My life with Kurt, the epitome of engineer, he is the ultimate “left brained” king of spreadsheets. Aside from still wanting to play Dungeons and Dragons or some other role-playing game like Vampire he is mentally an 80-year-old curmudgeon who seems to be highly allergic to change of any kind. Oddly, we are a perfect match.
Our lost marriage certificate was never found. I contacted the judge that performed the ceremony and he in turn contacted the vital records department to find out what to do. The judge received a new license application with our marriage license application number penned in on the top. He filled out his section, I picked it up at the courthouse, and Kurt and I filled out our section. The date used on the new form was to stay the same as the ceremony date and the judge asked that we approximate the date that we first applied for our marriage license on the applicable part of the form. Kurt being the anal retentive pack rat fastidious record keeper that he is looked up the receipt from three months ago and entered the EXACT date in which we filled out the application. We then hunted down our witnesses for their signatures.
Yesterday our adventure took us to the county courthouse. Actually, Sophia and I took a field trip to the vital records department. I walked up to the desk around eleven. There were two people processing the vital records line. Each of them finished with one person and the guy took the person in front of me. I was about the approach the lady when she indicated that the other person would help me. Ok, no big deal. Then she felt bad for some reason and took me before going on break. Because everything had been done according to the directions of the judge, I was confident that all was smooth sailing. Apparently it was an unusual ‘glass half full’ day for me because smooth wasn’t exactly how it went down. Sandpaper in place of toilet tissue, anyone?
I handed the woman behind the counter my newly completed form. The lady stared at the paper and then looked at me, “when was this completed?” she asked. Well, the judge signed this particular paper around the 16th or 17th, then I got my sticky little hands on it and filled out my section on the 20th or 21st. I don’t remember the date the first witness signed it since it was my husbands job to hunt him down but the second witness signed it on the 24th. Why? Isn’t that how this is supposed to work?
I actually explained that the original was lost and the judge had us fill out this new one. She looked at me as if I was crazy. This doesn’t have the header across the top. She looked at me for an explanation. At this point her coworker audibly apologized to her for having her take my case. Asshole. It’s not my fault this became complicated. “That’s the form the judge gave us to fill out.” Saying it felt a lot like using a stupid excuse on a grade school teacher. “But really, the dog did eat my homework.” She shot a look as if to say, “Really? You’re going to stick with the, ‘it’s lost’ story?”
She banged away at her keyboard and then sighed, “I don’t have access.” She told her coworker. He had finished with his customer and joined in with her. Both of them then got up, went in separate directions, and told two different people at the other end of the room. I could hear them say, “She lost her marriage license.” Goddamnit! I wanted to shout that I wasn’t the one that lost it. I don’t know who did, it could have been the judge, the lackey that he had mail it, the various postal workers that handle mail from his courthouse to this one, an internal mail sorter, or someone with in the vital statistics department. We won’t mention the last one to them it may make them cry. I refrained from proclaiming my innocents for fear of being cast in the next Jerry Seinfeld spin off “Mundane Mayhem”, or worse the next Jerry Springer show.
Another employee came up to the woman’s computer and punched some keys. She came back to the desk with the paper I handed to her. “Do you know where the original is?” Are you fuckin’ kidding me lady? If I knew where the original was don’t you think I would have handed it to you? Is there something about the way I look that makes her think I enjoy hanging out at the courthouse making people jump through hoops by telling them I lost a piece of paper that I paid $62 to obtain? I know I live in a podunk saw-toothed mouth-harp-playing hick-town but waiting in lines is still not a pastime I seek out. It really isn’t. Dumbass. I could be at home watching Clifford the Big Red Dog for chrissakes.
Keeping my face a stone like as possible so that my infamous sneer of disdain didn’t become too obvious I simply said, “uumm no”. She looked at me and sighed. Yep, I’m still sticking to my story. It was lost. She went to consult with yet another person and then came back again.
“Ok,” she said, “we’re going to do this for you.” Wow, I feel honored. Truly.
I don’t know why I assumed that there was a backup plan for when situations like this arise. Between all the marriages, divorces and remarriages I would think that someone in the history of the county has had their paperwork lost before. We had the judge call them and they sent him the paper and instructions. One would think that they would make some sort of notation on our file.
This crazy wintery year caused the tulips to become confused and they bloomed very late. There were fears that they would not bloom at all, which would have made for a very boring tulip festival. Every year when we go to the tulip festival Kurt will inevitably spot a Skagit Transit bus with its bold lettering that reads, “SKAT”. He of course feels compelled to read it aloud and snicker like a sixth grader. Tee-hee. SKAT! SKAT! SKAT! This reminded me of another local transit system, the South Lake Union Trolley. Yep, the S.L.U.T. Do you think the S.L.U.T. is into SKAT?
Well we didn’t ride the S.L.U.T. nor get into SKAT to arrive at the tulip festival. I know, we’re boring, but here are some very SKAT-less pictures.
Sophia didn’t want us to put her down at first. Kurt tried to put her on the ground but she just clung to his legs. In order to get her to smile in the pictures we had to pop her thumb out of her mouth. Once we made it to the Tulip Town buildings we were able to have her walk with us. She walked between us and held both of our hands, or rather, our fingers. She had such a death grip on mine that I think she cut off the circulation.
We walked around in the building and then back out to the fields again. The ruts in the field from the trackers were so deep that the poor kid looked like she was goose-stepping into Hitler’s toddler infantry.
Why do they call it an infantry if they’re all supposed to be adults?
All worldly possessions dragged behind. In a tight dress and stilettos, she could barely balance even with momentum. On the way to our ceremony, we saw the lady of the evening walk away from the courthouse.
“She looks like she’s been ridden hard. Over and over again.”
“She probably just serviced the judge” said Kurt.
Flash Fiction Friday is hosted by g-man. You may also visit Flash Fiction Friday 55′s, a blog dedicated to hosting 55 Flash Fiction Friday posts.
I joined the Navy’s delayed entry program while still in high school. It was my fail-safe ticket out. I was supposed to boot camp in Florida in July. “Are you Fucking kidding me?” I asked the recruiter, “I’m from Alaska. Florida in July my ass!” Instead of being part of the last female companies in Florida, I was sent to Illinois in October to be part of the first female companies there. Our company number was 007 and we played up the whole “Jane Bond” bit including the silhouette of a female detective on our company flag.
Boot camp for the Navy is approximately eight weeks and on the fifth week each company does “work week” where each person is assigned a job that helps process other new recruits. My job as with most others was in the galley. I don’t care how long anyone works in the fast food industry during high school; nothing is worse that working in a boot camp galley. Our only benefit was that our customers were never right and couldn’t complain about the food.
For that week, our reveille time was three in the morning. We had to be at work at three thirty in the morning in order to start serving breakfast at four. Our work time as in actual hours worked in a day would be sixteen long hours of standing. My specific job was as one of the many people standing in line serving slop that passes as food in the military.
In boot camp, each company consists of approximately eighty people. That number varies based on the number of people coming in at one time and people that are set back for failing various parts of boot camp, but for the most part, it’s about 80. Companies that are set to graduate at the same time all compete for badges of group achievements which are displayed at graduation. One of those achievements is to be consistently faster through the chow line than the other companies. This means no one has time to analyze the substances served as food. They must however, shout out to the servers what they want and simultaneously shove their tray under the plexiglass to be served the mystery goop. As food servers it was our job not only to serve the slop but to announce what form of slop was being served in order to help move the line along quickly. Many companies were moved though the line in under two minutes. Eighty people, two frickin’ minutes. Wow.
The Navy of course didn’t use fresh real eggs from actual chickens but whipped up eggbeaters for breakfast. The so-called scrambled eggs were always made the night before and mixed with chopped bits of ham. Real hardboiled eggs that aren’t quickly cooled will get a green film around the yoke. Well, the same thing happens to eggbeaters only it’s all yoke.
I don’t remember if I was assigned a spot in the line or if I always just happened to be the first server in the lineup, which in the morning served the scrambled eggs. They never told us what to say when serving the food, so being a Dr. Seuss fan and of course, a perpetual smart ass I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to shout out exactly what I was serving. “Green eggs and ham! Get your green eggs and ham!” There were many chuckles on the other side of the plexiglass, “Sure, I’ll try some green eggs”. And every morning without fail the Chief would come up to me, “Serving the eggs with attitude?”
Me: *eye flutter* “What do you mean?”
Chiefy: “Green eggs and ham?”
Me: “But they are green.”
Chiefy: “You can’t do that.”
Me: “But it is green eggs and ham. Look, it’s green.”
Amazingly, I passed boot camp without ever being set back. On my way through, I had asked for overseas duty. I never got it. I served in the same state I signed up from and the only sea time I saw was one two-week deployment on the Lincoln (aircraft carrier) going on a training mission from Everett WA to San Diego CA.
It’s the evening and it’s just the two of us. We kiss and joke. We make comments about the day. Our clothes slide off and we cuddle under the covers. Kisses become passionate, and then from the other room we hear, “Da-DEE”. That little shit. Good thing she can’t climb out of the crib, yet.
Flash Fiction Friday is hosted by g-man. You may also visit Flash Fiction Friday 55′s, a blog dedicated to hosting 55 Flash Fiction Friday posts.
Last night I took a quiz on Facebook that determines from which area of the US my American English accent derives by asking several pronunciation questions. One of the questions was, “How do the words ‘Merry,’ ‘Marry,’ and ‘Mary’ sound to you?” I didn’t have to think about it. I pronounce them all the same, but the meaning of one of them was totally lost to me. Mary is a name. I know that one. Merry is joy, happiness and is usually precedes the word Christmas. Got that one, but what the hell is Marry? I made the god-awful mistake of asking Kurt. I should really know better because he’s NEVER going to let me live this one down. I spelled out the version of marry that confused me. He raised an eyebrow and looked at me as if I was from the same planet as Mork. He may have actually been gauging to see if I was testing him or really didn’t know, then he showed me the shiny new ring on his left hand. “You don’t KNOW?” Oh yeah. Marry, as in, I’m now married. I’m a dork, and I’m sure to make a lousy wife.
I know some are very surprised that we actually did the ring thing, but you’ll be relieved to know that we waited to the bitter end to decide if we wanted rings or not. I don’t know why I brought it up but a week or two before the date we set for our wedding day, our tenth anniversary, I asked Kurt if we should get rings. “Do you want rings?” he asked. “I don’t know.” I said. Part of me figured since we’re already going through the ceremony we might as well get the rings too and the other part wants to hang on to the rebellion and say, “Fuck you society! I’m not wearing a fuckin’ ring, deal with it!” But then I don’t want to spend the rest of my life explaining why we got married but don’t wear rings, even though we spent the last ten years explaining to people that it’s possible to have a baby without being married. It’s actually been done for hundreds, nay thousands of years. It’s not some recent scourge of society caused by television. It’s merely two people living together without the pre-approval of a church or government meddling, both of which result in nothing more but some paper signing. Does this magically cause women to ovulate differently and produce non-bastard eggs that will somehow fair better through life based on some mystical notion beyond societal pressures?
The morning of the day of our ceremony Kurt and I finally made our decision after going to a jewelry store. Even there we were both looking at each other, should we? Rings? No rings? The sales lady behind the counter asked us a few questions and looked somewhat disapprovingly at ME when we told her that we were getting married that day, as if I hadn’t done my job as a woman to pick out the rings with enough time. She didn’t seem to get that it was ok with me that the ring wouldn’t fit for the ceremony. Never mind nether of us knowing if we wanted rings, I frankly I didn’t want to get married at all.
Washington State in its infinite psychosis won’t grant homosexuals to marry, yet will grant them a domestic partnership which extents employer health benefits to their significant other but wont grant heterosexuals who don’t want to marry the same benefit unless:
No matter anymore, we’ve tied the knot. I sent out an email notice to our families and the majority of our friends with the subject titled, “Public Announcement”. I sent out Kurt’s watered down version of what I wanted to say.
We would like to inform you all that Kurt and I are getting married on the 25th of February (our ten year anniversary) so that I can continue to stay home with Sophia and still have health insurance. We aren’t doing any sort of ceremony. This will just be a document signing in front of a judge.
My version went like this:
Kurt and I are getting married on the 25th of February (our ten year anniversary) so that I can continue to stay home with Sophia and still have health insurance. We aren’t doing any sort of ceremony. This will just be a document signing in front of some judge. If you feel compelled be there to hold a gun to mine or Kurt’s back to insure we go through with it, or wish to harass the judge by listing the myriad of reasons why Kurt and I shouldn’t get married because it would undermine the sanctity of the whole institution, I’ll make sure to send you more details as we make arraignments.
Because we needed two witnesses, I also sent out another email for friends working close enough to the courthouse or on maternity leave to stop by and make their mark on our marriage paper.
We are required to provide two witnesses for our wedding ceremony (official paper signing), which will be on Wednesday February 25 at 4:30pm in *name of place that passes as a city*. We can have more people, but Kurt and I don’t want to make this too big a deal. Please let me know if you’d like to be our witness on the above stated Wednesday. You will have to sign an official looking paper with your real name (no aliases) and it will be recorded with *name of local county* with official looking seals (not the cute little furry animals, sorry).
Unfortunately the officiator will not be an Internet ordained *name of out-of-the-closet-but-not-in-a-gay-way atheist friend* doing a combination of Princess Bride and the episode of friends in which Joey recites the speech he wants to give at Monica and Chandler’s wedding because he said he wouldn’t be able to keep a straight face.
“Mawage. Mawage is wot bwings us togeder tooday. Mawage, that bwessed awangment, that dweam wifin a dweam…”
“And wuv, tru wuv and the giving…and the caring.and the receiving and sharing of the loving kindness that will be given in such a caring and loving way with deference to the spirit of a loving, caring, sharing and giving relationship, will fowow you foweva…”
So we’ll have to settle for some stuffy Judge with the *local county* District Court.
Several people have told us we need to have a party to celebrate our ten obnoxiously long years together, but our house just isn’t big enough for that, and we’re doing this on a Wednesday.
After I sent out the we-won’t-have-a-party email Kurt decided that it would be fun to invite anyone that does come out to Buca di Beppo. That was a fun time fitting for a ten-year anniversary. As always, we told many stories and either referenced or retold some old ones.
One story that I haven’t written about previously is how Kurt received the nickname Terry. It’s a benign nickname, but I had to ask permission before posting it on the internet, so keep your pants on you might like this one.
Kurt and I were up in Canada for a motorcycle thing with a bunch of friends. We were in the narrow bathroom of our hotel room getting ready for the day. Both of us were nekkid and we passed each other butt to butt. That’s odd. I thought he was nekkid. I looked over at him and he was indeed nekkid. “What?” he asked. “It felt like you were wearing a towel.” I’m brutal, I know. Poor Kurtie. He was mortified, so much so that he told EVERYONE. And they laughed and dubbed him Terry. He’s an odd human. I wasn’t going to tell a soul.
By the way, our rings are inscribed with, “Kurt is my lobster”, and “Erica is my lobster”. We thought about inscribing angry messages like, “Society made us do it” or have it reference Lord of the Rings, “One ring to rule them all, one ring to find them, one ring to bring them all, and in the darkness bind them.” We were limited to about 15 to 20 characters so the latter was right out. We settled on something that reflected our ten years together instead of our forced conformity, except that I sent Kurt out to have them inscribed without me and he forgot to have the date of our first date included. *sigh*
Sophia has changed quite a bit in the last month. She made her first baby sign on Thanks Giving day after I gave her some pumpkin pie and she gobbled it up. Other than her sign for ‘all done’ she didn’t use signs at all until around fifteen months and then she only added the sign for ‘more’. It only took a couple days of making the sign correctly before she become so confident about it that she would drink from her tippy cup while making the sign one-handed against the tray of her booster seat. Creative little bugger. It was the baby version of a NASCAR fan being too busy drinking his beer to actually clap. Now it doesn’t sound as impressive, does it?
Watching her do the sign for ‘more’ is so cute. Sometimes she puts everything down, looks down at her hands to make sure she has them aligned properly, and brings them together as if it takes all of her concentration. After the first time she’ll look up and continue making the sign a few times until I say, “Oh you want more, ok.”
The sign for milk is supposed to simulate milking a cow, but Sophia has a problem making that sign. Instead, she does something similar to flicking a booger off her thumb. It took me a while to figure out that she was in fact trying to make the sign for milk. She only used the sign for ‘eat’ the one time, and after learning ‘more’ she uses that for ‘eat’ as well. If I’m not paying close attention to her she comes up, grabs my hand and bites me to let me know she’s hungry. After several times of telling her not to bite me, last night she took my hand and licked me. Much better, I guess. If I can only choose between the two, I’ll take the latter.
This last month she’s gone back to insisting that she feed herself. Thankfully, if I’m serving oatmeal or muesli I’m allowed to fill her up most of the way before she demands control of the spoon. Sometimes she’ll allow me to help her scoop up a spoonful of food for her to put into her mouth, always sideways or upside-down, of course.
She seems to have given up her old “tur lur lur shlur lur”, which I loved, and has taken up, “Doodle oodle loodle loodle”. Her original multi syllabic vocalization was for analyzing objects and it was quiet, almost whispered. It was cute and I loved it. It served as a great warning that she maybe getting into things I didn’t want her to get into. The new multi syllabic vocalization is more of a statement. Nah, a proclamation. Doodle oodle loodle loodle says, “I’m going to run around the house with your dirty panties on my head and there isn’t a thing you can do about it, mother.” Yes, she’s that snooty, and yes she has run around with my DIRTY underwear on her head.
She has a thing for putting stuff on herself. The new tote that her gramma gave her belongs on her head. Good thing it has a window. She walks around with ribbon like a seamstress with measuring tape, around the neck it goes. And she loves shuffling around the house with my slippers on her tiny feet. She puts her own shirts on by holding them up to her chest and walking around the room using her chin to hold them in place. It’s hilarious!
She managed to get her own pants on once. She analyzed the waistband round and round in circles until she finally put a leg in, then the second leg. She had one leg in for each pant leg. They were only pulled up to her thighs, but technically, they were on. Unfortunately, they were on backwards.
With her determination to do things on her own I’ve started having her put her own dirty diapers into the diaper champ and turn the handle. Sometimes she needs help with the handle, especially when the champ starts to get full, but she does it on her own after every diaper change. Even at the swimming pool, she puts her diaper in the pail they keep for that specific purpose. She’s such a great little helper!
I think the most noticeable change is that Sophia now allows barrettes in her hair, sometimes. It took a combination of allowing her to play with the other barrettes I keep in a bag, running to the nearest mirror to show her how cool the barrettes look in her hair, and wearing one of her tiny barrettes in my own hair before she would keep them in. But now instead of looking like this:
She looks like this more often:
But even better than that, she finally said her first word. Last night I was folding laundry while Sophia played in the empty laundry basket, climbing in and out. She picked it up, carried it to the other side of the room, and continued climbing in and then it slipped. She fell, hitting her head on the wood bed frame. After the crying began, I went over to pick her up, give her a big hug, and do the ‘kiss it better’ mommy thing. Kurt came up to see what happened and by the time he reached us she was ready to play in the laundry basket some more. Kurt took the opportunity to turn the laundry basket into a toddler car. Unlike most other fathers Kurt’s laundry basket toddler car had a slow gentle ride complete with a backup beep. After one cruise around the bedroom, I told Sophia, “We need to show daddy how this car really handles.”
I took control of the laundry basket car. “eeeerrrr” The car backed up. “EErrrr” Went around the corner. “yyeeerrooowww” Drove past Kurt and into the other room. “EERRRR” Blue laundry basket break marks into the next room and a sharp u-turn. Toddlers are fun to watch with the proper laundry basket driver because when they break hard enough the toddler bends in half and can touch their toddler toes with their giant toddler melon-head.
After we were done with the basket rides, Kurt and I were sitting on the floor with Sophia standing in front of us. She faced Kurt and said, “Da-E”. Kurt and I looked at each other, “Yes, daddy.” I told her. She turned to me and pointed. The expression on her face read, “And who the fuck are you?”
I’m just the one that she bites when she’s hungry and clings to at social events. *sigh*
About three weeks ago Kurt swore that he heard Sophia say, “Hi daddy” when he arrived home from work. I was standing right there but since I’m used to the usual “tur lur lur” and “Doodle oodle loodle” I didn’t notice. He thought he had heard it again about a week later but I was upstairs. This time it was clear and it was right in front of us both.
Earlier in the day I swear I was hearing her say, “key key key” which I assumed was her calling the cat, but I didn’t see the cat anywhere around nor did I hear him whining. I guess I’ll learn what it means later.
I didn’t want to do it, not because I wasn’t sure he’s the one nor for fear of commitment. We’ve been together longer than many of our friends. We’re committed to each other in every way but on paper, so why bother with the formality? Two words, health insurance. Happy tenth anniversary to my lobster!
Flash Fiction Friday is hosted by g-man. You may also visit Flash Fiction Friday 55′s, a blog dedicated to hosting 55 Flash Fiction Friday posts.
For the ten year anniversary nothing says love like a bottle of Tinactin for him. In return he’ll slowly and as sexily as a man can, strip his socks off.
