October 6, 2002
Hi there!
Well, I'm afraid I've let several months slip away from me again. Gone are the days of my weekly newsletters. But you'll just have to trust me...you have been in our thoughts. Before I get too far along, I should warn you: there isn't much in this letter about Derek. He hasn't been doing much this summer except work, work, work, and play his cherished 1.5 rounds of golf each week. So while he's of course an equal contributor to that mysterious and quizzical thing called "Our Life," he doesn't have much to contribute in terms of news or developments. In fact, he rolls his eyes whenever I mention the newsletter. He thinks I am a dork to even write it. So what???? Like he didn't know that I was a dork after 11 years of being my boyfriend. You'd think by now he'd accept these facts and move on.
Derek did shoot his record round at his home golf course this summer...a 79 at Leslie Park. Woohoo! Not to mention an eagle on one hole, and some amazing shots that I have heard him describe in painstaking detail, about 413 times. (Ok, so I'm a big dork, and he talks about golf incessantly. Are you really learning anything here, people, that you didn't already know?) So anyway...if you're from his side of the family, I won't be offended if you stop reading.
Things are going good on the home front. In June we closed on a home refinance, 6.5%. Yippee! We're saving about $100 a month on mortgage payments, and we'll be paid off several years sooner. We cheered the Red Wings on to victory throughout the month, spending a lot of evenings home in front of the TV, wishing we were at Joe Louis Arena. Even on Derek's birthday, which I believe was the final game of the Stanley Cup, he didn't want a fancy dinner or night out on the town. Just Chinese takeout and a night in front of the tube. For a short time, I fed some baby raccoons bananas on the deck...although everyone I know strongly cautioned me against it. But they were so cute! One, in fact, took the banana right out of my hand and got close to me without showing any fear. I don't think I would have had the will to stop feeding them, so fortunately they just moved along on their own. Someone down the road must have offered something more appealing than bananas.
Later that month I was proclaimed "Queen of the Union" for a day, because nearly everyone else in my building was off at a Ropes/Challenge course. I was offended when my co-workers told me this, because I have always been under the impression that I am the queen every day. It's good to be the queen. I begged out of the activity because of my lower back problems. I have done the Ropes course before, and I absolutely hated it. I can tolerate most team bonding activities (even though I work better alone), but not when it involves 90-degree weather and lifting each other up, down, through and around various things. NO THANK YOU!
New newsletter feature:
Favorite Words of the Month
Loquacious Perspicacity Galoshes Subpoena Pedantic Hullabaloo
The last board of our backyard deck was in place about a week before our "Jamaica Mon" party for Derek's birthday. We had about 30 good friends over for an evening of Jamaican food, fruity drinks, fun on the deck, and (of course) arts & crafts....with only modest acknowledgement that Derek turned one year older. It seems the theme party concept is catching on, because not an hour into the party, people were asking what the theme of the next theme party would be. By the end of the night, it was decided: A Yooper Party! If you haven't already, mark your calendars for December 7....a night of Hunter's orange and/or camouflage, pasties, funny accents, and cheap beer!
Not long after that, Derek had to absorb a 25% pay cut enacted by his main contractor. He had eaten a bunch of smaller cuts over the last year, without having to pass them along to his crew, but this one meant cuts for everyone. His main guy, who has been with him almost 12 years, left about 6 weeks later. All around him, contractors were slowing down, getting work only once every two weeks, and even going out of business. He, too, was working much harder for a lot less money. But he weathered the storm, and with some moderate domestic cutbacks, we have kept up on bills and are looking ahead to sunnier days. Things had already picked up by September 1, so we hope for a full recovery throughout the busiest season--fall.
Independence Day took me to the Upper Peninsula with two good college buddies, Angela and Ciara. Ciara had only passed through the UP once, and Angela hadn't been there in several years. And with all of us recently hitting 30 and encountering all of the baggage that goes along with that... career challenges, marriage crises, and maybe even some minor identity trials, we decided that a man-free, work-free, stress-free weekend just for the girls was in order. Besides...we needed to do some intensive research for the upcoming Yooper Party. I can't believe how much driving and sightseeing and yooperizing we did in just over 3 days. Highlights of the trip: well, there are simply too many to list. (Highly recommended: check out the pictures of this fab trip on my website).
Facing temporary homelessness like so many students do in August, Katie moved in with us again for a couple weeks before embarking up on her law school career at Wayne State. Her stay coincided with my annual "Rejuvenation Week" in the beginning of August, when I take a week's vacation and try to stay away from the Union and allow myself to gear up for the madness of fall. I also use Rejuvenation Week to wrap up and/or tackle some major projects at home. This year, it was painting our home office. The books had been cleared off the shelves and the room halfway cleared out for several weeks.
I decided to base the palette of the room on the "funky chair" that we bought when we moved in. It has about 20 different colors and lots of curlicues and geometric shapes. I picked out what I thought was the dominant color of the chair (plum/purple), and found a complementary lighter shade of the same color. Based on an idea that Deb gave me many months ago, the wall behind the chair is the dark purple color, and the rest of the room is the lighter shade. Then, on the wall opposite the chair (this was Deb's great suggestion), I found a series of chunky stamps at a craft store, and stamped the matching curlicue pattern on the wall in different sizes. Deb suggested doing the curlicues in the darker shade of purple, but I took it one step further and did them in the dark purple and two contrasting colors from the chair. The outcome was, I think, spectacular! It's now my favorite room in the house. And now I want to stamp everything.
I think my next project will be the garage (I can see it with chunky-stamped gardening stuff all over the walls!), but my dream is to go on Trading Spaces and have someone redo our bedroom. The room is just boring. Derek watches the show with me, and we think the best candidate for a swap would be his sister, Kristin. I asked my neighbor, and she said she's too much of a control freak. The thought of someone--even a professional--coming into her house and mussing with things, makes her cringe. But Kristin was 100% game, so I submitted a request to be on the show. Chances of being selected are very slim, but heck, they're even slimmer if we didn't submit an application!
We rented "Life as a House"....what a GREAT movie. It was the first quality time Derek and I had spent together in about 2 weeks. Work has been just as crazy as it always is in September. Aside from the normal madness of SORC's Lottery Week (350 reservation appointments in 4 days!), we faced some major scheduling obstacles and unexpected departures in late August in Billiards. Coupled with the return of our Assistant Manager, who after a summer away was quite rusty, the first few weeks were pretty nuts. October 5-6 was my first full weekend off since mid-August.
On to happier things....let's see. I bought Monsters, Inc. the day it came out. We saw it in the theater with mom last Thanksgiving, and I have been waiting for the DVD ever since. I loved it every bit as much as Shrek. Different plots and less adult humor, but a similar premise: monsters aren't necessarily bad.
On September 6 I finally met my Internet pen pal of two years, Holly, from California. She visited her sister in Akron, and considerately set aside a whole day to drive to Ann Arbor and meet me. We visited the Matthei Botanical Gardens, then drove around and looked at fancy houses to kill a couple hours before meeting Derek downtown for dinner. We had an excellent waiter at Grizzly Peak, who gave us 50% off our meal and a free dessert, because we had to wait so long when we first got there. We didn't even harass him into doing this...it was all his idea! We were all happy but pretty pooped by then, so we went home immediately after dinner. Derek crashed, but Holly and I stayed up for a couple hours looking at each other's photo albums--putting faces to the names of family and friends that we've talked about for so long.
The next morning, we headed to Windsor. Holly had never had the opportunity to see Canada, so it was tops on her list of things to do while in Michigan. We shopped a lot, talked like Canadians (which is exactly the same as my Yooper accent but with more references to casinos and LaBatts) and enjoyed a late lunch at an eclectic diner in the Devonshire Mall. We snagged some real deals, taking advantage of the favorable exchange rate. With a nearly 4-hour trip ahead of her, Holly hit the road for Ohio as soon as we got back to Ypsi. Can't say I blame her. The 24 hours we had together were a blur, but it was great to finally meet my longtime www pal.
We saw "The Barbershop" at the theater. It got panned by some critics, and is now being hotly criticized by Al Sharpton and Jessie Jackson (if you see the movie, you'll know why), but I haven't laughed that hard at a movie in a long time. A lot of people might categorize it as a "black" movie, but I was happy to see that the audience was about 50/50...and it was the number one movie in the country for two weeks running, showing that a funny movie--black or white--can appeal to everyone. When I was raving at work about how much I loved the movie, though, a black student of mine jokingly posed a good question: at the theater, was it just the white people who were laughing? Darn Roland...always making me reconsider my perspective! (thank goodness for students!) We saw it again, though, and I paid close attention to who was laughing. The entire audience was in stitches! Oh yes and Cedric the Entertainer stole the show.
I was excited to hear that my mom is coming for a visit in October. This is an unexpected trip (usually she comes for Thanksgiving), so I am hoping I can take advantage of the unusual timing, and coerce her into helping me make a Halloween costume that I've always wanted to make: Glinda the Witch of the North. I learned how to sew a little bit when I was a kid, but certainly don't have the skills for that kind of undertaking. Heck, I have a perfectly good sewing machine and I can't even figure out how to thread it! But mom is a seasoned pro, and can surely do it (with my assistance) in a weekend. We'll see how that plays out. Want to have some fun while she's here too, and don't want to overburden her.
In recent months I have really grown close to Elaine Reed. The more we learn about each other, the more we enjoy each other's company. As you might recall, Elaine applied for the position of Assistant Manager in the Billiards Room. She was in the top two and would have been my choice for the job, but I went with the committee's recommendation instead of my gut...proving once again that, all things being relatively equal, you should go with your gut. You can usually just tell when the chemistry is right. But Elaine and I have talked about it and agree, that our friendship is much more important than the job could ever be...and who knows if we would have gotten along as well as co-workers as we do as friends!? We are both just happy to have made a good friend out of the whole deal...Elaine because she's new to the area and hasn't met a lot of people, and me because aside from my co-workers and a handful of college buddies, I don't have a lot of close girlfriends down here (i.e., in Lower Michigan) either. We have spent quite a bit of time with my neighbor, Kathy, as well. We haven't seen her much in the last month, but we've enjoyed a couple long lunches together and our scrapbooking sessions every month or so. Elaine says she's going to take me to a tea leaf reader (fortune teller) for my birthday. I'm looking forward to the adventure!
I've made it through the worst part of the school year, and am looking forward to some normal 45-50 hour work weeks. My favorite season is upon us, as is Derek's most profitable season. My favorite holiday, Halloween, is just around the corner. There will be plenty of cookie baking, photo cropping, bulb planting, and cool weather enjoying. And back, after a 9-year hiatus, is the Glass City Open, Toledo's own professional pool tournament. Derek and I both have fond memories of that event--one of the biggest pool events in the Midwest. It's fun to rub elbows with the pros. We'll definitely be spending some time in Toledo next month!
If you are still awake after reading this tome, you can go back to the main page of Betz's website, which I've updated with some of the photos I've snapped over the summer. I have dozens more, but haven't been able to find the time to scan them and get them posted. Let me know what you think! By the next newsletter, I am hoping to learn a new web design program to make the site more navigable. Mmmmm... "navigable"....I think that might just qualify for my Favorite Words of the Month! It's fun to say...say it out loud!
Love,
Betz + Derek