Random Pictures

I. is loving her sports class. Last week was football and she scored a touchdown against 5 boys. You go girl!

Here is a picture of Mr. Poopie Butt. This is the cat who desperately needs a GPS for his ass since he tends to poop with his ass hanging out of the box. Thank God I love him.

These were the flowers I got last year for my anniversary. They're nice and I know, it's the thought that counts but check out below what I got for this year's anniversary.

I told you this year's anniversary was on MUCH better terms. This picture confirms that.

This was the surf and turf course, our fourth course. It was beyond heavenly. Sweet lobster, tender buttery steak, smoked potatoes, delicate greens and carrots with carmelized onions.

Cinderella

You know how when you have a really good dream and it's one of those realistic ones that you actually are feeling exactly how it would feel in real life but then you wake up and realize sadly that it was just a dream? That's how I felt today. But first the good stuff...(yes, this is going to be a long post)

I neglected to mention in this morning's post something surprising that V. did on Sunday. A longtime work friend is leaving for Australia for a couple of years and wanted to get together with V. in LA before he left. So V. told me he was going to spend Sunday up there with him and would be spending the night up there and I was fine with that as long as he didn't have a hangover for our anniversary.

First of all, I thought he was spending all day watching sports with his friend but he didn't end up leaving until 2:45 so we got to spend most of the day together after all. He drove all the way up to Pasadena getting there around 5:30. He watched the game and left at 9pm and drove all the way home so he could sleep here. To say that I was shocked would be an understatement. I figured if he got out having fun with this guy, he would be like a dog waiting for the gate to be left open. When I asked him about it last night at dinner, he said that sleeping in a hotel wasn't anything special and that he wanted to sleep at home because he hardly ever got to. Sad but true and I was so glad that he felt like that since I felt the same way.

Yesterday morning, V. posted on his Facebook page for all to see that "Seven years ago I married the hottest girl in San Diego." Okay, so once I picked myself off the floor, I texted him asking if he was feeling okay because that was a declaration of love for all to see. I couldn't believe it. When he got home in the late afternoon, he had a beautiful bouquet of red roses with my favorite sweet smelling lilies mixed in - wow!

Dinner was terrific though it had a twist at the beginning. It turns out that the lobsters didn't get Al Gore's memo that there's global warming and that due to an extra cold ocean temperature this summer, there were not enough local lobsters to have a tasting menu. The waiter was aware that we had had our reception and anniversary dinners at this restaurant but didn't know until I told him that we always got the lobster tasting menu with wine pairing. When he found out, he said, "Let me talk to the chef for a minute." and then the manager came over and few minutes later and said that if we wanted, the chef would put together a special tasting menu with a Maine lobster and do a wine pairing with it. If we wanted?! Well of course I wanted but the price was high so I hesitated. V. looked over and said that he knew I looked forward to this all year and to please not worry about the price. That statement really communicated his love to me - it was so generous, loving, and sweet of him. So we went for it and the chef did not disappoint. In fact, he enjoyed it so much that he came out at the end of the dinner to shake our hands and thank us for letting him be so creative and trusting his choices. I felt like I was a celebrity on The Food Network or something.

While the food was wonderful, V. and I had an even more wonderful time, talking, flirting, and teasing. His card was touching and he agreed with what I wrote in my card that we are better now than we were before and that this anniversary is so much better than last year's. The whole day was perfect.

Which brings me to the title of my post. Because I went to bed on cloud nine, sleeping next to my hubby who made me feel so special and loved by his actions two days in a row. And I woke up to an empty bed like usual and once I. went to school, I was by myself and silent like always. It was like the clock struck midnight, the dream ended, and reality began.

I know "Wah", right? It's just that I would do so much better with a more gradual change of things, you know like easing back into my normal workweek. On the weekends, we're all together and then BAM - it's just I. and me and when she's in school, it's just me. Which would be fine if V. was home at night for dinner and company. Hopefully, he'll get pulled into some LA projects soon and then we may be able to have a more "normal" family life and marriage. Really, life would be SO much easier for us if we could have a few more nights together in a week.

Creepy

I was reading the morning paper today and as I always do, glanced through the obituaries and I saw a picture of me. Well okay, it wasn't really a picture of me but it looked just like me. That's a first. I showed the picture to I. and said, "Who does this look like?" and she said, "You Mommy."

Yeah, so obviously it does look a lot like me, a dead ringer in fact and she's dead. Thank God today wasn't my 40th birthday or something like that or I'd really be freaked out.

Seven Years Ago

Seven years ago (plus an hour), V. and I were married in a sunny chapel down in La Jolla surrounded by our friends and family and then enjoyed a lunch party at George's. Tonight we will be heading to George's for our traditional anniversary dinner and I have my fingers crossed that they will have their lobster tasting menu and wine pairing. It is Bliss with a capital B. It's also EXPENSIVE in all caps but it's once a year and considering what we've been through the last couple of years, am I really going to worry about what one dinner costs?

Speaking of what we've been through, I am happy and relieved that this anniversary we are in much better shape than last anniversary. We weren't fighting or anything like that. It was more like so much had gone on but was still floating under the bridge. We had non verbally called a truce just to get some time and distance to begin healing but nothing was really resolved so uneasily we both knew that it could all happen again.

But it all got processed and I think we not only understand ourselves a little better, we are more careful with one another to not let things get that way. If we even sense it's going that way, I'll be the first to call us out on it. I guess I'm the canary of this coal mine. Hopefully the lessons we've learned can continue to be applied to ward off the pitfalls of the last year or so. Things would be so much easier if we could just live in the same house seven days a week but that doesn't seem to be in the cards anytime soon.

So we go into this dinner and into our eighth year, happy and strong and I'm proud of that.

A Sad First

Of course I miss Mark. And of course I've wished I could talk to him openly, totally relaxed, and honestly like we used to. But since he's died, I'm always cognizant that Mark's dead and I can't talk to him.

Yet this afternoon, after I had been by myself for a couple of hours while I. was at preschool, I thought, "Oh I'll call Mark." Because that's what I used to do when I had a moment to myself. And after he got sick, I used to check in with him briefly every Saturday evening.

And then I remembered, "I can't talk to Mark anymore."

And it made me sad, very sad because he was a friend that would never cancel plans with me, never let me down, and be there when I needed him the most. Basically the kind of friend I was to him.

No, I don't have a lot of friends and I know it's because of me. It's not that I'm unfriendly or don't like people, it's because that's who I am. I don't like to spread myself thin, I like to invest. That doesn't just hold true for friendships but relationships in general. I wasn't the girl who dated a lot of guys but the ones I did go out with I was totally invested in and usually ended up getting my heart broken as a result. That's the downside of me. The upside is that when I do make a connection, it is one that I will fight to the death for with all of my being and when it works out, it's truly a one of a kind relationship.

My friendship with Mark was one of a kind. My relationship with V. is one of a kind. With all the crap that has been endured in the past 3 years, our marriage is surprisingly fresh and strong. Some fine tuning here and there has helped bolster our confidence that we really are on the same team and injecting some fun along the way has helped us recapture the early days. We may not always take the same road but we always wind up in the same place.

Stupidity Part Deux

I hate to seem like I'm on the "everybody is stupid" rant because really I'm not. It's just that things that I would expect to be obvious and required are becoming hard to find.

I already expounded on the newspaper delivery challenge here. Here's the other thing: in less than a week, the same freeway overpass has been hit twice resulting in the entire freeway being closed down for a cumulative 7 hours. Doesn't that sound like something that should immediately be looked at and remedied? Of course not, why do that when you can just shift the blame around like a shell game?

"It's up to the driver of the big rig and their company to ensure that they can clear all bridges and overpasses in their route."

Uh, yeah but they aren't. This overpass has been hit twice, once dislodging a steel beam from it and today, dislodging a tractor off of a flatbed which collided into someone's vehicle. What the heck are they waiting for - a fatality?

Not only is the freeway hosed in a MAJOR way, it makes me wonder how foundationally sound the bridge itself is since it keeps taking direct hits. But no worries, just continue passing the buck and pointing fingers. We'll just keep our fingers crossed locally and hope that nothing really bad happens.

Nothing Like Stating the Obvious

When we came back from Puerto Rico, getting the papers restarted turned into a major hassle as in multiple phone calls every morning for about a week. It was truly ridiculous. It culminated in the ultimate in stupidity when I happened to look down a random "alley" at the end of our long row of townhouses and saw 8 papers sitting there. This "alley" is more like an outdoor hallway and contains the water main and SDGE electrical/gas readouts for the whole row. Doesn't that sound like a good place to deliver all my papers? Yeah, believe me I thought so too.

It appears that we're going back to that place of paper insanity because out of the blue, after many weeks of successful delivery, we didn't get 2 out of 3 of our papers yesterday. Then today, the same thing. However, when V. drove down the street on his way to get the girls this morning, he happened to glance down this same "alley" and lo and behold there were our 2 papers from this morning. So I had the pleasure of calling one of the newspaper companies and had this lovely, cerebral conversation to start my weekend:

Me: "They are delivering the papers to an small alley at the end of my townhome row. There is nothing there but the water mains and electrical boxes for everyone's house."

Them: "Well, where would you like your paper delivered?"

The fact that this question was even asked made me want to cancel the paper right then. What were my options I wonder? The roof, my bedside table, under my pillow?? I almost asked but Saturday morning is no time for sarcasm. So instead I said:

"My front porch?"

And she said, "I'll put that in the instructions for the carrier, that you would like it delivered to your front porch."

Oh my gosh, what is this world coming to when a newspaper delivery guy has to be specifically told to deliver the said newspaper to the front porch?! Scary, that's what this is.