- I didn’t even realize - this bouquet I got has snap dragons in it.
- Snap dragons?
- Yeah, you squeeze them and they pop open.
- Oh, touch-me-nots.
- Snap dragons.
- Touch-me-nots.
- Snap dragons!
- Fried dough!
- Elephant ears!
- Soda!
- Pop!
- Rasberries!
- Zerbirds!
Yesterday, I went the Dupont Circle Farmer’s Market with Erin and her sister Meghan. We picked up some fruits and vegetables, fresh bread, and - more importantly - buffalo burgers, lamb sausage, and lamb steak. I wanted to put something in the fridge to thaw for dinner tonight, so I asked Erin if she wanted buffalo or lamb for dinner.
“Why can’t we do both?”
“What, like one for lunch and one for dinner?”
“Yeah, we’ll just eat meat all day.”
Have I told you, dear Internet, how much I love this woman?
Erin likes Heinz ketchup, not Hunt’s. I have never been able to keep this straight because I grew up on a 15-house dead-end street, two doors down from Mr. Hunt and across the street from Mr. Heinz.
How do I remember which one to buy? Mr. Heinz used to go for long walks all the time, and Mr. Hunt was a woodworker. Erin likes to take walks; woodworking, not so much. So, I buy Heinz.
Sometime around my third year of college, I saw As Good As It Gets, and it got me thinking - what if this IS as good as it gets? At that point, my freshman year of college had been the best year of my life and things only seemed to be going downhill from there. I started to wonder if life would never be as exciting as it had been then.
Then, during the roughest time at work last July, Gogol Bordello released Super Taranta and I spent weeks singing along to Ultimate:
There was never any good old days
They are today, they are tomorrow
It’s a stupid thing we say
Cursing tomorrow with sorrow
The good news is that the good old days ARE today (well, and tomorrow). I met Erin about the time that album came out, and life with her is better than I ever thought it could be - and we got engaged last week, if you hadn’t heard. We’re looking at places for the wedding for next September, and I couldn’t be happier. No one likes a mushy blog post, but ya know what? Life is good.
It’s Wednesday night, and I finally have enough energy to talk about the weekend. Erin and I moved in together, which has been great, and my company moved to a new office. As far as I’m concerned, I did three moves this weekend: me, Erin, and my company. For those of you I haven’t spoken to lately, Erin and I managed to get a one-bedroom in my building. It’s in a great location, pretty cheap, and in good condition, so we were hoping to stay here. The place we got was at a reduced price, since not a lot of people are moving this time of year, and it had just been re-done with new carpet and appliances. Really, it worked out pretty well.
So, the quick and dirty:
Spent the week packing up our office. Erin and I signed our lease and got keys Thursday night.
Friday, we moved to the new office, and then I went home and moved most of my crap up to the new place while Erin packed up her stuff.
Saturday, I woke up early and went in to the new office to unpack with the rest of the company. Went straight to U-Haul after that to get a truck, then went to Erin’s to load up (which only took half an hour, with Schmitty and Aubri helping).
Sunday morning, Erin and I unloaded all her stuff in less than hour (I was pretty proud of us). We spent part of the day unpacking, had ourselves a nap, then had my company holiday dinner, which was awesome.
Monday was the first day at the office. Finished most of the unpacking there and at home.
Erin and I are pretty much settled. We’re getting real furniture sometime in January, which kind of sucks because we’ve just got patio furniture in front of the TV right now. Without actual furniture and everything moved in, I just feel kind of unsettled.
We’re pretty much moved into the new office too. It’s a lot bigger than the old place, which keeps surprising me because there was so little space to move around in the old office. I keep being surprised that I don’t have to goose step my way around road cases, boxes, and desks that were strewn about.
Also, I’m STILL looking for someone to move into my old place and replace me on the lease. We’ve been meeting people for like three weeks. My old roommate offered the room to about a half dozen people. Three of them accepted, only to back out on us. It’s getting pretty frustrating. If you know anyone looking for a place in DC, you be sure to let me know, because I don’t want to pay an extra $900 at the beginning of January.
I feel like I’ve been a few paces behind for the past five months. I’m behind on the magazines stacked on my headboard, behind on the thousands of news items in my RSS reader, behind on the dozens of posts I have wanted to write here, behind on keeping up with friends both out of town and in, behind on e-mails that have sat in my inbox for months awaiting response. About the only thing I’ve managed to keep up on is paying the bills, and sometimes just barely.
I realized that I’ve been in my “new” apartment for a couple weeks shy of six months now. I look back on things that happened, conversations I had, and can’t believe how long ago they took place. The past five months were a frenzied blur; I was so busy with work, and then so occuppied with a new relationship, that everything else was just put on hold. For a while there, BP was coming down to visit practically every month; I don’t think I’ve seen him since I drove up to Buffalo for Bill’s wedding back in June. And speaking of Bill, I don’t think I’ve even spoken to him since I called a month after the wedding to ask about married life. Too many things took a back burner for too long, and I regret that.
Everything was pushed aside because of a major project at work - the biggest I’ve ever been involved in - that dominated my time and caused me unbelievable stress for a few months there. Sometime around late August, it calmed down a little bit, but was still a challenge. About the same time, I started spending a lot of time with Erin, so that contributed to it. That part, I certainly don’t regret; I mention it because it was easy for our relationship to fill what little room had been given up by work, and the cycle continued.
The project that caused so much distress ended November 1, and things were supposed to be smooth sailing after that. Erin and I spent the first week of the month in the San Francisco Bay area on vacation, which was fantastic, and then I attended the DC-PHP conference and spent a weekend visiting Erin’s sister in Raleigh. When I finally got back to the office, November was nearly halfway over and things were still a little hectic. I spent so long looking forward to the end of that project that I almost expected that everything would be cupcakes and puppies once it was over. I mean, there’s obviously still work to be done, but I really thought we’d be able to have some down time for a month or two to recover from the six months we had spent busting ass, but no such luck - yet.
At any rate, I feel like I need a few weeks off from everything to recuperate and catch up on everything. We spent this weekend doing almost absolutely nothing. It was wonderful and relaxing, but not nearly long enough, and I didn’t do any reading or writing or anything, so I did a lot more of the recuperating than the catch-upping. I’m hoping to have a little more downtime over the coming weeks to spend on my own stuff. If nothing else, Erin is going home for almost a week for Thanksgiving, so that will give me a chance to catch up with local friends I haven’t seen much of and maybe do some reading.
Or maybe I’ll just lie around for a few more days. That’s been pretty nice, and it’s been so long since I’ve been able to get away with it that I almost want to do it as long as I can.