Category Archives: Friends & Family

A scene from my weekend in Memphis, part one

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I haven’t decided if I’m doing more than one of these or not. Regardless, the following is an actual conversation that I had with my best friend, Kris. She’s an absolutely brilliant girl, but sometimes… well, she is a natural blonde. And that’s all I’m gonna say about that.

Kris: Do you remember that show about dinosaurs that was on in the 80’s? Apparently it’s still on one of the kids’ channels, because my nephew watches it now. I thought it was funny that it’s still on the air.
Me: A show about dinosaurs?
Kris: Yeah, you know. It had the mom dinosaur, the dad dinosaur, and the baby…
Me: Was it a cartoon or something?**
Kris: Well yeah, I mean, they aren’t real.
Me: (pauses, looks astounded) Really?!
Kris: (slowly realizes that she has just implied that a show about a family of dinosaurs could possibly be filmed using the real, live animals; slaps own forehead) Shit.

Fin.

**NOTE: “or something” actually meant “or puppets, or claymation,” not live animals. I would presume that it would be difficult to do any type of children’s comedy show using real animals, living or dead.

The Bachelorette Weekend

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To sum up my weekend in Memphis: Yes, I did indeed score a load of trashy underpants. And some not-so-trashy. In fact, I got some really nice stuff that I might actually wear on a day-to-day basis, which is great. For those of you hoping for pictures of my new lingerie, keep dreaming. However, we did take a few pictures at the bachelorette party, which I’ve posted. There isn’t anything too incriminating in there, thank god.

As for the rest of the weekend, it was both good and bad. I love my friends, and it’s always good to get a chance to see them. And unlike when I was there at New Year’s, I felt like I really got to spend a lot of time with everyone. Kris now has two puppies (well, one belongs to her roommate, my friend Carrie), and they were adorable. Plus I got to meet Kris’s new 7-month-old nephew, which was fun. However, I have some not-so-happy memories associated with Memphis, so there are definitely some mixed feelings there. When we went out to the same places that we went to in college, and I ran into the same people that I used to run into when I was in college, it’s sort of depressing. Like the guy who was the bartender that one of my friends used to have a crush on, and he’s still a bartender in the exact same bar that he’s worked at since 1998. Or the roommate of a guy I used to date, who still hangs out at the same places, 6 years later. Hmm, yeah. The main thing I learned is to watch out for those nostalgic trips down memory lane, you might stumble into a pothole or two.

So I came home yesterday, slept for something like 11 hours, and now I’m at work today. And my car is allegedly fixed, for the bargain price of only $600. Whee! Hmph.

One other thing: everyone send encouraging words/thoughts to Dave, who is now approaching the 48-hour mark without a cigarette. Yay!! I’m so proud of him. Stay strong, babe. 🙂

There will be no male strippers, thank you

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The week thus far:
* My car wouldn’t start yesterday morning. I’ve had it for nearly 4 years, and it has never, ever not started before. Dave finally managed to get it running, but it was making some weird rattling noise, unlike anything it has ever done. I wigged out. We took it to the dealership, and I’m waiting to find out how much this is going to cost to fix. My poor car. My poor little car that always runs perfectly, so I never take it in for tune-ups. I’m such an irresponsible car-owner. Cry!

* I can’t stop sniffling. I think I stirred up too much dust when I was trying to clean 2 nights ago. I took a decongestant, so now I’m sniffling slightly less, and I feel full-on stoned instead. I’m not sure which option is better, honestly.

* I forgot to mention last week that I sliced through the fingernail of my left index finger when I was chopping up turkey bacon to put in my omelet. It still hurts, and I’m basically waiting for the top half of my fingernail to fall off. Fun! It’s so gross, I wear a band-aid on it so no one (particularly me) has to see it. I have a feeling that I’m going to need one single acrylic fingernail for my wedding, and this pisses me off immensely.

* We had our cake-tasting last night. Hoo lordy, that was fun. Bring on the cake samples! Whee!

* The deck-building (courtesy of future brother-in-law Steve) is in full swing, and I have resigned myself to the fact that there is going to be dirt, as well as little muddy cat paw prints, all over the downstairs of our house. Every time I see the dirt, I give a little sigh of resignation instead of reaching for the broom, and every time, I die a tiny death. It’s killing me to leave the dirt there, but there’s no point in trying to clean it yet, when I know full well that more dirt is right behind it. In a couple of weeks, the deck will be built, so humans and felines alike will have a place to wipe their grubby little footsies before they enter our abode. Whee again!

* Tomorrow, I’m flying to Memphis for my bridal shower/bachelorette party. My girlfriends from college are throwing it for me, it should be a lot of fun. And since I couldn’t decide on a gift registry until recently (we just combined 2 households, we have too many dishes as it is, do I really have to go pick out a china pattern??), they’re making it a lingerie-themed shower. Translation: I’m going to Memphis congested & grumpy (see above), and I’ll come back hung over with a suitcase full of trashy underpants. Whee times three!!

Hope everyone has a happy Easter.

The Loud Catholics From South Louisiana & Their Progeny

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The wedding planning has started getting interesting. (Hmm, how many words with -ing suffixes can you fit in one sentence? I’m sure there’s a better way to say that, somehow.) First of all, it looks like a whole bunch of my relatives are planning to come – which is great, it just took me by surprise that so many of them would make an effort to fly across the country to be at my wedding. I guess I didn’t know how important I am. 🙂 A good number of them are in Texas, Georgia, Louisiana & North Carolina, so it’s not exactly a short trip. So that’s cool, although I had a temporary moment of panic when I realized that we may not have enough room for people to sit during the ceremony. But you know, the ceremony is 15 minutes long, so people can stand if they have to, and then there will be plenty of seating for the reception. No big deal. Take a deep breath, everything is fine.

Anyway, these relatives are all from my mom’s side of the family – my mom is one of 7 kids and my dad is an only child, so I have lots of aunts, uncles, & cousins (hi, Alphagal & SNG!) on my mom’s side, and none on my dad’s. So that works out fine, everyone already knows each other and it’s a really fun group. When I told my mom about everyone that was going to be at the wedding, all she said was, “poor Dave.” Later, when I got home from work and told Dave about everyone who was coming, he was really excited about it for the first few minutes. Then the reality started to sink in. He said, “Our wedding is going to be so loud, isn’t it?” Yes, sweetie, it will be. Sorry. It’s one of those things about growing up as one of 7 kids – if you want to be heard, you have to yell. Growing up as the offspring of one of these yellers, you have to be even louder. So I imagine that with everyone in one place, we’ll probably approach sonic boom level.

In other news, Dave’s dad is apparently coming over for our wedding, which came as a total surprise. He hasn’t ever been to the U.S. before, even though Dave has lived here for over 6 years, so we weren’t quite expecting him to show up now. It’s good news, I just worry that most Brits already think of Americans as generally being loud & obnoxious, and I fear that my family will at least fulfill the volume end of that stereotype. Oh well, hopefully we’ll all be loud and nice, or loud and fun, so at least the obnoxious part will be proven incorrect. Here’s hoping. And if all else fails, at least there’ll be an open bar.

notes from the desk of the bored

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This week hasn’t exactly been action-packed. I’m still waiting for my new job to start, so I’ve been slothing around the house a lot. They’ve been showing all of the Rocky movies on AMC this week, and I’ve been watching them obsessively. I still cry when he wins at the end of “Rocky II” and says “Yo Adrian, I DID IT!!!” I also cry in the third one when Mickey dies. And again in the fourth one when Apollo Creed dies. It’s funny, I grew up on those movies, and I hate boxing in real life – probably because real boxers hardly ever bleed, and there are none of those cool punching sound effects. I’ve actually never seen “Rocky V” (I don’t know why, somehow I just missed that one), so I’ve decided that when they show it this week, I will watch it. I’m expecting it to be horrible, but I’m going to watch it anyway.

In other news…
* Steve is here, and he’s started working on our yard – there’s now a big mud pit where our deck used to be, because we’re going to get an all-new fancy deck that wraps around the side of the house. In fact, the guys are off getting price quotes on lumber as we speak.
* The guys go into abusive-brother mode a lot (no headlocks or anything, but lots of unnecessary mocking and name-calling), which is a side of Dave that I’ve never seen before. It’s funny for a while, then I just have to get out of the house or go hide in another room.
* I’ve been cooking a lot, which seems to take up an awful lot of time & energy when you’re feeding two grown men. On the plus side, they’re both pretty good about cleaning up the kitchen when I cook, so that’s cool. I’d much rather cook than clean.
* I’ve spent way too much time designing our wedding invitations. I want the damn things to be printed, addressed, stamped and mailed already. Sigh.
* Only 5 more days until I start my new job. Yay!

It's Friday!

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I feel like I need to write something new, so the depressing cat story won’t be the leading topic on my blog. Problem is, not a whole lot is going on. Steve, my future brother-in-law, didn’t arrive on Wednesday as planned (really long story), but he should be arriving at about 5 p.m. this evening. We were a little worried that he wasn’t going to make it here, but it looks like he’s on his way now, so that’s good.

Last night, Dave and I had dinner with a very nice couple who are old friends of his, and who I had never met before. I think this couple might possibly also be friends with Dave’s ex (they used to be, but there’s no real polite way to say, “So, do you still talk to so-and-so?” and not have it be a total conversation stopper). So going into it, I felt really self-conscious, like I was going to be closely scrutinized, and everything I said or did was going to be reported back to the ex. Not that I really care what the ex thinks of me. I’ve never met the woman, and as far as I’m concerned, I’m grateful that she’s gone, because I never would’ve met Dave otherwise. But still, there is some tiny little mean part of me that wants it to get back to her, like “Wow, Dave’s fiancee is so smart and funny and wonderful. He sure did upgrade!” It’s stupid and juvenile, I know. And as it turned out, dinner was fantastic. The food was great, the conversation flowed easily, and a good time was had by all. So there was no need to worry. Oh well.

That’s about it. It’s Friday, and my first week of unemployment has been mind-numbingly dull. I’ve been keeping myself busy doing stuff around the house, but still, I feel like a sloth. I know it’s strange, but I absolutely cannot wait to start my new job.

feline shout-out

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This is sort of tough to write because I don’t know where to start or what to say. Last summer, my sister’s cat Neffertiti had a tumor on her hip that turned out to be cancerous. She had her leg amputated, and she seemed to recover fine. The vet told my sister (aka Cosmopolitan, as she is known on some blogs) that if the cancer was going to come back, it would most likely do so within a year. Well, it’s been 8 months. She suddenly stopped eating and had a fever – X-rays showed that the cancer is back, and it’s in her lungs. She has a tumor about twice the size of her heart.

So tomorrow, my sister’s vet is coming to her apartment to put Neffertiti to sleep. They want her to be peaceful, and she’s scared of the vet, so they’re going to do it at home. The hope is that it will also help her other cat, Ramses (Neffertiti’s brother), cope with the loss, if he’s there with her when it happens. She’s only 9 years old, which isn’t terribly old for a cat. It’s just horrible – for her, for my sister, and for Ramses, who has never spent more than a day away from his littermate.

I wish I could say how sweet this cat is. She’s the first cat I ever met who had no concept of personal space, because she wanted to be in your face, being loved and adored, all the time. Nef sleeps on the same pillow with Cosmo every night (much the same way that Teenie does with me). She was the tiniest cat to ever terrorize our cat Fred. [A note about that photo, which I love: Neffie is the one in the red collar on the windowsill, getting as close as she can to Fred, who’s observing her from the safe distance of the cabinet. She was too little to jump up there, or she would’ve been right up in his face.] She was the first cat to fall asleep on my dad’s shoulder, who has always claimed to actively dislike cats. She prompted me to take this photo at the Luxor in Las Vegas. She’s just an all-around great cat, and I’ve had a lump in my throat for her and my sister all day today. So there you have it. Fare thee well, Neffertiti, and may there be lots of kitty treats and shoeboxes to nap in wherever you may go.