There is the faint smell of burning in the air. For the past hour, I’ve sat here at my computer, putzing around doing nothing remotely productive, and tried to figure out whether it was just my nose going wacky, or if there really is something burning. Then, I tried to figure out where it was coming from. Wandered the office, checking to see if any of our power strips suddenly decided to go through hot flashes. Finally went downstairs to turn on the outside lights, and opened the door to the charming smell of a fire, somewhere nearby.

I didn’t see any smoke, and have heard no sirens. It’s been horribly hot today and I can only hope that whatever it is that’s on fire, it wasn’t important. It’s either that or someone started their Fourth of July BBQ early, but that really isn’t a BBQ smell. Hmm.

The code part of this two-week class is halfway done. It’s gotten to the point now where when we’re given an assignment to actually *do* (instead of just reading or being lectured at), the instructors tell the rest of the class one thing, and then give myself and the one other guy who seems to have a clue what he’s doing, extra stuff. And despite the extra work (which only ends up being a challenge, and a breath of fun and excitement in an otherwise very long and dull day), we *still* finish it way before the rest of the class. The last hour or so of class, after they gave us an introduction to objects, classes, and properties, Richard and I amused ourselves by writing code back and forth at each other. If Jennifer.silly(goofy) then….well, you get the picture. An infinitely useful way of killing time for both of us. And they pay me for this. Go figure.

Bless all those nice little Bay Area Americans who decided that they ought to just take Monday and Tuesday off since Wednesday was a holiday. The traffic – while still awful – was better than usual driving home from Pleasanton this evening. Okay, so I was crawling along at about 20 miles per hour for an hour or so, but the difference here is that we were *moving*. Hey, I take what I can get.

All reports indicate that the weather is not going to give us any time off in the next week. Before our guests (my parents and the soon-to-be-in-laws) arrive tomorrow, we have to clean the house and get to the grocery store since if one is going to throw a BBQ, it helps to have something to cook. Somewhere in all the hoopla of family and grilled meat and fireworks and of course the requisite viewing of the one of my favorite movies – 1776 (rent it! Never before have you seen the signing of the Declaration of Independence done as a musical. It rocks), I need to read two chapters to get ready for class on Thursday. Considering how this class has gone so far for me, I have a feeling that I could probably get away with merely sneaking peeks at it during lunch break on Thursday, but gosh darn it, I’m petty enough to want to keep that edge I’ve been holding over the other students.

The burning smell is getting stronger. I think maybe it’s time to go find some shoes and wander around to see if any of my neighbors is in for a very unpleasant surprise. Hrmm.

I will not be wearing a garter, since it’s not really appropriate to the whole Renaissance theme. And since the bouquet I’ll be carrying will be a dozen long-stemmed roses, chances are high that if I threw it, I’d likely stab someone in the eye with it – not the festive sort of thing one expects to have happen to one of the single women clamoring for the bridal bouquet.

So, we’ll be throwing dragons instead. My mom tracked down two of the Ty Beanie Baby zodiac dragons, and she and I have great plans to decorate them as bride and groom. There is a teeny plastic sword for the groom, and the bride will have a scrap from my own veil, and a more bride-ly bouquet of flowers (so that if she were to toss it at her own group of single dragonesses, their eyes would all be quite safe).

********

Not much time left now. Richard and I have started greeting each other with the number of days left. It’s hard sometimes to believe that it’s really this close. My mom’s barrage of wedding-related email has dwindled to little one-liners. “There has to be *something* we’re forgetting, right?” When I whined to my dad via Instant Message that I was bored, he suggested I try to come up with more ideas for things for us to get ready for the wedding. I suggested ice sculptures. He wisely ignored me.

We’ve been dragging people over for fittings. Friday night this week will be a ‘dress rehearsal’ for everyone in the area, complete with boots, tights, swords, belts, and any other accessories. I’m hoping to get home in time to see it, and maybe even bring a camera. Richard’s best man will be there, to make sure that between the two of them, at least one knows how to button up Richard’s vest, and attach the swords, and adjust the boots.

We’ve got all the gifts for the bridal party. We’ve got the rings. I’m crossing my fingers that Richard’s scabbard arrives soon. I’m holding my breath that the flower girl (18 months – yeah, I know it’s young) will be okay with walking down the aisle. I’m hoping that my nephew finally decides that his ring bearer outfit really isn’t as evil as he thought it was at the last fitting and will be willing to wear it (he’ll be so cute as a jester!).

Sit and wait. That’s all we can do. “Remember when it used to be a year?” Richard asks me sometimes. Somehow the time seems to have passed far faster than the next three weeks threaten.

Soon. I can’t wait!

We drove today, down quiet two-lane roads, through hills of brown grass and trees – the gentle rolling kind that make you want to stop the car and climb to the top just to see the view that you’re sure is incredible up there. We drove to spend an afternoon with Richard’s parents at a ranch near Lake Beryessa.

I sat in the shade as Richard and his niece picked their way across rocks, watching a squirrel by the creek. Its tail was longer than its body, and it poured itself over the rocks with more graceful fluidity than the water itself; tail cocked over its head, end twitching so the fur stood straight out like a gray bottle brush.

After lunch, we fed pieces of watermelon rind to a doe as her two fawns watched from a careful distance. She would eat it, searching for the next piece with delicate movements and her fawns settled into the long grass on the hill nearby til all you could see was their ears.

We played a storytelling game – sitting around the picnic table dealing out cards that had to be worked into the story that had to be memorized. The game had words like ‘peanut butter’, ‘slimy swamp’, and ‘kid brother’, and so we concocted a complicated story about a skeleton with a wish to be a werewolf, an older sister about to marry a goose, and the flying Worm Brothers, interjected with snorts of laughter and the occasional bop of an empty water bottle, and comments from the peanut gallery of parents who noted, at one point, was I sure I wanted to marry into this family, until it was pointed out that the ‘storm that was extra bad because it was pizza season’ was *my* contribution, and then Richard was asked if he really wanted to marry into *my* family.

Driving home, we delved into discussions about life in general, the advancement of technology, and of desires to spend more time with family living further away, and inquiries into taking yet one more step into the wonderful world of yuppiedom (and should all work out, I will explain that step soon, I hope) .

I’ve decided that, as a bride, it is my solemn duty to worry incessantly about at least one thing for this wedding. Up til now, I’ve not had to do too much worrying, mainly because my mom was doing enough for both of us. But now I’ve finally got something of my own – something that my mom isn’t even worrying about at all! It’s my own little dither-point. I’m so proud.

Lights. I’ve decided to worry about lights. See, for what we’ve planned for the reception, it would be ideal if we could manage to accumulate enough little white holiday lights so that the room would be lit by those and those alone. However, finding enough lights has proven to be quite a challenge. For one thing, most people only have a few of them, and these things are of such quality that only about half the ones we’ve managed to scrounge actually work.

So, taking advantage of the fact that Richard’s been a little bored at work, I wheedled him into searching for lights online, thinking that perhaps we might be able to order some (since stores don’t carry Christmas lights in the middle of teh summer. Go figure).

He found one place that had them for a great price, and so he placed the order. It wasn’t until after the order had been placed that we both realized that this particular company goes on vacation this week – and doesn’t come back until July 16th. The week before the wedding.

So I’ve been having a wonderful time worrying about these lights. Will they get here on time? Can they guarentee we’ll have them by the wedding? What if it’s still not enough?

Okay, it’s not much, but it’s mine. Everything else is finally going too smoothly to really get panicked about.

Lights. 6000 lights. If that isn’t enough to light that darn room, I think I may have to kick something.

Week one of the two-week class I’m currently taking is nearly done. Every time I get frustrated by the slow pace of the course, I remind myself that this week is usually taught in *two* weeks, and we were getting the accelerated class, and that alone keeps me from muttering ‘shoot me, just shoot me’ to the nearest person…or at least it keeps my eye-rolling to a minimum.

When other people in class begin to ask you questions when the teacher isn’t around, and when you’re done with the project you’re to do that day before most of the rest of the class has even started because you figured out what to do while the teacher was still going over the design, this is a really good indication that you’re going to ace the class.

I find it amusingly ironic, considering that of all the people in the course, I’m the one with least exposure and experience in this particular toolset anyway. Ah well. The tools that Big Fish uses to do their application (the same tools they’ve now attached to Little Fish’s software) are there, I’m convinced, solely for the purpose of keeping the developer far, far away from touching the database or doing anything remotely complicated. This is an amusing and still saddening revelation for a little computer nerd who’s used to going in and mucking about with her bare hands instead of having to rely on a (albeit pretty and advanced) tool to do it for her.

I shouldn’t complain too much. It’s an easy week with no stress. My manager very nicely set me up in corporate housing, and the apartment is conveniently located across the street from a large mall with a Starbucks (frankly I don’t care about the mall itself – all I care about is the close proximity to my coffee and scone each morning). And since I’m down here in Pleasanton, I was close enough that I got to do dinner with Ivymoon last night.

It’s been a slow and quiet week. I ran into one of my Little Fish coworkers who noted that if I was bored through this week’s instruction, next week will be no more exciting. He gently suggested that I try to sit back and relax and go along for the ride…but I’ll admit that’s very difficult for me. I’m too used to going too deep too fast for this job. It’s hard for me to leave it alone.

Thursday we finally had our office installed in our house – it’s custom desks and shelves and such things as would be required for two computer nerds.

The cats find this newest addition quite fantastic. This means there’s lots more open space (desk tops) to sprawl and shove things on the floor with their paws (accidentally, of course. I would never be so bold as to accuse them of doing this deliberately).

The shelves, however, are the best part. As I’m sitting here typing this, there are at least 3 cats in shelves – Rosemary, Azrael, and Rebecca. They can get to the middle tier if they work at it – and there they perch, peering down at me like fuzzy vultures, or else just lounging with one paw dangling nonchalantly off the edge. Allegra has discovered that from the new position of the scratching tree, she can lurk in the top shelf and peer around the corner and actually see down the hall without the other cats seeing her. Overall, the new office has been roundly approved….and okay, so Richard and I are pretty happy about it too.

We’d been putting off unpacking most of the office things and our books (of which we have a LOT) in anticipation of the office – mainly because yours truly didn’t want to have to repack them all when they came to install everything. So the last few evenings have been spent digging books out of boxes and figuring out where to put them. Poor Richard gave up and let me at most of it since I decided we needed to try to organize them somewhat by topic. All the science fiction/fantasy and horror are now in a huge shelf in our room; the hardbacks downstairs; the non-fiction in the office; the children’s books and humor in the guest room. And amazingly enough, despite the fact that both of us together have several tons of books, not only did we find space to put them all, we’ve got empty shelves left! I’m not worried – I’m sure they’ll fill up in no time, and we’ve got intentions of adding some paperback shelves to the office at some point. And as long as they stay empty, there’s somewhere – other than directly in front of the computer monitor, or on the mouse pad – where the cats can sit.

Shortly after we moved into this house, we decided that we had better get a front yard in before the neighbors started to complain. Plain dirt isn’t so bad, but dirt filled with weeds is rather icky, and I figured the ‘well, they just moved in’ excuse would only last us for so long. So Richard and I started calling around, trying to find people who not only knew what they were doing, but also were willing to come out and do it for us.

The first gardener came out to give us an estimate. “What do you want?” he asked. “A yard!” I replied cheerfully. I was awarded a surprised blink. “With some bushes. Over there.” I added, trying to be helpful. Apparently it was because he began to rattle off actual names. Luckily he recognized my blank look (perfected over the months of house building when we were asked obscure questions about things we had no idea we even needed to make decisions on), and began looking around the neighborhood and pointing out existing greenery. Our discussion rapidly subsided into him making cautious suggestions and me nodding. My only request was that I wanted these little pale pink flowers in the front since I think they’re gorgeous, and from what I’ve seen, they have a tenacious desire to take over the world. I think he said they were some kind of poppy.

Anyway, by the end, he was left to wander the property with a measuring tape, muttering, while I escaped back inside and peered at him occasionally hoping he didn’t have any more decisions for me. I suppose that we really ought to know what we wanted, but really, we didn’t. Just something….green. With trees. Two trees, because that’s what the city ordinance states.

The next guy who came by was easier – I’d already been primed by the first so I figured I was all set. I even remembered some of the names – or at least until I opened my mouth to spout them off and realized that I didn’t really remember as much as I’d thought and could only blather something about ‘well, it’s a bush with flowers and it starts with an ‘L’, or maybe it was a ‘P’…um…it’s green?”

I should be used to these looks of tolerant amusement by now, really I should. We had them for five months of construction….but anyway.

The estimates came in and we picked someone – the same guy who was taking care of our lawn back in the old rental. He and his men showed up with a van full of dirt and canisters of bushes and two spindly little trees. They raked the dirt smooth, planted the bushes and trees, and then promptly disappeared for three weeks. Occasionally they’d show up to water, but in the meantime we had a really bad heat wave and one of the trees just couldn’t make it.

I was willing to be patient, but I was starting to wonder just how long this was going to take when finally they reappeared, full of apologies and stories of getting tied down with another project that took much longer than expected. The dead tree was uprooted, the bushes carefully tended to, and within a week we finally had a lawn.

We’re not allowed to walk on it and – as I discovered this afternoon when I went out to take pictures of the house and the yard – this is a good thing because they’re watering it three times a day, and not only is it sprouting an amazingly bumper crop of mushrooms, but the ground is so soft underneath that should someone step on it, they would sink rapidly into the muck. Ugh.

So we finally have a yard. We still need to put up a fence – if only to hide the fact that the backyard is still a mass of weeds that are growing rapidly to waist high, and are probably plotting ways to take over the porch – and the bushes and ferns and pale pink whatever-they-are-poppies have a bit of growing to do before they provide the cover they’re supposed to (although the poppies, at least, are taking off like weeds). But our house looks more like, well, a real house now with a proper carpet of green in front. And I figure that when they finally cut back the watering to once a day or less, the fungal growth will die off. Either that or one of these days the mushrooms, the weeds in the back, and the poppies will band together and when we get home from work they’ll have staged a coup and taken over the house.

My nephew’s third birthday was Monday, and so we celebrated in fine style Sunday afternoon, gathering all local family members (which included myself and both sets of grandparents) for burgers and cake, served on ‘Little Engine that Could’ plates. There were balloons on each chair. There were matching paper napkins, and the birthday boy wore a pointy birthday hat. It was festive in the way only a small child’s party can be.

But to prepare for this little shindig, we had to first find a present worthy of a small boy on the occasion of his third birthday. Such a present should not only garner some form of excitement from the recipient (hence, clothes are never an option), but also guarantee that his parents will let us back into their house at some later date. To this end, we had to (very reluctantly, I might add) pass on the nifty Duplos box that was shaped like a piano, and – in the manner of the most annoying toys for small people – talked in a high cutesy voice and asked if we wanted to play a song. It didn’t just ask, mind you. No, it waited for short intervals and then piped up to remind you it was there.

We finally settled on a set of take-it-apart-yourself construction trucks that came in a satisfyingly large box, and not only had a battery operated power ‘drill’ (all the bit attachments were of sturdy plastic that wouldn’t make a dent in styrofoam, but sure sounded and looked neat when it was running), but also served the (evil, twisted, amusing) purpose of allowing my nephew to strew its 80 small plastic pieces all over the floor for maximum swearage when they’re stepped on later. Hey, I know my duties as an aunt. I take them seriously. And we *did* leave not only the obnoxious Duplo piano behind, but we also left that cool fire engine with ‘realistic’ sirens and bells too. I think we deserve credit for that one.

While we were at the toy store making the momentous decision of what to get for my nephew, we had to cruise down the aisles, cringing at the mind-bogglingly pink assortment of Barbie accessories, poking at all the baby toys in their oh-so-lovely primary colors, and meandering through the puzzles, where we happened upon something that – although it wasn’t a puzzle – had to come home with us anyway.

Tonight, we were little late meeting friends for dinner because Richard and I were huddled over a casserole dish filled with water and – yes, you guessed it – an Alien Pod. Inside the clear blue plastic pod was our very own little green alien zygote (I swear, they called it a zygote. I am not making this up), amid a handful of little crystals. Ah, but submerge this little beauty in water, and within minutes the little crystals start to swell up, and the pod bursts, spilling the squishy little crystals – and the contorted little green squishy alien – into the water where, the package assured us, the entire container would then become full of Cyber Gel and the alien would continue to grow over the next four days til he (she? It?) reached full size.

We were late for dinner because we were really hoping to watch the pod pop open. Unfortunately, we missed the ‘hatching’, but when we got home a few hours later, the casserole dish (or in other words, the only thing we own that’s clear glass that’s large enough for this sort of thing) was full of an open alien pod, a little green spongy alien, and yes, oodles of Cyber Gel to squoosh happily between fingers.

I’m thinking that we’re going to have to make another trip to that toy store sometime soon to stock up on more of our little alien’s friends and relations. It’s never too early to start shopping for Christmas…

My mother is not a fan of Unity candles. “You’re having a wedding,” she is fond of saying. “You’re exchanging rings. You’re saying vows. You’re doing it in front of all your friends and families. How much more unity do you need to get the point across?”

I’ll admit I tend to agree with her. I’ve never been all that into the Unity candle thing myself, and have been known to point and snicker when faced with those gaudy frufru wax concoctions sold at bridal shops for ungodly amounts of money.

Richard, however, likes Unity candles. And, well, since it is his wedding too, I figured there had to be some way I could work in the concept of the Unity candle, without either subsiding into gagging giggles, or being subjected to the rolling eyes of my mother. So while writing up our ceremony (which is actually bits and pieces from oodles of other ceremonies and a few extra parts we made up), I hit upon a wonderful idea to use that Unity candle thing and expand it a little. Not only will we light our own candle, but we’ll then ‘send it out’, using this as the method by which everyone else gets their candles lit (yep, the ceremony will be exclusively by candlelight).

Tonight we met with the minister to go over the ceremony and hash out all the nit picky little details (like who stands where and who says what and where they go to say / do it),. When we got to the one section where the parents are to read something, she and I looked at each other and murmured ‘candles’, and nodded, while Richard looked on a bit befuddled until the two of us managed to babble out our idea. Once he caught on, of course, he was offering suggestions too.

We’re talking Unity candle to the max, baby! If we can figure out the logistics of hiding all the extra candles we’ll need for the bridal party up front, and manage not to set either the church or ourselves on fire while we’re at it, this is going to be really, really cool.

She is strong willed.

She is self-assured.

She is intelligent

She is wickedly funny.

She is talented.

She is stable.

She is a mother.

She says what she thinks and doesn’t hold back.

She is a battered wife.

She loves him.