Category Archives: The David

October 9, 2013 · 7:55 pm

august thirty-first

so.

I’m married!

The David and I got married on August 31 on a very sunny Saturday in Oakland.
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It was a gorgeous day and it somehow, miraculously, turned out just like I had pictured it might.

We’ll get access to use the photographer’s photos after the new year, but in the mean time, I’ll try to convey what it was like with the various snapshots I have.

Overall, we wanted to feel like ourselves and I shied away from anything that I wouldn’t normally do. I wear dresses, but I don’t wear gowns. I like to decorate with flowers, but I don’t carry them around with me.

Normalcy be damned, though. I started weeping in the morning while I was getting ready and continued to do so off and on. So a lot of what I remember is crying and trying not to.

We both wrote our own vows, which ended up being even cuter than I thought we were. One of my favorite bits was The David’s promise to love me even when I have the snots, which he said precisely as I was blowing my nose.

Lisa Congdon officiated for us and did a wonderful job of it. She got married a few months before us. Leading up to her own wedding, she wrote so genuinely about her joy and delight in love. The sound and sentiment of her beliefs were exactly what I wanted I wanted to be surrounded by while we did the marrying. And fantastically, she agreed to give some of her Lisaness to us.

75 of our friends and family came to spend the day with us, including The David’s parents, his sister+brother-in-law+their-3-kids, and one of his buddies from England. I had a goodly representation from the east coast. But the majority of the guests are a part of the family we’ve built for ourselves here in the Bay Area. I was struck by how special and fleeting it was to have all of our people gathered together in one place; there will never be another opportunity like that.

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I was surrounded by my best ladyfriends, who all picked out their own yellow dresses: one from my first real job, my sister-in-law, one from high school, and one from college.  (A fifth intended lady friend had had some unexpected travel conundrums and couldn’t make it.)
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David wore some yah-HELLOW pants and all his dudes wore bow ties and blue gingham shirts. It was great. A fantastic blend of British and San Francisco hipster.

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I had wanted the dinner to look and feel like something that I might have invited you to in my own home, without formal floral arrangements or place settings and I think it turned out beautifully. A dear friend and her mom sewed the yellow gingham table runners for me. The dishes and utensils were all compostable. The flowers were arranged in jars and cans that I’d saved for the past few months.

The food was fantastic. Seriously the best wedding food I think I’ve ever had. We had ribs and bbq chicken, a kale salad, a roasted corn and zucchini salad, and whole wheat mac n cheese. There were incredible deviled eggs, watermelon skewers, and sausage rolls passed before dinner. And there was an amazing cheese table. Later we had two kinds of pie, strawberry rhubarb and blackberry nectarine, with sweet cream ice cream.
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We demonstrated our swing dancing skills (rudimentary) for our first dance to Mumford and Sons I Will Wait.

1173878_436104783175252_2144697979_nThere were far off fireworks at the end of the night over the Oakland A’s coliseum. We packed up a ton of leftover food and a million flowers and went home to our new house.

I don’t feel different, but I do feel amazed and happy that we did it. And I am, as ever, surprised at just how much I lucked out with this fellow of mine.

 

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June 26, 2013 · 3:10 pm

On June 26th

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Five years ago today, I met The David. At a wine bar that no longer exists. I couldn’t stop giggling about the Britishness happening. I don’t remember too much about that night, but I do know that he asked if we could meet again on Sunday and that I said “yes.”

Since then, there’ve been a lot of other yeses. Not least of which is the promise to stand up with our friends and family in 66 days and say yes forever a thousand times.

I take it for granted that we are allowed to get married. It was such a momentousness for us to come to the decision ourselves, I can’t fathom anyone or anything else making a contribution to that decision. So today, on this big anniversary, I am grateful for the strides made in granting the right to marry to everyone. It’s been a wonderful day to appreciate what I have and how much it means to me.

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Filed under Special happy things, The David, Today

June 21, 2013 · 12:10 pm

i think i wanna marry you

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This is pretty old news now, but it’s time to note it for posterity: The David and I are getting married!

And when I say that we’re getting married, I don’t just mean that we got engaged, but literally that we’re getting married. In like 2 seconds. On August 31.

There wasn’t a proposal, per se, but on the couch in our living room, after work on Friday, April 12, there was a conversation that resulted in the decision that we should get married.
The words “we might as well get married” were issued. I almost swooned at the onslaught of romance.

And on the tails of this decision, we learned that the green card The David thought he would be getting through his employer was actually not going to materialize and that since he was almost all out of visa juice, he’d have to leave the country in November of this year.

Hence, the 4 month engagement.

And then we went out and drank beers and ate tater tots with cheese and bacon.

 

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Filed under Family, Friends and other Humans, Momentousness, The David, Uncategorized

March 9, 2012 · 2:15 pm

where the david was

The David is back home again!  He’s a little tuckered out after the 8 hour bus ride to Santiago, the red eye into Miami, the 6 hour flight to San Francisco and the 5 hour time difference.  Not to mention the billion days of hiking and camping.

Acancagua is the highest mountain outside of Asia.  The climb is not technical (so no belaying and climbing up cliff faces with ropes and harnesses and stuff), but is still highly challenging and not for everyone.  The altitude definitely contributes to the difficulty; they had to get prescription meds to combat altitude sickness.
On this trip, they went up about half way up, but had to come back down to camp at the base of the mountain for a few days due to high wind storms.  One day was spent entirely sitting inside tents.  The David described this as “not so fun.”  In fact, he dubbed the whole thing as “Type 2 Fun,” which means it was only fun in retrospect.
After waiting it out for 4 days, the winds abated and they did make the trek up to the top of the mountain, but had to extend the trip by an extra day to do so.

But home he is, and all is right in the world again.

26 days without him, most of them without any sort of contact at all, was far too many.  During all of the pathetically sad missing, I was having some very stern “Never again!” sort of thoughts.  But he’s just so pleased with having done it, the accomplishment of reaching the top of this 22,829 foot mountain, that I’m not sure I could really say no.

Now that it’s all over, I’m actually quite proud of him for doing it.  He really is pretty awesome.

On the way up.
Little orange tent and lots of mountain.
Tent near the top.
David at the top.  He got a little teary up here, a bit overwhelmed with having made it.
Back down again at the end of the trip, looking at back at Mount Acancagua.

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February 28, 2012 · 11:56 am

separation anxiety

It’s been 17 days since The David left for his mountain climbing expedition and 14 since the last time we spoke on the phone.  There are still (at least)* 14 more days to go.

And it sucks.

I am wallowing in a big sadly fug.

There are plenty of activities on my dance card, and I had thought that that would see me through alright, but I’m starting to wish that I didn’t have any of those things to do so I could just curl up at home and suffer quietly, alone.

Here’s a list of what seems like the best possible way to get through the remaining forever:

1.  Potato chips (varying flavors)
2.  9 or 10 hours of sleeping a night
3.  Samoas
4.  Special Edition Samoas Ice Cream
5.  Pyjama pants

So, it’s going well, right?

 

*There’s a once a day satellite uploaded audio cast from the group on this expedition and the last one made it sound like they might not be coming back on time.

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February 2, 2012 · 4:17 pm

cry me a river

The David and I have been seeing a couples counselor once a week for about 7 months.

We’ve been together going on 4 years now and still aren’t really sure about some of the big questions… are you the one?  do we want to get married?  or have kids?  how do we reconcile you giving off the heat of a thousand suns with my charming propensity to get sweaty in my sleep?

Counseling is supposed to help with all that.

But me being me, it mostly feels like a medieval device engineered specifically to drive me to the highest levels of torment.  There’s a lot of “Can you make space for David’s trigger points?” and “How does it make you feel to hear Maggie share something like that?”  Her master plan is that if there’s oodles of communication, then there will be closeness and it will be “yummy.”
In all fairness, The David seems to like it.  He’s much more sensitive than I am, so he really gets into having these opportunities to open up.  But I’m wired differently; I will share information and I’m pretty straightforward and honest, but I don’t need to talk about feelings so much.

Last night was our last session before The David leaves for his month-long trip to Argentina and she wanted to talk about how we felt about this pending separation.

And it went a bit like this:

Maggie:  I feel sad about it.

Counselor:  What does that sadness feel like?  Do you feel it in your body somewhere?

Maggie:  Mostly in my eyeballs.  Like I want to cry.

Counselor:  Why don’t you cry then?

Maggie:  It’s silly to cry about something that hasn’t even happened yet.

Counselor:  Isn’t it judgmental to call your feelings silly?  You should be allowed to cry.  Why don’t you zero in on these feelings?

I try to zero in on feeling sad.  Sadness ensues.  A few leaky tears escape.

And then I don’t even know.  Something like:

Counselor:  You feel sad?  How sad?  Really sad?  Are you really *feeling* the sadness?  Breath into it!  Look at David!  Let him feel your sadness!  Really really sad?

Until I am full on sobbing.  And snotting up a storm.  Wadded up tissues are piling up ridiculously.  No matter how much I toot and squirt, I can’t breath through my nose.  So I am mouth breathing.  I can’t talk without gasping and squeaking.  My nose is on fire from the scratchy sub par tissues.  My eyeballs feel about 3 sizes too large for their sockets and I’ve got a low thrumming headache.

I am tapping on David’s hand in a far fetched wish that I knew Morse code, that David knew Morse code, and that I could beg him to get me out of there.

And she is telling us how beautiful this is and how much love she is seeing.

Love is not the thing I am feeling.

But The David is feeling touched by just how sad I am that he’s leaving and protective that I’ve been all vulnerable.  And he didn’t have to talk about feeling sad about anything, so it’s all fine over there.  I’m the only one on Planet Insanadoo.

I guess I was supposed to feel better after having a good cry.  It should be cathartic?  And I feel all connected because I exposed my sad, sad underbelly?

Instead, I am exhausted and defeated and should clearly be lying quietly in the dark somewhere with chilled pads on my eyes.

And realizing that a month long separation from The David comes with a wonderful gift:  a month off from couples counseling.

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Filed under Dating, The David

January 6, 2012 · 1:07 pm

lasik

The David is getting his eyes lasered today.  I can hardly believe that such a technology even exists.  I don’t like to think about eyeballs in the best of circumstances.  Contemplating the process of cutting a flap in the eye and then zapping around in there with a laser beam… well, just.  Shock.  Horror.  Yuckeroni.

Even though I know it will be fine and that lots of people have done it, it’s still rather terrifying.

The fear aside, I also feel rather strangely about how he just won’t have glasses anymore.  He really can’t see at all without glasses, so they are a real part of his face and I can’t believe that he just won’t have them any more.  This is a face that I’m so used to, a face that I love, and it’s about to change.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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March 17, 2011 · 10:26 am

It’s an Irish thing?

Last weekend, the meat booth at our farmer’s market was selling corned beef.  They had a sign to tell us that it was Special! and everything.

The David thinks this is a good thing and stops to get one, but they’ve run out.

The next day, in the ferry building, we stop at the butcher there, but they’ve only got humongo slabs of corned beef and don’t want to cut them into smaller slabs.  So we skip it.

Later, we’re planning out our meals for the week and we’ve got everything we need for corned beef and cabbage on our shopping list.  At Whole Foods, we successfully acquire a 2 pound non-humongo slab of corned beef.  Hurrah!

So, later this week, I’m discussing with David how we’ll have to plan to have our corned beef on Thursday.  It needs 3 hours to cook and that takes a little foresight to incorporate into your week night, because the damn dinner-cooking fairies I ordered off of Amazon got waylaid in customs or something.

The conversation goes something like this:

Me:  “I think I’ll try to put the corned beef on to cook on Wednesday night and then start on regular dinner.”

David:  “Ok.  How come on Wednesday night?”

Me:  “Because then we can have it ready for Thursday.”

David:  “What’s on Thursday?”

Me:  “Saint Patrick’s Day?”

David:  “So?”

Me:  “Saint Patrick’s Day and corned beef and cabbage.”

David:  “Is that a thing?”

Me:  “Uh.  Yeah.”  Obviously.

David.  “It’s an Irish thing?”

Me:  “Yes!  That’s what you eat on Saint Patrick’s Day!”

I realize that David wasn’t wanting to get corned beef for any special occasion, but just because we’ve been seeing signs for it and mention of it everywhere.  And it’s becoming clear to me that David, as a British person, is woefully uneducated on what it means to be Irish*, a topic we Americans pursue with passion.

*Apparently, corned beef and cabbage is not Irish at all.  The Irish may have prepared something sort of similar combining back bacon (not streaky like the kind Americans eat) with cabbage.  But the “traditional” corned beef and cabbage dish is not Irish.

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Filed under Foodery, The David, these are the days of my lives

February 15, 2011 · 11:56 am

I totally get a do over, right?

So after all my mature, serene, and well adjusted peremptory feelings about Valentine’s Day, I kind of snarfed all over it.  I know I’ve said that I don’t care about it.  I don’t need to pay $100 for a dinner out that would normally cost $50.  I don’t need any presents.  And even if I did want presents, I would totally forfeit in the spirit of fairness, because Valentine’s gift ideas for boys are just beyond me.

But I did think that it could still be special without going to an awful lot of forced effort to make it so.

And then?  It just wasn’t and now I’m bitter.  I’m just like all those other girls who cry because they didn’t get their diamond studs!  Except I’m all mope and moan because the TV did get turned on.  And Family Guy was watched.  I didn’t shower when I got home from the gym, since it was already getting close to 7 and we needed to start dinner.  I had developed a handful of zits on my chin, some of which were being huge and mean, so  I was feeling gross.  David had a headache.  Once the TV went on, I was already feeling two sheets to a weep about it, and I didn’t say anything; just felt all harumph instead.  Dinner wasn’t ready until a quarter to 9 and we ate on the couch.

So, I thought I didn’t care.  But I do, I guess.

And the thing is, the whole reason that I feel like I don’t, or shouldn’t, care about Valentine’s Day is because every day should be Valentine’s Day, shouldn’t it?  Do I really need a day to say “I love you and I love us and I think we’re pretty special?”  Obviously, laundry and nights out with the girls and bad days at work and whatever else will get in the way some times.   But there should still be plenty of days left for valentines.

Like today.  I’m totally going to request that we have a non-tv night.  I’ll get home in time to start dinner at a reasonable time and I should be able to make sure that the table is clear.  I may even break out the Scrabble board.  How’s that for a do over?

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February 14, 2011 · 2:39 pm

i like my valentine

It’s only Valentine’s #3 for us.  I think spending last year’s with my dad, who was visiting while in town for a trade show, kinda broke the pressure for us.  So now we’re happy to just cruise through it.

I had some <ahem> hairs forcibly removed for the occasion, ’cause it’s nice to show a little effort, right?
We are making a special dinner (Smitten Kitchen’s heart stuffed shells), so I’ll be having a special lunch tomorrow.  We picked out flowers at our grocery shop yesterday.
And I think maybe we’ll try not to turn on the tv at all tonight!  Imagine that!

I’m glad that I have no angst on Valentine’s Day today.  And I’m really glad that my Valentine is such a good one.

And since I’ve got such a great guy and can feel secure in my romantic love department, I’m also really glad that I’ve got so many other people in my life for whom I feel great love.  Happy Valentine’s Day to you all!

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