I love Saturday.

Today is the best kind of Saturday; the sort where you have nowhere to be, no commitments to keep, no chores that MUST be completed.  (Of course, there's always laundry and cleaning to be done, but I've been good this week and haven't let my house become a sty, so I can totally put off domestic chores until tomorrow.  After all, isn't that why God made Sundays?  So we can wash our dirty clothes and homes and prepare for the upcoming workweek?)

We've got a costume party scheduled tonight, which, contrary to what I said in that whole first paragraph, means I do have to hunt out my footie pajamas and wash them, and locate the gloves and ears and tail that make up my Max costume.  Jimi's going to be a Wild Thing again - we spent a lot of time and money on those costumes last year, dammit, so yes, we're totally recycling.  Besides, most of our friends never saw the costumes last year - just Karen and Gary and the crowd at the gay bar.  (Speaking of which, remembering the gay bar last Halloween makes me REALLY want to go back.  I wonder if they're open Monday night?  Wanna go with me?)

I got up just after 6 all week long; sleeping in until after 8 today makes me feel spoiled and pampered.  8 is still REALLY early for a Saturday, but I like getting up early on the weekends - I can always take a nap in the middle of the day, for as long as I want, if I start to get yawn-y.  Weekends are awesome.

I bought and downloaded The Sims 3 Pets last night.  Jimi gave me some shit over it, saying it's stupid and dumb and a waste of money.  And it is, but it entertains me and I enjoy it.  And we have separate bank accounts so I can spend my money the way I want to spend it and he can't say shit about it, so maybe we've got a shot at this happily ever after thing.  Cause last night, had our accounts been joint, I probably wouldn't have bought the game.  And I would've been pissed about it.  And I would still be pissed about it.  And it would be all his fault.  But he has his money and I have my money, and well, we're just going to keep it that way because it's safer.  (I haven't played my new game yet, but I'm greatly anticipating diving in after I'm finished with this here blog post.)

I'm trying to take a picture or two every day of things that make me smile (or say WTF?).  I like scrolling through them at the end of the week and remembering the little things that made up my otherwise mundane and routine week.  With that being said...

 Pictures from the Karaoke bar last Friday night:

Think the dude in red was doing "No Diggity".  The lady on the right was gettin' down.

I met Sarah's friend Robbi for the first time, after hearing his name for years.
We got along swimmingly.
I stole the hat from Robbi's friend, but I eventually gave it back.

chicks taking self-portraits in public bathroom mirrors.  WTF?

Oh here, random stranger, hold my phone and do this for us, will you?

And then there was the rest of the week:

This bug just appeared out of nowhere, on the inside of my car.
It's a good thing I was pulling into my driveway, otherwise this surprise could've had tragic consequences. 

Murphy the Office Dog.
Doing his Buckwheat impression.

 I think it was Tuesday when I'd let Finn out back and he started going crazy at the corner of the breezeway.  I walked over to him to see what the fuss was about, and this little guy scurried across the walkway and under my car.  He was hanging out under the back tires first...

But he ran to the front when I tried to shoo him out...

And my next attempt resulted in this:

"I'm just gonna hang on the back of this here tire, and maybe she can't see me and will go away."
That's what I did - I went away and left him alone and he found his home.

.   

The trees in our front yard have been so beautiful this week:

I made fire (and subsequently cut my finger and had to dig rust out of it and decided to get a tetanus shot).

The doctor's visit was cool, though.  My appointment was at 8:15, and at 8:30, the doctor came out from the back with a bowl of cereal, crunching away happily on his breakfast as he chatted with another doctor's patient about their children, who apparently attend the same school.  Fifteen minutes later, a nurse calls me back for intake and puts me in a room.  10 minutes after that, I see the doctor.  

I want to be mad and be all "what the fuck, doc?" because I was missing work and getting behind and all I needed was a needle jabbed in my arm and when it came right down to it, the waiting time was three times as long as the treating time.  But I really like my doctor.  He's good, and he listens, and he takes notes on a computer, which I just really really love.  I don't know, he came to me highly recommended and accepts my insurance and I feel like he's thorough and I like that I can get a same-day appointment if I'm sick as hell.  

Anyhow, so I let him talk me into a flu shot.  I've never had one of those, either, and I told him why: I don't get sick very often, and I haven't had anything that resembled the flu in years and years and years and I don't want to get a shot and get sick.  He told me the flu shot is not for me, it is for those around me with compromised immune systems.  And I thought of Stacy's baby, who's going to be born at the end of January, when everyone's got a runny nose and a cough, and how I want to kiss her new sweet face without worrying I'll give her some awful respiratory funkiness.  He also told me that people don't get sick from the flu shot, and I decided to take his advice and believe him until I have a reason not to and so I let them give me two shots rather than the one I came for.  Knock on wood, I'm 48 hours into it and nary a sniffle or chill has visited me.  

Crossing the tracks to work.
That's downtown Louisville there in the middle, that lit-up building.

Sitting on my back step, with a book and a smoke, this is my view: 

My sink has been this empty all week.  I'm not even lying.  (If you don't know me personally, this is a really big deal.  Huge, even.)  I'm very proud of us for being so responsible and grown-up.

I've probably posted six dozen pictures of the shit that lives in my office at work, but here are some more:

The zombie is coming to get the monkeys.

Pirate duck says fuck your zombies.  And your dusty monitor.

My Chick-fil-A boycott didn't last long.  Their nuggets call to me in my sleep sometimes.

This My Little Pony dates from my childhood.  

Hi Kimmie!

There was frost on the ground this morning.

Winter, I'm going to need you to hold off for a few more weeks, okay?  I'm not ready for serious cold yet.

Happy Weekend!

Therapy - talk it out...

The woman who did my job, oh, say, 10 years ago was apparently very good at it.  She was great at the administrative part - she always got paperwork completed on time and such.  But the customers hated her.  She was rigid and brusque and very nearly rude regularly.  Yesterday, it was implied by a co-worker that maybe I'm not so good at my job, because so-and-so never forgot anything and so-and-so never added a customer's order onto the schedule at the last minute and so-and-so never made any mistakes with the numbers.  

My co-worker doesn't know, I guess, that so-and-so called up my boss a few weeks after he'd moved me into this position, asking for her old job back.  And you know what?  He turned her down.  And he's done so the other two or three times she's come sniffing around looking to come back.  

Know what else my co-worker doesn't know?  She doesn't know that right before I left my office for that meeting, the one where she implied that I suck at my job, I got a message from a customer who'd just had lunch with my boss.  Know what the customer had to say?  "He sure does think highly of you - he sang your praises."  This is the second call in a week I've had like that from a customer, telling me that my boss thinks I rock.  And my customers regularly report to my boss and our salesman (who also takes it to my boss) that I'm awesome.  

So yeah, I forget shit sometimes, and sometimes I screw things up.  But most of the time?  Most of the time I'm fucking badass at my job, and I'd challenge any of my questioning co-workers to step into my shoes and try to do better.  

It bothers me that her comment, so snide and so shitty and just plain mean, bothers me enough that I'm writing a blog post about it this morning.  Therapy, is what I'm calling it.  Trying to remind myself that the important opinion is that of  my boss, the one who controls my destiny, not my co-worker, who has no pull over the fate of my career.  

To Tetanus, or not to Tetanus, THAT is the question...

I cut my finger (a teeny, tiny little cut) last night on our rusty half-drum fire pit.  I cleaned the cut really good with antibacterial soap and lots of peroxide, but I had to dig out a piece of rust with my tweezers and, for the first time in my life, I reacted to this minor surgical procedure by getting light-headed and nearly puking.  I had to put a cool wet cloth on my head and go lie down for a few minutes.  This is highly abnormal for me, I need you to understand.

So today, I'm all, "Hey guys, I cut my finger on a rusty drum, should I get a tetanus shot?" to which everyone replied, "When was the last time you had one?" and I was all, "Um, never" and they're all, "Yeah, you need to get one."  So I called my doctor's office, and as it turns out, getting a tetanus shot requires an office visit.  The lady on the phone warned me of this like it would cause me to back away, and offered the name of a local urgent care center.  "Oh, I've got insurance, an office visit is no big deal, if that's what I need to do."  I forget the times in which I'm living - insurance is a rare valuable commodity, one traded for health, and if you don't have it, well, maybe you'd rather take your chances at lockjaw?  (Honestly, I would take my chances if I didn't have insurance.  I assume no insurance would equate with little disposable income, and that means a $160 office visit would probably be out of reach on the spur of the moment.  I remember - I've been there.)

Tomorrow morning, 8:15 a.m., which means I'll likely see the doc at 8:45 or so, but whatevs.  I'll get my shot and I'll feel as if I've laid one fear to rest for a while, and I'll be much more careful (sober) when shoving kindling into the fire pit.

What do you think?  Am I wasting my $10 co-pay and 2 hours of work time and an extra hour of valuable sleep?  When was the last time YOU had a tetanus shot?  Is it just a bunch of hokey, or is this serious bidness that I shouldn't be making lame-ass jokes about?

If you ever doubted that part where I said that I'm crazy, you probably won't after you read this.

I'm riding a pretty high wave right now; pretty sure that explains my lack of words here.  I usually don't have much to say when life is awesome, which I've always found strange, because shouldn't I want to record the good, just as I always record the bad?


Last Wednesday marked the day, five years ago, that Jimi met my eyes across the bar table and said, "I'm still prettier than you"...and I had no idea what the strange hairy man was talking about.  (He was referencing a conversation we'd had the previous week, one which I still only vaguely recall.)  We finished the evening making out in his truck for nearly 4 hours, before he drove me home and dropped me off with a kiss and a promise to call the next day.  He called, and the rest, as they say, is history.  I knew it was the beginning of something wonderful, but I don't think I was capable of imagining how good it was really going to get.  How lucky are we?

There's a lot of love in my home.  It's like this living breathing thing is here with us - filling the space between us, making us aware of each other and our individual needs maybe just a little more than usual.  We're working together, communicating deep thoughts, touching, kissing, loving...it's like things are new, but better, because everything is familiar and comfortable.

"When you have everything / You have everything to lose"

That line goes through my head a lot.  I used to tell Jimi that he was so good, I was waiting for the other shoe to drop - for him to have a drug problem or owe someone a million dollars or have a secret hoard of ex-wifes and baby-mamas; he would get mad and be all "what the fuck, Natalie?"  I don't feel that way anymore, I know better - but I still feel like i'm waiting for the other shoe to drop.  I'm terrified it's all going to be swept away from me.  

It's ridiculous.  I try really hard not to think about it at all.  But it's there, niggling in the back of my mind, saying, "What have you done to deserve all of this good fortune - surely something horrible is on its way.  You can't possibly have it this good when so many who are so much better have it so much worse."

Maybe that's part of why I don't blog much when I'm extra happy - I don't want to tempt fate.  Maybe I fear it's tacky to talk about how my job is busy but great, and Jimi just got another bonus, and we've had the best sex lately, and my kitchen is clean, and I've made dinner three times in three night and that makes me feel like a super fucking betty crocker housewife queen.  Maybe I'm afraid that if I tell the world about all of that, I'll wake up in the morning and...

what I'm afraid to write is that I'm afraid Jimi will die.  I typed "...I'll wake up in the morning and Jimi won't love me anymore", but I deleted that, because that's one fear that never enters my mind - unless his mind is taken from him, I'm secure in the knowledge that his heart belongs to me.  My fear is that it'll stop beating.  

So there you have it.  When I'm crazy stupid happy head-over-heels feelin' like life is the best thing ever, in the back of my mind I'm terrified that if I enjoy it too much, if I write about it too much, that it'll all be taken away from me in the form of my beloved dying some crazy untimely death.  

To be fair, I'm always terrified that my parents are going to die, too, and my brother, but my world would be irreparably shattered if something happened to Jimi.  

This is not normal, is it?  It's fucked up and weird, I'm certain.  Now I want to backpedal and say that I don't think about this shit all the time, and it's true, I don't.  It's a dark corner in the back of my mind...one that's probably best left un-talked-about, but I've already written all these words, I'm not deleting them now.  Whatevs.  

All I can do is enjoy what I've got.  I'm trying real hard to convince myself that unabashed shameless joy is completely fine, and not some form of Russian roulette with fate.  

Words! Words! Words!

In my dreams last night, something horrible happened to me - I don't remember what it was, only that it left me with that defeated feeling I had that one time when my ex-husband and I were facing having to move into his parents' basement and give away our dogs.  I was powerless against this thing, whatever it was, and it broke me.  And then Murphy, the boss's dog at work, got hurt and had to be put down.  And then there were zombies.  And then Stacy was pregnant with a second baby, while still cooking this first one - her kids were destined to be only 6 months apart.  And then I touched a wounded naked man and felt a spark of connection, like he was tethered to my soul, and he told me the zombies were slow and were decaying rapidly.  He stared into my eyes, feeling what I felt, and I wanted to fuck him, but he was dying, so I kissed his lips softly then ran off to meet Jimi by the vintage hot rod hot naked man had left parked for us to find, with keys in the cup holder.  The car was a minty green, with woodgrain running boards, and it took forever to start, because it was a stick and I don't know how to drive a stick, and when I finally started it, I accidentally threw it into reverse and nearly crashed it, which would've meant certain death for me and Jimi.  I saved it just in time, though, and we drove off into the Sunday morning where I found myself awake and confused and wanting to go back to that place because I couldn't remember what that awful thing was that had happened to me at the beginning.  I dozed for another hour, searching for that place, that thing, while Jimi showered and started his day.  I'm still trying to remember what it was.

I'm tired.  I'm worn down.  I'm craving silence and my front porch and huge stretches of time where I have nothing to do and nowhere to be.  It's been a blast, but it's too much for this homebody who's used to turning out the lights at 10:30 every night.

It started the Thursday before the wedding, with a sort-of impromptu bachelor/bachelorette party; Melinda and Gary are both heavily involved with the Culbertson Mansion haunt every year, so checking out a few other haunted houses seemed only natural.  They both have lots of friends in the business, and it was neat to listen to them chat about the behind-the-scenes production details.  My favorite part was absolutely the pitch-black maze, where Melinda and I darted away from the boys and found ourselves lost and being taunted by a creepy voice whose body we ran into a few times but never saw.  We laughed so hard I'm surprised no one peed.  

Friday night was a house-warming party at friends' new home, Saturday was the rehearsal, and then the wedding on Sunday.  Monday was an off night, but Tuesday we went to visit a friend we'd not seen in (very nearly literally) years and I got drunk and fell asleep at her kitchen table, in that truly classy way of mine.  I did not fall down, though, nor did I throw up anywhere, so my faux pas could've been so much worse.  (I sent her a Facebook message the next morning, apologizing for being a drunken slore, and until this morning, I thought she'd ignored my message.  God Bless Facebook, though, it just didn't give me a notification that I had a new message from her - one that read "No worries. Hope I get to see you soon!".)  We did nothing on Wednesday, but Thursday we had Steve over for dinner and I made a (they tell me) delicious meatloaf and mashed taters and peas and we watched some horror flick called The Ugly.  Friday night...like the wedding, Friday night may need it's own post.  I met Sarah and Stacy for dinner, and after, Sarah and I met her friend Robby at Akiko's for karaoke.  Holy shitballs, what a great time I had!  Yesterday we had running to do, then a dinner party last night.  Today we've cleaned a little, and I'm leaving in a few to visit Brother.  

Come 4 o'clock, though, you'll find me on my ass, on my front porch, no bra, probably with a beer and a cigarette and a book, and please don't disturb me until it's time to watch The Walking Dead at 9 tonight, okay?  

And I'm not doing anything this week.  I'm going to come home and read the internet and go to bed at 9:30 every night.  

My God, when did I get so old?  And I'm socially awkward now, too, especially around people who don't already know and love me.  That probably is going to need its own post too.  

Happy Weekend!  May the rest of your Sunday pass slowly and leisurely, and may Monday be nice to you.  

Wedding Photos - sorta

Melinda was chastising me the other day for the glut of picture blogs lately.

"I miss your words," she said.

They're in there somewhere.  

But I have to get these out first!

I took lots of pictures the day before, and too many the morning of, so by the time the wedding rolled around, my phone battery was nearly dead and flash wasn't an option.  

Eventually there will be professional shots available, and then I can show you what a beautiful wedding it was.

Until then, this is what I've got to offer by way of evidence:

Museum Row, Louisville, KY

We were gathered out front here after the ceremony, and I exclaimed,
"Someone take a picture of me riding the cannon!"
One of the hot groomsmen immediately straddled my leg and declared,
"Okay, where's the camera?"
It took me a minute to get it.
He was really hot.
If I was single, I would've tried to not go home alone.

The mighty Ohio River.

Can you spot the 

Muhammad Ali Center

?

There's another wedding happening on the rooftop over there.
Kimmie was at that wedding.
Apparently, the reception was held in a barn,
and was the best reception in the history of receptions.

Groom, Hot Groomsman, Maid of Honor, Bridesmaid, Wedding coordinator and Moms, Bride, Officiant

Wedding coordinator, Moms, Bride, Officiant

Bride, Groom, Best Man, Father of the Bride

Officiant, Bride, Groom, Best Man, Hot Groomsman #1, Hot Groomsman #2

There's a clock in the center of this picture that's one of the largest clocks in the world.
Not large enough for you to make it out in this picture, though.

Melinda and her Daddy

Flask o' Peppermint Schnapps

Artwork for sale at the coffee shop where Jimi bought my chai and juice.
i want the blue tree on the bottom.
And the skyline.

I sorta need those Fleur de Lis, too.

Before, with bedhead.

Bedhead looked better.

I miss you, bedhead!

Ah, that's better.

And now with make-up.

We sang, "Go - ing to the Frai - ser and we're - Gooo nna get maa-aaa-aar-ried"

Note the Halloween socks.  

The Groom is the Director of the Culbertson Mansion Haunted House.
This is his alter-ego, Spot.

Rather than a full meal, they had a dessert buffet.
A dream of mine.
But these three pieces are all I had.
I think I was overwhelmed by the choices.

We changed into Crocs after the ceremony, much to the relief of our feet.
We'd decorated them, but all the decorations came off, except the bling there at the top.

Totally zipped.
I could breathe and everything.

10 press-ons started the day.
Only 8 finished.