LifePundit

The Cheapest Man in America Gets Romantic

I think I'm married. Paul continues to turn up after late nights finishing his office renovation. We haven't been away together alone since 2000. It's been a hard several months, so we really do need to have some time together. Alone.

So I was thrilled when Paul asked me if I would go with him on a week-long cruise to the Bahamas (I've never been there so it's time I went) on the Norwegian Majesty (pictured). The thing I love about cruises is that you absolutely have to unplug. You have to relax whether you want to or not. No Internet. No news (except what they let dribble through the room TV). No phone. (Yes, you can get these things but they cost extra and I really don't want them -- I'd pay not to have them for a week.) No man sitting at family supper using his laptop. A romantic week alone -- we've never needed it so badly.

And the price of cruises right now is almost less expensive than staying at home! Go look. I wonder for that price if we're supposed to bring our own sheets, towels and food?

Saintly Brother and his almost saintly wife have agreed to let Lily stay with them. I'm all set for our romantic cruise at the end of January. Time alone. What will that be like?

Then we have this conversation:

Paul: It's all set and Mark can go.

(Note: Mark is Paul's favorite client. I like him, too, and we have vacationed together before.)

Me: Mark can go where?

Paul: On the cruise with us.

Me: But I thought it was a romantic get away for just the two of us!?!

Paul: This way I can expense the trip.

He had already invited Mark! On our romantic cruise! Without asking/telling me!

Me: But then it's not a romantic trip with just the two of us.

Paul: We'll have a private room. I thought you liked Mark.

Me: Yes, but that changes everything!

I'm not sure that Paul every really understood the problem I had with this because to him it was just such a good idea -- bring a fun client and expense the whole thing. But to his credit, he re-arranged things and will be taking Mark on a later trip.

There is such a thing as being too frugal.

This is so awful it's funny. But we will have fun. Paul is cheap, but he is fun.

Merry Christmas!

Your New Christmas Tradition

This is one of the funniest things I've ever heard. Enjoy!

Still Making You Feel Better About Christmas

Tree still not up. "Seasonal flowers" from Wal-Mart have wilted and will be thrown out today. Still need to get gifts for seventeen nieces and nephews (probably gift cards), wicked MiL, downtrodden and whipped FiL and one aunt in nursing home.

Paul almost finished his office. He had an employee party there the other night and it was spectacular. I thought we'd be eating pimento cheese sandwiches and standing on drop cloths, but no, one of his employees is an awesome cook and another is a great organizer. It looked fantastic. And because half of the employees are from India, there was some fabulous curried something or another from what the Indians say is the only good restaurant in town. I had a cold and was just trying to remember (and hear) all the names. It's really hard to take in foreign names spoken softly when you're on cold meds. Truth is, I think I'd have a problem with these names without seeing them written down. And while I wish them a Merry Christmas, I really wasn't sure whether to say so or not. The first picture to get hung up in Paul's new office was a map of India. (Paul has a software development company and nearly all the programmers are Indian. Not on purpose. It just happened. They have the best training. Paul isn't exporting jobs. He's importing Indians. But this is the topic for another post.)

Paul came home and crashed and burned. After months of overwork, he was exhausted. He also caught my cold and has been in bed ever since. So even though we planned to put up the tree, etc. after the office party, it didn't happen. It's not something I can do by myself (or that he can do by himself). So it's still to be done.

But it's okay. The world stops at Christmas. Christ is born and the world stops. I think that's what I love most about Christmas Day. It all just stops.

What doesn't get done is insignificant. What does get done is also insignificant. The world stops. There is a gasp. Christ is born.

I welcome his freedom and peace. (I'm still working on that death-to-self and obedience stuff, and he appreciates that I'm working on it and that I want to be what he wants me to be.)

Turn on some carols and go do something to help somebody in need. That would be me -- come on over and put up the tree, okay?

I'd skip it (yes, I'm that old) if it weren't for Lily. We need to put up our tree. We need to unwrap the beautiful manger scene that was Paul's grandmother's. I found it in a box, all carefully wrapped up, on the street in a pile of garbage. Paul's parents threw it away when they were cleaning out his grandmother's house after her death.

It was a manger scene that his grandmother had gotten from a friend. Hand-painted, somewhat tacky ceramics. The wise men have colored rhinestones, as does their camel. But AK, the initials on the bottom of each piece, knew what she was doing. The painting is exquisite, with different textures of glazing on the garments, the animals, the people. It is absolutely beautiful.

Lily and I love to unwrap it and I watch her set it up. The animals used to get special prominence (there are sheep dogs and everything) but now the baby Jesus is beginning to get the star treatment.

So yes, we'll put the tree up. And I'll burn a pine-scented candle to make up for the fact that there is no pine scent, just attic scent. And Christmas will come. I'm all set to stop.

My Job is to Make You Feel Good About Christmas

So far, Christmas is upside down. No matter what you haven't done for Christmas, you're ahead of me. I've bought three gifts. One for the piano teacher, and two joke gifts for friends I met for dinner.

The only signs of Christmas at our house are a festive vinyl tablecloth (the real ones are in the attic), a Wal-Mart "seasonal" bouquet and the Christmas cards we've received from the friends who haven't given up on us.

Our tree isn't up. (And will be right-side-up.) No wreath on the door. There's just a warm spot under the bed where I've been hiding, curled up in a fetal position. That's it.

Paul is STILL working every day and night on his office. They moved this week. Sort of. The office still isn't finished, Paul doesn't own a desk (he was using his former landlord's desk), and the cube assemblers are still assembling. Cube assembly is the only job Paul has discovered he can't do himself.

You say Christmas is one week away? Well, at least it's not tomorrow.

We'll get the tree up this weekend (except that Paul and I both have bad colds, Lily's just now off crutches from a horse fall -- nothing broken -- and he's so worn out I hate to ask him to help do anything). We'll go Christmas shopping or maybe send gift cards from Amazon to out-of-state relatives. It's just one of those years.

I did buy Christmas cards in a moment of misplaced optimism. Get this: Did you know that Wal-Mart has a section for Christian Christmas cards? That did make shopping handy-dandy, but I found this odd. Do they have a section for Jewish Hanukkah cards?

And I'm looking forward to cooking Christmas dinner because it's going to be different. I'm using the Silver Palate's recipe for lobster bisque, Paul is murdering the lobsters, and we'll have good bread, a salad and tiramisu (Lily's request and she'll probably make it) for dessert. That feels lavish and simple all at the same time. I'm just sorry that there won't be leftovers to live on for days afterwards. Oh well.

My wicked MiL is coming, but we've set boundaries on for how long. (Right. Boundary trampling is a sport for her.) And then I'm going to visit my mother, who, with any luck, will know who I am. Or, even more importantly, will know who she is.

I won't let Paul put the icicle lights up anymore. They do look pretty on our porch but, no lie, one year I couldn't get them down until July. Never again.

So all you smug Internets who've been ready for Christmas since the day after Thanksgiving, good for you. My wish for Christmas is that we'll get the decorations down before July.

An Excellent Adventure

I've got a cold and I'm waiting for the tranquilizer I gave the cat, Tiger, to take effect so that I can take him to the vet. Tiger was diagnosed with diabetes last week and I've been giving him insulin shots twice a day, which has been easier than I've expected. But today Tiger needs to have his blood drawn, and if I take him to the vet unmedicated, the only blood drawn will belong to the vet. Tiger has a massive personality change just by entering the vet clinic.

When my niece (who is a vet) used to give him his shots here at our house, he wouldn't bother to get up and would purr the whole time. Take him to the vet and they have to put him in a gas chamber. He has a big orange sticker on his file and you can hear him screaming from miles away even though nobody has touched him. He's so awful that it's funny. Unless it's your hide he peels off.

So, since my life is not worth telling about right now, you need to go visit my friend Joe's new blog, An Excellent Adventure. Joe is a retired FBI agent living as the "trailing spouse" while his wife, Melanie, works for the State Department in Tajikistan. They've chosen an interesting path through life, but I mainly think they're trying to get far enough away so we won't come visit.

I'd tell you all about Joe's adventures in the FBI, all the places they've lived and the interesting things that they've done, but then he'd have to kill me.

Go visit Joe and tell him I sent you.

Is it Procrastination or Preparation?

It's good to be missed. Thank you, Nancy. What am I doing? Procrastinating! And I've found a better way to procrastinate than blogging: cleaning up and making plans for 2009.

Sort of like planning your New Year's resolutions early, only without actually having to start them for a month.

I've also been driving. Soon I'll be a Teamster, just from hauling Lily around where she needs to go. Minimum of 60 miles per day. More than that if she actually goes anywhere other than school.

So what's going to be different in 2009?

I'm going to be walking while working. I've got a new treadmill and Paul is going to build me a desk (right Paul?) as soon as he's finished renovating his new office and moving in (scheduled for this weekend. The toilet is out of our den!). Right now I'm using a piece of pink Styrofoam for my treadmill desk but it's not very stable. Walking while working is supposed to improve your health, your sleep, burn calories and annoy the cat. A Mayo Clinic researcher says that you can lose 67 pounds a year simply by slowly walking while you work. I don't want to lose 67 pounds (but I might after Christmas candy). To see a video about the concept, click here.

I'm going to do JaNoWriMo. I didn't "win" NaNoWriMo, but was very pleased with how much more I wrote so I've signed up for a similar but less technically spectacular (the web site, I mean) event where you do the same thing: write 50,000 words in a month, only the month is January. I'm going to write a romance that you will never, ever see with my name on it. Frissons everywhere!

Then there are other goals that I'd like to keep to myself. Such as not seeing my MiL at all in 2009.

How about you?

I Want a Dumpster for Christmas

This year for Christmas, I want the anti-gift. I want a dumpster.

I asked for a dumpster once before. Paul said they are too expensive. Paul is frugal. I don't get diamonds or dumpsters.

I'm doing my big, end-of-year Dung Shui, and Everything Must Go. This feels very therapeutic, especially with so many misbehaving people in my life. I can't declutter people from my life, but I can declutter stuff.

Lily started it. She wants to repaint her room and get rid of all the animal prints and other things she considers childish. She's purged everything and most of it has gone to Goodwill. I got in the spirit of things and sent some fancy evening dresses I no longer have anywhere to wear. The lady at Goodwill was thrilled and said that she would put them out immediately because there were girls looking for party clothes.

And I'm not making this up -- as soon as I got home I received an invitation to a black tie dance. if you want to get invited to a party, get rid of your party clothes.

Still, I'm going to keep getting rid of stuff that isn't useful or beautiful. And though I don't quite know what I will wear to that dance, I hope those girls have a great time in my evening dresses. Something will turn up for me (it's probably forgotten in the back of a closet) and I'm thrilled that things I wasn't using (I thought) will bring others joy.

I guess there's a reason it's called Goodwill.

Not Everybody is as Nice as My Mother

When I say that not everybody is as nice as my mother, what I'm really saying is that my mother-in-law continued to be a trial throughout the Thanksgiving weekend.

Which doesn't mean that my mother isn't the nicest mother out there, which she is. My mother was accepting, welcoming and non-judgmental. She didn't whine, complain, or accuse Thanksgiving guests of stealing the cranberry sauce.

Yes, when I arrived home from my in-laws' on Thanksgiving night, the phone started ringing. It was my dear mother-in-law, accusing me of stealing the cranberry sauce. Little did she know how close I had been to throwing it at her, but no, I did not steal the cranberry sauce.

"So if you don't have it, who does?" she demanded.

"I don't know."

"No one else could have taken it. Are you sure you don't have the cranberry sauce?"

"I didn't take it," I said. I wondered if I should call a lawyer.

"Well, where can it be? It's not here. Are you sure you don't have it?" she said.

I explained to her in a kinder voice than she deserved that the only things I had brought from her house were the leftovers of the things I had taken there, and that in fact, I had left her a pie.

Still, where was the $&@*#$&@*$&! cranberry sauce?

As it turns out, my father-in-law had GIVEN it to my husband, who had stayed later than I had and was coming home in a different car. My father-in-law is not allowed to make such weighty decisions on his own, such as what to do with the leftovers that they usually discard, so my mother-in-law demanded that my husband bring the cranberry sauce back as she wanted it.

The next morning when we met them and the other relatives for a day at the zoo, the first words out of my MiL's mouth were, "Where is the cranberry sauce?"

Since it was going to be in the mid-60s and we were going to be gone all day, my husband said he didn't think it was a good idea for the cranberry sauce to be in the car in the heat. Just think. What if he had brought it, the cranberries had turned, and my MiL got sick? Oh, the tempation!

When we were at the zoo and my MiL was sitting alone in the back while the rest of us were watching the penguins being fed, my husband thought he would be nice and go keep her company. He found a seat by her and the only thing she said to him was, "I can't believe you took my cranberry sauce."

That night at dinner, after the cranberry sauce had been returned, she made a toast to the &*(@#&$*)@(# cranberry sauce.

There is much, much more on other unpleasant subjects and I had to leave Thanksgiving dinner to take a walk to get away. Everyone else is nice. Just not her and she spreads her venom and misery like a flood.

She came to our house on Saturday and said to me, "I don't think other women would put up with Paul." I think this was her best attempt at a compliment.

Not everyone is as nice as my mother. And no, I didn't take the cranberry sauce, but I very well may throw it next time.