Porphyrogene!

Now, as previously admitted, I Like my husband Very Much and would squish him all day if I could.  But there are times when he is clueless.  One of those times occurred on/about my 23rd birthday. 

I could tell he was cooking up something because either he is very bad at hiding things from me or I am a crafty mind reader.  I believe it is the latter.  Regardless, he was being sneaky and I wheedled from him the fact that my Mom and Brother were coming to visit for the weekend directly before my birthday.  I was Oh So Excited.  Then somehow I got (read: water tortured) out of him that his Grandparents were going to "stop by" on their way to somewhere.  His Grandparents live 4 hours away.  The idea that they would "stop by" is somewhat ridiculous.  Even though I’m a particularly gifted mind reader, I do enjoy surprises.  I just so happen to have a disease wherein I cannot restrain myself from asking probing questions/snooping around/trying-my-hardest-ever to figure out what’s going on… It’s like Tourrette’s.

My Mom and Brother picked me up from work and insisted that instead of going home we go to the nearby Botanical Gardens… Immediately.  Okay, so that wasn’t fishy.  Neither was it fishy when, after telling them that it would be closed, driving there, and finding out it was closed, they decided the best idea would be to Sit. And Stay. And do… Nothing. For a while. Ahem.

*sniff* Herring? Salmon? 3-day-old Tuna?*sniff* DEEEFinitely Feeeshy.

Then after some terribly un-covert cell phone conversating, they decided quite suddenly that it was Time to Go Home.

We walked in the door to my house and there were Kyle’s Parents, Grandparents, Brother, Sister-in-Law, and our Nephews, with my Mom and Brother bringing up the rear.  Quite the gathering really.  It was very touching.  Love surged… Tears welled up…

And then my brother-in-law, mid-hug, told me "YEA! So we’re here to tear apart your bathroom! Excited?"

Yes. That’s right folks. My husband had coordinated a Birthday Surprise for me wherein our closest relatives trek to Pittsburgh from 4+ hours away and then demolish our ONLY BATHROOM.  Without warning me.  Without talking to me about it.  And Me without the ability to say no because after all… they all came… for MY birthday… to do us this FAVOR… from HOURS away… And I am left feeling as though I am screaming as the camera backs away from planet earth at light speed and leaves it a tiny speck of nothing admist a swirling shrinking galaxy in a swirling empty universe.

His parents and grandparents bought me a porch swing for my birthday though.  So I spent most of that weekend trying to become One with the Swing.

My most relaxing moment was when I had a cup of coffee in one hand, an Amish Donut in the other, my brand spankin’ new pink ipod nestled in my lap playing some Guilty-Pleasure pop while I sat on the Porch swing in the wee morning hours… as in 7:00 am on a saturday.

I understand 7:00 am is not that early…. If you have kids… or a job… or, I don’t know, a purpose on saturday morning.  But My saturday morning "purpose" was to get out of the bedroom because they were going to tape sheets of plastic up a la Outbreak, to "confine the dust" (HAHAHAHA) and they were going to start ripping down walls… and ceilings… and fixtures… and anything else that you might need to roughly define an amorphous space as "a bathroom".

Now… The men in Kyle’s family are infamous in their slow deliberations on What To Do Next.  They stand… all heads tilted to the right, debating what the course of action should be.  There is much rubbing of chins and scratching of foreheads.  Then there will be a flurry of action.  Do Not Be Fooled.  The Flurry of action is NOT the same as Action.  The Flurry occurs when one of them gets excited about what he thinks should happen but is soon quelled by the others bringing up a million other options and ideas… S.l.o.w.l.y.  

This deliberation period will re-occur many times through their workings. Often it occurs just before they’re about to do something Important such as… Build supports for a load-bearing wall.  Often when it occurs, it occurs just before they find something Wrong that they missed before and now must debate for the next 20 minutes. 

Despite this predeliction for un-lively debate, they did manage to rip apart my entire bathroom, rendering the sink useless, the Tub/shower-area useless, disappearing the walls, and sugar-coating the house in dust before they left.  De-WICIOUS as my nephew would say.

Oh… did I mention that we do, in fact, have a second shower? It’s in our basement.  If you are unfamiliar with what a Pittsburgh Basement Toilet/Bathroom is… be glad.  For the following 2 months I showered in our unfinished basement, out in the open, from an exposed pipe on the wall while I got the eerie feeling that not only were Kyle’s power tools watching me (saws, hammers, drills and all), but the mildew and toxic mold on the walls were also ogling.  I swear… sometime in those last couple of weeks, the left wall mold winked at me.  I’m pretty sure the bottle of tilex I dumped on it just made it stronger.  I now avoid the basement whenever I can due to the fact that I believe human attention just makes it cheekier… and I could honestly live happily-ever-after without cheeky mold. Yea. Ignoring it is the way to go.

I’ve been living in Pittsburgh for about 1.5 years now.  3 days ago… we got the Internet.

That’s right folks - for 1.5 years I have been living without the internet in my place of residence.

Crazy? Deprived? Pitiful?
Yes. All of those things.

But ‘Weaned’, ‘Independent’, and ‘Saving Money’ also come to mind.

 You see…  I had the internet at my parents’ house till college… and then I had the internet for 4 years through college;  Any time the internet and I would be separated I would be jonesing within a half a day.  How would I know what was going on in the world? How would I communicate with friends and family? How was I going to know what the weather was like?

I know you feel my pain, don’t try to deny it.

However, after getting married and moving to P-burgh, Kyle and I tentatively decided (mainly out of sheer laziness) that we would NOT have the internet… or phone… or cable.  Our house would exist in a veritable timewarp (is anyone else hearing "let’s do the timewarp again" in their heads, or is it just me?). 

After a few months it became painfully obvious that lack of internet - though loss of Gilmore girls and a consistently charged phone didn’t help - was wearing on our relationship.  You would think that at some point we would come to the conclusion that it might be better for our well-being if we just invested in the nebulous beauty that is INTERNET, rather than trying to resist the riptide.  But resist we did - we resisted until we didn’t really think about it anymore… and then a couple of weeks ago,  Kyle came across an ad for Internet and phone service for about $70 cheaper than anywhere else offerred.   It was too much for him.  He ran the phone lines/installed the phone jacks himself and last night, I officially surfed for the first time in a long time.

What seriously bugs me is that I’m not that excited about this.  I mean, the internet and I had some good times - some GREAT times - way back: www.addictinggames.com, www.cuteoverload.com, www.craftzine.com, www.makezine.com… But, at the risk of causing emotional damage to our current relationship (the internet and mine), I’ve learned to live without it.   Last night I spent at least 3 hours browsing around, playing various games and catching up on some communication… but I have to tell you - I feel as though I faked most of it.  I was using it because it was there and it hadn’t been for a while and not because I needed it or really wanted it. 

This is not to say I didn’t have a great time discovering some new stuff - particularly the bloons game on www.addictinggames.com  - but, I could have lived without it. 

Maybe the real truth is that I feel somewhat selfish or wasteful for having it.  Obviously we can live without it and be just fine… obviously we don’t need to spend this $40 a month on it.  We could be doing something else with the money either self-serving (saving/paying off loans) or not (charity!).  But a year and a half ago I wouldn’t have had this attitude, I would have been grateful and happy, and tumbling head-over-heels for the 14 billionth time because my hunk of a husband can install phone line all by his onesy. 

Maybe the REAL truth is that I find the internet to be a poor substitute for Kyle while he works 12 hour days, 5 days a week and I’m left at home to my own devices for 3-4 hours every night.  

I would rather have my companion at home than the nebulous ghosty internet.

Hmm… Anybody ever read "The Mayfair Witches" by Anne McCaffrey?

I’m really lucky.  Out of all the terrible things that have happened in this world, very few have truly touched me - I should be thankful.  I should be grateful that some of the hardest, most terrible things have been shouldered by others who are probably stronger than I am. 

For example, I can not comprehend losing a child.  I’m not even a parent yet, and losing a son or daughter is… unthinkable. 

About six months ago, I lost a friend.  Obviously he wasn’t just MY friend, and I wasn’t his closest friend either - I believe that particular distinction goes to two very cool, very pretty Amandas. It’s hard to think about it, the back of my throat closes up and still I’m grateful that my pain is less than that of so many other people, not the least of which includes his parents and sister. 

I was at work when I first read about the Virginia Tech shootings - the death count kept getting higher and while it was surreal and upsetting, I felt safe.  I wasn’t there, and I didn’t recall any friends who were.  We were okay.

My husband and I were playing host to two college friends who were in town for a conference.  They also happened to know Dan.  When I got home from work, we watched the news, awe-struck as bloody kids our age were carried from the buildings, and then one of our friends reminded me that Dan, after graduating from our Alma Mater, went on to Civil Engineering grad school at Virginia Tech.  And the shootings occurred in the engineering building.  

I’m not sure I’ll ever feel an adrenaline surge like that again, but it made me freeze, with every muscle tense.  I stared with renewed vigor at the TV, waiting for a hint about who was murdered and who was spared.  I tried to call mutual friends. I cried.

Kyle and I told each other that he had to be okay - I mean, what are the odds, seriously.  He might not have had class that day! Or he might have skipped class to go on a Dunkin’ Donuts run or a bike ride… even though he wasn’t really the skipping class type… Or he might have been on a different floor…  There were so many ways he could have been safe.  Kyle and I went to bed reassuring each other that our friend was okay. 

In the morning at around 8:30 a.m., we got a call from our friends who were in town at the conference.  They had just heard that Dan was killed. Shot to death.

Dan had been my husband’s roommate for a year and a half.  They were housemates when they went abroad to Belgium for 4 months.  They travelled all over Europe together.  Dan was Emcee-ing at the concert where Kyle proposed to me.  Dan came to our wedding. 

Over the last few years, Kyle has lost 3 friends his age.  One to a motorcycle accident, one to a car accident, and now, one to a senseless act of violence.  Dan had been in one of the smallest classrooms.  His story isn’t talked about much because there were no survivors in that room so there are no heartwarming stories of heroism or escape.

Kyle does not cry often.  I knew Dan was gone because while Kyle was on the phone - he started to weep.  We both stayed home from work that day.  Kyle needed me badly, and I needed him, and for the first day or so we just sat and held each other. 

Eventually, we were both filled with an intense desire to do SOMETHING, to do ANYTHING, even though there was nothing to do in addition to a fog of despairing lethargy penetrating our physical shells.  We settled on a trip to a Big Home Improvement store to purchase a tree.  We thought Dan would get a kick out of the funny little plums, so we picked a plum tree, took it home, named it Dan and planted it in our backyard.   We found and bought a fraggle - one of Dan’s favorite shows - and packaged it up and sent it to Dan’s Family.

I tried going in to work, but when my boss started to talk to me about what happened I started to cry and I couldn’t stop.  She sent me home.

Kyle and I made plans to go to the wake and funeral.  We drove 10+ hours to get there and I had one of the hardest experiences of my life and one of the best.

Walking into the high school gym where his wake was being held and having to walk past a coffin with pictures of Dan and his friends in high school and college in collages all around was tough.  Walking up to his mom and dad was tortuous.  I was trying so hard not to cry because geez - how selfish am I? My pain can’t be nearly as bad as theirs, and here are these broken parents standing next to their son’s coffin, hugging people as they walk past in a steady stream.  I get there and I’m just short of bawling and Dan’s mom gave me the sweetest little hug, held on to me and told me it would be okay.  SHE told ME it would be okay.  She also thanked me for the Fraggle… told me it was sitting on her mantle and that it makes her smile every time she sees it. 

I don’t have physical proof yet, but I think she’s some kind of wonder woman.

The rest of my night was, oddly, one of the best in my life.  Dan had three sets of friends, you see.  He had high school friends - a small group that he was extraordinarily close to; so close that they had matching t-shirts with nick names and a special hang out called "The Barn".  He had college friends - a group of Theatre dorks, a cappella singers, art society groupies and engineers.  And he had Virginia Tech grad school friends.  We went out to a casual sort of dinner all together at a local chinese food restaurant with 30 people or more after the wake.  And then we met up at "The Barn" which was a barn-like structure behind someone’s house.  We all went up to the second floor of the Barn in a big open space, sat down with guitars, played music, joked around, sang songs, and told stories.  It was extraordinarily precious.  The three separate groups of friends who had NOT met each other previously got along perfectly as though even without having this really cool guy in common, we could have all been the best of buddies.

Dan was a really good looking guy.  He was smart, and witty, and he could be obsessively passionate and quirky about all sorts of things.  He played the guitar very well, and he sang with a lot of heart — if not always in tune.  He could be moody sometimes - Kyle has more than one story about how down Dan could get on long Train rides across Europe or how negative his attitude could be when caught in a downpour.  But he could also be as light as feather and happy as a clam and usually it was either or. He didn’t really drink alcohol although he developed an appreciation for Belgian beer after his trip. 

After Kyle proposed to me, Dan’s first words on the mic were "So… uh… how ’bout that?"  

He had a funny giggle. His favorite fraggle was Wembley.  He auditioned for the A cappella groups on campus almost every year, but he never got in. 

He was a talented engineer, he did extremely well in his classes and he wanted to build bridges for a living.

And I miss him.

That night before his funeral where all three groups of his friends sat in one room and sang together to the tune of 3 or 4 guitars, loads of sadness, and a great deal of appreciation for the respect and support we were receiving from each other - we ALL smiled at the vision of Dan in the back our minds and how he would have acted had he also been physically present.  He would have been bouncing off the WALLS dude.  He would have been skipping from person to person.  He would have been playing the guitar and singing at the top of his lungs.  He would have been laughing till he cried tears of joy and hilarity.  He would have been ecstatic to have all of his friends together in one place.  It would have been perfect.   As it is, it was the closest to perfect we could get.

Kyle and I wandered into Le Big-Home-Improvement-Store the other day and after finding everything on our list and then some, I had to body slam and karate chop my man into making steady progress toward the check out registers rather than veering towards wreaths, enormous blow up snowmen, christmas tree door mats, and twinkle lights.  I don’t know why twinkle lights are Kyle’s kryptonite - I, typically, am the one attracted to shiny or glowy objects [as evidenced by the two instructions I was ordered to follow when looking for and purchasing a bridesmaid dress for an upcoming wedding that I’m honored to be a part of: 1. Get it in David’s Bridal Cornflower Blue, 2. Do not buy anything that will make you resemble a disco ball.     I’m fairly certain I was the only one given the second instruction.] 

We already own about 30 strings of white lights that we purchased cheap and in bulk to decorate the reception hall for our wedding — Translate this to mean we could pull a Chevy Chase.  I was not expecting to require the strength to pull a grown man away from said twinkle lights aka kryptonite of the wallet…  I should start working out or something.   After all, I thought the Christmas displays didn’t start until Early November… and here we are, weeks early, being bombarded with reindeer and tinsel.

Not that I’m enormously complaining… even though it may sound like it, it’s all just an illusion.  I’m a big fan of Christmas - both types.  I love the celebration of the Saviour and I love the mistletoe draped in red ribbon.  As I previously mentioned, I am a craftsy type - so last year I made our stockings, a Stable for our manger scene, and more than half of our tree decorations.  I’m excited for the winter season to begin.  But the true purpose of this post is to share with you a flashback I had of Kyle and my first married Christmas Eve/Day together. 

We decided, the week before Christmas, to drive to visit family.  First we drove 4 hours to visit HIS family and spent a day and a night with them.  It is pure joy and sunshine to visit with my in-laws.  I call them in-laws only to avoid confusion as I write this because the truth is that they feel like family, no ‘in-laws’ about it.  Then we drove 4 more hours to visit MY family, meet my brother’s girlfriend, go into NYC, celebrate the holiday, and then we packed up and drove home to the ‘burgh on Christmas Eve’s Day. 

We had lofty plans.  You see, for months we’d been eating healthily and avoiding certain favorite, particularly delicious foods such as donuts or cinnamon buns, or fondue.   Prior to our road trip we made a list of all the foods we would buy, splurge on, to have and share on Christmas day.  Kyle was going to make me Souffle! and Quiche!  I was going to open a role of Pillsbury cinnamon buns and pop ‘em in the oven! It was going to be spectacular!

Did you know all grocery stores (even the ‘24 hour’ ones) close early on Christmas Eve?

We got back to Pittsburgh at around 7:00 p.m. I think, maybe a little later.  We stopped at 3 different Giant Eagles, we stopped at a 24 hour Walmart, we stopped at a Shop and Save.  After driving 6+ hours to get home to Pittsburgh the last thing we wanted to be doing was to be driving around to 80 different grocery stores trying to find 4 different kinds of cheese, eggs, and maybe some milk.  Genius that I am, we decided to save our grocery shopping (ON PURPOSE) for Christmas Eve so that none of our food spoiled while we were away. 

There were several different phases of our mood:  Relief to be back in Pittsburgh, Annoyance that the first store was closed, disbelief that the second store was closed, Freaking-out when the third store was closed, Anger and general snappish-ness as we drove half an hour to get to a CLOSED 24-hour Walmart, unending giggling and silliness as we pulled up to an open gas station and combed all food products for ANYTHING Christmas eve/day worthy.  We came out with some milk, a container of eggs, a block of Velveeta cheese, a pre-made calzone and some donut holes.  Have I mentioned that, at this point, we still had not eaten dinner and it was about 10:00 p.m.?

We went home, defeated and punch drunk.  We ate our food, ignored our stomach aches from the who-knows-how-old calzone, and went to bed — happy.

In the morning, my dream of a husband made me a velveeta cheese souffle (for real) and cinnamon buns from scratch (without oil, or sugar … or flour I think).  As a culinary tradition, I wouldn’t recommend either one.   Then again, the overwhelming love I felt for him as we, giggling, dug into the oddly fluffy-topped, brick bottomed souffle was delicious.

I’m not sure we could have had a better first Christmas.

As found in this article on MSN… Everything that I have done in the last (little over a) year was wrong to do in the span of time I did it and will apparently lead to divorce or forever-debt. 

While graduating from College and finishing up an Honor’s Thesis, I planned my wedding.  My Husband-to-be also wrote an Honor’s Thesis, then we both graduated.  A month later, we got married, went on our honeymoon, closed on a house, and moved 4-6 hours away from our families to a city I had only visited once before so that he could enter a 5 year PhD program.   We moved in to a beat up old house that (of COURSE) had a lot of problems we hadn’t anticipated, with one car - stick shift - that I can’t drive, and no human support system.  Kyle started school - I stayed home… for months… looking for a job (No internet, No cable, No phone).  To speed through this saga — I got a temp job, and then a permanent position, Kyle decided to leave the PhD program.  Now I was working and he was home looking for a job.  He got a job a heartbeat after the ‘Nick of Time’ would have occurred and we had to temporarily borrow money to make ends meet.  At this point, we’ve recovered and we’re on our way to saving and paying off his student loans.

But it probably wouldn’t be fair to gloss over the 7 gas leaks, the broken refridgerator, the screw in Kyle’s leg, the bird in our ceiling, the demolition and reconstruction of our bathroom by us, and the despair that accompanied the loss of a good friend (one of Kyle’s roommate’s in College) on a cool April day while he was attending a Civil Engineering Grad School class at Virginia Tech.

I’ll probably address all these little topics in future entries.  But truly, I think the main point is that the only thing missing in our lives is me being pregnant.  In an ‘Ironic’, ‘I-feel-on-the-edge-with-my-eyes-rolling-back-to-show-too-much-white’ sort of way, it would just be ‘Perfect’ to find out something will be ‘Comin round the mountain’ in the next 9 months.

Heavenly Father, please do not take this as a Dare.

So, when I was little, I lived in central New Jersey.   My brother is 3 years younger than me, and when he turned 3 we moved to a different house in a better location for my dad’s office commute. 

I’m sure the move made a lot of financial and practical sense, it was a bigger house and much closer to Dad’s work, but looking back now - I realize we left behind several very cool people. 

First of all - there was Jaime-Lee, my best friend from up the street.  I cried the whole day we were moving except for the 5 minutes when Jaime-Lee came over to say goodbye and gave me a my little pony whose tail swung in a circle if you wound it up.  It was the sweetest going away present, ever.  I visited her once or twice after we moved, but we were no longer geographically close… so we drifted apart quickly.  I am currently convinced that if I could only find her on Myspace or Facebook or some other social networking website that we would be the best of friends.  The trouble is that the majority of girls named ‘Jaime-Lee’ are blond, and who KNOWS if they wore glasses when they were six, so I let the urge to find her slide until I remember it one day and furiously search the internet for her, reluctantly give up again and allow the process to cycle once more.

Second of all, but probably best, is Fay.  There was this magical spectacular Mary Poppins of a woman who would help my mom out with babysitting and general stuff around the house.  She lived a couple of doors down, she was retired and a cute little grandma, and she would watch a lot of the neighborhood kids.  I don’t remember a whole lot of specifics, but what I envision now is my mom looking back on those times with a warm smile and a longing that tells me Fay was a gift from the Heavens.  Apparently one of my first phrases ever was "Boops on, walk fay!" which meant "Please, ma’am, put my boots on and take me for a walk at your nearest possible convenience."  I don’t actually remember every saying that, but I do remember one very specific, very special outing.  One of the things Fay talked about when I was little, was taking me on a shopping trip where I could buy ANYTHING I wanted - Anything at all!  It was a mind-boggling concept to me at the time… I would get glassy eyed and space out, my mind reeling at the possibilities!  So one day she told me I was finally enough of a big girl that we were going to go on that trip.  I think the timing also happened to coincide with packing up the house and getting ready to move and was probably a bid to keep me otherwise occupied while they unceremoniously shoved my stuffed animals into suffocatingly small cardboard boxes… and thus ending the era of Fay.  Nevertheless, I was extremely excited.  We took the bus to a mall and walked around.  We had Roy Rogers fast food.  And, I’m not sure exactly how it happened, but in one of the department stores, in a bin that was near to the ground, I found a plastic hair comb that had a rainbow in the plastic with glittery sparkle goodness all baked in.  When I picked it up and looked at Fay, she didn’t even hesitate.  We went directly to the counter, and she bought it for me.  I couldn’t even believe my good fortune.  It was the only thing I asked for that day.  On the day when I was offered anything my heart desired, told that she would buy for me anything I wanted… All I wanted was this little plastic comb with a glitter rainbow on the handle and I stared at it all the way home thinking it was the most beautiful thing I would ever own.

I was married about a year and a half ago.  About six months before I got married I went to try on wedding dresses and I went to a store, with my mom, that was very close to where we used to live - where fay (somewhere in her late 80’s) still hangs out.  My mom called her up and invited her to join us.  My last clear memory of her was that shopping trip, and here I was, all grown up, engaged, and trying on wedding gowns.  She was not the tall, radiant angel I remembered.  She was older and much shorter than me now, but she was so sharp and so with it!  It was a little awkward, and a little weird, but all I really felt was love for her.  I wish I had been able to express it more clearly. I wish I hadn’t thought it would be too… stupid or out of the blue to bring up a little white comb with a glitter rainbow.

I now realize that she wasn’t rich and if my 6-year-old self had demanded a 50" TV or a pony, she wouldn’t have been able to afford it.  But somehow the only thing in the world I desired was this rainbow glitter plastic comb… and that incredible indulgence is one of my sweetest, coolest childhood memories.

Thank you Fay.