Tag: Newlywed

Friends, Home, Humor July 27, 2009July 27, 2009

Highs and Lows

“Who made these cookies? Venice?”
“No, my wife.”
“C.?!”
“Yeah. Apparently she cooks.”
-Ronald and J. Thanks for the support, love.

Newlywed and me being caught up in the idea of being a good wife (coupled with a degree of gentle poverty) J. and I have been being good about putting together meals, cheap dates, and limited spending. Which leaves me feeling smug. “Look! A modern woman am I! Dinner on the table, clean house, and laundry done once a week. AND I’m currently the primary bread winner, bacon bringer, ladder climber, whatever, so I can in no way fall into the barefoot and chained to the kitchen sink variety. I am woman hear me roar!”

Then again, even though I fight it hard, I sometimes find myself slipping into the 19th century. For example, when Venice decides to show me how to make her amazing peach-strawberry jam. Incidentally, Venice’s overall fabulousness is in no way lessened by this knowledge. She’s from Idaho, they know how to do that sort of thing up there. Anyway, I got it whipped up and gelled with barely any loss of face, and now it’s kind of my dirty secret hiding in the back of the freezer.

But then on sunday, when J. and I were both feeling under the weather and stayed home, I went into Absolutely Fabulous Wife Mode. I whipped up bread pudding for breakfast while my plagued husband slept in, a broccoli and carrot soup for dinner, and even managed to stay a good friend and drove Marie home (she lives over an hour away in my hit-and-miss car)…and then…Venice came over to borrow cooking spray, a lemon, scotch tape, and wrapping paper (how she combined them I’ll never know) looking like this:

“What the Betty Crocker?!” I demanded, but it was sheer jealousy. Perfect 1950’s housewife (minus the valium, hopefully). I immediately tumbled down a well of inadequacy.

Editor’s Note : Savitrii just came by and asked what I was writing. I said I was blogging about making jam and her eyes bugged. “YOU?!” she demanded shakily, “I…I don’t even know who I am anymore…” Har har, people.

Drama, Home, Humor, Snark July 21, 2009July 21, 2009

Black Thumb

“Despite the gardeners best intention, nature will improvise.”
-Michael Garafolo

Those perfidious fiends at the home and garden store! They basely sold me six little plants, that were labled as cherry tomatoes, that I lovingly planted along with cilantro and basil, and crossed my fingers that I wouldn’t kill them. My little sister also gave us a potted geranium, in a vibrant red, to put outside our front door to make it more cheerful. This too I hoped would survive being my plant pet. But I seem to have been doomed to disappointment. After weeks of coaxing these fickle things with water, sunlight, fresh air, and lots of expectations, I have been rewarded thus:

Cilantro that's gone to seed (as well as a sickly yellow which you can't tell in this photo...)

And do these in ANY way resemble tomatoes?!

Friends, Home, Humor March 18, 2009

Moving On Up (so to speak)

“However did you get your couches in? Doesn’t seem like there’d be enough room on the walkway.”
“Val and his friends lifted it over the railing.”
“Oh, very nice. Man-ual labor.”
-C. and Venice

house_moving J. and I enlisted Scotticus and my godbrother Bear today (many thanks, gentlemen) for the picking up, maneuvering, and dropping off of our sofa and loveseat today. Huzzah, they’re in! AND I got my landlord (who is probably heartily sick of me at this point, what will all my calls, questions, and obsequious permission asking) to give me the go ahead to paint. Et voila, I have a major weekend project! I’m probably biting off way more than I can chew, but that sort of thinking goes with the whole, “Let’s get married,” theme.

Mattress comes tomorrow, and I should be ready to start bringing stuff in this weekend. And apart from the total lack of pots, pans, towels, tools, and various other things one get from registering for gifts (all of which are pretty necessary so living without them will be an adventure) I’ll be set.

Mom approved the wedding invitations so basically I’m through planning this Carroll-esque caucus race! Hurrah!

Home, Humor, Marriage March 17, 2009March 17, 2009

Homesteading

“I prefer the word homemaker, because housewife always implies that there may be a wife someplace else.”
-Bella Abzug

I have, alas, discovered the one tiny little downside to getting married: moving from a really nice condo where I split rent with three other people, have a washer and dryer in house, and a dishwasher, to an apartment that is easily older than I am with none of the aforementioned perks.

To be fair we have two backrooms in addition to the large front, the rent is fantastically low, and Venice and I will be neighbors, but I have discovered an inner interior designer that I previously was unaware of, and she does not approve of chipped, smudged, or dirty walls! She cried out in dismay when she saw them, actually.

The (grossly exagerated and in now way remotely accurate) reality. — The (grossly exagerated and in no way remotely accurate) reality.

Funnily enough I don’t care two straws about the walls when I hang out with Venice or when we were meeting with our prospective landlord. But suddenly walking into the place where I will be living as a renter, to say nothing of wife and therefore “homemaker” (see above quote, even though I’m still sort of protesting the title in my feminist soul. I console myself by saying that I can’t possibly be a true homemaker until I’m no longer working, so that gives me some buffer years), my internal designer tapped a stiletto and said, “Oh, this simply will not do.”

I’m sure they’re not really as bad as my ultra-managerial-these-days mind makes them out to be, and for all I know the paint job my Designer is clamoring for isn’t actually necessary. I am going to attack the walls with a magic eraser and see what sort of difference that makes. Hopefully this quiets her down. If all else fails I’ll just pain anyway, and then weasel the cost of the project off of our rent!

Small Dog Syndrome