The Clam Rampant

Kasia May 18th, 2009

Thursday evening, Canuck and I went to visit with the DJs. (Yay!)

Friday evening, Canuck and I had a wedding rehearsal to attend. (Yay! ono two counts: one, that Peanut and Cletus got married, and two, that it wasn’t OUR wedding! Much more relaxing that way!)

Saturday morning, we went to the Rite of Reader at the Cathedral, then to Peanut and Cletus’ wedding. After the wedding we went to the hospital to see Adam. Then we went to the reception, had a lovely time, and got home…on the early side for a wedding reception, but quite late for us.

Sunday morning: 10:15 Mass, then a talk by a fellow parishioner, then errands and shopping. Canuck wanted to go down to Belle Isle (he’s never been) to do some photography, so off we went, then out to dinner.

Late last night, I found out that Adam died at 3:20 yesterday afternoon. I’m glad he’s not suffering any more, and while the Church doesn’t take a position without miracles and whatnot, with all he suffered I’m confident that he’s either with Jesus already or going to be very soon. But it’s still very sad, especially for his family and his closer friends. (HUGS!)

So now I’m waiting to hear about funeral arrangements for him…and then I heard that one of Canuck’s uncles (by marriage, but still) is in the hospital and not expected to live. (This uncle and aunt were unable to come to the wedding because of the uncle’s health…it’s been coming, we just didn’t know quite when it would be.) Prayers for Mac would be appreciated.

I will try to be back and posting later this week.

(Oh – and be sure to wish my beloved Canuck a happy birthday tomorrow! )

• Autobiographical ramblings , Busy-ness , Family , Friends and fellow bloggers , Prayer requests , Stuff I do
• Comments(2)

Kasia January 7th, 2009

“What do you mean, the restaurant doesn’t have our reception reservation?!?!?!?!?” (They have it now, and no lawyers needed to get involved, thank Heaven.)

“The florist called. He can’t get the one and only kind of flower that he thought would work perfectly with your impossible-to-match bridesmaid dresses, so he’s talking about buying white flowers and dyeing them. When can we go look at a sample?” (That would be “Tomorrow after work, Alex”!)

“This is the hotel where you blocked rooms. One room for your block has been reserved. The block will automatically lift today. Please contact any guests who might need rooms and encourage them to book quickly.” (I know darned well more people were planning to book rooms, but with the last two things, I didn’t have time to deal with it, and begged a 48-hour extension.)

Yes, this was all within a 24-hour span. The last 24 hours, to be specific.

(Jill, I’m running low on Cosmo and Canuck couldn’t find it at our Kroger. Think you could score me a couple more boxes? I’ve still got a bar and a quarter of Sympathy, but the way things are going, that could change quickly…)

My cycle is all wonky. I’m afraid I’m perimenopausal. Canuck thinks it’s stress. He’s probably right.

I’m feeling broke, helpless, and anxious. And I have to go to Confession.

Oh – and I’m still calling people who haven’t RSVP’d. I’m not sure how much credence to give the claims of never having received the invitations, but anything is possible.

Did you know my sister thinks I’m about the most laidback bride she’s known? I’m very afraid of the other brides she’s known…

I’m not sure I can catch up on all the Jaibee challenge missed days in one night, so let me just list off a few things and we’ll see what else I have to add on tomorrow and the next day:

Today (T minus 17 days and counting): I love that he “gets” why we’re doing this, and keeps redirecting me to the bottom line. Which, of course, is that even if the flowers are nonexistent, the reception venue breaches their contract, and we get a whole bunch of un-RSVP’d guests…we’re still getting married. If my dress doesn’t come in, we can still get married. If someone has a psychotic break and runs through the church singing Edelweiss, we can still get married (after we have our burliest guests remove the unfortunate person from the church and restrain him/her).

We’re getting married. Period.

The other thing that’s been at the forefront of my mind today in terms of what I love about him is how good care he always tries to take of me. He can’t always do it – sometimes it’s just beyond human capacity – but he always tries, and he usually does a really good job.

So that’s Day 16.

I’m too tired to come up with more right now. I’ll try to do a couple extra tomorrow. I’m off to have more Cosmo and Sympathy (that’s actually Symphony, but I like Sympathy as a name), and to snuggle up with my poor under-the-weather sweetie.

• Autobiographical ramblings , Busy-ness , My Beloved , Perspective , Wedding
• Comments(0)

Kasia December 31st, 2008

Well, that’s not true, actually. I have plenty that I could do.

But my beloved is in the shower, and I am in my fleecy robe and jammies, sipping a Coke and wondering how I should spend the rest of the morning. I have to admit, “very little” sounds very good; it’s rare that I have a not-too-busy day to sit around and daydream.

Canuck, TBS and I all went to IKEA together last night. It felt like we’d bought out the store! We got a new TV stand that will better accommodate all the electronic gadgets he brought; we got him one of those funky Poang chairs that he’s wanted for years, which is a Christmas gift from me; we got him a desk chair, which is his Christmas gift from his mother; and he splurged a little and got me a drying rack that I’d wanted for ages but had never found anywhere until IKEA came to town.

You are officially old when a drying rack seems like a fantastic gift.

We’ve also gone ahead and purchased a new stove, which should be delivered Friday. I will, unfortunately, be back at work by then; but assuming they deliver it before about 4 p.m., he can have a nice dinner waiting for me when I get home.    I have already begun the “Honey-Do list” of things he can be working on during the days while I’m working; and with his help, I am thinking I will go back to riding the bus in the mornings. I’m terrible about getting out of bed, which means I drive nine days out of ten. (I will still have to drive one, maybe two days out of five, but if I can reduce the wear and tear on that poor old car, doggonnit, I will.)

Tonight we have plans to go to a New Year’s party in Rochester, unless of course the weather turns nasty – it’s a long drive on what my mother calls “Amateur Night,” and if bad roads get thrown into the mix, I might chicken out. I hope not, though; I’m quite looking forward to it!

Funny story before I sign off for the moment: yesterday we went to go meet with the priest who’s celebrating our nuptial Mass, and he was telling us (in his Slovak accent) how he, his associate pastor, and his former associate pastor were all riding together out to Toronto for a fellow priest’s birthday party. They get to Canadian Customs and are being asked the usual questions: where do you live, where are you going, whose car is this, what do you do for a living.

Three Slovak citizens in a car together. Illinois plates on the car (the former associate pastor is now at a parish in Chicago). Two say they live in the Detroit area, one in Chicago. Going to Toronto for a birthday party.

“What’s your job?”

“Saving souls.”

Customs agent looks at them – I’m surmising they weren’t wearing their Roman collars, but he didn’t say one way or the other whether they were. Customs agent writes “Saving souls” down on the yellow referral form and sends them straight to Secondary for further questioning.

These are the times that try Customs agents’ souls…kind of like when I told the U.S. border agent I’d bought a “missal”. I recommend saying “book”, if you are ever faced with that situation…  :-p

• Autobiographical ramblings , Busy-ness , Cars - they eat at the table with you , Catholicism , Funny things priests say , My Beloved , Silliness , Stuff I do
• Comments(3)

Kasia December 2nd, 2008

Public service announcement: for the next fifty days or so, this blog is likely to be even more wedding-intensive than it has been up ’til now, and regrettably, probably in less interesting ways (more in the way of to-do lists and rattling on about the nuances of ties, pocket squares, and family dynamics). I love having y’all around, but please don’t expect a lot of earth-shattering insights. I hate seeing people disappointed!

Now that that’s out of the way… 

I called the florist, but the guy I need to meet with is out of town until next Tuesday. The woman I spoke with is going to see if he suggests a particular date and time when she talks to him this afternoon, and if not, she’s going to have him call me next week. Note to self: if he hasn’t called by the 10th, follow up.

I found a lovely, not too expensive purse online, and went ahead and ordered it. I didn’t want to spend a lot, and I especially wasn’t sure I wanted to go with a dyed purse (extra expense and what are the odds I would’ve carried an ivory purse again?), so I chose a pretty gold purse. (Definitely NOT this one! How do things that ugly even make it to the point of manufacture and distribution?!)

The shoes! They’re in my bag, and the shoe repair shop that’s handling the dyeing is open ’til 6 today. So I will stop there en route to Catechism this afternoon. I had a scare with the swatch when I was going to put my bag together last night…knowing that I am prone to losing things, I had tucked the swatch INTO the shoebox when I got it. Safe and sound, right? Well, fortunately, I checked to make sure it was still in there. It wasn’t. Apparently the shoebox had fallen open at some point…not good. Not good at all. So I tore my living room apart searching for it – finally found it, thanks be to God – and tucked it back into the shoebox, which I promptly stuck into my bag so I couldn’t then forget it this morning. Hooray for idiot-proofing! 

I still need to call my make-up artist, but at this point I’m wondering if I should wait until next pay. Hmm…I’ll balance the checkbook and then decide.

My big goal for this week, apart from what’s already been mentioned, is to get those thank-you notes written! Tonight is a good night for a big chunk of those, and I can do another installment tomorrow evening either before or after the firing range. I think what I should do, really, is set myself a goal of X many to do tonight, X many tomorrow, etc., so that I don’t get overwhelmed and feel like I MUST DO THEM ALL TONIGHT OR THE SKY WILL FALL, which of course ends up with me getting NONE of them done.

How are you all doing? 

• Busy-ness , Stuff I do , Wedding , Yet more proof that money can't buy taste
• Comments(0)

Kasia February 25th, 2008

Saturday. Got The Canuck’s immigration packet finished and mailed, much to his relief. (If truth be told, I’m relieved too, but I wasn’t as anxious to get it done.) Met with the pre-marriage counselor for the first time, and took the inventory. Most of it was pretty uneventful, but I have to admit I got a little discombobulated when it came to answering questions about my family of origin. It’s hard to know quite how to answer questions that have complicated answers.

Sunday. Mass – actually with Father JJ, which was nice. Our associate is away for a while, but we’ve got a temporary weekend assistant until he’s back. Deo gratias for order priests (he’s a Notre Dame Father)! Dropped off The Canuck at the train station, went home, grocery shopped, then watched Annie on TV with The Big Seester. I hadn’t realized how much they changed the original score to suit the movie. I also hadn’t realized before (hey, I was eight the last time I saw the movie) how thin some of the premises are. But boy howdy, did Carol Burnett and Tim Curry play their roles well! We were several minutes into a Miss Hannigan scene before I said “Is that Carol Burnett?!” and when TBS confirmed, I paused, surprised, and said “She really does ’slatternly’ well.” I don’t know that she could carry off a more nuanced, elegant role – Grace Kelly she’ll never be – but she seems to have had a blast with that role, and she really stole the show.

Another week of this-and-that; I’m looking forward to a relaxing weekend in Chatham.

And you?

• Busy-ness , Immigration , Stuff I do
• Comments(2)

Kasia February 20th, 2008

Blogging’s been a bit light over the past few months, as you may have noticed, and it’s probably going to get lighter before it gets heavier. Between working both jobs, wedding plans, maintaining my home, marriage prep classes, maintaining my relationship with my fiancé, trying to keep in touch with friends, and family obligations…well, I’m a tired little monkey, and the last thing I’m apt to think when I get home to eat dinner at 9 or 10 o’clock is “Gee, I should blog!”

Don’t get me wrong; I love blogging, and I love my readers. But now I’m developing some minor health issues; really nuisance things in the grand scheme, but on top of everything else they’re the proverbial straw and I’m the camel’s back.

Sooo…I expect to be back to near-normal by Easter, and hope to blog periodically between now and then, but in the meantime, don’t be surprised if my posts are fewer and shorter than usual.

Love you guys!

• Busy-ness , Home , I'm an idjit , My Beloved , Wedding , Work , marriage prep
• Comments(2)