Birthdays

Today was my birthday; Tuesday is M's. I have a longstanding tradition of crying on my birthdays. This year is apparently going to be no different. I thought it was going to be relatively unimportant "crying" - being upset at how the Redskins game ended (we were robbed!) but really, nothing big in the scheme of things.

Then, my stepmom called. She was on the way back from the hospital (immediately, I thought something was wrong with my dad). My uncle, my dad's sister's husband, had a heart attack and had be medivaced from one hospital to a better one. He's been supposed to have heart surgery for awhile, but has been too weak to survive it. He and my aunt both have a lot of health issues; I feel so bad for them. They did an angioplasty I guess and cleared some of the blockages, and now it's waiting for the cardiologist tomorrow. I assume he's in the same cardio ICU where my dad and aunt's mother went when she had her heart attack, that was essentially the same as a stroke; she languished in a nursing home for a couple years before dying, never recovering. My poor family, going in there. My aunt's son is several states away and not in a job that he can easily afford time off; her daughter is at a conference on the other side of the country and they haven't been able to reach her yet. I hope my uncle recovers well. The one upside to this is that it might help bring my dad and my aunt close again.

After I got off the phone and had a little time to think about it, it made me think about my future. One day, M or I is going to get really sick. I might have to take him to the ER with a heart attack, and spend the night in the hospital praying I get him back. Or he may be praying at my bedside. If we're lucky, we'll both stay free of serious, life-threatening illness until the other person is too senile to know it.

I'm also generally feeling sorry for myself today. Half of it is because of the surgery recovery; I'm still bleeding/leaking exudate constantly, to the point of having to change clothes repeatedly over the course of the day. This is expected and I know it means I'm healing...but it still sucks. Two weeks down, another month and a half or so to go. *sigh*

The other half is because of my mommy issues. The short version is she abandoned me as a baby, came back into my life several years ago, then proceeded to abandon me again. And now is acting like she's a victim. She's been around for exactly one birthday; she's been gone for 27 of them. And yes, I know I'm better off, that the way she's lived her life would have been toxic for me, and I have a stepmother that's been around since 1st grade who IS my mother. But my heart just can't buy in to what my rational brain knows.

Of course, lots of things about this weekend have been nice (not the least of which is Bama beating UF. ROLL TIDE!). My mother in law is here, and she and I went to Target Thursday and bought a lot of stuff we needed for the house, as well as birthday and Christmas presents. It's not about how much she spent (a lot) but the fact that she wanted so much to do things for us (and me, who isn't her blood and hasn't produced a grandchild yet). My father in law also called, as did my sister in law. Lots of friends and acquaintances wished me well. So there's lots of good...but right now what's important is my uncle.

Get better soon, Uncle Bob. I love you.

Best of 09 - Day 6

  
    
  


December 6 Workshop or conference. Was there a conference or workshop you attended that was especially beneficial? Where was it? What did you learn?
Seriously? This is the big birthday question?
Since I didn't attend any such thing, I'll write about what I wish I had attended, at least a little bit.

I do wish M and I had done some sort of couples program before living together - a church couples retreat, a workshop, couples counseling, whatever. There's so many little things that come up that we didn't think to discuss beforehand. Sometimes I feel like we have communication issues, that we don't know how to get our point across without putting the other on the defensive. I wish we'd had the chance to learn some mechanisms to deal better with our disagreements and to more comfortably air our concerns about one another.

Best of 09 - Day 5

  
    
  


December 5 Night out. Did you have a night out with friends or a loved one that rocked your world? Who was there? What was the highlight of the night?

This might not be most people's idea of a night out, but it was at night, and it was out, so Im sayin it qualifies. I'm going with the Miami-FSU game labor day weekend. My husband, an FSU fan, has had season tickets since I've known him. Up until the Jacksonville State game this year, he'd never won an FSU game I'd gone to with him. And lucky for me, the Miami fan, this night was no different.

We got to the stadium in time for the pregame festivities. I recall someone, seeing us holding hands and wearing shirts of our respective teams, commenting that it was "gross". We met M's fishing buddy and his girlfriend to tailgate a bit, and let him shit talk to me about how we were going to be destroyed. My philosophy is that in rivalry games, and particularly in this rivalry, it's a crapshoot; most years, who wins has nothing to do with who the better team is.

That game was intense and back and forth, lots of cheering and ulcers on both sides. The highlight was the ending, when a game-winning pass was thrown for FSU in the end zone with virtually no time left. The FSU fans went crazy, game looked to be over - teams coming on the field over. But then the officials announced that the previous play was under review. In the biggest letdown-to-thrilled moment I've ever experienced, and perhaps the converse for M, they finally announced that no, the pass hit the ground. Thrilling game, thrilling win...and awesome night out!

Best of 09 - Day 4

  
    
  


December 4 Book. What book - fiction or non - touched you? Where were you when you read it? Have you bought and given away multiple copies?
Geez Louise, yet another one that I can't immediately answer. Law school kind of got me off reading books for fun; even now, I mostly read magazines. I have an entire shelf of books I haven't read, though I've started quite a few of them. Granted, I read plenty in law school, but I wouldn't call any of those "touching" nor anything I would want to remember.

I'm going to go with a book I got about a man's experience in adopting a special needs dog. The book is buried under who-knows-what at M's old place, so I can't look up the name that I can't remember. I can't even remember all the details; I think the dog was deaf but maybe it was blind. I started the book back in August, then it fell from it's "home" and hasn't been seen in awhile, thus the lapses in detail. At any rate, I'll update this if I ever find it, and tell you what I do remember. It's a sweet story; the dog is adopted from backyard breeders after the writer's long time pet dies. The dog had been pretty unloved up to that point. The highlight so far is when the police end up at the home because the dog's antics, when locked up in a bedroom, made the neighbor's think something awful was going on at the house. When I left off, the author was trying to get his new dog and his roommate's two dogs to give peace a chance. I hope I can find the book soon and get back into reading stories that last moire than a few pages; I've always been an avid reader, and I do miss it.

Best of 09 - Day 3

  
    
  


December 3 Article. What's an article that you read that blew you away? That you shared with all your friends. That you Delicious'd and reference throughout the year.
Eek, another one that's tough for me, just because my memory is shot to hell. That, and I dunno what Delicious is ;)  The one that comes to mind is an article about SEC football. I t was an SI article about the extreme level of competition in the SEC and the deep tradition of SEC teams. I hear so much whining from the Pac10, Big 12, and ACC about how tough they have it, and I'm an ACC fan, but...they ain't got nothing on SEC competition, and only a handful have nearly as deep-seated traditions as a lot of the SEC.

I went to law school at Alabama, which was my introduction to the SEC. I love my Miami, but Bama...wow, what an experience to go to a game. The best was my second year, when my dad came down for the LSU game. Now THAT was intensity. The first face-off between the teams since we got Saban. A year we were in contention, up until that game, for everything. So was LSU. I've never heard a stadium so loud or seen fans that went after each other that way. I also must admit that Iron Bowls are a crazier atmosphere than Miami-FSU, and Miami-FSU is pretty freakin intense. In the SEC, everybody knows about college ball and cares; not so with the ACC. I was surprised to find so many girls who knew what was going on in the game; I'm not used to that. I still think wearing dresses and heels to the game is weird, but that's how it is in the South. I hope I get to go back for a few games - but right now, I'm somewhere around #3000 on the season ticket waiting list. Now that's crazy!

Best09 - Day 2

 
  
    
  
 

December 2 Restaurant moment. Share the best restaurant experience you had this year. Who was there? What made it amazing? What taste stands out in your mind?
This a tough one for me. We eat out a lot, but it's not usually anything special. All the fancy meals I quickly thought of, aside from our wedding reception which wasn't at a restaurant,  were actually last year. There was a candelit dinner on a pier on our honeymoon, but that meal was actually a bit disappointing. So....hrmm...aha! I just found an answer, and sorry, its going to be another cheesy newlywed dealie.

When M and I got engaged at the beginning of the year, I knew his dad reasonably well, having spent Thanksgiving at his house twice, one of which was just M, his dad, and me for 4 days, plus we'd met him a couple times when he was passing through town. But I'd only met his mother once or twice for a much shorter period of time. I knew his dad liked me, but I didn't feel like I'd really won her over yet; she's a lot more reserved and takes longer to get to know. So a couple weeks after the engagement, I took a trip down to the panhandle, where M's brother and mom both live. I stayed with his brother and sister in law, and had a good time, but I made sure to get a chance to have lunch with his mom to get to know each other better.

We went to a popular place in town, at least for the retiree set; I don't remember the name. It was good, nothing fabulous, and that's not why I remember it. What was important was the one on one time with his mom, getting to know each other and just as importantly, showing her that I care about getting her approval. I remember talking a lot about her church; she's Catholic though attending a Baptist church, and I call myself some weird mix of Episcopal and Jewish. We were married by a Unitarian Universalist. She asked me about my religious beliefs, and though I'm sure if it were up to her, I would have been more religious, but she seemed to accept my answers. We talked a lot about M, and our relationship. I think it was really important to make that showing to her that I wanted to be a part of the family, and get to know everyone. And it was really the beginning of she and I having our own relationship; after that, I would sometimes call her on the 6 hour drive between Tuscaloosa and Tallahassee (remember that I lived in Alabama while M was in Tally) and she would call me as well. It was the springboard to a lot of other discussions, even some where we disagreed, as well as making both of us more comfortable with one another when M isn't around. She's coming to town tomorrow and really wants to take me shopping; I'm not sure that without that initial step, to make sure I got a chance to go out to eat with her and get some one on one time, that this is something she'd be comfortable with.

Best of '09

I'm participating in the Best of 2009 challenge. I'll try to respond to the designated topic every day this month and remember 2009. You'll learn more about me, and I'll learn more about you if you sign up here to participate

Happy December blogging!


December 1 - Trip. What was your best trip in 2009?
My wedding and honeymoon were both out of town for us, so it's tempting to say the wedding, but as far as being a TRIP and not just a very very special occasion, I'm gonna go with honeymoon.


My father in law paid for us to go to one of the Sandals resorts in Jamaica. A lot of things about this supposedly all inclusive were disappointing, but since this is the Best09, I'm only gonna talk about the awesome things. For me, it was my first time leaving the country, and it was M's first real vacation in forever. The first amazing thing was that, given our collective luck and the fact it was late June, we didn't get hit by a hurricane!


We were in villa #69, which struck us as pretty funny. There were 4 rooms in the building; we were on the ground floor with nice easy access to the private pool. There were gorgeous flowers everywhere, a bunch of stray cats I loved to call, and awesome tropical birds. But animal-wise, the most awesome were the geckos. Yes, the geckos. We have them here, but on our honeymoon we would sit on our porch at night and watch the geckos hunt and interact with each other. It's a little thing, a silly thing, but a really connecting thing, just sharing such a little thing together.

More awesomeness was our discovery of Jamaican rum cream. Mmm, nectar of the gods I swear. It's smoother than Bailey's. One of the bartenders turned me onto it. It's a lot like chocolate milk; it barely tastes of alcohol but it's still strong enough to affect you after one easy-to-drink glass. We started substituting it for Appleton's rum in our strawberry daquiris. Mmmm, sooooo good. Unfortunately, its pretty hard to find here. Best alcoholic drink ever. Try it if you get a chance.

Then of course, were the activities. I've never been scuba diving before, and for some reason M assumed I wasn't interested, despite having gone to Miami to study marine science (before an epic flameout in chemistry sent me to the psychology program). We did the resort certification course (which means it does me no good back in the real world; Ill have to get for-real certified here) and then we went diving 3 times. Although we went to the same reef every time, which was also where we went snorkeling our first day, it was really cool for me, being able to get so close to all these brilliantly colored fish. M has been before, so it was less exciting for him, but he was still happy to go repeatedly with me. My first trip was kind of rough; I couldn't achieve neutral boyancy, so I was kept floating up, and I scraped my hand on some nasty coral that continued to itch for weeks. The issues with bouyancy were kind of funny; at the end of the first trip I ended up floating all the weay to the top of the water (not a problem, since we were only 40 feet down).

Some of the nighttime resort activities were fun. There was a giant buffet with all the restaurants and some cool ethnic costumes. There was the guest-staff talent show, the highlight of which was one of the staff members we got to know doing a spot-on michael jackson dance the day MJ died (remember the good old days, before it was non-stop MJ news? "Yup, still dead"). But I think our favorite was the newlywed game night. It was hilarious, lots of embarassing questions. We weren't selected for it, but we compared answers and woulda got all of them, a nice feeling on your honeymoon.

Jamaica is an interesting place. We noticed driving to the resort from the airport how all the homes looked half done, almost like there'd been some natural disaster. But they had this gorgeous, ornate architecture. We learned on the way back to the airport, while stopped at the store with the pot plant in front of the bathrooms, that the reason is Jamaicans don't get mortgages, they just build as they can afford to. I had no idea there was a Jamaican "language", which the scuba instructors frequently used (which always makes you wonder if theyre making fun of you). I wasn't a good shopper at the pseudo-authentic Jamaican market; I'm not a haggler and I felt guilty everytime a shop owner called to us or we decided not to buy something from them. We did end up with awesome wood-carved kissing dolphins (I looove dolphins) and a little desktop see no evil hear no evil speak no evil monkeys, which seemed like a decent metaphor for marriage, as well as another set of the monkeys on a set of chimes. Im now obsessed with said monkeys.

Wow, I just realized I typed all that without a single picture, and it's fairly long. Seeing as I actually have Jamaica photos, #fail on me. So now, for your viewing pleasure (or not) some Jamaican honeymoon photos!

Jamaican drinks. They amused us.

Heading out to dive

Our living room, looking at over the pool. Notice the evil bar exam study books on the table.

The Jamaican hillside, with all the unfinished homes

The foilage view from Villa 69