commemorative beer mug, and catch up with people.  But this year was The! Big! 5! Year! Reunion!  It was going to be So! Much! Fun!

For most people in our class, this was the first reunion they'd attended.  And I can see the excitement in that.  But this is my FIFTH.  And quite honestly, I'm over these reunions.  I feel like I need a disclaimer here, because I didn't hate college.  I LOVED college.  I had a minor life crisis when college came to and end and my life as I knew it ended with it.   Twenty-two was a not a good year for me.   I spent the majority of it feeling simultaneously lonely and overwhelmed as I struggled to adjust to working full time, cohabitating with Joel, and just becoming an adult.  I wished a million times that I could turn back the clock and just go back to school, where everything had a purpose and I knew what  my role in the world was.... even though I spent quite a lot of time senior year stressing out about tests and papers and thinking about how easy everything would be once I just graduated and started working, because then I'd have money and my weekends would be free from endless studying and staying up all night bullshitting papers.   Grass: greener, etc.

But then Joel and I bought a house, moved out of our craptastic apartment, got some cats.  I got a new job that sucked significantly less than my old one and paid significantly more.   At some point, I stopped feeling like a college student masquerading as an adult.  I moved on, for lack of a better phrase.  And I'm happy.  Though I may complain about trivial (and at times, not-so-trivial) things here, I am so content with my life it's ridiculous.  I love where we live, I love my friends, I love my family, I love my fiance.  I  love my three adorable cats.  This is the life I want. 

And yet, when I find myself forced to make small talk with people I don't know well, I inevitably feel a crushing sense of inadequacy.  I feel like a loser because discussing careers and networking opportunities makes me want to throw up.  I feel like I suck because I don't have a fancy job title or a posh city loft or crazy stories about my wild nightlife.  I feel kind of boring.  I don't WANT one of those fancy jobs, I don't want to be a single girl partying hard in NYC, I don't want to be in law/med/business school.  But I do feel bad for NOT wanting those things.  Sometimes I feel like I used my reserve of overachiever, reach-for-the-stars gasoline during high school and college, and now I'm just a slacker.  Honestly, that is probably a good thing.  The level of perfection that I used to demand from myself in every area of my life was unsustainable and I am so much happier and healthier now that I have let all (most) of that go.  But I still feel guilty about it.  If that makes no sense at all to you, that's because you're sane. 

In a nutshell, that's why I was dreading this reunion.  I felt like I was supposed to be SO! EXCITED!, when I really just wished I could hole up in my house and ignore the whole thing.  But I couldn't do that, because that would be antisocial.  And so  my friends and I decided that we had an obligation to attend at least one official reunion event.  We decided on the lacrosse tailgate because 1. It was cheap, and 2. It was not the frat party Young Alumni Tent.   I was OK with this decision until we were sitting in a coffee shop across from the lacrosse field half an hour before the tailgate was scheduled to begin, and all of a sudden I started having a panic attack. Why are we going to this?, I asked my friend Sarah.  What the hell were we thinking?  Do you want to just cut our losses and run? I seriously would have PAID the $15 ticket price just to not have to go to that event.

What is my problem?  Well, let me try to explain the totally irrational roots of my social anxiety reunion disorder: 

1. I have totally sucked at keeping in touch with people from college who aren't either A) Joel B) My friend Liz , who doesn't really count as a "college" friend because before we were college friends, we were high school friends, C) From my track/XC team.  Over the past few weeks, I've spent a lot of time thinking about why and how this managed to happen, and I think it's partly because I overscheduled myself SO much during college that I missed out on a lot of just hanging out time, and partly because I hate talking on the phone so much, and partly because I just suck.  Remember my New Year's Resolution to keep in better touch with my friends?   I made that resolution because I KNOW I suck at this and I want to get better.

I was afraid I'd come back and see how everyone is still BFF with all their college friends except for me, and then I'd feel like a giant loser.

2.  I really hate making small talk/bullshitting about "what I'm doing now".   I feel like I have nothing to report on my life.  Still living in Baltimore, still working at a job, same old same old same old.

3. Sure, I have the big engagement news, but the next logical question is "so, when's the wedding?" and I'm not positive on this one, but I don't think that durrrrrr? is a socially appropriate response.

4. Did I mention that Joel was out of town all weekend?  I usually have no problem being on my own while he's coaching or traveling for work, but at these kind of extremely stressful social events it would be really, really nice to have him to lean on, instead of calling him from a bathroom stall and begging him to come home right now PLLLLEEEASE.   

5.  We found out last week that Max has cancer, and that is not related to any of this at all except for that it isn't exactly making my mood any better, you know?

So those are all the reasons that I am crazy.  Now for the good news: this weekend was not nearly as bad as I was expecting it to be.  Actually, it was kind of awesome.   After having a joint anxiety attack, Sarah and I agreed that we would go to the tailgate for half an hour fifteen  minutes seven minutes.  We'd grab some snacks to get our $15 worth, and then we would book out of there and we would be able to say that we went to the stupid reunion.  Our two friends who abandoned us "forgot to register" agreed that they'd go for a walk around campus and that if we hadn't re-emerged within fifteen minutes, they'd call us so that we could pretend there was some emergency and extricate ourselves.  And just as we were about to get up and go in, I spilled coffee all over myself.  Oh, yes.  I did.  I am THAT awesome.

We purposely went at the very beginning of the tailgate to avoid the crowd, and it was beyond awkward.  There was ONE other person there, and she was weird.  She chatted us up.  It was bad.  And we still had five of our seven minutes to go.

And then something amazing happened.  Other people showed up.   People that I love and haven't talked to in years.  People who are now married to other awesome people, people that I actually wanted to talk to.  People whose numbers I obtained so that we could meet up later and hang out.   People who just laughed and helped me and Sarah exit gracefully when the tent actually started to fill up with ex-sorority sisters and a dude who actually refers to himself as HK03 (Homecoming King) (I'm not joking) and the whole thing started to go downhill very, very quickly. We lasted thirty-three minutes in an Official Reunion Event, and it was actually sort of fun! 

And then we went to Holy Frijoles, which now has a liquor license.  I pounded a pomegranate margarita and ate every bite of my burrito and everything was alright.  Because sometimes alcohol really DOES make things better.

The rest of the weekend was actually wonderful - I got to see my friends, my cats didn't cause anyone to go into an allergic fit (although they came close), people actually called me and came over to my house and we all hung out and it was so lovely.  Best of all, since I didn't know that that People I Haven't Seen in Five Years would be coming to my house, I didn't even have time to freak out and obsessively clean beforehand.  (But things were still generally in a VERY clean state, thanks to my mom's visit a few weeks ago, don't worry).  We spent time watching TV in our pajamas, I stayed up until 2am catching up with people I truly love, laughing so hard that my abs hurt on Sunday. 

Sunday was a laid back day, filled with a long lunch, and a lot of chilling out.   I didn't even have to call Joel once to beg him to come home early from his race. 

Even though the weekend as a whole turned out extremely well, I've never been so happy to return to normalcy.  Joel came home soon after my last friend departed, and we quickly settled into our normal Sunday night routine of making dinner, watching TV and getting ready for the week ahead.  God, I never knew normal could feel so good.

One can dream