Monday, October 27, 2008

Sleepless night....


Last night. I was having this really action-packed dream wherein some group of bad guys (headed by one very bad guy) wanted the Scoot so I had no choice but to hunt them down and kill them. I dispatched one of them, by hitting him repeatedly on the forehead with a brick. Seriously. They totally deserved it but I'm still a little concerned vis a vis WTH is going on in with my psyche...?

In other news, spent the week-end being very chill if a little under the weather. I got some gardening done though and spent a bunch of time out front hacking up the enormous side-walk overhanging bush things lining our front yard. I can't say they actually look better but they are definitely thinner! Also got to see HSM 3 (cute, although I feel as if they might have overstepped just a tad in their desire to position one of the leads as a more "serious" -- albeit still Disney-shiny -- actor/not just tween hearthrob thereby potentially risking alienating their "fan-base" plus I really am not a fan of the new nose on Sharpay but whatev....) Additionally, I also got to see my good friend and ex-wedding planner, Ms. RSM which was AWESOME because 1) I {heart} her and 2) it was really very nice getting to talk about stuff that wasn't related to my getting married/stress-inducing! So, yeah, aside from the bits where I was bludgeoning and and/or eviscerating bad guys trying to get my kid, a pretty good week-end was had, overall.

And now, for your viewing pleasure, a very cute pic of my beloved having some cake at some event she attended a few weeks ago...

Monday, October 20, 2008

O.K. so what exactly does the rationalization for this look like...?


K. so, i went to a very cute kids party this past week-end and there was this guy there, the dad, actually of the birthday kid, and there was this lady there, a friend of the birthday kid's mom (Note: dad and mom were/are no longer an "item") flirting up a storm with aforementioned dad. So, here's the thing. I know that Dad has already shown that he can father babies at a somewhat alarming rate. Case in point, the current child spinning around like a little princess in front of us. Second case in point being the 1 year old Dad fathered with yet another lady he met at aforementioned kid's LAST birthday party .. Now, I'm not overly familiar with any of the players in this little scene but as I am familiar with this history I'm assuming an actual close-type FRIEND of the Mom would be even MORE familiar with the love-em-and-presumably-leave-em (preggers, it would seem) type of "dating" this Dad is into so.... I'm watching Flirty lady be all FLIRTY and I'm thinking, What in the name of dear sweet Jesus must she be thinking?? Seriously, did the frozen sperm get to be a little too expensive? Does she (seriously) think she's any "different"? And why (again dear sweet lord) at the kid's birthday party? Could she at least wait until the next major holiday so as to seem a tiny bit more original when she "mysteriously" finds herself with child/without boyfriend. K. sorry. I realize it's technically none of my business. Plus I'm probably being mean. Still. Why are girls so flipping weird?

Friday, October 17, 2008

Forty is the new WTF???


****** spoiler alert **********
This post is alot more "essay-ey" than I've been waxing of late, mostly onna counta there's finally room in my brain to think about things other than cutting out and gluing really pretty shapes onto thousands of wedding programs but also because I was re-reading some of my older stuff and I realized i used to actually talk about what was going on in my head as opposed to in my life a lot more. Not sure if it's going to continue in this vein but for now, there it is.....
****** /spoiler alert **********

O.K. so i was chatting with a friend of mine today and I found myself uttering the following statement: "Come to Japan to check out your show? Sure! That'd be awesome!" Thing is, I don't think it would be "awesome"... what it would be is impossible. Impossible because I am JUST back from my honeymoon trip to Mexico which used up all the vacation time (and then some) I'd managed to amass in the (relatively) short time I've spent at my brand-new job; impossible because I have TWO kids and a Wife who, granted, were included in the initial offer of tickets but whom I'm relatively sure would rather not get bundled back onto a plane and flown half-way across the world to a place where NONE of us speaks the local language (Oy vey, i'm sitting here imagining The Wife trying to get a handle on ordering those "cheesburgers, plain" en Japonese -- seriously, I have no doubt that she could do it, just not so sure she'd think her on-going relationship with me was particularly worth the effort) just to watch some grungy types pummel things with their skateboards. Impossible because, I actually don't want to do stuff like that anymore. I like where i am and what I'm doing. I think I'm just having a little identity crisis is all.

"What???" I hear your collective gasp. "Our little Chick? Arguably one of the happiest, most self-actualized, stable human beings on the planet? Having some sort of crisis? Pass the peanuts, this should be good." Because, here's the thing, saying something like that in response to an offer like that is something I would have wanted to do (albeit, possibly not actually followed through on) a bunch of years ago, pre-kids, pre-wife, in another incarnation of myself.

"So, then," I now hear you murmuring, "Tell us again, how this any different than your standard run-of-the-mill, mid-life crisis?" Well, I think it's different because I'm not actually running away. From anything or to anything. I'm content here. I'm taking my responsibilities and commitments and loves-of-my-life very seriously. I'm extraordinarily happy. I'm just finding myself acting and feeling and in some ways looking completely different from how I've sort of been for the last decade and i'm wondering what's up with that.

Part of me thinks it's this whole marriage thing. I mean, there was a pretty significant sea-change popping up pretty much out of nowhere and while I feel extra-lucky that everything worked to make such a permanent locking down of the Missus a reality, there was also a fair amount of seismic shift from one extreme to the other that went into fully embracing the concept.

Kind of like deciding at age 29 that having a baby was a really. good. idea. versus my earlier "Are you frickin' kidding me??!" stance vis a vis me and my up until then anti-child-rearing or even child-be-nearing stance... In fact, it feels just like that. Major decision arrived at. Attitudes adjusted accordingly then total and complete loss as to what exactly that looks like in actual practice. I mean, who am I now that I'm a grown-up, college-educated, wife and mother of two with a house in a "nice neighborhood", a dog and (theoretically) half a mortgage. I have the "advanced" degree, the white-collar job, the close circle of "a few good friends"; I worry about getting folks to school, whether or not the truck is going to die, when The Wife will get fed up with my choosing sleep over sex (which does actually happen occasionally and is inexplicable even to ME as, seriously, The Wife is HOT!) and leave me for her secretary or admin ass or whatever.... all stuff that everyone of a certain age, in a certain bracket/frame of mind thinks about, I'm sure just...

Again, please don't misunderstand. I LIKE it here. The weather is great and the perks are awesome. I'm just not sure how I ended up here with the rest of the crowd and, more importantly what I'm supposed to be doing now that I'm "one of them".

Anyone?

[Note: Any and all suggestions will be duly considered in the order in which they are received. Thank you for your attention.]

Well, that was fun...!


O.K. let's start with an IM conversation from half way across the globe:

DB:Hey.
Me:Hey.
DB:So.... How'd it go?
Me:How'd what go?
DB:Everything.
Me:Everything? You mean the bachelorette party, the family's arrival, the wedding, the honeymoon and the return to work?
DB:Yeah.
Me:Good.
DB:Cool.
DB:k. just checking
Me:K. Bye.
DB:Bye.

gotta love a man of few words..... ;-)

Now then, to expand on a few key concepts -

Lead up to the wedding was grand. Stressful but in an entirely good way. Lots of my favorite peeps in one place with practically no fighting so that was kind of awesome. I LOVE my peeps. Just plain across the board love. them. Period.

Wedding, itself, was awesome! Again with the lots of lovely people in one place looking all fancy-pants and having some chocolate. Three of the sweetest toasts in the world were delivered by The Wife's Big Sis, my Big Bro and one of my VBFsF, Mizz Tail. It was a tiny bit sad that as I was the one in the dress, i had to stay locked away in a room while everyone was assembling but that actually just made it more delightful to get to see who showed up making their way down the receiving line. Once again, I feel compelled to ask: "How is it possible that we know so many completely adorable people???????" Seriously. I'll be posting pics as soon as they become available so folks can see exactly what I'm talking about but for now. Trust me. I know ALL the pretty people.

After-wedding-drive-down-the-coast was sweet. We didn't bother changing and so got some applause upon our arrival at the tasty steak house where we had some sup. The room The Wife booked was gorgeous and the bed was one of the most comfortable beds I've ever slept in EVER.

Honeymoon went well. Extremely well, IMHO, although there may be one or two others who experienced it as a bit more on the stress-inducing side,I found it to be delightful. I loved our cabana. I loved the fact that we got to hang out as a family of persons without TV, work, school, radio, phones, errands/scheduled engagements competing for our time. I love my kids and I love my Wife and I really, really liked that we were able to co-exist in a (mostly) enthusiastic, symbiotic, happy way in a strange new place for days on end. Gives me hope for when the apocalypse comes and we're the only ones left standing!

Return to work, also relatively seamless (due in large part to the excellent coverage provided by the always amazing IHOEL) -- everyone was very happy (or at least seemed happy) to get me back which made me feel nice, plus I THINK while I was away my 6 month "trial" period ended so I am now officially part of the union/they can't fire me even if they wanted to unless I do something horrific like steal all the computers in the building and sell them on the black market in Fukuoka... which, brings us nicely back around to my second IM conversation with a certain ex-patriot who apparently has befriended a (I'm sure) delicate flower of a Japanese Lass who also happens to be some sort of "gender-activist":

DB:Hey.
Me:Hey. [Anyone but me interested in figuring out why ALL IM conversations start this way??]
DB:My friend K wants me to ask you if you're "done being a girl" yet?
Me:??
Me:Sorry?
Me:You have a friend?
DB:[Presumably Rhetorical Question plus expletive deleted]
DB:She lives here. I met her at a show.
Me:"Kay"?
DB:Kaoru
Me:Ah...
DB:Like Bubbles.
Me:Sorry...?
DB:Or Buttertop....
Me:Wha?
DB:The little girls on TV
Me:Are you on some sort of muscle relaxant?
DB:LOL
Me:Seriously
DB:She wants to know "if you're done being a girl?"
Me:Done like "done, done"??
Me:Why? Does she need to use it?
Me:Ha! Get it? Does she need to... never mind.
DB:You know with the hair and the wedding and stuff
Me:Excuse me??
DB:We were talking about you and she's got a theory that you weren't comfortable with having your hair short because that's masculine so you needed to present yourself as more feminine when you did something traditional like getting married for your family and everyone.
Me:...
Me:Did you tell her I married a girl?
DB:...
Me:You're an idiot.

Wednesday, October 01, 2008

Back to happy


Not that I'm ever all that far away from it! So, of course, countdown to the wedding and these last few days have been a little intense but totally in a good way. I am lucky enough to be Jewish by association so i have Rosh Hashanna off (yesterday and today) which is sooooo nice because it means I got a chance to actually (gasp) try on my wedding dress for like the second time since i got it. Also to sort out the various undergarments that would be accompanying it, try on the shoes, hate the shoes, try on better shoes, feel better about the shod-i-ness of it all (heh! get it....? eh hem. Sorry), finalize some/most/sort of the program situation, make a HUGE list of stuff that still needs to be done, stare at my wedding ring which is in a box in my desk because, yes, folks, I am a BIG OLE GIRL like that! etc., etc., etc. {sigh} I have to say, it's all good but it's also a lot, knawhattamean???

One other thing though,

quick shoutout to my homies who came out for some bachelorette P-tey giging. I had a wonderful time as did the GalPal -- seriously, truly delicious pizza, bevvies, cookies aside, you guys are great and I am sooooo glad you're my friends! No, really, I mean that.... :-)