Misunderstandings and Clarifications

Ah, the best laid plans of Elves and Maias always seem to go astray. It shan’t be the midnight showing of The Two Towers next Wednesday because there is no midnight showing on Wednesday. Do not trust Moviephone.com to get everything right, it would appear. It will be the 10:15 pm show on Wednesday, although that means that The Socialist is going to have to scramble a bit to get there. It will certainly make my life a little easier, even if it’s harder on him; I’ll get close to a realistic night’s sleep this way.

I’ve scheduled another paracentesis for next Tuesday. And I begin to think I should have scheduled it for this week rather than wait for next week. The Socialist’s department holiday gathering was last night, and my swollen condition led to quite a few misapprehensions.

We arrived about fifteen minutes after the scheduled start time last night, and were still among the first to show up. I met quite a few of The Socialist’s fellow professors, and we ended up speaking with one and his wife for a bit. “So, you’re engaged,” says the man, whose name I have of course forgotten. “Not exactly,” said The Socialist. The couple looked surprised and flustered, which in turn surprised me. After all, it isn’t exactly the social gaffe of the century to discover that a couple isn’t formally engaged (though I was interested to find that The Socialist did not see us as engaged, even though he want to get married!). We continued to make small talk for a bit, and then drifted away.

The Socialist and I went our separate ways for a bit as well, and I ended up talking to the psychology department. The department has one man in it, a rather congenial guy who reminded me a bit of the character Robin Williams played in “Awakenings”. We eventually spoke a bit about my liver condition; since he was a psychologist it began to feel almost like a doctor/client situation. He certainly asked some penetrating questions, anyhow. Guess it goes with his terrain.

Well, he set off to hit the food table (which I avoided, because it had mostly sodium-rich goodies) and I was approached by an woman in her fifties who was slightly overdressed for the occasion in an understated black dress with beading at the neck and wrists. “So when are you due?” she asked. Uh, OK … someone tell me the proper response to this one.

I did a little perfunctory hemming and hawing, and then explained that I wasn’t pregnant,, just over endowed with liver and fluid. The poor woman was mortified – I think she must have apologized to me about fifteen times during the course of the rest of the evening. Mrs. Foot-in-mouth also clung to my side like a burr after that. I got the full scoop on her heart surgery, he job woes, and her marriage, and in turn ended up providing her information on my heart ailment and current liver woes. I’ve got another person praying for me now, and I think my first Catholic. At this rate, I should have all the major denominations covered in a few more months.

We were joined later in the evening by The Socialist and Mrs. Foot-in-Mouth’s husband, who it turned out was The Socialist’s assigned mentor at the college. I had a hard time conversing with Mr. Foot-in-Mouth, but the Socialist explained a bit of that after we left the party. Turns out he did the same thing to The Socialist and asked when I was due. Turns out the whole goddamned party took one look at me and assumed that 1) I was preggers and 2) we were getting married soon because of it. No wonder that couple we met in the beginning was so surprised to find out we weren’t “engaged”.

At least it’s a smallish department. The real reason for my burgeoning waistline will probably have traveled the entire circuit at the college by lunch Monday. If it hadn’t made the rounds by the end of the party, that is.

When we got home, I asked the Socialist why he said we weren’t engaged. I didn’t really care; I was just curious as to his reasoning. “Well, you don’t have to be engaged to get married, do you?” was his response. Uh, OK, I guess not.

So, I asked, what is it that makes us not engaged? “Well, I haven’t gotten you a ring,” he says. “And if I got you an engagement ring and a wedding ring, that would be TWO rings,” he continued. Yup, you can tell he’s a mathematician. Can’t fault that logic.

I went through the required “you don’t have to get me a ring” talk. And I do mean it; the poor guy has just started his full time job and purchased a car. That doesn’t leave a lot left over for other stuff.

He went on to complain that he’d be afraid to pick out a ring for me anyhow, because he doesn’t know my tastes and would probably pick out one I hate. I told him if that was his only concern, we could go shopping together and look at them so he could get an idea of what I liked. “But then it wouldn’t be a surprise,” he wailed. OK, let me work through this. He can’t buy a ring without me because he’ll buy the wrong one, and he can’t buy a ring with me because that would ruin the suprise. Therefore he can’t buy a ring? Something is getting a little convoluted here. I honestly don’t care if I get an engagement ring or not, but I did have to point out the Catch-22 in his reasoning to him. His response was that we’ll go out ring shopping together. *sigh* I really don’t have to have the ring. But I don’t understand his reluctance to just come out and say he doesn’t want to buy one.

Speaking of which, I reminded him last night that the responsibility for taking care of applying for a marriage license was now in his court. “You have to apply in advance?” he asked. I told him I was afraid so. “Well, what about those movies where you just go through a drive up and get married?” he asked? Those are great if you want to go to Reno and get married at the Chapel of Elvis, I told him. Gods help me, I think he was almost tempted for a second.

I reminded him that he didn’t want to do Pennsylvania because of the blood test requirement. I point blank asked him why he didn’t want to do Pennsylvania, since we were both residents and that would be the easiest state for us to apply in. For the first time, he confessed that he was afraid of needles, and wouldn’t get married in any state that required he get punctured. So he’s back in charge of getting everything in order for getting married, if that’s what he wants. I wash my hands of it at this point.