Excuse me, miss...

A man came to our door tonight and rang the bell. I should have known something was up when the bell rang after 10PM and we weren't expecting anyone. MT was in the bedroom playing guitar and didn't hear it, so I went to the door alone. First words out of the man's mouth were, "Uh, hey, how you doin'? Oh, you don't remember me, do you?" Nope, I tend not to remember people I've not met before. I would have remembered if I had met a man named Danny who was missing a couple front teeth and had an answer for everything.

The problem with wanting to help people all the time is that when I actually say no it feels bad, really bad - even when I know it was the right thing to do. He told me a very detailed story (first sign of bullshit - too many details) about how the house he lives in was set on fire just last night by the woman who owned it because she wanted to get the insurance money. He was now homeless and living in the car wash... but then he mentioned just wanting to get out of the car wash for a night or two because he'd been there so long, which didn't jive with his burned down house story from 30 seconds before. So he was ringing my bell "again" to see if I could help him "just get 2 car fares". I said no, I wouldn't be helping him do that and then he said he needed the car fares to get across town to a program set up by something-or-other ministries. The saga continued. I had to interrupt him and say again that I wouldn't be helping him. He went on about some other angle. Then I asked him to leave.

It felt awful. I knew the guy was full of bullshit, and it still felt awful. I don't know his real story. I just know how real my guilt is even though I shouldn't have it.

Plans (B)

Looks like the wedding might have to be pushed back to the Spring. There's just no way that we can afford the exorbitant prices we're getting from the caterers. To make things worse, we have to use a caterer from an exclusive list approved to work at our venue. Slim pickins for lots of dough. Not good, sir. Not good. $115 per person for hors d'oeuvres only, no sit down dinner, no buffet... and that doesn't even include the bar! Sometimes New York sucks. Keeping this Brooklyn-centric is almost impossible. I don't like postponing our wedding because of money. I really resent it. The wedding industry is a racket and it's putting my panties in a bunch. Looks like a change of venue and a magic bag of money would save our October date, but not much else.

This is us where we really want to get married. We had it booked for the last Saturday of the season. *sigh*


Also, someone I overcame a personal hurdle for recently promptly became an ass once again and disappointed both MT and me. No, it's not who you think it is. But now, that person is cut off and out of both of our lives. It's kind of sad because I like to think that people are always a little better than their behavior, but this time she's proved that she's not - again. We've known that for awhile, but there was some hope left. Not anymore.

Now it looks like it's on to the plan(s) B. Got any suggestions?

Something borrowed...

Might just have to be the money we'll need to spend on this wedding. We set the date. We booked the place. I spoke to 5 caterers today and the ones I was able to get pricing from immediately quoted figures way over our budget. Hopefully the quotes I get tomorrow will be manageable. The place is perfect - 3 blocks from our apartment and one of the most beautiful places in the 5 boroughs.

October, here we come! I figured if we only had 4 months to plan then all the deliberation over every tiny detail would be slim to nill. When you only have 4 months to plan a wedding the agony over ecru/ivory/eggshell suddenly becomes, "we'll take cream". Short & sweet. I tried on one wedding dress last Friday morning (with Kristie because she came to visit!) and it's the one. So easy. My "whole work smarter", not harder motto for my job is carrying over into other parts of my life and it's great.

So, I have this friend...

My friend from work and I were joking yesterday afternoon that she was pregnant. Her son is almost 1 and she was a little late this month. We were laughing about how crazy it would be to have 2 kids under the age of 2. She was going to stop by the pharmacy on the way home to pick up a test and take it when her husband got home just to ease her mind and put the thought that she might possibly be pregnant out of her head.

About half the day went by before I remembered our funny little chat from yesterday and IM'd her to ask how much she & her husband laughed when she brought that test home. She made a little winky face on IM and then proceeded to tell me that she's pregnant. About 5 weeks, apparently. The kicker is that her thyroid went nuts with her first pregnancy and she's not sure she's healthy enough to have this baby. She's seeing her endochrinologist to see if all's well, but until she gets the go or no she's having a tough time emotionally.

Her first impulse was to be excited, obviously. Having another baby now, planned or not, will be easier for her than when her son is older and she's out of the getting-up-in-the-middle-of-the-night mode. She wants to have this new kid even though she's totally taken by surprise. But her excitement is tempered by her fear of getting bad news from the doctor. It's a heavy thing to carry around.

Makes my little worries seem pretty teensy weensy.

Life's a beach...

... Dog Beach, that is. Dog Beach is a little fenced off portion of the pond in Prospect Park near our apartment where dogs can to swim. Super cool, right?

All winter Duke would pull on his leash and try his damnedest to get close to the water no matter how cold it was. He wanted to get in there so badly! It was tough to keep him from galloping into the icy water. Now that it's warm enough we've taken him there a few times and he's yet to go in past his elbows. I don't know what his problem is. He sees the other pups in the water and you can tell he wants to go in, but he gets to his elbows and then promptly does an about face back to dry land. I even got in yesterday figuring I could coax him in and then he'd realize how much he loves it and he'd be the best little swimmer and I'd be so proud, yada yada. I took my shoes off and waded in up to my knees. He stood about 3' closer to the shoreline and grinned at me the whole time. Weirdo.

Instead of courageously and gleefully all morning we went for a 2 hour walk. We were 5 blocks from our apartment when he decided he had gone far enough and laid down right in the middle of the street - chin on the ground, front paws splayed out to his sides, the picture of exhaustion! Try moving 96 lbs of stubborn mutt (a very dry 96 lbs) from the middle of anywhere, it's not pretty.

I really miss it

(this single picture is the fulfillment of a lifelong dream)

Paris, that is. I miss everything about it. Well, everything except the missing our return flight part. Wait, I take that back. I miss the missing the flight part, too. I even miss the "stupid American" moments. I miss the people, the food, the history, the art, the music, the scenery, the river, the lights, the wine, the everything. The whole week was just MT & me. No work, no cell phones, no email, no distractions. It was better than we thought it could be. It was a whole week of just "us time". Us time doing things that were completely brand new to both of us. It was magic, it really was.



One week really changed my perspective on things. I have made a resolution to change the way I work and even a bit about the way I live. It's been less than 2 & 1/2 weeks since we came back, but in so many ways it feels like a lot longer. The most noticeable to me is that my stress level is way lower than it was before we left. You'd think that coming back to a high pressure job would make my stress skyrocket, but it's just the opposite thanks to that little resolution I made. I resolved to work differently - smarter, not harder. What a corny HT catch phrase, right?

But... it's working. I told myself that it's not fair to me or to MT that I get home at 8 or 9 from the office and it takes until the time I go to bed for me to unwind from the day at work. Not fair. Not healthy. Not the way I want to live. I'm not my own boss, I don't own the business, therefore I shouldn't work myself to death at the ripe, old age of 29 for this job. I do a great job while I'm there... and then I go home. If the project falls to shit in the end it's not because I didn't do a good job. Case closed.

As far as the resolution for living goes it's a little of this, a little of that. It's a lot to do with eating, I must say. I'm off soda completely. I drink way less coffee - and only the good kind. I enjoy everything I put in my mouth. I savor each bite, I don't eat & run anymore. And since I savor every bite I've been making sure the bites are pretty high quality. I've been walking even more than usual, and I'm a New Yorker - walking's what I do! Very simple things that are making a big difference.

I really miss it.

We spent almost an hour on top of Notre Dame just looking at the city from the vantage point of the gargoyles. Gorgeous.


Pere la Chaise cemetery. Spooooky. Beautiful, but spooky. This is the mausoleum. Well, this is MT in front of the mausoleum. Sort of a stalkerazzi shot. I love the way the sky looks.


One of MT's do-or-die Parisien goals was to stand at Trocadero Square and have someone take our picture where Hitler stood looking so pleased with himself after his general presented Paris to him on a silver platter. A bit of a "fuck off" to Hitler, really. I think it turned out splendidly. We had a very nice American couple take our picture... and then we ate ice cream. Stawberry/vanilla swirl. Delicieux. I bet that douchebag, Hitler, didn't have any ice cream.




This one's just for Sandra.