While My Boyfriend Was Sleeping

What I write after Joe and Henry go to bed

Archives for December 2009

Bardi bonds: the gift that keeps on giving

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Yeah, so about that Christmas present Joe spent two hours preparing…

He made me a third series of his highly sought-after Bank of Joe notes.

The Series I notes, constructed last Christmas using Sharpie markers and index cards, were such a runaway success that Joe opted to issue a special massage-only run this summer as an early wedding present.

Spurred by overwhelming consumer approval for his streamlined Series II collector’s edition, Joe opted to upgrade production for his Christmas 2009 run. This year’s Series III notes, which came  printed on high-grade legal tender in a faux alligator skin lock box, were embellished by hand with a gold seal in the pug’s trust. According to the bank’s CEO, the notes required even more handiwork, and in keeping with previous batches, counted up from serial number 00000036.

However, unlike last year’s bonds, this one-of-a-kind collection contained only massage, dinner, laundry and garbage-removal offers and as determined as I am to ration them out, the massage certificates will absolutely go first.

When what to my wondering eyes should appear, but a package from Canada Post filled with holiday cheer.

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The man with no hair who you see in the freeze frame of this YouTube video is my sister Heelya’s boyfriend Brian. He buzzed his head last week.  He says it’s his new Chris Daughtry look. Joe filmed this little segment, among others, on Christmas day as we milled about our house cooking dinner and opening presents before Joe’s parents and siblings arrived for what would be a grand feast in the backyard. (To my family and friends back home in New York: yes we ate dinner outside under the carport in our backyard. It was warm and even a bit humid. Yes, I said humid.)

Before I explain the significance of this video, I should first point out the significance of yesterday.

Yesterday was my first Christmas together with Joe. Sure, it was our first Christmas as husband and wife, but it was also our first Christmas together, logistically speaking. I’m always in Western New York with my family and he’s always in Tampa with his, so the fact that we could celebrate under the same roof, much less the same state, was pretty awesome. I was so grateful for that.

It was also the first time in 16 years that my father has spent Christmas with his parents –– my Oma and Opa, who spend their winters in a retirement community about an hour south of me.

Now, add PK, who also lives in St. Pete, and Heelya and Brian, who live in Myrtle Beach, S.C. and you’ve got a whole bunch of Kurps together for Christmas who might otherwise be scattered up and down the east coast. It was wonderful. Our house was loud and crowded. When Joe’s siblings arrived, followed by his parents and grandfather, it got even louder and more crowded in that colorful bustling warm-energy way. I loved it. Ain’t no Christmas without a ruckus. As I shimmied past pairings of people in the hallway and the living room, carrying trays topped with cheese and veggies, guacamole and hummus, I couldn’t help but think of my Nana and Papa’s Christmas Eve gatherings back home in New York.

(I should also mention that this was the first time ever that my mom didn’t spend Christmas with her parents. Nana: I know you’re reading this. I thought of you the entire night, and now that I have one Christmas dinner under my apron I can finally fully appreciate all those years you hosted Christmas Eve at your house.)

Anyway. Joe and I decided to set up a long table Last Supper-style under the carport in our backyard, which turned out to be a genius idea. My dad strung lights and my mom and I crafted pine and berry napkin ring holders out of garland. Joe fired up the deep fryer and from scratch made better mozzarella sticks and chicken wings than any bar and grill I’ve ever been to.

With my mom’s help, we cooked turkey and ham, mashed sweet potato yams and set out a salad bar. Rosey made corn casserole and Joe’s mom made lasagna. Oma supplied her signature chocolate butter cream cake and so many cookies the tray collapsed when we cleared the table. Three pugs attended the celebration: Cubbie of course, Uncle Homer (my parent’s pug) and Owen (Heelya’s pug), who sadly was suffering from a ruptured ear drum and spent the night with his head cocked lamely to one side.

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Merry Christmas to all and to all a good morning…

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It’s 1:30 a.m. Christmas morning and my husband has been holed up in my office for an hour evidently wrapping an enormous and particularly vexing present for me.

What on earth is he wrapping?

The one thing I want, I already have. It’s our first Christmas together (I always spend it in Buffalo) and my family is in town through the new year. Tomorrow morning we’ll exchange presents and drink vats of hot coffee. Then my parents, Joe’s parents, our siblings and their significant others will join us for dinner.

We’re cooking for 20 people. Wish us luck.

Oh, and Merry Christmas.

Peggy’s cobalt blue dishes

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Peggy’s cobalt blue dishes won’t leave me, which is odd because I don’t know Peggy and I never ate off her dishes. She died years ago in the house next door, according to an old lady who lives on the alley near 30th Avenue and 1st Street.

One night while Joe and I were walking the pug, this silver-haired woman named Virgina or Ginny toddled out her front door and introduced herself. Said she lived in the neighborhood for 50 years and didn”t recall ever meeting us. Raised her three sons in the alley house. Wondered where we came from. Which house we lived in. What kind of dog we were walking. What our names were.

Then she started telling us about Peggy.

Peggy was a piano teacher. She lived in the two-story yellow house next door to ours and taught Ginny’s three sons how to play. She was a good friend. A good piano teacher and had the finest collection of cobalt blue dishes Ginny had ever seen.

She didn’t go into much more detail, except to say that when Peggy died she acquired her dishes.

Since that conversation I can’t seem to get the piano teacher and her cobalt blue dishes out of my head. If I had lived in this house 50 years ago, Peggy and I would be neighbors. I would pop over for a chat in the morning and we’d sip Earl Grey tea out of glassy blue teacups as morning sunlight glittered through the front porch.

Peggy would have a cat. A fat cat with black and white fur that would purr loudly and drop dead mice at her feet, which Peggy would coolly toss out her back door for hungry birds and stray dogs to nibble on.

On holidays, Peggy would come over carrying a tray of fig cookies stacked atop a cobalt blue dish with gold trim and scalloped edges. She’d always be bringing us cookies and I’d always be afraid of breaking her dishes. When I’d wash them, I’d use simple Ivory dish soap, the kind that comes in a white bottle and doesn’t dry out your hands.

In the evenings, Joe and I would hear Peggy play the piano. Mostly she’d be in the middle of a lesson with some neighborhood kid. They’d be playing Chopsticks or Mozart’s Ah! Vous Dirai-Je, Maman, which is really just Twinkle Twinkle Little Star.

I can picture Peggy’s curtains, paisley yellow with little blue and red flowers. Her accent. A true Florida accent. Soft and lulling. I can even picture her fingers on the keys. She may have been a small lady, but when she played the piano she pounded the keys.

Aint no mountain high enough

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Nana & Papa Whiteface Mtn

whiteface mountain

Last week I received a note from Nana on Hallmark stationary, which was quite aristocratic given my grandmother’s weakness for toilet paper and bark.

But before I share with you Nana’s latest correspondence, I should point out that when Joe and I climbed Whiteface Mountain on our honeymoon in September, we had no idea that my Nana and Papa did the same thing nearly 60 years ago –– on their honeymoon.

How awesome is that?

Of course I should also point out that like Nana and Papa, Joe and I didn’t actually CLIMB the mountain. We drove most of the way and then trudged 30 stories up a jagged stone footpath to a long flat summit offering views of Quebec and Vermont. I was ill-prepared and wore boots. Later, when I recounted the story to Nana, she said, “Well, wouldn’t you know it? I climbed that same mountain on my honeymoon.”

In the card I received last week was a black and white photograph of my grandparents on top of Whiteface. Below it is a picture of me and Joe. Same spot. Five decades later.

“Hi Heidi,” Nana wrote. “Well I finally got this picture enlarged. We climbed the mountain and then had our picture taken by another couple. We were on our honeymoon –– 1952. Papa was 21 and I 20. (Young and frisky.) I was exhausted, but still managed a smile. Thought you’d like to have this for your memory box.

Love, Nana

PS. Picture not too clear, but hey it’s 57 years old.

Happy birthday Cubbie!

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In honor of your turning the big OH-FIVE, here are 13 characters to whom you’ve been compared. But before you scroll on, know this dear pug: no matter your doppelgangers, I will always love you for who you are, you sweet, loving, sausage-shaped ball of joy. You are the perfect companion and a credit to your breed.

Happy birthday fine sir.

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In no particular order …

Gizmo

Gizmo

jackelam

Jack Elam

et

E.T.

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Razor yearn

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shaver

About four months ago, maybe longer, Joe ran to CVS for some odds and ends. I didn’t go because I had a headache, which I believe was the primary reason for the late-night CVS run. We were out of Advil. As Joe grabbed his keys and headed for the door, he asked me if I needed anything else from the store.

Tampons?

Chocolate ice cream?

Vogue?

Toothpaste?

“I need a pack of razors,” I said.

Razors? What kind of razors?

“Just a pack of BICs or whatever.”

I never buy expensive razors. Certainly not the kind that come in blister packs and require $18 disposable heads and definitely not the kind Jewel sold her soul to peddle in 2003.

When Joe returned from CVS, not only had he purchased a family-sized bottle of Advil, (the kind one might buy using a Sam’s Club card) he had also purchased a Gillette Venus Breeze 2-in-1 razor with shave gel bars.

Have you guys seen this thing? It looks like an ordinary razor except that the head is cushioned by a sort of slimy gel helmet. Like the razor suffered a concussion and needed head padding.

“What the hell kind of a contraption is this?” I asked.

“You said you needed a razor,” he replied.

“Yeah, not a $20 razor.”

“It’s not a $20 razor. And besides, it came with gel. Now you won’t need to buy it.”

“What, gel? I don’t use gel.”

“Well, now you do.”

—–

PS. Happy 34th birthday, Joe. While I’ve not been very good at buying replacement heads for my Venus Breeze, I love that you’ve made it an option. Thank you, as always, for broadening my horizons.

My mother, working the streets

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UPDATE ON MY PREVIOUS POST:

My mother made $185 this weekend by re-purposing my wedding centerpieces into holiday decorations. Here she is manning her stand at the end of the driveway:

Christmas centerpieces_2

One man pulled over yesterday morning in full hunting regalia, begging my mother to hold three centerpieces for him. He was a one-armed hunter, dressed in head-to-toe camouflage. He was on his way into the woods, so he asked my mom to save him three. When he returned in the afternoon, he purchased four and handed her $60.

Christmas centerpieces

Nice! I’m with you Reb. My mom should get an etsy account.

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PS. Happy Birthday to my best friend Ro, who wrote the book on the care and keeping of best friendships.

The unbearable lightness of being (with Joe)

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I wrote this the day I returned from my honeymoon and never posted it. It’s for you romantics.

…

It was important to Joe that we go on our honeymoon the day after our wedding. One momentous thing followed by another momentous thing. Wedding then honeymoon. No lag time between. He called it “getting shot out of a cannon.” There would be immense build up, followed by drunken well wishes and champagne toasts, culminating in a spark that when lit would launch us into the autumn horizon like a rocket, propelled by a combustible mixture of red wine and roses that no amount of romantic lollygagging through Upstate New York could or would encumber.

So here I am at 3 p.m. on September 25. Back in Florida. Back on my couch with the pug by my side and Joe asleep in the bedroom after insisting he cover most of the 23-hour drive from Buffalo to St. Petersburg himself.

We had built fires in the woods near Montréal, Québec, ferried our car from Plattsburgh, N.Y. to Burlington, V.T., purchased armfuls of produce on the side of the road and then washed it all down with champagne beside a waterfall. When Joe suggested we drive straight through the night, I didn’t protest. What was one more adventure in the month of September? We were in such a bliss bubble on our drive home that even a blown tire in West Virginia seemed cute. Well, to me anyway.

All the clichés about time and how fast it goes are true. I didn’t fully grasp that until now. Sometimes when you step outside of your body and take a second to swallow a moment, you can see the slow-motion passage of time. One fat molecule freeing itself from another fat molecule like liquid taffy. Gelatinous time.

About two months ago, Joe turned to me and asked, “You wont get depressed when the wedding’s over, right?”

“Depressed? No. I’m looking forward to getting my life back.”

I was up to my waist in wedding planning and work. Luggage-sized bags had formed under my eyes and inside these hollow caves I carried a never-ending to-do list of tasks.

“OK,” he said, smiling, knowing full well I was full of shit. “Just checking.”

Three months have passed since that conversation and now I’m doing laundry and unpacking suitcases, giggling to myself as I separate the various memories from the last three weeks into a cardboard box that I will save forever. Wistful already.

Despite getting only two hours of sleep last night, the bags under my eyes are gone and in their place is something new. I can’t really describe it because part of me thinks it’s purely psychological, although Joe, in his usual Joe-way, tried to describe it three nights ago in Cooperstown, N.Y.

“You look wife-like,” he said.

“Wife-like? Oh God. Really?”

“Why are you acting like it’s an insult?”

“I don’t know. Because wife-like sounds so matronly.”

“Well, if matronly is beautiful. You look matronly.”

I think it was then that I blushed, and when I blushed the space under my eyes filled with something warm and dewy. I noticed it this morning when I walked into the bathroom and saw that he had unpacked all the hotel toiletries we collected on our honeymoon and arranged them on the vanity as if we were still on vacation.