This post is pretty much going to consist of me being a whiny bitch and all poor me and FEEL SYMPATHY AND PAT MY HEAD AND TELL ME EVERYTHING IS GOING TO BE OKAY.

Okay?

Good!

So work has been HELL. Like, actual flames and pitchforks and varying rings of suckage. Based on the people surrounding me I’d say I’m somewhere below the water in the 5th ring surrounded by a bunch of sloths… which is the nicest way I can find to say it short of yelling, “I’m surrounded by MORONS.” Which wouldn’t be very nice. Tempting, but not nice.

I’d go into more here but the LAST thing I need to add to the stress is to walk into work and find out I’ve been dooced so I’ll just say that I’m doing the work of 1.5 people, literally, and leave it at that. Like, my productivity last week was 167%. Individually. For the week. Hell.

Lets see, what else?

Last week we had our first 100 degree day here and SURPRISE! Our AC was dead. We woke up to a power surge a few weeks ago which fried the control panel in the oven (I was reminded we are still waiting on the part today when I went to turn on the over and NOTHING HAPPENED and I ended up ruining my potatoes trying to cook them on the grill) and we never thought to try the AC! We went through two agonizing, horrible days with no AC. I had actual sweat. Like, ON MY BODY. *shudder*

The guy came out to fix it Saturday and apparently the power runs from the breaker, to the furnace, to the AC. So it was actually the HEATER that was broken and it wasn’t allowing the AC to come on. Makes perfect sense to me! Actually it doesn’t but I pretended that it did when Ben explained it to me.

So YAY! We have AC!!! Except we’ve only had to run it for like, AN HOUR over the last few days, because as soon as the damn thing was fixed the temperature dropped and it was BEAUTIFUL outside.

Oh! Something good!

Really good actually!

Ready?!

We finally got to use our tickets for Beauty and the Beast! The tickets Cassidy’s Papa and Nana Cherie got her for Christmas. It was AWESOME. It’s so cute when Cassidy watches something like this and gets REALLY into it because she’ll start to mimic the movements of the people on stage. Generally, the LEAD girl. She did it during the Hannah Montana movie, and then this too. It’s like she wants to burn it all to memory and the best way to do that is to.. DO IT.

I never say anything to her or tell her to stop because if she’s THAT into something, I can’t help but get just as into from watching her. It’s awesome that stuff like that is still so magical to her because getting to see it through her eyes gives me a reason to be 9 all over again and in awe of Belle and the story.

So okay, it wasn’t ALL bad. Still, if you want to pat my head and tell me it’s okay I won’t discourage you. I might even offer you a glass of wine and a seat beside me on the couch to watch House. Only one though! Don’t be greedy!

It pains me to write this because I really liked Hoda before today but: What the fuck were you thinking?

Seriously.

I always liked to believe that reporters were given a bad rap. That when people claimed they were taking things out of context, or that practically no background work had been done prior to a segment, that they were just over exaggerating or being whiny jackasses. But today you pretty much proved that the douchebag reporting reputation that has developed on network television is 117% true. You get an extra 17% because seriously, Kathy Lee Gifford? Whoever thought THAT was a good idea deserves an extra 17% of COMPLETE FAIL.

When you interviewed Heather Armstrong today on your show it was clear to me from the very beginning that both of these common failings were true. First Hoda mentioned a passage from one of Heather’s blog posts saying:

Hoda: “You wrote on your blog that you worry that your daughter will resent you because all of her business being put out there…”
Kathy: “Potty training and all those things that are kind of private.”

Well Hoda and Kathy, had you taken time to ACTUALLY READ THAT BLOG POST you’d have quite possibly also mentioned the rest of the passage that explains EXACTLY how Heather feels about it and, in fact, thinks in the long run that Leta will CHERISH all those stories.

From furniture Elhovothat dooce post:

You will resent me for your curfew and the fact that I will not let you leave the house in that mini-skirt. You will resent me for showing up to your school in my pajama bottoms and for raising my hand in a PTA meeting when I hadn’t brushed my hair. You will text message your friends to tell them that I am the most horrible person on the planet because I’m forcing you to study for your exam in the morning. You are going to think that I cannot possibly understand what you are going through, and you will slam the door in my face.

Will you resent me for this website? Absolutely. And I have spent hours and days and months of my life considering this, weighing your resentment against the good that can come from being open and honest about what it’s like to be your mother, the good for you, the good for me, and the good for other women who read what I write here and walk away feeling less alone. And I have every reason to believe that one day you will look at the thousands of pages I have written about my love for you, the thousands of pages other women have written about their own children, and you’re going to be so proud that we were brave enough to do this. We are an army of educated mothers who have finally stood up and said pay attention, this is important work, this is hard, frustrating work and we’re not going to sit around on our hands waiting for permission to do so. We have declared that our voices matter.

If that doesn’t profess the exact opposite of what Kathy Lee was trying not-so-eloquently to imply, that how dare you think about writing about your daughter online and *gasp* POSTING HER PICTURE, I don’t know what could possibly GET IT THROUGH YOUR HEAD short of getting in your face and shouting it through a blow horn.

Had Kathy taken FIFTEEN minutes of her time to ACTUALLY RESEARCH the topic and the person who she was interviewing she might have actually walked away from the interview without looking like the stereotypical, uneducated, assumptive “reporter” that she’s trying to play on TV. And if I had a dollar for every time that I was at my grandmothers and was forced to listen to Kathy talk about her sweet, precious Cody on NATIONAL TELEVISION I too could quit my day job and find something else to pass my time. Like publicly slamming other mothers from my make believe pedestal way up there. *points up*

Both of you are mothers and today you failed your fellow mothers across the nation. You could have turned that segment into a resounding statement about the exploding growth of a community of beautiful, powerful, motivated and brilliant women bloggers. Fellow mothers banding together to form a wave of support for complete strangers, for the mother down the street, for the mother sitting silently on the park bench, for the mother quietly suffering from postpartum depression, for the mother who’s so confused and upset and doesn’t know who to turn to… but instead you chose to go the sensational route.

Seriously. Shame on both of you.

-Anna (proud mommy blogger) Hirsch

So, I’m dying for a Diet Pepsi. DYING. One of the girls that sits by me tells me ALL THE TIME to just have one of her Pepsi’s that she keeps in a cabinet. But this same girl gives me attitude all the time when Ceece and I go to lunch because we don’t ask her if she wants something from where we are going. Now, this girl has NEVER organized a group lunch (I have done more than my fair share), or leaves to get lunch and ask ME what I want, she just expects to be included if anybody else is eating and it bugs the crap out of me. Like, CONTRIBUTE! ONCE! I have no problem picking up something while I’m out if I feel that the favor will EVER be returned.

I always make an excuse and thank her for the offer but tell her no because I don’t want to “owe her one” and that is absolutely how she will take it.

So.

I go downstairs to the vending machine which the guy was filling up this morning… no Diet Pepsi. NO DIET PEPSI! In a building of 300 women! What the hell, Mr Vending Machine Guy!?

So I make Ceece get up and walk half way across the building with me to get one from one of the other Pepsi vending machines. NO DIET PEPSI! @&*##$&!

Ceece mentions another Pepsi machine downstairs in the Children’s Hospital wing and YAY! DIET PEPSI! I put in my 5 quarters, the machine roars to life, I actually do a little dance of joy… then it STOPS, spits out my 5 quarters and PUNCHES ME IN THE GUT. I stand there open jawed and wide eyed for a few seconds while Ceece backs quietly away and says a little prayer. Then I might have dropped a few f-bombs and flipped the machine off. And kicked it. Twice.

I just want a GODDAMN DIET PEPSI. And Diet Coke is not an option. NOT. An. OPTION.

The roach coach is outside but to get a Diet Pepsi from them I will have to run through POURING RAIN and dig through the ice with my HAND and that’s just not an option because I’m not sure that being wet and cold is REALLY worth it. Of course, this is where I made a completely wrong judgement call.

So I cave. I ask for a Pepsi from Needy Girl and stick it in the freezer and set the timer on the iPhone for 20 minutes to check on it so it doesn’t blow up and make a huge mess. Before the timer goes off, she asked me where Ceece and I are going to lunch today.

I feel like I just sold my soul… For a Diet Pepsi.

So it has come to my attention that while I’ve been in internet hybernation that the world has continued to revolve around me and there’s so much to talk about “there’s no excuse to not be posting more than I am.”

*shrug*

I’d like to point out that I’ve been pretty active over on flickr. My 365 attempt has been a BIG SUCCESS so far. And by that I mean, I HAVEN’T FAILED! Yet. Yesterday marked my 49th day which means I’ve officially made it farther than any other attempt. This time I let go of the ridiculous notion that all of my pictures are going to be fabulous and planned and brilliantly photoshopped into perfection. And it’s odd because now that I’m not constantly stressed out about getting a shot up, the days that I do take the time to set them up and then photoshop the hell out of them they are coming out pretty damn well! Some of my most favorite self portraits to date, actually. Here’s a few that I’ve loved so far:

THERE! I’m done whoring myself. For now!

Lets see, what else is going on? Okay, I’ll start with this. I was temporarily pissed off at the internet. I lost a few (what I thought were) good friends over a message board around the end of November and I was just kind of like BLAH. And it was one of those things I really wanted to write about to “let it all out” but I know that it will just create more waves and it’s not really worth it. I never thought that by closing down a message board, so many people would turn into complete idiots and OMGHATE ME FOREVER(exclamation point). And to them I can just say: WHAT. EV. ER. If your way of getting over it is to have to kiss the ass of people that you claimed to hate and treated like shit for over two years so be it. I’m glad I finally found out your true character, which is “two face and spineless” and I’ll leave you with this:

You are a lemming. Enjoy the jump, it’s a long way down.

*splash*

Moving along!

I’m starting a “raw diet” today. Another reason I haven’t been around much is that I’ve been feeling like complete crap. Literally. Everything I eat is being ejected from my stomach in a foul manor. EVERYTHING. I eat plain white rice and suddenly I’m in pain and can’t get more than 100 feet from a toilet without panicking. I’ve done a lot of reading online the last few days and I’m thinking if I can get my body to detox it might help. I’m a little worried about protein intake though so while I might not stick to it as stringently as some people, if I do eat meat it won’t be blue cheese encrusted and doused in butter… sadly.

And lastly! I’ll really try and make a more solid effort to blog more. I have still been reading your blogs (Google Reader = *heart*) daily and need to get back into the swing of things around here.

Monday on the way into work what I can only assume was a drunk soccer mom swerved across two lanes and almost side swiped my car. Lucky my ninja like reflexes kicked in and I swerved all the way into another lane to avoid the dive bomb. My ninja like reflexes are strong. Like steal. Usually. Sometimes at 5:30 in the morning they are less like steal and more like tin foil.

At the same time I managed to avoid the 4000 pounds of metal, my LARGE McDonalds Iced Coffee flew into the air, did a complete flip, landed on my passenger seat and exploded into a coffee a-bomb. It filled up the cup holders, landed in my hair, left a film on the front window and pooled up on the floor under seat. It took me a full 45 minutes and an entire roll of paper towels to get it cleaned up enough that I didn’t STICK to the seat when I sat down. THANK GOD it was rainy and cold outside because I can only imagine what that would have smelled like after 8 hours of 100 degree heat in the full sun. *shudders*

So, the day can only get better after this, right??

WRONG!

SURPRISE! Major Medical University is REQUIRING all employees to get flu shots this year because JCAHO is an evil asshole. I can understand that the accreditation is important but I’ve never, in four years, EVER come into contact with a patient. I mean, we work a MILE off campus.

I wasn’t going to get one this year because even though the nurse SWEARS that you should not be sore afterwards, I always am. Last year my arm ached for THREE DAYS. This year when I went in I requested that they inject my left arm so that the arm I use to use the adding machine, answer my office phone and make sweet love to my iPhone would not be sore. I mean, I can go a few days without working or talking to people… but don’t get between me and my daily movie binge. Mother fucker.

Again this year the nurse SWORE to me that I’d not be sore since it’s my “off hand” that got injected. Yeah, she’s a lying ass bitch. My arm is sore from the injection spot all the way down to my hand, with the majority of the discomfort at the inside bend of my elbow. Why do they lie to you? Why not just say, “Yes, idiot, it’s going to hurt it’s a SHOT. Now roll up your sleeve and suck it up, pussy!” I’d honestly deal much better with that.

When I was in 2nd grade I broke my arm and it had to be reset. When I asked if it was going to hurt the doctor looked me straight in the face and said, “It’s going to hurt more than anything you’ve ever felt. But it will be fast and when I’m done it will stop hurting and it will heal the way it should.” And he wasn’t lying. When I look back now, it was second in pain level only to squeezing a human out of my vagina. But, at least he TOLD ME. I knew what to expect. In SECOND GRADE.

I’d say things can only get better at this point bit who am I kidding?!

Is it Friday yet?

Next time I mention in my blog that I’m taking Cassidy to Chuck E Cheese, I expect all of you to virtually back hand me. Repeatedly. With a hammer. I love my daughter, dearly. And that’s the only reason I can come up with for voluntarily putting up with 500 screaming, misbehaving, sugared up kids and cheese covered cardboard passed off as “pizza”.

Usually at some point I try and break away from hosting duty (because I paid $20 a kid for SOMEBODY ELSE TO DO THAT) and go throw some balls. Skeeball. Sometimes I think about throwing the balls at the kids but I’ve always managed to control myself. Mostly. When the two year old wearing nothing but a diaper started running across all the lanes, I came pretty close to throwing a ball directly at the parent’s head. Except there WERE NO PARENTS. WHERE WERE THE PARENTS?!

I just threw up my hands and headed back to the table to continue playing hostess since the 16 year old in charge of running the party only actually showed up about three times and one of them was to hand me the bill. I think the rest of the time she was hunched over the toilet puking up whatever it was that kept her out till 5AM and at work looking like DEATH.

The only redeeming value of the trip is that Cassidy and her schoolmates had a blast eating cardboard, drinking liquid uppers and using tickets to buy crappy toys that will get stuck in the vacuum in a week. An absolute blast.

Seriously, hammer to the head. It would be a welcome alternative. Repeatedly.

Dear Hollywood Starlets,

Please eat.

I have an almost 9 year old daughter and it kills me every time we see you on the TV and you look emaciated and high. I want to invite you to dinner and cook you a big steak and feed it to you and pat your head and tell you it’s going to be okay. It’s OKAY to eat.

Cassidy has friends at school who already count calories and skip lunch. This started LAST YEAR in THIRD GRADE. These girls worship you. And I know that your first response to this is going to be “I didn’t ASK to be a role model” but please kindly shove those words up your ass. I’m sure they’ll come out during your next colon cleansing and I swear, words are very low cal/low carb.

So you didn’t VERBALLY ask to be a role model. You DID ask me to go see your last movie, buy your posters, your music, your entire clothing line, your perfume, your book, your dolls, your energy drink, your makeup line, and whatever other products you’re being paid to push this week. Little girls like my daughter pay for the alcohol, cocaine and laxatives you swallowed for dinner last night so please, for me, just take a few minutes tomorrow and squeeze a meal in between cigarette breaks and flashing your vagina to cameras. And I don’t mean four grapes. I mean A MEAL, something that contains all the food groups. And no, Redbull is not on any part of the triangle.

A concerned mother,
-Antigone

P.S. - I’d like point out that Miley Cyrus is excluded from this letter. AT LAST, a role model I can stand behind! The music makes me somewhat homicidal when I’m forced to listen to it in the car but still, HOW FREAKING CUTE IS MILEY!?

(EDIT - I wrote this yesterday, 04/17/07)

Go take a look at MSNBC and tell me what is missing… Go ahead. I’ll wait.

What happened yesterday was tragic. I sat at home and after work and quietly watched Cassidy do homework at the kitchen table and tried to imagine what parents, brothers, sisters, aunts, grandparents must be going through. Waiting by a phone for a call to come in. I just couldn’t. It made my throat close and my eyes well up.

I really don’t know what else to say about it. It’s just.. tragic. So until I have more, until we know more, I’ll get to my point.

So what’s missing on the front page of MSNBC? Anything at all about Imus. Well, there is ONE thing down at the very bottom of the page that is just a link to Dateline who’s doing a segment of a show on it**.

I had a pretty long post about the Imus situation. You just couldn’t seem to get away from it for a week there (until the media had something else to focus on) and like everybody else, I had an opinion. The main point of the post however, was how tired I am of people pointing fingers wildly in the face of racial drama.

I have to be perfectly honest though, I WAS one of those people. The first time I brought it up to Ben I fell into the trap. “Well, what Imus did was fucking stupid but SNOOP DOG! And Al Sharpton! And who else can I point my finger at?!?” And it wasn’t until I watched the webcast of Meet The Press on Monday that I had an epiphany. HOLY SHIT I’VE TURNED INTO A MEDIA FED DRONE!

It was a great segment and you can watch if you want. This exchange is the one that I think most stood out in the entire round table:

MR. ROBINSON: But back up, back up a step. I mean, we should have the discussion about, about rap music, about gangster rap and, and, and that language, and, and I—and that’s a discussion, for example, those are issues that Al Sharpton has raised, that Jesse Jackson has raised. And, and, by the way, I got a lot of mail on—when I wrote about the Imus situation as well, and, and one strain of it was, was, “Well, who appointed Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson to, you know, to be spokespeople?” And my answer was this business did. You know, we’re, we’re the ones who call them up every time anything happens and kept going back and kept going back. And what does he think today and what does he think tomorrow? So…

MR. RUSSERT: And it was fair to ask Jackson about Hymietown, and it was fair to ask Sharpton about Tawana Brawley.

MR. ROBINSON: Of course, it—of course it’s fair, but, but the idea that, that, in this case, they were self-appointed is not really quite right because that was certainly abetted by, by a news media establishment that, that went to them, you know, 50 times a day.

And it’s TRUE! The media knew the best way to get the most play from the story was to make it as sensational as possible, so they went to the racial injustice ‘Go To Guy’. And it worked! Before we knew it, both sides of the story were wildly throwing around their index fingers going, “But, but, but HE does it!! And you don’t punish HIM!” It was basically a national version of a kindergarten playground. One idiot move does not cancel out the other and tryng to point out that another moron does the same thing only make you look like THAT MORON! You MORON!

The fact that Gangsta Rap is a deplorable display of racial slurs and sexist dribble IS a problem that should be discussed. But NOT as a way of trying to defend another instance of racial slurs and sexism. Or as a way to try and point fingers away from a mistake that should have been able to stand on it’s own for what it was.

MSNBC today displayed why doing this fails. Nobody cares about either issue now because another story came along. Now the media won’t focus on Spoop Dog OR Al Sharpton till another reporter want’s to sensationalize a story on racism.

The only reason Imus became such a big deal was the press made it one. The only reason that people like Rev Shaprton were involved is because the press asked him to voice his opinion. And we all bought it. Hook, line and sinker.

**Dateline canned the Imus show and covered the VT shooting instead.

When I lived in Bakersfield there were two freeways. One went East and West, the other ran North and South. EASY! If you want to go West you get on one, if you want to go South you get on the other! Bakersfield was designed for blond people.

So before I moved to the Bay Area, Ben sent me a map so that I could start to familiarize myself with the freeway system up here. Because it’s so NOT BUILT FOR BLOND PEOPLE. Like the whole 280/680 thing. Both start (end?) way North and head the same direction but very near my house (where 87 intersects 280) 280 becomes 680 because they are actually the SAME FREAKING ROAD. Like a big ‘U’. So, as you are driving along suddenly 280 South becomes 680 North, except you are still going in the same direction because it doesn’t turn for a few miles. And like, couldn’t you have dumped them both into 101 WHICH GOES THE SAME DIRECTION AS THEM so that they each have a beginning and an end and you aren’t driving along and suddenly realize that you are going TOTALLY THE WRONG WAY. On the WRONG freeway. But you never got OFF THE RIGHT FREEWAY that you began on?!

So okay, to go pick up my mom the other day (after her second car accident in three months) I had to go from our place to Milpitas. It’s 15 miles away, which is half the distance I have to drive to work one way and only have to get on TWO freeways. Thank God. But to get to her place I had to:

*deep breath*

Take 85 South (one exit) to 87 North to 280 South which became 680 North to Calaveras *pick her up* continue up Calaveras which becomes 237 (one exit) get off to drop her off head up Trimble to 101 South (one exit) 87 South to 85 North (one exit) GET OFF THE FREAKING MAZE. And thank GOD for the new google maps app for cell phones because, well because I’m blond! I need to get that damn GPS receiver and Tomtom installed on the phone.

So, 6 separate freeways. SIX! To travel 30 miles round trip! I could have taken 880 which becomes 17 to 85 instead of the 101/87 route but I hate 880, even at 10PM at night, because it’s not as fun in the M3 as 87 is (except the 17/85 interchange with can be VERY fun at night when it’s deserted *evil grin*). Plus, I think 87 is faster.

I swear when I began this post I had a point.

Oh yes! To the people heading to San Francisco on 280 North at around 5:30-ish in the morning today… could you perhaps find another route? There must have been an accident on 101 North because there were more of you than normal and it’s not that I’m complaining (yes, I totally am) but you really threw me off my line. And made me late even though I left the house 5 minutes earlier than normal and was all happy that I’d be getting to work on time for the first time in a month. The 280 stretch to Palo Alto is my Wake Up Run. All windy and sloped and wide and USUALLY EMPTY. I turn the radio down and listen to the intake roar and feel every rock under my suspension. It’s ME time. ME! Not you. Okay?

Thanks!

Okay, yeah that was all.

P.S. - Go read Ben’s M3 blog. I feel bad because I kinda pressured him into using it again by threatening to link to it in every one of my blog posts. TeeHee.

I’m sorry for any whiny crybaby-ness this post may contain. Having said that, you are not allowed to complain at the end.

I am SO ON MY PERIOD. Thankfully, the normal physical STUPIDNESS that my body forces on me didn’t happen this month. Unfortunately, that left me no warning that It was coming. It first hit me Saturday morning when I got up and was seriously pissed off at the alarm clock. SERIOUSLY. Like, if it was an actual person that shook me awake at 8AM on a Saturday I’d have knocked it’s teeth out. When I was getting dressed I glared at it and rolled my eyes and cursed it under my breath. It just looked back at me and clicked off another minute, unfazed by my Death Glare, which pissed me off even more.

Luckly, I got Cassidy to Saturday School with no big drama and Ben was busy out in the garage with Reid so I didn’t really have anybody around to set It off. I just putzed around the house getting some laundry done and cleaning here and there while cussing at more inanimate objects. Except my beautiful plants. I didn’t cuss at them. I walked around the entire house checking on everything I planted last weekend. Everything was doing very well, growing and flowering and smelling wonderful and somehow that managed to turn my mood around and I was able to enjoy the rest of the day.

At noon I picked up Cassidy and we headed to the Children’s Discovery Museum which is 10 minutes away but we’d never been to. It was a little too young for Cassidy but she still had a good time. I even managed to have a good time despite the fact that a woman and her child seemed to be following us around the museum and whenever the child didn’t get what he wanted he’d lay down on the floor and violently convulse while screaming like a cornered pig. Seriously, at one point the kid laid there and screamed for a good 7-8 minutes while the mom JUST STOOD THERE AND WATCHED. When she tried to pick him up he started scratching and hitting and BIT HER! She just put him down and let him continue…

I was about to get up and drag him out of there myself when Cassidy tried to throw a ball into a massive whirlpool and missed, hitting The Mom of Screaming Terror Kid smack on the side of the face. Then I couldn’t get up for fear of PEEING MYSELF.

That evening we met The Gang at Dave and Buster’s to celebrate Guillermo’s birthday. I was designated driver (without much hesitation because I’m still a little sick from Sandra’s party a few weeks ago) but still had a great time and managed to hit the Jackpot on our favorite game four times total and three times IN A ROW. I rocked the ticket counter.

Then Sunday came and It was the absolute other end of the spectrum. My mom came with me to a Bridal Show and I turned into a CRYBABY! When the fashion show started I actually had to LOOK AWAY as all the skinny models strutted down the runway in frilly white dresses to keep from crying. I’m totally not kidding. I suddenly had this flash of me walking down the isle towards Ben holding my Dad’s arm and it was such a powerful feeling that I almost had to just leave. I was choking back tears and trying to blow it off as allergies. (Note to self: DO NOT plan wedding around time of period or you will just be a blubbering idiot bride.) I mean, I was CRYING over DRESSES! Who the fuck AM I!? I HATE DRESSES! OF EVERY COLOR AND SHAPE AND SIZE AND LENGTH AND PATTERN!!

Well, I don’t hate ALL dresses. (But most!) And then, after that feeling passed I started to panic that I’d never find THE dress. I know what I want, exactly. The cut, the color, the length the flow… and it’s a combination of about 15 different dresses that I’ve never seen combined into one. And it has to be perfect. I want Ben to become weak knee’d and light headed when I start down the isle. So it HAS to be perfect.

Then I started to realize just how expensive wedding’s really are. According to all the budget planners, reception’s are generally 40% of the wedding. The LOW END average of all the places I’ve looked at around here for 100 people is $6000. So if the receptions is $6000 and that’s 40% of the general wedding cost then are we looking at $15000??? To get MARRIED! No, no we can’t do that. That’s too much money to get married.

I have to scale down what I want. I try not to mention “last time” when I talk about this but in this case I will. Last time I didn’t really give a lot of input. I didn’t choose the flowers, I just kinda nodded and said “Yeah, that’s okay.” It was the same way with the cake and the decorations and the music… “Yeah, that’s fine we can do that.” Other than the dress, it just wasn’t me. Victorian is SO NOT ME. I want this wedding to be everything I’ve dreamed of. And I want it to be what Ben’s always thought this day should be. We really need to sit down and hammer out a budget because I want a Cinderella wedding but need to do it on a pre-Fairy Godmother budget.

And this is a testament to my state of mind… At one point during the fashion show, a bride came out holding a bouquet and threw it into the section making the most noise. The person catching it got a free bouquet ($175 value) from the flower vendor I FELL IN LOVE WITH. I waved my hands in the air like a lunatic SCREAMING for those flowers and the bride looked me square in the eye, tossed the bouquet in a perfect arc directly at me… and the girl IN FRONT OF ME jumped up and grabbed it out of the air. I looked at my mom, then back at the girl, then back at my mom who gave me this look of, “We are at a bridal show and if you make a scene I will TOTALLY DISOWN YOU.” She told Ben later, “I thought Anna was about to clobber the girl over the bouquet.” And she was right. That was MY BOUQUET DAMMIT and if my mom hadn’t been there to look at me I’d have grabbed that bouquet and ran for the door. But considering the 1000 rabid women around me, I’d have probably been beaten to death with Louis Vutton purses and four inch Manolo Blahnic’s.

THEN! To top off my emotional roller coaster, when I got home from the show I saw that somebody had ripped my daylily plant out of the ground and dropped it about three feet away. Two of the three stocks had been broken in half so it was completely not salvageable. I was heartbroken. I bought those flowers specifically because they are always included in any bouquet that Ben sends me. I’m sure this isn’t even some conscious decision of his, he just happens to choose bouquet’s that have them in there. But they are very sentimental to me and they were BEAUTIFUL and smelled SO GOOD and I couldn’t wait till they were producing enough flowers that I could bring them in and put a few on my desk and smile at them.

And that was it. The day before of being constantly strained and on the edge, Crazy Screaming Kid at the museum, the late night at Dave and Busters, the wedding show almost breaking me down, some lunatic woman grabbing MY BOUQUET, then my beautiful plant… I was just SO DONE WITH THE WEEKEND. I was exhausted. And I’m sure it was nothing more than my normal monthly period induced exhaustion + the after show Margarita my mom treated me to but I laid down on the couch and slept the rest of the weekend off like a bad hangover.