Today is a magical day.
Four years ago today, someone named Folsom and someone named Walsh, inspired by the sweet news that GW Bush had changed domestic partnership taxation on public employees, hastily joined themselves together in sweet monkey matrimony to become the WaFols tribe forever more. (Wafols. Geddit?)
Here is a recreation of the beautiful moment when we decided to entwine our lives and taxable incomes together forever more:
Him: CRAP!
Me: What?
Him: I just got this notice that I have to pay taxes on all the domestic partnership benefits my work gave you that were untaxed all year! CRAP!
Me: Suck!
Him: OR...we could get married and the benefits would become nontaxable spousal benefits.
Me: So it's December. Couldn't they have told you earlier in the tax year? Effers. Whatever. I guess let's do it. (to Milo) Sorry little buddy. I guess we can't legitimately call you our little bastard any more...
See? We've always had that secret, romantic je ne sais quoi.
Last night, Jamie and I went out a day early (because when you get married on New Years Eve, every day is a holiday. Also, babysitters on NYE? Ha!) and celebrated with the alcohol and the raw fish and the reminiscence, reflecting upon all the words we now use only ironically. Like "romantic" and "privacy".
And we also did some good couple bonding and threatening.
Like...you can never die/divorce me/something-else-unforeseeable because we are In. This. Together. Like it or not, damnit, baby!
Because that? Is hot sweet magical monkey love. Baby.
Happy New Year/Waffle Monkey Love Day to you all!
DISLCAIMER: Our sitters are awesome and would probably totally have sat for us tonight. Just so's you knows.
PS: Thank you tremendously for all the love about my sister. Here's hoping for a healing 2009!
PPS: So....sometimes I'm a bit harsher than is strictly necessary. And even though the above is all more-or-less true, it doesn't capture the fact that we are a pretty nauseatingly happy-together couple who are delighted to find ourselves where we are. And even if GW hadn't been evil, babies not in our picture, and privacy something we could say without snorting, we might be in precisely exactly the same place. There, Jamie. I lub you and I may not be particularly publically mushy, but it's ALL MUSH ALL THE TIME in our reality. (OK, not always, but sometimes).
Wednesday, December 31, 2008
Monday, December 29, 2008
Sweet and sour
Things have been a bit weird in Waffle land.
We had what was, with blinders on, a delightful holiday weekend. We didn't give or recieve a lot of presents, but what we did and had was meaningful.
We got to spend part of the 'smas with our favorite Naked Monkey friends.
On Boxing Day Jamie's sister and her daughter, who live in France, and a friend of theirs from Oregon, came for a visit and truly added to the pleasure of sharing in the best of Christmas spirit.
Minimal drama at home/maximum warmth. Lots of cooking, game playing and sweet, cozy times. In a normal world, the biggest blot on my horizon would be that the garbage pick-up didn't happen due to bad weather. Because? Chicken bones+wrapping-paper+boxes=Crap!
However, from an inner perspective, my holiday was...well, the suck. And typing this out makes my hands shake.
My oldest sister, easily one of the most vital, life-force-filled people I've ever known, collapsed on 12/22. Doctors found a mass in her pelvis and did a colonoscopy which found that her colon is riddled with tumors. Her liver shows some masses as well.
There are some good things to add, like her lungs are clear and the initial colon biopsy came back as precancerous. But basically, each phone call home delivered news that was/is more and more somber. By Christmas I was a wet wreck.
I don't know what to add to that. That she has 7 kids, the youngest of whom is 5? FIVE! That she JUST became a grandmother this year and needs to see him grow up? That she, more than any of my living family members, made the greatest impact on me as a person and I want her to keep doing that for a LOT MORE YEARS? That she talks more animatedly than anybody I've ever known and that a phone call to her is the most fascinating roller coaster about nutrition, green-living, education, and 45 other random topics which interest her at a given moment?
She's intense and a force of nature and SO opinionated. She loves books. She loves music. She loves helping people experience the best of things, particularly with regards to health and nutrition.
I don't believe in God, which is good for God and good for me, because I'd be SO FUCKING RADICALLY RABIDLY CRAZY if I thought there was a being anywhere in the universe who could change what is happening to my sister. Which is to say, I held it together for Christmas. Had fun with the kids. Was loving and loved. And now I'm trying to figure out all the random intricacies of being a supporter of someone with cancer.
How does anybody do this?
We had what was, with blinders on, a delightful holiday weekend. We didn't give or recieve a lot of presents, but what we did and had was meaningful.
We got to spend part of the 'smas with our favorite Naked Monkey friends.
On Boxing Day Jamie's sister and her daughter, who live in France, and a friend of theirs from Oregon, came for a visit and truly added to the pleasure of sharing in the best of Christmas spirit.
Minimal drama at home/maximum warmth. Lots of cooking, game playing and sweet, cozy times. In a normal world, the biggest blot on my horizon would be that the garbage pick-up didn't happen due to bad weather. Because? Chicken bones+wrapping-paper+boxes=Crap!
However, from an inner perspective, my holiday was...well, the suck. And typing this out makes my hands shake.
My oldest sister, easily one of the most vital, life-force-filled people I've ever known, collapsed on 12/22. Doctors found a mass in her pelvis and did a colonoscopy which found that her colon is riddled with tumors. Her liver shows some masses as well.
There are some good things to add, like her lungs are clear and the initial colon biopsy came back as precancerous. But basically, each phone call home delivered news that was/is more and more somber. By Christmas I was a wet wreck.
I don't know what to add to that. That she has 7 kids, the youngest of whom is 5? FIVE! That she JUST became a grandmother this year and needs to see him grow up? That she, more than any of my living family members, made the greatest impact on me as a person and I want her to keep doing that for a LOT MORE YEARS? That she talks more animatedly than anybody I've ever known and that a phone call to her is the most fascinating roller coaster about nutrition, green-living, education, and 45 other random topics which interest her at a given moment?
She's intense and a force of nature and SO opinionated. She loves books. She loves music. She loves helping people experience the best of things, particularly with regards to health and nutrition.
I don't believe in God, which is good for God and good for me, because I'd be SO FUCKING RADICALLY RABIDLY CRAZY if I thought there was a being anywhere in the universe who could change what is happening to my sister. Which is to say, I held it together for Christmas. Had fun with the kids. Was loving and loved. And now I'm trying to figure out all the random intricacies of being a supporter of someone with cancer.
How does anybody do this?
Thursday, December 4, 2008
Cowboy kittens sapped my will to live
Thanks to Captain Dumbass, I was reminded of something: I'm lame. Here's why:
About 3 years ago, we moved to a neighborhood on the edge of Portland's SE industrial district: "Brooklyn" - known for many years (although less so lately) as "porn town" due to the many - now defunct - porn theaters/clubs in it's business district. Porn-town was a step up for us.
Porn-town Waffle house is 100+ years old. It has "character" and also, weird decorating choices made by previous tenants. When we moved in, we had many many good intentions: First up? Rip out wallpaper! Including: Giant pansies! Beers of the world! (seriously, wallpaper comprised of international beer labels) And, my favorite, COWBOY KITTENS!
I spent long hours ripping out carpets only to find day-glo orange and turquoise painted wooden floors beneath them. I then sanded carpet glue that had been laid directly on top of the painted fir floors. We scraped yards of wallpaper and then I painted. Sealed. Paint paint paint.
In about a week, the 2 bedrooms and office were shiny and awesome. Except for...Cowboy Kittens. The bathroom. It needed a full overhaul, as not only were the walls covered in kittens AND faux burlap AND baby-poop-painted trim, but the cheap linoleum tile was coming up, the sink leaked and the shower had been put in not according to code and required some work just to make it functional.
Here is the sucking part: I suck at finishing projects. Seriously. Suck. Just ask my backsplash tiling project, my red-barrel project, my doll-making project. They'll tell you: SUCK!
Jamie sucks too, in this way, so together we're just one, loving, sucking couple. Fine...except? Cowboy Kittens (and the yard, and the garage, and the basement...) To date? One wall is wallpaper-free, and the other walls are covered in the results of haphazard, occasional picking at the ends of wallpaper while the picker is in the bathroom.
Some day, as Wizard is my witness, we will defeat those kittens...
About 3 years ago, we moved to a neighborhood on the edge of Portland's SE industrial district: "Brooklyn" - known for many years (although less so lately) as "porn town" due to the many - now defunct - porn theaters/clubs in it's business district. Porn-town was a step up for us.
Porn-town Waffle house is 100+ years old. It has "character" and also, weird decorating choices made by previous tenants. When we moved in, we had many many good intentions: First up? Rip out wallpaper! Including: Giant pansies! Beers of the world! (seriously, wallpaper comprised of international beer labels) And, my favorite, COWBOY KITTENS!
I spent long hours ripping out carpets only to find day-glo orange and turquoise painted wooden floors beneath them. I then sanded carpet glue that had been laid directly on top of the painted fir floors. We scraped yards of wallpaper and then I painted. Sealed. Paint paint paint.In about a week, the 2 bedrooms and office were shiny and awesome. Except for...Cowboy Kittens. The bathroom. It needed a full overhaul, as not only were the walls covered in kittens AND faux burlap AND baby-poop-painted trim, but the cheap linoleum tile was coming up, the sink leaked and the shower had been put in not according to code and required some work just to make it functional.
Here is the sucking part: I suck at finishing projects. Seriously. Suck. Just ask my backsplash tiling project, my red-barrel project, my doll-making project. They'll tell you: SUCK!
Jamie sucks too, in this way, so together we're just one, loving, sucking couple. Fine...except? Cowboy Kittens (and the yard, and the garage, and the basement...) To date? One wall is wallpaper-free, and the other walls are covered in the results of haphazard, occasional picking at the ends of wallpaper while the picker is in the bathroom.
Some day, as Wizard is my witness, we will defeat those kittens...
Wednesday, December 3, 2008
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