Courthouse of Love, Part II

Yesterday, I wrote about visiting the courthouse to get a marriage license, musing that I was as good as married.

Today, I found a comment from my lovely sister, Jennifer, that in the eyes of the law, I might be better than "as good." I might actually be married.

What? When did that happen?

I questioned her, and she told me that in Pennsylvania -- where we grew up and she still lives -- marriage is officially a contractual agreement. The only thing needed to make a marriage legal are the bride's and groom's signatures on a marriage license; a ceremony is more sentimental than official. Both the priest who performed her marriage and the woman who helped her husband and her at the courthouse told her this when she got married.

I tried to confirm what she'd told me online but couldn't find any official information on the commonwealth's Web pages. I was only able to find this article, which says that it is possible to obtain a "self-uniting" marriage license, but couples need to ask for one specifically before beginning the application process. Furthermore, there is a three-day waiting period attached to marriage licenses in Pennsylvania, so I don't believe my sister got the entire truth.

Nevertheless, I was intrigued. I looked up marriage licensing information for my state, Illinois, wondering if I might actually have gotten myself married without knowing. As it turns out, no.

A legal marriage in Illinois requires that the license not only be signed by the bride and groom but completed by an officiant, who must be a current or retired judge from a court of record, a judge from the Court of Claims, a county clerk in a county with 2 million or more inhabitants, a public official whose duties include solemnizing marriages or a religious or tribal officiant.

So I guess I can't settle into married life just yet. I guess that's for the best. It would have been cool to be able to say we were married already, but at least now I don't have to miss my bachelorette party.

Courthouse of Love

Last night, my fiance and I got licensed.

To marry, that is.

I had never gotten a license to do anything except drive; thank goodness there was no test for this one, just a short questionnaire with questions like "are you already married," and "are you related." Ugh.

On the way to the courthouse, we were listening to the oldies radio station and heard the song "Chapel of Love." It was cute, in a completely cheesy way, and a nice moment in a time when we are stressed out over final details.

Later in the evening, we bickered about seating arrangements for the wedding reception and both ended up grumpy. We still have a ton of work left to do before the actual wedding day, and thinking about it probably didn't do much to make either of us feel better in that moment.

But hey, if it doesn't get done, it doesn't get done. We're licensed; we're set. All the rest of that stuff exists only so we can feel we've been hospitable. We could take our guests out to McDonald's and it wouldn't matter, because at the end of the day, we'd still be married. That's all either of us really wanted out of that day.

That is the whole point, after all.

Snap!

Two people have commented that I made grammatical errors in my Saturday post about being sick, and I feel I have to comment back.

I had been sick for two days when I wrote that entry. For the previous 48 hours, nothing had gone into my body except clear liquids, Pepto Bismol and crackers, but a host of nasty things had been coming out. Forgive me if I wasn't at my best, grammatically.

Way to kick me when I'm down, people. Thanks for the love.

The Quickest Way I've Ever Lost Five Pounds (Not Recommended)

Wednesday night, my fiance and I made pizza for dinner.

Midday Thursday, we both started feeling sick.

I'm not saying the two things are connected, but it's going to be awhile before I eat pizza again. Once you feel last night's dinner come out of your nose, you know it's pretty much over.

The short version (and believe me, you do not want the long version of this story) is, we have spent the past two days inside, lying on the couch, alternately watching bad TV and running for the bathroom. (Thank God we have two).

It was sort of a relationship growth exercise; we have never been sick at the same time before, and we're both big babies when we're sick, but this time, there wasn't one clear patient and one clear caretaker. Whenever one of us needed something, it was pretty much up to whoever was able to stand up at that moment to get it. And even that got tricky, because after 16 hours lying on the couch and the futon, we were both suffering from sore backs.

Yesterday, thinking it might help me to get out into civilization for awhile, I showered, put on some clean sweats and went out to get more supplies -- ginger ale, saltines and Pepto Bismol. I'm sure I looked miserable, too, so there was no doubt as to what I'd been through in recent hours.

As I was paying, I noticed a pin on the cashier's smock -- it was shaped like a dog bone and said "I love my Soft-coated Wheaten Terrier." My mom has two Wheatens and adores them (I could probably start a whole blog about her dogs -- but I won't, because I am bitter that she loves them more than she loves me. She says it's because they never ask her for money, but come on, I never poop in the yard and ask her to clean it up; who's giving her a better deal here? And I'm pretty sure she wouldn't look favorably on me pooping in the yard, but when her dogs do it, they get cheese). I struck up a brief conversation with the lady about her dogs, and she sent me off with a compassionate "take care, honey." It was kind of like the universe sent me a sympathetic Mom-type person to make me feel better in my time of need.

Today, the fiance and I are feeling almost human again. I was even able to get dressed in real clothes. I don't look so hot though, because since Thursday morning, I have lost 5 1/2 pounds, which is enough to loosen my pants to the point where I don't have to unbutton them to take them off. Under other circumstances, I'd be celebrating; even now, I want to go bathing suit shopping while it lasts.

I did run a few errands; I finalized the wedding flowers (one less thing to worry about later, plus if they end up looking bad I can just tell people that I was sick with dysentery when I chose them) and went to the grocery store, where the sight and smell of food did not make me want to vomit, so I think that's a good sign.

I was on my way to the toilet paper aisle (we've used quite a bit this weekend) and noticed a woman handing out free samples. I wasn't really in a try-something-new mood anyway, but I had to laugh when I saw what her samples were -- All Bran. No, thank you. Certainly don't need that today.

I'm not sure if sharing a weekend of food poisoning brought my fiance and I closer together or not, but I hope it did, because that 5 1/2 pound loss is so not worth how I lost it. Well, unless my thighs look smaller. I'll get back to you on that.

Big Airport of Horrors, Or, I Used The Word "Apocalypse" More Times In This Entry Than I Have Ever Used The Rest of My Life, Cumulatively

O'Hare Airport is, to me, a living battleground.

I've been there several times, as a passenger and meeting passengers, and hardly ever do things go completely smoothly. I don't know if any Hollywood film directors read my blog, but I think a good post-apocalyptic science fiction movie would be about the few surviving humans taking shelter at O'Hare as the big bomb destroys civilization, then trying to leave and start a new civilization, but the airport won't let them out. It would be plausible, because, as I have learned even pre-apocalypse, it is nearly impossible to leave O'Hare Airport. It's like Hotel California, without the metaphor.

Yesterday, my friend English Kari (so-called because her name is Kari and she lives in England, and I need a way to distinguish her from my friend Carrie from high school) arrived at O'Hare for a stopover between Manchester and Atlanta. I was at work all day and couldn't make it up to the airport to see her during her mid-afternoon stay, but I gave her my cell phone number and told her that if she got stuck for any reason to let me know. We had some storms yesterday, and I heard there were delays, so I left my phone on. I didn't recieve a call, so I assumed that English Kari had made it to her destination.

I should mention at this point that I have never actually met Kari in person. I know her through an online forum, which is, ironically enough, for people who are afraid to fly. I "met" the guy who started the site while doing research for a story for my former newspaper, and he and his cohorts were so nice that I've stuck around for four years. The site has been instrumental in helping me overcome my own fear of flying, and the people on it are great. Many of them get together regularly, but I've yet to meet any of them in person.

Anyway, about 10 p.m., I logged on and found a message from Mark, the site administrator, who lives in Tennessee and had spoken to Kari. She'd told him she was stuck at O'Hare for the night; she'd tried to call me but couldn't get through. Immediately, I began trying to reach her. I tried her cell phone (some automated lady with a British accent told me that my call could not be completed); I tried paging her through the airline (no answer); I tried calling the airline's first class lounges, to see if they could get me through to the paging system (closed); I tried speaking to someone at the airport's main number, twice (the first time they transferred me to the airline's ticket reservation line, and the second time they gave me the two numbers I'd already tried and said they had no other ones). Finally, I gave up and went to bed, and I'm still not sure whether Kari got out.

Getting stuck at any airport is a bummer, but getting stuck at O'Hare seems almost inevitable. When I was 13, I was stranded there for an entire day. I'd been visiting my aunt in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, and my flight to Chicago got in late, so I missed my connection. I'd never flown by myself before, so my aunt had paid to have someone escort me, and when they came to get me for the next flight I could take, the woman took me to the wrong gate. Since this was well before 9-11, and the gate agents didn't seem to know what was going on, so if I had been more bold, I might have been able to weasel my way onto the plane at that gate -- it was headed for Paris, so I was tempted to try -- but by the time I got the attention of a gate agent, my actual flight -- headed for Washington, D.C. -- had already taken off. Another employee (an old man named Floyd, who had a mole on his face and was really nice to me as I cried during the whole walk) escorted me to another gate for the last flight of the day, and finally I made it out.

But others I know have not escaped spending the night. A year ago, my mom was flying to Iowa (to see that same aunt -- for awhile I blamed her for the O'Hare phenomenon, but I think she's off the hook now) and ended up stuck for the night. She really didn't have to be stuck, though, having a daughter who lives 40 miles away and was driving to the aunt's house the next day; she ended up arriving only a short time before I did.

And it's not just passengers who have trouble. Just before my mom's incident, I made plans to meet up with a friend who had a layover at O'Hare. Hailing from Germany, she was an exchange student who stayed with my family when I was in high school, and this time, she was passing through Chicago on her way home from a visit to Kansas, where she'd spent some time in graduate school. I headed up to the airport to see her, and just as I reached our designated meeting spot, my cell phone rang. It was her, telling me she was stuck on the plane in Kansas City with no idea when she'd be taking off. I went home, although not before paying for the 10 minutes I was parked, because in the city of Chicago, nothing is ever free. One could argue that her story was about being stuck in Kansas City, not Chicago, but the point is, every time anyone I know has made O'Hare part of their travel plans, something weird happens.

I have plans to meet up with English Kari on Sunday (we plan to line dance -- she has a rule that whenever folks from the forum get together, they have to line dance, and I like that rule), when she stops at O'Hare on her way home from Atlanta, but part of me wonders if I should even bother. That airport has been no friend to me, and given past experience, I have doubts as to whether we'll actually be able to make it happen.

But really, that makes me all the more determined to go. It's not just about visiting with Kari; it's about conquering O'Hare Airport. Chicago mayor Richard Daley has been fighting to expand the already-gargantuan O'Hare, and if he succeeds, I fear the airport will just start growing on its own and take over the entire city, "feed me, Seymour" style. We must fight back before it's too late, or O'Hare won't just be the threat of the post-apocalypse; it will bring about the apocalypse itself.

So bring on your best, O'Hare Airport. Come Sunday, English Kari and I will be line dancing on your face!

Notes From My Corner, Or, Nothing All That Interesting Has Happened To Me Lately, But Something Important Did Happen Two Years Ago Today

Two years ago today, my fiance and I went out on our first date. The items below really have nothing to do with that, but I thought it was worth mentioning, especially considering I find things like the below items interesting enough to blog about.

* I bought a new microwave oven on Saturday. I wanted to get the one that had a pizza oven built into it, but it cost $100 more. Marla admonished me for even considering the pizza oven microwave, but the truth is, I make pizza often enough to find it handy. Well, I would if I had a pizza oven anyway. Plus there was a fun little handle and a tray you can take right out.

* Keebler now makes a "Right Bites" (their version of the 100 Calorie Pack) of Grasshopper Cookies. Man are they tasty.

* Didn't-Bother-To-Brush-Her-Hair-But-Did-Take-
The-Time-To-Put-On-Tights-Yes, Tights Lady from my gym must be a Stapling Jello reader, because she's started brushing her hair. Mind you, that makes it pretty frizzy and actually look worse than it did before, but I do have to give her a thumbs-up for her effort. She looks like she's gotten some highlights, too, which astounds me. Why spend the money on highlights on hair that looks like that? I know I'm being mean, but come on lady, let's be just a little practical here.

* I've resumed my practice of buying only pants that are sized "long," even if they are too long when I put them on in the store. High water pants do not look good, especially on someone who has big feet.

* I had a dream one night last week that I walked out of my office and my car had been stolen from the parking lot. The next day, I went shopping, and when I walked out of the store, it took me awhile to find my car because there was a big van parked next to it. Eerie, huh?

Springing Ahead, In The World's Largest Way

The clocks have changed, and all of a sudden, my time is no longer my own.

This past weekend was my last free one before the wedding. From now till after my name changes, I have something going on every single (pun intended) weekend.

As fate would have it, my last free weekend as a free woman coincided with a professional conference my fiance attends every year. It was also a three-day weekend for me. I didn't want to spend the whole weekend alone, and I had a free frequent flyer trip due me, so I decided to get out of town.

I called up my old college roommate, Miranda, in Fayetteville, NC, and invited myself down to her neck of the woods. She eagerly accepted my self-invitation, and I booked a flight. It was the perfect thing to do.

Miranda has always been one of my favorite people to hang out with -- she's fun, quirky and gets amused by the same random things that amuse me. In the good old days, we laughed constantly, usually about nothing at all. For the two years we were roommates, hardly a day went by that we didn't come up with some new silly inside joke. It was pretty annoying to the people around us, but we had a blast.

I hadn't seen my pal in more than a year, and both that visit and one before it had been at weddings (one of them hers, to a man I am happy to say shares her goofy sense of humor), so we didn't get a chance to just hang out. It makes me kind of sad sometimes that our friendship has evolved in this way; we used to be so close, and now we never see each other. She hasn't even met my fiance yet. It's just so hard to find the time and money to get together. It's just how life goes, I guess, and I think we would be pretty pathetic figures today, had we not gone on to find lives and friends beyond college.

But I still really appreciate it when we are able to hang out and laugh like we used to, and I'm glad I took this weekend to do just that.

During my stay in Fayetteville, Miranda and her husband, Jeremy, showed me some of their favorite North Carolina hot spots -- the nature trail they like to walk, the Mexican restaurant they patronize for great chips and salsa, their favorite dollar store, the theatres they volunteer in and the area's best place for some tasty North Carolina barbecue. They even took me on a little side trip to a winery an hour or so away in Rose Hill, NC, so I could taste how the South does grapes.

But the most exciting destination was not on the agenda -- a fact I can prove, because I took a picture of the agenda. As we approached the winery, we passed a bright red and white pavillion. When I read the sign on it, I couldn't believe my luck. What a wonderful unexpected discovery! I suddenly understood how the first Texan to strike oil must have felt.

It was hard to believe, but there I was, within spitting distance of the World's Largest Frying Pan.

Being a lover of all things quirky, I had always wanted to see the world's largest something. I had been to the World's Largest Truck Stop before, and according to Jeremy and Miranda, Fayetteville is actually home to the World's Largest Wal-Mart, but this was different. Those places were made large to make large amounts of money. The World's Largest Frying Pan -- although most likely built as part of a publicity stunt that I'm sure brought money to some cause or business (I was too excited to read any of the information while I was there) -- now exists simply for the sake of being large.

Oddly enough, it was the perfect thing to see while visiting Miranda -- a silly, random, goofy thing that we just happened upon. We could never in a million years have thought to look for something as weird as the world's largest frying pan, and if we had, we'd never have found it. We'd have had better luck searching for a cat in a cup full of nails*.

I suppose it is also strangely appropriate that my last weekend as a single gal was the weekend we changed our clocks and were hurled an hour into the future. With six weeks till the wedding, things seem to be moving faster and faster each day. Before I know it, the big day will be here.

Before this big leap into tomorrow, though, it was nice to take a trip down Memory Lane. It was even nicer to know that the good times don't have to stay there. Over the weekend,we did a good bit of laughing about the old times, but we had quite a few new laughs as well**. We'll probably never again live in the same state, and I'm sure that as the years pass, we'll have more and more going on in our own lives that has nothing to do with each other. But I hope we'll still make an effort to see each other.

We'll just have to take the time.

___________

*See what I mean about the inside jokes? That cup full of nails thing made no sense to you, did it?

**More laughs than a cup full of nails. See? Annoying as crap, isn't it?

As The Countdown Continues, Each Day Has Its Due

Countdown: 46 days.

If you have been paying attention, you know that the event for which I am counting the days is my wedding. In 46 days, I will walk down the aisle, take the hand of my sweetheart and become a missus. I've been counting down pretty much since we set the date, and I keep track by marking the number of months and weeks on my home calendar, and months, weeks and days on my pocket calendar.

You know, in case I forget.

Honestly, though, I highly doubt I will forget, also having written on the big day, "get married, 4 p.m." and the name of the church.

It's not really that I'm excited (although I am) or impatient (I am that, too). I just like to keep track of dates. I journal pretty regularly, and I have for half my life, so I have records of many significant dates that, otherwise, I might have forgotten. Because of my habit of writing things down, my memory for dates is freakishly good. So I don't even have to look to know that today is the four-year anniversary of the day my fiance and I first met, on assignment together for the newspaper where I used to work and he still works. We didn't start dating for two years after that, so I probably wouldn't have remembered that had I not written about the assignment (and yes, I did write about the assignment, not the person with whom I had the assignment).

But even the insignificant dates become significant when they are centered around a big event, and by marking them off, in my journal, in my head or on the calendar, I feel I give them their due. Fifty-four days ago, I sat eating dinner in a Greek restaurant with my fiance, telling him this, as he laughed at me for being excited that it was exactly 100 days until our wedding.

"You may not think it's a big deal now," I told him, "but just wait until our wedding day. We'll be sitting at our reception, eating dinner, and I'm going to say to you, 'do you remember what we had for dinner 100 days ago?' You'll say 'no,' but I'll know that we ate here, and you had chicken kebabs, and I had a vegetarian plate." I went on to say that I would tell him this at the wedding, recount all the events of this day and of the party we were headed to that evening.

"I will even tell you about this conversation," I said, "and I will remind you that you didn't believe I could remember all of those details. But I will."

And as the date for the wedding gets closer, I find myself noticing something significant in every single day. Last Thursday, March 1, I realized that for the first time I could officially say "I'm getting married next month." This past Monday, when I saw the mid-season cliffhanger for NBC's Heroes, and the voice-over guy announced that the show would return on April 23, I turned to my fiance and said, "that was the last episode until after we're married." I do that with work projects, too, thinking, oh, the next time I'll talk to this client, I'll be married, or, I'd better not copy too many of these fax cover sheets, because I'll have to change the name on them in a few months.

I've begun to see my life lately in terms of "before the wedding" and "after the wedding." It's not that I feel my life will be all that different; it's just a way I'm framing events these days. It's sort of like leaving work on December 31 and realizing that you won't be back until the new year.

The fact of the matter is, when I walk down that aisle in 46 days, I probably won't care much about what I did today. I won't care what the weather was (cloudy and drizzly) what I wore (jeans and a black sweater), what I ate for lunch (Trader Joe's three-bean chili). But whether it matters or not in the long run, it's nice to know that this day was given its due.