Nearly two years ago, I got into a car accident while driving a state car. I ended up with a relatively mild case of whiplash (it was painful, but the guy who hit me wasn't driving that fast) and spent a few weeks going to the doctor and the chiropractor, all paid for by Workman's Comp. Since then I've kept up with my weight lifting, pilates, and started doing yoga, all of which have helped rehabilitate my back and neck and shoulder nearly to their pre-accident state (I had previous injuries that probably don't help with the issue).
I mentioned in my previous post that my neck and shoulder started to hurt seemingly for no reason on Tuesday, and yoga didn't help. It wasn't any better yesterday, and today I woke up and it was worse, bad enough that I couldn't ignore it. Aleve and advil haven't helped enough, plus my range of motion is really limited. So this morning when I got to work I called the chiropractor that I'd seen after the accident and told them I needed a tune-up. My choices were an appointment that started 20 minutes after I called, or Wednesday. I called Dan and luckily he was able to drive me over there, since taking the bus would take at least an hour (I hope he wasn't late to work! He is so good to me).
The chiropractor checked me out, did some poking and prodding, left me on some heat to help relax the muscles, and then manipulated my bones back into the right spots. He told me that I could have done any number of small things - slept on it wrong, sat up abruptly, maybe it was because the neck muscles were cold while I was sleeping, who knows? But he said the stress I'm under because of this whole wedding thing was enough to make those muscles say no way am I going to move, in fact, I'd rather stiffen up and cause pain. He gave me some stretches and other small things to do, said if I didn't feel 80% better by Monday to give him a call, and charged me $55. My insurance doesn't cover chiropractic, so it was out of pocket. If I get better in the next day or two and I can get back to the gym I will consider it worthwhile, but it sure was nice to have all those visits paid for by work lo these many moons ago. I can't afford ongoing treatment at $55/pop. I took a leftover Ibuprofen 800mg my dentist gave me when I had my teeth cleaned a few weeks ago when I was still getting over my sinus infection, and that plus the aleve I took this morning I was sure would make the pain at least diminish significantly. No such luck. I missed my pilates class and I'd like to go to the spin class but I'd also like my neck to feel better more, so instead I'm going to go home after work and lay on a rolled up towel. Bleah.
Thursday, February 21, 2008
Wednesday, February 20, 2008
Wednesday Wedding Day: STRESS
We spent Saturday cleaning the house because my mom was coming and the house was absolutely disasterous from various wedding projects. The most offensive room was Petra's Room, as we call our tiny second bedroom that is our project room/office, and it needed to be really clean in order to fit the full-sized blowup matresses. On the one hand, it feels really nice to have a clean house again. On the other hand, I know it's going to get messy with projects because we have a lot of stuff and not a lot of space to put said stuff.
I didn't realize how much having stuff still to do at the six-week (and counting down) mark would stress me out. I started breaking out in hives on my face on Friday, and they got worse over the weekend. While I wished my mom and Oldest Friend could have stayed longer, I was really looking forward to having Monday to myself - Dan had class, and the only thing on my plate, other than enjoying the clean house and waiting around for the UPS guy, was to make bridesmaid dresses. I started with the one for Middle Sister, since her measurements were the most straightforward. I spent an hour or so figuring out how best to cut the fabric. I spread it out on our living room floor and only had to shoo cats off it once or twice, measured carefully and did some calculations to figure out the best way to cut the pieces for the skirt and waistband. The straps took some more doing, as I had enough fabric to make them double-layered (necessary for such a thin fabric) but realized what a pain in the ass it is to work with stretch fabric. Eventually I figured it out and spent a few minutes playing with my sewing machine to determine the best way to sew stretchy fabric so the seams stay stretchy. I sewed the straps, then put the dress together. It didn't turn out quite like I'd expected and I had to do some hand sewing to get it to work, and it still needs a few finishing touches.
Start to finish, the dress took me about four hours (I took a break to eat leftover Syrian food for lunch, YUM), which was a lot longer than I'd expected. I was tired. But I soldiered on and made the dress for my other sister. Hers was far less complicated since I didn't have to double the straps (thicker fabric) and I'd already learned from making the first dress, so it took about an hour and a half. I considered making the dress for Oldest Friend at that point but I knew it would take more effort than I had in me (her straps need doubling, plus her fabric is only two-way stretch so I have to get creative about how I use it). I'm planning to work on hers when I get home from work today. I still need a zipper for QIR's dress (yes, it does need a zipper the way I'm constructing it, QIR).
My face was still pretty itchy and hive-y yesterday so rather than doing cardio at the gym I opted for a vinyasa yoga class, which I thought would help relax me or at least take my mind off everything we still have to do, but just before class my neck started to hurt like I'd tweaked it somehow or triggered my old injury from the car accident. I figured it was some sort of fluke, but my neck didn't feel any better when the yoga class was over (I usually feel great and very zen at the end of a yoga class). I couldn't imagine what I had done to hurt it, and then I started thinking maybe it's a stress reaction. So great. Hives and a stiff neck. I thought it might be better today, but it's not, really.
One of the really fun parts about wedding-planning recently has been working with a local jewelry artist to design our rings. She's completely independant, working out of her husband's office, and has a love for colored stones just like I do. She managed to come up with a wedding ring for me that fits perfectly with my engagement ring (not that easy to do, considering it's a claddagh) and incorporated the stones I bought at the gem show a few months ago in a way I'd never seen in a ring before. I got the ring a week ago and I lurve it. Dan's ring took a little longer, since it was designed in CAD and she had to have someone else do the wax cast, but his is ready today and she'll be dropping it by our house this evening. I will say that it's a little frustrating working with someone who does jewelry on the side rather than as a full-time thing (she has other stuff going on, like kids and work and such that makes scheduling more difficult) but we get along really well and I think she had fun doing something a bit more offbeat than traditional wedding bands.
Two more things have cropped up this week that have added to the wedding stress. First, the hotel where we set up the block of rooms seems to have a hard time getting their act together. We know that many people have made their reservations under our room block (and we hope that the entire block gets used, since we're responsible for 80% of it being filled, and the deadline to book within the block is the 27th), but the sales manager who I worked with is on materinity leave so the person who picked up the slack while she's gone emailed us yesterday to say that nobody had booked in our block. I know for a fact that isn't true, so I think something wonky is going on betweeen Reservations and Sales. It's really frustrating to have to deal with this at a distance, especially since you'd think because it's a nice hotel that they'd have this stuff figured out. All I gotta say is that they'd better give us credit for everyone who has booked in our block! Second, our RSVP deadline date is tomorrow, and we're still missing quite a few RSVPs. We gave people the option of RSVPing online or with cards that we stamped, and we've gotten a lot of both kinds, but there are quite a few people who have yet to let us know one way or the other whether they're coming or not. I think I'm going to start emailing people next week, because we need some time after we get the final headcount to do things like escort cards and seating charts and have to give final numbers to the caterer. Plus, three people have plus-oned us. Argh. If you're reading this, and you got an invitation to our wedding, and you haven't RSVP'd, PLEASE DO SO SOON. Thank you.
So we still have to do some administrative things that kind of suck, like finalizing the tent rental (have to talk to one company to try to get them to bring their price quote down a bit) and getting event insurance (required by the venue). We have to get wine and beer. We have to figure out the gifts for the attendants and our parents, print the thank-you cards (using a lino block and the letterpress at Dan's school), and I have to write all the thank-yous for the shower gifts. Everyone was very generous and I was touched that people cared that much. Someone at work is organizing a work shower for me (it's part of my work's culture, and I've participated in showers for a lot of other people so I don't feel as odd about this one) and we still have to send out lots of large checks to the various people we're paying to pull this thing off. Plus, there's all the stuff that's last minute by necessity, like the flowers and the cake and getting our marriage license. Oh yeah, and we still have to figure out a good chunk of the ceremony.
So much stuff still to do, only a few weeks to get it all done, and Dan's got five classes and works 20 hours a week. I think most of this is going to be up to me. And I realized today that my most-reliable physical sign of stress has shown up - I've lost my appetite. Maybe for some people this would be a good thing, since many brides are trying to lose weight for the wedding. Me, I'm trying to stay the same size - and I have to eat to keep my blood sugar stable. If anyone has advice, or dirty jokes to share, please feel free to share in the comments.
I didn't realize how much having stuff still to do at the six-week (and counting down) mark would stress me out. I started breaking out in hives on my face on Friday, and they got worse over the weekend. While I wished my mom and Oldest Friend could have stayed longer, I was really looking forward to having Monday to myself - Dan had class, and the only thing on my plate, other than enjoying the clean house and waiting around for the UPS guy, was to make bridesmaid dresses. I started with the one for Middle Sister, since her measurements were the most straightforward. I spent an hour or so figuring out how best to cut the fabric. I spread it out on our living room floor and only had to shoo cats off it once or twice, measured carefully and did some calculations to figure out the best way to cut the pieces for the skirt and waistband. The straps took some more doing, as I had enough fabric to make them double-layered (necessary for such a thin fabric) but realized what a pain in the ass it is to work with stretch fabric. Eventually I figured it out and spent a few minutes playing with my sewing machine to determine the best way to sew stretchy fabric so the seams stay stretchy. I sewed the straps, then put the dress together. It didn't turn out quite like I'd expected and I had to do some hand sewing to get it to work, and it still needs a few finishing touches.
Start to finish, the dress took me about four hours (I took a break to eat leftover Syrian food for lunch, YUM), which was a lot longer than I'd expected. I was tired. But I soldiered on and made the dress for my other sister. Hers was far less complicated since I didn't have to double the straps (thicker fabric) and I'd already learned from making the first dress, so it took about an hour and a half. I considered making the dress for Oldest Friend at that point but I knew it would take more effort than I had in me (her straps need doubling, plus her fabric is only two-way stretch so I have to get creative about how I use it). I'm planning to work on hers when I get home from work today. I still need a zipper for QIR's dress (yes, it does need a zipper the way I'm constructing it, QIR).
My face was still pretty itchy and hive-y yesterday so rather than doing cardio at the gym I opted for a vinyasa yoga class, which I thought would help relax me or at least take my mind off everything we still have to do, but just before class my neck started to hurt like I'd tweaked it somehow or triggered my old injury from the car accident. I figured it was some sort of fluke, but my neck didn't feel any better when the yoga class was over (I usually feel great and very zen at the end of a yoga class). I couldn't imagine what I had done to hurt it, and then I started thinking maybe it's a stress reaction. So great. Hives and a stiff neck. I thought it might be better today, but it's not, really.
One of the really fun parts about wedding-planning recently has been working with a local jewelry artist to design our rings. She's completely independant, working out of her husband's office, and has a love for colored stones just like I do. She managed to come up with a wedding ring for me that fits perfectly with my engagement ring (not that easy to do, considering it's a claddagh) and incorporated the stones I bought at the gem show a few months ago in a way I'd never seen in a ring before. I got the ring a week ago and I lurve it. Dan's ring took a little longer, since it was designed in CAD and she had to have someone else do the wax cast, but his is ready today and she'll be dropping it by our house this evening. I will say that it's a little frustrating working with someone who does jewelry on the side rather than as a full-time thing (she has other stuff going on, like kids and work and such that makes scheduling more difficult) but we get along really well and I think she had fun doing something a bit more offbeat than traditional wedding bands.
Two more things have cropped up this week that have added to the wedding stress. First, the hotel where we set up the block of rooms seems to have a hard time getting their act together. We know that many people have made their reservations under our room block (and we hope that the entire block gets used, since we're responsible for 80% of it being filled, and the deadline to book within the block is the 27th), but the sales manager who I worked with is on materinity leave so the person who picked up the slack while she's gone emailed us yesterday to say that nobody had booked in our block. I know for a fact that isn't true, so I think something wonky is going on betweeen Reservations and Sales. It's really frustrating to have to deal with this at a distance, especially since you'd think because it's a nice hotel that they'd have this stuff figured out. All I gotta say is that they'd better give us credit for everyone who has booked in our block! Second, our RSVP deadline date is tomorrow, and we're still missing quite a few RSVPs. We gave people the option of RSVPing online or with cards that we stamped, and we've gotten a lot of both kinds, but there are quite a few people who have yet to let us know one way or the other whether they're coming or not. I think I'm going to start emailing people next week, because we need some time after we get the final headcount to do things like escort cards and seating charts and have to give final numbers to the caterer. Plus, three people have plus-oned us. Argh. If you're reading this, and you got an invitation to our wedding, and you haven't RSVP'd, PLEASE DO SO SOON. Thank you.
So we still have to do some administrative things that kind of suck, like finalizing the tent rental (have to talk to one company to try to get them to bring their price quote down a bit) and getting event insurance (required by the venue). We have to get wine and beer. We have to figure out the gifts for the attendants and our parents, print the thank-you cards (using a lino block and the letterpress at Dan's school), and I have to write all the thank-yous for the shower gifts. Everyone was very generous and I was touched that people cared that much. Someone at work is organizing a work shower for me (it's part of my work's culture, and I've participated in showers for a lot of other people so I don't feel as odd about this one) and we still have to send out lots of large checks to the various people we're paying to pull this thing off. Plus, there's all the stuff that's last minute by necessity, like the flowers and the cake and getting our marriage license. Oh yeah, and we still have to figure out a good chunk of the ceremony.
So much stuff still to do, only a few weeks to get it all done, and Dan's got five classes and works 20 hours a week. I think most of this is going to be up to me. And I realized today that my most-reliable physical sign of stress has shown up - I've lost my appetite. Maybe for some people this would be a good thing, since many brides are trying to lose weight for the wedding. Me, I'm trying to stay the same size - and I have to eat to keep my blood sugar stable. If anyone has advice, or dirty jokes to share, please feel free to share in the comments.
Tuesday, February 19, 2008
My Valentine's Day Present
On Thursday when he came home from school, Dan told me he'd gotten me a Valentine's Day gift but that it would be showing up in a few days. I said "You didn't have to do that!" since all I did was cook him a dinner that it took him hours to eat because he was still feeling sick from the food poisoning. (Turkey-instead-of-beef stroganoff from scratch, with veggies and bread).
On Saturday night, my mom flew in for a whirlwind visit. She came out to attend the shower Dan's aunt threw for me on Sunday. I was a little apprehensive about the situation, since a) I'm not especially comfortable being the center of attention, and b) my friends who were invited couldn't make it. Dan told me "I guarantee you will have a good time at the shower, and if I don't you can brand an Oakland Raiders logo on my butt." (I told him, "Why would I want to do that? Then I'd have to look at an Oakland Raiders logo on your butt for the rest of our lives.") My mom brought some beads along with her that I'll be using for yet another wedding project, and we had a nice evening chatting.
So on Sunday it was me, my mom and Dan's female relatives. His aunt went all out and had a lovely tea party complete with little tea sandwiches and cream puffs, beautiful decor and some interesting games (guess the spice!). About twenty minutes into the shower, the doorbell rang. In walked Oldest Friend.
!!!!!!!
Dan had arranged for her to fly out to attend the shower (she'd told me weeks before she wouldn't be able to come). Luckily she has other friends who live in the area so she stayed with them on Saturday night, then they drove her to the shower on Sunday and she stayed with us and my mom Sunday night (then Dan drove them to the airport at the buttcrack of dawn on Monday morning). I was sooooo happy to see her! I hadn't seen her since I attended a wedding in San Diego in September of 06. And she seemed to have a good time, and was especially happy to be part of such a great surprise for me. Dan likes to surprise me, and it had been a year since he pulled the last one off. I wonder what I'll get for Valentine's Day next year.
On Saturday night, my mom flew in for a whirlwind visit. She came out to attend the shower Dan's aunt threw for me on Sunday. I was a little apprehensive about the situation, since a) I'm not especially comfortable being the center of attention, and b) my friends who were invited couldn't make it. Dan told me "I guarantee you will have a good time at the shower, and if I don't you can brand an Oakland Raiders logo on my butt." (I told him, "Why would I want to do that? Then I'd have to look at an Oakland Raiders logo on your butt for the rest of our lives.") My mom brought some beads along with her that I'll be using for yet another wedding project, and we had a nice evening chatting.
So on Sunday it was me, my mom and Dan's female relatives. His aunt went all out and had a lovely tea party complete with little tea sandwiches and cream puffs, beautiful decor and some interesting games (guess the spice!). About twenty minutes into the shower, the doorbell rang. In walked Oldest Friend.
!!!!!!!
Dan had arranged for her to fly out to attend the shower (she'd told me weeks before she wouldn't be able to come). Luckily she has other friends who live in the area so she stayed with them on Saturday night, then they drove her to the shower on Sunday and she stayed with us and my mom Sunday night (then Dan drove them to the airport at the buttcrack of dawn on Monday morning). I was sooooo happy to see her! I hadn't seen her since I attended a wedding in San Diego in September of 06. And she seemed to have a good time, and was especially happy to be part of such a great surprise for me. Dan likes to surprise me, and it had been a year since he pulled the last one off. I wonder what I'll get for Valentine's Day next year.
Friday, February 15, 2008
Engage-aversary
Thursday, February 14, 2008
A love letter in honor of v-day
Dear real-life internet peeps,
I love Dan because he hugs me whenever I ask for one.
I love Leah and Simon because they know how to be silly.
I love Jane because she volunteers to help kitties.
I love Cagey because she has no qualms talking about her boobs.
I love Cil for her sense of adventure.
I love EEK because she's totally going to marry us.
I love the Holla for his willingness to wear a kilt and chucks.
I love Monkey for listening to me blab about wedding stuff for hours on Sunday and never once telling me to shut up already.
I love QIR for finishing something, for starting something, and for always being there. And also, for her grab-able butt.
I love Sara even though she is going to cut me.
I love Eden for her cowboy boots and for breaking pie with us.
I love Todd because he always looks on the bright side of life.
I love Yank in Texas for posting pictures of her kittes. POST MORE.
Love,
MLE
I love Dan because he hugs me whenever I ask for one.
I love Leah and Simon because they know how to be silly.
I love Jane because she volunteers to help kitties.
I love Cagey because she has no qualms talking about her boobs.
I love Cil for her sense of adventure.
I love EEK because she's totally going to marry us.
I love the Holla for his willingness to wear a kilt and chucks.
I love Monkey for listening to me blab about wedding stuff for hours on Sunday and never once telling me to shut up already.
I love QIR for finishing something, for starting something, and for always being there. And also, for her grab-able butt.
I love Sara even though she is going to cut me.
I love Eden for her cowboy boots and for breaking pie with us.
I love Todd because he always looks on the bright side of life.
I love Yank in Texas for posting pictures of her kittes. POST MORE.
Love,
MLE
Wednesday, February 13, 2008
Wednesday Wedding Day: If I had a million dollars
Last year before we were engaged I wrote a post describing what I would want for a hypothetical wedding. Luckily, I think I'm going to get everything I want - or at least most of it. There won't be polaroids or silly clothes because we just didn't get around to that part (plus, our friends did that in September). And I have no idea if peonies will be possible because we're going with whatever's in my mom's yard or at the wholesale place (and I doubt there will be peonies at Trader Joe's). Regardless, I'm pretty happy that just about everything on my list of what I wanted a year ago will be a part of our wedding which is just over six weeks from now. (SIX WEEKS AAAAH!!!)
For the past few days I've been thinking about what I would want if money were no object, if we could have any fantasy our hearts desired. I thought and thought, and came up with some things that would be nice to have but by no means necessary, and so they didn't make the cut. But oh, if we had umpteen amounts to spend...
First, we'd pay for everyone's airfare and lodging and transportation so money wouldn't keep people from coming. I don't know that we'd have it in a different place (I love the place where we're getting married) but we'd definitely have a full bar instead of just wine and beer. And prosecco, because it's yummy. There would be both lunch and dinner, and maybe even a midnight snack, all made from locally grown or sourced comestibles. We'd rent a bunch of paddleboats so people could go out on the lake if they'd like, and also rent a photobooth, the kind that prints out a strip of four photos, so people could have silly photos to take home. We'd have a live satellite video feed so the people who couldn't attend could watch at home on the internets. And I'd hire my favorite wedding photographer who both grew up in and lives in Sonoma County and was an indiebride herself (which is how I learned of her). I spent a few hours yesterday reading her blog and drooling over her photos. Don't get me wrong, I love our photographer and I'm so excited to see what he comes up with, but if we'd had an extra four grand to drop on wedding photos, it would have been with Jessamyn Harris. She deserves every penny she gets, I think.
We'd have a party that lasted all day and into the night, with a live band that played every song we wanted to hear and kept the crowd going. Heck, if money were no object whatsoever we'd hire the Barenaked Ladies. I'd have found someone to make us a cake that looks like this or this or some other nerdy thing. Or maybe I'd just hire Charm City Cakes to make something unique - they made a hairy coo for someone's wedding this one time, I saw it on TV. Of course, then we'd have to have the wedding within driving distance of Baltimore, so I guess that wouldn't work.
Instead of renting, we would have had the full Scottish dress (kilt and Prince Charlie and accessories) handmade (in Scotland! and we'd go there in person so it would fit perfectly) to fit Dan and his groomsmen, and my dress would have probably looked similar but handmade by someone in silk (maybe even hand-dyed silk!), and it would be two shades of green rather than white and green. My bridesminions would have similar, in dresses they'd all designed so they'd like them enough to wear again. And after the wedding, we'd give away everything we'd bought (gorgeous linens, china, glassware, decor, etc.) to someone else who needed that stuff, to save them from having to rent or buy it.
Reading back over my little fantasies, I am reminded how lucky we are that we're able to have the wedding we want for as little as it is costing us. We could spend tens of thousands more (or even hundreds of thousands) and it wouldn't make us any more married, or any happier at the end of the day. Because it's still just a party, a one-day event, and I think it's going to turn out pretty well. (But I do kinda wish we could afford that photo booth.)
For the past few days I've been thinking about what I would want if money were no object, if we could have any fantasy our hearts desired. I thought and thought, and came up with some things that would be nice to have but by no means necessary, and so they didn't make the cut. But oh, if we had umpteen amounts to spend...
First, we'd pay for everyone's airfare and lodging and transportation so money wouldn't keep people from coming. I don't know that we'd have it in a different place (I love the place where we're getting married) but we'd definitely have a full bar instead of just wine and beer. And prosecco, because it's yummy. There would be both lunch and dinner, and maybe even a midnight snack, all made from locally grown or sourced comestibles. We'd rent a bunch of paddleboats so people could go out on the lake if they'd like, and also rent a photobooth, the kind that prints out a strip of four photos, so people could have silly photos to take home. We'd have a live satellite video feed so the people who couldn't attend could watch at home on the internets. And I'd hire my favorite wedding photographer who both grew up in and lives in Sonoma County and was an indiebride herself (which is how I learned of her). I spent a few hours yesterday reading her blog and drooling over her photos. Don't get me wrong, I love our photographer and I'm so excited to see what he comes up with, but if we'd had an extra four grand to drop on wedding photos, it would have been with Jessamyn Harris. She deserves every penny she gets, I think.
We'd have a party that lasted all day and into the night, with a live band that played every song we wanted to hear and kept the crowd going. Heck, if money were no object whatsoever we'd hire the Barenaked Ladies. I'd have found someone to make us a cake that looks like this or this or some other nerdy thing. Or maybe I'd just hire Charm City Cakes to make something unique - they made a hairy coo for someone's wedding this one time, I saw it on TV. Of course, then we'd have to have the wedding within driving distance of Baltimore, so I guess that wouldn't work.
Instead of renting, we would have had the full Scottish dress (kilt and Prince Charlie and accessories) handmade (in Scotland! and we'd go there in person so it would fit perfectly) to fit Dan and his groomsmen, and my dress would have probably looked similar but handmade by someone in silk (maybe even hand-dyed silk!), and it would be two shades of green rather than white and green. My bridesminions would have similar, in dresses they'd all designed so they'd like them enough to wear again. And after the wedding, we'd give away everything we'd bought (gorgeous linens, china, glassware, decor, etc.) to someone else who needed that stuff, to save them from having to rent or buy it.
Reading back over my little fantasies, I am reminded how lucky we are that we're able to have the wedding we want for as little as it is costing us. We could spend tens of thousands more (or even hundreds of thousands) and it wouldn't make us any more married, or any happier at the end of the day. Because it's still just a party, a one-day event, and I think it's going to turn out pretty well. (But I do kinda wish we could afford that photo booth.)
A virtue I do not posess (take 3)
Back when Dan and I were first together, he made me several mix CDs, the first in response to a mix tape I made him before we had even met in person. One on of the CDs he made me was an audio version of a comedy sketch called "Tae Kwon Leep." In the sketch, several students are learning a martial art from a guru-type, including one named Ed Gruberman who attends the class in order to learn how to "beat people up." I knew right away why he'd put the sketch on the mix CD, since by that point he'd already quoted from it on multiple occasions. "You must learn patience, Ed Gruberman," says the guru-type, and Ed responds, "Yeah, yeah, yeah, patience. How long will that take?"
This is entirely a relevant thing to quote for me, because in nobody's opinion could I ever be considered a patient person. I'm just not. It's most obvious when I'm in the car - Dan frequently makes jokes about other drivers and what countries they must be from (and about what green lights mean in said countries) because I have such a habit of telling people in front of us that GREEN MEANS GO. There are many other occasions in which I'm noticeably impatient, particularly when it comes to punctuality. One of my biggest pet peeves is when people are late. I hate it when other people are late; I hate it when I am late through no fault of my own (traffic, slowdowns in public transit, etc.). To me, being on time to an event is a matter of respect and when someone is late, I feel like they've disrespected me (especially if they don't call or something to let me know they'll be late). But it's not just about respect, it's also that I don't have patience for other people to do things. I hate to wait for other people.
My impatience also comes out when it involves illness. Specifically, in the instance the illness of people I am close to, especially the person with whom I share a bed. Instead of being sympathetic, my first inclination is to be impatient. I can't really explain it. Case in point: Dan was sick for the first week of our Italy trip, while I didn't get sick until about 5 days in. By day 4 I was really tired of listening to him cough and sniff and watching him blow his nose. I got annoyed with myself when I ended up with the same illness, because dammit, we were in Italy and there was Stuff I Wanted To Do that both of us being sick prevented us from doing. I feel terrible about this now, but I totally made Dan hike 3 of the 5 towns of Cinque Terre on one of the two nice days we had on the trip, even though he was still really sick. I had been waiting for years to share it with him, and he gamely wheezed and coughed his way through the hike. The whole time I was feeling like STOP BEING SICK SO YOU CAN ENJOY THIS BECAUSE IT IS AWESOME. NO MORE SICK! And he was probably feeling like WHY IS SHE MAKING ME DO THIS, I FEEL LIKE POO. And then after the hours of hiking he fell down the stairs. I'm a horrible fiance.
The other night (when I originally wrote this, I wrote last night, but now it was two nights ago) Dan was sick again. Except this time, it was the kind of sick you get when you eat something bad and your digestive system revolts and decides to cause great pain and also divest itself of its contents from both ends at the same time. He was totally miserable. I felt awful, because I couldn't do anything for him. He told me later that he was up six times in the night, but I only remember once so I must have slept through most of his ordeal. At one point, I was reading out loud to him in bed because I thought it might help take his mind off his misery, and he started to cough. Then he coughed some more. Instead of thinking to myself, oh, poor guy has to cough on top of feeling so awful, I thought to myself, STOP COUGHING WHEN I AM TRYING TO READ TO YOU BECAUSE YOU CAN'T HEAR ME IF YOU ARE COUGHING. When I asked him why he didn't try to alleviate the cough by drinking some of the water on his bedside table, he told me that he didn't want to put anything else in his stomach. Duh, Emily. I felt so bad for him, and was really angry at myself for being annoyed that he was coughing rather than being sympathetic and trying to make him more comfortable.
As I lay in bed awake after he'd fallen asleep, I started to think about why it is that I have so little patience for illness, particularly the illness of the person I love most, the person I am lucky enough to be marrying in just over six weeks (SIX WEEKS AAAAHHHH!!). It came to me that when it comes to injury, I know how to help. I can clean and bandage a deep cut, pull out a splinter, massage away a charlie horse or a bad sinus headache. But a cough? Vomiting? A runny nose? There's absolutely nothing I can do, and I hate the way that makes me feel. I hate feeling helpless in a situation. I think it's the same for many of the instances of my impatience, because I am the most impatient in situations where I have the least amount of control. I really should be channeling that into constructive energy rather than wasting it on being annoyed with the person who is sick. Everyone has faults, and this is one of mine. I hearby resolve to work on it. Next time we're stopped behind a bunch of people at a green light, I'm going to think about something else. And next time Dan gets sick, I'm going to do my best to help him feel better rather than get annoyed with the situation, because it's not his fault either.
This is entirely a relevant thing to quote for me, because in nobody's opinion could I ever be considered a patient person. I'm just not. It's most obvious when I'm in the car - Dan frequently makes jokes about other drivers and what countries they must be from (and about what green lights mean in said countries) because I have such a habit of telling people in front of us that GREEN MEANS GO. There are many other occasions in which I'm noticeably impatient, particularly when it comes to punctuality. One of my biggest pet peeves is when people are late. I hate it when other people are late; I hate it when I am late through no fault of my own (traffic, slowdowns in public transit, etc.). To me, being on time to an event is a matter of respect and when someone is late, I feel like they've disrespected me (especially if they don't call or something to let me know they'll be late). But it's not just about respect, it's also that I don't have patience for other people to do things. I hate to wait for other people.
My impatience also comes out when it involves illness. Specifically, in the instance the illness of people I am close to, especially the person with whom I share a bed. Instead of being sympathetic, my first inclination is to be impatient. I can't really explain it. Case in point: Dan was sick for the first week of our Italy trip, while I didn't get sick until about 5 days in. By day 4 I was really tired of listening to him cough and sniff and watching him blow his nose. I got annoyed with myself when I ended up with the same illness, because dammit, we were in Italy and there was Stuff I Wanted To Do that both of us being sick prevented us from doing. I feel terrible about this now, but I totally made Dan hike 3 of the 5 towns of Cinque Terre on one of the two nice days we had on the trip, even though he was still really sick. I had been waiting for years to share it with him, and he gamely wheezed and coughed his way through the hike. The whole time I was feeling like STOP BEING SICK SO YOU CAN ENJOY THIS BECAUSE IT IS AWESOME. NO MORE SICK! And he was probably feeling like WHY IS SHE MAKING ME DO THIS, I FEEL LIKE POO. And then after the hours of hiking he fell down the stairs. I'm a horrible fiance.
The other night (when I originally wrote this, I wrote last night, but now it was two nights ago) Dan was sick again. Except this time, it was the kind of sick you get when you eat something bad and your digestive system revolts and decides to cause great pain and also divest itself of its contents from both ends at the same time. He was totally miserable. I felt awful, because I couldn't do anything for him. He told me later that he was up six times in the night, but I only remember once so I must have slept through most of his ordeal. At one point, I was reading out loud to him in bed because I thought it might help take his mind off his misery, and he started to cough. Then he coughed some more. Instead of thinking to myself, oh, poor guy has to cough on top of feeling so awful, I thought to myself, STOP COUGHING WHEN I AM TRYING TO READ TO YOU BECAUSE YOU CAN'T HEAR ME IF YOU ARE COUGHING. When I asked him why he didn't try to alleviate the cough by drinking some of the water on his bedside table, he told me that he didn't want to put anything else in his stomach. Duh, Emily. I felt so bad for him, and was really angry at myself for being annoyed that he was coughing rather than being sympathetic and trying to make him more comfortable.
As I lay in bed awake after he'd fallen asleep, I started to think about why it is that I have so little patience for illness, particularly the illness of the person I love most, the person I am lucky enough to be marrying in just over six weeks (SIX WEEKS AAAAHHHH!!). It came to me that when it comes to injury, I know how to help. I can clean and bandage a deep cut, pull out a splinter, massage away a charlie horse or a bad sinus headache. But a cough? Vomiting? A runny nose? There's absolutely nothing I can do, and I hate the way that makes me feel. I hate feeling helpless in a situation. I think it's the same for many of the instances of my impatience, because I am the most impatient in situations where I have the least amount of control. I really should be channeling that into constructive energy rather than wasting it on being annoyed with the person who is sick. Everyone has faults, and this is one of mine. I hearby resolve to work on it. Next time we're stopped behind a bunch of people at a green light, I'm going to think about something else. And next time Dan gets sick, I'm going to do my best to help him feel better rather than get annoyed with the situation, because it's not his fault either.
Tuesday, February 12, 2008
Fuck.
Blogger just ate a post I wrote, even though it told me it was SAVED.
Argh.
I hope I can recreate it.
Argh.
I hope I can recreate it.
Friday, February 08, 2008
They run around with bare legs and bash each other with sticks
Many years ago, I took a trip to Toronto to visit some friends and explore a new city. Toronto was a great city, cosmopolitan and with an almost-European feel. During my few days there, I went to the museum of Modern Art, the Science Museum, and Medieval Times. I climbed the CN Tower. I shopped with one friend, danced with another, and took a group photo showing off my muscular legs that I sent to Dan before we met in person that caught his attention (luckily, he likes the ladies with the gams). One evening, my friend Reanne told me some of her friends had tickets to a lacrosse game that night, and would I like to go?
At that point in my life, I'd only attended two professional sports events - both baseball games - and didn't realize there was such a thing as professional lacrosse. I knew absolutely nothing about the game. We got to the arena and it turned out the tickets were for a private box, complete with free snacks and drinks of an adult nature. More than anything, I thought it was really cool that I got to hang out in a box.
The game started, and I watched halfheartedly, expecting it to be a hurry up and wait sort of event like baseball or football. But the action was immediate and compelling. Here were two teams of guys with day jobs, wearing a minimum of safety equipment, running like crazy, tossing a tiny ball between nets on the ends of sticks, and quite frequently, happily, and legally beating on each other with those sticks.
I was enthralled. This was way better than watching any sports on TV, far more interesting and exciting than baseball, and I could ogle the bare athletic legs of the men on the field. Legs! Beating with sticks! Scoring was exciting; the goalies were very talented and every score was a singular victory, yet it was more interesting than hockey because there were more scoring opportunities. It was a really fun experience and I was still hyped up from the energy of the crowd and the game when we went clubbing later that night.
I kind of forgot about lacrosse by the time I came home, because I've never been a fan of sports of any kind. In January of 2004 we were invited by Dan's parents to attend a pro lacrosse game in Denver. We went to dinner beforehand and ended up in seats at the very top of the stadium. It was "free beer and hot dog" night, and I gave mine to Dan because I don't drink beer or eat hot dogs. The team was relatively new to Denver, so as the game was played, the display monitor above the field flashed lacrosse terms and definitions and told us about different field positions and different sorts of plays, which was really helpful to all of us because none of us were especially familiar with the game. Again, I enjoyed the fast pace, the legs, and the cross-checking. Unfortunately, Dan and I both ended up with food poisoning the next day (we suspected the ranch dressing from the restaurant) so the fun evening was marred by the evaculation of the contents of our stomachs.
Last week, Dan asked me if I wanted to go to a lacrosse game. "I can get us tickets for ten bucks each, since they're doing a promotion with my school," he told me. (Legs. Action. Sticks. Legs.) "Sure!" I responded. It had been quite a while since we'd been to a professional sporting event (the races in Louisville didn't count) and I was looking forward both to seeing the game and observing the fans, since that tends to be my favorite part of any professional sports contest.
Game night was last night, so we met for some Illegal Pete's (mmmm, burritos) at 6:15 and then walked over to the Pepsi Center. We ended up with great seats in the lower level behind one of the goals, and were close enough to the field to see most of the action without needing to watch the game on the monitors. The game was very well-attended (announced attendance was nearly 16,000 people) by a young crowd. Lacrosse tickets are far less expensive than hockey or basketball tickts, so it stood to reason that the lower price might appeal to younger people. The Mammoth have been in Denver long enough that people seem to understand the game pretty well. Now the team has cheerleaders (not especially talented dancers, but they've got impressive abs and a lot of enthusiasm) and the crowd got really loud and excited. The Mammoth's record this season was 4-0 before last night's game, and everyone was cheering them on to another victory (against the Portland Lumberjax. Boo!)
The game was every bit as exciting as I'd hoped, and for the first time at a pro game of any type I felt truly as invested in the outcome of the game as the rest of the crowd. It was really, really fun to forget about the rest of the world, to not think about work or weddings or the election, to just lose my self in the athleticism and great legs on the field in front of me. I cheered, got revved up by the crowd. I even briefly contemplated the idea of becoming a derby girl when I saw the Denver RollerDolls in the hallway before the game - I'm strong, coordinated, and in good shape - but it would be a big commitment and would also mean accepting a certain level of risk of injury. Also, I don't have nearly enough tattoos or piercings and am not interested in dying my hair. But they looked really cute in their short skirts and leg warmers.
The Colorado Mammoth won their fifth game of the season 15-11. The game was great and so was the crowd. I let the energy of the win, the enthusiasm of the young boys with lacrosse sticks in the hallways, the satisfaction of the crowd convinced of their role in the team's victory carry me down the stairs and outside through the cold Colorado winter night.
At that point in my life, I'd only attended two professional sports events - both baseball games - and didn't realize there was such a thing as professional lacrosse. I knew absolutely nothing about the game. We got to the arena and it turned out the tickets were for a private box, complete with free snacks and drinks of an adult nature. More than anything, I thought it was really cool that I got to hang out in a box.
The game started, and I watched halfheartedly, expecting it to be a hurry up and wait sort of event like baseball or football. But the action was immediate and compelling. Here were two teams of guys with day jobs, wearing a minimum of safety equipment, running like crazy, tossing a tiny ball between nets on the ends of sticks, and quite frequently, happily, and legally beating on each other with those sticks.
I was enthralled. This was way better than watching any sports on TV, far more interesting and exciting than baseball, and I could ogle the bare athletic legs of the men on the field. Legs! Beating with sticks! Scoring was exciting; the goalies were very talented and every score was a singular victory, yet it was more interesting than hockey because there were more scoring opportunities. It was a really fun experience and I was still hyped up from the energy of the crowd and the game when we went clubbing later that night.
I kind of forgot about lacrosse by the time I came home, because I've never been a fan of sports of any kind. In January of 2004 we were invited by Dan's parents to attend a pro lacrosse game in Denver. We went to dinner beforehand and ended up in seats at the very top of the stadium. It was "free beer and hot dog" night, and I gave mine to Dan because I don't drink beer or eat hot dogs. The team was relatively new to Denver, so as the game was played, the display monitor above the field flashed lacrosse terms and definitions and told us about different field positions and different sorts of plays, which was really helpful to all of us because none of us were especially familiar with the game. Again, I enjoyed the fast pace, the legs, and the cross-checking. Unfortunately, Dan and I both ended up with food poisoning the next day (we suspected the ranch dressing from the restaurant) so the fun evening was marred by the evaculation of the contents of our stomachs.
Last week, Dan asked me if I wanted to go to a lacrosse game. "I can get us tickets for ten bucks each, since they're doing a promotion with my school," he told me. (Legs. Action. Sticks. Legs.) "Sure!" I responded. It had been quite a while since we'd been to a professional sporting event (the races in Louisville didn't count) and I was looking forward both to seeing the game and observing the fans, since that tends to be my favorite part of any professional sports contest.
Game night was last night, so we met for some Illegal Pete's (mmmm, burritos) at 6:15 and then walked over to the Pepsi Center. We ended up with great seats in the lower level behind one of the goals, and were close enough to the field to see most of the action without needing to watch the game on the monitors. The game was very well-attended (announced attendance was nearly 16,000 people) by a young crowd. Lacrosse tickets are far less expensive than hockey or basketball tickts, so it stood to reason that the lower price might appeal to younger people. The Mammoth have been in Denver long enough that people seem to understand the game pretty well. Now the team has cheerleaders (not especially talented dancers, but they've got impressive abs and a lot of enthusiasm) and the crowd got really loud and excited. The Mammoth's record this season was 4-0 before last night's game, and everyone was cheering them on to another victory (against the Portland Lumberjax. Boo!)
The game was every bit as exciting as I'd hoped, and for the first time at a pro game of any type I felt truly as invested in the outcome of the game as the rest of the crowd. It was really, really fun to forget about the rest of the world, to not think about work or weddings or the election, to just lose my self in the athleticism and great legs on the field in front of me. I cheered, got revved up by the crowd. I even briefly contemplated the idea of becoming a derby girl when I saw the Denver RollerDolls in the hallway before the game - I'm strong, coordinated, and in good shape - but it would be a big commitment and would also mean accepting a certain level of risk of injury. Also, I don't have nearly enough tattoos or piercings and am not interested in dying my hair. But they looked really cute in their short skirts and leg warmers.
The Colorado Mammoth won their fifth game of the season 15-11. The game was great and so was the crowd. I let the energy of the win, the enthusiasm of the young boys with lacrosse sticks in the hallways, the satisfaction of the crowd convinced of their role in the team's victory carry me down the stairs and outside through the cold Colorado winter night.
Wednesday, February 06, 2008
Wednesday Wedding Day: A budget wedding in an age of excess
For anyone out there who has planned (or been involved in the planning of) a wedding in the last five or ten years, you know the woe that is the wedding industry. The WIC (Wedding Industrial Complex) thrives on telling people they aren't good enough, and if they just spent money on this or bought that, their weddings would be better than all the other ones and ooh isn't that pretty? Weddings these days are EXPENSIVE, no matter how you look at it, especially if you want to have an actual party and not just cake and punch. Large costs and small costs add up to a whole lot of cost, and people in big cities or popular destination sites (NYC, Boston, SF, Sonoma County (where we're getting married)) get taken for a ride because everything costs even more there. When we first started talking about getting married (this was a good year before the official engagement) we did a little research into possible sites in both Colorado and northern California, and ended up with sticker shock. The ideas I had to keep things affordable in terms of site fee turned out to be just as espensive as or more than a hotel. Sites used as weddings can charge huge fees - for example, the winery where my sister used to work charged a $6000 site fee just for the privilege of getting married on site (this fee didn't include tables/chairs/etc or any food - just the site fee) back in 2001 and I'm sure the price has only increased.
And that's just for the site! You add in catering (dinner usually costs more than lunch, sit-down costs more than buffet, and the costs of renting things like linens and plates and paying for waitstaff), booze (usually you have to buy it through the caterer), and the wedding dress (it's hard to get away with spending less than $700 on an actual wedding dress these days, and even bridesmaids dresses can be expensive if you ask for white or ivory), and that's a great big chunk of change. Florals are spendy. Live music (band) is more expensive than a DJ, but even a DJ costs money. In order to have a wedding (meaning, ceremony plus reception) just a step up from making all the food yourself, you pretty much have to shell out some dough. And then there's photography! If you want a seasoned professional who will take photos that don't look like they were taken in a portrait studio in 1982, photography can cost many thousands, depending on location and how in-demand a photographer happens to be. All in all, just the basics for the reception (location, food, beverage, photography, music, flowers) often add up to huge sums, especially in places where the WIC has a firm grasp on What's Done. And I haven't even begun to discuss the costs of invitations or that of an officiant, church, organist, etc. for many people who want their nuptuals to take place in a house of God (even if it's just for the pretty factor). Really, if you read the magazines or The Knot or any number of wedding-planning resources, you'll discover that someone needs to shell out buckets of cash to have even a halfway-decent event.
Luckily for us, we're not interested in What's Done. When we truly started planning our wedding, we thought about what was important to us (our guests, and the comfort/entertainment thereof) and decided to spend money in those areas, and save money on the things we didn't care about. We were really lucky in that my Oldest Friend/Best Woman's parents offered to sponsor us at the neighborhood club where we're getting married, and the member rates for what we get (ten hours time, including set-up and clean-up time, tables, chairs, dishes, glassware, flatware, picnic tables and benches, use of kitchen/grill, etc.) turned out to be a complete steal when you compare it to other places, especially other places in Sonoma County. Of course with that came the stipulation that we had to buy event insurance and have a licensed caterer (so no food trays from the deli, must have waitstaff and licensed bartender), which added to our cost. We both decided it was better that our friends/family not have to work, so we're willing to pay people to do these things for us. Again, we were very lucky to find a caterer we loved, willing to make the kind of food we wanted at a price we could afford, and our only rental cost is linens. I thought about making them myself, but ultimately decided it would be worth the extra money not to have to worry about that (plus, buying fabric and making them might not have been much cheaper). We're also paying for a tent to keep any possible bad weather from bothering our guests as the main room isn't big enough for everyone to sit at tables at once. We decided it's better not to tempt fate and be prepared for the worst, so were willing to pay for some peace of mind.
Our caterer is also awesome in that she has a lot of ideas for how we can save money. She was perfectly willing for us to provide our own beverages of all sorts (both alcoholic and non), for us to find our own cake, and where we might get wholesale flowers. We could tell from the first meeting with her that she understood the sort of wedding we were interested in having, and worked with us to come up with a plan that was agreeable for everyone. The cake(s) are coming from local bakeries and Costco, wine/beer may actually be purchased here and driven out to California, and we have a hookup with Glaceau products so people will be drinking smartwater and vitaminwater that we got for free. And flowers will come from my mom's yard (if anything is blooming), Trader Joes, and/or the wholesale flower place.
I didn't start out wanting a real wedding dress - I was trying to find a bridesmaid's dress that would work, or really any other sort of dress, but couldn't find what I was looking for (green) so settled on the next best thing (white with green). My dress was relatively inexpensive as far as "wedding" dresses go, and my mom really wanted to buy it for me. I'm not wearing a veil, bought my shoes for $30 at DSW last June, and a friend is making me some jewelry from pearls I bought in China. Dan has always wanted to get married in a kilt, so he found a place that rents full Scottish dress for a not-too-bad price in his family tartan, so we'll be renting those for Dan and his best man and groomsman. Rather than make my bridesminions buy dresses they may never wear again, I'm making them and they can wear again or not as they choose.
Since neither of us was interested in getting married in a church, the ceremony will be at the same site as the reception and we don't have to pay any associated fees. Music is ipod playlists and some rented/borrowed equipment. And our rockstar officiant was already ordained by the Universal Life Church. Dan designed/drew/etc. our invitations himself, and we printed them at my work so that only cost us postage and envelopes. And we found a photographer who is just getting started in the business, so we're getting everything we wanted (plus an album!) for less than half of the low-end rate for decent photography in Northern California.
Really, in the grand scheme of things, our wedding is going to cost a lot of money - more than I'd initially wanted to spend, in fact. But when you compare it to the average cost of weddings in the county, our wedding pales in comparison (the average for the area is about five times what we're spending). We could have done it for less - found a restaurant with a catering license and done setup/cleanup ourselves, made our attendants pay for their outfits, foregone the tent and just hoped for sun. But the areas in which we decided to spend money were what we felt are the important parts of a wedding - our friends and family are traveling (some for great distances, some not so much) to be there to support us and celebrate with us, so we want to make sure they had a good time. We certainly plan to do so.
And that's just for the site! You add in catering (dinner usually costs more than lunch, sit-down costs more than buffet, and the costs of renting things like linens and plates and paying for waitstaff), booze (usually you have to buy it through the caterer), and the wedding dress (it's hard to get away with spending less than $700 on an actual wedding dress these days, and even bridesmaids dresses can be expensive if you ask for white or ivory), and that's a great big chunk of change. Florals are spendy. Live music (band) is more expensive than a DJ, but even a DJ costs money. In order to have a wedding (meaning, ceremony plus reception) just a step up from making all the food yourself, you pretty much have to shell out some dough. And then there's photography! If you want a seasoned professional who will take photos that don't look like they were taken in a portrait studio in 1982, photography can cost many thousands, depending on location and how in-demand a photographer happens to be. All in all, just the basics for the reception (location, food, beverage, photography, music, flowers) often add up to huge sums, especially in places where the WIC has a firm grasp on What's Done. And I haven't even begun to discuss the costs of invitations or that of an officiant, church, organist, etc. for many people who want their nuptuals to take place in a house of God (even if it's just for the pretty factor). Really, if you read the magazines or The Knot or any number of wedding-planning resources, you'll discover that someone needs to shell out buckets of cash to have even a halfway-decent event.
Luckily for us, we're not interested in What's Done. When we truly started planning our wedding, we thought about what was important to us (our guests, and the comfort/entertainment thereof) and decided to spend money in those areas, and save money on the things we didn't care about. We were really lucky in that my Oldest Friend/Best Woman's parents offered to sponsor us at the neighborhood club where we're getting married, and the member rates for what we get (ten hours time, including set-up and clean-up time, tables, chairs, dishes, glassware, flatware, picnic tables and benches, use of kitchen/grill, etc.) turned out to be a complete steal when you compare it to other places, especially other places in Sonoma County. Of course with that came the stipulation that we had to buy event insurance and have a licensed caterer (so no food trays from the deli, must have waitstaff and licensed bartender), which added to our cost. We both decided it was better that our friends/family not have to work, so we're willing to pay people to do these things for us. Again, we were very lucky to find a caterer we loved, willing to make the kind of food we wanted at a price we could afford, and our only rental cost is linens. I thought about making them myself, but ultimately decided it would be worth the extra money not to have to worry about that (plus, buying fabric and making them might not have been much cheaper). We're also paying for a tent to keep any possible bad weather from bothering our guests as the main room isn't big enough for everyone to sit at tables at once. We decided it's better not to tempt fate and be prepared for the worst, so were willing to pay for some peace of mind.
Our caterer is also awesome in that she has a lot of ideas for how we can save money. She was perfectly willing for us to provide our own beverages of all sorts (both alcoholic and non), for us to find our own cake, and where we might get wholesale flowers. We could tell from the first meeting with her that she understood the sort of wedding we were interested in having, and worked with us to come up with a plan that was agreeable for everyone. The cake(s) are coming from local bakeries and Costco, wine/beer may actually be purchased here and driven out to California, and we have a hookup with Glaceau products so people will be drinking smartwater and vitaminwater that we got for free. And flowers will come from my mom's yard (if anything is blooming), Trader Joes, and/or the wholesale flower place.
I didn't start out wanting a real wedding dress - I was trying to find a bridesmaid's dress that would work, or really any other sort of dress, but couldn't find what I was looking for (green) so settled on the next best thing (white with green). My dress was relatively inexpensive as far as "wedding" dresses go, and my mom really wanted to buy it for me. I'm not wearing a veil, bought my shoes for $30 at DSW last June, and a friend is making me some jewelry from pearls I bought in China. Dan has always wanted to get married in a kilt, so he found a place that rents full Scottish dress for a not-too-bad price in his family tartan, so we'll be renting those for Dan and his best man and groomsman. Rather than make my bridesminions buy dresses they may never wear again, I'm making them and they can wear again or not as they choose.
Since neither of us was interested in getting married in a church, the ceremony will be at the same site as the reception and we don't have to pay any associated fees. Music is ipod playlists and some rented/borrowed equipment. And our rockstar officiant was already ordained by the Universal Life Church. Dan designed/drew/etc. our invitations himself, and we printed them at my work so that only cost us postage and envelopes. And we found a photographer who is just getting started in the business, so we're getting everything we wanted (plus an album!) for less than half of the low-end rate for decent photography in Northern California.
Really, in the grand scheme of things, our wedding is going to cost a lot of money - more than I'd initially wanted to spend, in fact. But when you compare it to the average cost of weddings in the county, our wedding pales in comparison (the average for the area is about five times what we're spending). We could have done it for less - found a restaurant with a catering license and done setup/cleanup ourselves, made our attendants pay for their outfits, foregone the tent and just hoped for sun. But the areas in which we decided to spend money were what we felt are the important parts of a wedding - our friends and family are traveling (some for great distances, some not so much) to be there to support us and celebrate with us, so we want to make sure they had a good time. We certainly plan to do so.
Tuesday, February 05, 2008
Civic duty
"We have to go vote," says my mother. We walk into the fire station and go behind a curtain. I can't see what my mother is doing, but I know that it's very important. I am very young, so it's probably an off-year election.
Two presidential elections happen in which I am vaguely aware of the displeasure of my parents at the outcome.
It's 1992, and I am excited to see what might happen in the country. The war in Iraq has ended and my parents are fired up about the election. People in town display signs promoting various candidates on their lawns, including a small but vocal faction in favor of the independant blowhard candidate with large ears. My dad votes for the large-eared candidate just to make my mom angry. In my head, I call the candidate "Pee rot." The charismatic Democratic governor beats the incumbent and my dad's record of never voting for a winning candidate is upheld.
I am a senior in high school, and thoroughly disgusted that I don't turn 18 until four months after the presidential election. We study civics (called American Problems by my high school) and I have strong personal opinions about various candidates. Then I start college, and campus is brimming with political activity. The charismatic incumbent handily beats the old raisin from Kansas.
The first election in which I can actually vote is an off-year election. It is 1998 and the governorship for California is up for election. I am thoroughly excited to help vote out the incumbent party's incompetant jerk and cast a winning vote for Gray Davis, who at the time was quite well-liked. He is recalled as governor in 2003 and California's second actor/celebrity governor is voted in. My sisters are disgusted.
It is the fall of 2000. I am thoroughly excited to see the outcome of the election, and have great hope that the current vice president will win (though I am personally more interested in ideology and cast my vote for a third-party candidate). I know that my vote won't effect the outcome of the election, as California's electoral votes go to the democratic candidate in a landslide. People in other states misguidedly vote the same way and their votes, in some small part, cost him the election. There are hanging chads and disenfranchisement and discussions of voting machine tampering and fraud. The entire system appears to have broken and the United States becomes a laughingstock. The Supreme Court decides to hand the election to the chimp.
Four years later, I am thoroughly disgusted with the country. Iraq War Two, Patriot Act, a "conservative" president spending and spending resulting in huge debt. The entire election season is filthy and horrible. The democrats fail to come up with a viable candidate, though the election is another squeaker and there are more questions about voting fraud and voting machine tampering, as the company that makes the voting machines in many places is hand-in-hand with the incumbent president. Most people I know hold their nose and vote "not-Chimp" rather than voting for someone they think will be a good president.
I stand in line for four hours after spending all day in the mountains (and before driving to Stepford Springs) in order to vote in a new governor and new senator. I am not pleased with the election problems, but am thoroughly pleased with the results of the election, though I'm kind of bummed for the people in the northern part of the state who continue to be represented by a crazed harridan who cares more about unborn people than people who already exist.
Now this election, today, I am feeling some hope again, a sensation not unlike that of 1992. The incumbent can't run again, and the frontrunners in both parties seem like good candidates for each party, respectively (though I find myself surprised by the results of the campaigns. How did Giuliani have to drop out so early?) For the first time in my life, the two most viable candidates within the Democratic party both represent minorities and would be making history if either were to be elected president. Today is Super Tuesday, and people voting around the country will help decide who continues with their candidacies, and ultimately who we'll be voting for in November. This state is weird in that there is both a caucus and a primary; today is the Caucus and because I am not a registered Democrat (forgot to change my affiliation beforehand) I can't participate. I know who I will vote for in the primary, even if the contest is already decided by then, because I am excited about one candidate and would be not disappointed if the other gets the nomination. Today I feel a little more hope than I have in a long time about the future of our country.
Two presidential elections happen in which I am vaguely aware of the displeasure of my parents at the outcome.
It's 1992, and I am excited to see what might happen in the country. The war in Iraq has ended and my parents are fired up about the election. People in town display signs promoting various candidates on their lawns, including a small but vocal faction in favor of the independant blowhard candidate with large ears. My dad votes for the large-eared candidate just to make my mom angry. In my head, I call the candidate "Pee rot." The charismatic Democratic governor beats the incumbent and my dad's record of never voting for a winning candidate is upheld.
I am a senior in high school, and thoroughly disgusted that I don't turn 18 until four months after the presidential election. We study civics (called American Problems by my high school) and I have strong personal opinions about various candidates. Then I start college, and campus is brimming with political activity. The charismatic incumbent handily beats the old raisin from Kansas.
The first election in which I can actually vote is an off-year election. It is 1998 and the governorship for California is up for election. I am thoroughly excited to help vote out the incumbent party's incompetant jerk and cast a winning vote for Gray Davis, who at the time was quite well-liked. He is recalled as governor in 2003 and California's second actor/celebrity governor is voted in. My sisters are disgusted.
It is the fall of 2000. I am thoroughly excited to see the outcome of the election, and have great hope that the current vice president will win (though I am personally more interested in ideology and cast my vote for a third-party candidate). I know that my vote won't effect the outcome of the election, as California's electoral votes go to the democratic candidate in a landslide. People in other states misguidedly vote the same way and their votes, in some small part, cost him the election. There are hanging chads and disenfranchisement and discussions of voting machine tampering and fraud. The entire system appears to have broken and the United States becomes a laughingstock. The Supreme Court decides to hand the election to the chimp.
Four years later, I am thoroughly disgusted with the country. Iraq War Two, Patriot Act, a "conservative" president spending and spending resulting in huge debt. The entire election season is filthy and horrible. The democrats fail to come up with a viable candidate, though the election is another squeaker and there are more questions about voting fraud and voting machine tampering, as the company that makes the voting machines in many places is hand-in-hand with the incumbent president. Most people I know hold their nose and vote "not-Chimp" rather than voting for someone they think will be a good president.
I stand in line for four hours after spending all day in the mountains (and before driving to Stepford Springs) in order to vote in a new governor and new senator. I am not pleased with the election problems, but am thoroughly pleased with the results of the election, though I'm kind of bummed for the people in the northern part of the state who continue to be represented by a crazed harridan who cares more about unborn people than people who already exist.
Now this election, today, I am feeling some hope again, a sensation not unlike that of 1992. The incumbent can't run again, and the frontrunners in both parties seem like good candidates for each party, respectively (though I find myself surprised by the results of the campaigns. How did Giuliani have to drop out so early?) For the first time in my life, the two most viable candidates within the Democratic party both represent minorities and would be making history if either were to be elected president. Today is Super Tuesday, and people voting around the country will help decide who continues with their candidacies, and ultimately who we'll be voting for in November. This state is weird in that there is both a caucus and a primary; today is the Caucus and because I am not a registered Democrat (forgot to change my affiliation beforehand) I can't participate. I know who I will vote for in the primary, even if the contest is already decided by then, because I am excited about one candidate and would be not disappointed if the other gets the nomination. Today I feel a little more hope than I have in a long time about the future of our country.
Monday, February 04, 2008
What's in a name?
I wrote last week about our decision to change to a new last name, and that, coupled with a thread on a message board I read about how people judge others by their names, got me thinking about names in general and judgment in particular. The thread on the message board specifically dealt with "made-up" names, and several people mentioned how if they were hiring for a McJob, and resumes were equally qualified, they'd be more likely to interview a person with a standard name rather than one that was probably a "made-up" name (specifically referring to a subset of the African-American community).
I read the book Freakonomics last year, and in that book is a chapter on names, naming trends, and how naming your child something completely off-the-wall might contribute to his or her success (or lack thereof). Though blatantly racist discrimination is illegal in this country, there's no way to prove someone didn't interview you or hire you because of your name (though they might judge your name and choose not to interview/hire you because your name sounds ethnic in some way). Names are not a protected class. While I don't think it's my place to be the arbiter of naming, I am not in favor of many recent baby-naming trends (the -aiden proliferation for boys, the McMadyssynalynn-type names for girls, and who can forget Nevaeh?), as a parent it's your right to name your kid anything you please. I would never name my kid something I made up or use kreeyativ spelling to make my kid seem youneeq, but if it's something you want to do, I say go for it. I just wonder sometimes whether parents realize what they're saddling little McKaighleigh or Graysen (or Shaniquiah) with and how it might result in an older child or an adult not being taken seriously, treated differently by teachers and potential employers than if the name were more culturally commonplace.
I was also thinking about how names can sometimes specifically refer to a person's nationality or ethnic background, and how you might expect a person to look based on his or her name. Last night I remembered a high school classmate who, based on her name, should be German, French, and/or Latina-looking, but instead looks quite a bit like her ethnically Chinese mother. If I didn't know her, and was asked to pick out 'Gabrielle Werner' (not her real name) I wouldn't pick her photo out of a lineup. The woman making our wedding rings looks every bit as Irish as her name, though I would have pinned her a bit older based on her first name. I wonder how many people make judgments every day about people's names, guessing age, class, and ethnicity from just a first and last name. My name, for example, was not super uncommon but was also not especially popular back in 1979 (I've only known a few other Emilys my age) but ten years later it hit the charts and was the most popular girl's name for several years. I can't go anywhere in public where there are young children without hearing my first (and sometimes middle) name being called. I wonder if, fifteen years from now when the slew of Emilys are entering the workforce, people will guess I'm significantly younger than I am because of my name.
I find naming trends to be endlessly fascinating, and am specifically interested in names and identity. (If you'd like to waste some time, go here and check out the widget that tells you the popularity of any name over the past 100+ years). I don't know what an Emily is supposed to be or feel like, but I'm pretty glad that my mom didn't name me Elizabeth, Jessica, or Heather (no offense to any Elizabeths, Jessicas, or Heathers out there, but these names were super popular among people my age). I like that my name, while trendy now, isn't the kind of name that ages badly (imagine what it will be like when all the Jennas and Jennifers and Krystals are 80 years old!). It passes the "stripper or Supreme Court Justice" test. What's really interesting to me is when I meet people who have decided at some point to change their (first) names, deciding that they don't really feel like a Paul but would rather be called by their middle name, Evan. How do people decide they don't feel like a Paul? I've met people whose names I thought were beautiful but that they didn't like so much because in their culture, that name is an "old-person" name. I find the process of how nicknames come into being to be fascinating as well. How do people come up with nicknames for their children/friends/family? What makes a nickname stick? My dad has four sisters, and none of the five of them was called by their given names as children (or even now, as adults, by family).
I don't really have any answers, only questions. Names and naming are cool. Naming your kid Azpen is a bad idea, IMHO. It's a sad fact that people are judged by their names, oftentimes unfairly as they didn't choose their own name (though some people do!) And I don't know if I'll ever fully grok nicknames and how they work.
One of my favorite bloggers had a baby today. I wholeheartedly love his name. Welcome to the world, Dylan Emmett.
I read the book Freakonomics last year, and in that book is a chapter on names, naming trends, and how naming your child something completely off-the-wall might contribute to his or her success (or lack thereof). Though blatantly racist discrimination is illegal in this country, there's no way to prove someone didn't interview you or hire you because of your name (though they might judge your name and choose not to interview/hire you because your name sounds ethnic in some way). Names are not a protected class. While I don't think it's my place to be the arbiter of naming, I am not in favor of many recent baby-naming trends (the -aiden proliferation for boys, the McMadyssynalynn-type names for girls, and who can forget Nevaeh?), as a parent it's your right to name your kid anything you please. I would never name my kid something I made up or use kreeyativ spelling to make my kid seem youneeq, but if it's something you want to do, I say go for it. I just wonder sometimes whether parents realize what they're saddling little McKaighleigh or Graysen (or Shaniquiah) with and how it might result in an older child or an adult not being taken seriously, treated differently by teachers and potential employers than if the name were more culturally commonplace.
I was also thinking about how names can sometimes specifically refer to a person's nationality or ethnic background, and how you might expect a person to look based on his or her name. Last night I remembered a high school classmate who, based on her name, should be German, French, and/or Latina-looking, but instead looks quite a bit like her ethnically Chinese mother. If I didn't know her, and was asked to pick out 'Gabrielle Werner' (not her real name) I wouldn't pick her photo out of a lineup. The woman making our wedding rings looks every bit as Irish as her name, though I would have pinned her a bit older based on her first name. I wonder how many people make judgments every day about people's names, guessing age, class, and ethnicity from just a first and last name. My name, for example, was not super uncommon but was also not especially popular back in 1979 (I've only known a few other Emilys my age) but ten years later it hit the charts and was the most popular girl's name for several years. I can't go anywhere in public where there are young children without hearing my first (and sometimes middle) name being called. I wonder if, fifteen years from now when the slew of Emilys are entering the workforce, people will guess I'm significantly younger than I am because of my name.
I find naming trends to be endlessly fascinating, and am specifically interested in names and identity. (If you'd like to waste some time, go here and check out the widget that tells you the popularity of any name over the past 100+ years). I don't know what an Emily is supposed to be or feel like, but I'm pretty glad that my mom didn't name me Elizabeth, Jessica, or Heather (no offense to any Elizabeths, Jessicas, or Heathers out there, but these names were super popular among people my age). I like that my name, while trendy now, isn't the kind of name that ages badly (imagine what it will be like when all the Jennas and Jennifers and Krystals are 80 years old!). It passes the "stripper or Supreme Court Justice" test. What's really interesting to me is when I meet people who have decided at some point to change their (first) names, deciding that they don't really feel like a Paul but would rather be called by their middle name, Evan. How do people decide they don't feel like a Paul? I've met people whose names I thought were beautiful but that they didn't like so much because in their culture, that name is an "old-person" name. I find the process of how nicknames come into being to be fascinating as well. How do people come up with nicknames for their children/friends/family? What makes a nickname stick? My dad has four sisters, and none of the five of them was called by their given names as children (or even now, as adults, by family).
I don't really have any answers, only questions. Names and naming are cool. Naming your kid Azpen is a bad idea, IMHO. It's a sad fact that people are judged by their names, oftentimes unfairly as they didn't choose their own name (though some people do!) And I don't know if I'll ever fully grok nicknames and how they work.
One of my favorite bloggers had a baby today. I wholeheartedly love his name. Welcome to the world, Dylan Emmett.
Thursday, January 31, 2008
Travel Thursday - More Itly
The rest of our time in Rome (at least, in the first part of our trip) was a series of highs and lows. By the third full day I was getting desperate for some protein, and after we experienced the Campo di Fiori market (way cool - I got some awesome photos, lost to the ether) we found a restaurant that had exactly what I needed - an "ensalata ricca" - fresh green salad with eggs, mozarella, tomatoes, tuna, all kinds of good stuff. Dan said that while watching me consume that salad he also saw my mood take a 180 degree turn for the better. MLE needs food, but she most especially needs good lean protein and not an abundance of carbs, to keep her blood sugar stable. It was a great lunch, though it cost more than I would have liked (he had pasta, and we split a chicken dish, and we had wine), and after my blood sugar and mood returned to normal stability, we wandered through the old Jewish Ghetto looking for the synagogue. We never did find it, but we did find these other cool old ruins just hanging out in the middle of the city. The rain got steadily heavier, and people disappeared indoors, so it felt like we had the whole city to ourselves.
We walked through the city passing major landmarks (the tridente, up the Spanish steps, the street of four fountains) to a place recommended by Simon; a church containing the bones of thousands of Capuchin monks which had been placed into interesting tableaux, and also along the walls and ceiling of the rooms. Some bones had even been made into chandeliers. The place didn't charge but just requested donations, and we were out of the rain for a while while Dan drew some of the bones (specifically, a child's bones holding a scythe and scales also made out of bones, with wings made out of bones). The rain didn't let up at all as we walked north and east trying to find another cool church recommended in our guidebook. "Further up xyz street," we came to realize, meant "a really long way up this street, far past where the maps in the book or any of the maps we have with us depict." This was one of the annoying things about our Rough Guide Rome - if you want to visit some of the places they list, they don't always have addresses and they list places that are not on any of the maps. We trudged through the rain getting more and more wet and more and more discouraged, as it grew darker and colder. Many of the sidewalks collected water to the point where my shoes and pants were soaked through. Eventually we bought some really overpriced cough drops (trying to buy something that would help Dan's cough) and asked directions to the church of the pharmacist. "Another 800 meters," he answered. We gave up and turned around, heading back toward the area shown on our map. It's too difficult to navigate a strange city (especially one as old as Rome with streets as irregular and narrow) in the dark, in the rain, with no map. We never did make it to that church or the amazingly cool catacombs that supposedly lay beneath it.
I was really glad we were staying in that hotel that night. When we got back and unpacked everything from our daypacks and changed into dry clothes, Dan realized that his sketchbook had gotten pretty wet. He was really upset about it, but I suggested that he use the hairdryer in the bathroom to dry it out and it worked pretty well - the pages are still kind of wrinkly but none of the ink ran, so the book was still viable. My shoes took three days to dry, even with the help of the hair dryer; I was really glad I'd brought a second (though less comfortable walking on cobblestones) pair. The next morning we took advantage of the free breakfast offered by the hotel (something we didn't realize was available before), and it was one of the best breakfast spreads I'd ever seen in a European hotel or hostel. There were multiple kinds of breads and rolls and pastries, meats and cheeses, nutella, jam, three kinds of cereal, yogurt, hardboiled eggs, and a machine that would make a variety of coffee, juice, and tea-related beverages. All for free! We waited around in our hotel room for most of the morning, hoping the rain would stop, and it did (eventually).
When we went into Rome, we realized it was Epiphany - the 12th day of Christmas, a holiday for Italians, so many things were closed. We spent some time wandering around the Trastavere neighborhood, eating some pretty good pizza and enjoying the sights. Eventually we meandered to another part of the city to find a gelato place famous for a particular gelato-based dessert called Death by Chocolate. It was worth every penny we paid, and we watched the Epiphany goings-on in the piazza with three fountains, a carnival for the holiday. There were booths selling witch dolls on strings, witch masks, and brooms.(While we saw plenty of Santas climbing buildings when we were in Rome, Italy's tradition is for La Befana, the good witch, to bring toys to children on the eve of Epiphany as she flies around looking for the baby Jesus). There were booths selling all manner of candy and these enormous donuts. Small children were enjoying huge candied apples, and everyone was in a festive mood because it was a holiday and the rain had stopped. Italians were on holiday for one more day, and many of them were gathered in the typical tourist places. Dan stood drawing Trevi fountain while I watched tourists of all stripes, but mostly Italians, standing next to the fountain but facing away, tossing coins over their shoulders for luck and to ensure a return to Rome. When Dan was finished with his drawing, we tossed in a couple of coins ourselves.
We completed our tour of the city at Termini station where we bought our train tickets to Florence and then found a suggested restaurant in our guidebook near the Coliseum. That meal was probably the best we had in Rome; I had a fantastic minestrone soup and Dan had a homemade linguine bolognese. We split a piece of lasagne that was to die for; perfect melting layers of fresh pasta, cheese, and a sauce so rich and flavorful yet light that put to shame every lasagne either of us had ever experienced. It was quite warm inside, as they had a pizza oven going and a guy efficiently rolling out and tossing dough, spreading with sauce and fresh mozzarella, and adding toppings as necessary. Each pizza was a work of art. The service left quite a bit to be desired, and the tiramisu was just okay, but that lasagne - oh!
Our last free hotel breakfast was equally as good, and we packed and checked out of our hotel, took the train into the city and checked into our hostel (dorm beds were 8 euro each that night, far less than before the holiday). After our luggage had been squared away, we set out to do more exploration of the city, heading back to the San Lorenzo area, seeing friendly stray cats all over the place in the cemetary we'd tried to see a few days before (the church, alas, was not open). It was a beautiful and moving cemetary, and very interesting to see the variety of gravesites, tombs, and headstones - in one area, it was set up almost like a military cemetary, with the graves of soldiers who died in World War Two. Other parts of the cemetary reminded me quite a bit of the Catholic cemetary in Louisville we visited with EEK when we were there in July.
After the cemetary, we found lunch in a restaurant nearby, which turned out to be very good. I was feeling mighty poorly at this point and we split a liter of real sugar Coke that made my throat far less painful. The tiramisu we shared for dessert was what I'd been waiting over seven years to have again - it was phenomenally good. We hung out by the old city wall a while so Dan could draw and I made him do some awesome madlibs my cousin had given me for Christmas. We went back to our hostel, which had one of the weirdest setups I'd ever seen, and were shown to our room - in a completely different building, up and through a courtyard in an apartment with a sign on the door that said "pink palace." There were only three beds in our room, and nobody stayed in the third bed, so we had the room to ourselves. Neither of us felt very well, so we relaxed for a while before going out and exploring a nearby church, the Santa Maria Nuovo. While we didn't have to pay to get in, there was a machine in which one could deposit euro coins in order to illuminate various artwork around the inside of the church. Someone chose to light up a particularly beautiful mosaic while we were exploring, for which I was very glad. It was a thoroughly lovely church and felt much more spiritual and holy than St. Peter's Basilica had, as it wasn't a series of homages to popes but instead just full of beauty dedicated to God.
One of the reasons we'd chosen to stay at this particular hostel, aside from its proximity to Termini station, was that they offered "free dinner and free breakfast." There wasn't any common area in the hostel, just a little vestibule where the computer and intake area were, and some rooms full of bunk beds. I wondered whether there was another room somewhere. When we arrived for "free dinner" we found that no, in fact, there was no other room, and the little ten by five area was stuffed to the gills with young backpacker types, all drinking "free wine" (horrible rotgut) and holding flimsy thin plastic bowls. There was no room for us, so we were instructed to sit on someone's bed in one of the dorm rooms by ourselves. Eventually we were served some sort of broccoli-ish soup, which tasted OK but was terribly hot and impossible to hold while standing/sitting. Several people spilled. After the soup, there was a serving of the worst pasta I've ever eaten, with a watery pink sauce, carrots, peas, and potatoes all mixed in. I ate three bites and promptly threw it away having an acute case of indigestion from the rotgut and the soup. We couldn't really socialize with anyone, since there was no room in the vestibule and nobody else in the room with us, so we just left and fell asleep super early wondering what surprises awaited us at "free breakfast."
We walked through the city passing major landmarks (the tridente, up the Spanish steps, the street of four fountains) to a place recommended by Simon; a church containing the bones of thousands of Capuchin monks which had been placed into interesting tableaux, and also along the walls and ceiling of the rooms. Some bones had even been made into chandeliers. The place didn't charge but just requested donations, and we were out of the rain for a while while Dan drew some of the bones (specifically, a child's bones holding a scythe and scales also made out of bones, with wings made out of bones). The rain didn't let up at all as we walked north and east trying to find another cool church recommended in our guidebook. "Further up xyz street," we came to realize, meant "a really long way up this street, far past where the maps in the book or any of the maps we have with us depict." This was one of the annoying things about our Rough Guide Rome - if you want to visit some of the places they list, they don't always have addresses and they list places that are not on any of the maps. We trudged through the rain getting more and more wet and more and more discouraged, as it grew darker and colder. Many of the sidewalks collected water to the point where my shoes and pants were soaked through. Eventually we bought some really overpriced cough drops (trying to buy something that would help Dan's cough) and asked directions to the church of the pharmacist. "Another 800 meters," he answered. We gave up and turned around, heading back toward the area shown on our map. It's too difficult to navigate a strange city (especially one as old as Rome with streets as irregular and narrow) in the dark, in the rain, with no map. We never did make it to that church or the amazingly cool catacombs that supposedly lay beneath it.
I was really glad we were staying in that hotel that night. When we got back and unpacked everything from our daypacks and changed into dry clothes, Dan realized that his sketchbook had gotten pretty wet. He was really upset about it, but I suggested that he use the hairdryer in the bathroom to dry it out and it worked pretty well - the pages are still kind of wrinkly but none of the ink ran, so the book was still viable. My shoes took three days to dry, even with the help of the hair dryer; I was really glad I'd brought a second (though less comfortable walking on cobblestones) pair. The next morning we took advantage of the free breakfast offered by the hotel (something we didn't realize was available before), and it was one of the best breakfast spreads I'd ever seen in a European hotel or hostel. There were multiple kinds of breads and rolls and pastries, meats and cheeses, nutella, jam, three kinds of cereal, yogurt, hardboiled eggs, and a machine that would make a variety of coffee, juice, and tea-related beverages. All for free! We waited around in our hotel room for most of the morning, hoping the rain would stop, and it did (eventually).
When we went into Rome, we realized it was Epiphany - the 12th day of Christmas, a holiday for Italians, so many things were closed. We spent some time wandering around the Trastavere neighborhood, eating some pretty good pizza and enjoying the sights. Eventually we meandered to another part of the city to find a gelato place famous for a particular gelato-based dessert called Death by Chocolate. It was worth every penny we paid, and we watched the Epiphany goings-on in the piazza with three fountains, a carnival for the holiday. There were booths selling witch dolls on strings, witch masks, and brooms.(While we saw plenty of Santas climbing buildings when we were in Rome, Italy's tradition is for La Befana, the good witch, to bring toys to children on the eve of Epiphany as she flies around looking for the baby Jesus). There were booths selling all manner of candy and these enormous donuts. Small children were enjoying huge candied apples, and everyone was in a festive mood because it was a holiday and the rain had stopped. Italians were on holiday for one more day, and many of them were gathered in the typical tourist places. Dan stood drawing Trevi fountain while I watched tourists of all stripes, but mostly Italians, standing next to the fountain but facing away, tossing coins over their shoulders for luck and to ensure a return to Rome. When Dan was finished with his drawing, we tossed in a couple of coins ourselves.
We completed our tour of the city at Termini station where we bought our train tickets to Florence and then found a suggested restaurant in our guidebook near the Coliseum. That meal was probably the best we had in Rome; I had a fantastic minestrone soup and Dan had a homemade linguine bolognese. We split a piece of lasagne that was to die for; perfect melting layers of fresh pasta, cheese, and a sauce so rich and flavorful yet light that put to shame every lasagne either of us had ever experienced. It was quite warm inside, as they had a pizza oven going and a guy efficiently rolling out and tossing dough, spreading with sauce and fresh mozzarella, and adding toppings as necessary. Each pizza was a work of art. The service left quite a bit to be desired, and the tiramisu was just okay, but that lasagne - oh!
Our last free hotel breakfast was equally as good, and we packed and checked out of our hotel, took the train into the city and checked into our hostel (dorm beds were 8 euro each that night, far less than before the holiday). After our luggage had been squared away, we set out to do more exploration of the city, heading back to the San Lorenzo area, seeing friendly stray cats all over the place in the cemetary we'd tried to see a few days before (the church, alas, was not open). It was a beautiful and moving cemetary, and very interesting to see the variety of gravesites, tombs, and headstones - in one area, it was set up almost like a military cemetary, with the graves of soldiers who died in World War Two. Other parts of the cemetary reminded me quite a bit of the Catholic cemetary in Louisville we visited with EEK when we were there in July.
After the cemetary, we found lunch in a restaurant nearby, which turned out to be very good. I was feeling mighty poorly at this point and we split a liter of real sugar Coke that made my throat far less painful. The tiramisu we shared for dessert was what I'd been waiting over seven years to have again - it was phenomenally good. We hung out by the old city wall a while so Dan could draw and I made him do some awesome madlibs my cousin had given me for Christmas. We went back to our hostel, which had one of the weirdest setups I'd ever seen, and were shown to our room - in a completely different building, up and through a courtyard in an apartment with a sign on the door that said "pink palace." There were only three beds in our room, and nobody stayed in the third bed, so we had the room to ourselves. Neither of us felt very well, so we relaxed for a while before going out and exploring a nearby church, the Santa Maria Nuovo. While we didn't have to pay to get in, there was a machine in which one could deposit euro coins in order to illuminate various artwork around the inside of the church. Someone chose to light up a particularly beautiful mosaic while we were exploring, for which I was very glad. It was a thoroughly lovely church and felt much more spiritual and holy than St. Peter's Basilica had, as it wasn't a series of homages to popes but instead just full of beauty dedicated to God.
One of the reasons we'd chosen to stay at this particular hostel, aside from its proximity to Termini station, was that they offered "free dinner and free breakfast." There wasn't any common area in the hostel, just a little vestibule where the computer and intake area were, and some rooms full of bunk beds. I wondered whether there was another room somewhere. When we arrived for "free dinner" we found that no, in fact, there was no other room, and the little ten by five area was stuffed to the gills with young backpacker types, all drinking "free wine" (horrible rotgut) and holding flimsy thin plastic bowls. There was no room for us, so we were instructed to sit on someone's bed in one of the dorm rooms by ourselves. Eventually we were served some sort of broccoli-ish soup, which tasted OK but was terribly hot and impossible to hold while standing/sitting. Several people spilled. After the soup, there was a serving of the worst pasta I've ever eaten, with a watery pink sauce, carrots, peas, and potatoes all mixed in. I ate three bites and promptly threw it away having an acute case of indigestion from the rotgut and the soup. We couldn't really socialize with anyone, since there was no room in the vestibule and nobody else in the room with us, so we just left and fell asleep super early wondering what surprises awaited us at "free breakfast."
Wednesday, January 30, 2008
Wednesday Wedding Day - Less than 2 months, can I wig out yet?
Yesterday marked 2 months until we get married.
On the one hand, we've been together for over six and a half years. It's not like we're jumping the gun on getting married or anything - in fact, I bet a lot of people who know us wonder why we waited this long. And most of the wedding stuff is done, planned, taken care of, and those things that aren't are either going to be last minute (as in, taking place during the week before the wedding) or are currently in progress.
On the other hand, holy crap, it's less than two months until we get married! I feel like there's so much still to do, so many little detail-y things. Our invitations got sent out last week, and we've gotten a lot of positive feedback (Dan spent countless hours working on them). In fact, I have a little fluttery stomach moment every time his email client dings, because it means it might be an RSVP. Even though we have a pretty good idea who is coming and who isn't, I'm still really excited about it. Once we know for sure who is coming, there will be a few more projects to do. But since we now have the major things figured out, and many of the minor ones, I'm not feeling completely overwhelmed.
I've talked a lot about the wedding over the last few months (and in two weeks, we'll have been engaged for a year, so I've had a long time to think about it) but I haven't talked much about how I feel about getting married. I guess for me, it's a natural progression of a relationship that began many years ago. I moved to Colorado with a pretty good idea somewhere in my mind that we'd end up at this point eventually (otherwise, I wouldn't have spent a year and a half flying back and forth and conducting the bulk of relationship over the phone/internet). It was a leap of faith, sure, but I had a feeling from the very beginning that this could be a permanent deal. I was only 22 when Dan and I got together, so I wasn't willing to entertain the idea of "forever" at that point. It took a few years of us dealing with all of the things that life threw at us before I came around and started thinking that hey, yeah, maybe we should get married. I think it took Dan a little bit longer than that. I'm really excited for the wedding, to have so many of our friends and family all in one place to celebrate this thing we've created together, to have it documented for posterity. But in all honesty, in some ways I've felt married for quite some time - perhaps since we got engaged or even before. We committed to each other at some point in the years we've lived together, so the wedding is just a way to make it clear to society and community that hey, we're in it for the long haul.
Perhaps the most visible symbol of our new status of husband and wife is that after we're married we're going to share a last name, which is important to both of us. I'm not changing my name to his, and he isn't changing his name to mine; we're both changing our last names to a new name that combines letters from each of our current names. I'm not especially attached to mine, and don't particularly like his. He feels about the same way. Years before we got engaged, we started talking about what we might do with our names if we got married, and this idea came up at least two years ago. We've both had quite some time to get used to the idea and then both got really excited about it. We're lucky in that our names mesh pretty well together to create a name we both like. At some point during the ceremony, our rockstar officiant is going to say something about our new name, and why we chose to change to that name. I'm sure there will be people who don't understand why we would want to do what we're doing, but you know what? It's our names, and our decision. I can't wait to be a Stryker.
On the one hand, we've been together for over six and a half years. It's not like we're jumping the gun on getting married or anything - in fact, I bet a lot of people who know us wonder why we waited this long. And most of the wedding stuff is done, planned, taken care of, and those things that aren't are either going to be last minute (as in, taking place during the week before the wedding) or are currently in progress.
On the other hand, holy crap, it's less than two months until we get married! I feel like there's so much still to do, so many little detail-y things. Our invitations got sent out last week, and we've gotten a lot of positive feedback (Dan spent countless hours working on them). In fact, I have a little fluttery stomach moment every time his email client dings, because it means it might be an RSVP. Even though we have a pretty good idea who is coming and who isn't, I'm still really excited about it. Once we know for sure who is coming, there will be a few more projects to do. But since we now have the major things figured out, and many of the minor ones, I'm not feeling completely overwhelmed.
I've talked a lot about the wedding over the last few months (and in two weeks, we'll have been engaged for a year, so I've had a long time to think about it) but I haven't talked much about how I feel about getting married. I guess for me, it's a natural progression of a relationship that began many years ago. I moved to Colorado with a pretty good idea somewhere in my mind that we'd end up at this point eventually (otherwise, I wouldn't have spent a year and a half flying back and forth and conducting the bulk of relationship over the phone/internet). It was a leap of faith, sure, but I had a feeling from the very beginning that this could be a permanent deal. I was only 22 when Dan and I got together, so I wasn't willing to entertain the idea of "forever" at that point. It took a few years of us dealing with all of the things that life threw at us before I came around and started thinking that hey, yeah, maybe we should get married. I think it took Dan a little bit longer than that. I'm really excited for the wedding, to have so many of our friends and family all in one place to celebrate this thing we've created together, to have it documented for posterity. But in all honesty, in some ways I've felt married for quite some time - perhaps since we got engaged or even before. We committed to each other at some point in the years we've lived together, so the wedding is just a way to make it clear to society and community that hey, we're in it for the long haul.
Perhaps the most visible symbol of our new status of husband and wife is that after we're married we're going to share a last name, which is important to both of us. I'm not changing my name to his, and he isn't changing his name to mine; we're both changing our last names to a new name that combines letters from each of our current names. I'm not especially attached to mine, and don't particularly like his. He feels about the same way. Years before we got engaged, we started talking about what we might do with our names if we got married, and this idea came up at least two years ago. We've both had quite some time to get used to the idea and then both got really excited about it. We're lucky in that our names mesh pretty well together to create a name we both like. At some point during the ceremony, our rockstar officiant is going to say something about our new name, and why we chose to change to that name. I'm sure there will be people who don't understand why we would want to do what we're doing, but you know what? It's our names, and our decision. I can't wait to be a Stryker.
Monday, January 28, 2008
Variety hour (plus weekend update)
Today, for the first time in more than four years, my coworkers found out what I do. I did a presentation at our staff meeting today, adapting a presentation I do at trainings for new people in the school districts, and for nearly an hour people listened to ME for once. And asked ME questions. And paid attention to ME. It felt really, really good, in a strange way. I've spent more than four years attending staff meetings, having to listen to other people's projects and conferences and such, never having anything to do with my job or my program. Today, it was My Turn, and I got a lot of compliments on my presentation. Woot!
I'm also starting to feel a little better, like I have enough energy to do things like go for walks and work out. Yesterday, Dan and I walked to the ice cream shop (Lik's!) because it was sunny and over 60F, a rarity for January, so we took advantage of it. His assignment for his photography class involved introducing an element of randomness into two rolls of film. So I got to choose what he shot and when, which turned out to be a lot of fun. We walked around in the park after we had ice cream (which was good, but no gelato) and watched the doggies gamboling and the kids swinging and the people playing frisbee in the rare January warmth. It's supposed to get really cold again by the end of this week, so I'm glad we had a chance to walk around outside. Today I plan to go to the gym to work off some of the adrenaline-fueled energy I have from giving the presentation this morning. Plus, I'm feeling better enough that it's about time I get back to my routine. I still want that dress to fit, after all.
Speaking of dresses, this weekend was also full of Getting Wedding Stuff Done. I found a fabric store here in Denver with an Entire Room full of the kind of fabric I need to make the bridesmaid dresses, so I had quite a bit more to choose from than I expected to have. I'm really excited to start working on these; I think they will be gorgeous. And we also met with an independent jewelry designer-type person who will be making our wedding rings. My finger feels nekkid, since she's got my engagement ring so she can make a wax cast of it in order to fit the wedding ring to match exactly. I'm so excited to see what she comes up with for our rings, which were really the last big thing we hadn't figured out yet.
Also, we took down the Christmas tree, since it was our first opportunity to do so when we both felt healthy enough to put the effort into it (and it was light enough while we were both home). I don't think I've ever seen a tree that dry before. It's been drier than usual this winter, and the tree sat in our house for a month with no water, so I'm actually surprised it managed to leave the house with any needles intact at all. I took a few pictures of needle carnage with Dan's digital camera but I will have to wait until he gets home tonight so he can show me how to upload them and I can post them for you all to see. I'm just glad we mostly have wood/linoleum floors!
Thanks for all your comments on my previous post. I found it really interesting how people's taste seemed to differ in terms of which photos you all liked best. We chose our five favorites (with one alternate that we loved almost as much) and sent the list to the photographer. I have no idea what that means (he just asked for our five favorites), but in case you're curious, our top five were: 6233, 6292, 6858, 6973, 7000. Alternate: 6896.
I'm also starting to feel a little better, like I have enough energy to do things like go for walks and work out. Yesterday, Dan and I walked to the ice cream shop (Lik's!) because it was sunny and over 60F, a rarity for January, so we took advantage of it. His assignment for his photography class involved introducing an element of randomness into two rolls of film. So I got to choose what he shot and when, which turned out to be a lot of fun. We walked around in the park after we had ice cream (which was good, but no gelato) and watched the doggies gamboling and the kids swinging and the people playing frisbee in the rare January warmth. It's supposed to get really cold again by the end of this week, so I'm glad we had a chance to walk around outside. Today I plan to go to the gym to work off some of the adrenaline-fueled energy I have from giving the presentation this morning. Plus, I'm feeling better enough that it's about time I get back to my routine. I still want that dress to fit, after all.
Speaking of dresses, this weekend was also full of Getting Wedding Stuff Done. I found a fabric store here in Denver with an Entire Room full of the kind of fabric I need to make the bridesmaid dresses, so I had quite a bit more to choose from than I expected to have. I'm really excited to start working on these; I think they will be gorgeous. And we also met with an independent jewelry designer-type person who will be making our wedding rings. My finger feels nekkid, since she's got my engagement ring so she can make a wax cast of it in order to fit the wedding ring to match exactly. I'm so excited to see what she comes up with for our rings, which were really the last big thing we hadn't figured out yet.
Also, we took down the Christmas tree, since it was our first opportunity to do so when we both felt healthy enough to put the effort into it (and it was light enough while we were both home). I don't think I've ever seen a tree that dry before. It's been drier than usual this winter, and the tree sat in our house for a month with no water, so I'm actually surprised it managed to leave the house with any needles intact at all. I took a few pictures of needle carnage with Dan's digital camera but I will have to wait until he gets home tonight so he can show me how to upload them and I can post them for you all to see. I'm just glad we mostly have wood/linoleum floors!
Thanks for all your comments on my previous post. I found it really interesting how people's taste seemed to differ in terms of which photos you all liked best. We chose our five favorites (with one alternate that we loved almost as much) and sent the list to the photographer. I have no idea what that means (he just asked for our five favorites), but in case you're curious, our top five were: 6233, 6292, 6858, 6973, 7000. Alternate: 6896.
Friday, January 25, 2008
Yes Foto
I've never liked having my picture taken. In fact, I find it to be kind of a weird phenomenon, having someone point a machine at me and produce an image that I rarely find to be representative of what I think I look like (or at least, what the mirror tells me). I was a cute kid, and kind of a weird-looking teenager, and since then I've hardly had my picture taken at all. In fact, I never even had senior portraits taken, mostly because I was embarassed about my skin.
My skin's mostly better these days, but it's still blotchy and uneven, and I rarely wear makeup because it's so sensitive. I knew, though, that I would need to figure out something makeup-wise for the wedding because I would be having my picture taken all day long, a prospect that fills me with a little bit of dread. And I want those photos to look good, because it's probably the only time in my life I'll be paying someone to take photos of me (and Dan, of course, but he always looks good).
One of the other things about the California part of our recent month-away-from-home that I really stressed about was the engagement shoot. Though it might seem like somewhat of a narcissistic or unnecessary add-on to a pretty low-key and low-budget wedding, I really wanted to do it so I would have a chance to get used to having someone point a camera at me for an extended period of time (read: more than one snapshot). While I had every confidence in our photographer to capture great photos of other people (having seen his work), I was really nervous that I would hate the way I looked in the photos he took, because it's just how I usually react. I don't think I'm at all photogenic, and a while ago I just resigned myself to never looking good in pictures. But I wanted to look good in these pictures!
Luckily, the day we picked to take photos in San Francisco was one of the most beautiful days I've ever seen (there), not to mention it was late December. We had an appointment to meet at 2 PM at Baker Beach, and we were a few minutes late because I got us lost trying to navigate through the Presidio. Our photographer got there really early because he wanted to scout out the area, and I guess he felt bad for being so late when we met with him before (that wasn't his fault; it was horrible traffic in both directions). He found some really neat places to shoot, and after about 5 minutes I was completely comfortable with just playing on the beach, holding Dan's hand, and enjoying the gorgeous day. It was warm and sunny, with hardly any breeze. The colors were crisp and clear, very difficult to come by any day of the year on a San Francisco beach. We got really lucky that the day was so pretty, and I am thrilled that we had such a good time working with the photographer. I feel much better about the prospect of having my picture taken all day long now.
Yesterday, the photographer sent me an email with the link to our photos. I really wanted to put it up on the blog immediately, but Dan wasn't home until about 7 PM last night and I wanted him to get to see them first. After seeing these pictures, I am so glad that we decided to go with the photographer we picked - I think he's really talented, and I think we're getting a fantastic deal - but I'm also thrilled that he's so good at making us both feel comfortable around the camera(s). And I could not be happier with the results of the engagement shoot.
Which ones do you guys like best?
My skin's mostly better these days, but it's still blotchy and uneven, and I rarely wear makeup because it's so sensitive. I knew, though, that I would need to figure out something makeup-wise for the wedding because I would be having my picture taken all day long, a prospect that fills me with a little bit of dread. And I want those photos to look good, because it's probably the only time in my life I'll be paying someone to take photos of me (and Dan, of course, but he always looks good).
One of the other things about the California part of our recent month-away-from-home that I really stressed about was the engagement shoot. Though it might seem like somewhat of a narcissistic or unnecessary add-on to a pretty low-key and low-budget wedding, I really wanted to do it so I would have a chance to get used to having someone point a camera at me for an extended period of time (read: more than one snapshot). While I had every confidence in our photographer to capture great photos of other people (having seen his work), I was really nervous that I would hate the way I looked in the photos he took, because it's just how I usually react. I don't think I'm at all photogenic, and a while ago I just resigned myself to never looking good in pictures. But I wanted to look good in these pictures!
Luckily, the day we picked to take photos in San Francisco was one of the most beautiful days I've ever seen (there), not to mention it was late December. We had an appointment to meet at 2 PM at Baker Beach, and we were a few minutes late because I got us lost trying to navigate through the Presidio. Our photographer got there really early because he wanted to scout out the area, and I guess he felt bad for being so late when we met with him before (that wasn't his fault; it was horrible traffic in both directions). He found some really neat places to shoot, and after about 5 minutes I was completely comfortable with just playing on the beach, holding Dan's hand, and enjoying the gorgeous day. It was warm and sunny, with hardly any breeze. The colors were crisp and clear, very difficult to come by any day of the year on a San Francisco beach. We got really lucky that the day was so pretty, and I am thrilled that we had such a good time working with the photographer. I feel much better about the prospect of having my picture taken all day long now.
Yesterday, the photographer sent me an email with the link to our photos. I really wanted to put it up on the blog immediately, but Dan wasn't home until about 7 PM last night and I wanted him to get to see them first. After seeing these pictures, I am so glad that we decided to go with the photographer we picked - I think he's really talented, and I think we're getting a fantastic deal - but I'm also thrilled that he's so good at making us both feel comfortable around the camera(s). And I could not be happier with the results of the engagement shoot.
Which ones do you guys like best?
Thursday, January 24, 2008
Travel Thursday: Oh yeah, we went to Italy!
Rome Part One - Sorry there aren't any pictures :(
We landed in Rome after two harrowing plane changes (luckily, we'd carried on all our baggage) and many many hours without sleep. According to our Rough Guide (more on this book later), we had the option of taking a cab or taking an 11euro train ride into the city from the airport. Luckily, we figured out that we could take a less expensive train to a different station and transfer to the metro line we needed to get to our hotel. So we did that instead.
We lucked out on a great hotel deal for Rome - $45 US/night for 5 nights, 3star hotel, which was cheaper than two hostel dorm beds would have been, and we had our own room with bathroom. It was not actually in Rome, but to the southeast of the city in a little town called Ostia Antica. We got to the Ostia metro stop and crossed the highway, to discover that it was a Really Little Town. Luckily, our hotel was on the one main street, so we started walking. And walking. There was no sidewalk for at least half of it, and the cars were going a good 40MPH along the street. We kind of feared for our lives and I had this mental picture of us as turtles on our backs in the middle of this busy road (we each had a larger backpack and smaller daypack, so wore the big one on our back and the small on our front). When we arrived at the hotel and asked if there was a back-road way to walk there from the station, the clerk looked at us in horror and told us to take the bus. Luckily, the bus system and metro system in the general Rome area are linked up, so one ticket is good on either system for 75 minutes. We decided not to try to walk between the hotel and the metro stop again, just because we preferred not to end up being roadkill.
Our hotel room was very nice, and we ended up taking a little nap, which turned into sleeping from 3:30 PM until about 6 the next morning. Ahhhh.
But of course, when we woke up I was starving. We didn't have much food with us, so we headed out for the metro and into Rome. Simon of A Girl and a Boy had loaned us a book full of walking tours of Rome, so we took the metro to Termini station (kind of a central point) and walked to where one of the tours started, grabbing some sandwiches in a little bar along the way. A note on food in Italy: you will see a lot of signs that say Bar. Mostly they sell a variety of things, including premade sandwiches/panini, cigarettes and candy, and booze and coffee. People eat standing up, and the ones that have tables, you have to pay extra in order to sit. Word to the wise.
Anyhow, we spent the first few hours taking one of the walking tours Simon had recommended (down Via Nazionale, around some ruins, up through the out-of-place Vittorio monument and down through the Roman Forum and around the Coliseum). Along the way, we found a grocery store and stopped in to provision ourselves. We found this was an economical way to eat in China, and it proved to be even more economical in Italy, since it was pretty much the only way we could eat three meals a day and not spend a ton of money (even take-away sandwiches and pizza are still 3-4 euro each, which translated to 4.50-6.00 US each - when it's two people, that can add up). So anyhow, the walking tour was really cool as it explained things about the buildings we were passing. Dan really enjoyed the ruins and the forum and walking around the Coliseum, and I really enjoyed getting to see them again, and sharing the experience with him.
For me, the Roman Forum is one of the most interesting things in Rome. It's fully amazing to me that this incredibly old thing, part of an ancient bit of Western Civilization, is just smack dab in the middle of the city of Rome. After more than 2000 years, it's still there - nobody has destroyed it, and thousands of people every year walk through the same pathways that the Roman hoi polloi walked through millenia ago. Nutty.
We decided not to stand in line/pay to tour the inside of the coliseum, but instead to walk around it and peek into the parts on the far side where you don't see many other tourists. Dan told me some interesting historical bits about the coliseum, and then we wandered over to the Arch of Constantine (more historical bits) and then attempted to climb the Palatine hill, where we got stopped in our tracks because we went the wrong way, and then it turned out you had to pay a bunch of money to get in (and it mostly just looked like a nice park) so we opted out.
One of the really cool things about Rome is that despite it being a really big city, most of the stuff you might wish to see as a tourist is within an easily walkable distance. We walked from the Paletine hill up to the Pantheon area and grabbed some take-away pizza (I think the best pizza we had in Rome, since it was hot and fresh from the oven, mmmm!), then went inside the Pantheon and marveled. I also find the Pantheon to be amazingly cool, even without knowing what an architectural feat it was at the time. Dan decided to draw the Pantheon, so we sat there in the afternoon chill while lots of tourists milled around and people trying to sell noisy things to tourists milled around after them.
We wandered by Trevi Fountain (more tourists, mostly Italian) on our way back to Termini station, and we looked for a place to go online to email our families and let them know we weren't dead. It took a while, since it was the 3rd of January and many places were still closed for the holidays, but we found one and then metro'd back to our hotel. We ate dinner in our hotel restaurant - it was decent and not terribly expensive - and then fell asleep pretty early after watching some so-awful-it's-funny Italian television and drinking boxed red wine (we didn't have a corkscrew).
The next day we were up pretty early and in the line for the Vatican Museum before it opened, eating our breakfast while we waited. It wasn't terribly cold (though I'd prepared by wearing warm tights under my pants) and the tourist-pushers were attempting to sell scarves and gloves to those who weren't wearing them. The line moved pretty quickly once the museum opened, and I'm pretty sure most of the people in line were Italian tourists (as all of Italy seems to be on vacation until Epiphany, January 6). If one planned a trip to Rome during high tourist season (read: summer) and one had specific time constraints, it might make sense to join a tour group, as that lets you jump the line. However, it's a really high price (I think I heard 90 euro?), so for people who have more time than money it really doesn't make sense.
The Vatican Museum was one of the things I skipped during my first trip to Rome, reasoning that I'd be back someday - and I was right. In a way, the museum is completely overwhelming, much like the Louvre, but in a way it's not difficult to see only the things you really want to see and go quickly through the things you don't care as much about. However, if you get there when the museum opens and you're trying to navigate between throngs of tour groups, it's a bit more difficult to actually see things you're trying to see. They have the museum set up in such a way that it is very difficult to backtrack, though I suppose if you were really determined you might accomplish it.
The most impressive thing about the Vatican Museum is that every single surface in the place is beautiful. No wall, ceiling, or floor is ungilded or unpainted or undecorated. In fact, it can be somewhat overwhelming and I ended up a little bit overstimulated by how much beauty was there. We both really enjoyed the Raphael rooms (Dan especially, since he'd studied so many of the works in his Art History classes - one of the paintings made his jaw drop and he just kind of marveled at it for about 10 minutes) and the Sistine Chapel, which is in some ways amazingly impressive and in other ways hard to be suitably impressed by, since the ceiling is so far from the floor. And it's packed full of people all the time, and the guards and intercom are constantly telling people to be quiet and not take photos, so the atmosphere of reverence they're going for doesn't quite seem to happen.
I would just like to note here that it is totally awesome to travel with someone who enjoys art and is more knowledgable about it than I am. It was like having my very own art tour guide, and I appreciated things a lot more when Dan told me about them.
We sent some postcards from the Vatican Museum, which was fun because Vatican City, being sovereign, has its own postal system and its own stamps. Apparently it also has its own euro coins, but we didn't check to see if we got any of them until it was too late.
After the museum, we wandered over to St. Peter's Basilica. When I was in Rome back in 2000, you could just wander in to the church and go wherever you felt like going within, but now you have to stand in a security line to make sure you aren't bringing in knives, and they have the inside set up so you can only walk around the perimeter. Or maybe that part was just because of when we were there, since they were setting up for the big Epiphany service. The Basilica would be much more impressive from the outside if there wasn't this enormous ugly facade tacked on to the front, and the inside is more a series of monuments to popes than a place of worship (to this non-Catholic, anyhow). But it, too, is adorned with beauty on all surfaces, and they had a mass or two going on while we were inside (sung in Latin, of course). And looking up is quite a celestial experience.
The one thing that really disappointed me about this particular visit to Vatican City was the dearth of nuns. On my previous trip, one of my favorite things about Rome (and the Vatican in particular) was how many different kinds of nuns I saw. This time, there were some nuns, but not nearly the amount or variety I'd been expecting. I guess they all make their pilgrimages in the summer just like everyone else.
After a lunch of uninspiring takeaway pizza (from a place recommended in the book) we walked across the city, up the Spanish Steps, and over and around the back side of the Termini station to a student neighborhood called San Lorenzo. I wanted to see a particular church in a cemetary in this area, but though it was described in detail it wasn't on any of the maps in the book, and then it started to get dark, so we kind of gave up. We had our first gelato of the trip at a chain place called Red Ice (still fantastically yummy, and not that expensive!) while we figured out what to do.
Because here is another downside to traveling in Italy in the winter: it gets dark pretty early, around 4:30 PM. And Rome is very much old-fashioned still when it comes to the hours of shops and restaurants. Pretty much all shops/restaurants/etc. close from about 3 PM to about 7 PM, and in most places it costs money to go into someplace that is open to sit down with your gelato or espresso or whatever. In the summer, this would not be an issue, as it would be lovely to stroll around in a park or something since it would still be light out and warm. In January, it is cold and dark. We thought about waiting around somewhere until we could find an open restaurant for dinner, but I was totally exhausted at that point (still dealing with jet lag) so we took the metro back to Ostia and decided to try to find a place to eat dinner there.
There was no place (we could find) to eat dinner in Ostia Antica. There's a small town with a post office and a butcher shop and a fruit stand and a few other little shops, but noplace we could find that was open and serving food in the evening. So we started to walk back toward our hotel, only we tried to go what we thought was the back way. We ended up on this wild goose chase, spending over an hour trudging through neighborhoods with unpaved streets, dogs barking at us, searching in vain for a place to eat (and then, eventually, for our hotel). Turns out that going the back way was an even worse idea than just walking straight to the hotel from the train station, but eventually we saw the blue neon HOTEL sign through the foggy mist and, completely exhausted beyond measure, we gave up and got horrible pizza and grappa at the hotel bar. Seriously, it was probably the worst pizza I ever ate, and man, we were in ITALY! There was no excuse for how wretched it was. At least it was food.
We landed in Rome after two harrowing plane changes (luckily, we'd carried on all our baggage) and many many hours without sleep. According to our Rough Guide (more on this book later), we had the option of taking a cab or taking an 11euro train ride into the city from the airport. Luckily, we figured out that we could take a less expensive train to a different station and transfer to the metro line we needed to get to our hotel. So we did that instead.
We lucked out on a great hotel deal for Rome - $45 US/night for 5 nights, 3star hotel, which was cheaper than two hostel dorm beds would have been, and we had our own room with bathroom. It was not actually in Rome, but to the southeast of the city in a little town called Ostia Antica. We got to the Ostia metro stop and crossed the highway, to discover that it was a Really Little Town. Luckily, our hotel was on the one main street, so we started walking. And walking. There was no sidewalk for at least half of it, and the cars were going a good 40MPH along the street. We kind of feared for our lives and I had this mental picture of us as turtles on our backs in the middle of this busy road (we each had a larger backpack and smaller daypack, so wore the big one on our back and the small on our front). When we arrived at the hotel and asked if there was a back-road way to walk there from the station, the clerk looked at us in horror and told us to take the bus. Luckily, the bus system and metro system in the general Rome area are linked up, so one ticket is good on either system for 75 minutes. We decided not to try to walk between the hotel and the metro stop again, just because we preferred not to end up being roadkill.
Our hotel room was very nice, and we ended up taking a little nap, which turned into sleeping from 3:30 PM until about 6 the next morning. Ahhhh.
But of course, when we woke up I was starving. We didn't have much food with us, so we headed out for the metro and into Rome. Simon of A Girl and a Boy had loaned us a book full of walking tours of Rome, so we took the metro to Termini station (kind of a central point) and walked to where one of the tours started, grabbing some sandwiches in a little bar along the way. A note on food in Italy: you will see a lot of signs that say Bar. Mostly they sell a variety of things, including premade sandwiches/panini, cigarettes and candy, and booze and coffee. People eat standing up, and the ones that have tables, you have to pay extra in order to sit. Word to the wise.
Anyhow, we spent the first few hours taking one of the walking tours Simon had recommended (down Via Nazionale, around some ruins, up through the out-of-place Vittorio monument and down through the Roman Forum and around the Coliseum). Along the way, we found a grocery store and stopped in to provision ourselves. We found this was an economical way to eat in China, and it proved to be even more economical in Italy, since it was pretty much the only way we could eat three meals a day and not spend a ton of money (even take-away sandwiches and pizza are still 3-4 euro each, which translated to 4.50-6.00 US each - when it's two people, that can add up). So anyhow, the walking tour was really cool as it explained things about the buildings we were passing. Dan really enjoyed the ruins and the forum and walking around the Coliseum, and I really enjoyed getting to see them again, and sharing the experience with him.
For me, the Roman Forum is one of the most interesting things in Rome. It's fully amazing to me that this incredibly old thing, part of an ancient bit of Western Civilization, is just smack dab in the middle of the city of Rome. After more than 2000 years, it's still there - nobody has destroyed it, and thousands of people every year walk through the same pathways that the Roman hoi polloi walked through millenia ago. Nutty.
We decided not to stand in line/pay to tour the inside of the coliseum, but instead to walk around it and peek into the parts on the far side where you don't see many other tourists. Dan told me some interesting historical bits about the coliseum, and then we wandered over to the Arch of Constantine (more historical bits) and then attempted to climb the Palatine hill, where we got stopped in our tracks because we went the wrong way, and then it turned out you had to pay a bunch of money to get in (and it mostly just looked like a nice park) so we opted out.
One of the really cool things about Rome is that despite it being a really big city, most of the stuff you might wish to see as a tourist is within an easily walkable distance. We walked from the Paletine hill up to the Pantheon area and grabbed some take-away pizza (I think the best pizza we had in Rome, since it was hot and fresh from the oven, mmmm!), then went inside the Pantheon and marveled. I also find the Pantheon to be amazingly cool, even without knowing what an architectural feat it was at the time. Dan decided to draw the Pantheon, so we sat there in the afternoon chill while lots of tourists milled around and people trying to sell noisy things to tourists milled around after them.
We wandered by Trevi Fountain (more tourists, mostly Italian) on our way back to Termini station, and we looked for a place to go online to email our families and let them know we weren't dead. It took a while, since it was the 3rd of January and many places were still closed for the holidays, but we found one and then metro'd back to our hotel. We ate dinner in our hotel restaurant - it was decent and not terribly expensive - and then fell asleep pretty early after watching some so-awful-it's-funny Italian television and drinking boxed red wine (we didn't have a corkscrew).
The next day we were up pretty early and in the line for the Vatican Museum before it opened, eating our breakfast while we waited. It wasn't terribly cold (though I'd prepared by wearing warm tights under my pants) and the tourist-pushers were attempting to sell scarves and gloves to those who weren't wearing them. The line moved pretty quickly once the museum opened, and I'm pretty sure most of the people in line were Italian tourists (as all of Italy seems to be on vacation until Epiphany, January 6). If one planned a trip to Rome during high tourist season (read: summer) and one had specific time constraints, it might make sense to join a tour group, as that lets you jump the line. However, it's a really high price (I think I heard 90 euro?), so for people who have more time than money it really doesn't make sense.
The Vatican Museum was one of the things I skipped during my first trip to Rome, reasoning that I'd be back someday - and I was right. In a way, the museum is completely overwhelming, much like the Louvre, but in a way it's not difficult to see only the things you really want to see and go quickly through the things you don't care as much about. However, if you get there when the museum opens and you're trying to navigate between throngs of tour groups, it's a bit more difficult to actually see things you're trying to see. They have the museum set up in such a way that it is very difficult to backtrack, though I suppose if you were really determined you might accomplish it.
The most impressive thing about the Vatican Museum is that every single surface in the place is beautiful. No wall, ceiling, or floor is ungilded or unpainted or undecorated. In fact, it can be somewhat overwhelming and I ended up a little bit overstimulated by how much beauty was there. We both really enjoyed the Raphael rooms (Dan especially, since he'd studied so many of the works in his Art History classes - one of the paintings made his jaw drop and he just kind of marveled at it for about 10 minutes) and the Sistine Chapel, which is in some ways amazingly impressive and in other ways hard to be suitably impressed by, since the ceiling is so far from the floor. And it's packed full of people all the time, and the guards and intercom are constantly telling people to be quiet and not take photos, so the atmosphere of reverence they're going for doesn't quite seem to happen.
I would just like to note here that it is totally awesome to travel with someone who enjoys art and is more knowledgable about it than I am. It was like having my very own art tour guide, and I appreciated things a lot more when Dan told me about them.
We sent some postcards from the Vatican Museum, which was fun because Vatican City, being sovereign, has its own postal system and its own stamps. Apparently it also has its own euro coins, but we didn't check to see if we got any of them until it was too late.
After the museum, we wandered over to St. Peter's Basilica. When I was in Rome back in 2000, you could just wander in to the church and go wherever you felt like going within, but now you have to stand in a security line to make sure you aren't bringing in knives, and they have the inside set up so you can only walk around the perimeter. Or maybe that part was just because of when we were there, since they were setting up for the big Epiphany service. The Basilica would be much more impressive from the outside if there wasn't this enormous ugly facade tacked on to the front, and the inside is more a series of monuments to popes than a place of worship (to this non-Catholic, anyhow). But it, too, is adorned with beauty on all surfaces, and they had a mass or two going on while we were inside (sung in Latin, of course). And looking up is quite a celestial experience.
The one thing that really disappointed me about this particular visit to Vatican City was the dearth of nuns. On my previous trip, one of my favorite things about Rome (and the Vatican in particular) was how many different kinds of nuns I saw. This time, there were some nuns, but not nearly the amount or variety I'd been expecting. I guess they all make their pilgrimages in the summer just like everyone else.
After a lunch of uninspiring takeaway pizza (from a place recommended in the book) we walked across the city, up the Spanish Steps, and over and around the back side of the Termini station to a student neighborhood called San Lorenzo. I wanted to see a particular church in a cemetary in this area, but though it was described in detail it wasn't on any of the maps in the book, and then it started to get dark, so we kind of gave up. We had our first gelato of the trip at a chain place called Red Ice (still fantastically yummy, and not that expensive!) while we figured out what to do.
Because here is another downside to traveling in Italy in the winter: it gets dark pretty early, around 4:30 PM. And Rome is very much old-fashioned still when it comes to the hours of shops and restaurants. Pretty much all shops/restaurants/etc. close from about 3 PM to about 7 PM, and in most places it costs money to go into someplace that is open to sit down with your gelato or espresso or whatever. In the summer, this would not be an issue, as it would be lovely to stroll around in a park or something since it would still be light out and warm. In January, it is cold and dark. We thought about waiting around somewhere until we could find an open restaurant for dinner, but I was totally exhausted at that point (still dealing with jet lag) so we took the metro back to Ostia and decided to try to find a place to eat dinner there.
There was no place (we could find) to eat dinner in Ostia Antica. There's a small town with a post office and a butcher shop and a fruit stand and a few other little shops, but noplace we could find that was open and serving food in the evening. So we started to walk back toward our hotel, only we tried to go what we thought was the back way. We ended up on this wild goose chase, spending over an hour trudging through neighborhoods with unpaved streets, dogs barking at us, searching in vain for a place to eat (and then, eventually, for our hotel). Turns out that going the back way was an even worse idea than just walking straight to the hotel from the train station, but eventually we saw the blue neon HOTEL sign through the foggy mist and, completely exhausted beyond measure, we gave up and got horrible pizza and grappa at the hotel bar. Seriously, it was probably the worst pizza I ever ate, and man, we were in ITALY! There was no excuse for how wretched it was. At least it was food.
Wednesday, January 23, 2008
Wednesday wedding day: Trying to grok
So, while we were in California we got a bunch of wedding stuff done. We scouted out BevMo for beer/wine; we looked at fabric for dresses; I found makeup that will work (thanks to my sister, makeup maven and she of skin very much like mine); we had our tasting (yum! so excited about the food!); got a quote from the tent rental company; had our engagement photos taken (so excited to see these! I hope we get them soon), and I had my dress fitting.
I could talk for paragraphs about any of the above things. It was kind of amazing what all we did in the few days after Christmas before we headed out for Italy. The thing I was most concerned about was the dress fitting - after all, I ordered it in August and the fitting was in December after Christmas (read: rich food and no exercise for a week), and I won't have another fitting until about 5 days before the wedding.
The dress was too big.
Yes. It has a corset back, and the back was laced up as tight as it would go in order to stay up. Now, I'm pretty sure it fit me (at least, the sample I tried on fit me) back in August. And I can't imagine I was all that much smaller at the fitting. But I was smaller, somehow, and if I get any smaller the dress will have to be taken in a few days before the wedding (and cost boatloads more for alterations. Seriously, the absolute racket that is the wedding dress alteration - my bustle? $5. Extra boning in the seams because of how the dress fits me? $30. A one-inch hem? $120!!! WTF!?!?! I told my mom I could do the hem on her sewing machine, but she insisted on paying for it and said it was one less thing for me to worry about. But $120!?!?!?! It's just a basic hem; there's no lace or beading or asymmetrical lines or anything. Boo.)
The reason I am having a difficult time grokking this is because when I went to the doctor yesterday, they weighed me. I specifically told them that I did not want to know my weight, since the number always always freaks me out, and I specifically never weigh myself because of that - instead, I judge by how my clothes fit. Well, I didn't see the number on the scale, but they had to put it in the computer during my appointment, and it was on the printout they gave me with my prescriptions. Way to go, Kaiser people! Anyhow, it freaked me the hell out, because I weigh about 10 pounds more than I thought I did, and about 20 pounds more than I'd like to weigh. According to most height/weight charts, I'm borderline overweight. Yet my size 8 clothes are fitting fine (some of my jeans are even loose) and my size 10 wedding dress (the wedding dress industry being notorious for sizing their clothing higher than street clothes, seriously I thought I'd be getting a size 12 wedding dress) is too big. If I lose much weight the dress will be falling off and I'll have to have it taken in. Yet the number on the scale, well, let's just say that I can't fathom actually weighing this much.
But I have a (nearly) visible four-pack. The cuts in my arms and legs are pretty impressive. There are only a few spots on my body where I can pinch extra. So WTH, scale? I suppose I could subtract a couple of pounds for my clothes/shoes, but still. I know they say that muscle weighs more than fat, but this is kind of ridiculous. Brain not computing. Weigh lots. Dress too big. If lose weight, dress not fit at all. But - weigh lots! ACK.
OK, so, besides the whole MLE is totally neurotic about her weight/appearance/wedding dress crap, there's more to report on the wedding front. Our invitations got finished and sent out in the mail yesterday - yay! The *kerthump* as I put them all in the blue standing box was satisfying and yet made me feel a little funny, because it's all real now, we're really doing this. We put together our guest list for the rehearsal dinner this weekend. And we've already gotten some "no"s before the invitations even went out from people we'd thought were coming to the wedding :(. On the one hand, I'm very sad about this, because they are people we would both love to have there. On the other hand, we can't control other people's life events or choices, and we hope at least that the people who can't be there will be thinking of us.
Today I stayed home from work to recover a bit from the multiple infections etc., and in between playing on the internets I've been watching some of my christmas presents from my sister (she did an awesome gift for younger sis and I; she found copies of all these movies we watched a lot as kids on DVD and gave them to us for Christmas. So far from the collection I've watched Stand By Me, Adventures in Babysitting, Dirty Dancing and the Muppets Take Manhattan) and working on my big wedding crafty project (one of them, anyhow). I can't wait to take pictures and show you guys. I think it will be awesome. Speaking of taking pictures, I need to get a new digital camera. In a perfect world where we didn't have a wedding to pay for and we had lots of disposable income, I'd get a digital SLR, but that's not going to happen anytime soon. Dan did some research and found a camera that looks great, but I've not done much research yet. Anyone want to recommend a good P&S with at least 5 MP and a shutter that doesn't take forever?
I could talk for paragraphs about any of the above things. It was kind of amazing what all we did in the few days after Christmas before we headed out for Italy. The thing I was most concerned about was the dress fitting - after all, I ordered it in August and the fitting was in December after Christmas (read: rich food and no exercise for a week), and I won't have another fitting until about 5 days before the wedding.
The dress was too big.
Yes. It has a corset back, and the back was laced up as tight as it would go in order to stay up. Now, I'm pretty sure it fit me (at least, the sample I tried on fit me) back in August. And I can't imagine I was all that much smaller at the fitting. But I was smaller, somehow, and if I get any smaller the dress will have to be taken in a few days before the wedding (and cost boatloads more for alterations. Seriously, the absolute racket that is the wedding dress alteration - my bustle? $5. Extra boning in the seams because of how the dress fits me? $30. A one-inch hem? $120!!! WTF!?!?! I told my mom I could do the hem on her sewing machine, but she insisted on paying for it and said it was one less thing for me to worry about. But $120!?!?!?! It's just a basic hem; there's no lace or beading or asymmetrical lines or anything. Boo.)
The reason I am having a difficult time grokking this is because when I went to the doctor yesterday, they weighed me. I specifically told them that I did not want to know my weight, since the number always always freaks me out, and I specifically never weigh myself because of that - instead, I judge by how my clothes fit. Well, I didn't see the number on the scale, but they had to put it in the computer during my appointment, and it was on the printout they gave me with my prescriptions. Way to go, Kaiser people! Anyhow, it freaked me the hell out, because I weigh about 10 pounds more than I thought I did, and about 20 pounds more than I'd like to weigh. According to most height/weight charts, I'm borderline overweight. Yet my size 8 clothes are fitting fine (some of my jeans are even loose) and my size 10 wedding dress (the wedding dress industry being notorious for sizing their clothing higher than street clothes, seriously I thought I'd be getting a size 12 wedding dress) is too big. If I lose much weight the dress will be falling off and I'll have to have it taken in. Yet the number on the scale, well, let's just say that I can't fathom actually weighing this much.
But I have a (nearly) visible four-pack. The cuts in my arms and legs are pretty impressive. There are only a few spots on my body where I can pinch extra. So WTH, scale? I suppose I could subtract a couple of pounds for my clothes/shoes, but still. I know they say that muscle weighs more than fat, but this is kind of ridiculous. Brain not computing. Weigh lots. Dress too big. If lose weight, dress not fit at all. But - weigh lots! ACK.
OK, so, besides the whole MLE is totally neurotic about her weight/appearance/wedding dress crap, there's more to report on the wedding front. Our invitations got finished and sent out in the mail yesterday - yay! The *kerthump* as I put them all in the blue standing box was satisfying and yet made me feel a little funny, because it's all real now, we're really doing this. We put together our guest list for the rehearsal dinner this weekend. And we've already gotten some "no"s before the invitations even went out from people we'd thought were coming to the wedding :(. On the one hand, I'm very sad about this, because they are people we would both love to have there. On the other hand, we can't control other people's life events or choices, and we hope at least that the people who can't be there will be thinking of us.
Today I stayed home from work to recover a bit from the multiple infections etc., and in between playing on the internets I've been watching some of my christmas presents from my sister (she did an awesome gift for younger sis and I; she found copies of all these movies we watched a lot as kids on DVD and gave them to us for Christmas. So far from the collection I've watched Stand By Me, Adventures in Babysitting, Dirty Dancing and the Muppets Take Manhattan) and working on my big wedding crafty project (one of them, anyhow). I can't wait to take pictures and show you guys. I think it will be awesome. Speaking of taking pictures, I need to get a new digital camera. In a perfect world where we didn't have a wedding to pay for and we had lots of disposable income, I'd get a digital SLR, but that's not going to happen anytime soon. Dan did some research and found a camera that looks great, but I've not done much research yet. Anyone want to recommend a good P&S with at least 5 MP and a shutter that doesn't take forever?
Tuesday, January 22, 2008
Guess what I've won?
Yes. I have not yet told you all the cool things about Italy (or California, for that matter). I have started umpteen blog posts in my head, but I do have a good excuse.
Remember how I mentioned that both Dan and I got sick in Italy? I'm still sick. Really, miserably, disgustingly sick. So sick that a 3-day weekend plus Friday as a sick day did very little to make me feel better (Me sitting around doing nothing for four days generally equals cabin fever, but I seriously had no energy for anything. Sorry your visit with your family was overshadowed by me being sick, Holla.) Anyhow, since yesterday was a holiday I couldn't call to make an appointment with Kaiser until this morning, which I did (yes, I went to work today. I've not been here in a month, except for Thursday, when I tried to go to the gym, did 30 minutes of pilates and about coughed out a lung, so gave up on that whole trying to work out thing). At my appointment, the doctor looked in my ears and nose, listened to my chest and listened to the laundry list of symptoms. I mean, I've had sinus pain in my teeth and jaw for the past week - that's how bad it is. And I haven't been able to hear well out of either ear.
Diagnoses? (Yes, multiple.) A sinus infection, two ear infections (one in each ear), and a perforated eardrum that has stuff draining out of it. I suspected as much, and for my good guess I get to take 3 horse pills twice a day for two weeks. I guess we'd better go to the store and stock up on yogurt.
Remember how I mentioned that both Dan and I got sick in Italy? I'm still sick. Really, miserably, disgustingly sick. So sick that a 3-day weekend plus Friday as a sick day did very little to make me feel better (Me sitting around doing nothing for four days generally equals cabin fever, but I seriously had no energy for anything. Sorry your visit with your family was overshadowed by me being sick, Holla.) Anyhow, since yesterday was a holiday I couldn't call to make an appointment with Kaiser until this morning, which I did (yes, I went to work today. I've not been here in a month, except for Thursday, when I tried to go to the gym, did 30 minutes of pilates and about coughed out a lung, so gave up on that whole trying to work out thing). At my appointment, the doctor looked in my ears and nose, listened to my chest and listened to the laundry list of symptoms. I mean, I've had sinus pain in my teeth and jaw for the past week - that's how bad it is. And I haven't been able to hear well out of either ear.
Diagnoses? (Yes, multiple.) A sinus infection, two ear infections (one in each ear), and a perforated eardrum that has stuff draining out of it. I suspected as much, and for my good guess I get to take 3 horse pills twice a day for two weeks. I guess we'd better go to the store and stock up on yogurt.
Wednesday, January 16, 2008
No Foto
We're back in the Bay Area after one two-hour flight and one eleven-hour flight. And a solid 7 hours of sleep in QIR's bed (thanks for the bed, darlin!)
So, yes, we went to Italy and I will have many stories to tell. However, I will have no photos to show you. I lost my camera on a train between Siena and Empoli, and unfortunately neither the kind folks at the Florence train station lost and found nor the ones at the Pisa lost and found were able to give me good news, that someone had turned my camera in. So I have no photos from the trip. Dan took about eight with his film SLR, but he doesn't know if they'll even turn out because it turned out the film he bought was expired. So we'll see.
I would have rather lost anything else I had with me, including my passport and my new ipod, than my camera. But it was the camera, a gift Dan gave me for Christmas a few years ago, a gift that made me cry at the time and that I've used all the time since, that is gone. No foto*.
Also, we were both sick (he, the entire time, me, for about half the time). Also, it rained nearly every day. And Dan fell down some stairs.
But we still had a good time, for the most part, despite all the problems. I will be writing about the trip in detail, probably, but the hundreds of pictures I had to play around with and share with the internets are lost and gone forever, and I'll have to rely on my power of descriptive language rather than be able to show you all the awesome things we saw.
Hello again, internets, I've missed you.
* in reference to many sights we saw, including Michelangelo's David, where you weren't allowed to take pictures (even though last time I was in Italy, it was just "no flash". Guess it's really important that they sell a lot of postcards.
So, yes, we went to Italy and I will have many stories to tell. However, I will have no photos to show you. I lost my camera on a train between Siena and Empoli, and unfortunately neither the kind folks at the Florence train station lost and found nor the ones at the Pisa lost and found were able to give me good news, that someone had turned my camera in. So I have no photos from the trip. Dan took about eight with his film SLR, but he doesn't know if they'll even turn out because it turned out the film he bought was expired. So we'll see.
I would have rather lost anything else I had with me, including my passport and my new ipod, than my camera. But it was the camera, a gift Dan gave me for Christmas a few years ago, a gift that made me cry at the time and that I've used all the time since, that is gone. No foto*.
Also, we were both sick (he, the entire time, me, for about half the time). Also, it rained nearly every day. And Dan fell down some stairs.
But we still had a good time, for the most part, despite all the problems. I will be writing about the trip in detail, probably, but the hundreds of pictures I had to play around with and share with the internets are lost and gone forever, and I'll have to rely on my power of descriptive language rather than be able to show you all the awesome things we saw.
Hello again, internets, I've missed you.
* in reference to many sights we saw, including Michelangelo's David, where you weren't allowed to take pictures (even though last time I was in Italy, it was just "no flash". Guess it's really important that they sell a lot of postcards.
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