Our Nearly Perfect Day

As far as Thursdays in July go, our Thursday this week was nearly perfect.  I say “nearly” because, well, a million tax-free dollars didn’t suddenly drop out of the sky and onto our front porch.  Nor did world hunger end and/or world peace begin. 

But it didn’t rain, which has been par for the course most of this summer in Central Ohio.  And it wasn’t humid. 

And, best of all, Vince had the day off so we could spend it together.   

We slept in a little until the sunshine beckoned.  We drank some coffee until my eyes willingly stayed open on their own.  And we talked and relaxed in our living room watching our cats tussle over the prime critter-watching spot by the front window.

We discussed everything from life in general, to our day in specific.  As in: “Which would you prefer? Ending world hunger or creating world peace?” 

Or the more confounding question: “What should we do with our day, today?”

Since we couldn’t come up with a solution to either world situations, we focused on our plans for the day.  After another cup of coffee, inspiration struck and I suggested we rent a pontoon boat and putter around Alum Creek. 

Now, Alum Creek is nobody’s idea of a major waterway, but it is close by and, according to Wikipedia (I don’t, after all, have these minute facts stored away in my cranium), it is 58 miles long. 

Oh, and its official name is Alum Creek Lake, which seems a little redundant to me, but what do I know? I’m not exactly well-schooled on the differences between Creeks and Lakes and perhaps they can be used together to describe a channel of water 58 miles long.

But…I digress.

We tried reaching out to some friends to see if they were feeling spontaneous and up for a day in the sun but, alas, could find no takers.

 

Fortunately, Vince and I like hanging out with each other, so we were okay with it just being the two of us.  We fixed a couple sandwiches, grabbed some cold drinks, put on our water wings, flippers and swim goggles and off we went.

No, not really. We don’t own water wings.  Or flippers, for that matter. But picturing Vince wearing flippers makes me laugh, so pretend like we were wearing those things, okay?!  And just so I’m goofy, too, pretend like I’m wearing one of those old-fashioned rubber swim-caps with flowers and a chin strap.

Lovely. Now, we’re ready to go!

We tried to rent a middle-of-the-line pontoon with a medium-sized engine, but they only had one and it was already rented.  We didn’t think we needed the biggest pontoon for just the two of us, so we rented the smaller one. 

This, in hindsight, may have been a mistake.  It had a tiny little engine and it took the entire two hours to cruise around Alum Creek Lake once. And we never once stopped. Turns out we used only a little over a gallon of fuel, so I guess we were being economical. 

But Vince later said that if we could walk on water, we could’ve moved faster than that pontoon boat!

On the other hand, it was relatively quiet at Alum Creek on Thursday afternoon and we certainly weren’t in any sort of competition with the few boats that were on the water. 

The weather was absolutely perfect. There were only a few white, fluffy clouds dotting the expanse of bright blue sky.  And there was a gentle, cooling breeze riffling the flowers on my swim cap… 

…Oh, wait a minute.  I was really kidding about that swim cap.  But the breeze thing was true.  And it was heavenly.

We returned to shore and headed back home, where we continued our day of leisure.  We cleaned up (those rubber swim caps are hot!) and relaxed on the patio with some crackers and cheese and a bottle of crisp white Bordeaux. 

We chatted on the phone with several long-time friends and relatives, so it was a fun catch-up day with people we care about.  And we listened to music on our sound system and whiled away the time.  Eventually, Vince grilled hamburgers for our dinner and we stayed outside until the solar lights clicked on.

Most of the time, we spend our days rushing from Point A to Point B or checking off items on our to-do list.  So to spend an entire day slowing down and relaxing and taking the time to simply enjoy life, well, it was truly a little slice of heaven.  

And it was nearly perfect. 

Now…if we could just do something about the peace thing and ending world hunger, we’d be all set.

And I wouldn’t complain if a million tax-free dollars dropped out of the sky.  After all, that would buy a lot of swim caps with rubber flowers and chip straps. 

It Was A Dark and Stormy Night...

So yesterday I was talking about my tire problems. I said, “it’s December and I’m having tire issues ‘again.’” I’m sure you were sitting on the edge of your seat wondering what other tire issues I’ve had in December, weren’t you? No? Well, too bad because I have a doozy to tell you.

It was a dark and stormy night…

No, seriously, it was. And it was also Christmas Eve. I was on my way home from work and looking forward to spending my first Christmas with Vince. As soon as I arrived home, we were going to pack up the car with gifts and head to his dad’s house for a family celebration.

So I was racing home and was nearly there. The windshield wipers were thumping across the glass trying in vain to keep the water off my windshield so I could see the road in front of me.

And then I heard a loud pop.

Not knowing what it was, but knowing that my car doesn’t normally make that sort of sound, I pulled off the road. So even though I knew I was going to get pummeled by the rain, I stepped out of my car and walked around to see what might have caused that sound. And there, on the passenger side, was a flat rear tire.

So I did what any normal woman does in this sort of situation. I called my boyfriend.

Vince asked me if I thought I could get it up the street to the gas station where I could fill the tire with air enough to get home. And he would take it from there.

Yeah, right.

I did manage to make it to the gas station. Air, as I complained about yesterday, cost 75 cents. And I had to scrounge around in my car to find three quarters. So out into the cold deluge I went with the three quarters clutched in my shaking fingers. So I slid the first quarter into the slot, and then the second…but the third quarter fell out of my icy fingers and rolled under my car. Seriously?

Rather than kneel on the wet and muddy pavement to search for it, I trudged back around my car into the driver’s seat to see if I could scare up another quarter. Fortunately, I found one and managed to insert it into the slot without dropping it. And the air machine whirred to life.

Since my tire was flat as a pancake, I decided not to bother finding out what the air pressure was – I knew it was going to take a lot of air to get it reasonably full enough to drive. So I crouched there squeezing the handle of the air pump. By this point, my hair was dripping wet and it looked as if I’d just gotten out of the shower. I was freezing cold and getting, well, just a tad stressed out. But I kept trying to fill the tire.

After three minutes the air machine shut off, but my tire was still flat as a pancake. And I had no more quarters.

So I did what any normal woman would do in this sort of a situation.

I got back into my car and cried. And then I called my boyfriend.

By the time Vince answered the phone, I was sobbing into the phone – so his first thought might have been that I’d gotten hit by a Mack truck in the gas station parking lot or something. But, no. I just couldn’t get the tire to fill with air. He may have decided that I just didn’t know how to fill a tire with air – but he (fortunately) didn’t suggest any such thing.

So he did what any normal boyfriend would do in this sort of situation.

He drove over to the gas station to rescue me. I think he was a little shocked to see the soggy pitiful state I was in with dripping hair and eyes and running mascara – but he hugged me and told me he would take care of it. Then he steered me over to his car and told me to go home and take a hot shower and get ready to go to his dad’s house.

Which we were late for, incidentally.

So I called his dad’s wife and – still sniffling – told her what had happened. She reassuringly told me it was going to be fine and to just get there when we could. And to bring an extra large bottle of wine.

Turned out that the tire had actually exploded and there was no inner wall – so that tire was never going to fill with air no matter how many quarters we put into the air filler machine. Vince took the wheel off and put the little donut on the car and drove home – pretty drippy and freezing himself. But rather than complain about anything, he just held me close and told me how lucky I was that nothing worse had happened when the tire blew.

Probably if I’d known that was what was happening, I would’ve panicked and rolled the car or something.

Nevertheless, the tire was replaced a couple days later and all was right with the world again. Especially after I drank that extra large bottle of wine all by myself at his dad's house on Christmas Eve.

I kid. (Sort of.)

Busy Bee (Jane), Smashed Toe (Vince)

My week was so busy last week I didn’t even get a chance to finish my blog about how busy I was! Since I don’t want to waste all those words I took the time to string together, you’ll just have to pretend like you’re reading this last Friday – okay?!

Busy Bee (Jane), Smashed Toe (Vince)

It has been a busy, busy week. I’ve been working like crazy during the day and my evenings have been filled, too. I have had a couple after-hour get-togethers with friends plus an eye doctor appointment this week. Oh, and throw in the odd bit of housework, too. That laundry isn’t washing itself and those toilets aren’t scrubbing themselves either, you know.

Normally I like being busy, but for some reason I’m feeling stressed about all there is to do. Don’t tell anyone, but I suspect that my To-Do list is plotting against me. Yeah, I think it’s even reproducing itself. It’s a little scary. Especially when a second little notebook showed up the other day filled with more stuff for me to cram into my day. How’d that happen?!

We started the week off without air conditioning at home, so maybe that set the tone for the week. Fortunately, that little problem was fixed. By the time I got home from work Monday evening it was no longer sweltering inside. Good thing, too, because I was starting to think I might have to shave Jinx and Twinks to put them out of their misery. Wearing fur in the summer has to be pretty uncomfortable, wouldn’t you think?!

And then the evening I had my eye doctor appointment, well, that night didn’t go quite as planned. Vince had had the day off work, so we got together for lunch and then he planned to run some errands. After my eye appointment we thought we might even catch a movie. At the actual movie theater.

Didn’t happen.

Vince, being the loving and very-good-to-me husband that he is, took my car to the car parts store. The “Check Engine” light had been on for a few days and if you’d read one of my previous blogs, you know that I tend to panic when I see that particular light pop up on my dashboard.

The day the check engine light came on, I had checked the oil level before driving the vehicle home. And later that evening Vince had checked the rest of the fluids in the car and all was well. But still, that check engine light wouldn’t give up and go away.

So Vince’s first stop was to the car parts place. He and the tech took a look under the hood and the guy decided it must be the sensor. The sensor that cost $75 to replace. So he replaced it. But then the tech heard a hissing noise and, ace car repair guy he is, decided that one of the hoses needed to be replaced. Fortunately, that was only a $6 part. But then he decided that the $75 sensor probably wasn’t the problem, so he took it out and put back the old one. And then – just for grins – he checked the battery. Turns out the battery was bad, too. I’m sure he was salivating with the anticipation of charging Vince for a new battery, too, but Vince knew the battery had been replaced only a couple years prior and was still under warranty.

At some point during all this automotive mechanical analysis, the car parts guy and Vince walked back into the store. Only Vince wanted to do it in grand style apparently – because when he opened the heavy glass door, he somehow managed to scrape it over his big toe. Naturally, he was wearing flip flops – and blood started spurting all over the floor.

Vince did the normal he-man thing and avoided screaming like a girl, although he probably wanted to. When I saw his toe later, I wouldn’t have blamed him for screaming like a girl. That thing looked nasty and HAD to hurt!

But did that stop my man from his car repair quest? Not a chance. They wrapped up his toe as best as car parts people can and he moved on to the next stop – Sam’s Club – to get the battery replaced.

Once this chore was completed – and only then – did Vince decide to seek medical attention for his throbbing, bloodied toe. He went to an Urgent Care place and they gave him a tetanus shot, prescribed oral antibiotics and an antibiotic cream and wrapped that appendage up so that it was three times its normal size and sent him on his way.

Meanwhile, I was at the eye doctor’s for an eye exam that included having my eyes dilated. When I walked out of the appointment and into the sunlight, I cringed and shielded my eyes like one of the vampires in Twilight. The doctor had given me a pair of those flimsy paper and plastic “sunglasses” (and I use the term loosely), but the moment I tried to put them on, the paper earpiece broke off. And, naturally, I was driving Vince’s car and didn’t have any of my own sunglasses in his car.

So, with my eyes opened only to mere slits, I drove home. Very slowly and carefully, mind you. Vince was also driving home from the pharmacy with his medications and his hugely wrapped big toe. Driving very slowly and carefully, mind you. We make quite a pair, don’t we?! All I can say is thank goodness we weren’t on the same road at the same time.

Fortunately, everything turned out okay and we had no more mishaps over the weekend. Well, unless you consider the 3” scratch on my neck that Jinx inflicted last night while trying to jump off the couch. It was probably an accident, although she could have been warning me what might happen if I EVER try to shave off her fur.

Where Are My Keys?!?!

I had another blog written for today, but I interrupt your regularly scheduled post with this news bulletin: I AM HAVING A CRAPPY DAY!

Actually, it has improved a little thanks to my knight in shining armor husband.

Naturally, I need to tell you about it.

I woke up early this morning because my parents are visiting this weekend and I wanted to pick up a little bit as they will be there before we arrive home from work. They were supposed to visit last weekend, but cancelled due to winter weather.

So I put fresh sheets on the guest room bed, picked up my shoes off the dining room floor and put them away and cleaned kitty litter, toilets and sinks. I folded throws and draped them over couches and put things away. You know…the usual “stuff” you do when company is coming to make it look like you don’t actually live in your home.

Then I brewed my morning coffee and put it in a to-go container and set it on the counter along with my lunch bag, purse and book and then headed toward the stairs with the intention of getting dressed so I could leave for work. Only I heard a loud crash coming from the kitchen, so I had to go back and investigate what disaster I’d be forced to clean up.

My purse, which had apparently been balanced precariously on the counter atop the book and lunch bag, had fallen off the counter and onto the floor where half the contents spilled out and rolled into every far reaching corner in the place.

Sighing, I bent down and retrieved the junk on the floor and tossed it back in my purse. I figured I would organize it again during my semi-annual purse-cleaning day, which isn’t scheduled for another month or so.

So no major biggie.

I went upstairs, got ready for work, then came back downstairs, put on my coat, blew kisses to the kitties and then grabbed purse, lunch bag, coffee cup and book and headed out to my car.

It was then that the search for my car keys began.

They weren’t in my pockets. They weren’t in my purse. They weren’t in the ignition. I even searched my lunch bag thinking it had been a long week and I’m a little sleep-deprived, so who knows what weird thing I could’ve done with the keys. But, no luck.

I searched the floor and, while I didn’t find my keys, I discovered that the floor of my car is REALLY dirty. Not that that helped the situation.

So I headed back inside and looked on the dining room table where the keys usually end up…except that I’d cleared off the table earlier. So they weren’t there. I looked on the floor. I headed back to the kitchen to look again on the floor since my purse had fallen over in that location.

But they’re a big ol’ set of keys and I couldn’t imagine that I’d overlooked them when I picked up the junk from my purse that had fallen out. I hadn’t.

I even walked upstairs and looked through the shoes that I’d put away thinking that possibly the kittens had knocked the keys off the table and they’d landed in a shoe.

Nuthin’.

After about 15 minutes of ever-more-frantic searching, I had to call my boss to tell him I couldn’t find my keys. There was no possible way I could make it to work on time by this point unless I developed the sudden ability to fly. Apparently I sounded slightly stressed (yeah and I’m slightly downplaying it by using the word “slightly”!). I may have even said a bad word or two, but he’s the king of bad words, so it didn’t faze the man. He just suggested I take a deep breath, look again a little more slowly and carefully and get to work when I was able

After another 10 minutes of searching, tears of frustration might have even been involved. I mean…COME ON! I’d driven the car home the night before so they had to be there somewhere!

I searched couch cushions. I moved all the chairs away from the dining room table and crawled on the floor underneath the table in case they were somehow wedged behind a table leg. I went upstairs and searched both bedrooms even though I never bring my keys upstairs.

Somewhere in there the frantic texts to my husband began. “I can’t find my keys! You don’t have them, do you??!” And after a few more minutes of searching: “I need you to come home and bring my spare key so I can get to work!”

And, just in case he didn’t read those texts immediately after it was safe to look at his phone, I called and left a voicemail. It was not, as you might imagine, one of those light and breezy “Hi honey!” kind of voicemail messages.

While waiting for Vince to call me back, I once again returned to my car to check one more time. The lunch bag holding the plastic container with remnants of yesterday’s salad was still on the passenger seat because we’d gone out immediately after work the night before, so I brought it inside so I could rinse the container and put it in the dishwasher.

And then I started to run the garbage disposal.

And then I found my keys.

Oh yes. They’d somehow gymnastically flipped to the left and landed fully inside the garbage disposal while my purse upended the other way onto the floor.

But now they were stuck inside the garbage disposal. Despite repeated attempts, which resulted in a very sore hand, I couldn’t manage to free up the one key that was stuck. It was Vince’s spare car key but that’s probably not of any significance other than I knew that at least the key to my car was most likely undamaged.

Here’s where my knight in shining armor comes in. Vince called and said, “You can’t find your keys?” And I said, “Oh…I found them…but now they’re stuck inside the garbage disposal.”

His response? “Am I allowed to snicker during this conversation?”

My reply? “Uhhh…not if you value your life!”

Yeah, I hadn’t yet developed a sense of humor about my morning. Probably I’m still workin’ on that.

Anyway, Vince came home, hauled out the ol’ toolbox, picked up an Allen wrench, and within two point three seconds, released the key from inside the disposal and I was able to pull out the ring of keys.

Oh happy day!

So he hugged and kissed me and sent me on my way.

And we lived happily ever after.

Well, except that I’m thinking of having a spare car key surgically implanted in my forehead so this will NEVER happen again!

Lunch, anyone?

I keep forgetting we have kittens at home – kittens as opposed to adult cats. And I’ve forgotten how vastly different kittens are from adult cats.

Adult cats like to find warm, sunshiny places so they can nap uninterrupted for approximately 22 hours a day. The other hour is for eating. And the last hour is for creating stinky messes in their litter boxes. Okay, maybe they only nap for 21 hours a day as it seems physically impossible for the stinky messes in their litter boxes to be the result of one mere hour of effort.

But I digress. (I could write a book on stinky messes in litter boxes. Sadly, no one would want to read it. Or ever have an appetite again.)

Anyway, as I was saying…

Kittens, on the other hand, are rambunctious and extremely curious. Like when there is a lovely bouquet of red roses in the center of the dining room table from my wonderful husband for Valentine’s Day. Kittens who have never before seen red roses think they are something to be explored. And they think it is their kittenly duty to chew on said roses to see if they are edible.

When they discover the flowers are not as good as say, whipped cream, they continue to pounce upon the innocent petals and shred them to bits.

Now I know where the saying, “Curiosity killed the cat” comes from. The kitty funeral will be tomorrow at 10AM. No, I kid. Like shredding my roses warrants the death penalty. (This was not as easy a call as you might think...)

No, instead, the first time I caught them on the table chewing on my roses, I shrieked. While that startled them into immediately jumping down, it didn’t deter them for long.

Since I didn’t want to spend the entire day shrieking at kittens or standing guard at the dining room table causing Vince to regret purchasing the roses in the first place, I moved the vase to the sideboard. I then piled stuff on top of the chair closest to the sideboard in hopes that it would keep the kittens from reaching the roses.

Ha. Like that worked. Apparently I didn’t use enough sharp, pointy objects on my barrier.

Eventually, Twinks and Jinx lost interest in the now-shredded roses and moved on to other pursuits. Like clawing their way up my leg and sliding back down, claws fully extended, of course, in an attempt to create their own human amusement ride.

By the next morning, three of the roses were black and had to go to that great rose heaven in the sky (also known as that great trash can in the garage).

And for the next four days the roses sat way back on the sideboard barely visible and somewhat neglected. Finally, Vince suggested I bring the survivors to my office so I could look at them without fear of reprisal from destructive kittens. Duh. Why didn’t I think of that before?

So now they sit on my desk to be enjoyed and admired for another day or two.

And, surprisingly, not one single co-worker has come in to my office with the intention of chewing on my roses.

How great is that?!

New iPhone. The Rest of the Story...

So the other day I wrote a blog about getting my iPhone 3G replaced for free. There is, of course, more to the story. (Isn’t there always?!)

When we were at the Apple store (the first time), Vince pulled me over to the iPod Touch display and said he’d really like one for Christmas. (Yet he totally ignored my plea for a new iPad. Hmmm…what’s up with that?!)

Anyway, wouldn’t you know, I’d just spent some hard-earned dollars on a new iPod Nano for him for Christmas – and it had just arrived that very day via UPS. I had selected the color he liked and even had it engraved with a quote special to us both.

But he said he’d prefer the iPod Touch with its additional bells and whistles. “It doesn’t have a phone,” I said. “Why would you want it?”

Personally, I think he was a little jealous of my iPhone, but I couldn’t swear to it.

With his new job, Vince has plenty of time to listen to music – and my old iPod Nano that he was using was slowly dying. Or maybe not so slowly, as the sales guy at Apple commented on what an antique we had. It was no surprise to him that the battery life was nearly gone.

Actually, many of our battery-powered gadgets at home were getting ready to kick the bucket. My iPhone (the one I dropped Thursday night) was nearly 2-1/2 years old and required a mid-day charge to keep going throughout the evening. And Vince’s old-fashioned flip-top cell phone was more than ready for the cell phone graveyard. (My reaction whenever Vince asked me to send a text message from his phone? “You gotta be kiddin’ me, pal,” I’d say. “There’s no QUERTY keyboard on this thing and I have to press this button three times to get a flippin’ ‘c’!”)

I had intended to wait until after the holidays to replace both of our old cell phones, but it seemed like the perfect opportunity to get it taken care of now.

So I exchanged his iPod Nano for a new iPhone 4. Um. For me. And I gave him the iPhone 3. He keeps telling everyone that I gave him my old phone, but the truth of the matter is, it’s a brand, spankin’ new phone! And it’s wayyyyy better than his old crappy flip-top cell phone.

Besides, I didn’t think he’d appreciate the subtle differences between the iPhone 3 and the iPhone 4. Or at least that’s my justification. Flawed or not, it’s what I’m stickin’ with.

Plus, we got him a nifty case for the phone that includes a charger, so his new iPhone will operate twice as long. And a slick Bluetooth with stereo headphones.

Now, c’mon. Wouldn’t you say that’s a pretty nice Christmas gift package?

Of course, it’s not even December 1st. He will probably look at me with sad, puppy-dog eyes if I don’t get him something else to open on December 25th.

Sigh.

Maybe I should give him a bunch of extension cords with extra plugs. With all these gadgets we’ve got now, we’re running out of electrical outlets at home. Only problem is, we have to fumble our way to the fuse box every time we plug in the vacuum cleaner. (Guess that simply means we shouldn’t attempt to clean the carpet – ever. Right?!)

Ah well. It’s very easy to get sucked in buying all these new gizmos. I’m sure we could survive without them. But I, for one, don’t want to test the theory. And (cue the sad puppy-dog eyes), I still want an iPad. Really, really bad…

Are you listening, Santa??

Black Friday? Who Needs It? (Well, Except for Maybe the Retail Industry…)

So the other day I bought a couple more Christmas gifts. I’ve never been one of those people who feels the need to get up at 2AM on the Friday after Thanksgiving to hit the stores to begin my Christmas shopping. For one thing, I’m not crazy about mob scenes at the mall. And for another, well, I like to sleep in wayyy too much.

Instead, I’ve been buying a few gifts every pay period. So we’re pretty much down to the stocking stuffer kinds of things by now. You know – the everyday things that people need but don’t feel like spending their hard-earned cash on.

Like socks and underwear.

I bought Vince a package of socks because he was complaining about his old ones. And when I got home from the store, I gave them to him. Duh.

Clearly, there is a flaw in my thinking when it comes to early Christmas shopping, since I seem to be giving the stuff away before Christmas. So on December 25th when there is nothing under the tree what am I gonna say? “Hey, honey, remember that package of socks I gave you in November? Well, Merry Christmas!”

The other day I bought him another gift online – one of his two “major” gifts (and, no, we’re not talking a new Maserati. Our budget for major gifts is rather minor). At any rate, I excitedly told him the package will be here on Tuesday – and I know I won’t be able to wait until Christmas morning to give it to him.

Maybe I’ll have to make sure to put a bow on the package so he knows for sure it is an early Christmas gift. And maybe that way he’ll know not to expect a whole slew of packages under the tree.

Or maybe I should show a little self restraint and not give him the gift early?

. . .

Nah. I don’t have that much self restraint. But I want you to know that I did think about it for about a whole half a second (that’s what those little dots were…me thinking.) (Hey, now – there is no need to be sarcastic.)

There is an upside to giving him things well before the holidays. It means that I have fewer packages to wrap. I’m a terrible gift wrapper. I either don’t cut enough paper to sufficiently cover the gift, or I have so much excess that I end up winding the paper around the thing a couple times. Most people in this situation would simply cut off the excess paper. Not me. Because if I do, I end up cutting it crooked. And so then I try to even out the cut. And I keep cutting until – you guessed it – there isn’t enough paper to sufficiently cover the gift.

Sigh.

I once dated a guy whose day job was as a finish carpenter. His Christmas presents were wrapped with such precision – perfectly straight cuts with not one inch of excess paper. He’d tape the ends with such a small piece of tape that it was nearly invisible to the naked eye. And the bow would be placed drop dead center on the gift. I used to watch in awe when he wrapped gifts. He, on the other hand, would watch in utter dismay whenever it was my turn to wrap gifts. “Oh, for crying out loud, Jane,” he eventually exclaim. “Step aside. I’ll do it!”

Yeah, dumb like a fox, I am.

Vince, on the other hand, has not shown an iota of interest in taking over the gift wrapping chores. Thus, I have become a firm believer in gift bags. Throw the gift in a gaily decorated bag, toss in a couple sheets of tissue paper and – voilà – done. Make me a sandwich.

Not only that, but they’re reusable. In our family, we give away the gifts and then we get all the tissue paper and gift bags back. We were being green before being green was cool. My parents simply called anything else “wasteful.”

Except my mom would also give me back anything I attempted to wrap in paper. She’d carefully pick off the gobs of tape I’d slapped on the package to make sure it stayed closed and would hand me back the paper to reuse the next Christmas. I’d roll my eyes and say, “Oh come on, Mom. Unless I get you the exact same thing next year, I will not be able to fit that particular piece of wrapping paper back on any gift.”

Still, she’d hand it back to me and give me a stern lecture on being wasteful. So I learned to shut my mouth and simply accept the mangled sheet of crookedly cut paper with holes in it from where the tape could not be easily removed.

No wonder I learned to use gift bags.

Anyway, like I said, if I don’t stop handing out gifts early, I won’t be needing all that many gift bags. Unless I decide that Black Friday is a very good day to go out shopping. For myself. I won’t even expect anything to be gift wrapped.

Heyyy…now there’s a wonderful idea! Let me think on that a minute . . .

(Really, now. Sarcasm doesn’t become you.)

The Birthday Celebration That Almost Wasn't

We had a great weekend celebrating Vince’s birthday with friends on Friday night and with family and friends on Saturday evening. Only it didn’t start out quite so promising.

When I spoke to Vince at lunchtime on Friday, I told him that I had to make one stop after work and wasn’t sure when I’d be home. I knew I wasn’t going on a major shopping spree, so I assumed it would be within a half hour or so of my normal arrival time.

You know what they say when you assume – right? Yeah, well, that’s pretty much true.

Vince, on the other hand, assumed that when he heard “shopping” and “Jane” in the same sentence that it would be several hours before I arrived home tired, flushed and loaded down with enough shopping bags that required his brute strength assistance to carry them all in from the car.

Sure, if I’d uttered the words “retail therapy,” he may have been correct in assuming that I was going on a mall hopping frenzy – but I was only planning a quick run to the store to pick up his birthday cake.

And then, as life is wont to do, plans changed.

During the afternoon, some friends told me they were going to Bob’s Bar after work. Neither of them, by the way, is named “Bob.” But I asked if we could join them – and then perhaps we could all head to the movie theater afterwards to see Due Date, which I’d heard was pretty funny. They agreed and we made plans to meet up around 6PM.

And then, because I like complications, I sent out a last-second invite to some of our other friends to see if any of them might be available to meet us at Bob’s Bar for a drink in honor of Vince’s birthday. Normally, I’m the Queen of Preparation and Special Events, but because I’d been sick earlier in the week, I hadn’t done any advance planning. My bad.

At 4PM I sent a quick text to Vince to alert him to our change of plans.

At 5PM on my commute home, I called him and left him a voicemail reiterating our change of plans.

At 5:45PM, coiffed and ready for our evening out, I sat at the dining room table semi-patiently waiting for the birthday boy.

At 6:20PM, I sent him a text in capital letters, “WHERE ARE YOU?” (For the sake of decorum, I won’t tell you what I was doing/thinking/saying/cursing between 5:45 and 6:20!)

And, finally, at 7PM, he showed up. You should know that I was standing in the open doorway with my purse in one hand, tapping my foot so vigorously I got a cramp in my toes. In my other hand, I held a fresh shirt for Vince to change into, along with his deodorant (in case he’d had a sweaty day at work). He wasn’t even allowed in past the kitchen – he had to change in the doorway, swipe on a little Rite Guard and immediately head back out.

What a GREAT way to start a birthday weekend, eh?! Poor Vince.

Turns out that he hadn’t checked his phone for messages and, figuring that I wasn’t t going to be home immediately after work, he offered to fill in for an absent coworker after his regular shift had ended.

By the time we arrived at Bob’s Bar, the original couple we’d agreed to meet up with had already left for the movie. Another couple had stopped in at the bar and when they didn’t see any of us firmly planted on Bob’s barstools, headed back out to their car. We were only able to catch them because they’d flipped on the interior dome light to peruse the movie section of the newspaper to find out what else was playing.

We convinced them to head back to Bob’s with us. And then another couple of friends joined us shortly thereafter. Once I’d had a beer and settled down a bit, we all enjoyed ourselves and toasted both the start of the weekend and Vince’s birthday.

We were having so much fun together that we left Bob’s and headed to our friends’ house where we got the fire pit going and we sat around laughing and telling stories, some perhaps a little more long-winded than others. But it was all good.

On Saturday (Vince’s actual birthday), we decided to go shopping together – so nobody had to assume nothin’! We picked up Vince’s birthday cake. And then we came home to get ready for a fun dinner out with Vince’s family and a couple friends. It was another great evening and we laughed and told more stories.

Vince’s dad had also gone shopping and bought birthday cake. Not one – but two birthday cakes – one for Vince and one for Vince’s brother who had celebrated his birthday earlier in the week. Egad. We had three flippin’ birthday cakes and there were only five of us gathered together after dinner to eat them!

Despite sending cake home with everyone, and despite having cake for breakfast yesterday morning (hey, it’s got eggs in it), we still have plenty of leftovers. If cake doesn’t freeze well, I may be eating cake for breakfast for the next month!

But I think the Birthday Boy had a good birthday weekend, the questionable start notwithstanding.

And next year? Well, I think I’ll send out engraved invitations at least six weeks prior to Vince’s birthday. That way, we’ll both be prepared and in-the-know about our plans. Even if it’s just to head to Bob’s Bar for a quick birthday drink!

Hmmm…I don’t have any engraved invitations sitting around at home. Maybe I should go shopping?

Our First Anniversary

Vince and I just returned home from our first anniversary celebratory dinner. We went to Carrabba’s, which is where we had our first date in April of 2008. It was a lovely meal to celebrate one year of wedded bliss. Plus, neither of us had to do the dishes afterwards, so we considered it a major bonus. (And by “we” I mean “I” – Vince doesn’t complain about doing the dishes nearly as much as I do!)

It’s amazing how much has changed in the nearly 2-1/2 years since that first date. Like the fact that I actually walked down the aisle last September 6th. No one in my life ever said so out loud (or to me, personally), but I suspect that some may have predicted that the devil would be wearing a parka before they saw me traipsing down the aisle in a white wedding gown.

But whatever. It was just right. The right time. The right man. The right circumstances. See? It was just right.

Not that our life is perfect. Believe me, we aren’t living the high life jetting from one exotic locale to the next or living in a McMansion with hired hands to do stuff like wash the dishes. And Vince and I can annoy each other just as much as the next couple. We even call ourselves the other’s favorite pain in the patootie. But instead of letting anything fester, we bring up issues that bother us. It could be something trivial or something serious. Nothing is off-limits between us.

Maybe it’s the connection between us – or maybe it’s just that neither of us is 25 years old anymore and we realize that we aren’t perfect and neither is life. We’ve finally reached the understanding that it’s not meant to be. And we can deal with the ups and downs – particularly the downs, or the challenges – if we face them together.

We both have some mileage on us and our trade-in value ain’t quite what it used to be. Fortunately, neither of us is thinking of trading in the other for a newer, shinier model. We know ourselves pretty well so it’s easier to let the other see our flaws. Thank goodness I don’t have to try to hide that weird, ever-growing line between my eyebrows. And I can’t even pretend that some “parts” are still where they used to be 25 years ago. Vince accepts those signs of aging – and still calls me beautiful.

Instead of a card, he wrote me a love letter, which is far more heartfelt and valuable to me than anything Hallmark could ever come up with. (I, on the other hand – the writer – gave him a Hallmark card. Oops. My bad.)

After we toasted each other and I read my letter and dried a tear or two, we talked about the things that have happened in the past year that were the highlights. There have been many. But mostly, we realize how blessed we were to find each other at this stage in our lives.

I used to say that I wanted to be married because it seems that the world is filled with couples. Through many years of research, I concluded that singles aren’t as welcome at dinner parties – unless there is another single to round out the numbers. And I got really tired of checking off “1” on the RSVP card for the many weddings I’ve attended over the decades.

But then a few years ago I finally came to terms with my singleness. Married friends who were perhaps a little tired of being married assured me that I should be grateful to be single and not have to worry about making someone else happy.

That seemed wrong to me somehow. And then it occurred to me that nobody out there could make me happy – I had to make myself happy. So I did. I made some changes in my life and didn’t sit around waiting for the phone to ring. And I realized that I had a pretty good life. I had a great family and lots of good friends, some of whom I could even call at 3 o’clock in the morning if I truly needed to – and they would only curse me out for a minute before asking me what was wrong.

Once I stopped thinking that I needed a man in my life to make my life complete – lo and behold – Vince showed up. I used to scoff at women’s magazines who printed articles stating that very notion. Yeah, right. Like I do nothing and Mr. Wonderful magically appears on my doorstep? Please.

But it wasn’t so much that I didn’t have to do anything…I did, after all, contact Vince first on one of the social media sites. But it was the realization that if he didn’t write back to me that I’d still be okay.

But he did. And we celebrated our first wedding anniversary today.

Life is good.