Double G's Wedding Elephant

Today, I bring to you a guest post by Double G. In case you do not remember everything I have ever written, I met Double G when we were in the same English class in 9th grade. We have been friends now for fourteen years, which I am now realizing is half of my life. Whoa. Anyway, here is Double G's story.


Indian weddings often begin with the groom and his entourage of family and friends arriving at the wedding hall in a grand fashion. Back in the day, the groom’s side would make their way to the bride’s village, singing and dancing all the way, and the groom would be seated on a horse or carriage, or if their families were particularly important, an elephant.

When my husband -S- and I got engaged, we were asked many questions about Indian ceremonies and traditions. One of the most common was whether we would have an elephant at our wedding. In the hopes of getting people excited about attending, -S- would say, “of course!” I would either roll my eyes or shrug my shoulders in response. I was pretty sure there would be no horse and no elephant; most likely -S- would be arriving in his brother-in-law’s convertible.

One day, I came home to my laptop and found that the last words searched for were “elephant rental.” Putting more fuel in the fire, -R- let -S- know that her sister was in vet school and had some circus connections which may help in his quest for an elephant.

The hype around the elephant was growing larger and larger. We created an FAQ section on our wedding website, including “What’s this I hear about elephants?” as one of the questions. -S- insisted that I not edit his response: “Typically, the groom arrives at the wedding hall in a grand fashion with a dancing entourage and seated in a fancy car, on a horse, or even on an elephant. We are partial towards elephants.”

In an email sent to our friends, explaining how the festivities would start, we wrote: “The wedding festivities will begin in typical Indian wedding style with a groom's procession or baraat. The groom, along with his family and friends, will gather outside the wedding hall at the parking lot gate. Our DJ will be in a van blasting music while the procession dances their way to the wedding hall, accompanying -S- in a car/horse/elephant/???.”

Luckily, -S-’s brother-in-law’s convertible made a pretty damn good elephant:





Recently, one of my mom’s coworkers informed us they had sent in pictures of the elephant car into a contest at Car and Driver magazine. It won! So look for it in the January 2008 issue.


For more information on Double G's wedding, you can see my old entries here and here.

A Peek Into H's Worklife

I am in my husband's office right now. We were running errands, and then he had to come into work for a couple of hours, and then we are going to run some more errands. So I am just hanging out right now paying bills online and blogging. I know it is bad to blog from your own office, but is blogging from your spouse's office ok? I think it is.

Let me describe my husband's office to you. It is crazy. First, the monitor is about three feet away from me, and the keyboard I am typing on is balanced on a stack of papers that is about 8 inches high. The background on H's monitor is a picture of me "wearing" an astronaut suit in Chicago. To my left, is a 18 inch tall plastic Incredible Hulk doll. Behind me is a mini-fridge that contains overripe Clementines and light apple juice. His two diplomas are hung behind me to the left. The undergrad diploma is hung so that the bottom of the frame is above my head. Then his law school degree is under it, but WAY under it. Like there are 12 inches between the frames. To my right, H has used thumbtacks to hang a poster of a painting that he really liked in the Philadelphia Museum of Art. This poster is also hung so that it is probably 5 feet 4 inches off the ground. Directly in front of me is a little bookshelf with pictures on top. The pictures are of our nieces and nephews, and there are two pictures of me and H. Oh, also a tiny wallet sized picture of me at my hooding ceremony (law school hooding, not some kind of weird racist thing). There used to be another 18 inch tall Incredible Hulk on the bookshelf, but it fell off as I was typing this. (I dusted earlier and must have made it unbalanced.) About three feet above the bookshelf (and six feet from the floor) is a framed certificate of H's. Oh my gosh, my hands are killing me from trying to type on this massive pile of papers. Ok. There are also copies of the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, and the Declaration of Independence on the wall.

So there you go, the pictures a diplomas are nice, I just wish they were hung lower. Oh well. His office is a lot more personalized than mine. Mine is so bland that I am pretty sure no one could guess whose office it is unless they sat in my chair and looked at the few personal pictures I have.

Swedish Adventures

I took my mom and her boyfriend to the American Swedish Institute today to entertain them. My mom loves going through historic mansions, and I enjoy it as well. This mansion was completed in 1908 and was crazy gorgeous with elaborate woodwork and porcelain fireplaces in 11 of the 33 rooms. Each room had furniture from the 1880s-1930s and artifacts from Swedish immigrants, but I would have preferred it if the museum showed each room as it would have been decorated/used in the early 1900s. I guess I was less interested in the general Swedish-American experience and more interested in the mansion. None of us is Swedish, but it was still interesting, and we had a good time.

I Am Going To Punch LSU In Its Face

Well, I got some great deals today, but boy, am I tired after starting my shopping at 4 am.


Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha. No. Waking up at 4 am is not something I would do voluntarily.

H went into work today, even though his office is closed (poor H has been working his heart out lately on a big case), and my mom and I lazed around and then went shopping at about 11:30. And you know what? All those crazy early morning sales were still going on. I can understand getting up freakishly early for a crazy deal on electronics that you need or the Cabbage Patch Kid your daughter is going wild for in the year 1985 (thanks, Mom!), but here is a secret. KOHL'S IS ALWAYS HAVING SALES. Where was I? Oh, yes. I woke up at 10 am and still got good deals.

After shopping, we came home and made awesome hot turkey sandwiches. Then we decorated the house for Christmas, and it looks awesome. We are waiting for H to come home, and then we will decorate the tree. Suddenly, I am excited about Christmas!

But do you know what I am not excited about? Football. No more football. I cannot take it any more.

Stuffing Rules!

Before:



After:



I actually did about half of the cooking! We had turkey, gravy, stuffing, mashed potatoes (I'm not sure why I didn't label this in the pictures, but you can see it there), cheesy potatoes, rolls, Pilgrims' Salad, and cranberry sauce. I cringe a little every time someone mentions having Stovetop stuffing for Thanksgiving because it means that you have not experienced the joy and wonder that is the Crowley family homemade stuffing. If you had experienced this joy, you would never eat Stovetop again. I promise. But then some of you probably look at my table and see the cranberry sauce straight out of the can, with the can indentations still on it, and cry a little. To you, I say, get your priorities straight! Homemade stuffing is the best! Also, I don't like cranberry sauce, so I don't care.

To those of you who are Sconnies and eat KFC for Thanksgiving I say, you can see that we have plenty of leftovers. You are welcome to come over for real stuffing and Guitar Hero.

I have no idea what we are going to do with so much leftover food. I halved all the recipes, and yet, we STILL went way overboard. Thank goodness I didn't listen to my mom who wanted me to buy an even bigger turkey. Yikes.

It's Time for Thanksgiving

It has been (gently) snowing all morning, and now there is a light dusting of snow covering the neighborhood. The turkey is cooking, the pumpkin pie is ready, and the stuffing smells incredible.

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!

(Sorry. It's hard to write a long entry with my mom visiting.)

Suck It, Nablopomo

My mom is here, and she has not yet made any comments about our house being dirty, so we are off to a good start. I have been lectured on paying off my mortgage and told that I should have started defrosting the turkey earlier, but whatever. Cheesy potatoes and stuffing are resting in the refrigerator, waiting to be cooked tomorrow. Pumpkin pie will be made tonight, hopefully before Project Runway starts. And I was super grumpy at work today but was able to resist the urge to punch several people in the face, so there you go.

Championship

I am exhausted. One more day of work this week. Thank freaking goodness.

My client was talking about "adult toys" today, and I busted out laughing. Turns out he meant things like snowmobiles and jetskis. Professionalism = me.

A coworker stared at my boobs on at least 3 different occasions today. It was weird. Especially since I was wearing a really high crewneck with a jacket over it. No boobage was visible. I got kind of pissed off and was ready to say, "My eyes are up here, buddy." But at that point he must have gotten over it because he stopped ogling the boobs.

This Post Took Me An Hour To Write, And It Still Sucks

I have been asked by 3carnations to write seven weird or odd or some such adjective things about myself.

While I am sure there are a ton of weird things, I am having trouble coming up with new weird things. I will do my best.

1. I have been -R- Marriedname for over two years now, but every once in a while, usually when talking on the phone at work, I will refer to myself as -R- Maidenname. And then I usually yell out, "Marriedname! -R- Marriedname!" and the person on the other side of the conversation is so glad that he or she has a smart person like me as his or her lawyer.

2. I have a favorite television commercial. It is the one where a bunch of guys are doing a draft for their fantasy football team, and one guy says, "TJ Hoshamizode. Lock it up!" It is probably pretty pathetic that I have a favorite television commercial, so I won't tell you that I say, "TJ Who's your mama. Lock it up!" all the time.

Do you care that H has a favorite commercial too? It is the one where the deli guy tries to order meat, and the supplier says they are out. The deli guy asks, "What, did your wife wolf it down for breakfast?" This makes H laugh every single time.

3. I rarely, if ever, buy clothes that are the right size. I almost always buy them too big and realize after I've worn them 50 times that they don't fit properly. I don't know if it is some weird kind of body image issue or if I am just dumb.

4. I love banana pudding with pieces of real banana in it, but I can't eat a banana by itself. Eating a banana by itself is disgusting. I think it's the texture. Bleck.

5. See also: pineapples. Barf.

6. I am not very good at buying presents for people.

7. I joined a group for 20something bloggers. I am still trying to figure it out and have no idea what I am doing. Why did I join? I have no idea.

To join, you are required to write something about yourself. Here is what I wrote:
I like spaghetti, juggling, Chuck Norris, mittens, Chuck Norris wearing mittens, stupid About Me sections, Jim Halpert, and Guitar Hero.

You also have to complete the following sentence: "People who like ____ will love my blog!" Right now, I have filled in the blank with "sharks." Other suggestions are greatly appreciated.

Sunday Post

The main excitement of the day was that it snowed for a little while. Huge flakes, the size of the palm of my hand. It was freaky. I don't think I have ever seen snowflakes that large before. They all melted right away though.

Last night, I drank absinthe with Stefanie and her friends. If you click the link for absinthe, you will read that absinthe is distilled with wormwood. I don't know what that means, but it does not sound good. Absinthe tastes like black licorice. I do not like black licorice, so I cannot say I am a fan of this drink. However, I did get drunk after slowly drinking one glass. And then I proceeded to have two glasses of wine. Whee! I think I also kind of propositioned some guy in a zip-up sweater about swinging. Not really, but kind of. I don't remember exactly what happened. Oh, I do remember that I told the same zip-up sweater guy that the reason I know Stefanie is that H pulled her key out of a bowl at a swingers' party. So, in summary, you probably don't want to invite me to meet your friends because I am socially awkward.

The first part of this week shall be consumed by cleaning my house before my mom gets here to celebrate Thanksgiving so that she does not know we live in total squalor. Unfortunately, no matter how much I clean, my mom will still think our house is dirty. But I still feel the need to scrub everything.

We always celebrate Thanksgiving at my mom's house, but she got time off from work, my sister isn't able to make it this year, and H probably wouldn't be able to travel to my mom's because of his work, so this year we are having Thanksgiving in Minnesota. I told my mom that I would buy all the groceries, but she still needs to cook everything. My mom said no. She will help me, but I am in charge of the meal. Except that she calls me every other day now and tell me something else that she has already cooked and is bringing with her in a cooler. She just can't help herself, and I am glad because I would rather not have Thanksgiving dinner be a disaster. H and I did the final grocery shopping tonight, so $175 later (ugh!), I think we are ready.

Shopping, Take Two

I tried a smaller mall (last weekend, I went to the Mall of America) today, trying to find some cute clothes. I had two missions: black pants and a cardigan for the sweater dress. Here's what happened.

First, before I went to the mall, I got a haircut. I am very happy with it. H thinks this is a Jennifer Aniston haircut. I do not think so, but H is weird, so I am not worried about this comment. H also hates that I am wearing a long sleeved shirt with a 3/4-length sleeved sweater over it. Too bad.


Then I went to the Gap because I had a coupon for 20% off. I have been looking for a clutch for several months, but all the ones I like are $75 or more. I am not paying $75 for a clutch.

This clutch was only $24.50 (before my coupon), so I bought it.


I also bought this Jackie O jacket, which I can wear with pretty much all my work clothes. I will probably not wear this red shirt with the jacket, but I make no promises.


Here is a picture I took last week of my Banana Republic dress. You can see my old haircut here.


I would freeze in my office this winter in short sleeves, so I needed a way to winterize the sweater dress. I tried wearing shirts under the dress, but the collar is so scoopy (technical term) that nothing worked right.

I found the perfect cardigan at The Gap. I am wearing jeans under the dress in this picture, but only because I didn't feel like taking them off just for the picture.


Here is a close up of my fat feet in the gray tights I will wear with the sweater dress. The tights are from Target.


And here are the shoes I will wear with my sweater dress. I wear these shoes all the time. I heart patent.


So I only accomplished half of my shopping mission, but black pants can wait.

And now you must excuse me because I have to go drink some absinthe.

Yes, This Is What Nablopomo Has Brought Me To Do

And now I have nothing to write about.

I could tell you how I just found one of my blog posts on a weird spam blog. Or I could tell you how tired I am. But instead, I think we should discuss tv this week.

House: I was annoyed by the whole gimmick of having a documentary crew follow House and his compatriots (correct use of that word?) around the hospital. And I find the Crazy Bitch Doctor super annoying. But I am in love with House's best friend, the oncologist played by Robert Sean Leonard. I loved when RSL was making up bad stories about House during his interview by the documentary people. And I loved how the documentary was edited to make it look like House is a freakishly nice guy. "I became a doctor because of the movie Patch Adams!"

Gossip Girl: They played Guitar Hero! I want all their clothes! The end.

Project Runway: Do we really need more than one competitor this season with a Flock of Seagulls haircut? Apparently, we do. I knew that the bottom two contestants would be Eyebrows and Crazy Hippie, and I knew they would keep Crazy Hippie just to see what kooky things she will do next week. Did anyone else think that the dress by the Israeli guy who won the challenge fit the model really weird and made her boobs look like they were at stomach level? No? Just me and H thought that? Ok.

30 Rock: I did not get to see this because my sister-in-law taped Real Housewives of the OC (or whatever it's called) instead. Oh well. I will just watch 30 Rock online. It will be online, right? Sorry, writers' strike people, but I need my 30 Rock.

The Office: Normally, I love Kelly, but she is not allowed to talk smack about my Jim! Pam challenging Kelly to a game of ping pong was awesome. Everyone reading Michael's diary was hilarious but also made me want to give Michael a big hug. Actually, I wanted to give Michael a big hug during this whole episode. Was the best part when the lawyers were trying to figure out who this Ryan person is that Michael was dating? That's what she said.

What am I forgetting?

Success?

I am so much more than happy with how the blog share project turned out. These anonyposts (TM 3carnations) are some of the best posts that I have ever read. I would definitely call this a success!

I received a bunch of e-mails and comments today from people asking if they could participate or if this is going to happen again. It is too late to participate, as this was a one day event, but maybe we can try it again in about three months. Save up all your stories about stupid holiday gifts you receive and crazy in-laws, and check back here in February or March. Maybe we can have a St. Valentrick's Day Blog Share Event. (St. Valentrick's Day is the imaginary holiday inbetween Valentine's Day and St. Patrick's Day.) It took some time to organize all this blog share, and I screwed up by sending the person who posted on Sass Attack the wrong e-mail address for L Sass, but it was still kind of fun to organize.

I want to give a special thanks to the person who posted on my blog. I think her post really touched a lot of people, and it was just a beautiful post.

I exchanged e-mail with one of the anonyposters today who was worried that people would try to figure out which post was hers by using the list of participating bloggers. Neither this anonyposter nor I think that there is a big chance of this happening, but some of the posts were really personal, and I don't know, I just think that on Friday morning I'm going to take down the list of participating blogs on my site.

And now I will leave you all alone about the blog share!

Blog Share In Action

Today's post is brought to you by an anonymous person who is participating in the blog share. I hope you enjoy this post and check out the other participating bloggers.


I sometimes worry that I am too damaged. I go down my list of “Things that have f*%#ed me up,” and I think that I must be inventing it. The emotionally abusive mom, the cheating ex-boyfriend, the two men who’ve physically hurt me… this stuff doesn’t happen to normal people. This stuff certainly doesn’t all happen to one person. Sometimes I think that I’m crazy, that I’ve imagined my damage. I tell myself that the eating disorder is self-inflicted, a way to add drama to my life. I chastise myself, accusing my brain of remaining a “teenager.” I admonish myself for needing the conflict, needing to be a martyr, needing the added scars for attention. I wonder if I just want to be a “dark poet,” the kid in the back of the class who pulls her flannel shirt sleeves over her hands and looks askance at everyone.

But then I accidentally share with someone. I share a story that I’ve long-since accepted as a part of my history, and I share it with a chuckle. It doesn’t seem to matter what the story is, I am almost always met with silence. I look up and meet a shocked face, and it always takes a few days before the listener stops treating me a little bit more tenderly than normal.

Because I am damaged. I didn’t make it all up. I’m not lying, I’m not trying to make anyone feel sorry for me. I also don’t want to cover up my stories, because this is the way I’ve always seen the world. Conversely, I don’t want to share too much. I want to be normal.

I was never hit, and so I tell myself that my situation isn’t extreme. I still believe that no single thing that has happened to me is more than an average woman’s experience. And that sucks, but it is reality. Compiled together in one list, however, my wounds look like an overwhelming tide. In one list, they look like more baggage than any life partner would ever want to take on, regardless of how lovely I might be in other ways. How do I say to someone, “Please don’t joke about the size of my ass, I have a longstanding eating disorder,” followed immediately with, “Yes, I know that person, but I don’t want to hang out with him since he raped me at a party?” How do I say that to someone? It seems to be too much for another person to bear.

I am damaged. I don’t want anyone else to have to hold up the weight of that damage, and so I hold it all myself. I wish that one day I’d be able to know that someone else could hear it all and still laugh with me, joke with me, love me. I just worry, sometimes, that it is all too much.

Blog Share Participants

I don't want to add this to the end of my guest poster's post tomorrow (plus, we all know I need an easy Wednesday post), so here are all the blogs participating in the blog share on Thursday! Please visit and comment tomorrow!

[I hope you got to check out all the anonymous posts on Thursday, but I have taken down the list of participating blogs.]

I Can't Have It All, Now I'm Dancing For My Life

People, I am exhausted after writing a million e-mails about this blog share thingy. Oh my gosh. I triple-checked every e-mail, but I make no promises regarding any lack of typos. If you have any problems, please send me an e-mail if you discover an incorrect e-mail address or something. Or if you didn't get an e-mail, please let me know!

In other news, this morning, a 21-year-old man sat 3 rows in front of me on the bus. He wore a huge black hooded sweatshirt, a backwards baseball cap, jeans that were at least two sizes too big for him so that they sagged well below hip level, and headphones. I noticed all these details for two reasons. First, he stood out because every other person on the bus was wearing a suit or at least looked "business casual." Second, his music was so loud that I could hear every note and every word.

The music didn't bother me because I liked it. He played "Jesus Walks" by Kanye West and some older Jay-Z songs. And then he played "What a Feeling" from the classic film Flashdance. I looked around to see if anyone else thought this was as awesome as I did, but no one else seemed to care. I wonder if baggy pants guy knew the rest of us could hear his song selections.

Observations on (Observed)

Me: H didn't have to go to work today.
Coworker: Why not?
Me: It's Veterans' Day (Observed).

I had that conversation with as many people as possible today. I just like saying (Observed).

Both of H's grandfathers and my maternal grandfather served in the military during World War II. (My paternal grandfather was a farmer with two young daughters during WWII, so he didn't serve.)

My father and H's father both served in the military during the time of the Vietnam War. H's father was drafted and served in Vietnam. He doesn't talk about it at all, and H told me not to ask about it. My father served in the engineering corps of the Army; he was sent to Germany to rebuild bridges. He got to see a lot of Europe and has some cool pictures from his time in the Army.

After seeing Saving Private Ryan, I wondered aloud whether the military really did things like send home a soldier because he was the only surviving brother. My mom said, "Why do you think your father was sent to Germany instead of Vietnam? It was because he was the only son of a farmer."

H's brother was in the Navy, so I suppose he is a veteran, although I have never thought of him that way. The word veteran makes me think of those who have served in wars, but those who have served in peacetime have made sacrifices and put themselves in harm's way as well.





PS If you want to participate in the blog share, you need to leave a comment or send me an e-mail by Tuesday the 13th at 8 pm Central. If you have already signed up to participate, you should have received an e-mail from me. If you didn't receive an e-mail from me, you need to e-mail me at andyouknowwhatelse at gmail dot com. Thanks!

Meh

Ugh. I went shopping today and only found one thing I wanted. I bought this short-sleeved dress from Banana Republic. I think it is really cute, but I'm not sure what to wear it with since it is short-sleeved. I was going to try to find a short, trapeze-y long-sleeved cardigan to wear over it, but I see that Banana has it styled with a turtleneck under it. I do not look good in turtlenecks, but maybe I can try it with a long-sleeved shirt under it.

I was going to show you some pictures I just took of me in the dress, but they all came out really dark, so there isn't much point.

I'm feeling kind of down right now, so normally I just wouldn't write anything, but I don't have that choice with my posting every day scheme. Also, as I am typing this, I realize that I forgot to send out the first blog share e-mails. I will have to do that tomorrow instead. You can still sign up until Tuesday at 8 pm (Central).

I'm not sure why I'm so down at the moment. I think I'm just tired. And I don't want to go to work tomorrow. Some of you probably have tomorrow off for Veterans' Day. H has the day off, but he has to go into work anyway because he has some big stuff going on.

L Sass is doing a secret Santa exchange, in case any of you haven't read her site and are interested, the post explaining the secret Santa thing is here.

That's all I have for you tonight. I promise to come up with a better post for tomorrow.

I am cutting it very close, so I am posting this just in case it takes me too long to write the real Sunday post.

Clothes, Clothes, Clothes

Today's post was supposed to be a fashion show. I was going to go to Nordstrom's semi-annual sale and get some nice work pants and possibly a dress. I told H my plan, and (this is truly shocking) he wanted to go with me. But he had to work today, so he asked me to wait until tomorrow when we could go together. You might think he wants to tag along to prevent me from spending too much, but that is not the case as I will be using my personal account to pay for the clothes, and I have been plenty saved up. Anyway, I was going to go without him, but I decided to go to Kohl's instead to see if I could find any jeans or cute staples. I only ended up finding two camisoles and a bright short-sleeved shirt that will look nice under a blazer. Oh well. I spent less than $25.

I also thought about writing about my weight. I don't feel fit. I don't feel healthy. And I don't feel attractive. But that is pretty boring and a little too personal. Plus, it's my own damn fault that I weigh this much, so I should just do something about it instead of complaining.

Or I thought about telling you that the new season of Project Runway starts on Wednesday. I am so excited!

But instead I will ask you if you have purchased or seen any cute new clothes recently? Or if are you short and not that skinny, what is your favorite brand of jeans? (Yes, I know about Zafu, but does it really work?)