I do love being able to stay connected with friends through outlets like Xanga or Facebook. The thing I don’t like about it is that it seems to make a lot of people really lazy about how they remain connected to their friends.

When the Architect and I got engaged a year and a half ago, we made sure that we told all of the important people in our life that we were engaged either in person or by phone before we updated our social networks. We didn’t want anyone to feel like we didn’t think they weren’t important enough to reach out and touch before we let our digital world in on our happy news.

I think I probably complained about this in a protected post this summer but one of my very good friends, the one that introduced the Architect and I, announced her engagement on Facebook. I was pretty hurt about it and admittedly I can be a little passive aggressive on my worse days. I didn’t know what to do so I wrote “Congratulations” on her FB wall and let it alone. I was steaming though.

She did call me almost right away with a feeble excuse about wanting to get the news all out at once but I was still pretty hurt. Especially because she apparently considers me important enough in her life to have me in her wedding (she was in my wedding party as well). I just found it strange.

Yesterday, the Architect and I had another good friend that announced their engagement on Facebook. Again, we knew that they would probably be getting married soon (they announced that they were pregnant at Christmas and wanted to be engaged before the baby comes in August). We had even talked about helping them out with wedding planning and the wedding itself so the engagement is sort of a formality I suppose.

I guess I was a little less upset about this second situation because it wasn’t a big surprise or anything but it had me wondering, is this a common practice now?

What do you think about this? Is there ever news that’s inappropriate to share on the web?

I originally posted this protected but now since it’s over, I want to tell you all the conclusion!

I’m only protecting this post because it doesn’t have a conclusion yet. I’ve been playing phone tag with La Bonne Fille (LBF), one of my dearest friends. I was able to speak to her for a few minutes last night right as we were on our way to grab Indian food (I was feeling congested and chicken vindaloo seemed like a good cure) and she told me this gem of a story. I know I’ve written a lot about her but as a refresher, she lives in a pretty small town in Alaska.

Up there a lot of people just leave their cars running (and therefore their keys in the car and car doors unlocked if they don’t have auto-start) when they run into places because it’s so bloody cold. Otherwise, it can be very difficult to get the car restarted. So LBF goes into the nail salon and does the typical Alaska thing with her car. When she comes back out, she realizes that her backpack with her laptop has been stolen and is pretty freaked out. She and her husband filed a report with the cops right away. The cops also suggested looking on Craigslist and Ebay as well as some of the pawn shops in town. The cops and the pawn shop people also made a point to tell LBF that usually what happens is that the thief will usually wait a little while before selling the stolen item so they should be sure to check in the coming weeks and months.

LBF decided to look at Craigslist in the meantime just to see if there was even a Craigslist for their area in Alaska. There is and there happened to be a listing from the day after the computer was stolen for a must-sell MacBook Pro laptop. Now, like I said, LBF is in a small town so the coincidence of her computer getting stolen and the same kind of computer appearing on Craigslist around the same time are sort of eerie.

LBF was able to get the serial number from Apple. LBF’s husband and his friend (both intimidating looking guys) put in a request to buy the computer from the seller. They’re going to meet with the buyer and compare the serial number.

If the computer turns out to be stolen, the thief wins the World’s Dumbest award… I’ll let you all know what happens.

Update:

So LBF’s husband and friend went to meet up with the seller and unfortunately the serial numbers didn’t match up meaning that it wasn’t her computer. If it had been her computer, finding it so quickly on Craigslist would have been really amazing, no? I told her to keep looking and checking but she does need a computer right now (she’s working on her Masters) so she’s getting another one. Still, it would be nice to find her old one!

I was actually able to relax this weekend with the Architect. I feel pretty refreshed for once, which is nice. We got our new bigger and more comfy mattress delivered on Saturday. Of course, the delivery guys gave us a time frame in which they would deliver the mattress (12:30 to 3:30). Perhaps unsurprisingly, they didn’t show up until about 3:15pm meaning that we had a good chunk of time to simply laze about the house. It’s kind of nice to be forced to do that (haha). Neither the Architect nor myself are very good at relaxing so it was nice to have an actual reason to just hang out at home and not do much of anything.

We caught up on a few West Wing episodes (the Architect is making me watch the series as I had never seen it when it was actually on and I love it!). I caught up on some reading. We did a little bit of organizing and cleaning around the house so we were also productive.

I love a good staycation! It was exactly what the doctor ordered. It’s nice to feel like I actually had a weekend for once.

How was your weekend?

It’s easy to feel isolated in this city. I’m not sure if it’s like this in every city but one of my major complaints about living here is that everyone is seemingly in their own little bubble and it can be very intimidating to approach people. I’ve missed having friends in this area. There isn’t a set place to make friends like there was in school. I can be pretty social but I have to be comfortable in order to do so and it’s hard to find that comfort here. I’m on that weird line between being an introvert and an extrovert so sometimes it’s hard for me to break out of my shell. Once I get comfortable around a person, I’m a total chatterbox but that takes getting through that initial wall of shyness, which I sometimes have a hard time doing.

I suppose in a way, another resolution this year is to put myself out there a little bit more. The Architect has a few activities going on so he sort of already has that built in system. I joined a book club here in town through Meet Up. The meeting isn’t until the beginning of February but I think it might be a good way to break out of my shell a little bit more. It would be nice to meet some book-minded people too; I desperately miss that. Getting signed up with the Y will also help to get us out there a little bit more too. It’s certainly a process… I’m also playing around with the idea of finding some sort of language lessons (most likely Spanish or Italian) to take.

(No, I didn’t just go to London. This is a much needed post about the last place we stopped for our honeymoon back in October. Eh, better late than never.)

When we touched down in Europe, I told the Architect that I wanted to make sure that we didn’t come back from vacation more tired than we were when we left. He agreed and we had a wonderfully relaxing vacation in Italy where we took naps everyday and spent many hours sipping on cappuccinos and eating gelato. When we got to London, our last and final stop, that went out the window. I am a total Anglophile and as I had never been to London before, I wanted to see everything! I dragged my poor, dearest husband hither and yon through the streets of London in order to attempt to cover my very long list of sights to see (I definitely need another trip back to London).

We took a tour of Westminster Abbey. It was very cool. I didn’t realize how many people were actually buried in the church.

We took a nighttime walk down the Thames in the rain. It was so cool to see Big Ben in person!

Our hotel was just down the street from Buckingham Palace. We were fortunate enough to be there on a day where they did the changing of the guard.

I believe at this point, the changing of the guard is pretty ceremonial but I couldn’t believe how long the ceremony took. It was way cool though!

I really liked Trafalgar Square! It was huge!

Of course we both had to get our pictures taken in the red phone booths.

They were also way cool.

Here’s a list of things we did that I didn’t really get pictures of:
- Saw Les Miserables in the West End
- Went to the British Museum
- Went to the Tate Modern (that building is amazing)
- Saw Saint Paul’s (where Princess Diana got married)
- Went to the Tower of London
- Ate amazing Indian food
- Decided pub food is not for me

I think it’s been a few years since I’ve consciously made resolutions for the New Year but I have a few for this year (in no particular order):

1.       Read War and Peace: I’ve gotten very much into reading book blogs, which has helped to stretch the types of books that I usually read. I came across a blog where the author is leading a yearlong read-along for War and Peace. What better time to read this book than now? Who’s with me?

2.       Get back in the pool:  I love swimming and the Architect and I are planning to join the Y in the New Year. I’ll be able to start swimming again. It’ll be fabulous!

3.       Read more of the books I own: Ooo, the library draws me in so badly. I love going to the library. It’s like shopping without the whole fiscal irresponsibility thing. I also tend to get a lot of books (either through buying or gifts) so I have many unread books at home just waiting to be read. It’s a really bad habit.

4.       Stay in touch better: I am really not good with the staying in touch thing. This must change.

The city is really quiet this week as usually. The period between Christmas and New Years is always pretty dead around here. A lot of people took the entire week off of work so the Metro has been super quiet and much more efficient. I love this peace.

What are your resolutions for 2011?

…below.

This morning as I got on Metro, I saw kind of a scary sight. There were two policemen with automatic rifles (are police issued military M-16s?) in their hands and full gear on that got off of the train that I was about to get on. I get on the train and start sort of chuckling to myself. I’m not sure if it was the shock of seeing a very big gun in someone’s hands or what.

All I could picture is being in Mexico on a school trip as 15 year old and seeing men with big guns outside of the banks all over the towns that we visited. It struck me as a strange sight then and something that wouldn’t happen in America (this would have been pre-9/11 mind you). Maybe I’ve been oblivious to these people on the Metro before but it’s a little disconcerting to see that at 7:00 in the morning… meh. It’s amazing how much things can change in 10 years.

On top of that, Metro’s latest scheme is to do random bag checks at random Metro stations in the mornings during rush hour. Don’t even get me started on what I waste I think that exercise is…

On another note: One of my projects for the coming year is to get my Architect to teach me photography (much of our abode is adorned with his work). I really want to start taking pictures of some of the murals on the walls in our neighborhood. Many of them are really, really cool. I love this place so much!

Saturday was the funeral for my mom’s friend. It was a really hard day for everyone but then again, funerals are not really what I would consider fun. Although, that being said, I really thought that the funeral was very fitting for Miss A. and I think she would have gotten a kick out of it. Before mass, there was probably about an hour of time for people to come up to the microphone to tell stories and share memories of Miss A very much in the style of an Irish wake. Some of the stories had me shaking with tears and some of the stories had me laughing so hard that more tears came out.

To me, this was so much better than a super somber affair. Miss A. was anything but somber in her life so why should a ceremony that was supposed to celebrate her life be somber? Not that I think about my own funeral that much but I hope that when I go, people tell funny stories and really celebrate the good life that I’ve been able to lead just as we celebrated Miss A’s most vibrant life.

After the funeral, we went to Miss A’s dad’s house for lunch where more stories were told. A lot of the stories I had never heard before and I’ve known Miss A for over 20 years. We ate dinner at one of the family’s favorite restaurants. It was a nice end to the day. I think it helped everyone on the way to healing.

“You can shed tears that she is gone,
or you can smile because she has lived.
You can close your eyes and pray that she’ll come back,
or you can open your eyes and see all she’s left.
Your heart can be empty because you can’t see her,
or you can be full of the love you shared.
You can turn your back on tomorrow and live yesterday,
or you can be happy for tomorrow because of yesterday.
You can remember her only that she is gone,
or you can cherish her memory and let it live on.
You can cry and close your mind,
be empty and turn your back.
Or you can do what she’d want:
smile, open your eyes, love and go on.”

Yesterday, the world lost one of the bravest and strongest women around. You may remember me writing about my mom’s best friend who was suffering from pancreatic cancer before.  She passed away yesterday morning. This is the woman, who when she was diagnosed over three years ago with pancreatic cancer, joined a crew team and went crewing several times a week. Up until a few months ago, she was even working a few days a week. She was really something else. Whenever I feel a little sick or just don’t feel like doing something, she’s who I think of. She did it all even on her worse days. She was the very definition of what it means to dust yourself off and keep on going.

It’s very sad and my family is definitely grieving right now. The funeral is on Saturday and I already know that it’s going to be a really hard day.