Tales from La La Land

Well, it’s July.

Basically.

Which makes me nervous. I am excited about the wedding, marriage and seeing all of our friends. I am scared that the food will be cold or that I will drop my ring in the sand while fending off tears of joy.

Everybody tells you that at least one thing will go wrong on your wedding day. For the most part, I think I am OK with that. I haven’t exactly arranged for a super fancy affair. So, for example, if something goes wrong with the cake, I will live. Mainly because the cake cost less than what I pay to have my hair done every other month.

Sick, I know.

I truly am most nervous about people having fun.

Thankfully, Amy Longeteig is my matron of honor. I might have just spelled her name wrong, but this isn’t a fact-checking blog so…(I did check her Facebook when addressing her invitation. I’m not that lame).

Anyway, as we get closer to the wedding day, and I think about all of the people coming to spend the day with us, I get super excited.

Not a single one of my bridesmaids lives in LA. Only one of them lives in California.

I rarely see them.

And they are my favorite people.

I emailed Amy today to remind her that she will have to give a toast. I almost started crying thinking about what she will say.

There are memories.

A LOT.

I met her husband first. Then I quickly realized who was the cooler of the two. Her, of course.

She was a New England transplant and she was not afraid to speak her mind to the more laid back people of the west coast, and, in particular, Eugene, Oregon.

Who the fuck orders a Cosmopolitan (it was 1999 people, they were cool back then) at a DIVE bar and then returns it because it tastes like shit?

Probably because the bartender farted on it due to the fact that she ordered a Cosmo at a bar that has Pabst on tap and peanuts on the floor.

I was always in awe of how she stood up for herself. I am a pansy in every shape of the word and if my food comes to me cold I will smile and say that it tastes great so as to not piss off the waiter.

Circa 2004, I was a girl who would let a guy treat me like shit and figure it was my fault.

Amy was the friend who would call him, give him a piece of her mind and then hide my cell phone until the next morning so that the vicious cycle of text-fighting would end and we could all sleep.

Her house was open to me morning, noon and night. Like the time I decided to walk 3 miles home from a party, but realized half way there that it was a horrible idea.

Luckily, the Longeteig house was nearby so I strolled up at 3 a.m. Sure enough the front door was unlocked and I quietly curled up on their couch while their guard-dog, Stella, gave me puppy kisses and asked if I wanted to steal the TV.

I woke up and left in the morning before they ever knew I was there.

There were the camping trips.

Killer Longeteig barbeque’s.

Sunday’s at Jerry’s for Sex in the City, Six Feet Under and yummy drinks.

There was her wedding in Maine.

Dancing.

Strip Clubs.

That ever-memorable moment at a wedding when Amy said, “Who the fuck cares about college football?!”, not realizing that Oregon football coach Mike Bellotti was at the table next to her. He smiled.

That one time Those 10 times that she has fallen down after a night out and been seriously injured.

Realizing that the stray cat she adopted and named Lucy was actually a boy, forcing her to rename him to Lou C.

Her late-night grilled cheese sandwiches.

The list goes on for years.

And so, when I think about having fun at the wedding, I remember that there will be people like Amy there to make sure fun happens.

That’s her number one duty as MOH.

Bring the laughs.

It’s not often that I can’t find words.

That’s just who I am. Say things. Keep the conversation going. Make people comfortable. Make friends.

But, I can’t find the words to say to my friend, Jo Gail. I don’t know how to tell her that the sudden, unexpected passing of her father somehow has meaning.

I don’t know how to tell her that she can do this. She can dig deep after supporting her mother – her best friend. Her mother, a two-time breast cancer survivor, who had back surgery and had a steel cage drilled into her spine after the cancer cells spread to her spine the second time around.

How can I tell a 23-year old who has a more impressive resume than I do at 35 to keep doing what she is doing. Keep pressing on. Keep your head up.

Jo’s mom, Kate: Always smiling. Always trying to get Laef to marry Jo. Always Cheering. Always supporting Jo.

Jo: Always striving. Persistent after suffering a horrific injury in her second game as an Oregon Duck. Went to Washington and got her Masters Degree. Went to New York to work for the Women’s Sports Foundation. Got a job in External Relations at Stanford.

Oh, and she played softball in the 2004 Olympics for Team Greece.

So, at this point, I have no words. I don’t know how she feels. I don’t know what it feels like. I don’t know how to tell her that, at 23, with her whole life ahead of her that she has to continue to be the person that she has always been.

Jo, be that person for you. And for your mom.

You guys are a great team.

That is what Smokey’s mom tells him in the movie Friday when she gives him a crisp $1 bill to buy her a pack of cigarettes.

This is what Laef and I are telling ourselves after UCLA announced yesterday that all employees will take an 8% pay cut.

The good thing about us both working at UCLA: Nooners Having lunch together and carpooling.

The bad thing: When paycuts happen, it affects both breadwinners in our house.

I can’t help but look at the bright side. I really think we are both extremely lucky to have not lost our jobs entirely. The economy has affected the entire country, and for some, it has been far more extreme that an 8% pay cut.

However, I do want to roll up to the Governors house and give him a big, fat: FUCK YOU, douchetard.

But, anyway, we’re going to make it be enough and we’ll figure out a way to readjust everything that we had pretty much just readjusted.

This is very exciting for Laef. This means even MORE extreme budgeting!!

We had already committed to seeing The Proposal tonight, but this might be our last movie in the theater for a while. And, we’ll probably smuggle candy instead of paying $6 for Dots.

I am certain that Laef is SUPER excited that this will be his last theater experience for a while. I say: “We’re going out on a high note, honey!”

I stumbled across this photo of Ryan Reynolds on one of the very intelligent web sites that I read everyday and somehow Laef looked over right then.

Laef: “Wait a minute. Is Ryan Reyonlds in The Proposal? Is that why…Fine. I get to look at porn for a week.”

Me: “You look exactly like him. Seriously. Look. You totally have a hairy chest and a flat tummy. The ONLY difference between Ryan and you is that he got a heavy dose of spray tan. And, Scarlett’s boobies. You don’t have those.”

And, just to prove to Laef that he could have TOTALLY been on the summer issue of Entertainment Weekly, I showed him this gem:

Eat your heart out, RR!

TGIF

I am pretty sure Laef returned from Arkansas just in time.

I was on my sixth night of drinking with The Sanch and eating Ruffles for dinner.

At least four days went by where I didn’t wash a single dish. The good thing about eating chips for dinner is that you don’t create many dishes.

So on Sunday morning when Laef called at 9 a.m. to say that he just landed at LAX, all of my motivation to do things like cook, clean and shower came rushing back.

I had gone to the grocery store on Saturday and got a few items that are never on our list, but that Laef probably wishes were. Things like cinnamon rolls and filet mignon.

Cooking makes me happy.

Cooking for one sucks.

Getting back to some sort of routine also makes me happy. We had all day Sunday to do nothing but eat cinnamon rolls in bed, take a long walk all over Manhattan Beach, veg out (me watching Legally Blonde, Laef rolling his eyes playing WoW), grill yummy food, watch the Cardinals game, watch idiotic Lakers fans celebrate by destroying their own city, finally get around to watching Gran Torino (loved) and falling asleep on the couch with Laef not 3,000 miles away.

Don’t get me wrong. I can do all of the above perfectly fine on my own. But, it’s really nice to have someone to do all this stuff with. It’s nice to hear Laef say, “I can’t believe you love this movie. It’s horrible.” Or see him scream at the TV as the Cardinals lose. Or listen to him laugh at his own jokes. Which may or may not be funny.

Now that track season is officially over and the wedding is FIVE weeks away, we can press on together.

Yay!

Listen. I have never claimed to be the world’s most perceptive person.

So, it should come as no surprise that when one of Laef’s coworkers gave us this wedding present, I didn’t act as excited as she probably thought I would.

Don’t get me wrong. I totally was excited.

But, I was saying things like, “Ooohhh! It’s so cute. Beach images to always remind us of living in Manhattan Beach! I love it. I love the coloring. Thank you!”

When I should have been saying, “Holy Fuck! You strung together my new last name with various photos. That is simply A-M-A-Z-I-N-G!”

Yeah. Totally didn’t see it for like the first five minutes.

Whatever. I wasn’t expecting to take some kind of Ishihara Test after four glasses of wine on a Saturday evening.

To make matters worse, earlier in the evening I was trying to be all badass and telling the girls that I had contemplated not changing my name. Not to try and be all feminist or something, but because I’m hella lazy and am NOT looking forward to going to the DMV, requesting new credit cards and getting new checks.

Laef’s coworker (the one who spent days trying to find a light post that looked like an “r”) was totally giving me the death stare. She is married so I figured that she thought my laziness was pathetic and I should honor Laef by becoming a Morris.

Turns out she was just mulling over the countless hours it took to find all the letters AND a picture frame that has SIX photo holes. Not to mention how the photo doesn’t say Morris-Ross, and how it would look totally weird in our house if that wasn’t my name too.

Apparently, you can find frames that have four photo holes anywhere and everywhere.

Which is why Laef should become a:

R-O-S-S.

Just sayin’.

Today I am 35.

For fucks’ sake.

And, after a Happy Hour session with my coworkers and fighting with The Sanch for bed space all night, I don’t feel a day over 87.

My mom left a message saying something about the world’s worst thunderstorm on June 4 and how that is so weird.

I’m surprised she’s not used to June 4 being a shitstorm.

The day you brought the world’s largest clusterfuck into the world, mamacita.

However, I would like to point out that it was one year ago today that Laef got down on one knee on the Manhattan Beach pier as the moon was shining and the waves were crashing. He muttered something about getting married. I didn’t hear too many words, only the ocean singing to me that I had somehow finally found my way. I saw sparkles brighter than the stars, and spent the next two months staring at my left finger.

And so, forever, from this day forward, June 4 will be about the day I became a little less of a cluster.

Today, we are 1. Today, I am a person who, since meeting Laef, has paid off two credit cards, has a savings account with more than $5, doesn’t need to skip a car payment because of spending too much money at Rennies and has followed through on running two half marathons.

I am a changed clusterfuck, my friends.

And, it all happened on June 4.

It’s just that it was in 2008, not 1974.

From this day forward I will never age without being reminded of that moment on the pier. I will remember the gritty sea scallops I ate for dinner, the white wine and the crème brûlée . How, as usual, Laef’s dinner looked (and tasted) SO much better than mine. How I ate off his plate as though it was just any other day.

Of course, it wasn’t just any other day.

I got diamonds, yo.

Which scared the crap out of me. Because let’s be honest. Every pair of earrings I’ve owned: LOST. Every watch I’ve owned: BROKEN.

The odds were stacked against me.

Just like when Laef and I met. He was 22 with his whole life ahead of him. I was 30 with baggage that could have taken me to Europe and back.

We were never supposed to become anything. And, slowly, we did.

Then he left Eugene.

Long distance.

Hard.

Then I left Eugene.

No friends.

Hard.

We lived in Sacramento where there was plenty of family, but no job for me, and a job that required Laef to work 15-hour days.

Hard.

We moved to Los Angeles where rent will make you barf, the 405 will destroy whatever patience you once had and the jobs pay better, but push you harder.

Hard.

We settled into a cute little house near the ocean, got a fluffy white kitten, and open our eyes to sunshine almost everyday.

Easier.

And then one day, after rising above enough obstacles: Will. You. Marry. Me.

Bliss.

Today, we are 1!