About sixteen years ago, I met him for the first time. My trainwreck sibling brought home this adorable puppy he had no business adopting because he had not one thing in his life that wasn’t a mess. I was furious at my sibling – he didn’t even take care of himself, how could he drag
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November 1, 2011
Actual Wedding Stuff
Outside the courthouse, it was positively gorgeous. The sun was out, everyone arrived nearly at the same time, I was given two beautiful bouquets because two of my friends knew I wasn’t going to even think of flowers. And one was also turnabout for taking care of hers.
I spent some time with people in the parking lot as they gathered but I hid in the bosom of my surrogate family for a while. I wasn’t nervous, I just felt … surrounded for a minute. I needed quiet.
Then my parents arrived. And my blood pressure went up. My dear older friend who is bossy, domineering, mothering though childless, and knows how worried I was about Mom, came over and introduced herself, took Mom’s arm and I could breathe again. She’s wonderful precisely because she’s all those things. She’s a take charge personality I’ve come to love and trust and she helped with Mom the whole time we were waiting in line at the courthouse so that Dad could just be.
We never have that kind of help and it was a huge boon that morning. Mom was doing particularly well that morning, too, which was amazing. She had trouble remembering names, and faces, but she didn’t have any real outbursts early in the day. She wasn’t overtired or overwrought.
As it turned out, we waited in the wrong line for 20 minutes because it wasn’t clear which one to be in, and I felt a bit of a silly arse because I’d looked them over to check! That made us late for our appointment. As the minutes ticked off, my blood pressure started shooting up. PiC was remarkably calm at that point, saying it was fine, we’d just go elsewhere if they didn’t take us but that made me feel even worse. The thought of dragging our 20 plus group back of beyond because I’d screwed up the lines?? Augh!!
Luckily they had our judge stick around for this last one and made it happen.
Of course, she was in a tearing hurry. She started off, with her poufy hair, looking over her ’70s shaded glasses, “in the middle of someone else’s shift, so we have to do this expeditiously.” So expeditiously it was done. The ceremony could not have lasted more than three minutes. Blink or breathe too hard and you missed it. She wasn’t rude but I think she still upset one of our friends for coming right out with the whole “let’s move along” speech. He felt it really wasn’t necessary. (I was amused.) It was not the worst thing ever, I was worried a long ceremony would have me in tears and I hate crying in front of people but we didn’t realize that at least one of our guests had been downstairs and hadn’t come back in time!
PiC was grinning madly throughout.
The judge granted us about 2.5 seconds to take photos in the room and then sent us out to the front of the courthouse for any pictures we wanted. And those took too long – I was starving! I know, sentimental. I do regret not getting a good photo with my surrogate family in the fuss of everyone bossing everyone else for the photos and then getting antsy for lunch, but I’ll have a do-over.
We had a lovely lunch with the group, sans my parents, lots of photos were taken. The absolute necessity of following the A Practical Wedding’s How to Write a Perfect Toast was underlined. There’s a picture that I’m hoping wasn’t captured on anyone else’s camera that shows my face at a moment that I’ll just call “sentimentality” to anyone else. PiC and I had a talk later about this. I’m not letting the memory fester but it also may not happen again at Round Two.
On a related note, I have no doubt thousands of photos were taken, in fact, which frightens me no end. Living in an age where photos are just … everywhere. EVERYWHERE. Augh!
Traffic to and fro, of course, this having been in LA. But after all was said and done, we got home to visit with family briefly, and then went to feed me again. My lunch salad was sad and I was starving again. Stuffed full of sushi, we made our final guest drop-off and collapsed at our crappy hotel room just before midnight. (I reserved my annoyance for a letter to the Doubletree after we got back.)
We. Were. Married.
You know, it wasn’t perfect. It was full of hustle and bustle and “are you serious with boutonnieres too-big, boutonnieres too-heavy, boutonnieres won’t-stay? Because non-essential stress, kids. NON ESSENTIAL. Skipped it for a reason. Also, you bring it, you fix it.” (I fixed it.)
For all that we crushed this wedding into a time capsule we still caught other people’s expectations, other people’s imposed “necessities”, other people’s baggage. We were also lavished with other people’s love and joy and silliness and loyalty and steadiness. (And cute little tiny baby feet! So many babies.) We still played our roles of fixer upper, mediator, organizer, event planner, picker uppers. Because that’s who we are. That’s what we do. And that’s “who” our wedding was. It was good. It was better than perfect, it was us. Low-key, casual, almost-normal. And PiC was stupid-happy. I really liked that.
It was good.
***
Next spring, we’ll host a food thing of some kind where everyone we care about, including long distance friends who didn’t get the chance to make it and were sad not to have been offered the chance, will be given plenty of warning. I don’t want to miss the opportunity to see them and spend time with them. But it won’t be a pressure cooker of an event. It’s just going to be a gathering of loved ones. And I guess we could get around to having some rings by then, if we wanted to. There’s also going to be the fancy dress, since it got altered already!
But for a bigger thing? I’m asking a couple of my girls to help out. I’m not dealing with any more stupid flower pinning emergencies. 😉
{Next: a financial analysis, of course!}
Part One: Race to a Wedding: Five days to a Faux-lopement
Part Two: Faux-lopement: Details, Details, Gettin There
October 31, 2011
Go Time
Before we knew it, Thursday had arrived and it felt like nothing was done! Granted, we didn’t have all that much to do since I’d trimmed our list of need to dos down to next to nothing. But the truth was, we were rushed off our feet at work and trying to wrangle arrangements according to a slightly archaic system.
Luckily, work wasn’t a problem … in fact, my boss strongly suggested I get the heck out of there early because he thought I was insane. I suspect my team thought the same since he’d outed me behind my back. Not that I was keeping it a secret, I just didn’t have time to tell them!
Rings were stricken from that list – not critical.
New shoes for me, not critical. If I could get a dress altered, great. If not, old dress. If not, slacks and nice shirt. No, wait, incoming text from cousin – “wear a dress or else.” Big cousin, I grew up with from toddlerhood. Means it. Old dress it would be.
Manicure, pedicure, veil, hair piece, decorations, fooforrah – definitely not critical.
We needed gas for the car, we needed a place to stay post-wedding (because I do not care how frugal it is to stay at a parent’s house in town, I’m not staying there on our wedding night), we needed our travelers to be situated, picked up and dropped off at the right times. Ok, scheduled, sorted and sorted.
I called the tailor trying to explain the situation – he wouldn’t let me. “I understand ’emergency’, come come, just come in, I can do this!”
“But … no, I don’t think, please, let me explain, it’s — “
“No no, just come in!”
He didn’t really understand. Sweet man, but really should have let me explain. After pinning me up and giving me the price quote and explaining the alterations, he offered to rush the job and have it ready at 5 pm Friday.
Er.
How about noon?
Er.
Today? You need it today???
….. *nod nod*
….. I’m going to have to alter the price a little.
……*nod nod*
$10 more.
/head tilt/ — In my head: really??— I will see you in at closing, sir!
We went on a panic shop for PiC and found his entire outfit minus a shirt at Macy’s in 2 hours. Then his shirt was another 15 minutes at Banana Republic (yay for gift cards!) And back to pick up my dress. Fit. A. Dream. It was an exorbitant amount, but for a three hour rush job, I can accept that.
Despite a semi-early exit from work, the errands took us long enough that we didn’t leave until *really* late. The drive was easy, though and we arrived at dark o’clock in the morning. I napped for a few hours before heading out to get a hair trim and pick up a guest arriving at the airport. Or so I planned. I was held hostage at the hair salon while my long-time stylist trimmed and then styled my hair as she felt was more elegant and appropriate to the occasion. Hostage, I tell you! Not only would she not listen to what I asked for, she wouldn’t tell me what she planned to do. Point blank refused. “I’ll take care of it,” she says.
And then she undercharged me massively for it. She didn’t put it up or anything but I know for a fact she charges $75 for bridal hair before tip. She only charged $38 for cut and style, and wouldn’t let me tip her. Have you ever heard of such a thing??
But, she was right. It looked really much better than my original rush-out-the-door hair plan. We even had time to stop for coffee before our airport errand. Miracle worker, that woman.
Back to the house to get dressed and futz around on the internet. Oh, and book a hotel for that night! Hotel points, FTW!
{to be continued}
Part One: Race to a Wedding: Five days to a Faux-lopement
October 30, 2011
Changing our Tunes
Remember how I said wedding planning was a pain, and I didn’t like it? Well, I (and PiC) didn’t like it so very much that the unthinkable became thinkable. And then ….
Well, at first, I thought it was a joke.
A couple days after that post on the 11th:
“What about the end of October?”
“What about the end of October?”
“What if we just went to the courthouse?”
/head tilt/ “… to … do what?”
“You know. Get married.”
— *mentally reading the calendar* you’re going to be traveling most of this month. When are we going to talk or do anything about getting married with even just a few people present?– “Surely you’re joking.”
No answer from PiC.
Ok, he must have been joking.
October 23rd, he returned from a trip. The subject was reopened the next day. “You weren’t kidding? You’re not kidding? Right now, you’re not kidding me? You’re kidding me. Right? What? WHAT?”
He was not kidding me.
Wheels started turning. Panic set in a little bit. It was all a joke before! Now it wasn’t! Holy chickaree! But aside from a few moments of {why are we doing this …??} it felt right. Mom’s health has been steadily declining. I haven’t been happy with any of the earlier compromises or attempts at planning largely because of my worrying over her health and how she’d be able to handle any kind of event even though she wanted me to have one. I personally didn’t want one. Talking to my dad Tuesday night confirmed that she’s not having any sort of miraculous turnaround or even stabilizing. There was no sense in holding out for her sake.
PiC being happy to have a much smaller one, even elopement style, was amazing. He was always happy with the idea of small but not as small as I wanted it to be. Also I was stuck between the all or nothing situation and wasn’t sure how to find my way out. How do I invite some of the relatives I really want to share this with and not create a family rift? And that alone would be too many people in combination with his family and friends. So I sacrificed all of my family but three. Plus surrogate family – old friends so close I’ve been adopted into their clan. My heart was appeased.
This compromise of around 20 was manageable – I was pretty sure I wouldn’t lose my composure. We were sorely missing some very good friends but the days hurtled past and we couldn’t dwell on that. Or anything.
Calls were made. My most amazing long distance people booked their flights (even cross country) the second I confirmed we were trying to do it last Friday – before we even had plans. We rushed to the SF courthouse for a license on Tuesday. He confirmed the courthouse appointment on Wednesday. We picked a restaurant that night and made the reservation on Thursday. We confirmed most of our guests up until Friday morning. I was confirming and adding seats to our table as late as arriving at the restaurant for lunch. This was not a normal wedding by any stretch of the imagination.
{to be continued}
October 25, 2011
As much work and as costly as Doggle has been in the totting up of his bills over the months, there are some pretty amazing things about this dog that makes me say it’s totally worth it. Also, I like to point out that if you really want to think about the costs, you have to think about the FULL picture, and that includes considering what kind of dog we could have gotten since we did get really lucky with the pup we brought home.
Remember, this big man was abandoned for at least a year before we brought him home, and we have no clue what his history was before that. He could have been a shivering wreck inside his head and ready to burst out with all kinds of crazy after we took him home, just hiding it behind a stoic face when we first met him. It’s not that dogs are duplicitous, it’s just that when they first meet you, all the nuances of their personality aren’t going to be evident. That was certainly true of Doggle. It took him about three months to come out from his shell entirely and show that he actually had a personality lurking underneath.
Happily, most of that livelier personality is more pleasant than not. There’re also some rather … limpet-like parts to his personality. It’s usually cute but … sometimes it’s not.
How Doggle Costs Money:
Oh Vet Bills (Medication/Supplements): Doggle has been to the vet every other month since he’s been with us. We’ve spent over a thousand dollars on his medical bills so far. *_*
Carpeting: His poor staggering legs don’t deal very well with the slippery floors so we’ve laid down new (to us) rugs. Thank you, Craigslist and Costco for relatively cost effective rugs and padded squishy mats.
Food: He just keeps on eating. And I’ve turned into a bit of a sucker about buying him a stock of treats. Yeah. I’m that dog mom. I never was before.
Car upgrade: But let’s be honest. It wasn’t like PiC hadn’t been looking for his car upgrade for several years.
How He Doesn’t Cost:
Furniture: He doesn’t mark on anything at home, thank goodness. He’s embarrassed us in places where other dogs have previously marked their territory as that lights up that little area in his brain that says “oh! I should pee here too!” But as our home has been unmarked, so it stays. Whew.
He also doesn’t chew, scratch or (mostly) climb. Occasionally he takes a freak into his head that maybe he should try to get on the sofa. Then he gets put in timeout.
Shoes/Bags/Socks/Clothes/Books/Small Items: He also doesn’t steal, chew or destroy any of these things.
People Food: He’s not allowed to have any. Not that that has diminished his interest in our cooking activities or eating at the table or anywhere else one whit. But he also doesn’t beg. He’s allowed to hang around and sniff within a certain limit.
Toys: He’s still not interested. He’s just starting to get the barest inkling of how to socially interact in play with other dogs or people. I’m trying to teach him and expose him to other big dogs because small dogs around here are frankly, brats, who mostly don’t want anything to do with him if they’re not being snappy, snippy, yappy and their owners just don’t socialize or train them out of those nasty behaviors. Bigger or younger dogs really like him, though, and that’s really nice.
Energy: 95% of the time, he has amazing indoor manners. Which is to say, he is incredibly quiet and mellow inside. If you’re hanging out, he’s hanging out. If you’re sleeping, he’s sleeping. If you’re cooking, he’s in the way. But he doesn’t bark, he doesn’t scratch, dig, growl, or generally freak out in any way.
2% of the time he has little freakouts where he goes into corners and huddles or has to be on the sofa which is a no-no. 3% of the time he is really really really happy you just got home or we’re going for a walk. That is a really manageable percentage, in my mind.
Extra Baths and Carpet Cleaning: He only gets baths on our schedule which varies between every 3-6 weeks. We can do this because he doesn’t roll in the dirt, he doesn’t rub himself in gross stuff he finds on his walks, and while he might get himself a little in his poorly-aimed, old man spatter, he lets us wipe him down after every walk and wipe his paws as well. Docile as anything.
At the end of the day ….
I’m so glad we’ve got him. We have made a lot of adjustments. We factor him into the morning and evening routines to take the time to take him out twice a day, (but that’s all we have to do – we have neighbors who walk their yappers FIVE times a day!) We either travel with him by car, one of us stays home with him, or have to make arrangements for him. We mostly do the first two, though. I’m hopelessly attached. 😉
October 20, 2011
Pardon, you might think you’re at the wrong blog today. But I’ve got to go on another career-related rant. My colleague told me today that someone was “upset” at the organization. When I asked why, I was told that the someone had wanted to apply for a promotion but wasn’t allowed to because of a lack of a specific key qualification. That someone was upset: I’ve been here for years, and I’ve never been given the opportunity to do that!
…….. Really? Really??
Ok. Nerve? Torched. Because honest to Jeopardy, darling, that’s just it, isn’t it? You’ve been here for years and that’s the end of your response? No one took care of you? Did you do anything about it? Or did you sit there like a limp noodle the whole time and then jump at the chance for more money without considering what you needed to do in order to land that peach? [I can answer that. No. Didn’t do nuffin’.]
And now you’re upset at the organization that wronged you. Honestly.
“I wasn’t given an opportunity.”
“I didn’t get a chance to show you what I could do.”
I’ll give you a hint: These are not the phrases to use when you want a job or a promotion and you’ve been told that you’re underqualified because of some missing skill or qualification.
In fact, I will heartily tell you that I am sick of hearing them. Don’t even think it. Imagine your upcoming job or career opportunities. Imagine what the recruiter, hiring manager or resume screener is going to think when he/she/it looks at your resume and compares it to the list of what they want or need. If you find yourself reverting to those up there as your only answer (aka: excuse) when your hiring manager disabuses you of the notion that you’re going to get the job, I want you to Shake Yourself.
Non. Non.
Not only will that not get you the job, it will, in certain eyes, reduce any respect they might have had for you. Like mine.
Tell me, why do you need the opportunities given to you?
Let me tell you what I’ve discovered that phrase and the utterers have in common: a need for spoonfeeding. It says to me, on your behalf: When you hire me, I’m going to ask you basic questions to which I should know the answers or should be able to find myself. And when you don’t have time to feed me, I’m going to do something else without bothering to try to find out the answer myself.
As it turns out, Google is your friend. As it turns out, there are tons of other resources available and when it comes to allocation of resources, do you want to waste our half hour on: “How do I write my review? How does this process work? What should I write?”
Or do you want to spend it talking over which skills you need to set you up for a cool new project and in line for a promotion? Because I will answer the question you ask. But if you want to throw away what I can do for you, then you are throwing away your own opportunity. And frankly, I have too many other people asking for time and attention to mollycoddle anyone who won’t do anything but flip their hair and flap their hands until the next question.
I’m inclined to helping people grow and learn but there’s only so much pushing I can do. I’ve learned my lesson – I’m not going to hire any more people who display that lack of savvy and initiative if I can help it.
Sometimes, it’s valid
Granted, there are certain things you need the support of others to do, you need the authority to do, or you plain cannot have without someone giving something up.
Very true, you must be given some of those things. However. You can show your initiative by learning about the things you want to do even if you cannot whole-cloth have them. You can take classes, you can shadow people who are doing the job, you can ask them to mentor and teach you, you can volunteer elsewhere to pick up the experience you want even if it’s not in the same place or environment.
If it’s an internal promotion you have your sights on, you should, without being obnoxious about it, express your interest clearly in the kind of advancement or experience you would like and why. In general, you should always be doing that anyway!
If you’re going for a new job and it wasn’t your job to do the work in question but you’ve gone and learned it anyway, you bet your boot nails I will rate you more highly than a person who did have the work and was not distinguished in any way by how they did it.
Think about it: who looks better? The one with fire in the belly, clearly has special interest and has done something about it? Or the one who has been flapping hands around in a puddle looking like doing a job? I’m no idiot – I want the fire-eater, every time.
That’s not to say that someone who already does the job always gets trumped by an up and comer, I’m just saying that there are clearly mediocre lifer-type candidates who barely do their job. We know they shouldn’t get promoted over someone with real potential because they aren’t capable. But — you can’t be that newcomer if you don’t realize your own potential. No one can do that but YOU.
Potential is just resting, potential is possibilities. Don’t tell me you have potential. Show me what that potential can be. Get out there and show what you’re capable of with every possible tool at your disposal. Ask for support and learn new things. Don’t just sit there waiting for opportunity to present itself. You’re just kicking opportunity in the face.
Show me your will, that is the way.
Ironically, as I write this, I clicked through an email notifying me that Erica.biz has posted on her blog, writing about
her journey of the past ten years. I keep an eye on people who have the same drive to succeed that I do, even if my path is nowhere near like hers. And you know what? The essence of her message is very much the same:
This world does not hand you success. It certainly doesn’t hand you a job. I’ve had to fight for everything I’ve had in this life. I’ve taught myself what I need to know to be successful. And, if you see yourself in any of this, my message to you is: You can do it, too. Just don’t expect it to be easy.
[For the record: I passed along a message to my colleague. If that someone did something like take initiative, I’d do a solid in return and recommend that a future application be considered. I may have learned my lesson but that someone should learn one too.]
October 17, 2011
I’m /headdesking/ so hard right now. I’ve made a huge mistake.
Back in June, we combined cell phone plans and I took over the financial responsibility for all four phones. Our family plan share 1000 minutes and unlimited text messages. It’s been a few months, and between having unlimited mobile to mobile minutes, and not using a ton of daytime minutes, we were fine on that plan. Since 250 daytime minutes isn’t much per person, I normally use Google Voice on my computer during the week for domestic calls to keep my minute use down as well, so that helps.
I let myself get complacent on this last billing cycle and didn’t check in, not even once, on it. And I’m paying dearly for that inattention.
PiC and I went way over our minute allotment. Shockingly over. I can’t even believe how much. On top of that, my mom’s phone listed five charges for Premium Services; those junk charges you get hit with because of any number of spammy services that sink their hooks into you the second you respond to their junk texts or however they do it. Well, they got my mom. Five of them, over two days, at $9.99 per.
For my part, I think my transgressions were the worst during two weeks out of the billing cycle,when I was sick at home, working most of the time. I was taking regular and conference calls on my cell phone instead for no good reason. !!!!
PiC went double on his allotment as well but I don’t even have the patience to see why. I just told him about the bill and left it at that.
*For the record: my parents were at or under their minute allotment of 250 mins/each. Only PiC and I went over ours. And considering we can log in online or check our minute usage via our phones or online??? UGH. Inexcusable carelessness.*
T-Mobile’s complying with my request to remove the Premium Charges and block any incoming charge texts for a month for free via a free trial of the Family Allowance service, but that’s going to take a couple months to remove $50. The remaining $400 is on me because I noticed too late to change the billing plan to a higher rate/minutes package – you have to do that during the billing cycle.
I can’t even tell you how hard I’m kicking myself. I haven’t seen a bill this big since the days of idiot brother yore, before I removed all long distance capability and stopped paying any cell phone bills for him back home.
This drives me crazy, not just because of the enormity of the bill itself. It’s also because of the way we’re currently handling our finances.
I’ve been dancing on a tightrope where PiC and I share but don’t share. We split but don’t split expenses. We’ve been discussing ways and means of combining but since I won’t do that until we get married, I live in financial purgatory where I’m only partly in control of some things, totally of others, and not at all in still others. It’s driving me a little crazy and making me careless. Careless enough for my hands to have slipped off the reins when they shouldn’t have.
There’s a vague sense that I knew this was coming. Not this specific thing but that some sort of financial issue was looming because of our laissez faire compromise style of management. Because I wasn’t controlling every last detail myself. And because of that vague sense that something, somewhere, was going to go wrong sometime, I’ve been trying to force all aspects of my life into financial order, still without imposing myself on everything. Like a bit of a manic fool, I’ve been paranoically looking over all the things I do control and trying to not to miss anything but worrying about all the things I can’t fix. Just like I used to do in the bad old days when I was paying the bills for my family but not actually in charge of them. Awful, in other words.
There’s an actual solution for this, you know. We could actually combine finances. Or set up a real system. This idiot’s excuse for a process was bound to crack, or I was. It was just a matter of time and a fool’s bet which went first.
October 11, 2011
Wedding planning: We’re doing it wrong.
Not that we haven’t attempted going at it forward but the few months of planning over the summer was fraught with other deadlines, an incredible amount of travel for other obligations. As usual, it seemed like everyone else’s lives came first. And as we did our research for the very simple, very small budget wedding I wanted to aim for, more bits fell off the wagon than stayed on.
I still haven’t figured out what to do about the guest list as far as the question of the whole of my family, for one. I’ve had long heartfelt talks with my closest friends who know the history, know my mind, and me. I’m conflicted because what I want to do is not what I need to do. My willingness to cut out my family out of the wedding isn’t only my personal choice. No matter how much my dad says he’s willing to bear the fallout, it’s a sacrifice that he’ll have to live with. And I will have trouble knowing I’ve contributed to complicating his relationships and somewhat tenuous support system.
So instead of dealing with it, and the parks that won’t cooperate by costing less than actual venues by the end of all the fees, taxes or restrictions, we resigned ourselves to not making the November date and backburnered the wedding.
Not the honeymoon planning, though!
We were gifted an enormously generous gift for the wedding: a week in a timeshare. That came with an expiration date, so we had to get on that straightaway.
After searching the world over for available locations, which my confused Twitter followers might remember from my very random tweets one night (Me: British Virgin Islands? Netherlands? Sweden? Paris? Spain?), we found that we had, in fact, very few choices because everything is meant to be booked a year in advance and we were hoping to finish this whole wedding business sooner rather than later.
Change of plans
A more exotic locale, improperly researched or timed for the high season can easily burst your budget. Doing similar research, comparing prices on airfare as a starting point, I found that the initial places that sounded fun to us (Australia and New Zealand) were easily twice as costly during the months we speculated about traveling. With my visions of belt tightening on our honeymoon, we were happy to turn our feet to a different path as well.
We’re going to Hawaii!
It’ll be a more manageable trip insofar as flights management and time management go. We won’t fly for a day and a half just to get to our destination, and we won’t be paying nearly $4000 just for flights. Instead, it’ll be a morning’s flight there, and a day coming back. I might even be able to wrangle enough points or miles to pay for the flights themselves. This is still a work in progress.
Neither of us are emotionally invested in the specific vacation or destination. It’d be cool to be going somewhere really cool, but at the end of the day we’ll be happy to relax, eat good food and not incessantly worry if we’re going over budget.
[Honeymoon notwithstanding, I will absolutely worry incessantly so it’s just better all around to have a moderately priced and planned trip where we can eat and play to our hearts’ content.]
So that’s one thing, the last thing on the list, decided.
