The Odd Broad

Yawn

Hubby (aka: Snore-y McSnores-a-lot) finally went in for his sleep study last night, to see if he has sleep apnea.  He's sort of been dreading it.  We assumed it would be at a hospital, but it ended up being at a Holiday Inn.  Bizarro?

I spoke to him a little while ago and from what I gather, they covered him with sticky suction cups and wires and every time he tried to roll onto his side, a voice over the monitor asked, "Would you please roll onto your back?"  There was an infrared light filming him constantly, all very "Twelve Monkey's," he said. 

A challenging sleep atmosphere, to say the least.  (Apparently peeing was also a bit of a production.)  But I'm certainly glad he did it!  In two weeks we should have the results; Hubby may soon be wearing a Darth Vader mask to bed...

Happy Friday, Dear Reader xoxo

Foul Ball

Since my husband was very young, it has been his dream to catch a foul ball at a major league baseball game. 

Over our long courtship and marriage, every time we attend a game and have good seats, Hubby says, "Oooh, this is foul ball territory!"  And I always say, "Oh no, I hope no foul balls come this way! 

I'm no dummy; I don't want a broken nose.

Hubby and I tend to indulge one another.  I think perhaps this is why the two of us work so well together.  All day today I could think of one thing and one thing only: getting home, changing into comfy pants and snuggling under my green fleece blankie.  Instead, around 4:30, I realized I had the chance to go to tonight's Red Sox game and so of course I said yes.  I knew Hubby would definitely want to go, and I do try to make him happy whenever I can.

These seats were incredible, and free; we looked online and they run about $297 a pop.  And, not for nothing, but the foul balls were flying.  Roger, the man sitting next to us, bought Hubby an IPA and warned me to watch out for the lefty batters especially, because they were the ones who would hit foul balls into our seats.  I nodded and smiled as he lectured us, and decided to really pay attention.

Aromas of heavenly beef burgers and hot dogs were wafting up into my nostrils; I was really jonesing for some meat.  Let's face it, there isn't much for my currently vegan ass to nosh on at Fenway.  But I did decide on something after a while, and Hubby was closest to the aisle so he ordered for me.

"What was that you wanted?"  Jeff, our waiter called out.

"Hummus and a chardonnay," Hubby shouted.

"Huh?"  It was pretty loud, and Jeff was far away.

"Chardonnay!"

"Peanuts and a chardonnay?"

"Hummus and a chardonnay"

He would repeat it several times; would yell it, even.  And when a foul ball was hit directly into our particular section, and bounced off of the hand of the man sitting behind me, Hubby was passing Jeff the waiter his credit card and saying, "Hummus and a chardonnay, please."

And when the elderly man sitting directly in front of my husband snatched up the foul ball and pumped his fist in the air, Hubby was still saying, "Chardonnay."

He does try to make me happy whenever he can.  Yes, my husband was ordering me white wine and hummus while the old man in front of us caught the damn foul.  I felt...bad.  This may have been the closest Hubby has ever been to catching a foul ball, and yet...that hummus was really very good. 

Back on the horse

My heart was pounding and I was petrified my hands were going to shake.  But I did it; I sang in public again for the first time in years.  It wasn't my worst performance, and it certainly wasn't my best, but I did it nonetheless. 

I love weddings.  Afterwards, as I sat next to Hubby and listened to his cousin recite her wedding vows, I gave his hand a sweaty little squeeze at the words, "In sickness, and in health..." 

I had certainly been testing the boundaries of the in sickness category as of late...mental sickness, to be exact. 

I experienced a brief but potent meltdown on Friday evening, you see, after I ran through the song with the church's ancient resident organ player.  She didn't know the song, she told me, but she would learn it before the wedding tomorrow.  I was also singing it at a much faster tempo than she seemed comfortable with, but she told me she would follow along.  I'd be singing from up on the alter, out in front, holding a wireless microphone.  (We'd forgotten to bring a microphone stand, hence my worry over shaky hands.)  It occurred to me that if I was fourteen years old I wouldn't have batted an eyelid at any of this information.  When had I turned into such a wimp?

Back in the car, I called my mother for comfort but found she had none available.  I had made my own bed and it was time for me to lie in it.  This is when I hung up the phone and cried heavy, sloppy tears, my chest heaving in rapid, panicky gasps.  I was going to make a fucking asshole out of myself!  Holding a microphone, up on the alter?  Like Ted Neely or Carl Anderson in Jesus Christ Superstar?  I couldn't do it!

Hubby continued driving, the very picture of calm.  He reached out his hand and patted my knee, gently telling me I was being ridiculous, but still allowing me the freedom to blubber away.  I was hot mess central: broken, pathetic, and very, very ugly.  Ten minutes and one phone call to Sissy later, I wiped the smudged mascara from my cheeks and entered the rehearsal dinner wearing a happy face.  What was the alternative?  I had to be an adult; Sissy said so.  She also told me to make like Mary Magdalene and just sing!

My husband is an exceedingly kind person.  All the same, ten years ago it would have killed me to put on such a shamelessly vulnerable display in front of him.  These days it's a different story.  He loves me even at my very worst, when I am at my most atrocious, and for that I am truly grateful.  I trust him, more than I trust anybody in the world, and there's something very freeing about that. 

"I was being really pathetic and horrible," I tell my husband tonight, back at home on our red couch with Kittie.  "I was acting ugly and childish and hysterical, all for no reason." 

"Yeah," Hubby agreed, squeezing my hand, a smile flickering across his eyes, "But it's okay."

God I love that man.

PS: I capped off my singing performance by getting very, very, very drunk.  (Fast dancing drunk.  Telling my brother in law to shave off his beard because I hate it drunk.  Peeing without putting a liner down on the public toilet seat drunk.)  I then commenced to tell all of my in-laws how much I loved them, again and again, and apologized profusely to Hubby's parents for not providing them with grandchildren.  I also promised to get on this right away, in a year and a half or so.  (Thanks, chardonnay!)  Hiccup. 

All in all, the evening was quite a success.

The fish eating money runner

Hubby's brother has a very unique way of recollecting things.  And by unique, what I really mean to say is he remembers things...wildly incorrectly.  Slanderously inaccurately.  The man almost turns it into an art form.

There was that time in college when Hubby told him the only thing to eat in his dorm room were Goldfish (as in, Pepperidge Farm).  Over the years this story has somehow evolved into one in which Hubby cooked a live gold fish in the microwave...and ate it. 

For starters, I know for a fact that those guys did not have a pet gold fish.  Pets weren't even allowed at Berklee, for that matter.  And if they were, my husband certainly would not have eaten one.  The boy was eating crackers.  Tiny, fish shaped crackers.  Delightful, cheese flavored, bite-sized treats that his mother lovingly sent him in a care package.  But don't tell my brother-in-law this, because he will declare you are Dead Wrong. 

When Hubby was sixteen he was best man in his brother's wedding.  By the time he arrived at the bachelor party, all of the guys had been drinking for quite a while.  According to his brother, teenaged Hubby came in the door and immediately downed twelve consecutive shots of tequila in under three minutes. 

The truth is, Hubby probably had three shots.  In reality, twelve shots of anything within a three minute time frame would surely leave one...I don't know, dead?  Dying?

But the biggest, most erroneous, distorted, far fetched tale of all came only yesterday.  Hubby's brother is in town and they were having a visit.  As the two brothers walked around Boston looking for the Tall Ships, Hubby's brother turned to him and said, "Remember when you used to run money for people?"

When Hubby just stared at him blankly, his brother continued: "Remember when you worked as a money runner?  And that time when you had to go to LAX Baggage Claim to pick up a black trash bag with a box in it?"

Hubby said the first thing that came to mind: "Um, no?"

"You don't remember being a money runner?  How can you not remember that?  The box in the trash bag that you ended up taking to the Federal Reserve to deposit it?"

My husband worked in a tuxedo store in high school.  In a mall, for crying out loud!  Hubby said as much, in that calm Hubby way of his: "No, I never ran money for people.  I worked in a tuxedo store.  I worked at the mall."  (Which is why he is able to hem my pants, or sew on a button.) 

Not that this job was without its fair share of titillating excitement: he sold tuxes to the likes of Frasier Crane and Mark Summers (of Double Dare and Unwrapped fame, oh my!)  Later he even worked in a tux store owned by Jim Morrison's nephews (I won't lie, I found the latter exceptionally fascinating.)  But run money?  Hubby?  And what the hell does that phrase even mean anyway?

Apparently, when Hubby allegedly handed the woman at the Federal Reserve "the box," she asked him, "Do you know what's inside this box?" and Hubby allegedly answered "No."  She then handed him a check, for three million dollars, that was signed by the President.  He handed her back the check and walked away.

Hubby's brother would not back down.  "How can you not remember that?  I tell that story to EVERYONE!  What, did it happen to one of my other brothers?"  He gave a hearty guffaw.

Oh boy.  Hubby suggested that perhaps his brother had witnessed this scenario in a movie, or had maybe heard it from a friend of a friend.  In any case, it was definitely NOT HIM.  He did not run money, or anything else, for that matter.

They debated back and forth on this for awhile, and eventually Hubby's brother merely chuckled and gave a merry little shrug.  "Oh well.  I tell that story to everybody!" 

And from the look of things, he will surely continue to do so.  Holy fraternal libel.  Oh brother.

One year ago yesterday, my husband, Kittie and I left New York and moved to Boston.  I can hardly believe how quickly these twelve months have flown.  Hubby has already completed three semesters at Berklee College of Music and by this time next year he'll have earned his degree, finishing what he began thirteen years prior. 

I think back to last September, to that first day of classes, when I walked into the apartment and found him staring at the floor, a dark look in his blue eyes, convinced he wouldn't be able to do it.  The other students were teenagers, the material was dense and unfamiliar, he didn't remember anything.  I stood there dumbfounded; it had never even occurred to me that he'd doubt himself this way.  I hugged him hard, a little panicked to see him so vulnerable.  I'd have done anything to fix it, but there was really not much more I could do except hold him and cry.  What had I gotten us into? 

And now, a year later, he's earned himself a spot on the dean's list and is achieving obscenely high marks.  School definitely agrees with him the second time around.  To say that I'm proud of him would be a wild understatement.  After all these years he never ceases to amaze me.  He makes my heart full.

I wouldn't classify it as an easy year; to be sure, some parts of it downright blew.  But we made it, and I can honestly say that Boston is finally starting to feel like home.  Again. 

And Hubby, thanks for moving here for me.  xoxo

Shopping

My husband bought himself a pair of ladies sunglasses the other day at Filene's Basement.  And I, for my part, just stood by and allowed it to happen.

We didn't realize they were ladies glasses, you see; not until we got home.  Okay, so maybe that's not entirely factual, seeing as Hubby did ask me in the store if I believed they were ladies glasses and I vehemently said no.  They looked too big to be ladies glasses!  And anyways, we couldn't see the purple tint in the lenses until we got them home.  I also didn't notice that they were Jones New York.  And the dude behind the register, whose opinion I asked, did appear to be a little high.

Since Hubby is in school full time and currently I'm the only one bringing home the pancetta, I don't dare naysay any purchases, especially seeing as he feels weird enough about the whole not working situation already.  That having been said, I take great pride in being able to support him this way.  (It's all very Love Story.  Or if we're referencing Slippery When Wet, I am Gina, and I work the proverbial diner all day.)  Just buy the glasses!  I cheerfully ordered.  Well, sort of cheerfully.

Did I mention we were shopping on empty stomachs?  And it was extremely humid that day?  And I was becoming lightheaded and a little grouchy because I still hadn't found shoes to match my dress for our friend Mike's wedding?  There were many crucial factors leading up to this unfortunate debacle.

In any case, that's how I got my new pair of sunglasses.  xoxo

Girls with long noses shouldn't wear hoods.

Sometimes in life things happen that are too hurtful, too mortifying and uncomfortable to even acknowledge, let alone recall on the world wide web.

What can I say?  I'm a masochist.

Picture it: Southern California, October, 1999.  It was my Senior year of college and I'd flown across the country to see Hubby, my then boyfriend, who'd had to leave school and move back home.  We were twenty. 

When Hubby left Boston I was heartbroken, wretched, distracted, woebegone; you get the idea.  The Odd Broad was a total effing train wreck.  This boy was my soul mate!  And suddenly he was gone.  I couldn't get out to California fast enough!

It was my second to last day in California and we were taking a nice drive along the sunny PCH.  Back then Hubby was driving around in a red Dodge convertible whose top was perpetually down.  (We had no choice about the latter, I suppose, since the roof wouldn't really go back up.) 

Dear Reader, I'm just going to come out and say it:  I have a long nose.  I don't know why, really; my mother, father and sister certainly don't have long noses!  They have tiny baby noses.  I suppose my grandfather had a longish nose, however, and now it seems that I do, too.

But I digress.  Hubby and I zoomed along the highway, my hair whipping violently into my face, eyes and mouth.  I decided to pull up the hood on my light blue fleece sweatshirt.  (Can you see this story is heading somewhere painful?  Get out while you can!)

It happened in slow motion, really.  I can still see their car approaching us on the left, from behind.  Inside were about three or four large African-American teenage girls, and one of them called out:

"She has a big ass nose!"

Only she didn't say it like that; she said it more like: She has a Big (pause) Ass (dreadful pause) NOSE!  Her last word was sort of spat out in an awful, high pitched yelp.

What was that?

Oh Reader, I died a thousand deaths!  Had Hubby heard?  No, surely not!  He couldn't have heard!  Sweet Baby Jesus, if he had heard, then surely I would die!  There was no other alternative.

Barely moving my blue hooded head, I peered over at Hubby out of the corner of my eye, as inconspicuously as humanly possible.  He couldn't have heard.

Just then he picked up my hand, kissed it, and quietly whispered, "I love you baby."

Oh Christ Jesus!  He HAD heard them!!!!

The next day I flew back to Boston.  Hubby and I waited until the last possible moment to say goodbye.  I didn't want to leave.  He didn't want me to leave.  We exhibited massive amounts of public displays of affection.  As I walked tearfully down the jetway, a strong feeling in the pit of my stomach told me to turn around.  Later, Hubby would tell me that he'd hoped I might turn around.

I didn't turn around.  I boarded that plane back to the East coast, crying all the way.  I called Sissy from a payphone on my layover, still weepy.  "Oh, Sissy, I miss him so much!  Although I kind of don't know what I'm more sad about, leaving California, or the fact that a group of girls on the highway said I had a big ass nose!"

"Who said WHAT to you, now?" 

My older sister made me feel better in the special way that only she can.  (She has a gift.)  But she also strongly advised me to never wear hoods.

To the few poor souls on this planet with whom I'm closely intimate with, my life is an open book.  But Reader, I am not without ego.  It would be years and years before I'd muster the courage to actually mention this episode to my husband, and even then I was probably drunk at the time.  "Do you remember when..."

I'd never been sure, see?  Had he heard?  But oh, Hubby remembered.  And he'd definitely heard.  Sniff sniff. 

Girls with long noses shouldn't wear hoods.  It just doesn't look nice.

It's Daniel Cleaver!

I'm a sleepy broad tonight, Dear Reader.  It was a happy whirlwind of an Easter weekend.  Yesterday Hubby and I traveled to New York so he could play a gig with his old band in Greenwich Village.  It was after 4am when we finally made it back to our hotel room. 

It was nice to be back in New York, to see our friends, to hear Hubby wail on his saxophone.  (Have I mentioned what an amazing musician that man is?) 

As for myself, I had enough fun (i.e.: cheap wine) to inform our friend David that he bears a striking resemblance to Edward Cullen.  (I can be terribly awkward sometimes.  Just add white wine.)  But the true highlight of the evening came shortly after midnight, when it was brought to my attention that I was standing in very close proximity to a one Mr. Hugh Grant.

(Editor's note: please read the remainder of this post in a British accent.)  

Hugh Grant! 

'ello, Hugh!  I wanted to tell him I loved him as the noble Mr. Edward Ferrers in Sense and Sensibility.  I wanted to tell him how much I'd delighted in his portrayal of the lovestruck, bumbling bookseller in Notting Hill.  I wanted...to get my picture taken with him.  Badly.  But somehow I suppressed this urge and simply admired him from afar.

Above is an artist's rendition of how our photo-op might have turned out, had circumstances been different.

Shopping

Hubby was most enthusiastic about the shoe purchase he made today.  I do like to encourage him in his more eccentric fashion choices. 

 

My plan was simple but inspired: two punk rock shows in five days.  And Reader, I have to admit, if I've been feeling oldish as of late, I certainly don't feel that way now. 

Tuesday night was Flogging Molly.  The tickets were a Christmas present from me to Hubby, though in the end his midterm projects nearly caused us to miss the show.  Indeed, it was 10:15 PM when he finally finished working and I came into the living room in my pajamas and suggested we walk over to The House of Blues.  It was all very punk rock.

We could still smell the fresh paint at The House of Blues.  I'm not going to lie, it had been the shittiest of days; I'd been trying to sell our concert tickets to no avail, at one point even going into McGreevy's where Flogging Molly was making a pre-show appearance!  No luck.  But I'm glad we went.  We stood next to a bunch of guys, one of them a clean cut middle aged man wearing a Pogue's shirt and a scally cap, with a couple of tattoos on his forearms.  His son looked about fourteen.  I noticed he was texting someone in the 603 area code so I figured they were from New Hampshire.  "Look!" I whispered into Hubby's ear, a little tipsy from my Pabst, "That'll be you someday!"

Hubby then remarked that taking your kids to punk shows was just one more thing that was wrong with New Englanders.  Oh dear.  It had been a really long week.  It wasn't long before both of us had relaxed a bit, though.  It ended up being the most fun I'd had in a long while.  And next up would be The Dropkick Murphy's.  My cousin Keely asked if I was planning to go onstage this time.  I'd been wondering that myself, actually.  I mean, seriously, wasn't I getting a bit too old for these shenanigans?  Had I crossed some imaginary numerical threshold, barring me from making a jackass out of myself?

"I'm not going onstage," I told Hubby.  "We've seen them three times already; I'll just relax and enjoy the music."  He didn't really believe me.

They were filming each of The Murphy's shows this past weekend for a special St. Patrick's Day dvd/cd.  There were cameras sweeping from the ceiling, it was all surprisingly high tech.  "They're gonna play our song" Hubby whispered.  "Maybe!" I enthused.  But I knew Ken Casey only sings it when his wife is in the audience. 

Initially we tried to stand in the same spot as last time.  And guess who we saw, leaning over the balcony?  The same crew from New Hampshire, with the dude and his son!  What were the odds?  It was way too crowded up there, though.  Later, when I remarked that maybe we should've stayed next to dad and junior, Hubby shook his head and said, "Nah, that guy kept farting last time!"

We ended up downstairs on the outskirts of the mosh pit, because after all, we're thirty.  Hubby does this endearing thing where he puts his arm around me and sticks out his elbows, jabbing anyone who comes too close to me.  It's all very "Edward Cullen".  (Yes, I'm totally reading Twilight.)  At one point I had to turn to him and shout, "Stop elbowing people in my honor!  I've been around a mosh pit or two before!"

Hubby was certain: "They're gonna play our song, babe."  By this time we were both pretty wasted.  I decided I might sneak in a trip to the ladies room before it got too late.  I was just making my way back through the crowd when I heard the bagpipes signaling the beginning to Kiss Me, I'm Shitfaced.  And just like that, in the pit of my stomach, I knew what I had to do.  "I'm going onstage!"  I squealed up to Hubby. 

Time has turned me into a mother.  There I was, making my way through a sea of sweaty adolescents, yelling, "I'm trying to get onstage!"  That was all I needed to say, really, and they'd step aside and make room for me.  But this wasn't some crappy dive bar; by the time I reached the front a security guard who looked about eighteen shook his head and informed me and about five other girls that we couldn't get past.  What the?

It wasn't going to happen.  I made my way back through the stinky throng and found my husband.  "I can't get onstage!" I said, more than a little disheartened. 

"Ya, you can only get on if you go through the middle, I just noticed."

By this time the song was nearly over.  Reader, for five seconds I was honestly okay with it, watching the rest of the girls who'd made it onstage.  For those five seconds I even thought, there's a new generation up there, it's time for me to hang back, to enjoy from afar...

And then I came to my senses.  Who was I kidding, I wanted to be up there!  Thirty or not, I wanted to have fun just as much as the next idiot!  I'd tried.  There was something very comforting about the fact that at least I still had it in me.

"At least in Boston they know all the words," Hubby noted.  "Ya," I agreed, with just a hint of bitterness in my voice, "But this is the only song those girls know!"  The Odd Broad was back.  Perhaps she'd never even left.  I gave all those green-clad youngsters the finger, in time with the beat, just for good measure. 

They never played our song.  They did do a nice encore of Badlands, however, and another song with Dickie and the rest of The Mighty Mighty Bostones.  As we began our short walk home, we saw him outside the stage door smoking a cigarette. 

"Hey, Dickie!" Hubby called.

"Hey man, how ya doing?"

Hubby's rather fond of spontaneous celebrity shout outs.

I was feeling a little bummed out that I hadn't made it onstage.  Hubby was disappointed that they hadn't played Upstarts and Broken Hearts.  We'd never heard them play it live before, you see.  It wouldn't be until we were home that Hubby would tell me just why he'd been so certain that the Murphy's would play our special song. The one he'd played for me the day he left Boston for California, back in 1998.  The same one we'd played eight years later when we cut into our wedding cake.

He'd emailed the Dropkick Murphy's, he told me, two weeks beforehand, and asked them to play it. 

"You did that for me?" I asked, in disbelief.  Reader, he had.

"What did you say in the email?  Were you drunk at the time?"

"Maybe a little."

My blue eyed Scorpio then turned on his I-Tunes and played our song, and we listened, right there in our living room.  Sometimes I just love him so much that I can't even stand it.  Who needs a vampire boyfriend?  I've got my very own dreamboat. 

Below is the tune that makes me feel nineteen again: