Welcome to the Fam

secret blogging from work - I finished everything but don't want to leave early since I am saving all my flex hours for DISNEY. (or rather, for Bri)
I've been remiss as I've been attacked by holidays and dear Asia's wedding. (she's in Costa Rica now, aren't we all jealous) That, and the back to back episodes of Lost we've been watching. ahem.
But I'm here now to tell you of something horrifying that has occured in the T-----/B----- family.
So, this is what you get when you have an adamantly non-religious wedding.
Aunt M., Southern Baptist, corners my sister at Thanksgiving and grills her about our religious beliefs. She knows I'm an agnostic of some sort, probably convinces herself that my beliefs are somehow similar to her own, but now has confirmed info that our beloved Derek is (gasp) an ATHEIST!!! Asks my sister all sorts of questions about whether Derek is influencing my beliefs. (Sis tells her: if anything, M. has become MORE spiritual since she's been with D.) (You know, love renewing faith in the universe and all that. Oh, and a lot of yoga.)
So yesterday we get our Christmas package. For M: the lovely serving set we registered for. For D: Two books about why he should accept JC as his PS.
Welcome to the fam.
If anyone has experience in dealing with this sort of issue, please advise. We are worried that, over the years, we will end up with an entire library.

My Birthday: the good, the bad, and the ugly

Every year Derek is shocked when I morph into a diva on my birthday. Generally, I am not a very demanding person, and I don't go around demanding that things be great all the time or that they be exactly how I want them to be. But on my birthday, I want to do specific things and eat specific things and I want it to be special. And this birthday I felt extra pressure because it was on a Saturday, and we all know that only happens a couple times a lifetime.

I want to explain again that it's not that I expect Derek to kiss my ass or anything, but I just want things to go generally well. Derek woke me up and gave me lots of wonderful presents in the morning (including Willie Nelson tickets! yay!) and my parents had sent gifts from the registry, so that was all good. And we went walking on the little trail near our house, with the millions of cute dogs. Then I had decided that I wanted to go hiking if the weather was nice, to a museum if it wasn't so nice. But because we'd been exposed to Hep A, we had to go to the free shot clinic at the Board of Health. This was downtown, near the MOCA, so that's what we decided to do. However, we had to wait THREE HOURS (or more) to get our butt shots, so this really bummed me out because of, you know, all the pressure about a Saturday birthday. Plus butt shots. Who wants a butt shot on their birthday? (I don't want to know.)

The MOCA was great! The exhibition was on modern graphic artists, starring lots of R. Crumb and Art Spiegelman, which we both thoroughly enjoyed. There was also a VW bug strung up by all it's parts. Cool. I love both the MOCA and it's other half, the Geffen Contemporary and Bri & Wes so will you I think. Don't expect them to be big like anything in NY, but expect that they'll be good.

Then at home, I got into a horrible fight over the phone with one of my dearest friends, which we are still struggling with today. I'm hoping that our relationship will come out of it for the better, but right now we are both feeling like crap.

Not to be deterred from my enjoying my Saturday birthday, Derek and I did go out to my favorite restaurant anyway, and here is what I ate with incredible enjoyment: bright pink horchata, enchilada with a tangy tomato sauce and Oaxacan string cheese, cactus salad, some of Derek's tamale dulce, and tortilla chips with mole. Someone reading has been there too! And there was a very enjoyable marimba band, reminding me of Guatemala. Then we came home and watched March of the Penguins so I got to watch Derek get all teary (so adorable) AND we ate MORE: chocolate chip with chipotle cookies that a student made Derek to try to get a better grade, and mint ice cream with Ghiardelli chocolate that my culinary genius husband made from scratch.

I also think that I felt a little sad and homesick for my friends on my birthday, and that contributed along with the big fight and the butt shot to add to my general malaise.

Then I went to bed and had three restless bad dreams: One in which a good friend of mine who I am seeing today was stabbed and I had to take him to the hospital, one in which I was unpacking and found a turtle in my stuff and didn't know what to do with it, and one in which I was a cheerleader and people were relentlessly criticizing my body.

And that is it, in case you were wondering. Now I am 31. bleh

me too!

This is supposed to be me and Derek. Isn't Derek mean, even though I asked him to indulge me on my birthday, he made his avatar quite silly.

But then he saw what I wrote and made a real one.


Derek Fake Derek Me

Guest Appearance from Derek!

Here goes Derek, telling his side of the story!

For the record, I am not a "blogger" and I am only "blogging" at the request of my wife on the eve of her birthday.

That said, you should have seen her upon receiving news of the possible hep-A outbreak. As I was in mid-bite, she says, "Uh, isn't that the place we went to on your birthday?" I was thinking of the Stinking Rose (which we went to FOR my birthday, not ON my birthday, because on my birthday Melissa's dad wanted to take us to this 4-star-ish fancy restaurant). Because I was eating, at first I simply ignored her and helped myself to more noodles. But after a few seconds it dawned on me that she was right.

Then it really hit. Melissa turned pale and said she couldn't eat any more. I said o.k., but I was still eating those noodles. She doesn't have to eat any more, but I'm still hungry! But then my delicate wife couldn't take it any more. "We have to go NOW!" So Melissa went outside, I got the check and left a 20 without even getting change. By the time I got the car door open, Melissa was slumped over against the car roof with her face in her hands.

PS Dinner for 4 at this restaurant cost over $200, just to give you an idea. The moral of the story: serves us right for betraying the principle of frugality, even for a special occasion.

something else gross

A dred lock just feel off of Ace and onto the comforter.

You Are All Wonderful and Amazing!

The Gorgeous Audience of This Blog

eew.

Derek and I went restaurant exploring tonight. We have our little book and set out to find a particular noodle restaurant in Koreatown. Turns out this restaurant is closed, so we go to the one that's taken it's place, another Korean/Chinese place with homemade noodles and a lucky name: Jin!

Unfortunately, this is not the point. As we sat eating our soft spicy noodles, the TV was playing the news in the background. (We don't have a TV at home, so this is unusual for us.) And the TV announces an outbreak of Hepatitis A at the very fancy very expensive restaurant that my father so kindly took us to for Derek's actual birthday last Tuesday. (Not the garlic restaurant, but a much FANCIER restaurant downtown.)

Y'all know Derek and I NEVER go to fancy restaurants. And the one time we do, a hepatitis outbreak because some employee took a shit and didn't wipe their ass??? Ha! No more fancy restaurants for us!

They're giving free gamma globulin shots tomorrow to anyone who ate at the restaurant during that time period. Happy Birthday to me.

Secret Agent

Garlic Dreams

At his request, Derek and I had a lovely dinner last night at "the Stinking Rose" in (belated) celebration of his 31st birthday.

Last night we floated to sleep together on a cloud of garlic breath and garlic farts. (Ace, who usually sleeps with us, left the bed looking disgruntled after about ten minutes and proceeded to sleep on the couch.)

Then, I had the following dream:

I was on the phone with Janet. She casually mentioned that she was planning to go roller skating that evening at the roller rink. I told her how much I had enjoyed roller skating when I was a child, and would love to go roller skating again someday.

Then, I was on the phone with Asia. We had a very long talk, most of it I don't remember. I think we were trying to make plans to get together. She mentioned that she needed to go running, and then she had plans to go roller skating. I asked her who she was going roller skating with about three times and each time she completely avoided my question. After we got off the phone, I realized that she was probably going roller skating with Janet and that they didn't want to invite me, so that's why she was being so avoidant. I became very upset and started to telling this to Derek. I felt very distressed. I actually woke up saying out loud: "But if I had plans with one of them and the other one called me and had nothing to do, I would ALWAYS invite them!" Then, I felt extremely disoriented, because there I was, lying in bed next to sleeping Derek feeling very self-righteously upset about the fact that Asia and Janet had left me out of their plans. Why would they leave me out? I thought, now fully conscious. I can't believe they would do that. Where am I? Then I remembered that I now live in Los Angeles, and that I was lying in a bed in Los Angeles.

Thanks garlic.

Milwaukee

Oh dear, he's applying to another job in Milwaukee. Does anyone remember that last year, when the endless job search began, I had an actual nightmare about moving to Milwaukee. Nothing personal against Milwaukee or anything, it's probably where we'll end up.

I am utterly exhausted. My days of working late have resumed. I left a client's home at 8:30 and arrived home around 9. I could really just pass out. I'm very boring. I still can't get used to driving. I've become VERY accustomed to sitting in mind-numbing traffic, as this is my usual commute home. But leaving at 8:30, I'm expected to drive over 70 mph and this frightens me. It's like having one of those panic attacks where you think you are non-specifically "going crazy". It's like the fear-of-heights "spontaneous flying feeling." It's this: if I drive too fast, won't I somehow completely lose control of the car? Does one eventually get used to taking curves at 70 mph while surrounded on all sides by extremely large trucks?