The Missing Piece

When we lived in Orange County our apartment was roughly the size of shoe box.  It seemed the perfect size when Wes was living there alone, but when I moved in (with all of my belongings) it was cramped.  The huge walk in closet was longer huge.  And the enormous bathroom counter seemed continually overrun with my hair dryer or flat iron or Wes’ electric razor or any number of things that get banished to the bathroom.  The quaint kitchen was actually fucking small and there was nothing cute about when trying to make dinner or breakfast or unloading the dishwasher while the other person wanted anything from the fridge.  We managed, somehow, to fit everything in there – mostly by ingenious storage ideas and getting rid of anything that hadn’t been used and never buying anything that didn’t have a specific place already carved out for it.

When we found out we were moving to Oahu, our main goal for housing was to find something with at least one guest bedroom so that we could have guests, positive that Hawaii would make people want to visit in a way that Huntington Beach never would.  Luckily, we found such a place and managed to fill up nearly every room – all three of them – with furniture from our 550 sq. foot apartment (did I mentioned it was really cramped back there in California?).  There were a couple of pieces that we would need to make it look like adults lived here – a new bed for us and a kitchen table so that our guests wouldn’t be forced to hunch over and eat at the coffee table like first year college students.

Our first weekend after getting the keys to our apartment, we set out to find the missing pieces to our new home.  Living on an island severely limits choices on things like where to shop and we ended up at a pretty generic furniture store, Home World Hawaii.  We picked out a table that, unfortunately, wasn’t in stock but was to be delivered at the end of February, just about 4 weeks away.

Well, four weeks turned into 8 weeks.  And then 8 weeks turned into 10, which turned into 12.  And at no point did Home World call us to update us on what was going on.  We had to initiate contact and listen to their half-assed attempts to explain why the table we ordered in January might not arrive until November, if at all.

After my grandmother and aunt died within two weeks of each other I definitely took my anger out on the employees of Home World for not giving a damn that a table we’d paid for over five months ago still hadn’t been delivered.  After having already given us a 25% discount on the table they offered to buy it back and return the chairs as well.  We took their offer, if only to never have to deal with them again, and for the past month-and-a-half, we’ve been back to stacking various household items on the folding table that we’d been using as our kitchen table and eating on the coffee table, while batting a curious puppy away.

We set about looking for another table and swore that we wouldn’t purchase one unless it was in stock and ready to deliver, which is a lot harder than it sounds, considering the lack of options in furniture stores.  We spent a day looking last weekend, hoping to find something nice.  And when we couldn’t find anything nice we were hoping to find something cheap to at least get us off of the coffee table, but even Target and K-Mart couldn’t come through for us on this front.

We finally found one that we both liked last week.  It was sturdy and in the shape that we wanted and it was big enough to fit our neighbors – a family of five – over for dinner.  Unfortunately, it was a little over the budget we had planned.  So we hemmed and hawed and looked at still more furniture stores.   And in the end we went back to the very nice table that was way over budget and talked them down to something that was only slightly over budget.  It hurt a little putting our card down to pay for it, but having it delivered this afternoon – just two days after we paid for it! – and seeing it in our kitchen and typing this very post on it makes me so glad that we went for it.  It’s the missing piece in making our apartment our home.

One Month

Yesterday marked one month of being married and, if not for the text message my mom sent us at 6:15am (“Happy One Month Anniversary!  Love you!  Love Mama!”), I think the would have passed without either of us taking notice that it has been 31 days since we said, “I Will” (post forthcoming as soon as the official photos arrive).  For us, marriage is a lot like being engaged, and being engaged was a lot like dating.  Which is to say: not much has changed in a month.

Wes and I have lived together for over two years and we’ve been together for almost five.  We’ve been playing house for a long time.  Just before we found out we were moving to Hawaii we became domestic partners so that we wouldn’t have to pay my moving expenses and I could be jobless and insured without having to deal with COBRA and their outrageous rates.  I was on Wes’ credit card and bank accounts and was his beneficiary before we even picked a wedding date.

The only things that have changed are my last name (which wasn’t as emotionally difficult as I had built it up to be) and the amount of rings on our fingers.

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My first “I’m married!” moment – outside of the wedding – happened while we were on our honeymoon.  It was during the diving portion of our trip.  The first day we had to instructors – Brian from London and Tom from Belgium – and both were attractive.   While we were under water I was deciding which was the cuter of the two and suddenly though, “Holy Shit!  I’m married!  It doesn’t matter which one is better looking!”  I tried to explain it to Wes over dinner one night and this is what it is: before you’re married there are endless possibilities.   And not that I was out there searching for some other, better option, but dating isn’t forever.  Marriage is.

(And please let me clarify that I’m not implying that I settled for Wes or that I think there is a better option out there.)

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31 days down.  According to Wes, only 10,000 more to go.  Let’s hope that once he actually calculates how many years that is, he ups that to 1 million days.  Or something like that.

Na Wahine Super Sprint Triathlon Recap

I started to get nervous once I got into the bike corral and saw how many contenders of every lever were there.  In my mind I had begun to think of this as a first timer’s triathlon and while that was surely true of some people, it seemed there were a lot of people who had been doing this race every year since its inception 12 years ago.  Ladies serious about triathlons and racing coming out for this event every year for the fun of it.  So, yes, I was nervous.  Nervous that I would stumble badly and get my ass kicked by every other woman there.

The Swim

We did a 250m open water swim that I thought I would be mostly prepared for until I saw the swells coming in.  I had been swimming in the ocean, but in protected coves.  There were some waves, but nothing to prepare me for what it was like swimming in the ocean without the protection of man-made walls.  The Sprint Triathlon and Duathlon participants started first and when I was still feeling okay about the swimming portion.  It wasn’t until I actually started the race that I began to understand how difficult this would all be.  I was swimming crooked, and in spite of advice to always breathe towards the shore, I didn’t always remember that and ended up swallowing a lot of sea water.  I finished 8th out of 25(ish) women and was totally exhausted heading into the Transition area.

T1

The first transition – okay, all of them – were rough.  I passed 3-4 women running into the bike corral, but I lost a lot of time making the change from swimming to biking.  I was so exhausted from the swim that I just wanted to sit down and get ready in a leisurely manner, but of course that couldn’t happen.  I’d contemplated doing the bike and run in just my swim suit top, but the top isn’t super supportive and my top half needs a lot of support, so I opted to put a sports bra over my swim suit top, then put my bike jersey on over those.  By the time I finally got all of my gear on I had probably spent 5 minutes getting ready and lost the lead of all those ladies I beat into the corral.

The Bike

My legs started to burn almost immediately.  It had been nearly two months since I had been on my bike and I could definitely tell.  Still, I managed to catch up and pass 3-4 of the women who beat me out of the corral.  I had read a blog the night before the race that described the bike route a little bit and I’m glad I did.  I had expected a fairly level route, but there were some definite inclines that I’m glad I at least knew about, even though I was a little unprepared.  I managed to pass a couple of the other ladies in my division, including the 13-year old I was sure was going to kill all of us.  I didn’t get passed by any women in my group, but I did get passed by a couple of women in the Sprint Triathlon.  I managed to finish 4th in my division.

T2

Like I said, my transitions weren’t pretty.  As I ran in I could feel my quads burning and even though the run was only 1.5 miles, I was dreading it.  I hadn’t decided whether or not I should change into my running shorts from my bike shorts and it took me a couple of seconds to decide that running shorts would definitely be better.  I didn’t have my shoes ready to just slip on and run and with my legs shaking it took a little more time than I would like to admit.  I ran out of the corral and managed to pass a couple of women right away.

The Run

The run, which I was sure was going to be the easiest part, was the hardest.  I was sure that 1.5 miles would be a cake walk, but I didn’t think about the swim and the ride that would precede it and how that would drain me.  Wes cheered me on and ran with me for a little bit, and that helped a lot.  I managed to not walk any of the course (which turned out to be a bit longer than 1.5 miles), mostly because I didn’t want to have to tell Wes that I had to walk.  It wasn’t a pretty run and I got passed by quite a few people, but I still finished in 4th place.

Results

I took 5th overall in the Super Sprint Triathlon and 1st in my age division (25-29).   My total time was 58:47, or something close to that – the official number escapes me and the results aren’t yet posted.  Even though I know I can do better, I’m still excited with how I did.  Especially considering the fact that I hadn’t run in a month, swam in over a month or ridden my bike in nearly 2 months.  I didn’t train at all and I still finished 5th overall.

The advice from past triathletes suggested a tri suit, but I decided that spending money on an outfit for a sport I’d never tried was maybe not the best idea.   But after completing the race I want to do more and I think that a tri suit is a must.  It would help a lot on my transitions and will perhaps get me in the tri spirit a little more.  The other thing that I’ll make sure to do for next time is train.  It was great to finish and nab 1st place, but next time I want to be prepared so that when I put it all out there Ihave more to use.

Next Up

I’m going to sign up for the Ko Olina Sprint Triathlon in October, which gives me just over a month to prepare myself for a longer tri.   This time I’ll be prepared for all of it and I’ll have the right gear to speed me on my way.

Nervous

A couple of months ago I casually mentioned to my boss that I wanted to participate in a triathlon.  A week or so later she forwarded me this link.  The option for the Super Sprint seemed so small that there was really no way I could not sign up for it.  But still, I hemmed and hawed because it was a mere two weeks after returning for our honeymoon and I hadn’t really been exercising on a regular basis with all the craziness of the months leading up to our wedding (two deaths, a wedding and three weeks of visitors).   The day before I left for the wedding, though, I bit the bullet and I signed up for the Super Sprint triathlon – 250m swim, 6mi bike, and 1.5mi run.  I can do all these things on their own so I figured it wouldn’t be too difficult to put them together.

I’ve wanted to compete in a triathlon for a couple of years now – at least as long as I’ve had my bike, plus a year or two.  Before, though, it always seemed so out of reach.  I didn’t want to swim in the ocean because of the waves, or I hadn’t ridden my bike enough to be able to do a race.  The Super Spring Tri, though, made it impossible to use any of those excuses.  The water in Hawaii is the perfect temperature for swimming in and the distances are so short that I don’t need to be riding every day.  I’m really excited to be able to finally cross this off my list.  And, who knows, this could be the start to a very expensive habit.

Bus Tales

The first time anything crazy happened on the bus – crazier than usual in San Francisco, that is – was just after Wes moved to Orange County. My friend Sheila and I met Ashley and Dave for Dave’s birthday. We had a couple of drinks. Okay, probably more then a couple. We had started earlier at dinner so by the time 10pm rolled around I was ready to go home. Since it was so early and there were no taxis around and I happened to be carrying my bus pass, I decided to take the bus home. I called Wes from the bus stop and we talked through the entire ride.

When we got closer to my stop I moved closer to the door to make a quick exit so that I could get home and in bed faster. I’m still not sure of the sequence of events, but somehow as I was waking down the steps, I managed to get my foot turned around and caught in the door. I was rather calm about it and told Wes to hold on so I could yell to the bus driver, “My foot’s stuck. My foot’s stuck,” totally unsure of how to unstick my foot. Luckily there was a nice, and sober, couple who helped me turn my foot around and get me out of the door and off the bus.

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The second time anything crazy happened with the bus was probably 6 months later. After having dinner with Sheila and borrowing books from her and her neighbors, I packed up and headed home. Again, no taxis in sight and a giant hill standing between me and my bed.  So I decided to wait for the bus.  At the bus stop an unlit bus was parked.  I figured it was out of service and sat down to wait for the next one, not knowing how long it would be.  A few minutes after sitting down the bus driver walked out of the convenient store with a bag of groceries.  When he saw me he asked where I was going and when I told him he said that he was headed back to the yard but could get me within a couple of blocks.  I looked at his bag of groceries and saw mostly pantry items.  He looked like a nice enough guy and I wasn’t sure how long I would have to wait for another bus to come and that hill was really steep, so I said yes.

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Shortly after that I moved to Orange County with Wes and stopped riding the bus and the crazy stories stopped.  And then I moved to Hawaii and the traffic here is so awful that I started riding it again, and what happened to me yesterday on the bus definitely takes the cake on crazy bus stories.

The morning bus I take to work has been steadily getting more crowded thanks to the beginning of school.  Yesterday was a standing room only sort of day for most of the ride.  I managed to get one of the last seats before we made it to the freeway.  It was on the back of the bus in the raised seating area.  There are two steps to get to this area and when it’s crowded sometimes, not often, though, someone uses these steps as a seat.  I was sitting in the seat next to the top of the step so when the young man sat down on the floor he was stationed next to my feet.

For the first few minutes he tried to get comfortable, first leaning back on his arms and then leaning forward on his keens.  He twisted and turned and put a flannel shirt over his head to get a little more peace.  He finally seemed to find the right position when I looked down and noticed that he seemed to be staring at my foot.  I wasn’t too alarmed because I do have a lion tattooed on my right foot and I just assumed that he was trying to figure out what it was.  By the time we got off the freeway he was staring rather intently at my foot, still trying to workout what it was.  At one point I crossed my legs and he looked up at me in sort of a pleading way.  I thought perhaps my foot was getting into his space so I uncrossed my legs and put my feet on the floor, at which point he again stared at my foot.

And then he grabbed my shoe and twisted my foot towards him.  I didn’t want to make a scene so I helped him out and turned my foot so that he could finally see what it was.  But apparently he still couldn’t get it so he grabbed my foot and put it in his lap while examining the tattoo.  Still in a crowded bus with no other seats and very little standing room and sitting next to a rather large man who made it impossible to scoot over just a little, I let him continue examining my foot.  He finally looked up at me and mouthed, “What is it?”  I told him it was a lion and he seemed content with that answer.  “Cool,” he mouthed as he put my foot down.

I immediately scooted my feet closer to me and as far to the left as I could get them to go, but he was still right there.  Do you know how some kids have to touch things to work them out?  That’s what this kid was doing.  It was like he was still having trouble seeing the lion and he kept moving my skin around to look for it.

Finally, a woman behind him had to get off the bus so he had to drop my foot and stand up.  He took the seat and my feet were thus left in peace for the rest of the bus ride.  I think I need to get more aggressive and stop worrying about making a scene because I really do not like having my feet fondled by strangers, no matter how young and innocent they seem.  At least I was wearing pants and flats.

I Will

We got married.

And it was amazing.  We both arrived in town the Wednesday before the wedding and were able finish last minute details – making sure the wedding dress fit, picking up wine to send with our parents to dinner on Thursday, check out flowers, pick up rings, etc.  Thursday evening were our bachelor/ette parties and we both had a really great time.  It was so nice to have so many of our friends show up for them.  After having been invited to so many of these in the past two years, we know how hard it is to make them happen (which is why we decided to have them so close to the wedding), so it was especially nice to have so many friends there.

My party started at 4 o’clock and ended just after midnight with me in the hotel room bed chowing down on McDonald’s french fries and a cheeseburger.  And chicken mcnuggets.  What can I say, I like to eat when I’m drunk.  There are some great and hilarious pictures of the evening, but I haven’t been able to download any of them yet and am still trying to convince my Maid of Honor to put them in a place where they can be downloaded.  Suffice it to say that there were a lot of fake penises involved, included a great cake from a great bakery in Seattle (thanks to Whitney and her boyfriend for driving it down with them).

Friday morning the girls and I headed out to get our nails done and even though we were in bed early, most of us were still exhausted from the night before.  Straight from nails was a luncheon that my mom had set up as my Bridal Shower.  Everyone brought a recipe and we had some good laughs passing around the camera from the night before.  By the end of lunch, though, everyone who attended the bachelorette party was exhausted and we all ran to our respective rooms for a nap before the rehearsal dinner.

(How did Wes’ bachelor party go?  Well, here’s a conversation from the day after:

Me: How are you feeling?
Wes [sounding pretty hung over]: Not so good.  How about you?

Me: I’m doing okay.  My girls were smart enough to bring Gatorade.

Wes: I had a Gatorade.  But I threw it up.)

After a quick nap that didn’t energize me as much as I was hoping, it was time to get ready for the rehearsal and the rehearsal dinner.  We had scheduled a bus to take us all between the venue and the restaurant but instead of showing up on time at the correct hotel, it showed up on time at the wrong hotel.  When asked if the driver had the address, he responded with, “Yeah, it’s right here.”  Luckily, we were only 15 minutes late for everything and it didn’t ruin anything.

The dinner is where all my exhaustion caught up with me.  We had planned to hand out the gifts for our bridal party and say thank you to everyone.  I had been planning out the speech for a couple of weeks and I was sure it would all go off without a hitch.  Instead, I cried every three words and Wes finally had to take over and thank his parents and the pastor who was marrying us.  After such a display, I was certain I would fall right to sleep after getting everything ready for the following day.  But instead I was too excited to fall asleep.  Jessica and I stayed up for a bit talking and reminiscing before finally falling asleep.

Wes and his groomsmen managed to make it to a bar until 1am, where Wes was booed for getting married.  Apparently he looks too young to be married and so a drunk girl responded with  “Boooooo” when Wes said he was in town to get married.  After he disclosed his age, though, she got on board with the marriage.  Meanwhile, I was back in the hotel room sleeping soundly.  But not for long.  I woke up way too early and couldn’t go back to sleep because I was so excited.  My wedding day had finally come!  While I was washing my face Jessica knocked on the bathroom door and dropped a card off.  At first I thought it was from her, but then I realized it was from Wes.  And that’s when the crying began.  In a good way.

At breakfast I was too excited and nervous to eat.  We had a great waiter at Mother’s and everything was so delicious, but something about being 8 hours away from getting married was making me super nervous.  Perhaps it had something to do with the fact that the shuttle drive was late yet again and we just barely made our breakfast reservation with the help of my dad shuttling 8 women in an 8-seat vehicle.  Jessica, woman (and Maid of Honor) of action that she is, took care of the shuttle company, but I was still waiting for something else to go wrong.  By the time I finished my hair and make up, though, I was less nervous of things going wrong.  Our schedule was on track and I was walking around in my veil.  I felt beautiful and I was ready to get married.

When we arrived at the venue the photographer was already there and he was able to snap pictures of us getting out of the limo and walking into the venue.  We only had about 30 minutes before Wes and I were scheduled to see each other for the first time, so we quickly got ready and enjoyed some wine.  Brian, our photographer, took our rings to take some pictures and I counted down the minutes until Wes would be led into the room for our first sighting.

To Be Continued….

Welcome Home

I got married.  I went on a honeymoon.  And it was all fantastic.  But right now there’s another story about our home coming.

When we got back to Hawaii the day after our wedding we hadn’t planned on seeing Tsunami.  We would only have an hour or so with her and we didn’t want all that confusion for her: Yay!  I’m home!  Boo.  I’m not home. But the timing on our plane leaving and our puppy-sitting neighbor leaving for work didn’t leave us much choice.  And it was as sad as you would think it would be, and sadder.  We noticed she had a limp but Puppy-Sitting Neighbors didn’t know what happened.  We think she landed on it wrong after digging a giant hole in the ground, as sometimes happens with puppies.  We weren’t terribly worried about it but we agreed that PSN would watch her and if it got worse then she would take her in.

PSN worked at the vet we bring Tsunami to, and where were also friends with most of the employees there and after a couple of days with no change, she asked the Dr. about it.  He said that since she wasn’t whimpering or anything it was probably just a muscle strain and that she should rest.  While in Thailand Wes and I checked our e-mail regularly to keep up on the situation.  We thought it was under control – it wasn’t getting worse and was getting incrementally better – so we told the neighbor not to worry about bringing her into the vet.  If she was still limping when we returned we would make that decision.

We got home early Saturday morning (1am early) and by 7:30 Wes was up, as excited as a kid on Christmas morning.  “Wake up!  Our puppy’s out back!”  But as soon as we saw Tsunami we knew something wasn’t right.  Normally a very active puppy, she was lethargic and sad-looking.  Her limp was still there but not as prominent.  She slept most of Saturday and Sunday and by Sunday evening we were both worried about what had happened while she was in the neighbors’ care.  In the two days we’d been back we kept hearing stories about how they would constantly complain about Tsunami – she’s a lot more active than their dog.  She went to work every morning and complained to our vet and our friends about what a terror Tusnami was being.  We know their strict with their dog, but neither of us imagined that we’d come home to a completely changed puppy.  The more we heard, the more worried we got.

Monday morning we decided to take Tsunami into the vet.  A decision made much easier after the neighbor quit without notice and I didn’t have to worry about her being Tsunami’s vet tech.  Our vet tech, instead, was one of the employees I didn’t know and who had to listen to the neighbor’s complaining the most, probably because she didn’t know us and didn’t know that our neighbor is full of shit.  Her response to seeing and meeting Tsunami was to say, “This is not the puppy that Cruella [um, not her real name] described.  She’s so sweet and nice and friendly and pretty.”

The vet confirmed that it was most likely just a sprain and that we should keep her kenneled for two weeks or until it heals.  So I dropped her off to the kennel and went out with some friends for lunch where we all exchanged horrible stories about Cruella.  We all agreed that nothing good happened while Tusnami was over there, but it was nothing life-threatening and in a couple of weeks she would forget all about it.  My thoughts on the neighbors were to slowly phase them out of our lives and surround ourselves with people who aren’t so negative all the time.

After we finished lunch and were on our way home, though, all that went out the window when I got an e-mail from my sister-in-law, Wendy.  You see, while we were gone a friend of hers and her husband were staying at our house.  They were keeping Tsunami company during the day when they were home, but because it was a mini-moon for them, we didn’t want to ask them to keep her at night.  Wendy called her friend to see if she could give any background as to why Tsunami was acting so differently.  Then she sent me a bullet-point e-mail detailing all the ways they were shitty puppy sitters.  None of them were too awful – they left her in the yard until late and then dropped her off very early – and then I came to one that left me shaking.  They had been giving her Benadryl to knock her out at night.

I was definitely in fighting mode.  We talked to the Dr. to see how much could be given to her without any harmful side affects and were told that anything serious would have already happened and that she just needed a couple of days to get it out of her system, but they would still like to know the dose she was given, how often and for how long.  I knew, as soon as I read the e-mail, that we were never going to find out what exactly happened.  They were never going to admit that they did it.  But after talking to Wes we decided to give them a chance to tell us instead of marching over there and demanding the truth.

I guess I should have known that not only would I never get the truth from them, but that we would also never get the chance to confront them to their faces.  They were too scared to meet us and instead we conducted our business over text message.  The closest she got to telling the truth was to write that she gave her one 25mg pill once, which was “way less than I could of given her.”

Tsunami is slowly on the path to recovery, but it seems like everything is happening at once.  Her back leg is healed but now she’s limping on her right leg.  Some afternoons all she does is sleep.  And then the next afternoon we’ll get a glimpse of the puppy we left: excited, happy and thieving.

Our neighbors have been noticeably absent since they alienated every one of their friends in a span of 24 hours.  They wait until nearly 10pm to take their dog out to go to the bathroom.  And that’s just fine with everyone in the neighborhood.  After this post I banish them from my thoughts – they’ve already gotten too much of time and energy.  In the future we’ll be more careful about who we let into our lives.  And who we leave our puppy with.   And they will live a miserable life with no friends.  I’m okay with that outcome.