If life gives you limes, make margaritas

Over the last few years I've been told by several doctors that I have the blood pressure of Lance Armstrong.

I suppose this is a good thing since I don't currently, nor have I ever, taken steroids recreationally or otherwise. Perhaps it also means that I, too, can win the Tour de France, which would be amazing since being athletic has always been low on my list of priorities, somewhere between dusting my window blinds and putting new batteries in my dying remote.

What confuses me is that if I've got the blood pressure to theoretically win the Tour de France, then why can't I cope well whenever J messes up with household chores? You'd think I'd have the steely nerves of a two-time gold-medal winner when J forgets to clean the cat litter box (his job, not mine), take out the trash, put out the recycling or wash Ava's bottles. And regarding the latter, I get that my "job" (since I no longer hold a traditional one) is to take care of Ava, but there is an unsaid rule in our house that when we're both at home, it's all hands on deck when it comes to the baby.

But lately, I have been completely wigging out when something he's responsible for doing hasn't been done. I'm talking veins-pulsating-out-of-neck, eyes-seeing-red, practically-breathing-fire wigging out. He gets upset, which makes me more upset, we argue, and I go to bed pissed and misunderstood. And for what? Because he left a few empty water bottles on the kitchen counter before he called it a night? I really need to get a grip.

Keeping our house (or previously, our apartments) clean has never been our strong suit. We were both busy with other things, and while we didn't live in squalor, we were fine with the cluttered coffeetable, chaotic dining table, clothing on our bedroom floor and kitchen sink always half full of dirty dishes. It was just the way it was. We'd try and pick up as much as possible (i.e., once every couple weeks), but found we'd rather spend time doing other things together when we had free time, like grabbing a coffee and strolling around downtown, catching a movie, or curling up on the couch together to talk about our hopes and dreams. Also, it was disheartening when we could actually clean and two days later the place was right back to what it looked like before. Two Oscar Madisons do not a Felix Unger make.

With Ava's arrival, though, clutter suddenly seems to bother me. A lot. And as much as I want to blame J for our disorderly house, I know that I'm just as much at fault. I thought keeping an organized, clean house was hard before, but now with Ava it's like trying to keep our heads above water during a monsoon storm in Phuket.

We don't have the money to hire a housekeeper the way that my other mom friends do (mostly because we're trying to make 2013 the Year We Pay Off All Our Credit Card Debt), so it's up to us to stop being lazy and start picking up after ourselves. If not for us, then for Ava (and if not for Ava, then for our mental sanity). The problem is we're still that couple that thinks it's okay to leave a crumpled receipt here or a dirty dish there. After a few days of this, it gets out of control and we wonder how it happened.

When I'm not out running around or home writing slash playing with Ava, I've made an honest effort lately to make sure our dishes are washed, our dark hardwood floors are free of white cat hair (and white cat hair tumbleweeds) from Moneypenny, and that our laundry is kept in a somewhat manageable state and not spilling out the hamper like the Exxon Valdez oil spill spreading across our bedroom floor. While I may not be perfect about keeping organized, I feel that at least I'm trying.

So it really, really bothered me the other day when J left a dirty diaper on Ava's changing table instead of throwing it in the trash bag I'd placed just beneath the changing area. He does this often, and chalks it up to "forgetting" to throw it out. Ava had been crying all that morning, so when I walked into her nursery to get something and was greeted with the dirty pee-filled diaper wrapped up in a ball and left like a little Christmas present in plain sight on her table, I lost it. Went completely non-linear.

I was seething, and unfortunately, he was 20 minutes away in his high-rise office in San Francisco to fully feel my fury. So I whipped out my cell phone and texted with:

"THANK YOU for washing all the bottles this morning like you said you would, along with leaving a bag of dirty diapers near the front door and leaving your routine lone dirty diaper on her changing table even though the plastic bag was hanging RIGHT infront of you."

and then a followup text:

"You need to start taking care of your half of the bargain with her. I'm serious. You half-ass everything related to Ava."

I don't know what I meant by saying "I'm serious" as though making some sort of Dirty Harry-esque threat. But I sent the followup text because I truly feel like he does need to make more of a concerted effort to follow through with things. Lately it seems difficult for him to fully carry out simple tasks related to her, such as making sure all changing stuff is put away, tossing her dirty clothes in a hamper instead of leaving them in a pile on the floor, or storing away her bath stuff after we bathe her.

When he got home I'd (luckily) calmed down some, and it helped that he apologized and agrees that he needs to start pulling his weight more around the house.

"I didn't marry you to be your maid," I told him. And he agreed.

But at the same time, how angry can I really be at him since this is the way we used to be pre-baby? Both of us were and are guilty of letting things slide. I think that deep down (especially when I'm stressed out), it feels good to take it out on him by berating his lack of awareness when it comes to keeping house. But Ava doesn't change the fact that only seven months ago, this is the way we lived. How can he be expected to change so suddenly over night? I don't expect that of myself, so I shouldn't expect that of him, no matter how annoyed I am. It's like the pot calling the kettle black.

Part of the reason I say this is because I'm a proponent of picking your battles. Most things are not worth bickering about. Cleaning is one of them. I like to save bickering for important things like where should we stay the next time we go to Cabo, whether we should drive or take Bart to a baseball game, and why can't I buy that used Prada bag I saw at the consignment store even though it's still an obscene $800.

To me, bickering and nit-picking is the death knell of any relationship, and I don't want to spend the next 50 years of my life arguing about why J left a dirty diaper on the changing table. In his defense, he said he honestly forgot to throw it away (a reason -- note: I didn't use the word "excuse" -- that I find annoying, but okay, I get it, people forget things so I forgive and forget). Also, we will not be changing diapers 50 years from now (unless our marriage follows the plot line of Father of the Bride 2, which I hope it does not), so does it matter in the grand scheme of things? The answer is a big, baby-urine-filled, Pamper-Size 3-covered "no." In the words of Jimmy Buffett, "If life gives you limes, make margaritas."

When I feel myself getting non-linear over some trivial thing, I just remind myself of an uptight British mom in one of my playgroups. Let's call her Eleanor Rigby.

Eleanor has made it clear to all us moms from the very beginning that she hates her husband, loathes her two children, and swears that her marriage would have failed 10-fold after her first baby if she hadn't sought marriage counseling -- for her husband, not for her. Naturally. Eleanor is a self-professed nag who likes things the way she likes them, and is the type to regularly update her Facebook wall with statuses like how she wishes she could continue reading her magazine in the car outside her house because she can't bear to go inside and face her family. I should include that Eleanor has a full-time nanny, housekeeper and has one of her two children enrolled in pre-school, which allows her ample child-free-time to lunch, go shop and work out. Even with all this padding, Eleanor finds things to nag her husband about and subsequently "hate" (her words, not mine).

This, in my view, is the worst life ever. I feel sorry for her, I feel sorry for her kids and I sure as hell feel sorry for her poor husband. I never, ever want to be like Eleanor, and I honestly think that not choosing your battles is probably what kickstarts her kind of relationship. I am by no means a glass-is-half-full type of girl, no matter how much I want to ride a unicorn off into the sunset, but I'm not an extreme pessimist (a la Eleanor) either.

Perspective is key, especially when a baby is added to the mix and you find you and your husband's roles changing as your life together changes. These changes can be beautiful, or they can leave you reading magazines in your car and loathing the moment you walk through your door and greet your life as you know it. I want to believe they are the former.

So the forgotten diaper or empty water bottle might get the quiet, occasional eyeroll from me now, but I tell myself it's not worth inciting World War III over. I'll still gently remind J that he needs to do this or that, but in the end he's not perfect, just as I am not. I guess true love is about giving each other leeway to grow, no matter how long your garbage cans sit near the curb after trash day has come and gone.

I miss my husband

There. I said it. I miss my husband. No, he's not away on some weeks-long business trip or stuck in Manhattan due to any apocalypse-esque hurricane. Nope, he's only about 20 miles away and for some reason that 20 miles feels like 200.

I guess I should preface this with the good news: J got a new job! Mostly thanks to me, since I'm the one that forwarded him the listing online when I saw it (and was slightly obsessed with him moving up the ladder to a higher paying, more prestigious position). Okay, I suppose it also helped that he went to an ivy league school and gained great experience at the law firm he was currently with, but I like to think that my emailing him the posting kicked off all this good news (however delusional that may be). After an initial call to come interview and another month or so of interviews later, J was offered the job, which he promptly accepted. Score!

In a nutshell this job is everything we wished for while he was in law school. Tony street address in one of the best buildings in the city's financial district. Marble lobby with gilded sculptures leering down at all who enter. An office on one of the top floors. A view of Coit Tower and the Transamerica Pyramid from J's window. Big clients and complex legal work. More money than I ever dreamed of having at age 30. After years of uncertainty thanks to the effects of a terrible economy on the legal profession, we -- or I should say he -- had finally joined the big leagues.

For those who've followed my blog over the last few years, you'd think this is all I ever wanted. Frankly, it was. But as is the case with my rose-colored lenses, I tend to only look at "how cool" a situation can be without measuring the negatives as well. Stuck in the path of a historical hurricane? Color me jealous. Lost in the wilderness for three days? At least you lived to tell about it. You were there when Lincoln was shot? Not only would I envy you, I'd also quietly sign up for more theater ticket reminders just in case.

So of course when J got the formal job offer, I was beyond thrilled. We celebrated with cigars and a bottle of Blue Label and stayed up all night talking about how different our lives were going to be now that he had this job. What I didn't consider was that every positive difference also comes with a negative one. I was blind to the the yin and yang until he started work last Monday.

It's only been over a week and I already feel like he's had this job for ages. How could I have thought this was all I ever wanted? Stupid, stupid me. I'm lucky now if he gets home before 8pm, and even when he does it doesn't matter because he's so exhausted from waking up early that all he wants to do is eat dinner and go to bed. He loves his new job so much that he often loses track of time in the office and only notices it's late when I call him and remind him that the sun is coming up in a couple hours (okay, it hasn't gotten to that point yet, but you get the point).

Only having dinner together once in the last seven business days is not all I ever wanted. Watching Anderson Cooper 360 every evening with Ava as my conversational companion is not quite the tradeoff I'd envisioned once J had a Big Law job. Handing Ava over to J when he gets home so I can do some things for myself like, oh I don't know, take a shower, tends to quell any quality time we can spend together throughout the week. I just want my husband back, but I guess this is the tradeoff. If I really want the lifestyle I've always dreamed of, then I've got to give something up...no matter how much it sucks.

So what's more worth it: time or money? I miss our time together but I can't complain about the money, so I don't argue about his long work hours because I know he's simply providing for his family. How else will we be able to do all the things we want to do, like eventually buy a bigger home, travel the world, make real estate investments, (hopefully) retire early, etc. etc.? Does that mean my silence has been bought? Slightly disturbing when thought about this way.

Of course J knows how I feel, but at the same time we're both realistic and know that it's better to work harder younger and enjoy money later than it is to work harder older and not have the time (or mobility) to enjoy it in your geriatric years. Over waffles on Sunday, I told J that I completely understand why he has to work so hard right now. I really do. I am, after all, the person who sparked all this off by emailing him that job posting. I wanted it so bad I could taste it. And as much as I miss him, I'm inspired by his work ethic and commitment to his craft. But at the same time I know myself and I know I can't do this forever. Thankfully he understood, and visions of me in my 70s waiting for him to retire while I lounge lakeside and alone on the banks of Como quickly dissipated.

For now I'll just have to take it day to day and hope it gets easier. At least he changed jobs at a time when caring for Ava on my own isn't as harrowing as it initially was (the thought of him making this transition when we first had her would have been mortifying, to say the least). And because he's in the city now, it gives me more of an excuse to head in and have lunch or dinner with him when I can.

But still, even after five years of marriage, I have this sense of urgency with him and our relationship. It's that butterflies-in-your-tummy, I-can't-get-enough-of-you urgency that makes you do crazy things when you're dating a boy you love, like stay up late talking all night on the phone, make out like teenagers in the rain, or drive for hours just to see him for a quick visit. It's a drug, that urgency, and for some reason I still feel it with J, which makes him working like this all the more harder for me to stomach. But paper covers rock and dollars cover wife, so again I shouldn't complain.

Regardless, I still (and always will) miss him.

Boys: You can't go wrong with Kate Spade

So our five-year anniversary came and went and since we're on a bit of a budget with the bebe coming and all, we didn't do anything extravagant but had lots of fun regardless.

Earlier that day I'd been a bit irritated because my hair was not cooperating with me (first-world problems, I know) and no matter how much I curled it, it was so Goddamn hot here that the curls would just fall flat after a few minutes. And no, I will not use hairspray, this isn't the '80s and I'm not Sheila E. After a few more attempts I decided to put the curler down since I was afraid I was slowly burning my hair to death, and let's face it, my hair isn't really the first thing people notice anymore now that it looks like I shoved a volleyball up under my clothing where my flat tummy used to be. I continued primping and getting ready for J to come home from work and whisk me away on our date. And then I waited. And waited. And waited.

No sign of J when he said he'd be here, and by 7pm I was starting to get a mixture of pissed and worried since he also wasn't answering his cell phone and I started to wonder if he'd gotten into some horrific car accident or something. Then, just after 7, he pulls up in his mini cooper and comes running in the front door.

"Hey can you grab some groceries I picked up out of the trunk? I need to pee badly." By his urgent tone I wasn't putting it past him that he had, in fact, had one too many sodas at work and did, actually, need to pee.

"Ummm....okay," I replied, still disgruntled that he'd come home so late.

I waddled down our driveway (yes, I waddle now, how endearing is that?) and popped open his trunk. Of course there were no groceries there (we always grocery shop together, after all), but there was a bouquet of flowers and a big Kate Spade box wrapped up with a big ribbon. At this point the flowers and box eclipsed the fact that he was so late and he was standing right behind me smiling as I spun around and threw my arms around his neck, giving him a big, Hollywood, Frank Capra-directed kiss.

Once we took the stuff inside he told me to open the gift and there weren't one but two gifts inside. I kept playfully chiding him that he "shouldn't have" because we'd already said no gifts this anniversary because of our budget, but he said he was always planning to get an anniversary present for me,no matter what we discussed and I had to try not to smile so hard because what can I say? I love prezzies more than most people and what girl wouldn't want something from Kate Spade? And let's just say the boy done good: He bought me the pair of Simon shoes I'd been lusting over for, oh, the past six months:

And a gold bangle with a cork inset, since cork was the closest thing he could find to wood (which is the 5-year wedding anniversary material). My earlier irritation with my hair suddenly took a backseat to all this pampering, and I slipped on the shoes before we made our way to this little tapas restaurant we love downtown. A couple ginger ales later (and two Bombay martinis later for him) we realized three hours had already passed in the restaurant. Time flies when you've got good food and good conversation.

After splitting a coconut blueberry bread pudding dish and downing a couple divine cappuccinos, he asked what I wanted to do. I said we should go on a long drive and howl at the moon out the car windows, which is always my stock answer to this type of question since it is, actually, what I've always wanted to do. But I compromised with J that a drive up a hill near us would suffice, so we could see the cityscape at night below. Unfortunately our little drive was cut short when on our way up the hill we were met with locked gates, thanks to a state park curfew-at-sunset on the place, but at least we tried. No howling at the moon commenced, but it was an excellent five-year anniversary anyway.

Always late but worth the wait

Wow. Has it really been three months since I last blogged? This is both highly unacceptable and highly unbelievable. Where has the time gone? The last three months have gone by so fast, and so much has happened since my last post. . .

First off, I turned 30 in April (insert giddy exclamation marks here). Overall the experience was a little underwhelming. I guess I assumed that turning 30 meant undergoing some giant epiphany about life and the future and all those "adult" things you see in movies. But let's be honest, I pretty much have life figured out so there were no new lessons learned. All I found out is that Swiss fondue really is my favorite dinner food (nom nom) and I can't get enough of fresh fruit tarts (another double nom). My parents surprised me with a nice Canon Rebel camera as a birthday present since I've been wanting one to take more professional-quality pics once the bébé arrives, and J bought me a little gold feather "freebird" necklace from Nordstroms that I've wanted. I was a little worried (read: ready to punch him in the face) that J wouldn't be spending my birthday with me since he had a trial set that week and had been staying up late every night leading up to April preparing his case, but luckily the case settled the week before my 30th so all was copacetic in our household. Thirtieth birthdays, after all, only come once in a lifetime.

Know what else comes once in a lifetime? (Well, once if you're lucky?) Five-year wedding anniversaries. . . which is what J and I will be celebrating on July 20th!! I can't believe it's already been five years since we tied the knot, but I guess you know you're in love when five years feels like five days. We don't have anything planned at the moment (although let's face it, a trip to Italy would be divine -- and also completely unrealistic), but we'll probably spend it picnicking in Napa for the day, maybe eat at a nice restaurant that night. I really have no clue and for the first time that I can remember, it doesn't bother me. Who am I? It's funny: The older I get, all I care about is just spending quality time with him. We don't need to do anything extravagant for me to be happy. Some of my favorite times with J are holding hands in the car on our way somewhere, or lying on a blanket together in a park. Sometimes it all feels too perfect, like I'll wake up one day without him and find out it never happened. But then I wonder why can't some love stories be nearly perfect? For right now it is and it has been and I hope it stays that way till we're into our 90s. For now just looking over at him reading before we fall asleep is all it takes to make me smile:

Aside from home remodeling, the past few months I've been busy writing and am happy to report that I've just hit about 100 pages into my newest book idea. I don't know whether it's all these extra hormones flying off me or maybe bébé is my new muse, but I feel a rush of creativity and I suddenly have the daily motivation to do something about it. Strange, right? When I'm not writing I want to be drawing or painting or doing something creative. It's a wonderful feeling, and I'm so appreciative that I have the freedom to do as much or as little as I want of all of this on an everyday basis. No excuses.

In other news, bébé is set to arrive in five and a half weeks! My hunt for Peter Rabbit-themed decor has petered out like a deflated fart over the last few months, so I decided to go with a French Garden theme for the nursery and it's coming along well. We put her crib together a couple weeks ago and bought her a little bassinet to sleep in by our bed after she's born. J also hung a crystal chandelier for me in the center of the nursery, giving the room a very French feel, and he was hard at work yesterday stripping a cute little French cabinet I found at a consignment store recently. The cabinet is an ugly walnut color now (think Grandma furniture on steroids), but we plan to antique it and give it a very Restoration Hardware feel. It'll go perfectly next to her crib. :D Once I'm done with the nursery I'll post pics.

And finally, (in case you're wondering what I look now) here's my burgeoning bump: 

So far this pregnancy has been beyond smooth in the sailing department. I've had no sickness, I'm not that exhausted, I have yet to waddle and so far I've gained just under 20 pounds. Pregnancy, it seems, really agrees with me.

What we did Easter weekend

While all of you lovelies were out painting eggs, catching bunny rabbits and eating noodle salad, J and I worked our tails off building a new 60-foot fence in our backyard. More out of necessity than choice. During the last storm we had here a few weeks ago, our rotting backyard fence (which was ugly anyway, seriously, the thing looked like it had been implanted from a Favela) blew down, allowing us to stare right into our neighbor's backyard. No privacy whatsoever (I felt so naked and exposed).

Unfortunately with the rains and J's work schedule, we had to wait till Easter weekend to build a brand new fence, but then we hadn't anticipated that most friends (read: men) that could have helped J would be out of town for the holiday. Sooo, it pretty much came down to J moving hundreds of pounds of wood by himself into a cart at Lowe's, moving the wood from cart to rented truck, from rented truck to our front yard, and from our front yard to our back yard. All as I watched and tried to give him moral support. Then he dug out eight 3-foot deep fence post holes across our fence line with a one-man manual auger (this part did not look fun), and poured gravel and concrete into each hole to set the posts. All just on Friday. Saturday and Sunday were spent putting up the backbone of the fence and nailing cedar planks, one by one, down the length of the fence with a hammer (no, we don't own a nail gun). Well, 145 planks and about 1,000 galvanized nails later, our fence was finished.

Measuring/setting fence posts

Putting up planks (ignore our neighbor's ugly in-law unit just over the fence line)

Lola, aka "The Supervisor"

J taking a little break

Finished fence! (above and below)

Oh yes, and on Saturday night we started putting up glass mosaic backsplash in our kitchen (we're currently in the middle of a kitchen remodel as well). A couple months ago J demo-ed the yucky ceramic tile countertops that were in the kitchen when we bought the house and installed granite countertops, but hadn't gotten around to doing backsplash till this weekend. I have to say, I LOVE how it's turning out!:


This next weekend will be completely devoted to the kitchen remodel. Those ugly honey walnut cabinets need to go, stat. We're planning to paint them white and install nice brushed nickel knobs and pulls on all the cabinet doors and drawers. Can't. Wait.

Anyway, back to the fence, the whole time J worked he didn't complain once, even though it was back-breaking and I could tell how bone tired he was. At one point he sawed through part of his finger skin, but kept on going, even though there was blood and I kept telling him he should really put a bandaid on. I feel so lucky to be married to such a great man who can work with both his brain and his hands and slog through even the hardest work without complaining because he knows it's what needs to be done for our family. To me that's the definition of a real man. So yesterday I stopped by a novelty store and bought this trophy for him, just as a funny little way of showing him how much I appreciate him. When I gave it to him last night over dinner he laughed and gave me a big hug, but I meant it. He really is the best husband ever.

The most unproductive Sunday ever (relatively speaking)

So normally J and I don't make solid plans for our weekend afternoons, choosing instead to reserve planning for Friday and Saturday nights, which usually consist of either dining out or attending dinner parties (clearly, this is an indicator that I hate cooking). Those couples that plan all those fun Saturday and Sunday afternoon activities like mini bike trips or drives out to the nearest beach or fascinating hikes in any of the Bay Area's many locales? Yeah, so not us. Not because we don't want to do these things, but because neither of us is proactive enough to actually plan anything. (Ugh, so lazy, I swear in my other life I was a cat.) Once in a while we'll go on a picnic with my Totally-Amazing-Decked-Out-Picnic-Basket-complete-with-wine-glasses-and-gingham-handled-flatware, but more often than not our weekend days are unscripted. Shopping the clearance racks at Burberry in SF? Might as well look on a whim. A croissant and cappuccino at La Boulange? Why not. A stop at Trader Joe's is usually in order, and who knows, things can always get a little crazy if we find ourselves wandering the paint section at Home Depot.

Normally this method of madness bodes well for us, but it also leaves room to improvise, which can be detrimental if either one of us is undergoing a current obsession. Such was the case this past Sunday.

I have become OBSESSED with the Game of Thrones book series. As in I've got my face in one of the books almost every waking second, sometimes even in the car, and if I'm not reading them, then I'm thinking or talking about them constantly. I begged J to start reading the first book, just so we could discuss, and right when he started it, he too became obsessed. So in spite of our best intentions (he had reams of legal work to do and it would have been nice for him to finish installing our tile backsplash in the kitchen), here's how our past Sunday rolled out:

• J wakes up before me, reaches for Games of Thrones, reads until I wake up.
• I wake up.
• We talk in bed for an hour or so.
• We move to the couch and continue reading, he on book one, me on book two (A Clash of Kings). Hours go by. We periodically graze on restaurant leftovers for sustenance.
• I decide it's more comfortable to read in bed, so I convince J to continue reading in bed with me. Another three hours go by.
• J claims he can't lie down any longer, so he moves back out to the living room couch with book. I follow him.
• Evening: I finish book two as J nears the end of book one. We head to Target since I obviously need to buy book three so I can continue reading that night. After purchasing book three and two blue raspberry Slurpees, we return home and continue reading, he on book two and me on book three. End scene.

The next morning I realized our Sunday was a bit ridiculous. We have SO much to finish around the house before the baby's born, but instead we succumbed to levels of college behavior that left us nothing to show for ourselves at the end of the day. Obvi this can't happen once Peanut is born, but I've got to admit, I felt a little guilty indulging in my obsession to such a degree. Do my depths of laziness know no bounds? Or do we need to get these kind of days in before they become a thing of the past?

Hello again

Confession: After months (well, years) of being gone from Brunette on a Budget, I've decided that this site is exactly where I belong in my off-time. Now that I'm finished with The Worst Job in the World (officially quit February 2011), I dabbled off and on in my other anonymous blog and it never felt quite right. Partially because I've never liked doing anything anonymously, especially writing. Why should I feel bad about telling it like it is? Why do I need to hide how I really feel? I don't, and it's only taken me about 16 months to figure that out. I'm sorry, sometimes certain people or certain situations just suck. That's reality, no matter how much it hurts to read. Now I'm back, to the inevitable chagrin of some and the (hopefully) happiness of others (hey, if you don't like reading here, you're more than welcome to move on).

SO, with out of the way, the last year or so of my life has been packed with changes. Like the kind of drama in Jennifer Aniston movies where years of changes have been condensed nicely down into two-hour bits. For starters:

We bought a house!:

The house around Christmastime (still hadn't unpacked yet).

The house was a steal, mostly because it needed major remodeling to be "cute," but we spent all November remodeling. And by remodeling, I don't just mean throwing up a coat of paint on the walls, though we did that as well. I'm talking on-our-hands-and-knees-scraping-old-tile-adhesive-off-the-concrete-bathroom-floor-for-six-hours (okay, that was more J than me), ripping out all the older Pergo flooring throughout the house, laying down new, dark hardwood flooring, completely gutting the bathroom and rebuilding the shower, painting the dirty fireplace white, etc. etc. After our remodel, we refinanced the place and it appraised for $50,000 more than we paid for it. Apparently, all that work in November paid off. Now our mortgage on our 3-bedroom home is much less than rent on a 1-bedroom apartment. J calls it one of the best investments of our lives so far; I have to agree.

Now that most of the interior remodeling is done, we're going to start fixing up the outside when it gets warmer. On the docket: Painting the house dark gray with white trim and a dark red front door, and landscaping everything.

We got a second car!:


A few days ago we picked up this beaut, since we really only have one reliable car between the two of us (J's been driving his old '67 Volvo to work, and it hasn't been too happy about that.) Now we both have reliable cars. Movin' on up.

We adopted a new dog!:


This is Gidget, a six-year-old Chihuahua we found at the pound. She's a quiet, shy little four-pound thing that barely ever makes a sound. Since it seems she's cold all the time, I had to buy her this bathrobe to pad around the house in.

Last but not least: We're having a baby!


World: say hello to Peanut (above). We don't know Peanut's sex yet, but I think we find out in March and we're both very, very excited. Well, I'm sure Peanut is excited about this revelation as well, whenever it happens. I still can't believe I'm going to be a mother (Jesus Christ, just the word makes me feel old), but I'm looking forward to the whole thing as I'm sure it will provide reams of good blog fodder, starting with the odd encounter I had recently with my doctor. But that story's for another time.

Those are the big things in my life as of late. I'm sure there were many other things but probably not as important. Ah, it feels good to be back. :)

Three years married (check)

Just wanted to post a quick Happy Anniversary to...me! (And J.) Today's our three-year wedding anniversary and though J will be studying for the Bar and I'll be in my office in the city all day we're going to make some time tonight to go out to a nice restaurant and make a toast to this crazy little thing called love. Back when we were this age:

(Yes, this is me wearing a Native American vest fashioned from a paper grocery bag as I play my oatmeal-can-turned-tom-tom-drum. In flip-flops and tapered sweatpants. Don't be jealous.)

we had no idea that someday, many years down the road, we'd meet through mutual friends and that overly talkative girl who once wore a grocery bag vest would be assigned to sit at J's table group in a certain math teacher's geometry class, and, nearly a decade later after non-existent contact, that girl would be the woman he'd spend the rest of his life with:


It's been a fun three years; here's to many, many more. Thanks for the laughter, my love.

Best. Business Card. Ever.

(image via Above the Law)

What better way to make light of an otherwise awful situation than one single, perforated line? Well played, James A.W. Mahon.

Overheard last night

Paul and Julia Child, one of my favorite couples.

9:45 pm. Our studio. I sit on the couch, feet up on coffee table, laptop balanced in front of me as I edit Chapter 7 of the book. J sits across from me on a pillow he's using as extra padding on the worthless Target chair we bought the year we married. Two or three thick textbooks are cracked open on the table in front of him as he outlines for his last semester of finals on his laptop. I've attempted to catch his attention multiple times tonight. . . dancing seductively near him with finger cymbals, pretending like there's a fire in the kitchen, even lying across his books like a petulant housecat. But to no avail. There's always some other legal pad or some other book that his overzealous eyes can devour in their quest for straight A's. Sigh. TV flickers silently in background as I wait for the season finale of Project Runway to start in 15 minutes. . . but I can always watch it later online. Tonight I want to run amok and howl at the moon.

Me: "Why don't we go paint the town red tonight?"

J (without looking up from books): "Because we can't afford paint."

Silence for a few moments, then we lock eyes and laugh out loud.

"I'm working on it, my Love. I'm working on it," he says, tapping the edge of the book with his pen.

"As am I," I say.

Studying slash editing resumes on both sides of the coffee table.

Teamwork, humor, patience. Julia and Paul had it. Apparently so do we.

(Ed. Update: Just got mentioned again on MediaBistro! Thank you J, for your witty responses to everything I ask you.)

Buying into the hype

A few weeks ago a panoply of Jostens pamplets pushing graduation packages arrived in our mail box. Basic package (25 cards, envelopes and gold school seal stickers)? $125, not including shipping and handling. Curse you, Jostens. You've figured out how to completely monopolize the graduation playing field with your commencement cards and diploma frames and caps slash gowns, from high school all the way up to post-grad.

Anyway since we're in emergency saving mode $125 seemed a bit pricey for something most are going to admire for a few days under a fridge magnet till the date is committed to memory and the card is tossed. But...when it comes to these things I'm a sentimental sap. No, I'm not one of those scrapbookers who saves every piece of pocket lint and gum wrapper to chronicle our life's journey with in the pages of a Michael's scrapbook. I don't even own a scrapbook. But I do tuck away the important things in my life. Pictures, train tickets from Europe, the occasional movie stub. Somewhere in one of my unpacked boxes I have a couple old wedding invitations of mine; in some other box I have one of my parents' wedding invitations (pre-me as a wee zygote) that I found somewhere back at their house and just had to keep it.

Much in the same way I'd like to happen upon one of these grad invitations in the future, maybe in my 40s when we're moving to a nicer house and it falls from the pages of a book being packed away and I'll pick it up and remember what it was like "back then", when everything was easier and it was just the two of us and our biggest problem was worrying about 125 stupid little dollars.

Now I know we could save money and just make the grad announcements ourselves. We did that for our wedding invitations -- not to save money but more to get the exact look we envisioned, and those came out perfectly. Then I remembered how life felt like it was being slowly drained from me as I sat pressing the glue on our 120th wedding invitation three years ago:

I think the look on my face said it all.

Sure, they were better than any card shop samples I saw, but there was only so much pink and brown tagboard, rubber cement and ribbon tying that one girl (and guy) could handle. Plus, J's law school invitations come with this gold-embossed school seal on the front of each (ugh, would you listen to me? I've already fallen for their marketing):

I love how presidential and "lawyer-ey" they look, and well, that's just not something we can replicate. So even though I feel like we're being majorly ripped off I think it's worth it. Someday we'll look back on this time and be glad we didn't skimp on everything -- I hate living with regrets and, really, money comes and goes. Plus he's only going to graduate law school once, and the fact that he's come this far in his life -- when the odds were stacked against him -- makes me very, very proud. His ambition alone deserves that pricey gold-embossed stamp.

On a side note, did/do any of you feel ripped off by the entire graduation industry? Granted, it's not as exploitative as the wedding industry, but still...

These...are the days of our lives

Breaking the news that we have to move.

Tomorrow is moving day. And as I sit here surrounded by boxes, using the last of my Internet before the Comcast Nazis shut it off at midnight tonight, I can't help but feel a little sad.

I'm used to moving. In the last five years I've lived at six -- yes, six -- different addresses including this one. Packing up and leaving is modus operandi for me though always a little bittersweet. But this time that sucrose savoriness lingers a bit more than usual and I have a sneaking suspicion that it's because this is where J and I started out as a married version of "us."

When we left the west coast with 16 boxes and the rings on our fingers we didn't know what would be in store over the next three years of our lives here. Would he survive law school? Would I survive law school? Would we get to take weekend jaunts over to Europe now that we lived on a closer coast and plane tickets had to be cheaper? (The answers to these questions, consecutively, are yes, yes, and no.) We still have four months left in the DC area, and I suppose this post would be better suited for when we leave for good, but we've lived at this address for two years and I think it deserves some accolades.

This apartment has been the setting for some pretty fabulous memories, including intimate fondue dinners and epic tickling wars, dinner parties, Friday movie nights (thanks, Netflix) and dancing with J to the Bee Gees after he'd get home late and exhausted from class and still make an effort to make me laugh, a testament to what a good man he is. Oh and it was also here where monumental arguments between us would take place, making Lola -- who's very sensitive to volume and tone -- cower under the dinner table in fear. (Don't worry, pup: You know as well as we do that these arguments always end in laughter over how ridiculous we're being.)

It was in this apartment where we first brought Moneypenny home after adopting her, where my sister (who stayed with us summer of 2008 for her internship) ended up sleeping on the floor of our bedroom for a month after barricading the doorway because she was terrified of cats. (Suffice to say, as obese as Moneypenny was she still cleared our tall cardboard box hurdle. Hilarity ensued.) This is where I was first introduced to the Wii (grr), the best Bordeaux I've ever tasted, and everything jurisprudence-related (whether I wanted to know it or not) as told to me by J. This is where I woke up on the morning of Obama's inauguration, when we walked from our front door down to and across the Memorial Bridge, so we could stand on the National Mall with thousands of others in freezing conditions to hear the man give his speech.

It was in this apartment where I first discovered what would become my overarching obsession: Mad Men. It was here where, when I'd finally had enough, I made a career decision that two years ago I never would have dreamed of taking. This is where I started my life over because I realized it was never too late to push the "reset" button. This is where I competed in (and won!) my first Nanowrimo. And this is where I finished my first novel:


Did I think we were going to stay here forever? Of course not. It's an Archstone for Christ's sake; the clientele is as variable as Madonna's next musical persona. And I know that everyone has sentimental, sappy memories woven within rental walls, but these are mine and they're worth noting before Comcast clips the end of an era.

Anyway, at this point in our marriage we are without a home, complete unknowns, like rolling stones -- which is all fine with me. J brought up a good point the other night: We've built our life to be completely mobile, to pack up and leave whenever we need to wherever our next destination is. I'm glad that I could happily agree.

I think I've mastered the art of never getting too comfortable in one place. You just never know when you'll have to leave. Some might find this sad or scary; others may find it exhilarating. I think of it more as the latter. Every time you move you're embarking on another adventure. Even though I'm married I'm still young, malleable and open to change, which is the way I've been for the last 27 years. I hope I stay open to forms of change for the rest of my life, because I think that's what rounds you out as a person. If I dug my heels in at every opportunity to remain status quo I wouldn't be as happy, and I'd miss out on things I never tried.

Take moving to DC. It was definitely not on my to-do list (I'd lived here before for a congressional internship and had had my fill then), but I came back because of J and though it isn't my favorite place in the world it also hasn't been altogether terrible. If I hadn't come back, for instance, I never would have realized that this is truly the land of the personalized license plate. If I didn't live here I would never get to be cut off by the pretentious Mister "MasGolf" in his navy blue BMW almost every morning on Constitution Ave. while taking J to school. Or, after getting cut off, inevitably find myself behind Mister "JoeBama" in the brand new yellow Beetle. Again, DC has not been horrible. It's just another place that's been filled with new experiences and new friends that have shaped who I am. Contrary to what J might think, I have no regrets.

(Well, okay, one teensy regret: I have yet to live in a foreign country. I mean really live, not study abroad or visit or anything like that. I hope this'll change later this year when, money and careers permitting, we take up living in Buenos Aires for August. Oh, how I want to be an ex-pat, even for short-term. *Crosses fingers.*)

Anyway, as I mentioned in an earlier post, to save money our last four months here we decided to discontinue cable at our new apartment (funny social commentary that we own a 42'' plasma television but no cable). Luckily I've found a few places online that stream the shows (probably illegally) I watch but it's not my fault that laws in Malaysia and India aren't as strict as ours. We'll have Internet, but only God knows when since J just contacted Comcast today about scheduling an appointment, meaning we'll probably be connected in, oh, about three weeks.

So, until we meet again -- quite possibly sooner than later using free WiFi at a coffeeshop -- I'm off to Silver Spring, Maryland in a Uhaul truck tomorrow in the region's second-biggest snowstorm this winter. Let the good times roll.

Countdown to 2010

"My other vehicle is the Mahayana."

Oh kiddies, looks like I've gone and become a blogging cliche this holiday season aka "where the heck have I been"? Seven posts in one month? Abhorrent. But such is the way of life when you're back home and drama is on full broil in the family kitchen! And with that, let's get to it:

Banished am I from my parents' home. Well, maybe not I, but J is. Drama went down in true telenovela fashion a day before Christmas Eve. It was like some sick mashup of Terms of Endearment meets American Beauty. It was raw, coarse and -- had it been a reality show on A&E after some show like Hoarders or Intervention, perhaps titled "Life in the 'Burbs" -- it would have had the possibility of winning awards, I tell you. Don't want to divulge all the private deets but in short J ended up losing it and yelling at my mom after she and I got into an argument, J and I leave -- me crying -- with our luggage in hand, a complicated ballet of words were exchanged between he and my mother, and now my whole family doesn't want to see or speak to my husband. Joy.

The best part? It takes me about, oh, 0.5 seconds to get over anything. I forgive too easily. For my family? Not so much. I wouldn't be surprised if it takes months, even years, for them to allow J back into the home. And this is after J saw the err of his ways and apologized on Christmas Day. Didn't matter; damage had been done. Sigh. I wish there was a way to go back and erase these kind of things.

First night spent in exile: J's brother's bachelor pad. And by bachelor pad I mean a shack of a two-bedroom nearly condemned house near the beach that gives new meaning to the word "squalor." The kind of pad a bachelor rents when he has no plans of ever finding a girl (which is funny since J's bro does have a great girlfriend ... who I don't think has ever seen the place).

I suppose it wouldn't be that bad if the unfinished hardwood floors didn't have cracks in some areas where you could see all the way to the dirt foundation beneath and there wasn't 1.5 inches of dog hair covering the few filthy throw rugs in the place. Oh and also if it didn't smell like a giant sweaty foot and have a jagged bathroom entryway that's been cut through the laundry room wall, allowing you semi-privacy as you pee behind the black silk sheet that's been tacked up to resemble some sort of door sans lock. (The bathroom also has a surfeit of dead and living daddy long legs on counter tops and shower corners, along with a rickety panel window of which one of the panels has been broken and mask-taped with a square of cardboard that has also, curiously, been punched open, allowing that chilly ocean air in late-night when the tinkle fairies call.)

Ah, and to round it all out a peculiar hobbit of a man named Chip is the one renting the other room. Chip has no job, spends all day watching television in his room with his roommate's dog, Gonzo, and didn't seem at all embarrassed by the state of things in his house -- even the light orange patina of dried urine around the base of the toilet on the floor. Think Spike from Notting Hill. But bald and with a convicted felon's goatee, minus the British charm.

Basically I couldn't help but laugh and cry that first night as a refugee. But it got better the second night when we realized my mother-in-law had a foldout couch in her living room. The thought of taking another shower in flip-flops and lying awake terrified all night that a cricket or wolf spider would crawl across my face was a bit too much to handle. My brother-in-law -- who was visiting Disneyland all Xmas weekend with his girlfriend -- meant well, but I just. Couldn't. Do it.

So here I am, currently staying with my mother-in-law who is a true salt-of-the-earth hippie. Crammed into every corner of her one-bedroom apartment are hundreds of bottles of different oils to bring inner peace and harmony, along with tambourines, painted stones and stacks of books on meditation and spiritual growth. Next to two sink spouts and a shower faucet "Love & Gratitude" has been written in small letters on the walls. To remind her (and anyone who reads them) to think positive thoughts and live with an "attitude of gratitude" every day of life. At first I didn't get it, chalking it up to another hippie way of life (a way I've always wanted to follow), but it's actually grown on me. Love & gratitude, anyone?

Sometimes I find myself half-expecting John, Paul, Ringo and George to walk through the front door for a Hare Krishna sitar session. But instead I sit here analyzing the state of things as I drink ginger tea with "joy" and "possibility" oils (compliments of mother-in-law) in the absence of cable. I may finally be unleashing my inner hippie but Real Housewives of OC, oh how I've missed you.

Maybe this happened for a reason, I've thought, living in this den of meditation. Everyone (including my brother who points it out on a regular basis) knows how short my fuse is, how little people have to do to make me impatient or irritated. Sometimes I feel like Melvin Udall in As Good As it Gets. I know I need to learn to tamp down my irritation/anger/impatience. Perhaps sitting here quietly with coconut shell musical instruments, flower petals and painted stones, eating only raw foods and occasionally playing my mother-in-law's bongo drums is the way to do it.

I've been visiting my family every day or two. It's weird now, because they're normal again around me -- almost as if nothing happened. But then I realize J isn't at our dinner table and none of them want to see him right now and it makes me sad and frustrated. "Why can't you all just move on from it??" I want to yell. I loathe that giant pink elephant in the room. But I understand why it's there, and I know that everyone deals with these things in their own time. I just hope it doesn't take too long. After all, he's a part of my life permanently, so they'll have to forgive him sooner or later.

Of course, all this had to happen just before our family trip up to Sacramento for New Year's. You know, the one J was supposed to come on. Well I want to see my relatives up north and New Year's is a special holiday for my family, so he and I will be apart this year. I'm glad he has family down here to spend that time with so he won't be alone, but it looks like I won't be getting a New Year's kiss ... except maybe from Lola (yuck, fish breath, nevermind). I guess it's not that big of deal since post-college the holiday has lost its luster. With every year that passes it just seems more depressing, like time slipping away. (And we all know there are other, more important holidays anyway, like my absolute favorite: Valentine's Day. Missing that with J would be an utter travesty.)

So that's that. I hope all of you have a frabjous New Year's and I'll see you on the other side!

Suddenly, a dark cloud settled over first period...

"The goddamn pen is bluuuue."

A week ago J had a preliminary interview with the Bronx district attorney's office to be a DA. Yes, I just said the Bronx. After the interview (which he said went really well), J surprised me and said he wasn't going to send them his letters of rec like they'd requested.

Me: "What? You're nearly giving yourself an ulcer finding a job. Why wouldn't you pursue this?"

J: "Because though it'd be nice, I think I can do better. That and," he said with mild sarcasm, "I don't think it'd work if we became a bi-coastal couple. I'd miss you too much." (Note: I've told J that if he decides to reside on the East Coast post-graduation, I'll split my time between the East and West coast. Maybe throw in a little extended time in Italy for good measure. No biggie, but apparently it is.)

He looked at peace with his decision (well, as much as one can be who's job hunting with $200,000 in school debt looming over his head) until two nights ago, when we were working on our laptops at Starbucks and he got a call. It was the DA's office, wanting him for a callback interview. And his immediate response when they asked if he'd want to come up and interview with the panel was ..."Yes." Why, I don't know. He didn't even know himself, and kept wondering out loud why he'd said yes. All I could do was shake my head...."this is SO not something Don Draper would do," I thought to myself. J immediately regretted his snap response and said he'd call and cancel, but I told him no.

"Just do the call back. You don't know if you've got the job. Think hard about whether you want it when you get the actual job offer. Until then don't say no," I said, espousing my oft-sage advice. He agreed ... and promptly began looking for possible apartments in the Bronx, emailing me the listings. I couldn't help but laugh out loud across the table from him when I saw the damned things in my inbox.

"No, kemosabe, I won't be living in the Bronx. You'll be," I reminded him. (Insert sad J face here.) "I'm a freebird, I don't do the Bronx...or anything that's even remotely close to Yonkers."

Now I've never actually been to Yonkers or the Bronx, but they both remind me of a particularly vile DMX song I used to "bump" in my car during my high school years as I cruised through senior parking thinking I was cool long before I actually was. (It was very Michael Bolton listening to Tupac in Office Space). Anyway before the song starts there's a crass repartee between DMX and his "honey," in which he accuses her over the phone of feigning interesting in other males' appendages and philandering with some unnamed man in Yonkers (in so many words). It will forever be burned on my brain and is now what I associate Yonkers, the Bronx ... heck most of the NYC boroughs with.

After hearing my story and laughing in my face, J thought I was being "ridiculous," and so began sending me Manhattan apartment listings instead.

"I could take the train and commute," he reasoned.

I shook my head. "Did I not just tell you I was a freebird?! Freebirds don't live in Vuh-jin-ya, like we are now, and they don't live in Manhattan either." (Confession: I so wanted to live in Manhattan when I was 21 and still overly obsessed with Sex and the City. Not so much anymore, as my new obsession is all-things Easy Rider.)

"Take me back out West, honey child. I'll even live in LA or Reno if it means we're inching our way closer." Yes, you read that correctly. I'll admit the Reno comment was desperation speaking, but it didn't seem to matter since calling J "honey child" seemed to distract him from the imminent issue.

So J has come to one of the great crossroads in life (that is if he goes through with the second interview and gets the offer): Does he settle and get paid minor ducats at a thankless job, or does he take the risk of holding out and wait for a better opportunity? Too often I think we choose the first option because it's safer and more secure, but does it lend itself favorably in long-term career advancement, or is it simply sufficing as "a job"? Personally there have been times in my career where out of sheer impatience I began blindly applying to anything I was qualified for (within the journalism realm, of course), and jumped at the first offer that came my way. It worked out okay in the first year, but my happiness began to wane the second year -- even with a 15% raise and myriad perks.

I vote he waits for something better. Not just because of my fond memories of DMX and the Bronx, but for his overall happiness and well-being.

Bob Seger saves the day

...to find out where we're moving to next June.

So it looks like my plan of avoiding both Peter Griffin and my mailbox failed. Miserably. The letter came yesterday. I didn't check my mailbox till late last night -- both J and I decided to open it as sparingly as possible this week. All I can say is damn you, curiosity. Once again, you've gotten the best of me. *Raises clenched fist to the sky.*

I was having an excellent day, singing along to the radio at the top of my lungs in the car and proudly wearing my new six-dollar eye shadow as if it was a new Dior dress. I felt hot, sassy and in control. I even chatted with Peter Griffin a bit, just to brighten his perverted day. But later all that didn't matter.

I suddenly felt sick when I opened the little aluminum door and saw the back of the single, ecru envelope sitting inside. Kind of like someone had punched me hard in the chest, or like the time I belly flopped into a pool after one too many margaritas and gotten the wind knocked out of me. I thought I was going to hurl. I took the letter to our apartment, handed it to J, then -- even though I told myself I wasn't going to cry -- shed a lone teardrop. Oh the dramatics. "Great," I thought, "now, on top of everything else, I'm carrying on like a tacky supporting character in a Lifetime movie."

And of COURSE the day the letter came was a day when we got no other mail -- not even the usual pile of junk inserts that make me feel like a semi-important person for having to sift through them. That was the salt in the wound. Is it too much to ask to somehow find a way back West? Also, whether we could go back home for Thanksgiving hinged on this job. Now that it's gone we don't want to spend our savings on $1,200 worth of plane tickets for a four-day weekend, so it looks like this will be the second year I'll have to Skype my family over turkey dinner. Someone up there must really hate me -- first the Patrick Swayze news, now this.

J took the bad news as he usually does: even-keel and stolid. The man has nerves of steel. Unlike me, things just don't get to him. I'm the hyper-emotional one; he's the rational one. If this was The Birdcage, he'd be Robin Williams and I'd be Nathan Lane, begging for my aspirins "with the little A's scratched off". So after about an hour of sitting in silence, me wondering whether it was a good time to suggest my brilliant idea of living out of a VW Bus and pretending we're hippies on a trip across America, he simply said "Well, that's that. Nothing we can do now, just keep looking." The problem, my fine-feathered friends, is that there's nothing to look for -- there are almost NO jobs!!!* Sure, I have the luxury of sleeping in a hippie bus and living off Costco samples, but that's because I have no debt. His expected debt is oppressive.

Anyway, he went on to reassure me that this doesn't mean that we won't move back to California after graduation, it just makes the search narrower and harder. This opportunity would have been a diamond in the rough. "Stupid collapsed state budget," I mumbled.

Well, after his pitiful attempt at cheering us both up, it was my turn. I put on Bob Seger's "Night Moves", cranked up the volume and opened a bottle of red for us ... the bottle we were saving to celebrate with when he got a job. Eff it, I thought. Rules were made to be broken anyway.

(Photo source.)

*Except here in good ol' DC, and I refuse ... refuse ... to stay here. I told him my "contract" was for three years -- the duration of his school's program -- and after that I'm outta here.** I've also recently added that I refuse to have babies here, so if he doesn't want a family, then he can stay.

**Realistically I cannot live without J, but reiterating this "contract" bit seems to scare him enough into not getting too comfy with the job market here. That's what he gets for marrying someone he's referred to as "slightly deranged." Muwahahaha.

Hopeful

One of the hardest hit careers during this recession has been those in the legal field; this I know firsthand from my husband. Earlier this year there was one particular day -- I believe it was dubbed "bloody Friday" -- when over a thousand lawyers were laid off at firms big and small across the country. It was a scary thing considering that the legal community is a rather small one compared to others, but it was also more unnerving than usual since this is the year my husband finds out where he'll be starting his career after graduation in May 2010. (Cue frustration and anguish in his voice every time he talks about it, especially when he's hearing that all his friends who summered at Big Firms weren't extended job offers and so they, too, are scrambling to find jobs for post-graduation.) This NY Times story sums it up nicely.

We don't need much to live on, and I made it clear even before our wedding day that I'd rather see more of him and be poor then never see him and be rich. But he says the looming problem in needing to land a huge job after school is that he needs to pay off his law school loans, which, even though he received a $75,000 scholarship upon admittance, will still come out to about $125,000. Let's just say we worked out the numbers and it would be like paying a small mortgage off every month -- which was doable pre-recession when many law students made $160,000 their first year out of school and could pay their loans off in the first five years. Let's just that "norm" has definitely changed. Sigh.

Well, I've got some semi-good news (fingers crossed!). He's been watching his school job boards like a hawk and last week saw that a Newport Beach firm was going to be on campus the last week of August, interviewing for summer associates for next year. Turns out they also have one opening for a third year to start immediately after graduation in May. (Woot!) Instead of just submitting his paperwork to their resume call (which virtually guarantees it would have been stuck in some pile of resumes and forgotten) he personally emailed a secretary his cover letter and resume, she sent it on to one of the hiring partners who was impressed at his credentials and proactivity, and invited him to a cocktail social at the W Hotel here to meet him. The next morning they squeezed my husband in for a formal interview before their scheduled interviews ... and two days later called him back for a second interview to their Newport office!

People, this is huge. But I don't want to jinx it, as it's uber competitive out there and well...he just really want this bad. So bad he can taste it. First and foremost he won't have to stress out anymore about paying off his loans (let's face it, I'm laid back and like it when my normally mellow husband is too). Secondly, this firm pays for all relocation expenses (double woot!), covers all Bar fees (about $5,000), and pays a large living stipend during the months he'd need to study for the Bar. I'm most excited because it will be our ticket back to California, which is the highest priority for me in whatever job he takes. I belong back on the West Coast, and though I never saw myself living anywhere in Los Angeles (much less Newport Beach), I will take it over staying here. And hey, it could be marvelous. It is "The OC" after all, isn't it? ;) If all goes well, it looks like I may be hanging out with Marisa Cooper at malls like this.

So this morning I was up bright and early at 5am to take my husband to Dulles airport about 30 minutes away. They booked him a ticket flying into the Long Beach Airport and have him staying Friday night at a really nice hotel near the water. I'm jealous and wish I could go with him, but it's only one night so I'll survive. We both can't believe that all that the interview hubbub just happened last Tuesday -- it feels sooo long ago -- but like Carly Simon said "Anticipation is keepin' [us] wai-ai-ai-ting." (Carly always knew how to tell it like it was.)

I'm not one to pray, but I am *praying* that his interview goes well today. Most of you know that it's hard out there in whatever field you're in, and unfortunately his is no exception. So, this one's for you, Love. Knock it out of the park!!

The Other Woman

Some short (semi) fiction I wrote on a whim to sort through some feelings:

I see you there all sleek and toned, growing hotter the longer you're turned on, tempting the men around you to linger a while longer.

"Don't worry," my husband said, "She's just a friend. It doesn't mean anything." He kissed me and I relaxed ... a little, confident that you were out of the picture.

I'd be speaking to my husband at dinner, but our once sprightly conversations had been whittled down to one-sided chats with myself about the merits of TLC reality shows. As I chirped along about "Little People, Big World" I could tell he wasn't listening. He was thinking about you.

Yes you, with every spoonful of turkey chili I had so slovenly slaved away at that afternoon. I ignored it. Thought it might go away. But the ignoring got worse. The silence? Deafening. Now instead of perusing the romantic comedy aisle with me at Target -- which was our thing -- he sneaks away to "go to the bathroom", and I find him in YOUR aisle, mesmerized by all the games you two could play, all the disks he yearns to hand-feed you.

I tried to get rid of you, any sign of you, left like the proverbial lipstick on my husband's collar, but every time I was about to "accidentally" throw you off our two-story balcony, I held back. My husband had already spent so much money on you ... money I wasn't supposed to know about. Our jar of savings to visit Aunt Bertha, set atop the fridge as a reminder of our delightful plans to visit her in Duluth? Gone. Empty. Just like my heart.

I hope you're happy, with your seductive sensor remotes and optional nunchuks. Yeah, I may not offer a fitness package for an additional $89.99, but at least I can make turkey chili ... and let me tell you: That used to mean something. Then you came waltzing in just like you probably did to millions of other homes, but you can't fool me because there's a word for you: Homewrecker. Yeah I'm sure I'm not the first person to utter this nickname in contempt, so I suggest you get used to it. Instead of that slutty "W" tattoo on your side that you probably got in Mexico on some spring break trip in college (how original), all you should really have is a big red "A" across your chest, because that's who you are, my dear: Hester Prynne.

Don't look shocked. I know when my husband introduced us that you thought this was going to be a three-way thing, even though I swore I wasn't the type. I remember he made mojitos with bottom-shelf rum and tried to liquor me up to play with you and him like some sycophantic back-alley tryst in North Panama. At first it seemed fun, but on my third Bocador mojito I knew I just wasn't "that kind" of girl. And here we are now, you still in the equation. You, "that kind", the kind my husband lusts after.

This sick sadistic game climaxed last week, late one night when "the kids" were asleep. I could hear a clamoring of buttons from the living room, and when I followed the haze of flashing blue light cast from the television, I found him there, with you. He holding your goddamn nunchuks in his guilty hands. That was the final straw.

I'll be taking you out to our balcony ledge soon, when he least expects it, perhaps when he's out philandering with one of your sisters at a friend's house. But this time it won't be off our two-story patio. Oh no. This time I'm taking you all the way to the roof.

(alternate title: "Ode to the Wii"). Written on July 13, 2009 at 2:33am, out of sheer frustration!