The Great Termite Saga: Phase 2

After a long and unnecessarily exhausting day, all people and animals have been moved out of what will henceforth be referred to as the house of death. I'm not sure we'll ever be the same, but most (cringe) of us are safe and will be able to return home on Monday.

To start the day, my honey and I wrapped up our house sitting job in Santa Monica and returned home to start bagging fish and catching cats. Since we were pressed for time as I had class in Santa Monica at 6:45, we locked the cats inside and bagged as many fish as we could. As you might be able to guess, fish don't really like being bagged so that charming endeavor took most of the day. We got all but eight and around 4pm successfully loaded them into the car. It was about this time that we realized we were missing two cat carriers, so Button (who is escape and hide prone) and Zena (who is a mean motherfucker) were boxed into the two carriers we did have and put in the car. Zena voiced his displeasure loudly and frequently while Button proceeded to freak the fuck out and wouldn't stay calm until pressed against me with her carrier being worn like a purse. Devlin, who is an indoorish kitty, was put in a plastic box with a towel and one of those lids that close but don't seal (don't worry - lots of air) and also put in the car. Our mistake then, was Haji.  As we were putting kitties in the car, Haji somehow slipped out of the bedroom and made for the outdoors. We thought he was trying to escape so we quickly caught him. Mistake number 1. Only later would we learn what a bad idea that was. Haji is a seasoned car rider who generally doesn't really need a carrier so instead of putting him in a plastic box I strapped on his harness and kitty leash and let him wander around the car. Mistake number 2. With Zena and fish in my honey's car and Button, Haji, Devlin and my sister in my car, we hit the road going approximately 0.2 miles an hour and headed for the valley.

If you live in Los Angeles, have visited Los Angeles, or basically know of Los Angeles you will likely know that traffic here SUCKS. When I say sucks, I don't mean oh shucks it'll take 30 minutes instead of 20 to get somewhere, I mean it'll take 2 hours instead of 20 minutes to get somewhere. Especially if you have to take the demon 405 freeway like we did. Expecting some inevitable time delay, we left 2 hours and 45 minutes before my class and figured we'd be good. Mistake number 3. About 30 minutes (2 miles) into the trip, Haji got super agitated. He started meowing and pacing and is exuding a general "shit is going down soon" attitude. Unfortunately, it turned out to be quite literal shit as 5 minutes later he took a giant crap on the floor of my front passenger seat.   Not only could we not open any windows or clean up said crap, but it was at this time that we realized we'd forgotten the litter boxes at home. Mistake number 4. Since the car stunk, the cat was miserable and we had nowhere for them to go (literally) we turned around and headed back home. To add a cherry on top of the experience, I decided to open the sparkling water my honey had so graciously given me for the tip and it exploded all over me, soaking my only pair of clean jeans. Fun stuff man. To make a long story short (too late) we ran home, dumped and rinsed the litter boxes, put Haji in a plastic box and hit the road again 30 minutes later. Though he hated it the box proved to be a smart move because he later had to pee while we were trapped on the 405 for 1.5 HOURS.

If you've been keeping track of time by now you might be wondering "hey! didn't you say you had class at 6:45??" Yes, you would in fact be right. We arrived at my honey's house in the valley at about 6:20ish, 25 minutes before my class was scheduled to start on the other side of the city. Big uh oh. We dumped the fish and cats as quick as we could, jumped back in the car and drove to Santa Monica, making me about 30 minutes late for my three hour class. My professor was not amused. To add to the stress, instead of being able to go back and relax after class, we had to go back to my place to catch the remaining 8 fish.

Even after ripping up my entire aquarium, draining water and soaking ourselves, my honey and I could only catch 3 of the 8ish fish. This decision was made at 1am to seal the tank up as well as we possibly could and hope for the best since my hun had to work in the morning and my sister was alone in the valley with all the animals. We used the special bags the termite company gave us and sealed the entire top of the tank, hopefully making it airtight and turned off all equipment that disturbs the water surface.

Hopefully when we move back in on Monday everyone will be alive and well and this will all fade into a bad memory.

The Great Termite Saga: Phase 1

As you no doubt know by now, we have termites at my place. They infested the neighbors trees, hopped over to our fence, jumped into the garage and it was only a short skip into the house. This friday, we're having the house tented and pumped full of nasty, toxic termite killing gas. If you or any of your friends and family have been unfortunate enough to have termites, you know what a giant hassle it is. All the food, medication and bath stuff needs to be double bagged with special gas proof trash bags. You and your pets need to hit the road until the gas is cleared out and the tent taken down. This probably wouldn't be too big a hassle for most people, but most people don't live with the zoo we live with.

My honey's mom has dubiously graciously agreed to put up: myself, my honey, four cats, and three fish tanks.
Our lovely old neighbor has agreed to put up: my mother, my sister, and the dog.

Today was the first big move day. After bagging most of the delicate items in our room, we set up three aquariums at la casa de my honey's mom with water from my existing aquarium. This was done in the hopes that the old water will cycle the new tanks and all my fish won't die when we move them. We set up a 39 gallon, 30 gallon, 20 gallon, and a stand complete with 4 filters, 3 heaters, 3 lights, a bucket, water conditioner, fish food, air pumps, towels and 20 feet of hose. I have a lot of respect for her letting us do this since she just refinished her hardwood floors and her ex-husband used to have an aquarium so I'm sure we aren't exactly bringing back good memories. We'll know if this endeavor was a success on Thursday when the fish get caught (ha!) bagged (ha! ha!) and moved in. I really hope his mom doesn't dislike me any more than she already does after this adventure. We've had our past beef, she once told her son I was "poison" though I'd like to think we've moved past that since she's been nothing but lovely and supportive since we got engaged. She even sent us on our unforgettable trip to Europe which just blew me out of the water. What is it about moms with one male child? The letting go seems to be a lot harder for these mamas, but doesn't seem to be equally hard for mamas with one female child? Regardless, I'm insanely grateful to her for letting us take over her house while she's on vacation and I swear on my cat that she won't be able to tell we were there.

My fishy obsession when it's not completely torn up and/or run down

Speaking of cats, they will follow shortly after the fish with a few of their basic necessities. Four cats in carriers (duh), a cat tree, 3 cat beds, three litter boxes, 2 pails of litter, 1 fifty gallon container of dry food, cat food cans, cat food pouches, cat nip, cat pee remover, cat toys and food dishes. Once these approximately 93459384573945834 billion items are safely moved over, my honey and I will pack our one bag and follow our zoo where we will live happily without strangling one another until Monday when we get to move everything back. I hate to say it but I think moving a baby into grandmas house for the weekend would be like a breath of fresh air after this circus. Of course by the time we have a baby we'll be moving the baby and the circus, though by then we'll probably be too tired to throttle one another and too crazy to notice the extra load.

 Of course the actual animal/people move has to happen the one day I have to physically go to class  but life wouldn't be nearly as interesting without the little socket wrenches in your plans. We would have been moving out on Friday but our neighbors refused to sign the neighbor release on the grounds that Friday is the Sabbath. Clearly we are very bad jews. I wonder what they'll think when they see us hauling in our Jew Tree this December? I'm thinking it won't be anything good.

A Shoe By Any Other Name Would Fit So Well

Before I start yaking about wedding shoes, I should preface this post by saying that I have really really crappy feet. I like to think they're fairly attractive feet on the whole, not too big or too small, with long skinny toes and a slender heel. Unfortunately, as far as walking apparatuses go, they suck. Hard. After a long career of wearing a mixture of vans, chucks, and doc martins, my poor tootsies succumbed to plantar fasciitis and now require the use of butt ugly orthotics to function in normal society. This means the lovely arsenal of shoes in my closet go unworn and I'm stuck in new balance sneakers or Birkenstocks. This makes finding wedding shoes a little difficult since you generally don't want to wear butt ugly orthopedic shoes under your wedding dress. 

At my line fitting the other day, the dress maker had an obvious and yet ingenious suggestion. Buy two pairs of shoes. The pretty shoes will be used in all the pictures, peaking out from under the dress to show off my hippie loving amazing fashion taste. After the last picture, before I walk down the aisle, I have the ugly but comfortable shoes hidden under my dress and discreetly slip my feet out of the pretty ones and into the comfy ones and walk down the aisle with no one the wiser. Depending on the shoe, I might even be able to walk down the aisle in the pretty shoes and just switch out after the ceremony. It would depend a lot on the heel since the ceremony is outside and a skinny heel would sink in the grass. I know most people would say just kick your shoes off, but since the dress will be hemmed to a certain height, I'd likely trip all over myself if I tried to wear it barefoot. 

So, buying two pairs of shoes means finding two pairs that aren't too expensive yet meet my exacting standards, including being the same height. I've decided that I really want the pretty pair to be blue. I would probably settle for silver if I had to, but I want them to be fun, funky and adorable, definitely not your typical white or ivory wedding shoes. That should help with the price since everything wedding is automatically more expensive, ergo non wedding shoes should be normally priced.  They should probably have a strap too, to prevent me from accidentally stepping out of them while I'm getting my boogie on. I found a pretty pair of silver Bruno Magli's that were expensive but cute and comfortable looking and they promptly sold out.  If I wanted to order them from the manufacturer, I'd need to shell out $350 which just isn't happening. So without further ado, I present:

The Pretty Shoe Contenders

First Dress Fitting!

Yesterday at 6:00 pm I had my first official fitting for the dress. It wasn't too much to be excited over since it was just a line fitting, and there was no actual dress to try on, but it was still exciting because it's progress!

Liza had a piece of thin blue satin cut to the pattern of the body of the dress from the neckline to my thighs. It  was assembled from four panels sewn together that pinned closed in the back. They marked my waist, where the sweetheart neckline should dip to, how rounded the boob shields should be along with all sorts of embarrassing measurements, like where my boob chub ends, where my belly is and where it creases when I sit down. Ideally knowing all these embarrassing facts should help hide them from my guests on the day of the wedding, assuming I haven't worked them off yet. I have some hope for the little belly but I'm not sure about the boob chub, the only time I can recall not having it after puberty was when I worked out with a personal trainer in high school and it was more muscle than chub. Come to think of it, I'm not even sure if that counts since it was still there, just harder and creepier since it flexed when I moved like tiny aliens in my arm pits. Sorry for the TMI.

Random dress pattern, in theory I have one of these too!

My next fitting isn't until December 10th so I have a little time to try and shrink the belly. If I manage to lose more weight between December and March, they can still alter the dress up until I take it from them which is awesome. I'm not sure how the weight loss is supposed to happen since I'm working out but haven't altered my diet (whoops) but hopefully it'll happen in time :) As my mother so lovingly told me, she thinks I have a fat back that I need to lose before the wedding. Then again she also told me that she doesn't care about me getting married, will dance at my wedding because she have to but really only wants to dance when I get into medical school and if I don't she'll be disappointed in me for the rest of my life. I know I have to invite her to the wedding being as she's partially paying for it, but I think i'll accidentally lose her invitation to any medical school acceptance parties I have, preferably in another state.

So, following that charming heap of maternal inspired self-loathing, yay! I have a dress pattern!

Marrying Your Sweetheart: Beds and Attachment Dating

As I've said, my honey and I have been together for 8 and a half years. Looking back on our past, you can trace the progression of our relationship through the beds we've shared together. When we first started dating we saw each other sporadically. After we became a couple, while I was in high school, we would see each other on Tuesday nights and over the weekends. I used to have late start on Wednesday mornings so my honey would spend the night on a blow up mattress next to the full size bed my grandma gave me and hang out a bit in the mornings. After my first year of college in the dorms where we occasionally tried to squish onto the extra long lofted twin, we moved in together, living like vagabonds a couple years here and a couple there. First we shared my honey's bed from his high school years, then a futon from when his dad was in college in a room that was ours instead of just his. At my mom's house it was a futon from a friend that my honey and our best friend broke when they jumped on it in my old bedroom. Finally, the room was redone and we got a bed that was ours.

Through this time I think I can count on my fingers, maybe my toes, the number of nights we've spent apart. We never intended to be "that" couple, the one that's always together and mushy mushy gag. The stars just kind of aligned and it happened. A few days in Oregon visiting family. A few days in Santa Cruz after we had our biggest and most difficult fight. A night apart for my friend's girls only pre-wedding party. Somehow, no matter what happens, at the end of the day we end up in the same bed. It's like we've been sleeping in the same bed for so long that it's become a "thing" and now it seems silly and wrong to break it. We may have never intended it to happen but we definitely go out of our way now to make sure it stays that way now, after so many years how can we not? After all the futons and dorm beds, our bed is big, comfy and red with too many pillows and an oversized down comforter. Sleeping on it is like sinking into a cloud and it makes me feel home, or at least as home as we can be before we're in our own home.

I know it's not always practical to be joined at the hip as my mom accuses us of being, but it's what's natural for us. We feel most right coming together at night, even if it means crawling into bed at 3am exhausted just so we can sleep next to each other. Mornings when I wake up and he's already gone would bum me out except there's usually a kitty there in his spot looking for a cuddle. Since our beds and homes have been kind of inconsistent, we have really made our home in each other. That sounds sappy but no matter what arguments we have, come morning we always end up with our oversized comforter skewed, legs tangled and pillows squished up against the wall. When we go on road trips we travel like gypsies with a big red back up quilt and tons of pillows.

When we finally move out I'm sure our bed will be transformed again. We have a full sized bed frame in our garage that matches our antique bedroom set that needs to be adjusted to fit our queen sized bed. We've had our beloved red bedding since I started college, replaced once with the same set again. If our wedding registry is followed we'll be upgrading to a more sophisticated version of the big red bed, one that will hopefully represent a new chapter in our life together. I just hope that no matter where we go or what bed we sleep in we continue to spend our nights together fighting over the blankets, and that we never have to spend more than a few nights apart.

Well Phuck

When you start wedding planning everyone always says things are going to go wrong. It's like a mantra, designed to be chanted under your breath while calling vendors and making reservations

Somethingswillgowrong. Don'tfreakout. Somethingswillgowrong. Don'tfreakout.

I've taken a really laid back approach to wedding planning. A comfort over style approach from my shoes to the catering. Is it comfortable, does it taste good, is it fun? We really want to enjoy our day, not spend it freaking out over little details and whoopses and things that didn't go quite right.

To make our day as stress free as possible, I mapped out my priorities early on and I've been planning a lot of things ahead of schedule to prevent hiccups. My big can't-compromise-on-must-be-perfect "thing" was the wedding photography. I figured no one would remember if the food was good, what songs we played or what our flowers looked like, but the photographs of our night will last forever. When we are old and wrinkled and arguing about who has the best dentures, and subsequently who had the best teeth, we can look back on our wedding photos and compare chompers in our perfect wedding pictures.

It doesn't help that I'm slightly obsessed with photographs and art as well, I'm out of available wall and dresser space, I compulsively make photobooks and have a stack of beautiful frames waiting to be filled. I even registered for photo ledges because I'm just that obsessed. Photos capture a moment in time, like a window into the past and I'd never remember half the things I do if I didn't have a photograph to cue the memory.

All this brings me to the inevitable: we have a problem with our photographers. 

Everything was going so well. The nice to meet yous, first date, do we get along aspect went just dandy with David of Ohana Photographers. He's creative, funny, and easy going and we like to think we're equally awesome. We connected well and I think we'd be more than comfortable working with him and entrusting our precious memories into his capable hands. So where, might you ask, is the problem? Why the long, emotional, digressing post?   Oh readers, it's bad. The problem is the date. Our date, the date that's been our anniversary for the last eight years. Apparently, David's sister has taken a shine to the date as well, and has decided that she wants to get married on our day too.

Cue the angst.

Obviously, David cannot be at our awesome wedding and his sister's wedding at the same time. Obviously, family obligation, blood is thicker than water, etc etc means that he will not be able to shoot out wedding. This. Really. Blows. We're 6 months in to this planning thing, and most other photographers are booked. Even if we could find an available photographer, we've looked at just about every photographer between Los Angeles and San Diego and we really have our hearts set on Ohana. At this point, nothing can compare now that we've jumped in, both feet first, ready to get wet. How many photographers do you know that would bring buckets and umbrellas to an engagement session so they could chuck water at their clients? Or throw mass quantities of large, white balls in the air to snap the perfect picture? Don't even get me started on making out on cop cars, champagne piggy back rides and goofy groom face masks. Although a lot of it is the couple, Ohana really captures everything about the wedding that we want captured.

So, what do we do??? We could go forward with David photographing our engagement and possibly our trash the dress, while his associate photographs our wedding day. OR we could start from scratch and try to find a new photographer that hopefully has our date open and is awesome and up for some serious dorky fun. I just don't know what would be best. I also have a bad feeling that our less than favorite photographs on their website are from their associate though that could just be us projecting our angst. I was thinking that maybe if David threw the trash the dress in with the package we might be able to get over ourselves and give the associate a shot. That way if the associate's photographs of our wedding day suck, at least we have some photos by David of us in our wedding clothes....we'd just have to get hair and make up done again? Man, I just don't know.

What do you think? What would you do? What should we do? Why does the one thing you don't want to go wrong always go wrong when planning a wedding???

MCAT Score Release - A new form of torture?

MCAT Pain

So tomorrow I should be getting my MCAT score. While the wait has been absolutely torturous, none of it has been quite so bad as the day before. I have that sinking feeling in my stomach that says "YOU BOMBED" and more often than not my stupid intuition is usually right. I suppose I shouldn't be surprised if I bombed, I'm generally a two test person who has to bomb a test to do well on it the second time but I was really hoping the MCAT would be different. The same thing happened with my SAT exam, I took it once and sucked and took it again and did well. I think more of it has to do with test anxiety than whether I actually know the material or not. The act of sitting in front of the computer to take the test empties my brain of it's previous knowledge and leaves me stumbling over even the simplest questions. I was hoping that practice exams would prevent the brain dump but I don't think they did. If I ever get through this and make it to medical school I should bookmark this post to look at when I bomb my USMILE for the first time.

I was really hoping for a 30 when I took the test but now I'm feeling like I got closer to a 20. Or a 2, depending on what mood I'm in. I don't think this round is going to be good enough to get me an acceptance but we'll know for sure tomorrow. The big question is, if I got a 2o do I even bother applying to DO schools? I don't want to go out of the country but I don't think even a DO school would take a 20 on the MCAT. Is it good experience to go through the application process or just a colossal waste of money? There are so many things to consider, especially the year long gap between application acceptances. What happens with the housing situation? Do we stay and bank 1500 a month to put toward a down payment, or do we move out and say screw the money to have some privacy? My honey's job is very unstable and unpredictable though, we often don't know how much work to expect from him month to month so I'm not sure it would be safe to move out. What would you do?

Okay. I got my score. No, I'm not telling. Yes, I need to take it again. Am I surprised? No. I blame it on standardized test freak out. Damn. Now I need to sign up for it again.

Marrying Your Sweetheart: The Meet The Couple Episode

As mentioned in my previous post, my honey and I have been together for a cool eight years. This is longer than most people I know have been married, and every day that passes that we don't strangle each other/throw a fit/accidentally kick each other in the face I count as a success. We're an unlikely pair if I've ever seen one, the cooking and animal loving Bio and English major with the sport obsessed, equally passionate and lazy cinema and television major somehow coexisting in relative harmony. I attribute our success to my love of cooking, his love of eating, and our mutual love of chocolate covered pretzels. But really, it's more like a weird system of give and take, lots of mistakes and our mutual love of arguing that's most likely to blame for our relationship (If I wasn't so set on being a doctor I could easily become a lawyer, just so I could be paid to debate are argue all day long). That and my cat liked him, which went a long way in his favor.

A Friend's Birthday Party, August 2004

While we've been dating for eight years, we've actually known each other since we were about 7 or 8. As a tomboy, I found his pillow fighting skills satisfactory, his tree climbing skills acceptable and most importantly his video gaming skills entertaining enough to merit an easy going friendship. His green/blue eyes, sandy blonde hair and baby chubby cheeks did nothing for me, the ultimate boy child, until we reached 15 and 16, something clicked and he turned on the charm.

In high school he was pursuing a career in film, absolutely convinced he would be the next famous director. He had written many mostly sport related scripts (I kinda hate sports), including a short feature that he asked me to play a part in. Despite my complete lack of interest in acting (or any acting skills for that matter) I agreed, and we spent a few days a week together that summer running around my house with his mini DV camera. Little did I know the film was more of an opportunity to get close to me, a fact I probably should have realized upon reading the repeated "kissing" scenes in the script between the dashing athlete and his bride. Add in a heavy dash teenage hormones, a pinch of attraction, stir counter clockwise with 2 cups of water, and BAM! Instant relationship.

Senior Portraits for High School, 2005

Somehow, we made it through going to different high schools on opposite sides of Los Angeles. I didn't drive but he did, so he used to drive over Tuesday nights since I didn't have class until 9am on Wednesday. We made it through going to two different colleges, pursuing wildly different career paths. He screwed up once when I first left for college, and while I've always taken a hard line of zero tolerance on cheating, I eventually forgave him (even if I wasn't able to forget his indiscretion). We grew up, made mistakes together and somehow our continuously changing goals and personalities continue to match up. My mother has this snarky saying she likes to throw around when we've done (or not done) something, "playing house". According to her, we've been playing house for 8 years, pretending at a relationship because two teenagers, then two twenty somethings, couldn't possibly have what it takes to make a relationship work.

Now, this time next year we will be married. I'm not sure if that will make our relationship any less "playing house" to my mother, but I'm excited to begin a new phase of our lives. I still don't like sports and he still isn't thrilled by my aquariums, but we still like to argue and together we somehow manage to make it work. I can't imagine being with someone who doesn't drive me as bat shit crazy as he does, and his life would be a lot more difficult without me reminding him to be his best self.

Maid of Honor's Wedding, 2010