Wishful Thinking

I'm a simple and reasonable guy, i think. I really don't want alot in life. If Aladdin's genie gave me three wishes, I'd probably be at a loss for what to do with the third one. In fact, with my birthday having just passed, I found myself wishing for only two things when it came time to blow out my candles: time and money.

CawfeeMate: the Anti-Cawfee

personally, i'm a very big fan of visual symmetry and balance. i like walls with two sconces, tables with pairs of candlesticks, etc. i have four tattoos on my legs: two on the right and two on the left (two of which are almost identical representations of a phoenix, one "hot" colors and one "cold" colors"; one on each leg in the exact same spot). you get the idea.

my marriage to CawfeeMate is also an exercise in balance and symmetry since he is, just about, everything that i'm not: physically he's short, fair and strong and personally he's neat, tidy, organized, serious, responsible, thrifty, level headed, etc and we balance each other out perfectly. all his strengths make up for my short-comings and vice versa. we're, basically, Paula Abdul's Opposites Attract video (i'm not sure which one of us is Paula and which is the cartoon cat, but you get the idea).

In direct contrast with being a big fan of symmetry, i'm also a big flaming ball of entropy, leaving chaos and disorder in my wake of fabulousness and fierceness. true to form, CawfeeMate is usually not far behind me restoring order to (most) of which i've torn assunder and the place where this is most obvious (to me) is the dishwasher. when i load our dishwasher it is with zero regard for placement of...anything. my objective is to cram as much crap in as possible to get the job done and get the dishes clean without lifting a sponge so i can play Castlevania III. unfortunately, when i load a dishwasher it's 90% negative space.

He, on the other hand is the king of Dishwasher Jenga and usually shoos me out of the way and rearranges things so that the entire dishwasher is filled with plates, pots, glasses and silverware with 1% negative space but still allows for pretty damn good cleaning. as someone with incredibly poor judgement and 3D imagining, watching him is as fascinating as it is infuriating. not surprisingly, he's also an incredible parallel parker and great at furniture placement.

on the flipside, the minute the diswasher finishes, i empty the thing of all the burning hot plates. if it was up to him, they'd sit there for days. see? balance.

Treeson

i think i may be a bad person, because i'm trying to figure out how to bump off a tree. Now, before all you hippies, wiccans and Druids freak out on me, let me explain...

when Stephen bought the townhouse, back in 2005, we both thought the tree was charming; it was large and leafy and wonderfully shady. it turns out, 4 years later, that it's quite a bit too leafy and shady. being a sycamore, it drops leaves for ten months out of the year making our walkway and patio look like The Land Of Eternal Autumn and completely blotting out the meager amount of sunlight, our mausoleum of a home gets, in the one window we have. The tree also makes it impossible to keep a garden in bloom for any amount of time, as both the blanket and canopy of leaves stop everything but moss from growing. it also leaves a wonderfully slimy green coating on our patio under the never abating leaf carpet. Swamp Thing kinda green, people.

So, the huz and i decided to find out what it takes to take down a tree in an outer-borough of New York City. i'll be honest, i expected the "pass-the-buck" method of bureaucracy, so i was totally fine with talking to multiple people and explaining the sitution. On a lark, i started with 311 (NYC's "information services") and was told to call Staten Island Forestry Services who, in turn, told me to call the Staten Island Office of City Planning, where i left a voicemail for some clerk to call me back....and they did! it turns out, that regardless of the fact that the tree is on our private property, it can't be taken down unless it's sick or diseased or dead. period. end of story, right? wrong.

while i was making my calls to various city agencies, the huz was at home doing the same thing (while he was supposed to be studying and doing his homework). also, as expected, he got the complete opposite answer: "it's your tree, on your property, do whatever the fuck you want with it". so now, we're at an impasse.

a very dark, dank and leaf blanketed impasse.

a few people have suggested killing the tree using methods such as hammering two nails on either side of the tree and hooking up an industrial flashlight battery to the nails to electrocue the thing to death or bleaching the soil around the roots. neither method is, particularly, tasteful to me 'cuz, while i'm no "tree hugger" i do have a heart and believe that the tree is a living thing and that that's plain old murder for murder's sake since i don't need the wood to, say, build a house or make toothpicks or something. also, "arborcide" carries a $15,000 fine, in NYC if you're caught; and, if someone turns you in, they get a reward. so, yeah, murder is out.

another person suggested just having it removed and not worrying about it...till we go to sell the house and it's existence appears on the blueprints and both the city, the lawyers and the buyers inquire as to where the tree went; this suggestion wasn't even a consideration for me, by the way. i may not be an angel, but that's bad business.

now, we have no idea what to do with the Jolly Green Giant on our meager little lawn, i'm wondering, if removing all the branches and leaving only a trunk is still considered "pruning". honestly, this whole thing has me...stumped.

the Moon is In Ca-Ca Pt 2: 3 Days Later

i've heard that my fans have missed me the last few days, so here's an update.
things are looking less bleak:

• the plumber is coming tomorrow to fix the tub so we can take a bath and will return monday to mount the toilet and the sink.
• Haier is processing the refund (does it really take 45 business days to write a check? i don't think so).
• the computer is still inoperable, but the huz finished his work and is not taking a much needed 6 week sabbatical* during which we're sending the computer back to HP to be serviced. in the interim i broke down and upped my cell plan to include web access so i can check Facebook. i'm really not looking forward to having to re-organize my iTunes library but c'est la vie.

*which means he can call his afternoons, evenings and weekends his own again (so he can go to the gym or wii fit or take a nap) and i can come home to Wii Fit without not worrying about starting dinner, doing dishes, etc. it also means he'll be considerably less stressed and infinitely less tense.

the Moon is In Ca-Ca

ugh. if it wasn't for bad luck we'd not have any luck at all. last week:

• the six month old "replacement" dishwasher broke; after 2 days of phone calls we are getting our refund. i have to call Haier today to hammer out when.
• the bathroom renovation still isn't done. the plumbing supply company, from whom we bought everything associated with the bathroom except the tile and the mirror, screwed up on the vanity/vessel topped sink; the vessel doesn't fit on the sink without serious MacGuyvering. the plumber won't "seat" the toilet till the vanity/sink are installed so we're still without both till that gets cleared up*. meanwhile the magical whirlpool tub has a problem with the control box so the jets don't work and the aforementioned plumbing supply place didn't send a crucial piece of the overflow valve, so we can't use the tub to bathe (the shower works very nicely though).
• our one-and-only laptop broke on saturday which means no schoolwork for stephen (his latest class ends Wednesday and he has several assignments due) and no iTunes or Facebook for vacuous little me.

can anything else go wrong?

*as mentioned in a previous post, our plumber is not a small fella; think of the tallest guy you know and the broadest guy you know, put them together and then double it. that's our plumber. sweet guy, but built like Mr Snuffleupagus. our bathroom is, roughly, the size of a broom closet (5' by 9'?) and Prof. Plumber doesn't want to "seat" the toilet till the vanity/sink are done because he fears breaking tile and unseating the toilet while putting the vanity on. get it?

Monday Morning Madness

i've got a headache this big and it's got "the weekend" written all over it:

• the plumber never showed up this weekend to hook up the new stove (but, since the bottom oven is electric, i was still able to turn out a sick batch of homemade cupcakes). we haven't had a cooktop in 3 days.
• the tile guy's assistant missed the memo which said we wanted a blue glass tile trim around the room, so now we have 3 boxes of tile left and no trim. i'd be slightly less perturbed if the aforementioned assistant didn't try and take the tile with him. i guess there's a gorgeous tile topped table in our future.
• the "new" dishwasher died last night; livid is not the word.
• because of the snow, the tile guy isn't coming today to finish up.

Home Today...Waiting for the Plumber...

Belated Apology

things have been crazy in the land of TSG, so i'm probably not gonna get to write any of those posts i promised last week*. work has been unexpectedly busier, which is always good, 'cuz the busier i am the less likely i am to be downsized, right? Stephen's been very busy with schoolwork and the last minute prep for Bathroom-a-palooza 2009**, so evenings have been reduced to home, wii-fit, cook, eat, and bed.

this past weekend was spent picking up all the new fixtures and other bits for the bathroom (new toilet, vanity, etc) and a quick trip to Costco. the rest of our time was spent doing all the laundry and cleaning the house so the contractors don't think we're total animals (it helps perpetuate the myth that The Gays are neat and tidy). the most ironic bit of time was cleaning the bathroom till it sparkled. (partly because i took "before" pics i'm gonna post here and on Facebook and partly because i couldn't bear for the workman to tear apart a bathroom that one couldn't eat dinner out of the toilet). we also, finally, bought a new stove. the old one has bene on the fritz for a few months now (maintaining a 50^o swing in temperature), and i finally couldn't take it anymore. it set me back a mind numbing $1500 (which may not sound alot to the real adults out there, but left me more than a little dizzy and breathless). between all the cleaning and toting and running and stuff, i'm pooped. last night's dull-as-dishwater Academy Awards was an incredible letdown (was anyone else embarassed for Hugh Jackman, or was i alone?).

this week is going to be even crazier** so i apologize in advance for my spotty comunications (also, our MS Outlook is currently down here so e-mail is out). at the very least, i'll try and post some charts, quizzes or other fluff just to amuse....

*Campbell's Soup Version: we had a brilliant time at MS's House of Fabulousness; 2 days of non-stop Rock Band 2 for the Wii gave me a serious yen to run right out and buy the damn thing. however, because of the renovations on our bathroom and the $1500 stove, i didn't. i've reconnected with several people from my past over the last couple of weeks, via Facebook; people i'd stopped being friends with for various reasons. this has prompted me to re-evaluate the people with whom i was terribly close and have cut out, and i've decided to re-open doors i had closed. as i said to one former friend "we don't have to be friends again but is there any reason we can't be 'friendly' and see what happens".

** Starting tomorrow, and for the next 8-10 days, the renovation for the new bathroom begins. Stephen's overseeing the entire affair, acting as General Contractor (or, as i like to think of him, the Homo Despot). as of this morning, all the ducks are in a row; all the actors know their blocking and lines. the most frightening thing, to me is that starting tomorrow evening we will not have a shower till the new one is installed. also, this saturday, the new stove will be installed!

Sit Yo Ass Down...

as i've mentioned, the huz and i are re-doing our master bathroom (i use the term very loosely, as the bathroom in question is, roughly, the size of large phonebooth). we're going whole hog on this endeavour; top to bottom, tiles to high-hats. i won't bore you with all the details (yet), but wanted to discuss, at least to me, the pinnacle of ridiculousness luxury: the bidet toilet seat.


this bad boy comes with a remote control, a light, and will wash, dry, fluff and fold you for the bargain price of almost $500. did you get that? $500 for a fucking toilet seat (i guess these are what they use in the military). honestly, when Stephen told me he wanted one i thought he was joking, but it turned out he wasn't. his "dream bathroom" comes complete with one of these and as long as i can turn it off, i'm fine with it. i mean, i don't think i'd be able to stand the shock of a late night stumble into the bathroom, followed by the shock of being hit with a Super Soaker...

Christmas Checklist

1.Cards

• write out
• address
• mail

2. Tree

• haul out
• decorate

3. Cookies

• make dough (Italian 7 Layer, Italian Lemon Drops, Snickerdoodles, Cream Cheese Tasties, Eggnog Spritz, & Brown Sugar Cut-Outs) and refrigerate.
• Bake

4. Gifts (purchase)

• Stephen
• Rufus
• Mom
• Dad
• Brother & Sister-in-Law
• Squirt
• Frangelica
• John & Justin
• Bri-the-Pie Guy
• Jenn
• Ben
• MS & Dug
• Chewie
• Cunty (Kris Kringle)

5. Gifts wrapped

Three Day Weekend Re-Cap

in a nutshell (not because i'm busy, i just don't feel like writing):

• called out sick on friday. spent most of the morning in a post-NyQuil fog from the night before and the rest of the day playing Zelda: Twilight Princess. the more i play this game the more i love it; just when i think i'm near the end, another quest pops up! totally stellar!
• saturday we bought a couch after having been on the receiving end of an intervention by Justin and John. it's big and comfy and red and has a recliner on each end. i'll be honest, it wasn't my 1st choice, but was definitely my 2nd. later that evening was supposed to be spent at a birthday party for a friend-of-a-friend, out in NJ but was spent watching My So Called Life on DVD, instead.
• finished shopping for my do-it-yourself Halloween costume, for our party and started researching Halloween party food ideas; i'm thinking that the menu will be fairly simple: 6' hero sandwich/giant bagel sandwich, assorted chips and snacky foods with some fabulous dips and tapanades, punch, and then desserts; graveyard trifle, "mud cups", and other halloween desserts. in the past i've found that hot horse devours whores ovaries canapes just keep the host(s) running back and forth to the kitchen, thereby making it nearly impossible to enjoy their own party. it's all shaping up quite nicely and i'm sure it's gonna be alot of fun.

wow...look at that...i actually wrote more than i wanted...

When Worlds Collide

I…WE…cleaned THE ENTIRE HOUSE on Saturday. We had our parents (and 4 of my favorite Special Guest Gays) over for stephen’s b-day, Saturday night.

now, the place is SPOTLESS. I mean PRISTINE. Not a BIT of clutter, ANYWHERE; It’s very unnerving. I feel SO much pressure to KEEP it that way, ESPECIALLY if we…I…am gonna throw a (costumes optional, masks required) Halloween party.

saturday night's get together was strangely amazing. nothing's more disconcerting that having your parents chat up your friends and both parties telling you, later, how much they enjoyed the other.

highlight of the evening: working the expression "cumpig" into a side conversation with one of my friends, and finding out that all the gays heard it and none of the parents. talk about "the cocktail party effect".

"It was a good time for sure. I didn't get mentioned by name in your blog though, so I'm very sad. "~ Justin

So I'm Thinkin...

it's time for the huz and i to throw a party.
the weather's still gorgeously tolerable and the house is clean (lord only knows how long either phenomenon will last). I can think of two possibilities:

1) generically fabulous un-themed house party: lots of people, lots of food, lots of booze, lots of music, lots of laughs.
2) a Halloween costume party: (see #1, add masks).

either one will give me an opportunity to bust out the fondue fountain...

So...what do we think?

Bacchanal or Costume-a-palooza?

Weekend Highlights

• After 12 weeks of stress and numerous sticky platelets, we're finally getting a new dishwasher from the manufacturer.
• the photography studio that fucked us out of our wedding pictures settled out of court with the NJ Attorney General (there was a dispute over whether or not the photographers which were hired by the studio were paid by the studio). this settlement means we'll be getting our wedding photos (read: negatives) a year after the fact. happy anniversary to us. now we need to find someone who'll turn them into an album.
• saturday was spent in search of a post office which will process passport applications; an effort in futility. apparently there is only 1 post office on staten island which issues passports on Saturday and it's only from 9 to 12. i mean really though, who's up by nine, or leaves the house before 1, on a saturday?
• Wii's Zelda: the Twilight Princess is absolutely amazing. it's almost surreal how good this game is. i was up till 2am Saturday/Sunday trying to rescue a fucking monkey from a cage, atop a totem pole, in a temple. it took me an hour and a half before i gave up and found the cheat on line. then i turned the game off without saving it. the universe gives...the universe takes away...
• we cleaned out our loft-office area, yesterday. it took the better part of the day, but stephen put together the bookshelf we got (last week) at Target , and i loaded up all my books on it. (not counting the last two years of disapproval and frustrated muttering and sighing) it really didn't take stephen a long time to get me off the couch (and away from the Wii) and into gear. we can now see the floor again; he's ecstatic.

Wednesday's Illuminations

well it's day three of my four day, husband-less, week and i'm still alive (and yes, so is the dog). here's what we've learned, so far:

1. i don't like "cooking for one"; i don't know how single people do it. since the dishwasher's still busted, i can't be bothered to dirty pots and pans and things just for lil ole moi, so i've been eating "quick and painless dinners" like chinese food (sunday), hot dogs & beans with steamed zucchini, followed by a cup of soft serve from the hot Mister Softee guy (monday) and last night's Smart One's dinner, Chicken Quesadilas and Pasta Carbonara (i haven't had a "tv dinner"since i'm eleven... i haven't missed much) with a scoop of Ben & Jerry's Peach Cobbler ice cream for dessert. i've stayed on track, within my point range, and i feel good!

2. while our "All-in-One: High Efficiency Washer/Dryer" is not the best unit on the market, its time delay settings are just a little bit fabulous. as of saturday morning, there was a pile of laundry which roughly resembled the staten island landfill, 90% of which was (were?) towels and sheets (which usually get put off till there are no clean ones left, because it takes so bloody long for our dryer to dry them). well, for the last 4 days i've been doing at least a load a day and now there is no laundry left. what there is, though, is a huge pile of clean towels and sheets which needs to be folded and put away.

3. it's no fun coming home to an empty house, but having a puppy really helps.

4. it's not as much fun getting stuff in the mail from Amazon and Woot if nobody's there to frown and/or cluck their tongue.

a Weekend Well Spent

Friday evening:

• Desperate Housewives and dinner at our favorite diner with real conversation.

Saturday:

• Stephen woke me up with homemade chocolate chip muffins and coffee; yes Whitney, i do love that man.
• got the car washed and a haircut; you have no idea how much it was bothering me that work was precluding simple things like going for a haircut.
• played Marvel Ultimate Alliance and Wii Sports' Bowling (i finally made Pro Bowler, MS and no, the ball does not feel heavier).
• BBQ with the neighbors; straight people have a thing for grilled meat, but not side dishes or dessert. go figure. they're fun though...a board games and booze kinda crowd. plus, Rufus was invited over to play with their puppy, Andy and his friend Benny (a yorkie, one month Rufus' junior). it was hilarious.
• bar hopping with John: it was our mini-tour of Chelsea; View, Barracuda and Rawhide. his boyfriend is in San Diego and my husband was home cleaning the bathroom and playing Super Mario Galaxy; a good time was had by all and we rolled in around 2am. i needed a night out like that more than you know. i haven't laughed so hard in years.

Sunday:

• woke up to an empty house; turns out, stephen had gone out to get us bagels and Brunswick Bowling for Wii. sing the chorus, whitney. Wii Sports is way more fun (albiet a tad less realistic; but who wants realism in a video game? if i want reality, i'll leave the house; reality means i can't bowl in my penguin covered boxer shorts).
• went food shopping at the King Kullen around the corner and was reminded why we usually drive ten minutes away to Stop 'n' Shop: better selection, better prices, smarter cashiers and meat that isn't a "manager's special" (read: with today as the sell-by-date); it's worth the gas.
• watched Chocolat and several episodes of Charmed before making a fantastic dinner.
• Desperate Housewives and stephen's homemade guacamole. 3rd times' a charm whitney...from the top.

Wii Wii Wii All the Way Home

after an absolutely phenomenal weekend visit with MS and Chewie (she'll be posting pics i'm sure, since our camera was in the car the whole time), which included a saturday night Scrabble and Wii Bowling fest, i bought a Wii online. it was a bit pricier than i had anticipated, but the "bundle" includes 2 game disks and an extra controller, and since i can't find one in the tri-state area, getting it online seemed the only option.

i've been kinda indifferent about video game systems since the demise of the Sega Genesis (with the exception of my Gameboy/DS), but i am so excited about this, i can hardly stand it.

consider yourselves all invited for a bowling/golf/tennis/baseball/Mii-Making party.

TuesdayWednesday: Brought to You By the Letter "R"

Relaxed. Rested. etc.

this was a well spent and eagerly anticipated three day weekend (**golf clap for Dr. MLK**) and i would've written about it yesterday had i not gotten to work feeling like my head was stuck in a fishbowl and then been inundated with work. honestly you'd think the amount of crap i had to do yesterday was penance for having off on Monday. anyhoo...

this weekend we finally took down our Christmas decorations, (coincidence?) and a reasonably attractive European (Russian? Italian? French?) carpenter came to fix (read: trim off some superfluous top molding) the "mexican-rustic" entertainment center that stephen purchased after the wedding. he only removed about 5" of top molding and yet the room no longer seems overtaken by the gargantuan thing (pictures tomorrow); now we can load the damned thing up with DVD's and tchotchkes. very excited am i.

concurrently, we swung by Pier One on Monday and found the most wonderful area rug (again: pictures tomorrow). a quick phone call to mom (apparently, New Years Day has been forgotten) and an hour later it was warming our toes on the living room floor and Stephen's old, ugly, unidentifiably stained one was making the dumpster up the block look cozier.

we got some quality puppy time and some much needed laundry time in and went into the city to meet with the cops (who roll their eyes and swear that our dispute with Celebration Studios is a civil matter and not a criminal one, and refuse to take a report). since the cops were fairly obstinate, the meeting only took 10 minutes which left us time for a leisurely walk through Chelsea where we stopped for lunch (see yesterday) and i hit a gay bookstore for some supplies.

wish i could write more, but i'm just not up to pontificating...

Tumbleweeds Crickets and Candy Canes Pt 2: Eve of Destruction

almost totally alone in the blogverse (aside from BL).
outta here in 20 minutes and heading into Bensonhurst to meet Stephen; it's half-way to Long Island where we'll be having Christmas Eve dinner with his our family. for the last few hours, i've been getting texted reports of Christmas Eve Carnage from our house on Staten Island (ie. "the oven is set to 375 but is reading 410 and just twisted my ankle, broke the bathroom mirror and burned my hand). i can't imagine he'll be in a pleasant mood when we get together.

have a merry/happy/joyous/festive...whatever, kids

19 Days Till Christmas Pt 2: Itinerary 1.0 (or the 5 Day forecast)

Thursday (12/6): Haircut @ 8pm
Friday (12/7): finish cataloging comics; Christmas lights.
Saturday (12/8): make cookie doughs; decorate tree.
Sunday (12/9): bake cookies; write out Christmas cards.
Monday (12/10): mail cards. make calls about selling comics.