Category Archives: Dave

odds and ends, part 423

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There isn’t a whole lot to write about right now. I’ve been pretty stressed this week. We’re trying to get the house all tidied up, because apparently in order to get a home equity loan, we have to first get our house appraised. And we need the home equity loan to pay for new siding, before the house completely rots to pieces. So that’s fun. But I must admit, the siding that Dave and I picked is gorgeous, and I’m really looking forward to it because the house is going to look so much prettier after it’s done. It’s all part of the big De-WhiteTrashification plan.

Anyway, I don’t know if it’s true that clean houses appraise higher, but I’m damn sure not taking the chance. So there’s been a bit of frantic cleaning going on. Hence why we rented the dumpster to get rid of some junk. We also had the roof power-washed because… well, because you have to in our climate or else your roof starts to grow stuff. Like moss. Or shrubs if you let it go long enough. (Seriously, you should see our next-door neighbor’s barn roof. It’s practically got trees sprouting out of it.)

Other random stuff:
* Dave gave a speech at this thing yesterday. Which just goes to show how totally different we are, because he can give a presentation in front of approximately 500 people and it doesn’t really seem to faze him. I, on the other hand, would need to be severely medicated, and even then, I’m not sure I could do it. I’m really proud of him for it, though. He’s such a smartypants.

* Yesterday marked a mini-anniversary for Dave and I, two years since our first date. We went out for steaks. Yum. We also got our anniversary cake. Backstory: The lady who did our wedding cake gives her clients a free 6-inch cake on their one year anniversary. As it turns out, she just had a baby so she forgot about our anniversary on the 15th. I had to email her to remind her, and she dropped off the cake at my office yesterday. And it worked out well, since it was still a pretty special day for us. (Our first date, celebrating Dave’s big speech, etc.)

* I got an email yesterday from a girlfriend of mine back in Massachusetts. We haven’t seen each other in years, but we still email pretty regularly. Apparently she’s pulling a Britney Spears: she just had a little boy back in September, and she’s already pregnant with baby #2. (Not that she’s anything like Britney at all, she seems like a very responsible parent. And her husband seems like a lovely guy, unlike K-Fed.) She knows that Dave and I are trying, so she started her email with, “Hope you won’t get mad at me for this, but….” Wow. Like I could begrudge someone their pregnancy? I mean, yeah sure there’s a bit of a “dammit, no fair!” aspect to it, but I’m still happy for her. She’s not the only person who seems to think that, though – another friend of mine had a pregnancy scare and she said she kept thinking about how upset I was going to be if she had to tell me that she was pregnant. It sort of blows my mind. Are they just being sensitive because they know I want to be pregnant? Or do I give off a really angry and bitter vibe? Because I honestly thought I outgrew my angry and bitter phase back in college. So I’m sort of confused about that.

* There’s been an interesting little development at work, where it seems like maybe I won’t be out of work after June 30th, because the manager of a team I work with seems keen to bring me over to work on his team. I don’t want to talk too much about it and jinx it, but I have a meeting with that particular manager tomorrow to discuss some of this stuff, so y’all keep your fingers crossed for me, because this could be really good.

Aaaand, that’s about it. Hope y’all have a lovely Memorial Day weekend.

one year

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Today, Dave and I have officially been married for one year.

Our wedding was the happiest day of my life so far. I can’t really seem to wrap my head around the fact that it’s been a whole year since then. It’s a cliche, I know, but it’s gone by so fast.

Saturday night, we celebrated our anniversary by going back to the lodge where we had our wedding. We had dinner there and stayed the night. It was lovely and romantic and all of that, an overall great time. You can see the photos here.

A lot of people say that the first year of marriage is the hardest. If that’s true, I think it’s all going to be smooth sailing from here, because while this year had its challenges, it really hasn’t been that hard.

I was trying to think of something deep and profound to write about all of the things Dave does that make me love him, but apparently I am just not that great a writer, because this is all I can come up with:
1. Hello, have you seen the man? He’s adorable.
2. The British accent. Which honestly never, ever gets old. I could listen to him talk until my ears fall off. I also love the sound of his laugh.
3. He has a way of saying things – or it could even be as simple as just making a face in reaction to something I’ve said – that can reduce me to a puddle of laughter-induced tears. He’s the only person I’ve ever met who has literally made me fall down laughing.
4. He’s so smart that sometimes it freaks me out. (Seriously, you should see this math problem he was working on last night when I went to bed. I don’t know what it was, but it looked terrifying.)
5. When he does dishes, he cleans the whole kitchen – countertops and all. He has no idea what a turn-on that is.
6. Sometimes when I have a really crappy day, or when I get all anxious and panicky (as I am wont to do on a semi-regular basis), he’ll make me lie down, and he’ll hold me while I tell him all about it.

See? How could I not fall in love with that?

And since I’m feeling all list-make-y, I can also say that I’ve learned quite a bit about myself since we got married. For example, I have learned that…
1. I can be a lot goofier than I ever imagined. I don’t take myself nearly as seriously as I used to.
2. I sometimes get my feelings hurt over incredibly stupid things. But Dave is always quick to apologize for them – even though 99% of the time, whatever he said/did is completely harmless, and I’m just a silly, overreacting cow. (Calling me a cow, for the record, is one of the things that completely hurt my feelings. Even though he meant it in a “silly/stupid” way, not in a “400-pound heifer” way.)
3. I’m a much better cook than I ever thought I was. Or Dave is just not a very picky eater. It’s hard to say.
4. I can sometimes be a bit of a nag. And I hate that about myself, so I’m working on it. Really I am.
5. I am a far bigger video game nerd than I ever imagined. (Fire Emblem on Gamecube? Bring it on!)
6. I’m definitely “the high-strung one” in our relationship, but it’s ok because Dave is usually calm enough to balance me out.

Happy anniversary, sweetie. I sure do love you.

four is enough

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Last night, Dave and I had a long talk – he was lying on the bed with his head on the pillow, and I was sitting on the bed facing him. At some point, I went to slide off of the bed, and my leg came down in a really weird way, and I banged the inside of my knee on the corner of my nightstand. It was one of those completely improbable how-in-the-hell-did-I-manage-THAT? kind of injuries. It turned into a bruise in less than an hour. And all night long, whenever I’d roll over in bed and my knee would graze the sheet, it would wake me up. Ow. It still hurts today. I can’t cross my right leg over my left.

Moral of the story: I hope our kids don’t inherit the Klutz Gene from me. I don’t know if there’s genetic engineering available for such things, but man, it’d really spare them a lot of pain and embarassment if there were.

As for the subject matter of the aforementioned “long talk” – most of it is of a personal nature that really should remain between Dave and I. My marriage is sacred, after all. The short version?

We aren’t getting a puppy. We have four cats as it is, and that should be plenty to keep me busy.

I mean, the litter boxes alone… you guys just have no idea.

no woman, now cry

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Hi folks,

You may well be able to discern from my deep typing voice that this is not the Poobou. I have decided to execute my right as co-author of the site to ‘write a damn post’ as my lovely wife might put it!

Well, Cindy has been away for 2 days now, and I assume she will be somewhere in deepest Nebraska right now with nought but a sedan, a best friend and an iPod. Not a bad place to be, in my opinion..

So how am I enjoying my time on my own… well… I’ve managed to keep 35% of the house tidy and have only broken 3 ornaments. I have also introduced my guitar amplifier to ‘Volume level 7’.. I fear notching it up to 10 until we’ve had the siding on the house fixed.

Strangely enough, I usually thrive in my own space (I did a remarkable job for 20 odd years), but I do find myself wanting my spouse back home at her earliest convenience :)… I guess I’m just turning into a sentimental fuddy-duddy as I get older.

SO here’s good vibes to Cindy’s road trip, I can only imagine the fun they’re having… *unwraps 2-day-old ham sandwich , stares blankly at open, and surprisingly incomplete, weekly report*

I shall report in as I hear from the Cindy, and I may also take time to fill you in on the perils that I will be facing from a weekend alone, with 4 cats, a pizza take out menu, and a widescreen TV… Pray for me…

happy valentine's day

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I forgot to mention the completely overwhelmingly romantic weekend we had. (Can you tell I’m being a little sarcastic?) Saturday the 11th was the one year anniversary of the day that Dave and I got engaged. How did we celebrate, you ask? (Or, I assume you would ask, if you actually gave a flip?) Well, we had a contractor come to our house to give us an estimate on new siding. So we got to spend a couple of hours talking about vinyl versus fiber cement, and all of the mildew and rotting wood that currently exists on the outside of our home. Isn’t that sweet? For dinner, we had leftover pizza. Mmmm… Oh, the rapture of it all.

Then yesterday was the anniversary of the day I got my ring. I totally forgot that one until we were in the car driving to work this morning. As for Valentine’s Day itself, other than the festively pink-and-white M&M’s that I bought on sale at the supermarket last week, we haven’t done anything to mark that occasion either. In fact, I sort of forgot that was today too. I hope Dave hasn’t bought me anything because I totally forgot to get something for him. I told him last week that he was off the hook and didn’t have to get me any gifts. I really hope he listened.

I guess the moral of the story is that I don’t need a Hallmark-dictated holiday to tell my husband how much I love him, because I do that pretty regularly. (And vice versa.) This is pretty much the same as any other ol’ Tuesday, there’s just a lot more candy around. Which I fully support.

merry christmas

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I wrote a long post a few days ago about our plans for the holidays, and never got around to posting it because I thought I’d wait until it seemed more time-appropriate. And as it turns out, our plans? Didn’t so much happen. The top item on my agenda was that we’d go to church on Christmas Eve, even though I haven’t been to church once in the 4 1/2 years that I’ve lived here. I’m not a huge fan of organized religion, and it’s hard to find a church that that jives with my particular brand of laid-back liberal Christianity (read: no hellfire & brimstone). But, I love the Christmas Eve service, and it’s one of the traditions that I have with my family that I thought I would really miss this year. So I did some investigating and found a church: Methodist (of which I am half), in the middle of downtown Seattle, and one of the oldest buildings in the city (very cool). And they mentioned tolerance and acceptance on their website, so I was totally down with that. Then, since we were going to be downtown anyway, after church we were going to walk around and look at the lights, and have our nice little romantic Christmas Eve, just the two of us.

Yeah. How that played out? Early last week, Dave came down with some sort of cold/flu thing, so even if he could’ve stayed conscious for the entire hour-long church service (which was doubtful), he also has this incredibly scary cough that sounds like he’s dying of TB. We figured it wouldn’t have been too cool for us to subject the other church-goers to such horrifying sounds, so we stayed home. No downtown walking/looking at the lights, either. And probably no going to the movie theater today, since he still has the horrible cough. Darn it. I really wanted to see Narnia, too.

What we did do, instead, was have a ridiculously huge meal (some I cooked, and some that came ready-made from the supermarket), the leftovers of which we’ll be eating for the next week. My grandmother would be so proud. Well, she wouldn’t have been proud of the ready-made items, but I used her recipe for stuffing, and it turned out pretty good if I do say so myself. Meanwhile, Dave drank enough Bushmill’s that he was not feeling too shabby by dinnertime. (Alcohol kills germs, right?) And we watched the first Lord of the Rings movie. I’ve never seen any of them, so we rented the whole trilogy for the weekend. As for the first one…. hmm, I’m not sure what I thought of it. It was good, I guess, but toward the end I was getting antsy, like, “could we just wrap it up already, please??” Maybe it was all the festive holiday egg nog I drank (and by “festive,” I mean “containing large amounts of bourbon”), or maybe I just don’t have the attention span for 3 hour movies. It’s definitely making me re-think the whole idea of seeing King Kong in the theater.

Anyway, even though my plans got scrapped, and in spite of Dave being sick, it was still a very nice Christmas. I like that we spent our first Christmas as a married couple alone; and particularly in light of how sick Dave is, I’m really glad we didn’t have to fly anywhere. But I talked to everyone in my family last night, and Dave talked to his today, so it’s not like we’re totally disconnected out here. Overall it’s been really cool. Now if we can just figure out what the heck we’re doing for New Year’s…

Hope everyone is having a fantastic holiday weekend!

random stuff, part 336

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Aaaand once again, the elusive full-time position at the Giant Software Company slips through my fingers. I never even got a real interview on this one, just an email letting me know that they already hired someone. Fine, ho-hum, whatevah. Meanwhile, there have been several possibilities that have started cropping up for contract jobs at the Giant Software Company, and those might turn out to be promising. My little 100-day hiatus is coming to an end, boo-hoo. What that means is that I can officially start looking for jobs now because I’ll be able to work there for another year starting the Monday after Thanksgiving, and it’d be nice to have something set up and ready to go as soon as I’m eligible to start working there again. So, it’s good to get the respective balls rolling now. (Hee-hee, I said “balls”.)

Oh, that reminds me, did I mention that Dave and I are going to New York for Thanksgiving? My sister (occasional commenter on this here bloggy thing) lives there, so my whole family is going to meet up for a few days. We’re staying at home for Christmas, so this is kind of our one big family holiday gathering for the year. Dave’s never been to NYC before, so I imagine we’ll be doing lots of touristy stuff. I’m really looking forward to it.

In other news, Dave and I saw a Henry Rollins spoken word show last night. Happy sigh. I love that man. (I mean Henry – but Dave too, obviously.) I believe this is the 5th one of his shows I’ve seen. It was great, but I won’t try to recreate any of his stories for you here because it just wouldn’t work and wouldn’t be funny at all. However, if he ever passes through your town, you really should go see him. You won’t regret the money you spent on the ticket, I promise.

Also, as of Tuesday, Dave and I have officially been married for 6 months. And I have to say, besides the whole thing with my job ending suddenly, the depression of unemployment, and worrying endlessly about money because I have no income and feel like a big fat leech since I’m not contributing anything to the household other than doing dishes, laundry and all that insanely boring 1950’s housewife bullsh*t, this has been the happiest 6 months of my life. 🙂 Love you, baby.