The Chronicles of Marge

Day 5: $25.80

The morning was brilliant and crisp as we started our hike along the Friedrich August Weg, which circles the Sassolungo. We had views of the Marmolada glacier in the distance (see upper-left corner of photo), shimmering in the early morning sun, and the first hour or so of our walk was spent in near solitude. Then the vast throngs of people who venture round the Sassolungo for a day hike after being dropped off from a big bus at Passo Sella descended upon us like flies. It was the first and only time we saw an overweight person on the trail. But you know what? They were out there and they were hiking, and at home, even most thin people seem to make it off the bus at the pass, visit the restaurant, call it a day, and proudly put a check mark beside Sassolungo in their book of really cool places that they had experienced and would live to tell people about—in very loud voices, mind you—for years to come.

Anyway, our destination was Selva, a village tucked between two valleys that seemed to have plenty of money yet no air of superiority. Our goal there was onefold: we desperately needed cash to pay for the next several nights because most rifugios only dealt in cash. However, our last attempts in Castelrotto at various and sundry ATMs had been denied, and we started to get this sick feeling that our account had been frozen, even though we called the bank before we left to alert them to our overseas status. So we stopped at the first bank we saw, and again were rejected. Then we dropped the backpacks off at our pension and headed to find a payphone. After finally finding the only payphone in town, we struggled for 30 minutes to make a collect call. We couldn’t get through. I figured it had something to do with international calling codes, so we went to the tourist office and asked what the calling code for a collect call to the US was. Poor girl. She tried. When that failed, we went to an actual bank to see if they could help us. Poor well-dressed man. He failed too. And then we went back to the pension to see if we could use the phone there. The bartender gave us directions to the local phone company, as if talking to someone in a small utility van would help. So then we went back up to the room so that I could cry a little bit and eat some chocolate because chocolate always helps.

And boy, did it ever because I then got an idea, and I picked up our cell phone, which we only brought along to use as an alarm clock, and I dialed the number, and by god, I got through. And 20 minutes later, I said the following sentence to the woman on the other end of the line: “Carmen, you are my most favorite person in the world today.” Carmen didn’t seem particularly flattered or appreciated, but maybe she is someone with personal space issues and didn’t want to receive a hug over the phone but did anyway and then felt like washing her hands thereafter or something. Regardless, we left the pension, walked to the nearest ATM, and withdrew the most beautiful euros I had ever seen.

And feeling particularly relieved and confident, we walked to a sporting goods store where we were waited on hand and foot by a young, swarthy Italian who wasn’t going to let The Americans get away without making a purchase, so we left with the cheapest pair of Nordic walking poles they had—only one pair because Jason wasn’t yet sure if they would do him any good. But as we left, I had a feeling that I was going to enjoy the hell out of those poles, and that my fate was sealed as (a) a 30-year-old octogenarian, and (b) my father’s daughter.

By the way, that phone call cost us $25.80, but it was worth every penny.

Day 4: How Many Tables Are Here?

So writing about our trip has turned into an almost nonexistent endeavor. I've come to the conclusion that people who blog every day don't have anything to do at work. I also think they have a housekeeper... or else live in a pig sty. And they also don't have any activities outside of the Internet and TV. Oh, and I bet they all have things like cabinets installed in their kitchen. Gosh, I really dislike people like that. Anyway, the writing about the trip is slow to say the least, but here goes a recap of day 4.

So at the end of day 4, I didn't think Jason would ever let me plan a vacation again. Actually, I didn't think I would ever let myself plan a vacation again either. Our first day of backpacking was painful and long. At 7.5 hours it was the longest hike we saw the entire trip. We each carried at least 35 pounds on our backs—and you ask, pounds of what? Well, clothing, toiletries, books for our hours of relaxation, rain gear, maps to show us the way, at least 4 pounds of water each, a journal, cheese, crackers, hazelnut wafer cookies, lots of chocolate, a camera, and a roll of toilet paper, which could be the most important item any hiker ever takes on a trail. But as painful and heavy as the load was, it allowed us to experience a spectacular and beautiful hike, and it made me wonder if you can have spectacular at all without a little bit of hard work and pain.

You see, five years ago, we hiked about 75 percent of the same route. We trudged up the side of the Schlern—every step vertical just the same as this year—and yet my memories weren't engrained with the struggle of the hike but rather with the sheer pleasure of it all—the views, the cold alpine wind as you trek out across the saddle of a mountain, the joy you have when you feel like you are on top of the world. I admit that I kind of remember feeling a bit like a Rohirrim. In fact, from a distance you can see the path up the Schlern cutting back and forth in tremendous switchbacks, a lot like when the Rohirrim took the path up to Dunharrow before riding to Gondor. Seriously, I wonder if Tolkien ever visited the Dolomites because of all the places I have ever been (granted, I have been to few compared with the size of our planet), the Dolomites and Capital Reef are the closet to Middle Earth that ever I have come.

 

 

Anyway, once we completed the part of the path that our legs knew (which ended at a very welcome wooden-seated outhouse on the side of the trail, and let me just say that the built-in ass drying courtesy of the mountain wind was great), I thought that we only had about 45 more minutes of gentle strolling to go. Boy was I wrong. The path went down, and so steeply that I had to walk backward for comfort of the feet and knees, much to the amusement of all the seasoned German hikers with their well-used nordic walking poles to aid in their descent. And then we encountered the slow ascent along the side of a perfectly green hill, which we rounded only to be met by yet another green hill. Seven hills later, hungry and cursing the name of my spouse who had nothing to do with planning this trip but whose lack of fatigue and hunger angered me greatly—I forget that he is descended from camels—we arrived at our destination, Plattkofelhűtte. Again, there is always a reward in hiking, regardless of what crappy weather your day may bring or lack of trees behind which to pee you may have: at the end of the day, you get to take the pack off. And on day 4, we got to take it off in our most favorite rifugio of the entire trip. This place kicked ass in so many ways: the room was cute, clean, small, yet uncrowded. We had our own little bathroom, which included a hot shower. I ate spinach dumplings for dinner, which may have been the best food I ate the entire trip. We sat with a German couple at mealtime, and they were enthusiastic about talking to us even though they didn't know all the words in English and we knew only 65 in German—I mean, really, "Wie viele Tische sind hier?" only gets you so far. Nonetheless, we had a delightful time.

And then, as we were getting into bed, someone upstairs got out a guitar and started playing and singing the standards. And our bodies, broken from the day, got to rest in a place tucked beneath the rocky crown of the Sassolungo group, with song and laughter to lull us to sleep.

To the Guy at the Cash Register at the Lunch Place Today

Thank you so much for telling me that I looked tired today while I was paying for my $8.99 buffet lunch. Seriously, is that all you could come up with? Why not, "How are you?" "Beautiful day outside." "Would you like a drink with that?"  But no, YOU LOOK TIRED. That's a sure way to make a girl feel good about herself. AND ANGRY AT YOU.

And since I have your ear, let me continue. I am generally tired of being told that I look like I am tired. Is this really the reaction I elicit from people? Do you see my face and think, I've got nothing but tired for this one. Is it the under-eye bags that do it for you—those bags that I can't help having and can blame genetics for? Well, guess what, dude, I am tired, and you get to hear about it now since you so graciously pointed it out. I am tired of sitting at a desk for 8 hours a day. I am tired of staring at a computer screen for equally as long. I am tired of global warming. I am tired of having to use the bathroom for 40 hours a week in fear that one of those Toilet Moaners is going to come in there while I am trying to be silent and take care of my own business in peace, but the Toilet Moaner is going to ruin everything important in my life just because they have to sigh on the toilet at work as if they live in a barn or a hippie commune. I am tired of hosting fruit flies at my house. They make for a bad house guest and they like to take a swim in my glass of red wine around 9 p.m. and I just want them to leave, but they are like family—sometimes you tell them to leave and they refuse. I am tired of people who drive SUVs. I am tired of middle-class Americans who complain about not having enough money. To them I say: you need to visit a third-world country and then shut the hell up. And I am tired of writing about what I am tired about.

In summation: the next time you greet a person and start to say, "You look tired," imagine them telling you that you look fat or you look like you haven't brushed your teeth in a week because it's true and it's right there in my mind, but I grew up in the South, bitches, and I learned to hold my tongue to a person's face (and then just go talk about them right behind their back).

Regards.

Day 3: Just an "Easy" Hike

I literally slept 10 hours our first night in Italy; Jason slept 12, so our first full day in the Alps was off to a great start. Say what you want to about jet leg, but every time I’ve traveled to Europe, I sleep like a champ that first night. Granted, it is all downhill thereafter in terms of sleep quality, but that first night is something rare and special. In addition, we couldn’t wait to get down to the dining room and feast on the Best Breakfast in the World. Alpine people know how to start the day: a variety of freshly baked breads, cheeses, meats (if you so choose), pastries, jams, and honey; yogurt, granola, and cereals that don’t turn the milk a shade of pastel; a boiled egg (also if you so choose); juices, coffee, and hot tea served with lemon. And did I mention the little packets of Nutella? NUTELLA FOR BREAKFAST! Why hasn’t this type of breakfast caught on in the United States? I mean, standard American breakfast fare is, like, Coco Puffs, pop tarts, bacon-egg-and-cheese biscuits, and frozen rectangles that are supposed to be French toast and have a microwave option for cooking. Y’all: Has microwaving ever done anything good for a bread material? No. Have Coco Puffs, pop tarts, or bacon-egg-and-cheese biscuits ever done anything good for the size of the American Ass. Definitely not.

Anyway, I planned for our first day what I thought would be an easy, backpack-free day hike to help us find our mountain legs and get accustomed to the altitude. Dear lord in heaven. I should have read the key on our topographical map to see what the change in elevation between all those little lines actually was. But I didn’t, and instead, I took us straight up the side of a mountain, literally. I think we walked uphill for almost 3 hours through forest and over one massive pile of rocks. But as with so many things in life, a hard road up leads to a great reward. 

We reached the Seiser Alm and had full views of the valley below us, the Schlern beyond us, and the massive Sassolungo group rising from the rolling green beauty of the amazing alpine meadow. We even laid down and took a nap after our lunch of cheese and crackers and hazelnut chocolate wafer cookies.

On our way back down that afternoon, we opted to save our knees for the last hour downhill and caught a chairlift into Castelrotto. It was a quiet, cool, and long descent, and worth every euro because once we were back at the Zum Wolf, my body was in a state of shock. I knew I had these muscles but I did not know to what extent. The inner recesses of my hips hurt. Areas of my ass only known to sitting at a desk had awoken in great alarm. And my left calf, which I thought could take anything after daily cycling, felt like bedrock.

And we hadn’t even started the backpacking yet. 

A Slug at the Doorstep

My apologies for the vast silence on The Chronicles. It’s due in part to a lack of inspiration but largely to the fact that Jason and I just returned Saturday from a 16-day holiday to Italy and Germany. So I’m going to try to do something that will probably peter out and leave you all in a silent rage (or vastly relieved), so don’t say you received no warning: I’m going to write about each day of our trip. It may bore you all to tears or make some of you roll your eyes because I don’t have anything better to discuss—like the newest season of SYTYCD, which I haven’t even seen yet, I know!—but I’m going to give it a go nonetheless.

First of all, for those of you who may not know, Jason and I have a particular way of going on holiday. It usually involves consecutive days of not showering, blisters on our feet, thermal underwear, and using the bathroom in the woods (also fields), which really doesn’t sound that appealing. However, it’s the complete opposite of our daily lives. There are two things I do almost every day: (1) I sit at a desk, and (2) I use the computer. I’m really happy to say that I did neither of those while we were away, and it was great.

Let’s start with days 1 and 2: I got up the morning we were to depart and went outside to water the plants, and there, climbing up the front steps, was a six-inch-long slug. I instantly thought of my sister Katharine and of Canada. And as much as I think slugs are gross, I wasn’t going to kill it. Creatures must be feasting on tomatoes or O-neg for me to take pleasure in their demise, so I let this one lie, but I wasn’t happy about seeing it there and it gave me a funny feeling about the trip to come. Then at 9:30, our time for departure, Jason and I realized that his brother, who had agreed to take us to the airport, was still asleep in Raleigh, and we flipped out and had to reconnect the Internet and dig the computer out of its hiding place so that we could find the number to a cab company and pay some stranger $45 freakin’ dollars to take us 9 miles.

I blamed all of that on the slug and World of Warcraft.

And then there was the plane ride. I just can’t stand being a plane for that long, particularly being awake on a plane for that long. I tried my best to fall asleep, but sleep was not to be had. And a note to The World about foot etiquette on a plane: maybe if you have ugly, bloated, unattractive Man Feet you shouldn’t take your shoes off on a plane. AND THEN PROCEED TO PUT ONE FOOT IN A CLEAR PLASTIC BAG TO KEEP YOUR TOES WARM. Your actions: gross. Your remedy for the future: socks. Thank you in advance.

So we landed at 6 a.m. in Milan and several hours later we found ourselves boarding a bus in Bolzano to head to Castelrotto, our first destination in the Italian Alps. At that point, we were 30 hours on no sleep, and therefore, when we got off the bus in Castelrotto, we were on our last leg of sanity and the only thing that kept us going was the thought of our room at the Zum Wolf. So we circled the town and it seemed kind of like we remembered but then not really. The Zum Wolf and its breakfast buffet of legend and renown was just not there, and neither was the town square. And then the woman at the tourist office told us that we got off the bus in a village 3k away.

And I thought my world would crumble right then and there because I was wild with exhaustion and felt like a complete American dumbass in a foreign land, and Jason and I both knew that the tedium of waiting another hour for the next bus would probably end our marriage right then and there, so we sucked it up and walked the 3k to the next town over—backpacks on the back and book bags on the front.

When we arrived at the Zum Wolf, the woman at the hotel, with a tone that made me think she was going to announce a malfunction in the local sewer system, told us that they had to upgrade our room. AT NO CHARGE. Folks, we got two balconies, a couch, an eating nook, and a walk-in closet. I only have one of those at home, so for all the missteps of our first 30 hours of holiday, I think, at the end of the day, we were A-OK.

Thoughts on the Euro

So Jason and I finally bought a queen-size bed. It arrived on Friday, and I admit that I felt a bit ostentatious with the purchase, particularly after our trip to El Salvador and my goal to live a simpler life. The only justification I can give to the purchase is that the two of us had outgrown a full-size bed. That's not to say we have gotten huge or anything. Quite frankly, from any angle, Jason and I are narrower than most. However, our sleep quality has deteriorated over the last couple of years. Allegedly, one of us has started writing her own script to Friday Night Lights in her sleep, and the other of us thought that if said script writer had more space in the bed, that maybe the other one wouldn't be awoken in the middle of the night with "Welcome back QB. How's it going?" Also, we bought a bed made in Virginia out of oak grown in a sustainable forest. And finally, this is the last bed we ever plan to buy. 

All that being said, Saturday morning made me wonder if the bed was indeed too much of a purchase and someone was trying to tell us that we should never have gone down that road. Upon arising, Jason made his way to the toilet, and once seated could barely rise from his position due to severe pain and an inability to remove the grimace from his face. I quickly diagnosed it as a pinched nerve and then went to the store for some Icy Hot patches. Y'all, if heaven came as an adhesive medicated patch, that product would be it. Anyway, Jason was all about blaming the new bed, but I couldn't go there yet. My guess: Maybe when he sat on the toilet he decided to think a bit about the current euro/dollar exchange rate, which is making me nauseous right now as well but is also something I think best left outside of the realm of Things We Ponder While on the Toilet. Exchange rates are better left to ponder while eating a marzipan Ritter Sport bar and repeating to yourself: "This is worth every euro. This is worth every euro." Particularly in the dead of winter when you would pay anything for some semblance of mental health and self-preservation. And speaking of the dead of winter, it was like 69 DEGREES YESTERDAY. AND CLOUDY. ON THE LAST DAY OF AUGUST. And I know there were all these cold lovers and menopausal women out there thanking the gods, but then there were the rest of us thinking that this is an omen of a long, cold, yet snow-free, winter to come, a winter spent in a fetal position while wrapped up in multiple fleece blankets on the couch and wondering why the sun no longer shines in your heart and why that expensive-ass bar of Milka chocolate laced with crispy rice is doing you no good. People: that day is just around the corner for some of us and we didn't need to go there emotionally in August already. I got so distressed that after work I was on the verge of heading to one of my two winter hibernation locations: Middle Earth or the Land of British Costume Dramas. 

But then hold your horses ye inclined to disorders of the seasonal and affective nature: today dawned, and it made me launch into some of the recent German phrases I've been learning: Der Himmel ist blau! Die Sonne ist gelb! Das Gras ist grün! Das Mädchen ist glücklich! And if I knew how to say "Hot damn! It is 78 degrees outside and the breeze is blowing" in German as well, I would. But I haven't gotten to that point in the language learning process yet, so I'll just have to make do and sing a bit of Edelweiss (the version in which Liesl sings the echo part) and maybe retreat to one of my favorite winter places anyway just to celebrate the most beautiful day I have seen in 6 months because, in addition to 78 degrees, nothing says EMOTIONAL HEALTH quite like standing in a hard English rain while accepting someone's proposal of marriage but being unable to go within 8 feet of them for fear of contracting the scarlet fever. Friends, Andrew Davies can adapt some good shit. And Jason and I have also quit thinking about the euro.

El Salvador

We returned from El Salvador more than 2 weeks ago, and I think the experience still leaves me at a loss for what to say and it and about my life in general. First off, I’m not sure how to do justice in words to such a week. I’m afraid it would almost diminish my memories in a way—some experiences are best left without explanation. Second, writing about the normal Marge Topics just seems pointless—I mean, after you’ve been in a third-world country, other aspects of life pale in comparison, like sweating or chocolate or the fact that yesterday I discovered and subsequently exterminated the largest horn worm ever in the history of my garden and it gave me much pleasure to wrestle it off the naked limb of my tomato plant and then smash it with my heel. And wrestle I did. That thing was the size of a fifth grader. I am not even kidding.

For those of you who don’t know, Jason and I accompanied a group from our church on a trip to build houses in the village of Alegria, El Salvador. We worked on five homes made of cinderblock and mortar. These homes have tin roofs and tile floors. But they do not have running water, indoor kitchens, or (at least for now) electricity. Each house is about the size of my kitchen and dining room combined—folks, my house is considered on the small size for Durham—and one of the houses was being built for a family with seven children.

So let me start by saying this: I lived the first 27 years of my life on the safe side. For 27 years I didn't put myself out there. I didn't take a look at how other people lived, and I definitely didn't put myself in a place of interaction with those people. Then I became unemployed and needed to fill my time with something, so I started going to the community kitchen in Durham a few times a week. I served meals to people who otherwise could not provide for themselves, and I fell in love with doing it, so much so that even after finding a job, I decided to continue going, and I still go once a month because it brings me great joy and because it reminds me that the world is filled with the meek and the poor and the hungry and that I am not the center of the universe.

El Salvador was an even bigger step in putting myself out there. Before this, I had never been to a third-world country. I had never seen shacks on the side of the highway made of tin and plastic—acres filled with these structures in which people sleep and raise families. I had never seen women carry water on their heads in a huge container up the side of a mountain just so they can wash clothes or cook a meal. I had never seen anyone work construction without the use of power tools. But I got to see all of this and more while we were there.

You know, seeing this first-hand made me ashamed of the way I live. Granted, it costs a lot more to live in the US than it does in a third-world country, but that doesn't make right the fact that I basically own a different outfit for every day of the month. And there was no call for my shock and awe when we arrived at our accommodations in Alegria to find that the communal toilets didn’t have seats. And although I should have just been a big girl in that moment, I succumbed to my first-world emotions. It was as if I were peering into the toilet bowl of my soul in which I saw my obituary flash before my eyes: Dead from Constipation in El Salvador due to Fear of Sitting on Rim. And I knew I didn't want to be remembered for The Ages as that girl. So I asked the folks around me for permission to take 20 minutes to have an Emotional Episode in which I lamented the lack of toilet seat in that 5-day period of my life and the fact that I was served rice and a big-ass thick corn tortilla at every meal and that the above-mentioned obituary might actually come to pass. And then I was done, and that was that. And I think it was my only Episode of the trip, and my spouse will let you know that one emotional breakdown in a week is, like, a record for this woman.

But I’ll say this, I look back and am thankful for the lack of toilet seat. It gave me a closer experience as to how others live than I would have received staying in a hotel somewhere. And it taught me that I can get over myself. And learning how to take my focus from myself and look at the lives of others was a great experience for me. You see, I spent 9 days in El Salvador without a phone or a computer or the use of a mirror, and it was wonderful because I was able to spend 9 days in community, learning, laughing, working hard, and sweating, and amazing at how life can be beautiful and fragile all at the same time and how happiness and hope exist for people who have very little. But what they have, they don’t take for granted, as I often do. I also think there is something to be said for living a simpler life, and I hope Jason and I can figure out ways in which to do that ourselves. 

I'll leave you with some Salvadorian sky. El Salvador has the most beautiful skies I have ever seen in my life. And folks, I've been to Utah.

By Day Four

I'm having one of those weeks. It looks something like this:

• Monday: Jury duty. I sat in the judicial system's version of an airport lobby all damn day. The room even included bathrooms for both men and women. Of course, I was too nervous to use them because everyone in the room could see you go in and see you come out, and if that's not enough to shut down one's urinary and gastrointestinal systems, I'm not sure what is (actually... continue reading). So I just sat there and read (got all the way through the beach landings at Anzio), and I watched the same CNN news stories repeat every two hours (I swear, I can recite Sarah Palin's exit speech by heart now, which really makes me want to vomit a bit), and I overhead a fellow lady jury say very loudly that she had to reschedule her colonoscopy because of this judicial service. And I was all, lady, speak no more (this coming from a woman who isn't afraid to discuss her GI functions on the Internet). And then there was the guy wearing the flip-flops who proved why men should NEVER wear flip-flops. Dude: if you look down at your feet and don't think "My, those are swift and beautiful," then don't think any of the rest of us will. We won't. We will think they are gross and will wish to high heaven that we didn't have to sit behind you and your ugly-ass man toes in the jury duty room. Luckily, at 4 p.m. I was dismissed from service for the next two years.
• Tuesday: Car accident in from of my house at 9:15 p.m. A couple of teenage drivers were rear-ended by a much more "experienced driver" who didn't seem to see them and their turn signal. Quite frankly, when I heard it happen, I thought someone had brought out the firearms and the Summer of Rage in Durham was now on. I went to lock the doors, and then I went out to offer condolences and tomatoes to some poor teenage boys—yeah, because tomatoes are the first thing you want after you've been rear-ended by a jack-ass. I'm not sure what I was thinking. Anyway, now there's an immovable station wagon in my driveway that the neighbors have been demolishing in the hope of returning it to a state of movement. They got the bumper dislodged from the rear tires, but they can't get the engine started. The hood is up now. It looks like our driveway will have a new tenant for the night at least.  
• Wednesday: SYTYCD. I asked everyone to watch the show at my house because I thought my sister Katharine would be here. She just called 30 minutes ago to let me know she is still in NOLA and having difficulty making decisions. And I have am having difficulty with last-minute changes (and although I should still see her in a couple of weeks, I'm kind of sad now because seeing her is always an occasion on which I know I'll be happy).  
• Thursday: The entire Mathes family will be here. I love the Mathes family; I'm excited about seeing them. But on Thursday, I will be two days away from a multi-day Away-Toilet Situation, and I'm not sure that having a small child in my house who asks to have her ass wiped upon using the toilet is really what my colon needs now.  
• Friday: The pile has to go into the bag somehow. Please note: I am not a last-minute packer. The pile has been there for days, but it's getting it all to go into the bag that is the challenge. And I'm not even going to address the fact that Jason hasn't even started a pile, which makes me a little bit bitter—oh those Procrastinators of the world who end up calm, cool, and collected on the day of the show and no one even knows that they were up all night getting their shit together, whereas I show up on the day of the show well-prepared in advance but with bags under my eyes and a spot on my lower lip that makes it look like I've contracted some heinous venereal disease. And I'm not even joking about that spot on the lip because IT IS ALREADY THERE!  
• Saturday: I'm excited. Sleeping conditions: I'll take whatever. Cold showers: I'll just not bathe—I mean, most of my real vacations involve sporadic showering at best. But seriously, I will be 1 in a group of 11 with whom I will have to share a toilet. And only one of those 11 knows that by day 4 the possibility of contracting a case of the dreaded traveler's diarrhea will sound like a great idea to me. 

Not an Invitation

Here's a frightening thing, but I just can't help myself: I'm going to write about people who may read this, and although I actually don't think anyone who reads my site is in question here, I just want you to know that we can still be friends. There are just a few NEW RULES TO FOLLOW, and I also think any socially inept person who reads this may benefit, so guess what: my Web site is finally doing something for the greater good of humanity. 

So we had our beer-drinking crowd over Saturday night to celebrate Jason's birthday. One of the Born and Bred Boys of Chatham County brought an actual keg of homemade brew hooked up to a CO₂ tank. Yeah, Jason and I sure know how to put on a high-class event. Anyway, I had a fine time, but it could have been better had a few rules and regulations been followed. 

Largely this: if everyone leaves the party and you are the last person standing, maybe it is time to go too. Also, when your hostess goes to the toilet and comes out wearing her featherweight plus glasses circa 1999, which she only wears in situations of extreme desperation or tiredness, maybe you should contemplate what that means. And finally, when your hostess starts clearing the dishes away and spends 45 minutes at the sink cleaning up after people who can't seem to locate a trash can or one of the two sides of the sink that sit right there in the kitchen—and by god, since we don't have countertops or cabinets it is not hard to find the sink, people—then maybe you should either pitch in and help or take that as a sign that the party is over and it is time to depart. Note to familial relations: you are exempt from this. I have no problems retiring for the evening and leaving any of you to your own devices in my house; you've all been there enough that you know where the door is and you all have a good track record of WALKING OUT OF IT. 

In addition, I'm not sure who decided to carry their kabob stick into our toilet, break it up into several small pieces, and leave it on the bathroom counter for me to discover later in the evening. To said individual: did you think, "My, that kabob meat stick is going to taste so much better if I eat it in the toilet in solitude"? Did you enjoy breaking it into tiny pieces while staring at your pores in the bathroom mirror? Did you not bother to look for a trash can in the kitchen? Hell, I'm surprised you didn't just PEE IN OUR SHOWER WHILE YOU WERE AT IT. 

World: that was not an invitation.   

Gettin' Out the Razor

We are going to a wedding in New York this weekend for Jason's cousin, and the question of what to wear has completely taken over my life—this coming from someone who is washing dishes in her bathtub and just discovered the mummified bodies of several dead mice between some studs in her kitchen wall. As if I have nothing else to think about. Anyway, it took me two months to buy the dress, one month to find a matching pair of shoes that I would actually wear again, and two hours with pliers and wire to make some jewelry to go with the ensemble. In addition, my aunt knitted me a shawl in less than a day and is mailing it to me as we speak, so you know it's serious when the whole family gets involved. I even went to the Super Target last night and bought makeup. Yes, that would be makeup for me. To put on my face. Yeah, you know Marge is having some type of life crisis when she applies something other than Oil of Olay SPF 15 to her face. The crisis escalated when somehow I managed to make it home with a lipstick that perfectly matches the color of my lips, and which I now can't return. I guess this is why people go to the makeup counter at Belk. I, personally, would rather vomit, so I'm stuck with lips this weekend that look exactly like the ones I already had.

I would even go as far to say that I've put more effort into what I'm wearing to this wedding than I did to my own wedding. Hell, I should quit attending weddings, and instead just get married again every time because that experience for me was one of the least stressful in my life—and for those of you surprised by this statement, you've apparently never overdosed on laxatives in the middle of a 'effin cow pasture in New Mexico. Trust me, getting married is easy. Anyway, maybe my grand amount of effort stems from this nagging feeling of aging. I don't feel old or ugly, but I feel like the edge of the cliff is just there and that I could topple over at any time and end up some middle-aged woman in pleated pants, which reminds me of an interesting conversation I had with my mother-in-law over the weekend. She said that she was talking to a friend about how, as a woman, you reach this point in your life where you realize that no one is looking at you anymore. You used to be young and vibrant and could turn a head, but then all of a sudden, it passes, and it's kind of sad to realize that you'll never have that anymore—you'll never be that woman ever again. So maybe this is why I am obsessed all of a sudden. Maybe each occasion for dressing up that I have could be my last as a young, vibrant thing. I've never considered myself to be a head-turner or one of the pretty girls, but I've always felt young, and I've always felt like I could bring it if I wanted.

So why not go the extra mile for what may be the last time as an almost bright young thing. I might even shave my legs in the hope that all this effort is worth it—as in, please god, let there be an open bar!! I also hope I don't return with the swine flu, which I can totally envision happening to me. I mean, who doesn't feel a little bit like they've contracted some H1N1 after they've spent three days with their extended family anyway, regardless of how much you like them. But no worries. I'm taking the necessary precautions and am fortifying my system with so much echinacea that I'll end up growing a purple cone flower out of my ass before this is all over.