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.

It’s that time of year again – when florists are frantically arranging sprays of blooms, bakers are concocting fanciful creations so overdone with sugary frosting and detail they could put a diabetic into a coma, and women all over the world are being asked by their best friends and closest relatives – and agreeing – to wear clothes that they normally wouldn’t be caught dead in. Yep, it’s marriage season, and this means that you, the friends and relatives of those who are about to join the world of nuptial bliss, are probably getting some of those lovely invitations in the mail. You know the ones – they come in two envelopes and have that ridiculous translucent paper in them, and took an awfully long time to stuff.

Yes, that’s nice, you’re saying. So what? I got this invitation to my best friend’s sister’s wedding and I’m gonna go. Might be an amusing way to kill a Saturday afternoon, ya know?

See, we just sent out the invitations for our wedding, and so far, the folks on the invitee list seem to all be (for the most part) really good at this etiquette stuff. However, since I’m a bride myself and I’ve been hearing / reading all the horror stories for years and years with all my friends and relations, I have a bit of sympathy for all those women out there who are – like me – currently waist-deep in flowers, seating arrangements, musical interludes, frantic searches for just the right shade of paper napkin, and really ugly unity candles.

So to make sure that all the other brides out there have one less reason for that nervous breakdown prior to the wedding, let’s drag out our handy dandy etiquette book and see what they have to say about you, the wedding guest. Trot down to your local library and search for Emily Post (because, like it or not, I’m not making any of this up), or you can just take my word for it. Up to you. But anyway, where was I?

Oh yes, the invitation. It came, you opened it up, you either gagged over the cherubic little ‘Precious Moment’s bride and groom done in pastel shiny ink, went cross-eyed trying to read the print, or double-checked the names until you remembered just who the heck these people are. And then you marked the date down in your calendar and you figured out a day to head out and get the happy couple some lovely gift, and you assumed you were all set, right?

Sorry. Nope. You’re not all set until you take that cute little envelope that was inside the invitation – you know, the one on top of that ridiculous little scrap of vellum – and you send it back.

See, the bride and/or her mom didn’t stuff that little thing in there just for fun. It really serves a purpose – and the importance of that tiny little card and envelope hinges on two things: numbers and food. Yes, that’s right. They’ve got to figure out how much food to tell the caterer to make, so that everyone gets their fair share of pastel-dyed mashed potatoes, wilted spinach salad, and, of course, the cake, and then numbers are important because fire marshals tend to get upset when you try to put too many people into a reception hall without a special permit.

And yes, even if you’re not coming, you still need to send it in. C’mon, it’s already stamped and everything. All you have to do is find a pen (well, okay, for some of us that can be a challenge, I’ll admit), check the ‘regrets’ or ‘accepts’ box, write down the names if you intend to go, seal it up, and toss it into the nearest mailbox. See? Piece of cake.

Oh yeah. I said ‘write down the names’, didn’t I. Better clarify that.

Take a look at that invitation. Chances are it came in two envelopes. The outer one had your mailing address, and if you’re lucky, some charming little embossed dove on the outer seal. The inner one is the important one here, so if you were thinking of tossing it, think again. It’s important because that’s the one that says *who* is invited.

Yes, I said ‘who’. Just because you single people out there got invited to a wedding, it doesn’t mean you necessarily get to bring a date. If they intended for you to bring someone, they’ll have either written his or her name down underneath yours, or written ‘and one guest’. If your name shows up all by itself, then – you guessed it – you’re expected to show up all by yourself. If you truly can’t bear the thought of attending without your precious snookiewookums in tow, then call the bride and ask – politely – if it’s alright. But don’t get offended if she says no, and for pete’s sake, don’t just assume it’s okay to bring him or her along anyway!. Chances are likely that she’s already had to whittle down the guest list and exclude lots of other people she, the groom, or their parents really wanted to come.

Oh, and a special note for those of you with kids. Look closely at that inner envelope and then count the names. Wife….husband….oops? No kids? Must have been an oversight, right? Guess again. If they wanted to invite your children, the names of the little dears would have been listed right there underneath yours and your spouse’s. So if those names only include just the two of you, then either your little angels get to stay home all by themselves, or else it’s time to refresh your memory on just what kind of exorbitant rate that baby sitter of yours is charging you these days.

‘But it’s not right to exclude the kids,’ you complain. Or ‘you can’t expect me to show up alone, can you?’ Here’s a news flash for you. Weddings Cost Money. Weddings are not public parties where anyone gets to come. They are private, invitation-only events, and the people throwing them have every right to invite or not invite anyone they so please. Remember what I said about whittling down the guest list? Your kids may not have been invited, or you may have been asked to come alone so that they’d have room to be able to invite the groom’s favorite Great-Aunt Flo. Yes, it’s ‘just one person’, for you, but when 20 people show up with their ‘just one person’, or ten people show up with their children in tow, it changes fairly rapidly from ‘just one person’ to a wedding coordinator’s worst catering and seating nightmare.

So go easy on them this summer, okay? Send in your RSVP, show up with only the people you were asked to bring, pity the bridesmaids and their apparel silently, be ready to hand an extra tissue to your seat-neighbor when that particularly mushy bit of poetry is read during the ceremony, and above all, be polite, and be nice. That’s really what that whole etiquette thing is all about, anyway.

I saw my veil today – or what will be my veil. Between the two of us, the seamstress and I twisted and tacked my hair to my head and then she added the material, and I looked in the mirror. It was lopsided and lumpy, and it was hard to tell because we were laughing, and the lace isn’t completely on yet (which seems to be the bane of the seamstress’ assistant), but it’s going to look lovely.

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There are ants in the house, everywhere. They’re not swarming – well, mostly they’re not (we just won’t mention the state of the kitchen garbage yesterday morning) – they’re just *there*. Every time I look down, I see at least one or two or so of the little creatures.

In our old house, all it took was a liberal sprinkling of diazenon crystals around the house and no more ants. In this house, I’m starting to realize it’s going to take a lot more than that. I think this wonderful raised foundation that’s so nice on the cooling budget is likely to be our downfall with the bugs. I’m loathe to call someone out here and spray, but if they don’t clear up, we may just have to.

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Looks like I won’t have to be as completely bored for the next five weeks as I’d feared. I managed to get myself signed up for a technical training course last week of June and first week of July. This means I’ll be living in corporate apartments for two weeks, and stuck in a room full of other techno-nerds who were just as bored as I have been (the only time we ever get to sign up for training is when we’re on the bench), and this may make the Fourth of July interesting, since I am not willing to give up that holiday just for this class, but at least it’ll kill the time.

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Yesterday, Richard sat at his computer and gleefully read off descriptions of things one can download for the Palm Pilot. Under the ‘religion’ category, there’s apparently a nifty little program to track…well…the rhythm method. I can only assume it’s under religion because this is the only form of birth control certain sects of Christianity are allowed to practice, but….um…gee. This is *just* what I got *my* Palm Pilot for, ya know?

And then there’s other such gems, like the pocket Karma Sutra (sorry, folks – no pictures; just descriptions involving phrases like ‘love juice’, and how can you pass up on *anything* that refers to ‘love juice’, I ask you?), the pocket monkey pal (which promises such fascinating delights for the little creature like how it flings feces, and you can control it using ‘mild electric shocks’), and then of course there’s the Hell Clock, described as ‘just like any other clock except it’s EVIL’. I can only imagine this little watch face that displays on your Palm and ticks menacingly.

There are people out there with entirely too much time on their hands. Of course, then it occurs to me that I’ve now got nearly five weeks of idle time myself.

Hmmm….

I go to work at 8am each morning, same as before, but now it is different. Now I can be a bit lazier in the morning – taking extra time to get dressed; talking myself into getting on that treadmill and exercising; giving the cats the attention they demand. Now it only takes me fifteen minutes to drive to work instead of nearly an hour, and there is no traffic, no stress, and the only wait is in the line at the Starbucks where I’ve gone nearly every morning since the project ended to get my latte and cinnamon chip scone.

Instead of leaving at 5 or 6 or sometimes even later in the evening because someone decided to schedule a meeting or a conference call or needed some report by tomorrow first thing, and getting home as the sun is setting, I leave work at 4pm sharp. I wear shorts and cute little tops to work, and kick off my shoes and lounge at my desk, barefoot.

I tune my computer in to random 80’s radio stations in other states and play it quietly, or else I listen to downloaded seminars and pre-recorded webcasts. I aimlessly surf through the convoluted pages of the Big Fish’s training sites, searching for something – anything – that I can sign up for and learn and do. Eager as I was get this time on the bench; now I am starting to wonder just how I can possibly fill the days ahead. There simply aren’t enough online sessions offered over the next six weeks to keep me occupied, and onsite training is often difficult to come by – the consequence of 25 consultants rolling off what was supposed to be my company’s largest project for this piece of software, and all of us searching hopefully for classes to take.

I have little nibbles from here; emails from there hinting possible escape routes from consulting. I try not to get too hopeful – these sort of things have been presented to me before, only to be snatched away just when I was starting to dream they’d be true – but it is hard not to wish when what I want so badly seems to hang there, just barely out of my reach.

There have been a few scattered emails from others on the project – employees of the customer for whom we were working as well as other consultants. A number of the independent contractors crowded around us on Tuesday of last week as we all packed up our things and deleted any personal files and uninstalled instant message programs from the PC’s we’d been assigned. They asked nervously if I’d act as a reference for them, and I was only too glad to pass out contact information. With few exceptions, the group of developers we worked with over these past eighteen months were marvelous, and if giving them a good reference for another position is the least I can do to thank them, then so be it.

The office at which I will be lurking these next six weeks is quiet. My office roommate is only here two days a week, and while I love chatting and laughing with her while she’s here, I’m also relishing in the quiet.

With everything else that is going on right now, I’m grateful to have my job subside into something as stress-less and easy as simply getting to *learn* things. And for now, at least, I am doing my best to avoid thinking about what will happen when those six weeks are over and I am faced with a return to the hectic life I only recently was able to escape.

We went to an energy fair yesterday. It wasn’t all that exciting, and since it was put on by SMUD, and we’re outside SMUD’s range (lucky us – we’ve got our choice between PG&E or nuthin’), the information was naturally geared toward all the greenergy programs SMUD’s pushing. But it was still at least a place to pick up a few fliers and some freebies, and to take advantage of a whole page of coupons for those oh-so-cool compact fluorescent light bulbs you can use in all your regular light fixtures – the type which usually cost an arm and a leg but last forever so you tell yourself they’re worth it while you wince your way through the checkout line.

I’ll admit here that we did have good intentions when we moved into this house of sticking those energy-saving little puppies into every light we installed (and trust me – we installed one heck of a lot of lights. I know this because we had to *buy* all those lights at the same time, and when you are dragging two carts overflowing with boxes of light fixtures through a very crowded do-it-yourself store, you get a really good idea of just how many of those little suckers you’re going to have installed in your brand new home). But after looking at the sheer number of light bulbs required, we copped out and filled up a few grocery sacks with the plain old ordinary incandescants. We rationalized this by thinking that those fluorescent ones are too expensive to be left to folks who might accidentally break them as they’re installing them – not, mind you, that they’d have any more or less clumsiness than we would, but it felt noble at the time. Besides, the whole point of buying all these compact fluorescent bulbs is so that when the energy-sucking ones in place finally fizzle out, we can replace them one at a time, and not have to feel like we’re blowing one month’s salary just to illuminate our house.

But anyway. I was getting somewhere here, really I was. While we were sitting through what turned out to be a fairly useless presentation on SMUD’s solar panel program (useless – I will note – only because we can’t take advantage of it, due to the aforementioned PG&E monopoly in our area), I heard my name being cleverly distorted over the loudspeaker, and trotted off through the throngs to collect my drawing prize of a gift certificate to a hardware store chain for which there are absolutely no stores close to where we live. This was still a pretty exciting thing, and as it turned out, the place we went to take advantage of all the inexpensive fluorescents happened to be a booth from that very hardware store, and they just happened to have some sale ads on the table, and we just happened to pick one up and flip through it, and saw this thing Richard and I have been drooling over for months now, and not only was it 50% off, but with it’s sale price, my lovely new gift certificate would cover it and leave us with a few extra coins in change besides.

So off we scurried to the nearest store (about half a mile away, luckily), and persuaded a fairly reluctant sales clerk to go find the very last one which was in a long and heavy box which had definitely seen better days, and wasn’t helped by the fact that since it was in such poor condition, I insisted we open it up and make sure all the parts and hardware were there.

Then we drove home with our prize (after taking care of the remaining change by delving into their ice cream freezer and snarfing down some yummy goodness-on-a-stick) and proceeded to spend the next hour or three contorting ourselves into odd positions, strewing little piles of screws and bolts and nuts and other little paraphenelia all over our front porch, and putting together our brand new toy.

But it was all worth it! We are now the proud owners of our very own glider porch swing with end tables (an accessory which had to be mentioned at least several dozen times in the hardware store between Richard and my Dad. I’m not exactly sure why, but they seemed to find great humor in it. Go figure.), which fits perfectly onto our lovely porch. Last night we both carried our paper journals outside and curled into the bench (a bench which took much longer to put together than you’d think. Trust me on this). This morning, we carried coffee outside and sat on the porch til the sun drove us back in, and this afternoon, Richard has already been happily ensconced outside on the bench for several hours again, basking in the breezes and birdsong.

(Oh, and as a side note, I thought it worth mentioning that, despite this fair being hosted by SMUD, PG&E had a small booth there. There were three people behind that table, all looking more than a bit beleaguered and stressed and probably all wishing they’d never signed up for this in the first place, because it was obvious that we were not the only ones asking them why it was that *their* utility company didn’t have any of these really awesome greenergy programs.)

As the wedding gets closer and closer, invariably the first question people ask me when they see me is ‘How are the wedding plans going?’ And my answer, lately, is “Not too bad. My mom and I are managing to keep things down to only one small panic per week.”

They think I’m kidding, of course, but I’m not. So far we’ve had to deal with:

• Delayed printing for invitations
• Disappearing seamstresses
• Dance troupes that never respond to email
• Miscommunication on bridal showers and bachelorette parties and timing of such
• Bridal party members who live too far away so getting them fitted now becomes an exercise in miracles
• Rotating photographers

Well, you get the picture.

The good news is that, so far, each and every catastrophe has been dealt with in a satisfactory manner. But while it’s going on, both my mom and I are tense, and my dad and Richard are stuck in the middle. Richard gets to listen to me whine or rant or whatever mode is appropriate for that weeks’ wedding-related fiasco, usually with a slightly befuddled expression on his face and an offer of assistance. The only thing he can do, of course, is just to listen and let me get it all out – something he does admirably – and reassure me that it will all work out somehow.

There’s only six more weeks til the wedding. My mom and I really don’t want to know what else is going to crop up. It doesn’t seem like a very long time until you look at it in terms of minor catastrophes., but my mother tends to be queen of worst case scenarios and there are times lately, with the most recent crisises, that it’s gettting harder and harder to bite my tongue.

Things will all work themselves out somehow. I just have to keep reminding myself, and my Mom, of that.