If Collab – July: If you were asked to identify your most life-altering moment, what would it be? Why did that pivotal event or experience cause you to change your direction?

I remember very distinctly when my dad gave us the first of the disbursement checks from my uncle’s estate. This was before we knew the full extend of what he had left us – before we could even comprehend what sort of legacy he had left behind. All we all knew was that there were three checks – one for each.

There were a lot of things I could have bought with that money, but I had been a graduate student for far too long by that point, living paycheck to paycheck, never knowing what my funding would be one quarter to the next. Every time it looked as if I was finally caught up and could actually start to *save*, something would happen to send me scrambling for money again. All four tires had to be replaced on the car. It needed a new ignition coil. I hated borrowing money from my parents, but all my friends were in the same boat, and I had no other choice but to swallow my pride and ask.

So I took that check my dad handed me, and I deposited it, and I waited anxiously until it cleared and I was certain, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that the money really was there in my account, and then as each bill came in that month, I paid it off in full. I couldn’t pay them all, but I cleared out most of them, and each time I wrote out another check that would wipe the slate clean for that particular debt, I felt lighter and lighter.

It’s not polite to talk about having money. It’s perfectly acceptable to talk about the lack of money; how you have to struggle to scrape together enough to put one gallon of gas into your car so you can get to work, or how you play a little form of roulette to determine which bill gets to be paid late this month. No one minds if you talk about things like that because too many of us have been in that same boat – are too many more are still there.

But people don’t like it when you *have* money. It makes them uncomfortable when you mention it, and so it can never be brought up – this amazing amount of money that I suddenly had when all the bills were paid. My sisters and I have talked to each other about it time and time again, if only to have *someone* who can understand the experience and not feel as if you are bragging. It’s not that you suddenly have more money. It’s just that the money you have is *yours* now. You’re not sending it off to pay bills – it’s sitting there, waiting for you to spend it any way you choose.

My little sister says she almost cried when the bill statements came back reading 0. The freedom of no longer having to live paycheck to paycheck – the immense amount of money you suddenly have when you no longer have to send it all to creditors. It changed our lives – all three of us – in very distinct ways.

You go a bit crazy when you are suddenly solvent. My little sister said she went to a gourmet food store and wandered the aisles, giddy. She purchased $20 bottles of truffle oil, and specialty spices, just because she could. I bought electric litter boxes and a digital camera (there is no connection. Don’t even go there!).

If I had my choice, I’d rather be in debt and still have my uncle living, of course. He wasn’t our true uncle by blood – only by nickname – but he’d been our ‘uncle’ since we were tiny girls. He was a close friend of my parents for so long that my sisters and I can not remember a time when he wasn’t part of our lives. I cried when I heard he was dead – cried more for him than for any of my grandparents who’d died beforehand, because he was really the only relative we ever knew (despite the lack of true blood relation).

The rest of the inheritance trickled in in a few much larger checks, and we all admit quite frankly that if it hadn’t been for the money from my uncle, none of us would have been able to afford the houses we live in now. But by the time that came in, it was icing on the cake. The best part of receiving that inheritance was that small sum in the beginning, when at long last we could finally climb out from underneath the fear of never being able to handle an emergency or of trying to decide between buying groceries or paying the electric bill – and finally breathe free.

We went out for Indian food Friday night. We both love salmon tandori, and so we get one order, with extra onions, and split it with extra naan, fresh from the oven. They pile on the onions, cooked til they’re translucent and oh-so-sweet. Whatever they marinate the salmon in turns it a bold yellow color, and it flakes easily with a fork so that we can wrap slivers of salmon with sweet onions into the bread, and take bites, juice oozing onto the plate.

We always finish the meal with some sort of cheese ball thing in honey. I can never remember the name, and even though he and I have tried our best to commit it to memory, we usually end up stuttering ‘golab ja…something.’, and they nod, amused, and bring it out to us anyway. They recognize us there now, most of the time, and don’t even ask how spicy we want our tandori anymore. There are times when we go twice in one week, sometimes one night after the other. I suppose that at some point we’ll tire of it, but there seems to be no danger of that any time soon.

We went for tandori last night because I was craving it, and even though Richard *thought* we were going to go with friends tonight as well, I knew better. Between the two of us, his best man and I concocted an elaborate scheme for how I would get him to his bachelor party. I had some idea of what was planned, but frankly, that wasn’t my concern. No, my job was simply to get him there without him knowing. In fact, when the whole idea of a bachelor party has come up, I’ve been deliberately vague about the whole thing, assuring Richard that his best man was most likely going to do *something*, and next Friday night after the rehearsal seemed to be the most opportune time since Richard’s spending the night there anyway.

Problem was, it was at a friend’s house, and there was no reason at all we would be going there.

So…I came up with the dinner story so he’d not try to plan anything else that night, getting those friends into the plot so they’d not inadvertently blow it when it came up in conversation. Then I mumbled out a rather vague story of the party hostess needing to borrow some of my garb pieces for the costume she intends to wear at our wedding, and we were off. I was laughing as I pulled away, waving to his best man through the window as I drove off.

My manager and I have been exchanging email and voicemail the past few days. There’s a position she wants to submit me for, but I’d have to travel. She’s not surprised by my answer that I really want to escape consulting. We discuss various alternatives. She is willing to be helpful but makes it clear that I need to make a decision by the time I return from my vacation. She cannot leave me on the bench forever. Things are coming to a head, though, and I reluctantly email her to ask to extend my vacation a few more weeks. She knows why I’m asking, but doesn’t comment on it.

In the past few days, however, she’s been quite busy going above and beyond. She’s called a number of people to ask about available positions. She’s doing her absolute best to help me – far more than I expected. She directs me to talk to a woman in Denver whose enthusiasm infects me. If it were up to this woman, I’d be taken in an instant and converted to this position – selling consulting services to customers. I consider the information and forward my resume, but wonder if this really is the wisest decision – I’ve no wish to go into sales. My heart would not be in it. Could I do it? Yes – I’ve always been good at selling when I put my mind to it. And despite all my issues with the way the Big Fish treats us as consultants, everything I’ve seen indicates that the rest of the departments are much better. Staying with the Big Fish means not having to switch insurance carriers, 401k paperwork, phone numbers and emails and everything else involved in changing jobs. All those lovely stock options would have a chance to vest.

But I accept that this may not be a possibility. Most of the jobs available right now at Big Fish are in the corporate office, and I cannot even imagine doing that commute five days a week. So…I send out resumes, and call people on the phone, and smile and nod and act dutifully charming, and all the while the days tick by. Using up all my vacation is painful – we’d planned on three weeks next spring for our honeymoon and if I ‘m still with the Big Fish after this, I may no longer have enough. But I’m not sure what other choice I have.

Since my maid of honor is busy planning evil things to do to me for my bachelorette party, one of my other bridesmaids, Ivy, pulled together my bridal shower, which was yesterday. She, Beth, and Roni all got together Friday night to do the food, and from the looks of it, they all had a lot of fun. I’ve never seen finger sandwiches shaped like teddy bears and unicorns! I also had no idea that Bethy was such a good cook! She made a chocolate cake that was truly divine.

We talked and laughed and they all told stories on me to each other, and we ate teeny sandwiches and brie on crackers and cookies and veggies. I opened presents – wonderful presents, including a huge platter from my older sister that everyone else there immediately coveted, and Ivy dutifully gathered all my ribbons (of which I broke not a single one – heh heh) and created my rehearsal ‘bouquet’.

It was a quiet, fun gathering. These are friends I haven’t had much chance to see the last year, what with every weekend full of house-building or wedding-planning activities lately. The one benefit of this class I took the last two weeks was the proximity of Big Fish’s training facilities to Ivy and Beth. Thursday night I drove down a quiet, tree-lined road to meet Beth for dinner, and we strolled down the streets of Berkeley, eating tiny little hamburgers and finishing with chocolate mouse and ice cream cake.

I’ve missed getting to spend time with my friends, and these brief tastes of ‘girl’ time in the last few weeks have only made me look even more forward to the days (coming soon!) when we’ll no longer have a house to work on or a wedding to plan, and can actually take time to see friends, and relax, or to even have a weekend where nothing is scheduled at all.

Both sets of parents (mine and the soon-to-be in-laws) came to our house for a Fourth of July barbeque, since our house is situated so that we’ve got a perfect view of the park where they set off the fireworks. It was a beautiful day – not too hot out, thankfully, since Richard’s mom is extremely allergic to cats, and our house is kind of a walking time bomb for anyone with feline allergies, so she spent some time outside on our back porch. Luckily, we had the gardener mow down the waist-high weeds, so our yard just looked ugly, but not lethal (we had an incredible crop of sticker bushes coming up out there!).

To his credit, Richard did warn me that he hadn’t really ever barbequed before, but I assumed that since we’d have his dad and my dad here, between the three of them, there’d be enough guys standing around poking at coals to make it work. Somewhere in the house there are grilling utensils, but I couldn’t find them (probably still in one of the few boxes we’ve yet to unpack – sigh).

I tossed the hot dogs onto the little mini-Weber I’ve had since college, and then went inside to cut up melons. Suddenly, the noise and laughter outside increased sharply, and when I wandered out, I saw why. Flames were shooting from the larger grill, where Richard had just recently laid out the hamburger patties. Richard was standing there looking a bit bewildered, and both sets of parents were laughing too hard to be of much help at all. Someone finally suggested that he put the lid over the grill to try to kill the fire a bit. Only problem was that the flames from the burger grease were going so hard that when he put the lid on, it forced the flames out the *bottom* of the grill.

I’m awfully proud of him. He’s now taken ‘flame-broiled’ to new heights. The excitement of the burger-cooking was so much that there were practically no jokes at all about what happened last year when we all got together for the fireworks, but he’s going to have to come up with something even more amazing next year to top this one.

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We got out early from class Friday, so I dashed for my car. Traffic was actually not too bad for 2pm on a Friday in the Bay area, so I managed to get home with enough time to actually relax before Richard and I headed off to meet the seamstress for a fitting ‘dress rehearsal’. She wanted everyone to come fully ‘garbed’, with swords, boots, tights, etc., just so everyone would get an understanding of just what this was going to entail. I’ll admit to finding amusement in the fact that, for a fun change of pace, it’s going to take the groomsmen longer to get ready than the bridesmaids. All the ladies have to do is pull the dress over their head. The guys have to lace up boots, belt on swords, tuck in pants, and there are laces at shirt collar and cuff to deal with as well. Well, I shouldn’t say ‘all’ the ladies – my mom and I are going to require someone to help us get into our own dresses.

They all look amazing. The colors we picked work to everyone’s advantage, and Richard’s outfit looks incredible on him – very dashing and romantic. Nah, I’m not biased. Nope. Not me.

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).

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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.