Archive: December 2006

I look at my engagement and wedding rings a lot … three times in an hour is probably a low estimate. I imagine that someone seeing the frequent gazes at my finger – maybe passing by my desk at work or standing behind me at the pharmacy – might think that I’m a brand-newlywed, but I’m okay with that.

The rings lure my eyes so easily but they’re very simple. My wedding band is a plain, white-gold band and it sits snugly behind my engagement ring, which is a thin, white-gold band with a round-cut diamond. My sister commented that I had “gone way traditional” when she first saw it, but that’s what I think engagement rings look like. I don’t have a rock that will blind someone across the room, but I’m a small person, and I wanted something in proportion to me. When I look at it, I remember the first time I realized how amazingly reflective diamonds are. I was sitting at my computer and my hand drifted into the sunbeam that fell across my desk. Tiny points of light danced on my wall, and I moved my hand slightly, transfixed at the spots’ movements. I was stunned that the ring on my very own finger could create that much light and play. I still like to see how lamplight is reflected within and outside of the stone, but that’s a bit of the inner geek talking.

Sometimes, for just a few minutes, I take off my rings and wear one at a time. I feel like they embody different stages of my life. The engagement ring is anticipation: wearing it alone brings back the excitement of wedding planning, showers, and the pleasure of telling how JG proposed. The wedding ring is contentment; the solitary band is modest and symbolizes a long, strong commitment. It’s uncluttered and quiet, the way I’d like to be in the future. My rings give me aspirations of optimism and serenity and I like them together because of it.

Pragmatically, I know that these pieces of jewelry are just metal and carbon and these cold, hard materials do not intrinsically inspire affection and awe. What is it, then?

Ah, it’s the giver. Yes, I think of anticipation and contentment when I see them, but most of all, I think of JG. I remember him down on one knee and at the altar. I remember saying yes and saying vows. That’s a lot to handle, and somehow, all of it is compressed into these two rings. No wonder I look at them so often. Maybe I’ll be able to wrap my head around it one of these days.

Until then, I’m satisfied to look my rings periodically, and occasionally flutter them in front of JG and say, “Look how pretty!” as he shakes his head. He knows I love them and him, but not in that order.

Because my husband is a math teacher who loves his subject like most people love chocolate, I tend to give rather nerdy gifts. A good example might be The Colossal Book of Mathematics, a collection of Scientific American articles, which JG has called “the best book ever” without even a hint of sarcasm. But this year, I may have outdone myself.

One of JG’s birthday gifts this year was a year’s membership to the National Scrabble Association (NSA). That’s right, there’s an association. With it, the lucky recipient gets eight issues of the NSA newsletter, a nifty membership card, and best of all, lists of handy words for slaughtering opponents. These lists contain categories like “2-letter words that start with J” and “3-letter words that can become 4-letter words”. I’m afraid that I have made my Scrabble-playing life much, much harder.

I was going to present this token of geekhood next week in a neatly-wrapped box containing a correspondingly-nerdy tree ornament and the list of membership perks. But no, the darn newsletter had to come in the mail today and JG found out about it prematurely. Curses! So I scrambled around to grab the list and the ornament – neither wrapped, grr – and give them to JG so that he could break into the newsletter. Happy early birthday, I guess.

Well, any worries about this gift being too over the edge were clearly unnecessary. While I watched Barefoot Contessa, he sat on the couch, contently reading the newsletter, taking note of tournaments in the Philly area, and skimming the word lists, all the while making thoughtful hmm noises. I leaned over and asked, “Do you like it?”

He smiled and said, “Yeah. After I get my master’s, I might consider studying for real so that I can compete in the tournaments.”

Oh, my. This may be more than I bargained for.

On Saturday, we had a practice Christmas dinner. I try to practice whatever I’m about to do whenever possible. I walked through my route around campus the day before my freshman classes started. I had a wedding rehearsal, and thank goodness for that. This particular dry run was motivated by the fact that I am paranoid about trying new recipes with company, and even more so when that company includes a mother who cooks everything from scratch and a grandmother who has high expectations of a Christmas celebration that has the gall to located somewhere other than her house. Oh, boy.

Together, JG and I made an approximately two-person-sized version of Christmas dinner and I was pleasantly surprised that we did it with very little slamming into each other or usurping kitchen equipment that the other wanted. We ended up very full of yummy London broil, garlic mashed potatoes, and green beans with pancetta. Half of my satisfaction was derived from simply reporting to my mother that my practice run went well, so ha! Let’s hear it for no disasters!

Oh, wait. There was a disaster, but not with the food. Saturday also included the ritual of Cutting Down the Tree and I don’t think it can be Christmas without an amusing tree story. This one balances out the wild success of the dinner dry run, I’m afraid.

Around mid-morning, JG and I went to a local Christmas tree farm to find The One with the trusty bow saw in hand. JG got it for his birthday last year for this express purpose. At least we weren’t the weirdos wearing Santa hats or the psychos with the chainsaw.

We eventually found the tree, and after JG posed for the mandatory picture of him brandishing the saw at it, he cut it down and we made our way to the parking lot. I was carrying the little end of the tree in the back of the operation, so I couldn’t see where I was going at all. Suddenly, in front of Mr. Santa Hat and Son, I felt my ankle give way in a little hollow in the ground, and I thought, “Oh, no! The tree! Who cares about the tree?! Am I falling in mud here?” And down I went. Fortunately, the tree and I made it home in one piece, and JG proceeded to put it in the stand with very little trouble. We gloried in our good fortune and proceeded to lace it up with lights and ornaments galore.

Just before heading to bed, we heard a soft whooshing sound. JG and I turned to watch the tree crash down and hear that faint burble of the tree stand pouring itself onto the carpet. I stood paralyzed while JG ran over and yelled, “Grab the presents!” I rescued the boxes wrapped solely for the purpose of having something under the tree once we got it decorated and we began the sad process of recovering the tree. Ornaments were scattered around the living room – amazingly, none broke in the fall – the tree had to be re-positioned in its stand, and we tried to soak up the big water spot on the floor. After spending however many hours putting the whole thing together, it was very demoralizing to start over, especially since we had no idea what made the tree fall down after six hours of successful standing. I only just recovered and finished redecorating the tree tonight and I think it looks pretty good. It’s a little crooked, but it hasn’t fallen down in three days, so I think we’ll take what we can get at this point.

Here we go – I’ve been tagged by Janet to identify six weird things about myself. It was a little bit of a challenge to separate the many, many geeky things about me from the almost as many weird things, but here we are:

1. I love to dance in my kitchen, which is a small isthmus of hardwood in a sea of carpet. Turning pirouettes in my socks is one of my great joys in life. When JG gives me the inevitable eye roll, I always respond matter-of-factly, “Kitchens were made for dancing.” Okay, and maybe cooking and other stuff, but definitely dancing!
2. My favorite movie is The Emperor’s New Groove (not the straight-to-video sequel or the superlame television series) and I have seen it over 35 times. I probably say, “This is my favorite part!” twenty times throughout the whole thing. What, you haven’t seen it? C’mon, you’ll love David Spade in llama form. But I’ll warn you that it takes about three viewings to appreciate the quirkiness.
3. I subconsciously anagram words in my head, producing gems like:
   - “You know what Madden anagrams to? Damned.” – while watching football
   - “Mutiny plus I-M equals immunity, you know.” – while watching Survivor
4. If I’m writing with a pen, I only use blue ink if I can help it. My logic tells me that I’ll be able to tell that my version is the original because blue photocopies to black. Because forgers and counterfeiters only use photocopiers, or something.
5. Foods people usually eat by the handful I eat one at a time. Chips, Goldfish crackers, Smarties, and even Nerds. The one time I tried to tip the Nerds box backward into my mouth, I started to choke on one of the little buggers – that’ll teach me! Since then, I’ve eaten them one at a time out of my hand. By size. Littlest first.
6. I can lie on my stomach and arch my back so that my feet go over my head and are flat on the floor. And then I can stand up. This little ditty usually trumps all of the ear-wiggling, tongue-nose-touching human tricks in the room and it came in really handy during a game of Cranium when I had to act out “contortionist”.

And…what do I do now? Eh, I tag whoever reads this, if you haven’t already done it…