Sweets

A broken cable box contributed to a romantic evening at the Phillips-Quinn household Tuesday night. We turned off the lights and lit up the Christmas tree. I popped in a yule log DVD and we watched our "fire" burn while drinking wine, eating German wafer cookies and making fun of callers on the Delilah radio show. Ahh. May there be many nights like this to come this holiday season.

Kiss kiss, bang bang

A new game has taken hold at our house. No catchy title for it yet. Just goes by "kiss me like we're at the alter." Then we see who can kiss the other in the most embarrassing way. Tongue plays an important role.

It reminds me of a game I used to play as a kid. Whenever I ate an apple, I would polish it up and then try to take a perfectly round first bite -- like the one Snow White made. It never occurred to me that the next step was falling into a coma and waiting for a man. I just ate the rest of the apple.

Our next text

 

Certifiable

For the first time since we started dating, Kelley and I will spend Christmas day apart. She is going back to her hometown, Elmira, N.Y., for the holiday, and I volunteered to cover a Christmas day shift for Dan, a newlywed whose bea-u-tiful wife was featured in this blog earlier this fall.

Anyway, I was being all reasonable, saying I thought it was nice that KQ was going to spend time with her family and that we could reschedule our day. But then over the weekend, I ran face first into the perfect emotional storm: petty issues at work, an email saying my best friend's grandfather died, a street corner fight with KQ where I yelled "I'm not some bisexual you picked up two weeks ago at Berlin" (classy, I know), an overdose of the all-Christmas-all-the-time radio station (Lite 93.9 check it out) and a bottle of wine (oh wait, I think the bottle of wine came before the street corner fight) and boom. I was reduced to bawling into my blanket because I had to spend Christmas without my SO.

A right-minded woman would hit the pavement, wouldn't she? Who wants to put up with this crazy shit? Kelley for one. The morning after my performance she was all doting and sweet, serving me ibuprofen, Zoloft and Sierra Mist in bed. Later she confessed that she was touched by my crying fit. I am usually so straight with my emotions, she said, it made her feel good to know that she would be missed. Match made in the loony bin.

Ring bearer

We are such good girls, carefully storing our wedding bands in our underwear drawer until the big day, separately and secretly removing the boxes to look at the diamond glint.

Scratch that. We were such good girls.

After consulting Kelley in the shower this morning, we aren't quite sure what moved us over the tipping point. But Friday night, we lit some candles, popped open a bottle of wine, sat on opposite ends of the couch with our toes mingling in the center and exchanged our rings. It wasn't as romantic as that scene in "Cold Mountain" where Nicole Kidman and Jude Law say "I marry you" three times and then consummate the marriage. I was wearing monkey-print flannel pajamas afterall. But it was our own brand of romance, explaining why we just couldn't wait to wear the rings any longer.

In short, we are ready. We are planning this thing together. We are talking to our families about it together (make that my family; we are talking about why we aren't talking to Kelley's family together). We are happy and close and wearing the rings reminds us of that.

Oh, yes, we also are bad about waiting to open gifts.

Brenna and Nate, our friends and wedding photographers, tied the knot themselves on Saturday. More pics at the photo album link. 

Almost married and mundane

To be fair, Kelley did say she was happy I talked to my dad. It made her feel more secure. Less like I could pull a runaway bride. But after reading today's post, this is the email she sent me. It is about ... anchoring the towel bar.

"nice post on the blog, but PLEASE do not try the
toggles yet. i don't think they're going to work and
do not want to make the situation any worse with the
towel rack than it already is. personally i think we
need kekick (the maintenance man) to come take a
look at that and the toilet paper holder. thoughts?"

Hello Daddy

My list of annoying things that must be done this weekend includes: polish brown boots, weed out t-shirt drawer, try toggles on the towel rod that's falling out of the wall and tell Dad about the ceremony. Well, cross that last one off the list. I did it yesterday.

I convinced myself that telling was best done in person which bought me some time since I don't see my dad very often. But with every post and purchase and conversation, I felt guilty that someone so close to me didn't know yet. So, I buckled Judy into her leash and set out on a Wicker Park specialty: I went to the dog park to have a personal conversation on my cell phone.

We went down the list exchanging updates on my siblings. My little sister is on track to become head recreational therapist at a veterans hospital. She is excelling at playing games with old men. My youngest brother went missing after a Halloween party, and apparently is floating from one friend's couch to another in a drug- and computer game-induced haze. David, the newlywed, and most recent host of Daniel the floater, is mediating concern for his brother and his wife.

That brings the conversation to me. It went something like this:

"Dad, I have some news that I wanted to tell you in person, but it doesn't look like we're going to see each other until Thanksgiving. So, I'm just going to tell you now. Kelley and I are having a commitment ceremony next summer in Provincetown, Mass., a little resort town on the tip of Cape Cod where we've gone on some nice weekends away together. It is going to be small -- just siblings and friends. We'd like you to come. We're also going to have a Chicago reception that's going to be bigger, with co-workers, extended family, college friends, whoever, but we haven't nailed that down yet."

Hmm. This is where I should be able to say what my dad said. But I was so worked up and trying to play it cool that I don't really remember. What was important was that I finally told him. And he said, "Congratulations."

Oh wait, I just remembered two things he said. He asked how long I've lived with Kelley. Which allowed me to tell him the story about how for five years now KQ's been bugging me to take a plunge -- any plunge -- and that I agreed to commit when I turned 30. And he asked me where and what Provincetown was, which triggered my expansive knowledge of geography. If Cape Cod were a flexed arm, Provincetown would be at the end of your fist. It's where all the fishermen and gay people are and you can get there by ferry. Ooh, I said "gay" on the phone with my dad. That might be a first.