darkitysnark

(After Snarky was schooled, she has always preferred the Queen song containing that famously ripped of Vanilla Ice lyric, though the sting of plagerism has faded over time to be replaced with a kind of dorky nostalgia too.) The Mister collapsed at work yesterday. By the time the ambulance got there, he was awake, aware, and talking. He walked to the ambulance on his own steam. The ER doc couldn't positively pinpoint the cause, though stress and anxiety are likely candidates. After a couple hours of observation (and another one waiting impatiently to be discharged) Snarky was able to take him home. They had cheesy Mexican food and wandered around Trader Joe's and bought up supplies for a near-future (possibly before the Fourth, as the Snarks are an impatient bunch) cookout on their newly discovered charcoal grill. The Mister will take off of work today, but is already antsy about not keeping up with his landslide of work. Snarky tried (half-heartedly) to obtain something for him to work on when she stopped by his office yesterday to pick up the car. His boss, hopefully finally Seeing the Light, refused to let her take anything, and strongly urged The Mister to stay at home and rest through the Fourth. Snarky knows that this grand statement is partly spurned by genuine concern, but she also knows that The Mister will just get all the more agitated because now his boss's unable-to-delegate and/or assign-work-realistically "management style" will push all the pressure onto the other already loaded-down PMs in the office. Which gives him stress. And Snarky is trying ever so hard to minimize the stress. Like some kind of frightened, over-protective mother hen. The Mister is a grown man, but Snarky can't help but remember seeing him with wires and tubes and bustling be-scrubbed attendants. No matter how many episodes of "House" or "Gray's Anatomy" she'll see... nothing will inure her to that sight. Ever.

(Snarky's gonna break from her third person rule for a bit here.) Y'all! :sniffle: I am not an emotional forum participant, probably because most of my forum time is at work and if I were to ever really or or any of that I wouldn't be practicing my office monkey ninjitsu for very much longer... But I honestly teared up reading all of your comments here and the PMs I've received. I'm sorry I'm not responding to each and every one of you, but really... despite my mutant ability to tear up at every single LDS commercial and horribly formulaic rom-com movie I am thought of as a bit of a stoic most of the time. You all really, really touched me. Thank you so much for your kind thoughts, advice, commiseration, and support. I will do my best to convey my personal thanks as I find the time over the next few days. The Mister stayed out of work today. He's doing much better. I took some time off of work today and we went farmers' marketing and nursery window shopping (plants, not babies). He's whipping up a batch of Moosewood sweet potato quesadillas and home made salsa right now... so I think he's pretty much feeling back to normal. Tomorrow he's going to try to go to work, but his boss and his co-workers have already hinted that they will forcibly block him from entering his office if he does. Even if he doesn't get out of that company ASAP (which I'm sort of pushing for), he's already aired the idea of talking with the co-presidents to get moved to a different department where he can learn a little more about the basics before having to jump in to project management like he did a year ago. As unsure as our financial future is now (and really, it's not that bad... we've got a small cushion saved up for emergencies, and as much as we would hate to, my parents are always ready to help out if necessary - a luxury of which we've never indulged but it's good to know it's there) I have a crazy, hopeful faith that it will work out in the end... that by the end of this, he'll finally have found a place that feels as "home" to him professionally as our lives together feels personally. And then maybe I'll get my "click" moment too. Thank y'all, again, for everything.

Beautifully put, Valentina! I've always had the vaguely gothish belief that if you don't suffer at least a little, than you really don't love the object of your affections. So to me your concerns for your and your Man's lives (mortal and otherwise) together is just proof of some Platonic truth. (It was Plato that had that whole egg-soul theory, right? I'll have to rewatch "Hedwig and the Angry Inch" to be sure. Because I'm all philosophically sophisticated like that. )

Eeeeee! I think your dress is absolutely beautimous and everyone will know you're the bride even without the BigPoofyWhiteDress signifier because you'll be the glowiest person in the room (besides your soon-to-be-Mister). That and the whole walking down the aisle thing, natch. My own dress was a layer of white chiffon silk over an amethyst purple heavier silk chiffon... the end result was sort of silvery gray except where the overdress split at the empire waist to fall away to the sides. We were already living together by the time we got married so I figured what the heck. I like purple, he likes purple, we're going for purple dangit. Can't wait to see the pictures!

Hooray for the new family member! Amazing how they sort of just take root in our homes and hearts like that. (And I'm very happy to hear that the listing isn't because of infection/mite infestation/other squicky things!)

It's all blissfully downhill from here! You've never struck me as a bridezilla so I doubt you'll be getting ulcers on The Big Day. Everything's in motion and now it's just time to party down! (oh, yeah, and I second Valentina's demand request for )

A thoughtful gimp from my Spring Switch Witch lexile! This starts out very, very almond. Crazy, buttery, wet, creamy almond. Slightly scary almond (not green and biting on me, and not cherry-almond either, just really aggressive). Then it immediately breaks down into myrrh and musk, but both these notes smell like the children of almond. They aren't the crazy almond, but somehow carry the genes. Four hours later I'm getting mostly sweet musk with a vaguely almondy top note and resinous aftertaste (bottom note?). Sort of like al-MUSK-(myrrh), if that makes any sense at all. It's very lovely now, but still sort of overly aggressive somehow. This is the first blend I've tried in a while that triggered a sort of "fight or flight" reaction. Usually it's the smoky blends that do that to me, but maybe I've got some issues with almond. Hm. I would use this again, sparingly, and for those days when I need a kick in the pants.

Just saw your post in the "How Are You Feeling?" thread about the cake! So, so glad it's working out. And carrot cake, no less! Our wedding cake was a carrot cake too (unfortunately, for some strange reason we opted to not have the cream cheese icing which is absolute sacrilege).

A lovely gift from my Spring Switch Witch lexile! And... what an enigmatic one this is! This is the first sun station I've tried, so I can't compare against the other ones. This is both sweet and bitter, dark and light, cool and warm. She started out bright and sharp, which translates to a greenish herbal tinged with something citrus and/or spicy. The throw is about medium and pretty consistent for the first four hours. She calms down into a cat-like warmth -- seemingly calm, but you can tell she's alert at all times. The main note I'm picking up via waft and huffing my wrist now (almost eight hours later!) is a very clear-headed frankincense backed by a very dry and solid wood. Not sweet like sandalwood, but more... tart? This is a fascinating blend.

Hee! I just had a wholly inappropriate mental image of one of those kiddie birthday cakes, but with a Godzilla figurine with a bridal veil sort of smashing through it. If anyone deserves an honest to goodness Bridezilla moment, it's you. Between all the dress shenanigans and now this cake crisis... right now I wish two things: 1) that I could get up there to help and 2) that I could bake worth a darn (that's The Mister's area of expertise. I'm too improv for good baking.) because I would be all about the emergency cupcake brigade. You've got a good man to help you through all this mess and in the end (after all the chaos and craziness) that's what's gonna stick with you. In the meantime, I'm getting right pissed off for you too! PS Lovin' the fortune cookies! I wanted to do them for our wedding but didn't get my act together enough to order them.

I watched a marathon run of the reality show someone had recently (A&E maybe?) about the roller derby resurgence. Those are some tough chicks, man! PDX has it's own roller derby league... I've been meaning to check them out. I grew up in the heart of Iowa. The nearest, largest body of water was a man-made lake (I think it was called Sailorville Lake) that unfortunately did not sport a jaunty lighthouse, but was my only measuring stick for many years. The first time I saw the Atlantic completely blew my mind. I had never felt so small. Please, oh please tell me there are touristy Linoma Beach shirts! With the lighthouse! Or at least postcards! Throw in a jell-o salad and you'd have the perfect kitsch trifecta!

Holy s***, hon! I'm... freaking out a bit for you. Which is totally unhelpful. I've been trying to brainstorm a workaround... did your friend have any alternate plans for you? What a... horrible last minute bomb to drop! How fancy pants do you want your cake? Are you near any major pockets of Asian people? I was thinking of some sort of fancy looking Japanese dessert... thingies in lieu of cake. Or at least a basic (read: easy/inexpensive/last-minute-orderable) cake with Japanesey embellishments (cherry blossom-shaped marzipan?) I'm so sorry this is happening!

Snarky developed some psychosomatic quirks during her senior year back in Nerd School. She was falling into a mild depression, feeling the strain of separation from her first serious boyfriend (the relationship was a bit co-dependent), and she was at a complete loss as to where/what she wanted to go/do/be after graduation. About once a month she would come down with symptoms of a particularly virulent stomach virus that didn't exist. Two days of debilitating gastro-intestinal distress then suddenly nothing, and back to her self-imposed hermit-like existance of skipping meals in the cafeteria in lieu of a pseudo-monastic supper of rye bread and onion soup (She's not sure why she settled on this particular combination, it was probably something she picked up from reading The Name of the Rose and/or the better option compared to flagellation.). Naturally her suitemates didn't take any of this seriously and did their best to harrass her into being more sociable. The psychosomatic weirdness climaxed with a spectacular presentation of a raging case of hives during final exams. Every where her skin was constantly touched - her bra strap, necklines and waistlines, where her low pony tail rested against the nape of her neck, bloomed with red, itchy welts. She added two Benadryls to her rye bread and onion soup communion every night and had nightmares about physics exams and botany practicals. Eventually her skin cleared and she graduated (probably in that order) and after that traumatic senior semester, nothing quite so extreme happened to her again. But she remembers that it's possible. A crouching gremlin hiding in her meat and bones, waiting for the right triggers. Last week The Mister took two days off of work because of stomach problems. Today, a full week later, he's still not quite back to normal. He comes from a family that doesn't always think to go to the doctor until the problem becomes much worse, so Snarky's attempts at getting him to Get Help have been treated as Chiken Little-style freakouts. Finally, though, he is thinking about seeing his doctor. Even if this ends up being all in his head (his work is approaching a critical turning point this week) she hopes that seeing the doctor will help him somehow. In the meantime, her own stomach has been a bit sour and sullen as well. Whether it is in sympathy (the closest to synced menses they'll ever get), or due to exposure to him (if it is an actual bug), or due to a whole new resurgence of her old sub-conscious mind/body craziness (always an underlying possiblity), she's unclear. Perhaps she'll never fully focus on the cause. She just hopes the effects for both The Mister and herself go away soon.

:plunks a nickel in your tin: Yipes! Snarky's health stuff (besides the glaring periods of rampant psychosomatic weirdness) is generally unaffected by her mental state. But her brain can really drag her through the exhaustive mental chess game of oneupmanship that her mother's upbringing methodology of "spare the crushing guilt trip, spoil the child" fostered. It's a wonder Snarky can function socially at all what with the constant assessing of "the score" with everyone in her life. While she didn't have terminally ill grandparents (so far all of their deaths have been shockingly sudden) she did get to witness (and unfortunately be a part of) bizarre money games (up to and including near fisticuffs over the bill for meals, jumping out of moving vehicles to pay for parking, and stuffing money in the grandchildrens' clothing for the parents to find later). Doesn't sound all that bad until you realize the "I'll get even with you" mentality spread far beyond monetary scorekeeping for Snarky. Parents are flawed, myopic people too.

That's sort of humorous (when it isn't happening to oneself, of course). Guilt? Or Tea? Your symptoms reminded Snarky of a brief period of spastic esophagus she had a few years ago. Very weird. Sort of like getting verklempt, but more painful and tearless. It felt like a hot ball of emotion lodging just above her breast bone.

My thoughts exactly! Not that the naughty carvings expedition exterior shots were chopped liver, but crypt lighting really brings out the va-va-voom! Enjoy your roaming!

Hm... maybe it's your right brain crying out for an outlet.

I'm a horrible note taker, and my BPAL spreadsheet hasn't been updated since... oh the Yule '05 release? So I think this was a really generous frimp from the Perfumed Ferret, but it might have been a gift from my Spring Switch Witch lexile and I'm just really embarassed for not writing this down beforehand. Having bumbled through all that, I gotta say, I'm getting something vastly different from y'all for Yew Trees. There's almost no pine, though there might have been a spike of sharp, bitter herbal forest at the very beginning. This quickly turned into a deeply cologny scent on me almost immediately. In this case, when I say "cologny" I don't mean "department store generic man-alcohol" but more like this is the sweet bosom of the essence to which all those colognes aspire. Because this is definitely powdery (ambery?) sweet, but somehow manly too. There is a faint, gummy resin behind all this agressive sweetness, but mostly what I get is sweet man-flesh. Usually berries are a very particular kind of sweet on my skin that is not to my liking, but this sweet is... dunno how to describe it. It's... very compelling (can't stop sniffing my wrists) but sort of alarming too (wanna nibble on earlobes and pinch cheeks... either ones). This feels like that scary headspace where familial and sexual love sort of press up next to eachother and threaten all kinds of catastrophe. Maybe I'm getting all this because I'm reading Kafka on the Shore right now. I sorta hope so. I'll have to try this again when I'm in less of a suggestive mood.

One of our former neighbors (they just moved out... taking their "Pagan Wagon" with them... wish I had gotten to know them) was apparently a rabid Led Zepplin fan. He had Led Zepplin vanity plates on his truck and a "Led Zepplin Fan Parking Only: all others can squeeze my lemon" sign on the garage door.

Giant Egg Brains! OK, not really a drive by post, but I tried. I see where you're coming from. Even though I think the average age on the forum is still higher than that of other forums, the average mental age based on the little notes we fire off at eachother might be closer to the norm. I know I'm especially prone to "dude!"s and ranty, bitchy tantrums every once in a while... whereas on my blog those tantrums stretch out to essays on Man's Inhumanity to Man. Well at least it does in my perfectly worded, immaculately spelled blog in my head. Heh. Lately I've been feeling sort of old and sluggish for not keeping up. I've been with the forum since right before the switch to bpal.org (joylandpark?) but am a triple-digit-member. Second generation? I'm like the woeful middle child. Marcia, Marcia, Marcia! (PS I like that term of Valentina's: Blog Island. This really does feel like that. Sort of a quiet cafe to sit and chat while the rest of the forum buzzes on the sidewalks and streets.)

I teh Korean BBQ! Love the smokey hair factor after the meal too. S'been a while since I've had a "pop quiz/surprise final exam" dream. Those things gimme the heebie jeebies. Oh, and I also They Might Be Giants, so I misread your post title as "Mink Car".

My default ringtone is a fuzzy recording of the "In Like Flint" red president phone, which also became the phone sound from the Austin Powers movies. But I say "ILF" because that's more retro. When The Mister calls, it's a snippet of Franz Ferdinand's "Take Me Out".

I gift from my Spring Switch Witch lexile! I had this on my wishlist primarily for the red sandalwood and amber. I noticed some passing comments upthread about red sandalwood lending a coconutty tone to the blend, and that is also what I'm getting (though I had it classified more vaguely as "tropical"). This is a changer on me. It starts out sharp and herbal and very "men's cologne". Then there's the tropical sweetness that I'm having trouble placing, but it definitely like something I've tried before (A less fruity Masabakes?) I am drawn to the incense and woody "aftertaste" but the sweet, plummy top notes are a bit off putting for me. There's also something very neutral and play-doughy in the middle that I'm only picking up on my right wrist. I'd love to attack The Mister with this to see how his skin reacts... though I agree, this is neither masculine nor feminine. It's not androgynous either. It's more hermaphroditic. Intriguing!

A gimp from The Perfumed Ferret! This is as light and fleeting as a sigh. As per usual with any blend containing jasmine, my skin throws JASMINE! back at me with great force at first, but then the blend calms down to a very subtle, cool and creamy floral. I'm not picking up much plum at all, though maybe it and the ylang-ylang combined to give the general impression of gentle sweetness. I did back off when I got the first hit of jasmine in the bottle, so my hand might have been too light on application. This one was swallowed up by my skin fairly quickly. I'll need to test again for nuances, probably slathering heavily next time.

Exactly! What Valentina said. My SMIL-to-be finally got fed up with us and paid a photographer to steal a few "official" photos for our wedding day. I kept telling her: "Look, all of my relatives are coming, and [The Mister]'s former co-workers too. That means a church full of Chinese- and Japanese-Americans. I think we got the photos covered."