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
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Kasia January 24th, 2009

…that I marry my best friend and the love of my life.

My hair is (basically) done, and the make-up artist should be here in half an hour.

Needless to say, things have already gone very wrong (from the standpoint of how planning is translating into execution). As an example, one of the groomsmen has been wretchedly ill, and though he is feeling somewhat better and is still coming into town (yes, I argued with him), he will not be standing up – he and his wife will just try to avoid getting too close to anyone, and we’ll find someone to stand in for him.

I’ll be back to blogging after the honeymoon.

It’s gonna be a beautiful day.

• Autobiographical ramblings , Friends and fellow bloggers , My Beloved , Stuff I do , Wedding
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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
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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
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Kasia November 3rd, 2008

Yes, these are the things that occupy my mind sometimes. Especially when I’ve skipped lunch.

“Hmm…I am so in the mood for meat loaf, but all the recipes I have involve an odd amount of meat. Aren’t there any meatloaf recipes that just call for one pound of ground beef?”

Et voila!

Remember, I’m still cooking for one until January…

• Domesticity , Stuff I do
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Kasia October 28th, 2008

I did it – I ordered a different dress. Lest anyone think I’m being profligate, even the two dresses combined plus alterations to both total less (probably considerably so) than a lot of Western women spend on their wedding dress – the first one was a clearance item from a Mormon web site (hey, they were the only ones selling dresses with shoulders and sleeves!), and the second one is actually a bridesmaid dress from Alfred Angelo, but in ivory.

I am very happy with it, and thank everyone for their advice and concern. And I will report back with further information as I have it.

As for the other dress, I think I will donate it. I think there’s a charity that’s specifically for taking wedding dresses and giving them/selling them cheaply to disadvantaged women.

• Stuff I do , Wedding
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Kasia October 22nd, 2008

He got approved!!!!!

I can’t honestly say that the entire weight has been lifted from my shoulders, but it is a bit like someone has rolled one of the boulders off the cart I’m pulling.

The consular official said he was “an ideal candidate,” and teased him that we already had enough lefties in the U.S.

I am so relieved. So, so relieved.

Thank you, Lord.

Thank you to everyone who prayed on our behalf.

Thank you, Blessed Mother.

Thank you, U.S. Government.

I could go sleep for a week now. If I didn’t have to work, and take care of cats, and volunteer at the Women’s Conference, that is. But yeah. I think I might take a nap on my lunch hour.

Good night, moon (or sun, in this case).

Now to try to focus on work again – it’s been a bit of a lost cause this morning, between the flu shot and the news.

Deep breaths.

• Blessings , Immigration , My Beloved , Stuff I do
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Kasia October 21st, 2008

Your result for Are You a Jackie or a Marilyn? Or Someone Else? Mad Men-era Female Icon Quiz…

You Are an Ingrid!

Ingrids have sensitive feelings and are warm and perceptive.

How to Get Along with Me

• * Give me plenty of compliments. They mean a lot to me.
• * Be a supportive friend or partner. Help me to learn to love and value myself.
• * Respect me for my special gifts of intuition and vision.
• * Though I don’t always want to be cheered up when I’m feeling melancholy, I sometimes like to have someone lighten me up a little.
• * Don’t tell me I’m too sensitive or that I’m overreacting!

What I Like About Being an Ingrid

• * my ability to find meaning in life and to experience feeling at a deep level
• * my ability to establish warm connections with people
• * admiring what is noble, truthful, and beautiful in life
• * my creativity, intuition, and sense of humor
• * being unique and being seen as unique by others
• * having aesthetic sensibilities
• * being able to easily pick up the feelings of people around me

What’s Hard About Being an Ingrid

• * experiencing dark moods of emptiness and despair
• * feelings of self-hatred and shame; believing I don’t deserve to be loved
• * feeling guilty when I disappoint people
• * feeling hurt or attacked when someone misundertands me
• * expecting too much from myself and life
• * fearing being abandoned
• * obsessing over resentments
• * longing for what I don’t have

Ingrids as Children Often

• * have active imaginations: play creatively alone or organize playmates in original games
• * are very sensitive
• * feel that they don’t fit in
• * believe they are missing something that other people have
• * attach themselves to idealized teachers, heroes, artists, etc.
• * become antiauthoritarian or rebellious when criticized or not understood
• * feel lonely or abandoned (perhaps as a result of a death or their parents’ divorce)

Ingrids as Parents

• * help their children become who they really are
• * support their children’s creativity and originality
• * are good at helping their children get in touch with their feelings
• * are sometimes overly critical or overly protective
• * are usually very good with children if not too self-absorbed

Take Are You a Jackie or a Marilyn? Or Someone Else? Mad Men-era Female Icon Quiz at HelloQuizzy

• Silliness , Stuff I do
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Kasia October 21st, 2008

…upon receiving a prompt and reasonably courteous negative response to a question you e-mailed only the day before, but had originally e-mailed two months before and had never heard back on, your gut reaction is not “Oh, that’s a bummer,” but rather “And you couldn’t have told me this two months ago??!? YOU STINK!!!!! WHY ARE YOU SO FREAKIN’ BAD ABOUT ANSWERING YOUR E-MAILS?!?? AND THIS ISN’T THE ONLY E-MAIL OF MINE YOU’VE NOT RESPONDED TO, EITHER – I KNOW I’M NOT THE ONLY PERSON E-MAILING YOU, BUT HAVE YOU HEARD OF COMMON FREAKIN’ COURTESY?!??!? GAH!!!!! AND HEY, WHAT’S WITH YOUR ATTITUDE, HUH? HUH?!??!”

Ahem. At least Bridezilla has not taken over to the extent that any of that made it into my reply…thank heaven for small favors…

** UPDATE ** Please note that this post is not about anybody that has ever, to my knowledge, read this blog. It is about a wedding vendor, not a friend, family member, or anyone like that. (I feel compelled to mention that because I suddenly realized that I have friends who have been behind in their e-mail correspondence too, but I promise that nothing anyone on here has said or done has elicited that response.)

• "Sin makes you stupid" - Mark Shea , Autobiographical ramblings , Catholicism , Stuff I do , Wedding
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Kasia September 22nd, 2008

Put away all the clean clothes.

If anything remains on the dresser once the laundry is put away, put that away too.

Should be manageable, right?

• Domesticity , Home , Stuff I do
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