Rave: My spicy friends

I am hugely blessed in the friends department. This has always been true, but I guess I'm more appreciative now that I'm on the verge of moving away from LA and away from regular, bread-breaking, in-person, live interactions.

Friends Lorie and Tom offered to host an engagement party for me and Mike while he was in town over Memorial weekend. We picked up 10 pounds of carne asada and headed over to their place for a Sunday evening BBQ. Other friends brought tasty salads, sides, fabulous desserts, adorable offspring and their fun selves to the party.

It was fun to catch up with everyone and update them on the wedding plans. Plus there's something intimate about coming together to share a meal. It's routine, yet it can be such a delectable experience. Anyone who's been on a bad/blind date knows the value of good company--or barring that, good food.

My friend, Wendy, whom I've known since high school (maybe junior high--it's nebulous) joined in the engagement BBQ fun. She gave me a colorful box, which I opened later when I rediscovered it in my purse. In it: a tiny jar of saffron.

In explanation, she said: "What's funny about saffron is you use it few and far between, but it's always precious and just as great as when you had it last. Kind of like having you for a friend."

Wow. That's one of the best compliments ever. And I feel the same about Wendy and the people who put the party together and the many friends who have added spiced to my life. You're all saffron in my book.

Feeling Trunky

Why, when I have the most to do and dwindling time in which to get everything done, do I feel so paralyzed?

There's all the things on the wedding to-do list (make calls, purchases, appointments). And the getting-ready-to-move things, like collecting boxes, changing addresses again and figuring out the most economical and hassle-free way to get my stuff from CA to TX. Oh, and I have to figure out how to make this journey with a persnickety cat.

Then there's the stuff I need to do to get ready to leave work. There's the "daily laundry"--the tasks I do daily/weekly anyway and don't want to appear to be blowing off although I'm seriously trunky* and can't really see tackling the stack of files under my desk after they've resided there for a year. (Trunky: a term used to describe missionaries on the verge of wrapping up their service--everything's in their trunk ready to go home waaay before they're scheduled to actually depart).

I also need to tidy things up for the person taking over my work by writing up my desk procedures, updating computer documentation and cleaning out my files. You know, the stuff I could have been working on when our plans/time line started to become clear and still haven't done?

I have 10 years' worth of personal email to clean out of my Eudora before wiping it. I don't want to trash everything; it's my history. But I'm also not making progress in sorting through what I do want to keep and putting it in a portable format.

The last time I looked at the clock , it was noon. Now it's 1:00 pm and I can't tell you where that last hour went or what I was doing. Only that I'm ravenous and I didn't spend that hour doing anything I should be doing. Foo.

Playing catchup

A dizzying number of things have happened before and between the last few entries.

• Went to St. Louis for Mike's son's high school graduation. Nice graduation & baccalaureate ceremonies and a fun dinner in honor of the graduate.
• Had the Upas house inspected. Found some things we'll need to fix. Sellers are at their break-even point and don't want to make/pay for any of the repairs, but they will leave us the picnic table umbrella.
• We're shopping for major appliances.
• We registered at Bed, Bath & Beyond last night. (Stopped when I became deranged from lack of food. Retreated to El Torito for dinner).
• BB&B gives us free wedding web space, planning guides, and wee little flyers trumpeting our registry with them that they want us to stick in our invitations. Not. But I did start building the web page so people can see all the info in one place.
• Went to book group this week and ALMOST finished the book (Crossing to Safety). The book group women are having a shower for me at the next meeting. Should be fun--they're getting books. Yay!
• I've decided to give 3 weeks' notice at work. I can stay through the first week in July if they want me that long. If not, I wrap up neatly--and on a payday--June 30.
• I can't help but overhear the lamentations, frustrations and teeth-gnashing over the ongoing ineptness of C, who was shifted into Oracle data entry work. The trainers have to check and correct a good deal of her work, which is stressing them out. C keeps repeating mistakes they thought they trained her out of.
• We're going to the caterer's tonight for a tasting!
• We're having an engagement BBQ Sunday at a friend's house. Looking forward to mucho carne asada and mingling.
• Meeting with our officiant Saturday. This means we'll need to have some idea of What We Want for the ceremony. I have a cute template to use for the programs, but I'm unsure of the actual content. Perhaps I should vow to Hear Mike Out, since much misunderstanding comes when I interrupt/fly off the handle without him getting to finish his thought/sentence. He could vow to feed me when my eyes glaze over and I start giggling and shooting random bathroom fixtures with the registry UPC tracker.

I'll try to post something other than a bulleted list over the weekend.

Making it Official

We saw The daVinci Code over the weekend and read some of the Salt Lake Tribune's coverage of the issues surrounding the film. One of the articles mentioned the feast day for Mary Magdalene is on July 22--the day Mike and I are getting married! Given our interest in the Divine Feminine and balanced female/male partnerships, this is a way cool synchronicity.

There has been a hiccup in the planning process. Mom and dad double teamed me a couple of weeks ago to express their STRONG preference to have a Mormon perform the wedding ceremony. They insist it will KILL THEM if I don't.

I made it clear from the beginning that we were not planning a temple wedding because we wanted all our loved ones to attend; we weren't comfortable with the exclusion a temple wedding would impose. The folks weren't happy about it, but seemed to acclimate. Now they're up in arms about the officiant being LDS--as if having a bishop or SP performing a civil ceremony will make it more like an ordinance.

I wasn't able to get them to articulate exactly *why* this is so important to them. They kept saying, "But you're Mormon!" as if this was evidence enough against having my Buddhist monk friend or other non-Mormon do the ceremony. They're shocked that Mike doesn't care who officiates (especially since he was in a bishopric).

I know who mom and dad want me to pick and I'm (perhaps childishly) resisting now that they've made a stink. I don't care about the denomination of the officiant, either. I do care about setting the right, celebratory tone. It IS a celebration and I don't want it to be treated as "less than" because it's a civil ceremony and not a temple wedding.

I don't want the ceremony to turn into a lecture on temple marriage or a recitation of the Proclamation on the Family--something I fear a bishop or SP might slip into. You know how some PH leaders go on "calling autopilot" and say/do things they wouldn't as a civilian?

My friend, Kirsten, suggested a brilliant workaround in the form of our mutual friend, Mark. He's LDS, which should satisfy mom and dad. And he's someone I trust to respect our wishes regarding the ceremony. We're cutting it a bit close, but we should be able to get him deputized in time.

Respects from 30,000 feet

My flight to St. Louis left LAX and headed toward the desert. The pilot said we could see Las Vegas from the left side of the plane. Sure enough, there was the strip, the speedway and I-15 winding off into the distance. A few minutes later, I saw the long strip of green marking Overton, NV, a little town about 50 miles northeast of glittery Las Vegas.

My dad's biological father is buried in Overton in a cemetery at the end of a runway--an apt final resting place for a pilot. Glen Haren was a dashing fellow and my dad is a chip off the old genetic block. Mom showed me a picture of Glen by a plane dressed for flight and I thought it was my dad.

Glen's second wife, Carlotta, has joined him in Overton. Dad and I drove up to her memorial service in October 2004. We got a late start leaving the funeral home but soon caught up to the long processional following the white hearse out of town.

When we arrived at the cemetery, we saw that the hole was the only part of the preparations completed before the crew went to lunch. So we stood in the sun and waited, then watched as the workman lowered the crypt into the ground, set up scaffolding to hold the coffin, pitched the shade tent, set up chairs for the service and covered the displaced dirt with an incongruous swatch of green Astroturf.

It was quite a spectacle, start to finish. The grieving adults seemed transfixed watching the process. They'd snap out of it long enough to keep the great-grandkids from throwing rocks in the hole. The older grandkids had placed tributes on Glen's headstone: a pack of cigarettes and a bottle of Jack Daniels. For Carlotta, they brought flowers.

Carlotta knew Glen had been married before and had a son, so she wasn't completely surprised when my dad contacted her. Sadly, Glen died 5 years before my dad unraveled the convoluted family history and discovered his biological father and the dad he grew up with were not the same guy.

Carlotta opened her home and heart to my dad. Most of his step-siblings did likewise, and we became part of an enormous, loosely Mormon, car-restoring/repairing, sometimes-feuding clan of Harens and Carlotta's house was the hub.

I start my chapter as stepmother soon. As I do, I'd like to take a page from Carlotta's book of hospitality. No matter who turned up at her doorstep, she'd take them in, have a long talk, make them feel welcome and feed them--physical or emotional nourishment, whichever was needed. I'd like to be at the hub of such a warm, loving, open operation.

Cheers, Carlotta and Glen. Nice seeing you again.

Post Haste

Just a quick note before I leave to board the cat and head to St. Louis for future step son's graduation.

Angela and I spent many productive hours getting the invitations prepped. No, I didn't rush home to get the invites after all. I had one in my ubiquitous wedding planning notebook and we used that to get the dimensions. We printed the map/directions to the site and the ceremony inserts and all the mailing labels (for all complete addresses I had--there are still some stragglers).

Lee helped download the fancy font so all the printed materials and labels match the font on the invitations. A very productive if wearying night!

And I managed to swing by Starbucks yesterday and bought $13 worth of coffee. What I really wanted was not the coffee but the Black Apron Limited Edition package designed by artist Lane Twitchell, who is married to the talented and amazing Adriana who I knew from our college/feminist activism days.

See more of Lane's work here: http://www.lanetwitchell.com/ I'd like to own one of his other pieces someday, but for now the bitchen coffee packaging must suffice.

Check out Adriana's blog if you haven't already wandered there from my links: http://whatimadefordinner.blogspot.com

Note to self...

When you plan a Tuesday night get together with the matron of honor to print mailing labels, maps and inserts for the wedding invitations, it would have been a smashing idea to bring the wedding invitations with you.

Instead of leaving half a dozen boxes of wedding-related paper products on the floor of your bedroom, thereby necessitating an hour-long trip home on surface streets to fetch them.

Foo.

Updates Galore

Where to start?

Yesterday's news about the house still has me reeling. In a good way.

I also picked up the reprinted invitations at Party City last night and they look great! This means I need to get cracking on the mailing list and putting together the map/directions inserts.

The book group ladies are going to throw a shower at our June meeting--the same month we're reading Freakanomics. Wonder if there's anything about the bridal industry in there; I'm sure freaking as I add up the budget items.

Another friend offered her house for a Memorial weekend engagement BBQ and yet another suggested a Thai Town bachelorette outing--eat Thai food, maybe get Thai massages and hope to catch a glimpse of Thai Elvis. I'm not going to get any of that action in South Texas.

I also talked to future MIL Sue about the rehearsal dinner. That will be at Burger Continental on a night there will be belly dancers. Woo hoo! It feels like things are settling nicely into place.

I'm still a bit angsty about delivering the news of my departure at work. The only other time I've ever quit a job was when I left Horner & Co., the great Satan of real estate appraisers and moved back to California for grad school. And boy was I glad to leave. The same applies here, for mostly different reasons.

I'm having a really hard time working up the energy to fill in my annual review paperwork, due Friday. Oh, and I'd like to use as few words as possible since my new supervisor called me "verbose" in last year's review.

Goals for the next review period: none. Performance expectations: n/a. Criteria for success: my absence. Timeline: Not soon enough (but I need the money and hopefully those two paid holidays in July).

Love Shack

Mike just called to say "Guess who just bought a house?"

Why, that would be us. The owners accepted the offer--no haggling--and only wanted to change the closing date. As of June 9, 2006--barring any unforeseen problems with financing or the house inspection--we will own the house on Upas!

A note on the staggering difference between CA and TX real estate: we're getting a 3 bedroom, 2 bath 1900 square foot house for under $103,000. I saw a listing in the JPL ads for a 3 bed, 2 bath, 1900 sq.ft. house in Altadena. Asking price: $825,000. Gasp, choke.

And dammit, I left my cell phone at home today and can't call (easily) from the office to share the news with mom and dad.

Here's the MLS listing with interior and exterior pictures:
http://www.navicamls.net/listings/247/MA090556368B.htm

Smells Like Progress

Cake tasting. Check. Opted for chocolate w/chocolate mousse (layer 1). marble w/chocolate mousse (layer 2) and lemon with lemon mousse (layer 3).

Dress alterations. Check. Dress now resides with magically talented seamstress who's going to make it so I can fasten the dress in back and breathe/raise my arms while wearing it. ISO a crinoline or hoop petticoat to wear beneath.

Lunch with mom. Talked about the two times as an adult that she had a major row with her mom (both involved me). While my major rows with mom as an adult far surpass the number two, we were actually able to laugh about it. Including the Bagel Incident (and how we got just as mad talking about it in therapy 6 years later).

Ties for groomspeople. Check. Mom had enough steam to hit Macy's after lunch. Naturally, we disagreed about which ties looked best with the yellow shirt/tan pant combo and coordinated with the bridesmaids' dresses.

The store only had one of the tie I picked (and I needed 3 total), so a helpful sales-teen looked up the UPC number. Turns out the ONLY other store in ALL of California with two of the same tie was in Burbank--just a stone's throw away. I dropped mom off and booked to the Burbank store and bought the other two ties at a 20% discount. I like to think of this as the Miracle of the Neckwear.

Dinner and a movie. Check. Met Robyn for Thai food and caught up on her life & travels and told her about wedding stuff. Was grateful for her perspective on relations with a stepparent.

Even though we didn't want to support the freaky beast known as Tom Cruise, Mission Impossible III was the only bearable flick at the theater. It was action-packed enough to almost make you forget his off-screen antics this year (that's the Real Mission Impossible).

I did take fierce glee in seeing Tom get thwacked into the side of an overturned car on the bridge scene. Mindless action fun with a side of come-uppance. Check.

Proof I am not the center of the universe

I've been wearing The Ring to work all week. Not one person has noticed it on their own. Is it Bridezilla-ish of me to wish someone would?

Brown Nosing

I don't do much of this myself, but the topic keeps surfacing around me.

Yesterday, Camilla sent an email around the office asking us to bring food Friday for going-away breakfast for a departing co-worker, Kathy. The last few lines of the email left me all agog that C put this sentiment regarding the section manager, Katrina, in writing.

Quoting C's email: "Oh, yes, I almost forgot...we would like to do breakfast at 8:00 a.m. in the morning because Katrina has a meeting at 8:30 a.m. and will not be available the rest of the day...what would a farewell be without the most important person in our section, Katrina Christian. "

Um, isn't Kathy the guest of honor?

And just now, my co-worker called our supervisor to ask if she wanted anything from McDonald's. When Y declined, C started an upsell campaign more relentless than anything I've heard at a fast food counter: How about a salad, do you want a salad? What about chicken tenders? Would you like a parfait? OK, I'll get you a garden salad--just so you know, they're pretty small. Is that all you want or can I get you something else? OK, I'll be back in a little bit!"

I have to think back to high school to recall a time I did something that intentionally ingratiating. I was nominated by my service club to be a candidate for the Sweetheart's Ball court. Each club nominated a member and two girls from each of the 3 participating high schools were chosen to make up the six-person court. The ballgoers then voted for a Queen.

All three nominees from SGHS were interviewed together and the YWCA council would pick two of us to represent our school. We were asked to name a person we admired. One girl said she admired her mom. The other said she admired Bishop Desmond Tutu.

I said I admired Mary Dean, a woman from my church who didn't let age or infirmity get in the way of her volunteer work. She toodled around town in her electric car giving rides to us kids and less able adults.

The brown nosing part: Mary Dean volunteered with the YWCA and I knew at least one of the interviewers KNEW Mary Dean personally and that the others were probably acquainted with her, too. I thought dropping her name would clinch my spot on the court.

Ah, fate. Guess who wasn't chosen.

Bling

I was over at Lee and Angela's last night putting together bridal shower invitations. They were spectacular--thanks to Angela's layout, design and mail merge skills and the cute stationery she bought for them.

Anyway, I asked if Lee would take a few pictures of The Ring with his digital camera. I have a greater appreciation for eBay sellers now that I've seen how hard it is to get a good picture of jewelry.

The shower invites are the first official paper wedding correspondence going out. We'll tackle the wedding invitations as soon as they get back from being reprinted.

Party City called while I was in Texas to let me know the invitations had come in. When I leafed through the invites, I saw the ink on the invitations was uneven--one line appeared darker than the rest or the top lines were noticeably darker/lighter than the bottom ones. When I got to the bottom of the stack, I found about a dozen that were either blank or damaged (some were both). There were 15 RSVP cards without printing as well.

I ordered more than I needed, but didn't calculate that printing snafus would eat up all the extras. So I sent them back to be redone. Fortunately, the turnaround time is short. Hoping for better quality in run #2.

CHiPs Magnet

Did I mention that Erik Estrada was on my flight from Dallas to Burbank?

He may not be everyone's cup of tea, but he's damn good looking in person--and looks like he hasn't aged since his Jon and Ponch days.

A couple of women approached him in baggage claim and he was all megawatt smiles with them. I saw another woman nudge her daughter to take a look at the real live 80s heartthrob before them. I imagine few under the age of 20 knew who he was.

I'm guessing the frequency of my celebrity sightings is going to drop once my home base is in Texas. Unless I start bumping into telenovela actors at the flea market in Pharr.

While I Was Out

On our way to the credit union this morning, Grace filled me in on what happened at work while I was gone.

Grace and I complained that Cindy's music was too loud/too distracting for us to work, so Cindy got herself a pair of headphones. Grace didn't have to listen to the music, but Cindy's toe tapping and singing along proved a new annoyance. When G needed to ask C something, she'd have to go into C's office to get her attention--C couldn't hear G calling to her. How can anyone concentrate on work with the tunes cranked that loud?

Last week was Administrative Professionals Day. As usual, the party planning fell on the Closeout Group's shoulders--and they pulled together a pizza party with only two days to plan. (I'm not sorry I missed this).

Grace also mentioned that our Academic Part-Time employee, Kathy, got a job at the LA Times and had given her 2 weeks' notice. This is blow to our little group--and puts more of a burden on our supervisor.

Kathy was the Subject Matter Expert in Oracle data entry. We used to have a full time person doing Oracle data entry; when she went out on medical leave, my old supervisor, Ken, and the new APT Mayra filled in. When Mayra left, Kathy took over--with the programmer, Yvonne, Grace and our section secretary, Socorro, filling in on the days Kathy was at school. Soco is out on medical leave until late July, leaving the team short.

What was really needed: one full-time person and a backup to perform the job. Instead, there's a patchwork of people, each with an incomplete knowledge of the entry process. Now, The Powers that created the scenario in which a transient, academic part-time worker performed critical data entry into our financial system now has to reap what was sown.

In another alarming decision, the same Powers have decided that detail-averse Camilla is going to take over the Oracle data entry and the new APT will be trained to do the document scanning. Lordy, I can't think of a worse move. Oracle is unforgiving and errors are complicated to fix. Data entry errors and the operator who made them have high visibility in the system.

Despite the regular demonstrations of C's ineptness with daily chores like photocopying and distribution, her poor performance after she took over the scanning and her frequent absenteeism, the Powers are assigning her more demanding work. Good luck with that!

And again they'll pay the piper for it. I'll be around just long enough to see the train wreck--and be glad that the cleanup is Not My Problem.

Engaged at Work

I decided to wear The Ring to the office and start leaking the news of our engagement but I wasn't sure how to proceed. Say something? Email? Let people discover the prismatic bling on their own? Suddenly do everything left handed?

I opted to plant a seed during a stroll to the credit union with Grace. She didn't notice The Ring, but on the way back, she asked me about my trip. I said it was very nice to spend time with Mike--and that I got a surprise while I was there. Held up the left hand and let The Ring say the rest. She gasped, then hugged and congratulated me. (Hey, this part's fun!)

Then came the questions: When is the wedding? Will it be this year? Is Mike moving here? What do my parents think? Asked how the proposal happened (The Burbank Airport, a concrete bench and thou).

I was vague about our plans other than to say Mike had seen an opening at Claremont (true) and his summer schedule allows him to do research anywhere there's an internet connection.

By then, we were back in our building and G steered me toward Yvonne's office to share the news. That way G could convey the gist of the news and I could beam and add details as needed. Y was also happily congratulatory and came over to see The Ring up close. Also started with the questions: When's the wedding? Mike's coming here, yes? Now you have to start making decisions, she says--the wedding dress, bridesmaids, cakes, etc. I pretended to run away, overwhelmed with the details (which is also true about 60% of the time). I will take her advice: keep the wedding simple. Insofar as I can.

I probably could have worn the ring around for a week or two without anyone noticing, but it's nice to have at least the engagement part out in the open. Now I just have to keep the wedding planning--and how far along the planning is--stealthy until I announce my departure.

Wrap up

Just a few items from the last couple of days in Texas:

• The Upas house has a rival--a smaller but mostly comparable house in Mission with a screened porch, fenced yard and great curb appeal. Less room for bookcases and an office, but it's newer and has a better kitchen. The fresh paint in some rooms looked like a rush job to get it listed.
• We haven't seen the inspection report on the repo, but we're both thinking no on that one. I get exhausted just thinking about the work it needs. I still want to see the report for curiosity's sake.
• Saturday night we partied Turkish style with Mike's colleagues and some of the PhD students from the business program. Great food & good conversation--and so many new names to remember!
• We went to the McAllen First Ward Sunday. There was a deacon posted at each chapel door; they refused entry to anyone who showed up after the sacrament hymn started and held the doors shut while the sacrament was passed. No deacons went into the lobby to pass the sacrament to latecomers, either. Struck me as hard core and unnecessarily exclusive. Is this the work of a Utah transplant or a local trying to out-righteous Utah?
• Sacrament meeting kinda freaked me out. In Sunday School, Mike pointed out we had a woman gospel doctrine teacher. Nice. (Then she read almost the whole lesson right out of the manual and talked over people's comments; less nice). Mike stirred the pot a bit with one of his comments--disarming one's enemies by loving them as Christ taught rather than, say, starting wars. In the joint RS/PH meeting, we got a lecture on emergency preparedness, a FEMA/DHS handout on emergency planning and watched a glossy, emotionally manipulative church video. On the plus side, many people introduced themselves and we even got a dinner invite from the young couple we sat next to.
• Further proof there are only 2 degees of separation in Mormondom: I met a guy in the McAllen ward who grew up in my old stake--Los Angeles East. His oldest sister is close to my age and his mom and my mom were big into the roadshows and stake plays back in the day.
• I called my mom to tell her about the old stake connection in McAllen and she had a sighting of her own to report. Mom and dad left church early (building was freezing cold) and went out to dinner. They saw a couple come in--didn't think much of it. When the couple got up to leave, mom said she could feel someone staring at them. The guy came over to their table and asked "Where do I know you from?" It was my ex-boyfriend, Jim. Mom said (with some glee since she knew who he was) "We're Mary Ellen's parents." Jim looked sorry he'd asked and made a hasty retreat without asking anything further.
• Mom reports my cat has been a terror in my absence--making new mischief daily. He's also been cozying up to mom, dad and even brother John and letting them pet him and climbing up on their laps. He'll be especially glad to see me.
• I'm going to keep wearing The Ring, even to work. I figure I can deflect invasive queries until closer to the time I'm ready to reveal my future plans in mid-June.

Well, I need to pack the last of my things for the trip home. :( Will miss Mike terribly. Looking forward to ending the long-distance relationsip and settling down together here in a few months.