Everyone needs to take a chill pill

Dear family and friends,

This blog does not exist to frighten you with my innermost thoughts of stress and desperation. It is actually quite the opposite. It's an outlet to maintain my sanity. If I have to worry about every thing I write here causing you to worry about me, I'm going to start to censor myself--and actually already have to a degree. This is bad because my blog is becoming a place where I have to weigh the pros and cons of blogging about what is really on my mind. That bums me out.

If I am ever seriously stressed beyond my own ability to cope, I will call you. You won't have to find out about it by moseying over to my blog. I promise. I appreciate that you all care so much about me (three of you have expressed concern over my last post, my own father included). But please take what you read here for what it is. Me venting. We all have our own outlets. This is mine.

Now let's all take a deep breath and eat a cookie.

Love,
Mermanda/Your Daughter/Future Daughter-in-law/Friend/Nutty Fiance

The Holy Union of Matrimony: Give Me One More Thing to Do and I Will Snap Your Neck Like a Twig, So Help Me God

EDITOR'S NOTE: THIS IS JIVE TURKEY FILLING IN FOR ME. YOU WILL SEE WHY THIS IS NECESSARY BELOW. SOMETHING JIVE TURKEY FAILED TO MENTION, BECAUSE I JUST FOUND OUT ABOUT 45 MINUTES AGO, IS THAT I PROBABLY HAVE AN EYE-INFECTION. THE FUN JUST NEVER ENDS AROUND HERE, FOLKS! ENJOY! (ALSO, JIVE TURKEY, I HAD TO CENSOR YOU IN SOME PARTS. BUT THAT'S NOT BECAUSE I DIDN'T APPRECIATE YOUR CHOICE LANGUAGE. IT'S JUST THAT MY MOM READS THIS. KTHXBAI!)

So, it seems that our dear Mermanda has quite a bit on her plate these days, and has asked me to post here on her lovely blog so she can finish losing her damn mind in a corner somewhere. You see, she’s in the final throes of wedding planning – the “Please, just take my money and do what I say,” phase – when the blushing bride wonders why she decided to have a wedding at all when there are perfectly good 24-hour chapels in Vegas in which to get married while ass-blasted drunk on whiskey sours, the way God intended.

See, wedding planning is a tricky thing. In the very beginning, you nail down the biggies: venue, dress, wedding party, catering, honeymoon – and then you have a bit of a lull in which you have the luxury of spending a leisurely three weeks online looking for the perfect cake-topper. Then you register (FUN), then you have your shower (FUNNER), then…you wait around some more. And then suddenly it’s three weeks before the wedding, and !@#&%%$#$#!! there is so much crap to do. Deadlines for RSVPs (SHAME if you have ever neglected to RSVP to a catered affair – SHAME, I SAY!), final dress fittings (say hello to your new friend, Spanx), and O HAI, everyone would like giant piles of money now, please. And poor Mermanda is in this final stage of planning, except that – as she told me via email this morning – she missed the payment deadlines for three very important vendors. Vendors who will be providing services like, oh, I don’t know, A PHYSICAL SPACE IN WHICH TO HAVE THE RECEPTION.

You guys. Seriously. Even if you have never planned a wedding, you can appreciate the OMFG of that. Pardon me for being crass, but just READING about that made me shit my pants a little.

I am assuming that Mermanda got the situation figured out, since she was still capable of speaking about the incident in full sentences and without setting things on fire, but she is having A Week, as you can plainly see.

Adding to the fun times is the G-20 here in Pittsburgh. If you are not familiar with the G-20, please go a-Googlin’, because I am so very tired of talking/hearing/reading/writing about it. Basically, it’s going to turn our fair city upside down in the manner of a keg stand for two whole days, and the weeks leading up to it? Have been batshit crazy. My company is actually shutting down our office for the next two days – which they have never, ever, EVAR done before – because shit is expected to get THAT insane with the events and the road closures and the protesters and such. And hey – know who works in the building right next to mine? And whose work life has been totally consumed with the G-20? And who said in her email, “I am probably going to die before the whole spectacle is over because someone is sure to launch a brick at my face, which will make me very pretty for my wedding if I do happen to live”? Yes, that’s right. Lovely Mermanda, my friends, who I suspect would still be a beautiful bride even if she received a brick to the face (hey! I smell a wedding toast!), but that’s really not something I want to find out for sure.

Actually, that reminds me of my own pre-wedding potential-face-maiming experience (what – like you don’t have one?). It was the Wednesday before my wedding, and my friends were all meeting for happy hour at a local bar. I was in the midst of last-minute wedding [BLEEP!], but decided to swing by to get my mind off of centerpieces and tea roses for a few hours. Unfortunately for us, half the cast of Hee-Haw was in attendance that night, and we found ourselves seated next to two charming young ladies who were knee-walking drunk and determined to pick a fight. Now, friends, I am a peaceable sort. I do not enjoy confrontations and I can ignore even the most obnoxious drunk chicks. But if you get your drunk ass UP IN MY FACE and start INSULTING MY FRIENDS and it just happens to be THE WEEK OF MY WEDDING and I am looking for AN EXCUSE TO HIT SOMEONE, we just may have a situation on our hands. I had been in that bar all of five minutes (my drink hadn’t even arrived!) before I was ready to throw down with Backwoods Barbie and her big-haired sidekick. Words were exchanged, hands were shoved in faces, and before I knew it, Trailer Sue was winding up to punch me. IN THE FACE. This is when my friend Heather – one of my bridesmaids and lo, she would be named MVP of my wedding for this valiant act – stepped between me and the offending fist, yelling. “You can’t hit her! She’s getting married!”

Don’t we all just need friends like Heather? I love her.

Anyway, it worked. Heather successfully blocked the punch, the bouncers took notice and threw out the redneck duo, and I got my Jack & Coke. All was well, and I didn’t even have to sport a black eye on the altar three days later. (It should be noted, though, that when my loving fiancé found out about this, he was livid – LIVID! – that I would put myself in a potentially eye-blackening situation. I was disappointed in his inability to see the bad-assery of my behavior, but I guess he had a point.)

Sorry for derailing this post down Memory Lane, but the point is, I made it through all the Wedding Crazy and had a magnificent day – and so will Mermanda. Strength, my dear! The insanity is nearing its end, and pretty soon you will be wearing that gorgeous white dress and watching all the planning come to its fruition. Oh, and did I mention how people will wait on you hand and foot, and will always be shoving glasses of champagne in your hand? Because they will. AND IT WILL BE AWESOME.

So let us take this time to pull Mermanda back from the brink of OMFG and pep talk her into not going insane. Because a straight-jacket is not a good look for a bride, and The Knot can quote me on that one.

It's always something

Our new house is (mostly) clean and of sound structure. So it always surprises me when I notice a creature in the tub as I'm about to step in to the shower. Sometimes it's a spider. Sometimes a centipede. *shudder* But today? It was a worm. Really. It was a worm. How did it get there is what I want to know? Spiders and centipedes are one thing, but worms in my tub are totally unacceptable. I am publicly asking the kind worm people to stay out of my house. Thank you. Also, stay out of my medicine and beverages while you are at it. Best Regards.

I can see your underpants

Mermanda is being kind enough to let me take over her blog today, as I try to avoid being dooced. I, uh, don't want my blog attached to this but I will say that I spell my name with 2 l's. Thanks, Mermanda!

My boss is very difficult to work for. He's brilliant at what he does but is lacking in the social skills. He is very shouty, is what I'm saying. Whenever I need to deal with him directly, I'm on edge. His reactions are completely unpredictable, so it was with trepidation that I asked if I could take an unused filing cabinet from his office to mine. The previous week, my coworker (in an attempt to make my move from one work station to another as easy as possible) moved the filing cabinet. It was empty of anything important, as far as we could tell. A cursory glance revealed a few maps, some plastic bags, and a bunch of empty folders. When my boss saw what we had done he lost his shit. Lots of swearing and indignant sputtering as he dragged the filing cabinet back to his desk.

The next day he told me that I was welcome to the filing cabinet, as long as I asked before moving it.

So I asked for the filing cabinet.

He said okay and told me to come with him as he cleaned it out because he wouldn't be dragging the filing cabinet across the office to my desk. Fair enough. I walked over to his desk and watched as he started pulling junk out of the filing cabinet. He pulled a handful of stuff out of the bottom drawer and there, clutched in his hands with the assorted plastic bags, empty envelopes, and other office junk, is a pair of faded black, brief-style, rumpled (so I'm assuming worn) mens' underpants.

I froze.

He looked up at me to see if I noticed.

I could not look away.

"It's my spare underwear," he said with a straight face.

I threw up in my mouth a little.

So later that night I'm telling this story to my sister and I get to the underpants (underpants!) part and she says, "I keep underpants at work." And I'm all, "what the what?"

SHE KEEPS UNDERPANTS AT WORK.

I have a spare pair of shoes and a drawer full of chocolate. No underpants.

She's got spare underpants and socks and assorted toiletries.

So what I want to know is, who is the crazy one?

My streak of luck continues

You weren't too keen on my flies in the martini story, so I'm guessing this one won't be a crowd pleaser either. Yesterday, nursing myself back to health/sobriety after a 3 hour beer tasting, I reached for the Excedrin Extra Strength--desperate for the room to stop spinning. I took a nap for a few hours and woke up feeling amazing. Andrew, however, was still trudging through his post-beer tasting haze and asked for some ibuprofen. Instead, I gave him the Excedrin that was conveniently on my nightstand. Later that night I was tidying up the bedroom, putting the Excedrin back into the medicine cabinet. That's when I noticed something black at the bottom of the bottle. A FREAKING SPIDER. It was a spider with only two remaining legs (the others were floating around the 20 or so capusules left in the 100 capsule botttle). That's right. We consumed about 80 Excedrin capsules that were infused with spider legs. Yum. Exedrin is hearing from me tomorrow. You bet your bippy. UPDATE: Just got off the phone with Novartis, the maker of Excedrin, and they are sending me a voucher for a free bottle of Excedrin and a mailing packet for me to send off my spider for investigation. How exciting.

How to get in good with your significant other

When your pookey bear least expects it, launch a surprise attack of gooey chocolate peanut butter brownies straight from the oven. And if that doesn't work, rub his/her tummy. (This alternative works with dogs also.)

Work was really pulling out all the stops yesterday, but I wouldn't let it take me down. I fought the good fight and came out on top. Today, there is not much motivation left--but that's to be expected when you drain an entire week's worth of concentration in one day. My brain is mush. Really, touch it. See? Gross.

I need a kid... QUICK!

A freaking Pterodactyl costume.

That's all.

Choose your own creature

I bet you think I'm going to tell you about my bachelorette party, don't you? Not yet. I don't have time to do it justice.

In the meantime, will you please humor me and tell me which Zoobilee Zoo character I should be for Halloween?


Talkatoo Cockatoo


Whazzat Kangaroo

Or... you can completely shun Zoobilee Zoo, and tell me I should be Hello Kitty. Thank you for your participation.

Things to consider: Where do you get a fur jumpsuit like Whazzat? And I thought Whazzat was a cat. Shows you how smart of a kid I was. Also, I like playing with feathers. But are beaks easy to find these days?

P.S. I had a pumpkin spice latte date with Jive Turkey today. She's a doll. So happy Hillary helped unite us!

A good omen

My first pumpkin spice latte of the season is adorned with quite a lovely mermaid flopper. I think this is a good omen for the fall ahead.



In other sea creature news...

This is the octopus I decided on buying for my rehearsal dinner:



Go visit Renee Loughlin's Etsy shop pinkdragonfly98 to see the other Revamped Vintage Jewelry she has available.

My bachelorette party is Saturday and I'm really looking forward to a low key evening with some of my favorite ladies. Andrew and I have both instituted a very strict "No Strippers" rule, so instead we will be drinking delicious craft beers and singing our hearts out at my favorite karaoke locale.


Have a great weekend! And to my fellow Americans, have a great THREE DAY WEEKEND! Yesssssssssss.

Are you sick of me showing you dresses yet?

I ordered this yesterday from Nordstrom. It actually comes in petite sizes, which is pretty freaking awesome.



Is this enough "wow" for you people? Does it say "I'm fun and frisky?" Can we all move on with our lives now? ;) Just kidding. Thanks for all of your feedback. I love you all for not letting me show up to my rehearsal dinner looking frumpy, matronly, or just generally "blah." You are the best.

I'd still wear the shoes I showed you for the last dress... and am considering something like this for jewelry:


I'm just having trouble getting past the chunky cheapo chain.

The Dress Is No More

I returned the dress and I have to say it felt pretty darn good. I've been cruising the Internet for a replacement and stumbled upon this: This dress screams "FALL!" Wait, that sounds dangerous. This dress screams "AUTUMN!" I'd love to be snuggly and warm at my rehearsal dinner... but is this too casual? I'd wear this little number with these babies: And... oh... maybe this little necklace I found on Etsy... What do you think? The sweaterdress and cardigan come in nutmeg (shown), chocolate, red, grey, ivory, and black. I think I'm leaning towards either nutmeg, chocolate, or grey. Please, y'all got me this far. Don't abandon me now. EDIT: Things to consider: Will this dress be too much for my tiny frame?