Old Lung Sign

It's kind of a requirement to review the year if you're a blogger these days, isn't it? A product of our unrepentant navel gazing, I'm sure. So here you go....my year, in a few short paragraphs.

In January, I finally took a small stand and left Diary-X because of basic philosophical differences with the ownership and set up shop here. I yelled at some motorists and thankfully did not get shot. And my Uncle J shocked the family by getting engaged two months after his wife died.

In February, I found out my old boss was losing his shit, and I did Science Olympiad for the last time. I got my hair cut, I got my (goddamned expensive) catalytic converter rplaced, and I bought a digital camera. I participated in Februariam, and I saw Steven Tyler in an elevator in Los Angeles, right after I almost got to keep Chris Rock's Blackberry. Oh, and San Diego had a tornado watch.

In March, I played bingo and my assistant decided to quit. I answere reader's questions, and I went to Wisconsin. While I was there, I got very, very drunk with some very good friends. Then I got engaged. And then I promptly freaked out about the lists of things to do for the wedding. Whee!

In April, I posted a lot of pictures of my cats. A LOT. We announced JournalCon 2005 and the insanity began. I did a big giant meme, and ranted about how crazy things were. Kris moved away to Las Vegas. Boo.

In May, I turned 30, drunk and surrounded by friends and drag queens. I ran the Beltaine ritual for my uncoven, and it was amazing. My mom and I did some serious snarking about an upcoming family wedding. I saw baby cheetahs, and we gained an alligator.

In June, JM's son got married and there was drama. I drove to Vegas by myself and got all kinds of contemplative. I provided more info about my wedding plans than people probably needed, and I finally joined the Flickr revolution. And I got really, really stressed out.

In July, I hit 30 pounds gone...and promptly started gaining back what would end up being 10 pounds by the end of the year. My mother threw us an engagement party and it was very nice. We went to Comic-Con and finally gave in and got memberships to the San Diego Zoo. I started my second year of fundraising for the Breast Cancer 3-Day and saw some penguins marching. Oh, and I bought my wedding dress.

In August, we went to Santa Monica to celebrate Kevin's 29th birthday. I joined the YMCA and finally started exercising on a regular basis. Friends lost mothers and their minds, and I started freaking out about JournalCon. And it was hot, hot, hot.

In September, Kevin was in a car accident, but was blessedly just fine. I ran into two old friends at a yoga class and Kris and I did some serious damage during a shopping trip. We went to the Wild Animal Park and watched meerkats wrestle. And then we got some horrible news and we spent the weekend at the bedside of a friend waiting to deliver her stillborn baby. September really sucked.

In October, my life was dominated by two major events. The 3-Day came and went, more successful and less painful than lasst year. JournalCon came and went, filled with friends and booze and laughter and good food and exhaustion. LoLo came down and took me out dancing, and it healed my soul just in time for Samhain. And I discovered pumpkin butter. Mmm.

In November, I just kept livin'. I got new glasses, a new doctor, and new wedding rings that I can't wait for us to wear. I got a gigantic bill from The Westin and freaked out so much that Kevin sent me flowers at work. Those made me smile. We had porn for Thanksgiving, and I got to spend a day in my most favorite city.

In December, the generosity of the Internet People almost brough me to tears. I talked about the wedding a lot, and I signed up for Holidailies to get me back in the groove of things. I shopped online, I took some time off from the gym and I gained two pounds. Mmm, cookies. I sent out 140 christmas cards and got enough back to paper my walls. I lingered in bed with my fiance and spent time with my family. I started wearing pearls, and I said goodbye to the year with Kevin by my side.

This year kinda sucked a lot, at least as far as stress levels go. For a lot of people I know, this year saw entirely too much tragedy. Next year needs to be better, brighter, happier. I hope it is, for all of us.

Happy New Year's, guys and gals.

A sense of entitlement bigger than Manhattan

Most Awesome Random Quote of The Day:
Dude, he's like the gay Asian Pratt!

(This was, of course, in reference to this guy. Come on, tell me there's not a resemblance!)

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There are certain types of people in this world that remind me of the way I never want to be. I saw one of them tonight while I was getting my nails done.

She was, to put it simply, a complete and total bitch.

Now, I go to a tiny nail shop in a strip mall in Hillcrest. Nothing fancy, but they do have really nice, cushy, massage action, pedicure chairs. It's one of those nail places that's filled with chattering Vietnamese women, and all of them are friendly and nice. My particular nail lady, Amy, has been doing my nails since 1999. She's tiny and goofy and does a great job for me; she even waxes my eyebrows to perfection and tonight, she gave me a fantastic neck and shoulder massage. This, despite the fact that her husband is cheating on her and her oldest daughter is about to graduate high school and she works something like 6 or 7 days a week.

These women work harder and longer than anyone I know. They're in the shop pretty much every day, until after 7 every night. They're always nice to me, and I never get out of there without laughing at (and with) more than one of them. That's why they have regular customers like me, people who come back every two weeks, people who bring their friends and relatives in and talk about weddings and jobs and pets and kids.

And that's why it pisses me off so much when I see walk in customers come in and start acting like entitled whores. Tonight's bitch decided that the color on her nails was just ALL WRONG, dammit, and it was put on too thick and the nails were the wrong shape and my God, she'd been here for an hour. So one of the girls sat her down and started taking off the nail polish and asked her quietly what she wanted done instead. And instead of just saying "Please redo it with this color and file the nails a little so they're this shape" she flung her hands around while discussing what was so wrong with the way it was done before and how the other girl obviously hadn't been listening and finally huffed "I don't care but I don't want to be here for another hour."

Ooooookay then.

So the girl started repainting the bitch's nails and stayed quiet. The bitch, however, did not. Every few minutes she would pipe up and start complaining AGAIN. I think that she was just mad that no one was fawning over her and offering her free gold. The sense of entitlement fairly oozed off of her and it made me a little nauseous.

And then it amused me, because she was quickly becoming a caricature with her huffing and puffing. And I caught Amy's eye as she scrubbed my foot and she and I snickered a little, then smothered it before the crazy bitch saw us. Glanced around and sure enough, the other customers were doing the same thing.

And I realized that here was something I never want to be. I never want to be the bitchy customer who everyone else is trying hard not to laugh at because my complaining is so stupid it's amusing.

Because man, it's a lot more fun to be the one laughing *at* the complainers.

This does not make me a Bridezilla

Most Awesome Random Quote of The Day:
"Cat, you're looking awfully stentorian tonight."
"Stentorian? What the hell is that, the word of the day?"

(FYI: Stentorian does not, as once believed this evening by a certain person who is not me, mean regal. It means loud. There, now you've learned something. I'm like the PBS of blogs.)

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Now that the holidays are pretty much over, it is officially All Wedding, All The Time around here. We're exactly 100 days out as of right this second and the to do list I typed up today is almost two pages long. It's a lot of little annoying things, like printing up labels for the favors and tying ribbons on things and buying a bustier and ordering the cake and talking to my aunt about the headpiece she wants to make for me and ordering Kevin's kilt and putting together the invitations. And making playlists to load on the iPod.

The playlists. oh, the playlists. I need some help, people. I need CDs. CDs with those jazzy standards from the days of Ella Fitzgerald and Billie Holiday and Frank Sinatra and Bobby Darin. And CDs with lots of danceable Motown and disco and current music, with a few slow songs tossed in.

In a word, I need help from my brilliant internet friends who have vast libraries of music stashed on their computers. Hit me with some CDs, lovelies. Leave me a comment and I'll send you an email about where to send it. ANd I promise this isn't some sting set up by the record companies or anything.

It's just the act of a desperate bride with a two page to do list. TWO PAGES, PEOPLE! Two pages and 100 days to go.

Wow.

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Speaking of the iPod, I love it. Did I mention we got an iPod for Christmas from Kevin's mom?

Yeah, we got it, and then I commandeered it. I freely admit it.

I'm actually glad I put off getting one for so long because now we have the cool shiny black one with the color display and video capabilities, on top of the 30GB size. Mmm, gigabytes. I was listening to it at work today and a couple times a song came on that almost made me get up and start dancing around my office.

It's like those earbuds have a magic power that makes you dance like you're drunk in a club on a Saturday night, even if you're at work trying to act like you know what's going on.

I hope my new DirtDevil BroomVac doesn't make me dance like the people in that commercial too.

It's over when I say it's over

Lights!
Originally uploaded by Minarae.

Christmas is over and done, but my trees are still up. Yes, my treeS, plural. I upgraded the home tree to a 6 foot faker so I took the 4 foot one in to my office. I come from a family where the tree tended to stay up until mid-January or total tree dry out, whichever came first. Both the moms and I have converted to fake trees, they pretty much just stay up until we are damn well ready to take them down.

And since I am lazy and a procrastinator, I leave the trees up until the freeway lights come down.

The freeway lights have been around since I was a little kid. They consist of simple strands of outdoor tree lights, draped along the sides of the bridges that cross the 805 freeway. They were always (and still are) the first lights to appear, usually right after Thanksgiving. I have no idea who puts them up or who takes them down; it might be the city or it might be some community group here in North Park, but one thing I do know is that the holidays aren't over until the freeway lights come down. And if anyone dares to argue with me on that fact, I may have to kick them repeatedly in the shins.

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Most Awesome Random Quote of The Day (a NEW semi-regular feature):
I have to admit, there's times I definitely smell like the antidote to yummy.

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Christmas was not very dramatic for us this year. Mellow time spent with fmaily that (for the most part) gets along. Two days with the Moms, three hours with Kev's dad & stepmom.

An even trade, that.

LoLo had a much more dramatic Christmas, bad enough that she called me, from Hawaii, for a dose of venting and a sanity check. Poor girl. Her family is the definition of dysfunctional and she's finally gotten to the point where she is done with it all and ready to take care of herself first. It's a rough place to be, and I hope she follows through with the therapy she has promised herself.

It's still hard to believe that I'm the sane friend nowadays.

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My boss is in Mammoth all week. Kevin only has to work one day this week. Assistant boss is working from home in her pajamas all week.

So why the fuck was I at work listening to people arguing with me all day?

I have no idea.

Christmas was good to me

Icon
Originally uploaded by Minarae.

From the time I was a little girl, I've always thought that there was something kind of magical about pearls. Princesses wore them wrapped around their wrists and dripping from their ears as they danced across shining ballrooms. Mermaids wove them into their flowing hair as they twirled through the water. Audrey Hepburn stunned from the screen as she stood in front of Tiffany's, draped in strands of pearls around that famous neck.

But they were a definite grown up thing. If I saw a girl, even a teenager wearing pearls, I thought they made her look matronly. Or silly, like she was trying to hard to look adult. I eschewed pearls for myself, relegating them to that time far in the future called Grown Up.

Somewhere along the line this year, I have morphed into someone who wears tailored pants and high heels to work on a daily basis. I am a woman who loves well cut white cotton button down shirts and wearing perfectly applied makeup, and also tends to prefer having her hair up rather than down since it makes her look more business like (plus, it's a lot easier to do in the morning if I just toss it into a hair clip).

And lately, I've been thinking that my jewelry box was missing an important element, a "just right" thing that would set off the crisp shirts and tailored pants. I realized it was finally time...time for me to wear pearls without looking silly.

So for Christmas, our last indulgent time before the upcoming Year Of Living Lean, I asked for a strand of pearls. And Kevin delivered, in the form of an 18 inch strand of gorgeous, perfectly strung 8mm pearls. They sit heavy and warm on my neck, and look damn good with a crisp white shirt, dark bootcut jeans and some black Italian pumps. I've worn them every day since I got them, and they couldn't feel more right.

Just call me Audrey.

Christmas Eve is here again

Cards!
Originally uploaded by Minarae.

It was sunny and in the low 70's all day. Not exactly the stereotypical white Christmas, that's for sure. But it's kind of nice to be able to leave the door thrown open while I'm in the kitchen baking a last minute pie and toasting pecans for the Pink Salad (which, this year, is green).

We had a nice leisurely breakfast at Brians', which we never do anymore since it's usually too crowded with pretty gay boys rehashing the parties and bar crawls from the night before. But this morning we had our choice of booths and were quickly digging into food fit for giants...a chili cheese omelette for Kevin and a stack of gigantic pancakes with peanut butter and honey smeared all over them for me. I can't help but wonder if anyone ever eats all the food on their plates there because we both left half our meals behind.

The rest of the day was uneventful, aside from the pie crust I was wrestling with when I made the apple pie I promised the family for tomorrow. There's very little in this world that will drive me to murderous rage faster than pie crust that refuses to behave because I really hate the idea of serving a pie with a tough pie crust. in the end, it looked pretty and smelled even better so here's hoping it tastes as good as it looks.

In between were phone calls from friends and family, and a nap (of course...what Saturday is complete without a nap?), and then we headed to The Butcher Shop for our First Annual Christmas Eve Date. We've decided to abandon all family on Christmas Eve from now on and go out just the two of us for a nice dinner. We talked about the wedding and complained about the waitress and had a very nice time together.

It's been a nice Christmas season this year. I have good friends and great coworkers and a fantastic year coming up. I have 75 Christmas cards hanging on the wall because I signed up for two card exchange lists and they all make me smile as much as the cards from old friends. There was good news of babies and weddings and husbands home from Iraq, and over the next couple of days there will be good times and laughter with family. There's not much more I could ask for, really.

But the presents will be fun too.

Merry Chrismahanakwanzayule, everyone. May it find you and your loved ones happy and healthy and close to your heart.

Two random paragraphs that I am somewhat ashamed to call an entry

I had a dream last night that I was playing poker with some people from work (my boss included) and we were playing with dirty cards. At some point in the game, I asked what a card stood for and my boss hollered "PUSSY!" and I dropped my head in mortification. (In my dream, not while I was sleeping. I did blush in my sleep though, because I woke up feeling the heat from that.) I think I need to not eat cookies past 8pm.

So today was a waste of time at work. I sent three FedExes and did three scans and I called that a day. Putzed around until 2 then headed home for a large glass of wine followed by a 2 hour nap. And then kevin headed out to get dinner. Which...yeah, crappy junk food! Because nothing says Christmas like nice hot french fries.

Yum, wine

There are few things in this world better than coming home and getting to sit on the couch petting a large, purring cat while drinking a very, VERY large glass of red wine and eating fresh tortelloni and a perfect salad with a DVD of Six Feet under to entertain you.

I'm just sayin'.

My boss gave me $30 worth of divine specialty hot chocolate from my favorite chocolate people for Christmas, and I will be diving into it as soon as I am done with this. Things are getting much more laid back at work right now. I think that's my favorite part of the holidays, the growing laziness as we get closer to Christmas. It's quite fabulous, I must say, the goofing off in the hallways and talking smack while slacking off from our respective jobs.

(I drank half the bottle of wine in one glass. I think I need to get smaller wine glasses.)

Oh, and those of you with cats? I highly suggest that you buy them one of these. Watching a cat try to figure it out is the funniest shit I have ever seen. Plus it gets their lazy asses off the damn couch now and again.

The cat will NOT STOP HOWLING

Reason #1,367 why I am the World's Best Assistant:
Last night I showed The Boss Man how to use the Circuit City website to do the "buy online and pick up in store" thing to get his wife's Christmas present without dealing with the mall, thus allowing him to live another day without having an aneurysm.

Most Random Sentence Spoken In Our Apartment Tonight:
Well, that's what you get for trying to tickle my nipples with your icy cold toes.

Things I have Left To Do for Christmas:
NOTHING!!! HA HA HA HA HA BITCHES!

Well, except make a pie and a strata for Christmas Day breakfast but that's it.

And that? Is nothin'.

Pretty typical, really

Today our Christmas present from Kevin's mom got here. It's a gorgeous, lovely, darling brand spanking new iPod, which my mother has forbidden me from using before Christmas Day since I forbade her from using her new digital camera before Christmas. Damn me for being such a present dictator!

I got all my baking done this weekend...I only made three kinds of cookies this year instead of 7. Palmiers, pumpkin cookies & sugar cookies. They all turned out great, and were received with much enthusiasm by my coworkers. I only ended up with 3 burns and one lost pan of cookies to clumsiness, so I'd say it was success.

This year, I was detemined to not set foot in a mall. And I didn't. I may have paid more in shipping costs than I did for the calendar I ordered for my mom last night, but as God is my witness, I did not set foot in a mall. The last cards went out last night, and the presents will get wrapped and ready for shipping tonight.

Oh, and today I got to have the awkward "sorry but I'm not inviting you to the wedding" conversation with my boss. Yeah, that was AWESOME. Luckily, he was about to have the "sorry, we can't come to your wedding because we'll be on a Disney cruise" conversation with me so woo, that all worked out. Although he did tell me to send them an invitation anyway, because his wife would be seriously bummed if they didn't get invited. So...yeah, we'll send an invite since I know for sure that they will be on a cruise and unable to come. And his wife will feel really bad and send us a nice gift and we'll all be happy. I hope.

Lastly, I possess the funniest video ever, and it proves to the world how dumb Riley really is. Unfortunately, I have no idea how to get it out of my camera (a Canon PowerShot A510) and onto my computer so the world does not get to revel in the dumbness of my cat.

The shame.

The beginning does not match the end

When I was a freshman in college, I lived in the dorms on campus. As such, I (of course) had a Resident Advisor. And I was even lucky enough to get to live in the room directly across from our RA. Yay! The only problem was that our RA, Mandy, was a total and complete freak. She wasn't much of one to follow rules. She blatantly broke the no pets rule by keeping a baby rosy boa in the room, and sometime around the second semester she started sleeping with one of the guys on our floor (who was the most obvious alcoholic I have ever known). The night of the Northridge quake, she was out at some club or another (despite being underage), and was scheduled to have been home hours before the quake happened. Too bad she showed up hours later.

Someone once told me that Mandy was all screwy because she grew up as a Korean adoptee in a very small, very white town in Minnesota. Personally, I think it might have been the drugs that screwed her up but what do I know? I do know that one night a drunk friend of hers showed up around 3 in the morning, banging on my door and demanding to know where Mandy was, since living across from her apparently meant that I knew her every move.

Sometime during my junior year, I heard through the grapevine that Mandy had been in a porn movie during her freshman year (before she became the world's flakiest RA). It didn't surprise me to hear that, but I kinda figured it was just a rumor. Because come on, it was way too outrageous to believe. At least, it was until I ran into a couple of old dorm mates in a cinema class my senior year.

I mentioned the rumor to my dorm buddies, Aaron and Willie. And they told me that not only was it true and they had seen said porn movie, they even managed to make a copy of the Mandy scenes and had it at home because they loved being the guys with the proof. Somehow, our conversation devolved to a point that we had decided that we needed to have a screening of the movie, which they told me was a really badly done amateur film that focused on Asian women taking it in the ass for the first time.

Yeah.

And so a week later, there we were...7 of us from freshman year, gathered around the TV in the apartment I shared with Chris. Mandy was quite the trooper, I muct say. But the guy in the video...gah. Big government issue glasses, balding with a stringy ponytail. Pot bellied too, and worst of all...he left his black socks on through the whole thing! The entire experience was really just creepy, and while it entertained us a bit, I think we all felt bad for Mandy by the end of it.

Anyway, there's a guy on our bowling league who is a dead ringer for the guy from the porn that Mandy starred in. Same ponytail, same pot belly, same bald spot. Truly a doppelganger. And it creeps me out to see him every week we bowl.

My teammate Leslie thinks we should ask him if he's ever starred in any amateur films. I think not.

Early Christmas presents

Any one of you who has spent any time with Kevin and I over the past year has probably heard more than once about our skeezy neighbors. The 12 person family living in two apartments (#4 & #9). The next door neighbors who kept locking their cat out. In the cold. At night. (We cheered when we figured out that some other apartment residents (#7) stole the pretty little calico and keep her inside now.) Those same next door neighbors (in #1), with the three year old who screamed and screamed and banged on doors and walked out of the house and out to the street without being noticed. All of them, banes of our existence. So for the past six months our life has looked kind of like this:

Want to do some laundry? Sorry, the dozen people living in apartment #9 are doing laundry...for the next three days!

Want to leave your door open to catch a breeze because it's hot and you have no AC? Sorry, the hell beast child from apartment #1 has decided she wants to stand in front of your open screen door and terrorize your cats. Better close up shop!

Hey, what's that those young guys from apartment #4 & #9 are doing in their flashy tricked out car? Why, I do believe that's a drug deal!! (Hm, I wonder why both apartment #4 AND apartment #9 were both broken into but everyone else was left alone?)

Listen, there goes the neighbor calling for her child...ha ha, she must have let her run out the door again! Mi-chelle....Mi-chelle...

Le sigh. It really just made it feel more and more like we were ghetto living when really, we're not. Just this building was getting ghetto. The rest of the street is actually improving quite a bit (hooray for regnetrification!).

But then! One day I came home and noticed that the property management had put up their "for rent" sign out front. And I realized it had been awhile since I had noticed the heard of children from the #4/#9 family playing in the courtyard. No flashy car out front lately either. And the laundry room had been suspiciously empty for a few days...we'd been able to do our laundry whenever we wanted to. Hey! They moved! Merry Christmas to us!!

Then today, I came home from my morning errand running (Sidenote...I managed to lose half a pound last week...it's a Christmas miracle!) and noticed that the father in #1 was painting the wall of a very empty looking bedroom. I told Kevin about it and said that hey, maybe they were moving too, ha ha! But really, I figured he just wanted to clean the place up a bit since they've lived here almost as long as I have. Besides, getting rid of both sets of annoying neighbors at the same time would be way too fortuitous.

But this afternoon when Kevin ran out to grab us some lunch, the family in #1 was moving boxes out of the apartment. Large boxes. And toy chests. And more boxes. And it really, really looks like...they're moving.

The complex was so nice and quiet today. This is going to be the best Christmas EVER.

Bits. And also pieces.

You know, I'm a little offended that no one commented on what a cute little kid I was, with my darling little pigtails in my Christmas tree ornament picture. Because come on, I was freakin' adorable. Admit it, you just wanted to pinch my little chubby cheeks.

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Onward.

The Year of Tragedy and Trauma continues unabated. This week, one of my employees got some horrible news, especially considering the time of year. First of all, he is the nicest, kindest, coolest guy...great sense of humor, hard worker, devoted to his kids, former military guy who served in Desert Storm. Youngish, late 30's/early 40's at most. He takes fantastic care of himself...exercises, eats right (jokes have been made about the amount of fruit he has been known to eat for lunch).

He was supposed to get some minor surgery done a couple weeks ago (sinuses maybe?) but then he got sick. He thought it was a flu or something...he just didn't fee right. But then last week he found a lump on his neck, so he headed in this week to see what might be wrong. The doctor immediately ordered tons of tests...CT scans, bloodwork, the whole spiel. And the doctor told him he was pretty sure it was cancer.

Got the news today that yep, it's lymphoma. From what we've heard, it's the highly curable non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. They're starting chemo for him next week.

Merry fuckin' Christmas.

But if anyone is going to beat this, it's this guy. He's the most optimistic, cheerful, determined to be happy and live a good life guy I know. Here's hoping the new year brings him health, and lots of it.

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Tomorrow night is our holiday party...it's been downgraded from a full on sit down dinner to a cocktail reception this year though. It's been classified as "business casual" but I've decided that I need to look hot anyway.

So I'll be wearing my Hot-Cha-Cha dress. I'll just try and dress it down a bit instead of dressing it up like I usually do.

Mostly I'm just going to wear it because I want to see the look on people's faces since usually at work I'm all buttoned down and professional. Well, somewhat professional anyway. They have no idea how hot I can be when I put my mind to it.

Man, I'm full of myself.

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Okay, I am seriously slacking on my Christmas cards. I have one more batch to write up, and that's it. I suppose I should go get started on those right now.

Right. Now.

Say hello to Frosty

Say hello to Frosty
Originally uploaded by Minarae.

I am currently fighting a very real and physical battle with my self to not eat the second eclair in the fridge. So far, I'm winning.

Today was not bad...went to work early because of a meeting, had a nice leisurely late lunch, then went and got my nails done. And now I have snowmen on my toes. That right there should tell you everything you need to know abot me: I am the type of woman who gets snowmen painted on her toenails at Christmastime.

Another thing that will tell you everything you need to know about me...on our way out of Red Lobster this afternoon, I told my coworker that it would be way more interesting and fun if when you picked your own lobster to eat, you were allowed to take it out of the tank and take it back to your table. Maybe walk it on a leash.

She said hey, maybe then they could bring big pots of water to the table and you'd get to drop the lobster in there yourself.

And I thought that was a damn fine idea. Hey, there's already restaurants where you can cook your own steaks at the table so it's not that big of a stretch.

Don't judge me. I'm really very entertaining when I start having thoughts like this.

Legs without pain are overrated anyway

I can barely walk today. I seem to have worked out a little too hard (aerobics DVD yesterday and my regular upper/lower body weight circuit today, along with some good treadmill time) (and both days were followed by a day spent in high heels), and so now my legs and ass are KILLING me. Walking is difficult after sitting for too long and oh my God, PEEING IS HARD. Because peeing involves sitting and standing and dear Goddess above, it hurts to do that right now. Plus I am walking around like I have suddenly aged 50 years in one night.

My legs have not felt like this since October. Since the 3-Day. Since I walked a whole metric butt-ton of miles in three days. And so, in honor of the fact that my legs currently feel like I just walked the 3-Day, I present to you my long overdue Breast Cancer 3-Day Walk Recap, in pictures. Be sure to view it one by one to get the story in captions!

Sometimes a tree's not just a tree

This is our Christmas tree. It's fake, and it's kinda cheap looking, but man, I love it. I'm all about the white sparkly lights, twinkling off the ornaments and the funky plastic icicle garland I found this year. Since I upgraded us to a taller tree this year, I had to buy more ornaments. I gravitated to the old school looking glass ornaments, the ones with the glitter and the funky shapes, the ones you pray don't get dropped on the floor because they'll shatter into a million tiny pieces. Those are the best kind of ornaments.

But our tree has some other interesting ornaments too.


This is a picture of three year old me, glued onto a hand-cut cardboard bell that was then smothered in silver glitter. I can't remember if my mom or my grandmother made it, but when my grandmother died I somehow ended up inheriting her ornaments and this one was tucked in there. She hung it on her tree every year, and now so do I. It may be a little egotistical to hang a picture of myself on my tree, but I do it for my grandma.


Everyone in my family (extended and patched together as it is) has one of these ornaments. JM bought them for all of us a few years back, so we could hang it on our respective trees and remember the past. We always had s'mores when we had one of our all-day beach parties, or when we went camping. Really, anytime we did something together outside, we ended up having s'mores involved. My childhood could have been a LOT worse, let me tell you.


This is Our Lobster. It's cloisonne enameled lobster with a tail that actually moves. It's completely strange looking yet gorgeous all at once. I bought it in a gift shop at The Breakers, a gorgeous gigantic mansion in Newport, Rhode Island. It was the end of our first big vacation together and I'd been buying gifts for everyone else, but I wanted to get something for us, so we could look back years later and remember how much we loved Newport and how much we loved that vacation.


But the very best thing about the tree is how much the cats love hanging out under it. It's like living in a Christmas card when they start hanging out under there. Abbie's decided it's her new favorite nap spot, and Riley likes to take his baths under there. And both of them are so cute I could just eat them and their kitty toes right up.

But PETA frowns on eating kitty toes, so instead I'll just keep bothering them by taking innumerable pictures of them until the tree comes down and the ornaments and the memories get packed away again until next year.

There is a limit to the hotness of soup

There's a Coco's not far from our apartment that we go to on a semi-regular basis. Okay, so it's more like a once a week regular basis, but what can I say...it's fast, it's cheap, and there's pie. And we are nothing if not addicted to pie. Plus there's nothing too weird on the menu, and the familiarity is kind of comforting. Anyway, we go there a lot and we went there today for lunch.

Every time we go there, we end up having some kind of adventure. We live in an interesting neighborhood, and the most interesting characters always end up at Coco's eventually. Once, a pint glass slipped out of my hand and exploded on impact with the table. Another time, we got to hear a woman go on and on to the older couple she was with, complaining about how horrible her girlfriend was as they agreed with her. We realized as the conversation went on that the older couple were actually the horrible girlfriend's parents. Nice, eh?

Today found us seated next two a pair of women, one a middle aged brunette and one an elderly grandmother type. I figured they were a mother and daughter, but once we sat down and their conversation drifted over, I heard the brunette asking questions of the grandmother as though she was conducting an interview. They had been seated for awhile before us, so their waitress brought them their food (chicken tortilla soup and salads) soon after that. And then the fun began.

Waitress: Here you go, test it and make sure it's warm enough.

Grandmother: Oh no, this is nowhere near hot. (Brunette agrees)

Meanwhile, the soup is steaming and the cheese sprinkled on top is all melty but hey, customer's always right so the waitress took the soup back to the kitchen to microwave it. Brought it back, and the scene was repeated.

Three. More. Times. Three more times the waitress took the soup back to make it hotter, even going to far as to dump the old soup, stand there while the cook ladled it out and take it to their table within moments. And it still wasn't hot enough. Kevin and I were sitting there in amazement, because in the time it took for this to happen, my own soup had finally appeared (after being forgotten by the waitress) and had been plenty hot. We could see the steam coming off the soup and yet these women were still sitting there insisting that the soup pot must be set too low because the soup was barely warm.

Imagine their surprise when the waitress came back later and told them she had no idea what could be wrong, since she spoke with the chef and he said the soup pot was at 160 degrees. I half expected to see their faces start melting off from the atomically hot soup, because at this point (we found out later, when we talked to the waitress on our way out) the waitress had microwaved it like...5 times. Maybe they had some secret plan to get the soup nuclear hot and then spill it on themselves so they could sue the hell out of Coco's. Or maybe, just maybe, they were from an alien planet where anything less than 200 degrees is considered cold.

The best part of the meal today though? Free pie, as an apology from our waitress for my soup being late. Hey, lunch, a show AND free pie! See why we keep going back there?

Short, because I'm tired

My back is killing me. I spent all day sitting, pretty much. Sitting in my Weight Watchers meeting. Sitting in the car. Sitting in a folding chair at scrapbooking. So much sitting.

And so it hurts.

But today was a good day. Friends and perfectly fried chicken (and yes, we really drove up to LA just for lunch), time spent being craft and finally getting started on the 3 Day album, and in a few minutes, time getting the kinks rubbed out of my back.

I have a shitload of things to do over the next week or so...finish the Christmas cards and the shopping, do some baking, finish the scarves for the JournalCon drawing. Holiday rush, don't you know.

But right now my back hurts and I'm tired and I'm going to bed. G'night.

Yo ho ho and a bottle of wine

Today was the Annual Gift Exchange here at work (aka the Annaul Booze Grab, since usually at least 50% of the gifts are alcoholic in nature and those are the ones that get fought over the most) (Case in point: this year I brought a bottle of Ketel One; it was stolen the requisite 3 times within 5 minutes.) I ended up with a nice bottle of Robert Mondavi wine, and a nice case of heartburn from the cider and cookies. (Although it was fun to listen to our very Bostonian Head Boss of Them All try and say "ciDER" instead of "ciDAH").

I came back to my desk and in between dealing with a last few bits of Friday afternoon madness, I did most of my Christmas shopping. Ah, the joys of the internet. I may not have to step foot in a mall even once this year. Hooray for Amazon, is all I have to say about that. Mom's big gift (which is actually very small), Kevin's gifts, JM's gift....done, done, done. I'm quite the clever one, I must say. I even managed to score cheapie gifts to give to people at work, and I'm stocking up on necklaces for various friends as I type this.

I already gave the cats their presents. First I bought a Christmas tree big enough for them to lay under which...yeah, they're loving it entirely too much. Abbie likes to spend the evenings chewing on the bottom branches. I figure it's as close as she's going to come to brushing her teeth so eh, whatever. And I gave them some new catnip toys, which they love. Watching Abbie and Riley on catnip is like watching a bunch of kids on Ecstasy. They both get these big giant eyes, and start running around all paranoid for a couple minutes. Riley starts drooling, then Abbie has to start rubbing all over things and next thing you know they're sprawled out on the floor just rolling around like it's the best thing they've ever felt in their WHOLE LIVES. It's an awesome things to watch, that's for sure.

Tomorrow it's off to LA for fried chicken and waffles (ironically, right after my Weight Watchers meeting), and then I'm going to really get crazy and go scrapbooking! Because I am just that crazy.

Oprah isn't always right

I had lunch with a friend this week and over the course of the meal, she admitted that she and her husband had been having some problems. She said she hadn't wanted to say anything to me because she didn't want to take off any of the happy shiny excitement about getting married that I've got. We ended up spending the rest of the meal discussing the fact that this marriage thing, it's hard.

My friend and her husband are one of the most stable couples I know. They've been married for 4 years now, and they've always been one of those couples that I've sort of "looked up to". The fact that they are currently in counseling together does nothing to lessen that opinion of mine. They well and truly love each other, but they're not blind enough to think that they can fix all of their problems by themselves. I know in my gut that they will work through this and end up stornger than ever.

I told her not to worry, that her marriage is her marriage, and that whatever's happening with them will not affect my own excitement. Besides, it's not like I'm in a happy fairy la-la-land where people get married and live happily ever after, forever and ever amen. Hey, I've read The Conscious Bride, I'm fully cognizant of the difficulties of marriage. I know there will be times when I want to throttle Kevin, and there will be times when he wants to drop kick me. And you know what? I have a feeling that someday we'll be the ones in counseling, because Goddess above, we have two boatloads of issues between us.

But as my friend said yesterday, you have to really, really be in love to get married, with the full intention of being together for the rest of your lives. You have to be prepared for the day when you start thinking about how easy it would be to pack up and leave, or the day when your spouse starts mentally figuring out how well they could survive on just their income. You have to be prepared and you have to be ready to fight for your marriage to survive.

And that's what it really comes down to. When I look at Kevin, I know that if and/or when that day comes, I will fight with everything I have to save our relationship. I will go to therapy, I will take time off from work, I will do whatever it takes. And I'm not afraid of doing that either, because I literally cannot imagine my life without him.

Oprah may not think that there is any need to get married, but I think this is the reason to get married. It's a way of standing up and declaring that you love someone so very much that you will twine your lives together legally and emotionally and publicly and you will do whatever it takes to keep yourself connected to this person.

I think our love deserves that.

I don't wanna grow up

Sometimes I pause and look around my office or glance in the mirror and I think to myself "What the hell am I doing?" I do this because sometimes I feel like I am just playing at being a grownup, like when I was five and pretending to be a teacher for rows upon rows of dollies. I get up in the morning and I dutifully go to the gym and lift weights and ride the hell out of the elliptical machine, I go home and shower and put on my makeup and expensive perfume and clothes that are buttoned down and buttoned up. I slip on my high heeled shoes and good sensible coat, slip on my offical Work Badge, and suddenly I am Grown up. I am a Responsible Citizen, who has a Good Job and Responsibilities. I Drive Safely and Follow Rules (except for that pesky speed limit one).

But I don't feel grown up.

I'm 30 years old and I still have no idea what I want to be when I grow up. If left to my own devices long enough, I would end up doing little else besides watch television and read books and go hang out with my friends and eat nothing but junk food.

I'm 30 years old and I still take more pleasure out of tickle fights than I do out of the symphony. I would rather eat a pizza in my sweats while watchig Super Troopers than have to get dressed up and behave nicely at a black tie affair. I curse like a sailor, even when I probably shouldn't. I'm sure I will utter the words shit, fuck and goddammit at some point on my wedding day, and I will probably do it in fromt of a great many people.

I'm 30 years old but sometimes I feel like I'm 12. Unsure. Unfocused. Uncomfortable. I have a Job, which is quickly turning into a Career, and I'm still not entirely sure how I got here. I had a Boyfriend, who's turned into a Fiance, and soon he's going to be a Husband. I'm going to be a Wife.

Husbands and Wives are Grown Ups. How in the world did Kevin and I get allowed to become these things? Because seriously, we're like...13, 14 max. I suppose we should be glad we're still this way; it'll keep us young, right?

It's just weird, this recognition that I have indeed become a Grown Up. I worry about things like life insurance and car trouble and changing the litter box, I do things like take vitamins and eat my vegetables and pay the bills. And it's not so bad, but I do tend to wonder how the hell I got here.

Ah, well. At least being a Grown Up also means getting to drink martinis, in public, whenever one wants to. Cheers to that!

I swear I still have a brain

There are two things in life that you can do to get people to forget that you are a live human being with an actual life outside of that major Thing You Are Doing: plan a wedding or have a baby. I used to think that having a baby was the only thing that caused this to happen, but no, wedding planning does it to.

You know what I'm talking about, I know you do. It's that phenomenon where every time you see someone, especially someone you haven't talked to in awhile, the first thing they do is ask "So how's the wedding planning?" This is quite often followed up by "Are you getting excited?" or something specific like "What are your wedding colors?" or "Have you gotten your dress?" It's like everyone has decided that the fact that I have a diamond on my finger means that all I am capable of talking about is weddings.

And I'm not just talking about women either. The men at my job keep doing it too. (And that's just odd, to be quite honest. I mean, really. Do they actually care what kind of flowers I'm using? I think not.) And they all seem to be surprised that no, I'm really not that stressed out about the wedding. I'm not worrying about dresses arriving in time or bridesmaids arguing with me or who's going to do my hair or whether or not the invitations will get here in time because dude, I've done most of that crap already. And besides, I really don't want to bore other people with wedding talk. I'm bored just listening to myself, because really, there's only so many ways I can tell people about the place we're getting married oe what my dress looks like.

I guess people don't really care if I have an opinion about Alito or what I think about this season's boots over jeans phenomenon or whether Reggis Bush is going to skip his senior year and enter the draft in January, because all I'm supposed to care about is The Wedding.

Don't get me wrong, I do care about it. I care very much about it. I want the ceremony to be meaningful to both us and our families and friends, I want the reception to be fun and filled with laughter and music and good food. And I'm planning it out so that it is all of these things. But it's not all I'm thinking about.

I'm still thinking about the fact that the US has executed 1,000 since the death penalty reappeared, and that there is a war going on right now that I disagree with wholeheartedly. I think about my assistant, whose estranged father is dying whose siblings are leaving her in charge of dealing with the doctors and funeral plans, even as she is about to marry her fiance in a courthouse ceremony next week. I think about the latest episode of Lost and how freakin' awesome that show is. Seriously, I have got TONS of other things to talk about.

But just to get it out of the way.....

Our colors are pale yellow and pale green; I picked them because I liked the color combination on a pair of shoes I almost bought. We're not having bridesmaids or groomsmen, just attendant/readers, one on each side. We're getting married in Julian, at a little family run inn. I'm wearing a big poofy white dress, he's wearing a kilt (and yes, he will be wearing something under it). I'm doing my own makeup, my pothead hairdresser is doing my hair, and I have no idea what kind of bustle I'm going to have. There will be no roses, but there will be lisanthus, ranunculus, solidago, alestromeria, and Goddess willing, peonies. And yes, i'll be doing all of the flower arranging. No, I am not crazy. We'll be eating roast chicken and protabello mushroom stroganoff, and our cake will be three layers, alternating between chocolate and lemon. I'm wearing green shoes during the cremony, we're not having an DJ and no, there will be no disposable cameras on the table.

I think that covers all of it. I should have it printed up on a card so I could hand it to people when they ask "How's the wedding planning?" They could read it and then we could go on to other topics, like that punk ass Alito or that crazy ass Tom Cruise.

I'd like that. I'd like that very much.