Susie Dog

My thanksgiving included an appearance of Turkey Dog. Complete with “Gobble Gobble” word balloons.

It also included a lot of wine, bellini’s, a wedding, turkey, multiples pies and desserts, and trivial pursuit.

The wedding was all sorts of interesting. It was gorgeous, the bride and groom were happy, the food was good, the decor was awesome (and I went home with a ton of reception shit for my own wedding-yay!) and overall it was a good time.

But there were a few glitches. Number one, the photographer didn’t show up. So, I was informed “you have the nicest camera–start taking pictures.” Which I was happy to do even though my skills are not very honed and I have problems with low light (namely, how to take a damn photo when I can’t see). Number two, there were a few guests in attendance that did not understand that “Reception at 6:30pm” translates to “Please Don’t Wear Denim You Fucktards.”

How that memo got missed I haven’t a clue.

But I did tear up the dance floor with The Boy’s sister’s new boyfriend, and I got to rock a purple dress and my new makeup love heidi klum’s victoria’s secret line and do the forever wedding dance with the bride.

This year is the first thanksgiving in many years that I am not baking a pie.

The world seems a little off.

The Boy and I will be venturing to Pittsburgh tonight to hang out with his fam and eat blueberry muffins and pumpkin cookies (I had to bake SOMETHING) and turkey and the like. I am uber excited to go, and even more excited to attend a wedding on Friday, but I am so not looking forward to the drive. But, I am thankful that I have a fiance who will drive six hours and only sort of chide me when I fall inevitably fall asleep after vowing to keep him company.

I’m thankful…for a lot, actually.

To have a fiance who’s family is beyond any awesome level I could have imagined.

To have a family who will drive 16 hours in a weekend to deliver me groceries and play Racko.

To have a job that is flexible enough to give me the entire weekend off.

To have friends who call just to chat.

To have a maid of honor who can brighten my day like no one else.

To have a 17 year old brother who will give me real, strong, hugs.

To have a body that does what I want to, most of the time, and is healthy and strong.

To have a space on the internet that has bought so much joy into my life, thank you Internet friends.

And wine.

I am very thankful for wine.

1. Grocery store brand diet soda is not an acceptable alternative to Diet Coke.
2. When my family gets together we will always make too much food.
3. Tylenol PM will not make me drowsy, no matter how much I wish it would.
4. Trivial Pursuit books and literature questions are 75% unknow-able.
5. Tyra Banks is a judgy bitch and watching her talk show just makes me angry.
6. Finding out that your ex-boyfriend’s new girlfriend is less attractive than you is Make My Day material, no matter how over a relationship you are.
7. Scotty dogs that smell like pumpkin pie are also Make My Day material.
8. Finding out that your Fiance and your brothers ate the last of the fudge covered oreos you were hoarding is Definitely Not Make My Day Material.
9. I don’t know the appropriate amount to tip a hair dresser.
10. Having pictures of your friends and loved ones on your newly acquired desk in your newly rearranged dining room will make you happy.
11. Turkey Sandwiches are one of the few foods I could eat daily for an almost infinite amount of time.
12. A good portion of my belongs still smell like smoke and have charing on them from the 2006 house fire.
13. Some days are writing days, some days are thinking days, some days are communicating days.
14. There should always be reruns of House or SVU on the television at all times on weekends. It is my royal decree.
15. I will miss my family minutes after they/I leave.
16. Brandy’s Monday posts make Monday’s better.

A house. A car. A 401k. A white picket fence. 2.5 children. A “worthwhile and fulfilling career.” A designer bag. A vacation fund. Organic groceries. Furniture that matches. A bi weekly manicure and on time hair appointments.  A patio. A marriage. A wedding. A nursery. A before baby, before college, before gravity body.

Big Happy. Big, impossible, happy lies in the collection of these things. It’s hard not to get sucked into the list of things we self-impose on ourselves. This check list of happiness for our lives. Every check mark brings with it a momentary pleasure and then a void. What next? What can we concentrate on now? What do we set our sights on? What goals can we strive to achieve?

And while I want a good number of the things on that list, I don’t think I want that happy. I want Small Happy. Healthy happy. I want warm bath on a cool night happy. I want “novel you sink into” happy. I want warm cookies, baby laughter, fresh lilacs happy. I want money to pay the bills and keep me in six dollar wine happy. I want matinee movie happy. I want one expensive dinner a year with The Boy happy. I want I don’t hate my job and I get my weekends off happy. I want christmas newsletters about little league games and ballet recitals happy.

I want library card happy.

I want small, quiet, happy.

And to be content with it.

When I’m old I will insist on being let out of the car right outside whatever business I have to venture into, so I can waddle in the building in my heels and hat. Just like the old lady I saw today who looked killer in her all brown ensemble.

Rock on, old lady in heels, rock on.

Someone seriously needs to convince me that a handful of cookies is not an adequate meal because I just dubbed it “lunch.”

Sometimes I don’t think my brain works correctly. I’ll see the one unflattering photo of me in the twenty or so the photographer sent from our engagement shoot (Yes! They’re in! Yay!)  and immediately I’m all, “OHEMGEE GROSS! I AM NEVER EATING AGAIN. EVER. MUST SPEND EVERY WAKING HOUR ON A TREADMILL.” And then I eat four chocolate chip cookies. You’d think my irrational outbursts would have a slightly longer staying power. Like, maybe a full minute.

I might get more done, albeit irrational crazy things, but still.

Do you ever get those urges to do something completely crazy and out of your comfort zone? Dangerous, dark shrouded things? Stupidly exciting, might-even-kill-you things?

Sometimes I get those urges. I’ll be walking by a tattoo parlor and, even though I hate needles, and tatoos, I’ll have the urge to go in and pick a design at random. Or I’ll be standing by the edge of a tall building or cliff and just for a split second, desperately want to jump. Sometimes I have to bring rationality back to the forefront and remind myself that, yes, I could buy a plane ticket to Guam, but what the hell would I do when I get there?

Though, I guess, the last  wild and crazy thing I did was decide to travel six hundred miles to visit a man I met at a hotel in Montreal. And  that worked out pretty well.

What wild and crazy thing have you done lately?

I am currently enjoying my mother’s version of “Breakfast of Champions” i.e. chocolate chip cookies and chocolate milk and awaiting the ladies of The View to pop on my tv and inform on What’s Happening In The World. Ladies and gentleman it is eleven am and I am lounging in my pjs and planning the rest of my second day off this week. Oh glorious day of no responsibility, I love you so.

I haven’t had two days off in a row that wasn’t for travel since August. And though I’m a little upset to know that I won’t be cashing a check at the end of the week from my little retail job, but I almost don’t care. The trade-off is worth it.

This weekend was all sorts of awesome. After working the early shift on Saturday The Boy and I started cleaning and cooking for our neighborhood Game Night. The plan, which was thought up over Halloween, was for one couple to cook a main course, and the others to bring side dishes and a game to play. So by 7:15 we had the chicken kiev (so good! so buttery! so time consuming!) in the oven and I had “hidden” all our crap in closets to try and present our abode as Clean and Pretty And Totally Not Inhabited By Pack Rats.

And we find out that one of the other couples had “forgotten” about our plan. And that they were planning on staying home and playing video games.

Unbeknownst to us, we had time traveled back to the 7th grade.

Seriously? Do people in their twenties really do this? We felt slighted. We had made the plans, written down the date, prepared for it etc., all with the assumption that our home-owning, full-time working, mid twenty-something neighbors would have the ability to keep track of a damn date without having to be reminded like ten year olds.

Luckily the other neighbors did remember, and the night ended up being a lot of fun. We played games and drank wine and the dinner turned out awesome.

Sunday was glorious. The Boy and I slept until noon, cooked a big brunch, caught the matinee of 2012, and spent the rest of the day eating chocolate chip cookies and watching movies on television (Meet the Robinsons, and Back to The Future 2 and 3). Cuddling with the fiance for multiple hours is always a Win.

And now it’s Monday.

And the rest of my day will include laundry and searching for A Better Job. And House.

Enjoy your day!

It has been raining almost non stop for three days.
If I could make the tv turn (shut up, it’s harder than it should be) on I’m sure the weather man would concur that it is, in fact, blustery and wet outside. Thanks to the weather I didn’t have to go to work yesterday and until about twenty minutes ago I didn’t have to go today either.

Now I do.

Having a day off given to you and then retracted is similar to having your big brother take back his Really Cool Toy when you just started to play with it.

Not fair. I’m telling Mom.

And, yes, it means that I get to collect my check and add a few hours to my paycheck but is it nowhere near as glorious as the day I had planned.

My today previously included coffee and podcasts,  a lazy visit to the gym (which will still occur, just with a little more vigor due to the time crunch), an afternoon spent cleaning the kitchen, putting laundry away, and making chocolate chip cookies. A few hours on the couch with “The Other Boleyn Girl,” lunch with The Boy, and an evening double feature of “Precious” (my pick) and “2012″ (his pick).

Scads better than wet dog smell and unending phone calls.

Yesterday was nice though. I did some “I really shouldn’t, but what the hell” shopping at the empty mall. I decided against a manicure (because my fear of manicurists rivals only my fear of whales. Both irrational, both completely capable of making me break into a cold sweat) and purchased a maroon polish to apply myself later that afternoon. I smelled Yankee candles for twenty minutes before decided on Harvest and another Pumpkin Spice. I picked up some wedding related craft supplies and a coke zero, looked for flat gray boots to no avail and went into Victoria’s Secret to redeem my free underwear coupon.

I went into Victoria’s Secret for free underwear and came out with free underwear, and fifty dollars worth of makeup.

Like an episode of I Love Lucy, The Boy just knew.

While enjoying an episode of “Square Face” (Bones) he turns to me and out of nowhere….

The Boy: “You haven’t purchased any Victoria Secret lingerie in while.”

Shaba: “It’s expensive.”

(Also, I just purchased some lingerie a few days ago, of the non-expensive kind. It’s not like I’m totally overdue.)

A few minutes later while paying bills he noticed the pre-authorization from Vicky’s.

The Boy: “50 dollars in Victoria’s? And no lingerie?”

Shaba: “Mmmm, makeup?”

The Boy: *sigh*

When I’m old I will ask my service people personal questions and get away with it.

I will over tip and over share.

I will keep my change in a Hello Kitty change purse and fold my dollar bills into origami hearts.

I will send children cards for Holidays that only Hallmark recognizes, complete with themed stickers on the envelopes and the required two dollar bills to pad the inside.

I will keep Werthers Originals in the candy dish and Crispix in the cupboard.

Michelle posted recently about the constant “buzz” of wedding planning that exists in her head.

Well, girl, let me just say “WORD.”

I didn’t get it before I was engaged. I didn’t. I don’t think I could have. It’s just one of those things that you just don’t understand before you enter the tulle covered, bedazzled, tiara-ed world of The Bride. Where I once remember being puzzled over “bride diets” (because, really? why try and makeover your body for a party?) now I admit one of the biggest spurs in my side pushing me to the produce aisle and the gym is that white dress hanging in my bridal salon’s “Received” area. {Side note, my dress is in!!! Squee!! I’m making plans for a first fitting in January!!}

Before I spent my free time blogging, or reading, or learning stuff, or making “Shaba Loves Me” t-shirts for a few Very Important People. Now, if I have a few moments of free time I spend it looking at wedding porn. StyleMePretty, a Practical Wedding, The Brides Guide. I spend hours  staring at West Coast brides who always seem to have way better luck at thrift stores than I ever do. I spend hours looking for “things” for my wedding. I have lists upon lists of “things” to do,  “things” to research, “things” to try and “things” to buy. And after every tiny check I put on my ever-expanding task list I feel a little more defeated. Because it never really turns out the way I imagined.

I’m terrified that my wedding, the vision I’ve had since April and have worked on peice by peice like a little bird building a nest, will become passe before it has taken place. I’m afraid that my handiwork, my vendors, and my wedding won’t be the “wedding blog worthy” wedding I imagine it to be. I’m afraid that my non-theme theme of Stuff I’ve Always Liked That Just Happens To Be Trendy Right Now will become a snore, trendy and “So Last Season” by the time June 12th rolls around. And I know it shouldn’t matter. I know I should just do whatever the hell I want because I CAN. And it’s MY (our, really) Day Dammit. And I will. I just wish I knew it would all turn out the way it looks in my head, I wish I had an insurance policy for the beauty and fun quotient of my wedding. Dear Flo From Progressive, can we get a quote on that?

I just want it to live up to the image I have in my head.

And though I know, I KNOW it’ll be fine and wonderful and The Best Day ever because at the end of the night I’ll be married….I can’t seem to shut up the little wedding ‘zilla inside my head.

So, tell me something good.

And don’t use the word “wedding.”