Totally unbiased

This is funny.

Survey Says: ELOPE

I’m so stupidly stressed out today. I mean, I guess it’s not really stupid because there are large, enormous, requiring CAPITAL LETTERS things going on in my life, but you know, they’re supposed to be happy things that shouldn’t really stress one out.

First of all, the house. All is well except for the fact that the survey came back and apparently one side of our house is located 1.5 inches from the property line. Well, what am I supposed to do about that? Tear the house down? I know it’s not in violation of the unified planning bullshit that the city has enacted because older homes were grandfathered in, but who the hell are we supposed to do with 1.5 inches. I mean, we need an easement just to walk to our backyard on that side of the house. So not cool and so not sure what we’re going to do about this except I am going to lose sleep for the next two nights. That much is certain.

Second of all, I am having not one but two wedding showers this weekend, which should be cause for smiles and not shallow breaths and hand wringing. But you see, my family brings me nothing but shallow breathing and hand wringing because they make me crazy. My poor sister, who was planning the showers (need two because my dad’s side of the family is not allowed to have anything to do with my mother, so sayeth the ruler of the world a.k.a. my father a.k.a. asshole extraordinaire) and who had to stop planning the showers because her hubby got very sick with the cancer. So, my sister’s mother-in-law stepped up and is throwing one shower for me (she’s wonderful) and then my step-mother is supposedly throwing the other shower for my dad’s side of the family. Super, problem solved right? WRONG. My step-mother is feeling slighted because she is throwing a kitchen themed shower for me, but just found out that the other shower is also kitchen themed and now her shower will be duplicitous. Um, what? Who cares about the shower theme and also, it ain’t my fault that you, dear step-mother, failed to communicate with my sister regarding planning. In fact, my sister told my dad exactly what she was planning and he failed to communicate this with my step-mother who is incapable of communicating directly with us and has to use my dad as an intermediary. Healthy. This wouldn’t be an issue if she and my father would grow up and allow family mingling.

I called them and left a message last night saying that it wasn’t a big deal and it wouldn’t be duplicitous and also, I am not the one they need to yell at. Shockingly, no one called me back.

Do I sound spoiled? Probably. The thing is I didn’t even want a shower for this very reason. I don’t care about the gifts, I just want to get married and serve people cake.

Once again, should have eloped!

non-compete clause

Too much going on over the weekend to recount in its entirety. Also, not interesting enough, but basically it went something like this: eat, drink, tennis, walk dogs, hit a gazillion garage sales in the hopes of buying a nice used lawn mower, buy useless junk instead, watch the Cubs lose twice in extra innings, see Indiana Jones do it again, consider that Shia LeBouff is the next BIG thing, wonder how to spell “LaBouf??”, comparison shop new lawn mowers, purchase ladder, recognize how very little I know about home maintenance, thank goodness I am not the only owner of house.

And there you go.

Tennis is still much fun and while I got my ass handed to me by my betrothed once over the weekend, it’s okay because I lack any sense of athletics related competitiveness. I’m all sorts of competitive in other realms of my life, but not sports. I would rather have fun than care about the winner. This is also one of the reasons I’ve never succeeded in sports. One has to care about something to truly be good, and I just would rather everyone be happy and fair than win. God, I’m annoying.

I also baked some shit this weekend and my chocolate chip cookies turned out funny. I think part of the problem was that we only had dark brown sugar and I added one too many eggs. They’re good, I mean how can a chocolate chip cookie be bad, but they’re definitely strange in texture. They’re far better when warmed and eaten with ice cream, which, you know, sign me up. Perfecting the recipe will not be something I’m sad to undertake either.

Finally, packing. Oh the many boxes littering our already littered apartment. T-minus three very long days and I can this apartment right out of my hair. Hallelujah.

Now, here’s a question . . . do you and your partner/husband/boyfriend/lover engage in any healthy competition? Is it fun or heated?

Careful, this one is a run-on sentence mine field

I watch the Idol finally the other night, and wound up fast forwarding through a lot of it because I feared if I didn’t Brett would die. It’s true, there are several shows that I prefer watching when he is not around because he finds them dumb/painful/be-stupiding and I find them utterly addictive (i.e. Idol, The Hills). I enjoy crap T.V. in the same way I enjoy movie theater popcorn – I crave it and then feel sick afterwards. C’est la vie.

Anyhoo, I had taped Idol on the ol’ DVR because Brett and I went to play tennis at about 6:30pm and wouldn’t be back in time for the start. When Idol was over and I switched back to live T.V. we noted that one of the Left Behind series books was made into a movie staring none other than Kirk Cameron. There are several things to digest here, and first and foremost I must admit that I am not a believer in this theory of the end of the world and if I were to describe my religious beliefs they’d hover somewhere around a shrug of the shoulders because I have no idea. I suppose that makes me agnostic and fully a caricature of a Garrison Keillor narrative, but that fits.

So we flipped over to this movie because Brett was raised in a religion that does believe in these things and I am completely fascinated by such beliefs because they are so very dramatic and scary and since when did Kirk Camron stop being Mikey Sever and become a crazy religious guy? We watched about 5 minutes of it and then flipped to the Cubs game, because even though I am fascinated by it, I am also easily turned off by it and also it had the quality of a Lifetime move and that’s just not something any one has more than 5 mintues of patience for (unless it’s staring Meredith Baxter because she’s Alex P. Keaton’s mom and that’s alright with me).

Now, let’s jump back to the fact that Brett and I have taken up tennis, which I casually mentioned above. There are tennis courts at our current apartment complex, and we figured we should take advantage of them while we still pay rent. Of course we had this thought back in August and just last week decided to act on it, but whatever. Tennis rocks and I forgot how very much fun it is.

I played tennis in high school, and while I was technically on the varsity team, it was only because I was stupidly hard working. I had no actual athletic talent, but I put in a whole lot of heart and also I thought that tennis skirts made me look cute. The coach took pity on me and let me on to varsity and I sat on the side lines eating chex mix during most matches. I did look cute though.

I did manage to learn a thing or two and also, sometimes my muscle memory goes into effect and I actually hit the ball with some skill. Most of the time I lob it around like a drunken giraffe, but it’s all good because it’s a work out and I need those.

Brett, on the other hand, has never played tennis and therefore we’re able to play against one another without me getting my ass handed to me (at least for a few more days, until he figures it out and starts whooping me).

But I forgot how complicated the rules of tennis are. I mean you’ve got games, and then sets and then matches. You count in a bizarre way (i.e. love, 15, 30, 40) and then you have to win by at least 2 games and sometimes the line counts and sometimes hitting the net is a fault and sometimes you trip and fall and skin your knee such that skirts and short pants will not be unearthed from the closet for the foreseeable future. Also, I hope my mom still has my tennis skirts from HS because I’m pretty sure Brett would think I looked cute in them. Then again that was (gulp) 12 years ago.

Update

My brother in law was released from the hospital yesterday. He starts chemo on Friday. I talked to him on the phone for the first time last night. He sounded tired (of course) and was coughing a lot, but he was optimistic and was just hoping to get through a day with a needle being pierced into his chest. Poor guy. I just hope the biopsy comes back indicating that it is a very treatable form of cancer. Actually, I more than hope, I implore the result to be such.

The rest of my life can be summed up thusly: BUSY. Annoyingly so, because a lot of the busy comes from things I’d rather not be doing. My dad and step-mom were here over the weekend and Brett and I finally figured out why it’s no fun to hang out with them . . . it’s pretty much like being on a constant job interview. Sucks.

Happily, our wedding invitations were received with great acclaim. We went about our RSVP cards in a little different way. We set them up like MadLibs (note, we completed these before this past week’s Office episode). I’d give you the verbatim, but I don’t have one with me at the office. Basically, it’s written like a post card you’d get from someone on a trip, only we let the recipients fill in the adjectives and we incorporated our wedding in the wording. It’s pretty fun and they’ve been a big hit with our weirdo families. Fun stuff really.

So far everyone has said yes to attend at least one event, and that means that I better get my act together when it comes to the rest of the planning. I mean, I have to get flowers, cake, wedding rings, a veil, some shoes, blah, blah, blah. If I had $$ I would definitely hire someone to do all of this. Actually, I’ve gone the cheap-o route and just enlisted my family to do it for me. Seriously. My aunt picked out my wedding dress (with my approval), my sister’s mother-in-law (Adam’s mom) is picking out our cake, my other aunt is handling the entire reception and basically all we’ve done is picked out the ceremony location and the invitations. I shouldn’t complain, and yet I do. All I do is hand over a credit card. Still, I can’t wait for the actual day because that will mean two things: 1. we will be married; and 2. this planning crap will be over.

Adam

My brother-in-law could talk to a wall if necessary. He is the best person to have around during uncomfortable family gatherings, because he will keep the conversation going. He has a form of muscular dystrophy that makes it hard for him to walk and impossible for him to do things like lift heavy objects, and yet he once helped me move out of a 4 story walk-up. He is generous to a fault and will dispense more compliments than anyone's ego has a right to own. He is a good man.

My brother-in-law has been battling some sort of sickness since Christmastime. He's been coughing like crazy, having back aches, and generally feeling really really shitty. They first thought it was a respiratory infection. Then they thought it was pneumonia. Then he had a CT scan yesterday and diagnosed him with lymphoma. My sister and my brother-in-law live down in Texas and he is very sick and will be in the hospital for some time. I told Brett last night that I wished I were the praying type. He told me I could pray if I wanted to. So I am. Please, think positive thoughts for this wonderful man, who is married to the very best sister a girl could have.

procrastination, candy and mornings

I have things to do, and I don’t want to do them. I’m actually using work as a procrastination tool. That’s pathetic.

The stuff I have to do isn’t even difficult. I have to do things like figure out my insurance policy on the new house, set-up utilities, work out some tax business. Is this difficult? Not particularly, it’s just a pain in the ass, and I’d rather not be bothered. In fact, this is exactly the type of thing I wish I could make a secretary do, but apparently I’m not allowed to make a secretary take care of my personal needs, and also, I trust no one. I’m just going to whine about it until I do it, and then wonder why I work myself up about shit so much.

However, I found a little treasure trove of half-eaten candy bars in one of my desk drawers today. It was a little bit of awesome, because now I have a treat. Now, please don’t be grossed out that I hoard half-eaten candy bars in my desk, it’s not like they’ve been there for years, it’s just that sometimes I’ll get a candy bar and eat half of it, and then throw the rest in my desk so that it’s out of sight and temptation. For some reason, I feel okay eating half a candy bar, but eating a whole one makes me feel the need to run laps around our office building. This makes no sense, because last night I hate an entire Chipotle burrito, followed by a piece of pie and then a margarita. I’m not exactly calorie conscious except when it comes to candy bars. I’m weirder than you can imagine.

Speaking of weird . . . what’s your morning routine? What do you do the same every single morning? Personally, I get into the office, immediately log on to my computer, check both work and personal emails, poor a cup of coffee from my geeky little thermos, and then physically set up the files I’ll be working on that day. It never changes; I do it every day, rain or shine. What about you?