Slow news week

Rather than trying to write something that doesn't seem to be working, I will instead send you to the best things I found on the internet today.

Leah on friends nearly made me cry.

Dutch, with a new children's book idea that made me laugh out loud.

Jive Turkey, on icky girls and the Catholic Church.

Read 'em and weep! Or laugh! Or both!

Orange you glad I didn't say banana?

Friday

Good: We decided to have a tasty beverage and a snack at a local dive bar when I got home from work.
Bad: The weather was crappy, so we almost didn't go.
Good: We went anyway and sat inside and enjoyed our spicy garlic wings, frings, and beverages.
Bad: I ate wings and frings. BAD!
Good: We picked up Holla and The Lovely Katherine at the airport and drove north for the weekend.
Bad: Their plane was like an hour late because of the storms.
Good: So we had time to go to Target and buy the few things off that registry that we actually wanted (a set of sheets, Apples to Apples, and the AtoA expansion pack) with some wedding gift money.
Bad: We wanted the crockpot we registered for that was on clearance but that store didn't have any in stock.
Good: Also, I had time to learn that I have two games on my cell phone.
Bad: It runs down the batteries, plus the game I played sucked.
Good: Dan's parents were still awake when we finally arrived.
Good: They had pizza for us to eat.
Bad: I ate PIZZA and WINGS and FRINGS in the same day. Gross.

Saturday
Good: Sleeping in a room that gets morning sunlight.
Bad: Bad dreams all night long. What is up with that?
Good: I learned how to play Mastermind.
Good: Remembering the videocamera with our ceremony so Dan's grandma could watch it.
Bad: Realizing that the camera is out of batteries and the cord has completely disappeared, and RadioShack, Target, and BestBuy were all useless. Apparently we have to order it from the manufacturer.
Good: Going out to lunch and having tasty beverages with H & K
Bad: My turkey burger didn't have the option of a side salad. More fries (though I only ate a few)
Good: Sitting in the sun felt lovely
Bad: Until I overheated
Good: Everyone's food and beers/cider (me) were terrific
Bad: The bill was not. Eek! No wonder we almost never go out.
Good: Finding a brewery at which to taste beer that was not super packed
Amusing: We were the oldest people at the Fort Collins Brewery by several years for the first 45 minutes or so we were there.
Good: The 3 of them got to taste 8 beers for like $4 a person
Bad: I tried all of them and found all but two thoroughly foul, and those two were just marginally less objectionable.
Good: Everyone had a good time
Bad: Nobody really liked any of the beers.
Good: Dinner with Dan's whole family (aunt, uncle, cousin/husband, cousin, grandma, parents, bro & sil)
Bad: Last time that will happen in who knows how long.
Good: Played Apples to Apples, had a great time.

Sunday:
Good: Weather was gorgeous
Good: Everyone split up to do different things (golf, time with friend, movies/lunch)
Good: Dinner that evening in the great outdoors
Bad: Wind during dessert
Good: Hot tub
Good: Watching Harry Potter 3 on a huge screen with surround sound in cushy chairs, leading to
Amusing: All 4 of us fell asleep partway through the movie.

Monday:
Bad: Weather was pretty dismal and gloomy. This reflected our moods (at least, Dan's and mine)
Good: One last breakfast together
Good: More Apples to Apples
Good: Lunch at Old Chicago (I had a lunch-sized veggie lasagne which turned out to be mighty tasty)
Bad: Having to say goodbye to H&K, because we don't know when we'll see them again (they ship out for Latvia at the end of June and sometime in July respectively)
Good: Going home, vegging on the couch with popcorn and a movie
Bad: Having a very sad husband

In brief

* I'm going to have to go on the record and say that tornadoes are probably the scariest natural phenomena to me. Luckily, I work in a basement so even if there were a tornado here I probably wouldn't know about it. A whole bunch of tornados ripped through the northeast part of our fair state today, including some that went right through the area where Dan's parents live and work (and my coworker lives/her husband works). Luckily, everyone I know up in that area is OK and presumably their dwellings are as well. Give me earthquakes any day; I know what to do in case of earthquake.

* I forgot to mention the best part of Saturday, which was that after we went to see Iron Man, we drove home and as we were driving through the alley to our parking spot we noticed a bicycle sprawled out in front of our car. This is unusual; people don't just leave their bikes unattended out in the open here because that's a good way to no longer have a bike. As we swerved around it, I noticed that there was a person lying in between two dumpsters next to the bike. We parked and took a closer look; the person was obviously breathing, but the bike's handle was all mangled and it looked like he had maybe fallen off his bike and gotten knocked out. I tried to wake him up with my voice and by tapping his foot with mine, but he remained unconscious. I was pretty sure it wasn't a bum, because what bum would decide sleeping in shorts and a t-shirt on a gravely, broken glass-y spot between two dumpsters while wearing a guitar on his back would be a good idea? So Dan called the police non-emergency line and told them the situation. Two minutes later, an ambulance, a fire truck, and two police cars showed up. I was inside, but Dan wanted to see how it all went down, and he reported that the guy was really unhappy to be awakened by paramedics (apparently, he was kind of rude about it, actually). We never found out if it was a bike accident (paramedic said "too much partying") or whether the guy needed any sort of medical attention (drunk? high? both?) but it sure made things exciting on our block that Saturday night. And I guess the local emergency services didn't have anything better to do.

* I have my second physical therapy appointment this afternoon. My leg's feeling much better, and looking much better, though it's still a bit painful when I rub it and when doing certain activities. And it gets tired easily. All I've done with it is walk a lot and ride the stationary bike, per PT's orders, so I'm hoping that since I'm walking normally and seem to be doing better that he'll OK more strenuous activity. It's amazing how fast I start gaining weight when I'm not working out all the time or at least as much as I usually do. It really kind of sucks.

* This restaurant near my work that was closed for several months just reopened, and aforementioned coworker and I decided to try it out. The menu isn't especially inspired, and their computers were down so they couldn't charge our credit cards for our meal. So they told us it was on them. Score! Free lunch! Though I'll probably go in there next week, cash in hand, and pay for it, because I feel bad. Also, I've heard told they serve gigantic slabs of cake. Just what I need when I can't exercise very much. But they sounded Really Good.

The whole rest of the time, and I drink Satan's anal leakage

So my cousin Scarlett came for a long visit, the first visitor we've ever had from my family other than my mom. It was awesome.

She flew in on Wednesday night and we picked her and her tiny bag up at the airport. Scarlett is both vegetarian and currently on a cleanse (avoiding alcohol and certain foods, eating others) so I'd found out ahead of time what was OK and what wasn't, and Dan and I planned out several OK-for-the-cleanse dinners. When we got home on Wednesday night it was pretty late, so we had a tasty stir fry with tofu over soba noodles (made from buckwheat).

Thursday I went to work and Scarlett went to the library, working on both her job (she can work from anywhere with an internet connection) and her upcoming paper, due the day after she returned home. That night we hung out and played Fluxx. Friday Dan had his last final, and Scarlett and I both stayed in bed until pretty late, and only ate some toast from homemade bread for breakfast. When Dan got back, we got dressed and headed west to Boulder.

Because it was Friday, we decided to go to Celestial Seasonings Tea Factory because the Factory was in session, and we made it just in time for the beginning of the 1 PM tour. It was very cool to see the factory in production mode (I've been on the tour many times, but usually on weekend days when they don't have the machinery going). It's a really cool tour, it's free, you get to see how they do stuff, and your sinuses get all cleared out in the mint room. What's not to love?

After we spent some time browsing in the gift shop, I realized I really really needed to eat, so we drove over to the middle of town and went to lunch at the Dushanbe Tea House. This is an amazing tea house built in Boulder's sister city in Tajikistan that serves an international menu; something for everyone. We got some hummus with veggies and a tea salad as appetizers, since by that point I was completely starving, which took a really long time to come out. Dan and I shared a freshly-brewed iced chai, and I had an omelet with spinach, brie, carmelized pearl onions and walnuts. Dan had bangers and mash (the bangers made from pheasant). Scarlett had tofu and veggies over soba noodles in a tasty broth. After lunch, we strolled around the Pearl Street Mall, oohing over the gorgeous tulips, checking out the art at Art Mart, the kitchen equipment at Peppercorn, and toys at Into the Wind (three of our favorite stores). Then we went back to Denver and did a little grocery shopping. First, we stopped at Queen Soopers, where we procured some important things like fizzy water and Izze soda and ingredients for a few more meals. Then we went to Wild Oats. Except it isn't Wild Oats anymore! It's Whole Foods! When did that happen? Apparently, on Friday.

OK, so at the Tiniest Whole Foods Ever that is 3 blocks from our house, we bought some tasty things and tried some other tasty things (chips made from something that wasn't potato, but still quite tasty), and Scarlett bought two flavors of kombucha (she's big into beverages, apparently). She also bought two different non-dairy ice-cream like products, one a Rice Dream and one a Soy Delicious, I believe. Both turned out to be tasty.

Now, I'd forgotten the name of the product that Monkey wrote about in her post, but after I'd had a sip of the cranberry kombucha (I didn't think it was that bad, but then I like really sour stuff; it reminded me of lambic-style beer) I wondered whether that was the stuff she'd written about. So I looked it up later, and it was. Anyhow, my cousin really likes it, and while I didn't think it went super well with dinner (spanish tortilla, green beans) I thought it was still OK. I don't think I'll be buying it myself anytime soon at $3 a bottle (since I don't really drink anything except water as I prefer to eat my calories) but I wouldn't scream if it were made available again someday. Though later, I tried the guava flavor she bought, and I really didn't like that one, so maybe it was just the fruit flavoring that made the difference.

I've already told you about Saturday and how wonderful it was. Saturday night, Scarlett wanted to rest and work on her paper, so Dan and I had a little date night at the movies. We drove to a theater rather than walking like we normally would (since he had just had a nail in his foot) and saw Iron Man. I liked it pretty well, for knowing absolutely nothing about the comic or its storyline. Though I was really disappointed by most of the previews. Do people still find Adam Sandler and Mike Myers to be that funny?

Sunday was another beautiful day, and Dan's foot felt better, so we walked all over town. We walked to the Botanical Garden and took lots of excellent photographs (Dan started to show me how to use the new camera to take the kinds of shots I was interested in, which, sweet!). We walked over to the apothecary where I got a refill on my tasty tincture and Scarlett talked to the lady about a skin issue she was having and ended up getting some sort of cream that was supposed to help (and by the next day, it looked much better!) Then we walked allllll the way back over to the Tattered Cover. Dan and Scarlett browsed while I sat in the old orchestra pit and rested my leg, which at that point was very, very tired. And that's when I noticed I'd gotten a sunburn on my shoulders and chest. Stupid, stupid. I hadn't put on enough sunscreen or worn my hat. Usually I am really careful about such things, but that day was my first real skin-in-sun exposure since last fall and I just didn't think about it. It still hurts.

So after they were finished, we walked home in the heat. A little while later, Scarlett and I walked to the new Whole Foods to pick up a few things for dinner (curried red lentils with whole wheat parathas). I made guacamole for an appetizer and Julie and Steve came over to have dinner with us. It was a lot of fun, but I felt bad; because of the events the day before, we'd forgotten to go to the liquor store, so we only had one bottle of wine and few other adult beverage choices. I guess it was OK; we don't HAVE to have a lot of booze to entertain, but I still like people to have options.

Monday I worked a half day (and Scarlett worked on her paper), then we walked home together and Dan got home from his trip to campus and she packed up her stuff. We drove up to Lookout Mountain and visited Buffalo Bill's grave, then explored the gift shop. Scarlett declared that, despite her cleanse, she had to have some Rowdy Root Beer and Dan and I shared a root beer float. We sat in some bizarre traffic on the way back east (turns out they'd closed our side of the freeway for a few minutes because of some escaped convict?) and then had smooth sailing all the way to the airport. We even got her there a little early. I discovered that sitting in the backseat of our car when it is warmer than 80F outside is Not Fun, because none of the vents are strong enough to get air back there, and I can't hear a damn thing with the window down. So it was unpleasant. It's good to know for future reference, too.

All in all, we had a great time. I was so glad to get to spend a lot of one-on-one time with Scarlett and we loved having a visitor. Hint to everyone who knows us IRL: Come visit! We have an extra bedroom! With inflatable mattresses! We have cute kitties! We have a lot of tea and a plethora of mugs! And we love houseguests. Especially ones who treat us to an awesome lunch at the Dushanbe Tea House and are able to write it off as a business expense.

Runs in the Family; or, we really know how to show guests a good time

I'm going to write a big ol' post about Scarlett's visit, but first I want to tell you all about Saturday.

Saturday dawned sunny and gorgeous and warm, and after a late breakfast we prepared to drive up to Rocky Mountain National Park to show off some more of our fair state to our guest. All morning we watched as our idiot next door neighbor pulled down large chunks of his roof to land in a huge pile right outside our back door. Usually on such a glorious morning, I would have opened the back door to allow the kitties watch the kitty show, but there was debris and dust flying around from the aforementioned roof demolition, so we kept the house closed up. When we were ready to leave, we found that we had to climb over the pile in order to leave the house and get to the car. Which both Scarlett and I did with no problems. And then Dan, who had locked up the house, came after us, and he stepped on a great big old nail.

A great big rusty one. It went through his shoe and into his foot. He made a loud noise, as you do when you step on a great big nail and it goes through your shoe and into your foot.

He sat down on one of the chairs in our backyard, gave the nail a little tug, and realized that he would not be pulling it out himself. I tried the same thing. The loud noise he made then told me that I would not be pulling it out.

We drove to the hospital. Actually, the idiot neighbor drove us to the hospital because neither Scarlett nor I could drive our car. Yes, I know I need to get on that. You don't need to remind me. The neighbor gave us his phone number and told us to call him when we were finished.

We went in through the regular entrance and borrowed a wheelchair from the information desk. I'd never pushed anyone in a wheelchair before (it's not easy!) and steered him through the labyrinth of hallways over to the emergency department. It was seriously a rabbit warren. Dan was soon checked out by the triage nurse, and Scarlett stayed in the waiting room while I wheeled Dan back to the minor trauma area. He was given a bed (with a clean sheet, no less!) and then we waited a while.

Only a few minutes later, someone came in to assess the situation. I think it was the doctor. He had a paramedic student with him, who we found out later was from Montana and spending a few days working at Denver Health to experience big city life or something. The doctor told Dan he'd be pulling the nail out (no pain meds! No shoe being cut off his foot!) and instructed the paramedic student to irrigate the wound after he was finished. Then he disappeared, presumably to find some forceps or something.

Now, let me tell you something about the hospital where we ended up. Because Dan has the student health insurance through his school, he knew he'd be covered to some extent, but he didn't know where his insurance card was because he doesn't need it to get any sort of treatment on the campus health center. But this was Saturday and we needed a medical facility that would be open. This hospital is the closest one to campus, so we figured it would take his student insurance. This hospital is also notorious as the one where you go when you don't have any health insurance at all, where you go when you are a drunk man in your fifties and you get into a fight with your roommate and he beats you in the head with a baseball bat and the police are called and they bring you to the emergency room on a stretcher. Yes, that sort of place. When Dan first got into his little curtained minor trauma bed, the guy in the bed next to him was handcuffed to his gurney and being watched over by two people in sheriff's uniforms. And then a little while later, the aforementioned drunk man was brought in, and we got the story despite never actually seeing him because the police and hospital people were loudly trying to get the story out of him.

Never a dull moment at Large Denver Hospital. The nail was soon removed from Dan's foot, and the student irrigated the hole, and then he waited and waited and waited for the other stuff that was supposed to happen (a tetanus shot, IV antibiotics, and an xray to make sure there weren't metal fragments from the nail still in his foot). Eventually I started to feel bad for making Scarlett wait by herself in such a fabulous place, so I went out to the waiting room to spend some time with her. Unfortunately, in our rush to get a Dan in Much Pain to the hospital, she hadn't thought about bringing her books or computer along, and she could have used the time to work on a paper that was due today. Instead she sat for a few hours surrounded by strangers and watched reruns of Scrubs on the Comedy channel. She went back to say hi to Dan, and came out a few minutes later to say he was being wheeled off to xray and had had the shot already.

I went back to visit after I figured enough time had passed, and he was back from xray and the IV antibiotics were done and he was ready to go. But then we waited for over an hour for someone to come and remove the IV from his hand, slap a bandaid on his foot, and hand him a prescription for CIPRO (which he did not fill, duh, because he didn't have anthrax). Finally someone came and did these things and he was told he could leave. All in all we were there nearly four hours.

We went out in front where the idiot neighbor had dropped us off and called the number he gave us multiple times to no avail. Eventually we called a cab; normally we would have walked home (it's only a few miles) but since Dan had just had a nail shoved into and then pulled out of his foot he wasn't up for it. The idiot neighbor watched us pull up in the cab and asked, "Did you guys call?"

I wanted to strangle him.

We spent the rest of the day doing very little, despite how nice and gorgeous it was outside. Dan sat on the couch with his foot up, Scarlett worked on her paper, and I made sandwiches (we were starving) and read a book.

All in all, it could have been much worse. Our landlords have backed us up and we are going to ask the idiot neighbor to cover any of the hospital bill that Dan's health insurance won't pay for. He cleaned up most of the debris the next day. The nail went into a fleshy part of Dan's foot, not through a toe or a bone. The hospital visit itself could have been far worse. We didn't see anyone who had been stabbed or shot or was bleeding profusely. So I suppose that's pretty good. And it was pretty funny that just as I'm getting over my torn calf muscle, Dan starts limping. It's the same side, too. Maybe we should just call ourselves the Gimp Family.

Next time, I will tell you about all the good parts of Scarlett's visit.

Herd the Gorilla Bear

I am very excited, because we have a visitor! My cousin Scarlett is visiting from the Bay Area for the next few days. Other than for a day back in February when my mom flew in for my shower (and so did Oldest Friend), we haven't had any visitors in a really long time, so when Scarlett said she wanted to come hang with us for a while I said GREAT!

Scarlett is the big sister I never had, someone who I consider a blood relation even though we share no drops of blood between us. Her mother was my mother's best friend in college, who ended up in a relationship with my mom's half brother (they didn't actually marry until they'd been together for like 15 years!) Scarlett was the flower girl for my parents' wedding and she remembers the day I was born. Though I am the oldest of three sisters, in many ways I have always felt like Scarlett was my big sister who only came for visits sometimes. When we were kids, she would sometimes stay at our house for a few days during winter break, usually before Christmas. Because of that, we developed quite a few family holiday traditions - we would make up plays (one called The Death of Abigail Root, which took place in Salem, Mass.) and perform them for our families, we slept under the Christmas tree two nights before Christmas, and we saved up the change we made from selling tickets to our plays to buy treats: special cookies, pistachio nuts.

Sometimes we'd do make-believe type games, like pretending to be babies living in an orphanage in Boston, or pretending to be executives at an advertising agency and making up ad campaigns (including slogans and jingles) for various products and services. Once Scarlett started to tell me a story, all about a princess and a man in black; it wasn't until I saw the movie a few years later (on video) that I realized she was telling me the story of The Princess Bride. I have fond memories of us doing things together like teaching my little sister, at approximately two years old, the banana boat song (you know, Day-O! Day-O! Daylight come and I want to go home).

Scarlett is nearly four years older than I am, so I always looked up to her. She was the one who introduced me to Cyndi Lauper and Madonna, to the Eurythmics, to Prince's purple rain. I looked up to her, looked forward for weeks to her visits, and was disconsolate for days after she'd go home. As we both got older and she was in high school, she no longer came for long visits, but we still saw each other at family holiday gatherings. I missed her when she went away to the East Coast to go to college, and was thrilled when she moved to the Bay Area after graduation, living just across town and then a few blocks away from me while I was in school at Berkeley. We hung out pretty frequently until she moved to the city, and even then made time to spend together.

Scarlett has done some amazing things in her adulthood. She's still every bit as creative as she was when we were kids, and puts her creativity to good use in her writing and other projects. She and a group of her friends read a different book each month and get together to discuss it, also bringing food associated with the culture in which the book takes place (they call it Iron Rainbow, which is Iron Chef meets Reading Rainbow). She saved up for a couple of years, quit her job, and traveled in England, China, and Mongolia for six months. I am so happy to know her as an adult and as a friend, not just my older half step cousin*, subject of my early hero worship, but as someone who I genuinely like, respect, and enjoy spending time with. I am so glad she came to visit and hope she enjoys the Mile High City.

*Dan pointed out to her sometime around the wedding festivities that they were now half step cousins-in-law. Hee!

Literary Monday: Why I'm glad I'm not royal

Picture it: You're 15, you've been betrothed to a prince in another country whom you've never met since the age of four, you travel to said country, marry the guy, and he dies five months later.

Suck!

Then, you spend the next SEVEN YEARS waiting to marry his younger brother.

Double suck!

Yet this was the life of Katherine of Aragon, known most famously as the first wife of King Henry VIII of England, but less-well known as Catalina, the Infanta of Spain and the wife of Henry's older brother, the man who was supposed to become king.

Last night I finished The Constant Princess by Philippa Gregory. It chronicles the early life of Katherine of Aragon, known as Catalina until after she married Henry VIII. I tried reading one of Gregory's other books (The Virgin's Lover, about the early reign of Elizabeth I) but got bogged down and bored. This one, however, was not at all boring. We learn about what it was like to grow up fighting the Moors, with a warrior queen for a mother, what it was like to know that you would marry young, grow old, and die the queen of another country, possibly never seeing your family or country again. What it was like to be the widow of a young prince and to be forced to stay in a strange country for years while your parents and deceased husband's parents decided what should be done with you, a pawn in a political game far more important than your happiness or well-being. To tell a great lie and never admit the truth, regardless of how you feel about it, to marry your husband's brother and attempt to mold him into a good ruler. To have stillbirths and miscarriages and dead babies, to have only one surviving child, to never have a physician allowed to lay hands on you during illness or pregnancy because you are untouchable as a queen.

Man. All I gotta say is, I'm glad I live in a time where commoners live decent lives and am also glad I'm not royal, fated to marry for political reasons rather than love. I've always been interested in the lives of the Tudors, particularly Elizabeth I, but never thought much about Henry VIII's first wife, Mary's mother, until I picked this book up. English history would have been very different had Henry's brother Arthur lived, had Katherine been carrying a child when he died, had any of the children she had with Henry be male and live past infancy. There might never have been a Queen Elizabeth of England, an Elizabethan Era, and perhaps never have been a Church of England. Think of how different western culture might have been, all because of the death of a 15-year-old prince.

An open letter from the embryo currently gestating in OfJimBob's uterus

Dear parents-to-be,

Hi! Thanks for, um, conceiving me. I guess. I've heard from the ovaries that it's not really all that difficult to get to become a baby in this body, because you guys are all about making more babies. Which is OK, but I've also heard that I'm going to be baby number 18. What!?!!

Because here's my issue - how do I know that when I come out of there, I'm going to get any kind of personal attention? From what I understand, I'm only going to get to breastfeed for a couple of months and then I'm going to be passed on to one of my older siblings as part of a "buddy" system so you can get knocked up again and I won't be the youngest. So which one of my sibs gets me? I hope it's Jinger, she's got my favorite name (so far). Of course, you don't know yet whether I'm a girl or a boy (and neither do I at this early stage, frankly) and there are all kinds of J names you haven't used yet. I'm rooting for Jermajesty.

I'm also not entirely sure what kind of life I'm going to have. It's already more than a little stretched out in here, so there's plenty of room for me to grow, but I'm a little concerned that when I've cooked about 8 months or so I'll just fall right out. I mean, you've had 17 of us already. I hope you get one of my older siblings to stand around with their hands underneath you while you're doing the dishes, just in case. Also, I've heard that once I'm old enough to eat solid food it's going to be tater tot casserole 86% of the time. That sounds kind of gross. Any way you (or whoever cooks, I assume it's not you since you gestate as a full-time job) can, like, start a garden or join a CSA or something so my siblings and I can get fresh produce? I've heard my brothers and sisters look a little peaked. I'm also concerned that if I'm a girl, I won't get much in the way of education (I've heard it's all homeschooling all the time around these parts, but how do you possibly have time to homeschool 17 kids AND parent them?), and I'll be expected to marry someone picked out for me and have a boatload of kids myself. But what if I want to move to New York City and become a star of stage and screen? What if I don't want to have any kids? What if I don't believe in God? What if I'm GAY!?! I've heard that there's not much room for deviation in the lifestyle you choose to raise us progeny.

Dad, I'm not entirely sure what you do. I've heard you dabbled in politics for a while, but it seems to me like mostly what you do is solicit handouts and talk about Jesus a lot. Oh, and try to get Mom pregnant. I'm not sure why you all think it's a good idea to keep having more of us. Mom's been pregnant for like 90% of her adult life. I've gotta wonder whether she has any identity other than as an incubator. Mom, do you ever have any time for yourself? Dad, how can you expect to pay for college for 18 kids? All in all, this just doesn't seem like a good idea, to keep having more of us. I'd appreciate it if I got to be the baby. Seems like a good round number, doesn't it? I thought so.

Sincerely,

Your current embryo

Baby steps

It's been a week since I messed up my leg, and today is the first day where I feel like there might be some improvement. My range of motion is better and I can walk a bit more normally (i.e., not just on the ball of my foot or stump-legged), though I still have to think about it and pay really close attention with each step as to how and where I put weight on my right foot. I walked to work today in the rain under the giant rainbow underella we bought for the wedding (in case it rained, which it didn't) with my husband. It rains so rarely here in Denver that I always treasure it when it happens. Rain makes the air smell good and the ground bring forth more green.

The trees around here are finally mostly starting to get leaves, and the flowers on the trees are all but gone. The lilac bushes are beginning to bloom, which makes the air smell fantastic. I'm not going to begrudge another few weeks of spring weather; I'll take what I can get before it starts to get hot. Our rose bushes are alive, as is the oregano and mint from last year, and we're going to get some flowers on our irises for the first time since we moved in.

This afternoon I have an appointment with a trainer at the gym, someone with a background in sports injury, who I am hoping can give me some ideas of what sorts of exercises I can do while I heal. It's a free consultation and I think just being back in the gym will make me feel better, even if all I can do is lift weights with my arms. I'm not willing to wait around another week just to talk to the physical therapist, and since I went through yesterday and (so far) today with no advil and I'm actually walking some, I don't see any need to wait. I do plan to take it easy, though.

My leg still hurts, though not nearly as acutely, and it is also itching, which to me means it is healing. I know that it may be a long time before it is all the way better, and I'm going to have to be really careful with it for months, perhaps years, so I don't reinjure it. Mostly I am just thankful that my body is relatively young and healthy, that I have every expectation that it will heal, and in a few weeks or months I won't even remember what it felt like to tear that muscle. I was thinking about this when we were in the Oakland Airport on Sunday evening waiting for our flight, and one of our fellow passengers was a good-looking surfer type guy in board shorts, with one real and one prosthetic leg. I was feeling really sorry for myself, because my leg hurt a lot and it looked really gross, but at least I had both of my legs. I was thinking about this today as I read a blog by a person with an incurable disease, someone who is mostly bedridden at the age of 23 (I think), someone who has been fighting infection and disease and the inability to do what every other young person can do since the age of 12. I don't read her blog very frequently, but when I do I am reminded that despite how much pain a person might be in, despite the knowledge that one will never live a "normal" life, there is still good to be had, life still worth living.

My leg hurts, but it will heal. It's a good reminder that I shouldn't take anything about what I can still do (or anything I can do when I'm not injured) for granted.

All torn up

So, we had a fantastic weekend - a flight to Oakland (somewhat delayed due to the fact that they held the plane for about 40 minutes for ONE GUY), a late evening shooting the breeze with Simon, a yummy breakfast and a day of exploring the Maker Faire. I hobbled my gimpy best around the San Mateo Fairgrounds looking at art installations and people riding around in mutant vehicles and overpriced food and a room full of people selling handmade treasures (I wanted to buy one of everything) and a giant mousetrap (as in, a giant version of the game Mousetrap) complete with women dressed as sexy mice, dancing sensually with cheese, a plethora of steampunkers (who were by far the most impressive dressed-up-in-costume group), and everyone in a seemingly good mood.

My mood was mostly good, since I was spending a day with three very lovely people who were kind enough not to make too much fun of me for my weird ambulation. The not good part was that my leg hurt like a motherbitch all day, and it got worse as the day went on. I'm a very active person and it's both difficult and humbling to be forced to THINK about how I can walk in order to minimize pain and discomfort. The few times I forgot, I paid dearly for it. The Maker Faire was decidedly lacking in places to sit, which I found to be rather unfortunate.

Eventually, we were finished making the rounds, having seen just about everything we'd wanted to see and being unwilling to wait around for evening performances, so we left the Faire and drove into the city for a bite to eat and a bit of relaxation. We ended up in a cafe in West Portal where everyone got something they felt like eating and we felt no pressure to leave, though they did have the dirtiest bathroom I'd seen in a while (dirtier than some of the porta potties at the Faire, actually). We were waiting around without much to do because Simon had an errand that needed to be run at a particular time - or so Leah thought - and it made more sense for us to just stay in the city until that point in time. After our late afternoon repast, we went over to Dolores Park and enjoyed the small amount of sun that was left, braving the wind and the crowds of hipsters and the women selling magic brownies. Dan entertained us with a story after I told Leah and Simon that he'll sometimes make up stories for me if I give him a few elements to work with - Simon requested a story about a coconut, hair clippings, and the Eiffel Tower. It wasn't one of his best efforts, but it was certainly fun to hear him work those things into a plausible story.

We drove around some more, ending up in the Marina (I think) and waiting 15 minutes in the car for Simon to run his "errand", holding in my excitement for the upcoming festivities. We headed back to the East Bay, to Leah and Simon's house, and she didn't figure out anything was amiss until we actually got there and she saw a bunch of cars on the street and the blinds shut. But the surprise worked anyway and I think she had a good time. I know I did, despite my aching leg. I got to see Sara and Ron and I got to meet Holly Burns of Nothing But Bonfires, one of my longtime blog crushes, and her boyfriend Sean. The party was an international theme costume party, and the best thing I could come up with on such short notice was my Canada t-shirt. (It was also much easier to pack than a more elaborate costume would have been). The food was delicious, the company was excellent, and a great time was had by all. By about midnight I was thoroughly exhausted and my leg was considerably swollen so I went to bed.

Sunday was a relaxing day. We got up and showered and headed over to Alameda ("nuclear wessels!") to eat breakfast at this huge coffeeshop warehouse thing, where we still had to wait a good long while to get a table. The food was good, the company was better, and we went back to Chez Agirlandaboy and relaxed a while more. Eventually we made it over to my sister's place (thanks again for the ride, guys!) and spent an afternoon hanging out with my sister and her fiance and my mom. Our trip to and through the airport was fine, the flight was fine, but the bag that we'd checked (brand new, a wedding gift) came out the other side looking like it had been stomped and gnawed on by a t-rex. One of the handles was almost completely torn off and you could see my bathing suit inside through some of the outer fabric, it was that worn through. The person at the Southwest luggage area just pulled out a new bag and gave it to us. It wasn't nearly as nice as our bag (and obviously doesn't match) but at that point I was too tired and hurty to care that much. I think Dan felt a little more strongly than I did about it.

So the birthday surprise was a success, which made me really happy. I was so glad we were able to come out and spend time with Leah and Simon and help bring the party to fruition; we provided a good excuse for many of the logisitcal details that needed to be worked out. I hope someday Leah forgives us for our role in the surprise. I got a little nervous when she said "Simon knows how much I hate surprises" while we were waiting for him.

I spent yesterday on the couch all day bored out of my skull. I kept the first 3 Star Wars movies (eps 1-3) on for background noise, attempted to get the internet to work (and only succeeded for about five minutes), finished a book, started another, and went outside in the sun for a little while with my leg up on a chair. I have to say that at this point, I'm pretty well tired of taking advil (as is my digestive system). This morning, I had a doctor's appointment, which entailed me essentially spending $30 to hear "Yep, you have a torn calf muscle. Here's a referral to a physical therapist." I called right away - their earliest appointment is for the 14th of May. A week from tomorrow. Guess I'll spend another week doing what I've been doing and hoping I'm doing things right. From what I've read in googling around the internets, this puppy is going to take a few months to heal. I'd rather have it heal right and be able to exercise again sooner rather than do something wrong and be miserable for even longer.

Also, if anyone out there in blogland is considering tearing a calf muscle, I'm going to have to recommend against it. Right now the back of my leg looks like someone took a baseball bat to it. Gross.

Bring out the Gimp

Yeah, this whole "not able to walk well" thing? Sucks.

I didn't go the gym yesterday (duh) and spent the entire day on the couch with my leg elevated. I watched the entirety of Return of the King (during part of which I took a nap), plus the entirety of the supplementary material from the extended addition (two discs of bonus features). I read part of a book. I got the internet to work briefly a few times (we need to buy our own internet). I was kind of bored.

Today I am at work. Dan drove me. I can walk if I walk on the ball of my foot, am really careful, and don't try to walk for too long. I look like an idiot. I'm considering buying some crutches. A day and a half without the gym and I am already feeling a little gross. I hope this heals soon.

May Day

I have always loved May Day. Spring is my favorite time of year, and the tiny town in which I grew up had a community May Day festival on the Sunday closest to the first of May every year. It was held on private land, but everyone was welcome. There was always delicious food being sold, and a brass Dixie-style band with a bunch of old men playing instruments, people dancing, pony rides for little kids, and tons of games suitable for kids of all ages. There would always be ice cream or popsicles available if it happened to be a hot day, and sometime in the late afternoon, the volunteer fire department would bring their trucks and hoses and have a stand-off with the volunteer fire department with the next town over, using their hoses to try to force a giant ball on a wire over to the other side.

And oh, to be a third grader, because third grade meant you learned how to dance the May Pole dance. I looked forward to that honor for YEARS, imagining what I might wear, how my hair would be done, and what color ribbon I'd get to dance with. It was always my favorite part of May Day, even better than watching the firemen prove their masculinity, girls whirling pretty colored skirts amongst boys in their dressy finery, all dancing to the same music every year, and by the end of the dance the Maypole was dressed in its finery as well. Girls also got to wear wreaths of flowers made by a community member, with ribbons hanging down the back. I couldn't wait to wear one.

Third grade came eventually (actually, sooner for me than most because I skipped second) and we spent recesses in April learning how to do the May Pole dance. We started with the steps and order of the dance, learning how to dance around one another, and moved on to holding thin ropes stemming from the top of a regular pole. By the end of April we were practicing with actual ribbons, and we'd all memorized our parts. It became a very important thing that year to determine which color ribbon one would have - the most prized colors being pinks and purples for girls, and the boys desperately hoping they wouldn't end up with a girl color. In my heart of hearts I didn't care what color I got - I was just excited to get to participate - but of course I joined in with the rest of the girls, moaning about how the world would end if I got an ugly color.

May Day finally arrived that year. It was 1987 and I had recently turned eight years old. I wore a pretty blouse and skirt, and I got to pick out a flower wreath for my hair, and I cannot for the life of me remember what color ribbon I ended up with. I remember performing the dance, and seeing how beautiful the pole looked afterward, a rainbow of colors woven together. It turned out the buildup to the event was far more significant than the event itself; I had a good time, but I didn't even feel any sort of a letdown afterward, and after the pole was danced I probably got some food and went over to watch the Battle of the Shirtless Firemen.

As I've mentioned many times, Colorado's weather can be mighty unpredictable, especially in the spring. For the past week or so it's been relatively warm and nice, with a bit of snow last weekend while the sun was out (an oddity in itself). Yesterday was sunny and then overcast, but warm all day long. Today it is snowing. This morning, it was snowing large ploofs, cotton balls falling from the sky, as I lay on the (new! comfy!) couch and looked out the window. I'm not sick, but I had an accident at the gym yesterday that left me with a (probably pulled/strained, possibly torn) calf muscle that has put me out of commission. At the time, it felt like someone had punched me in the leg with a heavy hand weight. I felt a snap or pop sensation, and then searing pain. I got a charlie horse in the same leg in the same class last week and thought it a fluke, but I guess my leg hadn't fully recovered. This time it's making me stay down. Someone from the gym gave me a ride home after I hobbled around for a while in tears because it hurt so bad, because I was angry at my leg for betraying me, because I knew if I sat down it might make the leg worse. But eventually I knew it would be best if I went home and put it up and iced it. I couldn't walk, I scared the cats when I got home still in tears and ambulating like quasimodo. Three advil, some ice, and a few hours of rest later, it was still painful to the touch or when I moved it, but not constant agony.

This morning as I gingerly tested my leg's abilities, I determined that I'd rather stay off it for a whole day, giving it a chance to rest and recover, so I'm more likely to be able to walk on Saturday. There's an event I need to be able to walk around all day for, and if I'd gotten up and tried to walk to work/home/etc. today, the leg would have given me what for. So today I am lazy, relaxing on the couch, watching nerd movies and glancing at the wet snow hurtling itself down from the sky. Twenty-one years later, I am not dancing on this May Day. Maybe next year.

Totally alternative

As many of you are aware, I attended the University of California at Berkeley - a great school, to be sure, and one with a very interesting history. Even people who don't know much about Northern California or about the University probably have at least heard of the Free Speech Movement, the student protests during Vietnam (people's park), leading to this idea that all Berkeley students are hippies - which couldn't be farther than the truth, particularly in this day and age. But one thing that came out of all the craziness of the 60s at Berkeley was a program affectionately known as DeCal, which stands for Democratic Education at Cal.

As an incoming freshman, I learned very quickly about the DeCal list, and why it was so interesting and exciting to people. DeCal is a program where students can earn university credit by teaching classes for other students based around a particular subject, as long as they have a faculty advisor willing to sign on to the class. Students must come up with a legitimate topic, syllabus, and assignments, and students taking DeCal classes earn what is essentially one or two units of elective credit for taking them. The list of typical topics range from Female Sexuality to All About Garbage to Edit the Literary Journal to The Poetry of Tupac Shakur. The DeCal list was sometimes 10 pages long, four classes to a page, and you got into a given class (generally) by showing up on the first day and hoping there were enough spots for you to get in. I took a DeCal class one semester called The Erotic As Power, which was all about things like porn and erotica and female empowerment and stuff - a mind-opening class, one during which I met a real-life porn star (Nina Hartley) and visited a strip club in San Francisco (full nude). Some of the classes gained strong reputations and followings; Female Sexuality, for example, ended up with multiple people teaching in multiple sections because there were too many people to fit in one classroom. I never did take that one.

My college boyfriend was interested in many things. He was particularly interested in religions and spirituality (he ended up being a Religious Studies major), but also in just about anything that might be considered unusual or different. Our junior year, he asked me to take a DeCal class with him (one of only two we took together) called Complementary Medicine. This class, held in a large lecture hall, pretty much consited of different guest lecturers discussing their particular alternative therapy each week, with a quiz at the end to show we'd attended class and could earn credit. I've always been interested in less-than-traditional things myself, including alternative medicine. Heck, my uncle is a chiropractor and I've been receiving chiropractic treatment (at different times in my life) since I was quite young. Also, my dad was convinced of the cold-warding and -improving properties of echinacea long before you could buy it in pill form, and I was treated to the disgusting flavor of an echinacea tincture in childhood. College Boyfriend went to massage therapy school and earned his certification while attending UCB, and I was his favorite subject to use to earn his required practice hours. The whole process was fascinating to me, and every week he'd tell me what he'd learned about the musculoskeletal system, or about the different types of pressures and strokes used in massage (my favorite one to say remains depotement, that quick karate-chop style that makes the recipient want to make noise that sounds like Tarzan).

Anyhow, when the DeCal list for that semester came out and College Boyfriend proposed that we take the class together, it didn't take much convincing. I showed up even when he didn't, and learned about all kinds of things - about biofeedback and how it was just starting to be used to help patients regulate their own pain management, about beesting therapy and why it could be a successful treatment for some types of arthritis, about accupuncture and aromatherapy (lavendar? Calming. Citrus? Energizing) and craniosacral therapy and osteopathy. I learned that altertative medicine wasn't just for hippies and didn't just mean taking tinctures of herbs that didn't taste very good. Mainstream medicine was just starting to embrace some of the ideas of alternative medicine, that Western, traditional medicine wasn't necessarily the be-all and end-all of what was good for patients. Since I took this class, many alternative therapies have become far more mainstream and accepted into our culture. I myself have had accupuncture (done over the course of many months at the clinic run by accupuncture students in Berkeley, and quite helpful), Chinese herbal therapy, massage therapy, and used things like cranberry extract to ward off bladder infections.

Back in the middle of February (that's two and a half months ago), I started developing bumps on my face. I thought they were hives. They itched and were red and rashy looking, and I really didn't want to look like that for the wedding. Luckily I'd already made a dermatologist appointment for an unrelated issue that resolved itself by the time the appointment came around. But I went in to the derm. anyway to ask them what the bumps were and how to get rid of them. I'd already changed all of my body products, detergents, etc. to see if I was suddenly allergic to something, and it continued, and benadryl made me so sleepy I could only take it at night (and it still only helped a little). The dermatologist told me it was some sort of acne, and pulled in another derm. while I was there to confirm. She put me on doxycycline. I was dubious that this was acne, even if it was stress-related, because it didn't FEEL like acne. I've had acne, off and on (mostly on until a couple of years ago) since I was 12 years old, so I know from acne. But they insisted, so I started taking the drugs. It didn't get any better. It got a little worse. I started taking two benadryl at night which helped a little more, but also made me groggy all day long.

It came time for the wedding and my face didn't look any better. I slapped on some makeup and prayed nobody stared too closely at my cheese grater-textured skin. I joked with people about how the day after the wedding I was going to wake up and my skin would look fine. But it didn't. It was actually worse, and the bumps spread down my neck and chest and to my upper back. When we got back from California, I looked and felt awful, and seriously considered wearing makeup all the time (I normally don't wear any) just to spare people from having to see it. But I was worried that would give me actual acne on top of whatever the weird bumps were. I knew I couldn't afford another derm. visit (I gave up on the doxycycline because 1. it wasn't doing anything positive, and 2. it had negative side effects) and couldn't afford the $30 for another primary care visit plus a 3 months wait and another $50 for the allergist (have to do PCP before I can get any referrals, thanks HMO!) I started talking to my friend Julie about it, who is a big proponent of alternative therapies. She recommended I visit an apothecary she'd had a lot of good experience with. So I went in, told them my symptoms and what I'd already done to try to correct the issue, and they sold me two products, a tincture for liver/skin and a topical essential oil.

I started using them. Then I stopped using the essential oil (blue chamomile), because it just irritated my skin more and smelled bad. The more consistently I took the tincture (60 drops 4 times a day in a little water, and MAN is it gross), the better my skin started to get. After two months of getting creeped out every time I touched my face because of how it DIDN'T FEEL LIKE SKIN, ACK the skin on my face is finally starting to feel less bumpy, less red, less itchy and rashy. It's not smooth yet by any stretch of the imagination, and my neck is still not quite there, but it's SO MUCH BETTER than it was just two weeks ago. I don't know if it's actually the tincture I'm taking, or if it's just finally de-stressing from wedding stuff, or if I'm getting over some sort of allergic reaction that's taking forever to go away, or if it's just a placebo effect. Whatever it is, my face is starting to look and feel normal again. I'm going to take that stuff until the bottle is empty, and maybe next time I have some sort of health issue that isn't bothersome enough to pay a copay to see the doctor (ie, not anything infectious or health threatening), I'll go back in to the apothecary. I seem to have good luck with alternative medicine.

Happy Birthday, Superdan!

Here are some reasons why I love my husband. Go over and tell him happy birthday for me, will you?

1. He gives me hugs and kisses whenever I need/want them.

2. He makes dinner for me nearly every night.

3. He totally doesn't get weirded out by my toes.

4. He is extremely talented in many ways

5. He can draw, write, cook, and make me laugh

6. He ate a poo log on a stick in China

7. He also ate bugs - namely, beetles and grasshoppers.

8. He reads aloud to me in bed to help me fall asleep even when he's really tired or doesn't want to.

9. He doesn't make fun of me for watching America's Next Top Model or So You Think You Can Dance.

10. He can answer most questions on Jeopardy and reads Ken Jennings' Tuesday Trivia to me most Tuesday mornings.

11. He is far more intelligent than he gives himself credit for.

12. He kisses my forehead even when it has gross bumps all over it.

13. He loves to use tools and gadgets and will pull out our industrial fancy mandoline to slice two bits of red onion to put on a sandwich.

14. He folds and puts my clothes away for me sometimes because he knows how much I hate it.

15. He ran a marathon about six months after getting hit by a truck (and hadn't run before that for years and years)

16. He has interesting habits when it comes to food consumption. For example, if eating a burger and fries, he will take one bite of the burger, eat all the fries, and then eat the burger. When we make weekend breakfast, he makes coffee and brings it to the table, eats all of his breakfast, and then drinks his coffee in the living room.

17. He always lets me eat some of his french fries.

18. He loves our kitties to distraction.

19. He knows the words to at least as many show tunes as I do.

20. Sometimes he'll spend hours trying to explain things to me, like why an original Star Wars poster (Revenge of the Jedi, anyone?) is worth paying a ton of money for even when there are reproductions that are the same thing, only made more recently.

21. He has even more books than I do.

22. He feels that anything one cannot do wearing Chuck Taylor All Stars is not worth doing, which is why he wore them with his kilt for the wedding.

23. He makes up songs to sing to me and the kitties.

24. He gets up when the alarm goes off and takes the first shower so I get an extra 15 minutes or so to sleep.

25. He always comes up with the best presents and surprises.

26. He is very ticklish and doesn't mind too much when I tickle him.

27. He is very patient and kind.

28. He'll save the children, but not the British children.

29. He lets me sniff his beer and even taste it even though he knows I'm always going to make a face and tell him it smells/tastes like beer.

30. He drove all the way to California twice by himself, the second time to move me to Colorado, and spent the week driving back to Colorado with a foam pilates roller shoved behind his seat (and therefore in his back) and only complained about it like twice.

31. He loves me, and what more could I possibly ask for?

Happy birthday, Mr. Stryker. Life is wonderful because you are in the world.

*vapt*

Purge

Internet, I have a confession to make. I am an unabashed packrat.

There, I feel much better for having admitted it. I am one of those people who saves things "just in case," who keeps cards far longer than I should, who saves old calendars for years (though that came in handy for making all those cranes!), who keeps moving the same clothes into and out of the old trunk every change of seasons. When I moved to Denver I learned that it's important to have clothing that is warm for winter and loose/cool for summer, as temperatures can vary from zero degrees to over one hundred throughout the year. But I don't have enough room in my pseudo-dresser or closet to have all of my clothing accessible year-round. So I use my old steamer trunk as clothing storage, and twice a year switch out winter stuff for summer, and vice-versa. Quite a bit of clothing does stay out year-round, but I don't need thick warm sweaters in the summer or sundresses in the winter.

This weekend we started spring cleaning the house, and by spring cleaning I mean thoroughly going through everything and figuring out what we wanted to keep, what to toss, and what to give away. This time of year always makes me want to clean and organize, since the cold weather seems to have finally lifted and given way to sun and grass and flowering trees. Recently we had a major influx of new stuff (getting married will do that, go figure) and we don't have enough room for everything, so we're reorganizing and rethinking what we have, deciding what to keep and what we no longer need. Most of this is kitchen-related items, but I decided yesterday when I was doing laundry, folding and putting clothes away, and hanging clothes up (my least favorite chore in the whole world, seriously, HAAAATE), that I'd go through everything and ask the same questions of each item - keep? toss? give away?

Now, we'd gotten rid of a few bags of unwanted stuff during the last clothing changeover in the fall. I didn't think there would be much left to purge, but I decided that my wardrobe needed a serious pruning, rather than the regular surface-area mow. It was time to get down and dirty and just GET RID OF STUFF. It was painful at times and thoroughly annoying, but I did it. I threw away at least 15 pairs of underwear and 2 bras that were no longer functional and/or had serious holes. Nobody needs to keep holey underpants. I filled two large garbage bags full of clothing that doesn't fit or I don't like or is really dated or something I just never wear. There were a few things that I'd brought with me from California that I realized I'd NEVER WORN since moving here. If I haven't worn it in five years, it's not something I'm going to wear again. In the bag it goes. I got rid of stuff with stains, and stuff that looked much better on me when I bought it, some of it ten years ago or more, when I weighed 20 pounds less than I do now.

And that's where I started to get hung up. It actually made me a little sad, to be getting rid of these clothes from college, each item something that I had specific memories about. The shorts I wore through Europe. The skirt I wore to at least half the parties at the house where my college boyfriend lived. Things that don't fit and probably never will again because I've got more muscle than I did then, so even if I lost a bunch of weight they wouldn't fit right. Things that were just plain worn out because I wore them so much. The dress I wore to DC in 2002, which still fits but is now much tighter, shorter, and younger than my current style. I decided to get real with myself, during this purge, and vowed to get rid of anything that doesn't fit right now. Because while it's possible I might lose a little bit of weight, judging by the difficulty I had in losing just a few pounds for my high school reunion back in 2006, my body's just bigger now, and I have more muscle, and I'm not ever going to be a size four again barring some freak accident that makes my legs atrophy or something. Better not to keep hanging onto things that are tight and uncomfortable and make me feel bad about the way I look. Because I don't look bad! I look pretty good right now! I eat well, I go to the gym five days a week (sometimes twice in a day), and I'd rather not starve myself again for such small gain. Or loss, as the case may be. So all those clothes I've been hanging onto for years, clothes far past their expiration date, waiting for me to get back to a size I'll never achieve again, those clothes went in the bag.

When it was all finished, I put my remaining winter clothing into the trunk. It took up less than half the space it did last year. I'm going to have to find something else to store in the trunk, as it's a good amount of space, and we've still got more stuff than we can fit in our house. And I still have to go through all my socks and get rid of the Loki-fied ones. And put away the last loads of clean laundry. And start saving my pennies, because do you know how much it's going to cost me to replace 15 pairs of underpants? A whole mess of pennies, that's how much.

Reasons Fridays are good

At least, this particular Friday.

1. I am wearing jeans at work. I enjoy this immensely.

2. Hardly anybody is here.

3. We've got some good stuff going on this weekend that I can't wait for!

4. Best of all, the photographer has finished putting up the proofs. If you'd like to see them, go here, click on proofing, enter the password (stryker), and click on the different galleries. We have to pick a bunch to go in our album, so if you see any that strike your fancies, let me know! I really could not be happier with what we got from our photographer, especially since this is only the second wedding he's ever shot on his own (and the first where it isn't good friends he already knew getting married!) Not every shot is great, but there are a whole lot of really good ones. Hooray! (Warning: music, so turn off the sound if you're somewhere that might be an issue!)

Wednesday wedding day: Reason, Season, or Life

Two things.

First, there's no way the day (and the events leading up to the day) would have been nearly as awesome if it weren't for the generosity and assistance of lots of our friends and family. Oldest Friend played her role very well, both listening to me kvetch about wedding stuff for a year and planning a rockin' bachelorette party (along with the assistance of everyone who attended, I am told). She and QIR helped us a lot the day before the wedding, assisting in our errands and arranging for everything to be finished that needed it. Other friends provided similar moral support throughout the year, and many people showed up to help the day before and morning of the wedding. EEK was a great officiant, writing the bits of the ceremony we hadn't written ourselves and doing it much better than we could have, and also being a good sport about being in pictures and such. Monkey and QIR helped with breakdown, Scarlett, Jason, Holla and Katherine did a large amount of cleaning in the rental house, as well as doing readings for us (the ladies) and being willing to wear a skirt (Holla) (I am told Holla and Simon also planned the bachelor party, though I wasn't involved in that, obviously). Our biggest angels were Leah and Simon, who were instrumental in our day: they listened to our plans leading up to the event, helped us pick a photographer, pinch-hitted as groomsman, and helped us with things like acquiring a PA system, emceeing better than anyone else could have done, and taking fabulous photographs, in addition to helping us decorate, take things down, set up the afterparty, and helping us clean the next day as well. I'm sure there are more people who did more things that I am not thinking of just now, but everyone will get a thank-you note, because we really appreciated everything that everyone did for us.

As I mentioned before, Dan and I stood up to the mic during lunch to thank everyone for coming and when it was my turn to talk all I could think about was how much people had done for us, mostly unasked, and how much poorer our day would have been without everyone's love, support, and help. I almost started to cry, and surely would have if I'd started thanking individuals by name as I'd intended to do, so I didn't. In the weeks since the wedding, I've had a lot more time to process and reflect on what a huge difference it made for us to have so many people there who wanted to help, wanted be a part of ensuring our day was as good as it could possibly be. I don't know what I can do to thank everyone. I'm still trying to figure that out.

Some of you may be wondering about the "pinch-hitting groomsman" comment. There is a story I have been wanting to tell on this blog, but have held off for months out of respect for the parties involved, or perhaps because I thought the situation might change. But I think it's time for the tale to unfold. Remember this wedding? The vegan medieval-renaissance themed wedding, that had no rain plan, that Dan and I spent months assisting with (and a significant amount of time and money the weekend of)? These people were Dan's best friends, people he knew before he'd even met me. They got engaged just before we did and planned their wedding in about nine months. Over the course of that time, they turned into those people you hear about, you know, the ones who become completely crazy and 'zilla when planning their weddings? Yeah, those people. They couldn't understand why they had so many fallings-out with friends or family members, but it became clear to me at their wedding when I saw how their friends and loved ones were treated - taken for granted, made to pay for things they shouldn't have had to pay for, and never once thanked. They spent months moaning about how much their wedding would cost, yet spent $800 on his and hers ipods ("a wedding expense!") They wrote a missive on their wedsite begging people to contribute to their honeymoon registry because, as they wrote, they deserved a 3-week European vacation, yet complained the day after the wedding about how few gifts they had to open. They convinced everyone they knew who had talents or time to do things for them (a huge vegan cake in the shape of a dragon, with handmade vegan fondant, which should have cost them hundreds was provided for free as a gift from a friend, for example), yet as far as I know nobody was ever thanked either in person or in note form for their assistance or gifts. Dan and I made their reception playlist, I did the bride's hair, her sister's hair, my hair, and all the flowers (with minimal assistance), and Dan spent the day running errands back and forth between the cabin where we were told we'd stay (and later had to pay for the privledge) and the lodge, where the wedding was. We cleaned up afterward. We worked our butts off, and never once got a word of thanks. And then they told us to pay them back for our lodging, which we were never told was part of the deal when they asked us to stay with them in their cabin.

We figured that after the wedding, and after their honeymoon, things would go back to normal. But they didn't. We went on a cabin trip with them in October, and it was clear that the changes were permanent. Dan had asked them just after we got engaged last year if they would stand up with him - the guy would wear the tux he already owned and Dan would provide a tie, and the girl could wear anything black and a scarf in the tartan (again, provided by Dan). They agreed to stand up with him. We spent months walking them through their wedding planning. After the cabin trip, we didn't hear from them again, other than through the grapevine - the girl got in a car accident (her fault) and they had to beg her parents for more money (they paid for half the wedding) in order to keep their heads afloat.

Okay, everyone has financial setbacks. But the girl had quit her part-time job before their wedding because she didn't "feel like" working anymore, and since the guy was working full time she decided she'd go back to school to prepare for a master's degree. In January. The wedding was in September. And then she wrecked their only car.

We went to Italy in January, and when we came back the guy called Dan to say that he didn't think they'd be able to make it to the wedding. Not that they couldn't stand up with him - that they wouldn't be there at all. Now, we had rented a house in the area, and could have arranged transportation for them, so they'd only be on the hook for plane tickets. We told them how to find cheap plane tickets. He asked how long before the wedding we would need to know if they were coming. We were pretty sure this meant they weren't coming.

We never heard from them again.

Now, I don't know about you all, but if my really good friends, people who had just stood up for me in MY wedding, asked me to stand up with them and were getting married in another state? I'd figure out any way I could to be there. Especially if I knew about it a year ahead of time. Especially if they did hours of work for us and saved us potentially thousands of dollars. Especially if they provided transportation and lodging and all I needed to buy was a plane ticket. But if it were me, I would have thanked them for all their help, and would have been just as excited about their wedding as my own, asking them what I could do to help, because that's WHAT YOU DO. And if there was some insurmountable obstacle that meant I couldn't be there? You'd better believe I would have been doing whatever I could to help from where I was, and I would have called afterward to find out how things went. You know, because they were my friends.

They were our friends for years, and Dan's friends before he even met me. But being involved in their wedding, and in planning ours, we realized that weddings can bring out the best in people, and they can bring out the worst. You find out who your friends really are in stressful times, I am told, whether those times be happy or sad. This was a happy time, a time for joy and celebration, at least from our perspective. So many people who loved us and cared about us were there, helping us celebrate finally getting hitched after all these years. We had no idea that these people wouldn't be a part of that until about two months before the big day.

So Dan called up Simon, and asked how he felt about kilts. And Simon was happy to stand up with Dan. And so it was, and I am so glad things worked out the way they did. I have heard it said that friends come into your life for a reason, a season, or life. It's hard to imagine after so many years of friendship that the natural lifespan of that with original groomspeople has ended. It's not hard to imagine that Leah and Simon will be our friends for life. Or at least long enough for us to do everything we can to help out with their big life events. Because that's what you do for your friends.

Long distance relationship

As I may have mentioned before, I had quite a few pen pals in high school. These were all people who lived in another part of the state, or another state, some of whom I'd never actually met. My first real boyfriend was one of them; he lived in the Bay Area and though we were "together" for a year, we only saw one another about six or eight times during that year. I didn't have a lot of friends at school or in my town, so most of my socializing was done through letters or over the phone.

Many of my current friends are people I met through the internets. I married one of them a few weeks ago; you may have heard me mention it? We spent the first year and a half of our relationship living in two different states, seeing each other about once a month or every other. It was a difficult thing to do, maintaining our relationship primarily through IM and phone conversations a couple of times a week, but we managed it.

I say all of these things because I want to make it clear I'm no stranger to long-distance relationships, whether those be friendships or relationships of a more serious nature. My Oldest Friend and I haven't lived in the same state since we were 17 years old, yet we manage to maintain our friendship across distances, sometimes truly great ones (she's lived in Belgium, Germany, Mexico, Australia, and Washington, DC in the last ten years, and she currently resides in Southern California). Quite a few guests at our wedding were people we hadn't seen in person for years because we all live in different places. Luckily, these days it's easier than ever to maintain relationships with people across great distances, what with blogs and email and such.

But.

How do you maintain a relationship with another state? Our 10 days or so in California for the wedding (during my favorite time of the year, mind) brought up all these feelings I've been bottling up for a while, about how much I miss the Bay Area. It was really difficult for me to leave in some ways, because I know we won't be back until August (well, late July for me). We have a trip to Southern California in June during which time we'll be seeing some friends and family, but it's not the same. The wedding was an amazing, glorious day capping off a week of festivities, but since then I've felt like I want that day back, I want more time to spend with all those loved ones who I rarely get to see, and never all in one place at the same time. And while I can maintain relationships with friends and family, I can't "stay in touch" with an entire region, with a season, with that feeling of belonging and familiarity.

During my five plus years in Denver, I've gotten to know Colorado pretty well. Thanks to my job, I've traveled all over the state, seen some beautiful and amazing things, climbed mountains, and stayed in brothel-like hotel rooms. My preconception of what Colorado was like (as in, before I became more knowledgable about the geography of this part of the country) was very different than the reality. Colorado has a lot to offer, both in things to do and see and in opportunities. Yet every time we go back to California, I feel like I'm coming home - to my family, to where I grew up, to the place that feels like ME. My sole coworker we invited to the wedding was unable to attend, but I sent her the links to the flickr photos because she wanted to see them. Her remarks afterward, in addition to being so amazed by what wonderful photos everyone took, was that the pictures looked like ME - like the wedding was in a place where I looked and felt like I belonged. I'd never talked much with her about my decision to leave California or how much I miss it, but I found myself with my jaw hanging open a bit when she said that.

Of course, California isn't my home anymore. My home is with my husband and my kitties, wherever they happen to be. Right now, and for the past five years, that's Denver. I like Denver. But it isn't California.

Much of our disposable income over the last few years has gone toward traveling, primarily to California. Luckily, there are cheap airfares between Denver and the Bay Area offered by a few airlines (and I hope this continues). But we want to be able to do other things with our money someday. We'd like to buy a house. We'd like to go on more big trips. And every trip to California, even when we have free places to stay (thank you, people who let us stay with you!), costs a big chunk of change. There have been times when I've wanted to throw caution to the wind, to just buy a last minute fare to California for a weekend. And then I remember that we have other things we have to think about, like paying rent and bills and eating. And when we do go to California, we schedule our time down to the minute in some cases, making sure we make plans to spend time with as many people as we can during the few days we're there. I think it will be better now that we don't have to do wedding planning while we're there, but there are still a good 20 people we'd like to see (friends and family members we both have in the area) when we come out to the Bay Area and there's no way we can see everybody each time.

Someday, I hope we can afford to live in the Bay Area. We often talk about what would happen if we won the lottery that we never play, and our stock answer is always the purchase of a house in the Berkeley hills, first thing off the bat. Because if we could afford to, we'd move there tomorrow. Well, not really, we'd wait until Dan was done with school, but then we'd go. Unfortunately, we'd likely never be able to buy a house if we did that. So instead we talk about moving places like Portland, with more affordable housing that are closer to California. And I dream about the Berkeley marina, and eating Specialty's chocolate chip cookies in San Francisco, and spending Quality Time with so many people I love.

The Big Day, Part 3: We partied until we all fell down

Parts 1 and 2

As soon as the ceremony was over, we hugged and kissed each other some more, and then Holla and OF came over to hug us. People were hugging and kissing and congratulating us and I don't really remember who all I spoke to or what anyone said, because there were so many. I was really overwhelmed.


The PA system was lugged up from the beach to the great room and re-set up (thanks, Simon!) and while people mingled, drank wine and beer, and ate breads and cheeses and gourmet crackers and fruit and hummus and pita, we took a few more formal photos (both sets of parents with the b&g). Afterward, we wandered around and greeted more people, and someone handed me a glass of white wine (probably one of the catering staff). It was tasty. I never got to eat any of the appetizer-y stuff, but I am told it was good.

Dan and I went inside to remove the pretty flower from the top of the Princess cake and ate it, then tried to put our cake toppers on there. They didn't last very long - not enough room, too heavy, and so we ended up with a mangled cake and mini-Dan lost his head. Oops!


Eventually the salads (greens, citrus segments, and pumpkin seeds with a citrus vinaigrette) were all plated, so everyone found their escort cards and brought them to their tables. One thing that didn't work so well in the damp? The table cards, which weren't on cardstock (just heavy paper) and so they didn't stay upright. I had made table card holders out of dowels and wine corks and hot glue, but they ended up not being used and just sitting on the tables.

See table sign, sadly flopped over.

We had a most excellent emcee, who got things rolling and did just the right amount of announcing. We could not have asked for a better person to do it. Here he is, showing what a real man wears under his kilt.

OF's parents left and came back with a borrowed space heater, which a cousin's boyfriend helped maneuver into place. It helped warm everyone up, and OF made some jokes about it melting the tent. Luckily, that didn't happen, and everyone was glad for the extra heat.




After the salad course, the buffet was opened up, and our table went first. We had maple-soy glazed salmon, chicken in red bell pepper sauce, sauteed asparagus, and wild rice pilaf, primarily sourced locally and in-season. Dan and I got our food and sat to wolf it down quickly, spent some time chatting with the other people at our table, and then got up to work our way around and speak to everyone. Luckily, we made it all the way around and at least said hi to everyone there before people were finished eating. Then, Holla got up and made a most excellent toast (one regret from the day is that nobody videotaped the toasts, because they were fabulous, funny, touching, and wonderful). When he was finished, OF got up and made a toast. Then Dan and I got up and thanked everyone for coming. I got a little choked up during my bit, because of how emotional I was and how lucky I felt that so many people had done so much to help us in the months and days and hours leading up to the wedding.



After everyone was finished eating, Dan and I went off to take some more photos (in my flamin' chucks!) and Simon asked people to sign the guestbook. Which, over the course of the day, nearly everyone did! When we came back inside, we did our first dance to "If I had a Million Dollars" by the Barenaked Ladies (one of our songs) and because I was still wearing the chucks my dress was too long and I was worried I'd trip. After a minute or so of dancing, we'd asked that our friends and family join in, and many people did.

Then the party really got started, though not as many people danced as I would have expected. I guess it's just hard to get into dancing when it's light outside and all you've got to lubricate you is wine and beer. Oh, well. The people who did dance seemed like they had a good time, even the babies. Early on, I did a dance with my sisters to "I'm gonna be (500 miles" by the Proclaimers (another meaningful song) and they taught me the dance that everyone did at camp; they must have started doing it after I left because I never learned it, but it wasn't difficult.


Soon after that, Dan and I cut our little princess cake and fed it to each other. There was no mooshing of cake in either face; we had agreed beforehand that this was something neither of us wanted. The caterers cut up all the cakes and everyone got to eat it. The cakes were so popular, in fact, that when we brought the leftovers up to the house for the afterparty, there were only four small slices left out of all 3 cakes!

Eventually the sun came out and many people went outside to warm up. Some people enjoyed their cake and wine and visited, while others went on a boat ride. I could tell that there were many people reconnecting and others meeting new friends. Lots more photos were taken, both of us and of our guests. My extended family (mom's side) took a photo together, which may be the only one in existence from the last 20 years!



It seemed as though people were having a good time. I tried to get around and chat with as many people as possible. Dan and I took some photos on the dock with Leah, which I'm glad we did because they turned out really nicely.

Most people left by around 3 or 4 and the caterers had cleaned up everything but the wine glasses still in use, so those of us who were still there gathered up the rest of the glasses, did some light cleaning, and packed up the flowers, wine, smartwater, and keg to haul up to the rented house. Those last few minutes just enjoying the sun and spending time with our friends were some of my favorites of the entire day. Also, Simon brought both a funny hat and a flask, and Bequi brought some kitty ears. Meow!



Most of us walked up the hill to the house, while Leah and Simon drove the keg and some of the other things. We unloaded everything (well, I helped some, but mostly I was taking off my wedding dress and changing into something a little less restrictive). I was also given a lei, but I'm not sure who gave it to me. We all kind of sat for a few minutes and relaxed, chatting a bit about the day. We opened a couple of bottles of prosecco and poured it for our friends who had accompanied us thorugh the end of the day - Bequi, Simon and Leah, Cil, Monkey. Eventually some of the people who had stayed at the house (EEK, Zipp, etc.) came out to join us. Soon, guests started to arrive at the afterparty, many of whom had changed into more casual clothing. Dan prepped the grill, while I sliced bell peppers, put out the cheese and buns we'd bought at costco, put out the condiments, and dumped some chips and salsa into bowls (hooray for rented houses with fully equipped kitchens!) and put them out in the living room area.



I also sliced and juiced some of the lemons Leah and Simon had brought up from their yard. Leah made simple syrup and finished the lemonade. It didn't get made in time for the wedding, but there was lemonade on the wedding day. Hooray! And once it was finished, I had myself a tasty beverage of lemonade with vodka and a girly straw. MMMM.



More people arrived, our music was playing, and suddenly the house was full. Scarlett's boyfriend took over the operation of the grill, with some assistance from other manly types, my mom and her friends hung out, Dan's family hung out, our friends and loved ones all just kind of did more enjoying of each others' company, and finally the food was ready. So we started eating. It was hard to make myself eat because I was so tired at that point, after so many hours and days of being "on." We had forgotten to bring up the leftover food from the club, so Lissa and Holla went to get it, and more people got to eat. I am told some of it was taken by Dan's aunt to feed the relatives for the next couple of days, and there was still lots left over the next morning. At one point I found myself doing the twist with Dan's uncle, which was fun and also made me realize that I was about to collapse. I was the most tired I'd ever been in my life, I think.

So Dan and I left our own (after) party, far earlier than we'd expected to leave. But we had to check in to our B&B, a lovely place in Cloverdale I'd driven by for years but never seen inside. I am told the rest of the party was a lot of fun, and that dancing and merriment went on for hours. I wish I could have been there. Instead, we made it to the B&B just in time, hauled our stuff inside, and collapsed in the gigantic bed. Despite my bone weariness, it still took me ages to get to sleep because I was trying to process everything in my head, and it wasn't going to happen all in one night.



It was a good day. We had a great wedding and could not have asked for anything better.



The End

Thanks to Leah, Bequi, Ginny and Curtis/Lissa for the photos. More here and here.

Stolen from Monkey, who has a birthday tomorrow

The Rules:

1. Link back to the person who tagged you. Thanks Monks.

2. Post these rules on your blog.

3. Share six unimportant things about yourself.

4. Tag six random people at the end of your entry

Unimportant thing the first:
I can only sneer with one side of my face.

Unimportant thing the second:

I have been known, on occasion, to put hair clips (the jaw kind) on the tails of my cats. Yes, I know this is not nice. I do it anyway, but the cats manage to remove them relatively quickly so it's not too much of an issue. I also laughed at Loki and called him Gimp Whiskers for a few weeks when he singed them on a candle in the bathroom.

Unimportant thing the third:
I am super excited for four more events happening this year, three of which involve my family (a graduation, a wedding, a major birthday) and one of which involves friends (giving birth to their very own baby). These things will happen in June, August, October, and December, respectively.

Unimportant thing the fourth:

I am also very excited that I am getting $900 back from state and federal taxes this year. I'm strongly considering buying a couch because our futon really sux.

Unimportant thing the fifth:

After many years of resisting, I finally joined Facebook and threw a chicken at my cousin.

Unimportant thing the sixth:

I'm wearing my wedding shoes at work today. That's why I bought the shoes I did, so I could wear them again (and I liked them, of course).

Not going to tag anyone; if you want to do the meme, consider yourself tagged.

(still working on part 3 of The Wedding)