Knot a Good Idea

I was up the other last night, unable to sleep and I'd read pretty much everything in the house. I trawled through my magazines: October "Vogue"? Can't find it. October "Real Simple"? Boooring. This week's "Entertainment Weekly"? Feh - I blew through that fifteen minutes after it arrived in the mail.

And then I found it - a fat summer edition of the bridal magazine . . .

"The Knot." And I started flipping through.

It was innocent enough at first. "I'm just bored," I thought to myself. "I'm just going to look at ads and hairstyles . . ."

And then it started. The articles. Their demands and insinuations. Wait, I have to tip everybody? Omigawd, I can't afford that many flowers - but it will look so tacky if I don't . . . What? I'm a bad daughter if I don't have my mom and mother-in-law out for a spa day with me? I really do need boutonnieres? What? Ack! Omigod, this wedding is going to suckandeverybodyisgoingtoblamemeandmaybeIshouldspendalittlemoneyImeanafterallit'sthebiggestdayofmylifeandIshouldhaveitexactlythewayIwantitbecauseI'maprincessandnowIneedZoomwhiteningand
Yeah, that's what looking at Satan's bridal handbook will do for you.

I threw the magazine into the recycling bin immediately.

The weird part is, I don't get that looking through "Martha Stewart's Weddings" magazine - why? While I don't think I'm in the socio-economic market for this magazine, I think I like it because it focuses on quality, DIY elements and true originality, whereas "The Knot" seems to be about reinforcing bridal stereotypes, even as it supposedly "breaks the rules" (do we really have to send out "save the date" cards? Of course - but you can be daring! Put your photo on it! Ooooo.... daring.) Don't get me started about the weight loss articles. Pathetic.

Uncle Kyle and Aunt Jen Get a Visitor

Kyle's nephew Logan came for a visit last evening while his mother went to a birthday dinner. She left a pumpkin with us as well, so that Uncle Kyle could help him make a jack-o-lantern.

I decided that I should probably cut Logan out of the photo until I ask his mom how she feels about showing her five-year to the blogosphere.

Kyle put down some kraft paper and got to work - Logan got to pull the guts out (yay-slimy!). Note my good Henckels boning knife:

Logan got to draw the face. We started out with a "Scary bloody monster" design in mind, but once he was done with the Sharpie, we all agreed it looked a lot like a scary spider instead.

We took it out to the front porch to test it:

Pretty spooky, huh?

This is with the flash, so you can actually see the pumpkin.

He took it home with him (candles out, of course), so we're left with my Gardenridge ceramic one again.

It's not that big of deal to be so unspirited, as we're never home for Halloween anyway. The "World's Largest Cocktail Party"*, aka The Florida-Georgia football game, always lands on the Halloween weekend, so we're off to Jacksonville for tailgating. Hopefully we'll dress up and go out and I'll bring back photos.

(*Yeah, yeah - we're not supposed to call it that anymore. I know.)

Stretch, the cat who does not belong to us

We have this adorable black and white (mostly black) female cat living next door. I don't know if she's just unappreciated at her own home or what, but this cat loves us.

The minute one of us walks out the door, there she is, running up to us and then lolling around in the grass - which is cat for "Dude, I am giving you the most awesome opportunity right now - do you see how I'm inviting you to touch me? This is an amazing honor for you!"

Kyle was calling her something else for the longest time, Boots or something, and one day, sitting in the grass with her, I saw her collar. It has a tag on it - why had it never occurred to us to look at it? It's been a month or two.


I turn it over, the little heart-shaped metal tag:

"Stretch." Along with her address and owner's phone number.

Stretch? Really? I look at this plump kitty, who was now struggling to pull back from my grasp ("Dude, this is completely invasive. Do you see me clawing your earrings out? What the hell?") and ponder this.

But I suppose it doesn't matter what I think, she's not our cat. Even if she spends every possible minute with us and tries to squeeze into the house when we're bringing in groceries.

Pretty flowers and a funeral

We're going to Kyle's grandfather's funeral tomorrow. So no more from me until Monday.

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The flowers out by the office building were so pretty, one of my coworkers brought some in as a bouquet:

That's okay, I LIKE sleeping like a squatter

After considerable delay and annoyances, the bed I ordered from Home Decorators was delivered yesterday.

Broken.

I noticed one of the boxes was smashed on the end.

But it was taped up - so someone else had already seen this and decided it was fine and sent it on its merry way anyway.

I waited for Kyle to get home; I just couldn't bear to look. And this is what we found:

It's a shame, really. Color's nice.

I am done with this bed. DONE.

Okay, not really done. But I'm tired of this hassle and I'm ready to be done with it. So off goes an e-mail with photographs to Home Decorators.

Office garden and a correction

First off, I must make a correction: Kyle's grandfather, who passed away Sunday night, was not his last grandparent. His grandmother is still alive. In a nursing home and unaware of her surroundings, but alive nonetheless. I'm a little embarrassed. I guess I was thinking about how his grandfather would be the only grandparent in attendance at our wedding. I feel guilty forgetting his poor grandmother.

With that faux pas out of the way, onto the pictures!

I was leaving work last night just as the sun was going down, and the lighting on the garden around our building was beautiful. I couldn't resist taking a photo of this odd stand of very tall, yellow flowers which stands alone and a short distance from the rest of the garden:



I should have taken more, but I was running late (as usual). I did snap a picture of our garden gnome, though:



This was mainly for one of my coworkers. She is strangely enamoured of gnomes, and I don't think anyone had photographed "our" gnome for her.

Butterflies, beds, and another goodbye

After all that talk about grandparents, Kyle received a call last night - his grandfather had a heart attack. He passed away some time in the evening. He was Kyle's last grandparent.

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Our frustrating efforts to get a bed continue. After ordering a bed from Home Decorator's in August with the expectations of an end-of-September delivery, we got an e-mail stating that it would be early November before we'd receive the bed (evidently it's one damn popular bed). I sent off an angry e-mail and got a miniscule discount along with an apology.

Then I get a call last Friday - to schedule the delivery of the bed - this week! Turns out Home Decorators (owned by Home Depot, by the way) doesn't make the bed, and there was some confusion between the manufacturer and them. A happy mistake.

I had explicitly asked if they could call an hour before delivery - I don't want to be sitting on my ass at home for four hours waiting on these people. They assured me it would be no problem. So when my phone rang this afternoon, I was not expecting the testy dispatcher, who was wondering where I was. Someone forgot to tell the driver to call me. "Can I come now? Will the driver wait?" I ask. They say sure, and I rush out of the office.

As I'm pulling into my neighborhood, I see a delivery truck pulling out - my bed! I call back and the (still-testy) dispatcher says I took too long, they had to move on, and it's the manufacturer's fault anyway, for not telling the delivery people in the first place. I'll have to reschedule. Keep your fingers crossed for me; we're going to try this all again tomorrow.

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Did I mention that we're having our wedding reception at the Florida Museum of Natural History? We had considered it, and then decided it was too much. But Kyle changed his mind - the convenience of it being literally down the road from the ceremony site was too appealing to him.

We are saving a bit by not purchasing tickets to the Butterfly Rainforest for people, but I still hope people check it out before the wedding. Seriously, if you have kids, you've got to go see this. When they gave me a tour, I thought I'd see one or two flitting around. No - you walk in and it's like the IBM commercials about going green - it's like landing in technicolor Oz after being in sepia-toned Kansas. Butterflies are everywhere. They land on you. You have got to take your kids!

In fact, they're having a ButterflyFest this weekend, October 18-19.