Tax season is over. The winter blues are melting. The Cleveland air is rich with baseball, lake winds, and the faint smell of tulips. Ahh, the blessings of spring.

There’s one tiny little hitch in spring: I go into hibernation every May.

Once the temps start going consistently in the 60s and 70s or even punch mildly into a soft 80 degrees, the new plants and allergens send me running for the hills. The problem is my asthma is so bad, I can’t breathe deep enough to even make it to the hills. Eh, every year I vow to suck it up, but every year I end up making a huge fuss and wheeze for a month and half in Nick’s poor, constantly ringing right ear and give him headaches and reminders to shower every night to get the pollen off his skin and hair.

Nick is a morning shower person and hates this cycle.

But, he’s such a good hub that he showers twice a day for me to make sure no pollen enters the house.

So, last night we were eating chicken parmesan and I ask him, “When do we take off these plastic thingys from the windows?”

Nick is chomping through his pasta and with his mouth full slathers out, “Mhm, I don’t know. What do you think?”

“Probably June.”

Nick looks at me like I suggested we should sell our first born for new windows, “Why June?”

“It’ll help keep the pollen out.”

Nick lets out a slow drawn out, “Ohhh yeahhhh…” but it’s in a really deep tone that says he doesn’t approve.

He’s probably thinking of the two-time shower days on the horizon.

“Happy Spring, my love.”

Instead of apologizing for not writing much the past several weeks on this blog, just think of it as a “getting to know you” moment. Now you know how sporadic and unpredictable Nick and I can be.

Well.

Now you know how sporadic and unpredictable I can be.

I’ve been meaning to write, but spring has swept us away in a fury of home repairs, out of town guests, and settling into new responsibilities with work and jobs. Instead of writing about the big things, like how long it has taken for the kitchen leak to be repaired or how this tax season is giving us migraines, I’d rather tell you about the important things, Seinfeld style.

You know how Seinfeld made its mark by centering things that are seemingly not important? That’s like our life. Nick and I joke, love, distress about the details of life, the things that make us laugh hardest are our perspectives and thoughts about the mundane things of life, the things that most people pass by without giving two seconds of a thought.

So, we try and focus on the small things. It’s like that book, “Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff,” except our version would, “Don’t Ignore the Small Stuff.”

The small things of life would be how I have tortured my husband with daily talks of cheese. All throughout Lent, as I gave up the daily goodness, I never let a day go by without telling Nick how I would kill for a bit of mozzarella, how a small taste of havarti, or brie, or cheddar, or parmesan, or gruyere…you get the picture. And everytime I open my big mouth to give a great big sigh, Nick will remind me, “It’s Lent. Do something in the spirit of Lent, not something that makes you miserable for 40 days and 40 nights.”

And today, Easter Monday, I have returned to the glorious world of cheese.

That’s one of the small things. It’s small things like not being able to eat cheese that brings us to attend Fish Fry dinners at St. Dominic during Lent and where we meet new people in our neighborhood and finally get a sense of community here in Cleveland. It’s the small things in our life that have brought us a real sense of home – like playing Catch Phrase at Book’s house until 1am and laughing at the ridiculous level of competition Nick and I display.

It’s the small things like eating dinner with Pete Kosoglov and his fiancee in Tremont, or going home to Russia just to spend time with family and take pictures of Chelsea Hoying’s family (check out my photography website if you haven’t seen them!), or celebrating getting a round of laundry done so Nick doesn’t have to hold up a shirt and ask me, “Is this too wrinkled too wear?” where my answer is a resounding YES.

Celebrate the small things in life. Like Seinfeld, you’ll find that it’s the small things that really count.

I’ve been an atrocious blogger. Ugh, nothing since March 19! You all might start thinking I actually have a life or something. HA! Don’t be fooled.

(Just kidding, I do have a life. It’s rather nice, well, no it’s actually awesome.)

Anyhoo, here’s the big story that has finally ended today…

So, for Nick’s birthday weekend, we went home to Russia. Always a great time to just hang out in the ROOSH and eat foods that I would never buy but always love to dip into (chips, cake, ice cream). Friday night (3/20) we decide to celebrate Nick’s 30th by going to La Piazza in Troy.

It’s supposed to be good Italian. SWEET.

So we all get dressed up and head to Troy, a little piece of Ohio I’ve never seen. Lo and behold, it’s cute. Nick, Ron, Kay, and I met Keith at the restaurant. We sit down and I wonder where to hang my coat. I’ve been a little protective of my coat. It’s pretty much brand new and it was the last thing I bought in Boston before my move here to Ohio. It’s a white coat with pretty silver buttons and satin yellow daisies on the interior. In a nutshell (especially for men who read this blog), it’s a great white coat.

Reluctantly, because I didn’t see any hangers or coat racks, I hang it behind my seat and sit down. Not too long later, our server greets us and tells us the specials. As I am immersed in the menu, trying to find a non-cheese item at an Italian restaurant (I gave up cheese for Lent), I heard a terrible crash behind me. In my peripheral vision, I see scatterings of plates, food, and our waitress on her hands and knees apologizing to the table behind us.

I turn around and decide not to look so to not contribute to her clear humiliation.

Then, I look up and Nick is staring at me like I have a lobster sitting on my head waiting to clip off my nose.

“What?”

“Did you, uh, check your coat?”

MY GREAT WHITE.

I take a mini look down at the ground and see a small edge of my coat. It looks like a marinara massacre took place behind me and my coat is the only bloody survivor.

Oh dear…

The waitress goes running and that’s when Keith decides to arrive.

So, the whole family gets up to hug him, greet him. I’m wondering what the hell is going to happen to MY GREAT WHITE and whether I should be nice (I’m with my in-laws, you know) or whether I should surrender to my east coast side where ever verbal exchange is a war of the worlds.

I decide the former.

So, a manager comes running out and proceeds to apologize profusely, offer dry cleaning, and “anything to make it right.”

Damn. If it weren’t a Friday, I would have asked for a filet mignon on the house, but I just smiled and said, “Accidents happen. It’s a coat. I’ll live.”

She points out the obvious, “And it’s white!”

You know when someone points out something really dumb but you don’t want to make them feel bad by making a face? That’s what I felt like the whole time. She was very sweet and Nick kept eyeing my face to see if I was going to explode, but it really was ok.

The rest of dinner was not nearly as entertaining except for the fact our server was beyond humiliated and wanted to make up for it by being an Olympic speed walker to fetch us pitchers of water, more bread, extra this, extra that…

After the marinara massacre was over and we headed out into the chilly evening, I, obviously, asked Nick to hand over his coat because I was wearing short sleeves and freezing.

I made a point to walk up to our server and tell her to not worry about it. She was more than relieved, “Thanks so much.”

My parting words, “Look, I was a server once too. I lasted for 3.5 weeks and 2 of those weeks were training. On my last day, I burst into tears and quit. That was at Chi-Chi’s. It’s just a coat.”

And then began the process of getting my coat back.

The manager took The Great White to a Great Dry Cleaners somewhere in Troy. I was supposed to hear back from them the next day, but I got nothing.

I waited three days and then emailed both the owner and the manager (again, that east coast bitchy side was coming out to play) with a message that was polite but was really saying, “DUDE, YOUR RESTAURANT KILLED MY COAT. FIX IT.”

More email exchanges promising to send word once The Great Dry Cleaners contacted La Piazza. What drama.

And today, finally today, I have a package at my door and inside is my sparkling white coat with satin yellow daisies.

It’s ironic now to think back right before Nick and I first left for Russia, I looked at The Great White and thought I should have it dry cleaned sometime, but it’s probably too expensive.

On this day, 30 years ago…

If you are anything like me, you like pictures. You like visualization. Concepts and problems must be graphed, color coded, or drawn out for me to have a clear handle on things. If you are interested, for your own self-education, on how the credit crisis exploded (or imploded), here is a nice video that explains how it all relates to one another. I’ve been asking siblings who are all in banking and insurance to better explain it to me. While I’m still not there, this video helped quite a bit. It’s basic and explains popular banking jargon. Also, it has funny animations that made me giggle.

The Crisis of Credit Visualized from Jonathan Jarvis on Vimeo.

6:15am
Friday, March 13, 2009

Nick wakes up quietly, trying not to wake his wife peacefully sleeping and dreaming on his right.

His usual kind and loving tradition, he leans over to gently kiss his sleeping wife on the cheek before he goes to start his day.

It’s still dark, but the morning sky is just beginning to turn.

Lisa is having a bad dream. Her eyes fly open.

The slight lighting from the window casts a silhouette outline of someone leaning over her.

She opens her mouth and screams bloody murder. Her left arm comes up in a helpless defense against who she thinks is trying to attack her.

“LEESE! IT’S ME! IT’S NICK! LEESE! LEESE!”

She recovers and shudders, “Ohhhhhhhh…” her heart pounding.

One of these days, someone is going to have a heart attack.