Because We Need To Finish The Veal Stew First

I had promised an ambitious food posting, but then there's still stew to be eaten and fish doesn't keep, so fish later, stew until there is no more, and something different for reading today.

Last weekend, we had brunch with my mother-in-law and devoted partner(husband)'s former minister whom I had only met once at a Border's in 19something and who wasn't able to attend our wedding. She asked us a question which, strangely, people have been asking: does it feel different to be married? And I don't want to belittle the question because it's a rather valid one in our circumstance. We were together a very long time before making it official and that perplexed people; as it perplexed them when, seemingly out of nowhere, we decided to go ahead and sign the papers and serve wine with them. I think if you had asked me to answer that question before marriage I would have given a flippant answer. Now, though, I have to admit that it is different. But in very specific, kinda cheesy ways.

I draw your attention to two things I've read about love and marriage in the past day, both courtesy of friend postings on Facebook. The first a story about a married couple whose lives were irrevocably changed when the husband suffered irreversible brain damage; the second about a single woman my age contemplating a lifetime with a man whose views on religion deviate so wildly from her own that crying is a frequent occurrence.

Both of these articles incited emotion from me; emotion that would have been different prior to marriage. I would have, without hesitation, assured you, in my pre-marriage state, that I was with devoted partner in sickness and in health. But I would have been under no moral, ethical, or quasi-legal obligation to do so. It was merely my love for him that prompted that response. Now, though, it's serious. It's real. Words are only words save for how you endow them with meaning, and when we recited our vows - our traditional, old-fashioned vows - we meant them. Literally. Irrevocably. I think it's why we wanted those vows. Those were the lessons of marriage that spoke to us and we wanted it to be absolutely clear that we were signing on for old-fashioned, irrevocable marriage. It wasn't just laziness on our parts. Or as Henry Rollins said, "Me and you until we die. For better for worse. You get cancer, I'm sticking with you, your tits get cut off, I'm sticking with you, you f-ing grow this melanoma lump out of your f-ing head, I'm staying with you. I gotta put you in adult f-ing diapers when you're 90, I love you and I'm going to do it every day."* We didn't think the guests would really get that, so we went with the book of common prayer. And this first article is absolutely heartbreaking because it resonates so strongly. Sure, we had gobs of years in the bag where that's what we thought, but being married feels different because we know we're going to do it now.

Which brings me to the second article where a woman is wondering if she should enter into what any rational person could see is a doomed long-term relationship simply because she's 34 and her pickings are slim. All the self-righteous crap I just spewed above, that's MY truth. MY life. MY stubbornness. And I do my level best not to judge how others do it simply because we decided on the Thunderdome interpretation of marriage. But it gets me in the gut to read and hear about this paranoia of being left alone and grabbing at anything vaguely compatible to avoid this. As if you get a medal for it, or that at your funeral they make mention that you lived your life summa cum somebody. Marriages are tough in the best of situations, but entering into one where you already have one of the three bellwethers of divorce checked off (the other two are money and kids) beggars belief. And doing so because you think it's the best you'll ever get (an outlook, by the way, which I believe dooms one to only getting the ok out of life)?

Listen, I'm now a big advocate of this whole spending-your-life-with-the-same-person thing, I like it, but the whole Big Capitalized Vow aspect? I never could have done that for someone who was just the best I could get. I'd like to think most people (or most of the people I know) get into marriage because they love the other person and think it's going to work forever, not simply so they can check "married" off on their bucket lists; it's terrible when it doesn't work out that way, but knowing it's not going to work out that way and having the party anyway? Ick. I mean these are the author's own words: "But if I decide not to be a part of this holy threesome, I could risk ending up on my own. That doesn't sound like a very good deal to make. In fact, that sounds rather like a deal with the Devil." Great, so marry someone with whom you have fundamental, intrinsic differences and enjoy the two years or so of getting to claim you're married before you kill each other or merely divide your stuff and flee to opposite ends of the country. Is there a prize for that?

So, yes, it feels different to be married. More weighty. More explicitly responsibility-laden. And while I clearly did judge the soon-to-be-married-and-then-divorced author, there are too many struggling marriages that deserve a chance for me to get worked up about a theoretical one that should never happen. We waited a long time, and I'm glad we did. Not because it is an amusing story to tell new people, but because, given our feelings about marriage, we wanted to be damn sure we meant it. Having set it down on paper? Yeah, that feels pretty damned different!

*Dear Henry Rollins, This is now the third time I have bought this album. Today I did it to find that one passage. Thank goodness for The Cloud because, theoretically, it means I won't have to buy it again. Love, Yelena.

Pour Some Saccharin On Me

This weekend, we will celebrate out 14th anniversary, and the last anniversary we'll celebrate unmarried. Strange to say, I have mixed emotions.

Yes, I am very much looking forward to being Mrs. Devoted Partner, but I've been saying for years that I don't like the idea of renumbering our anniversaries. October of 2012 won't see our first anniversary, it will see our 15 1/2, more or less.

Conventional wisdom, coupled with conventional scare tactics, dictates that Everything Changes (TM) once you get married. Obviously, I'm not buying that. And while it sounds pretty macho to say that we've been married in all but name for years, that does diminish the importance of deciding to legally wed, and I'm not into that either.

As we go through the massive checklist of wedding needs, I realize that the devoted partner moniker is more than just cutesy. For all the years when I felt the term boyfriend was insufficient and referred to him as my partner, apparently it wasn't just vanity. When we joke about being willful and stubborn enough to work through the problems we encounter in the future, beneath that joking is the knowledge that we have worked long and we have worked hard at this partnership and that's what will enable us to weather the unavoidable storms of a lifetime together.

Happy anniversary to my devoted partner from his devoted partner.

Love and My Mother's African Violets

My cousin, Alexandra, was married this weekend in Maryland. She and her husband Jeff put together a beautiful ceremony and quite enjoyable party and I was happy to be among my family - we don't get together as often as we should. I finally met the last of my mother's first cousins (there are a number of 1st removed, 2nd, etc. cousins that are difficult to keep track of) and I danced with my father and brother. The bridesmaid's were in a beautiful shade of pewter, the groomsmen wore truly excellent turquoise ties. The officiant was a "spiritual humanist." Good times.

One of the bridesmaid's read a poem during the ceremony about the importance of having a good foundation in your love and marriage to sustain you when the passion of being in love fades away. Unlike the vast majority of poem readers at weddings, this girl articulated her words and used phrasing so that it didn't sound like a test run at a robotics convention. Unfortunately, her excellent diction and treatment of the poem as poetry allowed me to really pay attention to the words (not well enough that I could find the poem on google, but well enough for me to remember how I felt about them). And I found I didn't like what the poem was saying.

Using a tree as the metaphor, the poem talked about needing deep, strong roots because you couldn't expect to maintain the beautiful flowers for a lifetime; that you should really love one another because it was inevitable that you wouldn't be 'in love' forever; that one day you would stop being in love with one another and the best that you could hope for was to still love each other.


*


My mother has about six African violet plants. These little guys are notoriously difficult to care for and have a high death rate. My mother loves these African violets and maintains them vigorously. When she is away, she writes a treatise on their care for me to follow: use only the filtered water, 1/2 c. for this plant 1/3 c. for that one, don't get water on the leaves. Even with all her careful consideration, some years the plants don't flower. Or she'll get one flower that will soon die, leaving just the leaves of her plant. Other years, all of the plants will flower, and she'll call me excitedly to tell me how beautiful they are and how happy she is that she got them to flower that year. I don't know how many years this has been going on, but she's added to the collection here and there, having started with a single plant.


*


I find that people are frequently too eager to forecast doom. We got engaged and a number of well-meaning people made jokes about Bridezillas, starting to simply hate little things the other person does, gaining weight, lamenting our decision to spend the rest of our lives together due to toilet paper shortages and burnt roasts. I hate to harp on this point, but it does bear mention that many of these people had been married a far shorter time than devoted partner and I have kept house together. And I don't think any of them did it to be mean. I think it's part of our collective zeitgeist: the henpecked husband, the wife frustrated by her mate's laziness, the joint deathmarch to the bedroom for mandatory 7-minute coitus. Whether or not people actually experience these things to the extent popular culture would have us believe, it is trendy to pretend as if this is just the way things are.

Devoted partner and I are not exceptional in our love. I would never even presume to think our love rated higher on the quality scale than anyone else's. I don't even think it in private. Our love is our love and is unique because it's ours. We have had a while to fall out of love with one another and rest on the laurels of the love we built behind the pomp and circumstance of in love; we've had longer to do so than most couples' marriages. Strangely, though, we haven't done that. We're not eagerly looking forward to our staid, sexless, tolerant years. Our 'Everybody Loves Raymond' years. Our 'at least we made children' years. I would unabashedly assert that I am MORE 'in love' with devoted partner today than I was in March of 1997. We've gotten better. There's more to be in love with!


*


Marriage shouldn't be a sturdy old tree stripped of blossoms, but strong enough not to be turned into kindling. Marriage is an African violet whose blooms are unpredictable. Some years the abundance of beauty could stop your breath, other years you just have to believe that there's more left for it to give. But to think that there's only one season for flowering is a thought bereft of hope. I wish that my cousin and her new husband will experience numerous flowerings for many many years, and that in between, they don't forget about the filtered water and the soil levels, and keeping the leaves dry. That even at the greatest heights of happiness, they make sure not to neglect the regimen that allowed that happiness to erupt. It takes work - take it from your older cousin - and it's not easy and it's not always fun.

And it's always always always worth it.

Again With The Semantics

Sigh.

And we were finally getting used to devoted partner. Ribbing and teasing aside, the moniker was both cute and apt and I think we all started to enjoy it - even devoted partner himself.

In the first of the lucid moments after what happened in Maine, I remarked that we would probably have to change his name to something else. So we cobbled together the approved words and then, as is our most annoying habit, attempted to tinker with their pronunciation: B-Trothed (pronounced to rhyme with the planet Hoth), fee-ank-ee. While I prefer the former, devoted partner rightly pointed out that our pronunciation of troth sounded way way way too similar to trough.

Point taken.

I find it personally interesting that, after sighing with discontent for many years about the inadequacy of the term boyfriend, I am resistant to applying our new terms - those that adequately describe our relationship. Contrary as I may be, I always thought this would be the easiest of the transitions; now I feel sadness in giving up 'devoted partner.'

And I wasn't the only one. While it will make introductions easier, as in, "I'm Yelena and this is my fiancee, [devoted partner]," we both decided that we like 'devoted partner,' and I'll continue to use it herein.

Where Does This Fall on the Adorable->Pathetic Scale?

From time to time, people have remarked to us (or to me about us), that they find it strange how often devoted partner and I do separate things. Or how we don't call to check in on each other. Or how, except in very very specific cases, there is no resentment/jealousy/peevishness about the time we spend apart. But I still get a lot of, "what does devoted partner do/say/think when you do x?" I think that having independence makes us value our time together more, but it might not be for everyone. Still, the one thing we both rely on and look forward to is that last moment of the day when we're in bed together.

So, last night when I realized that, by virtue of dropping him off at the airport I would be sleeping alone, I was kind of sad. We really don't spend many nights apart - the last time was a year ago. And it was my first time sleeping alone in the house. The scary, poorly lit, no-one-can-hear-you-scream house. I locked the doors for the first time in a while.

Then, after watching Steel Magnolias (something I would probably not do if I was sharing the couch), I became listless. There was no one to bother. I went to Whole Foods to do some shopping for the weekend; I made an upside-down nectarine cake (much more like a tatin - it needs creme fraiche to cut the sweet); I poked around on the internet.

And then I changed into one of devoted partner's shirts, arranged blankets and pillows on the floor of the living room, and fell asleep watching tv. Now I can make up some bullshit about how we don't have a tv in the bedroom anymore and falling asleep to tv is a luxury I can only experience when I have the house to myself, but the truth is, I kind of didn't want to sleep in our bed alone.

I know. It sounds crazy. It sounds a little unbalanced. But our bed is where WE sleep. I don't know where I sleep anymore. I'll try to be a little more evolved come Sunday night; thank goodness Amy has given me a reprieve (and a spare bed) in the Berkshires for the weekend!

Of Epic Battles

Really, peaches people? I know there are a lot of you out there. Why within my own family both devoted partner and internets-savvy mom are partisans for the P-Party! I know matters of taste are exactly that, but I have to say, even after all this time and a fair bit of effort, I just don't get it.

Nectarines are WAY better than peaches!

I'm not even sure I feel it's a fair fight. Yes, in a vacuum, peaches are wonderful: sweet, summery, sweet, juicy, sweet. If there were no such thing as nectarines and peaches had only the plain black plum to fight in the stone fruit wars, then yes, viva peaches! But peaches DO have stone fruit competition: the apricot, the greengage plum (now in the market and many times this morning in my mouth and bag), not to mention the weird ones like the plumcot or the apricine or whatever Californians are doing to mate their fruits with one another today. Peaches, to my tastebuds, don't stand a chance.

And nowhere was that clearer than in last night's fruit salad (side note: gentlemen, why does fruit not seem like food when it's in the refrigerator in its whole form, but once sliced immediately becomes food?). When sliced and placed next to the nectarine, the peach's one-hit wonder of taste (sweet) was so achingly, painfully obvious, whereas the nectarine, which is sweet with a divine tangy bite, shone. Notice, if you will, that fruit juice companies frequently pair the peach with another fruit, mango or orange. Could it be that the frail peach is just too simple to stand alone and needs some acid from a friend?

And poor devoted partner, he'd eat peaches every day (provided said peaches were cut for him, see above), whereas I have, throughout the years, made him exactly zero peach pies and countless nectarine mascarpone cheesecakes (Amy, can I bring one next weekend?). In my market bag right now are four peaches: two yellow, two white so that I can make more fruit salad and we can bring it to the beach, but the peaches were purchased with a heavy heart: can a relationship survive this most fundamental of differences?

Perhaps we are saved by climate. The peach vs. nectarine wars are ephemeral, lasting a mere 6 weeks each summer, after which time peace reigns in a household that prefers tart apples to sweet ones.

Olden Times Must Have Sucked

And by olden times, I mean 20 years ago when homes didn't have internet.

Last night during our power outage (rain, falling trees, trees hit power lines (which I have no idea why they build UNDER trees), power goes out, children sweat in bed while eating low-fat Carvel), devoted partner and I had one of those senseless factual disagreements that, during times of peak power performance, are solved in a matter of moments. I said that a 'ger' was the Mongolian tent, he said it was a 'yurt.' Obviously this was influenced by a conversation about the travels of Edney. Devoted partner said he had never heard of this 'ger' I mentioned, which I thought odd since devoted partner has heard of EVERYTHING. And, because of the lack of power, we had to wait until morning to discover which of us was right. For the other geeks out there, we both were: yurt is the generic name of the structure; ger is what the Mongolians call yurts.

And, dear readers, this sort of thing happens a lot. Especially on long car trips, of which we will be taking a couple in the next several weeks. Devoted partner's blackberry gets sporadic reception in the middle of Manhattan, so I am not sure it can be relied upon to solve epic disagreements about vocabulary or the proper way to address an admiral on shore in the midst of moose and/or banjo country, and my iToy is a) mostly broken (unless you don't think using 1/3 of the screen where the keyboard sits is a problem) and b) only wi-fi anyway, making it useless in the aforementioned places.

I know the lore is that the Guinness Book of World Records was started so that bar fights could be settled quickly and unequivocally, but it's a pretty bulky book that has become so milquetoast in recent years, that it hardly qualifies as even vaguely interesting. I'm starting to wonder if the only solution is silence in the car and/or Harry Potter books on tape (how can you argue facts when you're listening to a book of total fabrication?).

In the meantime, I can be cheerful because power was restored at 6:00am this morning, necessitating only one night in the damp hot dark.

No Middle East After Midnight

I don't purport to know how all happy families remain similarly happy, but I do know that couples find personal ways to minimize needless relationship tension. Whether it's making sure sex is scheduled, having separate bathrooms, or never ever allowing your parents or in-laws to spend the night, we all arrange our neuroses such that their impact on our happiness is tempered. Which is how devoted partner and I established the rule: No Middle East After Midnight. Back when I thought giving a damn would do me any good, we would argue long into the night. On weeknights. When we should have been rejuvenating ourselves for the next day. Finally, the bleary-eyed and highly irritable pair of us decided that there are just some topics of conversation that should not be part of our pre-sleep ritual.

We have, for the most part, kept to this over the past 8 or so years. I think we ran over a couple of times, but we haven't been up until 4am arguing about it in recent memory. In fact, we haven't talked all that much about it at all. Which is totally attributable to my change of heart regarding Middle East politics. Where I once cared very very very deeply and equally as vocally, I decided after one of the many ridiculous failures of communication/negotiation/weapons discharge that I hoped everyone in the region, more or less, developed amnesia/ebola and we could try again in 50 years.

Recent events have been grappling with my resolve to not give a shit. Which is how we ended up yelling at each other (albeit well before midnight) yesterday evening. Because in the grand scheme of things what we should really spend our energy arguing about is a fight neither of us has any blood or stake in.

But, since I don't want to actually talk this particular breed of politics here (mostly because my opinions in my circle are deeply deeply unpopular and I think if I'm going to lose friends I'd like to do it in a less pointless way), I was trying to come up with some pithy parable that would express my views. And then I realized that was pretty ridiculous too.

So I'll say what I said to devoted partner because I think specifics, in this case, really really cloud the issue - and the issue is cloudy enough as is. I know that capital-J Justice and capital-R Reality are rarely the same. It is a personal failing of mine that I am so fixated on the capital-J Justice issues when I could be seeing how just I could make reality. I'm also hamstringed by a fundamentally Hobbesian view of humanity where, in the end, without threat of repercussion, we're all deeply evil animals of the variety we tsk-tsk at when they're called Hutus and Tutsis (while steadfastly refusing to get involved). Some cliches, such as absolute power corrupts absolutely, are cliches because they represent fundamental truths. It makes it difficult for me to subscribe to the many nuanced rationalizations thrown around because, to me, they're so pathetically transparent.

So while I don't believe in utopia or buying the world a Coke while it links hands, I also don't believe that some people are fundamentally better than others. I think reality shapes us all, and in periods of extreme stress, it shapes us like cancer shapes healthy cells.

The Lies Women Tell

"My husband and I never fight."

"He can just look at me and I have multiples."

"Labor is the worst pain ever."

"My boyfriend's is enormous."

"I'd never want to be as skinny as she is."

"Every time is as magical as the first."

Thank god Amherst didn't have sororities or I would have been in trouble. I've not been fortunate in amassing a coterie of close female friends. There are a number of almosts, some halves, but I don't have that terrific group of women with whom I can take a week in Barbados. This makes me sad and the future prospects aren't great.

But, and rationalization this must be, some of the above statements have always given me pause when I am surrounded by an XX crowd. If you are a woman, you have heard other women you know, and occasionally like, utter one of the above ridiculous statements. Maybe you've ignored them, maybe you've pitied the speaker, or maybe, like me, you've seethed at the necessity for the utterance at all. Devoted partner has often said, and I have often been pissed at him for it, that while men measure their relative worth against other men on the power/income metric, women measure by relationships. And as we all know, no relationship can be good unless there is never friction and always huge member magical special time. Right?

I mentioned sororities up top because I always found this kind of chatter a form of hazing. I remember it especially when the topic of giving birth was brought up and those that had would launch into the most hyperbolic hysterics about how painful it was. But my mom told me it was no biggie. Sure, she wouldn't choose to do it every day, but her report of the experience was at complete odds with every other report I received. I chalked it up to a bit of one-upmanship. Of course when followed immediately by, "but it was worth it because my husband is gigantic and we had magical whoopie every night in an effort to conceive and I had a million little deaths each time," I felt less charitable.

Because isn't the goal of those statements, if only for a moment, to make the listener question her own life and choices? Wait a second, sometimes our special time isn't all that special, and last night I yelled about dirty dishes, and then there was that time when for a couple of months no one was reaching satisfying completion. F$%#%$K! Is my marriage/relationship/life doomed? Cause this bitch in front of me has it all!

Not nice, ladies, not nice.

I swear, and those who know me well know I am precisely this stubborn, I sometimes consider never marrying devoted partner simply in protest to all the people, most especially women who look at and speak towards me pityingly when they hear about my "situation." Or, should we birth, to film it and put it on YouTube showing me calmly reading a book during the whole process; or playing Parcheesi. For someone admittedly so good at lying, I seem to find insincerity and dishonesty at the top of my peeves list, and when I am around groups of women (no matter what kind of group), I hear it everywhere.

Now that we're older and people are, especially the coupled ones, having less sex, the bragging rights go to the couples that don't fight. Ever. I don't know why this is considered a good thing. To my mind, if you never fight, you're never really invested in something. Or you are so indifferent to one another that nothing seems worth getting heated up about. Or you've both already commenced your affairs, so why stir the pot?

Why this upsets me when, much like the television, I can choose to tune out or change channels, is that it simply perpetuates the wholly unrealistic picture of adult couplehood lapped up by young women. Which, when they discover how unrealistic it is, can spend much of their time feeling like they've failed. After all, if everyone else has X and I don't, there must be something wrong with me. And even among us liberated self-determinative, impervious types, there are a couple of moments of doubt we can all recall.

So why write about this? Well, I've been asking myself to identify things I'm passionate about and, as I look at what I've chosen to write about, I see a lot of women's issues creeping in. But not the traditional ones. Pay equity and reproductive rights, while certainly on my list, are issues there are more than enough people tackling. These other things, these insidious cultural things, these are never mentioned, and their ill effects are perpetuated. And we're all culpable. Any time we lied and instead of saying, "I'm really happy," we said, "it was perfect from the first moment," we contributed to the utter falsification of what a stable adult relationship is.

And we miss the opportunity to share the important information - how relationships aren't always easy, but when you know you want to work on them, you've probably found one worth staying in.

I Am A Pretty Pretty Princess

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Originally uploaded by reallyct

Or so I feel when, in the course of a hellaciously busy couple of weeks for devoted partner, he finds time, at 6:30am on a Sunday, before going into work for 5 hours before Easter brunch, which is merely a 3 hour respite from more office time, to hide Easter eggs around the house for me.

But let's backtrack a little. In January, we discussed vacation plans for the year. Devoted partner is going to be participating in a year-long project and said he was pretty sure we wouldn't be able to do anything until Q3.

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Originally uploaded by reallyct

We had, in the past, discussed going to Turkey so I set about pre-planning a 2.5 week trip to Turkey and Northern Syria for September. In my way I started spreadsheets, downloaded itinerary information, tracked plane fares, investigated hotels, dive operators, visa requirements, etc. I also took out books from the library so we could look at pictures. Meanwhile, it turns out that this is not going to be a good year for a 2+ week vacation because the timetable for devoted partner's project changed. This was mid-February.

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Originally uploaded by reallyct

No problem, I am a roll with the punches kind of girl (sometimes). And I love to travel plan. Yes, I love it more when it results in actual travel, but even when it doesn't I have a good time. So we were looking for a plan B. Devoted partner has a conference in Miami in May. Originally, I was going to go down with him, spend the conference days lounging by the pool, and then we would take the weekend and go to the Keys or something. Now that we were looking at Plan Bs, I thought this conference might provide the perfect launchpad for a shorter vacation. And since we were already at the bottom of our continent, I started looking for locations in Central and South America.

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Originally uploaded by reallyct

My first thought was Buenos Aires until I realized it wouldn't be exactly warm. My next thought was Colombia. And I'll explain. The trip to Turkey would have been a nice combination of sightseeing and attractive nature/beach time; having been on a number of mostly beach vacations recently, I was looking for something a little more adventurous. Colombia might just fit the bill. So I took a look at flights to Cartagena and then, for giggles, googled Colombia and scuba diving to see what came up. The result that caught my eye was for a teeny tiny island far closer to Nicaragua than Colombia that had only 6000 residents, was inaccessible from every airport save the one on the next island over, shared the barrier reef system of Honduras and Belize, and had exactly no large hotels and pretty white sandy beaches. We are big big fans of deserted beach.

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Originally uploaded by reallyct

And now we were rolling again. Plane fares were being tracked, hotels being contacted, dive specifics determined. That is, until last week. Last week one of the vendors alerted devoted partner to the reality that it might not make the deadline by which we planned this trip. Devoted partner was not amused. On the bright side, we hadn't bought our plane tickers yet; on the dark side, we had been looking forward to getting away. So devoted partner did what he does: started working to fix the problem. His already long hours got longer as he tried to shore up all potential leak points so that a delay by the vendor wouldn't push the deadline any more than was absolutely necessary and, possibly, allowing us to still take the vacation time.

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Originally uploaded by reallyct

Of course, this schedule left little time for Planning Wednesdays and Date Night Thursdays and any of the weekday moments we spend in between. While the rest of his company had Good Friday off, devoted partner worked from 8am until 1am. We had company coming on Saturday evening, so devoted partner worked from 9am until 5pm and then came home and was a wonderful and gracious host. And of course Easter Sunday he was back at the office. But not before setting up the Easter surprise I have cataloged here. Despite all his stress and sleeplessness and irritability, he made a little egg hunt for me in our house. When I saw the first egg, I assumed it was the only one and called him at the office to tell him how cute it was; then he told me there was one in every room of our upstairs. I spent the next five minutes on the phone with him finding the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th eggs, and the next 30 minutes on my own finally finding eggs 5 and 6.

It really was the sweetest thing. Made all the sweeter because it came in the midst of adversity. We still don't know if we'll make it on vacation in May, but I've already started brainstorming alternatives. In the meantime, though, I've left the eggs where they were found as a reminder to myself of how lucky I am.

The Secret Langugae of Deeply Disturbed People

I've been called out by a number of friend-readers on my decidedly un-Yelena-like mushiness towards Ye Olde Partner of Devotion in some of these postings. Sadly, I remain undeterred. A caveat is that I tend not to publicize our knock-down, drag-out, hair-pulling, bed-wetting fights because, well, one must have some standards (I also do not wax, at length, about the crazy, trapeze-inclusive, agar agar, shot-in-3D, monkey sex because I do not wish for you to become consumed with jealousy), but some of our shtick I think, biasedly so, is universally awesome and that it would be cruel not to share.

Take for example a curious trend in our online messaging. Aside from Devoted Partner's inability to use an away message for times when he does not wish communication (like during meetings, WebX presentations, and conference calls), we spend some quality time messaging back and forth a couple times a day. If you have ever received and instant or text message from me, you will notice that I have failed to grasp the simplicity of the medium and generally insist on typing in full sentences using capitalization and punctuation. This allows the person with whom I am communicating to feel completely justified in calling me out when I err and mistype.

Devoted partner and I started getting into Cute Overload speak, mostly in response to the puppy pictures we send each other. Example: Him - Sends cute puppy pic; Me - Types 'I has a wants.' But then it just got out of hand. Example: I has make peas for dinner noms. Now I can go several exchanges without using proper verb endings.

But after deciding that we would strive for significant reduction in fatness, we changed our messaging habits. Devoted partner, I think, started it by sending me a comic that included the important message: 'chickenchickenchicken.' Now we were sending one another messages through the cryptographic wonder that is chicken. Example: 'chickenchickenmustdolaundrychickenchicken.'

Are you still with me?

This led to merely removing spaces from many communiques. Example (from today, prompting this post): 'dustbunnystairs' ... 'cornersofbunnyhiding' ... 'livingroomrugofsadcrumbs.' Somehow this makes whatever has been written somehow funnier.

Now I'm not sure what to make of all this. If you've spent any time with us, you know we're not a couple that easily transitions to pet names and googoogaga talk, but this typing style clearly smacks of the same problem. I do know that I find what we type much funnier this way and iwillkillyouwithsharppointysticks seem somehow less serious. My only concern is that I think I now use 'noms' in everyday parlance, and that can't bode well for the preservation of the English language.

Morbid Nostalgia: Two Vignettes

Inspired by high school reunion planning.

1.
Once upon a time there was a boy. A sweet, funny, smart, kind boy with the faults common to teenage boys who are sweet, funny, smart, and kind. His family life wasn't the greatest, the sad tale of a divorce gone very bad and a mother who wasn't quite able to hold up her end of the responsibility bargain in the aftermath. Luckily for the boy he found a mother figure who was more than willing and more than able to bestow upon him the attention that seemed somehow compromised when it came from his father's next wife, however earnest she was. Perhaps the mother figure could be a tad overbearing, but that was a small price to pay for the solid maternal attention.

There was a girl who liked the boy. Liked in a teenage kind of way. The boy and the girl were friendly and then friends. And then. In a teenage kind of way fumblings happened. But also conversation of a teenage sort. Embarrassment. Shyness. Refumbling.

The mother figure did not approve. She may have liked the girl, but she thought the boy could do better. And she wasn't afraid to say so. Someone prettier, perhaps, more deferential, less independent. It always seemed to the girl afterward that the mother figure thought she, the girl, was hitting above her pay grade when it came to associating with the boy.

The boy and the girl were only ever going to be a teenage thing. The mother figure had the potential to be more. So the boy stopped liking the girl. No more conversations. No more fumblings. Nothing, really.

The girl's friends did an excellent job of mocking the boy, mocking the mother figure, cutting ties. Maybe they thought the boy was hitting above his pay grade; maybe they were just being kind.

It was just a teenage thing.

2.
There was a girl who liked a boy. The boy was very very unavailable. But he didn't always act that way. Sometimes he seemed more available; sometimes he seemed very available. Obviously this was not fair to the girl, nor was it fair to the girlfriend, but these are teenagers after all. The girl knew, somewhere deep down, that the boy wanted the girlfriend but wasn't above wanting the girl's attention and sometimes more than that. But she really really really liked the boy.

The girl confided her sadness, her hopes, her mistakes to her friend, the other girl. The other girl tried to be a good friend and not point out the obvious, that the boy had and continued to make a choice and it wasn't the girl. But the other girl didn't have a long history of successful female friendships and didn't always know what to say. She tried to listen, at least for as long as she could simulate interest, and she turned a mostly blind eye when mistakes were made. After all, it was what the girl really really wanted.

One night, though, the boy made a move on the other girl. In front of the girl who liked him so much. It was a clumsy grab at a popular part of the other girl, and the other girl didn't know what to do. She had no interest in the boy, but she was also painfully embarrassed at the situation. Should she loudly call the boy out for untowardly grabbing at her? Should she do nothing? She tried, as best she could in the cramped quarters groups of teenagers can be fond of, to wiggle away. But the damage had been done. The girl knew the boy had tried something with her friend and the other girl, by action or inaction, had done the wrong thing.

Later, the other girl would wonder if she could have acted differently. If female competition was at fault, or if she was intentionally allowing the girl, her friend, to see what a fickle shit the boy was. The other girl couldn't honestly say she handled the situation in the best possible way, but she hoped, fervently hoped, she hadn't acted maliciously towards the girl, her friend.

But it wasn't ever going to be the same after that. The girl was very angry at the other girl. Perhaps she was very angry at the boy, but she liked him so so much that it was probably easier to be angry at the other girl. The anger lay dormant and on the surface things went on as usual. But something was different. When the other girl started a bad relationship on the sly, she didn't tell the girl, her friend. Even though the other girl probably could have used a friend during that time. But the trust had been broken. Later, the girl started a relationship with a new boy that the other girl really really liked. Whether it was payback or an unfortunate coincidence is something no one but the girl knew. And she wasn't talking. Later still, the girl was not nice to the new boy and then there was a new new boy. But by that time the girl and the other girl didn't really talk anymore. At all.

*
A classmate of mine recently wrote a book about the films of John Hughes. I always thought the movies were cute, but I could never really relate. The characters had a teenage experience so far more polarizing than mine. My angst was different and, in fact, bracketed my high school years but stayed mostly out of them. But as a reunion comes up, I think of the people I grew up with, which friendships persevered and which feel by the wayside, through atrophy or by intent. I remarked to one classmate as we sloshed through the rain to the subway station that there wasn't a single person from our class whom I didn't wish well. My pollyanna-ish feelings about high school make me really really want everyone to be happy. For me, time heals most grudges. And I'm in no way a saint, I'm just lazy. At the end of the day, holding a grudge for decades is just too much work.

I know the boys and girls of these stories probably won't read them. But I remember. I remember how important it all seemed at the time and how utterly unimportant it is now. It was high school. These boys and girls are married, starting families, being grown-ups. But I remember. And sometimes, sometimes when I allow myself to roam freely through the less rose-colored halls of history, it makes me sad.

The Adventure of a Lifetime

From the album: Antonio and Carolina - New York 2007

Madonna Tap, Massachusetts, March, 1997.
First Lobster, Maine, August, 1998.
Pedro so sad at South of the Border, South Carolina, March 1999.
69 Days, 21000km, June-August, 1999.
Corsica, Take Two, May, 2000.
French Thanksgiving, Dijon, November, 2000.
Treasure Cay, May, 2001.
Treasure Cay, Again, March, 2003.
Corsica, Take Three, September, 2005.
Wedding at the Orangerie, Dijon, June, 2006.
Treasure Cay, Again Again, New Year's, 2007.
Poutine with Foie Gras, Montreal, March, 2007.
Stingray Alley, Grand Cayman, July, 2007.
Treasure Cay, Again Again Again, New Year's, 2008.
Wedding in a Bucky Ball, Lisbon, 2008.
Civil Baptism (Je suis le guide moral!), Provence and Dijon, June 2008.
Egypt, March, 2009.
Bonaire, November, 2009.

There isn't a day I'd trade, or a memory I would expunge. Before thirteen more years pass, we will add to this list (South America already looms on the horizon) in new and exciting ways. And while this is merely a glimpse at the photogenic moments, you make the ordinary moments extraordinary. You make my life better. You make me giggle when my mouth is full. You let me warm my graveyard feet on your legs. You put up with my singing the German Shepherd Puppies song over and over again. I has a big happy when I am with you.

Happy Anniversary. I hope you know I'm your devoted partner too.

Now Here It Is, Your Moment of Zen

UPDATE: This might just be the answer. Thanks Tony! (Why did I never think to call you Tony before? You'll hate that!)

So, I've been angry recently. Really really
really really
really really really
angry.

At everything and nothing, at myself and other people, indiscriminately and pointedly. If you were to ask me to choose one word to describe myself, it would be angry.

This weekend The Boy and I went away to see our DC-area relatives. There was nothing particularly special about the trip except that it was a break in the routine. A chance to drive one of the least interesting parts of the I-95 corridor, and in between talking to one another, this gave me a chance to reflect. I didn't come up with a list of answers, but I may have given myself the challenge to structure my life so that I am less angry.

Because a lot of what I'm angry about (or that I identify myself being angry about) is stuff that I can change. The stuff I can't change? I might temporarily borrow from 12-step programs and just decide to be serene about it.

Cool.

Catherine Deneuve.

Step 1: When I am angry at you, if I think the anger can be ameliorated, I'm going to tell you. Not angrily. Just normally. Because you probably don't know I'm angry. And you'd probably like to have the opportunity to either tell me to shove it or to modify things. For situations I think are unfixable. I don't think I'm going to tell you. Much like I don't like when relationships end and you hear stories of the parties giving parting shots, "yeah, well I slept with your sister," I don't think there's any point in giving vent to anger within a relationship that isn't going anywhere anyway.

Step 2: I am going to give myself more to do in an effort to permit myself less time to brood (angrily). That table project from months ago? I'm starting it. I'm not commencing with any new knitting projects until the mostly finished ones strewn around the living room are finished. I'm signing us up to volunteer at Adopt-A-Dog like we discussed doing over a month ago. And maybe dance lessons. And maybe I'll find an organization I'd like to devote some time to.

Step 3: I am going to attempt to give less vent to my macro frustrations. Just because I have a Hobbesian view of humanity doesn't make it interesting conversation. Especially when many of my friends are a little more hopeful.

Step 4: I am going to be like Happy Gilmore and find a happy place. I will go to this happy place when other people's behavior bothers me. This place will be more beneficial than the stabby place I go to now. I tried it this morning. It was ok.

This does not signify a sea change in my snarkiness, as snark has a place and can be used for entertainment purposes. It works less well as a guiding life principle.

I don't want to be so angry and since it is less likely that all the things/people/situations that I am angry about/at/near will suddenly change, I'm going to have to change how I am.

But let me know if I become less funny (if you thought I was funny to begin with).

Even Now, Surprises

The weekend was full of new things, even as it was filled with familiar things. Least notably, we checked out the much larger Whole Foods in Westport and I have decided that the Whole Foodses that have the health and beauty sections annoy me. Even if it doesn't, in truth, take space away from food products, it implies a space exchange and I like organic food far more than I like organic toothpaste.

It started on Friday when devoted partner mysteriously appeared home with a Whole Food bag. Devoted partner does not shop unattended at the Whole Foods. Items were unloaded and little was said about the foray. Saturday afternoon, however, a strange noise emanated from the kitchen. It was the sound of someone messing up my stuff. It was the sound of devoted partner industriously and ambitiously preparing the Saturday evening meal. I want to make sure we all understand the import of this:

devoted partner made his own naan!

And since he is devotedly defatifying as well, said naan was made with whole wheat flour and no ghee. While using new and exciting things like yeast (and wheat flour) he also set about preparing a vindaloo (gotta hand it to him, he's a go big or go home kinda guy and I like it). Many many hours of hard work later, and dinner appeared. Delicious dinner. Dinner I did not have to lift a finger for (except to roll out the naan which I thought was the least I could do). Which made it even deliciouser. Now devoted partner, much like me I must say, just thought his dinner was ok. He didn't like that it didn't taste like restaurant Indian to which I replied that nothing ever tastes like it does in the restaurant. He made some key substitutions to make the meal healthier which also would, of necessity, make it taste less like the restaurant stuff. But damn, if it wasn't tasty. The whole wheat naan, in particular, was the stuff overeating is made of, but we were fairly responsible. And now we can have the leftovers tonight!

But that was not the only excitement of the weekend. Sunday saw two super exciting things. Our first coyote sighting. In our backyard. Just hanging about. Possibly looking for squirrels to eat. Coyotes look like mangy wolfdogs and I inquired as to whether or not devoted partner thought our new pet pest might like raw chicken...

And as we drove back from Whole Foods the super long way so that I could be enthralled by suburban culture, something miraculous fell from the sky. Devoted partner called it corn snow, I called it awesome. It was like mini-hail and it looked like exploded packing peanuts. We pulled into a parking lot and frolicked in the packing peanut snow. It got stuck in hair and clothing and all too soon it melted. As passerby wondered why we were out in the crazy weather acting like idiots, we both smiled in the knowledge that people who like to dance around in corn snow, who get seriously stoked about the presence of rabid wildlife in their living areas, and who try new things just for the fun of it, do find one another in the universe.

Praying to the Great Hallmark Gods

If you know us, you know we have spent all but one Day of the Valentine in sweats, eating Chinese food out of the containers, and watching a movie, most likely Dune. The other Day of the Valentine was spent at a restaurant using the reservation a friend couldn't because he had already broken up with his Valentine and didn't want the reservation to go to waste.

Now before you accuse us of being woefully unromantic, there are some reasons. The primary reason always was that our anniversary is in March and, were we going to blow money celebrating our love, we would prefer to do so on a day that is unique to our love and not have to share loving each other with the rest of the world (ok, that came out way icky, I hope you know what I meant). This made a lot of sense back in the college days, and the rootless 20s. After all, much like New Year's, restaurants and other facilities that cater to the Valentine crowd, jack up prices and crowd as many people into their spaces as possible leading to a very unromantic atmosphere; booking travel over V-Day is also distressing as it either coincides with the public school holiday/president's day or is price-inflated solely due to Herr Cupid. We just kind of hated being taken advantage of like that. So we happily ate chicken with peanuts, exchanged $25 gifts, and waited to do the fun things in March.

And we've done some fun things in March. Nepotism aside, do you know how much easier it was to get reservations at Daniel for the middle of March as opposed to the 14th of February? See also boutique hotel in Montreal; vacation rental in the Abacos; oh, and yeah, last year we went to Egypt. Now, it is true, aside from Montreal, we would have gone to those places anniversary or no anniversary, but it is nice to schedule a trip during an already lovey time of year. So, while I have not been the recipient of $12 teddybears holding wilted flowers and chocolate flavored candy...yeah, I can't complain.

But I kinda did this year. Which I guess means I suck. Here's the thing: I just kind of wanted to do something other than hand over sock-monkey figurines and eat chinese food. And I hope that doesn't make me a bad person. (Notice I did not say anything about watching Dune because I'm secretly hoping we'll do that too.) I wanted a little commercial romance (when I reveal to you next week what I bought devoted partner as a gift, this will seem really really funny), I wanted to have to wear pants for at least part of Valentine's Day.

So for the first time, we have our own Valentine's Day reservation; I have spent more than $25 on a gift and I have bought really loud wrapping paper and a card with hearts on it. And I'm having an uncharacteristic inner giddiness vis a vis doing what it seems everyone else does. Though I did make devoted partner promise he would not buy roses (the apex of V-Day price gouging), and he wouldn't buy me chocolates, as a) we're not eating these days and b) well, duh, I make chocolates and 99 out of 100 times mine are better than what can be bought, so perhaps I'm not that great at preserving Valentine's traditions.

Therefore, let me wish all of you a Happy Valentine's Day and say that, had I gotten my shit together (this idea just came to me), I would have very much enjoyed making construction paper heart cards and sending them to you. Maybe next year. Although, it is equally possible that next year we'll be back in front of Kyle McLaughlin noshing on scallion pancakes, having learned we're just not those traditional Valentine's Day people.

Hands Off, Ladies, This One's Mine

I will save the sentimental post for the big 1-3 next month, but I wanted to take today to talk about why Devoted Partner rocks. Big time!

In 2005, devoted partner bought me my first iPod. It was a terrific toy that kept me company in the kitchen and was also invaluable for long trips both as a music delivery system and as a place to offload photos to free up memory cards. Sadly, and I will give Apple some blame, in 2008 the thing started acting wonky: freezing in the middle of songs, turning on with the sad Mac face, being generally temperamental. Generally a hard restart gave it back some mojo, but it was not the iPod it once was. Yet I was damned if I was going to buy another one - these things aren't cheap.

When the new nano colors came out, you might remember I had avarice in my heart. Until I saw them and realized they were shiny pieces of junk, not nearly as hot as their photos. So temperamental iPod stayed. Friday, he finally gave up the ghost: no sad Mac face, no ability to reset, just a formerly $300 paperweight. I even tried dropping it on the floor (I can't be the only one who remembers that this was a nearly foolproof way to fix a broken walkman; though I also blow into my cd/dvd drives when they're acting up, so maybe I'm a creepy relic from 80sland). Devoted partner, who has offered up a replacement for several gift-giving holidays running, yet again offered a shiny new iPod of my choice for the upcoming Valentine's Day, saying it would actually help him out because it would be a good present and he wouldn't have to agonize over whether or not his other ideas were good ones. And he almost had me too. I figured I would get a red or pink nano and be festive. But then I remembered the price. $200. For a machine I'm sure will also last three years before its planned obsolescence kicks in. I know he meant well and I told him so, but I then reminded him that $200 could take us parasailing in Turkey and that there was another iOption.

Jamie, dear friend and total Apple fanboy, sold us his not 3G iPhone (it would have killed you to have left the sim card? see below) before he moved west. I opened it, learned that it wanted me to sign up for an AT&T contract in order to use it (even as just an iPod, mind you), tried inserting other sim cards into it, read a little on the internet before realizing this was not my bag, and returned it to the shelf where it remained an attractive $500 paperweight. I asked devoted partner to use his skills in a) things computerish and b) deciphering the ramblings of people computerish to see if we could make the iPhone into an iPod substitute without needing to buy a mobile plan I don't want or a new machine altogether.

And damned if he didn't spend most of Saturday messing with the thing, going out to buy a prepaid AT&T sim card, reading the ramblings of those way way geekier than he, and finally, around 5:00pm, presenting me with a fully functioning iPod Touch in an iPhone body. I mean it works. I put music on it, I downloaded the flickr app, I tweeted from the thing. It works. And I think the total investment was $25 for the sim card.

But more than the toy itself, devoted partner spent a number of his precious weekend hours, the hours he has to himself to read a good book, and he donated them to me. I know he didn't want to monkey about with the iPhone and would probably have been happier to just buy me a new iSomething, but he didn't. In the spirit of our new attempts at frugality, he sat down and worked at the problem and solved it. And he did it for me. Just because.

We're a couple like any other, and we do our share of "raised voice conversations." I worry that I don't tell him enough how much I like him - the love I hope he knows is boundless, the like, the day-to-day like is both harder and less acknowledged - because he's one of the good ones. The least I could do is broadcast his qualities a little wider.

Double Standards

As devoted partner will be quick to point out, I am a fan of the double standard. It is the double standard that permits my icy cold feet to seek warmth in the crevice behind devoted partner's knees while preventing even the smallest cold part of devoted partner to touch me without shrill and violent shrieking. That being said, I only like the double standard when it applies to me personally. Everywhere else, I think it sucks.

Which is why television and radio have recently been upsetting me (over my highly productive knitting weekend wherein much media was passively consumed). There is a promo on NBC right now for a new show called The Marriage Ref (my network television consumption is about to skyrocket due to a little something called the Winter Olympics (USA A-OKAY!)); the promo shows a woman with a leaf blower and a man getting a mani/pedi and brow wax. The wife yells at the husband that he's a woman and that all his friends think so too. Add to that a byte I heard on 1010 WINS this weekend about (and I'll get the name wrong) Cougar Fest 2010, a Las Vegas convention for cougars and the boys who love them.

So let's parse, shall we?

In recent years it has become de rigeur for men, a previously hairy and dirty-nailed bunch, to become clean and hairless - like those cats - in an effort to compete in the gene lottery. Myself, I'm not buying. If I wanted a clean and hairless specimen, I would date women. Period. You will not convince me otherwise that a little (oh god what a horrible word) 'manscaping' does anyone any good. All it does is make me feel inadequate when I let the old ladyscaping lapse for an extra week. So I will take devoted partner as god intended him: barely more put together than caveman (his evolution in the brain and manners departments are more than enough, thank you). So this guy, who by the way, in the promo is not the kind of lover of eyebrow waxes you are expecting, he's more Sopranos central casting than Williamsburg hipster, who used to consider good grooming a nice shave at the barber, has been convinced by fashion that he needs to participate in beautifying rituals previously reserved for the fairer sex, and now he's getting crap for it?

Women who get berated by partners for going to the salon and getting their nails done usually have some choice words available when those same partners complain about it. It's generally of the "I deserve this manicure, I raise your kids and cook your dinner and you wouldn't love me if I was unpretty." And we all nod and go, yeah, the woman does a lot, let her get her nails done you effin' scrooge. So this guy who, in all honesty is doing things to himself that make him unattractive to me, probably earns a decent living and can afford to treat himself to the things he wants, in this case pedicures and brow waxes, is getting shit from his wife. Double standard, I say verily.

But that's nothing compared to Cougar Fest (or the Cougar Convention or whatever nonsense it's called - crap, now I'm going to have to google it - ok do not, I repeat DO NOT GOOGLE THIS - it is legitimately horrifying). Imagine, if you will, a convention devoted to old dudes who like to bang 18 year olds. Yes, yes, feminists, I know that is "the norm" and we just ignore its horror, but imagine if the old dudes had a convention where they invited young women to meet them and dance with them and hook up with them and they did this all in a huge convention center in Las Vegas. Do you think the news would treat this with the lighthearted and good-natured frivolity of Cougar Fest? Dear lord, there would be picketing!

For the record. I don't really care who bangs whom provided all parties are willing and able to consent. If you feel you need a convention to support your sexual choices, I'm right there for you (ok, not right there as in actually attending because I think it's a stupid idea, but certainly right there in spirit). In fact, Las Vegas is a great place to stage your sexually specific convention: big people, little people, people who like to dress up as stuffed animals, renaissance fair types, goths, orcs, ponies, what have you. And when these events are covered, it is with a kind of embarrassed derision a la, "what kind of freaks like to have sex with people dressed as orcs?" Yeah, I don't know any personally, but they seem to like it, it has nothing to do with me, so I can chortle at the costumes and move on.

But the faux girl-power reverence we have for the cougar phenomenon is just disingenuous. Does it make up for years of various inequalities if we now say that old ladies acting like whores is AWESOME! I've got a hot mom personally, and were she on the market and decided to take up with a 26 year old, I would be totally pro that decision; were she to walk around New York in pants that read "Hot Cougar Ass" on her hot cougar ass, I would have her committed. Being dumped by one's first husband for a younger model is not ameliorated by turning around and dating a younger model one's self. It's not poetic justice. It's not making things right with the universe. Date whom you like, but don't attempt to add any further import to that decision.

Because in the end, and I speak a little from experience and more from conjecture, young people who date old people generally do it for the inequality. Whether you're searching for money, or power, or wisdom, raw animal magnetism is generally not the first order of business when 20 year old meets 50 year old.

When I heard the news clip, I suggested to devoted partner that there should be a convention for old dudes who like young women. They could call themselves Sinatras.

Why, What Did You Do This Weekend?

IMG_6796
Hawksbill Turtle, St. Thomas
Originally uploaded by reallyct

At some point during our Thanksgiving trip to Bonaire, I turned to devoted partner and said that my eighteen-year-old self would never have imagined herself hauling nitrox tanks around an arid island and throwing herself 80 feet underwater. I followed that pronouncement by saying that my eighteen-year-old self didn't know what she was talking about when it came to how to have a good time.

Courtesy of devoted partner's very generous company, we spent the holiday weekend in St. Thomas, our every need catered to.

Except for the weather.

It rained pretty much nonstop for the entire weekend except, of course, for yesterday morning as we prepared to leave. Not the traditional January weather in the Caribbean for sure. Once upon a time, I'm sure I would have moped about wondering why I wasn't getting a tan, racking up room service and pay per view bills, and generally being a not at all good travel companion (see also forcing devoted partner to play interminable hands of gin). But I'm in a seize the day kind of phase of my life and just because the weather was less than optimal was no reason for me to abandon my crazy cruise director behavior.

This is how at 7:00am on Saturday, after four hours of sleep (there was a lot of highly encouraged nighttime revelry on this trip) we found ourselves the recipients of a wake-up call and room service breakfast and, by 9:00am, were on the scuba boat heading for our two dives. It's how the following day, when I let us sleep in until 8:00am, we hopped the ferry boat to St. John and spent the entire day snorkeling. Our excellent theory being, if we were going to get wet anyway, we might as well get wet in the water actually doing things.

Was it the best scuba/snorkeling we've done. Absolutely not. The visibility wasn't terrific. But we saw a turtle, always a high point, and though there was too much sediment for a good photo, devoted partner found a sleeping baby nurse shark. Job well done. We were wet and cold (or at least I was) a fair bit of the time, but when I think of the alternatives, I think we did pretty well. And this made me realize what a huge bonus it is to be with someone who also would rather regret the things he's done than the things he hasn't done. We're both working on extending this idea to more facets of our lives, but I like that, almost independently, we're deciding to be a little more proactive, and a little less mopey.

I don't spend a lot of time here going on about how lucky I feel to be the devoted partner of devoted partner, mostly because he reads this and is easily embarrassed, but as we scoured the sandy bottom for hiding sting rays while our butts got poured on, I felt pretty damn lucky. I just thought I should share.

Doing Stupid Stuff

IMG_5240
Originally uploaded by reallyct

Once upon a time, due to serious malaise, weekends were spent huddled in the corner, fingers stuffed in ears, pretending the world didn't exist for 48 hours until the world had to exist again. As you can well imagine, this was not the best use of time. Bearing that in mind, and bearing in mind how easily I can personally while away the weekend playing any number of empire building computer games (give me a scenario where I can be Caesar and I'm good), I resolved that with new living arrangements would come better weekend utility.

We've been making pretty good on that resolution. Sometimes to our detriment.

Two weekends ago we went to the annual Greenwich dog adopt-a-thon. In 40 degree rain. In wholly unsuitable clothing. We spent an hour permitting hypothermia to get a toehold while I played with dogs. It was great fun until I couldn't get rid of the cold feeling. Finally, a very hot shower several hours later solved the problem, but I could see where better decisions could have been made.

Which is why it seemed perfectly reasonable to go apple picking in the rain this past weekend. As it wasn't yet raining when we woke up, we decided to forge ahead. Naturally, it only started to rain once we reached the orchard. Devoted partner was the ultimate trooper, hanging out until we had enough apples, even as we both got soaked (note to self: perhaps new ex-urban living should influence rain gear purchases). Then we guarded ourselves against fresh baked pies and instead bought the supplies needed to make our own hard cider - which devoted partner is currently in charge of in the basement.

And you know what? It was fun.

It was fun to get wet and be stupid and enjoy each other and throw apples at each other and play with dogs despite not being ready to adopt one. It's been fun, ok not fun but fun-ny, to spend hours upon hours in Home Depot, buying stinky inedible lamb from the farmer's market, canoeing in the world's worst canoe for 30 minutes in the cold while being menaced by spiders, having friends and family over. It's honestly preferable to building up enough legions to overcome the Gauls. Sure, downtime is important, and I have spent more than my fair share of time on the couch, in the corner under a blanket, knitting and watching tv, but I don't need to do that all the time. As winter (yuck) approaches, I know it will be slightly more challenging to find things to do outside our house on the weekends, but I'm definitely more inclined to search those things out provided they do not involve snow balls being thrown at me or shoved down the back of my shirt.