We're Having a Heat Wave

It's hot.

It's really, really hot.

St. Louis is in the middle of a heat advisory, and I've used that as a excuse to not feel so bad when I don't take Thunder on a walk in the mornings.

It's not just the heat.  Being St. Louis, it's the humidity.  It makes for a disgusting, oppressive stew that sucks the will to live from you in the time it takes to walk from the parking lot into a building.  My hair doesn't stand a chance unless I wear it up, which I have been for probably a week straight, in a variety of experimental updos.  

In spite of the heat, I haven't stayed home nearly as much as I imagined I would.  Usually, my summers are spent daydreaming about lounging in front of a fan with the air conditioning turned up.  But this summer?  This summer I've barely been home long enough to do much lounging at all.

Obviously, I have to leave the house for work.  During the week, this means a short drive to and from the office and day spent in blissful air conditioning.  But when I work on the weekends, manual labor and sweating outside is involved, at least to load and unload a vehicle. 

But I've also ventured out in the heat to sweat on my own free will and for, allegedly, enjoyment.

On Saturday, I was up and suggesting brunch to Alexis by 9:30.  That night, Mark and I went to the Muny to see Young Frankenstein from the free seats with his daughter and niece.

On Monday (my day off), I invited myself along to the Science Center to hang out with Casey and her two kids (after Audrey, my biggest fan, expressed her disappointment that I wouldn't see her pigtails), and still managed to go grocery shopping and make dinner.

Tonight we're going out to eat with Mark's sister.

And, somehow, we still might go to the Muny this upcoming weekend, if the heat breaks enough.  And are having dinner at my parents' on Monday.

I feel like ever since I started getting divorced, my life went into overdrive.  Before, time seemed to drag out into the all-too-certain future.  I knew what to expect from each day, each week.  And now, when I have no idea what will happen next?  Time flies.  I'm still trying to figure out what to make for dinner three Mondays ago and, for all I know, tomorrow is Christmas.  

I don't know how it got to be July.  I don't even know how it's already 5:00 on a Wednesday again. 

All I know is that time spent with Mark goes far too quickly.  We never seem to have enough time together, even when we spend three solid weeks in each other's company.  We've been together for three years now, and yet it can't possibly have been that long.  Or that short.  Something strange happens to time with us, something as hazy as heat coming off asphalt.  

And something strange has happened to me, in that I've become something resembling "good with kids."  For being the girl who never wanted kids and was never comfortable around them, I spend an awful lot of time hanging around them lately, and all of it by choice.

As I mentioned, it's been a very kid-centric weekend, and it doesn't feel uncomfortable or strange to be the one waiting for a five year old to go to the bathroom so I can help her wash her hands, or to put her shoes on, or to carry a toddler to the car when she's sad about leaving the Science Center.  What's strange is that it all feels... normal.  

It could be the heat wave, but I don't really mind being a stepmom-in-training, or spending my days off with little kids.  In fact, I usually end up enjoying it.

Definitely the heat wave.

The Pretty Vintage Girl Anniversary Blog

I've hit two milestones in blog-dom, all in the same week!

First: last week's engagement blog was the most well-and-widely read to date, topping out at just shy of 420 views!  I am, quite frankly, a little flabbergasted.  And pretty convinced it will be hard to ever reach similar numbers.  It's not every day I get engaged, after all.  (So far, just twice, and I hope to keep it that way.)

Second: I've been blogging for a year! July 10th marked my one-year blog-iversary.  That baby of a blog was written as I was coming off celebrating a year since my ex-husband moved out and as I was still decidedly new at working full-time for Fish Eye Fun.  It was short and hesitant and I obviously had no idea what I was doing.  It was the literary equivalent of me sticking a toe in the water to see how cold it was.  I had no idea what this blog would be.

And really, I still don't.

Because I don't think I ever would have dreamed that I would write about what I have in this past year.  My original vision for my blog was something much more frivolous and superficial because I didn't think I could possibly talk about the truth.  Talking about shopping and clothes and books would be much easier, and surely more accessible.  After all, who would want to hear about my life week after week?  I'm not that exciting.  I'm a divorced introvert who still carries far too much baggage for her own liking.  I work all the time and spend the rest of the time with my boyfriend.  What's readable about that?

I never thought I'd be able to keep up with blogging every week (well, almost every week).  I definitely didn't think my boyfriend (fiancé, whatever) would be going around passing out my blog address to everyone on his route!  I didn't think people I knew in passing would comment or reach out to me after something I wrote.

So.  One year later.

What's changed?

Obviously, I'm engaged.

And obviously I've been gainfully employed for over a year.

But also, it's been two years since my ex moved out.

I've destroyed my wedding dress.

I got a new furnace, bought a washer and dryer, bought a mattress, and fixed my car.

I went to Mexico.

I turned 31.

I've been spending my free weekends playing step-mommy. And enjoying it more than I ever thought I would, to be honest.

I've eaten a lot of nachos.  I've read not-enough books.  I've gained new friends and lost some who were apparently never really friends to begin with.  I've traveled back and forth across the Midwest, both for work and for fun.  I've gone to a few shows, and tried to be as social as I can.  I've been unapologetic about my life and what I want to do or not do.

A lot happens in a year.  I'm not the person I was a year ago, in many ways.  I'm snarkier, happier, friendlier, and more honestly... me.  I'm less willing to put up with bullshit.  I like the person I am, and I like where this year has led.

Where things are going from here?  I have absolutely no idea.

As I said, I'm still not entirely certain where this blog is going.  I rarely know what I'm going to blog about from one week to the next, much less what I'll be talking about in another year.

As for me?  There are obviously a lot of changes on the horizon.  Right now I'm still getting used to this sharp, shiny ring on my finger and we're not even remotely discussing an actual date.  I have absolutely no idea what the next year will hold, but I know that I'm definitely looking forward to whatever it is!

I'll be sure to write about it, naturally.  And you're welcome to read along, if you like!

A Pretty Nautical Engagement

I honestly can't say that I don't have anything to blog about this weekend, because, well...

I got engaged!

If you've been following along, you know that this past weekend was our first "vacation" together to Chicago.  What you didn't know (and neither did I), was that Mark spent much longer getting ready for our trip than I did.

While I was at work last week, he spent two days building a tiny treasure chest to put the ring in and drawing a "map" to ask me to marry him.  During this time, he obviously couldn't tell me what he was working on, so when I'd ask he'd be uncharacteristically vague and evasive.  He was "working on some old projects," or "running an errand."  Usually these statements would be followed by a description of what he was working on or what he needed to run an errand for.  We tell each other pretty much everything that happens during our day.  Not this week.

Luckily, I was too worried with getting everything ready for the weekend to be overly concerned about why my boyfriend was acting abnormally.

He was also overly concerned with what there was to do on Navy Pier and spent a whole night perusing the Pier's website.  And he wanted to make sure we had "time to ourselves" at Navy Pier before my friends joined us.  My friend Anne asked if there was going to be a romantic lakeside engagement.

I was still somehow oblivious.

It's not that I didn't know there would, eventually, be a proposal.  After all, I'd picked out the ring a few months back.  We've talked about wanting to be married since before I was even divorced.  So it wasn't exactly a surprise.

Except that he made certain that it was most definitely a surprise.

We got to Chicago on Friday and found our way to Navy Pier.  We went in a few shops.  In the first one, Mark found something for his daughter, then told me to go outside and see where the bathrooms were.  That was weird, but I didn't question him too much.  I figured he was just stressed from the trip up.

In the next shop, a nautical-themed store I wanted to go in, I found a pirate-themed coffee mug.  He headed for the register and told me to go look at T-shirts in the other part of the store.  If you know anything about me, you know that I'm really not interested at all in many T-shirts, but I thought he just wanted to make sure I didn't try to pay for the coffee mug.  (Unbeknownst to me, he was juggling around the bag with the treasure chest in it.)

We went upstairs to this beautiful Crystal Garden area, which was (of course) set up for a wedding.  Mark suggests we go sit down on a bench.

At this point, it kicks in.  Omg, he's going to propose.

We sit down, he pulls out the bag from the nautical shop, reaches in... and pulls out a little treasure chest that he's clearly bought, because it's wrapped in cellophane and actually has a price tag on it.

Oh.  Okay.  He's not proposing.  He just bought me something else at the store.  That's cool.

So we open the box.  It's wrapped in a chain necklace and bracelet with nautical charms.  He opens the lid.  "Look," he says, "There's a paper in here."  I pick up the folded paper, still completely unaware, and underneath it is the ring.

That sneaky, sneaky bastard.

Of course, I said, "Aye."

(Meanwhile, the wedding band starts warming up by playing, "All You Need Is Love."  Because why wouldn't the band play a song from one of my favorite movies of all time right at the moment I say yes to the love of my life?)

I can say that this was definitely my favorite proposal.  I honestly can't think of anything else more perfect.

It's almost like he knows me. (In fact, he knows me so well that he made sure to make it look like the ring we bought was still wrapped up in the box he was storing it in after getting it cleaned, just in case I went checking for it.  Which, of course, I had thought about doing.)

I'm also enjoying being engaged a lot more this time around!  In spite of the annoying "just got engaged" questions (no, we don't have a date), it's already going so much better than the last time.  My parents are happy, our friends are happy, and I'm sure one day I'll stop admiring my own hand.

Obviously, this isn't my first rodeo.  Some people have even said that they didn't think I'd ever get married again after what I went through the first time around.  And I suppose that's fair.  Because if it weren't for Mark, I don't think I would.  I don't think I'd risk it for anyone else.

But.  Risk it I'm going to.  And I think it's completely worth it.

Besides, how could I say no to the most perfectly nautical proposal ever?

Along with getting unexpectedly engaged, we were total tourists in Chicago.  I saw several old friends, we took lots of public transportation (and got a little lost), ate Chicago food, and went to the Field Museum.  All in all, I'd say it was a pretty good vacation.

And I've got a really, really good souvenir.

On the Road... Again?

I've never traveled quite so much as I have in the past two and a half years, not even back when I went to college in Chicago or when I had in-laws in a different state.

At first, it was all about traveling for fun.  (You know, not just to visit people.)  

There was my girls-only trip to House on the Rock/Wisconsin Dells, followed by a week-long cruise with my parents, and several trips to Alexis' dad's house  out in Carthage for Passover and summer pool fun.  Then there was my Mexico trip this past January.

Lately, however, I haven't been traveling as much for fun.  More for... Fish Eye Fun.

I've been to Kansas City, Chicago, and now to Lake of the Ozarks and Springfield, MO for the past two weekends.  (The greatest hits of the Midwest, as it were.)

I even drug Mark along with me the past two weekends.  Poor guy.  

It wasn't all work and no play, at least.  We managed to stop in at Lambert's Cafe (Home of the Throwed Rolls) on Sunday morning, since Mark had never been there, and made our first trip to Uranus Fudge Factory on the way home.  Honestly, I was pretty disappointed in Uranus.  (Pun so very definitely intended.)  For a place that's a self-titled "fudge factory," both Ozarkland and Meramac Caverns both have a wider selection of fudge. But at least I can say I've officially been to Uranus.

And now?  Now I'm back to traveling for fun, at least for a little bit.  Mark and I have our first official "vacation" together this weekend and are headed to Chicago for a long weekend.  

The thought of going out of town again after two weekends on the road has actually been more than a little daunting.  It's not that I don't want to go.  But we are both, after all, very much homebodies who like our alone time and like working on our own projects.  When we originally planned this trip, my out-of-town jobs weren't scheduled, so it didn't seem like such an ordeal back then.

I'm not used to being on the road so much, away from my own place so much.  And there's really nothing like a hotel room to make you realize how much you really, really like your own stuff.  As nice as it is to spread out on a cushy king-sized bed, I love my own bed.  I love the new mattress we bought.  I love my pillow and our smart lights that help me wake up and go to sleep.  And as great as water pressure can be in a hotel, I love my own towels, my Doctor Who shower curtain, my bathmats, and my mirror covered with notes that Mark and I write each other.

I'm obviously not used to traveling as much as I have been.  I still can hardly believe all the places I've gone in the past few years after how little I traveled through most of my twenties.  Hell, I'm barely used to being as busy as I am in St. Louis, much less the rest of the world.  It seems like not so long ago when I would spend almost every night sitting at home by myself, watching movies, reading, and drinking too much.  Now I feel like Mark and I are coming and going constantly, and I find myself almost missing my lonely nights of nothing better to do than sit at home.

Don't get me wrong, there's no way I'm trading my current freedom just for some quality time with my messy apartment, but I still think that Dorothy said it best when she said, "There's no place like home."

However, as nice as my stuff is and as many projects as Mark and I might like to work on right now, our train tickets have been bought and we leave bright and early on Friday! After spending over 16 hours in the work van the past two weekends, I'm so very glad we're not driving.  Instead, we have at least 10 hours round trip to relax, read, and hang out.

And so, after a momentary freakout, we're both back to looking forward to the trip.  I want to show Mark the places I used to frequent.  I want him to meet my friends I haven't seen in years.  I want to be shameless tourists for a bit.  

And I really, really want to eat Giordano's pizza.

If You Don't Have Anything Nice to Say...

What's the best way to finish that phrase?

My personal favorite way to finish it is "If you don't have anything nice to say, come sit by me."  I fully admit to occasionally (or more than occasionally) being a bit of a catty gossip.  I feel that I get this honestly from my mother, who has been known to say something catty (usually about my ex) and then slap her own mouth and say she shouldn't be that way.  She also quite regularly fills me on on all the latest scandals that go on in the lives of her friends and our relatives and obviously has no intentions of stopping.

She's clearly a far cry from Thumper's mother, who reminds him of his father's advice, the other (less-than-fun) way to finish that phrase:

So really, it's not my fault that I enjoy a bit of gossip.  I was raised to be this way, forged in the fires of morbid curiosity and born with an ear perfectly made for listening.

And I can't say that I believe that gossip is all bad.  It's true that it can be false and hurtful and damaging.  I don't go in for gossip like that.  But, it is a great means of effectively spreading news.  Word of my getting divorced two years ago spread mainly through word of mouth, which freed me up from needing to send out some kind of anti-save-the-date notices.  I knew all I had to do was to tell a few select people and soon everyone would know.  Easy as that.

Gossip is also a strange binder of people.  Sharing is caring, after all.  If you feel confident in sharing some juicy piece of gossip with someone, it usually means you trust them (at least a little bit).  You're inviting them into a confidence, into a secret club of those in-the-know.  The relationship between two people changes as soon as reasonably private information begins changing hands.

There are limits.

There are always limits.

No one likes anyone who's negative all the time.  No one likes someone who never has anything nice to say about anyone or anything.

And sometimes?  Sometimes if you don't have something nice to say, you really shouldn't say anything at all (damn you, Thumper's dad).  Because it's unprofessional.  Because it's just plain mean.  Because it would hurt feelings.

I can't say that I haven't been given quite a great deal of topics lately that I'd love to blog about.  Because Lord, there's a lot I have to say.  Of all the daunting thoughts that come with writing a weekly blog, no one ever warned me about the vast number of amazing topics that would float into my life that I simply cannot talk about for professional and personal reasons.

And so I will not be a catty bitch this week.  At least not here.  But feel free to come sit next to me the next time you don't have anything nice to say.  I'm genetically predispositioned to listen, after all, and I don't want to waste my talents.

My Uniquely Common Life

We are all special little snowflakes.

Or are we?

I'm bringing this up because I just finished reading Judy Blume's Wifey two days ago.  It's been sitting on my shelf for years after I bought it on impulse at a used book store.  For some reason, I picked it up for a quick read on Sunday.  It obviously was a quick read, as I finished it Monday.  Besides being far dirtier of a book than I ever imagined, it also was another in a long list of books that I can relate to a little too much.  Believe me, I didn't expect this summer fluff of a book to hit me the way it did.

In Wifey, main character Sandy is exactly what the title says: the perfect little 1960s housewife.  She makes the same thing for dinner every week, has sex with her husband on Saturdays whether she wants to or not, is desperately unhappy, and has a very dirty mind.  She feels trapped in a marriage to a man she's not sure she ever loved and who doesn't understand her unhappiness or care to change anything about their marriage.  Her husband can't cook for himself, dictates how she should dress, is disappointed when she doesn't live up to his standards, and uses the phrase "wifely duties" quite seriously.

Basically, she was me, pre-divorce.  I found myself exceedingly grateful that I hadn't read Wifey while I was still married.  It would have been far too depressing.

But it's not the first time I've found myself reading a book that hit close to home in all the wrong ways, a book that gave voice to my very private despairs and desires.

Obviously, unhappy marriages are far from unique.  Even though Leo Tolstoy wrote that "happy families are all alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way," I'm not really sure he was correct.  Still, I'm continually amazed when a book (or song or movie) perfectly echoes something I've already thought or said.  Shouldn't I at least have my own unique thoughts about what I've been through, about my own unique experiences?

Apparently not.

The longer I live and the more I see, the more convinced I am that there truly is nothing new under the sun.  There are only seven different plotlines.  There are no original ideas.  Think you've done something unique?  Think again.  Someone is amazed by your brand new thought?  Don't get too excited; someone else already thought of it years ago.  Someone is shocked and appalled by something you did?  Don't feel so bad; someone else has already been there and done that long before you had the idea.

Songs, movies, and books all resonate with us because they speak to our own personal experience.  We relate to these things on deep, intimate levels.  But these things also speak to hundreds and thousands of other people's own personal, intimate experiences.  Look around at a wedding, or a show, or a concert, or a bookstore.  You're not the only one singing along, or crying, or laughing, or reaching that book.

We all live some form or another of the "human experience," after all.  We have all loved and have all lost.  We've been overjoyed and we've been inconsolable.  It's what helps bring us together, recognize each other as human.  We may be different, but we are also recognizably the same.  I can talk to someone who has lived an entirely different life from me, who believes and values different things, and still relate to them, still find common ground.  I can read a book written over 30 years ago and feel like I'm quite possibly reading my own diary.  I can share some of my darkest secrets and have someone unexpectedly and shyly admit, "Me too."

I think it is the inability to see others as human, to actively share in that human experience, that leads to much of life's tragedies and pain.  It leads to the desire to control others, or to hurt others.  I know from experience that it's much easier to hate someone when you can solidly deny that you could possibly have anything in common with them.

Of course, we are not all cookie cutter copies of each other.   Not by a long shot. What fun would that be?  There would be no need for thousands of different books and movies and songs.  We are uniquely individual, in spite of our similarities.  We can experience the same events and feelings, true, but in different orders, with different people, in different places, with different consequences.  The things we create are different, even if not necessarily new or revolutionary.  And so we can keep telling the same stories over and over, the same seven plot lines.  People will keep reading.  Or watching.  Or listening.

Because we can keep relating to each other, story after story.  We're not alone.  We've been there, in one way or another, even when that means being able to relate far too much to an incredibly dirty Judy Blume book.

2 AM Crisis: A Comprehensive Guide

How do you act in a crisis?

Most people respond differently to sudden threats or perceived threats.  There's that "fight or flight" instinct.  There are the people who run towards the danger, and those that run away.

Luckily for me, I don't face a lot of imminent threat anymore.  My ex lives in a different state, I'm a compulsive door-locker, I know a decent amount of self-defense, and if all else fails?  I'm really, really good at running in heels.

Sometimes, though, there are unexpected bumps in the night.  Or, as the case was two nights ago, a loud crash at 2 AM.

There were three of us home: me, Mark, and the dog.  And each of us responded in very drastically different ways.

First, there was Thunder, the ever-cowardly dog, who could be heard immediately after the crash running away.  (Excellent in a crisis, that one.)

Second, there was me.  I jerked awake immediately, senses on automatic alert for potential murderers breaking in.   In my half-asleep state, I realized that the dog had most likely knocked something over.  But, being me, I also knew full well that I wouldn't be going back to sleep until I made sure Mark and I weren't about to be murdered.  Did I have a plan for what I would do if we were about to be murdered?  No, but I'd at least like to know it was coming.  I am, and always have been, a "I have to check it out" girl.  I had childhood (and, okay, some adulthood) compulsions for looking in the basement and behind the shower curtain after getting home to make sure no one was hiding in there.

Then there was Mark.  He didn't move when I jerked awake.  I wasn't even certain he'd woken up.  He had, apparently, already done the mental calculations of time elapsed during crash-vs-skittering dog toenails and come to the (admittedly correct) conclusion that Thunder had knocked something over and then run from the scene of the crime.

Well.  I wasn't having any of that, and I obviously needed a backup noise investigator, so I made him come check it out with me.  Sure enough, Thunder had caught his harness on a drawer in the bathroom, panicked, and yanked the entire drawer out, spilling the contents.  With the 2 AM crisis averted, we went back to sleep, and I was ready to let that be the end of it.

Mark, however, was not.

Yesterday, I came home to find he had bought and set up a system so that we can turn the lights on and off through our phones.  The previous night's experience with bumps in the night made him realize that there is currently at least one night a week where I'm home by myself with only a giant cowardly dog for backup.

With this new setup, I can make sure there are lights on when I come home alone from working late, and I can also turn all the lights on from the bedroom the next time there's a 2 AM crisis and my noise investigator isn't around.  So far?  I'm a pretty big fan.  We've already been enjoying turning the lights on and off (particularly on each other) and setting different "scenes" for which lights come on when.

Even if my boyfriend isn't always the first out of bed to check out a noise, he's the first to care about me enough to make the life we have better, even if it takes time, effort, and money on his part.  He's the first to think of a way to improve on a situation I was content to just deal with.  And he's the first to worry about me and my safety and do all he can to look out for me even when he's not around.

I know that he has my back always, even in the middle of the night, and even when he's 100% certain that the bump in the night is the dog and definitely not a murderer.

Personally, that's the best response to a crisis that I could ever hope for.