How long has it been?

The Colposcopy
Too long. Too long since I've opened up this window and typed till my head is empty again. I had my colposcopy on Monday, and the worst of it was finding parking. I met Tom at the hospital, as he went to work in the morning and I didn’t. I got their first, saw a parkade, told him where it was and that I’d be in there somewhere, circled around the chaotic construction, finally entered the parkade, took a ticket and…

Drove around and around and around and up and down and around and around and started seeing the same stupid small cars hiding in spots that I thought were empty till I was almost turning into them, drove around and around, faster and faster, squealing tires echoing up and down the levels, till I was totally lost and couldn’t even successfully follow the Out signs.

Finally exited in a tearful rage, telling the guy in the booth that I couldn’t find parking. He took one look at me and didn’t ask for payment. Lucky for him.

I parked outside the parkade and called Tom.

Me: “Hey, I just got out of that parkade and NOW they have a “Sorry, lot full” sign in front of it so we’ll have to find somewhere else to park.”

Tom: “… but I just parked on the roof.”

*Envision atomic bomb-sized explosion within Phx’s little green Jetta.*

Yeah, it wasn’t pretty. Add to that, I didn’t even know if we were at the right part of the General Hospital, and my appointment was in 20 minutes. AND it was raining.

I drove around the streets looking for parking while Tom changed into clean clothes in his car, and ended up parking at meter parking by the parkade. We walked towards the hospital and I called our doctor’s office to clarify where we were supposed to go. The receptionist HAD told me just to go to the Gen. Hospital. So that’s where I was. But when I called again, she said, “No you should be at the Woman’s Health Centre”, or something. I had just dropped almost $5 in the meter. Another explosion was brewing. She told me the address, and fortunately, it was just on the other end of the block. So we walked, and found the gynecology area without much trouble, watched a short video on the process, and waited.
The procedure itself was really quick—the most uncomfortable part was putting on my gown properly so that my butt hung out as I crossed the corridor to the examination room. They didn’t do a biopsy because I’m pregnant (yay!) and the doctor said the abnormalities are so slight that they won’t need to see me again until 3 months after the baby is born, and even then he guesses they will be gone. During his probing and viewing my cervix through a 20x zoom copolscope, I was told that there is a screen just to the left of my head that showed what he was seeing. So I looked. And I saw my cervix blown up on the screen… and then this HUGE q-tip homing in on it… and I couldn’t look anymore.

I took the rest of the day off work, and Tom took me out for a nice lunch. Then he went back to work and I went to Party Bazaar to rent a balloon drop net because we are going to have 200 balloons above the dance floor that will drop at some point during the reception. Cool eh?

Then I went home and slept because the hospital visit wiped me out (yes I’m lame), made an appointment for a cake consultation this summer, and called a florist that was recommended to me from the company we are renting all our tables, dishes, etc from.

I called her and we met up one hour later. I couldn’t believe my luck. We met for about 45 minutes and hashed out everything—all the flowers, décor, everything. I finalized it with my mom, and I’ll be giving her the cheque tonight. Then she’ll be setting up when we set up the night before the wedding. Yay! That was one thing done that took a lot less time and stress than I thought it would.

The Weekend
To back up to the weekend, my mom was here for a day and a half and we ran around like mad people all weekend.

Well first, to start the weekend off on just the right note, I broke the toilet. Well, I royally plugged it. I was cleaning the bathroom, pending my mom’s arrival, and our toilet brush HAD this nifty mini-brush angled up so I could get at the underside of the rim of the bowl. I scrubbed the bowl and then flushed the water, swirling the brush around in it as a lazy rinse. Well the %#@!$%#!%$^$@ mini brush fell off, and despite my best swiping motions with the remainder of the brush, it went down down down down the toilet. I had seriously not thought it would fit! Tom gave me a look at said, “Next time, just reach your hand in and grab it, ok?”

Bu-bu-but! I honestly didn’t think it would go down!

It wasn’t until a couple of hours later when we were just getting ready to go out somewhere that Tom stepped in the floor-wide puddle in the bathroom.

Whoops. He then, poor guy, spent the rest of the day trying to get the brush out of the pipes wherever it may be. He ended up taking the toilet completely off the floor and then we went to Home Depot and he bought some mysterious new parts, and then we went home and my mom arrived with no toilet functioning for her to pee in. Whoops.

We then went to the dishes etc rental place and snuck in just before they closed. We got a good idea of how much we need (a lot) and how much it’s going to cost ( a lot). Hm. But still cheaper than anything else I’ve seen around. Then I was starving so I treated my mom and Tom to a delicious Keg dinner. Mmmmm… I love their garlic mashed potatoes. And the bread you get at the beginning of the meal—to. die. for. I had mashed potatoes and a Caesar salad—hello garlic! But it was really good.

Then I took my mom to the reception hall and she speced it out. I think she was dismayed. But it was looking dirtier than when I’d seen it before. Apparently woodworkers had been in there all day. But we were reassured that it would be cleaner and the floor would be scrubbed and buffed before the reception. Whew. I hope she follows through on that.

I took my mom home because she wasn’t into going to my bridesmaid’s house to see the florist—my bridesmaid was having a huge party for her son who was down from way the hell up north. I picked up Tom at this point, who was still dutifully working on the toilet, and he and I headed over to the party. And what a party. Full of already-drunk people I didn’t know… and no florist lady. Crap. We lingered for as long as I could stand it, then for a little longer because someone handed Tom Ryan’s (bridesmaid’s son) girlfriend’s drink to finish because she was going to bed. Nice.

Went home, and my mom had tied almost all the ribbons on the invitations. She’s the best! We stayed up till after midnight, shooting the shit, laughing, eating popcorn, weirding tom out because we were so giddy. :)

Tom and I woke up at 730 the next morning and after dragging ourselves around for a while, we decided to go to Ihop for breakfast while my mom got ready. I love their “German” crepes—sprinkled with icing sugar and freshly squeezed lemon. Mmmm good. We drove back home, picked up my mom and went and bought more ribbon for the invitations, and then stopped by the jewelry shop because the diamond for my ring was in from Calgary and we needed to approve it before they made my ring. But we got there an hour before it opened. So we drove to the cake shop and got told snootily that we needed an appointment. So we took a business card and looked at the different cakes and pictures. I saw what I’d like to have… then we drove back to the ring store, walked to the bank, my mom got some money, and we went back to the store which was finally open.

Turns out the diamond we were going to get was sold, so the one our sales lady brought in was .1 carat smaller. I thought that was really something—that they brought in a smaller diamond rather than a bigger diamond. Totally appreciated that, plus it saves Tom $150 or something. It’s gorgeous, we got to see it under the microscope, see the clarity of it, and a silhouette of how well it is cut. Spence Diamonds rocks. No pun intended. My ring will be ready on the 27th of Jan. 1 week before our wedding—they have to make it. That’s cutting it close. But we’ll be cutting it even closer with the wedding bands!! I’m not even going to go there. Tom is handling that.

Speaking of Tom, he’d been seriously dragging all morning, so I took him home after the ring store and put him to bed. He was literally asleep as soon as he laid down. Aww.

I left him in his blissful slumber, set the alarm for him, and then my mom and I went out to the hell that is shoe shopping.

I remember stories my mom has told me about the hell that is taking me shoe shopping. But I thought, now that I'm all adultified and all, that it would be a cinch. I knew what kind of shoes I wanted--flat, ballet-style slip-ons that would stay on my feet during dancing and would not make me appear taller than Tom. I knew what I wanted. Wouldn't that make shoe shopping easy?

'Course not.

Every shoe store in the mall was having a shoe sale. The stores were packed, the stock was ravaged. My shoe size falls between the 2 most popular women sizes: 7 & 8. Good luck! Said a sales lady as she snorted and headed to the back to look for my size. And my feet are oddly narrow. So when I did find a pair of shoes that came in my size (sort of... all the shoes I liked only came in full sizes), they were too wide.

After three hours and too many shoe stores, I was ready to say fuck it and go home. Actually first I was tempted to buy a pair of shiny blue shoes with stars cut in them, to make everyone wrong who ever said that the shoes and the dress have to match. But the bride in me got in the way, and then I was ready to go home.

But not my mom. Nope. She was on a mission. So we looked at the directory for the umpteenth time, and I saw that we hadn't been to Payless Shoe Source and Shoe Warehouse--those self-serve stores where all the shoes are in boxes and you pick and try on at your leisure.

I staggered over to Shoe Warehouse first, and saw a pair of flat, ballet-style, light beige (my dress is off-white) shoes with this elasticy stuff laced over the open part to hold the foot in place. they had size 7, 7 1/2 and 8. And they had big flowers on them, including one on the toe--purple, pink and green. And they fit. Sweet. I satisfied my rebelliousness and got a pair that won't make me taller than Tom.

If I wasn't feeling dead enough, although jubilant, we still had to go to Wal-mart for 200 balloons, baking soda for our fridge (that was my mom's idea), ketchup chips for my bros (because the US doesn't have them, or at least Oregon doesn't), and toilet paper. Glory be, there was no line up at the cashier. On a Sunday afternoon. Sweet.

We got home at 5 and my mom took off for her 6 hour drive home. Tom was at full-speed on wedding stuff (finally!), and we continued down the path to insanity that is planning a wedding.

This week so far has been nuts every single night: bartender, ring people, caterer, band, tutor, meet the minister, figure out what to do with my hair, dress alteration fitting... on and on and ON.

Happy Days
But in happy great news, today, two years ago, Tom and I went for a very long walk and began the journey that has led us to being two weeks from our wedding day.

Kocham cie slonko! xoxoxo