I left my voice in NH, and other points from my weekend getaway

• I’m back all in one piece, and I made the zip line my bitch on Friday. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t just a spec freaked out by the time we got to the top of the mountain (?) where we were setup to take our first zip down. The six of us girls clearly dominated the majority of the group, joined in by a good looking dad, his wife, and his daughter, and one other couple. After the first “zip” we were really into it, and the whole thing was a wicked blast. Our tour was led by a better looking version of Screech. He was hilarious and one of those people who you can tell just really digs their job. I like these types. Outdoorsy and good hair = plus two. Here’s the beast we took up the mountain: 

• Oh, the watermelon! That’s one worth mentioning, a- considering how much talk there was about the damn thing beforehand, and b- since it came out so damn good (after a lot of prep-work)! Now I’ll tell ya, this soaking-of-the-vodka process? It’s no quick thing. Don’t go expecting to prepare this concoction and enjoy it an hour later. I put the vodka into the watermelon on Saturday morning thinking we could bust into it maybe that night if we were lucky, otherwise go for it on Sunday. Well, it wasn’t absorbing anything too quickly, and RS wasn’t kidding when he emphasized rotating the thing. By Sunday afternoon, it still not soaking the vodka up, we decided to chop the thing up, put it in a bowl, and give that a go. Cha-ching! Finally- end result, wickedly delicious watermelon, 8 tipsy vacationers.   Here’s a picture of Watermelon Concoction 2008:



• Right, you may have noticed we some how picked up 2 more vacay-ers along the way? No, unfortunately none of the three single girls in our group struck gold with any fine looking neighbors. It goes back to something that would only happen to us while three and a half hours away on vacation: car trouble. Of course. Luckily we had split up and taken two cars up there, because car number two decided to crap out on us mid-trip, leaving us with 6 girls 1 car, a tow-truck situation on our hands and no way in hell to get us and all our gear back home.
  Fail.
  So Sunday night we added two males into the mix- the fiance of one, and his cousin who came up to join in on the action for a night and cart half of our group home the next day.
  Somewhere in the mix of that evening I seem to have lost my voice, and now sound like a cross between a 68 year old chain smoker and a 14 year old boy going through puberty. Hot. 

• SATC. There was lots of it. The pink velvety case was displayed on our coffee table for the duration of the trip, and yes, we did even throw an episode in for a second on Sunday night with the men there. Needing to find a certain scene with Big that kept coming up was of utmost importance. 
• We rocked out a good solid Power TWO Hour upon arriving at our place. One hour just didn’t seem like enough, so we kept at it (that’s what she said). We were playing with two sweet mixes- one was 80’s, the other some random compilation of music that made us want to bust a move. Which we did, outside on our sweet deck until the bugs got too much to take and it was time for more SATC. (A couple of you may or may not have been the recipient of a nice Tipsy Text from yours truly during this adventure) Lights out by 10:30 that night, needless to say. 

• Most all of our activities needed to be enjoyed indoors, since, definition of us and our vacays, it dumped rain pretty much the entire time. No biggie. We had enough food and alcohol to feed an army, games that made us laugh so hard that Little Miss Priss in the condo down below us had to bust the party because we were so loud, digital cameras, outlets 15 minutes down the road that were calling our name, and did I mention, SATC? 
• Oh, here’s a really really cute puppy we met one afternoon when we went to a random nail salon to get mani/pedis. His name is Lucky; tell me you don’t want to instantly hug him?

All in all, I’d give the trip a solid 8.5 (factoring in the rain and the car troubles we encountered). Pretty damn good!

I forgot, we saw a moose on the side of the road on our way to the zip line excursion. That was fun.

 

whatcha gonna do with all that junk?

what happened last monday that led me to the bag were a series of events. it started with bootcamp in that wicked hot hot humid heat, which makes for lots of sweat, and when you’re wearing one of those tank-top-built-in-bra deals that’s white, what happens is the sweat just completely soaks the whole damn thing (classy) and you can basically see everything. it’s fine if you’re just driving home in your little red corolla, which i had planned to do, but not so fine if you need to step into cvs which is what i ended up having to do instead.

so i pulled into the parking lot and thought that maybe, possibly i might find some gem of a tee shirt in my trunk. you know, something to just throw over the unfortunate look that i had going so that i could run into cvs, get my pill and call it a wrap. all i found was a big hooded sweatshirt, not sure whose, which just wasn’t going to cut it when the temps were still in the high 90’s. i scrounged around some more, then, underneath an umbrella and a bunch of old cds and my yoga mat, i found the bag.

(dundundun…)

the bag of him. for the longest time ever, the bag was actually a box with stuff of him. i transferred said stuff into a bag when i decided that the box was a- taking up too much space in my already too cluttered heart room, and b- was just too much of a reminder of him and what once was.  it was time. i didn’t (and still don’t) have it in me to chuck all the stuff, so i put it in the trunk of my car and that was that. out of sight out of mind kind of deal, or so i thought.

the thing about ex boyfriends who you break up with under reluctant terms is that you (or maybe it’s just me?) don’t ever totally feel ready to say see ya later to the stuff of him. in the bag is a random bunch of crap… a snowman ornament he gave me the first christmas we spent together. a silly ipod sock that was kind of a joke between us. a little notebook that we would leave each other notes in when he’d stay at my place and he’d have to leave for work earlier than i got out of bed. two letters from him. one from when we were still together, the other that he sent as his last ditch effort to win me back. and also three tee shirts and a bunch of movie stubs, and several pictures, including three random ones that i found of penguins (?).

now i wasn’t intending to look into the bag, not at all. no real good ever comes of such a thing; it brings up old memories of happy and sometimes rocky couplehood together, times that frankly id rather have kept in a secure place tucked under junk, locked in my trunk.

but there was really no other choice, pickin’s were damn slim, and there was no way i was turning around to go home only to get a different tee shirt and come right back when there were three tee shirts right in front of me. his tee shirts, but tee shirts none the less.

oof. i had to. i untied the target bag that was in front of me, and i’m sorry to the nice gentleman who pulled in after me (i hope he reads my blog), for what he saw must have made him quite nervous: a flustered single girl in a sweaty workout shirt, a yoga mat on the ground, a bright pink umbrella next to it, an old copy of the immaculate collection cd, and bunch of those damn penguin pictures sitting on my roof all strewn about. poor nice gent looks up to find me holding on to said tee shirt trying to decide if i should really go for it or not.

naturally, my last resort was to don the tee shirt of the ex.  i first held it up to see which one it was (some random nondescript one, good) and started to put it on, but not before sniffing it first. (shut up; don’t tell me you wouldn’t do it too.)
(it didn’t smell like him, thank sweet baby jesus or else i might have had to go in for a consoling hug with the nice innocent bystander man next to me, nervously observing this whole debacle.)

sigh.

in the end, everything worked out just fine. it was just a hell of a lot of hot hassle in order to simply make a cvs trip, and i guess, a good lesson to always pack an extra shirt… of my own.

 

hey baby, there aint no easy way out

Oooooh boy.

Or, I guess I should really say, not so much on the boys.

I don’t post while I’m at work, and though I’m not silly enough to think that I got a whole lineup of readers eagerly awaiting my Speed Dating tales, I did want to bust out a quick update for the one or two that might swing by for the recap of the evening.  So here I am, 7am on a Friday morning with a towel on, drinking some OJ and ready to tell you about the night…

Which was basically a bust.

Not so much the evening itself.  Dinner was pretty good, flatbread pizza and Riesling is a weird combo but it works, it’s not easy walking crowded streets, many blocks in heels, EVOO (Extra Virgin Olive Oil- did you know that?  Rachel Ray?) stains, and arriving fashionably late to an event like this is actually very okay. 

We arrived to the bar where we were welcomed by a slew of GREEN! CELTICS! SHIRTS! everywhere.  Lots of green, lots of dudes, Mardis Gras beads at the door?, big flat screen tv’s, a well made tanqueray & tonic, a nice atmosphere.  Truth be told, we were more content just staying put here, where all this was happening.  On the stairs, a little mini sign reads, “Speed Dating, downstairs, 8pm.”  Well by now it’s 8:45 and we’re not sure we really want to do this.

But, we paid our $22 dollars so we at least wanted to check it out.  We head to the dungeon downstairs, where there is absolutely no music, no game on, pretty dead silence, 4 guys sitting at the bar, about 7 girls sitting around, and one man who wants to check us in, with a whistle around his neck.

Yikes.

We scope the room, we look at each other, and we decide…. no.

We just couldn’t do it.  We did ask some questions, like “is this it?” and, “are you serious?” and questions about the guy to girl ratio (7 to 12- what?), and some questions about getting our loot back.  Which was a dead end; there is no getting money back within 24 hours so we chalked this one up to who knows what, and headed our bad selves back upstairs.

All in all the night was a good one.  Good game, good company, met a guy with a good head of hair who lives right next door to my favorite icecream place in town (sweet), and exchanged numbers (bonus).  Though I didn’t meet Mr. Wonderful, the night was still a good one, and now at least I know that I’m done my stint with the hyper relationing Speed Dating.

Happy Friday and happy weekend!

Oh, I’m going to see Tom Petty tomorrow and I’m damn excited. 

Ciao.

 

I won’t do it.

What is it they* say?  You have to get under someone to get over someone?

Something like that?

On my drive to work this morning I drafted out an email in my mind of what I would say to Mr. Match if I just wanted to drop him a line to check in.  You know, see how he’s doing without me and wish him a fun summer or something.

Lame-o, I know.

It’s different than I’m used to.  With my most recent ex, that ex, I was the one who ended things.  So I guess, ball was sort of in my court then; if we got in touch, it was usually me that did the initiating of it all, because I told him I needed some time and space.  Some distance.

I don’t know, is it different if it’s the other way around?  I mean, he very well could have contacted me and I would have replied.  I just don’t know if the rules are different if you’re the one who does the dumping, or you’re the dumpee.

The thing is, I don’t even know what I would say to Mr. Match.  That whole car-ride-email-drafting thing I did this morning didn’t get me too far.  Things I thought up to say seemed quite trite and pretty stupid, honestly. 

“Hi Match.  This coming weekend is the wedding of your best friend that I was invited to with you.  What time you picking me up?

“Hi Match.  Sex and the City comes out on Friday.  Remember when you sent me the link for the preview online?”

“Hi Match.  It’s been just over a month, should I be over you by now?”

“Oh hey Match.  I miss your hair.”

Yeah, not so much.

I won’t email him.  Or call.  It’s a good thing I’ve decided (as of yesterday) that I’m laying off the booze a spec during the week (strapless bridesmaid dress to wear in August).  Otherwise it might be tricky for me to steer clear of the Drunk Text.

What?

 

*Who are “they” anyway?

 

what I don’t write about much

Sometimes it just doesn’t seem real to me that they are both gone.

I think on most all accounts, you could say that I am getting by pretty okay.  I have my days here and there, days that are excruciatingly hard.

There’s reminders of them everywhere.  I wear his sweater when I’m chilly, hanging around my apartment at night.  I have a necklace that the two of them picked out for me that I wear pretty often.  The other day I found a card from the two of them from Christmas, and one that I had saved from a birthday past.

In my living room, is a picture of the two of them from their anniversary three years ago.

I wear a pair of his socks sometimes.

It’s been about a month since she’s been gone and almost four for him.  I go back and forth to some days feeling like this time has gone by painfully slow.  Other days I can’t believe it’s been that long.

I think of all of the things that we used to do together.  Lying in bed at night I remember the way she and I used to watch HGTV together.  I hear the sound of his voice singing along to “You Are My Sunshine” with me.

I remember their hands. 

Their hugs.

Most days, it just doesn’t seem real. 

I still can’t believe they’re gone.

 

baaaack.

Well hello blogworld!  I’m back!  My time away in Cali seemed to just breeze by in a minute.  Some highlights from my trip include:

• Some good pool time, which gave me the opportunity to finally finish reading The Kite Runner (I know I’ve been talking about it for months), and to start reading this, which was a sweet gift from a co-worker before I left!
• Ooooh!!  Speaking of gifts!!!!  Remember this ring that I had on my birthday wish list last week?!!  Well guess what?  My good good bloggy-turned-real-life friend Miss Nilsa went ahead and ordered it up just for me, and it was waiting in a little envelope when I returned last night!  Thank you SO much lady!
• This:



• And this:



• A new Coach purse that I gifted myself from the outlet store that my mom and I spent several hours at one afternoon.
• Definitely lots of good, really quality time with my mom.
• This new little ditty, similar to the one I was eyeing last week:

(little bit sunburned?)

• HOLY HELL.  Meeting these guys:

(Yeah, I know.  The cuteness.  I’m tearing up again just posting these.  5 weeks!)

• Birthday martinis.  Blueberry Lemondrop.  To die for.
• Lots of plane time.  This wasn’t actually a “highlight” per se, but it did give me lots of thinking time.  I reflected on a conversation that Mr. Match and I had where he said he didn’t like that I used “woot.”  Red flag #36!  Though I do miss his big bear hugs and his HOH, I do not, my friends, miss that type of shit.  Oof.

There’s lots more to report from my Cali excursion, but for now I’m off with my roommate and some friends for a belated little birthday dinner and drinks!

Can someone please explain these new quilt-esque avatars that are going on lately?

 

they are my sunshines

I’m at Panera right now, and I’ve finally figured out how to use this wireless internet business on my new snazzy laptop.  This has proven to be a feat my friends, a big big feat for someone as untechsavvy as myself.  But, alas, I’m connected, hooked up, whatever the lingo is for it, and in the 6 o’clock hour on a Monday, the people watching here is at it’s prime.

As it was at the 2pm hour.  Yes, this is in fact, my second time in this same Panera (different seat) today.

Last night I stayed with my mom at my grandmother’s house.  My grandparents’ house?  I can’t describe how weird it feels to be saying that given the fact that they are no longer there.  It took some adjustment just to get in the swing of saying “my grandmother’s house” as opposed to calling it as a plural.  Even at that, I didn’t  get much of a chance to get too used to anything about that whole idea either.

I haven’t had the chance to grieve the loss of my grandfather, and then just like that, in a matter of weeks, my grandmother is now gone.

My grandfather dying in January…that has been such incredible and profound loss for me.  It still hurts, ginormously hurts like hell.  And now on top of that grief… now my grandmother is gone too.  We’re talking in a matter of 11 weeks, my whole entire life as I once knew it, has been totally turned around. 

I used to feel so special to be able to say that at almost 26 years old, I had all four grandparents still alive and healthy.   How many people can say that, really?  How fortunate and lucky I felt.  And not a day went by that I didn’t thank God for how good I had it.

How fucking quickly things can take such a drastic turn for the worse.  Amazing how true that saying that I quoted in my high school yearbook, “the only thing that stays the same is change” really is.

Right now, I think I am just pretty numb from it all.  It has all hit me at random moments over this past weekend.  At 12:45am the night following my grandmother’s death, when I found myself wide awake and sobbing into the arms of my amazingly understanding match.man.  Earlier that evening as my roommate left to go out for the night, pulling me into a big hug as the tears just began to flow.  Last night as I looked in the top drawer in my grandmother’s room, and found cards sent from me to her and my grandfather from over the years.

Today, I have an emotional wall up.  Tonight, I will, like last night, sleep in my grandparents’ house with my mom.  Tomorrow, at 12pm, my family will proceed into the church that we were in 11 weeks ago for my grandfather’s funeral.  Tomorrow afternoon, my family will drive to the ocean.  We will play skee-ball like we used to do in the summers as a family.  We’ll get pizza right by the water and sit on a bench and look out as the tide makes its way in.  We’ll sit together, we’ll sit and just be, together, and we’ll watch as the sun sets, looking for the sign that both of my grandparents told us to look out for. 

A sunset.  A sign.  That they are okay.  Living on… together again.

 

in which no title seems to work…

My dear grandmother passed away early early Saturday morning.

Exactly 11 weeks after my grandfather died.  To the day.  Both came home on hospice on a Wednesday.  Both died exactly 18 days later, on a Saturday.

I’m beginning to think that in life, there are actually no real coincidences.  Things all have a way of working out, for a bigger plan, a bigger purpose.  I fully believe in the presence of a higher power out there that has a plan for everyone.  

For the two of my grandparents to be together again. 

I’ll be in and out around here for a bit.  Thank you to everyone for caring thoughts and support over the past several months for me here.  It has truly meant so much to me.

 

coulda, shoulda, woulda’s

“As we drive along this road called life, occasionally a gal will find herself a little lost. And when that happens, I guess she has to let go of the coulda, shoulda, woulda, buckle up and just keep going.”~~Carrie, SATC

Would it bother you so much to say hello to me at work?

Could it have ever worked out with us?

Would we have slept together that night if we hadn’t been drinking?

Should I have given him another chance?

Would you try to understand me if I told you that I sometimes feel like it always has to be about you?

Could you actually ever follow through on what you say you are going to do?

Should we stop being friends that sometimes hookup?

Would you leave her for me?

Could you step outside of yourself, for a minute, and realize how hard all of that was for me?

Should I have said I love you so quickly?

Would you tell me once and for all, what you really think?

Would we ever really have been as good as I imaged that we could be?

Should I tell him what I really think about her, the next time he asks me?

Would I have gone for him, knowing how it would end?

Could you and I just get away from it all together?

Could you find it in your busy life, to make a spec more time for me?

Should I be as open as I feel like I want to be with him?

Would he still find me attractive, if I gained ten pounds?

 

iLike

Things I have an affinity for as of late:  

• Oprah’s new show, The Big Give.  Did anyone watch it last night (and not cry?)?  The mother whose husbie was murdered with the two twins really got me.  What a wonderful idea for a show.  I’m diggin it.  
• Geesh, apparently racking up minutes on my cell phone again!  I went over by almost 150 minutes this month and over $100 dollars!  And, another reason my mom and I are so alike?  I get a voicemail from her today saying that she did the same thing last month and needed to consult with me since she knows I’ve been in this certain pickle before.  Granted, last month was a high volume call month with my grandfather being sick and all.  Still, hurts the wallet a spec when you gotta shell out an additional $100 bucks when you weren’t planning it!  
• My new! red! laptop!  (I’ve decided his gender is in fact male, mainly because I don’t really understand his whole make-up, how he works, etc., but also because I tend to almost always refer to inanimate objects as “he.”)  
• The Kite Runner.  I’ve finally gotten back into reading it.  I started it back a couple months ago, and was in this routine of reading before bed which is never a good thing for me.  I fall asleep pretty much on contact (which is good I guess), but not so good for retaining what I’m reading!  So, I’ve started back up with it and I’m liking it.  A lot.  
• Stellas!  I had one for the first time (a shock that I hadn’t already tried it out) when I met up with Nilsa a couple weeks ago.   
• Getting regular manis.  There’s a place near my apartment that charges just $10!  Pretty good deal if you ask me.  Speaking of, watch this, which puts me in hysterics every time. 
• Kelly green.  My roommate and I are obsessed with this color lately.  I’ve always had a thing for it, but with Springtime coming around (though it doesn’t feel like it here), it’s a perfect color to add a little oomph to an ensemble.  I just got a wallet in the color and I love it.  
• Hard boiled eggs.  Yeah I know, weird.  
• Clorox wipes.  I swear those things can do a job on everything.  I bust them out on the kitchen counters, the bathroom sink, you name it.  And they leave behind a nice clean, fresh smell!  The only small qualm I have, is that after using them?  The surface just seems too… wet (that’s what she said).  So I end up having to kind of take a paper towel to the area afterwards.  Which, is not a big deal per se, I guess I just wish they were a spec less wet.  Hmm.  
• Jotting down memories of my grandfather.  I’ll be sitting in a staff meeting in the morning and randomly remember a sweet conversation we once had, or a memory we shared together.  I’ve started carrying around a notebook to write these little gems down.
• Always, Red Sox players and any slash all news regarding them, their spring training, and their dancing.
• Jonathan Papelbon, because he deserves his own category.  The things I would like to do to him…  
• The new SATC trailer.  Enough said.
• The new HOH, courtesy of cdp.