The proposal

This weekend I got together with an old friend who I think is going to get proposaled to soon. Yay!
It got me thinking about how everyone seems to be getting old, getting hitched & having babies. It also got me to thinking about the whirlwind which was the beginning of my relationship.

People often look at us as a very young couple & ask how it all came about. It's a lot less romantic than you think. I think instead of telling the truth, I'm going to tell the grand kids I rescued him from the other frogs in the pond that were beating him up & then we got married. And that I didn't get bit by a turtle doing it. Not this time.

Truth is we met at a housewarming party in February of 09.It was kind of a blind date because he was hot & single & I was hot & single.
I was living out a wild college year going on dates with 3 different guys a week. I remember the first time Mike came to my house & found three different vases of flowers in my room. Ohhh boy. But now I'm getting ahead of myself.

Basically, I wanted to go to Moose games, so I led some poor guy on so I'd have someone to go with. Same idea for guys with sexy cars & guys in bands. I probably just needed more girlfriends & attention from men who weren't as psychotically aggressive as the International students at my french Catholic school.

The guys I WAS interested in were narcissistic, egotistical sociopathic jotties (jerk hotties).

Mr. Ford is not a Jottie.

At the party he said shit all to me for the first two hours. I got to watch him hold a girl's hair back while she honked. 'That's nice' I thought. So not my type. The guy that was my type at the time was in the kitchen getting his chest hair shaved in the shape of a happy face.

I decided to attempt conversation with Mr. Ford anyway as I might as well make an effort to see if maybe, deep down he had jerk in him.

He was so shy & awkward I had to resort throwing pieces of cotton from the couch at him. I finally got him to talk about Fall Out Boy of all things... he was so sweet it was almost like he was a gentlemanly alien.

The following Wednesday we went on our first date to Earls (before the Jets were banging all the staff & making it sleazy). I forgot that I was wearing my crest Whitestrips & pulled them out of my mouth & in to a potted plant.
I remember he was ten minutes late because he stopped to buy me flowers. I thought it was cute but pretended to be really upset. There'd be no way I was going to allow him to the set the president if being late on a first date! (His time management skills still haven't improved).

To get to the point, the waitress had weird boobs & I was really distracted. He asked if he could come over to 'watch the Real World' & the rest is history.

He was funny, he was passionate, he loved animals, liked travelling & he was treating me like the gift to mankind that I imagined myself to be. This was not a guys whos approval I had to seek because I already had it. With any other nice-guy, this would be where I lost interest & went out looking for another asshole. But I was satisfied & proud & laughing. Always, ALWAYS laughing. This was it.

The next day MaryAnne called me a slut, (we DID NOT have sex, four years, a wedding & no unplanned pregnancies later, she still doesn't believe me) so I asked him to move out with me. The next week FACEBOOK informed me that we were in a relationship (coward!) & within three months we were in our first apartment.

The proposal:

Just before we moved in together I had been looking at rings online. I decided I wanted a 1 carat marquis cut diamond on plain platinum band. We went to the jewellery store to try such a ring on.

It was hideous. Don't ever buy an engagement ring without trying it on. Bluck.

We went to WK Chans to try on other rings. I loved a 1/2 carat Princess cut Canadian diamond on a Tiffany setting, but I LOVE-LOVED a 1 carat Emerald cut Canadian diamond on a white gold Tiffany setting. There was a $3000.00 price difference so I tried to convince him I liked the cheaper one better. I learned from snooping in his phone that he had had a .80 carat Emerald diamond cut for the setting.

All that being said, I knew it was coming, just not when. Given the unconventional beginning to our marriage, it's good to keep some tradition.

The day of, I was home from work at 10:30 at night. I specifically remember wearing jeans that are too tight & give me IBS flare-ups & a white CUSB sweatshirt that was a b*tch to keep clean.
I was so tired I didn't notice the rose petals outside our apartment door.
When I got through the door it was dark, with 100 roses & 100 candles & my not-jottie dressed in his best.

All the attention, all the pressure. I couldn't handle it.
I panicked, ran to the bathroom & locked the door, only coming out half an hour later when Mr. Ford cried that he had worked so hard to put it all together & that he had dinner for me.

The good news: we got engaged. The bad news: My panic attack & social awkwardness made me lose out on a proposal speech.

Just when I thought that the adventures of the day were over, I went back in to the bathroom again (to do regular bathroom stuff this time).
In our wastebasket I found a used tampon applicator that did not belong to me. In my shock & fury, I pulled it out with my bare hands.WHO CHEATS AS THEIR PROPOSING TO THEIR FUTURE WIFE?!?!?

Turns out it belonged to Mike's friend who had come over to help him prepare. She was not interested in my husband or any man for that matter. Lesbians 1, Rebecca 0.

A letter to Mike's second wife

All humour aside for a minute, Mr. Ford & I watched a movie on Tuesday. It was a sad movie. A widower with children ended up getting in to a new relationship then finding a letter his late wife wrote to 'her'.

I cried. I wailed. Although I complain about Mr. Ford a lot (as he gives me so much material), I love him so much sometimes I think I might eat him. I told him we should do that for each other & he made fun of me. So I'll do it anyway because I'LL BE the bigger man!


Here goes nothing:

Dear new Mrs. Ford...

My lord what have you gotten yourself in to?

THE END.



Just kidding...




Hello my friend. If you are receiving this letter, he must be in love you. I am grateful that he does. I am grateful that you are here.

Maybe you're different from me. More worldly, less hot-headed, more forgiving. He deserves that.

I hope that you tell him everyday that you love him. I hope you never let him get away with anything & put the hammer down. I hope you cook well. He likes beans & soups & a cholesterol heart attack inducing amount of free range eggs. No tomatoes or olives, he'll just spit them out.

He likes Downy Unstoppables in his laundry. He likes you to fold the laundry. He gets irritated when a sock is missing.
He says funny things in his sleep & he will listen & laugh about it when you tell him what exactly he said.
He likes to own new & fancy things for bragging rights.
He gets depressed when hockey season is over.

Please let him have lots of pets because he likes them a lot. I know the way he interacts with them is freaky, but I think it's because he didn't have a pet until he was in his twenties & that messed him up.

I would really appreciate if you could encourage him to take chances & try new things because he gets comfortable & stops expanding his horizons.

He is an amazing individual but an even more amazing partner. Take care of him & allow yourself to be taken care of. His cooking is not as bad as it used to be but he gives nice foot rubs  (lie & tell him there's something in it for him).
 I hope you have babies with him because he would be a great dad. I pray that the poor thing is slow & fat so you don' have to be a hockey mom AND a hockey wife.

I am jealous of you.
Cherish those beautiful moments. I would love to be in your place when you marry him, when you have his cranky little babies, when you finish renovating your dream house, when you travel, pay your last mortgage payment & watch the babies graduate & have their own weddings Enjoy all these moments but don't feel guilty.
I am terrified of him loving someone else but I couldn't bear for him to be alone (and dirty & starving) for the rest of his life. For that, I am forever grateful to you.  Thank-you for giving him a second chance. I hope you both can make the best of it.

I loved that goober. I'd never take back any of the bitching & humour at his expense, because that's how you are able to survive with him, but I do regret not making him feel appreciated & adored. I hope you'll be able to do better than I could.

Good luck my friend. Remember: no olives.

Husband gets new iPhone & gets to hoard all of the things

I hate stuff.

I really do I just hate having a lot of stuff.

The reason being is that I grew-up in a tiny shoebox of a room with parents who hated to throw anything out. The older I got the more I decided to rid myself of things that were of no use to me. I don't care if they are brand new, I don't care if they're a gift, I don't care if there's a possibility that I might use it sometime in the distant future. I try to keep my home as uncluttered as possible so that I have more room to live & less space taken up by objects.

I'd also much rather have experiences than stuff. I'd rather go wind-gliding than get a fancy pair of jeans. I'd take a spa day over shopping spree. And I'd rather live & breath a moment rather than take pictures of it to reflect on later. I think my only exception to this would be buying things that don't instantly use value as soon as you walk out the door. Things that I can put in my house to build equity, like new appliances or light fixtures.

Mr. Ford is not as smart as me and sometimes... (don't tell him this) but sometimes I can't blame him. He also grew up in a house jam packed with stuff. Lots & lots of... just everything!

But Mr. Ford makes me see red because in his head, he has this notion that he does not keep a lot of things.

He does.

Mr. Ford keeps programs from hockey tournaments he's played in & hasn't looked at in the 4 years I've known him. He keeps hockey cards, stuffed toys (until I dispatch the dog to eat them) shoes & clothes (the man has twice as much clothing as I do).
Through all of this, Mr. Ford has this notion that he is not a hoarder. As we renovate our house, he is drawn to modern designs. Flat, edgy, stark minimalist designs & all I can do is try to convince him that these stark high contrast designs are not meant for the lifestyle we lead. A picture like this would not look half as good if these surfaces were covered with books, cat hair, clothes & gadgets. It doesn't work that way.

The way I feel is that we should create a home with a warm, classic, comforting feel to it if we are going to continue to have awards & photos to display, flowers, nic-knacks & god forbid...children.

Stark, modern spaces are for single people.

In any case what annoys me the most with Mr, Ford's inability to let go of things in his phone & computer. The guy refuses to delete a single picture or a song. Even if the picture of him testing out a camera lens & the song is by Creed. Then he plays dumb when the phone & computer slow to a crawl.

Anywho Mr. Captain of keeping up with the Jones's (but getting better) had a Blackberry Torch that was running slow. All it needed was a new battery but he was insistent that he get a new phone & thus it fell upon me, the corporate plan holder, to supply him with one.

So after being on the phone with Rogers for almost TWO HOURS getting transferred, hit-on (what if I was 900 pounds), put on hold & talked-over,

I could either upgrade him to a  64GB iPhone for $179.00 or a 16GB iPhone for $79.99.

I'll take this opportunity to inform everyone that I have an 8GB that I got FOR FREE! Take a guess at what Mr. Ford wanted... Take a guess at how grumpy he became when I told him what I wanted to get him.

I know! I know you're probably bashing your head in to your keyboard in outrage thinking WHY OH WHY WOULD HE BELIEVE HE IS SO ENTITLED!?

I know you're probably saying aloud right now A) Why should he have to have something bigger & better than his darling cupcake wife? And B) Why would he need all that space to fill up with random pictures of signs that he things are funny & just upload to Facebook anyway?

Calm yourselves, I only got him the 16 Gig (which is still twice as much as mine). Grumpy pants gets a Brand new cell phone with twice as much memory as his wife's... Woah is him.He's so woah.

If any of you have any ideas for Mr. Grumpy pants as to how he is going to make up that $80.00 from our monthly budget please let me know. As it stands he'll have to give up protein powder & the gym, clothes & toiletries, tile the bathroom himself or find a method of procurring free heat for the house.

Pick-me-ups

Although the outdoors is a giant ray of freaking sunshine, I am having a blah day.

It may have to do with the rays of freaking sunshine that got in to my skull yesterday & may have given me sunstroke. Here is a short list of things that make me feel better on days like this. If you don't laugh or relate to at least one, we can't be friends anymore.

1. This video:

2. Having a nice, well formed & non-remarkable shit.

3. Watching terrible ghetto dance movies on TV (step-up, save the last dance etc). I can't decide what I like more, the movie or how far Mr. Ford's eyes roll in the back of his head & imagining them getting stuck there.

4. These two:

5. Finding a great freaking deal!

6. This guy:

7. This puppet

8. Making nice food for my husband who doesn't appreciate it & should be husband swapped with someone else's 23 year old wife to see if they have a full time job, cook extensively, clean, renovate, take care of 4 animals, garden, balance the budget etc etc. AND LOOK THIS GOOD DOING IT!

9. Buzzfeed.com

10. Paying back the dog for the year of shitting in the house by making her wear clothes & being entertained by it.

11. Going to Walmart or De Luca's.

12. Papusas. If you don't know what those are go to JC Tacos or Mercado Latino & stop wasting your life.

13. Cleaning the kitchen counter tops & making the beds so that I can look at the clean kitchen counter tops & made beds.

14. This email: 

15. All of this:



16. Food porn.

17. Wearing sunglasses & nude lipstick. I feel like I could have kicked Hitler's ass in sunglasses & nude lipstick.

18. A love story in 22 pictures

19. This kid:

20. This picture:

MaryAnne's dating profile

There's gotta be one person weirder to date than Tom & that person is my mother.

Introducing the big kahuna, the wild cycling wildebeest, my giver-of-birth... MaryAnne.

 

MaryAnne is 47 going on 14. She is tall & tan & blonde & looks nothing like me if that's any condolence.

Personality wise, you has an 'interesting' sense of humour. She laughs at her jokes which makes me laugh but she thinks that I am laughing because her jokes are funny. She is adventurous, energetic & up for anything.

MaryAnne has a strange form of dyslexia which I think everyone can relate to at one point or another (but don't live with everyday).
She will have a phrase in her head but when it comes out of her mouth the words are not in the correct place in her sentence structure & it sounds like gibberish to anybody but  her close friends & family.

For instance: MaryAnne was once attempting to comment on storm doors. In this case, I didn't even try to comprehend the gibberish as I was keeled over. The sentence came out "Why come inside-out door?". Why come indeed MaryAnne...

Another time she was trying to blurt out "Freak-of-nature" (which is her favourite insult along with 'freakshow' & 'big dummy') & what came out was 'Frit-a-nakur' which is now MY new favourite insult.

MaryAnne loves animals, especially her dog Muffin. She enjoys singing songs about the dog in a high-pitched voice (the chorus is 'MUFFINEST MUFFIN IN THE WORLD, IN THE WORLD!).
MaryAnne also enjoys her cottage, Labatts light beer, going out for dinners, going to bars that could get her killed (the Sherbrook) and now that we don't live together anymore, she especially loves me.

MaryAnne dislikes sweets, lamb, bags flying around in the street, mooches & massages (not that she's ever had one. She just assumes the masseuse will get 'turn-on' by touching her).
She will tell you that she doesn't like when people swear but she excludes herself from this equation. Apparently saying 'pardon my French' after you've dropped an F-Bomb cancels it out.

MaryAnne has been single off & on since dad kicked the bucket in 2004, not for lack of interest but for her own damn standards. She tolerated a lot from my dad & now she's 'paying-back' the male species by having unrealistic standards & expecting to not presented with any challenges when in a relationship (imperfect men need not apply!).
She seems to think she makes up for this by having varied tastes in physical appearances.
Must haves are: not married, good teeth, good hair & must be taller than her.
Although the men she has been in relationships with include a Mexican bandito (just kidding Randy) & Mr. Clean (just kidding Todd).
What she really needs is someone who enjoys both quiet, lazy days along with travelling & having a good time. He must also like to eat as this is another one of her favourite hobbies.

Yeah guys I know she's a handful, I lived with her for 19 freaking years, but if you 'get with' my mom, then you actually get the greatest gift of all, BEING MY NEW DAD! Don't pretend that's not what you've been wanting the whole time... I would give special preference to contractors, plumbers, electricians & landscapers. My house needs a lot of work.

I also have a single grandma that I might consider offers for as well.