Surf’s Up

Todd and I are water park junkies. We are so addicted that we actually re-routed our honeymoon so that we could check out the biggest water park in the world—Schlitterbahn, located just outside of San Antonio, Texas. Then we hit Schlitterbahn’s sister park in South Padre Island, Texas later that week as well.

When we found out that Six Flags built an indoor water park in upstate New York, we knew we had to check it out. The weekend before Christmas we rounded up his parents, his sister and our nephew and headed to Queensbury, New York where the Six Flags Great Escape Lodge is located. It’s a hotel and a water park all rolled up in one. We checked in on Friday night, and hit the rides after dinner, then spent the entire day splashing around on Saturday. There is a gigantic hot tub, a lazy river, and a half dozen or so slides of assorted size and speed. Bliss!

I was reading the brochures in the room before we made our way down to the slides on Friday night. I read the part about surfing lessons on the boogie board continuous wave ride, and made for the gift shop to sign Todd and I up.

On Saturday morning they closed the ride for an hour, and we were the only ones taking the surfing class. We learned how to stand on the board, how to move it back and forth across the wave, and how to fall down and feel the strength of the wave force us to the back wall of the ride. The instructor stood on the side of the wave and let us hold on to him as we edged into the wave then let go and surfed.

I managed to stay on for several minutes at a time, and even learned how to shift my weight back and forth on the board to maneuver it back and forth across the wave. I fell down many many times, I suffered a mild case of whip lash as well. But it was so worth the extra money, the exhaustion in my legs, and my inability to turn my head to see anything on either side of me.

Here’s a picture of me, surfing:

The T-shirt is not exactly flattering. But the instructor warned me that the power of the wave might blow my bikini off. Considering the alternative, I opted for the T-shirt.

Christmas Aftermath

This was the scene in my in-laws living room after Christmas. Every year there is a mountain of torn Christmas wrapping paper strewn all over the floor, which takes 4-5 trash bags to clean up.

As usual, I was completely spoiled by my husband. I am writing this entry on my brand spanking new IBM Thinkpad, and the above picture was taken with my brand spanking new Canon PowerShot. I have new perfume to wear, new sweaters, a new winter white wool coat, and so many other presents I am blessed with that I haven't even had the chance to sort through and put away.

I am a very lucky woman. But I have found more joy in the giving than the getting. I have been climbing the walls for weeks at the present I got for Todd--a dive mask by Aeris that has the dive computer wirelessly displayed in the corner of the mask. Now Todd won't have to check his console or his wrist to know how much air he has left, what his Nitrogen absorption is, what his dive time and depth are. They are all right there in the corner of the mask. (Though I have a feeling I am going to try this mask and instantly fall in love with it, and I'll own one soon as well.)

I have felt this way about many of the presents I have given this year. I bought my sister in law and mother in law clothing, and watched in anticipation as they opened each one. We bought my father in law a Ryobi One+ tool kit (if you don't one one yet, go and get some of these tools, they are GREAT) and climbed the walls until all the gifts were opened.

Christmas with a toddler is also such an excellent adventure. My own nieces and nephews have grown out of that stage, but our nephew on Todd's side is 2 this year. He's just starting to understand the concept of what it is to open presents. He opened a bin of toy dinosaurs that Todd and I had gotten for him and immediately took them all out and lined them up in front of the fridge in my in-laws kitchen. There they were, all in a row, staring up expectantly at the fridge as if they were waiting for something to come out of it.

Keep Spreading that Holiday Cheer

I don’t know what it is about the holiday season. It brings out the best and the worst in people at the same time. It is a time of year when people are the most generous they can be, and the goodness of the human spirit is alive and well. It is also the time of year when people get caught up in the hustle of the season. They are stressed out about getting their cards and gifts into the mail. They are cranky from waiting in lines at the mall. They are anxiously gripping their steering wheels as they sit in traffic, rattling off their to-do list in their heads. They wonder how well their holiday meal will be received when their guests arrive. Will it be as good as it looked on Martha Stewart’s show? Somehow the same people who just dropped money into the Salvation Army can at the supermarket are the same people who are sticking up their middle fingers at people in other cars.

The best story I heard this season about someone spreading cheer I saw on CNN one morning. The story is about an anonymous Santa Claus in Rutland, Vermont. This man had written an anonymous letter to the Rutland Herald, in which he said that he was planning on handing out a dozen or so envelopes containing $50 to random people out at the shops. Sure enough, a non-descript looking man was reported to have handed out an envelope containing $50 in front of the Walmart and in front of the other shopping centers in town as well.

It’s stories like these that I keep filed away in the back of my mind for the moments when the holiday hustle gets the best of me. It came in handy the other day. I was driving in the parking lot at the liquor store, an old man pulled out of a parking space right in front of me. I stopped and he crossed my path before he realized that he pulled out right in front of me. Then he began to gesture at me, like I had done something to offend him. He began to rant and rave behind his steering wheel. His middle finger came up and he waved it at me. I saw that his window was open, and saw my opportunity. I pulled up to him, rolled down my window and said “Merry Christmas.” I blew him a kiss, rolled up my window and passed him.

I went into the liquor store, and watched a man be very rude to the woman working the counter. He left the store and I could tell that she was irritated. I decided I’d spread some cheer, and I told her the story about the anonymous Santa in Rutland, VT. She smiled and was obviously accessing her Christmas cheer story that she kept filed away in the back of her mind. She told me about when she was waiting in line at the Dunkin Donuts a few days before. She said that a man several people behind her was in a bad mood, and very vocal about it. He was swearing up a storm, stomping around, and generally making other people around him miserable as well.

Then the man in line in front of her said to the woman behind the counter, “Here,” he handed her a few dollars, “Buy the loud guy a coffee on me. He looks like he could use some Christmas cheer.”

Tomorrow is Christmas Eve. You still have a chance. Spread some of your own holiday cheer and do something nice for someone else. Hold open a door for a stranger. Empty your change purse into the Salvation Army can. Let someone cut in front of you in line at the supermarket. And when someone is letting the holiday season get to them, wish them a happy holiday, or tell them a holiday cheer story. It just might make them smile and remember to appreciate the good in the season too.

Happy Holidays to you, my Internet friends.

Happy Birthday Todd!

To the most excellent husband, Happy Birthday!

Now, use that GPS I bought you for your birthday and get home so I can take you out to dinner.

And Then the Mall Exploded in My Living Room

One big TJ Maxx bag sits by the end of the love seat.

Two from Bath and Body Works are near the TJ Maxx bag.

Two bags from Old Navy, their contents spilling out at the end of the couch.

A JC Penney logo stares at me from the floor by the Old Navy bags. Actually, 8 JC Penney logos are facing me. (Just boxes from Penney’s. I think it’s absurd to have to buy boxes at Old Navy for all the cash I dropped in there buying gifts, so I headed over to Penney’s for free boxes. I am a scoundrel.)

One medium sized bag from Best Buy is in the trash.

One bag from Home Depot, only half full sits behind the couch.

Three overflowing bags from Petco on the washer and dryer in the laundry room, so that the dogs won’t get at them.

One small bag from Macy’s, that also contained a small bag from Claire’s are also behind the couch.

One little bag from Daddy’s Junky Music is by the coffee table.

There’s a green bag too, without a name on it over by the Christmas tree.

Two body sized bags from The Disney Store are at the edge of the kitchen.

There are three bags from a toy store in Providence in the guest bedroom. Thankfully we shopped on a slow night, and the staff of the store wrapped all of those.

There is a bag from Target in the closet in the guest bedroom, along with another from Ocean State Job Lot.

There’s another bag from Ocean State Job lot that contains 4 skeins of yarn on the dining room floor. In my copious spare time I will knit two scarves before the New Year for gifts.

And then I shopped online at eToys, Amazon, and Adagio Tea Store.

On my dining table there is a pile of wrapping paper rolls, a three pack of scotch tape, and a pair of scissors on the table, just waiting to be used.

My shopping is almost done, and I am hoping to have the bulk of the gifts wrapped before we leave for Vermont this weekend. I have two huge Rubbermaid bins by the table waiting for wrapped presents to go into them, so that we can transport our Santa loot in the back of the truck without it getting trampled by two over excited dogs.

Every year I swear that I will buy my “distance gifts” (gifts for people I will not see at Christmas, who are a distance away) early to avoid paying extra for shipping. This year I thought I was actually ahead of the game by ordering them last night, then I looked at the calendar and realized it was the 17th already. I paid an obnoxious amount of money for shipment, for the umpteenth year in a row, and waded through the “out of stock” gifts on eToys to find something suitable that was still in stock. This morning I Fedexed the ones that I bought in stores as well.

Todd and I are very careful about gifts we get for our nieces and nephews. Generally we steer clear from anything that is branded (Barbie, Thomas, Spider Man, etc) and anything that is stereotypically geared for boys or girls. We Christmas shop in local toy stores, or science-y toy stores. We take pride in carefully selecting these toys for the kids as we want them to be something meaningful for them. We agonize in the stores, we select presents, put them back, and then select again and again.

On eToys I bought a present for my 9 year old nephew and then began the search for his 4 year old sister. Typically I will not use gender to narrow my search for a gift for my nieces and nephews. This time, just for ha-ha’s I used gender to narrow the search and I was immediately offended. When I searched for the nephew’s gift, I was shown these very cool and educational board games, erector sets, puzzles. When I searched for my niece, I was shown play kitchen sets, hair brush and mirror sets, craft projects and scantily clad Barbie wannabes. Why is it that boy toys are more intellectually stimulating and girl toys are about mimicking Mommy in the kitchen and early introductions to obsessing about hair styling? Why are there no Spider Man kitchen sets? Surely Spider Man has had the opportunity to cook himself a meal now and then. Don’t we want him to be an example for the boys? Couldn’t Spider Man shoot webs out of his wrists, save the city from the bad guys and go home and cook a roast at the end of the day? Why are action figures fully clothed, while the Bratz bare their navels? Why do action figures have tools, while dolls have purses and shoes? Why isn’t Barbie ever a mechanic, or a scuba diver? Instead of a pink convertible, why can’t she have a dump truck so that she can be present in a sand box too?

I am not saying that the toy industry is some grand sexist conspiracy. Kids will choose to play with what they find to be fun. My Barbie doll collected dust on the shelf while my Matchbox cars drove all over the town my brother and I created between our houses with the boy next door. Then my Matchbox cars went into a duffel bag in the bottom of the closet, and Barbie went for a swim in the pool with my horse figurines. My bike was constantly used, but I used to imagine it was a horse. I think my brother imagined that his was a fighter plane. Why didn’t I ever imagine mine was a fighter plane too? It was because I was not as interested in fighter planes as my brother was, and he was not interested in horses.

Are boys and girls pre-determined to play with certain toys, certain ways? Can a Christmas gift cross the line between a prescribed boy role and a prescribed girl role? Does it even have to? What I find so difficult about Christmas shopping for the kids is the idea that I don’t want to stunt an imagination. I don’t want a gift that I gave to shoehorn one of my nieces or nephews into some pre-determined role as a boy or a girl. I have to remind myself that kids won’t let their imaginations be stunted by something as simple as a Christmas present. They will make up their own rules to games or they will use a toy as a prop in a larger game. How do I know that a kitchen play set bought for a niece won’t inspire one of my nephews to be a great chef someday?

And yet, every year I will still obsess over what to get them and probably will for the rest of their lives.

Post Winter Apocalyptic Rhode Island

The storm of the year is over. I think I have about 8 inches of snow outside my house right now. I was under a blanket on the couch watching the coverage on the news as it was snowing outside. I was listening to the newscasters tell horror stories of people sitting in traffic for 7, or 8 or 9 hours trying to get to their home probably only 20 miles away.

Todd decided to wait out the storm and leave work later. He called me around 8 PM to say he was going to try to go home. By then more than 6 inches of snow had gathered. The roads were a mess, and the plows couldn’t negotiate the bumper to bumper gridlock on every road in Rhode Island. He sat in traffic for about an hour and gave up on it. He parked his car in a lot a block away from the office and walked back.

He and one of his co-workers decided to grab dinner at a local restaurant to wait out the storm. He was talking to me on his cell as he was driving. He said “Oh shit!” and then the phone went dead.

This isn’t the first time something like that happened. When Todd and I first lived together in Boston he was commuting to Providence for work—over an hour away. One night there was an ice storm and he was stuck on the highway on the way back home late that night. He was talking to me and he said “Oh shit” and the line went dead. When he got home a few hours later I was frantic. He told me that there was a major accident in front of him, cars skidding on the ice every which way. He threw the phone down onto the floor of the car so that he could concentrate on driving and didn’t get the chance to call me to let me know he was OK.

I paced back and forth in the living room last night, trying his cell every few minutes. I refused to believe that his last words to me would be “Oh shit.” I needed to find out what happened to him. I turned on the news to see if there were any major accidents near his office. I sat on the coffee table with my face inches from the screen waiting to hear about my husband. It would have been nice if the newscaster would cut the broadcast and just say “Beej, Todd is OK. He’ll call you in a minute, OK?” I wondered if his last words to me would really be “Oh shit.” How uneventful would that be? The love of my life says “Oh shit” and it’s over. There would be no long, drawn out last words like there are in the movies. There would be no “I’ll always love you.” There would be no “Go on without me…” moment, and then I’d say “No man gets left behind” and I would hoist him up over my shoulder and carry him away from the danger. Just an “Oh shit” and silence on the line.

Just over an hour later Todd was safely back in his office when he called me. I reminded him that I was sitting at home wondering what had happened to him. He told me that his phone turned off when he’d dropped it in the car, so it wasn’t ringing with every time I called him.

At the moment of the fateful “Oh shit” he had seen the car in front of him hit a pedestrian. The traffic wasn’t moving very fast, so the pedestrian did survive the accident. I am relieved that I wasn’t that pedestrian’s spouse. Imagine listening to your spouse on the phone saying “Yeah, I am walking across the street right now. The traffic is terrible… Oh shit” then the sound of skidding tires and the line goes dead. All things considered, I am still the luckiest woman in the world.

Winter Armageddon 2007

This morning I turned on the Weather Channel and saw that 6-10 inches of snow were forecasted for Rhode Island. Instead of running out to the supermarket to buy every loaf of bread and gallon of milk (as is the Rhode Island winter tradition) I went to the Chocolate Delicacy instead. Who cares if I run out of bread or milk? I have chocolate!

It was 11 in the morning and the snow hadn’t started yet. I was on my way to Todd’s office in Providence to drop off his client gifts that I’d picked up at the Delicacy. Not a flake had fallen yet, and already there were RI DOT snow plows idling in the breakdown lane on I-95. I chuckled at the Rhode Island fear of snow insanity, and sped along to the big city.

I left Todd’s office and decided I’d run some errands on the perfectly dry roads. I noticed a smoginess in the air over the highway. Providence is a very small city; we don’t have smog problems like big cities like LA have. I wondered why the highway looked so smoggy, and then learned why when I entered the smog. The DOT had already salted the highway, and the salt was getting kicked up into the air. Not a flake had fallen, yet there was salt on the road. Again, I chucked at the Rhode Island snow hysteria, and sped along back to the suburbs.

Not even 3 miles down the highway from the smog I encountered a white wall crossing the highway. It had begun snowing, and it was snowing hard. I patted myself on the back for having been grocery shopping and not feeling the need to raid the bread aisle and the dairy case. I laughed at myself for calling it Rhode Island snow hysteria.

I ran my errands, and barely touched the gas pedal as I idled in the traffic near the shopping areas. I watched the perfectly formed snowflakes stick to my windshield for a brief moment before the heat of the defroster melted them and the wipers swished them away so that they could join the slushy frame around the windshield. I looked in at the passengers in the other cars gripping their wheels as they edged along. Their faces were tense, their hands in mittens tapping on the steering wheel.

I turned on the radio and tuned it to the station that had been playing Christmas music since Thanksgiving and dashed through the snow all the way home.

I Am Woman, Hear Me Use Jumper Cables

Just now I jump-started my car, without the assistance of anyone else. I am feeling particularly fabulous at the moment. I am ready to go out into the world, armed with my super long jumper cables that were a Christmas present from my brother Walter, (Thank you, Walter. Best. Gift. Ever. Second only to things like my skis, the diamond studs in my ears that Todd gave me for my 25th, and biggie presents like my engagement ring.) and jump start all the disabled vehicles in the greater Providence area.

Two Saturdays ago Todd and I took my car out to dinner. When we got home we were sitting in the car talking, and I turned on the interior light so we could look at something. Then we got out of the car and forgot to turn the light off. See, the light stays on for a few seconds after you get out of the car--so I didn't think anything of the interior light shining as we walked into the house. On Sunday I noticed that the light was still on and my car wouldn't start.

Then out of sheer laziness I didn't try to jump it for a few days. Then the temperature dropped, and all the stuff that makes car batteries work got too cold to work. Today it's warm out (warm for a Rhode Island winter, I think it's in the high 40's today) so I decided to give it a whirl.

I pulled the truck up to the sad, disabled jeep and opened the hoods. Positive here, positive there, negative here, negative there. Then I started the truck and let it run for an hour so that the battery guts in the jeep would get woken up with a steady jolt of electricity from the truck. (I shudder to think of the smog I am pumping into the air with this process.)

After the hour I went out and tried to start the jeep. It started but wouldn't stay running when I took my foot off the gas. I started it several more times, and sat there with my foot lightly resting on the gas pedal for a few minutes. I gingerly took the foot off the gas and the car didn't stall.

The jeep is on my driveway right now, smogging up the atmosphere over Rhode Island. My plan is to let it run for an hour or two, hopefully it'll stay running.

ROAR!

Wanted: Appropriate and Fabulous

Every year we go to a holiday party thrown by one of Todd’s clients. Every year I agonize over what to wear to this event. I am sure I am making more of it than it is, but I just want to make sure that I am dressed just so for this hootenanny because I know that it’s an important event.

I remember the first time we went to this party together. Todd and I had just gotten engaged two months before the party, and I would be meeting the partners and employees of this firm for the first time—people who are very important for Todd’s job. I went to several malls in three different states trying to find something to wear to this shindig. I wanted to make an impression on these people. I wanted them to say on Monday morning “Todd’s fiancé is a nice woman, and where on earth did she get those fabulous shoes?” It was 10:45 on Thursday night, and the mall was closing at 11. I gave up on the search and got a skirt and top from Express, and was able to just barely fall between the look of Todd’s slutty fiancé, and Todd’s blah fiancé, both looks were all the rage in the party dress section in the fall of 2000.

Today I was going through my closet in preparation for Saturday night. All I have in there that is suitable is the short black dress and the long black dress—both of which I have owned for about 12 years and I have already worn to parties past. I also own a red halter dress, which I wore last year. I gave into my longing for a new dress and I decided that I’d go to the mall today and see what’s out there for party dresses.

I spent two hours at the mall and found one dress that looked decent, but it was way too low cut for my taste. The other dress I like looked great, but I really don’t want to spend that kind of money on it right now. Everything else on the racks looked like I:

1. am waiting to catch the bouquet.
2. Got lost on the way to the prom.
3. Raided the wardrobe for the cast of That 70’s Show (Um, JCPenney? Seriously? What. The. Hell?!)
4. Was found walking the streets of Providence and got into Todd’s car when he stopped at a traffic light.
5. Just escaped from the convent.

Why is finding something fabulous and appropriate so hard?

Looks like I’ll be trying on the short black dress and the long black dress to see which one I can wear this Saturday night. Men have it a lot easier. All they have to do is throw on a shirt, a tie, a jacket, and they’re done. And Todd doesn’t even bother with the tie. They (at least mine) never get the urge to wear something new, and nobody would notice if a guy wore the same suit over and over again.

Maybe tomorrow I’ll try another mall in another state. After all, I still have a few days until Saturday night.

Water Works

Sometimes I cry at very weird times. I mean, sure, I cried at normal times like when Todd popped the question. I cry at sad parts in movies and sometimes at sad times in books too. But I cry at really dumb things too. For example, Todd and I went to the movies awhile back and we saw the preview for that movie “The Pursuit of Happyness.” A movie trailer made me cry. What is that all about?

Several years ago Todd was in his cousin Heather’s wedding. I met Heather for the first time the Thursday before the wedding. At the wedding rehearsal the next night I cried as Heather and her father walked up the aisle. I was crying in joy for a woman I had literally just met not even 24 hours before at a wedding rehearsal. Not the actual wedding day, mind you, but the wedding rehearsal. Yet, I didn’t cry at my own wedding. I did get a bit teary when my dad got misty when he saw that I was wearing my mother’s aquamarine ring. But that was it. I smiled and laughed as he walked me up the aisle.

On Saturday I went wedding dress shopping with my girlfriends from college. Krista is getting married in November and she pulled together her whole entourage to go shopping. We sat on the couch in the bridal store and waited expectantly for her to walk out of the fitting room with the first dress of the day. She walked out and stepped onto the pedestal, the white of the dress outshined by the radiance in her face. She beamed as she turned this way and that in the mirror. I barely choked out a “You’re so beautiful” when the water works opened up. Karen was sitting on the couch beside me and she was crying too. Krista’s mother wasn’t tearing up yet, but Karen and I were a blubbering mess after seeing Krista in a dress for the first time.

She tried on roughly 453952456 more dresses over the course of the afternoon, and everyone was more beautiful than the last. After Karen and I got over the initial crying jag from the first dress, we laughed for the rest of the afternoon, and offered our most constructive input for every dress Krista had slipped onto her body.

Maybe there will be a long distance service commercial on TV I can cry over today. Or maybe we’ll run out of milk and I’ll cry about that too.

What Are You, a Camel?

A few years ago I was walking from the subway to the office when I worked in Boston. There was a man walking ahead of me and to the right. He turned his head to the left and spat a giant loogie across my path. It splattered onto the sidewalk right in front of my feet. Had I been walking a bit faster, I probably would have gotten pegged by that loogie on my right temple. This wasn’t the first time I saw something like this happen, without thinking, I called the guy out on his flying phlegm

Beej: Hey! What the hell was that?

Guy: What?

Beej: You almost hit me with that loogie you just spat out.

Guy: Huh? Oh, sorry.

The guy kept walking, and I decided to walk just a bit slower in case he would be a repeat offender. For awhile after that I was completely paranoid about men on the sidewalk. I wasn’t paranoid for the normal reasons a woman would be paranoid—fear of being mugged, fear of being assaulted. My fear was of being spat upon.

I have since gotten over my paranoia, and am now afraid of the normal things like flying stinging insects, or the potential of bring crapped upon from above by a bird. Then yesterday my spitophobia acted up again.

I took the bus into Providence yesterday to meet Todd at his office. I will do this on occasion so that we can do things together in the city without having separate cars. Todd’s office is north of the city, and we live to the south, so I had to change buses in Providence to get to his office.

I sat down on my second bus next to an old man with a cane. The bus was rapidly filling up, and we were waiting for the driver to close the doors. Right before we were scheduled to leave, a woman who worked for the Transit Authority walked onto the bus and began to chastise my seatmate.

Woman: You cannot spit on this bus, sir.

Old Man: There is no law against spitting, Ma’am.

Woman: Yes there is a law, you cannot spit on RIPTA buses, sir. If you spit on a bus one more time, you will be banned from riding the bus. Got it?

Old Man: I didn’t do anything illegal.

Woman: You cannot spit on the bus, sir. It’s gross. If you need to spit, do it outside.

Old Man: But I didn’t need to spit when I was out there. I didn’t need to until I was on the bus.

(At this point I had to bite my tongue and resist the urge to say “What? Are you two years old? Are you going to pee on the bus too because you didn’t have to do when you were off the bus? What the hell is wrong with you?”)

Woman: Sir, think of the other people on the bus, they don’t want to have to deal with your spit.

Old Man: I didn’t do anything wrong.

At this point the bus turned into a Baptist church scene in the movies. The other riders began to chime into the conversation. They groaned at the man’s insistence that he had done nothing wrong. There were shouts of “That’s disgusting” and I thought I even heard a “Were you raised in a barn?” from the back of the bus.

Spitophobia instantly kicked in. I panicked and scanned the bus for another seat and didn’t see one. I was stuck where I was for the ride. I didn’t want to stand because I was also paranoid about slipping on this man’s spit, which could have been anywhere on that floor, and falling into it and having his spit on me. I distracted myself by talking to another woman on the bus about her baby, and luckily Phlegmy McSpitterton got off on one of the first stops. When I got off at my stop I felt my sneaker slip on a wet spot on the floor, and was instantly grossed out because I knew that I just found the spit puddle.

Like I said earlier, this isn’t the first time I’ve seen a stranger spit in a public space. Yet I’ve never seen my father do it, nor have I seen my brothers or my husband spit in public either. Why do men do this? I suspect that these people aren’t walking around brushing their teeth and need to spit out the toothpaste. What is it that these men have in their mouths that they constantly need to spit out?