artykins

Evening all. Well, dinner is in the oven, Matt's home and cleaning the bathroom (*rejoices on the inside*) and I'm listening to some jazz. Apart from a slight headache that's been like the plague to me all day, all is well with the world. I spent some time this evening chatting with Aimes (my nickname for a wonderfully dear friend) and she and I talked of life and spent the majority of our time pontificating...as we're prone to do.

One subject of conversation tonight was my borderline obsessive-compulsive tendencies. Aimes likened me to Monica from Friends because I'm competitive and like cooking/cleaning. I merely explained to her that sometimes cleaning in my mechanism for coping with anger. Seriously. I'm like Pacha's wife from The Emperors New Groove who gets upset with rudeness, is left speechless due to anger and then simply says, 'I gotta go wash something' before proceeding to the kitchen where all her frustrations are taken out on a sink full of dishes.

I also explained that cleaning as well as cooking (most of the time, anyway) re-aligns my chi. It's therapeutic. Okay? Okay.

So moving right along, there's been quite a rush of acitivity on my side of the pond, due to very obvious reasons.  We've had to put the machine back onto the floor, which is really just a way of saying all of our waiting peoples (i.e. the photographer, the caterer, the florist, the bridesmaids, etc.) are now back in motion.

Now, you'll forgive me if it's taken me several days to write this blog.  Really, I started this blog Tuesday night.  It's now Thursday.  Shameful, I know.

Anyway, yesterday Matt and I met with the photographer yesterday afternoon.  We spent and hour and a half sussing out what we wanted and then the plan was to head over to Walnut Creek to look at wedding rings, but that plan failed miserably.  And here's why.

Photographer man took far longer than even I expected.  To be fair, though, it's not like Matt and I were chomping at the bit to get out of there.  We quite enjoyed talking to photographer man.  Tiffany & Co. was going to be our next port of call.

The reason for this is that Matt and I spent a great deal of time Saturday afternoon looking at wedding rings from different places online.  Just to get an idea of what was out there and to narrow where it is we'd be going to look closer at these things.  

Personally, I'm pretty simple to please when it comes to wedding rings.  I'm not the kind of girl that goes for this:

http://www.tiffany.com/Shopping/Item.aspx?sku=GRP00081&am...

Or this:

http://www.tiffany.com/Shopping/Item.aspx?sku=GRP00320&am...

I'm looking for something very simple, perhaps with a bit extra bling, but certainly nothing that is gawdy or awful like the above links.  If you happen to like either of the aforementioned links, my apologies to you for having horrible taste.  Come back and read my blog when you've learned the difference between beautiful and God-awful jewelry.

I prefer something much more along these lines:

http://www.tiffany.com/Shopping/Item.aspx?sku=GRP00363&am... 

So all that is to say that because of photography man, we couldn't go look at nice things under glass.  But that's okay!  We got to come home and meet with Marco instead!

For those of you who don't know, Marco is the pastor who's marrying us.  He's awesome.  He grew up in Texas and until he came to my church he had never been in an English-speaking congregation before.  That's really my way of saying he's got some of that Latin charisma when it comes to preaching.  And that's a good thing.  A very good thing.

Anyway, we met for a marriage counseling session and went over a survey that we took, which actually made for some great entertainment.  Marco was laughing at us.  And we were laughing at ourselves.  It was great.

And so concluded our evening.  I pretty much went home and crashed out because I'm exhausted.  I didn't sleep well while Matt was in England taking care of visa business.  I'd sleep, but never well.  Now that he's home, I think it's all catching up with me.  That and it's insane how much stuff is happening pertaining to the wedding.

His visa is a beautiful piece of paper.  It's what we've been waiting for, but I can't help but think at times that it's kind of silly, all this waiting, working and separation for such a tiny piece of paper.  All the anxiety and tears shed over something that the mere kiss of a flame could destroy.  Still, I only think that fleetingly.  The majority of my time is spent thinking, 'but it doesn't matter now because now he's here and he never has to go back without me.'  Even now it still tears me up to think of that.

In other news, I'm beginning to think that I've been cursed by some strange little sprite that revels in my lack of patience.  Said sprite seems to be bound and determined to teach me a lesson in patience even if it makes me crazy.  Why do I say this?  Well, for the answer, let's review the last week in my life of driving.

Friday, February 29th, 2008: Matt's coming home!!  Woo!!  I work a half day at work and then joyfully take the afternoon off to go collect the love of my life.  BART runs to San Francisco International, so I was heading to a BART station not too far from where I work in order to catch a train to the airport.  In order to get to said BART station, though, I must first cross over a bridge (where I work is on an island) and some train tracks (not BART tracks, but the real diesel powered monsters that I love so much).

Well, as I approach the train tracks, I see a train just stopped on the tracks.  Stopped on the tracks.  Stopped!  Not moving at all!

I figured it'd be along shortly since it's not uncommon at all for trains to momentarily stop at this crossing.  It's happened a few times before and they're always on their merry ozone-depleting way within the span of five minutes.  Not today, however.  Oh no.  The train is stopped when I get there and continues to be stopped for half an hour.  Half an hour of my life when all I want to do is get to the airport and throw my arms around Matt.

I got to the airport in time not to miss him.  I got to greet him without having to make him wait for me, which is great!

Saturday, March 1st, 2008: I awake early.  Despite the fact that I have the opportunity to sleep in, I can't fall back asleep.  It sucks.  

So instead, I get up, get dressed and head to the market where, at 7am, I'm the only one shopping.  It was fantastic, actually.  No one was there to contend with and I got the doting attention of every single worker at the market.  Even the guys who were stocking the bread aisle with the beautiful yeasty aroma of freshly baked bread took time away from their toiling to say good morning to me and ask if I needed their help doing anything.

Feeling sufficiently wonderful after the glorious morning of shopping to restock the kitchen at the apartment, which shall henceforth be known as Chateau Poulet because I feel like calling it that today, I was on my merry way to the apartment.

But lo and behold, what was waiting for me on the very same train tracks that I had been forced to cross the day before?  That's right!  Another train!  Just stopped.  Stopped and not moving anywhere.  

Luckily, because it was so early, hardly anyone else was on the road and I got to pull right up to the barriers that block car traffic from the tracks.  With this position, I could see why the train was stopped.  An engineer was a ways down the track, underneath one of the couplings with the biggest spanner I've ever seen.  The guy had to carry it with both hands across his shoulders. 

The sight of him and the presence of a very large black man that worked for AC Transit (bus systems locally), clued me in on what was happening.  AC Transit man was on a large walkie talkie telling all his busses that there was a train stopped on the tracks, a big problem for something like AC Transit that runs to keep a schedule.  AC Transit man was also very jovial and walked down the tracks to speak with engineer man about what was going on.  Engineer man must have been finishing off his work because he began walking back not only with the giant spanner, but a giant hose in hand as well.

Shortly after he passed me in my car (turned off to spare the ozone all the toxins that engineer man was spewing), the train began to move and I was on my merry way.

Sunday, March 2nd, 2008: I've successfully gotten to the apartment without incident to get Matt and go to church.  On the way to church, however, I am once again stopped by a train crossing the tracks.  Unbelievable.

Monday, March 3rd, 2008: I decide to avoid the train tracks all together and outsmart the sprite by taking a route that involves me going under the tracks.  I'm so clever, I know!

I make it to the bridge and am stopped dead in my tracks because the bridge is raising to let a tall tug through that's pushing a crane.  Again, unbelievable.

Tuesday, March 4th, 2008: Stopped by train.  We've moved from unbelievable to inconceivable.

Wednesday, March 5th, 2008: Stopped by train while running errands.  Inconceivability remains.

Thursday, March 6th, 2008: I have yet to be stopped by a train or a bridge, but it's early in the day still and with the history of inconceivability and unbelievability, I'm not holding my breath for the trend to change.  We'll see. I'll update you if this string of insanity continues.

And I suppose what's next on the agenda is to explain my blog title to you.  The power of twelve.

I've had a lot of time to think the last month. In the process of doing so, I came to a realization.  I had Matt's passport with me and i was flipping through it, looking at all the stamps from all the places he's been.  I came across his first stamp when he entered SFO the very first time we met.

We first met on December 12th, 2003.

Exactly six months later, he asked me to be his wife.  I accepted.

We got engaged on June 12th, 2004. 

Some other interesting facts about twelves in our life:

June 12th - the day my maternal great-grandparents got married.  I know, it's a fairly obscure fact to know, but I strongly believe in knowing who you came from.  Shameful, embarrassing or not, it's your ancestry and it's yours no matter what.

June 12th - Fiona's (Matt's mother) birthday.

March 12th, 2008 - Next week.  It's the marker for being exactly one month before I get married.

Twelve is divisible by one, two, three, four and six.

It's the square root of 144.

It's the number of months in a year.

It's the number of hours on the face of a clock.

It's the number of tribes of Israel that were promised to Moses.

Twelve is the number of disciples Jesus had.

There are twelve inches in a foot.

Twelve eggs, bagels, doughnuts or any other thing sold in a dozen.

Twelve zodiac signs.

Jacob had twelve sons. 

It's the number of the Seven Seas added to the Five Oceans of the World. 

April 12th, 2008 is the day I'm going to say 'I do' and start this part of my life with someone's hand to hold.

So really, all other things aside, that is the power of twelve.

Later Days
Arty