hangin’ tough April 2, 2008

OMG, I don’t care what you say…Jonathan was always the hottest.

all I want to do is give the best of me to you February 15, 2008

There’s no former bride (or formerly pregnant woman) who can resist giving advice and telling their own stories when given the slightest provocation. Planning my wedding took place during the busiest, most exciting 15 months of my life - my last semester of college, graduation, starting a new job, moving to Washington, living on my own. When I got the email about the Virtual Engagement Party for Jen, it was hard to decide what to write about. Every time a friend gets engaged you are taken back to your own special day and everything that happened afterwards to bring you to where you are now.

I met Jen and Joel at our September “DC Blogher” and had a great time. I really enjoy her blog (especially the parts about sneaking into the gym without a membership, and her scroogeyness) and Gmail chatting with her when we are supposed to be working. I can’t believe how thrilled I was when I read that they had gotten engaged in Barcelona. Since I read her blog, I’m an expert on their relationship, and I’m certain they will be very happy together (as they already are).

I decided I wanted to tell my own engagement story, and thank god for my engagement scrapbook because there were a lot more details in there than my brain could remember (which was ”Night time. Question. Ring. WEDDING PLANNING!!!!!!!!”). But I did learn a few things from my wedding that I have to pass along in the spirit of sisterhood. I guess I’ll save them for another post, because as I was going through the scrapbook, I found a ton of blog material that probably isn’t interesting to anyone but myself, but…score!!

So, here is the story of my big day.

On Saturday, March 30, 2002, Train and I were at his parents’ house for the Easter weekend. It was the beginning of Train’s spring break from student teaching. On Good Friday we had dropped Triathlete off near Richmond and picked up his uncle’s old motorcycle for Train. On Saturday morning we made an unexpected trip to pick up Triathlete and his dog. That afternoon, we decided to take Triathlete’s dog and Train’s dog (Heeler) up to Skyline Drive.

In college, Train and I would visit the park at least once each time we visited his family for the weekend. The first time I went was the morning after we arrived in his hometown for my first visit in the fall of 1999, and for some reason we decided to watch sunrise from up on the mountain, and it was gorgeous. It was just something we continued to do to take a small break from his family and the chaos of his parents’ house (overwhelming, back then, for an only child like me). So when we took the dogs up that day, Train bought an annual pass and I thought nothing of it. Only two visits a year made the pass worth its cost, and we would often visit after dark and it was easier to have a pass instead of dealing with the honor-system pay machines.

When we got back to his parents’ house, we got ready to go out to eat with Train’s family, including his parents, his younger sister Nanny, his older sister Ditto, and her then-boyfriend Roadrunner. They had been dating about six months. We were celebrating Train’s father’s birthday. I remember Ditto and I joking about how, if Train and I were to get married, our names would be the same. (No seriously, the exact same. And they still are. Tonight when I get my haircut, they will - like they do every time - say, “oh, we have you in our system twice!” and I’ll say, “Nope, that’s my sister-in-law” and they’ll say, “oh, well let’s put your middle initial in” and I’ll say “well, we have the same middle initial” and ha ha we will all have a good laugh. Lather, rinse, repeat.)

We went back to his parents’ house, and I put my pajamas on because I wasn’t feeling too great. We all started to dye Easter eggs to hide for Train’s cousin. Each of us got three eggs, and I kept dropping mine until they were all cracked. It pissed me off and I went into the living room to watch tv. Blah. Train came in and asked me if I wanted to go to the park. I almost said no, because I just wanted to chill out, but I recognized that he was making an effort to spend time alone with me so I said I would go.

Normally we would have taken Train’s truck, but the motorcycle was still in the back so we took my Nissan. We drove to our favorite overlook where you could see the lights of the whole town. We sat on the edge of the steep hill in the grass (usually we’d sit on the tailgate). I sat picking out the high school, the church, the steeple of the military academy, and other landmarks like I always did.

All week I had teased Train how he would probably forget to get me an Easter card (ah, constant need for affirmation, how I don’t miss thee), so after we sat for a few minutes in silence and he asked me if I wanted my Easter card, I was pleasantly surprised! He handed me a piece of paper and said “I wrote it out.” I looked down and the sheet had the lyrics to a country song (I have to keep some things sacred, right?). I thought it was sweet, a typical thoughtful thing Train would do. Then he handed me another piece of paper and I was a little confused. When I read “What happened two years ago today?” I was even more confused. I began to think, and at the exact second I realized that on March 30, 2000 Train had given me a promise ring, he handed me a third sheet: “Erika Middle Maidename, will you marry me?”

I very, VERY slowly began to comprehend what was happening and turned to look at him while avoiding rolling down the hill. He was holding a little white box that contained the most beautiful ring I had ever seen. I started to cry because I couldn’t believe that the gorgeous thing he was holding might belong to me!! I couldn’t really talk, so he finally said, “Do you want to see if it fits?” and I nodded my head and he put it on my left hand. It fit perfectly. I eventually got my composure back and I hugged him and said “Yes!” to answer his first question.

We sat there for a while longer and talked about the day and how we were going to tell our parents, and who else knew about the ring and his plans. The longer we sat there, the more I realized just what was ahead of us, beyond the engagement and wedding plans; that we had just decided to spend the rest of our lives together, and I couldn’t have been happier. Starting then and for the next week, I hardly ate or slept because I was either too excited or too nervous.

that night

The next morning, we went to the early Easter service at Train’s church (where his parents were married, where we would get married, and where Ditto and Roadrunner would marry about a year after us). When we got home, I called my parents and we gave them the news. A few weeks before, my mom had booked a flight for me to come to visit them while they spent a few weeks in Key West that June. Inexplicably, my mom’s immediate reaction was, “YOU’RE STILL COMING TO KEY WEST!” (Years later she would be equally flaky when we told her she was going to be a grandmother for the first AND second time.) They were very excited and happy for us, and went out to dinner to celebrate and toast our engagement.

Triathlete and I left Monday to go back to school since Train was on spring break. I hadn’t signed on to Instant Messenger all weekend because I knew I would be able to resist telling my sorority sisters and I really wanted to tell them in person. Luckily, when I got back into town, Dr. P, Seagrass Girl, and the Rev were going to dinner so I was able to get them all together. I had to wait for the Rev to get back in town before I could even go over to their dorm because I knew I would bust (I lived off campus). Finally I went to campus and I saw Dr. P in the parking lot and blurted out the news and in the same breath asked her to be our maid of honor. She was so surprised and shocked, and stood there open-mouthed and laughed and smiled and told me how happy she was for us. The Rev was coming out of the dorm to go to her car and saw the commotion and came over to see what was going on. She grabbed my arm like it wasn’t attached to my body and hauled me into the dorm screaming straight to Seagrass Girl. After her four-hour drive back to campus, SG thought the screaming meant there was a rat or a snake in the dorm and was ticked off until she saw the Rev and my hand. And then me. We all screamed and hugged and then went and had a fun dinner (at Arby’s, I think?).

So that was the beginning. I hope to do some more posts about what I learned during the wedding planning and some of the details of our wedding. For now I’ll conclude by wishing Joel and Jen the VERY BEST, and I hope you have a terrific Fake Engagement Party.

suddenly I see February 13, 2008

This week marks a year since my LASIK surgery. It really was life-changing, but it’s amazing how seldom I think of my years wearing glasses and contacts.

I had terrible vision my whole life. I got glasses in second grade. I think before then, I thought everyone had as hard of a time seeing the chalkboard as I did. By third grade, I was wearing them full time. By that point, without my glasses, I could not distinguish faces that were more than eight inches away. I most certainly couldn’t read anything. My vision mostly stayed that way for 15 years, getting only incrementally worse with annual prescription changes. Around middle school we discovered I had an astigmatism, which wasn’t that big of a deal because so did my mom. And to this day I have no idea what it means.

The biggest pain was during the summer, when I couldn’t really see while I was swimming. I had a humongous alarm clock with 6″ high numbers. I actually still have it because it is my favorite EVER, but I symbolically replaced it with a tiny-numbered version after I got my eyes fixed. My mom also had terrible eyes and we went to the eye doctor every six months.

In third grade, I was riding my bike along a semi-busy road with my mom’s best friend and her daughter. A car was coming behind us, and I think I concentrated too hard on keeping my front tire lined up with the white line on the side of the road. I fell, and my glasses shattered, cutting me around the left eye and bruising and swelling it shut. Luckily my eye wasn’t injured but it was the gnarliest I have ever looked (and ever hope to look!).

My dad and I went whitewater rafting on the French Broad River when I was in fifth grade. At the last minute he kind of panicked about my glasses, and I decided to zip them safely in my windbreaker pocket. Luckily, you don’t need to see a whole lot of detail to follow the guides instructions and use your paddle. I was more comfortable with my precious glasses safely tucked away, but once we finished my dad felt awful that I hadn’t been able to get the full experience without my glasses. I guess he saw the rafting company’s photo of our boat, with me staring unfocused at his back. But truly, I did enjoy that trip and would have been worried about my glasses (while I wasn’t thrown from the raft, I did fall into it, which is more dangerous).

In ninth grade, my mom tried to get me to get contacts. When she was in high school she was desperate to get out of glasses and wore hard lenses, which takes serious dedication. I was able to wear soft lenses, but I still wasn’t interested. Our opthamologist warned Mom that if I wasn’t ready, it wasn’t going to work. I remember tears in the back room of his office as I tried to insert and then remove several types of lenses. They gave me a trial pair to take home, which of course weren’t exactly tuned to my prescription. So for all of this hassle and drama, I couldn’t even see as well as with my glasses. I quit the contacts.

By midway through my tenth-grade year, I was ready to give it another go. As the doctor predicted, this time was much smoother because I was determined. I don’t remember if it was weird going back to school without glasses, but I do remember wearing a lens all through Biology one day while my eye teared up, and realizing afterwards that I had pinched the middle out of the lens when had I picked it up out of my case that morning, so essentially I was looking through the hole in the lens. After that I learned the lesson to always bring my glasses with me just in case.

Overall I enjoyed my contacts because I looked more grown up without glasses. But I was never truly comfortable in them, so I always took them out at night. I could never have been one of those people who left their lenses in day and night and never changed or rinsed them. My mom and I used to have a saying that when you got home at night, it was hard to decide whether to take off the contacts or the bra first. The mall air would always dry them out. Once I started driving, I was especially vigilant about carrying my glasses in case I was out late (the longer I wore my contacts, the more tired my eyes felt).

During my freshman year of college, I lost my glasses (in their case) somewhere between my dorm room and Train’s. I went about two months without them, meaning when I took my contacts out at night, I couldn’t read or watch TV. It was awful…I would want to keep my contacts in as long as possible but it was miserable. In April my mom came to visit for a sorority dinner and I mentioned I had lost my glasses. I thought she’d be mad (hell I was mad at myself!), but she was all “poor baby” and we went to the one-hour place in the mall the next day.

That year (2000) my mom got LASIK. I was apprehensive about it…it seemed really risky. She had it done on a Thursday night, and after a panicked phone call with my dad (he was sure she was going to rub her eyes and blind herself), I went home to visit for the weekend. We made her wear clear shop glasses to avoid touching her eyes. But overall she was ecstatic at her decision and freedom. Even now at 50, she only wears reading glasses (which she will remind you are only about $6 and you can buy them anywhere).

I learned that when I traveled I should always bring a spare pair of contacts (I wore 2-week disposables). One weekend in the summer, on my way up to visit Train at his parents’, I put in my contacts after filling my car with gas. The next day I was in the emergency room for a scratched cornea.

Once I began working, and commuting on the train, I would wear my glasses in to work and change into contacts at my desk. That way I could sleep on the train and still wake up comfortable. I was never big on eye drops so I tried to avoid napping in my contacts for anything. There were a few days I forgot my contacts and had to wear my glasses at work, which wasn’t a huge deal but I didn’t see as well, especially at the computer.

When we went out to visit my in-laws’, which was about an hour drive, I would always bring my glasses with me in case we stayed late. Wearing my contacts at night still made my eyes tired and I often would drive home so I was more comfortable in my glasses.

I was a huge fan of Newlyweds and I watched Jessica and Cacee get their eyes done in 2004. It was hilarious, especially when they went out to eat afterwards. I began to warm up to the idea…if Jessica Simpson could do it, surely I could. Although she did have a limo to take her.

I wasn’t really concerned with my contacts during labor when Sherman was born. My mom had told me stories of falling asleep after I was born and having to pry her eyes open because she had left her contacts in. I figured it would all depend on what time of day it was, and if I wore my glasses, no big deal. I don’t remember taking my contacts out but in photos from the beginning of labor, I had no glasses, and in the photos holding Sherman I was wearing my glasses.

Later that summer, Janet decided to get her eyes lasered. In all the years since my mom had had LASIK, I had just assumed that I was still too young and my eyes still changing. My contacts and glasses had not been that much of a hassle. But now with a baby waking me up in the middle of the night and grabbing at my glasses, it just got to be too much. Janet’s decision was like an epiphany. With all of the stuff I had to remember to take with me for Sherman, if I was going to forget something - or just be lazy and leave it behind - it was going to be my own stuff, and I was sick of toting contact solution, glasses, and cases everywhere. TIME FOR A CHANGE.

I decided to wait until the new year to begin the process. We loaded up our pre-tax health spending account so that we could use it to pay off a chunk of the surgery. I went for a consultation in January, and was able to schedule my surgery during my parents’ February visit.

I have always said the two worst things about LASIK were (a) paying for it and (b) wearing my glasses for 6 weeks before surgery. I didn’t see as well with my glasses so it took some getting used to. Luckily, if I ever need “enhancements”, I won’t have to do either of those things again.

The day before my surgery, on Valentine’s Day, in the middle of the closest thing we get to a blizzard in Virginia, my father-in-law had a liver transplant. Train and his siblings spent a few days in Charlottesville at UVA to be with their mother. Train came home on the 14th so that he could take me for surgery. It was a rough few days for him.

Sitting in an exam room waiting for my noon surgery, I teasingly asked Train if he would ever have LASIK if he needed it. He said hell no, he would never have anyone mess with his eyes because he’d “rather be half blind than totally blind”. I’m glad he kept this opinion to himself until I had no opportunity to back out. I took my valium and we all know how that turned out.

The surgery itself doesn’t take long, but setting up the machines and preparing everything is tedious. The room was cold. My eye was clamped open, and I remember the doctor telling me very sweetly that my eyelid would “give” before the metal clamp did, so I needed to just calm down and stop fighting it. There is a period during surgery where the vision in your eye is completely gone, and you just see black. It was freaky, but kind of cool. It didn’t hurt at all, it was just hard to keep still and look straight ahead. I imagine if I had a sedative that worked better for me, it wouldn’t have been so difficult.

Within a few minutes I was in a dark exam room getting my eyes checked. Things were kind of goopy, like my eyes were covered in vaseline, but I could tell that I could actually see. I was overwhelmed with emotion and drugs and I tearfully thanked the doctor.

The ride home in the snow and sunlight was rough, and as soon as we got home Train covered our bedroom windows with thick blankets. I’m not going to lie, I was in mild pain, and not sedated. My instructions were to sleep for several hours before beginning a very specific eyedrop regimen. I remember waking up every half hour or so to sit up, barely open my eyelid, pull off the eye shield, and let tears drain out.

I had soup in a dark kitchen and went back to bed for the night. The next morning I felt much better. My eyes were sore and bloodshot but I just couldn’t believe that I could see. I reached for my glasses in the morning and tried to adjust them on my face during the day. I slept in eye shields for about a week. Not allowed to touch my eyes for a few weeks. A ton of eyedrops, one that made everything yellow for a second and tasted funny when it somehow reached my throat from my eye. A visit to the eye doctor 24 hours and one week after surgery, then follow-ups at 3, 6, and 12 months post surgery.

After all of those years of glasses and contacts, it is amazing how quickly I got used to being able to see any time, any where. I packed up all of my cases and solution and sent them to Kat. I proudly placed all of my old glasses in the Lions donations box at the opthamologist’s. My friend at work, whose boyfriend had said LASIK changed his life, was confused that I didn’t make a bigger deal of it. But it seemed so natural to be able to see, I kept forgetting about all of those years when I couldn’t.

I haven’t had any problems, and I totally psyched that I don’t have to worry about any of those glasses/contacts issues with this pregnancy, delivery, and newborn stage. I have had some pretty bad eye dryness due to the pregnancy hormones, but all I need are some drugstore eyedrops.

It was definitely a wonderful decision. I’m sure I would have done it eventually, but if it hadn’t been for Janet I wouldn’t have bitten the bullet when I did. I have learned a lot of things from the ladies’ whose blogs I read, tried new things, been inspired about different things. But this definitely was the most life-changing. Happy Valentines Day, Janet, and here’s to “high definition eyeballs”!

random monday (with 20% more parentheses) January 28, 2008

NEW KIDS ON THE BLOCK REUNION? EEEEE!!

Seriously, I’m not sure if they are talking about a tour, or a single concert, or what, but wow, what a throwback. I remember my first concert ever, NKOTB, with my mom, her friend, and her friend’s two daughters. I was in third grade. I had to leave school early that day to get fitted for my retainer. But I had also just gotten my hair permed so that I would look good for Jonathan. It was at the Dean Dome. I got the tickets for Valentines Day. That would have been 1990. Every girl in my grade went to that concert and went home and slept on her NKOTB sheets. It’s hard to believe that was almost 20 years ago. Whoa. “Didn’t I blow your mind this time, didn’t I?”
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The 5 Most Wasteful Baby Products

Wow, I’m not sure who this woman is but…we have 4 out of 5 of these products. I don’t pretend to be “green” but I can tell you that we could not (and still cannot) live without the video monitor, END OF STORY. The sleep positioner was to try to mitigate the effects of plagiocephaly (”flat head”), and was doctor-recommended. Although we don’t have the Diaper Genie, we have (and love) the Diaper Champ (which does not use special bags). And the wipes warmer…yeah, I have no explanation for that. We don’t have the “motion sensor” (in fact I hadn’t heard of it), but the one thing I have repeatedly wished for is a poop/smell sensor…it’s hard to tell over the beloved video monitor if Sherman is having a hard time settling down because he’s got a nasty diaper.
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Train took Sherman to the pediatrician Friday for a phantom ear infection (i.e. he was digging in his ear Thursday but there was no fluid). She told Train we needed to take away the pacifier. Apparently Sherman is holding it on the left side of his mouth which is why his front top and bottom teeth don’t touch. Yuck. I had actually noticed that the teeth weren’t even but I figured they just weren’t done coming in yet. Except that the last of them came in about 8 months ago. So, whatever.

Weaning from the pacifier has really been the one thing NOT on my radar. I was focused on the impending room change and the transition from crib to bed. We say all the time that taking it away would probably allow him to talk more, and maybe reduce his drooling. And he really doesn’t need/want it until he sees it. But sometimes it is the quickest and easiest way to calm him down, so we don’t go anywhere without one.

So all weekend he did not have a binky during the day and of course he did fine. Nap time and night time are going to be a little tougher but (knock on wood) I think we’ll be fine. Typically, Sherman goes into the crib with a binky in his mouth, and then I give him one to hold once he is tucked in. On Saturday I was just going to give him one to hold, but he had a massive fit when I turned off Elmo for bedtime and it was the only way to calm him down. He did fine with just one binky. On Sunday I hid a binky in the corner of the crib during his nap and I’m not totally sure (it was hard to tell on the video monitor) but I don’t think he saw it until he woke/sat up (he had it in his mouth when I got him out of the crib). Last night I “hid” it again. Tonight I will either hide it or not put one in at all. And actually, it’s liberating. One less thing to worry about checking off a list of milestones. I am really proud of Sherman.
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This weekend my best girlfriends from college came to visit. It was so nice to have everyone together, most of them haven’t seen Sherman since last summer or longer. He had so much fun with all of them, and we got to go out for a girls-only lunch and to see 27 Dresses, which was amazing. As someone who sees a movie in the theater about twice a year, I am so glad we went to see it. It was hilarious, and who doesn’t like Katherine Heigl? It was truly laugh-out-loud hysterical and even more so because of who I was with. And some great previews…Fool’s Gold and Made of Honor! Lots of yummy guys on Saturday.
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My seriously-in-need-of-a-nail-trim toddler gave me a little scratch on the bridge of my nose at some point this weekend. I remember something stinging, but I usually have no battle scars from the daily abuse of motherhood, so I didn’t think about it until after my shower this morning when it was bleeding. It’s really not that big, but pretty much right in between my eyes. So now my nose is bleeding from the inside and outside.
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I finally saw Gone With the Wind this weekend thanks to Netflix (I just recently finished the book - my mom’s all-time favorite - after New Years). It was great, but I have to say those of you who haven’t read the book are totally cheating. I can’t get over how much they left out…most of all Scarlett’s first two children. Of course they couldn’t film the entire book, that would take days to watch, but I feel about this movie like I do the Harry Potter movies and books…you really can’t appreciate one without the other. The movie to give you faces and scenes to help enhance the book, and the book to give you the true background and inner thoughts of the characters in the movie.

and if they had a blog…that’d be awesome January 11, 2008

You know how when you first set up a Facebook or Myspace profile, and you go through your school alumni lists on the site, and use their tools to cross-reference your email contacts, and click through your friends’ profiles to add acquaintences to your “friend” list? And then as the weeks and months pass, more people set up their profiles and find you with one of those methods and add you to their “friend” list? (Notwithstanding the fact that you probably never exchange an actual personal message.)

Well, do you ever wonder why some people never find you?

I mean, now that “Google” is a verb, I admit that when some long-lost classmate or neighbor’s name pops into my head, at some point in the near future I’m going to attempt to locate them. If you can find an email address, sometimes it’s fun to send them a note and spend a few days catching up (and, of course, never again corresponding). You probably think that’s weird. Well, people are ALWAYS happy to hear from me.

Most people you can’t really find that easily, and that’s about all of the effort I’m usually willing to expend. Without a picture to go with the Google results, it’s sometimes too creepy to assume that this particular medical research analyst is the first grade classmate whose mom gave him a Gloria Estefan tape at his birthday party at the skating rink (oh, Bryan! our mothers were certain we would end up together!).

Unfortunately, a lot of my old aquaintances have really generic names that are impossible to discern over the internet. More than a few Smiths, Williams, Howards, and Bakers. My high school boyfriend shares his full name with both a character on an NBC sitcom and a professional baseball player. And even some of the weird names have simply disappeared off the face of the internet.

While my maiden name is not unique, it’s pretty distinct and a long-lost friend could contact me without a lot of effort (and I’m not even talking about the dummy-proof Facebook search) (and it’s not like my Myspace name is Wonderdust Pancake or something, with a picture of my dog instead of my face). My married name is atrocious, and without a doubt unique, and anyone that knows it could find me in half a second, as well as my husband and all of my in-laws in about two pages of Google results. For better or for worse.

So my point is…if I can’t find you…why aren’t you finding me? Does no one ever remember me and wonder what I’ve done with my life? Does it take a Facebook list of alumni before you think, “oh yeah HER! wow, I forgot she even existed!”

I’m so curious to see what these people from my past, who were once a part of my daily life, are doing now. You know…the guy with eyelash gunk who was in my Rube Goldberg group. The kids I rode the bus with elementary through high school. The first boy I kissed. The middle school girlfriends I spent hours with at the mall during breaks. The brother and sister from the UK who were seated with my family at dinner during a Caribbean cruise. My frog-dissection lab partner who held my friend’s hair while she threw up at an end-of-exams party at an abandoned trailer in the woods. The girl who tried to dose her parents with sleeping pills so she could go to a 311 concert. The quiet guy in my Calculus class whose last name changed inexplicably during our junior year. The crazy couple that left college after our freshman year. All of these people made some sort of an impresssion on me. If one of them were to describe me, what would they say? And where the hell are they??

just put your pickle on everybody’s plate, college boy, and leave the hard stuff to me December 3, 2007

For those of us born just before and during the early 80s, there’s no question of the significance of Dirty Dancing. While it was originally released in 1987 (when I was in 1st grade), I remember watching it endlessly on video with my friends in 3rd or 4th grade. I had (and still have!) a home-recorded videotape of it, probably off of HBO by a friend of my mom’s. My friends and I reenacted the scenes over and over and over. The lift in the lake. Mickey & Sylvia. Dancing up the stairs. De Todo Un Poco. Boogie on the log. (I’ve Had) The Time of My Life. It was re-released in theatres in 1997 and in 2007 for the 20th anniversary. Now that’s an iconic film. (And what a coincidence…the choreographer also directed High School Musical.)

Re-watching the movie in college, when Train gave it to me on DVD for Christmas, I was scandalized that my parents had let me watch this movie at such a young age. This PG-13 movie that miraculously never actually says the word “abortion” out loud. The 17-year-old sleeping with the hot, dangerous, older dance instructor (although we never actually see it). The daddy issues. Then I remembered that all of my friends’ parents were okay with it too. I asked my mom and she said that they knew we didn’t/wouldn’t understand the subtext, and they were right. We just loved the dancing, and the romance, and Johnny taking off Baby’s shirt while they were alone in his cabin!! GASP!!

 So if this movie was as big a deal to you as it was to my friends and I, give me your favorite quote(s) from the movie and/or favorite song lyric(s). No fair cheating with “Nobody puts Baby in a corner.” Some people who have never seen the movie have been known to use that line on their dogs, so it doesn’t count.

There’s no contest or prize…just trying to prove a point about HOW. IMPORTANT. THIS. MOVIE. IS.

i won’t be home for christmas November 21, 2007

My parents are here and like we’ve done for the past few years, we will all go out to my mother-in-law’s house for Thanksgiving. I am very thankful that we do not have to “choose” which holidays to spend with which family each year.

When I was a kid, we would spend Thanksgiving with my mother’s family (including her 4 siblings) and Christmas with my dad’s family (he’s an only child like me), and then the next year we would switch. Both of these options involved traveling to Florida - mom’s family was 8 hours away from our house in North Carolina, while dad’s parents were 20 hours away in Key West, and we always drove to both places. I can only remember one Christmas Day spent at home before I went to college. There were two things I considered “normal” when I was growing up: spending the holidays away from home, and going to daycare during summer break.

Santa would always find me at my grandma’s house, where there was never a fireplace but my stocking hung from Grandma Betty’s wet bar and got filled up just the same. As I got older (and Santa stopped coming), Christmas came earlier, as in the night before we packed up the car to head to Florida. That way there were no gifts to hide in the trunk of the car and I could pick and choose what gifts to bring with me. After all, these were the days before internet shopping and drop shipping.

Now, since my parents don’t have any other children to split their time with, they are able to spend Thanksgiving with us and my in-laws. I’m also glad that my in-laws are willing to include them, but they are those kinds of folks…the more the merrier, especially since Sherman came along.

For Christmas, we will do our own thing on Christmas Eve (mainly because I’ll be working that day). When I was a kid, I sometimes missed enjoying my own family’s Christmas tree and decorations while waiting for Santa (don’t get me wrong, I loved being with family, I just wasn’t crazy about the traveling, and no one ever came to us), and I would like for Sherman’s memories of the holidays to include our home.

Christmas morning we will get up to open gifts, then shower and get ready and head out to Ditto’s house for gifts and a nice big meal with the family. The only thing bad about this is that, since all of Train’s family lives in the same town (except his brother who is not married and spends his Christmas break at his parents’ house anyway), they usually all get together early Christmas morning for gifts. I wish we weren’t left out of that, but I’m not willing to get up at the crack of dawn to go out there, either, so oh well.

Then we’ll go home and pack (and put away the Christmas tree and ornaments if we have time) to leave for my parents’ house on December 26. We’ve done this each year since we got engaged. My parents aren’t adamant about seeing us on the actual holiday, and they actually have their own Christmas Day tradition of going to the movies and going on a nice long bike ride. On the other hand, my mother-in-law thrives on having all of her children (and now grandchildren) together just like when they were kids, and it’s nice to have a tradition.

So we spend the week after Christmas, including New Years Eve, in Key West. Luckily, part of our Christmas gift each year from my parents is the plane tickets to come visit. My mom always hated having to drive to Key West (basically eating up 4 days of time off work in the car) and she insists that my grandparents could have helped out with the cost, so now my parents do.

Our Christmas trip last year was Sherman’s first plane trip and also his first trip to my parents’. It was stressful, but we survived. (Also, Dr. P and her new husband came to spend a few days with us for New Years and we had a blast!)

Since then, we’ve had two more plane trips, and next month, Sherman has his own seat and we will be taking his car seat to strap him down. Otherwise, it’s a two-hour wrestling match that I dread more than anything. I am hoping sitting in his car seat will feel more familiar, while Mommy and Daddy’s hands are free to entertain him and (gasp!) actually drink an in-flight beverage. I hope I am not deluding myself, but I’m actually looking forward to trying the car seat. Ideally he will stay in the seat for the entire (approx. 2 hour) flight because I’m afraid if we let him out he won’t get back in. We’re planning on getting him a portable DVD player and stuffing his stocking with new small toys so we have plenty to entertain him.

Also this year, we are flying to Fort Lauderdale and driving a rental car the rest of the way. This way we avoid having to make connections, and we don’t have to worry about Sherman bothering anyone but us. We can stop and eat, stretch, go to the bathroom on our own schedule (it’s about a four hour drive from the airport to my parents’ - but it’s gorgeous and only about 150 miles). We did the same thing when we went down in June with Ditto and her husband and daughter. I’m hoping for a free upgrade to a minivan on this trip because it would be nice to have the extra room.

It’s possible that as Sherman gets older and possibly has a sibling, that (a) it will be too much hassle to travel to Key West during the holidays or (b) my parents will want to share Christmas morning with their grandchildren. If that happens we’ll reevaluate our routine, but for now it works out very nicely. December is the very best time to go to Key West and I always look forward to it (more than a mid-summer sweat fest) and the New Years festivities.

valium November 9, 2007

When I was a kid, my mom always dreaded going to the dentist. She would have the dentist or her doctor prescribe her a single Valium that she could take an hour before her appointment so she wouldn’t freak.

(This reminds me of how my parents’ dentist once mentioned to my mom that he failed out of college on his first try because he partied too hard. D’oh! My dad never went back.)

When I was in college, I would go to the dentist when I was home from school. I don’t know what I was eating but every time I went I had multiple cavities. Which meant I would then have to schedule another appointment to get them filled. I hated that.

The worst time was when he told me I had NINE. That’s a lot of cavities. My mom decided I needed some pharmaceutical assistance to get through that experience, so I took a valium and off we went to the dentist’s office (me and my dad, I mean…I told you my mom hated the dentist).

Since I had so many cavities, and we were going to do them all at once, the dentist applied a rubber dam. They apply the novacaine and begin filling all of the sugary, bacteria-laden holes in my teeth.

And…panic attack. That green plastic rubber over my mouth made me feel like I was suffocating. I started crying and hyperventilating, and they had to stop and bring in my dad to calm me down. I was like, 20, for God’s sake. How embarassing. My mom’s reaction to this was that I didn’t have enough valium.

Then, earlier this year, I upgraded to high-definition eyes (tm Janet) when I had LASIK. Part of the surgery prep is to take valium. Somewhere in the back of my head I had memories of the dentist escapade but I thought, surely, I have grown out of whatever that was.

Obviously, right as the surgeon began lining up the laser to cut a flap off of my EYEBALL, I started to feel those internal freak out symptoms…increased heart rate, fidgeting, etc. I pulled it together and made it through the (7 minute) surgery. I went into the dark post-surgery room where the surgeon took a look at my eyes to make sure everything looked okay. I cried, because I was so stunned and happy and overwhelmed with adrenaline and nerves and VALIUM.

Then Train went to get the car and while I waited in the lobby, which was surrounded by windows on 3 sides and let in the blinding light from the recent snow on the ground, I had to take deep breaths and squint my eyes. By the time I made it to the car, I got my seat belt on and conveniently went into full-on losing-my-shit mode. It was so odd - I didn’t want to be so dramatic, but it was like my body needed to get this extra energy out. I remember telling Train to just ignore me, that I was fine, and also that I wanted to claw my eyeballs out and toss them out the window.

So obviously, I have learned my lesson about valium - it just doesn’t work on me. “Paradoxical reactions such as hyperexcited states, anxiety, excitement, hallucinations, increased muscle spasticity, insomnia, rage, as well as sleep disturbances and stimulation, have been reported.” Yes, I felt almost all of those (no hallucinations, thank God).