blind insight

The carabiner anniversary.

Foregoing the traditional, but not terribly exciting paper gift, Steve and I marked 12 months of marriage by exchanging gear. Carabiners, outerwear, Chacos, and a climbing helmet, for example, plus a toe ring (for me), to replace the one I lost in Greece right after our engagement.

We celebrated with a weekend in the mountains, three days of climbing, eating, wine-drinking, relaxing, and singing the silly anniversary jingle that Steve concocted. 'twas glorious, not the least because it was our very first just-us-two getaway since the honeymoon. Also, we capped off the festivities with a mini-version of our wedding cake, courtesy of my parents.  It was as delicious as I remembered - even better because I finally got to eat an entire piece.

This first year of our marriage has been quite a ride. We've put a couple of our vows to the test, notably the "in sickness and in health" part and the "for richer or poorer" stuff. We've laughed and cried and giggled and compromised, and we've shared a million mundane moments that have brought us closer together than I ever imagined possible.

I used to wonder how couples stayed together for years and decades without getting bored with one another. How they could still have something new to learn, something interesting to talk about, after living with one another day in and day out, and dealing with all the minutiae of everyday living. I get it now.

Happy anniversary, sweetie.

Operation Barbicide

Not to be outdone by my snazzy post-surgery look, Steve underwent an operation himself on Tuesday night.

Here's  the "before" shot, taken in March.

Scalpel Electric shaver in hand, he made the first cut:

Hearing unfavorable reactions from the gallery (my unequivocal "ewwww"), he continued cutting.

At this point, I was giggling too hard to hold the instruments camera steady. Still, Steve snipped away.

Steve was totally rocking the soul-patch, but he decided the hipster look didn't suit his down-to-earth style.

And so, with a few more strokes of the blade, he bared it all, from his swarthy cheeks to his adorable chin dimple.

Operation over, he scrubbed out, and gave me my first smooth-cheeked kiss of 2006.

Home Improvement

When we moved into our house last fall, Steve and I were quite delighted with the wealth of storage space it offered. We have lots of rooms, lots of closets, a basement, and a garage. Alas, what we don’t have - and what we hadn’t really focused on not-having when we picked the place - is bookshelves. Thus, for the past fifteen months, much of the aforementioned basement has been filled with 20 some-odd boxes of books.

Even before we moved, Steve promised to build me bookshelves. We picked out the ideal spot for our little library, in a hallway leading to the door on our "garden level." Then, for a while, we got distracted by wedding planning. Next, Steve realized that he didn’t have the proper tools to make "nice" shelves, something fancier than a few simple boards nailed together. So we registered at Home Depot. Friends and family came through with virtually all the desired tools, plus a great many gift cards for Steve to use for wood and other supplies.

But by that time, the front part of the basement bedroom was chock-full with furniture we were hoping to sell or donate (we’d acquired a dining room set dirt-cheap through a friend, and inherited beautiful bedroom stuff from my beloved grandmother), and with wedding presents and shower gifts we’d agreed not to use until we were legally wed. And so, the book boxes collected dust in the back of the room.

After we returned from our honeymoon, Steve outfitted his workshop with all of his cool new tools. Eventually, we filled our kitchen and dining room with beautiful new things, recycled mountains of boxes and packing material, and donated our old kitchen and the superfluous furniture to victims of Hurricane Katrina and refugees from Sudan. Suddenly, we could see - and reach - the boxes of books again. So Steve trooped off to Home Depot and discovered that making the kind of shelves he envisioned out of solid oak, maple, or cherry would cost roughly the GDP of Andorra.

Discouraged, he built me a wonderful pot rack, freeing precious cabinet space in our tiny kitchen and giving our lovely new pots a place of honor. After that quick success, flush with the pleasure of using his schmancy new router, he returned to Home Depot to explore alternative, more affordable shelving concepts. He came home with a gimongous stack of materials - wood-veneer particle board, real wood for routed edges, some sort of backing, and assorted other gadgets and pieces.

For the past couple of months, strange noises and smells have emanated from the basement (beyond the usual, ubiquitous husbandly noises and smells, that is). Whenever he’s had time, often working well into the wee hours, Steve has been sawing, routing, planing, and sanding the massive pile of woodstuffs. This weekend, he finally had time to stain and seal the various pieces. Around 10:00 on Sunday night, he began putting it all together.

I came downstairs at 10:30 or so, and found him cussing and stomping around, having the kind of explosion he typically reserves exclusively for Packers’ games (speaking of which, GO BRONCOS!). Home Depot had cut the backing wrong, his carefully designed shelving components weren’t fitting perfectly into his beautifully routed slots, and he was fuming about the whole project being a washout. I offered calmly to help, Steve calmed down and switched into structural-engineer-genius mode, and soon I was squeezing the uprights together with every ounce of strength in my hyperextended shoulders, closing my eyes and trying to ignore the power drill running perilously close to my right ear. I imagine we will look back on this as a beautiful example of the trust we enjoy in our marriage.

At some point, my presence became superfluous, so I scampered off to bed while Steve continued to wrestle with the bookshelves. Many hours later, he finally crawled into bed himself. When I awoke, I immediately ran downstairs. There, lining the walls in our little garden-level entry, were the most beautiful bookshelves imaginable!

Last night, we liberated our many many books from their boxed-up confines, giving them a semblance of organization, eliminating duplicates, and even (horrors!) deciding to sell or donate quite a few. I hadn’t realized it, but many of the book boxes had traveled with me for over a decade, from city to city and house to house, essentially unopened. In my next post, I’ll share with you some of the journey down memory lane their unpacking provided me. In fact, if I can reconnect our scanner, I might even post a photo of my mohawk, circa 1985.

A hunting we will go!

Thirty-two years ago today, in a Wisconsin hospital, the love of my life entered the world. One year ago today, he was subjected to his first Birthday Treasure Hunt. Despite a thirty-one-year disadvantage, Steve quickly mastered the Cohen family's art of present-finding, and three days later produced a grade-A set of clues for his charming fiancée’s hunt.

In a couple of hours, hopefully before the Green Bay Packers kick off against the Minnesota Vikings (and dammit, they owe him a birthday win!), Steve will receive the first of his clues. Can you figure out where his presents will be hiding? Unless you’ve been to my house, it’ll be tough to identify all the hiding places,* but it should be entertaining to see what you come up with!

Clue #1: If you can’t find this present, my parents are going to demand an extra couple of goats.

Clue #2: According to Homer, a woman is a lot like this.

Clue #3: No need to inhale, Clinton style. [this one is a stretch, but I really really really wanted to put a present in this location]

Clue #4: Aha! Eureka! I’ve got it! (The cartoon version)

Clue #5: Arachnophobic’s wet nightmare.

*If any of you gets them all, I’ll come up with some sort of prize. Unless the winner is my mother, in which case I need to start writing harder clues.

Reason # 7,463 Why I Love My Husband

I left work on the late side tonight, exhausted after a long day of fielding client calls, ruminating about the Alito nomination (short version: I dunno), and being trained in the new electronic case filing procedures, all of which diverted my time and attention from the essential task of fine-tuning a legally complicated and factually bizarre brief. Sweet Steve picked me up at the bus stop, saving me from having to brave the dark and frustrating home stretch and greeting me with a kiss and a mischievous grin. When I walked into the house, delicious cooking smells greeted me, along with a beautifully set table*, a lovely bottle of wine, and two little white pumpkins resting alongside a carving kit.

I handed out candy to the neighborhood trick-or-treaters while Steve finalized dinner. Then we sat down to grilled salmon marinated in my homemade pesto, accompanied by Steve's signature basil-lemon orzo. We washed it all down with a glass (or two) of nicely chilled French white, served in the gimongous Riedel glasses that were reason enough for which to wed.

After this romantic and relaxing interlude, we spread newsprint over the dining room table and set to work on our pumpkin creations. Steve's efforts initially took a political bent, as he plopped his gourd on a photo of Dubya and proceeded to defile it with mushy strands and slippery seeds. He seemed to have a clear carving vision, slicing and sawing and chiseling with a determined set to his jaw.

Meanwhile, my pumpkin seemed to be sprouting new layers of mush even as I scooped, so that it seemed I would never have a smooth enough interior to begin to carve.

I was still scraping and scooping when Steve revealed his masterpiece:

I am intimidated enough by artistic endeavors without having to follow such an impressive lead. I hemmed and hawed (and whined), trying desperately to come up with something, ANYTHING that might match the creative cheekiness and masterful execution of my partner's pumpkin. Eventually, I yanked a pattern from the carving kit, tried half-heartedly to recreate it on my tiny pumpkin, and made a pathetic attempt at clever customization. I wound up with this:

Alas, my oeuvre bore a closer resemblance to a spider than a cat, its aesthetics further compromised by a mess of pumpkin-zits and crayon. Its namesake hovered in the living room wanting nothing to do with the gooey mess on the table.

Finally, I conceded defeat and plopped my cat-o-lantern outside (where Steve graciously allowed it to share porch space with his superior effort). Both pumpkins looked quite lovely once they were glowing with candlelight in the darkness, and even my pathetic spider-cat seemed (almost) worthy of gracing the Halloween night.

To top off his romantic efforts for the evening (at least so far), Steve dove back into the pile of pumpkin and spent nearly an hour separating the seeds from the strings.

I will roast the former tomorrow, and turn the latter into bread or pie later in the week.

'twas a very happy Halloween, indeed.

*This is actually a photo of LAST night's beautifully set table, when we had my parents over for dinner and inaugurated our new china, my grandmother's silver, and assorted other shiny pretty new things. I had intended to chronicle the dinner in photographs from start to finish, particularly because it included my first (and highly successful! so not last!) homemade pasta effort, but somehow all I remembered to take was the table shot.

Training Day.

As of this past weekend, Steve and I are officially In Training. For the Birkie, mostly, but also because we both feel woefully un-fit these days, and need goals, focus, and commitment to get ourselves back into jock mode. Working out together is fun, too, even when Steve forces me to run 8 hard hill repeats in a row, or to squeeze out another 10 triceps dips (ouch). He's a tough-ass coach, and a tremendous athlete, even at his current asthma-impeded fitness level.

I was looking forward to our run tonight, and raced out of the office at the earliest possible moment. We'd agreed this morning to run hill repeats in the rain, but by the time we were both home and changed, the night had turned crisp and clean-smelling, just the right temperature for a short, hard run. My throat and lungs were burning and my eyes had barely enough useful light left when we finished, but I felt more physical and energized than I have for ages.

It's going to get harder to train in another week or so, when night falls early and I can only run outside on the weekends. But around the same time, we'll be able to start the "real" training - on snow. Steve is already threatening me with 5-hour XC days. I suppose that if I'm actually going to ski 53 kilometers at the end of February, I'll have to let him bully me a bit. At least he doesn't have a whistle (yet).

We have a winner!

What is it with New Zealand? Surely, it must be spectaculiscious, or your comments wouldn't be running 5-to-1 (or something) in its favor. And you would think that my LOTR-geek sweetie would be all over the chance to tour Middle Earth. But, no. The Kiwi rock climbing is, well, not so much, and as best we've gathered, so is the food.

For a time, South Africa held its own as our top contender, until rumors of chilly waters and Great White Sharks unseated it. Burma (or Myanmar, as you may prefer) received considerable attention, and I hope we will someday travel there together because the itinerary my favorite Asia tour operator compiled had me salivating. We flirted with Paris and the Dordogne, Hawaii, and Cayman Braque, but none of these survived the preliminary rounds.

Instead, after much research, discussion, fantasizing, wheedling (on my part), and hands-throwing-in-air (on Steve's), we're going (drumroll, please) . . . .

Here. And then here. And probably here, too.

The hounds of obsessive travel planning have been released. Italy, you've been warned.

Obligatory mushy-gushy Valentine's Day post

I love Steve. I love his smile, his skin, his arms, his face (whether soft and bushily bearded, as now, or end-of-the-day scratchy, or just-shaven smooth), his smell (but not his farts - I'm not THAT gushy), his butt (he has the best butt!) his silliness, his earnestness, his incessant hypotheticals, his explosive passion for the Green Bay Packers, his ability to fix and build stuff (you should see my new spice and oil racks!!), and his uniquely endearing combination of wisdom and naivete. And I love that he accepts and adores all of me - not just my looks and charm and brains and talent and modesty, but also my painfully bad singing voice, my failed baking experiments, my roller-coaster mood swings, my compulsive over-planning, and my obnoxious nagging about the dishes on the counter.

Several months ago, while I was on the downward curve of a particularly lousy mood swing, I apologized to him for being so unpleasant. He responded, "I love you, and I don't expect it to be perfect all the time." And that's when I realized we were in it for the long haul, and we'd be okay - nay, great.

And it isn't perfect all the time. We are real human beings with quirks and moods and weird habits and disgusting bodily functions (except not me with the bodily functions, of course). But we do love each other, and we make each other giggle (and tingle), and we can turn eating leftover chili and watching bad TV movies into a perfect date night.

And that's what it's all about.

Trip report - now with more bling!

Whatever unpleasantness met our return, the trip was fantastic. Together with my parents, brother, sister-in-law, and toddler nephew we stayed in a simple house a short walk from the ocean, located within the confines of a Central Pacific beach resort. We had four air-conditioned bedrooms and three bathrooms, plus a kitchen and living areas that were covered but open-air, surrounding a small swimming pool and jacuzzi.

We spent much of the trip lazing in the hammocks hanging over the pool, listening to the house geckos chattering from the walls, chasing after Nathan as he toddled around the house, and playing cards into the wee hours. The nearby beach offered white sand, calm, warm water, and endless shells and coral to scavenge. The fresh local seafood kept our bellies full and content, and icy cold limonadas slaked our thirst. Steve and I managed several early-morning beach runs, a half-day sea kayaking excursion, and spent a day driving south along the coast and body-surfing the enormous waves at Playa Hermosa.

The best day must have been Wednesday, which started with a run up a steep cliff-hugging road and down to a private white-sand beach, and ended with a breathtaking sunset viewed from the cliff-side amphitheater at Villa Caletas, Costa Rica's finest hotel (and a place I hope to stay someday). And in the middle, Steve gave me a diamond ring.

He and I had driven a little ways north of our resort, then up a steep, winding dirt road into the country's rainforested interior. We paid a small fee to a man in a wooden shack perched on the side of the road, for the privilege of hiking down an impossibly steep path through the rainforest, which purported to lead (eventually) to a stunning waterfall. The day was steaming hot and humid, and soon I was pouring sweat. Finally, I had to remove my hearing aids and put them in Steve's backpack to spare them any further immersion in the moist air and my own perspiration. We seemed to be descending forever, with no waterfalls in sight, and the sweat and sunscreen began to drip burning trickles into my eyes. So there I was, squinting and rubbing my eyes, wobbling off-balance without my hearing aids, and pouring sweat. And so I expressed my appreciation of the lush and exotic surroundings with a string of expletives that would have made a trucker blush.

Somehow, we reached the falls, and stripped to bathing suits to dip into the cool, clear water of the pools at their base. Some young Costa Rican boys were playing in the pool we reached first, and we splashed around with them and watched them jump into the water from the rocks.

After a little while, Steve suggested we move down to the next pool, so we schlepped our belongings over the rocks to a more secluded spot. When Steve told me to go sit on a big rock in the middle of the water, I suddenly realized what was happening, so I made him first give me his shirt to dry my hands and ears, and replaced my hearing aids. Now I was giggling, most of my sweat and frustration forgotten.

Steve pulled something out of the backpack and waded over to my rock, then crouched down and handed me a small box. I opened it up, only to find yet another decoy ring, this one a huge, gaudy, tin-and-rhinestone flower. Still giggling, a little confused, I looked at him. He was smiling, maybe shaking a little, and he held up something sparkly between his fingers. "You can have that one if you want, or you can have this one," he said.

And "this one" was so, so beautiful - the small, exquisite round center stone from his grandmother's ring in a solitaire with three of the tiny stones from my great-aunt's brooch cascading down from either side and flowing into a slim, shiny platinum band. Steve asked me if I was still willing to marry him. I put the ring on my sweaty, wet finger and said . . . Yes! (Of course I said yes - what else could I possibly say!)

In the middle of my bliss, after gazing awe-struck at my sparkly finger, I realized we still had to schlep all the way back UP the damn trail. Reluctantly, I put the ring back in the box for the messy hike up. Then, just as we had tied our shoes and started the upward trek, it began to rain in the rainforest. I put on my big khaki sunhat to protect my hearing aids from the downpour, and we set off in the rain. As it turned out, the way up was far easier than the descent,  because the rain kept us cool and because we spent the whole hike laughing at the state of our drenchedness and smooching in the warm and gentle-but-heavy rain. The deluge also brought out some of the forest life, and we saw several different kinds of lizards and even a couple of poison-arrow frogs along the way.

Eventually, we were back at the car, though I restrained myself from putting the ring back on until I'd washed my hands. Almost a week later, I still can't stop staring at this sparkly wonder gracing my hand. I love the way it flashes fire and light, but most of all, I love that its diamonds come from both of our families, and that they belonged to strong, wonderful women before they became mine.

And next year, we're celebrating Festivus.

Tonight (if, in our lousy state of ill-health, we feel up to it), Steve and I will light Hanukkah candles, then open a bottle of wine and put up our Christmas tree. This will be a first for me - a Christmas tree in my very own home, twinkling gaily while the Hanukkah candles flicker. I have run through a huge range of emotions over this prospect, but finally I'm content with it, and I'm truly excited about the fun of decorating our first tree in our new house.

Steve has been respectful of, even enthusiastic about my celebrations. He has asked to hold the shammes and light the candles in our menorah every night this week, and last night he was humming along perfectly while I chanted the Hebrew blessings. He's participated unflinchingly in the mandatory song-before-present requirement, and I believe he ate seconds of my mother's latkes on Tuesday.

So it seems only fair that I show similar ardor towards his traditions. I'm there now, I know, because the sight of our fuzzy St. Nick's Day stockings on the mantel made me smile last night. But because I've spent so many years fighting against the ubiquity of Christmas and battling to keep it out of my schools and workplaces, something about allowing a tree in my very own home felt like capitulation. After considerable soul-searching, I finally concluded that my ambivalence about having a tree and celebrating Christmas with Steve stems from the barrage of Christmasness that assaults me at every turn (as Bart Simpson puts it: "Christmas is the time of year when people of all religions come together to worship Jesus Christ"). But celebrating the holidays our way, within the privacy of our own home, is exactly what I believe people should be doing. And so we will.

Because neither of us is particularly religious, we each view the holiday season as a time for joy, celebration, quality family time, and good food. But despite the non-religious nature of our respective celebrations, I have no desire to "blend" our holidays. I prefer, instead, that we keep Hanukkah and Christmas as distinct celebrations, different in purpose, observance, importance, and commercialism. I hope that in doing so, we can revel in and build on the best that each holiday has to offer, and perpetuate many of our families' traditions while creating new ones of our own. With the old rituals, like giving socks for one night of Hanukkah and filling stockings with goodies on St. Nick's Day, we pass on to each other our family lore, and preserve our heritage for (theoretical) future generations. And with the new ones, we begin writing the story of the family we are becoming together.

I am already growing attached to these traditions-in-the-making, like "sexy gift night" during Hanukkah (no, mom, I'm not telling you what we exchanged for this), and our new red, wooden, heart-shaped picture-frame ornament, which will be the first we place on the tree tonight. Whatever their roots or symbolism, they all have the effect of filling our home with love and happiness and providing us with opportunities to pamper one another. There's really no downside to that. Even if Santa Claus doesn't bring me a KitchenAid mixer.