Blame the Cat » randomness

Top 10 ways you know you married a fanboy

Tammy — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 19:08:12 +0000

With the release of Starcraft II, my husband’s semi-latent fanboy roared back into the picture. I survived him playing the Beta and I’ll survive the final release, but if I had any doubt about his fanboy status, it’s all been laid to rest.

Top Ten Ways You Know You Married a Starcraft Fanboy

1. He pre-orders the Collector’s Edition for himself and the regular edition for you (even though you don’t really play) because he wants you to experience his joy.

2. He wakes early on release day and hovers over the online delivery notification briefly freaking out when the package is classified as undeliverable for 15 minutes.

3. He liberates the delivery from the office before you get home, before eating lunch, and well before anything else.

4. Your mid-day IM is interrupted with “OH MY GOD THE INTRO. CANNOT TALK” and he stops talking. Completely.

5. Your typical late afternoon mushy phone call is greeted with “Can’t talk. Saving settlers!”

6. When you offer to take him out to grab dinner, he responds with, “But honey, I have to save the train. The train is being robbed. Don’t you understand? THE TRAIN IS BEING ROBBED.”

7. He starts telling you all about the life of his new friend Jim Raynor, while you’re lying in bed. (He also carries around his dog tags.)

8. He tells you that he’s been waiting nearly half his life for this – and he’s actually telling the truth.

9. While his friends jump in to beat the game in Hard Mode, he finishes the campaign on Normal because he actually cares about the storyline.

10. He manages to jam as much SC2 as possible into the 2.5 day period between Release Day and leaving for the internet-free family reunion not just because it’s new, shiny, and the best thing since… well, since the original, but also because he refuses to play offline and miss getting credit for in-game achievements.

I can’t say that I understand it. I haven’t ever really excitedly anticipated the release of anything like this. Yes, I went out at 3 am to get my iPhone 3G, but his glee is far beyond that. While I can’t necessarily relate, it is fun to watch how giddy he’s been. In the right circumstances, we’re all just overgrown kids after all. I still jump in puddles, run around the house with my cat, and splash in the tub. He just happens to be a Blizzard fanboy. I’m just fine with that.

I love you, ya big kid.

Cooking is an art

Tammy — Thu, 15 Jul 2010 23:29:17 +0000

I’ve spent the past few hours unpacking wedding presents, including putting together and filling a new spice rack. It has the usual culprits: cinnamon, garlic salt, oregano, parsley, mustard seed… I have used mustard seed exactly zero times in my life, but, for some reason, it always shows up. I blame the Bible.

So, in honor of the new spice rack, I started thinking (inspired further, of course, by GraphJam):

If my life depended on identifying spices I own by taste, I’d die. I can identify some by smell (maybe). I couldn’t describe them to you or actually tell you what they do or rather, are supposed to do to food, “Salt good. Too much pepper bad. Garlic good. Too much salt bad.”

Some spices I started using because I stumbled on them in a recipe who knows when for who knows what. Other spices, I use out of habit, such as always putting oregano, parsley, basil, and garlic in spaghetti sauce. I learned it that way and it works. I’ve never questioned it.

Some spices in my cupboard are a mystery. Turmeric. What’s it do? It turns things yellow. What’s it taste like? It turns things yellow. It goes in curries. Curries are often yellow.

Yes, I’m acknowledging my ignorance. The sad thing is I really do like to cook and I like to imagine that I know what I’m doing sometimes. I think I’ll spend some time with my cookbooks and hold off on the trips to Penzey’s for six different kinds of pepper until I get my bearings.

Missing Bridge Redux

Tammy — Fri, 11 Jun 2010 15:06:21 +0000

Over the few days, staff at the Red Lion (our wedding venue) have been a bit overwhelmed. Given the sudden absence of the primary (and only legal) entrance to their property, it isn’t terribly surprising. However, plenty of individuals have taken the opportunity to help out and provide unexpected generosity and kindness.

As I’ve posted elsewhere, the brides for this weekend have had to relocate and the Red Lion stands to lost $30,000 in business from lost weddings alone. Of course, bridezilla comes to mind when sudden last minute changes in wedding plans occur, not to mention changes as sweeping as having to suddenly relocate your wedding. 9News.com and Colorado Daily have covered some of the gracious (and profoundly unlucky) couples impacted by the washed away bridge. What the Colorado Daily article doesn’t mention is the graciousness and generosity that both the Red Lion and the couples are experiencing. Wedding planners, venues, and customers pulling together to relocate weddings, help pay for the bridge, and get the bridge rebuilt.

When I spoke to Tina the day after the bridge went kablooey, she was stressed and overwhelmed, but she had a plan to make the weekend weddings happen. While ultimately she was not permitted to use the back road to shuttle people in for the weddings, she was committing to making sure those couples still had the weddings of their dreams (despite Mother Nature’s contribution). Like other brides, I called to check in and ask to be kept in the loop on developments. I also offered up the idea of a temporary bridge and told her I would happily pay my part. From Tina’s comments in the article, I have a feeling that other brides also offered up support and optimism.

A washed out bridge is an act of God. Finding ways to express kindness, support, graciousness, and generosity in the aftermath is the essence of humanity. It’s life-affirming to see how people have truly risen to the occasion, just like the swollen waters of Boulder Creek that caused it all to happen in the first place.

Red Bull gives you wings, right?

Tammy — Wed, 09 Jun 2010 04:39:09 +0000

I’m going to need some wings since THERE’S NO LONGER A BRIDGE TO OUR WEDDING VENUE. *headdesk*

There is not supposed to be a giant hole in the bridge. Bridge does not equal donut.

Somehow, I don’t think the problem will be solved in less than 11 days.

Just a few things left to do

Tammy — Mon, 07 Jun 2010 01:40:04 +0000

We’ve gotten nearly everything wrapped up for the wedding and hopefully, we’re done bleeding money for awhile. Oof.

Wedding dress picked up. This is a story in and of itself and I’ll post about it later. Suffice it to say that I would NEVER recommend getting alterations at The Wedding Shoppe in St Paul, MN. Their service for choosing and purchasing a dress, in my experience, was excellent, but the alteration process was less than optimal (and not just for me). I’ll share more of that story later.
Attendant’s gifts ordered.
Bridesmaids’ Jewelry – I wasn’t planning on buying jewelry for the bridesmaids originally, but decided that it would be a nice gift and take one more thing off of their plates. I stalked 1928 Jewelry for a few weeks and ended up finding some very pretty navy blue pieces on sale from the Blue Moon set. I also bought a faux pearl and crystal bracelet and earrings to wear with my wedding dress.
Card Box – Similar to the guest book, I just wasn’t sold with the easily available options and had postponed getting anything until I stumbled on a Wedding Card Birdhouse on etsy. It’s personalized and comes with one roof for the wedding (with a hole for cards) and another lid for the birds! Extremely cute and clever. I’m excited about it.
Discovered we don’t need a full kids’ table – only 4 kids attending.
Plane tickets to wedding purchased.
Going Away Dress – Purchased yesterday. We’ll need to leave our hotel pretty early the next day so I decided it would be significantly easier to have the wedding dress already under control. Since we were already at Bloomingdale’s* on a registry-related task, I checked out their plus-size selection. I found a lovely Jones New York Collection dress in our wedding colors – white with navy flowers with apple green leaves and centers. It seemed quite appropriate and it looked great with a fairly reasonable price tag (read as “on sale”). I’ll wear it with a cute pair of white sandals and then repurpose both of them for one of the dinners on our honeymoon.
Guest Book – I didn’t want a typical guest book, but still wanted to have a place for people to leave their names, thoughts, and hopefully, email addresses. I looked at the recipe card style boxes but it didn’t make sense to me beyond the day of the wedding. It would just be a dust magnet. Despite my leanings otherwise, I ended up going with a book as it made more sense in terms of keeping it. I found a lovely handmade one on etsy. It’s personalized with our names on the cover.
Matt’s ring picked up.
Turned in final paperwork for venue with best guess guest count.
Made final arrangements with vendors and altered orders based on the guest count.
Thank you notes! (Hooray for Matt writing them!) The list is ever increasing and he’s keeping up pretty well.

Now we need to pack for a week for pre-wedding, the wedding, and a week of honeymoon, as well as making sure the apartment is in a reasonable state. Somewhere in there, we need to spend quality time with the cat. Regardless of how much quality time we get in, he’s still going to make us pay when we return. I have no doubt in my mind.

Really, that’s the bulk of it. We need to finish our pre-cruise registration bits and print off or boarding passes and luggage tags, but hopefully, that’s by far the most complicated thing we have left to do. I’m really, really looking forward to the honeymoon, if for no reason other than we can both get some much needed rest.

*Just as an aside, prior to our setting up our registry, I’d never shopped at Bloomingdale’s but their customer service throughout our wedding planning have definitely won my business. They are one of the few registries that has a built in Thank You manager, as well as excellent service in person, including useful (and very few) phone calls (as opposed to annoyances).

Bloomingdale’s called

Tammy — Fri, 04 Jun 2010 04:15:30 +0000

I had a message from Bloomingdale’s to let me know that our dishes and towels were on sale. It felt extremely surreal. I’m definitely not complaining about having our registry items on sale just prior to the wedding. Sales are never a bad thing. It was more of an unexpected personal touch. I appreciate it.

A list of things

Tammy — Sat, 22 May 2010 03:58:40 +0000

Things that have gone wrong:
- My wedding dress no longer fits properly. Something went dreadfully wrong with the alterations and must be remedied.
- I’m running out of time to get everything done before the wedding.
- Our guests don’t seem to be RSVPing. I may need to track them down.

Things that have gone right:
- The bridesmaids’ dresses arrived and look lovely. Here’s hoping they fit everyone perfectly.
- Matt’s ring is purchased.
- Matt’s birthday. Enjoyable dinner followed by ice cream at Izzy’s. We were going to watch a movie, but his parents called and then we got distracted by other things. Regardless, it was still a nice evening.

Things to do:
- Wrangle remaining guests.
- Make sure wedding dress fits again.
- Enjoy our shower on Monday thrown by work friends.
- Enjoy Memorial Day weekend trip to Michigan for our shower thrown by his family.

If you can’t explain it simply…

Tammy — Sat, 15 May 2010 18:47:50 +0000

Via imgfave.com

There’s those who get it…

Tammy — Sat, 08 May 2010 17:03:44 +0000

Posted via web from ymmat’s posterous

Moved, dates saved, not unpacked, and pictures

Tammy — Sat, 20 Mar 2010 16:30:51 +0000

Moving is complete, thankfully. We’re not unpacked yet and won’t be for awhile. We don’t have enough bookshelves for our books. They’re still in boxes stacked up in the den. The apartment feels absolutely huge, which is a welcome change. We can actually put the boxes out of sight and at least give the illusion of being moved in (until you walk into the den).

Save the Dates are mostly done and mailed. I have 26 addresses that we’re still missing. Before doing them, I’d forgotten how much work calligraphy is. I remember now. Handwriting all of the addresses took rather a long time. It’s why I ended up doing them in bursts. Matt’s going to run the last of them to the post office on Monday. Hopefully, we can get the rest of the addresses this weekend – or at least most of them anyway.

So back to the subject of the new apartment, I did mention it felt huge, yes? We’re on the top floor (the 4th) and the ceilings are extremely tall. In comparison, my last apartment was a hobbit hole. This just feels immense, in a welcome way. My television and entertainment center, however, look rather dwarfish. They were purchased for a teeny apartment. It’s a problem for another day, but I’m on the lookout for ready, cheap solutions furnishings-wise. We’ll figure something out. In the meantime, I’ll cheat by finding an extremely tall fake plant to put on top of it or something (not really). The cat, who is adapting quite nicely, would eat the plant. I’m sure of it.

Last, but not least, we had our engagement pictures taken on our speed trip to Colorado last weekend. She’s already finished with them – all 182. The session was a blast – Tattered Cover bookstore right across from Union Station. We used both locations and the pictures are great. Denver’s LoDo lent itself nicely and Ashley Davis, our photographer, is fabulous. We enjoyed ourselves and you can tell in the photos. I’m laughing in nearly all of them. Now, we have to pick out a handful for our various needs. It was a good experience and I’m quite glad we chose her for our wedding. I can’t wait.