cindy's world

I’m still dealing with my roofing nightmare at home (turns out to be a bigger problem than I thought — the entire roof may have to be replaced, and probably the entire indoors ceiling, too; my association and I are going back and forth about what’s whose liability and who should pay for what), so here’s a funny for the blog.

I was telling commenter ‘a’ about my wedding progress, and about how my invitations are done and on order. My mom wasn’t thrilled with the appearance of the paper cardstock, since it’s white and white is the Chinese funeral color. Despite the fact that there are pretty red cherry blossoms down the length of the paper on one end, the white paper paired with black lettering made her appear very unimpressed when I showed her the proof online. “Is it maybe ivory, and not really white? Or does the white paper have silver or a metallic highlight?” she asked hopefully. I informed her that not only is the paper white, the color is called ‘bright white.’ I had to hand it to her; she dropped it.

I know my bridesmaid Vicky had a similar invitation argument with her mother, except she had to order a second set of invitations to patch things with her mom. Commenter ‘a’ apparently had the same thing happen to her. Invitations…BIG DEAL with Asian moms! Who knew? ‘a’ ‘s hilarious story, in her own words (with some light editing to make it blog-friendly), posted with her permission:
~ * ~
“Oh gosh, they [the wedding invitations] were just white w/ black print, so we decided to spruce it by adding a light gray silk bow. Took me 3 stores to find the gray I liked. [I] finally get home, start doing them and she’s [mom’s] helping me halfway thru; then she says, ‘I think pink would be better. Pink is more good luck.’
HERE WE GO.
So I’m like ‘No, we’re almost halfway done, we’re not doing pink now.’
‘No pink, good luck. No pink, good luck. No pink, good luck.’
You get the picture. She would not SHUT IT! So then I’m reduced to screaming, ‘Be quiet!!!’
Then my dad comes out and asks wut all the noise is about. And he tells me I need to calm down.
So I’m like, ‘We’re almost halfway done and she’s nagging me about pink bows!!! And she won’t be quiet!!!’
So dad turns to her and tells her to stop bothering me.
And all the while [fiance] Mark is like silent, cuz he’s scared. The end.
…No the best part is at the end! Where after my dad scolds her, she turns to Mark and says, ‘I’m sorry.’ And I’m like WTF, wut about ME??!?!??!
OH NOOOOOOOOOOO, I forgot, THIS IS THE BEST PART…
So weeks later we’re finally sending out the invites cuz we have them addressed and ready. So we hand them [parents] their stack for their guests, so they can mail it themselves to avoid any accusations that we didnt mail theirs, right? So one day I find their stack on their desk and I pull one that’s still unsealed out.
EFFING PINK BOW!! She replaced my bow w/ her own effing pink bow! So for all time, to all of her guests, I have like Little Bo Peep taste. So w/ all the courage I could muster, I silently inhaled and placed it back into the envelope w/o comment. Cuz I didn’t want her to have the satisfaction of upsetting me again. But the look on Mark’s face when he saw it was like ‘oh shiet, here comes wwIII.’
Oh wait. As I’m telling this story I’m remembering more. hahahaha, I think I repressed it all until now!!! I remember wut I did!!!!
I took out her pink bow ones and put in my extra gray bow ones, then I sealed it so it couldn’t be changed.”
~ * ~
‘a’ explained that her parents couldn’t address the envelopes to their own satisfaction, so ‘a’ and her fiance had pre-printed envelopes with her parents’ guests’ addresses. No way they were going to tear open the envelopes to change the bows because they wouldn’t want to re-address everything themselves and find new envelopes. Therefore, all the ones ‘a’ caught were sent out with the gray ribbons.

TELL ME that’s not funny!!! Are your parents like this?

Saturday morning, I swung by Vicky’s house, picked her up, and the two of us wandered up and down Las Tunas Dr. in Temple City, aka Asian Wedding Mecca. My mom kept referring me over there, saying that her coworkers picked up cheap wedding photographers, wedding attire rentals, custom Chinese dresses there. The few wedding studios I’d visited locally wanted way too much money, and a $60 wedding gown with all alterations included is hard to resist, so off we went cuz mommy knows best.

Turns out everything mom heard from people was a load of crap. We entered many bridal dress places and they wanted between $200-$400 for rental gowns, but were pushing me to buy gowns for $800+. I was mauled by 4-5 Chinese and Vietnamese speaking salespeople who were not only forcing ugly and/or wrinkled and dirty dresses on me to go try on, but even as I stood in the dressing room half naked in-between changes, multiple salesladies would open the dressing room curtain and hold up dresses to me, saying, “What about this one? This one beautiful! Try on! Only $800 dollar, on sale! Very fashion!” And as I changed, they’d gab to each other in Cantonese or Vietnamese just outside the room, sounding like one was scolding the other, probably for trying to steal each others’ commission. I felt like I was back in China or Jamaica in the streets as an obvious tourist. The photographers were no better. Once we walked in we couldn’t get out easily, they were pushy and clingy and wouldn’t let us just browse. Plus, the dresses and photography were overpriced but offensively low in the quality and talent department. I was so glad Vicky was there with me to speak firmly to them (in Chinese) when the need arose, and to lie to them, feigning interest and collecting a business card so that we could leave, when that was what was required. If I had gone alone, diplomatic and polite (i.e. pushover) me would’ve been stuck and screwed the first store I went into. “That’s why I had so many stupid magazine subscriptions when I was a freshman in college,” I complained to her. My first-year apartment didn’t have a security gate.

After a Mandarin-style beef noodle soup lunch, we escaped the annoyances of Asian Wedding Mecca Street and went to where I had my first wedding dress experience, good ol’ white-bread David’s Bridal in the Orange County city of Brea. The saleslady who helped me the first time I was there had kept notes of the dresses of particular interest to me, and brought out the top two for me to try on again. But because I had unexpected success earlier with a beautiful princess-style jewel-encrusted dress with a satin fitted bodice and a full skirt with embroidered train (but which I refused to pay $1200 for) in the store where I was overly helped by salesladies, we tried on a similar dress at David’s Bridal that ran $900. I looked like royalty in that dress. I looked like I was going from a Venetian cathedral ceremony to a Ritz-Carlton reception. But it was more than I wanted to spend, inappropriate for a garden wedding, and over-embellished for Mr. W’s taste. Or so I told myself. Seeing me admire the dress in the mirror but sensing I would not commit to it, Vicky said that I am supposed to be the most beautiful I can be on my wedding day, and that the vision of me should blow everyone out of the water, so if it’s a price issue, I can pay the amount I’d intended to pay for a dress and she will make up the difference as a wedding present for me. “The difference” being more than the portion I would personally be paying for the dress, I told Vicky there was no way I could let her do that for me. She reasoned with me some more, and although I will forever remember this moment as one of the most touching, selfless offers ever made to me by anyone, I still turned her down and put my front-runner dress on.

When I walked out in the dress that had won the most favor before that day, I looked in the mirror at its simplicity and again was taken aback at how nice I looked in that dress. That’s what hit me and Vicky the first time I tried on that dress a week ago. Other dresses were gorgeous, even gorgeous on me, and people would not be able to help but say, “Wow, that’s a beautiful dress.” But this simple, train-less dress brought the focus on how good *I* look. The difference in comment would be, “Wow, you look beautiful.” It made my waist look tiny, and I could dress it up in any amount of sparkle in jewelry, rhinestoned veil, tiara. But it looked so plain compared to the dress I had just taken off. There was a bride trying on dresses next to me who had brought along three bridesmaids, her mother, and another older woman. The saleslady asked me, “Is it okay if she tries on the dress you just took off?” I told her sure, to go ahead. I had seen her and her mother admiring me when I was in that dress before the mirror. The girl walked out of the dressing room in the $900 dress, and immediately her bridesmaids were agasp with compliments. She spun and admired herself in front of the mirror, and sung firmly, “Found it.” “It’s only the second dress you tried on!” her friends said, gushing about the bodice! The train! The embroidery! How it made her boobs look huge! Behind her, her mother in the chair gazed at her daughter in the mirror, smiled, and then her face wavered and tears flowed out. “Your mother’s crying! That’s a good sign!” her bridesmaids said. As everyone at that section of the mirror went on and on, I couldn’t help but feel so simple and plain in my simple and plain dress.
“Do you think if my mom were here that she’d see me in ‘the’ dress and cry?” I asked Vicky.
“I don’t know if your mom’s the type to cry,” Vicky said comfortingly. We both know the answer would be no. My mom has already expressed how she wanted me in a dress with sleeves to cover my oversized arms, and how I need to stop working out immediately so I don’t get thicker than I already am. Even for the traditional Chinese dress, she wants me in a long-sleeved two-piece.

I changed back into my sweater and jeans, walked to the front desk, and ordered my simple satin dress in ivory. I also ordered the slip that goes under the skirt to make it full, and added a garmet bag to the list. $350 later, we left the store. After leaving Vicky’s place (where I took with me her wedding album that had photos which put the photo samples we’d seen earlier that day to shame), I called my mom, and received my lecture about spending way too much when I could’ve rented at Las Tunas for the elusive $60 deal with alterations and undergarments included.

I was playing with invitation possibilities online at lunch. (Yes, that means I didn’t make it to the gym AGAIN. ) There are a lot of templates I was looking at, and it seems that whomever is hosting (paying for) the wedding is the first name listed on the invitation. For example, if my parents were paying for the wedding, it’d read:

Mr. Cindy’s-Papa and Mrs. Cindy’s-Mama
request the honor of your presence
in the joining of their daughter
Cindy
to
Mr. W
son of Mr. Mr.W’s-Papa and Mrs. Mr.W’s-Mama
on the forty-third of Sepnovember, two thousand and thirteen
six o’clock in the evening
at the Garden
at 1234 Fairy Tale Ending Lane.
Dinner reception immediately following.

I am the only one who has put any money down on the wedding so far as I paid the deposit on the wedding venue, so if I were to write up the invitations NOW, I’d be listed first, right? Gym trainee said it’s impossible for me to mess up the invitation wording out of ignorance because “it’s all about you!!!”, which is Happy Bunny‘s motto, so I thought, that’s great! That’s exactly how I’ll write it! My invitation will read:

Cindy
requests the honor of your presence
as she allows what’s-his-face
to start a life in her shadow
on the forty-third of Sepnovember, two thousand and thirteen.
Good laughs ahead.
Please attend.

I read it to Mr. W and he laughed, and said he loves it. We definitely need to keep a copy of it in the scrapbook, he said. Oh sure, a missing leaflet in his “Angel” DVD collection had him throwing a tantrum all night last nite, but something like THIS…

I just might do it.

Remember my purposeful intent to mail out Christmas cards this year? If you didn’t get a card, either (1) I don’t have your mailing address and forgot to ask you for it, or, most likely, (2) I didn’t mail out any Christmas cards at all. I was busier than I thought I’d be the couple days I had off after the surgery last Wednesday. I even hit the mall mid-day on Friday and it was crazy crowded! I got a couple of Christmas cards and Christmas newsletters from friends, but the majority of people sent me a “Merry Christmas” cell phone text message on Christmas Day yesterday. I think our generation’s version of the Holiday Greeting Card is Holiday Text Messages. Although it costs me 10 cents each to send and receive, it still is cheaper than a postage stamp. All right, I’m just trying to make myself feel better. I’ll aspire to send actual cards next year.

Since the Christmas holiday did not connect to a weekend this year, Mr. W and I stuck around here instead of joining his family in Vegas as we did the last two years. We spent Christmas with my parents and grandma, and had Chinese hot pot with a tiramisu dessert (I know, huh?). We exchanged presents, fun conversation, some wedding talk (Mr. W is SO patient about this stuff), some housing talk. We may have uncovered a photographer connection, keeping my fingers crossed.

I had a whole post typed up yesterday updating all sorts of things but as soon as I clicked “publish,” the internet connection farted and I lost everything. Drat. I hate when that happens. But since all things are supposed to happen for a reason, I was probably not supposed to write some of the stuff I wrote, so I’ll do a bland version of that post today.

Yesterday, I missed the noon workout because the judge worked us into lunch in an attempt to give the jurors maximum time to deliberate when they got back from lunch at 1:30p. It did work, as disgruntled as I was, because they came back with 4 guilty verdicts at 3:40: attempted murder (for stabbing his then-wife between 14 and 19 times); assault by means likely to produce great bodily injury; aggravated mayhem; unlawful taking of a vehicle. Yes, the first three counts all come out of the one occasion of stabbing, so for those of you thinking about violently marring someone with a sharp pointy object, consider all the years in state prison that would come out of the many connected charges.

I was unhappy to have only a 15- minute lunch yesterday, because I only have a few workout days left until the surgery next Wednesday. The medical professionals involved in my procedure advised me to refrain from strenuous exercise and lifting heavy weights for 4-6 weeks after the procedure, “heavy” defined as more than 20 pounds. Nothing I do at the gym is under 20 pounds. Since I gained 5 pounds after my 2 weeks of not working out due to my recent sickness, 6 weeks would be a 15-pound gain, which experience has taught me takes a year or more (or 1 month with severe emotional trauma) to lose. I don’t have a year before I have to look pretty in white. Let’s face it — white is not flattering on most people, and I’m betting I’m in the category of “most people.”

Speaking of the wedding, I had a 5pm teleconference call with my bridesmaids yesterday. We are so advanced. We all called into college roommie Diana’s northern California office with our little codes and had our first meeting of minds and voices. I am delighted that everyone seemed to get along so well and we got some important decisions out of the way. I love my girls, they are smart, professional, efficient, and beautiful. I should do a post on them soon.

My mom has been really down recently because of the liver cirrhosis diagnosis (which I still insist is preliminary but which she still insists is a death sentence), and she and my dad appear to have the exact same sickness I have. We all got sick at the same time with similar symptoms, and like me, they kept getting re-sick instead of feeling better. I’m re-coughing, too. My mom took the long recovery as a sign that her immune system is shot, something else she added to her growing list of signs that she’s headed to an early grave, but I pointed out that I’m still sick, too, and I’m darn healthy otherwise. She wouldn’t let us visit for the past 2-3 weekends in a row as she and my dad are “hiding out” from any and all visitors in fear that they’d infect others with their apparent plague. Every time I’ve called her and asked if she was feeling better, the response was a very moody, “No.” She started talking last week about how she was going to die before she saw me off on my wedding since we hadn’t set a date yet. So I pulled out the big guns.
“You can’t die yet. [Mr. W] said he wants you and dad to teach the baby Chinese and that way he could learn some Chinese on the side, too.”
“What baby?”
“Oh, he wants to have a baby.”
“YOUR baby? OH!” After that it was all sunshine and rainbows and she sounded exponentially better.

Some days after that conversation, my mom lapsed into depression again over her health. In an email conversation in which she offered to help out financially with the wedding, I told her it was unnecessary as she’d paid for so much for me already in raising me and beyond. She wrote back that she wants to help pay for the wedding because it’d likely be the last thing she could help me with, what with her early grave thing and all. I wrote back, “The wedding would NOT be the last thing you’d have the opportunity to help me out with, because I’m not going to be paying you for babysitting.” She wrote back something changing the subject, so I took that as a good sign. Yesterday, walking on the Japanese Garden grounds, she made a comment about the wedding date and said something about how if she’s going to babysit, I need to get married sooner rather than later so she’d have the strength to pick up and tug around a kid. It was great to see her and my dad in such high spirits yesterday when we finally dropped them off at home at night.

I hope I’m not just in denial about her health concerns. Ideally, it’d be just an early diagnosis of liver problems that modern medicine can halt and she’d live out the rest of her natural life just fine. But I understand that to her, having watched her father waste away and die from the same disease, it’s one of the scariest things she could be diagnosed with, especially as a non-smoker and non-drinker who has no lifestyle vices to change to help her situation. She’s also concerned about my dad’s little health issues here and there (not little to her, of course), deteriorations and ailments that come with age.

Which is why I did not tell her about my surgical procedure on the 19th this month, next Wednesday. I found out that my judge is taking vacation that Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, so since our courtroom will be “dark” those days, my supervisor offered me all those days off to recover from surgery. I hope to be “recovering” at Disneyland. Hey, when life gives you hot water, make tea and heal yourself, right?

Email convo between me and Moms this morning:

Mom: “Maybe was the tea, I couldn’t sleep all night!”
Me: “I couldn’t sleep last night either, but that was because I was coughing.
If I don’t get better by August, I’ll sound like this:
Judge: Do you, Cindy, take [Mr. W] to be your lawful wedded –
Cindy: *COUGH COUGH!!*
Judge: Uh, to be your lawful wedded husband, to have and to hold –
Cindy: *COUGH COUGH COUGH COUGH HACK HAAAACK!!*
Judge: Is that a no?”

Yesterday, Mr. W and I took my parents to our [proposed] wedding venue. (Legal types would’ve gotten a laugh at that.) My parents liked the place, enjoyed the koi, thought it was beautiful and original, but my mom wasn’t thrilled at the fact that the venue only holds 150 people and won’t allow children under age 10 after dusk. I was having serious trouble as my half of the guest allowances were overfilling and my mom wanted to add on another 50. She also thought I ought to work my young nieces (whom I’d only seen like 3 times in my life) into the wedding party as flower girls and didn’t like that the venue had age limitations. I told her that I was not going to be plucking hyperactive children off the bridges and from the unfenced water edges in my wedding gown, and I didn’t want to be kicked out of my own wedding for kids throwing rocks at hundred-dollar fish. Plus, I don’t need flower girls as there is no aisle to walk down and toss petals onto in this venue; we would walk from either side onto the bridge and meet in the middle. Plus, flower petal sprinkling is not allowed at the venue anyway. It’s going to be a very unique wedding.

After the garden, my parents said that if we’re over on the 150-people capacity, since we apparently love the venue so much, to just cut out all their friends and non-immediate relatives and we can do an optional traditional Chinese banquet on another day after the wedding for the people who were cut. We drove to Balboa Island and talked some more (laughing and joking) at a great little teahouse Mr. W and I discovered some weeks ago, then headed back to Mr. W’s place to check out the guest list (and have more tea; Mr. W, as it turns out, is quite the fob). My mom sat with me and listed everyone she’d find important to invite, we added her guest list to mine, added Mr. W’s, and we came out to be like 140! Holy moly!! I was elated.

After taking my parents home, the creativity was flying and I came up with all sorts of great ideas for the wedding and reception that would be well within budget and perfectly fitting for the environment and very unique, too. I’m happy. Everything is aligning themselves and falling into place. I had been big time stressed THINKING about planning the wedding, but the actual wedding details are just MAKING themselves, such as…

* Mr. W obscurely coming up with the idea of this garden from Vanessa’s one-time mention of it years ago
* the first time we visited this garden, Mr. W parked far away but I somehow always had a sense of where the garden was, and altho he led us away from the venue onto other parts looking for the garden, getting us lost, I always maintained that the garden is over THERE (*pointing*) and he finally, after not being able to figure out on the map where we are, agreed to follow my instincts, and I was RIGHT. “I know where my wedding venue is,” I explained to him. It was just like this internal sense that I have no explanation for.
* this garden being hyper-experienced in doing weddings very affordably
* the garden doing package deals that take care of all the details for us, from wedding coordinator to setting up/cleanup to catering
* the required catering company for the venue is surprisingly affordable, and all their food packages include a wedding cake — one more thing I don’t have to worry about finding and coordinating!
* I didn’t want to deal with young kids, the venue doesn’t allow kids; I didn’t want to deal with coordinating many expensive vendors, the venue has most of the vendors and details in a package deal; I didn’t want to spend a ton on a florist and the venue only allows small flowers on the bridge and centerpieces
* Although pretty much all Saturdays are booked up for 2008, Mr. W thought that our anniversary weekend, Labor Day weekend, would be a great time for a Sunday evening wedding because of the Monday holiday, and we checked yesterday and it was open for 2008 AND 2009
* The guest list miraculously came JUST under 150
* I decided that with so many details taken care of already through this venue, that I could pull it off in the next 9 months, so I called the venue this morning and left a voice mail asking to reserve the 2008 date
* As 0f 9:30 a.m. this morning, after a return call from the gardens, we have the date for Labor Day long weekend next year! WOOHOOOOOO!!! We’ll be getting married for our 3rd year anniversary!

I’d been dragging my feet for the past 4+ months since my engagement, cuz wedding planning is so not something I’m remotely interested in. The most I’d done was buy and flip through (sans enthusiasm) two bridal magazines some months ago. I haven’t even sent in the ring to be resized, yet. I had two small epiphanies in Vegas that kick-started things. One, I “realized” how to make a guest list. Two, I “realized” who my bridesmaids are. The latter happened in the shower, as with many of my great ideas.

After coming back to California, I called my three girls, the women who’ve known me the longest, the best, know what I’m thinking at a glance, have physical and emotional history with me. They all surprised and touched me and said yes, despite the fact that I have no wedding date or location to give them and I assured them this isn’t a commitment and they could back out once I’m able to give them actual solid dates and venues.

This morning, I flipped through my third bridal magazine which I’d purchased in Vegas and started reading a monthly check-0ff list of things that have to be done each month in a sort of count-down fashion, starting 12 months from the wedding date. It was so fussy and details were so expensive that I had a little mental breakdown. I guess I’d been in a sort of denial about how many freaking stupid little overpriced details go into wedding planning, and I’d thought I could just pull it off with minimum work, money and stress. How hard could it be? I just secure the location, date, wedding party, dress, food, and I’m done. But no, the checklist told me to do wedding planner interviews, and DJ/MC/band member interviews, and view photographer and videographer samples, and book appointments for cake and food samplings, and pick invitation themes and colors, and select save-the-date cards. And that’s just the beginning! I wanted to cry. I cursed wedding etiquette and traditions and what they entail. Mr. W offered to elope but I can’t do that to my parents as an only child. He finally asked me what aesthetic details are actually important to me at the wedding site, and I pictured my tranquil place and named three things: Chinese lanterns, bridge(s), water. And he came up with this:

I’m not disclosing the location yet because I’m not committing myself (and I don’t wanna jinx things), but I did some research and turns out this place DOES do weddings:

The location appears to be available for booking next summer and the summer after, and their wedding package includes ceremony, reception, setup/cleanup, sound system, candles around the pond, lanterns around the garden, plus a separate day for rehearsal. I think it’s reasonably affordable for me considering with everything in one place, I don’t have to worry about 2 separate location bookings and transportation. Keepin’ my fingers crossed…if you recognize the location, shhh for now!

The plan for leaving to Las Vegas Friday nite, was that Mr. W was going to go home after work, nap, then hit the gym, and come pick me up at 2 am. While I waited for him I would clean the house, pack, do laundry, and hang with the Fuzzy One. With a 4-hour drive, we’d arrive around 6am.

When, at 2am, I hadn’t heard from Mr. W yet, I called him to make sure he didn’t oversleep and forget to get up altogether. He picked up the phone from inside his car, driving. He said that he was running late because altho he’d finished up at the gym at 1:30a, he saw he’d missed a call from his daughter, and her voice mail said she had decided to come with us. So he’d driven back home to pick her up and she was right then in the car with him. I was excited she would be with us, as she really is a load of fun, but as he told me this I wiggled the ring off my finger and placed it carefully in my jewelry box at home.

Driving to Vegas with Daughter in the backseat, Mr. W reached over and held my left hand. He felt around my finger, and said, “Did you bring it?” I shook my head. “What?! Where is it?” he demanded.
“Home,” I told him.
He looked at me with bug eyes. “Are you serious? Why would you DO that? I wanted to tell my parents this weekend!” I just stared back at him, unable to get into it with his daughter right there, and I gestured behind me and looked at him, like, “Because!” He said, “I guess I’m not gonna tell them,” and sulked. Why couldn’t he tell them without the ring exhibit? Like they wouldn’t believe him? I KNEW it was all about showing off the ring. Ha!

All day Saturday, we hung out with his parents, his brother, bro’s daughter, and her boyfriend. Bro’s daughter had a sparkly on her finger, too. They told us at a Chicago pizza joint (where we all have to go every time we’re in Vegas) that they were recently engaged, and that her boyfriend proposed onstage during karaoke. And it was captured by the karaoke bar and posted on UTube! Which, by the way, we watched instantly by accessing the internet on Bro’s iPhone. The boyfriend went onstage with her, held her hand, sang “their song” while she wiped tears off her face, and then he dropped to his knee and said he loved her, wanted to spend the rest of his life with her, and popped the box open. The whole audience was cheering and clapping. It was so cute! When she showed off her 3-stone marquis with the row of baguettes on the white gold band, she said proudly, “All by himself.” I laughed and complimented his taste in the ring, and instantly I felt pretty sheepish. Yeah, I’m definitely keeping this ring. =P

Sunday morning, before leaving Las Vegas, Mr. W came back in the bedroom to wake me up after he’d been up for awhile to hang out with his parents. I told him groggily I think I’m a lesbian, and he asked why, and I said I was just dreaming about being with a woman, and he said, “Oh, lemme go back out there and tell my parents we aren’t getting married after all cuz you’re a lesbian.”
“You told them? When?”
“Just now.”
“What did they say?”
“My mom said, ‘Your dad asked me, “Why’re they coming to Vegas this weekend? They gettin’ married?” and I told him, “No, they wouldn’t do it like that.” And I told your aunt Jeanne you were coming out this weekend and she said, “Are they coming out here to get married?” ‘ ”
“Why does everyone think we’re getting married? What the heck!” I exclaimed indignantly.
“And they asked me, ‘Can we congratulate her? Is that okay?’ and I said, ‘Sure, quietly. And not in front of my daughter.’ Haha.”

So when I walked out to say good morning to them, they each gave me a big hug and a kiss and congratulated me. Quietly.

“Wow, the ring comes with its own drama,” my gym trainee said last week.
“Figures,” I said, “The relationship is so peaceful that the RING has to have drama.”

Mr. W happened upon The Ring in a jewelry shop while we were on our cruise some weekends ago. Once he saw it, and saw the heart through the jeweler’s loupe, there was no turning back for him and no talking him out of the extravagant purchase. And to think that I was just trying to get to the other side of the store to look at on-sale tanzanite stuff! No, Mr. W had found The Ring. To explain the ensuing drama, I’m going to change the numbers to make them more simple and understandable.

The salesperson said that the ring would appraise for $16 bucks, but because we were purchasing out at sea, we were saving sales tax AND there was a discount on the ring, bringing it down to $9 bucks and some change. The ring has a full money-back warranty for the first year and she said that if it doesn’t appraise for over $16 bucks, or if we change our mind on the purchase, we can return it back to the designer/manufacturer. After some discussion, she said if we take it right then and there, her manager had agreed to discount it down to $8 and some change. Well, if we’re getting a $16 ring for $8, that’s half off, so that’s pretty decent, Mr. W thought, and plunged forth into the full commitment, pun intended. As purchased, the ring was 2.5 sizes too big, and the saleslady gave us the information to contact the designer/lab and informed us the resizing would be free, and we’d be reimbursed postage and mail insurance.

A few days later, we were informed that no mail courier service (UPS, FedEx, DHL, USPS)’s shipping insurance truly covers jewelry; that they’d insure your package, but the contract has every loophole in it for jewelry that virtually makes insuring jewelry through them pointless. So we were suggested to take out our own insurance policy on it before shipping the ring off for resize (the lab is in Miami, Florida).

At this point you’re probably wondering why I don’t just get it resized locally. It’s because local jewelers resize by cutting a length of gold off the bottom of the band, and bonding the remaining ring together, forming a smaller circle. With 64 stones sitting on 3 surfaces of this band, no local jeweler could offer a guarantee that the side stones won’t pop off once the circle is reduced by that many sizes. Plus, cutting the band would remove the designer seal and signature on the inside of the band. The original designer would make a new band in my size, remove the current stones, and re-set them into the new band.

Okay, so I called my homeowner’s insurance company. They said they’d insure the ring under my homeowner’s policy for an extra $320 a year, but that policy would only cover $10 of the ring. What about the other $6? They said I can take out a policy just for the ring itself, and that’d cost $500/year. Holy crap. But first, before they write any policy, they want the ring appraised and a formal appraiser’s report submitted to them.

So off I went to find a gem appraiser. I found a really good one who has 25 years of experience, has certifications and gemology degrees up the yin yang, and met with her over the weekend. The appraiser examined, weighed, took photos of the ring, and researched by calling the actual ring designer’s company for replacement value. The 9-page appraisal report came in late last nite. The value? Not over $16 buckaroos like the store claimed. But $10 smackers. Yup. Less than 2/3 of the claimed retail value.

So now I’m ticked. I feel swindled, not by Mr. W, but by the store. And I want to return the ring and get Mr. W his money back. If anyone knows me, they know I don’t pay full price for anything, because I do my research first and walk in with a great bargaining chip or work through reliable connections. Granted, I was not expecting to go ring-shopping or get a proposal, so I’d done no homework, and this isn’t even my money, but it just doesn’t sit well with me. I don’t mind paying $9 clams for a $16 item, nor paying $5 clams for a $10 item, but I don’t like paying $9 for a $10 item. What the hell is that?! Jewelry is marked up so much already that we shouldn’t be paying more than about half of the full retail value.

Last nite, after some brainstorming with an engaged friend, I was thinking that I’d go ring shopping, and see if anything out there really grabs hold of me. Chances are that it’d be a bigger stone or better value for $9 (cuz we’re not paying designer prices for a patented cut), OR it’d be a similar item for $5 or less. And if it happens that nothing out there compares to this one and I fall in love with the one I have, then I’ll insure it, ship it off to get resized. Mr. W is okay with this plan, and it may save/refund him a lot of money.

And then all day today, people kept talking about the ring. “Where’s this amazing ring that everybody’s been talking about, lemme see!” said a male security guard downstairs that I normally have zero rapport with. People everywhere, judges, reporters, attorneys, bailiffs, people I don’t even know, have heard about it and say it’s the talk of the courthouse. Mr. W is now touted as THE man with THE best taste in jewelry. And he really did fall in love with the ring, and came up with this whole metaphor comparing me and our relationship to it in his proposal.

So the dilemma is, is my Asian thrift gene more dominant, or will my sentimentalist gene win over? Argh.
(For more examples of the Asian thrift gene, see here and here.)
What do you guys think about this situation?