One year ago today, an entire day completely saturated with love, support, family, community, laughter (no seriously, the laughter), the very best music, amazing food, no-holds-barred dancing frenzy and plenty of happy tears as well, I married the best man I know. I'd say the best man in the world, but people tend to want to debate this point, and that's not what I'm saying. I know what I know. I know he is the best, my best, and makes me better as well.
It's been a year of limited drama since the madness of May 2010. We went to Ireland, it was glorious. We spent Thanksgiving in Los Alamos with my family, it was an (exhausting) delight. We journeyed to a cabin in East TN for New Years Eve. I got a new position at Emma; Austin has won some impressive awards for his work. Our pets have kept us busy and laughing and occasionally baffled. We've discovered The Wire and powered through the first three seasons in the last month. Today, we're cozied up in a condo directly on the beach in Navarre, FL. It is perfect. Tonight we'll grill pizzas and drink Pimm's cups on our balcony.
Everyone keeps commenting, "I can't believe it's been a year! It doesn't seem like that long ago." I was sharing this discussion with a friend whose wedding was a few weeks before ours. He says, "I sure wasn't expecting this first year to be so hard." I nodded and didn't argue, but I couldn't feel less in agreement. For one thing, he's really referring to how hard the first year of cohabitation is, and we got that out of the way many moons ago. And I'm always glad that we did. In the weeks after the wedding, we were often asked, "Does it feel any different?," and I'm sure if we hadn't already lived together, no one would have asked that. But my answer was always, "Sure, it does, a bit. We just feel like more of a team now." When I think back to May 22, 2010, and all the beauty I described in the first paragraph here, the truest memory of that entire day for me is just the peace. The peace in my heart and in my mind and in my hands when he was holding them, saying "I do." This peace wrapped me up and has not departed. Every day, our marriage is my peace.
We were standing in the front entranceway of Houston Station, sometime late in the evening in a break between photos and dancing and catching up with wedding guests. Austin's cousin Jason had brought his whole family, and his little daughter Sophie grabbed my hand and wanted to talk to me. I knelt down and she asked, "When you were up there, why were you crying?" She was referring to when I nearly sobbed my way through my vows. I said, "I was crying because I love him so much." She considered this, head tilted, then put both her hands on either side of my face and said, "I know you do."
Showing posts with label the boo. Show all posts
Showing posts with label the boo. Show all posts
Sunday, May 22, 2011
Wednesday, April 7, 2010
muted
Austin has pointed out that I shouldn't talk about the wedding details in case some of my readers aren't invited to the wedding. That seems to assume a lot about my readership (as in, it's more than just my mother, and you know she's totally invited), but he's probably right. Instead I'll overshare when it's all over and just say that the invites have gone out, the rvsps are flooding in (boy is THAT aspect of wedding planning gratifying!) and we bought our wedding rings today. So I guess we really HAVE to get married now.
Just kidding. I'm so excited about getting married. I'm excited about the party, I'm excited about our families and friends coming to visit, I'm excited about the dress and the paper flowers and the place cards and the corn muffins and the playlists and the pizza party the night before. But mostly I'm excited about BEING MARRIED! It seems like the whole time we've been together, I've known this is where we were heading, and it's finally here, and it partially feels like we've been married for years, and it partially feels like the big step that it legitimately is. I'm going to share his name. He's going to be my guardian. It's big. And it's exciting. And it's lovely.
How's that for non-wedding wedding talk? I know, weddingweddingwedding, right? I'm trying not to be that girl. What else is going on? Charlie Murphy is still peeing on things in our home. Like the dog beds, if we leave them on the floor unoccupied. Or a stack of papers in the office that needed to be filed. Or my brown boots (dammit). Austin's done plenty of research into possible causes. The vet suggested that we let him go outside, which is of course never going to happen. Instead we started letting him go into the basement unsupervised, which he'd been vocally begging to do since we bought the house. We've also tried giving him ample doses of catnip, with the hopes that he'd chill out. Oh, he chills out alright, laid out spread eagle on the kitchen counter in a patch of sun, drooling.
And then he pees on the green blanket when it falls off the bed. The apparent conclusion is that we have too many pets and he's being territorial, although damned if I know why this suddenly came on when we've been a 6 pet household for over two years. And we're not about to start getting rid of the others just because Charlie Murphy thinks he needs to assert himself. In the meantime, I have to figure out how to get cat urine out of leather. Which is awesome.
The troubling thing is that he doesn't act like he's having a hard time at all. He gets along fine with the other pets, except for when he pushes Mackenzie's buttons, which can be done pretty much by breathing. He and Mischa wrestle and chase each other, and he's very patient with her. He'll rub his head under Bridgey's chin and it's too sweet. On the weekends or sometimes in the evenings he comes and snuggles us on the couch, and it's the most gratifying feeling in the world. I don't want him to be mad at us, or at war (inside his head) with the rest of the pets or our home. Because that's what it feels like: piss warfare.
In other news, Casey and I went to NYC for a long weekend to visit Jenny. It was gorgeous and delicious and we shopped and ate until our faces fell off (nearly). I loved just walking around with my sisters, that immediate natural flow of conversation and interaction that kicks in whenever it's the three of us. Some things I observed: My sisters still think of me as being a terrible traveler. That is fair, because I truly was, for years. I overpacked, I lost shit, I got lost, I procrastinated, I got flustered. I'd like to thank Austin (and also just traveling a whole, whole lot in my mid 20s) for having made me a better traveler. I still get nervous during takeoff and landing. I also still have to compulsively repack every time I take something out of my suitcase. But I've managed to plan ahead for this quirk and try not let it affect anyone else that I might be traveling with. Still, my sisters wanted to make sure I woke up early enough every day to be ready to leave the house at the same time as they were, and I ended up just waiting on them a lot and feeling smug. I also observed that my sisters' patience and stamina for shopping has gone inversely up in relation to my own decline. They used to refuse to shop with me because I'd take so long, liked to be thorough and look at everything. They were always On A Mission. This trip to New York, I ran out of steam in the first 10 minutes of each new store we visited, and wound up sitting on the floor by the front door of H&M, totally over throwing elbows in the name of cheap clothes. I bought six shirts, only because I didn't have to try them on (I refused to enter that hellhole of a dressing room) and figured that if they didn't fit I'd give them to someone they would. The girls completely racked up, happily for them.
I'm running out of steam and thoughts tonight. Remember when Myspace would play a song when someone visited your page? Mine was Fake Palindromes by Andrew Bird for forever. If my life were a song tonight, it would be this: Young Folks by Peter Bjorn and John. It's the new dancing-in-pajamas song in the Gill-Gray kitchen. Mom, you'll like it! Be ready to dance to it with me and my groom in 6 short weeks and two even shorter days...
Just kidding. I'm so excited about getting married. I'm excited about the party, I'm excited about our families and friends coming to visit, I'm excited about the dress and the paper flowers and the place cards and the corn muffins and the playlists and the pizza party the night before. But mostly I'm excited about BEING MARRIED! It seems like the whole time we've been together, I've known this is where we were heading, and it's finally here, and it partially feels like we've been married for years, and it partially feels like the big step that it legitimately is. I'm going to share his name. He's going to be my guardian. It's big. And it's exciting. And it's lovely.
How's that for non-wedding wedding talk? I know, weddingweddingwedding, right? I'm trying not to be that girl. What else is going on? Charlie Murphy is still peeing on things in our home. Like the dog beds, if we leave them on the floor unoccupied. Or a stack of papers in the office that needed to be filed. Or my brown boots (dammit). Austin's done plenty of research into possible causes. The vet suggested that we let him go outside, which is of course never going to happen. Instead we started letting him go into the basement unsupervised, which he'd been vocally begging to do since we bought the house. We've also tried giving him ample doses of catnip, with the hopes that he'd chill out. Oh, he chills out alright, laid out spread eagle on the kitchen counter in a patch of sun, drooling.
And then he pees on the green blanket when it falls off the bed. The apparent conclusion is that we have too many pets and he's being territorial, although damned if I know why this suddenly came on when we've been a 6 pet household for over two years. And we're not about to start getting rid of the others just because Charlie Murphy thinks he needs to assert himself. In the meantime, I have to figure out how to get cat urine out of leather. Which is awesome.
The troubling thing is that he doesn't act like he's having a hard time at all. He gets along fine with the other pets, except for when he pushes Mackenzie's buttons, which can be done pretty much by breathing. He and Mischa wrestle and chase each other, and he's very patient with her. He'll rub his head under Bridgey's chin and it's too sweet. On the weekends or sometimes in the evenings he comes and snuggles us on the couch, and it's the most gratifying feeling in the world. I don't want him to be mad at us, or at war (inside his head) with the rest of the pets or our home. Because that's what it feels like: piss warfare.
In other news, Casey and I went to NYC for a long weekend to visit Jenny. It was gorgeous and delicious and we shopped and ate until our faces fell off (nearly). I loved just walking around with my sisters, that immediate natural flow of conversation and interaction that kicks in whenever it's the three of us. Some things I observed: My sisters still think of me as being a terrible traveler. That is fair, because I truly was, for years. I overpacked, I lost shit, I got lost, I procrastinated, I got flustered. I'd like to thank Austin (and also just traveling a whole, whole lot in my mid 20s) for having made me a better traveler. I still get nervous during takeoff and landing. I also still have to compulsively repack every time I take something out of my suitcase. But I've managed to plan ahead for this quirk and try not let it affect anyone else that I might be traveling with. Still, my sisters wanted to make sure I woke up early enough every day to be ready to leave the house at the same time as they were, and I ended up just waiting on them a lot and feeling smug. I also observed that my sisters' patience and stamina for shopping has gone inversely up in relation to my own decline. They used to refuse to shop with me because I'd take so long, liked to be thorough and look at everything. They were always On A Mission. This trip to New York, I ran out of steam in the first 10 minutes of each new store we visited, and wound up sitting on the floor by the front door of H&M, totally over throwing elbows in the name of cheap clothes. I bought six shirts, only because I didn't have to try them on (I refused to enter that hellhole of a dressing room) and figured that if they didn't fit I'd give them to someone they would. The girls completely racked up, happily for them.I'm running out of steam and thoughts tonight. Remember when Myspace would play a song when someone visited your page? Mine was Fake Palindromes by Andrew Bird for forever. If my life were a song tonight, it would be this: Young Folks by Peter Bjorn and John. It's the new dancing-in-pajamas song in the Gill-Gray kitchen. Mom, you'll like it! Be ready to dance to it with me and my groom in 6 short weeks and two even shorter days...
Sunday, November 22, 2009
Partial Self-Portrait Vol. 2
Tonight, while merrily disassembling broiled crab legs with herb butter at our kitchen counter, Austin sprayed me with a particularly enthusiastic wrenching of his crustacean. Considering the possibility for payback, I said:
"Have we ever had a food fight?"
Austin, without missing a beat, responds, "Nope, but I don't think people really do that anyway. Only in Smirnoff Ice commercials."
"Have we ever had a food fight?"
Austin, without missing a beat, responds, "Nope, but I don't think people really do that anyway. Only in Smirnoff Ice commercials."
Saturday, November 21, 2009
The Hero's Journey. of Pizza.
Forgot to post last night. Damn.
I've spent the last several weeks fixating on a very specific vision. Of pizza. We have great pizza right here in our neighborhood (Castrillo's, who we're having provide the chow for our rehearsal dinner) but we always get takeout. My Pizza Vision does not involve takeout. My Pizza Vision is of sitting in a pizzeria and having a hot pie placed in front of me on a metal pan. When I remove the first slice from the pan, the cheese strings out for at least two feet and I have to pile the gooey cheese strings onto my slice on my plate. Also in this vision: pitchers of Dr. Pepper with pebble ice.
I realize now that this vision is a California memory. This is the food we ate at Godfather's with the Jansens after church or before a movie. Or there was a place Elisa used to take us, somewhere on the way to Hidden Beach, where we made a video of the pizza because it was gooey to the point of being (compellingly) disgusting. I'm not fiending for authentic neapolitan cuisine here. I want the cheesy, floppy, Americanized version of the food I grew up eating.
So I took my quest to the masses, and posted a Facebook query:
I'll tell you, folks really respond when you talk about food on Facebook. Any time I'm feeling neglected (oh, as if I ever feel neglected...) I can just say something about whatever I'm cooking up for dinner that night and be assured of some attention. 35 people had opinions about pizza. Some folks could only mention out-of-town pizza joints, which is completely not helpful. Many people mentioned Mafiaoza's, where I've had enough negative experiences as to not be willing to give another try. There were several shoutouts to House of Pizza, which is definitely *great* pizza but not what I'm looking for here. A few folks offered up City House, including one (self-admitted food snob) who blithely dismissed all the other suggestions as inedible.
This is where Austin decided to get involved. First he requested my permission to simply respond with some profanity towards City House, which I denied. We've only been there once, and it was quite disappointing, but certainly not enough of an experience to pass permanent judgment, and we've had so many folks whose opinions we trust recommend it. After having his initial request refused, Austin turned to poorly veiled sarcasm instead:
I'll let you wipe the tears of mirth from your eyes while we ponder, together, what a great writer that man is. He made that all up! I don't even know where he gathered words like "Puglia" and "salame" and concepts like a stone oven that gets dismantled every day. Seriously.
A few people bit after that (poor James sent Austin a direct message begging for directions to Luca Montolivo's hovel), but I'd already moved on to a strong possibility for my pizza fulfillment: Pie in the Sky, a relatively new spot in Midtown. There are a few locations in the Nashville area and I've heard mixed reports on the other ones, but this one so far had some solid recommendations, plus the added bonus of 2-for-1 draft beers all the time. Friday night rolled around and we were in.
Success! Emily and I split a medium thin-crust pie with mushrooms, pepperoni and extra cheese, and the first piece pulled off that pizza with gorgeous, sticky strings of goo, exactly what I was hoping for. This was delicious food that satisfied a specific craving, and I don't feel bad for a bit that it wasn't authentic Italian cuisine. I didn't get my pitcher of Dr. Pepper (truth is, I can't drink Dr. Pepper anymore, other than very early in a day when I know I have to stay up very late... heartbreaking. Dr. Pepper and I used to be so close.) but it was on the menu, so that definitely counts. This one's going on the short list.
I've spent the last several weeks fixating on a very specific vision. Of pizza. We have great pizza right here in our neighborhood (Castrillo's, who we're having provide the chow for our rehearsal dinner) but we always get takeout. My Pizza Vision does not involve takeout. My Pizza Vision is of sitting in a pizzeria and having a hot pie placed in front of me on a metal pan. When I remove the first slice from the pan, the cheese strings out for at least two feet and I have to pile the gooey cheese strings onto my slice on my plate. Also in this vision: pitchers of Dr. Pepper with pebble ice.
I realize now that this vision is a California memory. This is the food we ate at Godfather's with the Jansens after church or before a movie. Or there was a place Elisa used to take us, somewhere on the way to Hidden Beach, where we made a video of the pizza because it was gooey to the point of being (compellingly) disgusting. I'm not fiending for authentic neapolitan cuisine here. I want the cheesy, floppy, Americanized version of the food I grew up eating.
So I took my quest to the masses, and posted a Facebook query:
I'll tell you, folks really respond when you talk about food on Facebook. Any time I'm feeling neglected (oh, as if I ever feel neglected...) I can just say something about whatever I'm cooking up for dinner that night and be assured of some attention. 35 people had opinions about pizza. Some folks could only mention out-of-town pizza joints, which is completely not helpful. Many people mentioned Mafiaoza's, where I've had enough negative experiences as to not be willing to give another try. There were several shoutouts to House of Pizza, which is definitely *great* pizza but not what I'm looking for here. A few folks offered up City House, including one (self-admitted food snob) who blithely dismissed all the other suggestions as inedible.This is where Austin decided to get involved. First he requested my permission to simply respond with some profanity towards City House, which I denied. We've only been there once, and it was quite disappointing, but certainly not enough of an experience to pass permanent judgment, and we've had so many folks whose opinions we trust recommend it. After having his initial request refused, Austin turned to poorly veiled sarcasm instead:
I'll let you wipe the tears of mirth from your eyes while we ponder, together, what a great writer that man is. He made that all up! I don't even know where he gathered words like "Puglia" and "salame" and concepts like a stone oven that gets dismantled every day. Seriously.A few people bit after that (poor James sent Austin a direct message begging for directions to Luca Montolivo's hovel), but I'd already moved on to a strong possibility for my pizza fulfillment: Pie in the Sky, a relatively new spot in Midtown. There are a few locations in the Nashville area and I've heard mixed reports on the other ones, but this one so far had some solid recommendations, plus the added bonus of 2-for-1 draft beers all the time. Friday night rolled around and we were in.
Success! Emily and I split a medium thin-crust pie with mushrooms, pepperoni and extra cheese, and the first piece pulled off that pizza with gorgeous, sticky strings of goo, exactly what I was hoping for. This was delicious food that satisfied a specific craving, and I don't feel bad for a bit that it wasn't authentic Italian cuisine. I didn't get my pitcher of Dr. Pepper (truth is, I can't drink Dr. Pepper anymore, other than very early in a day when I know I have to stay up very late... heartbreaking. Dr. Pepper and I used to be so close.) but it was on the menu, so that definitely counts. This one's going on the short list.
Saturday, November 14, 2009
impressionable
Austin suggests I write about the first time I ever ate Ben & Jerry's Pistachio Pistachio ice cream. That was tonight. Very historic date in the life history of a girl who loves ice cream so dearly. Loves it so much that I took a picture of the astonishingly well-stocked ice cream accoutrement section at Publix and texted it to Agnes tonight. Strawberry marshmallow creme! Cupcake flavored Magic Shell! At least nine different types of ice cream cones! What is this wonderful world we're living in?I should blog about the soul-regenerating love fest of Guilty Pleasures last night. Or about my new haircut. Or about Kansas, a post I've been working on for a month now. I could talk about some of the new tricks our pets have picked up (Mischa twirls for food!).
Instead I'm going to go watch more Firefly and turn in early on this Saturday night. I'll leave you with an awfully sweet photo of my future husband and one of the things I love the most about him...It's not exactly the best picture of Digby, who is getting so fat, but how about our littlest kid over there with her big ears? This just warms my heart.
Tuesday, November 10, 2009
you're never going to believe this...
Tonight is Podcast Night in the Gill/Gray household. If you didn't already know, Austin and two friends have created a weekly podcast of NFL smacktalking, and they record on Tuesday nights (even if you don't care about football, check that link because my amazing fiance designed the website and has written all the blog copy so far. He's talented! That's why I picked him!). This means Tuesdays have become my night to eat leftovers and catch up on Gossip Girl (I mean, who watches that trash? Not me. Obvs). But the stars must have aligned, or all this wedding crafty talk is seeping into my brain, because tonight? I hope my dad is paying attention, because tonight, I made something.
I can't even remember if I mentioned this (probably not, since I skipped blogging for all of October) but I came home from visiting Austin's family in Kansas with a small fortune in vintage jewelery courtesy of his great-grandmother (Granny). I'm talking about a gallon ziploc bag crammed full of filigree bracelets, antique coin pendants and enamel brooches. I've been incorporating them into my wardrobe (and was glad for the influx of authenticity for my Joan Holloway costume) but haven't had anywhere to store these beautiful pieces. My childhood jewelery box has run out of space and charm and trying to artfully drape long chain-link necklaces on my (darling) earring holder was turning into a mess. I started researching necklace organizers, and found this on etsy. I sent Austin the link and said, "I could make this, don't you think?"
I don't know why you're acting so surprised. My job in college was in technical theater. I know my way around a power drill and soldering iron. I may love not camping, but I'm not 100% girlie girl. I just let you think that. So that you'll be all that more impressed when I show you my craft composition.
I started with a random piece of plywood we had laying around (we're homeowners! We have scraps of plywood in our living room! I think it was intended for kindling). I couldn't find the staple gun (or maybe we don't have one), so I used craft glue to attach a piece of green and white fabric from my optimistic fabric stash.
Then I drilled a series of pilot holes in the front, and screwed in a multitude of tiny cup hooks. I also learned how to use the Macro setting on my camera, score! I finished by attaching a couple of picture frame hooks to the top for wall-hanging purposes.
Tools I used: scissors, a borrowed drill (thanks, P. Block) and various pilot bits, needle-nosed pliers, a phillips-head screwdriver and a claw hammer. Injuries sustained: zero. Property damaged: none, other than a Gourmet magazine that is now riddled with drill holes and covered in dried glue. I even mounted the whole thing on the wall above my dressing table, and filled it up with shiny baubles.
Productivity on a Tuesday night! Unprecedented. The dogs thought I had lost my mind when I was hustling around gathering tools and materials. I also changed the light bulb in the garage, which is terrifying, trust me. And I might have managed to sneak in one episode of Gossip Girl, because I'm three weeks behind at this point, and that is simply unacceptable.
P. S. On a related note, has anyone heard of a crafty alternate use or adjustment for old-fashioned clip-on earrings to make them wearable? I tried to rock a pair on Halloween and my earlobes have yet to forgive me for the torture. But I have so many, and they're all so sparkly...
P. P. S. My abuse of the parenthetical aside is at an all-time high. Sorry (sort of).
I can't even remember if I mentioned this (probably not, since I skipped blogging for all of October) but I came home from visiting Austin's family in Kansas with a small fortune in vintage jewelery courtesy of his great-grandmother (Granny). I'm talking about a gallon ziploc bag crammed full of filigree bracelets, antique coin pendants and enamel brooches. I've been incorporating them into my wardrobe (and was glad for the influx of authenticity for my Joan Holloway costume) but haven't had anywhere to store these beautiful pieces. My childhood jewelery box has run out of space and charm and trying to artfully drape long chain-link necklaces on my (darling) earring holder was turning into a mess. I started researching necklace organizers, and found this on etsy. I sent Austin the link and said, "I could make this, don't you think?"
I don't know why you're acting so surprised. My job in college was in technical theater. I know my way around a power drill and soldering iron. I may love not camping, but I'm not 100% girlie girl. I just let you think that. So that you'll be all that more impressed when I show you my craft composition.
I started with a random piece of plywood we had laying around (we're homeowners! We have scraps of plywood in our living room! I think it was intended for kindling). I couldn't find the staple gun (or maybe we don't have one), so I used craft glue to attach a piece of green and white fabric from my optimistic fabric stash.
Then I drilled a series of pilot holes in the front, and screwed in a multitude of tiny cup hooks. I also learned how to use the Macro setting on my camera, score! I finished by attaching a couple of picture frame hooks to the top for wall-hanging purposes. 
Tools I used: scissors, a borrowed drill (thanks, P. Block) and various pilot bits, needle-nosed pliers, a phillips-head screwdriver and a claw hammer. Injuries sustained: zero. Property damaged: none, other than a Gourmet magazine that is now riddled with drill holes and covered in dried glue. I even mounted the whole thing on the wall above my dressing table, and filled it up with shiny baubles.
Productivity on a Tuesday night! Unprecedented. The dogs thought I had lost my mind when I was hustling around gathering tools and materials. I also changed the light bulb in the garage, which is terrifying, trust me. And I might have managed to sneak in one episode of Gossip Girl, because I'm three weeks behind at this point, and that is simply unacceptable. P. S. On a related note, has anyone heard of a crafty alternate use or adjustment for old-fashioned clip-on earrings to make them wearable? I tried to rock a pair on Halloween and my earlobes have yet to forgive me for the torture. But I have so many, and they're all so sparkly...
P. P. S. My abuse of the parenthetical aside is at an all-time high. Sorry (sort of).
Sunday, June 7, 2009
never been better
Tonight I'm knocking around the house, solo for a little while. Austin's playing FIFA Soccer with JB. I had planned to spend the alone time working on the filing drawers in the desk in the office I excavated yesterday. Instead I poked around online, played a game, read some educational wedding-related articles. Then I straightened up the house, put away the remnants of our crackers-and-soda snack from this afternoon, and got out the ingredients for tonight's Mexican pineapple salad. And I realized, while I was moving around the house, going through mindless motions, I was smiling the whole time.
I don't talk about religion, on here or anywhere. I'm not a subscriber of any specific doctrine. We don't go to church, and we don't follow any scriptures. I don't have astral convictions, and I don't miss them. But the only word I can find to describe this feeling, this day, this place I'm at in my life, is blessed. I am saturated by blessings. It washes over me, so many times a day, and I wish there was a better way to express my gratitude.
I love our home. We cleaned it yesterday, got the office near to full function, and made some decorating progress. It is safe and warm and comfortable when it's filled with girls, sprawled on the couch with popcorn and ice cream, or when it's just us and our pets, on quiet tv afternoons, or when it's just me and my iTunes. There literally isn't a day that goes by that I don't think how utterly lucky we are that we found *this* house. It felt like an arduous search, and it turned out exactly right.
I love my job. One of the bigger wedding-related dilemmas I've faced (as with every bride in the history of the world, I know) has been the size of the guest list. And this is complicated by the fact that I have 70+ coworkers who are also friends who I can't imagine not celebrating with. It's probably not going to be realistic to invite every Emma staffer plus one, but right now I'm doing my best to find a way to include as many as we can. I think about the very best days at Hatch, when we all felt like a productive family full of friends, and that's how Emma is too. I love it when I make a breakthrough on a collaborative project, I love it when I've finished processing the daily check run, I love it when the power goes out and I wind up laying on the carpet of the second floor lounge doing half-assed pilates with Brooks and Rami and Rachael's puppy. I think I've said this before, but you don't realize how much of your self-esteem is caught up in the work week until you find a job that fulfills you.
I love our pets. We both do, equally, with an unreasonable fervor. We're those crazy pet people and aren't remotely ashamed. Digby is getting closer and closer to being a good dog, and Bridgette is such a sweet girl. We had a brushing session on the back patio last weekend (shedding time is definitely here) and they were both just inhaling the affection and attention. Mackenzie is completely back to her old self, running the house with her larger-than-life attitude and making sure she gets quality time with us before bed every night. Corvinius is, well, an oddball, but a loveable one, and spent a large portion of this afternoon rubbing his face on the corner of my computer screen over. and over. and over again. Oh buddy. And look, we don't like to play favorites with our pets. But every single day, Mischa and Charlie Murphy fill us up with love. Mischa got a new toy today, and she's currently sacked out on her spot at the end of the couch with this new red stuffy wrapped in her arms like a woobie. I just want to hold her so tight. Charlie Murphy loves weekends, particularly couch weekends like today, and the absolute peace and joy he spreads when he's sleeping leaned up against my lap... it's just the best.
I love my friends. Book club friends, work friends, people who don't fall in either category (there aren't many...), I can't get over the support network that surrounds me. I spent a lot of my adolescence thinking of myself as not a "girlfriend" kind of girl, and I'm so happy that I was totally wrong about that. We threw a surprise bachelorette party for Agnes last night, and the house was about to burst from all the girlie love. Lisa and Jenny were missed, but otherwise it couldn't have gone better and I was so glad we could all spend sweet time with Agnes before she takes off for the Great Alaskan Wedding Adventure.
I love my family. The reason I didn't think of myself as a "girlfriend" kind of girl was, obviously, because I have the best built-in girlfriends on the planet, my sisters. We talk every day and nothing feels complete unless it is shared with them. I'm so glad that we live close enough to my dad that we can just have low-key evenings of ceiling fan installation and (really good) chicken wings with him and Lynn. We're so lucky to have them both nearby. I miss my big crazy California family so badly, and one of my absolute favorite things to imagine about our wedding is having them all here together again. And I am just chomping at the bit to get to Seattle (next weekend!) and give my Mom one gigantic hug, followed by a series of smaller ones. It's been almost a year since we've seen her and I can't wait to spend a week on the lake with her and Kam (and Casey and Trent and a deck of cards!).
And of course you knew this was where I was going, but I love Austin. I'm not going to detail all the reasons that he's the man I'm going to marry (I've done that before and certainly will again) but the place where we are in our life together is just especially good right now. I am excited to see him EVERY DAY. How silly is that? I start to feel restless and shifty if it's been more than a couple of hours since I've checked in with him (thanks to IM and texting for completely spoiling me by having my fiance´ available to me at all times). We're on the same page about all these major decisions we've made in the past year and will be making in the next year. We're not exactly wealthy, but it's been a long while since we've had to look at anything and say, from a financial standpoint, "How are we going to make this work?" We carpool almost every day and talk about the stories we hear on NPR. If it sounds idyllic, it is. I can't think of an aspect of my life that isn't made better by just having him with me. We don't have to do everything together (see: FIFA Soccer) but when I'm walking around our house by myself, smiling, it's mostly because of him.
I don't talk about religion, on here or anywhere. I'm not a subscriber of any specific doctrine. We don't go to church, and we don't follow any scriptures. I don't have astral convictions, and I don't miss them. But the only word I can find to describe this feeling, this day, this place I'm at in my life, is blessed. I am saturated by blessings. It washes over me, so many times a day, and I wish there was a better way to express my gratitude.
I love our home. We cleaned it yesterday, got the office near to full function, and made some decorating progress. It is safe and warm and comfortable when it's filled with girls, sprawled on the couch with popcorn and ice cream, or when it's just us and our pets, on quiet tv afternoons, or when it's just me and my iTunes. There literally isn't a day that goes by that I don't think how utterly lucky we are that we found *this* house. It felt like an arduous search, and it turned out exactly right.
I love my job. One of the bigger wedding-related dilemmas I've faced (as with every bride in the history of the world, I know) has been the size of the guest list. And this is complicated by the fact that I have 70+ coworkers who are also friends who I can't imagine not celebrating with. It's probably not going to be realistic to invite every Emma staffer plus one, but right now I'm doing my best to find a way to include as many as we can. I think about the very best days at Hatch, when we all felt like a productive family full of friends, and that's how Emma is too. I love it when I make a breakthrough on a collaborative project, I love it when I've finished processing the daily check run, I love it when the power goes out and I wind up laying on the carpet of the second floor lounge doing half-assed pilates with Brooks and Rami and Rachael's puppy. I think I've said this before, but you don't realize how much of your self-esteem is caught up in the work week until you find a job that fulfills you.
I love our pets. We both do, equally, with an unreasonable fervor. We're those crazy pet people and aren't remotely ashamed. Digby is getting closer and closer to being a good dog, and Bridgette is such a sweet girl. We had a brushing session on the back patio last weekend (shedding time is definitely here) and they were both just inhaling the affection and attention. Mackenzie is completely back to her old self, running the house with her larger-than-life attitude and making sure she gets quality time with us before bed every night. Corvinius is, well, an oddball, but a loveable one, and spent a large portion of this afternoon rubbing his face on the corner of my computer screen over. and over. and over again. Oh buddy. And look, we don't like to play favorites with our pets. But every single day, Mischa and Charlie Murphy fill us up with love. Mischa got a new toy today, and she's currently sacked out on her spot at the end of the couch with this new red stuffy wrapped in her arms like a woobie. I just want to hold her so tight. Charlie Murphy loves weekends, particularly couch weekends like today, and the absolute peace and joy he spreads when he's sleeping leaned up against my lap... it's just the best.
I love my friends. Book club friends, work friends, people who don't fall in either category (there aren't many...), I can't get over the support network that surrounds me. I spent a lot of my adolescence thinking of myself as not a "girlfriend" kind of girl, and I'm so happy that I was totally wrong about that. We threw a surprise bachelorette party for Agnes last night, and the house was about to burst from all the girlie love. Lisa and Jenny were missed, but otherwise it couldn't have gone better and I was so glad we could all spend sweet time with Agnes before she takes off for the Great Alaskan Wedding Adventure.
I love my family. The reason I didn't think of myself as a "girlfriend" kind of girl was, obviously, because I have the best built-in girlfriends on the planet, my sisters. We talk every day and nothing feels complete unless it is shared with them. I'm so glad that we live close enough to my dad that we can just have low-key evenings of ceiling fan installation and (really good) chicken wings with him and Lynn. We're so lucky to have them both nearby. I miss my big crazy California family so badly, and one of my absolute favorite things to imagine about our wedding is having them all here together again. And I am just chomping at the bit to get to Seattle (next weekend!) and give my Mom one gigantic hug, followed by a series of smaller ones. It's been almost a year since we've seen her and I can't wait to spend a week on the lake with her and Kam (and Casey and Trent and a deck of cards!).
And of course you knew this was where I was going, but I love Austin. I'm not going to detail all the reasons that he's the man I'm going to marry (I've done that before and certainly will again) but the place where we are in our life together is just especially good right now. I am excited to see him EVERY DAY. How silly is that? I start to feel restless and shifty if it's been more than a couple of hours since I've checked in with him (thanks to IM and texting for completely spoiling me by having my fiance´ available to me at all times). We're on the same page about all these major decisions we've made in the past year and will be making in the next year. We're not exactly wealthy, but it's been a long while since we've had to look at anything and say, from a financial standpoint, "How are we going to make this work?" We carpool almost every day and talk about the stories we hear on NPR. If it sounds idyllic, it is. I can't think of an aspect of my life that isn't made better by just having him with me. We don't have to do everything together (see: FIFA Soccer) but when I'm walking around our house by myself, smiling, it's mostly because of him.
Thursday, April 23, 2009
partial self-portrait
Delaney: Honey, what should I blog about tonight?
Austin: Susan Boyle.
Delaney: Babe. I don't even know enough about her to make it interesting, and I'm not going to be the billionth person to blog about her.
Austin: You should look up who performed AFTER Susan Boyle and write about that.
Delaney: This is not helpful.
Austin: I think that would be hilarious.
Austin: Susan Boyle.
Delaney: Babe. I don't even know enough about her to make it interesting, and I'm not going to be the billionth person to blog about her.
Austin: You should look up who performed AFTER Susan Boyle and write about that.
Delaney: This is not helpful.
Austin: I think that would be hilarious.
Sunday, April 12, 2009
the paranoia, it drives me
We did indeed make it to the Farmer's Market yesterday, where I got to meet the owner of B&C BBQ (aka Bacon and Caviar, the frontrunner for wedding catering). He was super cool, and the preliminary conversation made me feel good about that option for later. Still no word on the legality of having our boozy wedding at the Market, but I am optimistic and think we'll hear something soon. I had bbq pulled pork (with white sauce) and mac & cheese, both delicious. As we were walking out, there was a kettle corn stand where they were pulling hot caramel corn out of the popper. Ding ding! I walked away with a still-warm bag, and then skidded to a halt on the first bite. I've avoided caramel popcorn most of my life, because I'm usually disappointed by it. I realized, with that warm explosion of sweet and salty, that I'm always disappointed because my first impression of caramel popcorn was freshly popped on the wharf in Monterey, and it's never that good. Never. But yesterday, it was almost perfect. Austin said, "You want to have that at the wedding now, don't you?" and I just smiled and nodded, with my mouth full.
I was mostly lazy the rest of the afternoon, sticking around to the house to greet the fellow from the pest control company, coming to spray (botanically, organically) for mosquitos, and powder the crawl spaces upstairs for wasps. The pest technician turned out to be a former high school classmate, so that was a little weird. But I'm glad to get that taken care of before the weather gets warm; our backyard and kitchen were mosquito farms during our painting sessions in September.
Then I headed to the roller derby bout, which was a bloody blur. Bloody for the New Orleans Big Easy. Final score: Nashville Rollergirls, 211; Big Easy 34. Ouch! It was almost hard to watch, but not really. I can't say I wasn't chuckling and hollering along with everyone else while our girls skated their asses off. Loads of fun.
After that I went to the Five Spot for Claire and Sara's birthday party. Showing up there sober was probably a mistake. Most of the attendees had apparently shared a pre-party and were making a lot of nonsensical racket. Luckily there was a vast snack bar, and good conversation to be had with some lovely friends. I also managed to get my boogie on for a few songs. I bailed out after midnight and had to perform my favorite routine of peeling off my smoke-soaked clothes, ditching them straight into the washing machine and climbing directly into the shower. Sigh.
You might be wondering why I was doing all of these activities solo. Where was Austin? Oh, Austin spent about 10 hours on Saturday playing a Battlestar Galactica card game with J.Burr et al. Please, feel free to mock him mercilessly for this foray into outright nerdiness. It's kept me busy all day today. I don't mean to imply that he didn't come to the roller derby; he did, like a dutiful statsgeek, but he went straight back to Jon's house as soon as the bout was over and made it home around one a.m.
Today was quiet but productive. We got Mitchell's for lunch (god how lucky are we that the best deli in Nashville is a half mile from our house?) and Austin mowed the lawn. I got new stuffed dog toys while I was at the grocery store, and Digby and Mischa were so happy and hilarious about them. They always wreck their new toys within the first 24 hours, but the abject joy we get on the big reveal is totally worth the waste of $4 worth of textiles. I know that's not very ecologically sound. I am providing a video to help you judge me less. We got the house straighted up, the laundry done, and made amazing pizza for dinner: asparagus and potato with goat cheese and andouille sausage. So delicious.
We watched The Bourne Identity while we ate our pizza. I'd never seen any of the Bourne movies, and was really enthralled. I'm such a sucker for action thrillers! Particularly with Clive Owen! Swoon! We've had this movie from Netflix since January; if I'd known my boyfriend Clive was in it, I would have probably taken the time to watch it sooner. Now I'm ready to watch the next two, as soon as possible. Very entertaining.
What didn't I do this weekend? Oh, read Watchmen. I'm a book club flunky. We're meeting at Megan's house Tuesday and it sounds like a healthy portion of attendees have actually read the damned thing, but I'm never going to make it. I don't like reading it before bed, it makes my dreams weird. So that just leaves lunches at work for reading, and I didn't do much catching up last week. Oh well. I'm usually pretty good about reading the book club book; this is just going to have to be a fail.
I was mostly lazy the rest of the afternoon, sticking around to the house to greet the fellow from the pest control company, coming to spray (botanically, organically) for mosquitos, and powder the crawl spaces upstairs for wasps. The pest technician turned out to be a former high school classmate, so that was a little weird. But I'm glad to get that taken care of before the weather gets warm; our backyard and kitchen were mosquito farms during our painting sessions in September.
Then I headed to the roller derby bout, which was a bloody blur. Bloody for the New Orleans Big Easy. Final score: Nashville Rollergirls, 211; Big Easy 34. Ouch! It was almost hard to watch, but not really. I can't say I wasn't chuckling and hollering along with everyone else while our girls skated their asses off. Loads of fun.
After that I went to the Five Spot for Claire and Sara's birthday party. Showing up there sober was probably a mistake. Most of the attendees had apparently shared a pre-party and were making a lot of nonsensical racket. Luckily there was a vast snack bar, and good conversation to be had with some lovely friends. I also managed to get my boogie on for a few songs. I bailed out after midnight and had to perform my favorite routine of peeling off my smoke-soaked clothes, ditching them straight into the washing machine and climbing directly into the shower. Sigh.
You might be wondering why I was doing all of these activities solo. Where was Austin? Oh, Austin spent about 10 hours on Saturday playing a Battlestar Galactica card game with J.Burr et al. Please, feel free to mock him mercilessly for this foray into outright nerdiness. It's kept me busy all day today. I don't mean to imply that he didn't come to the roller derby; he did, like a dutiful statsgeek, but he went straight back to Jon's house as soon as the bout was over and made it home around one a.m.
Today was quiet but productive. We got Mitchell's for lunch (god how lucky are we that the best deli in Nashville is a half mile from our house?) and Austin mowed the lawn. I got new stuffed dog toys while I was at the grocery store, and Digby and Mischa were so happy and hilarious about them. They always wreck their new toys within the first 24 hours, but the abject joy we get on the big reveal is totally worth the waste of $4 worth of textiles. I know that's not very ecologically sound. I am providing a video to help you judge me less. We got the house straighted up, the laundry done, and made amazing pizza for dinner: asparagus and potato with goat cheese and andouille sausage. So delicious.
We watched The Bourne Identity while we ate our pizza. I'd never seen any of the Bourne movies, and was really enthralled. I'm such a sucker for action thrillers! Particularly with Clive Owen! Swoon! We've had this movie from Netflix since January; if I'd known my boyfriend Clive was in it, I would have probably taken the time to watch it sooner. Now I'm ready to watch the next two, as soon as possible. Very entertaining.
What didn't I do this weekend? Oh, read Watchmen. I'm a book club flunky. We're meeting at Megan's house Tuesday and it sounds like a healthy portion of attendees have actually read the damned thing, but I'm never going to make it. I don't like reading it before bed, it makes my dreams weird. So that just leaves lunches at work for reading, and I didn't do much catching up last week. Oh well. I'm usually pretty good about reading the book club book; this is just going to have to be a fail.
Sunday, March 22, 2009
recipe for an excellent birthday
1. Start by having a not-great week leading up to the Birthday. Have some kind of not-completely-sickness funk dragging you down. Take a sick day on Thursday to rest, and then don't feel any better the next morning. One good thing happens Thursday... presents arrive from Future MIL: Sleeping Beauty and Snow White special edition DVDs, plus some delicious snackies. Eat four lemon cake balls then take a nap.
2. Take your assigned birthday personal day on Friday. Sleep in and be lazy, eventually go to the new southern restaurant near your house (Southern Bred) with Jon Burr. Eat so much homemade cornbread and rolls that you can only take like four bites of (delicious) catfish. Run some shopping errands (the joys of antiquing with J.Burr!) and then go home and take another nap. Birthday week = naps galore!
3. When your fiance gets home and takes an envelope out of his pocket, snatch it away and open it. The contents: about a dozen individually designed blue and white labels for your dry goods canisters. Each is perfectly matched to the contents of the canister (Vanilla Sugar is lacy and feminine, All-Purpose Flour has a gingham backdrop and Bodoni Bold Italic typeface). Some labels have witty commentary: Wheat Noodles (What do we even use these for?), Dark Brown Sugar (Now with more molasses!). Try not to cry that you get to MARRY this incredibly talented man who thinks of the perfect thing that you didn't even know you wanted. (He also found you the first-ever issue of Martha Stewart Weddings on ebay, which apparently is missing from your collection).
4. Meet Suz and Bryan (coworker + husband who feel like old friends) at Watanabe for dinner. Sushi! Bibim bab for the boo! Witty conversation and a warm booth on an alarmingly cold and rainy night! Perfect. Climb in bed at 10:30 and only feel 40% guilty for bailing on the Bomb show (that guilty level will raise to 65% when you're told the next day that they had a special birthday dedication lined up for you. Hmm, maybe that's more like 85%).
5. Amble out of bed Saturday morning. Bake a German chocolate cake for Dad (setting aside one cake round for yourself) and a dozen deviled eggs for Patrick. Magically get it all together and still make it to Bombay Palace in time for lunch. Feast on vast amounts of yellow and orange sloppy foods and rices.
6. Head to Casey and Trent's for presents and cake. Unprecedented: you get EVERYTHING YOU ASKED FOR. A sewing machine (used, simple, still with manual, exactly as requested)! The Bride's Instructional Manual! A box of silly goodies from your mom, plus some much-needed cash monies. And the highlight: Grandma Jansen's recipe box. This part makes you cry. Pull it together then eat some cake (and yes, it's the best German chocolate cake you've ever made. A triumph. You'll get an email from your father a few days later with the subject line "HFSGCC," in which he suggests you are receiving a Lifetime Achievement Grammy for this cake, which he has eaten for breakfast, lunch and dinner for three days straight).
7. Hustle over to the fairgrounds for the Nashville Rollergirls vs. the Tampa Tantrums. Back story: Tampa humiliated the Nashville girls in Tampa last year. Additionally, the first home bout of this season (a double header against Jacksonville and then Austin) was a total bloodbath (Nashville lost each game by over 100 points). The point: the Nashville girls are gunning for a victory. The conclusion: probably the best bout you've ever witnessed. World-class skating and a relatively close game the entire time. Scream yourself nearly hoarse by the time Rambo Sambo scores 21 points in a single jam. Bounce around the gym for a while, ripping with adrenaline and greeting all your friends who came out. Then head to the Melrose Pub for some delayed sandwiches and crowded, noisy conversation with your nearest and dearest. Bedtime by midnight: perfect.
8. Wake up shockingly full of energy for the first time in a week. Must be residual adrenaline from the bout. Clean up the house a bit and then head to Red Lobster at noon to meet Casey and Trent at the bar to watch Tennessee (lose) at basketball. Everyone else trickles in, and you all finally sit down for a seafood feast around 2. You order a pound and a half of snow crab legs and eat for an hour. Finish it off with chocolate wave cake and ice cream, and smuggle home an entire box of cheesy biscuits to share with Emma the next day.
9. Limp home after four hours at Red Lobster. What else could you do but take a nap?
10. Finalize birthday festivities on Tuesday night at Badness and Redbeard's St. Patrick's Day soiree. Gifts from Badness: ice-cream flavored Jelly Bellys in a cone-shaped dispenser, a hilariously outdated wedding planning paperback, and FOOD TV HOST BARBIE. Complete with her own chef's knife and stand mixer (that really spins!). Disassemble the whole package to poke at all the details (cameras and lights! pot holders on a rack! an oven that ACTUALLY BAKES A PIE!). Spend the rest of the evening snickering to yourself with happiness.
Okay, I'm ditching the second person format to give you the second half of this update: wedding talk. When last we met, we were still riding on the engagement high (okay, that hasn't gone away, at ALL) and had vaguely picked a date: May 15, 2010. And my best intentions were to just cruise for the next several months and then start planning in earnest in the fall. Now, you and I both know, I wasn't going to be able to let this rest. Because truthfully, there are a few important details that, if they are locked down in advance, can help shape and curb all the wild brainstorming and idea-culling of the next year: 1. location 2. tentative guest count 3. color scheme.
The tentative guest count was both surprisingly easy and reassuringly not prohibitively high. I'd be lying to you if I said I hadn't already been thinking about this for a while, so it was pretty simple to cobble together a list of our extended families plus the (edited) guest list for our housewarming party, plus out-of-town important friends. I was bracing myself for a 300+ headcount by the time I'd finishing entering everyone I could possibly think of, but was pleasantly surprised when the excel document totaled up at 223. That includes plus ones for all the single folk, all children over age 12 or so, and my closest coworkers + spouses. Hmm, that sounds almost doable!
Up next: location. I'd had an idea in my head for a long time, one that I knew Austin also approved of (details momentarily). But there were some logistical aspects to this plan that I wasn't positive about, and I wanted to be certain that we'd explored other options before we made any decisions. I started brainstorming with my girlfriends at work, and ended up with a list of a dozen or so places that would probably work, places we could check out and get a feel for. But I knew as this list went on that I was getting further away from what we really wanted. I loved the pictures I found online of War Memorial Auditorium, but I've never actually been there. We don't want to get married somewhere we've never been! There were other spots that had pros (great view of downtown) that didn't quite outweigh the cons (we'd probably have to use their in-house catering), blah blah.
So I did some finagling, and the weekend before my birthday, Austin and I went to the Farmer's Market for lunch. We haven't been there in a few months, since it was still in the midst of a vast renovation, and I was nervous about what we might see. Instead, I was pleasantly surprised. The central part of the Market Building (where all the restaurants are located) was still filled with tables and chairs (instead of booths, like it used to be a few years ago). It's open to the skylights above, and has big wood beams across the top of the dining area. I got pulled pork and macaroni & cheese at B&C BBQ, which turns out to also be a catering company (Bacon and Caviar). Austin got his same mediocre Chinese food that he loves. I chatted a bit with one of the maintenance staff, and he confirmed that the Market Building was available for event rental.
Then we walked down the Bicentennial Mall (which runs alongside the farmer's mkt) to the Tennessee Amphitheater. This is a place I've loved since it was built when I was in college. I have a lovely memory of us all going there with my grandma, and finding dozens of four-leaf clovers. It has a gorgeous view of the capitol building, and I've always thought it would be a beautiful place for a wedding ceremony.
So a few days later, I went back with Casey and we walked around some more. She agreed with me about the vision for having a ceremony in the amphitheater, then everyone walking over to the Farmer's Market for a big dinner reception. We got a reasonable quote from the parks director on renting the amphitheater, and as of this Friday, got another amazingly inexpensive quote on the event rental for the Market Building. Barring some kind of contract-signing or deposit/reservation disaster, we've picked a location!
So that just leaves color scheme for the Big Three Advance Decisions, and I'm hung up. Mostly because Austin has (strong) opinions about these matters, and I don't want to push him around or rush him. I want our wedding to be a shared vision, celebrating who we are as a couple and surrounded by the people, foods and things that we love. I am not going to be one of those brides who plans the entire party with no input from her groom, and Austin's not interested in being one of those grooms who just shows up. He has an amazing sense of style, color and design, and I plan on incorporating his ideas and opinions equally with my own. The color scheme is an important jumping-off point for this. Initially he said he wanted to use Manchester City blue, which I fully support (I love baby blue too), but when I expressed my desire (nay, my requirement) to carry pink roses for a bouquet, he balked. He thinks blue and pink together look like a baby's nursery (and, if poorly executed, he's right). So we backed off a little bit, and I thought we could look at some other color schemes as well. He also suggested a palette range of greens, which I think could be really lovely, and conducive to the Farmer's Market, but I'm not giving up on the idea of some really bold and pretty blues. Portuguese blue! Tiffany blue! That aquamarine color from all of Hans Silvester's pictures of cats in Greece! So maybe we can cobble together a set of blues and greens that we both like, and I can still sneak my pink roses in there as a very seldom-used accent color for feminine details. I swear to not put any groomsmen in pink shirts (unless they WANT to wear them)!
So there you go, some birthday and wedding updates. Also, did you notice the new look of the blog? It's still a work in progress but I am at least pleased with the format of the text not only being two inches across. I think now I'm bound for one more birthday nap...
2. Take your assigned birthday personal day on Friday. Sleep in and be lazy, eventually go to the new southern restaurant near your house (Southern Bred) with Jon Burr. Eat so much homemade cornbread and rolls that you can only take like four bites of (delicious) catfish. Run some shopping errands (the joys of antiquing with J.Burr!) and then go home and take another nap. Birthday week = naps galore!
3. When your fiance gets home and takes an envelope out of his pocket, snatch it away and open it. The contents: about a dozen individually designed blue and white labels for your dry goods canisters. Each is perfectly matched to the contents of the canister (Vanilla Sugar is lacy and feminine, All-Purpose Flour has a gingham backdrop and Bodoni Bold Italic typeface). Some labels have witty commentary: Wheat Noodles (What do we even use these for?), Dark Brown Sugar (Now with more molasses!). Try not to cry that you get to MARRY this incredibly talented man who thinks of the perfect thing that you didn't even know you wanted. (He also found you the first-ever issue of Martha Stewart Weddings on ebay, which apparently is missing from your collection).
4. Meet Suz and Bryan (coworker + husband who feel like old friends) at Watanabe for dinner. Sushi! Bibim bab for the boo! Witty conversation and a warm booth on an alarmingly cold and rainy night! Perfect. Climb in bed at 10:30 and only feel 40% guilty for bailing on the Bomb show (that guilty level will raise to 65% when you're told the next day that they had a special birthday dedication lined up for you. Hmm, maybe that's more like 85%).
5. Amble out of bed Saturday morning. Bake a German chocolate cake for Dad (setting aside one cake round for yourself) and a dozen deviled eggs for Patrick. Magically get it all together and still make it to Bombay Palace in time for lunch. Feast on vast amounts of yellow and orange sloppy foods and rices.
6. Head to Casey and Trent's for presents and cake. Unprecedented: you get EVERYTHING YOU ASKED FOR. A sewing machine (used, simple, still with manual, exactly as requested)! The Bride's Instructional Manual! A box of silly goodies from your mom, plus some much-needed cash monies. And the highlight: Grandma Jansen's recipe box. This part makes you cry. Pull it together then eat some cake (and yes, it's the best German chocolate cake you've ever made. A triumph. You'll get an email from your father a few days later with the subject line "HFSGCC," in which he suggests you are receiving a Lifetime Achievement Grammy for this cake, which he has eaten for breakfast, lunch and dinner for three days straight).
7. Hustle over to the fairgrounds for the Nashville Rollergirls vs. the Tampa Tantrums. Back story: Tampa humiliated the Nashville girls in Tampa last year. Additionally, the first home bout of this season (a double header against Jacksonville and then Austin) was a total bloodbath (Nashville lost each game by over 100 points). The point: the Nashville girls are gunning for a victory. The conclusion: probably the best bout you've ever witnessed. World-class skating and a relatively close game the entire time. Scream yourself nearly hoarse by the time Rambo Sambo scores 21 points in a single jam. Bounce around the gym for a while, ripping with adrenaline and greeting all your friends who came out. Then head to the Melrose Pub for some delayed sandwiches and crowded, noisy conversation with your nearest and dearest. Bedtime by midnight: perfect.
8. Wake up shockingly full of energy for the first time in a week. Must be residual adrenaline from the bout. Clean up the house a bit and then head to Red Lobster at noon to meet Casey and Trent at the bar to watch Tennessee (lose) at basketball. Everyone else trickles in, and you all finally sit down for a seafood feast around 2. You order a pound and a half of snow crab legs and eat for an hour. Finish it off with chocolate wave cake and ice cream, and smuggle home an entire box of cheesy biscuits to share with Emma the next day.
9. Limp home after four hours at Red Lobster. What else could you do but take a nap?
10. Finalize birthday festivities on Tuesday night at Badness and Redbeard's St. Patrick's Day soiree. Gifts from Badness: ice-cream flavored Jelly Bellys in a cone-shaped dispenser, a hilariously outdated wedding planning paperback, and FOOD TV HOST BARBIE. Complete with her own chef's knife and stand mixer (that really spins!). Disassemble the whole package to poke at all the details (cameras and lights! pot holders on a rack! an oven that ACTUALLY BAKES A PIE!). Spend the rest of the evening snickering to yourself with happiness.
Okay, I'm ditching the second person format to give you the second half of this update: wedding talk. When last we met, we were still riding on the engagement high (okay, that hasn't gone away, at ALL) and had vaguely picked a date: May 15, 2010. And my best intentions were to just cruise for the next several months and then start planning in earnest in the fall. Now, you and I both know, I wasn't going to be able to let this rest. Because truthfully, there are a few important details that, if they are locked down in advance, can help shape and curb all the wild brainstorming and idea-culling of the next year: 1. location 2. tentative guest count 3. color scheme.
The tentative guest count was both surprisingly easy and reassuringly not prohibitively high. I'd be lying to you if I said I hadn't already been thinking about this for a while, so it was pretty simple to cobble together a list of our extended families plus the (edited) guest list for our housewarming party, plus out-of-town important friends. I was bracing myself for a 300+ headcount by the time I'd finishing entering everyone I could possibly think of, but was pleasantly surprised when the excel document totaled up at 223. That includes plus ones for all the single folk, all children over age 12 or so, and my closest coworkers + spouses. Hmm, that sounds almost doable!
Up next: location. I'd had an idea in my head for a long time, one that I knew Austin also approved of (details momentarily). But there were some logistical aspects to this plan that I wasn't positive about, and I wanted to be certain that we'd explored other options before we made any decisions. I started brainstorming with my girlfriends at work, and ended up with a list of a dozen or so places that would probably work, places we could check out and get a feel for. But I knew as this list went on that I was getting further away from what we really wanted. I loved the pictures I found online of War Memorial Auditorium, but I've never actually been there. We don't want to get married somewhere we've never been! There were other spots that had pros (great view of downtown) that didn't quite outweigh the cons (we'd probably have to use their in-house catering), blah blah.
So I did some finagling, and the weekend before my birthday, Austin and I went to the Farmer's Market for lunch. We haven't been there in a few months, since it was still in the midst of a vast renovation, and I was nervous about what we might see. Instead, I was pleasantly surprised. The central part of the Market Building (where all the restaurants are located) was still filled with tables and chairs (instead of booths, like it used to be a few years ago). It's open to the skylights above, and has big wood beams across the top of the dining area. I got pulled pork and macaroni & cheese at B&C BBQ, which turns out to also be a catering company (Bacon and Caviar). Austin got his same mediocre Chinese food that he loves. I chatted a bit with one of the maintenance staff, and he confirmed that the Market Building was available for event rental.
Then we walked down the Bicentennial Mall (which runs alongside the farmer's mkt) to the Tennessee Amphitheater. This is a place I've loved since it was built when I was in college. I have a lovely memory of us all going there with my grandma, and finding dozens of four-leaf clovers. It has a gorgeous view of the capitol building, and I've always thought it would be a beautiful place for a wedding ceremony.
So a few days later, I went back with Casey and we walked around some more. She agreed with me about the vision for having a ceremony in the amphitheater, then everyone walking over to the Farmer's Market for a big dinner reception. We got a reasonable quote from the parks director on renting the amphitheater, and as of this Friday, got another amazingly inexpensive quote on the event rental for the Market Building. Barring some kind of contract-signing or deposit/reservation disaster, we've picked a location!
So that just leaves color scheme for the Big Three Advance Decisions, and I'm hung up. Mostly because Austin has (strong) opinions about these matters, and I don't want to push him around or rush him. I want our wedding to be a shared vision, celebrating who we are as a couple and surrounded by the people, foods and things that we love. I am not going to be one of those brides who plans the entire party with no input from her groom, and Austin's not interested in being one of those grooms who just shows up. He has an amazing sense of style, color and design, and I plan on incorporating his ideas and opinions equally with my own. The color scheme is an important jumping-off point for this. Initially he said he wanted to use Manchester City blue, which I fully support (I love baby blue too), but when I expressed my desire (nay, my requirement) to carry pink roses for a bouquet, he balked. He thinks blue and pink together look like a baby's nursery (and, if poorly executed, he's right). So we backed off a little bit, and I thought we could look at some other color schemes as well. He also suggested a palette range of greens, which I think could be really lovely, and conducive to the Farmer's Market, but I'm not giving up on the idea of some really bold and pretty blues. Portuguese blue! Tiffany blue! That aquamarine color from all of Hans Silvester's pictures of cats in Greece! So maybe we can cobble together a set of blues and greens that we both like, and I can still sneak my pink roses in there as a very seldom-used accent color for feminine details. I swear to not put any groomsmen in pink shirts (unless they WANT to wear them)!
So there you go, some birthday and wedding updates. Also, did you notice the new look of the blog? It's still a work in progress but I am at least pleased with the format of the text not only being two inches across. I think now I'm bound for one more birthday nap...
Sunday, January 4, 2009
I wouldn't call it an epic fail...
...so much as just an inevitability. I did not avoid that shopping binge I mentioned on Thursday. I went straight to TJ Maxx after work on Friday and basically got a new wardrobe. It added up to seven new tops, a dress, gym shorts, workout pants, a sweater, a woobie, a corduroy blazer, a Wonderbra and a picture frame for less than $200. And I didn't stop there. Hauled it to the Mills today and found a new pair of jeans, four pairs of earrings, and three pairs of shoes. The upside: I got all of this for approximately one-third of what I would have spent if I'd been paying full price for anything. Or to put it another way: it's a good time to shop right now. At the Maxx I was gleefully throwing $3 shorts and $6 shirts into my cart, giggling to myself and snickering, "Why not?! It's THREE DOLLARS." I tried on eight pairs of jeans at the Gap and luckily the only pair I liked were also on clearance. $19.99, thanks. I was handed an "additional 20% off" coupon when I walked into Off Broadway, so I made off with two pairs of flats for half-off, and a sharp pair of Puma running shoes for $40. Fair enough, right?
And I didn't go to any movies, so that's like $25 I saved (per movie) by not getting ticket, popcorn, sour patch kids, etc, right? I will accept all assurances of justification from anyone who is offering them.
I've also just been unforgivably lazy. I literally didn't leave the house yesterday, or even take off my pajamas. I slept until ten, putzed around on the computer for most of the afternoon, and watched the Kiera Knightly version of Pride and Prejudice while eating pasta with butter and parm, aka my Single Girl meal of choice. The movie was really great, by the way. It's funny how you get over how ridiculous Kiera's face is after you watch her for like thirty minutes. After that movie was over I flipped over to catch the second half of Beautiful Girls, and then the last three-fourths of That Thing You Do. That put me to bed after 1 am, what a party girl!
Today at least I got dressed, met some of my favorite girls for brunch (at Margot, which was amazing, of course), then managed to get all our groceries for the week for $70 (including detergent, when did detergent get so expensive?!). I suppose that victory led to my error in judgment that was the fateful trip to Shopryland. Having had trouble leaving Kroger for less than $200 lately, maybe I ended up just about breaking even.
But really, the overarching significance to this weekend comes in the form of missing my boyfriend like a lovesick middle schooler. I'd like to think, as a woman with a free and independent will, I could handle a long weekend of just taking care of myself. Turns out, I'm completely addicted to the luxury of always having Austin within earshot (or IMshot). I talk out loud to myself a LOT when I'm alone. I feel like I'm forgetting important things. I start to believe that all of our pets are moping around and blaming me for doing some unspeakable thing that has sent Austin away forever. I assign ridiculous significance to the most benign things, like folding (his) socks or making (our) bed. The way I'm mooning about and wishing I could hear his voice, you'd think I was still in the first blush of new love, instead of creeping up on a five year anniversary (we met five years ago, to the day, tomorrow. Crazy, yeah?).
I suppose the good side is that I'm blogging for the second time in a week. It's reassuring to know that if you give me something to complain about, my college concentration-in-creative-writing tendency towards hyperbole and melodrama reappears with a vengeance. It just goes to prove my frequent assertion that most of the time I'm so happy that there is nothing to write about. And that is okay by me.
At least the house is relatively clean, and I've finished all the laundry, and have meals planned and pantry stocked for the upcoming week. I still can't shake the feeling that I've been rather pointless when given two whole days of no obligations. After those first couple of months of seeing almost constant visual progress on house projects, this last month of laziness seems especially wrong. There are so many small and dumb things I could accomplish if I just sat down to do them, like reorganizing my vanity table or my closet. These things bug me every day but I keep refusing to waste precious sloth time on them. Austin is no help here; he is tolerant of my laziness to the point of being encouraging (Delaney: "I didn't even brush my teeth today." Austin: "Good for you, babe.").
The other thing hanging over my head is the continued shambles in which my work inbox remains, and I'm heading in tomorrow for most likely the busiest day of the month. I stayed late on Friday clearing out pressing Billing issues that had come in that day, but many more have come up this weekend and I still remain permanently behind on my bigger project of tracking cancellations. I intended to put a few hours in tonight but so far, I've just been blogging. I tell myself, there's not point in getting burned out by working from home all the time, but the truth is, I'm horribly inefficient when I'm in the office. I have the dual timesucks of working with a gigantic group of good friends, and an inbox that needs (literally) constant maintenance.
But I'm probably not going to be too hard on myself. I'm going to go enjoy a bowl of Golden Grahams for dinner, in my peaceful six-sleeping-pet living room. I'm going to resist the temptation to play another round of that damn Blox game while trying not to call Austin every ten minutes to tell him I miss him. I'm going to hit the sack early tonight because I can expect the dogs to rouse me sometime between 6:30 and 7 in the morning. I'm going to force myself to get up and get to work early and then kick absolute ass at my job that I love until it's time to go pick up my Boo and go home for penne with vodka sauce.
Clearly, I have nothing to complain about.
And I didn't go to any movies, so that's like $25 I saved (per movie) by not getting ticket, popcorn, sour patch kids, etc, right? I will accept all assurances of justification from anyone who is offering them.
I've also just been unforgivably lazy. I literally didn't leave the house yesterday, or even take off my pajamas. I slept until ten, putzed around on the computer for most of the afternoon, and watched the Kiera Knightly version of Pride and Prejudice while eating pasta with butter and parm, aka my Single Girl meal of choice. The movie was really great, by the way. It's funny how you get over how ridiculous Kiera's face is after you watch her for like thirty minutes. After that movie was over I flipped over to catch the second half of Beautiful Girls, and then the last three-fourths of That Thing You Do. That put me to bed after 1 am, what a party girl!
Today at least I got dressed, met some of my favorite girls for brunch (at Margot, which was amazing, of course), then managed to get all our groceries for the week for $70 (including detergent, when did detergent get so expensive?!). I suppose that victory led to my error in judgment that was the fateful trip to Shopryland. Having had trouble leaving Kroger for less than $200 lately, maybe I ended up just about breaking even.
But really, the overarching significance to this weekend comes in the form of missing my boyfriend like a lovesick middle schooler. I'd like to think, as a woman with a free and independent will, I could handle a long weekend of just taking care of myself. Turns out, I'm completely addicted to the luxury of always having Austin within earshot (or IMshot). I talk out loud to myself a LOT when I'm alone. I feel like I'm forgetting important things. I start to believe that all of our pets are moping around and blaming me for doing some unspeakable thing that has sent Austin away forever. I assign ridiculous significance to the most benign things, like folding (his) socks or making (our) bed. The way I'm mooning about and wishing I could hear his voice, you'd think I was still in the first blush of new love, instead of creeping up on a five year anniversary (we met five years ago, to the day, tomorrow. Crazy, yeah?).
I suppose the good side is that I'm blogging for the second time in a week. It's reassuring to know that if you give me something to complain about, my college concentration-in-creative-writing tendency towards hyperbole and melodrama reappears with a vengeance. It just goes to prove my frequent assertion that most of the time I'm so happy that there is nothing to write about. And that is okay by me.
At least the house is relatively clean, and I've finished all the laundry, and have meals planned and pantry stocked for the upcoming week. I still can't shake the feeling that I've been rather pointless when given two whole days of no obligations. After those first couple of months of seeing almost constant visual progress on house projects, this last month of laziness seems especially wrong. There are so many small and dumb things I could accomplish if I just sat down to do them, like reorganizing my vanity table or my closet. These things bug me every day but I keep refusing to waste precious sloth time on them. Austin is no help here; he is tolerant of my laziness to the point of being encouraging (Delaney: "I didn't even brush my teeth today." Austin: "Good for you, babe.").
The other thing hanging over my head is the continued shambles in which my work inbox remains, and I'm heading in tomorrow for most likely the busiest day of the month. I stayed late on Friday clearing out pressing Billing issues that had come in that day, but many more have come up this weekend and I still remain permanently behind on my bigger project of tracking cancellations. I intended to put a few hours in tonight but so far, I've just been blogging. I tell myself, there's not point in getting burned out by working from home all the time, but the truth is, I'm horribly inefficient when I'm in the office. I have the dual timesucks of working with a gigantic group of good friends, and an inbox that needs (literally) constant maintenance.
But I'm probably not going to be too hard on myself. I'm going to go enjoy a bowl of Golden Grahams for dinner, in my peaceful six-sleeping-pet living room. I'm going to resist the temptation to play another round of that damn Blox game while trying not to call Austin every ten minutes to tell him I miss him. I'm going to hit the sack early tonight because I can expect the dogs to rouse me sometime between 6:30 and 7 in the morning. I'm going to force myself to get up and get to work early and then kick absolute ass at my job that I love until it's time to go pick up my Boo and go home for penne with vodka sauce.
Clearly, I have nothing to complain about.
Wednesday, January 30, 2008
lurb story
Four years, three weeks and four days ago, I drove to Hatch, running late as usual. It was a Monday, our first day back after the New Year holiday. Five new interns were starting that day, and we'd scheduled a training session for the morning. The new blood consisted of four girls and a boy. Two of the girls were from Harpeth Hall, a January tradition, the other two from different colleges up north. The boy was more of a mystery. In classic Hatch nepotism, which I both regularly protested and participated in, one day in the fall Jim had called up to the front of the shop, "One of my friends from high school is sending his kid down to intern with us sometime this winter!" I picked this as an opportune time to be a pain in the ass, and objected. "What do we know about him? Have we seen a resume or a portfolio? Do we even know his start date?" Jim, to his credit, at least obtained that last vital bit of information for me. There was a post-it left on my desk with the words, "Austin Gray. Salina. Jan 5."
The training session was already in full swing by the time I got into the shop. I made name tags when I got to my desk, and tried to distribute them by instinct, instead of asking who each new intern was. Austin was easy enough to pick out, the only new boy, so I slapped a name tag on his chest and thought, "Oh, he looks fine."
A week later, I had determined that he was, in fact, more than fine. He was funny. I was organizing some intern/staff bonding, and asked him what his plans were for the evening. He responded by saying he was probably going to wank it a few times, in this incredibly casual way that made me laugh before I even realized he was joking. I recruited him for a sushi and board game night, where we played a game called Kokology, from a book of quizzes I'd received for Christmas. Our quiz responses were supposed to give us insight into our psychology. The quiz we all took was about an imaginary amusement park, how we pictured our own experiences there. One of the questions was how long we expected to stand in line before getting on a roller coaster. My optimistic sisters, who obviously haven't spent time at Cedar Point, said there would be no line, no wait, just walk right up to the ride. Edan said, "Maybe five minutes?" I pragmatically predicted 45 minutes. Austin's response: "EONS." At the end of the quiz, it was revealed that our responses were supposed to be indicative of our attitudes toward sex, and specifically, our wait time for the roller coaster represented foreplay. Much giggling ensued...
Another week passed. Everyone at Hatch made plans to attend the Guilty Pleasures show at 12th and Porter, and I was frothing at the mouth with excitement. Austin left the show after the second song, and I was troubled by how mad this made me. Why should it matter? I knew he had a girlfriend at home in Kansas, although he occasionally exhibited an apathy about that situation that gave me a mean flare of happiness that I didn't want to examine. I was in a long-distance Thing with San Francisco. I wasn't supposed to care.
By the next week, Austin and I were either talking on the phone every night after work, or making plans together. Mostly still group activities, dinner, movie nights. He came to Jenny's birthday dinner with my sisters and their (now) husbands, but it Wasn't a Date. The next week he helped me make my famous chocolate and almond tart, and was joking around with the whisk, which was covered with ganache. He had chocolate all over his face and in his beard, and I remember thinking, for just one second, that I wanted to kiss it off his face. Uh oh.
January 30th was a Friday night. We had talked about going to the opening at Cheekwood with Casey and Trent, but it was too cold. We met a visiting friend of Austin's for a beer at Bosco's, and a couple of times I didn't move my leg away when it rested next to his under the bar. We took the friend back to his hotel and then picked up sushi from Ken's. We watched The Italian Job at my house while we ate. I had a blanket spread out over both of our knees. At one point I realized that his hand was on top of the blanket, on my knee, which was under the blanket, and I wasn't sure if he realized it, but didn't want to move my knee so as to not make a point out of it. Trent was in the living room talking to us, and Austin didn't move his hand. We were sort of snuggling without really discussing it. We sat on that couch and talked late into the night after the movie. We were reading Calvin and Hobbes books out loud to each other by the time the snuggling had become more overt, and then, eventually, turned into kissing.
And, I suppose, you know the rest. Or, to skim over the next two months, Austin went home to Kansas with the intent of returning to Nashville as soon as he found an apartment and a job. I visited and then sort of lost touch with San Francisco. Austin and I talked on the phone and IMed every day he was gone. I was becoming addicted to the sound of his voice. He came back the first weekend of March to sign a lease on an apartment, and we went out in public as a couple, and I got to meet most of the Jenkins family, with whom Austin had grown up and also stayed with during his internship. I suppose the clincher was the middle of March, when I went to Texas for South by Southwest with Jenny and Shannon. This trip also coincided with my birthday. I spent the entire trip either on the phone with Austin or seeing things that reminded me of him and I wanted to tell him about. I stayed back from a shopping excursion to talk to him for two hours. He had made me a beautiful birthday card and sent an incredibly thoughtful box of gifts. He was winning.
He moved to Nashville the last week of March and we have, literally, never looked back. Four years of inside jokes and amassing an embarrassingly large zoo of spoiled pets. Four years of ridiculous dances in the kitchen, and planting tomatoes, and holding hands thistight on airplanes. Four years of baseball games and guilty cheeseburgers and washing dishes. Four years of always having something to talk about, but also not always having to say anything. Four years of sharing family and history, and saying, "Sweet dreams," before we fall asleep, and slowly building this future that I'm so honored to be a part of.
Happy anniversary, my Boo. I love you the most of all.
The training session was already in full swing by the time I got into the shop. I made name tags when I got to my desk, and tried to distribute them by instinct, instead of asking who each new intern was. Austin was easy enough to pick out, the only new boy, so I slapped a name tag on his chest and thought, "Oh, he looks fine."
A week later, I had determined that he was, in fact, more than fine. He was funny. I was organizing some intern/staff bonding, and asked him what his plans were for the evening. He responded by saying he was probably going to wank it a few times, in this incredibly casual way that made me laugh before I even realized he was joking. I recruited him for a sushi and board game night, where we played a game called Kokology, from a book of quizzes I'd received for Christmas. Our quiz responses were supposed to give us insight into our psychology. The quiz we all took was about an imaginary amusement park, how we pictured our own experiences there. One of the questions was how long we expected to stand in line before getting on a roller coaster. My optimistic sisters, who obviously haven't spent time at Cedar Point, said there would be no line, no wait, just walk right up to the ride. Edan said, "Maybe five minutes?" I pragmatically predicted 45 minutes. Austin's response: "EONS." At the end of the quiz, it was revealed that our responses were supposed to be indicative of our attitudes toward sex, and specifically, our wait time for the roller coaster represented foreplay. Much giggling ensued...
Another week passed. Everyone at Hatch made plans to attend the Guilty Pleasures show at 12th and Porter, and I was frothing at the mouth with excitement. Austin left the show after the second song, and I was troubled by how mad this made me. Why should it matter? I knew he had a girlfriend at home in Kansas, although he occasionally exhibited an apathy about that situation that gave me a mean flare of happiness that I didn't want to examine. I was in a long-distance Thing with San Francisco. I wasn't supposed to care.
By the next week, Austin and I were either talking on the phone every night after work, or making plans together. Mostly still group activities, dinner, movie nights. He came to Jenny's birthday dinner with my sisters and their (now) husbands, but it Wasn't a Date. The next week he helped me make my famous chocolate and almond tart, and was joking around with the whisk, which was covered with ganache. He had chocolate all over his face and in his beard, and I remember thinking, for just one second, that I wanted to kiss it off his face. Uh oh.
January 30th was a Friday night. We had talked about going to the opening at Cheekwood with Casey and Trent, but it was too cold. We met a visiting friend of Austin's for a beer at Bosco's, and a couple of times I didn't move my leg away when it rested next to his under the bar. We took the friend back to his hotel and then picked up sushi from Ken's. We watched The Italian Job at my house while we ate. I had a blanket spread out over both of our knees. At one point I realized that his hand was on top of the blanket, on my knee, which was under the blanket, and I wasn't sure if he realized it, but didn't want to move my knee so as to not make a point out of it. Trent was in the living room talking to us, and Austin didn't move his hand. We were sort of snuggling without really discussing it. We sat on that couch and talked late into the night after the movie. We were reading Calvin and Hobbes books out loud to each other by the time the snuggling had become more overt, and then, eventually, turned into kissing.
And, I suppose, you know the rest. Or, to skim over the next two months, Austin went home to Kansas with the intent of returning to Nashville as soon as he found an apartment and a job. I visited and then sort of lost touch with San Francisco. Austin and I talked on the phone and IMed every day he was gone. I was becoming addicted to the sound of his voice. He came back the first weekend of March to sign a lease on an apartment, and we went out in public as a couple, and I got to meet most of the Jenkins family, with whom Austin had grown up and also stayed with during his internship. I suppose the clincher was the middle of March, when I went to Texas for South by Southwest with Jenny and Shannon. This trip also coincided with my birthday. I spent the entire trip either on the phone with Austin or seeing things that reminded me of him and I wanted to tell him about. I stayed back from a shopping excursion to talk to him for two hours. He had made me a beautiful birthday card and sent an incredibly thoughtful box of gifts. He was winning.
He moved to Nashville the last week of March and we have, literally, never looked back. Four years of inside jokes and amassing an embarrassingly large zoo of spoiled pets. Four years of ridiculous dances in the kitchen, and planting tomatoes, and holding hands thistight on airplanes. Four years of baseball games and guilty cheeseburgers and washing dishes. Four years of always having something to talk about, but also not always having to say anything. Four years of sharing family and history, and saying, "Sweet dreams," before we fall asleep, and slowly building this future that I'm so honored to be a part of.
Happy anniversary, my Boo. I love you the most of all.
Monday, August 13, 2007
Durio zibethinus
Ever watch No Reservations with Anthony Bourdain on the Travel Channel? We watch it, a lot, and really really enjoy it. Austin bought the first season as a wedding gift for his brother. Anthony travels around the world, and the focus of the show is mostly food. On the Indonesia episode, which I haven't seen but Austin and Charles have watched at least twice, he eats durian. Durian is a fruit native to Southeast Asia, and is famous for having a "distinctive" odor but a sweet and delicious flavor. The descriptions of how it smells range from gym sock to turpentine to pig shit to "flowery." (That "flowery" description must have been a mis-translation, from what I can figure.)
Naturally, Austin wants one. So this weekend we roll out to the K & S Market on Charlotte (we actually went to the one on Nolensville also, but it's not very good, don't bother, Nashville) and search the produce section, which was (to Austin's disappointment and my relief) durian-free. We did locate some durian-flavoured pudding, and threw that in the basket. Then, as we were desperately combing the aisles for saffron and green cardamom seeds (no luck on either, btw), there, in the freezer section, was a cooler full of frozen durians. Oh, the joy on my Birthday Boy's face. Durian comes home with us, rests on the kitchen counter like a threatening porcupine of looming stench. While frozen, it didn't smell like anything but market freezer. After it had time to thaw, Austin and Charles took it outside (on my orders) and started to hack into it. And I'm telling you, people, it was worse than even described.
I hid inside while they ate, forbidding them to bring it into the house, but I guess Charles thought this was prank-worthy. They came in, later, and I was wailing about how I could smell it on them, and it smelled like it was everywhere, and Austin licked my arm and I had to scrub it to get the scent off. I was demanding that they light candles to clear the air, and then Austin comes in carrying the half-eaten durian shell holding a lighter to it, saying, "It won't light." They had brought it in and I believe Charles wanted to hide it somewhere that it would take me a few days to find. This is hilarious, right?
And then last night, we went to Family Dinner at Carmen's and there was ANOTHER durian in her kitchen! I immediately bellowed for Charles, who knew what I was yelling about as soon as I saw my face, and boy did he look proud. "For Austin's birthday!" Right. They took it on the porch and let everyone have a chance sniffing and tasting. I am glad to know that my reaction appears to be that of the majority.
I am starting to think that durian is like a rorschach test of the olfactory system. You smell what you want to smell. I smell burned hair and, very specifically, the mold that grows in a tupperware container that originally held buttered rice but has sat out on the counter in the hot kitchen for five days. Nick said it smelled like a garbage disposal, and Nikiah said it smelled like pink medicine. Carmen took that one step further and said it smelled like amoxycillin after she had thrown it up.
As far as the taste, I just didn't go for it. Sweet like a mango, but probably more like papaya or passionfruit, neither of which I care for. But with a texture of rather firm cream cheese, with a bit of stringiness like pineapple. I suppose the taste could be very appealing to some, and certainly not utterly repellent to most, but I can't imagine that much of the world's population can even push past the smell to bother seeing if it tastes good. I myself cannot. As said in Ratatouille, "Once you muscle past the gag reflex, all sorts of possiblities open up." Those possibilities are, as far as I'm concerned, unavailable to me.
Naturally, Austin wants one. So this weekend we roll out to the K & S Market on Charlotte (we actually went to the one on Nolensville also, but it's not very good, don't bother, Nashville) and search the produce section, which was (to Austin's disappointment and my relief) durian-free. We did locate some durian-flavoured pudding, and threw that in the basket. Then, as we were desperately combing the aisles for saffron and green cardamom seeds (no luck on either, btw), there, in the freezer section, was a cooler full of frozen durians. Oh, the joy on my Birthday Boy's face. Durian comes home with us, rests on the kitchen counter like a threatening porcupine of looming stench. While frozen, it didn't smell like anything but market freezer. After it had time to thaw, Austin and Charles took it outside (on my orders) and started to hack into it. And I'm telling you, people, it was worse than even described.
I hid inside while they ate, forbidding them to bring it into the house, but I guess Charles thought this was prank-worthy. They came in, later, and I was wailing about how I could smell it on them, and it smelled like it was everywhere, and Austin licked my arm and I had to scrub it to get the scent off. I was demanding that they light candles to clear the air, and then Austin comes in carrying the half-eaten durian shell holding a lighter to it, saying, "It won't light." They had brought it in and I believe Charles wanted to hide it somewhere that it would take me a few days to find. This is hilarious, right?
And then last night, we went to Family Dinner at Carmen's and there was ANOTHER durian in her kitchen! I immediately bellowed for Charles, who knew what I was yelling about as soon as I saw my face, and boy did he look proud. "For Austin's birthday!" Right. They took it on the porch and let everyone have a chance sniffing and tasting. I am glad to know that my reaction appears to be that of the majority.
I am starting to think that durian is like a rorschach test of the olfactory system. You smell what you want to smell. I smell burned hair and, very specifically, the mold that grows in a tupperware container that originally held buttered rice but has sat out on the counter in the hot kitchen for five days. Nick said it smelled like a garbage disposal, and Nikiah said it smelled like pink medicine. Carmen took that one step further and said it smelled like amoxycillin after she had thrown it up.
As far as the taste, I just didn't go for it. Sweet like a mango, but probably more like papaya or passionfruit, neither of which I care for. But with a texture of rather firm cream cheese, with a bit of stringiness like pineapple. I suppose the taste could be very appealing to some, and certainly not utterly repellent to most, but I can't imagine that much of the world's population can even push past the smell to bother seeing if it tastes good. I myself cannot. As said in Ratatouille, "Once you muscle past the gag reflex, all sorts of possiblities open up." Those possibilities are, as far as I'm concerned, unavailable to me.
Thursday, July 26, 2007
Two Important Points
1. 68 Second Solitaire Game. Boo-yah.
2. Is there any song more guilty and yet more just rock awesome than Boys of Summer by Don Henley? For real. Damn. I wonder if there is a way I can make the song play while you read this.
A few other things:
Q. How can you tell that I have lived with Austin Gray for three years?
A. Part I: I said Boo-yah up there.
A. Part II: I called someone an Ass Clown in traffic the other day.
A. Part III: I spent a healthy part of this morning researching methods of making your own sausage at home. This is after a long-running debate about this process and the potential ickiness of it. But I figure, so long as I keep my foot firmly planted on the Will We Get Our Own Pig to Therefore Raise and Slaughter Issue (Austin's defense: it would be like a pet, and we'd name it Joey Joe Joe), I can help with grinding up some spicy bits and maybe some non-scary pork shoulder that we buy at a store and don't have to hack off a formerly-live animal ourselves. Particularly one with a name.
That's all I've got today. More news on yesterday's requested Karma-fest soon. Sushi tonight, hooray! And chicken parmesan at home tomorrow, yum yum.
2. Is there any song more guilty and yet more just rock awesome than Boys of Summer by Don Henley? For real. Damn. I wonder if there is a way I can make the song play while you read this.
A few other things:
Q. How can you tell that I have lived with Austin Gray for three years?
A. Part I: I said Boo-yah up there.
A. Part II: I called someone an Ass Clown in traffic the other day.
A. Part III: I spent a healthy part of this morning researching methods of making your own sausage at home. This is after a long-running debate about this process and the potential ickiness of it. But I figure, so long as I keep my foot firmly planted on the Will We Get Our Own Pig to Therefore Raise and Slaughter Issue (Austin's defense: it would be like a pet, and we'd name it Joey Joe Joe), I can help with grinding up some spicy bits and maybe some non-scary pork shoulder that we buy at a store and don't have to hack off a formerly-live animal ourselves. Particularly one with a name.
That's all I've got today. More news on yesterday's requested Karma-fest soon. Sushi tonight, hooray! And chicken parmesan at home tomorrow, yum yum.
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