Showing posts with label Jenn. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Jenn. Show all posts

Tuesday, January 29, 2008

It's really like this!

A snippet from our gmail conversation just now. It's easy to see why I'm marrying her.

5:17 PM Jenn: no
5:21 PM ok babe
im off
see you at home
love you
me: yeah
lucky
love you
ride safe
5:22 PM Jenn: i will
you too
me: i will
someday
Jenn: :(
me: in some far and distant future
Jenn: i am going to whole foods
bc i need an ingredient for my planned dinner
you want anything?
me: i'm going to die in this chair. i've been here 134 years already today
Jenn: aw
:(
sorry honey
me: no, really. it's the year 2142.
5:23 PM Jenn: :(
me: everyone's still using gasoline, though
Jenn: ok well! try to have fun with that!
see you at home
love you
ride safe
bye
me: the pigeons have mutuated, however
they're REALLY big now
Jenn: mutuated?
me: shut up
Jenn: yeah
ok bye!
me: keyboard keys have gotten smaller in the future
love you
Jenn: love you

Thursday, January 10, 2008

New year, new post

Anybody care to wager whether or not I'll get more than 2007's 20 posts in for '08?

Let's go straight to the headlines...

Engaged!
Yep. After 4.5 years, in a top-secret operation that only 3 people knew about until 72 hours prior to H-Hour, I snuck up to Long Island on Christmas Eve, and hand-delivered a ring to her Christmas morning. Shock and awe, man.

It was a somewhat elaborate undertaking (for me, at any rate) that consisted of me belaboring the plan for three-plus months, holding War Councils with myself at frequent intervals, then - as I put it after I'd set all the pieces into motion - kicking the wagon down the hill and seeing where it landed.

After getting the ring in-hand the Friday before Christmas, and faced with the reality of this thing now in my hand, I made last minute reservations at the motel and for the car (this was part of the plan... I didn't want her to see charges that would have given the secret away until after the fact) then waited for Monday to arrive.

I got to the motel around 10:00 Christmas eve, talked with Jenn ("from my mom's house"), made my traditional early Christmas morning visit to the 7-11 on Jamaica Ave right before it turns into the Jericho Turnpike, listened to 1010 WINS and WCBS 880, sat around promising to distract myself with books or whatever other things I'd brought along to while away a few hours, and eventually fell asleep.

I woke a little later than I wanted to Tuesday morning, but still with plenty of time to shower, then don the suit I'd picked out for the occassion. (Coincidentally, those of you who know me can guess correctly that I was mildly uncomfortable with this level of extravagance, but as I reasoned, I was only going to do this once... might as well go for the gusto.) A trip to Starbucks (surprisingly, thankfully open at noon on Christmas day), then off to await the call from my spy on the ground, who was to let me know when everyone had arrived.

Two and a half hours later, I'd listened to old radio adaptations of Miracle on 34th Street and It's a Wonderful Life (Note to WPHT: Your signal gets to Nassau County just fine), read three articles in Foreign Affairs, taken a nap (unrelated to previous item), and eaten the cheese and fruit I'd bought for lunch for myself the night before. At around 2:30, my spy reported that everyone had finally arrived. H-hour.

I walked over there (I'd parked a couple of blocks away), knocked on the door, and her sister MA answered with a gasp. Only two three people in the room knew... the rest were now creating a considerable hubbub. Jenn was overjoyed.

Then I brought out the ring.

The next several days are a bit of a blur. I spent Christmas afternoon up in NY, but I had to get back to DC that night to resume the babysitting of the cats. Since no one knew of my plan, and my "official" Christmas plans were only to visit my mom briefly on Tuesday and would be home the rest of the time, I'd sort of boxed myself into that assignment. So I drove down to Mom's house in Central PA, broke the news to her (and my brother, who happened to be on the phone), visited with her for an hour, then came back home.

And no, we haven't set a date. We're definitely aiming for some time in 2009, and it's almost certainly going to be in the DC area. I wanted to kick-start the blog with this tale because I'd like to think I'm going to capture the Tale of the Planning pretty well between here and other sources at my disposal.



I want to write about other stuff, especially this election that we've all started, but my cold medicine is wearing off, and I really should go respond to some work emails. But I actually have political observations to make!!! One's that no one else has made!!!!! Srsly.

Monday, April 30, 2007

What I've been up to

So, I don't know precisely why I haven't written or whatever... frankly, I'm not that terribly interested in jotting down the minutiae of my life. So, here are the broad strokes as I'm thinking about them right now, since the change of the calendar.

January: Two weeks after Jenn and I started moving massive amounts of data onto our brand spankin' new networked hard drive, the thing crashed. Like, no power was getting to the thing. The bulk of Jenn's digital music collection is on there, as are the entirety of our digital photos from the day she got the new digital camera, as is the entirety of TF episodes that I'd amassed over the past few years, along with a bunch of other stuff that we'd started to archive to (what we thought was) a safer, more reliable medium.

I opened a help ticket with the manufacturer, with the net result being them telling us to send it back and they'd fix it, but we'd lose all the data thereon. This was an unsatisfying answer, as we had no other backup for the photos. Pretty much everything else could have been replaced. Not those, however.

I then talked with a data recovery firm, who said they'd take a look at it, and could guarantee that they'd get the data off, but the price would probably be in the $2700 neighborhood. For a drive that cost just over $200 to start with, this was an unsatisfying answer.

The next step is getting the manufacturer to allow me to open the case without voiding the warranty. Then I can (at least, theoretically) take the drive out and slave it to my system. I'm not entirely sure I understand that process in the least, but at least it's an option.

Current status: I'm a little nervous that the manufacturer won't allow that sort of thing (even though I've heard of a few similar cases to mine, and they've always granted the permission), so I'm still waiting on myself to get in touch with them. On hold.

January: Spent an appreciable amount of time working for Brookings again, as my replacement ended up leaving for a higher-paying job in December. Found myself hating the place even more this time around. My last day there ever was in mid-February. Current status: Good riddance.

February: While I was over at Brookings one day, my boss at the theater sends me this message:

We’re going to have a Talk tomorrow. You’re not in trouble, in fact, far from it. But we’re probably going to have a talk tomorrow.

There was a Development position opening up, and I knew she was up for it.

Within two weeks, I was running the Box Office at Woolly Mammoth. Which made sense, you know, because 16 months previous I'd never worked in a box office in my entire life.

Current status: Still feeling a little overwhelmed, but loving it.

Since then, I haven't had much time for anything... Jenn, this blog (or, really, staying current with the news - though I'm trying). It's a damn shame. Moreso the Jenn thing, really.

Things have finally calmed down enough in the past couple of weeks that we were able to take stock of our situation and we realized that there's really nothing holding us back at this point from getting a house together in DC except ourselves. So we've provisionally decided to do just that. (Provisional, because we want just the right place, at just the right price. Not that our standards or expectations are too high, but we really just kind of want to do it right and find something that we can stay at for several years.) Come August (or, possibly, November), we'll have a new mailing address. I'll be sure to get that to you this time, Hanson.

So, if I were to make a list (because that's the only sort of indication that I've been alive, from a 'net standpoint, for the past four months) of the highlights from the past four months, maybe chapter titles in the big book of my life, they would be:

  1. Brookings retrax
  2. All Talk, More Work (the Dull Boy remix)
  3. My patriotic duty as a mass-consumer, wherein I discuss eBay shopping sprees and new glucometers
  4. Morrowind, or That Game That Sucks Me In Every Time I Even Think About It.

Looking forward...

May: I get to take an extended break from work (potentially up to 5 days... still waiting for word on that fifth day request) beginning on the 12th. Kinda want to go up and visit the blood. Plus, Rollver!

June: DMCP, and the new season prep.

July: Fringe. (Mostly just a lot of hours... not a whole lot for us to do otherwise. At least that I can see at this moment.)

August: Gearing up for the season, then it hits and Jenn and I skip town for this place.

Maybe I'll feel like going into greater detail about all or some of this. Maybe not. But if you are still reading, thank you. I owe you a dollar.

Monday, September 25, 2006

ELP 011: The "And Yet Another One" Edition

Because I am, apparently, utterly unable or unwilling to write substantive posts on just about anything of late, I'll keep in the vein of recent entries by showing off a picture of my latest adventure: me and Jenn at Monticello. Enjoy.

Thursday, February 02, 2006

A new thing to read


Jenn and I have started a new blog, called West Capitol & J Street, NW. It's two residents' ideas on how to improve the city we inhabit. We're just getting started, but it already promises to be equal parts mundane and exciting, just like city life itself. If you find it a worthy exercise, share it with your DC friends. Share it with your other-city-living friends. We'd love to get a dialog started about the things that are right and wrong with DC, and how to either keep them going or make them better.

Friday, December 23, 2005

Happy Festikwanzahannuticemas

The girl and I are headed for All Realms Familial in a matter of moments. I'll be back in a week or so to provide a recap of 2005.

Or something.

Saturday, December 03, 2005

How a diabetic enjoys Thanksgiving

Ok, so it's been a week since we got back from New York and Thanksgiving, so most of you don't care anymore about whether or not it was good. But it was good.

The take at this year's table:

  • Turkey (free-range)
  • Cranberry sauce (sugar free, by Jennifer)
  • Stuffing
  • Mashed Potatoes
  • Gravy
  • String Bean Casserole (love this stuff!)
  • Turnips
  • Glazed Carrots
  • Brussels sprouts (yes, this is the correct spelling)
  • Desserts galore!

Most significant about that list is the last item. How, you may be asking, can a diabetic possibly enjoy desserts?

One word: Splenda.

One of the very few things I miss about the things I used to eat is cherry pie. I've been craving it nearly non-stop for two months. But my body reacts very very poorly to refined sugar. So no cherry pie for me.

Except for this occasion. Jenn - the master genius baker that she is - figured out how to make a cherry pie for me. It was easily the best piece of pie I've ever had in my entire life.

The thing with that is, it's true. I've had lots of good cherry pie before, but now that I really can't (without suffering some ugly complications down the road), this one was incredibly special. Anything I used to eat with impunity that I no longer can, like red meat, or cherry pie (especially cherry pie) tastes so much better to me now.

I was concerned that this particular indulgence would send my sugar higher than it ought to be (130 is a comfortable range, 180 sends me to the insulin supply, and I was estimating the latter). When I took my glucose level about two hours after dinner, it was 133. I was stunned.

What was even more stunning, though, is what happened to my BG (diabeticese for blood glucose) level after a trip to the fantastic Ukrainian restaurant Veselka, in East Village. Jenn and I met up with Ian and Sung to see Jarhead (a movie about how boring war can be, that is itself boring), then went to Veselka for dinner afterwards. Against my better judgment, I ordered the beef stroganoff. You're warned as a diabetic that stuff like regular pasta tends to send BG through the roof. My experience has been somewhat contrary to that, and I decided to take this measured risk. (In my two major trips since achieving freedom on July 5 (Discharge Day), I've allowed myself one major indulgence, and since Thanksgiving Dinner hadn't turned out badly at all, I called this one the Indulgence.)

It was a positively fantastic experience. This was the sort of food I grew up on... recipes my mom cooked because she learned them from her Slovak forebears. Man, what a great place. And it's open 24 hours!

Anyway.

The four of us hang for a while longer, then Jenn and I head back out to L.I. I take my sugar as soon as I get home (it's lingo... "take my sugar" to me means "check my BG level"), about 2.5 hours after we've eaten (still in after-meal BG prime time) and my level is...

115.

It seemed such a ludicrously low number that I checked it again on the spot.

117.

What was so shocking about this was that I did not take my usual pre-meal injection. The type of insulin I use for that is of the fast-acting variety, and I need to eat within about 15 minutes of taking it or risk some nasty hypoglycemic symptoms. I didn't want to be carrying a syringe with me all evening (perhaps not the best practice for a diabetic), so I didn't inject at all that night.

Nonetheless, 115 or so.

Overall, though I haven't been testing as much as I should in some cases, my sugar's been largely stable. I'll occassionally overdo it on my low-glycemic cookies, but I've never come anywhere close to being in a dangerous area (200+) since my first month home.

Before the holiday, I was a little apprehensive about the holiday. I used to really enjoy the turkey coma, and the over-full feeling, and the nap. I was afraid those things would go away. As it turns out, if you're smart about it, and you have a group of people around you, like Jenn and her family, who are supportive and are willing to play along, you can still have those things. At least, I could.

Tuesday, November 22, 2005

Turkey Lurkey Doodle

I'm off for a week with the girl's clan in NY, so I'm now wishing you all, early, a very happy, safe and fulfilling Thanksgiving.

As for me, I am particularly fond of this holiday moreso than in other years. I'm thankful for all of you who have been so unbelievably supportive and caring. Most of all, though, I'm thankful that I'm here and have the chance to have another Thanksgiving.

Be well.