A case of mistaken identity
We’re hooooooome! There’s so much to tell you, from the trip itself to the airport hijinks (insert card here! just kidding! this machine is out of order! thanks for the card!) to the state of the house upon our return (wood floors! echoriffic!), but there is just one quick tale I have to tell you before I forget because it is STILL making me laugh.
The wedding we went to was held at a swanky country club, and I’m not certain if the wedding coordinator was an employee of said establishment (I think she was) or an independent, but I CAN tell you that she took her job REALLY VERY SERIOUSLY. Because wedding are serious business, people, and chop chop, let’s get those flowers arranged just so and smooth those tablecloths and I swear to you she actually snapped her fingers at Otto at some point when she wanted him to do something. (He was a groomsman, but last time I checked that didn’t actually make him a trained animal, but apparently she begged to differ.)
Anyway, the point is that she was a WEE BIT TENSE. read more…
Bobby pins and chewing gum
Thanks to all who weighed in on how I should do my hair for the wedding. We all know it’s especially important for the wife of the groom’s big brother to look hot, right? All eyes were on me!
Oh, wait. No one noticed me at all (thank God). Also? You know you’re at the wedding of twenty-somethings when there are girls there in full-length ball gowns with their hair in ponytails. SERIOUSLY. (How… interesting… yes?)
Anyway, the wedding was simply lovely; the bride was gorgeous and the groom radiant and I had to physically restrain myself from pinching them both, they were so adorable. Also I may be in trouble with my OTHER brother-in-law for introducing my sister-in-law to Long Island Iced Teas (whoops). But, um, I think maybe that was someone else. I’m not sure. I made sure to leave before the dancing on the tables started. read more…
Chaos in cooler weather
So we’re here in the frozen north, er, in the temperate north, attending to family and wedding festivities. We are staying with Otto’s brother and sister-in-law, who live in a gorgeous house and are always gracious hosts. Usually when we stay here we camp out in their spare room, which is a smallish L-shaped space that has two twin beds catty-corner to each other. I enjoy sleeping in there because I never tire of saying “Good night, John Boy!” when we turn the lights out, but this time they opted to put my younger nephew in his brother’s room and put us in his room on an air mattress. This is awesome for a couple of reasons, really.
For one thing, sleeping on an air mattress with two people is rather like sleeping on a trampoline, because every time one person moves the other person gets bumped around as the air shifts. For another thing, my younger nephew’s three-year-old brain is rather blown by the whole idea of us sleeping in his room. And he wants to talk about it. read more…
Two very different trips
The fun and excitement and travel and near-death experiences just NEVER END around here. Not everyone could be me, you know, and that’s both because it would be confusing to have more than one of me AND because you need an iron constitution to survive my life. Just in case you were wondering.
So I’ve had this great Love Thursday post planned since last week, back when we’d gone and spent the 4th of July doing patriotic things like letting the children handle fire.
(Yeah, see, I thought I understood patriotism when I lived in New England, but that was before I moved to Georgia, the Let Your Kids Set Off Their Own Fireworks state. Silly me!) read more…
Bon voyage letters
Otto and I are departing for Boston this morning, to begin the wild extravaganza known as A Family Wedding. (Having recently married, myself, in the most low-key of arrangements, I must say that watching my brother-in-law and his future wife navigate these treacherous waters has prompted a sympathetic “HAHA!” from me several times, already.)
Anyway, it’s the usual flurry of arrangements happening here, and I just have a few brief notes I believe need to be shared before we go. After this, I have to go finish packing and strategically place something like my expensive hair serum somewhere so that I will ABSOLUTELY REMEMBER TO PACK IT and then leave it behind so that I can spend the entire weekend berating myself for forgetting to pack the one thing I was most worried about packing. Also, there aren’t any stores in Boston, so it will be a MAJOR IRREPARABLE TRAGEDY when this happens.
I am a REAL JOY to travel with, by the way. I can see that you’re shocked. read more…
Getting what we deserve
One of the things that inevitably happens when you spend time with a friend who’s known you for a long time is that you talk about the past, right? It happens to all of us. And it’s inevitable that when I spend time with Kira, we cannot help but marvel about what a long, strange trip it’s been.
When we first started talking, four years ago, we were both in a place of grim determination, I think. I know I was. It was emphatically NOT a place where we’d overcome adversity and knew that a better life was coming. It was more of a place where we’d overcome adversity and we were just hoping that it wouldn’t always be quite so HARD, all of the time. We were okay, I guess (some days we were more okay than others), but it would be a stretch to say that we were HAPPY. We were… MANAGING. Some days we were even HOPEFUL. But comparing life back then with life now is less apples and oranges and more moldy bread crusts vs. a ten-foot-high chocolate fountain. A CALORIE-FREE chocolate fountain. read more…
Quality bonding time
My husband and my Kira just left for the airport, and try though I did to come up with some sort of viable diversion (“Um, someone stole both of our cars! And there is only one flight from Atlanta to Denver each month so I guess that’s that!”), in the end Kira opted to return home to her family rather than staying here with me forever. That bitch.
I love her to pieces. Just in case that wasn’t clear. You know, because I am so shy and hesitant to share my feelings. I do think Otto is a little relieved that the rampant and random declarations of love are going to cease. For some weird reason it’s okay with him if I spontaneously declare my love for HIM, but he seemed uncomfortable when I felt the need to turn to Kira and say “I JUST LOVE YOU SO MUCH.” I don’t know what his problem is. It’s probably because he wasn’t breastfed.
ANYWAY, as I mentioned before, it was a very busy weekend, and we were driving to the airport to get Kira and then driving out to Joshilyn’s for the 4th of July and then back here and then the kids left and really, it was just busy and exhausting. Which is probably how it came to be that last night we found ourselves just parked on the recliner couch watching horrible television. read more…
My favorites
I’m sure I could be more exhausted, both from lack of enough sleep and from laughing so hard, but I’m not sure how. We’ve been in a whirlwind of sociability—first picking up Kira from the airport and then heading over to Joss‘ for the 4th of July—and while I am delirious with the joy of it all, somehow I have been required to get up and put on clothes for multiple days in a row, and I am just TIRED from it.
It’s possible I need to do this more often.
Anyway, the last time that Kira and Joshilyn and I were all three together was three years ago, during a very different time indeed. This gathering was reminiscent of the other in that there were some familiar players, like chocolate and wine, but it does rather feel like we last convened a millennium ago, back when the earth was still dark. Everything is different now, or at least it seems to be while my son and Joss’ Sam are running around discussing Pokemon with a life-or-death sort of fervor. read more…
You can’t hurry love
When I was discussing the dilemma of keeping my tomatoes watered in this post, many of you suggested that we invest in a rain barrel. This made me giggle, every single time, but it also made me realize that I hadn’t yet told you the Story of the Rain Barrel. (I also hadn’t told you that county restrictions have been so tight that they forbid even the use of greywater except during certain days and hours, assumedly because the authorities are not interested in having an argument with you about where that water came from and whether you can prove it.)
Anyway, yes, a rain barrel is an EXCELLENT IDEA, and one we started talking about a year ago, when we first moved into this house. It’s green! It’s environmentally responsible! It’s simple enough, and by “simple enough” I mean “something that Otto can figure out while I read my email.” read more…
Fire in the hole
I have been pretty good, I think, about sitting on my hands when it comes to how our new summer schedule is working out for everyone. I have been trying to take that old expression about not saying anything if I don’t have anything nice to say to heart, a bit more, you see. Also, I’ve been trying some of that positive thinking thing I always hear people talking about, where I don’t dwell on things that are unpleasant, but rather focus on the GOOD and therefore, in this case, the IMAGINARY.
This summer sucks donkey balls, quite frankly. Now you know.
The stress level ’round here is palpable, and try as I might to get a handle on my emotions, the two very small and stressed-out people scurrying around here are a constant reminder of how much this situation just blows for everyone involved. read more…