ola

Most people, when they go to Mexico, can´t stop pooping.

I had my first poop as a married woman a few hours ago.

We´re at an all inclusive resort in Puerto Nueva, or Nueva Vallarta, or something near Puerto Vallarta, but with ´Nuevo´instead of one of those words (Joel says it´s NV). We´ve been lying around, eating and drinking and not wearing watches, and never knowing what time it is. Since there´s only half an hour in the day where you can´t get something to eat, and only about eight seconds where you can´t get a drink, this hasn´t yet presented a problem.

We´ve also spent a fair bit of time laughing at those people, you know the ones who can´t sunscreen themselves properly and end up with white handprints on burnt flesh, tiger stripes, and singy agony. Today, we became those people. It seems that 5 hours of sun, in the middle of the day, WILL in fact break through your paltry spf 15 defenses.

No internet in resort, this will probably be my only blog. See you when I get back.

Joel would like to add that he has had four kinds of meat for every meal thus far.

Insta-photo

- Hey babe!

- Hey! I got my hair run-through done today!

- Cool! Are you going to have it up for the rehearsal tonight?

- Yeah! You wanna see it?

- Of course!...Can I see it now?

- Um...sure! I'll blog it!

It's a beautiful age we live in, folks.

Fun like vacuuming

I know that there are some people who spend years planning their weddings, and I know I have no right to complain, but MAN! I can't wait til it's all over (the planning, not the wedding). Just now, I'm more excited to be done with minutae than I am to be getting married. Babe, I swear that'll change by Saturday.

Planning a wedding was fun for about five minutes. I'm pretty sure I was trying on a dress in those minutes. Much of wedding planning is dull for the participant (me), and cannot be made interesting for the voyeur (you). The reason there hasn't been many wedding posts is because they would sound an awful lot like 'Today I tried to finish up that damned seating plan, and to make it jive with the list of people I have who are attending, so that I could (a) give the reception hall FINAL final numbers (these are different from the 'final' numbers we gave a week ago), and (b) so that I could be sure everyone has a seat. Counting a hundred-odd-plus of ANYthing is tedious, but names on a computer screen is pure eyesore death. Add to that the fact that each time I count, I get a different number, and you have me up waaaaaaaaaay past my bedtime, swearing my heart out.' No one wants that.

Instead, I will give you a sample of the stock blogs I will be auto-posting while on my honeymoom: 'Spent day on beach. Read several books. Had steak and bellinis. Wish you were here.' I haven't found the 'auto-post' button yet, but I'm sure it's here somewheres.

Only skin deep

On your wedding day, not much of your actual skin is showing. The majority of your flaws can be safely hidden under a tuxedo or voluminous dress, and all you really need to worry about is your face and (for the gal) your arms.

Joel has a flesh wound on his face he's hoping will heal by this Saturday.

For myself, I'm hoping this happy little character makes a discreet exit.

There may be a lot of photoshopping done.

Under the Aquarium Lid

Joel never lets me name any of his fish, even though;

A. I have awesome names for fish. Like, a while ago, before we realized what a trial salt-water concoctions are, we were talking about him getting a puffer fish, and I thought 'The Hindenburg' was a wikked name. He also had two of those fish, the ones that suck all the other fishes' waste products from the walls and that look like tiny eel-sharks, and I wanted to call them Flotsam and Jetsam. He ended up naming them...something else.

B. Everything he's ever named has died (except for Yuppy, the current guppy, but he hasn't been around long enough to count, and besides, Joel will probably forget to ask someone to feed him while we're on our honeymoon, and he'll be done for) and the one 'fish' that I named (Ninja, the snail. ROCK ON, NINJA! TAKE NO PRISONERS!) is still alive and well after more than a year. Joel wants to get rid of him because he (allegedly) poops too much. I think he's being eaten up by the knowledge that all of his slippery creatures will die untimely deaths until he lets me get a seahorse and name it Seabiscuit. I thought of that one just now. See? I'm awesome.

Transition...

I've been struggling with writing this post. Not the content, per se, but the tone. How do you follow up what amounts to an obituary?

When someone dies, even if you've never met them, you feel compelled to honor their life somehow. Perhaps it is a sort of penance for being here, for being alive when they aren't.

I don't really deal with heavy issues here on the ole citrus. I like my blog to be being flippant and witty. The blogs I enjoy reading (for the most part) are flippant and witty.* I'm too cowardly to wrestle with most of my issues in a venue this public, and then there's always the awkward transition from frolicsome to sombre and back again.

So consider this my segue blog. Neither one nor the other. Maybe tomorrow I'll tell you a tale of the Clarences, or about how Joel never lets me name any of his fish.

*I do appreciate the occasional 'weighty' blog, like when the defective yeti speaks of his autistic son, or when Hannah's adoption dreams hit another hitch, or pretty much everything September's ever written, because it is then that I feel that this blogging thing that we do, it might be worth something.

Temporary

This is James, and his girlfriend, Kim. James is a friend of mine from college. We used to play poker and smoke cigars together. I never met Kim.

A week ago, there was an avalanche in northern BC. Kim was killed.

I'm sorry, James, that I never met her. If you loved her, she must have been something special. My heart is with you now.

To everyone else, remember that you are temporary.

Reasons why Joel is cute

I can always tell when Joel is studying and/or on the Internet for long periods of time, because he sends me e-cards, random quotes, and funny pictures. I can picture him reasoning to himself thusly:

'I have been working steadfastly for many hours, and could use a break. I believe I will send an e-card to my significant other, because I recognize that frequent contact is how she receives love. In this way, I will productively kill five minutes of time.'

I remember being in college (like, a year ago, already), and thinking to myself:

'I have written a slip-shod introductory paragraph to this paper, which will later require some harsh, quasi-thorough 3 am editing. It is time for three consecutive games of Spider Solitaire.'

This is Joel as a mad scientist (read: during midterms)

house and home

Eating Chipits straight from the bag + watching 'The Last Ten Pounds' = doing pilates in your room later.

In other news, my sister found Joel and I a place to live! Check it out, it's perfect! It's a bacthlure suite between Frasher and Main, and there's no smokeing or peys! Which is awesome, because I hate both those things.

I'm a post!!

April fools! I have nothing interesting to say.

family fisticuffs

there are some things i will miss once i'm married, like living, teenager-style, with my family.

par example, my sister and i were in the bathroom getting ready for bed just now, and we both had to pee, but neither of us was willing to concede the toilet. a brief tussle ended with her drooling on my foot, and thereby earning the right to pee first.

joel and i will never have this problem, mainly because i am unable to physically relocate him, from the toilet or otherwise.

in which i use a thesaurus to describe an old man

so, there's this man who works at the kiosk where i invariably buy my monthly bus pass. it's on the way between the skytrain and my way out of the mall, so i keep giving them my business, even though the kiosk-man is SO RUDE!

par example, when i first got a job out in surrey, it was the 5th of the month, or so. i went to ask if they had any bus passes left, knowing that my chances were slim, but it's worth the risk for the savings. so i go and ask the guy, do you have any bus passes left? he tells me (his voice dripping with scorn) that they don't, and that they've been sold out for five days. he sneers at me in wonderment (as he oozes disdain), why would i want to buy a bus pass now, i've missed out on five days of bus riding? i tell him that i didn't have a job out in surrey until just now, and i leave, probably in a huff.

another time, i stop by on the FIRST OF THE MONTH, when it is conceivable that they may just have a pass or two left, and again, i am met with scorn and disdain. perhaps even a bit of derision.

one time i went by on the 25th to buy a pass for the next month. many times, i have gone on the 25th to buy a pass for the next month. more scorn, more derision, heaps of disparagement. the passes weren't going on sale until the following day.

today i went to buy a pass, drawing my thickened skin around me, only to have him make some cheerful old-man jokes and jubilantly hand me my pass!!! no jeering! no scorn! not even a trace of contempt!

make up your mind, dammit, and stick to your stereotype.

weight-watchers

a handful of my friends are getting married this summer, and some of them are trying to lose a few pounds first. i had planned on keeping all of my pounds, but to them i give this advice: become terribly ill and unable to eat like an adult for a couple of weeks. your hair will be dull, your skin waxy, and you will look like nothing so much as a crayon drawing of yourself, but the pounds will flow from you like runny-poops.

boomshines

in my less-somnulent moments, i've been playing a lot of this game. i find it soothing, and appreciate the low demands its one-decision-per-round format makes on my energies.

something productive

with all the hustle and bustle of late, all the working 9-hour days, my 2-hour-and-some/day commute, the inexhaustible wedding errands that crop up like weeds, i thought it might be nice to be sick for a few days. really, truly, can't-go-to-work-or-get-a-damn-else-thing-done sick. it'd be like a saturday where i don't have anything planned, except that there would be two of them, and then i'd have a saturday afterwards to top it all off.

i'd forgotten how PROFOUNDLY DULL it is.

i find myself going to the bathroom just for something to do. i just accompanied my sister to staples in an effort to break the interminable nap cycle. i told myself i could eat that hersheys kiss i found in the car if only i did something productive first. that 'something' could be neither napping, nor staring listlessly at a page while pretending to read.

this is my something.

pie in the sky

i am sorry, it has been a while since my last post. but you see, on sunday i had decided that i was going to make a pie. joel was over, i had nothing pressing to do, and everyone loves a good pie. however, once we'd picked up the apples, i discovered that i had something far more pressing to do, and that was to be sick.

monday, i came home from work hell-bent on making a pie, sick or no. i set about slicing my apples, rolling my pastry, and neatly latticing my fine upper crust, only to drop the entire thing in my lap on its way to the oven

that last may have been an exaggeration. the pie was on a baking sheet so's not to boil over, and it slid around and about, causing stress and anxiety, until i caught it against my lap. some of the filling slopped onto the floor, and the lattice top was ruined, but i managed to shift the bulk of the dessert back into the plate. no one was any the wiser.

tuesday i was plenty sick, wednesday i went to the clinic. the sinus infection of last week has become the throat and chest infection of the now, leaving me weak and phlegmy. today i am on killer antibiotics.

so you see, this post was a week in the making. savor it well.

eau de nervous bride

today i was getting my dress fitted, which is one of those intimate procedures where you're totally regretting not having shaved, and the girl touches your bum like, eight times, and then, right when she was all up in my space trying to fit the bodice so that it didn't slide down and cut into my side-shelves, I FARTED.

there's no way out of that one.

the pounding ache has somewhat abated

i have une sinus infection.

i have been put on les antihistimines, and une nasal spray avec steroids.

you not a artist! you cant draw!

i was just going to post a comment on this post of jane's, but the story got really long in my mind, so i decided to just post it my ownself.

this one time, in college, we were assigned to take a pre-existing playground (hand-drawn and given to us by the instructor) and re-design it for children with special needs. ALL special needs. so i researched and researched, thought and planned. i decorated everything in bright, contrasting colors so that those with limited vision could find their ways around, i included several types of support swings for several types of needs, i even fitted out the slides with a particular plastic because some plastics can cause static and short-out hearing aides. bet you didn't know.

anyway, the project was worth 15% of our final grades, and was 3-fold. 5% went towards our paper explaining what we had done, 5% went towards evidence of research and thought presented, and 5% went towards the poster depicting the new playground. i got 5/5 on each of the first two, and a cheerful, fatty ZERO on the last.

five percent of my final grade was taken from me because i cannot draw. my poster was neat, but not beautiful. i fought the grade, the prof wouldn't budge. i swore (not at her, but in her presence), which i later regretted and phoned her at home to apologize. some of my classmates (remember, this is in college) ratted me out to our program director, who called me into her office and chewed me out, EVEN THOUGH I HAD ALREADY DEALT WITH IT!!! aforementioned program director brought it up again in my fourth year (swearing incident happened in my second year) when i failed to invite her to my senior discernment, even though it had nothing to do with the topic at hand.

all because i can't draw. drew, jane? i hear ya loud and clear.

idiomology

we all know what cliches are, and we all try not to use them, except facetiously and to prove just how above that we are, but this guy and these guys simultaneously put forth contests to bring new idioms into the world. one has you reinvent the old, the other asked for completely fresh material, and the results are hi-larious. i, personally, plan on referring to things as being 'the bee's pajamas' in the near future.

at any rate, the one guy is considering making this an on-going feature and asked for continued submissions, so i sent him a funny story which i will reiterate for you now.

i was teaching english in thailand, and looking up resources on the internet. my friend hannah and i came upon a quiz that tests english slang and idiom. 'to mean something completely different is:
a. a whole other barrel of monkeys
b. a whole other kettle of fish (correct)
c. a whole other sack of ferrets'
i thought option c. was the funniest thing i'd ever heard, while hannah favored option a. regardless, we started interspersing our vocabulary with these revamped versions, and were suprised to find how few people (even native english speakers) caught on. i was discussing something with my supervisor, and i said 'but that's a whole other sack of ferrets,' to which she replied 'tell me about that sack.'

there you have it, straight from my 'sent items' folder to you.

and now, my friends, everyone gets ice cream.