Tuesday, May 31, 2005

May 29, 2005

I won't remember what color the chairs were. I won't remember what anyone else wore, the way the napkins were folded or exactly how things were arranged in the room.

What I will remember is the way it felt to dance with Kelly at the end of the night surrounded by a circle of our friends and family swaying with us to the music. I will remember the sea of faces that met me the first time we walked into the room. I will remember the compliments on the dress, the ceremony, the vows, the party and on Kelly and I together. I will remember the hugs. I will remember crying while reciting the vows I worked so hard on so that I could convey just the right message to Kelly in front of everyone we know. I will remember being awe-stricken with our friends who helped in ways we will probably never know.

I will remember noticing the important things of the day and being glad that I didn't get stuck in the planning process worrying over things like what color the tablecloths would be. I trusted those decisions to our friends and family and the people we were paying and they did a great job.

It was magical and completely perfect.

Wednesday, May 25, 2005

The Pit Of Eternal Stench

Today was my last day at the shelter for about two weeks. There's about 4 residents (of 9) that I would like to see GONE by the time I return. Realistically, probably 4-5 residents will be discharged in the next two weeks, most of them the ones I really want to be gone. I don't think I'm a bad person for not wanting those stinky, rotten children to be littering my otherwise good work atmosphere. I mean, I know we'll just get other rotten and smelly children in their place most likely, but there is also the chance that we could get a good kid who showers regularly (we have gotten a few of those lately). I'm willing to take that gamble.

Tuesday, May 24, 2005

Weird Science

I am pretty sure my computer has a mind of its own entirely. Everything will be fine and normal with it and then I will leave it for a matter of hours. When I return, something will be changed. For instance, lately the size of fonts on the screen have been altering themselves. Not just the fonts, but everything. Including the size of the icons and such. I know that has a name and a way to change it, but I don't remember the name now and I don't know how to fix it without searching for a while. Kelly said he doesn't know how to switch it at all, so I know it isn't him. Also, sometimes I'll leave windows open at the bottom of the screen but when I come back they're closed. Sometimes my wallpaper will be gone and I'm left with a blank dark green screen. I also know it isn't Kelly because whenever he uses the computer, he turns the volume up as high as it goes. That hasn't happened for some time. Basically I have no explanation for the behaviors my computer exhibits.

Saturday, May 21, 2005

The Race Is On

Matt, the best man for our wedding, came into town last night. About five minutes ago I sent him and Kelly on their way for the bachelor party Matt has planned. I think I've looked upon Matt's arrival as the even that would set off all the other events - that which would make the wedding's impending arrival that much more real to me. Well he's here and so is (almost) the wedding. We're in the single digits now. Eight. Eight days. A week from tomorrow. One single week. No, I'm not nervous or worried or having second thoughts (I think it's a little too late for that at this point) or getting stressed out. It's just this big thing that we've been waiting for and planning for for so long and it is finally almost here. All the anticipation is turning to excitement and immediate expectation.

And then it will all be over. Blissfully over. *sigh* That's what I'm really looking forward to...

Wednesday, May 18, 2005

Eating Habits

Sometimes Kelly disagrees with my eating habits. For instance, I ate a banana and drank skim milk for breakfast. When he came home for lunch I told him I didn't feel like eating. It was true, but he frowned at me. This afternoon I went to the grocery store to purchase something to eat. I didn't really know what I wanted when I went in, but by the time I came out I possessed that which I knew would fulfill me. I came straight home and opened that can of roast beef hash, fried it up and ate nearly the entire thing. I anticipate another frown, if not a look of disgust. Usually I eat balanced meals with fresh veggies and lean cuts of meat. I love soy milk and tofu. I don't regularly eat sugary treats or drink alcohol. Just every once in a while I like a can of meat, like we used to eat all the time when I was a kid. It is disgusting, I know, and I will be the first to admit it. But sometimes I can't deny that that's what I need to fill the unknown craving within. Who else do you know would be just as happy with a can of vienna sausages and some $2 gas station wine as a plate of Alaskan king crab, tall glass of mountain fresh water and creme brulee for dessert?

Tuesday, May 17, 2005

Funeral Giggles

I attended a funeral today at the same place I attended a funeral almost exactly three years ago. Three years ago I was keenly aware of flirting directed my way from one of the gentlemen orchestrating the event. In fact, he was one of the men who came and removed the dead body the week prior and the flirting started then. Well, he's still there and apparently he remembered me. He let me know it was good to see me again and smiled like a shy schoolboy at me whenever I was in his line of sight. Rather than find this behavior reprehensible or inappropriate, I find it amusing. I told Kelly that if anything should happen to him I could have his funeral at that place so then I could leave afterwards with a date. He didn't find it nearly as giggle-worthy as I did.

Monday, May 16, 2005

Day Of Note

Today I accomplished the following things, all of them off my TO DO list for the day:

* Called the DJ. She's nice and promised she won't yell at me or kick me out of her house. She told me not to worry any more about the wedding. I've decided she's not a moron.

* Emailed Dad about the furniture. He has some antique furniture that at one time belonged to my grandmother, but now belongs to Kelly and me. Kelly really wants it before people come for the wedding so our home will look a little more complete. When we arranged it last time, we purposely left room for it. Currently there are just empty spots where it will soon go. My dad will be here in the morning to deliver it.

* Wrote directions from 8th Street to our home. The night before the wedding we're having a dinner for our out-of-town guests, immediate family and bridal party in the 8th Street Marketplace. People will need directions to our house afterward as we're hosting drinks and dessert. So many people in Kelly's family have never been to Boise, let alone see where he lives, and there are people in my own family who have never been to my house either. Sad, but true. This gives us the chance to show it off to everyone at once!

* Made reservations for the train/river trip. The day before the wedding we're going on a tour of Boise by train, immediately followed by a raft trip down the Boise River. I had to let the company leading the shindig know to expect 35 of us.

* Call Jeni. I'm ripping off her way of setting up a photo thing at the wedding. To know what I'm talking about, you'll just have to come. Or click on the "comment" button below and demand an explanation.

* Work on the program. For the wedding. The majority of that will have to wait for tomorrow.

* Made five pies. Three cherry and two peach. No promises on how well the peach will turn out. I tried a new recipie that looks sketchy. They're for dessert the night before the wedding.

Sunday, May 15, 2005

Shelter Life

I spent over 40 hours in less than four days at the shelter. I just returned home from my last shift there for the next three days. Today was easy, but yesterday was insane. Hospital visit, inappropriate physical contact, two kids almost killed each other and drugs. I was working with someone from another shelter who had never worked at Hays before, so it was like I was there myself. I need a vacation. I think I'll go to Belize in three weeks...

Thursday, May 12, 2005

Fantasia Sucks

In January, Kelly, my mom and I attended a wedding show where we gathered information on myriad companies who supply wedding help and entertainment. One such cluster of companies was the DJs. One of those companies, Fantasia Sight & Sound, coordinated the mic system and music for the wedding show itself. We heard this was a reputable company and decided that their DJs seemed to do a good job with the wedding show, so we decided this was the company to hire for our wedding.

Kelly called the company and spoke with a man named Kurt. Kurt asked Kelly if he had filled out the yellow request form. Kelly explained to him that we didn't have any paperwork, that we were calling him basically on a referral from someone else. Kurt took our address and said he would get that in the mail because that was the first step in the DJ process.

A few weeks later, when we had not heard from Kurt nor had we received anything from him, Kelly called him back. He said he still had us penciled in for May 29 but that we needed to do the request form and other paperwork, since it was getting so close to the date of the event. Kelly told him we didn't have anything. Kurt told him not to worry about the yellow request form and that if we just sent him the $150 deposit he would in turn send us the contract and music planning guide needed for him to do our wedding. All we had to do was enclose a note with our $150 check reminding him that we needed the paperwork. I wrote the check that night and sent it out the following morning.

A week later we receive in the mail from Kurt (with our names spelled wrong on the envelope) a receipt for the $150 deposit and a hand-written note from him stating that he didn't have any paperwork started on us and that we needed to give him a call to set up a time to meet and get that taken care of. It is at this time that I assume we are dealing with a moron.

Kelly calls Kurt that afternoon to set up the meeting he requested. Kurt said that when we come to the meeting we need to bring the contract and music planning guide. Kelly explains to him that we do not have any of the paperwork. Kurt gets our address again in order to mail it to us.

The following week, we receive another mailing from Kurt (again, with our names spelled wrong). In this mailing is a letter addressed to Laura, dated September 13, 2004, with Kelly's name spelled incorrectly at the top above a partially filled-out address (as per standard business letter etiquette). Also in this letter was a contract and the alleged music planning guide. Kelly and I sat down the following night to go over the information. I noticed that not only was the letter addressed to someone named Laura wrong on name/address information, but that the entire letter was rife with grammatical and mechanical errors. I realize I wasn't reading his letter as an English teacher, but I was reading it as someone wanting to hire him - a supposed professional. Then we examined the music planning guide. It was so entirely confusing we could barely make sense of it. He had weird names for things, excluded half of what we were expecting, expected to do twice as much as we wanted, and asked if he would be receiving free food at the reception during one of his breaks. We filled it out the best we could and decided to leave the rest of it to fill out during our meeting with him.

I called Kurt the next afternoon to set up a meeting time with him. This was two days ago. He took on a bossy air and chastised me for not setting up a meeting sooner. Then told me he could meet me at 5 p.m. the next day. At this point, I am firmly established on the fact that he is a moron.

When I dressed myself on Wednesday I made sure to look good and wear clothes that made me feel powerful. I do not like complaining about people or telling them to their faces that I think they're a moron, which is what I planned to do at the meeting with Kurt (although nicely). I tend to back down on business affairs because I don't really like the business side of things. That's Kelly's job. But it was me going to this meeting alone and I wanted to be prepared to be strong but not bitchy.

I arrived at his house which doubled as his office at about 4:45. I wanted to make sure I was a little early because I wanted him to know I wasn't just a young thing without a clue and because I didn't know how long this would take and I had somewhere to be by 6:30. I walked up his steps and knocked on the door. He came to the entrance and spoke to me through the screen door.

"Hi, I'm here to meet with Kurt at 5. Is that you?" I asked.

"Uh, yea. Um, you're 15 minutes early," he said with slight exasperation while looking at his watch.

"Is that a problem?"

"Well, yea. I'm just finishing up with a meeting with someone else," he responded.

"Do you need me to come back later?" I'm astounded at this point.

"Actually, yea. Just give me five, maybe 10 more minutes." And then he turned around and walked away.

Not knowing quite what just happened, I turned back to the street and walked back to my car. I called Kelly at work to explain the exchange with him. At this point, he already knows I think Kurt is a moron, but encourages me to remain patient. I tell him I am but that I don't feel comfortable at all with this guy. I mean, wouldn't most business people invite the next client in and make them comfortable in another room until their meeting is over? After all, he's asking us to pay him $100 an hour. Wouldn't you, as a business owner, want me to think that paying you that much is worth it to me?

Just then the clients leave and he comes out to wave me in. I walk in and he introduces himself and shakes my hand and offers me a seat on the couch. Even though I had told him on the phone the day before that Kelly would be unable to attend this meeting, he was perplexed at the fact that my fiance was not there. He asked immediately for the signed contract and rest of our payment. I told him I hadn't signed the contract yet because I had questions. He looked at me out of the corner of his eye.

I asked him what the chances were of us getting our $150 back if we decided at this point to go with another option, perhaps another DJ or perhaps not one at all. Immediately, his tone turned bitter and biting as he explained to me his company's policy of the $150 guaranteeing the date and that he was doing Kelly a favor because he works for public television of holding the date without the yellow request form. I still don't know what Kelly's job has to do with it, but OK.

I was getting ready to tell him OK, I understand, and just sign the lousy contract and go with it. Kelly and I agreed that we'd rather have a temperamental, grammer-ignorant DJ than none at all and with less than three weeks left until the wedding, we didn't think we would be able to find anyone else.

Instead, Kurt asked why we would consider going with someone else in the first place. I told him that it was more of a question of his level of professionalism and the way we had been handled up to that point. I told him that correspondence with him had been difficult and that he hadn't even payed enough attention to us to get our names correct. I told him about the letter from last September addressed to Laura, which he promptly snatched out of my hands. He told me that that wasn't even his fault, that it was Kelly's fault for not turning in the yellow request form. He said that if he had received the correct paperwork in a timely fashion then that wouldn't have been a problem. I told him how Kelly had asked for the paperwork and never received it. I tried to explain to him that we would like to use him for our wedding and that was exactly why I was meeting with him - to get a feel for him and to give him a chance in person to clean the standard he set for himself through his correspondence so that we could be assured that he would handle our event with the care and professionalism that he advertised about.

I don't think he heard me, though, because at this point he was already very angry and yelling at me. He threw his hands up and yelled "Fine! If you want to go with someone else, that's your choice! I'll just give you your money back!" and got up and left the room. He returned with his ledger and wrote out a check for $150. He handed it to me and said "You may want to check with the Better Business Bureau to ask them about our good reputation with them. Good luck with your wedding."

I stepped out the door as he closed it sharply behind me. I stood there for a moment again, unsure of what had just happened.

A couple weeks ago I talked to my cousin who told me she has friends who own a DJ company in town. At the time I thought we had a secure, mentally stable DJ so I didn't think anything else about it. I called to talk to her last night and find out which company it was. I figured that maybe if I used my cousin's friend then they would be nice, not get angry and throw me out. I contacted them and they turned out to be available and since we have a friend in common they're going to work with us even though it's last minute and they already have an event that day. I actually talked to my cousin's husband because she wasn't home. He talked to the DJ friend and told them the story and assured them that I wasn't some crazed bridezilla who is classically pissy toward DJs.

That is super long so I hope you made it through. The point is, if you're in need of a DJ, don't call Fantasia. The gal from Sapphire, the company we're going through now, said that Kurt is a wedding prima donna and thinks he controls All on the wedding circuit. I think she's right.

Wednesday, May 11, 2005

Rain

It has been raining non-stop here for over a week now. This is very uncharacteristic weather for Boise at any time of the year, but especially during May when it is usually beautiful and sunny out. Kelly and I hope that the rain will go away within the next two weeks so that everything here is sunny and green (from all the rain) when our friends and family come for the wedding.

On a happy note, Kelly can't mow the lawn while it's so wet and rainy. It isn't so happy for him, because he actually wants to mow the lawn, or the lawn, which is swiftly turning into a mild jungle that will soon overtake our house, but I see humor in the situation. He's agitated at not being able to mow and that makes me giggle because I hate mowing. I did it once about three years ago and I never want to again. Kelly and I talked recently about what would change around the house if he weren't here (this is when we were thinking that there may be a possibility he would have to go to Iraq, Inc. again). I told him I would have to get my brother over here every week to mow the lawn. He said something to the effect that I could just do it myself. I laughed. See, mowing the lawn is a happy subject with lots of laughter in it for me.

Tuesday, May 10, 2005

Kelly And Me

Some people have asked for photos of the two of us, so here they are. We went to a couple parks last Saturday and took some pictures of the two of us - I pose for focus and lighting and Kelly sets the timer and runs.















Sunday, May 08, 2005

Little Notes

We have such a friendly looking house that people just moving in across the street came over to use our phone.

Kelly just used the word "behemoth."

The Martha/Harry debacle has come to a close. Stewart admitted defeat and took down the backyard creation this afternoon.

Today is May 8. That makes 21 days to the wedding. That's the legal drinking age in America.

I'm getting a facial on Tuesday and I'm really looking forward to it.

Wednesday, May 04, 2005

Electricity Bill

If you live in Idaho, want to save $7 every month on your electricity bill (which is $84 each year), and want to run a more energy-efficient household which therefore helps the environment, check out the A/C Cool Credit For Your Home section of idahopower.com.

Jealousy Rears Its Ugly Head

A couple days ago I was able to spend time with my friend Jeni. Jeni recently had a baby. Her name is Taylor and her birthday is April 7. She is an Aries. Personally, I hope none of my children are born under a fire sign (such is Aries) because Kelly and I are water and earth signs, respectively, which doesn't work well with fire signs. But Jeni's an Aquarius which is an air sign and works well with fire.

That's not the point. Jeni and I had lunch and then she and Taylor came over to the house with me. Jeni sat and visited for a few hours and let me hold Taylor for a while. And now the point: my dog was jealous. He did not like me holding that baby. He tried to crawl up on my lap to sniff her out and growled softly at her when she moved her little legs. He was very attentive to the fact that I was holding this small thing he'd never come in contact with before. When I handed Taylor back to her mother, Radley insisted that I pet him, as if to brush away his fear of being replaced.

I told him he didn't have to worry, that there wouldn't be a baby in this house permanently until he was an old man.

Tuesday, May 03, 2005

26 Cents

If I saved a penny for every day between now and the day of the wedding, I would be able to save 26 of them. With that amount of money I could buy a small pack of gum (the kind with five sticks) and pay the little bit of tax on top. It used to be over 100 days, which would have been enough money to buy a full pack of gum, but now all I get is five sticks.

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I'm realizing more and more that actual age is relative.