the pieces of my life

Bear with me as I try to figure out Blogger’s new features. I’m switching to their commenting format, which means I lose old comments, but I wasn’t that thrilled with my old commenting service, so it’s worth a try. But the page will probably look ugly until I sort this all out.

Adam said last week, “There’s not going to be any panicking.” Knowing that that was as false a statement as could ever be uttered, I wrote it on the white board on our fridge. I wanted to have it, right there in front of our faces, when the statement was proven to be the absolute lie that it obviously is.

But here’s the catch. I haven’t the foggiest notion what the heck this statement was in reference to. So maybe there was panicking; maybe there wasn’t. I’ll never know. But if I leave it up on the fridge long enough, I’m sure there will eventually be panicking over something and I’ll be able to say, “See! I knew there would be panicking!” Ahem.

So far, I’m pretty impressed by Google’s gmail. The conversation mode is terrific and the search function is amazingly fast and good. Yes, there are ads (not in the mails–in the mailbox) but they’re very well targeted. I’m impressed at what good matches they are. There are some things that I’d like changed such as when a conversation changes subject, it would be nice if it was separated out from the original conversation. I’m still experimenting with the labels, so I’ll let you know how that goes. The biggest problem is that I’ve had a Yahoo account for so long and switching is such a pain. But I think slowly but surely I’ll be migrating things over. By the way, I can “invite” two friends to open gmail accounts. I already used one invitation, but if you want a gmail account, drop me a line.

Tulsa, Oklahoma. What’s there to say about Tulsa, Oklahoma? Well, for starters, that’s where we were this past weekend. Why would anyone in their right minds spend a random weekend in Tulsa? For a wedding, of course. And why would I know anyone getting married in Tulsa? Because my best buddy from high school is, shall we say, a tad penurious. He’s spending (no pun intended) a year in Tulsa doing a cardiology fellowship. When he saw how much it cost to get married at home in Miami and how much it cost to get married in Tulsa, Tulsa it was! He’s very lucky his new wife is such a good sport.

The pressure is on for this entry because Jennifer and Teener Tuna will be counting on me to say something deprecating about them, the weekend, or both. But the truth is, our weekend away was delightful and they weren’t too bad themselves. Doodles was a charmer on the flight down, and despite a bit o’ bad weather, the weekend was relaxing and enjoyable. His only temperamental moment came when we tried to put a tie on him (Adam declared, “He must be a Democrat”) and he got fussy during the actual ceremony. But Adam quickly whisked him off and after a quick nap in the car on the way to the reception, Doodles was his old wonderful self again.

Here are some random thoughts about the weekend:

• Tulsa. Well, I didn’t really see much of Tulsa, but boy, does that town have it’s share of guns and God. You couldn’t go more than a few feet without running into a gun shop, a church, a shooting range, a fellowship, or a billboard advertising one of the two (my favorite: Guts Church).
  
• At the rehearsal dinner, the bride’s family was attempting to work the CD player. Adam sat there and watched. He leaned over conspiratorially to me, Jennifer, and Teener Tuna and said, “I could fix that in less than two minutes.” When he was prodded to go fix it, he said, “Nah. I’m not the tech rep of this wedding.” At least he found himself amusing. And after a half hour, he finally got up and helped out at the CD player. Sure enough, seconds later, music came blaring through. Adam came back and said, “I wish I could say it was a wiring thing, but actually they were just putting the CDs in upside down.”
  
• How cool is it to hear the opening strains of “I Will Survive” from the CD player but instead be serenaded by “Yo Vivire” (the bride is Cuban).
  
• The rehearsal dinner meal. Oh my, this is some of the best BBQ I’ve ever had, hands down. And Braum’s ice cream and hot fudge for dessert. I’ll have to run a marathon to work off everything I ate. Oh, wait. I already am!
  
• The food in general. Brunch at the Rendezvous Restaurant at the Gilcrease Museum was surprisingly yummy. The wedding cake was chocolately goodness. And I’m still dreaming of those ribs.
  
• Well, the funniest moments can’t be repeated in the blog. Because 1) they won’t make sense because most of it was stupid reminisces about high school and 2) someday Adam will be a respected businessman and it won’t help him to have stories about his female better half’s (still hate the word “wife”) semi-legal misdeeds as a youth posted on the Internet. These are the times when I wish I kept an anonymous blog.
  
• The bride and groom made lovely baskets that were waiting for us at the hotel. Ours had BBQ sauce, fry bread mix, a horse that Doodles adored, and 101 Fun Things to Do in Tulsa. It’s filled with many good suggestions (visit the ORU campus, walking tours, and the like ). However, some are, well, they’re just so Tulsa. Like “Laugh at a ‘Smoke-Free, Smut-Free’ Comedy Club.” And how about “Do the Chicken Dance at Oktoberfest” (can you imagine a New York or Boston guidebook advertising the chicken dance)? And you can “Stretch Yourself with Pilates.” Because that’s something you just can’t do anywhere else.
  
• Tulsa is a tree town. All along the highway are sings that read “Up with Trees” with the name of someone on it (who I assume donated all those up-growing trees). I, of course, entertained myself endlessly by yelling out “Up with Trees” every time we saw the sign, which might have been amusing if they hadn’t been placed so close together.
  
• A minor rant: American Airlines won’t let people with the massive car seat, multiple diaper bags, and squirmy babies preboard anymore. We asked, and were told, “Nope. You have to board with your group.” Even worse was the poor woman who was traveling alone who had to get everything down the aisle alone. So next time someone smacks you in the leg with a mammoth car seat as s/he tries to get down that narrow aisle or you’re stuck in the aisle waiting for some family to get settled, know it’s the airlines fault that they didn’t get into their seat early.
  
• I feel like I should say something mean about Jennifer and Teener Tuna. After all, I’m still bitter I didn’t get invited to Jennifer’s wedding (and yes there’s a story there, and no, I won’t tell it). But Jennifer did good by providing me with the most adorable cousins and she makes me laugh with her blow-dried hair and Teener Tuna is simply amusement in and of herself, so I’ll just end this all here.
  

I can’t help it. That Six Flags old guy just makes me giddy! I’d play the ad on a loop all day if I could.

Once upon a time, I worked in an office that required my looking professional. It wasn’t a job that lasted for very long. I’ve mostly worked in jobs that required little more than jeans and a flannel shirt. But for this one job I actually wore skirts and I occasionally wore shoes that had a smidgen of heel (and before you think, “Hey! She said she wasn’t a shoe person!” I didn’t pick them out myself; before Adam left his job at Nordstrom.com, I met with a personal shopper and took advantage of Adam’s employee discount). My recollection is I did just fine both in the job and in my heels.

One week ago, Adam and I celebrated our two-year wedding anniversary by going to Chez Henri. For the occasion (which included a yummy martini), I put on some of those previously mentioned work clothes, including a cute pair of heels.

Now, when Doodles is feeling feisty, he likes me to hold his hands so he can stand. Standing for him is a precarious act, and he wobbles this way, he wobbles that way. Doodles is just like a Weeble except he does fall down.

Me, in those heels? I made Doodles look like Baryshnikov. I think we can officially consider all my heels “retired.”

Ba ba ba ba ba. Five is the only prime that is provably a member of two pairs of twin primes. Ba ba ba ba ba.

The television remote? Oh, it’s so tasty! The bar on a dirty shopping cart? The perfect teething tool! The pole on the bus! Just…lean…a…little…closer…Mom! My tongue almost reaches! Keys, the umbrella handle, Dad’s watch, the string on Mom’s hoodie–all fabulous things to put in my mouth. But this past week, Mom has been trying to put in these, these… these unholy objects! She offered me this strange cold yellow-orange thing in a weird mesh bag. She kept saying something like, “It’ll feel so good on your gums; just try it! You’ll like it. C’mon, just stick it in your mouth a little bit” although really all I heard was “ba ba ba ba ba.” Then she offered me these strange o-shaped pieces. I put a couple of pieces in my mouth but I made that scrunchy face that clearly indicates that I will accept no more of that! And then she tried to put these slivers of orange gunk in my mouth. Ewwwww! Luckily, a few minutes of red-faced screaming brought on my favorite food. I think Mom learned her lesson. Now can we go back on the bus? I never did get to lick that pretty, shiny pole.

I always said I’d never sink to the lows of putting words into my child’s mouth. Well, I lied. Introducing my first guest blogger (I’m pretty sure this is crossing a line, but that’s just where I am this week):

The problem with posting just once a week on Wednesdays is that I know folks check up on me on Thursdays. I can imagine the panicked phone call from my father making sure everything is okay if he went to work on Thursday and there was no post. But a few times we’ve had Web problems and it’s been questionable whether or not I’d be able to publish. My first thought is always, “Well, that’s okay. I’ll just publish that there are Web problems and I’ll publish later.” And then it always hits me, “Oh, wait, duh, if I could publish that, I could just publish my blog.” I’ve thought of publishing more than once a week because I certainly write more than once a week. But then there are the weeks (like this one) where I’m struggling on Wednesday night, with The Bachelor playing in the background, to figure out what the heck of interest I have to say (and you may be saying, “Hey, you have nothing of interest to say.” But it’s my blog and if I want to say nothing of interest, I will! The benefits of blog ownership). If I didn’t have the self-imposed Wednesday deadline, it would be too easy to let the blog slip away. So once a week shall continue. And if I ever miss a Wednesday, know that it’s probably a Web site malfunction.

Speaking of Web sites that go away, every now and then a blog I follow stops. Abruptly. One day it’s “blah blah blah,” and the next day, it’s silence. At first you figure they’re taking a little break, but then the break drags on, and you start to wonder what’s happened to them. It’s odd, because you get to know people a bit through their blogs, but they’re blog friends, they’re not actually friends in the traditional sense. I mean, I correspond with a few other bloggers that I would consider myself friendly with, but let’s face it, if we were standing next to each other in a bar (oh, okay, at a playgroup), I’d never recognize them enough to say, “Oh, it’s you!”

But my point is, when the blogging stops, my mind goes wild. Should I e-mail them and find out what’s up? But what if something bad has happened in their lives that makes them stop blogging? Do they really want a stranger e-mailing them and prying into things? Or is it rude to not inquire? I tend to take the easy way out and just let them go on their way in silence.

Don’t worry. I’ll never just go away. I’ve never done anything in silence in my life.