Archive for the ‘The Fiance’ Category

So, funny story.

I asked The Artist Formerly Known as The Fiance how he felt about going with Slappy instead of Dr. Awesome since it was a tough choice and y’all seem to appreciate Slappy more, not to mention that it wouldn’t change the prize since it was submitted by the same anonymous commenter. And he got this goofy grin on his face and told me if I really wanted to know his opinion. I said yes, to which he said, “I don’t care, I’m Anonymous.”

Apparently when i listed the rules, I failed to mention to my husband that it wasn’t really fair for him to enter in his own judging contest. So yea, um, he picked his own name and will be henceforth known as Shithead, I mean Slappy.

He wanted to know what his prize was and I promised him a souvenir (despite the fact that he’s right here with me, it’s best just not to argue with him), but I thought I’d also extend a prize to the only entry that Slappy liked besides the ones that he submitted himself. This person clearly understands my husband’s extreme modesty and the entry “His Exalted High Mightiness” from Robin was on his list of highly praised names (with his 4, of course). So Robin, if you’ll shoot me an email, I’ll pick you up a little something from our tropical paradise and send it to you when we get back to the mainland (or more likely when we get back to NOLA at the beginning of July).

And now, I’m going to finish my lunch and chilax until the Luau later tonight. Tomorrow we learn to surf and then will probably miniature golf. Saturday we’re taking a half-day waterfall hike through the rainforest, Monday we’re parasailing (holy crap) and Tuesday we’re taking a combination kayak/snorkeling tour. And in all the times inbetween we’ll be relaxing, doing other things I won’t specify here, and snorkeling in our own little cove with the bajillions of sea turtles in our backyard.

Congrats to Robin and now I’m going to go spend some time with my husband, Slappy.

Sorry friends, no decision has been made yet. I’ve been trying to nag just a little bit, but frankly our lives have been remarkable different kinds of crazy-ass busy today and no amount of nagging would’ve give us more hours in the day to get everything done. Apparently the past week of having nothing to do was really just to relax us so that today could pistol-whip the crap out of us.

I just spent the better part of 6 hours wrapping boxes of chocolates more or less by myself. My sister did a few, but most of those had to be re-wrapped after (and not just because I’m neurotic, but because it looked like I let someone with a mental disability wrap them and that’s not so much the theme I was aiming for) and she went to bed before I was even half-way done. They’re now all wrapped but so help me God if anyone (read: The MIL) says or thinks a single negative syllable about them, I’ll shove the box right down their (her) throat.

Tomorrow seems like it’s going to be more of the same, or rather, the beginning of the real chaos to come. I have 8 trillion phone calls to make, things to finish up, thank you notes to write, things to pack and otherwise just crap to organize before my mom gets here at 11 to finish the chocolate boxes with labels/flourishes. And then we’re driving across town and at 4 we have the rehearsal, followed by the rehearsal dinner.

And then Friday I’m spending the day at Disneyland with a bunch of friends for my bachelorette party while The Fiance is being whisked away on his super-secret bachelor party which is giving me panic attacks every 10 to 20 seconds. I have a great fear of being headline news and the one that keeps flashing in my mind has to do with something terrible happening to him the day before our wedding. I trust him completely, it’s his brother, brother-in-law and every other person who he might encounter that I don’t trust. To say that I am worried would be and understatement.

I want him to have a great time, I just want him to be safe, and there’s just nothing at all I can do to be sure of that. And oh, have I mentioned that I’m a control freak? Because this? this is exactly the kind of situation that stresses me out to no end. I want to call and threaten everyone involved to within an inch of their life, but I know that it will do no good and I know it’s not my place. I realize that I sound like a crazy person right now, but you’re just going to have to take my word that it’s all really well intentioned.

There are other things that I could rant about, but I think I won’t. Most of this is going to blow over and hopefully be a part of the past I completely forget about. I know that the days to come are going to be some of the most stressful, but also happiest and most precious and exciting of my life, so I’m going to try really hard to let go and enjoy them. Trying, not promising.

The jury is deliberating. He’s narrowed it down to 5, but I can’t promise how long it’ll take to get to 1. Knowing him, it might be a while.

Happy Wednesday.

My darling Fiance (whom you can still cast a vote for a new name for here) was walking to the car when he said, in response to my bragging that the Rabbi liked my writing style:

“Hey, but the Rabbi said I was the best he’d ever gotten from a man.”

T-minus one week to wedded bliss.

(First, let me preface this post (ha, like I even need to tell you I’m going to preface a post, that’s like my signature blogging move) with a huge thank you. I really had no idea what would happen when I hit “publish” last night. I was so worn down and when I woke up there were 7 encouraging comments. When I checked again tonight (after my car died and I had to call AAA and get a new battery, which was actually the least complicated car thing I’ve ever done), I had 5 more. I cannot begin to tell you how much it means to me to have your support and kindness. I’m not sure how I would make it some days.

Also, for anyone interested, the boob was looking really good this morning, but over the course of about 2 minutes between taking off the little kids bras and getting in the shower, it had already started to drain again. Not great news, but there are still 12 days for this to sort itself out and I’m working really hard to maintain the positive thinking. I just checked the incision and it’s looking really good right now. I’m hoping that if perhaps I get some actual rest tonight rather than staying up until 3 in the morning and getting up at 8 or 9, my body might begin to heal. We’ll see.)

So onto the contest! It has come to my attention that we have a problem that needs solving. I have, for the year I’ve been blogging here, referred to my better half as “The Fiance.” His name is not being disclosed per his request, though he has approved the following contest. Obviously, after 10 days from now, that name will not work. It just won’t make sense. I considered switching to The Husband, but it just seemed bland. I don’t know. I think it needs some spice.

So here’s the deal:

I need a new name for him. I can’t tell you his name, but I can disclose some facts that might help you in your quest. He is in medical school (1 year left), he lives in New Orleans, he’s about to be married to me, he thinks he’s a comedian, but is definitely not, he is the mayor of passive-agressive-land and oh yes, I love him a lot. He is also a handsome devil (a very amazing one who has dropped about 13 pounds in a month! Wowzer!), he hates shopping and he loves fruity girly drinks.

Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to come up with a new code name for The Fiance. No profanity, and if you know his name (cough*NOLA and Pete*cough) you can’t use that to your advantage. The judge will be The Fiance himself, so keep that in mind.

What’s that? A reward? Yes, there is. The winner of this contest will receive a souvenir from our Hawaiian honeymoon and perhaps a little New Orleanian trinket (if the winner is not from New Orleans, I can throw in something Californian in if a NOLA person is crowned). It won’t be anything big, but we will be very grateful, and really, it’s the thought that counts.

I’m going to put a cap on this as running through Tuesday night at midnight California time. Leave all entries as comments to this post (if I post any new blogs I’ll include a link down here, or you can, you know, scroll down the page) so we don’t have to go on a wild goose hunt to find them. The wedding crunch is going to hit something fierce starting on Thursday, so this way we can sort through the entries and post the winner on Wednesday. You can enter once a day until then (so if you catch this Friday night you have 5 chances) and the entry will be chosen based upon whatever weird-ass criteria The Fiance decides. I can’t promise he won’t close his eyes and choose one without looking, but I’m going to encourage him otherwise.

Sound like fun? I think so. So enter, feel free to link it up elsewhere, the more the merrier. I need the brain trust, so bring on the ideas people. Show me your creative juices. Wait, on second thought, keep your juices to yourself.

Good luck!

Prepare yourselves for the transformation into the wedding blog because friends, the event is 35 days away and aside from those two pesky final exams next week and that unimportant job of mine, it’s pretty much all that is going on in my universe.

Example- yesterday, we very much wanted to go to Jazz Fest. In fact, I wanted to go last week to see Billy Joel, but due to the weather and the fact that I was still incapable of eating due to the Keflex, I just couldn’t make it. This weekend, though the weather in the morning was dismal, the day was looking clearer and brighter, and even not too hot. But frankly, we just couldn’t pay for it. With the tickets being 50 bucks each, the shuttle being 16 a piece and the cost of all the food we would’ve eaten, well, frankly, I thought it would be wiser to pay our air conditioning bill rather than see Jimmy Buffet. Sad but true.

So, instead we went on a shopping extravaganza. I know, the logic here seems unsound. We don’t have enough money so we went shopping, but you see, there is this separate account- the wedding account, with much money in it. Granted it’s budgeted money, but being an excellent budgeter, I budgeted in the shopping experience of yesterday.

First, we went and got The Fiance sized for his Tux. Shopping with The Fiance is…an experience. Last weekend we looked at rings at a nice jewelry store and the woman behind the counter looked at me and said, in all seriousness, “You must REALLY love him.” And I do, which is one of the few reasons he survived the past two shopping experiences. He was sized rather uneventfully, though he did slap me in the boob with his wallet, he swears unintentionally. Again, I almost laid down and died right there in the tux store, but I pulled myself together and survived. It was a close call.

Right next door to the tux place is an Ann Taylor Loft. I don’t think I’ve ever mentioned my love of Ann Taylor. For whatever reason, I wear a smaller size at Ann Taylor than anywhere else. Ann Taylor makes me feel like I have a great body, like I am as skinny as I secretly wish I was. She’s all, Katie, that’s a cute dress, why don’t you try it on in a 2? And I’m all, Ann, a 2? No. But it fits because Ann is my home-girl. I didn’t buy the size 2 dress, but I did buy this honeymoon bathing suit and matching skirt. I couldn’t help it.

From there we went into the mall on a hunt for our wedding gifts to each other. We’re both a mix of indecisive and uncreative, so basically we picked out things we knew we’d need for the wedding and bought them “for each other.” I use quotations because we used our respective debit cards that both bill to the wedding account. But it’s the thought.

For The Fiance, I bought Mignon Faget cuff links. Funny story, the first time we went to Mignon Faget, The Fiance read the sign as he walked in and said VERY loudly in the very small store, “Why would anyone want something from Mig-non Faggot?” I died. But these are his fancy new cuff links.

Then we moved on to me. I wanted earrings for the wedding. I cannot disclose information about my dress because The Fiance is reading and does not want to know, but for a very particular reason besides the absurd cost of diamonds, I chose pearl earrings. The ones I got were salt-water pearls and they are gorgeous.

After the earrings we bought cookies, which I do not have pictures of, and then went home where I pretended to study, but didn’t actually get really anything done whatsoever. We did get a wedding present, which is exciting, except I’ve been informed that we can’t use anything until after the wedding, which is lame-tastic, but I do love a good tradition, so I’m dealing with it. As you’ll see, the dead cockroach next to it, also likes waffles. I did not pose it, it came out and died there last night, I’m totally serious. Welcome to the cockroach graveyard.

Oh and that’s a William Sonoma cookie cutter on top. It comes with the gift wrapping of all WS gifts, which means that so far we have like, um, 12 of them. Which is fine by me. Can you say wedding favors? Just kidding. They’re more of a birthday gift than a party favor.

I also ordered our personalized water bottles and made a call to my friend Tiffany about some wedding bands. She’s going to call me back later, and hopefully The Fiance won’t change his mind again before then.

So now all we have left to do is, all my thank you notes from the wedding shower, the DJ reception form, choosing string quartet music, choosing a first dance, pick a veil, get wrapping paper for our actual party favors, make dentist and gynecologist appointments (okay, so the latter isn’t wedding related, just on my to-do list, thanks to the post card they sent me as a reminder…), and organizing the RSVPs into a seating chart and every other thing that has to be done within the last month before a wedding. Oh, and those two final exams.

Right. Studying, that’s what I was supposed to be doing right now.

What. ever.

The Fiance and I decided to go out to dinner tonight, as sort of a final dinner before the surgery and Aunt Helpful arrive. We have a gift certificate to one of our favorite restaurants, Le Crepe Nanou, so we headed out to eat, fully expecting to see a huge crowd and to sit and wait a while for a table. When we approached the restaurant and saw no people waiting outside, we realized that it was Sunday, the day of crepe rest. It should be noted that this is not the first, nor probably the second or third time we’ve done this at this restaurant, but whatever. Note to self, no LCN on Sundays.

So we considered our options and remembered that we had a gift card to Cheesecake Bistro, which is good, (though no LCN for sure), so we took off down there. We were promptly seated, ordered and began eating, he the shrimp platter, me the angel hair pasta (and about half his shrimp platter). We were at one of the small booths, or as The Fiance calls them “lover’s tables” (incidentally this is also what he calls the sweetheart wedding tables…), and it was a nice evening.

Both of us have been under a tremendous amount of pressure lately and our relationship has been suffering for it. We haven’t had the time or energy that you really need to put into a relationship and it seems like whenever we do have the time, it is used for wedding errands or bickering, both of which I excel at, by the way. So really, it was truly lovely to be able to spend an evening with him, though admittedly, it was not the romantic affair that we usually have at Le Crepe Nanou.

I realized that the romance was really missing in the middle of the meal when The Fiance, with a large mouthful of toasted bread and a huge grin asked me if I thought he could whistle.

The point was further driven home when walking to the car I pointed out a spot that I had accidentally gotten on the boob of my dress, to which he responded, “well, we’ll just have to get you home and take that boob off.” He swears it was a slip of the tongue and not a reference to the surgery. Convenient excuse if you ask me, not to mention that it was on the good boob.

But in all seriousness, it was just nice to be us for a while, no pretense, no overwhelming need for good manners, just us. And aside from getting the supremely obnoxious song he got stuck in my head out, I couldn’t ask for much more than that.

It seems that things are finally starting to get better. In fact, I’m pretty sure I laughed today, and not the kind you do to try and pretend like you’re not crying, so that’s a start, right?

We got a “provisional” refund from our credit card for the airline bumblefuck, which is really great. We even got our 14 dollar expedia fee back, which I’m thrilled about. I also think I have secured my wedding officiant and we are about 10 paces away from having (free!) limo service and hotel rooms blocked off. Indeed, it seems that the world has begun to spin once again.

I’m still not sleeping well, I’m still stressed and worried and all the synonyms I’m unwilling to look up right now, but it seems more manageable today, and that’s a victory I’ll happily take. The Fiance is likely able to get days off more easily than he anticipated and that has helped ease a big concern. Not the biggest one, but again, even small victories are taken here.

Tonight, I relax and recover from the week. Tomorrow is paper-writing and MedProm, only the non-alcohol version, which is sure to put a damper on the situation. I really need to come up with a good reason to not drink because somehow I see that whole (NOT TRUE) pregnancy confusion re-emerging if I don’t drink. Frankly I don’t feel like telling everyone it’s because my boob is jacked up.

So good non-drinking ideas are welcome and appreciated. And if they’re really good, I’ll tell you the terrible tale of MedProm 2006. Also known as the night I found out that I was allergic to oysters.

(edit: The concert was AMAZING. By far the best Christmas present I’ve ever gotten. Also, there seems to be a reasonable chance that I might die tonight from the volume of cigarette smoke inhaled combined with the soul sucking power of the stingiest slot machine ever and the hour that I sat beside it while it raped The Fiance of his money and dignity, so just know that I love you all. And I am still open to suggestions about things to do in Biloxi.)

We’ve arrived in Mississippi for my Christmas present- the Keith Urban concert and a weekend away. I’m so excited, I cannot even tell you. I have been looking forward to this weekend for 3 months now and I can’t believe it’s finally here.

The drive wasn’t bad minus the fact that besides a lot of broken trees, there’s absolutely nothing to look at. The Fiance fell asleep about 30 miles into the 80 mile journey, which is about 29 miles later than he usually falls asleep and I rocked out to the radio. He fell asleep rather quickly and very shortly after telling me that he was feeling light headed, so I spent a good ten minutes trying to see if he was breathing, which is a challenge when the car is bumping the way it does on the highway. I’m pretty sure the irony of killing us while trying to see if he was alive would’ve been appreciated by many.

Now we’re just hanging out in the hotel for a little while before heading off to the casino to throw our money away to the pretty lights and spinning reels. And then the concert tonight (eee!) and then we’re wide open for tomorrow, which is good in that we can relax because I think we both really need that, but at the same time, we feel like we should see the sites and the only activity we (read: I) can come up with is the Gulf Port outlets on the way home.

If anyone knows anything about Biloxi and has any recommendations about things to do on a Sunday during the day, let me know. Otherwise, the Fiance will get to live out his favorite fantasy tomorrow- shopping at an outlet center with precisely zero electronics stores. Oh the humanity.

Last night, the Fiance and I went to see the Med School’s production of the Vagina Monologues (and yes, I realize that my typing that word just increased my freaky keyword search finds by like 2 trillion).

First, I should probably preface all of this with the fact that we don’t see the show because we really enjoy hearing about other women’s crotches, but our good friend is heavily involved in it and we thought, how can we ask her to fly to our California wedding if we can’t even go to listen to her talk about her hoo-ha? And the money goes to a good cause, so we just bit the bullet and did it.

Next, you should know that I don’t like the word vagina. I don’t, I’m a prude and I’m totally at peace with it. I was raised calling it a “crotch” and it works for me. Last year when we saw the production, I almost had to leave because for the first ten minutes, I couldn’t stop laughing. Everytime someone said the word vagina I died inside and I could. not. stop. laughing. I was more composed this year. I only laughed when the girl told the story about impaling herself on a bed post, because, you know, the mental image of that is kinda hilarious.

But by far the highlight of last night was after the show, when we were chatting with our friend. One of the other girls who was in the show, came up and started talking to us. Our friend’s boyfriend inquired about her purple-ish pink highlights and she went on to tell him that they were for Mardi Gras and had just faded a lot, when my totally sober Fiance piped up and said,

“Really? I thought your hair looked really vagina-y.”

And then there was a really awkward silence in the room because he just told her that her hair looked like a crotch.