Tales from the Wedding Altar

So, as of today, I have officially been married a month.  That would be at least thirty days, for all of you who have 28 or 29 in the pool.  Sucks to be you!

And in celebration of being married to my former Lovely Fiancée™ and current Trophy Wife™ for a month, I give you, as promised, random bits and pieces from the warped recesses of my mind.  Or as I like to call them...

Snippets, Stories and Dark, Nefarious Secrets Written in Code on the Back of a Wedding Invitation:

* * *

It's kinda funny, watching the awkward glances of everyone when your introduction song at the reception begins with, "Let's make this complicated, thinking is overrated; we're busting out of this shitty little town" as everyone realizes that your eighty-plus-year old mother is among the attendees.   To be fair to us, however, Nothingtown is sort of our song.  it was the first song I played for my Trophy Wife™ on guitar.  So now you know.  And knowing is half the battle.

G. I. Joooooooooe!

Also: do you realize how hard it is to find good wedding songs when the prospective husband and wife are most into the likes of Green Day and Breaking Benjamin?  Our first dance song was "Little Moments" by Rob Thomas, which was sort of a concession on her part, because she was originally thinking "Everything I Do (I Do It For You)", and my thought was that particular song had become so cliche over the years that it was almost two-dimensional.  We were going to have that as the song for our last dance instead, but the reception sort of just mellowed its way to an early close, so we sort of never really had a last dance.

I felt kinda bad about that.  I even offered to sing it to her while I [content mercifully deleted] on our honeymoon to make it up to her, but she politely declined.  

By kicking me.  

Multiple times.

* * *

Speeaking of awkward... yes, there was that first dance.  

I would love to tell you that we had a very good excuse for looking like we had all the rhythm of a pair of recent prosthetic leg recipients.

I would also love to tell you that we don't ordinarily dance with all the grace of flightless waterfowl.

But those would be lies.  At least in my case they are.  I don't deny that I am painfully white-- like, blinding, dazzling, Raised-From-The-Dead Gandalf Robes white-- when it comes to rhythm.  The only way you could have less rhythm than me would be to just step onto the dance floor and immediately go into cardiac arrest... and even then, there's a fair chance that you will flail around and flop to the ground with more rhythm than me dancing.

Now, my Trophy Wife™ has rhythm.  I know this for a fact.  But suffice it to say that having rhythm in a pair of jeans and a tee is a far cry from having rhythm while wearing a dress that gives you the mobility of a toddler wearing a sixty-five pound backpack. Srsly. Before my wedding, I had always wondered why paratroopers always wanted to be so quick to unhitch from their chutes after landing.  Now I know.

And knowing is half the battle.  G. I. Joooooooooe! 

* * *

After four months, the cat has finally begun to recognize me as its Nemesis.  

For a long while, it treated me as a logical extension of the Human Who Poo-Poohs Anything Bad I Do As Instinctual and Still Finds Me Adorable, or the Smaller Human Who Has Allergies To Anything And Everything Beneath the Sun and Who Nonetheless Insists on Clinging To-- and Sleeping With-- My Highly Allergen-Ridden Ass.  

Now it has slowly excised me from that and now has begun to rightfully recognize me as the Human Who Absolutely Loses His Fucking Mind and Chases Me With Pruning Shears or Small Appliances When He Finds Me On The Furniture.  This is a good transition. You can sense it now, in the early mornings, when I come downstairs for work, and it hears noise from its resting place, and curiosity overcomes it.  It makes its way downstairs and slowly creeps into the living room and sees... me.  

And there's that moment, when it realizes that it is the only other living thing in the room, and that it wants to be anywhere else in the house except alone in a room with me.  The fear is there.  It is palpable, in the air.   Like the tension in the moments just before something horrible happens and the buckets of red paint start flying in a slasher flick.  

So when I take a step, no matter what I'm doing-- and whether that step is even toward it or not-- the creature bolts like I've set its metaphorical nuts on fire with conductive static electricity.

Now, if I can just instill this sort of mindset in the children, I'll have it made.

* * *

Ahem.

Yes, that above is what we in the profession call a "joke".  It is a "take" that is not supposed to be taken "seriously."

Please remove yourself from your huffy moral high horse or I will be forced to sic Jesus on you.

What?  I mean, surely, that's got to be a Born-on-Christmas perk, right?  There has to be something to offset the years of massive suckmonstrage from getting combo presents, after all.

* * *

We got our wedding pictures back from the fine folks at Cheeky Chic Photography, and I was surprised to note that the professional photos were very beautiful.  Cause, for starters, a great many of them had me in them... and that usually does not equate to anything near beautiful.  

But moreover, the pictures gave me an insight to what it looked like in the bridesmaids' suite as they prepared for the wedding.  And it was nothing like I imagined.  And I did imagine it.  I mean, there was such a big mystique about the whole thing-- I couldn't even see my Lovely Fiancée™ the day of the wedding.  I couldn't sleep at our house.  I had to confab with her clandestinely just to make sure we didn't arrive at Blanton House at the same time.  Hell, she was worried that when I called her I was tempting the fate of our marriage or something.  So i could only imagine what was happening in that room across the hall from where I was changing into my tux.

So, like I so often do, I filled in the blanks.  My Lovely Fiancée™ had been indoctrinated, I decided.  By some sort of shadow cabal.  I even had a name for it.

The Cult of the Bridesmaids.

Insert musical sting here.

So you can imagine my disappointment when I found that the pictures were actually pretty tame.  There were absolutely no scenes where my bride-to-be was eating a human heart or dousing herself in cattle blood.  There were no pictures where she stabbed a young Cosmo model to signify her dismissal of the norms of dating and her ascension into the realm of married life.  There was not a single picture of her prancing around in her never-mind-thats in a paean to the Fertility Mother for asking for a prodigious womb (or, more hopefully, forgiveness for agreeing not to have any).  

I did not see her, her maid of honor Jennifer, or her daughter (our junior bridesmaid and now my stepdaughter) Journey, or Chloe or Hannah (the ring bearer and flower girl, respectively) or even her friend Shannon (who was there helping the girls do their hair) tossing chicken bones and runestones to augur what our marriage would be like.  There was no carving their names into lead tablets to bury beneath our flower bed so that I would be crippled if I tried to start an argument, or doing up a doll made up of bits plucked from my hairbrush to make sure I didn't bolt from the ceremony.

I was bummed.  It would have been a rare slice of life, like a National Geographic exposé into the women's bathroom at the local bar-- the one they gang up to enter.  But it was not to be.

Sigh.

Of course, you know, the photographer was female, too.  She might be sworn to secrecy, too.

Hmmmm.  Perhaps the Cult of the Bridesmaids lives on.

* * *

I'm apologizing, right here and right now, to my lovely Trophy Wife™ for anything I said aloud while we were waiting for her to come down the aisle.  Seriously, I'm a nervous talker.  You wouldn't think so, as often as I'm quiet, but apparently-- especially in front of a large group-- I just apparently feel like something needs to be said.  

So we've-- we in this case being myself, my best man Bob and my brother Dennis, the third groomsman-- stepped up to the front of the assemblage, and are standing there as the processional music begins, because it's actually nearing half an hour past what the wedding was slated for.  And the music plays through once.  I am not concerned-- I know that most brides have last-minute issues, and given the way my wife's hair usually causes her grief, it would not have surprised me to hear that her hair had to be talked out of a suicidal streak by feeding it ice cream and shots of Jagrmeister.  So I'm exhaling, I'm mellow, I'm at peace.  

And the music begins again.  And we stand there, joking around a little, and beginning to feel a little on the awkward, goofy side.  

And then the music begins again.  Now, bear in mind, we did not pick little two-minute waltzes for the processional themes.  These were fullblown orchestra pieces.  Three times.   I'm losing it...  I'm starting to nervously talk about how it was like this at Gen Con, too...

Hey, honey, we have a 10:00 game, and it's 9:25.  Just sayin'.

Honey, it's 9:35.  Don't wanna rush you, but we do kinda have to drive downtown, and park and, you know, walk.  

Honey, it's 9:50, and instantaneous travel won't be perfected for another twenty years yet.  

Honey, just take your time and let's try to make the 1 PM panel discussion, because we obviously didn't really want to play that game, anyway.  

(An aside: see, one thing I have noticed now that we've been married for a little while is that if we are going to arrive anywhere by any sort of scheduled time, I am going to have to stretch the truth by moving our supposed arrival time up by about thirty minutes, because I can see now that if we're not made late by hair or makeup or traffic or the kids, it will be by life in general.)

So yeah, by now I'm yea close to the line of freaking out.  I'm beginning to look at my watch and wishing I had my e-cig with me, and wanting to strangle Pachelbel and his fucking Canon, and am about a step away from telling Bob to go retrieve her.

(Another aside: I laugh at some people who chose their best men without considering the fact that they may actually have to perform the old, traditional best man rituals, such as bringing the prospective bride to the altar (in chains if need be!) and protecting the groom long enough for the wedding to go off without him receiving a knife in the gut.  I think these things out.)

And I have no doubt he would have done so.  He might have picked up every one of the bridesmaids and brought them out in curlers, and if I remained alive to our fiftieth anniversary, I would have never, ever, ever lived it down.

But fortunately, none of that happened.  At that point the bridesmaids arrived and the imminent cataclysm was narrowly averted.

* * *

Finally (for now), I want to bring up something and, again, let you take it with the grain of salt most things that I say are taken with.  I do realize their place in the grand scheme of things, and I do know it is not only a necessity of wedding decorum, but a polite thing to do.  And yes, we are still working on ours, so they will go out to each and every one of you.  But still:

Thank-you card writing is fucking murder.

Seriously, decorum is that you do not type a thank-you card, you handwrite it to properly show that it means that much to you, and to allow the recipient to know that you did not do a mass writing in Microsoft Word and only change the appropriate lines where necessary.  You personalize it; you leave a nice personal message to the recepient telling them thank you for showing up at the wedding, or for the gift, or anything of the sort.  You have the freedom to be creative.

So I started writing them with my lovely Trophy Wife™ a couple weeks ago, before the fan and the shit started shaking hands and forced us to put off a lot of things.  And I immediately found out two things:

A) My hand muscles are not nearly limber enough for long-term penmanship.

And, B) when I write, I am most notable for not knowing when to shut the hell up.

So an hour and a half in, my hand feels like I've been playing racquetball with it, using a lead-filled ball.  My fingers are contorted and tight and achey and completely fucking unused to writing anything longer than my name.  And I feel like such a spoiled little wuss kid in detention, shaking my hand every sixth or seventh word to get feeling back in it.  

I look at the writing on a couple cards I've done with a practiced, artistic eye: it starts out in my nice, tightly rounded and beautifully legible handwriting at the top of the card, and then slowly it work its way past teenage "have better things to do than write this report" penmanship, until it finally devolves into cuneiform by the bottom.

So, I would like to point out to anyone lucky enough to get a note from me... that thing at the bottom that looks like a sea monster should actually read "Thank you again!"  Or some variation thereof.

And yeah, we'll get those out soon.  Promise.

Hopefully sooner than my next blog.

Then There Was That Marriage Thing...

"ooo... I'll have to give you a watch.  Your pictures are not just stunning but have a sense of storytelling to them.  I'll have to come back and give your gallery a thorough ransacking."

- September 16, 2005

These were the semi-infamous words that first brought me into contact with Jessi, my one-time co-conspirator, one-time Lovely Fiancee™ and one-time Wife-To-Be, way back a little more than six years ago.  Little did she realize at the time that at some point in the unforeseeable future, she wouldn't be able to pry me away from her with a crowbar, axle-grease and a hydraulic lift.

On October 2, 2011, we drew ourselves to the culmination of everything that began way back when, as she and I were officially married in a beautiful outdoor ceremony at The Blanton House in Danville, Indiana.  This whole event has been something that has been very long in coming, and there's a lot of people to thank for it coming to fruition, not the least of which is my former Lovely Fiancee™ and current Trophy Wife™.  I think we both knew when we started talking to one another that there was something there, but I don't know if we have ever realized how magical and wondrous it was until recently.  So behind all the goofy jokes and the sarcasm and the sometimes fervent desire to drop the damned cat off at a live landmine field and be done with it, I want to make sure that you know that nothing in my life has ever made me happier than being with you.

Those of you who are used to the standard rambling and ranting and are doing the internet-meme "TL;DR" bs, give me a few more moments, because there's a lot of people I want to thank for the weekend that just passed.  Or if it really upsets your delicate sensibilities to read me waxing nice over people, you can skip ahead to the next blog entry (eventually), while I call you a big bunch of instant gratification digital ADD pantywaists, because-- fuck you-- even if I'm married it doesn't mean I'm not still a prick.  XD

But for those of you who can read more than two paragraphs without coming down with cold sweats because there's no interrupting pictures of cutesy kitties or explosions (or cutesy kitties exploding, for that matter), I give you

THE BIG EFFING LIST OF GRATITUDE

So, first and foremost, let me say that this list is in no way to shirk the marital responsibilities of proper Thank You notes (I have checked with my Trophy Wife™ about all the esoteric and sometimes mystical rites that we're supposed to observe when it comes to the wedding, the week before the wedding, the honeymoon and the first year of married life.)  Nor is it meant to be a convenient and cheap way of expressing our gratitude for everything these fine people have done to ensure that we got married and didn't choke the life out of one another. Cause left to our own devices, that might have happened.  Someone from the Indianapolis CSI would have come into our house and said, "Look, husband- and bride-to-be, strangled by one another's hands. Open and shut case.  That means..."

And then he'd put on his sunglasses and say, "...there's uneaten wedding cake."

YEAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!

Now, in the interest of keeping some anonymity-- because, let's be honest, some of you probably would prefer not to have your names paraded around in connection with me, after all-- I have included as few last names as possible.  So in no particular order (which is a catchphrase that means, "Go ahead.  Feel free to take offense, because that just gives us ammunition to leave you smarmy remarks on your next few birthday cards.") we want to offer our sincerest, wholehearted thanks:

...to Bob, my best man, who spent months previous to the wedding jokingly asking me if I'd changed my mind yet. (Every time, I answered no.  Until the point that Jessi was walking up the aisle, when I leaned over to him and just as jokingly whispered, "I changed my mind."*)  On top of that, he spent the last two weeks utterly freaking out about having to give the best man speech, saying it was going to be horrible, insisting that he might accidentally puke on the wedding cake if he was forced to do it.... and then rattling off a great speech like it's something he did every day   For fun.  While cooking awesome chili and juggling children and puppies and flamethrowers.  And yawning.

...to Jennifer, the maid of honor, who did some of the most unspeakably wonderful things that a sister could do in the week before the wedding,  She helped with everything, from just flying up here and making sure Jessi had a familiar face at the wedding, to helping spearhead everything from the rehearsal dinner to the decorations to helping us get to our honeymoon destination okay. And for being so pleasant in the face of godawful amounts of stress from a couple whose usual happy-go-luckiness had been pretty much turned into plastic smiles that barely concealed hideously frazzled nerves and an obsessive need for happy-drugs.

...to Dennis, who managed to take every one of our "Oh, we've made a change, here," with a shrug of the shoulders and a "sure thing," like it was of absolutely no consequence whatsoever that at 12:40 on the day of the wedding, we decided to switch off the sides of the location we'd planned for wedding and the reception because we couldn't center the tent.  And for being a total He-Man when it came to being at the Blanton House early to help to set up, and being there late to help clean up.  Because seriously, I was so on medications that I'm surprised I didn't come to you the next day and go, "Wait. I did what again?"

...to Teri, who helped with the wedding, reception and honeymoon more than any one person could have hoped to.  After giving us a night in lovely (especially in the fall) Nashville as an early wedding present, she eagerly took on the task of decorating the ceremony and the reception, even realizing that meant that she was over at our house almost constantly, asking questions, working on ideas and taking my Lovely Fiancee™ out to the wedding site and craft stores and bridal shops and florists and god-only-knows-where-else to help get everything prepared and ready.  And then, upon arriving and finding out the groom had made a sudden change to which side of the site the reception and wedding was going to be, she somehow managed to not completely go insane.  Mostly.  Well, any more than usual.  XD 

...to Annette and Darlene, who went out of the way to enfold my Lovely Fiancee™ into the family from her very first moment here, and then both helped to arrange a huge wedding shower that blew away anything we could have possibly ever imagined, had we even imagined a wedding shower in the first place.  (And to be fair, having never been to any sort of shower in the first place, had I been asked to imagine it, I  would have envisioned some weird ritual thing with scented candles, bakeware and wine that involved things only spoken of in women's bathrooms.  Like an anti-sports-bar or something.)  

(As an aside, I would also like to admit that yes, that is a very 1950's viewpoint.  I realize and understand this.  And unlike the 1950's, everyone in my family-- regardless of gender-- likes football.  So the sports bar analogy is a lost cause.  

(Also as an aside, the fact nearly everyone in my family likes football frightens the hell out of my Trophy Wife™, as she thinks now she will actually have to learn things like holding calls, pass interference, or where the weakside linebacker lines up in the 3-4 defense... or else possibly face ostracism.  I promise I have not fostered this belief by giving her daily quizzes with questions like, "Name three college teams Lou Holtz coached, or two reasons he is revered in our household**," or "Under what conditions does the half not end when the game clock reads zeroes?")

(Not much, anyway.)

...to Christy, who made an unbelievable cake that went beyond our wildest dreams.  Seriously, when she started talking to us about our ideas for a wedding cake, we were honestly going to be thrilled, even with something that looked like the illiterate Wal-Mart bakery clerk made it, with borderline burgundy icing that read: "Hapy Weddng, Marc n Jesse!"  So when she put together a fall-themed tiered cake that looked as professional as it did, we were almost sad to cut it.  Hell, looking at it, we very nearly peed ourselves with delight.  And trust me: in a rented tux, that's really, really uncool... especially for whomever has to take it back.

...to Bob, Casey and Chloe, for never having a cross word to say while spending an entire weekend in a house that was as ill-prepared to have houseguests as ours.  And then on top of everything else, for being so wonderful before, during and after the ceremony... Bob was such an awesome help setting up and tearing down and just being there whenever we needed a hand, Casey was a perfect gentleman usher, and Chloe was a perfect little ring bearer.  People usually have such awful things to say about in-laws... I have never been more sad to realize that I may only get to see them once or twice a year. 

...to Angie, who not only helped ensure Jessi and I could make it up to Indiana in the first place (and once our finances get themselves out of the sewer, we plan on giving her some really nice payback for that!) but also has overwhelmed us with gifts.  The simple honest truth is that we were astonished by her generosity-- not because it's out of her character or anything... we were actually astonished by everyone's generosity.  The tongue-in-cheek joke is that Angie bought too much wedding wrapping paper and just bought gifts to use it all so she wouldn't have to pack it away and try to find it again for the next wedding, but that's just us.

...to Amanda and David, for allowing us to borrow Hannah for the flower girl.  She had the most adorable moment of trepidation as she walked up the aisle, but like the pro she is, she troopered on through (with a little help from Grandma!) and brought smiles to everyone's faces.  Which was all we could have possibly asked!

...to Tim, who probably has as much right as anyone to be cheesed off at us.  After he-- very considerately!-- offered to gather up a huge amount of acorns for our fall themed decoration, we couldn't even break away to go visit him and pick them up.  I apologize, man... sometimes we're a couple f***ing ingrates. 

...to Crystal, who nudged us to a couple of her friends who do wedding photography for a price we could afford (which was especially helpful when we saw that some professional photogs were doing weddings for something like the Gross National Income of Uganda), and to Katie and Brandy, who-- if the preview photos are to be believed-- somehow managed to make me look photogenic.

(Okay, you can close your mouth now.  Yes, that's a feat, but it's not Jesus-level-loaves-and-fishes or anything.)

...to Brian, who made that trip all the way from Arkansas that I still wish I could have made those few years ago, when it was him walking up the aisle.   It is honestly the one time I have actually actively hated being on any prescription drugs.

...to Shannon, who stepped in the bridal room and immediately took on as many difficult jobs as possible to free Jennifer and Jessi up so that they could focus on everything they needed to.  Which may have even involved elaborate and dangerous bridal rituals, for all I know (see the Shower Thing, above.  And wouldn't marriage be more fun if the rituals included things like the Dance of Daggers, or The Ritual Battle with the Broken Champagne Bottle, or something like that?)

...to Michelle and Jamie, who went out of their way over the course of the two months or so prior to the wedding to give help where they could, and then went out of their way to make our big day all the more awesome by setting up and helping to run the music.  The whole idea of pulling someone from the audience to play the songs over an MP3 player through a cheap set of computer speakers sounded really good until I realized how big the place was.  I couldn't have asked for a better couple friends to jump in when everything was as hectic as it was for the two of us.

...and to everyone else.  And I mean everyone.  From my Mom to Bart to Bob and Ellen and Susie and Rita to Aunt Alice and Aunt Hazel to David and Journey and everyone-- every single person-- in between.  I mean that sincerely.  And completely without joking (for once), there is no way we can possibly express how much each and every one of you touched us with your presence, and how emotional it made us both to see everyone together for our big day.  I wish I could throw a paragraph here to everyone, but there's no way I could possibly thank everyone like that without making this blog last more or less forever.  

Well, more forever... because anyone who has read this long has my profound respect: either they're a glutton for punishment or they're expecting this blog to get better as it goes and are in the process of being horribly disappointed. So pat yourself on the back.  And give yourself a hug.  

Hurry.  Before the giddy smiles of the happy wedding memories wear off.

I have a lot of those to relate, too.  But that's a story for another time.



* - This entire exchange was done tongue-firmly-in-cheek.  If you didn't know that, shame on you.

** - We would accept any of the following, and more: Notre Dame's 1989  National Championship win over West Virginia, Notre Dame defeating Bobby Bowden's Florida State team in 1993, any victory over Miami, and beating the tar out of #2 USC 27-10 in 1988.

*** - uck.

Environmentally Unconscious.

While talking to my Lovely Fiancée™ last night, the two of us both got into a fairly snarky mood.  It happens; we have that whole artist mentality going for us, where neither of us can admit we're wrong... so it makes for a nice healthy bit of usually good-natured friction here and there.  (Yeah, once in a great while, we'll pick at a scab a bit too much and cause a small micronuclear explosion... but it's never yet been anything that love, understanding and hazmat suits can't overcome.)

At any rate, we were sniping at one another from under the cover of thick sarcasm last night-- this is no small exaggeration, either... many of our conversations spread out the sarcasm the way an inattentive McDonald's cook dollops on the Big Mac special sauce.  I forget how the idea came up, but we were talking about her family using those reusable metallic water bottles, because it's unsafe to reuse plastic ones-- I should probably point out I washed, refilled and reused the same 1 liter Mountain Dew bottles for the better part of a year, and that probably explains a lot about my lack of mental focus-- and she mentioned that one of the models kept water cold for something like a day.  I was intrigued.  And I looked at the price of it and was flabbergasted.  It cost more than most pairs of shoes I buy.

"Why not just get a Thermos?"  I asked.

She replied that it wasn't really the same thing, and she preferred having cold water over the course of the day without putting the water back in the fridge, where sometimes the kids grabbed them, so just keeping the plastic bottles was out of the question.  She needed something that would stay cold out of the fridge for long periods and that the kids could be responsible for.

"So why not just get Styrofoam cups?"  I asked.  "You can mark them with your names.  And for the price of that thing, you could probably get a year's worth."

At this point my Lovely Fiancée™ said something that resonated with me.  Well, first she called me obstinate, incorrigible and a few other adjectives I probably shouldn't relate here.  Then she said something that resonated with me.  I should note that this is probably paraphrased, because it is currently seven in the morning and I have yet to ingest any worthwhile drugs:

"Sometimes I think you are so intent on being anti-Green that you're willing to cut off your nose to spite your face."

At the time, I huffed and scoffed and shook a fistful of righteous indignation at the whole idea.  But as more time went on, I came to the conclusion that there was more than just a nugget of truth to that.  Her son-- my soon to be stepson-- is very environmentally conscious.  I am more like environmentally comatose.

Now, I am not always rabid anti-environmentalist or anything like that.  Our new house is Energy Star efficient, and we're using CFL bulbs and energy-efficient appliances, and drinking purified water in bottles with just enough plastic to make it like drinking water out of a stiff zip-lock bag.  So I'm not all about filling Mother Earth with nuclear waste, non-biodegradable plastics and Styrofoam landfills, but I think that there is sometimes way too much of a press put on by people to be green. 

A lot of the things on the Green Initiative agenda are, in fact, very noble, well-founded and helpful at first glance.  Take recycling.  On the surface, it sounds wonderful.  And it is, if you have the time, dilligence, extra space and money to do so.  So, in effect, if you are rich enough to be able to afford the space to keep a bin for your aluminum cans, a bin for your clear plastics, a bin for your non-clear plastics, a bin for your paper products, a bin for your corrugated cardboard products,-- and yes, I work somewhere that recycles, so I know they will not accept those last two mixed, as silly as it sounds-- a bin for your organics, a Sharps container for your recyclable syringe needles (we'll assume that, like me, you only keep those for medicinal or experimental purposes), and a trash can for whatever is leftover.  And have the time and the lack of things to do to spend your time sorting your trash. 

And on top of that make your kids do so... because, after all, they are the ones who are most benefiting from it.  And probably like most kids, my stepson-to-be is probably going to be all about being environmentally friendly until it gets to the point that he has to actually do work.  Like when he has to lug six separate bins to the curb instead of the one trash bin.  Then somewhere, I'm sure, my Lovely Fiancee™ and I will be informed about scientific studies that say that recycling really doesn't help all that much, and may, in fact, be harming the ecosystem of the Southeast Asian Archback Tern or something.

I also have a serious problem with every online biller sitting there and spouting off about how I could be more green and environmentally conscious by receiving all my billing statements via e-mail.  I get this from my phone company, my bank, my credit card sites, my insurance companies, my utilities, and at least four of the porn sites I hit on a regular basis.  And they ask me every time I go to pay.  Like the past thirteen months have meant nothing, and this time around, I've had some sort of Saul-of-Tarsis-sees-the-light-and-becomes-St.-Paul conversion after a lifetime of abusing trees.  Even though in my preferences at all these sites, it says, "Yes, I want a paper copy of my bill."  Even though I have repeatedly told customer service agents that most spam filters are notoriously inept at low levels and at high levels will find a way to 'learn' that a bill reminder is spam and delete it-- and oh, by the way, I'm sure your collection agency and their repo man Enzo will give me a pass on that one.  Even though I'm sure that all the Green Agenda by all these big-name businesses-- which have now suddenly gained a Green conscience and are spearheading "Save the Earth" measures-- has absolutely nothing at all to do with the fact that they are shaving thousands, if not millions, off their budget calculations... meaning that their CEO's can now worry just a little less as they hit that seventh hole on the Palm Springs resort they're golfing at this week.

Yes, even though, I am subjected to that same smiling "Don't you want to be environmentally friendly and only get a bill via e-mail" reminder every fucking month.  And it's led me to respond in this way:

"No.  I don't want to be environmentally friendly.  I want to be environmentally hostile because you insist on asking me this every time I'm here, regardless of my answer last time.  Yes, I want a paper statement.  You know what?  I want a paper statement made out of wood pulp from a seven-hundred year old Sequoia!  Wait, you know, fuck that!  I want my statement on parchment-- parchment made from the flayed and tanned skin of an endangered Long-Haired Spider Monkey, and written with an ink made from a mixture of Humpback Whale oil and West Indian Manatee blood!  And I want an old-fashioned fucking stamp put on it, too!  The ones with the lead base in the gumming!  None of that pre-stuck or pre-printed crap!  And yeah, put the whole thing in a Styrofoam envelope, too, you buncha malcontent fucks."

Ahem.  I have been told that given the right set of circumstances, I can get road rage without even driving.

And I do cheerfullly admit that I am the sort of person who naturally bristles and bucks back at being told I need to do something, like some dull-wit or child or slow pet.  So when I hear stuff like, "you need to recycle," or "you need to be more concerned about the environment," my first gut, kneejerk reaction is to come back with "Bullshit.  You need to come up with a system of sorting trash and removing recycleables at the trash facility, and then pay top dollar to create jobs to do so, because then you could help kill two birds with one stone."

Metaphorically.

Cause, I mean, you start insinuating about killing animals to some people, and they'll lose their fucking mind.

(And again, the author feels that he should point out that he loves his Lovely Fiancee™ like nothing else on Earth, and any 'spats' you see here have been very much embellished for humorous effect... and he thanks her for being such a good sport.  He would also like to point out that this post has been made using environmentally-safe fonts on an energy-efficient monitor, and some of the jokes have been recycled.) 

Decoration of Independence

Let's get this out in the open right now.  I love my Lovely Fiancée ™ like nothing else I've ever known.  I love her unequivocally, without reservation, without any sort of foreseeable end.  I have never been this sure about wanting to marry someone... and that includes any and all TV crushes I may have had during those awkward years of puberty, when-- possibly like most other guys on their first brush with percolating hormones-- I was known to fall hard for a good medium-range camera shot of cleavage or a hot step-aerobic instructor's bare midriff.  With my Lovely Fiancée ™, I can honestly say I have never been with a woman who makes me feel so happy, so content, and moreover, so able to feel comfortable just being me... quirks and flaws and warts and all.  (And I'm sure she's happy to hear about the quirks and flaws and warts, too, especially since I have taken such exquisitely careful pains to hide them during our dating life.)

Understand that we have very similar attitudes, very similar tastes, and very similar artistic natures.  So there is an awful lot of subjects that we see perfectly eye-to-eye, and a small boatload of others that we share fairly compatible views on; if we're not on the same page, we're at least in the same chapter.  But in the long run, it will be those topics which we disagree upon that will be sure to keep this marriage interesting.

And when I say interesting, I mean the definition that has roughly the same meaning as volatile. Or incendiary.  Or mildly atomic bomb-ish.

You already know about the whole sordid cat thing.  To her, a cat is a compatriot... a family member... a stalwart friend who just happens to not have opposable thumbs.  To me, a cat is a potentially disease-and-allergen-riddled vermin that has absolutely no redeeming value unless you have rodents in your house... it provides no protection, it scares no potential burglars/muggers/murderers, it carves up furniture we can't afford to replace, it stinks to high hell, it does not differentiate between places it is supposed to go and places that are off limits. It's a very slight difference of opinion.  Yesterday, she was cooing about the fact that a feral cat in her neighborhood had kittens on her porch because it felt safe there.  While she was doing this and going on about it, my thoughts wandered more or less to these subjects:  1.) Potentially, they could have Rabies.  2.) Potentially, they also have fleas.  3.) It would be very ironic to drop them into a pond with carnivorous fish in it, and  4.) Oh, sweet mother of fuck, don't let the little bastards fucking imprint on her and force her to give me the "But they can't live without me, and the kids just love them, so I can't just leave them there alone" bit later.

(Believe it or not, that is actually pretty unfair of me.  I'm sure that my Lovely Fiancée ™, knowing how apoplectic the thought of even one cat is making me, is almost certainly not giving any sort of thought to bringing in others.  And yet, there is always that niggling little bit in the back of my head that always adds, yes, because cat-lovers are so well-known for their entirely rational and logical thought processes-- especially when it comes to kittens-- aren't they?)

So we knew all things feline was going to be a big stumbling block to the Utterly Perfect Saccharine Marriage.

What we didn't know was that window treatments were going to be another one.

Part of the problem, of course, is that we're both artists.  And as such, we consistently exercise our God-given artistic right to assume that we are never wrong.  This is sometimes also referred to as Artistic License-- which more or less says that reality is actually fluid and varies from artist to artist, and in fact the cold hard facts of reality have absolutely no place in artistic vision unless the artist says it does.  Artistic License in small dollops is a good thing.  But like so many things, it can be downright dangerous when it goes uncontrolled.  Artistic License can allow an artist to paint a vague shape and say it's a dog when in fact it looks like a smoldering heap of unwashed socks and elephant shit.  Artistic License can lead someone into honestly believing the bible told them to create a Jesus Theme Park complete with the Crucifixion Log Ride and the Loaves and Fishes Gift Shoppe.  Artistic License can delude people into believing that Facebook games ending in -Ville are actually constructive uses of time.  Artistic License means Lady Gaga wins.  Artistic License leads to well-intentioned but ultimately disastrous Artistic Visions... like when someone decides that they should get their new car in purple and puke orange to make it stand out.

And sadly, My Lovely Fiancée ™ and I are exhibit A in the case of Bad Shit That Happens When Those Carefully-Cultivated, Seemingly-Artistic Visions Collide. 

It started innocuously enough, when we were searching through web pages for designs for our windows.  For most of the windows in the house, we'd come to the decision that mini-blinds would suffice, because A) mini-blinds are cheap, and B) we are about tapped out of our money.  However, there were a couple windows, like the front room picture windows, where we both felt something more was called for and were willing to spend a bit more on.  So independently, we looked at a few options. I took a more classical route: I preferred the functionality and understated style of Roman shades.  So I fired off some links for her to check out, and told her excitedly how we could even get motorized ones that would raise by remote.

Her response to those over the phone was simple and to the point: "Really?"

And it wasn't a response to my enthusiasm, like "Really?  We can do that?  Oh, honey, how wonderful!"  No, it was one of those Really? tones that only women can make, the sort that generally precede something like, you seriously want to put your genitalia in the vacuum hose?, or, you honestly think a shirt that says 'Hooter Inspector' is an appropriate gift for a five year-old?  The kind of tone that makes you immediately feel small, uncultured, and on a mental par with the smarter breeds of flowering shrubs.

"Well, yeah."  I said, unperturbed.  "You don't like it?"

"No, I don't think I do."

"Why not?"  I pressed.  Because, as a guy, I am used to having a reason why I don't like something, even when it comes to style, you know... the color sucks, or the flow of the whole thing is wrong, or it's too expensive, or it just doesn't go with a damn thing we own.

There was a long silence.  A long and possibly pointed silence.  "I really just... don't... like it," she said, with an odd sound to her voice... most likely because she was swallowing words like "Loathe", "Repugnant," "Hideous", and "Vomitous."

"So what do you have in mind?"  I asked.

She sent me a link, which I dutifully followed.

There was an equally long and poignant silence as I took it in.

"Did the link work?"  She finally asked.

"Uhm.  Yesssssss," I said.

"Aren't they nice?"  She asked.

I looked again.  "Uhm.  Is that a fucking scarf over the top of the whole thing?"

"Yes," she said, probably able to tell that I was not as impressed as I was supposed to be.  "They call it a scarf valence."

"It's well named... it looks like it belongs over some rich old woman's neck.  It's freaking gauzy, too."

"That's the way it's supposed to be.  It suffuses light."  She said.

"Aren't drapes supposed to block out light instead of just filtering it?"  I asked.  "I mean, I could just put up toilet paper if we wanted to only kinda block out light."

An exasperated noise-- one that I am slowly becoming familiar with-- came from the other end.

And things pretty well spiraled down the toilet from there.  It was a case of Classic vs. Nouveau, which is something like Mac vs PC for people with an over-aggrandized sense of their own interior decorating worth.   I think I called one of her choices snotty and over-embellished, and she said that one of my choices looked like it belonged in a nursing home.  I told her that a more classic style emphasized the Roman look of our doorway, and she said that the design of the house demanded something that didn't scream 50 years old.  If we'd been in the same room, the eye-daggers might have been flying every which way.

Finally I took a deep, irritated breath.

"So.  Mini-blinds?"  I grated.

"Fine."  She growled.

"Cheap."  I grunted.

"White."  She snarled.

"Perfect."  I rumbled.

So I put up a pair of nice white mini-blinds in the living room and we have managed to survive phone calls since then without incident.  And we have a very nice house that is waiting to get a full drapery treatment until we can go out together and actually see if there is any sort of window treatment we can both enjoy without getting nauseous every time we enter a room and see it.

And until then, we are living happily ever after.  At least until we start having to pick out towels.

(The author would like to point out that the argument above has been embellished and dramatized in some portions for the sake of effect. In reality, Mark and Jessi are not nearly so coarse or filled with invective, and would never say most of these terribly hateful things to one another. Thank you.

...Okay, except the cat thing. That's 100% legit.)

Homeownerd

You'll have to excuse me, because I had to hold off on several posts.  The main reason why was because I have been busy as effall, and my brain hasn't managed to stop staying in Harried Mode on the days that I actually get a chance to rest.  Which is to say, hardly ever. 

But on top of that, one one particular day last week, had I blogged, I'm sure there would have be this regrettably fanboi feel to the whole post.  Like at any second I was gonna break out in schoolgirl squeals or start screeching like a 60's teenager watching the Beatles on the airport tarmac-- or a prepubescent and her mom at a Flavor of the Week Pop concert.

Because on that day, I closed on our brand new house.

Cue the applause. 

Over the course of the last few months, our house has gone from being a bare patch of dirt to a house atop a bare patch of dirt.  (To be fair, it would have been a house atop a wonderfully green front lawn if Indiana had decided not to have the most retardedly precipitous weather since Noah.  Our front yard currently contains a retention pond that is nowhere on the subdivision map thanks to the rain.)  It was amazing, seeing the little bits and pieces begin to build up-- the foundation, a few pipes, a sudden jarring jump into particle-board paneling over the skeleton wood frame, the Tyvek, the windows, the roof and shingles and siding-- and thinking to myself, this is truly the American Dream-- to have my wallet scream in hideous uncontrolled agony as it realizes that I will be paying for this three months of labor for the rest of my life.

I was a busybody during the construction phase, I freely admit.  I stopped by the house almost daily, just to check in on the progress, to watch the wiring, the plumbing, the insulation and drywall go up, to see the rooms take shape.  And especially to get to know the building crew.  I'd read that a very important step that I could take toward assuring that my new house would be of good quality was to build a good working relationship with the construction crew.  So I bought them coffee and doughnuts, and chips and pop, and although the language barrier tended to inhibit conversation, I thanked them effusively for the fine work they were doing.  They, in turn, sort of made me their mascot: they greeted me often with a wave, smiling and saying El Green Go Es Tupido, which I believe is "Our new home is the tops," or words to that effect. 

I was nervous throughout the whole process, but never more so than when we started going through the walkthroughs with the project manager.  I have never owned a house, and there are an awful lot of technical things to keep track of, from the simple "This is how to make sure you don't end up with a downstairs full of water" to "This is how to keep your energy efficient heater from consuming your attic."  This was all a first for me: I'd never had dilligently paid close attention to home maintenance before, and as has been noted before, when it comes to some systems-- like automotive ones-- I have all the mechanical aptitude of a crustacean.  So I filmed both walkthroughs, took notes, and in each case brought someone much more conversant with the happenings in a new house than I.  And then I used them.  Constantly.  Swear to God, my friend Bob finally ended up writing cue cards that said things like "Nod Knowledgeably" and "Chuckle As Though That Makes Sense to You" and flashed them at me whenever I gave him a panicked look.

Our project manager was fortunately a very wonderful person.  He never spoke down to me, never acted as though I was a complete tool because I didn't know what a flowtrap or a GFI outlet was, never once listened to my questions and gave me the "Are You Fucking Kidding Me?" expression that I'm sure my Lovely Fiancee™ is practicing feverishly as she prepares for daily life with me.  He was an utter godsend. 

In fact, the whole team at Ryan Homes/NVR Mortgage was unbelievably nice, which made me breathe easier, because like every major national business, they have their detractors on the 'net.  This is not altogether surprising, because whenever people have gotten what they feel to be a raw deal and complain loudly and vociferously, and someone agrees with them, it suddenly begins to whip up with hurricane force.  Someone's uncle's cousin found a mosquito larvae in a can of Mason's Freshest Kidney Beans, and a couple other people had less-than-stellar meals with Mason's canned foods locally, and that suddenly equates to a firestorm of "Everyone that has anything to do with Mason Foods are lowlifes and thugs" internet riots... which are like real riots, only by much more pitiable people.  Google it, Ryan Homes and NVR Mortgage have their fair share of horror stories... kind of like every home builder that we could reasonably expect to afford and half of the ones we couldn't.

Even though I subconsciously knew that, however, it didn't stop me from having my stomach tie itself into pretzel-dough knots, because I haven't gotten to be the cynical, glass-is-half-empty, worst-case-scenario pessimistic bastard I am by expecting everything to work out with sunshine and roses in the end.  I envisioned everything possible going wrong, and all throughout the process, my Lovely Fiancee™ got to hear everything that was causing me to think our house dreams were doomed, because I felt that with only two kids and an imminent pack up and move to a new state, she didn't have enough to cause her acid reflux to start eating away the lining of her stomach. 

And yet.

Doom.

Just.

Didn't.

Happen.

I was sure that my credit report would pull up some forgotten charge that hit a credit bureau ten years ago, possibly even a damning one involving something vaguely pornographic.  And then I'd have to stand in front of a bunch of women in business suits and explain why I had an outstanding overdue line of credit at Harvey's House of Hedonism and keep a straight face besides.  That wasn't the case at all.  Nope.  Nothing.  My credit was actually fairly good.  Nothing spectacular, but good enough that they only had to make a couple suggestions to ensure that I would get the loan.

I was sure that during the actual 'picking things out' process I would forget something utterly indispensible, like we'd skip over the roof or something, and I would only learn about it later, when I asked why it was raining on our new carpet and they waved a paper in my face like Satan with a soul-contract, saying I'd signed without asking for it.  But nothing like that happened, either.  There were things I completely forgot, like the fact we would get snow-- and would therefore need a covering for our front stoop-- but I was able to add those on after the initial consultation.  There were things that I never added on, that we have figured we'll find away to work around and fix with tax checks after a couple years, like a fence to keep the small armada of animals (which we seem curiously insistent on someday owning, despite the fact the male half of we has consistently said no, no, no, fuckoff, no when asked) from running off to freedom. But nothing horrible has yet come of this.

I was sure that getting Homeowners Insurance would be an agonizing process, filled with me getting the phone equivalent of walking into a By-Commission Furniture Store, where you have just enough opportunity to look at your first ottoman before fifteen sales reps gangtackle you in an effort to get their card to you first.  But again, it was very painless.  I was offered a few good deals to start out, and then an agent from a reputable company offered us a deal that we would have to be certifiably insane or clinically brain-dead to turn down, and it didn't require either of us to change our car insurance dealers.  No worries there.

And finally, as closing approached closer and closer, I kept waiting for the other shoe to drop.  I waited for some sort of sudden jackup of our price, or a sudden last-minute bunch of  "we need all these forms that you didn't give us" or a call that explained that something had come up and we would have to twist in the wind for another couple weeks, or cancel another credit card, or get notes from our parents, or donate three quarts of plasma before we could finish up.  What happened was I went to a place on the northside, filled out paperwork for about 35 minutes, and was handed a set of keys with a smile.  That was it.  In fact, I looked at the Loan Officer, looked at the keys, and said, "That's it?"  It was over so quickly that I had no idea what to do after that.  I spent five minutes unsure whether I was actually allowed to stand up.  Part of me wondered if she would suddenly yank the keys out of my hand and say "Gotcha!" like a fifth-grade prankster, or if she would snicker as I left, knowing that she had given me keys that wouldn't work.

But that didn't happen, either.  I made my way to the house that My Lovely Fiancee™ and I will be living in for the next few years, growing old together, raising a family, and no doubt having nonstop fights over the cat in, and I unlocked the door.

And all of a sudden, I have a new chapter to my life.

 Just like that.

Domesticality

So.

I just got back home from a week-long vacation visiting my Lovely Fiancee™, which included all kinds of fun activities, like spending the day at the Tampa Ren Faire, visiting the Florida Aquarium and Lettuce Lake, and Driving Her Car More Than It Has Been Driven in the Last Two Years Combined While Running Ourselves All Over Hell and Creation at Breakneck Speeds.  By the time Tuesday rolled around, we both needed vacations from our vacations.

All right.  That's a little on the facetious side.  (I'm sure I hear jaws dropping collectively at that admission, because god knows that I am never facetious here.)  The truth is that we both very much enjoyed ourselves, and we got a lot of important work done.  We picked out some paint swatches for the upstairs bedrooms in our new house, had our engagement pictures taken, pored over and selected our wedding rings, and picked out some nice wall decor for the house.  In the spare time we had, I watched mortgage rates with bated breath.  All of this made me realize that I am ever-so-slowly losing my rough-and-tumble, angry-young-man razor edge, and becoming one of those fat, balding, more-or-less contented husband types.  I.e.:

- Someone who watches enough news to constantly be complaining about the state of the economy, and what the (insert political party, secret societal sect, or system of government of your choice here) is or is not doing about it. 

- Someone who has a midlife crisis when he says the name of his all-time favorite band and his step-son or -daughter looks guilelessly at him and asks "Who?"

- Someone who complains about how the youth of today know nothing, appreciate nothing, and need to get their collective heads on straight, because, dammit, we walked two miles to school in driving snow, uphill both ways, and we liked it.

- Someone who wakes up with achy joints and a creaky back and can almost immediately tell if the weather caused them without looking outside.

- Someone who spends the large part of his day in his armchair, including the four or so hours after work when he falls asleep there.

- Someone who actually has to think when asked which he values more, a good bowel movement or good sex.

- Someone who actually gives a fuck what happened on Dancing With The Stars last night.

Yes, boys and girls, I am slowly but surely becoming old.  And domestic.  Well, more domestic than I currently am.  I mean, hell, I cooked dinner a couple days for my Lovely Fiancee™ and the kids, and the world didn't come to a screeching halt or anything.  And yes, before you ask, it was good.  Damned good.  And largely not prepackaged, too!

At any rate, this newfound bit of domestic complacency concerns me.  I'm not quite ready to give up being the angry bastard I've grown up to become, and this latent bit of frumpy contentedness makes me think that I'm overdue for a good rantfest.  All I need is a reason.  And that's never been a problem before.

Or at least, it wasn't, before my memory started filling with things like APRs and complementary trim selections.

Damn.

Valentinery

So it's Valentine's Day today.

Yes, it's the day for chocolate, hearts, roses, and enough saccharine-filled love to make the Romance Classics Channel turn its head and politely vomit into the potted plant by the door.  It's the day that Hallmark, Whitman and FTD execs furiously yank themselves over, hoping to ejaculate a liquid jackpot of sales.  Uhm... on a side note, I guess I should point out that last sentence is all about completely metaphorical masturbation, but I'm perfectly fine with the mental imagery if you are. 

The flower, candy and card companies might not have created Valentine's Day, but they have turned into their primary commercial marketing orgy, right ahead of some of the other holidays they've created to try to reel in everyone's hard-earned cash.  And you know what holidays I mean.  The ones that especially target people with a surfeit of money and a guilt complex to buy for anyone and everyone for fear of missing someone.  The ones that are called Hallmark Holidays for a reason.

Like "Secretary's-- excuse me, Administrative Professional's-- Day."

"Sweetest Day."

"Grandparents' Day."

And my personal favorite, "Christmas." 

Now, my thoughts on the Valentine's Day holiday have always been pretty iffy, as you might guess from the above paragraphs, but for the sake of argument, let me reiterate them. 

I am not anti-Valentine's Day. 

That statement alone should come as a surprise to everyone, and not just because it's a grammatically hideous double-negative and obviously proves I'm a hack writer.  I don't think Valentine's Day should be slapped down as some no-count cynical corporate heartstring-tugger holiday, the way Emo Nation apparently does.  After all, compared to Sweetest Day, Valentine's Day has a long and storied and totally fucking uncontrived history.  And as my Lovely Fiancee™ can hopefully attest, I am still to some degree a romantic at heart, even if it tends to work a lot better in my mind than in practice.  I really see nothing wrong with setting aside a day to celebrate romantic love, in the same way that Greeks used to sacrifice bulls to appease-- and call blessings from-- Aphrodite.  It's a wonderfully pagan thing to do.

Now, yes, I much prefer citrus to chocolate, prefer my flowers in-ground rather than in-bouquet, and-- from a strictly decorating point of view-- have absolutely no use for reds, pinks or hearts.  And I really do utterly hate the way Hallmark, 1-800-Flowers, Vermont Teddy Bears, Helzberg Diamonds and Victoria's Secret have turned the holiday into a huge commercial industry.  I hate that they push Valentine's Day like it's some glorious slice of Americana and that you're a pinko commie if you don't buy your significant other something or several somethings, preferably from their stores.  But to be fair, every business that hinges on sales does that with every holiday.  The only people besides postal workers and government employees who celebrate Presidents Day are furniture stores, who try to lure people in with their Lincoln-look-alikes.  I can't really damn Valentine's Day simply because of its crassly capitalistic nature.

Oh, but I do despise one other thing about Valentine's Day. 

At its very heart (ha ha!  Another pun!), Valentine's Day is a holiday for the Haves to rub it in the noses of the Have-Nots.  And that sucks big donkey.

This is the day where if you're in love and that love is returned, you are most likely declaring it with the strident, rich tone of a symphony.  You're striving to make the day perfect, and not at all caring what unattached pond scum may be hearing you natter on about how wonderful the day is, how much you've spent, how wonderful everything is because you're in love.  And when you're in love, of course, everything is right in the world.  And that blinding ignorance is why you also probably don't realize that those sullenly unattached people are very likely plotting your demise. 

I can say this now with the bitterness of experience, having been a Have-Not for most of my adult life.  And at that point in time, especially during my more selfish young adulthood, I hated Valentine's Day.  Absolutely hated it.  Hated it like a Goth hates sunlight.  Hated it like a vegan member of PETA hates my dinner plate. 

I was Joe Fuckavalentine, the same sardonic, acrimonious type I am now, only younger, unattached, and pretty pissed off about it.  I was the guy who got the Let's Just Be Friends line trotted out by anyone I had a remote desire to ask on a date.  I was the proverbial Nice Guy Finishing Last, right behind the stereotypical gangster wannabe and the third-string varsity linebacker.  I was proof positive that the old canard about women appreciating brain and personality more was complete and total bullshit.  I was one of those types that received a valentine every year for one of precisely three reasons:

1.)  Because everyone in class received one, and for all my strangeness, I was actually still a member of the class

2.)  Because I was the only kid under 20 at home, and Mom wanted to instill in me an appreciation in the wonders of love, just on the off chance I might actually opt to leave my room to find a woman and help prove to her I wasn't ascetic, psychopathic or gay.

3.)  Because the local pharmacy had a 2-for-1 sale on chocolate while my sisters was there, and they thought it might look crass to hoard it all to themselves.

I've been there.  I know what it is to hate Valentine's Day.  I know, even now, what a hideous waste of money it is, and I know what an over-commercialized hype machine from the greeting card companies it has become. 

And yet: I can't bring myself to totally hate what it represents.

What I do hate about Valentine's Day is the idea we have to be keyed into a holiday for what it represents.  What I hate is that we apparently need the greeting card manufacturers, the chocolate cookeries, the stuffed bear seamstresses, the floral arrangement artists and the jewelers to wave a "Remember Me" day under our nose to remind us to show someone we love that we appreciate them.  What I hate is that everyone has become tied up in the notion that showing love involves only those things that appear on a credit card bill.

And on that note, I call bullshit.  You don't need a holiday for that.  You can appreciate the people you love, every day, without reservation.  You can show them how much they mean to you without putting them into a chocolate coma.  You can show them how much they mean to you without bundling up a bunch of roses of the proper variety and color according to some stupid chart somewhere.

And you can just fucking tell them how much they mean to you.  Any day.  Every day.

Not just February 14th.

And on those same lines, a quick note to my Lovely Fiancee™: Today is very special to me, not just because it means there are exactly 240 days until you become my Lovely Wife®, but because of the fact that you're a part of it.  Every day we've been together up to now has been very special to me because you've been a part of it, and every day from now forward will be very special because you will be a part of it.  I will never be able to adequately express what you mean to me, so I hope on some level you already know.

 -MH

Bits

Just some random ideas, notes and other such things that have occupied my head over the course of the last few weeks:

* * *

Between the rest of the earnest payment and estimated closing on our house, and the money owed for a truck to bring my Lovely Fiancee™ up here, I just spent close to $6000 this weekend.  

While that might not seem like a whole lot of money to some people (and let's be honest; if that doesn't sound like a whole lot of money to you, there is every possibility that I hate you just on general principle alone), and that cost might sound like a very standard amount to your average prospective home-buyer and mover, this is somewhere near a ludicrous amount of money to me.  I have never-- ever-- ponied up that sort of cabbage, let alone over a two-day span.  Hell, if I added up all my bills, it would probably take me a solid five months to come up to $6000.  When I bought Reno, new off the showroom floor, I only wrote a check for two thousand dollars, and even then it felt like having a sadistic dentist extracting a few teeth from me.

Without the benefit of good loopy drugs.

Using a pair of vise grips and auto-repair pliers.

And keeping me from fidgeting by attaching electrical clamps to my genitalia.

Really.

And what's the worst thing about it?  The fact that the four-thousand-plus-extras of the money on the house barely even scratches the surface.  In the grand scheme of things, I have officially dribbled a teaspoon of water into the rain barrel of what we will owe.  I haven't even managed to pay enough to fully constitute 5% on our house cost.  And since I got the money in the first place from my 401K, I have not only managed to barely ripple the water of our final house tally, but I've also managed to push back my retirement age to somewhere around 84.  Conservatively.    

Which coincides pretty nicely, actually, with when the house will finally be paid off.

Oh, and with all of that said, the thing that pissed me off most was having to spend $48 on windshield wipers for Reno because the store was out of the silver and gold series in Reno's size, leaving me with no choice but to buy the Platinum ones.  $48 for wipers?  Really?  Seriously?  Do they compose f**king sonnets while they're wiping bird shit off my windows?  Do they sing the chorale from Handel's Messiah while they're clearing road salt?

* * *

We got information today at work about the possibilities that while in at work tomorrow, the weather may get really nasty.  Like, a foot of snow or an inch of ice (unilaterally, we would prefer snow, so in keeping with the idea that God Hates Me, we will doubtlessly get ice). In a not-quite-worst case scenario, we will lose power at our house.  Possibly for days.

In the worst case scenario, we will not lose power at work-- our work is in the medical field... so our building has been built to withstand oddities like Rain, Snow and the Wrath of a Wintry God Gone Berserk.  But there is always the possibility that the bad crap happens while we're here... which means, in such a case, a travel advisory could then blankets the county and we could end up stuck there at work. Warm (which is a plus) but without food, beds, or the ability to shower.

In other words, inside of two days we could become like the contestants in Survivor: Norway.

We could have to eat one another to survive.  Yes, I know there's a gas station a couple blocks away, but if we're under an emergency, who will let us in to raid the chip aisle?  Hell, who will be there to put the hot dogs on the rollers to heat them?

That alone should warn you how desperate this could become.  I could be stuck at here, at work, with only parental-guidance-blocked internet, and no heated meat entrees outside of the mystery stuff in the vending machines?  

Oh, hell with that.  I may just call in sick out of a sense of self-preservation.

* * *

Loggerheads

So I'm talking to my Lovely Fiancee™ some nights ago over the phone, and somehow the subject comes up that the kitten (our Pet-to-Be) sometimes doesn't listen when she tells it not to bite or go somewhere or do something.  Like apparently, it very sweetly and very cutely leaps onto the power supply for her computer and shuts it off without a proper shutdown sequence.  Or it endearingly rips gashes in her bare legs.  Or it makes her go Awwww as it goes into heat and yowls incessantly, parades around with its ass in the air looking for something to make it have more kittens, and forces my Lovely Fiancee™ to frantically explain to her young daughter why their male cat is not allowed in without using any animal terminology like sex-starved slut, or gaping slick orifice of cat-hell.  Or to put it in a much more urbane way of phrasing, "she is sometimes a little shit."

I could have told her this long ago, seeing that the creature in question is a kitten. I could have also gloated that the only times I worry about the fish not listening is when I'm trying to take pictures of them, and then, it's most often more of a laughing manner than a genuine "What the fuck is wrong with you!" manner.  I could have also said, "Awwwh," because this is the sound I gather most cat-lovers like to hear.  Usually followed by a cutesy variant tone of the kitty-cat's name, or "Schmookums" or something equally inane and offensive to English-speakers everywhere.  "Him's a widdwe pwetty-puss, isun't him?"

I, however, knew I was treading dangerous ground here, as I constantly am whenever we talk about the cat.  My Lovely Fiancee™ is more than just an animal lover. She is a hardcore, third generation-- possibly more-- animal lover, and is instilling that same love in her children.  She moreover loves lost-cause animals-- runts the mother has tossed aside; wounded strays who look utterly pathetic; guys who play role-playing games and haven't dated for years.  I fear that soon, between the three of them, I will be on a first-name basis with every attendant at the Indianapolis Zoo.  Most women cry during chick-flicks; my Lovely Fiancee™ cries at shows on Animal Planet.

I knew all this, and yet, I responded with one of my usual wonderfully well-thought out replies: "The cat does realize that it's not going to have complete run of the house when we move in, right?"

Numerous married men are very likely now grabbing their nutsacks in empathy.

There are a lot of things that you simply aren't allowed to do to have a long, happy marriage, and you can probably guess a few of them, such as "don't say someone else's name during sex", or "don't sit there and laugh when it turns out she's wrong."  However, when your significant other is a cat-lover (hell, any animal-lover), a whole new set of land-mines arises, around which you'd damned well better tread carefully, no matter what you think.  When discussing said animal, you are in no way expected to insinuate that A) she doesn't have control over the animal situation, B) the animal in question might be problematic, or C) that you would not be disappointed beyond measure if the animal in question accidentally fell into a wood chipper.  Any of these are akin to saying something like, "dinner was pretty good, honey, but next time you ought to try to this dish my ex-girlfriend was really good at..."  You can literally watch the air get cold enough to see your breath from one moment to the next. 

I was fortunate in that it snowed a couple nights ago, so I was better prepared for the frostiness.  But it's still like a Japanese horror movie-- it puts chills up your spine for reasons you don't really understand.

"What is that supposed to mean?"  She said.  I could have almost sworn it was a hiss.  I'm genuinely hoping it was bad cell service.

After stumbling through an apologetic reply that amounted to recanting everything, I did what every man who deeply loves his fiancee would do... I showed all the backbone of a jellyfish and tried to look for a good, legitimate compromise that would at least leave me a slight, small sliver of masculinity.  And in the meantime, while doing so, I have begun making plans for what brand of hard liquor I will bequeath the rest of my life to.  As I told my Lovely Fiancee™ earlier, there is no doubt in my mind that if we ever look at separation and divorce, that little ball of meowing fluff-- or the five to ten that are sure to come after it, because cat people can't be fucking content with one-- will almost certainly be the root cause.

So, yes, the compromise.  The problem was one I figured the internet could take care of:  I needed something to keep the pet-to-be from getting onto the counters and the furniture in the new house.  I needed a way to keep this dirty beast from turning our expensive new house into the Chateau de Felinus Fuckoff (the sort of place even non-cat lovers can immediately enter and say, oh, I see by the way your house is set up that either you own a cat or have a new child with acrobatic-contortionist DNA).  I need this cat to be a ground pet, and I need it not to sharpen its claws on our new furniture... apparently that should be preferably without de-clawing, because most cat-lovers and bleeding hearts will tell you (with a venom not unlike a Vegan card-carrying member of PETA) that de-clawing a poor widdle kitty is an inhumane torture not unlike tearing your finger down to the first knuckle.  And, no, you cannot respond thoughtfully with "No, inhumane is what I will be the first time I catch the little fucker ripping up our $500 couch or pissing on our $800 carpet because, and I quote, 'that's just what they do'," no matter how much you want to, or how much you fucking mean it.  So I looked it up, and these are the sorts of answers I found for the inquiry at various websites, help-sources and stores:

1) Citrus 
Apparently nothing says, Begone, foul thing, like oranges or grapefruit or lemons.  Also apparently, cats despise the smell of citrus, so you can spritz a lemon-water mist around places that you don't want the poor kitty to go, and it will get the hint.  Supposedly.  Admittedly, it sounds way too good to be true-- srsly?  I can keep them away from my computer by spritzing around it with lemon?  For reals?--  and it does have a far less effective rate than some of the other styles, but the big thing is that you have to keep doing it.  As in Constantly. Like, every week.  Or more.  So at some point, you have to ask yourself, do I really want to sit on a grapefruit-scented couch to go along with our orange-scented kitchen, lemony-fresh computer area, and cat-shit smelling garage?  Do I want to constantly live in a place that smells like the fucking fruit du jour?  If the words fuck, no came to mind, you would be on the right track. 

2) Cat-Away Sprays
This sort of solution sounds too good to be true!  I can spray something with this, and the special chemical pheromone mixture in it will keep the cat from spraying or clawing whatever I hose down, by making the cat feel comfortable in his surroundings!  Unless he's not, because, as the bottle notes:

"There are several reasons why a cat may urinate in your house -- medical problems, old age, the litter box is full, the cat doesn't like the litter you're using, or the box has been moved to a location the cat objects to.. the cat just feels like pissing you or your husband-- because we know no man is going to buy this except out of a sense of total fucking desperation-- off. (okay, I did sort of add that last one.) 

Urine marking is normally found on vertical surfaces, approximately 8 inches above the floor... Only a small amount of urine is discharged in a spraying effect. Male and female cats may mark -- even neutered and spayed cats.

Oh, fucking wonderful.  Now I have to also worry about the cat spreading urine on my walls (but only a small amount!  Only a little bit!  Don't worry!  Just like how you don't worry if slightly daft Uncle Walter shits himself in your kitchen, because at least A) it's mostly in his pants and B) he can't help himself)!

Oh, and on top of that, this stuff does not keep the cat from leaping on our countertops or anything above or beyond possibly spraying.  And again, we would have to use this stuff constantly.  At least for 30 days.  And lest we forget, some of these sprays cost upwards of $20 per 150 milliliters.  At that price, why don't we just walk around with Old West gunbelts on and keep spritz bottles of water in them, pulling them out to spritz away when we happen to catch the cat after it finishes with scraping dirty dust-ridden clay over its own shit and decides that means it's time to jump onto the food prep table?  That would mean the times that one or the other of us aren't at work, or that we're not busy, or we want to be in the kitchen, or... well, shit, that sort of puts that idea out to pasture, doesn't it?

3) Scat Mats
Apparently, enough people have had issues with dogs and cats getting onto the furniture that someone decided the best way to handle it was to introduce static electricity into the equation.  Now, admittedly, this was an idea I could more get behind.  You unroll this mat, place it on a 'problem area' where you don't want the thing to leap up onto, and plug it in.  Voila, instant mild instructional shock when it jumps up there.  The beautiful part of this was watching the promotional video, which actually seemed to show the cat leaping up and then leaping off as though its nuts had caught fire.  It was a thing of beauty.

Now the problems with this scenario?  Aside from the fact that I'm pretty certain that those same types who think de-clawing is terrible-oh-noes-inhumane probably think this is equally terrible-oh-noes-inhumane (in fact, they most likely think every deterrent is inhumane, and that the only steps that should be taken are to sit aside and let the cat literally walk all over you and anything within the house) there is the fact that just because you light up one counter with electricity doesn't mean another is safe.  Or the couch.  Or the upstairs.  Or the entertainment center.  Or you get the picture.  At fiftyish dollars apiece, we can get enough of these to handle the areas of the house the cat shouldn't be... if, say, we eschew buying a laundry dryer or a refrigerator.  But what the hey... we're not all that fond of drying clothes.

Along these same lines are the lesser expensive means that offer the same "The cat doesn't like it here" efforts, like double stick tape and aluminum foil.  And because God knows how cool it would be to consistently set my hands down on double-stick tape while I'm making dinner, or have to uncover the couches from their foil because company's coming over, I will not go into detail on my thoughts on them.

4) Sonic Things
Again, seemingly the perfect marriage, sonics and cat deterrent, this is another thing that sounds (Haa! Pun! Get it?) much better on the surface than it apparently is in practice.  The Sofa Scram mat, which is a little like the Scat Mat, but half the price, emits a sound not unlike a smoke detector.  Which is all we fucking need at 3 o'clock in the morning.

Sound:  BEEP.  BEEP.  BEEP.

Lovely Fiancee™: Mnnh.  What is that?
Me: It's the Scram Mat.  The fucking cat's on the furniture again.

Out Of Control Fire: *Laughs Maniacally and Consumes Downstairs*

The other one is ultrasonic, which might work.  But the price is higher.  Oh, this is me being surprised at that.

5) Claw Caps
This is one of the ideas put forward by my Lovely Fiancee™ as an alternative to the declawing issue.  And it seems to work.  For the scratching thing, at least.  Which is great!  Except I have been told they need to be changed out about every three to six months, and that this is a two person job.  And that I have been volunteered to help out to ensure the cat doesn't scratch my Lovely Fiancee™ into an indefinable bloody mess.

This also thrills me to no end.

And apparently there is no Counter Caps or Couch Caps to keep the cat from jumping onto either.  I did suggest weighted chains, but that idea has so far met with resistance.

6) Small Battery-Operated Guillotines Located At Tactical Areas Throughout The House
No, this will totally not work at all.  But I would admit that I would be a lot more inclined to be happy with this solution, if just for the designs alone. 

7)  Good Fucking Luck
Nothing you do, no matter how physically ingenious or chemically glorious, will stop the cat from scratching your sofa, leaping up onto the food-prep table with its shit-ridden paws, or doing whatever it feels like-- up to and including finding your PIN and taking money out of your bank account, when you're not there.  You can use a squirt bottle, a shook-up can of pennies, or a small flamethrower, and it will be effective.  But only while you're there.  Once you leave the room, the cat will do the feline equivalent of flipping you the bird and do it anyway.  Or if it doesn't, it will plot against you... like waiting until you're sleeping on the couch in your thin lounge pants to leap up and claw at your genitalia.

So out of these ideas, the more I look at each one, and the more I know my own luck, the more I'm thinking that we'll probably have a solution more like: 

8) I Quietly Bow to the Mandate of my Unfortunately-Cat-Crazy Lovely Fiancee™; I Do Absolutely Nothing About Said Creature, Deal with Cat Funk and Hair in my Food and Everywhere Else in Our New House,  and Begin Married Life by Having Myself Emasculated So As Not To Cause Civil Unrest.

Yeah, that about covers it.