I'm not sure where it all started; but joseph and I aren't just husband and wife. We are Team Brevetti. I think that's supposed to mean that neither of us really can accomplish anything without the other. It was particularly obvious when the addition of Team Huckerby and Cragen joined our family in late December. They lived with me in the house (joseph lived at his parents' house), and without joseph's help I could accomplish nothing with them.
We started referring to ourselves as Team Brevetti in soccer. Joseph would pass me the ball, and I would get confused and kick it anywhere but at the goal. I'm pretty sure there was never any team like it.
Joseph and I would talk about how we go together; we're a pair--we are a team. You don't get one of us--you get both. Whether or not you want both, we're a set. And we will be a set forever.
Joseph bought us a wedding present while I was up in Michigan. Of course, I'm not good at waiting on secrets--and joseph isn't very good at keeping them. I asked him if he'd tell me what it was, and he did. He got us a tandem bicycle. It is really difficult to put into words how tickled I was by the thought of us owning our very own tandem bike! I imagined in my head taking rides through the neighborhood, just like the team that we were.
It was thoughtful.
It was romantic.
It was hilarious.
And I loved everything about it!
You may or may not know about me that I am a control freak. Not really uptight, but I like to know my ducks are in a row--so to speak. I like to be in charge, and make lists, and delegate tasks. And joseph doesn't seem to mind a lot of the time, because maybe he sees it as stability? Maybe he knows what to expect? Maybe it's because he'd rather me make a decision than him have to. Perhaps it's a combination of all of the above. Whatever the reason, we get teased sometimes that I'm the pants. And while we both know that I just happen to be more organized; it's fun to laugh it off. I know I'm a little much at times. And he knows he's a boy at times. And we both know that in the contradictions of our personalities lie the compliments; and thus our teamwork is at its best.
At it's baby-stages best.
On the tandem bicycle, however, I am humbled.
And on the tandem bicycle I realize the places in our relationship on which I need humbling.
I can ride a bike.
I can turn corners.
I can stop.
I can go.
I can (on special occasions) ride with one or (one time) no hands on the handlebars.
It's not that hard.
When the bike starts to wobble, I hold the handlebars and straighten the wheel. Once the bike is straight again, I've gained my balance.
I do not change the posture of my body; I change the posture of the bike.
The bike is what is moving me forward; therefore if it is not straight, I do not go straight.
Apparently, this is not how the average person rides a bike.
The average person rides a bike like it is an extension of his body.
If the bike starts to wobble, he leans to balance the bike.
To turn a corner, he doesn't need to turn the wheel; but only lean his body in the direction he wants to go.
The bike and the person are moving forward together, and therefore must work as one unit to produce the desired result.
I believe that parallells can be drawn between my bike-riding style; and the average person's bike-riding style. But, really if both the bike and the rider are getting there, who cares how?
On the tandem bicycle, I realize the importance of teamwork.
I can't ride on the front of the bicycle.
I can't ride on the front because of how I control a bike. A bicycle carrying two people doesn't turn a corner with just a shift of the front tire. It turns and wobbles out of control.
If the bicycle starts to tip or wobble, I try to correct it with the wheel; which doesn't work. Especially when joseph is behind me, leaning to counteract the wobble. I feel the lean and interpret it as a loss of balance--when really it is what is needed to regain the balance.
So usually joseph rides in the front.
When joseph rides in the front, however, I don't get to coast and pedal when I normally would. And when I think we're going to top, it doesn't do either of us much good when I jerk the handle bars and turn his seat to the side.
I'm sure he gets annoyed as I squeal at him to slow down when we're going too fast; or gasp as he leans into a turn I wasn't expecting.
When we hit a bump and sort of skid and I say, "why did you do that?!" like it was his fault.
Riding on the back of the tandem bicycle makes me realize that I have to trust joseph to be in control. And that when he's driving, the only way I can help us get to where we need to go is to be on his team.
I have to work with him; and lean with him.
I have to not only be one with my team mate; but also with the vehicle that's taking us to our destination.
It's a lot of control that I like to have that I just don't get to have.
But we'll never get there if I don't let go of the way I've always done things.
We'll never get there if I can't trust my teammate to never steer us wrong.
One of these days we'll get good at riding our bicycle.
One of these days I might even be humble and mold-able enough to be in the front.
One of these days we won't wobble
And we'll always get there together.
Saturday, July 17, 2010
Monday, July 05, 2010
For Better, and for Less Better
I am certain that getting married has immediately made mine and joseph's lives instantly more interesting. I have never had a more eventful week full of things that didn't go quite right than this past week.
So, I can say with confidence, that being married is VERY exciting!
Here's the lowdown:
Three hours before our wedding, Livonia was hit with a massive storm that sent tornado sirens whirling. It was pretty exciting, considering not everyone gets tornadoes on his or her wedding day!
The night of the wedding, joseph and I checked into the Embassy Suites in Livonia to stay the night. We no sooner get into our room and I walk back toward the bathroom and the fire alarm starts going off. Still dressed in our wedding attire, we rush to open the door....and no one is outside their rooms. I call the front desk and they send the building engineer up to check it out; and he declares it a-OK. But not before telling us a 4-minute joke.
So later on--maybe about an hour or so--joseph and I are watching soccer (on a TV whose volume would not go below 22) and the fire alarm goes off again. joseph goes to check out the door, just in case it's real this time. It's not. So I called the front desk. They graciously gave us a new room.
Sooooo, still giggling about our unfortunate happenstance, we head back to my parents' house to pack up for our drive up north. We had intended on staying in a Holiday Inn in Petoskey for a night; and then some friends from church so generously let us stay in their cottage in Boyne City for a few nights! The drive up north went well and uneventful. We checked in to our Holiday Inn suite.
...and then we got the text....
Our friend, Katie, had been puppy-sitting our puppies and she'd been texting us pictures of our little guys just to say 'hi.' joseph had told her that we liked the updates, so we get an update that says something like ..."uh, where's your vacuum?" and it had a picture of the back office room that the puppies decided that they wanted to eat. Whoops! It was equally horrible and hilarious at the same time (note: MUCH less hilarious in person....SORRY Katie!).
Our stay at the hotel was a little less exciting than the fire-alarm stay at our first one. Especially since their "complimentary limo service" wasn't up and running that particular night. We ate at Wendy's.
So we get up to drive over to Boyne City to stay in the cottage. We're pretty excited because it's on a lake. And there's kayaks--neither of us had ever kayaked before, so it was appealing. There was a lot of wind off the lake, so our first day in town we were pretty cold walking around trying to find a bar that was playing the soccer game. We spend the rest of that day watching Transformers 2 (it took the rest of the day because it was so inappropriately long) and we're in the middle of Avatar: The Last Airbender Book 2: Earth so we watched several of those.
We knew we were going to Mackinac on Thursday, so we'd planned on kayaking Wednesday. It was about 65 degrees when we woke up; and headed to a high of 73. I didn't quite realize how dead-set on kayaking joseph was until he had his swim trunks on. I put on my suit and we headed down into the windy morning to grab our ships and walk down to the water. joseph was in the blue plastic kayak that you sit down inside; and I was in a green one that sits up above the water and is more of a foam material.
The water was much less cold than I'd expected; and while the waves were high, we were both having a lot of fun. We let the waves a current carry us for a while; and then we decided we'd better start paddling back. It was pretty tough going against the waves, but manageable. I'd finally gotten in the grove of things, and I yell back over my shoulder to joseph that I don't think it will be as hard as I thought. ....and he's not there. I do a double-take and see that he's tipped his kayak and is furiously struggling to drain it and trying to get back in. There's no way for it to drain, so it's sinking lower and lower in the lake and joseph is spitting through the waves that keep crashing in his face. I paddle over and ask him what I can do. He gives me his paddle. I start panicking and brainstorming possible solutions and ask him if he wants to paddle my kayak in and come back to help me. He doesn't answer; and I can see he's getting more and more frustrated and angry. I am getting more and more afraid, so I look around and see that we are about two or three hundred meters from some of the shore and I just start paddling as fast as I can. I realized that it wouldn't be of any help if we had two kayaks and couldn't get back in either.
I got up to the shore and pulled the boat and the oars up on the rocks to set so they wouldn't wash away. I jumped back in the water and started swimming out to jospeh. I hadn't realized how bad the waves were until I was swimming against them without the kayak. I finally get out to him and I took his kayak to give him a break so he could float/swim back into shore. I pulled the kayak in and we both (tired as anything else) cut our feet trying to get it out of the water onto the rocks on the shore.
So we're giggling a little bit about how we're glad we didn't drown on our honeymoon. And now we have a half mile to walk two kayaks and paddles back to the cottage. Let's just say that this part of being married was SO exciting, we both slept for the rest of the day.
Thursday, we woke up and packed up all of our things to leave the cottage and head out to Mackinac Island. I won't go into much detail here, but let's just say we didn't explore much because one of us got really sick. Sort of a bummer, but we got fudge and salt-water taffy so that's really all you need.
We stayed Thursday night at a hotel in Flint, MI because we have been waiting for the movie The Last Airbender to come out for EVER. So we wanted to see it! I'm not going to go into too much detail there, but if you know Flint; understand the truth in certain stereotypes; and put the two together....it made for another adventure!
Friday and Saturday we stayed at my parents' house. Pretty boring--I hardly expect the rest of the years of our marriage to compare with these "normal" days and nights.
Especially when our drive on Sunday happened!
So we are barely on the road--we're on I-69 heading out of Michigan and into Indiana. We're about 7 miles north of the Indiana border and Rasheed starts to feel like I'm driving over rumble strips--but I'm not. So we pull over to the side of the highway, and sure enough, we've got a hole in the side wall of our back driver's side tire. I called my insurance people and they call a towing company that will put us in contact with the closest available tow-truck (did I mention that it's July 4th?). So we get the call that someone is coming to get us; and that we have about an hour.
joseph and I, being so adventurously married, pull out a blanket and UNO and Phase-10 from the car and have ourselves a little road-side card-playing date. Joseph beat me in UNO, and in an amazing tenth phase comeback goes out before me on the last hand and beat me at Phase-10 also.
The tow truck shows up, and the guy hooks up Rasheed and we start driving back into town (we called a Wal-Mart Tire Center and they had what we needed). We start talking and he asks us what brought us from Oklahoma to Michigan. We told him that it was our wedding. He congratulated us; and told us that he actually wasn't from Michigan, but lived in LaGrange, Indiana (just over the Indiana border--where my mom is from). But his landlord was from Oklahoma and would call in March or April and talk about how it was golfing weather in Oklahoma. I'm listening (you know....small talk is something you just have to do when riding in the front middle of a truck with a stranger), and I say, "that's so funny! My grandparents live in Oklahoma and rent a house out in LaGrange!" To which he looks at me and says, "what's their name?"
Let's just say I called my grandpa later to let him know that Joe Pardo says hi, and that he and his wife are back together and doing great!
How funny! It pretty much made my whole entire day!
After about a 3 hour delay (all total), joseph and I get back on the road. We stop to eat just outside Indianapolis for dinner, and then by the time we're back driving through the city it's just getting dark. Making our exciting marriage even MORE exciting, we had a 360 view of choice fireworks going off in ALL directions! There were the official ones going off in the downtown; there were some up the river; lots coming from back and front yards; it was the greatest thing!
So we're back home in Oklahoma now; and unpacked and rested from our trip. It's good to be home. It's great to be married. And I am excited to see the rest of our marriage live up to the excitement of the first week!
So, I can say with confidence, that being married is VERY exciting!
Here's the lowdown:
Three hours before our wedding, Livonia was hit with a massive storm that sent tornado sirens whirling. It was pretty exciting, considering not everyone gets tornadoes on his or her wedding day!
The night of the wedding, joseph and I checked into the Embassy Suites in Livonia to stay the night. We no sooner get into our room and I walk back toward the bathroom and the fire alarm starts going off. Still dressed in our wedding attire, we rush to open the door....and no one is outside their rooms. I call the front desk and they send the building engineer up to check it out; and he declares it a-OK. But not before telling us a 4-minute joke.
So later on--maybe about an hour or so--joseph and I are watching soccer (on a TV whose volume would not go below 22) and the fire alarm goes off again. joseph goes to check out the door, just in case it's real this time. It's not. So I called the front desk. They graciously gave us a new room.
Sooooo, still giggling about our unfortunate happenstance, we head back to my parents' house to pack up for our drive up north. We had intended on staying in a Holiday Inn in Petoskey for a night; and then some friends from church so generously let us stay in their cottage in Boyne City for a few nights! The drive up north went well and uneventful. We checked in to our Holiday Inn suite.
...and then we got the text....
Our friend, Katie, had been puppy-sitting our puppies and she'd been texting us pictures of our little guys just to say 'hi.' joseph had told her that we liked the updates, so we get an update that says something like ..."uh, where's your vacuum?" and it had a picture of the back office room that the puppies decided that they wanted to eat. Whoops! It was equally horrible and hilarious at the same time (note: MUCH less hilarious in person....SORRY Katie!).
Our stay at the hotel was a little less exciting than the fire-alarm stay at our first one. Especially since their "complimentary limo service" wasn't up and running that particular night. We ate at Wendy's.
So we get up to drive over to Boyne City to stay in the cottage. We're pretty excited because it's on a lake. And there's kayaks--neither of us had ever kayaked before, so it was appealing. There was a lot of wind off the lake, so our first day in town we were pretty cold walking around trying to find a bar that was playing the soccer game. We spend the rest of that day watching Transformers 2 (it took the rest of the day because it was so inappropriately long) and we're in the middle of Avatar: The Last Airbender Book 2: Earth so we watched several of those.
We knew we were going to Mackinac on Thursday, so we'd planned on kayaking Wednesday. It was about 65 degrees when we woke up; and headed to a high of 73. I didn't quite realize how dead-set on kayaking joseph was until he had his swim trunks on. I put on my suit and we headed down into the windy morning to grab our ships and walk down to the water. joseph was in the blue plastic kayak that you sit down inside; and I was in a green one that sits up above the water and is more of a foam material.
The water was much less cold than I'd expected; and while the waves were high, we were both having a lot of fun. We let the waves a current carry us for a while; and then we decided we'd better start paddling back. It was pretty tough going against the waves, but manageable. I'd finally gotten in the grove of things, and I yell back over my shoulder to joseph that I don't think it will be as hard as I thought. ....and he's not there. I do a double-take and see that he's tipped his kayak and is furiously struggling to drain it and trying to get back in. There's no way for it to drain, so it's sinking lower and lower in the lake and joseph is spitting through the waves that keep crashing in his face. I paddle over and ask him what I can do. He gives me his paddle. I start panicking and brainstorming possible solutions and ask him if he wants to paddle my kayak in and come back to help me. He doesn't answer; and I can see he's getting more and more frustrated and angry. I am getting more and more afraid, so I look around and see that we are about two or three hundred meters from some of the shore and I just start paddling as fast as I can. I realized that it wouldn't be of any help if we had two kayaks and couldn't get back in either.
I got up to the shore and pulled the boat and the oars up on the rocks to set so they wouldn't wash away. I jumped back in the water and started swimming out to jospeh. I hadn't realized how bad the waves were until I was swimming against them without the kayak. I finally get out to him and I took his kayak to give him a break so he could float/swim back into shore. I pulled the kayak in and we both (tired as anything else) cut our feet trying to get it out of the water onto the rocks on the shore.
So we're giggling a little bit about how we're glad we didn't drown on our honeymoon. And now we have a half mile to walk two kayaks and paddles back to the cottage. Let's just say that this part of being married was SO exciting, we both slept for the rest of the day.
Thursday, we woke up and packed up all of our things to leave the cottage and head out to Mackinac Island. I won't go into much detail here, but let's just say we didn't explore much because one of us got really sick. Sort of a bummer, but we got fudge and salt-water taffy so that's really all you need.
We stayed Thursday night at a hotel in Flint, MI because we have been waiting for the movie The Last Airbender to come out for EVER. So we wanted to see it! I'm not going to go into too much detail there, but if you know Flint; understand the truth in certain stereotypes; and put the two together....it made for another adventure!
Friday and Saturday we stayed at my parents' house. Pretty boring--I hardly expect the rest of the years of our marriage to compare with these "normal" days and nights.
Especially when our drive on Sunday happened!
So we are barely on the road--we're on I-69 heading out of Michigan and into Indiana. We're about 7 miles north of the Indiana border and Rasheed starts to feel like I'm driving over rumble strips--but I'm not. So we pull over to the side of the highway, and sure enough, we've got a hole in the side wall of our back driver's side tire. I called my insurance people and they call a towing company that will put us in contact with the closest available tow-truck (did I mention that it's July 4th?). So we get the call that someone is coming to get us; and that we have about an hour.
joseph and I, being so adventurously married, pull out a blanket and UNO and Phase-10 from the car and have ourselves a little road-side card-playing date. Joseph beat me in UNO, and in an amazing tenth phase comeback goes out before me on the last hand and beat me at Phase-10 also.
The tow truck shows up, and the guy hooks up Rasheed and we start driving back into town (we called a Wal-Mart Tire Center and they had what we needed). We start talking and he asks us what brought us from Oklahoma to Michigan. We told him that it was our wedding. He congratulated us; and told us that he actually wasn't from Michigan, but lived in LaGrange, Indiana (just over the Indiana border--where my mom is from). But his landlord was from Oklahoma and would call in March or April and talk about how it was golfing weather in Oklahoma. I'm listening (you know....small talk is something you just have to do when riding in the front middle of a truck with a stranger), and I say, "that's so funny! My grandparents live in Oklahoma and rent a house out in LaGrange!" To which he looks at me and says, "what's their name?"
Let's just say I called my grandpa later to let him know that Joe Pardo says hi, and that he and his wife are back together and doing great!
How funny! It pretty much made my whole entire day!
After about a 3 hour delay (all total), joseph and I get back on the road. We stop to eat just outside Indianapolis for dinner, and then by the time we're back driving through the city it's just getting dark. Making our exciting marriage even MORE exciting, we had a 360 view of choice fireworks going off in ALL directions! There were the official ones going off in the downtown; there were some up the river; lots coming from back and front yards; it was the greatest thing!
So we're back home in Oklahoma now; and unpacked and rested from our trip. It's good to be home. It's great to be married. And I am excited to see the rest of our marriage live up to the excitement of the first week!
Thursday, June 17, 2010
The Emperor's Clothes
There's a lot of things I think people do, say, or like because they feel like they're "supposed" to.
Green tea. It is undeniable that green tea tastes a little bit like grass and dirt. And also that it looks like pee. Sometimes, there's a variety of green tea that has a flavor (from a fruit or another flower), or even some added sugar. But I'm talking about green tea all by itself, prepared in just boiling water.
It tastes like grass and dirt.
But yet an alarming number of people claim to "love it." Or that it's "so refreshing." Last I checked, hot grass in a cup is not refreshing.
I think that everyone secretly believes those commercials and ads that say things about green tea raising your metabolism and making people skinny. And therefore, they convince themselves that they like it so they don't have to admit that they're secretly hoping it makes them skinny.
The Coen Brothers. There's no denying that they've made some entertaining movies. They've done some great work. Be it quick and witty dialogue; creative and engaging cinematography. I happen to enjoy 3 and a half of their movies very much. And one of them decently well. I'm not sure I see the "genius" of their work. I just enjoy the quirkiness and story of these particular movies. But then they come out with A Serious Man and reviews come out about it that it's their "best work yet." Or "the masterpiece they've finally hit." Or "deep and meaningful."
Okay....I can't say that I've seen the entire movie. Because I was so bored of it I turned it off. But it quite literally had nothing happen for the entire movie. There wasn't any character development. There was no plot. No conflict or resolution. No climax. No theme. Not even really a continuous story. It's not even like they were following a character through any particular event or situation. Nothing happened.
But people in droves were running to talk about how much of a masterpiece this movie was.
Modern Art. A red rectangle on a black velvet canvas. Spikes of glass hanging from the ceiling with a creative title like "Tears of God." An old shoe nailed to a wall covered in torn and mosaic-ally tiled cereal boxes. People pay hundreds of dollars to go see this stuff in a museum and stand around and talk about existentialism and the meaning of life and how well it's conveyed in the painted belly of a pregnant woman standing in the living art display in the far left corner. Pictures that could have been taken out of a kindergartner's backpack and put in the hands of the right person could make millions of dollars because someone important said it meant something real.
I feel like people want to be seen as smart. Intellectual. And things like the Coen Brothers and Modern Art are supposed to be "smart." And I think that people are afraid of "not getting it." They don't like to walk away from a movie by people who typically challenge us thinking "what?" They walk away afraid that "maybe I just didn't get it." Like in English class when the teacher manages to find a reoccurring theme that you never saw coming.
"How could I have possibly missed that!?" And I think that the Coen Brothers are smart enough to realize this. So they make a movie that means absolutely nothing. No themes. No story. No plot. And put it out and people have no choice but to walk away from it outwardly saying, "oh....It was so deep and complex....I can hardly explain it. The only thing to say is that it's brilliant!" While inwardly all they can say is, "...wait.....what?????"
Modern art. Nobody gets it. But nobody wants to admit that it makes no sense. Because they don't want to be the person who "just isn't deep enough."
Movies and paintings don't really matter in the grand scheme of things. They're meant for entertainment. But if you think about how afraid people are of not being able to see the magical clothes; it makes me worry what happens when somebody important relies on the praises of how great they are.
Nobody wants to be the one to tell the emperor he's naked. Even if he already knows.
Green tea. It is undeniable that green tea tastes a little bit like grass and dirt. And also that it looks like pee. Sometimes, there's a variety of green tea that has a flavor (from a fruit or another flower), or even some added sugar. But I'm talking about green tea all by itself, prepared in just boiling water.
It tastes like grass and dirt.
But yet an alarming number of people claim to "love it." Or that it's "so refreshing." Last I checked, hot grass in a cup is not refreshing.
I think that everyone secretly believes those commercials and ads that say things about green tea raising your metabolism and making people skinny. And therefore, they convince themselves that they like it so they don't have to admit that they're secretly hoping it makes them skinny.
The Coen Brothers. There's no denying that they've made some entertaining movies. They've done some great work. Be it quick and witty dialogue; creative and engaging cinematography. I happen to enjoy 3 and a half of their movies very much. And one of them decently well. I'm not sure I see the "genius" of their work. I just enjoy the quirkiness and story of these particular movies. But then they come out with A Serious Man and reviews come out about it that it's their "best work yet." Or "the masterpiece they've finally hit." Or "deep and meaningful."
Okay....I can't say that I've seen the entire movie. Because I was so bored of it I turned it off. But it quite literally had nothing happen for the entire movie. There wasn't any character development. There was no plot. No conflict or resolution. No climax. No theme. Not even really a continuous story. It's not even like they were following a character through any particular event or situation. Nothing happened.
But people in droves were running to talk about how much of a masterpiece this movie was.
Modern Art. A red rectangle on a black velvet canvas. Spikes of glass hanging from the ceiling with a creative title like "Tears of God." An old shoe nailed to a wall covered in torn and mosaic-ally tiled cereal boxes. People pay hundreds of dollars to go see this stuff in a museum and stand around and talk about existentialism and the meaning of life and how well it's conveyed in the painted belly of a pregnant woman standing in the living art display in the far left corner. Pictures that could have been taken out of a kindergartner's backpack and put in the hands of the right person could make millions of dollars because someone important said it meant something real.
I feel like people want to be seen as smart. Intellectual. And things like the Coen Brothers and Modern Art are supposed to be "smart." And I think that people are afraid of "not getting it." They don't like to walk away from a movie by people who typically challenge us thinking "what?" They walk away afraid that "maybe I just didn't get it." Like in English class when the teacher manages to find a reoccurring theme that you never saw coming.
"How could I have possibly missed that!?" And I think that the Coen Brothers are smart enough to realize this. So they make a movie that means absolutely nothing. No themes. No story. No plot. And put it out and people have no choice but to walk away from it outwardly saying, "oh....It was so deep and complex....I can hardly explain it. The only thing to say is that it's brilliant!" While inwardly all they can say is, "...wait.....what?????"
Modern art. Nobody gets it. But nobody wants to admit that it makes no sense. Because they don't want to be the person who "just isn't deep enough."
Movies and paintings don't really matter in the grand scheme of things. They're meant for entertainment. But if you think about how afraid people are of not being able to see the magical clothes; it makes me worry what happens when somebody important relies on the praises of how great they are.
Nobody wants to be the one to tell the emperor he's naked. Even if he already knows.
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