cindy's world

When we were in Vegas visiting Mr. W’s family for Mother’s Day weekend last month, we went on a double date with Mr. W’s gamer brother and wife to watch a musical show performed by the Scintas. Toward the end of the show, one of the Scinta brothers told us that their late father, who used to attend their shows, always asked him to play the theme song from “The Godfather.” The Scinta brother would scoff and say, “Dad, this is a conservative Jewish crowd tonight, they’re not gonna wanna hear ‘The Godfather.'” Each show that the father would make the request, the brother would laugh it off and explain it’s not appropriate for the venue or it doesn’t fit in with their routine. Their father passed away fairly recently. The performer telling the story paused, then told us how he wished he would’ve played his father’s request every time his father requested it. Then he sat at the piano and played a beautiful rendition of “The Godfather”, at the end of which he raised his hand to the heavens, looked up, and blew his father a kiss.

So I’m doing the inconvenient thing of spending the night before my wedding at my parents’ house, because my mom wants the tradition of the symbolic daughter-leaving-the-parents’-house-to-be-wed. I’m following my mom’s oddball insistence that I wear the highest high heels I can find in my wedding dress and that my bridesmaids wear lower shoes, because it’s important to my mom that we make up for the height differences in the girls. (I.e. I’m short.) These things don’t matter to me in the long run, but I know it matters to my mom. And I never want to have a day when I wish I could’ve done something small to make my mom happy but know that it’s too late. Learning vicariously is a gift that is better than turning back the clock.

Monday night I dreamt that I went to the bridal store to buy my wedding shoes but they were totally sold out. I was annoyed because I was told by the salesperson (in real life) that the shoes were a regular item and would not sell out. So I went to another location that was bigger and nicer and saw the shoes I wanted, but turned out that although the straps and tops were the same the bottoms weren’t so these were practically flats. This anxiety dream probably came from my mom’s “reminder” on Sunday that I must make sure I wear very high heels so that I could make up for some of the height difference between me and Mr. W at the wedding.

Before I started blogging my last post, I had been doing what my dad calls my “TV sleep.” I dreamt that I’d accidentally dropped or poured some stuff out of a bowl on my lap, and saw squiggly inch-long yarn-sized black things on my lap. Upon closer look, the black squigglies were moving and alive. So I stood and patted all the squigglies off. However, turned out some had already burrowed themselves into the workout pants (that I was in fact wearing in real life) and had even penetrated the internal lining layer. I shook my pant legs and got more out. Then I felt pricks of pain all around my legs, butt, lower abdomen, and turned out these black worm things were biting me. I pulled the pants down to my knees and saw a bunch more of the squigglies clinging onto my skin, so I patted them off and scratched more off, afraid to look any closer for fear of being grossed out. They were like leeches or something. I remember thinking I should take my pants completely off and shake them out, but for some reason I didn’t and pulled them back up, and soon realized that there were still worms in there. I stuck my hand into the pant legs and loosened more of them, noting how I could feel scratch-long welts in my hamstrings. Gross. I have no idea what that dream’s about.

Vanessa wrote a recent post addressing some thoughts on marriage, namely, what’s the benefit to getting married these days? Isn’t it better to stay unmarried but live together in a relationship so if things don’t work out, there’s no messy divorce later? Why is marriage still so important to so many people, especially women? Isn’t it scary and messy to commingle assets and debts, because why would anyone want to acquire someone else’s debt or lose a personal asset? Although musing about these issues, she seems more skeptical toward the institution of marriage than optimistic.

She sounded so much like me back then. (Just type “marriage” in my search field on the right toolbar and you’ll see.) We do have some similar relationship histories. She’d been engaged twice (to two different guys) but suffered two very painful and difficult breakups. I’ve never been engaged before now, but breaking up was so painful and looking back at the old relationships, we’re both so grateful that we didn’t marry the guys from our past, that it feels like we’d narrowly avoided disaster by not marrying these awful relationships. Kinda didn’t make the best argument for marriage when we constantly thank our lucky stars that we didn’t get married earlier.

And yet the issue of marriage always hangs out there in a relationship, behind a burgeoning tree, within the clouds in a blue sky, in the back of your happy mind, in the eyes of other people’s babies, in a conversation with your mother. So you have to address it at some point, even if it’s only in your own head. In my situation, because Mr. W was unbudging in his conviction that marriage and more children would never be in his future (which decision he developed before me and maintained in the first year of our relationship), I thought hard about the pros and cons of marriage and in a sour grapes sort of way, convinced myself that all the logic behind staying single prevails as the better lifestyle. I’m not dependent on a guy, I don’t need anyone to wipe my butt, I’ve done well for myself, and as a single woman, I have nothing holding me back from full enjoyment of my hedonistic pursuits. Plus, being with Mr. W, I had the security of a committed, faithful, fun, trusting relationship, and I can’t imagine that he’s giving me anything less than what he’d give me if he were legally bonded to my hip. So I wasn’t missing out on anything.

Except I knew I was. I constantly pushed the thought back and threw giant mental throw rugs over it, but there was that tiny little voice wondering why I wasn’t good enough to consider marrying, why he was willing back then to pledge his life to someone less deserving than me — or at least, I’m better than her in his opinion, and if that were true, then why wouldn’t he give me something he so willingly gave her? Unless I’m not everything to him that he claimed I was. He said I was too good for him and that his baggage isn’t worth marrying for me, but what woman in love actually believes that with her heart even if her head buys it? So for the sake of my relationship and ego I had to ignore the heart and follow my head, and head’s loud logic explained why marriage is an outdated joke of an institution and I’m much better off being the progressive modern enlightened woman whose life outsiders watched me lead, believing what they saw because they were not inside my mind.

I soon got so acquainted with the “marriage=bad” mental rhetoric that I became nervous and queasy with the thought of marriage and never brought it up. Time went by and at our one-year anniversay, Mr. W took me out to a nice dinner and brought up the possibility of marriage. “I want to give you a real commitment.” I reassured him there’s nothing unreal in our commitment now and ditched the conversation cleverly for another 9 months until he proposed on the ship during our joint birthday cruise. Even as an engaged woman it took awhile for me to want to deal with it, and up until recently I’ve been criticized as not having a “good enough reason” to be married because I didn’t subscribe to the romanticism school of thought about marriage. I didn’t have a childhood preconceived idea of the perfect wedding, I still don’t know the perfect hairstyle and veil, I don’t particularly care for wedding details and wedding planning. I wasn’t flipping my left hand down under the nose of every passerby to show off my beautiful ring, I didn’t scream my engagement from every rooftop, I don’t talk wedding with anyone I may be hanging out with (unless I’m asking an experienced person for their recommended vendor information). When people ask me “How’s the wedding planning going?” (which is more often than you’d think) I give generic answers and don’t care to gush about it. I’m busier addressing wedding issues as task lists instead of emotion-charged bragging rights, even on this blog. I’ve discussed future practical issues and finance plans with my husband-to-be to lay the foundation for a smooth marriage. We have a plan for our life — not just dreams but how to work the day-to-day practical angles in life to get to our dreams. So does this mean I’m not excited enough to be married? I certainly think not.

As I told Vanessa, where I am now, I believe:
* we’re caught between 2 generations of thought regarding marriage. The old generation idealizes marriage as the highest commitment and symbol of true and lasting love that one person can give another. You are so sure of your love for another that you want to pledge the rest of your life to that person. And the current generation thinks of marriage as a scam, because marriage no longer guarantees a commitment. It no longer guarantees true love or happiness (not that it ever did, I reckon, except people didn’t use to talk about their problems so openly). It doesn’t even guarantee permanence. And the business end of marriage with post-divorce financial division problems and the way people have learned to work the legal system to REALLY screw their exes really make marriage unappealing from a practical standpoint.
* But I think if you can keep the original ideals for the institution of marriage, and work together to manage the practical business issues (like have living trusts or not incur debt to leave to the other person, or have a massive life insurance policy if you have massive debt), marriage can be a great partnership both in the emotional and financial realms.

I don’t think the two schools of thought have to be mutually exclusive. I don’t believe that if you’re in love and can’t wait to be married, that you have to be irresponsible and ignore “unromantic” things like prenuptial agreements and estate planning to split assets fairly between children, stepchildren, half-children, etc. And if you’re taking out insurance policies together and agreeing to what is financially “fair” and suitable to your coexistence, that doesn’t mean you’re not in love. Being in love and wanting it to work for a lifetime means you prepare for the bumps in the road ahead, and you keep your eye out together, hands linked, minds joined.

Right?

I had another great dental visit today! See, what Andy did this time was —

Just kidding. I’m not gonna write ANOTHER dentist post. Truth is, I’m feeling something embarrassment-like that in my 2 weeks of vacation, I went to a dentist THREE TIMES, four if you count the morning I returned to the 1st (scammer) dentist to pick up my x-rays from the day before. Who takes vacations like this?!

Sitting in Andy’s dental chair the past 2 days did get me thinking, though. I’ve got some crazy-successful friends. These are people I grew up with, and we were all along the same path when we were younger. For example, I went to elementary, junior high and/or high school with MOH Vicky, dentist Andy, godbro Jim, friend Lily. Dentist Andy, godbro Jim, roommate/bridesmaid Diana and I attended the same college. (Go Bruins!) And then I veered off and got into the court system job that I have now, while MOH Vicky attended USC Pharmacy School, bridesmaid Diana attended UC Berkeley Law School and dentist Andy attended NYU Dental School, friend Lily attended Medical School at UC Riverside and UCLA. Now, I’m STILL in the same dead-end low-prestige court system job, Andy now has a thriving dental practice in Pasadena, Vicky is a high-paid pharmacist with company car and expense accounts, Diana is an Intellectual Property attorney in a prestigious NorCal Law Firm, Lily is a medical doctor specializing in radiology, and Jim went on to found Formula Drift car racing. Somehow, racing shoulder-to-shoulder with the best of ’em, I sat down and wiggled my butt into the ground comfortably before reaching the finish line, making my own personal finish perhaps prematurely.

But do I regret anything? Given the chance, would I go back to grad school? No. I’m just complacent, I guess, and I’m actually fine with where I am. I guess my personal achievements are just gonna have to be things that are not dollar-sign or prestige oriented. Like, my day-to-day happiness is pretty high. I’m pretty content with who I am and have become. I’m proud of my interpersonal relationships. I tend to be respected among my colleagues and friends. There’s gotta be a reason why my accomplished friends still treat me like an equal, still come to me for advice, still go above and beyond (typically) in their support of me when I’m in need. Maybe I’ve chosen for my friendship circle wonderful people who don’t forget “us little people” when they get successful. But I’d like to think that it’s cuz professional accomplishments aside, I’m a great entertaining person who writes a great blog, goshdarnit.

I have to say that when I started blogging, I did not foresee the day that I would write an entire long post about a visit to the dentist. But here I am, writing my second dental post of the week. I think I’m just really boring right now. Sorry.

When I was a little girl, I would flip through Best Department Store catalogs frothing at the mouth for the toy section. Then, looking at all the pictures of all the great toys, I’d imagine which toy I’d select if a fairy godmother appeared and told me I can have any toy on a page, and then I’d imagine how I’d play with the toy and make my neighbors and cousins jealous. Sometimes I’d accidentally land on a furniture or bedding section while searching for the toy section, and I’d make a face and quickly turn past those photos, thinking, “Who’d LOOK at this stuff?!” I could not imagine that I would one day not only love going through Bed, Bath & Beyond flyers getting decorating ideas and wistfully wishing for various expensive furnishing items in them, but I’d share my oral cavity events with strangers on the internet.

I thought vacations were supposed to be relaxing, or at the very least, relieve some stress by freeing up time so that we can get stuff done.

I’m on vacation this week and next, and I’d planned to pack it with wedding stuff and house preparation stuff. Yesterday was pretty productive; Mr. W, his son and I went to a tuxedo connection Mr. W had and bought 4 Ralph Lauren tuxes, complete with jacket, shirt, bowtie, vest, pants. Mr. W and his son looked very sharp in their fittings, very 007. The other 2 tuxes are going to Mr. W’s two brothers who will be groomsmen next to Son, who’ll be Best Man. All four are identical classic black tuxes that can be worn again for some formal event in the future. Mr. W and I are visiting his parents for Mother’s Day weekend coming up so we’ll drop off the tuxes to his brothers and double-check the fit, with plenty of time to adjust or tailor if the measurements the brothers sent us weren’t accurate. I remarked how the men are gonna be fancier than the bride with their designer digs. (I’m not a name-brand person at all; I go where the savings are.)

With Monday so productive, I figure I’d throw in a dental visit on my vacation, too. We drove by a dental office recommended by Mr. W’s best bud ex bro-in-law, and the office very efficiently booked me as a new patient for an appointment the next morning at 8a, telling me I can fill out new patient forms online, which I did last nite. This morning, I went in for my visit. Right after the office finished impressing me with their technology (digital full-mouth x-rays!), it all went downhill. The female Vietnamese doctor right away started upselling me on the services, telling me my insurance covers X, but X is horrible and Y is better, nevermind that it costs $735 out-of-pocket more PER TOOTH, times 3. Insurance covers standard teeth cleaning, but THIS deep cleaning is better and necessary, nevermind that it costs $60 out-of-pocket PER QUADRANT, times 4. And my teeth need MAJOR WORK, and in fact, I need SURGERY pronto to remove all 4 of my wisdom teeth, nevermind that I don’t have problems with them and have had them in since I was a teenager. She paused at one point and I don’t know what my face looked like, but she said, “It doesn’t look like you want to get your wisdom teeth removed.”
I said, “I really, really don’t. I’m not a fan of unnecessary surgery and if they’re not giving me problems and my right upper wisdom tooth will never descend, then I don’t see why I should get them removed.”
She backed off quickly and said, “Okay, okay, it’s up to you!” And then she added, “You can think about it and come back when they REALLY start hurting.” WTF?! Why would they start hurting?! They’ve been there for half of my life. My dad went to a bad dentist who insisted his wisdom teeth had to be pulled in his late 40s, so my dad trusted him and had it done. Not only was it painful, torturous, inconvenient and expensive, but the extraction left holes in my dad’s jaws that filled with fluid and gave him a major infection. Mr. W’s dad is having a similar problem with a newly pulled wisdom tooth.
So the cost of this dentist’s services, not including wisdom teeth extraction and all THOSE related costs, is over $3000 out-of-pocket, over and beyond my insurance. I told them a bunch of excuses about how I can’t afford that right now because of the upcoming wedding expenses and turned down their financing options saying I can’t afford for my credit score to drop with the acquisition of new credit because the banks are being so tight with their mortgage lending practices, and walked out of there with nothing but x-rays done.
Then I called an old childhood friend, bridesmaid Sandy’s older brother Andy, who’s now a dentist in Pasadena. (We’re actually attending his wedding in Corona Del Mar at the end of the month.) He told me to book an appointment with his receptionist so he can take a look for a second opinion, and his receptionist suggested I pick up copies of the x-rays I’d just taken with the first dental office. I was uncomfortable doing that, but she assured me dental offices do that all the time and to explain to them I want a second opinion for such expensive services. Apparently it’s not good for the patient to take a lot of x-rays in close succession so they’re reluctant to do it if there are perfectly good current ones in another office. And then talking to the receptionist more, turns out Andy’s practice doesn’t take my insurance. GREAT.

I then called my catering director to make an appointment to discuss and finalize our food and beverage for the wedding, but she was at a meeting and wasn’t available. And then I called my cousin Oliver, who’s a mechanic specializing in Hondas, to ask about ordering a replacement right mirror for Mr. W’s son’s Accord (my old car), since he backed into some trash cans with his mirror and cracked the mirror. Turned out that was $175 because the entire casing had to be replaced, and the thought of MORE money going out just made me exceedingly tired. It didn’t help that I took the time waiting for return calls from Andy to reconcile my checkbook against my bank statement and organized my receipts for my credit card, so now I feel REALLY poor.

My horoscope for today, which I saw right before I started blogging today:
You may feel as if you are running out of steam, whether or not you have reached your goal. Something important is about to shift, but this doesn’t mean you can’t finish your work. Trying to speed up your productivity won’t be effective because sloppiness won’t be rewarded. The truth is that you have more time than you realize. May 6, 2008
My daily horoscope shows up on my internet start page, along with a Word of the Day, which today is:
amalgam: an alloy of mercury with other metals; also, a mixture.
Amalgam is what started all the expenses at the dentist this morning. The silver fillings that apparently cause more problems over time, that you have to drill more aggressively to apply, that fell out of one of my teeth creating a hole in the middle of a molar, that the insurance covers but is not what’s recommended by this dentist for long-term teeth health.

My bartending instructor sent me an email yesterday explaining that he wasn’t at the bartending competition this weekend because his son-in-law had passed away on Friday. He invited me to the first day of his new class today, so I can pick up some margarita salt/sugar rimmers he wants to add to my collection as a thank-you for the editing work I’d done for him. I think I’ll go and stay for a little bit because being at a fake bar is somehow stress-relief for me, too. Playing with colored water. Fun stuff.

I had an old-fashioned date last nite. After work, Mr. W took me to a sushi restaurant near my house, we had dinner, briefly separated as I went to drop some stuff off at the post office and he went to get gas, and met up again at my house for a romantic comedy DVD movie (“27 Dresses” — had its funny moments, cute story, nothing earth-shattering). At one point I left for a restroom break and coming back downstairs I overheard Mr. W talking to someone. Turned out he was sprawled out on the floor having an affectionate conversation with Dodo while my little black and white cow flopped back and forth happily at Mr. W’s rubbing and scratching. The movie ended around 9:30pm, at which time Mr. W gave me a hug and a kiss goodnight and went home.

The going home part sucked a little bit.

I think I realized last nite that I’m finally ready to be married now.

I bought a little container of planted Venus fly traps over the weekend that I’ve brought to work. There’s been gnats irritating the crap out of me in the past week. I think they’re coming from the avocado trees’ soil. Hopefully this’ll resolve the problem, altho it doesn’t look like it’s caught anything yet. All the little pink teethy mouths are still open and hungry looking.

Today marks the first day I’ve gone to the gym in 9-10 days. There were plenty of little excuses — lunchtime work meetings, evening HOA meetings, bartending class, my trainee being unavailable due to her own lunchtime meetings and errands. I’ve even leaned heavily on the fact that I’d injured my left wrist months ago by benching with an easy bar (yeah, don’t do that; use a straight bar or skip it if the straight bar for your weight isn’t free), and now it hurts to support any weight whatsover so my constant heavy weightlifting through the pain has lengthened or maybe even worsened the problem. But the real reason for my lack of appearance at the gym is that I haven’t felt like going. Today, because gym trainee and I both hadn’t gone in over a week, we decided to make this a cardio-only week to give my wrist an extra week to heal and to warm us back up into working out. 10 minutes elliptical on hills, 10 minutes run on a treadmill, 10 minutes stairs, and we were sweating bullets. Serves us right for being so lazy the past week.

Saturday, Mr. W and I had dinner with my parents, my aunt, and her sort-of significant other. She refers to the guy as her “best friend” and “soulmate” but she’s still married to my uncle. Anyway, the guy is a definite fan of the gym and is wider than he is tall (all muscle), and all evening long, in between his pill-popping of various supplements, digestive aids, and fat burners, he insisted that Mr. W adopt his workout and supplementation regimen, with a GIANT push for creatine. Mr. W pushed it on me and said I won’t let him take creatine, but I just didn’t want to get into that stuff with a fanatic. It got awkward as they were leaving, tho, cuz he hugged us goodbye (really friendly guy, been in my aunt’s life for over 10 years now) and then said to Mr. W and me that he’ll see us soon, if not then he’ll see us at the wedding. After they left, my mom said that my aunt had told her that he can’t go to our wedding because her husband will have a fistfight with him. I guess I’m only addressing the envelope to Mr. and Mrs., then. I don’t want two grown men fistfighting at my wedding!

On Sunday in the middle of watching “Angel,” I felt my first twinge of stress since planning the wedding. A couple of people had asked me last week how the wedding plans were coming along, and I’d answered honestly that I haven’t done a thing toward that end in months. It used to be because I was so ridiculously far ahead in wedding planning that I haven’t thought about doing more, but now that it’s been months since I did anything except order that cute little cake topper that came today, I started to feel like I’ve let myself fall off-track and waste weekends doing nothing but hanging with Mr. W idly playing Wii or watching “Angel.” So I ran off into the other room, typed out an email to MOH Vicky and my mom to schedule measurement day for our dresses, scribbled out a to-do list for the 2 weeks of vacation I have coming up in May (which I will fill with wedding and home repair stuff), and felt better.

Sunday night, Mr. W invited his neighbor over to my makeshift bar in Mr. W’s kitchen. I wanted to get drink mixing practice in, but I don’t really drink and there’s not enough adults to drink my stuff ordinarily. Sunday night, I gave the guys a menu based on the liquor we had on-hand, and I made Mr. W a Long Beach Iced Tea (gin, rum, vodka, Triple Sec, tequila, sweet & sour, splash of cranberry juice), his neighbor a Sour Apple Martini (vodka, Sour Apple Pucker, splash of sweet & sour) and a Washington Apple Martini (Crown Royal, Sour Apple Pucker, splash of cranberry) which his neighbor has now decided are his all-time favorite alcholic beverages ever, and I made myself a makeshift Red-Headed Slut (Jaegermeister, peach schnapps, cranberry juice; I didn’t have peach schnapps so I substituted it for a shot of Triple Sec and it came out tasting nearly identical). I forgot — on Saturday I also made Mr. W a dirty extra-dry blended gin and vodka martini, and made myself a Bacardi Cocktail (Bacardi Premium [dark] rum, sweet and sour, Grenadine). 2 drinks in a weekend is bad for me, especially when I haven’t been at the gym.

I think the guilt over not fixing up my house (removing bathroom wallpaper, repairing the ceiling damage caused by the roof leaks) is permeating my subconscious. This morning I was trapped in a nightmare about there being a landslide and my house being half submerged underwater. In my dream I thought for some reason that I could just leave it underwater cuz the inside’s dry, but then suddenly the walls got moist and the ceiling started leaking in the upstairs hallway, and Dodo was getting concerned. I also dreamt that I kept trying to go to work, but 3 attempts all landed me at Disneyland. So in my dream I seriously considered calling in sick from my physical inability to be anywhere but Disneyland. Oh, and some staff member at Disneyland was trying to peddle some nutrition meal substitute on me.

I’m sorry, I have to vent again.

Maybe I’m more into self-preservation than you or the next person. I’m definitely more into self-preservation than Mr. W is. I have that trait because that’s just what my past experience has taught me. I look out for myself, because ultimately I’m responsible for myself and my own happiness, and I am the only factor that I can control. Other people tend to be unreliable at best.

And it drives me CRAZY that I’m trying to plan my own future, making some big, major, permanent, expensive decisions here, and there are tons of large x-factors floating out there that aren’t even MY x-factors, that would significantly change the landscape of whatever future and decisions I would make and/or be locked into. I’m not even allowed to have feedback on these x-factors because they’re not within my control and any feedback just pisses off the one who DOES have control. So I can’t plan. I wish I could just grab a hammer and nails, or better, some nail guns, and nail down these x-factors NOW so I know where the issues are and work with or around them.

And it’s crap that I have to feel guilty about feeling like this. Utter crap.

Let’s say my significant other lives in a cabin at the bottom of a large slope. Let’s say that it snows a lot in the area, and the hill is more often than not buried in deep snow, so the possibility of avalanche is always in the back of everyone’s minds. Let’s say that one day, the avalanche becomes not just a possibility, but a definite likelihood, and fairly soon.

I think if my significant other, seeing this ominous and precarious hang of the snow, jumps into action and starts shoveling snow or doing whatever prophylactic measure is needed to prevent or mitigate an avalanche (yes, I realize now this is a bad metaphor to use because I know nothing about snow or avalanches or cabins), I would rally behind him, get on board and grab a shovel, or a blowdryer to melt the threatening snow (I dunno). Or maybe build a dam or dig a trench or a giant anti-snow wall. =P Whatever people do.

BUT, if I see that my significant other is just running around in circles in the cabin panicking and cursing the gods and feeling sorry for himself and unreceptive to anything to get him out of his woebegone mood, my instinct is to distance myself. I’m gonna look for a way out of this cabin, a window to jump out of when the avalanche comes, a way to someplace safe.

Is that WRONG of me? Am I supposed to stay in the cabin and get buried alive just because my significant other isn’t doing anything to help himself and when I tell him that he needs to do something or get buried, he tells me “I don’t need any more grief, I don’t want to talk to you anymore, GOODBYE” and slams the door in my face? Should I take this as a sign that his end of things aren’t going to come through and we’re not meant to be?