Saying goodbye to my best friend

When I was about 4 or 5 years old, a dog appeared in my life. All I remember of this dog was that it might have been black, it might have been big and it definitely chewed a chunk of my parents' orange couch off. If I remember correctly we were taking care of the pup for a family friend, but the incident with the orange couch swiftly ended that dog's time with us.
I tell this story because it quite possibly was the first time I became obsessed with owning dogs. At the time we'd had a cat for a while and I loved cats. But a few days (maybe even weeks) with a puppy brought out the dog lover in me.
Over the years we got a new kitten, a couple of fish and a cockatiel, but my pleas for a dog went unanswered.
But, when I was about 8 years old, we went to visit a litter of brittany spaniels. The wriggling mass of reddish-brown and white fur might have been the cutest thing I'd ever witnessed in my relatively short life. But it was one in particular, the apparent "runt" of the litter, who stole my heart (and the hearts of my mom and sister).
We took that little girl home and named her Kelly (after the uninspired name "Brittany" was tossed about). To this day I have no idea why we dubbed her that, but I generally called her Kellybelly. 8-year-old's will do that.
Two years later, my frustrated stepdad decided to get a new dog because Kelly was too "bullheaded" to be the bird dog he had wanted. That year Kelly was exiled from the most of the family's hearts. She was no competition for a younger, more amusing puppy. Yet, when everyone was drawn to Misty, our new German shorthaired pointer (who, incidentally, turned out to be even more unsuited for hunting), I would join Kelly on her bed. She would put her head on my leg and I would tell her about my day. That's when she became my dog.
Over the years we protected each other and I could always count on her to comfort me when it was called for. She would be there to keep my toes warm during the freezing winter nights in the mountains. When I had fights with my step-dad, I would usually escape to the side porch, where she would come running and shove her head under my arm in her version of a hug. She never failed to make me smile.
These memories are what I hold onto now that I am forced to say good-bye to my best friend. Home is not really "home" without her.
But the cycle continues. The night after Kelly was put down, I crawled into my own bed and promptly started to cry. Miyagi has generally slept on the floor because of my husband's allergies, but when allowed on the bed, he usually prefers to sleep on Travis' side and doesn't want to be touched. If you pet him he'll move farther away and if your feet are touching him, he'll often chuff at you and jump off in disgust. But that night, Miyagi got up and walked over to my side of the bed and stared at me. Eventually, he put his head on the bed next to my face and licked some tears off my nose. Then crawled in to bed next to me and I wrapped my arm around him, just like I had done so many times with Kelly. Instead of protesting, he snuggled closer. I will never forget Kelly. But it hurts slightly less knowing that I can build a similar relationship with Miyagi.

I'm back!

Well, I've actually been back from my honeymoon for a few days now, but I sort of felt like I needed even more time to recover from the craziness. That and there's been a lot to accomplish since I've been back. I have not really accomplished much of it, but I have gotten one big thing finished. I set up an site for everyone to upload their photos of our wedding.

Our first dance, photo by Paul Beck (my dad)

Wedding photos tend to be the biggest chunk of change for many brides/grooms and their parents. In order to save some money we asked my stepfather to be the official photographer and then told everyone else not to forget their cameras. After the wedding I planned to set up an online account with a photo service where everyone could upload their photos.
This is the only thing I've really accomplished since returning. My house is still a mess. Miyagi seems to have forgotten large chunks of his training. I have piles of gifts (which we are really grateful for) from extremely generous friends and family that I'm hoping to finish writing thank-you notes for soon. And on Friday we are moving back to Newport News.

You may now kiss the bride, photo by Myrna Teague (my great aunt)

But I have officially set up a pro account on Flickr. Everyone can upload their photos there so I can download high quality original copies instead of shrunken files from Facebook. That helps triple the total number of photos I have access to when I'm finally able to afford printing good quality copies. Looking through my stepfather's pictures, I've realized he doesn't have the right eye I wanted for catching some of the details of the wedding (which I worked so hard to visualize and my friends and family worked even hard to implement). He did capture the basic photos you want, but some shots were missing. Having others take photos as well allowed me to have shots I wouldn't have gotten if I had depended on just my stepfather's shots. Such as this shot from my new sister-in-law:

Table settings, photo by Jenny Land (sister-in-law extraordinaire)

So if you plan to get married, I really recommend doing this if you can't see spending $3,000 (minimum!) on wedding photos.

Technical gibberish, or Why I chose this method
I chose Flickr because for about $25, I get unlimited downloads, storage and access to the original sized uploads.
Why is this important? Well, I wanted the chance to Photoshop photos that might not be perfect (most have beautiful potential, but many need a little tweeking) and that is extremely difficult to do when you are working with sizes that have been shrunken down for web use.
Facebook, for example imports photos at a resolution of 72 pixels per square inch and a size of about 720 pixels wide by 540 pixels high. For comparison, the camera my dad was using saved pictures at 4,272 pixels by 2,848 pixels at 72 psi. That may sound like gibberish to you, but pixels hold the information that make up the building blocks of a photo. So, the more pixels, the more information I have to work with. Ergo, I can make a beautiful photo perfect.
At the same time, to print photos they need to be at least 200 psi for quality printing. If you resize the Facebook photo to 200 psi, it can be printed no bigger than 3.6 inches by 2.7 inches. And that is too tiny for me to use.

Coming soon
Finally, I wanted to let you know that I am going to be doing a lot of posting in the near future. Not only do I want to go through some of the awesome details of the wedding, I have several other posts I've been putting off, including: several book reviews (including The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake by Aimee Bender and Crescent by Diana Abu-Jaber), a photo tour of our new home and the setbacks and triumphs we've hit while training Miyagi.
So, please come back soon and let me know what you think!

Wordless Wednesdays: Love & Marriage

Photo by Ken Kienow via Ruffled blog

Wedding Notes: Dancing with my dad

One of the first things I thought about upon getting engaged was my dad. I was excited that he would walk me down the aisle and that we would have a father/daughter dance. I remember a father-daughter dance we had in Illinois which was sponsored by the girl scout troop my mom was a leader in. It's a pretty foggy memory for me because I was only five or six, and yet it's stayed with me for most of my life. It's this memory I want to honor at the wedding, but I also want to honor all of the great times we've had together. We really are great friends. When I make huge decisions in my life, he's always the first person I call. In fact, I called him first when Travis proposed. I even called him before adopting Miyagi because I didn't know if it was the best decision.

In that vein I've been putting a lot of thought into what our song will be and I'm torn between songs that convey love and what our relationship is and songs that remind me of him, but don't necessarily speak to our relationship.

For the former I've come up with two songs:

Nickel Creek -"When you come back down"

Beatles - "In My Life"

When I think of my top three favorite bands, Genesis(and Phil Collins) always makes the list, and that is all thanks to my dad. The first song I remember learning the words to was "I Can't Dance." (The music video is hilarious; you must click on the link and watch it).

While the song always invokes memories of driving in my car with Dad, that song isn't exactly appropriate for the occasion. I have come up with a Genesis and two Phil Collins song I could see dancing to:

Genesis - "Follow You, Follow Me" (This actually makes me think of having nightmares as a kid and knowing it would be alright because Dad was there.)

Phil Collins - "You'll Be in My Heart"

Phil Collins - "Can't Stop Loving You"

NaBloPoMo: First dance

One summer, the fiance and I headed to different parts of the world. I went to Morocco for three weeks as part of program from the previous summer that brought 20 Algerians and Moroccans to our shores for a cultural exchange. The fiance headed to Costa Rica for a month to help with Loggerhead Turtle conservation efforts. When he returned he made me promise to salsa with him sometime because he had so much fun with the dance down there.

We've thought long and hard about what our first dance will be to. When we touched on the idea of doing a salsa dance I couldn't help but consider a song I hadn't ever thought of before. Most of the songs we mentioned to each other were slow songs that meant something to us as a couple. But this song is different. While it does speak to us, it's not what most people would think of as "us." But we're all about having fun and this song just makes you want to dance. It's not exactly a salsa tune - it's more reggae hip-hop - but the fiance says you can salsa to anything with a beat. And this song has a beat.

So here's what we're thinking of as a first dance song:

"Say Hey (I Love You)" by Michael Franti



This one goes out to you and yours worldwide
I say hey I be gone today
But I be back around the way
Seems like everywhere I go
The more I see
the less I know
But I know one thing
That I love you
I love you (3x)
I’ve been a lot of places all around the way
I’ve seen a lot joy and I’ve seen a lot of pain
but I don’t want to write a love song for the world,
I just want to write a song about a boy and a girl
Junkies on the corner always calling my name
And the kids on the corner playing ghetto games
When I saw you getting down well I hoped it was you
And when I looked into your eyes I knew it was true
I say Hey I be gone today
But I be back around the way
Seems like everywhere I go
The more I see
the less I know
But I know one thing
That I love you
I love you (3x)
Now I’m not a highly metaphysical man
But I know when the stars are aligned
you can bump into person in the middle of the road
look into their eyes and you suddenly know
Rocking in the dance hall moving with you
Dancing in the night in the middle of June
My momma told me don’t lose you
‘cause the best luck I had was you
I said Hey I be gone today
But I be back around the way
Seems like everywhere I go
The more I see the less I know
But I know one thing
That I love you
I love you (3x)
And I said rocking in the dance hall moving with you
I said Hey momma hey momma close to you
Rocking in the dance hall moving with you
I said hey trippa trippa close to you
Rocking in the dance hall moving with you
I said Hey Momma close to you
Rocking in the dance hall I said
hey momma hey momma hey momma hey momma

My momma told me don’t lose you
Cause the best luck I had was you
And I know one thing that I love you
I said I be gone today but I’ll be back around the way
It seems like everywhere I go
The more I see the less I know
But I know one thing for sure
I love you (3x)

Wax on, wax off...

So I apologize for my absence. Last weekend I went home and then on Monday the fiance and I adopted a puppy, so I haven't had much time to update this lovely blog. The first few days of having a puppy has been a mix of stressed panic attacks and wonderful moments. I grew up in a house with a cat, two dogs and a bird, so I'm no stranger to animal care. But, it's very different to adopt a puppy and take responsibility for another life, especially one so helpless.
At the same time, it's been great to see him grow and learn in such a short time.
Miyagi (after The Karate Kid sensei) is an 8-month-old lab/terrier mix with a cute wire hair beard, hence the sensei reference.
When we adopted Miyagi, we vowed to be very consistent and firm in his training. And there have been amazing moments when he suddenly got what we were teaching him. And it's so wonderful to just hang out with him. So, don't be surprised if you see some of my training experiences and stories about Miyagi.



What about you? Have you had a dog or do you own one right now? Feel free to share you stories about your pets or tips on training them here.

A lesson in (NOT) fear-mongering

So, one of the first wedding blogs I discovered after I got engaged was an entertaining and innovative site called The Offbeat Bride, which centers around breaking down the silly traditions that no one wants or remembers why they became traditions. It's about proving that your wedding CAN be what YOU want it to be, instead of what your mom wants or your overbearing grandmother wants, or what have you. Not that the blog dismisses people doing the normal wedding thing, as long as that's what the bride and groom wanted to begin with, it's all good with them.
I have had a lot of fun seeing other people have a lot of fun on their wedding day, on this blog and on other blogs. But once I got engaged, I also got hit with all the negative stereotypes about weddings and marriage from my friends, family and even just acquantances; everyone seems to want to share and become your sister (or brother) in the most terrible time of your life (that is wedding planning and your wedding day and even your basic life as a married individual).
Apparently I'm not the only one who has been victim of this fear-mongering, as Ariel, the author of Offbeat Bride, calls it. As she says in her witty analysis of this phenomenom of the Oh-you'll-seeeeee, when people constantly project their challenges on others and get angry when you don't get worried or decide just to not bother with that aspect all, "I think what goes unsaid (by the fear-mongers) is You HAVE to worry! It's what we're going to bond over, because bonding over hardship is awesome!"
I have to admit it's great to hear from someone who has been there that "it just doesn't have to be that way." I've heard so many negative things from so many other people, not just about the planning or the day, but about how love dies when you get married, or you get old and boring when you get married, or you will have kids when you get married (uh, not likely?). In any case, for everyone in any situation I think Ariel imparts a great truth in this part of her post:

"It seem that in our effort to find shared experiences, we turn to each other and tell awful stories about how hard it all is. And you know what? Sometimes it IS hard. Sometimes the wedding plans fall apart and relationships fall apart and it feels like our life is falling apart. But rather than tell the horror stories, why not share the lessons? Learn as much as you can and share the positivity of what you learned, rather than the shared grumping about didn't work."

A peek at a possible future

Until one fateful Sunday when I was bored at work and decided to read past editions of the New York Times' Sunday Magazine, I hadn't given much thought to what our marriage would be like. I mean, I assumed it would be more of what we do now, only with an added tax benefit. Then I began reading "Married (Happily) With Issues," the cover story of the Dec. 12 New York Times Magazine.

Overview
In it, Elizabeth Weil describes her marriage as "pretty good." Unfortunately for her analytical mind, Weil realizes that she thinks of her marriage as being "like the waves on the ocean, a fact of life, determined by the sandbars below, shaped by fate and the universe, not by me." She thinks that it is just "O.K." because they haven't tried. If her and her husband, Dan, begin to apply themselves, how much better could it be?
While this may be logical, it ends up leading to a storm of issues. As Weil recalls, "You set out to improve your marriage; it implodes."

Gut reactions
Over the course of reading the article, I began thinking about the boy and I.
Weil says this about their decision to marry: "We never discussed, or considered discussing, why we were getting married or what a good marriage would mean. It all seemed obvious. I loved Dan; I loved how I felt with him. Ergo I wanted to be his wife."
I was taken aback by that. That's what I feel. Is that the wrong answer? Suddenly I was asking myself, "Why do I really want to get married?" But I couldn't come up with anything else. Freaked out, I stopped reading for a day.

Monday, again bored at work, I decided to take a second crack at the article. That's when I read that Weil admits that "while working to improve our marriage, I found myself pushing my husband away." Things only got worse for the two as divorce eventually got brought up.
And through it all, I kept getting more scared. I mean, my family's history doesn't offer a vote of confidence for me making it in a marriage. Not only are my parents divorced, but their parents are divorced. Two of my mom's siblings are divorced (my dad doesn't have siblings to add to the pattern). Even my sister is getting divorced. The boy says this just means that I'll be breaking the pattern, but if I've had no good examples of marriage, how can I hope to be in a good marriage?

Weil concludes that the "good-enough marriage" is one in which both partners "keep growing, to afford them the strength and bravery required to face the world."
I do think we do this well. Each of us saves the other from ourselves, while at the same time we allow each other to be ourselves. The boy may do a little more of that right now, but as time goes on, I'm sure it will even out. I think the best lesson Weil has is the one she doesn't actually spell out: Don't try too hard. I think marriage comes a lot more naturally than she thinks. And the reasons for marrying come even more naturally. I think our reasons are just as valid as any other, and the fact that there was no surprise among any of our friends that we were getting engaged helps to drive that point home to me.

Bottom line

This article is worth the read, even if you aren't yet married. And despite not always agreeing with her dim view of marriage, it did get me thinking about my impending nuptials and the future they would bring. And, to me, the best marker of good writing is that it forces you to think about your own life.

A day to remember

There's a tradition among us humans. Having more than a 5 minute memory gives us the unique and annoying habit of looking into the past and evaluating it.
The human race also has an annoying habit of making those infamous things called "Best of" lists. Most animals don't do this, and for many memories that are added to these lists, it's not a good habit to go about remembering them. But for those few moments that can light up your life and make you warm and fuzzy all over, being able to look back is a gift. I had a best day this year. There are very few of those, and their definitions are continually changing and evolving according to new moments that arise. But I think all my future moments will forever be judged based on this moment, and I guess that makes it the best of 2009.
While I myself hate "Best of" lists, it's not hard to get on board with picking my best moment of 2009. It was obviously the moment that Travis proposed. I would also have to say that it was also the best day of 2009, lest I forget how amazing the horseback ride on the beach at sunset was for me. I believe the photo illustrates that moment best, and I will therefore end this post before I spoil the beauty and simplicity that the image encompasses for me.