cindy's world

I had a phenomenal dental visit today! I mean, sure I got two teeth drilled and filled and I had to pay out-of-pocket since my insurance is no good there and I had to drive 30+ miles back in rush-hour traffic resting my weight on the brakes on the unmoving freeway while trying not to accidentally chew off my numb right cheek, BUT Andy is an amazing dentist! I’ve never had such a painless dental visit, and that includes the last visit to the other dentist last week when I had no work done; her x-ray card cut painful slashes in my gums. After thoroughly examining my teeth, gums, lymph glands and mouth (for oral cancer, and did you guys know the STD HPV causes 20% of oral cancer?! I read that on a pamphlet while I was waiting), Andy was shocked at how horrible my last dental experience was; she not only wanted to charge outrageous prices for unnecessary upgraded work (some of which materials Andy said he wouldn’t even put in his own mouth without further field tests, and definitely wouldn’t put in his grinding chewing molar surfaces because the material wouldn’t hold up so you’d have to go back to get them redone when they crack, paying for them again), but missed necessary fixes like cracked fillings. She also wanted to charge for 3 surfaces on a cavity that was only 1 surface. And after checking each tooth pocket, Andy said, “And she wanted to give you that $240 deep cleaning? That would’ve been a scam! You have such shallow tooth pockets and you don’t have bad plaque buildup, you only need a regular cleaning.” As for the wisdom teeth the other dentist insisted on having surgically removed? “Your wisdom teeth are fine. They’re fully crowned, in good condition, and there’s plenty of room in your mouth for them.” What about the undescended wisdom tooth sitting in my sinus cavity that the other dentist wanted to dig out? Andy was still of his original opinion: “I wouldn’t touch that with a 10-foot pole.” Andy’s touch was strong but surprisingly full of finesse; you can tell he takes pride in his work and connects with his patients. He kept checking on me to make sure I was still comfortable (which I always was, much to my own surprise).

So to compare apples to apples, the other dentist’s treatment plan for me (which doesn’t address the wisdom teeth): $6785 total, insurance will cover all but $3555.
Andy’s treatment plan for me, WITHOUT insurance helping me out: $1328 total.

HELL-o. I’m never going back to that other dental scam office. Anyone in SoCal need a good dentist? I’ll send you Andy’s way.

P.S. I’m going back tomorrow get my teeth cleaning (since I have this week off and we didn’t get around to that today). I canceled the bridal gown fitting/alteration I’d scheduled for tomorrow while I was at the dentist’s. The alteration manager I spoke to INSISTED I needed alterations and measurements to be done NOW and would only postpone it to the first week of June, saying that they need 2 months to make alterations. What the heck? And even if they DO need 2 full months, they were getting 3 with the beginning of June. Oh, whatever. I’m gonna insist that they don’t alter anything but the hemline, then.

P.P.S. The alteration manager reminded me to bring everything I’m gonna wear under the dress, so I took the opportunity to ask her whether I REALLY need a bustier. She sounded abhorred I’d even question that. “Of COURSE you do! Have you SEEN the effects of what a bustier does?” Of course I did. It pushes my fat to runneth over. But I told her we’ll talk about it at my appointment.

Today I picked up jujitsu buddy Josh at his house and drove to Long Beach, where we had lunch at Tokyo Wako. Josh is my wedding photographer and over lunch, we discussed wedding day scheduling and strategy. He’s such a gentleman; despite the fact that he was out there for me, he wouldn’t let me pay for my misoyaki sea bass and even paid me an immediate compliment that I seemed a lot slimmer than when he’d last seen me (which I think was at his graduation from Orange County Sheriff’s Academy last year).

After lunch we fulfilled our purpose for the meeting: he scoped out the wedding venue for the first time. We strolled around the grounds as he took a bunch of test shots, taking mental and photographic note of where he’d like to have people pose for group photos and where to set up for the best over-water bridge shots. He also took a few of me to check for lighting and positioning at the garden. I was surprised when I saw some of the photos on his digital display — I hadn’t seen my face and cheeks look that round in a loooong time. Might I be bloated from PMS? *squeezing boobs* No…I’m not sore at the key spot(s). Crap. Maybe the once-a-week gym time has caught up with me. My left wrist seems 90% recovered so I should be able to hit the weights again more regularly. The wedding isn’t for almost 4 months so that’s enough time to drop some inches.

BUT, I have an appointment to get my wedding gown alterations on Thursday. I’d thought that setting up an appointment this long before the wedding would be counterproductive, cuz who knows what size I’d actually be in 4 months. But when I picked up my dress last Thursday, that’s the day the alterations department said was appropriate. Having gone with Mr. W’s niece to her alteration in Vegas over the weekend and seen how her size changed between the time she bought the dress in January and now (a month before the wedding), I’m thinking this 4 month thing is way premature. Maybe they just want me to alter it for a second time closer to the wedding so they make money off the dress twice after its purchase. I’m going to cancel or postpone that appointment.

Out of curiosity, though, I tried the dress on for the first time tonight. It fit comfortably and almost loosely without the bustier, but the bustier somehow causes a fat roll effect above the dress. Sure the bustier enhances cleavage by lifting my chest, but it also lifts other things, like the fat on my back. Gross. And it’s uncomfortable and hot, and makes the dress fit tighter. What the heck; I thought the form-fitting restrictive undergarments are supposed to make my measurements smaller, not thicker. Is there some kind of rule that says I have to wear a bustier under my white bridal gown?

My bathroom scale’s been out of battery for months now so I don’t know what I weigh or what my body fat percentage is, but I’m afraid to find out anyway. I’m terrified that I’m gonna go thru a pudge period right when I have to be photographed for an high exposure major life event that’s gonna bring about many witnesses. My body tends to have some crazy momentum when it starts to gain weight, and is reluctant to reverse the cycle to lose weight again, so I’m gonna hit the gym on the regular starting tonight and double up on cardio. Josh reminded me today that when he first met me, I used to hit the weights at lunch, go back for cardio after work, run 6-8 miles every other evening, and go to jujitsu on the nights I wasn’t running.

Friday night Mr. W’s gamer bro, bro’s wife, Mr. W and I caught a musical impersonation brothers-sister act in the Las Vegas Hilton, “The Scintas.” Probably the most interesting thing about the evening is that that when the cocktail chick came around to take drink orders, I decided to order the Brain Hemorrhage shot, which I’d always wanted to make/enjoyed making but never tasted. I like all 3 ingredients: Baileys – yum; peach schnapps – yum; grenadine – yum. Together…curdled Baileys chunks I had to chew? Does not inspire a repeat performance in my mouth. When the waitress brought our drinks, she handed me my shot and said, “The bartender enjoyed making this so much he made you like 3 drinks’ worth for the price of 1!” After placing the standard shot in front of me, she put a rocks glass FULL of the stuff down in front of me, too. That Asian can’t-waste-food gene made me chew up the whole drink. Never again.

Saturday was designated to be “Gaming All-Nighter Day” at gamer bro’s house. The two men gamed on the Wii, then they gamed on PS3, then bro’s daughter (who’s getting married in June) and I went to her 4pm bridal dress fitting and alterations appointment since I had a little experience with wedding planning now and knew the right questions to ask and knew how to help her in/out of her dress. After we got back, we, along with gamer bro’s wife and gamer bro’s daughter’s fiance sat around and waited for the two men to stop playing so that we could go eat. They would not stop for a long time until finally Mr. W just stood and abandoned the neverending game. We had the mandatory Chicago-style pizza at their usual joint and gamer bro encouraged us girls to go see a movie, the later the better, so the guys can play more games. While the daughter’s fiance left to tend to his night shift, the brothers went back to gamer bro’s house to resume their gaming and the three of us women hit up Starbucks to kill time before our 10:05p movie. Man, they had conversations I could never imagine having with my own mother! There are just some things I wouldn’t want my mom to know about me, and details I never want to know about my dad’s marriage with my mom. But it was cool these two women are so close that they’re girlfriends on top of being mother-daughter, and that they felt comfortable enough around me to draw me into their very personal conversation topics. I was touched. The movie we saw was “Forgetting Sarah Marshall.” I chuckled through a lot of it despite the three drunk girls making noise at the end of our row (the daughter was so annoyed at them and at smelling their alcohol down the row that she got an employee to come do something about them. He told them to put their alcohol away and they did — for half an hour. Luckily for us they all left early.). When we got back to gamer bro’s house, it was 12:30a, the guys were in the midst of a trivia-type game on PS3, and we didn’t make it out of there until 1:30a, 4.5 hours past Mr. W’s normal bedtime. He was all riled up from the game playing, however, and since he commented on what great weather the wee hour provided, I suggested we sit on the front porch swing awhile and enjoy each others’ company alone, something we hadn’t had all weekend. In the midst of what I considered a GREAT discussion in which Mr. W was listing all the the things he loved about me and how I enrich his life (hee hee), the light in the office room behind us went on so we went inside his parents’ house, where we were staying. Turned out Mr. W’s dad was still up and wanted to show us photos of the rocker brother in the tux we’d brought along for him for our wedding. Rocker brother had been by their parents’ house that day while we were at gamer brother’s place. The jacket was too big but everything else fit, so we brought the jacket back with us to exchange.

Sunday, we got up early and went with Mr. W’s parents to a really cool-looking casino, where we met up with rocker brother for a Mother’s Day breakfast. This casino was attached to a giant multi-story Turner’s Outdoorsman store and had a huuuuuuge salt water aquarium in the center with tons of blue tangs, yellow tangs, stingrays, tiger sharks, and other ocean fish. There was even a separate high fish tank on the wall with jellyfish illuminated with color-changing neon lights. Mr. W and I left for home after a politically-charged breakfast discussion which I thoroughly enjoyed (made me like rocker brother more cuz we’re totally eye-to-eye on a lot of issues), making sure to stop by the outlet jewelry store with my $305 cashback and coupon for my better-than-free wedding band. They actually gave me money back. I ended up buying an Alexandrite and white gold pendant & chain for my mom and a silver heart locket for my grandma for Mother’s Day, so they still made money off me.

We got back to my house around 4:30p, regrouped and I spent some quality time with my Dodo boy, and took off to meet my parents and grandma for an early Mother’s Day dinner at a Chinese seafood restaurant. The dinner started off a little rough as everyone’s indecision and lack of opinion over what to order ticked my mom off, but all the jewelry cheered her right up. Now I have to figure out how to top presents like that next month for Father’s Day. I’m already gonna start off that weekend behind as we’ll be in Vegas again that weekend, this time for gamer bro’s daughter’s wedding.

It’s weird; both times when I started to feel overwhelmed with the thought of all the wedding planning there was to be done, I barely lift a finger and everything falls into place for me.

While hanging out with childhood friend Lily over the weekend, she mentioned going back to the makeup artist who did her wedding makeup, and hiring her to do her makeup again for her brother’s wedding. I expressed interest in her makeup artist, and days later Lily forwarded me an email she’d written to the makeup artist, Amy, telling her about me. Amy wrote in her response that she was indeed available the date of my wedding and to have me contact her. I emailed her in response, and now we have an appointment/consultation for next weekend. She also does hair, and will go to the wedding site to change my makeup and hairstyle (including hair decoration and jewelry loans) to go with my dress changes. She is pricey though, so I’ll have to see what I can do about the cost.

MOH Vicky, my mom and I went to the Chinese dress seamstress on Wednesday to take our measurements and finalize our individual dress designs. It was my mom’s first time there and I brought her along so that I can buy her a custom-tailored traditional Chinese dress for the wedding, too. Looking at the sleeveless dress design I’d chosen for myself, she immediately went into how I should get a dress with sleeves because I have fat upper arms that I need to cover up. The experienced seamstress vetoed it, saying you can’t have the bridesmaids all formal and pretty in their halter top Chinese dresses and have the bride looking all matronly and conservative overly-covered up, and that my arms are fine. My mom suggested that I do the halter top style too so the line of arm skin looks elongated, lengthening my arm and hopefully making it look less fat. I told her I’d tried on the halter style top and it just makes me look more top-heavy since all you see is flesh. She made me try it on anyway and when I did, she grimaced even more than she did when she saw my original sleeveless dress. The seamstress said I have wider shoulders than the other girls and should stay with my original sleeveless design to cover them up. My mom said accusingly that my wide upper body girth is due to my exercising. The seamstress (remember, she’d previously advised MOH Vicky to avoid weight lifting at all costs for fear of getting bigger arms) asked my mom what kind of exercise I do, and my mom said in that exasperated my-kid-doesn’t-listen-to-me motherly tone, “All kinds! She does martial arts, she lifts weights, she does everything!” “No wonder she has wider shoulders and arms, she put on muscle!” the seamstress said as she and my mom looked disapprovingly at my apparently elephantitis-inflicted upper arms. My mom said that she wanted a sleeved dress as well as she also did not like her own fat upper arms, but at our insistence tried on a few sleeveless dresses which looked amazing on her. I remarked that I don’t know what she sees when she looks in mirrors as she clearly does not have big arms and in fact should wear this fitted style dress proudly at my wedding as she does not have the figure of a mother, and would regret not wearing a dress like this when she’s 80 if she doesn’t wear it now while she can so beautifully pull it off. So my mom ordered a sleeveless dress design, although protesting that she had gained a pound this week and thus feels abnormally fat. I asked her, “So how much do you weigh now?” She answered, “106.” Sigh. WHATEVER. I think I passed her weight in junior high. But anyway, all 3 bridesmaid dresses, my mom’s dress, and my dress are paid for now and we have appointments for the final fit and tailoring in July.

Today (Thursday), Mr. W and I left for Vegas to visit his parents for Mother’s Day Weekend and to bring his brothers their groomsmen tuxes. We’re way ahead of schedule; even if the tuxes don’t fit the brothers exactly, we have time to bring it back and get it tailored or exchanged. On the way to Vegas, we passed by David’s Bridal and I remarked that my bridal gown had arrived months ago at the store waiting for me to pick it up. We decided to stop and get it so we can bring it to Vegas to show his mother, who used to be a seamstress and has offered to hand-make my bridal veil. While in the bridal shop, I made an appointment with their tailor to get a fit and alteration of the bridal gown next week. I also found the perfect pair of shoes for the bridal gown which combines the height and comfort that I so desperately need.

Halfway to Vegas, we decided to stop by the outlet shops near stateline to stretch our legs and wander around. I moseyed into a jewelry store to peek at the wedding bands. I’d given up looking for a band to go with my 3-sided ring as anything I put in front of it would get scratched by the diamonds set into the forward-facing heart, but the store manager suggested a chevron band that may work. The second chevron ring I tried on paired with my engagement ring perfectly with the band pulling away at the exact point of would-be contact with the engagement ring’s protruding heart design, such that it doesn’t touch the front diamonds AND stays low-profile enough to not cover much of the bead-set hearts on the band of the ring. This diamond-lined band retails for $1100, but it was among the last one of its kind in the entire retail chain, on major liquidation, and I could get it for under $300. AND…this retail chain will double the cashback of my credit card points in a giftcard, and I happen to have $140 in cash back, which means $280 credit toward a purchase in that store, which means…FREE BAND!!!

This is turning out to be an incredibly productive wedding vacay after all!

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 hope that when I’m married and even after we’re married for a loooong time, we’d still be happy to see each other, happy to cook together, happy to sit and watch TV alone, happy to hold hands, and not end up like this:

A man with a gun went into a bank and demanded their money. Once he was given the money, he turned to a customer and asked, “Did you see me rob this bank?”
The man replied, “Yes sir, I did.”
The robber then shot him in the temple, killing him instantly.
He then turned to a couple standing next to him and asked the man, “Did you see me rob this bank?”
The man replied, “No sir, I didn’t, but my wife did.”
~ joke forwarded to me via email by a friend

One of the female radio personalities on the talk radio station I listen to every morning is getting married, so the topic was on bachelorette/bachelor parties. “When I see a group of women together and one of them is wearing a white veil and all of them are sucking on straws shaped like penises, I think that’s DISGUSTING.” Haha. Agreed. Her male cohost and special guest Tom Arnold thought it’d be brilliant to scare her and tell her what REALLY goes on in the bachelor’s parties.

1) Bachelor’s parties out, like in a club, strip club, or Vegas, include strippers and hence multiple lap dances. Since it’s the bachelor’s friends who *really* want the party cuz they want to break free from their mundane married lives for a night, they’re going to INSIST on strippers, pay for lap dances, and heckle the bachelor and shun him forever if he is not amenable to the debauchery. (To this I roll my eyes and think, “Great friends. Who’s the night really about, anyway?” Good thing Mr. W’s best man is his 18 yr old son who’s not old enough to get into a strip joint even if the boy WERE crazy enough to want to see nekkid women gyrating on his DAD. Ew.) Occasionally the guys find a place seedy enough for a higher level of cheating to occur in the back room given enough money exchanging hands, but this is less common than…

2) Bachelor parties in. Strippers hired to come to the house and do their thing in a private residence are WAY worse than in a club where there are laws and regulations that most strip clubs follow. It is apparently not uncommon for strippers to start off in the living room and end up in the bedroom. Tom Arnold said the bachelor usually ends up naked duct-taped to a chair with whipped cream all over him. Sexy…not.

3) The level of stripper. Apparently there are different “rankings” or levels of strippers. Like prostitutes, you have the upscale $10K “escort” managed by a madame who’ll travel with you and cost you your government office *nudge*, and you have the call-girls for $200 that you phone an agency to arrange to arrive at your house for an hour, and you have the street walker who stands at a corner and will give you a quickie in your car for $15. In strippers, the pretty ones are the ones with standards about what they’re willing to do and typically don’t do anything overly risque, and the ugly ones you see at the strip club — the ones you look at and think, “WTF is SHE doing here?!” — are the ones who secretly make bank for their complete and total availability and willingness to do whatever you want. Cuz they have to compete with the pretty high-demand ones somehow. Tom Arnold goes on to say, “The stripper’s got head issues anyway, and you take an unattractive one who all she has is this job, and you’re about to embark on a beautiful lifelong journey with someone…if the groom’s remotely good-looking, she’s gonna be all over him doing whatever it takes.” Women and their competitive catty naked egos. *sigh*

I’m glad I’m marrying Mr. W. None of this garbage is going to be an issue. At least, that was something he’d used to woo me, saying I need to be with a man like him who’s not interested in doing all that immature guy stuff like bachelor parties and strippers and club/bar-hopping. *crossing fingers*

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 found this Kim Anderson cake topper online and sent the link to Mr. W via IM.

Me: Does this look like us?
it’s 25% off.
Mr. W: When I was 4
me: you had white hair when you were 4?
Mr. W: Blond
me: well then your family would have a hoot.
you had that color hair a couple years ago.
doesn’t that look like me NOW? *nudge *
[A 5-minute silence goes by, I’m wondering whether he’s going to tell me that if I think I look 4, I’m calling him a pedophile.]
Mr. W: Not as beautiful as you are but, some similarities.
me: awwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww
wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww
wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww
wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww
wwwww!!!!
(what a liar.)

I did nothing all day. And I did a lot of it. So to help you enjoy yourselves as much as I have, here’s a little amusing song that made my mouth agape and then laugh:

“Ooh Girl”: An Honest R&B Song

One morning in Diana’s house, Mr. W and I were lying around before we got up and I asked him what if the missing engagement ring is delivered while we’re up north? He had it set up for delivery to his work address, would it just sit in his mail slot in the open? He said that would not be good. I asked if he should call his office to let them know to look out for it. He didn’t say anything and didn’t call. < -- foreshadowing. I said I wish the ring got delivered a week ago so I could’ve worn it for Jimmy & Sabrina’s wedding. A friend of Diana’s had come up to me after the ceremony and said, “I heard you got engaged! Congratulations!” I saw her glance down at my bare left hand and then look back up to my face. I thanked her, and wondered if she thought we were one of those couples who “don’t believe in rings.” The only guys I’ve heard make that kind of statement were either too cheap or had an ulterior motive to not wear jewelry showing a commitment.

Yesterday, while I was sleeping all day, Mr. W went to work. I got a call from him as he was going home telling me that he has something to give me, something small and shiny. I asked if it was edible. He said no. I said then I wasn’t interested. He said, “Guess what was sitting in my mail when I went to work.” It DID arrive while we were away, and it DID sit in his exposed mail slot since nobody knew what it was! Eeks!! Anyway, I didn’t go over to his house last nite and he’d left the ring there, telling me I’d have to go over today to try it on. I hope it finally fits!