Ashbloemstraat

Post part deux, this time from home!

It's nice to write at home, because I can actually use the Typepad interface, and select categories and include photos and such. That photo is from this time last year. I thought it was pretty funny.

Since I also can't respond to comments from work, and usually when I come home I am too tired, I thought I'd just post an entry in response to a couple things. Why am I not so tired right now? Oh, I came home and stupidly had a almost 2 hour nap. Great. No sleep until after midnight for me.

Anyway, first of all, I'm over the woman who asked if the other woman was coming. I mean, I still think it is beyond rude, but David did not seem to think it was out of character for this person and he's more friends with the husband. So whatever. There's always a couple weirdos about.

Secondly, I do, of course, love This American Life, like all cliched white people do. However, I like Wait Wait! Don't Tell Me! at work because it is a very superficial listen, whereas I tend to get lost in TAL stories. I think my productivity would take a nose-dive if I started listening to it, frankly. Sigh.

I also thought of something else we decided to let go for the wedding - favors. We had a couple different ideas, but then I was all - you know, I just want to spend that money on PPT or wine or whatever. There are a couple little things people can take home anyway, and while they aren't coordinated FAVORS per se, they will just do. I don't really think it is something people miss, and with the exception of some seeds I've received at weddings that I was really happy with, I remember almost NONE of the favors I've ever gotten. So more beer for you guys! Woo hoo!

 

Re: The Departed. Brilliant. Love it. EXCEPT for that very last scene with the rat in front of the State House. OH WOW, MARTIN SCORSESE! Am I supposed to understand that there are rats in the government after a 2.5 hour movie that was about JUST THAT? It was a little stupid, but I liked the rest so much I guess I will forget about it.

David and I are still really hopeful to go to Vermont for my annual 4th of July trip. It's tough though because flights are so expensive right now. I would so hate to miss it though; this is like, my fifth year? Then again, if we stay then we don't miss a friend's wedding party, so really it works out either way. I will just remain zen on this one.

Sigh. I miss air travel the way it used to be for me. Plentiful and cheap.  Those days are long gone, however.

Really, I suppose that is all I have. I should scoot off and use my wakefulness wisely, by writing some thank you notes. That is one of the things about planning the wedding - I have always tended to keep a lot of open time in my schedule to just do whatever I like. This is one of the first times I have needed to use almost all of my time for tasks. It is not really a bad thing. Just... different. I wonder if I will miss it when I go back to normal.

It's going to be a slow week here at Ashbloemstraat.

The worst is not having Typepad. Honestly, I've barely missed Flickr or Jezebel or Facebook at work, but not being able to blog really hurts, for some reason. I think since the work is so boring, I like taking breaks to do some thinking out loud through writing. Of course, I can and SHOULD start writing more that is not immediately for public consumption. The poetry could start again, for example. And, of course, there is always catching up on my personal emails, which I have woefully neglected the past several weeks.

I have been crazy busy the past couple of days; now that the weekend is all I have I took full advantage of it by doing tons of wedding bits and pieces (programs and such, yay!), as well as getting the kitchen ready for reinstallation, AND working in the yard. Oh yeah, and I worked at Doublewide Saturday night. The house is an absolute fucking shambles with all the boxes from Ikea about, and all the dishes and such pulled from the old cabinets, but there is nothing to be done about it. It always gets worse before it gets better. Tomorrow I'll start putting together the new cabinets and HOPE that everything is there, because while I love Ikea, driving out to Frisco makes me decidedly irritable. Those Swedes sure know how to put in almost everything you need!

The cats, by the way, think the house is now the equivalent of Kitty Disney World. They are having the time of their lives with all the boxes and cardboard around.

I have been very up and down the past few days. High on Saturday, less happy Sunday morning, giggly by Sunday night, degraded into shit mood today with the lovely addition of being super cross with David (he deserved it, by the way, I was not just randomly cross with him). Stupid hormones. Stupid having way too much to do. Now I feel a little sad we won't be taking a proper honeymoon right away. Oh well, we have Chicago a couple weeks after the wedding and we'll have something to look forward to in the spring.

Really I'm too tired to write anything right now, I've just missed the writing, so I thought I'd log on for a wee blip. I am in my bathrobe, face and teeth clean, a small purring kitten in my lap ready for sleep. I'll write in my spare hours at work and post in the evening, as much as I can get time to do so this week with the kitchen going in and pulling the house back together. It might take all my extra time.

All day long I have either listened to or sang "Strahan Has Corralled the Freaks". This last part, Don't you know that time is on your side?

Good night, sweet ladies and gents, good night. Good night.

Cheese!

Despite the fact I seem to have developed some upper respiratory/ear/throat ailment in the past couple of days, David and I took advantage of his one complete day off a week to have a sort of DATE. It had been a while, since he's either been working, or I was out of town, or maybe we were just lazy.  It was really FUN. We took our ceremony outline and bar-hopped around town, working on bits of our vows and editing other parts of the ceremony until it finally seems we have it pretty much set, all the while sharing a salmon sandwich and drinking beers. It was a pleasant, overcast evening; we sat outside watching the storm clouds in the distance, chatting over if we thought we'd cry or not that day and how I'd better wear waterproof makeup just in case.

I also finally got a Holga, so I schlepped around three cameras in my purse, which is more than I carry on an average day, and we played with all of them. I'm so curious to see what kind of personality my Holga has, which I will not know until we develop this roll of film. I'm sure there are some crappy shots and I KNOW at least two in which we forgot to take the lens cap off, hey, but the first couple rolls are learning rolls. Hell, I won't even TRY my fisheye in anything but bright sunlight now, because the rest always turn out so poorly. I had to learn it, though, which is novel and challenging after using digital for so long.

CHANGE IN TOPIC: Hey, I just got a job! It's only a six week temp position, but still! I start on Monday! Thank the good lord. I'm ready to have some cash and some structure in my days.

Stay tuned to hear me in about three weeks bitching about wasting the best portion of my days behind a desk doing mindless work.

Little things that made me happy today.

1. I polished all my silver flatware. I bought a whole bunch of silver at an estate sale years and years ago because I was throwing lots of parties and needed more forks and knives and such, AND it happened to be the same pattern my grandmother had. However, I never once polished them before now. They look really pretty! That isn't all of it above, by the way, just a smattering. It really took me a couple days to do it all. I have no idea why I had not done it before. This behavior is hereby rectified.

2. Today's activities included an extended excursion to Ikea to price out a new kitchen cabinet, and peruse other, more unnecessary items. I always love Ikea (always, that is, when it is the middle of the day and very very empty). I got random kitchen items and some curtain rods, as well as more fabric for the wedding which should be enough now (oh yes and lots of tealights for the wedding - woo hoo!).

3. BACHELORETTE! WEEKEND! IN! BOSTON! I leave on Friday. I sort of keep forgetting it is so soon. I'm so excited to see most of my wedding party ladies plus a few extras. Yay, Boston. How I miss you, despite how obnoxious the South End was growing.

4. I'm in this weird spending mood, which is bad, though fortunately with me they happen so rarely so I can't give myself too much crap for it. Plus I'm all about SALE items, so I bought some nice white sheets for about $20, which is nothing; and I got a nice new shower curtain, which was not on sale and relatively expensive, but I don't buy shower curtains very often so I consider it worthy of a non-sale purchase. Also I bought some naughty knickers. I AM having a lingerie shower soon but they were on sale and so cute and dirty I just couldn't resist.

5. David just sent me a text and he is on his way home early, which at 10:30pm is early indeed for a Doublewide night. We'll watch a movie and fool around before going to sleep. What a perfect evening.

Practicing.

So, yesterday we took a bit of a break from wedding stuff other than a little talk about how we felt the Day Of should be timed, and what David will be wearing, and some other minor chit-chat. Otherwise, David relaxed and I applied for more jobs, then we did very Couple-y things like go to Home Depot, and Target, and Old Navy (apparently Old Navy's market does not include women who wear socks, because they had not one pair for women, though I did get my requisite summer pair of flip flops, which were needed as Gus has chewed my old one to bits, and they are only good for padding around the house now).

Starting tonight, my friends, I begin work on finishing the kitchen. Due to some... er, MISUNDERSTANDINGS (or really more like MISCOMMUNICATIONS from the owner of the home), my new focus is simply to make the kitchen look as nice as possible for as little money as possible, which is going to mean a lot of scrubbing, sanding, and some bright happy paint. The bad news is it really requires a hell of a lot more than we can afford or care to do to it to make it maximumly functional and nice. The good news is we don't own the house so don't really care about making it maximumly functional anymore. But we will spruce it up so at least we aren't depressed by its dinginess every time we cross the threshold from the nice, cozy part of our house into it.

And excitement! We have flagstones so I think finally David will be building the patio! I can't tell you how excited I am for this. There are visions of summer cocktails and barbecues with friends dancing around in my head.

How very married we will be by this summer.

UNRELATED: Hey, does anyone know much about Madison, Wisconsin? I am newly intrigued.

ADDITIONALLY UNRELATED: Lauren A., Christine C., Anita G. the Brad & Alicia B. family: if you are reading this, I need your mailing address to send you an invite...send to me before the 25th if you can! Let me know in comments if you need my email.

AND YET AGAIN: The "wedding" design theme on my blog cracked me up for a few days, but it's enough now.

Hello.

This week I am just flighty and hard to pin down. Applied for a few more jobs. Saw my friend Robby from Scourge of the Sea play last night. Wished I could go to SXSW this year. Purchased guest book, decorations, and glassware for wedding. Made plans with Jennifer to sew the tablerunners this weekend. Got the almost final draft of the invitation! Tentatively reserved a rehearsal dinner space.

Feeling a bit more in control of the wedding stuff than I did on Sunday.

You need to look at this. While the toy itself is mildly funny, it is really the COMMENTS that are noteworthy.

Various and sundry.

I'm in some sort of mood the past week. Not a BAD mood, exactly. Certainly not good. I am stuck, I think. I am sitting at the computer WAY too much, not really being productive, just WILLING for a reply on jobs, or someone interesting to send me an email. I have a mild hangover from the weekend and generally feel sort of gross. So I guess the mood can be summed up in one word: uuuuuuuugggggggrrrmeh. OK, that is not a word. But it sort of describes how I feel at the moment. So instead of a long entry about something in particular, I'll break this up into small segments on all the different things that are on my mind right now.

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I need to take a break from drinking. This is an imperative now. After three nights of being out to shows and drinking I just feel sort of pickled. I was talking to my friend Jeremy and he just took a 45 days break from the sauce. I have to say, if he can do it, I can't imagine why I can't. So yeah. I should do that. After this glass of wine.

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I have started flirting with the idea of buying a house. We are not super happy in this house - working with my mother on renovations is proving trying and I do not want to jeopardize that relationship further. She and I are very up and down as it is. We are not getting the support we need to finish it, and since we do not own it we aren't interested in sinking our own cash into it.

Anyway, owning property in Dallas is probably a wise move for us. We're still planning on moving away within the next 3 years, but eventually we will probably have to come back for some amount of time once the parents start needing more help in their old age.

So this weekend we did a little driving around in a neighborhood we like very much, and picked up a couple info sheets and went to an open house. It is still very much in the Seems Like a Good Idea phase, but that was sort of fun.

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Do you ever go through a phase where you just eat this ONE thing? All I have been eating recently is Wasa crackers spread with cream cheese. Sometimes I mix it up by adding some onion, or a sprinkle of curry powder, but most of the time I just eat it plain. This is literally just about the only thing I have consumed for the past week. Perhaps this partially explains The Mood.

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I am starting to feel some niggling stress about the wedding. I need to organize myself. I'm starting to question our decision to do our own food. I worry about the music in David's grandmother's back lawn - will we be able to have it loud enough? I hope that people who are spending so much money to be here from other places will have a good time.

However, we saw the karaoke DJ the other day and he is super excited, so that part should be fun.

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We want to go to Philadelphia in May and Chicago in June. Back when I was single this would have been an easy feat, since it would only be two tickets. Now it is four. That makes it much harder to do the things we want to do. Grrr.

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Search terms by which people have recently come to my blog and thoughts on said terms:

- "mussel vibrators" - Do you think they meant "mussel"? Or muscle? Or oyster?

- "dreaming of a dead parakeet" - It means you hate birds, Bird Hater.

- "having four cats" - Is a beating, dude.

- "post-drunk diarrhea" - Eat more Wasa with cream cheese before you drink.

- "feeling like I am incapable of making good decisions for my family" - I hear you, sister.

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David and I are still stupidly in love and feeling so lucky recently, which I guess is a good feeling to have two and a half months before the wedding. If he wasn't working so much there would be a lot more making out and sex happening in this house, I tell you.

My sister is throwing me a lingerie shower, which has David practically drooling. When I asked his if he had a preference for any particular color of lingerie, he replied, "Whatever color is on you". Good answer, love. Good answer.

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In all honesty, I really do read Playboy for the articles. The articles and the boobs.

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We finally reached the 21st century and joined Netflix. The first movie we got was No End in Sight. If you don't know it, it is a documentary about all the mistakes that were made in the first stages of the Iraq war and subsequent occupation and how those mistakes led to the insurgency. Nothing in this film was really news to me, but it was well made - methodical in its approach and with some excellent interviews. Despite the fact I knew a lot about these mistakes, I still finished the film feeling angry and depressed and with tears in my eyes.

A funny thing about this movie - I only just recently realized that the writer/director, Charles Ferguson, is the same Charles Ferguson that my ex-girlfriend was the personal assistant for about 10 years ago (she no longer is). It took me a while to realize this because Mr. Ferguson was not a filmmaker as his primary occupation back then (this is his first movie) - he was a visiting lecturer or something at MIT at the time. And the name is a common one, so I didn't think anything of it until I heard an interview with him and I put it together.

Anyway, Mr. Ferguson was moving away from Cambridge to San Francisco at the end of my ex's employment with him. He told her (and by extension, me) that he packed everything in the house he wanted, so to feel free to go over and take anything that was left. We went over and to this day I still have a rather nice chopping board from his home as well as quite a few of my cooking utensils and such.

Now every time I use that chopping board I'm going to get pissed off about Iraq.

Rainy rainy rainy day.

I am a little too lazy today to continue with our trip review, so I'll wrap that up tomorrow. The rain has not stopped all day, and they SAY it is supposed to turn to snow at some stage but I do not buy it, I tell you.

The cats have been all over me ever since our return. At this moment I have Tugboat on my lap, who NEVER deigns to join me at the computer (though from time to time she will join David at the computer, she prefers to be near us in the bed). I was going to get up and get myself an iced tea, but I am too thrilled that she decided to settle in on me so I shall wait as long as possible.

I had all these grand plans for the afternoon. I was going to drop David off at work (well, that I did), then go by Crate & Barrel, then go to yoga, then to the gym, then clean the house, yadda yadda. But after the trip to Crate & Barrel I was so wet and cold. Then I came home and the rain started coming down harder and the prospect of venturing out again began to lose its luster. So I've been cuddling with the cats and deciding what kind of soup to make for dinner, as well as wrapping up my expenses for the trip, and that is the extent of it. So there.

After all my weirdness and nervousness about the whole REGISTRY thing, a couple of my bridesmaids and my sister and such told me pretty much to get over it. Now that I have, I have to admit, it is kind of fun. We went on an imaginary South American trip while we set up our honeymoon fund. And we realized that there are SOME material things we want, even if we are trying to keep it to a minimum. Like, we love entertaining but have a distinct lack of serving platters/bowls. Or, we have tons of old fashioned glasses but not a lot of highballs. For those relatives who might have a little more cash than we do, we HAVE fancied some Le Creuset stuff for a while. Placemats and napkins are always nice, but the ones I have as a gift from my mom are getting quite old, and we'd NEVER buy something like that for ourselves, so that's a decent thing to sign up for (I could always sew them too, but who knows when I will get to it).  And in a fit of Ready-for-Babyness, I picked out a little set of cookie cutters, because won't that be cute to do when I have some little David to make (wheat-flour hippie) cookies with? Et cetera. So I sort of enjoyed getting that little zapper thing and picking out some dumb cocktails napkins and serving bowls. There you have it. Another win for consumerism.

I am really really trying not to get excited about this job. I mean, it's only a first interview and they won't even be able to let me know whether I am invited back until week after next. And I DEFINITELY I know much better, but it is hard to not put the job search on hold while I wait.

This is a stupid post. What a waste of both your and my time. I think I'll go make a carrot soup.

At 4pm, everyone is sleeping but me (including all the cats).

Today has thus far been a quiet day at home. David has been sleeping for about 12 hours now, and I am not inclined to wake him up anytime soon. I have grown extremely possessive about his sleep; more so than he is sometimes. He has been working his ass off at two jobs since I have not had a job, so has not been sleeping as much as he ought or should. Therefore, when he has a full day off, I do not go near him until I hear him stirring. This is an improvement on how I used to be, but it seems only fair and kind to let him sleep off all the hard work he has been doing. I can always hang out with him at Doublewide tonight. Shit, I am about to marry the boy, so I have YEARS to talk to him.

So I have been enjoying the silence here - I have not turned on any music all day, and I have opened the windows to the sunny 70F day outside. The breeze blowing in is the only noise I hear other than the tap tap tap of this keyboard, and the occasional car at the stop sign outside the house.

I made seitan, as well as some vegetable soup. I am not sure why anyone buys pre-made seitan - it is so easy to make. Both are cooling on the stove top as I write and I am itchy to cook something else, though I think that is probably enough for the next couple of days. There are some big, luscious portobello mushrooms stacked on the counter top and all I can think of is MUSHROOM BARLEY SOUP but they will last a couple more days and the veggies I cooked today needed to be used. The house desperately needs vacuuming but I will wait until Mr. Daveychu is awake.

I just got back my Dehillerin knives I love so much. I took them to Sur la Table to get sharpened (which ended up taking them forever because their sharpener broke or something else silly). Totally revolutionary. I knew they needed it because I haven't had them sharpened in about five years, but damn. I'm really flying through the vegetables now.

Yesterday I had an early dinner with Carrie (I've added her link, though most of her entries are locked) while the rest of the world watched the Super Bowl. We discussed blogging and writing generally, and how one falls out of practice, and I had to admit that my personal Blog-Writing-Month in December greatly helped my flow and discipline. So we both swore that we would write every day for the next month, even if it is boring or if it is just a little blip. I think between this blog and Flickr I can do it again. Hopefully then it will be a habit. Hard-wired.

I picked up David at work after that and we went to Doublewide for frito pie and the last five minutes of the Super Bowl. I have managed to go 34 years without having a FUCKING CLUE as to how football is played and I have been ok so I don't think I'm going to start now, though David did offer to tell me the rules. I know what a touchdown is and that really seems to be all that matters so I'll just leave it at that. As far as I give a shit about these kinds of things, I have to admit my inner Bostonian was sort of sad the Pats did not win, just because I can imagine how much fun Boston would have been if they had. But even this is sort of a stretch, since I think football is about the most stupid game ever, and Bostonians can be sort of knuckleheads, so someone probably would have gotten hurt if they did win. In the end, I am sure everything worked out for the best.

Blah blah blah.

I thought I would talk about my weekend, which was nice; but I don't really feel like it, sitting here listening to music and feeling ever so trapped without a car. Nice things are less appealing given these environmental factors, though I'm trying to focus more on my blessings, of which there are many.

It seems that recently I've been thinking a lot about 1.) Love; the nature of love; what one needs from love; why it is important; why one type of love is suitable for one person and not another; heartbreak and how one lives with it and moves on constructively as opposed to settling; etc. etc. etc.; and 2.) How weirdly catty Dallas is. I feel I have never lived among people who were so snipey behind each other's backs, at least, not since high school. And sadly, how I have fallen into this behavior a bit. And how I hate it in myself so so much. I had a moment last night in a bar that made me uncomfortable, and I thought about a few other times this has happened, and - well - I just never remember this in Amsterdam or Boston.  People just didn't care enough to CONFRONT each other. Anyway, an entry for another time.

In other news, I have decided upon two things. A.) I will do the tour in Germany in February. B.)  I should just relax and enjoy this time off, because it is abundantly clear companies aren't hiring right before the holidays. I'll just get out as many resumes as possible and hope for a plethora of calls just after the new year.

Feeling schizophrenic in regards to music at the moment. Since this entry was started I have skipped from Mountain Goats to Rainer Maria to Radical Face to Plus/Minus to Ryan Adams to The Cardigans and still nothing is sounding quite right for now. Nothing fits.

Yes, that is it. Nothing fits. I shall read, or some similar activity. I'll find something that fits this moment. Even if it is just beer.

EDIT: Songs: Ohia.