Babble

Once again, the holidays have come and gone and I’ve found myself too far behind on the blog to catch up. This has happened before… I get to the point where something interesting comes up and I feel like I can’t write about it out of guilt for not-writing about earlier events. So nothing gets recorded and then eventually something so amusing/tragic/momentous happens that I’m forced to just start writing again, ignoring adventures yet untold, dooming them to become forgotten memories. Unfortunate. But this season it may be all for the best. Don’t get me wrong, the holiday celebrations were great… but as far as the rest of the month? It turns out being a vegetarian with an ulcer and three mortgages in a depressed housing market during an uber-cold Wisconsin winter isn’t really that enjoyable — and likely even less enjoyable to read about. Did I mention I also had an unpleasant throat virus and then got salmonella poisoning from contaminated peanut butter and threw up for three days? That we had record snowfall and therefore record shoveling? That our heating bills are exceeding one of our mortgages? That it started raining in our kitchen on Christmas Eve day? Some events, or series thereof, are best left undocumented.

The last week however, has been a different story. I’ve got suspense, adventure, romance, technology and political history to cover, just in the last five days…

• Dude in the shed
  Friday night I came home to find a police officer in our back yard, searching the area at the request of my next-door neighbor. Minutes later guns were raised, the police were pounding on our shed door and yelling “Come out with your hands up” and — lo and behold — a man emerged from our shed! Handcuffed and up against our garage wall, he told the police he had been led to our shed by God who told him to seek shelter there. Due to the negative-degree temps, I didn’t press charges, although my sympathy diminished significantly when we found the Blackberry he left behind. Sketchy. We now lock the shed.
• The fall of prohibition
  An hour after the Dude in the Shed incident, I had a glass of wine with the college roomies at a cute little place in Middleton called Villa Dolce, after largely abstaining from alcohol since late November due to the dreaded ulcer. This was followed up the next day by a trip to Dotty’s and the Vintage with Matt and JeffO, where I had my first beer since Thanksgiving along with cheese curds and other ulcer-inappropriate foods. The lack of symptoms indicate the ulcer appears to be healing — this is good! Next week I may even try a latté.
• Condo, open
  I had my first open house of the year Sunday and we had 10 people come, which is great given the month and chilly temperatures. Fingers continue to be crossed.
• I said Yes!
  The HUGE news of this post is that Matt proposed to me Sunday night! You’ll have to get the details in person, but to respond to the questions everyone has asked… I was completely surprised, we haven’t set a date and the ring is amazing. If we can figure out how to incorporate all our friends, Matt’s 16 groomsmen, our extended families and our parents’ friends and still have the small wedding we both desire, we’re good to go.
• Ah, technology
  Monday, MLK Day, was largely spent talking, emailing and texting with friends and relatives about the engagement. The surprise player in this little event was Facebook… we posted the news Monday around noon and by the end of the day about 75 people had called, posted, or emailed in response. My parents are traveling in Costa Rica so they didn’t find out until Tuesday, after about 700 other people. Oops! Times, they are a changing. Which leads me to…
• The inauguration of President Barack Obama
  More joy and hope Tuesday, as we all watched Barack Obama become the 44th president of the United States. If you were expecting more from his inaugural address at the time, you may want to look a little deeper.

For additional, but still incomplete, details from the events of the last month and a half, check out my Flickr photostream (and then browse to the right). And yes, Dex will get his own post… coming soon.