Money Money Money...Money

Sometimes it pays to be anonymous and alone. Especially when you're stuffing french fries into your pie hole so quickly that you drop the last few from the cardboard box onto the pavement for the pigeons as you cross the parking lot back to the mall as you shove the stamps suitable for wedding invitations from the regional post office into the bag with the just-purchased exercise tubing after the conversation with the lonely old woman that you hope you won't become but you know you will at least she's healthy and humorous who told you about the post office in Nairobi where she lived for four years and who swore she would never criticize a postal service again after that experience.

Today I purchased: Outer envelopes for the wedding properly printed with the correct return address, stamps for the wedding invitations and reply cards, lounge chairs, deck side tables, an assortment of makeup brushes in a handy carrying case, a new (larger!) makeup bag to take to the gym, a new bra (just my size!), a case for my recently expanded selection of DVDs (long time coming), a toilet tank flapper valve (gotta love KMart for the variety), a new title for the BuiHog that reflects that I own the Mean Machine, I do, not the lien holder!, aforementioned French fries and exercise tubing, and, and...there's not enough in the world for me to buy.

What I didn't purchase: red wedding shoes, white wedding dress, diamond engagement ring.

What I did: Made dinner of many greens thanks to Trader Joe's, talked to my stepdad for a while, planted three six-packs of stock, lounged on my new lounge chair on the deck in the sunset with the dog on my lap inhaling the sweet scent of freesias while enjoying the green of the oaks and hillside and reading the new Martha and watching the wild birds creeping among the arching leaves of the naked ladies stuffing their pie holes with birdseed, wrote a blog with minimal punctuation.

What I didn't do: check my work email, my taxes, email some people I shoulda.

And now: off to the TV room for an episode of "Sex and the City."

Me? Bombing.

Figures. Thank god "natural causes" is a close second.

You scored as Bomb. Your death will be by bombing. You will probably be an innocent bystander, not doing anything wrong and not a person who was targeted at, just in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Bomb		73%
Natural Causes		60%
Posion		40%
Drowning		40%
Suffocated		33%
Suicide		33%
Gunshot		27%
Disappear		27%
Disease		20%
Stabbed		20%
Cut Throat		20%
Accident		20%
Eaten		20%

How Will You Die??
created with QuizFarm.com

Thanks, Nancy!

Wedding Weekend

MAC Makeover
Originally uploaded by suzipaw.

Much of yesterday was devoted to furthering the cause of my wedding.

I met a dear friend at the MAC counter at a Nordstrom's in the north bay bright and early. We made a makeover appointment for me for an hour later, then power-shopped for suitable red wedding pumps and a white dress throughout the mall (no luck). I was so grateful to have my friend along--she got what I was looking for right away, but was always good about suggesting other possibilities, yet moving along quickly when things weren't right. She was great about asking salespeople for more info right off (I occasionally still need time to screw up the courage to approach people--not a good trait when you're shopping on a time budget).

I chose a good day for this--kind of a hangover makeover, a challenge for Deborah, my colorfully be-eyeshadowed MAC consultant. Many brushes, powders, colors, pieces of advice, several soothing live piano tunes in the background, 55 minutes, and $163 later, I was transformed!

I'd frame the "makeup map" Deborah carefully crafted for me to represent where I'm supposed to put everything when I do it myself, but she had to fold it to get it into the bag.

Sample comments re: makeover:

Friend's five-year-old daughter:

"What's that?" she asked, pointing to my eye.

"Eye decoration. I'm getting married and want to look pretty," I replied. "What do you think?" (When will I ever learn?)

"I don't like it," she declared. Later, she clarified that she felt strongly that blue would've been a better color choice.

M:

"Well, what do you think of my makeover?" I asked him when we finally saw each other at the shank of the evening, ten hours after the artistic endeavor that was my face had been completed. I had purposely not taken off the makeup when I arrived home so's I could show him.

"I was surprise it was so much," was his reply.

Later, he clarified that he had been looking at my face without much makeup on for ten years, and to suddenly see my features in such sharp relief was a bit shocking ("no judgments" he noted). Probably a good thing that I didn't have much lipstick on when I saw him. Also, probably a good thing that he saw me with my face on before the wedding, he would've wondered who this impostor was...

*****

My friend and I bid adieu to Deborah, and cut out to the Wedding Discount Superstore, a new joint right off the freeway. Very young hispanic women formed the coterie of sales staff, and they left us old ladies pretty much to our own devices. (We had to utilize the services of a "wedding dress consultant" if I wanted to try on the regular wedding dresses, but they were all out of my price range, so we stuck to the super sale and bridesmaid dresses racks.)

Again, shopping with my friend made the experience so much better. Sage advice, and helpful in bringing me new things to try on, whisking no-gos away. Again, however, there were a few close ones, but not close enough. The red number was great, but red. There was another beautiful white one, with a tasteful and chic beaded portrait collar and bodice that fit like a glove. But it was a full ball gown skirt with a long train, so the money it would've taken to remove the train would've blown my budget. And there was something wrong with the fabric lining the bodice--it created odd creases that the 19 year old (maybe) sales gal assured us could be steamed out.

Again, an odd experience seeing myself (especially with all that makeup) in the mirror in the traditional wedding gown. I was glad it wasn't as much of a production as the other bridal store.

*****

Wiped from wedding stuff, I was happy and a bit exhausted to land at another friend's house for easter egg dyeing and pizza dinner. I got there a little early, so went to a nearby market for a few things to offer the hostess, and felt like quite the city girl. We watched the kids dye eggs and blabbed the hours away.

Charming moments with my friend's daughter (she of the eyeshadow opinions) included, "When you get married, are you going to kiss the boy? On the lips? Eeww!" "I dressed up as a rockstar for Halloween, wanna see?" and several songs, renditioned with strums on her child-proportioned guitar. Made me wished I lived closer.



*****

It's pouring rain. M and I have had the whole day to laze around together, sleeping in, consuming good quality brie, typing on our separate laptops in the same room, and contemplating what to do for dinner. We won't have another day together like this 'til next month, but then he starts summer school in May, and hopefully we'll have at least one day together a week until his fall semester begins again. We should fold our invitations, or go over the vows, but I think TV and food will close this day of Resurrection.

*****

That Darn Barbie: She came to step class in a skirt last week, people--a skirt! And yes, as always, she pulled it off, like a sexy Russian tennis star plunked down in our midst.

*****

Dreams are funny, aren't they? Unusual, magical, or frightening things happen to us every night, and in our dreams we take them in stride, as if these hours we spend with our deepest, most intimate selves are just as natural as can be.

*****

Movies I want to see:

Bride and Prejudice
Together
Maria Full of Grace
Story of the Weeping Camel
Downfall
Mail Order Wife

My brother just burned a stack of DVDs for me, so I have plenty of entertainment choices these days.

*****

Earlier in the week, my dad and stepmom came to stay for a few days, which was very nice. I don't see them much, and they moved to Virginia last year, so those weekend visit possibilities have dried up (though TravelZoo might help in that regard someday), so I'm grateful that they can take the time to come out to the left coast. They were here on a Wednesday, my weekday off, which was nice. Weather wasn't great, but my stepmom did come with me to pick up the wedding invitations, which made it feel more official somehow. (Unfortunately, there had been a miscommunication in the order, so our return address wasn't printed on the outer envelope. We should have them in a week, however, not too bad.) Wished I could've taken at least part of Thursday off to hang out with them more, but it's been a little overwhelming at work lately...

*****

It's Easter, and I really should've finished up my God blog for posting today, but I'm dragging my feet. Too. Much. Thinking. Well, maybe next religious holiday that I don't celebrate...

Take My Life, Please

Just to be crystal: if this vegetarian coil shuffles into a vegetable, please pull the plug.

I find it ironic (am I using that word properly?) that those who believe most fervently in Paradise as an actual locale fight hardest to keep the brain dead and the unborn from entering. I know there is a fundamentalist argument on this issue so that true believers don't engage in wholesale slaughter so that innocents can enter the Kingdom of Heaven, but why are they so afraid of letting the cycle of life spin into the unknown of death?

I may not feel this cool about it all when the Grim Reaper approaches, but I'm trying to prepare. (I know, I know, I raged, raged against the dying of the light when I turned 40, so I'll be hopeless when my time comes...)

*****

Yes, because to everything turn, turn, turn: I love the field where Rex (and sometimes M) and I walk. It's hemmed by the county fairgrounds (horse racing, dog shows, fireworks displays from the back yard, and monster truck rallies, yeah!) and houses, which are now multiplying, but it expresses each season so beautifully.

Now, wet, sticky adobe is covered in tall grasses, chamomile daisies, punctuated by gopher holes that Rex regularly enlarges to no avail. Its main function is a parking lot for the carnies and fairgoers several weeks every year, so the grass is mowed several times in the late winter and early spring, but not before the daisies bloom like snowdrifts. Withering, the white petals droop like a bad dog's ears, then fall to bare a hard, bright yellow pate. Kicking through the dense half-spheres, gold dust seams my sneaker toes and makes an odd ripping sound.



Wild sweet peas scramble up the backs of wheat-headed foxtails. Other weeds grow so high I can hide from Rex, who runs frantically through the field til he finds me, snuffling up through the stalks nonchalantly as if he always knew where I crouched. (What would Nanny 911 think of the treatment of my dog-child?)

Last year, for some inexplicable reason, a small patch of weedy grass was left unmowed. As I walked through a corner, I felt a ghostly brush against my calf, and a small brown rabbit popped out to the lawn-like lane, down which Rex happened to be staring ten yards away, and the chase was on. Rex wouldn't listen to me, though I shouted and screamed for him to leave off and come as he and Rabbit raced around the tall grass and the mowed grass and finally under a cyclone fence into someone's yard. Rabbit, exhausted, stopped; Rex sidled up, sniffed his butt, stared off into space, and that was that.

After every fair, there's always one sad, tired trailer abandoned by a poor tweaker carnie, the modern American nomad. Rex is always the first in, but I worry about unknown leftovers. The sense of adventure it symbolizes degenerates from hovel glory into vandalized disrepair, and the heap is finally harvested by the county towing service to fertilize the junkyard.

*****

While at the conference last week, I got to jawing with a Brit now living in Florence. We were talking about our fall conference in Amsterdam, and he mentioned how dirt cheap it is to fly within Europe--like, so cheap that it usually costs more to get to the airport from your house than the flight itself. I hadn't realized that, and it changed my whole thinking about my trip. It's our last conference of the year, so I'd be able to take a few vacation days after the conference without dropping the ball on an upcoming event, and so suddenly the entire continent was at my mental feet. Where should I go? I asked him. Barcelona? Portugal? Italy? Seville was his reply. Mom suggested Rome. Other suggestions?

'70s Flashback

Cousins and Grandparents, Wilbur, WA 1973
Originally uploaded by suzipaw.

Organizing my iPhoto pix, I came across this 30-odd-year-old record of a visit with my grandparents and cousins in Wilbur, Washington.

My grandma has been a wonderful keeper of family documentation. My uncle has also taken up that task, and I'm very grateful to them both for their effort on our behalf.

On a vaguely related note, I find it mostly charming that I'm seeing a resurgence of '70s hairstyles among high school boys. It's also a little odd. I know that everything old is new again, but that look is unflattering to most. Well, if I survived it, I guess they can too.

Home...Is Where I Wanna Be

snapdragon
Originally uploaded by suzipaw.

It was a perfect escape.

I cabbed it to the airport with a colleague who managed to get a seat on my flight. (An important point--if I missed the bus back to Sonoma County, I'd have to either wait 90 minutes for the next bus or 75 minutes for her flight to arrive so I could catch a ride home with her.) Our flight left on time, arrived on time, time flying by with the help of "The Red Tent" and white wine. I remembered to buy the scarves for mom at the gift shop in SFO. Our bags were within the first ten to slide onto the carousel. The bus for the long-term parking snorted up within a minute of our arrival on the sidewalk. Her car was parked in the area served by the first bus stop. Very little slow traffic through SF and the highway home. We dissected "Nanny 911" for much of the journey and I was surprised at how much I had still to say about the show.

Home, I unpacked, petted the creatures, had a glass or two of wine, inspected the flowers in the dark (M was right, the freesias and tulips are popping), waited for M.

*****

Today, it was hard being productive. I did finish "The Red Tent," the fastest read in years for me, before M woke up. He had to go to la dentista magnifica before work, so I was left to my own devices early in the day, which turned out to be the TV (two episodes of "Sex and the City" via Netflix, another show I love against my will), and the oven. I didn't off the yeast, and managed to create two handsome and tasty loaves of bread. I started them a-baking then took Rex for a walk in the drizzle, the mud in the field sticking to my shoes making me feel like a lead-footed deep sea diver, and returned to the warmth and intoxication of a house filled with baked-bread smell. Email, 'net surfing and blog reading, a few bills are paid, and I resisted the Siren Song of Ross, so the day is not a total lounge-about.

Sunday is all about cleaning the house in anticipation of house guests later in the week, but what shall I do tomorrow? That's one of my favorite questions.

One of My Favorite Contests

There are always a few that make me laugh out loud. Maybe one day I'll get it together and submit a definition myself.

Washington Post's Mensa Invitational once again asked readers to take any word from the dictionary, alter it by adding, subtracting, or changing one letter, and supply a new definition.

Here are this year's winners:

1. Intaxication: Euphoria at getting a tax refund, which lasts until you realize it was your money to start with.

2. Reintarnation: Coming back to life as a hillbilly.

3. Bozone (n.): The substance surrounding stupid people that stops bright ideas from penetrating. The bozone layer, unfortunately, shows little sign of breaking down in the near future.

4. Foreploy: Any misrepresentation about yourself for the purpose of getting laid.

5. Cashtration (n.): The act of buying a house, which renders the subject financially impotent for an indefinite period.

6. Giraffiti: Vandalism spray-painted very, very high.

7. Sarchasm: The gulf between the author of sarcastic wit and the person who doesn't get it.

8. Inoculatte: To take coffee intravenously when you are running late.

9. Hipatitis: Terminal coolness.

10. Osteopornosis: A degenerate disease. (This one got extra credit.)

11. Karmageddon: It's like, when everybody is sending off all these really bad vibes, right? And then, like, the Earth explodes and it's like, a serious bummer.

12. Decafalon (n.): The grueling event of getting through the day consuming only things that are good for you.

13. Glibido: All talk and no action.

14. Dopeler effect: The tendency of stupid ideas to seem smarter when they come at you rapidly.

15. Arachnoleptic fit (n.): The frantic dance performed just after you've accidentally walked through a spider web.

16. Beelzebug (n.): Satan in the form of a mosquito, that gets into your bedroom at three in the morning and cannot be cast out.

17. Caterpallor (n.): The color you turn after finding half a worm in the fruit you're eating.

And the pick of the literature:

18. Ignoranus: A person who's both stupid and an asshole.

My View from Here

San Diego View
Originally uploaded by suzipaw.

I'm in Conferenceland. Daylight is a vague dream glimpsed from distant windows. People, people, and more people. I can feel the sharp sting of an enormous zit growing where my nose curves into nostril. I've horribly and painfully ripped off three fingernails, about par for the course. Two nights of fitful sleep (I had to change rooms Monday morning, it sounded like someone was running an industrial sewing machine outside my window all Sunday night.) Feet. Aching. I awoke puffy-eyed this morning from the tears I shed, against my will and better judgment, while watching "Nanny 911" and "Extreme Makeover" the night before. Oh yes, cutting the Cable was the right move, oh yes.

I'm staying hydrated at least. My big meeting responsibilities are now all behind me, so I can focus on the schmoozing and "matchmaking," the latter task one I actually enjoy. Professional, not personal. Please!

Missing my man and beasts terribly, but I'm at the halfway point, yippee!

*****

I started "The Red Tent" while in SFO. I thought I had chosen "The Time Traveler's Wife," so imagine my surprise when I pulled the other book out of my bag. It was a gravelly beginning (not rocky, not smooth), but I'm feeling compelled to continue reading it.

Something to Think About

Living out loud -- online
A Salon article by Ayelet Waldman
"When I started blogging, I discovered a compulsive need to open the tattered edges of my emotional raincoat and expose the nasty parts beneath. But at what cost to my kids?"

Suitcase, Please

Pookie, Tulips
Originally uploaded by suzipaw.

Leaving for San Diego for a conference tomorrow. The washing machine is working overtime, I have many chores and errands still to do, not the least of which is ordering the invitations (I think I was high when I thought I would be able to make them myself).

But, I can't help but taking a spin around the blogosphere this morning, and came across this fun idea via crafty-foody blog Super Eggplant.

*****

I finally finished Kavalier & Clay. Finally. I spent a few morning hours on Wednesday devouring the last couple of chapters. Chabon has a winning way with words, and he created a wonderful setting, plot, and characters. But...I just was never really completely drawn in, didn't inhabit it mentally. Still a worthwhile read, however.

Now I have to choose another tome from my huge "to be read" stack, which has not diminished much since the last library sale, and the next one happens in just a few weeks. Will I take The Red Tent or The Time Traveler's Wife with me on my trip? The latter is smaller...

Friday. Dark. Breeze.

Things I wish I could record:

- Geese flying and honking
- The hawk--guess I could listen to reruns of "Northern Exposure"
- Daisy, the pitbull next door, who howls inconsolably every time the ice cream man drives by
- Tomcat's sleepy meow--seductive, high-pitched, vulnerable

All animal sounds. Hm.

Not compelling enough for an iPod. Yet.

Wish I could record smells.

While I'm on the fanciful wish-list subject, I wish I that the smell recording device could also erase certain food smells from my memory. For instance, I'm currently on a Burger King Veggie Burger (hold the mayo) jag, fueled, in part, by the fact that I recently ate one in the Wonder Wagon, and the scent continues to linger. It repulsed me when I could smell the onions on my hands for hours the night I ate the BKVB (htm), the first in months...but then I began to crave another. If I could just have a little ScentBGone handy, I could employ it every time I get out of my car, like smelling salts, and I wouldn't spend the morning hours at my computer thinking of fast food crap.

Oh, and the skunky smell vaguely clinging to Rex could be eliminated as well...

*****

Slashdot: from the finally! dept.
blamanj writes "[1]Aardman Studios have release the [2]first peek
(Quicktime) at the new Wallace & Gromit film, [3]Curse of the
Wererabbit. Currently scheduled for an October release, the
slightly-less-than dynamic duo will be putting their talents to work
chasing a were-rabbit that threatens the town's vegetables.

References

1. http://www.aardman.co.uk/html/news.asp?type=html
2. http://www.apple.com/trailers/dreamworks/wallace_and_gromit/featurette/
3. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0312004/

*****

Left work a little early this Friday evening, long week a-coming', took Rex for a walk from the field up through the new housing development to the hills behind where the oaks keep company. Hot again today. I squatted in the grass while Rex wandered, dug. Another indescribable day, and I wondered why, until I realized why--usually this lazy heat comes after a dry month or so or more, when the tall grass has faded to brown. (Golden, maybe, to some.) But here I was, sweating, knee deep in juicy grass, wild sweet peas, larkspur, overlooking intense green velvet fields, a valley full of homes, cars, dreams which ended in the hills the Sonoma County artists love to paint, layered in shades of gray and purple. And that was it. The world seemed to end at the ridgetop, and I was reminded of those sci-fi stories I read and loved in high school (though I am not a geek like Rebecca), particularly the one where a child runs the town, a child with special powers who has taken it off to its own place and rules cruelly. There is no way to escape, nothing but an edge, and to anger the child is to risk your life or something more horrible.

I stayed long enough to ramble in my mind about the valley and surrounding ridge, thinking of days when this would've been a kingdom, and a princess would have been mooning out of a parapet window, waiting for her knight from a distant land to whisk her away, from one emerald prison to another. Again, to a place where there is only an edge, and nothing beyond.

This read a little pessimistically, doesn't it? But it was an incredible moment on that hillside, and I wanted it to last. But the sun kept slipping down and down.

I felt a tickling and looked down to spy the largest tick ever unattached crawling on my arm. I blew him away and looked up to see a large bird flapping towards me. Vultures don't usually move their wings...could it be...closer, closer...it turned to the sunset, breast suddenly illuminated, luminous, not ten yards above me. The most beautiful hawk soared above me, silent even with her wings oaring the air. She slid into the a small patch of oak forest that reminds me of the LOTR. Just a few acres, but the darkness and absence of new growth frightens me.

Rex and I left the hillside, descending into cool shadow--not a relief, but a passage. The walk had a view of the construction on the field above our home, hillside like brain surgery, shorn of trees, numbed with development. I had to look away. We cut across to the road, crunching back to the car through the gravel of a place cleared for a home, knowing dirt would soon be replaced by high-quality laminate flooring, a family, a sky-high mortgage.

*****

Walking back along the newly tarred street, Rex panting by my side, I thought of Julia's recent post about whither the blog. Just to riff on that: In addition to what Julia writes, blogging makes me also think of things I want to remember more deeply, and things I want to share. I observe the world more closely thanks to my blog, forcing me, in a good way, to try to bring more to my world and words...

Was I Alive Today? (Didn't Seem Like It.) You Decide.

One thing I love about geese--they clear their path through the atmosphere boldly, honky-talking their way along, low in the sky, giving me plenty of warning so I can run out onto the deck and worship them as harbingers of good fortune. I know they have a reputation as greedy, cold-hearted bastards when they're flat-footed on the ground, but aloft...creatures of wonder.

*****

People care: As an introvert, I'm normally skeptical, but I'm having a hard time disproving that they like me, they really really like me. I receive unsolicited gifts. Nancy sez nice things about me, as do other veeps in my life. In gym class, we're all working on our biceps since I have to look cut in my wedding gown, and classmates thank me for it. And despite my best efforts, I've been asked to go bowling with coworkers tomorrow night. What the hell?

Family, friends...the list of kindnesses large and small I experience daily, hourly, unfolds gently and inexorably? naturally? I'm not sure how to describe it. And M. What he does for me is beyond everything.

In my own feeble way, I'm trying to give back. While awaiting fillings in my dentist's (la dentista magnifica I call her) office today, which I love for its thriftiness *and* plethora of back issues of Vanity Fair, I tried hard to convince Terry the receptionist to start a blog. Or at least put her photos (she interrupted my VF reverie with a suggestion that I look through her lovely trip journal to Anza Borrego in spring) on line.

Yes, lame, but I swear I'll try to pass on some small sliver of the happiness I find strewn in my path every day.

*****

It was 80 degrees today. Eight zero. Had to water some of the flowers today. Wow.

Ever Wonder What a Skunk Smells Like?

skunky dog
Originally uploaded by suzipaw.

Now you know.

2 Blue 2 Blog

Half-finished things from Saturday that I've been too discouraged to clean up before posting...

People, people, people: A friend was on a semi-rant the other day about the right-wing Stepford parents at her kids' school, and how difficult it was for her to make friends locally. She noted how wonderful it was when she finally went to a party at a home that wasn't perfectly cookie-cutter, with lesbians and people of color in attendance--diversity, finally! And while I agreed with her wholeheartedly, wouldn't it be in fact more "diverse" to socialize with those who are *not* similarly politically inclined people, whether of different colors, orientations, what have you, or not? It's a challenge to find those situations and be comfortable within them.

*****

A haiku from M:

Morning frustration
Hard river of 101
Dream change, live work

(For those of you unfamiliar with the nutty highway system here in sunny California, the 101 is the sputtering, hardening artery that seeps north from the Bay Area to our neck of the woods.)

*****

Didn't You Read My Blog? At dinner the other night, the friend I was with was a gracious conversationalist, asking me all about how things were, the wedding, etc. Usually, this friend and I get together with a couple of other old friends, extroverts all but me, so I have a hard time getting a word in edgewise normally, and I appreciated being drawn out. But then a horrid thought edged into my brain unbidden, and I wish I could un-think it: "Don't you read my blog?"

I do write my blog mostly for family and friends to keep up with me, but I feel guilty that I would expect anyone to read it. Especially since it's still a little weird for me to hear comments about my posts in person from people I know and love.

*****

It's a California morning to crow about. Days of rain have cleared the atmosphere and dashed plum blossoms to the ground in drifts of tender frost. Bright yellow fields of mustard are absolutely spectacular. The iris in my yard are raising their emerald arms sunward, Vs for victory, for peace, flower power.

I woke up today at 4 o'clock, stressing a bit about work, in a bit of a fog due to too much sauvignon blanc last night*. But there was also something very wonderful about becoming conscious in the crepuscular light. It felt for a time as if the room was completely disembodied from the rest of the world, and I was floating in a void with only bird calls, breathing, and twenty pounds of warm dog pressed against me.

*Date Night at a bar in the achingly quaint town of Healdsburg, where we heard one of M's professors play in a good cover band with other attorneys.

Martha's Out

Yay!

Oh, how I wish I had bought stock when it was low like I thought I should...

I can't even remember what day it is today

Nephews on the Sundial Bridge
Originally uploaded by suzipaw.

Freudian slip du jour: M and I are talking wedding talk last night, and he referred to the wedding ceremony as the wedding cemetery. Nice. He was trying to swallow it back in as soon as it was out. Kinda funny, kinda true?

Wedding freak-out averted: I called the head wedding volunteer for the Stansbury Home where we're getting married yesterday to see if I could get the piano tuned. Oh, did you book a date in June? she asks. YES--last fall! The deposit check has been cashed. But, she's no longer the wedding person anymore, and a little resentful about it, though she raved about the new wedding volunteer. We've been playing phone tag, but the new gal left a message saying that we're booked, no problem. Whew.

Wedding freak-out perhaps not averted: My soon-to-be mother-in-law called a couple of nights ago to say that she had tried to book a room in one of the motels where we have a room block reserved, but was told it was entirely booked for *another* wedding. I asked her to call again and ask for Josephine, who we spoke with when we made the block reservation, and to call me back if she still had a problem. No call yet, so I'm hoping for the best.

Laptop despair: Shiro, my iBook, crashed Monday night. Our IT guy is super tops, so he was able to save all but a few hours worth of work, and hook me up with a loaner PowerBook til Shiro comes home safely. Oh, how fragile our files are...

II want to write about how beautiful my budding freesias are. About the big rose I finally pruned today, and felt horrible for all the canes I snipped. About how I'm reading my friend Moira's first book of poems, and how beautiful they are. About how I feel manic planning the wedding, both very happy and also pressured--maybe it's because work is getting overwhelming too? Maybe another day.