Category Archives: Dave

The Mother from Northern England

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I met Dave’s mom, Mags (or Margaret), on Friday evening. I was really excited about it until just a few hours before, then I started to get nervous. As it turns out, the pre-mom-meeting jitters were completely unwarranted, because we hit it off immediately. She is a total riot. We went to the Mexican restaurant in Duvall, because she was still a bit jet-lagged from the trip and wanted to get to bed early. It’s one of those Mexican chain restaurants where the food isn’t particularly great, but it’s simple enough and pretty reliable. Afterwards, we walked across the street to the new sports bar for a drink. (Apparently Duvall is growing into a regular little metropolis; you heard it here first. Next thing you know, all the alpacas will be wearing Louis Vuitton). The sports bar is actually kind of an odd place. It’s owned by the Chinese restaurant next door and they share a kitchen. So if you order food in the sports bar, it’s from the Chinese place’s menu. And the chairs and carpet are the same as the Chinese place. So basically, the only thing that makes it a “sports bar” is the fact that it has a pool table, a dartboard, a jukebox and a couple of big TV sets where they show sports-type events. But it’s smoke-free and the drinks are good, so no complaints. Anyway, we had a great time and called it a night around 11:00 (which was something like 7 a.m. for Mags with the jet lag; she mentioned that it felt like she should be ready for her morning coffee).

Saturday, I had a lazy day at home while Dave and his mom shopped and ran various errands on the eastside. We met up that evening to go to dinner at the Waterfront Restaurant at Pier 70, which is definitely my favorite restaurant in Seattle, and possibly the world. It’s one of those super-posh restaurants that’s too expensive to go often, but it’s perfect for special occasions (i.e., a mom visiting from 5,000 miles away; owing your girlfriend a favor for helping with home improvement projects, etc.). Pretty much everything on the menu is pure mouth bliss. That’s the only way I know to describe it. Anyway, we had a great time again, and after dinner we came back to my apartment so I could show Mags the view from my building’s rooftop deck. We took a few pictures up there (which I’ll post as soon as Dave emails them to me). The strange part of the evening was that I started to feel like I was talking to Mags so much that I was neglecting Dave. I spent a lot of time with him on both Friday and Saturday nights, but I felt like I hadn’t really seen him.

For the next couple of days, Mags is going to stay with Cheryl, who is Dave’s ex-mother-in-law. I guess that might seem strange to some people, but they became friends when Dave and his ex were together, and they’ve stayed in touch in spite of their children’s divorce. Which makes sense to me, they have a friendship that is completely separate from Dave and his ex-wife. Anyway, last night, they decided that the three of them (Mags, Dave and Cheryl) would meet up and have dinner, and then Mags would go home with Cheryl afterward. It’s a bit more social than Dave dropping his mom off at Cheryl’s house, I suppose. Then Cheryl’s other daughter (Dave’s ex-sister-in-law) and her 2 year-old baby decided to come along, plus the daughter’s soon-to-be-ex-husband, who I’d already met once before. (Yes, this is a very complicated family.) Dave seemed very anxious about the whole dinner idea, and I offered to go along for moral support. And selfishly, because I am incredibly curious to learn about the ex’s family. Dave seemed happy that I wanted to go, and I was glad that I could be his designated driver, because he certainly seemed to need a couple of drinks before we left the house. When we were in the car, I reassured him that when you go to a restaurant with a 2 year-old, she’s pretty much going to be the focus of everyone’s attention, so that’s going to dissipate most awkward situations. And I was right. It didn’t feel weird to be there at all, surprisingly enough. The ex-sister-in-law was perfectly pleasant to talk to, and I squeezed Dave’s hand under the table when he seemed tense. I’m sure the evening was a bit rougher on him, but I had a good time. The baby is totally adorable, she sucked down chow mein noodles “Lady and the Tramp”-style. So cute.

The good part about the ex’s family is that they are not night owls. Dinner was at 5:00, and we were out of there by 7. And since Mags left with Cheryl afterward, that meant that I got a few hours of “me and Dave” time, which was great. I’ve had a blast chatting with Mags all weekend, don’t get me wrong. But I was starting to miss Dave, despite the fact that I had seen him three days in a row. Go figure.

Forty-eight hours until my family shows up for Thanksgiving. Whee!

simply green

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Yesterday afternoon, I wrapped up with work a couple of hours early and I headed out to Dave’s to help with house-cleaning. I was going to drive past my salon on my way, so I called to see if they could squeeze me in for a quick eyebrow wax. This was a particularly important task on my to-do list, because both my mom and my sister are going to be in town next week, and they tend to chase me around the house with tweezers if my eyebrows are less than perfect. The salon had an opening right when I was passing them, so I exited the freeway and drove over. Fifteen minutes, twenty bucks and a few tears later (I didn’t cry, but my eyes always water when they yank the wax off), I was well-groomed and back in the car headed out to Duvall.

Since Sunday, Dave got all the trim painted in the living room & dining room, and it looks really great. I got started working on the floors downstairs, while Dave fixed the toilet in the guest bath (it works now! Hooray!) and painted the trim in the guest room. I cleaned the floor in the laundry room, which was kind of horrifying. Ever try to mop dried detergent off of a linoleum floor? It’s sticky and messy, I wouldn’t recommend it. Next was the laminate floor in the living/dining room, which was easy, it just needed to be swept. (I love that stuff that we installed.) Then there was the real hardwood floor in the foyer, hall, breakfast room and kitchen, which was a whole different story. Ok, so first I swept it. Then I went around with a bottle of Simple Green and sprayed all of the stains on the floor (mostly spilled paint from other household projects). Then I took a metal scrubber sponge (kind of like steel wool) and scrubbed the aforementioned stains off the floor. Thank god for the rubber gloves we bought the weekend before, because that was a truly gross task. A lot of the bigger stains had to get sprayed two or three times before they’d come up, so I’m guessing I spent probably an hour on my hands & knees scrubbing the floor. (Very Cinderella-esque image, no?) I used almost an entire bottle of Simple Green. Then, after that was done, I had to mop the floor to get up whatever dirt was left over. Whee!

The hard part was keeping the cats out during all of this. Not that they’d bother me, but those cleaners tend to be toxic, and I didn’t want them to run across the floor and then later ingest the chemicals when they licked their feet. So Beaumont & Cleo were put in Dave’s bedroom with the door closed, and Greta was outside. She kept coming up to the door while I was mopping, and I felt bad about not letting her in because it was damn cold outside last night, but she came in after the floor was dry, and all was well. The cats seem kind of distressed that there have been all of these changes made to their house lately (Beaumont in particular), but I’m sure they’ll adjust ok. Cats are like humans, we’re all routine-based creatures that (mostly) don’t like change.

Anyway, the white trim in the newly-lavendar guest room is beautiful. I need to get a picture of it, it’s such a cute room now. We put Dave’s old bed in there (which kind of takes away from the cuteness of the room, but oh well), and hung some art in there. There was still come clutter around the house that needed to get put away when I left last night (at midnight), but overall the house is looking really good. I hope his mom is happy – she’ll be arriving in about an hour.

Oh, about the subject line. This may just be one of those things that struck me as funny because it was so late at night and I was exhausted. Dave and I were taking the tape off of the borders in the guest room and I told him about this quiz I took that predicts when you’ll die. It told me that I’ll die when I’m 69, and my most likely cause of death is homicide. Dave said something like “Well, now that I know that Simply Green cleans up blood stains, I could off you much sooner than that.” I started laughing and told him that it’s called Simple Green, not Simply Green. It’s not like the band Simply Red. (Oh, and we learned about the blood stains because we read the label before we started using it, NOT because Dave has blood stains on his floor. Honestly. And Dave isn’t going to off me, it was a joke.)

Yeah. I think you probably had to be there. And hysterical exhaustion wouldn’t hurt.

So, this morning I woke up in a world of hurt. My back is killing me, probably from being on all fours while I was scrubbing the floor, but I’ve also noticed that my posture when I’m mopping is not that great, so I’m sure that didn’t help. My muscles in my legs are sore from running up & down the stairs a hundred times. (Fine, at least I know that’s good for me.) I also have a couple of small injuries (blister on my finger, scrape on my foot, etc.), which is pretty typical for any major household project that I’m involved in. The klutz gene never lets me escape these types of things unscathed. But worst of all is that my face is swollen and I can barely breathe. I’m sure that it’s an allergic reaction from all of the dust and chemicals that I inhaled last night, but man, I felt like hell. I took a couple of different cold medications this morning, which has helped a lot. So if this post seems a bit rambling – don’t blame me, it’s the decongestants talking.

oy vey

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I think that if there were an award for Girlfriend of the Year, I might have put myself in the running this past weekend. Dave’s mom arrives on Thursday (she’ll be in town for 2 weeks), so this weekend was one last frantic attempt to make Dave’s house look somewhat presentable. It seems like we’ve been doing these House Fix-Up Weekends for ages, but we’ve taken an awful lot of weekends off in between, so other than painting and replacing the floor in the living and dining rooms, we really haven’t done all that much to the rest of the house. Here was the weekend task list, along with what we still have left to do:

* We painted the guest room. It used to be an insanely bright, migraine-inducing yellow, and now it’s a soft, light lavendar. Soooo much prettier. I actually like being in that room now.
* Shopping! We got kitchen stuff (trivets, oven mitts, frying pan, etc.), cleaning supplies, a toilet repair kit to fix the broken toilet in the guest bath, curtain rods for the living room and guest room, and curtains for the guest room. Dave’s mom is like me, she needs it to be really dark when she’s trying to sleep, so we got dark purple (light-absorbing) curtains to complement the lavendar walls. Oh, we also got some cool framed art to hang in the guest room, too.
* I cleaned out the den/music room. (I would call it a den, because it’s a big room downstairs that isn’t the living room. Dave calls it the music room because it’s where he keeps all of his guitars and various other musical equipment.) I should mention that cleaning this room out was no easy feat. It was so cluttered when I started that you had to climb over furniture and piles of laundry to even get in the room. This room tends to be the usual hang-out for Greta, the semi-feral cat that comes inside for food but won’t let any human touch her, because there are lots of good places for her to hide in there. In fact, it’s so much her hang-out that while I was cleaning it, I found half of a disassembled mouse. I made Dave come get rid of it, I don’t do rodents. In my defense, I’m not a total weenie, there was also a spot of dried cat sick that I cleaned up without complaining, and a whooole bunch of dead bugs (this is the country, after all). And in Greta’s defense, it could have been one of the other cats that killed the mouse (or got sick in the corner), I have no proof that it was her. It’s just a hunch. In any case, the room is now just about as clean as it’s probably going to get. I even made room in there for the old sofa that was replaced in the living room.
* Dave tried to fix the broken toilet, but all the bolts are rusted over, and he has to get a hacksaw to cut them off. That’s a task for later this week.
* I cleaned the half-bathroom downstairs, and the master bath upstairs. I cleaned the tub in the guest bath, but with the broken toilet and tools scattered everywhere, I didn’t bother with the rest of it. Again, a task for later this week.
* Dave started painting the trim in the living room/dining room. He ran out of primer, so he has to finish that this evening.
* I taped off the borders in the guest room so Dave can paint the trim in there, too.
* After Dave does the trim, I’m going to head back over and do the floors downstairs. The laminate floors we installed are dusty, and the rest of the hardwood floors are in dire need of a good scrub-down.

I guess all of this sounds pretty selfless on my part, but the truth is, I am totally marking my territory in that house, and Dave knows it. I figure that I’m most likely going to live there someday, so I might as well make it comfortable. But at the same time, I want it to look nice when his mom gets here, and when my family comes over on Thanksgiving. So I’m not whining about the work that we still need to do, even though my back is aching and I have a dozen small injuries from what we’ve already done. It’s cool, it’s all the name of Parental Approval.

The Ex Files

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Prepare yourselves, kids, for yet another weekend recap. (Does anyone even read these things?)

Friday was a rough day for me. Lots of money problems, combined with a dash of work complications, turned out to be the perfect recipe to make me cry. I had talked to Dave in the afternoon, so when he came over that evening, he brought me flowers to cheer me up. He’s so awesome. He also bought “Shrek 2” because it just came out on DVD. I have to say, Puss in Boots is probably the greatest cartoon character I’ve seen in a long time. Great movie.

Saturday, Dave went to work and I cleaned. That’s pretty much a standard response for me when my life feels out of control. The state of my apartment is one thing that I have control over, so I exercised that power. The place looked pretty darn good when I finished, too. Now if I can just maintain it until my family shows up in 2 1/2 weeks… Anyway, Saturday night, Dave came back over and we got Indian food (yum) and rented “Close Your Eyes“. I had heard this had gotten good reviews, and the main character is Goran Visnjic, the Croatian hottie from “ER”. It was a good movie, although a bit creepy for me. I ended up covering my face through at least a couple of scenes. (Anything that involves needles going into flesh, or pointy objects going into eyeballs requires me to look away from the screen. And this movie had both.)

Sunday, we went shopping at Best Buy and Target, which are always 2 of my favorite stores. Then we went to see “The Incredibles“. That was a fun movie, although I think all the little kids’ reactions was probably more entertaining than the movie itself. During the plot exposition, they get all fidgety and bored, but man oh man, do they hoot & holler when stuff blows up. Actually, I loved the Pixar short before the movie about the little dancing sheep. He was adorable.

Oh, there was also a brief-but-strange encounter with Dave’s ex-wife at the movie theater, but I’ll leave that story for him to tell on his blog, if he so chooses.

And today, it’s back to work. I have to head into the office in just a bit for a meeting. Fun stuff.

stuff and things

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I’ve worked out the past 2 days in a row. I’ve come to realize that there’s really no reason why I can’t work out in the morning or the middle of the day when I’m working from home. It’s not like I have to immediately shower and get myself all dolled up afterward, and if I’m only gone for 1 to 1-1/2 hours during the day, no one really pays much attention to it. So I’m trying. Really, I am. I haven’t been seriously dedicated to a workout regime in over a year, I’ve just done a workout or two here & there, and it’s so hard to force myself back into the habit of doing it every day. Plus, I just found out that if I go to my gym from 8-5 during the day, it costs me $7 to park my car in the gym’s garage. The gym is located in an office building downtown, and I imagine that this is to discourage folks from taking up space in the garage during the workday. But if it’s after business hours, parking is free. Go figure. So I’m a bit annoyed. My entire gym membership only costs $16 a month, so $7 for parking seems a bit exorbitant to me. It looks like I have 2 choices: Work out at a different time of day (which I’ll most likely do), or take the bus to and from the gym (which would only be $2.50 round trip). But the thought of getting on the bus when I’m all sore and sweaty kind of grosses me out. Anyway, Cardio Funk class is tomorrow night, and I used to love that, so I’m going to try to go to that, rather than the noon pilates/yoga class. I think yoga would probably be better for me, but since Cardio Funk is free, that’s probably what I’ll do.

Other random items:
* Teenie’s ear spot appears to be healing nicely. Might take a while for the fur to grow back, but it’s not quite as horror movie-esque anymore.

* My parents’ move to high-speed Internet access has increased my tech-support call volume by 1,000%. I get calls almost every day now. My mom even called while Dave and I were at dinner on Saturday night. (I told her I’d call her back after we left the restaurant, she sounded very annoyed that I wasn’t immediately available.) I have this idea about building them a new computer from scratch, so I’ll know everything that’s on it. And it’d be Windows XP, so I won’t have to try to dig up Windows 98 information from the dark recesses of my brain anymore. Hmm… Could make a good Christmas gift.

* Dave is apparently getting a pet goat (or two) so he won’t have to mow his lawn anymore. I’m not sure how I feel about that. Sure, goats are cute and all, but they also eat everything in sight, head butt, plus I think I might be allergic to them. (I had some weird sinus stuff happen after I pet a couple of goats at the fair last month.) On the other hand, goats are pretty low maintenance on the barnyard animal scale. And goat poo is supposedly much tidier and easier to clean up than, say, horse poo. So I suppose that’s a plus. Still, a real live goat? I don’t know.

* Sibling update: My sister is in Italy (again) visiting friends. I’m jealous. My brother, meanwhile, has a job interview in Kentucky today. I’m not so jealous of that.

* Dave & I had our 5-month-iversary on Sunday. How long do you suppose you have to be dating someone before you stop counting the number of months? Maybe it’s just because this is a record for me, I feel the need to keep track of it. Anyway, we celebrated by going to Home Depot to buy drywall filler and paint, because that’s what we do. It was fun.

vets, teen angst, abstinence, etc.

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Teenie’s vet appointment yesterday went pretty much as expected. I like the people at this vet’s office, they’re very nice. They were quick & efficient, gave me the cream that I needed to fix up the spot on her ear, and sent us on our way. I was going to have them give Teenie her shots while I was there (2 birds with 1 stone), and the vet told me that since Teenie is now a senior citizen and almost never goes outside, she thinks it’s safe to put her on a rotation of getting her shots every 3 years instead of every year. She said that it’d be different if she was a dog, but she’d rather not over-vaccinate animals unnecessarily, and I thought it was cool that she didn’t just take the excuse to give her the shots and charge me for them.

Oh, thinking of good/bad vet stories reminds me, if any of you live in the Seattle area, don’t ever take your kitties to the Cat Care Clinic in Bellevue. They’re evil. It’s the veterinary equivalent of a bad mechanic – they will make up shit that’s wrong with your pet that isn’t true, just so they can over-charge you. And they won’t let you stay with your pet while they’re examining them, which is just shady if you ask me. And yes, I am leaving the proper name of the place on here, because I hope someone googles them and finds this post. That whole organization should be shut down.

Other stuff…
* My next GBC entry is to have a conversation with myself at age 13. I’m still trying to figure out how to do that and make it funny, and omit all of the trauma that I’ve tried to block out of my memory for the past 15 years. Hmm. It’s going to be challenging, for sure. But maybe that’s the idea.

* It looks like Dave won’t be able to go to the UK for Christmas because of some stuff going on with processing his visa, so he’ll most likely be coming home with me for the holidays. I’ve run this idea past my parents, and they’re cool with it. One condition: Dave will be sleeping in his own room, and I’ll be bunking with my sister. Hmmm. I think it’s kind of ridiculous (and funny) that we have to put up pretenses for my parents, who know perfectly well that Dave and I spend almost every weekend at one of our respective abodes, and it’s not like one of us ever sleeps on the couch. But I’d like to spare myself one of my dad’s “as long as you’re under MY roof” speeches, so fine, I’ll go along with it. Parents, what can you do?

* Has anyone been watching “Surreal Life” on VH-1? Here’s what I’ve learned: Jordan Knight is an asshole, Dave Coulier is surprisingly normal, Charo is funny as hell, and that American Idol chick is a spoiled brat who I don’t think I’ve ever seen smile once. Oh, and both Flavor Flav and Bridgitte Nielsen scare the absolute crap out of me.

* New episode of “ER” tonight. I think I’m probably one of the few people who has never gotten tired of that show. I still love-love-love it. It’s all about Goran Visnjic, the hot Croatian… Yum.

replace the achey head with a fuzzy one

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Warning: Prepare yourselves for a rambling stream-of-consciousness blog post, I’m seriously medicated today.

By the time Friday rolled around and I was on day 4 of this headache, I left work early and went to the doctor. My usual (female) doctor was out, so I went to someone else in her group just so I could see someone right then. I’m not particularly comfortable with male doctors, and this guy didn’t really help my impression of them much. He was a little too touchy-feely for me. I’m sure he was just trying to be friendly and reassuring, but he actually patted the side of my face after he was done talking to me. That seemed like an awfully intimate gesture for someone that I’d only met 5 minutes ago. My mom told me I was overreacting and that he was probably just trying to be comforting like a father figure type, but the guy was less than 10 years older than me, so I’m sorry, that’s just weird.

Anyway, he told me that what I’m experiencing is not a classic migraine (which usually last a day or two at the most), it’s what they call a “cluster headache” because it can last from anywhere from 3-8 days. Whee! So he gave me some migraine medication, plus more of my favorite mild narcotic painkiller, and sent me on my way. The drugs seem to have worked, although I still have a headache in the morning before I take the pills. And I think mood swings must be a side-effect, because I’ve been uncharacteristically weepy this weekend. Yesterday at brunch, Dave and I were talking about cartoons and movies we watched when we were kids, and I started telling the story of “Puff the Magic Dragon,” and I just started crying in my omelet. Then we talked about “Dumbo” and I cried some more. Dave laughed at me – I think our waitress was really confused. Then I was repeating this exchange to Kris on the phone last night, and when I was trying to explain to her why the story of “Puff the Magic Dragon” made me cry, I started crying *again*. What the hell?? (And no, this has nothing to do with hormones. Trust me.) Then today, when I saw that Christopher Reeve died yesterday, I got all misty-eyed at my desk.

Otherwise, this weekend was pretty fun. Saturday night, Dave and I met up with his friend/ex-brother-in-law (long story, don’t ask) Michael, which was… umm… interesting. Dave got drunker than I have ever seen him, which was highly amusing for me because I’ve never had to baby-sit him before, it’s usually the other way around. But drinking didn’t strike me as a good idea with my headache (and the medication I was taking for the headache), so I volunteered to be designated driver. I don’t think it was quantity of alcohol that Dave consumed, because he didn’t actually have *that* much, I think it was the combination of things he drank – spiced rum & diet coke at home, sake at the sushi restaurant where we had dinner, then beer at the bar where we met up with his friend. Bad idea. The poor guy was a tad bit under the weather after that. We’ll leave out the gruesome details. Otherwise it was a good night, though. Michael is the first friend of Dave’s that I’ve met, so I was kind of nervous beforehand, but it was fun. Strange, but fun.

So today I’m at work trying to concentrate on the two tasks that I need to complete, which is unbelievably challenging in my current foggy-headed state of mind. I’m not completely stoned, everything just seems to be moving kind of slowly. Oh, and I think one of my co-workers likes me. He’s just a little too friendly – like he remembered my cat’s name, which I told him 2 weeks ago, and he compliments me on random things – today it was my necklace, he asked me what kind of stone was it was. [Aside to Dave: it’s the gray one that you like.] I told him it was whatever stone was on clearance for $7. You fellas reading this might disagree with me on this, but in my experience, it seems like guys typically don’t comment on little details like that unless they’re interested in a girl. He invited me to lunch today, I used the “oh, I brought a sandwich with me” excuse (which is true). I’m trying to figure out a way to drop the words “my boyfriend” into a conversation without making it seem too obvious. Oh well.