No Method, Just Madness

We’ve been doing boring, grown-up things over in these parts lately. Things like looking for our own apartment and planning for the future and plucking our ear hair and blah, blah, BLAH. That’s right, people…no more fun times sittin’ at the kids table! It’s all mushy peas and soggy Depends at the grown-ups table from here on out. I wonder if cheese goes well with mushy peas? (Hmm…something to think about while I soak my dentures.)

So we found an apartment…which, at present, is not a trivial task. The way the rental market is right now, potential renters are showing up in droves to see just about anything listed on Craigslist. (200 sq ft studio apartment in Crack-head Ho-town Central? Sweet! Let’s go check it out!) All potential landlords have to do is just sit back and allow the bidding to begin. Some landlords, though, take more pleasure in the competition and make us do unspeakable things for luxuries like hardwood floors, crown moldings, onsite parking and laundry. If he or she even mentions that utilities are included, everyone present starts visibly foaming at the mouth. (It’s frightening out there! Hold me!) I personally had to balance on a small platform over a pit of water and joust my competitor mano a mano for the lease to our apartment, but lucky for me, my opponent had a really high center of gravity and exceptionally bad credit. Poor sap!

The Brit and I don’t move until the end of May, and we’re bummed about the prospect of leaving our house on the hill where we currently live in peace and harmony with our roommates and amongst the squirrels…but we are excited to have our own place. And it’s in the Mission district which is where all my peeps¹ live. Where people dance in the streets to show tunes from Westside Story! Where there are produce markets and taquerias just around the corner! Where people mill around aimlessly at night doing somewhat questionable things on the corner…things of which my Mamacusa would likely disapprove! Ooh, and it’s where enidd lives too! Now she and I can meet up for burritos and cerveza whenever our hearts desire! Que bueno!

In the spirit of growing up, we also went and got ourselves a financial planner. Because it’s not enough that we periodically huddle together to point and laugh at our pathetic bank statements and measly investments²…we went and found someone to do it FOR us on a more regular, let’s say…quarterly, basis. Now we don’t need to guess that it’ll take us 30 years to afford owning a house in SF, we have a paid professional to assure us that it’ll take 30 years to afford owning a house in SF! (So this is what peace of mind feels like!)

At this rate, we’ll be scheduling our health maintenance colonoscopies for next week! Won’t that be fun!

1. The ‘spics (aka Los Latinos, The Beaners).
2. And by ‘measly’ I mean ‘imaginary.’

I wasn’t previously aware of this, but apparently, there is a proper way to do a wedding invitation. (Did y’all know this?) And judging from all the wedding website etiquette columns, the people who determine the prerequisites for a proper wedding invitation spend a little too much time at the country club and maybe wear their girdles a bit too tight! I’m thinking that just to spite them, we might forgo their suggestion to spell every last detail out in all capital letters¹ and just use all lower case letters. Maybe we’ll include an emoticon throwin’ our favorite gang sign from the west side in there too while we’re at it. Cuz you know that’s how we roll. Sheeeit.

Needless to say, we’re going to break a few of Miss Manners’ rules. But not too many.² We’re currently at that stage where we’re trying to figure out the invitation wording. And the fonts! Jesus, picking a font is about as fun as picking which sharp weapon an assailant might kill you with. The ice pick or the filet knife? I just can’t decide! Luckily, a lot of the font websites out there let you type in a sample text of your choosing, so you can really get an idea of what the font will look like on your invitation. Here are a few of the phrases and script fonts that we’re contemplating…

More formal:

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3

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Significantly less formal:

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We’re also thinking about creating a separate invite for the small handful of black sheep on my side of the family:

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What do you guys think? Any opinions?

1. For instance, where most would write “3 PM” they would have you write “THREE PEEE EMMM.”
2. Because we’re carefully hip that way…in an intentionally non-contrived sort of way, of course.
3. This wording makes me throw up a little in the back of my throat every time I read it, so it’s definitely out.

Dinner at The Brit’s boss’ house went well. What am I talking about??? It went EXTREMELY WELL! Because while all in attendance were busily chatting about topics like Kids These Days!?!? or Should we put an extension on the deck!?!? the cheese plate was left TOTALLY open. And you KNOW I took that shit down town!

Also, I only spilled ONE glass of red wine all over the person sitting next to me. Which is different from most nights out.  Pretty sweet. 

Last week was not nearly as much fun as it should have been.  It was entirely work-imposed misery, of course, and there was much resultant sighing, groaning, banging of the forehead against the desk, and collapsing to the floor plus/minus the rending of garments for added dramatic flare.  Suffice it to say, it is unpleasant when cancer (and the cancer-associated research that I do) does not behave the way it should.  Cancer, I wish I could quit you! 

There were three things that made my week somewhat better, though…

1. The Brit made me sweet potato fries drizzled with truffle oil and served them along with cheese and crackers at midnight on Thursday night when I was about to off myself.  And, thusly, he saved my life.  Nothing rejuvenates one’s desire to live more than fried starch products paired with dairy.  And, seriously, TRUFFLE OIL?  If you know how much that shit costs, then you know how much The Brit loves me.  That dude is total marriage material. 
2. One of my lovely cousins blew into town unexpectedly from New York City for business.  I don’t get to see her nearly enough these days so it was nice to catch up on who’s doing what and who’s doing who and what’s doing who in our family on the east coast.  We spent Friday night stuffing ourselves with pork and cockles and then we spent Saturday night stuffing ourselves with all-you-can-eat Brazilian meat.  Nothing reconnects cousins like braised swine and roasted cow, let me tell you. 
3. Saturday morning found me squeezed into 7mm of neoprene (not unlike the unwanted lips and assholes of a swine into a sausage casing) and forty feet below the water’s surface in Monterey.  That’s right, People, I forced my slightly less gargantuan rump (thank you Boot Camp!) into 53 degree waters and finished my open water SCUBA diving certification.  And, I’m happy to report that no tympanic membranes were harmed in the certifying of this here diver!  Nothing rekindles one’s interest in SCUBA diving like an underwater experience lacking stabbing ear pain and vertigo!  Woo hoo!