New updates!

Wow, last time I wrote a post was like 6 -9 months ago? Wow. WOW. Good one, KB. (I know it says the last one was July but I actually didn't post it until Fall... I say that as if I should be proud it's only 6-9 months instead of a year).

So much has happened since then! I found THE DRESS. It's pretty. :) I might kinda love it. I totally had not been having any love for the dresses I was trying on. I went to at least 5 stores and had been back to 2 of them multiple times. No luck. I finally decided to just go ahead and get one of the dresses I had seen that I thought was "ok" b/c I figured I wasn't going to fall in love with anything in the price range I had. I went back to the bridal salon to try it on, and it was no longer made and they the sample was going to require so many alterations that it ate away any savings I would have had with it. They asked if I wanted to try on something else and I was like, eh, whatever. But I did come back to look at one other one I'd seen online and they also pulled one they thought I'd like. Turned out that was the one. I decided right then and there to get it, although it took me another 3 days to actually talk myself into the price (and then negotiate).

In addition to that, we sent out our Save-the-Dates. Gracie made these very cute tropical boarding passes. They look awesome! She put a ton of time and effort into them - we're lucky she was able to make something so fun and pretty for us. So now everyone has been invited! And we have a very cool wedding website, courtesy of David who did all the research and set it up for us. The name is kinda great: www.salimarkle.com. What - where did salimarkle come from? It's our celebrity nickname, of course! (Salinas + Brotemarkle).

I had to put wedding planning aside for a while, though, because work has been CRAY. I switched roles from my pipeline psychiatry drug to launching oncology drug. A launch is crazy. Oncology in our company is another level of crazy. And joining during our business planning process is certifiably insane. Ever year, I wonder how I even manage to survive it (the answer is having a supportive partner and a dog willing to be loved to death). Here's to hoping things get better from here, because that level of intensity if definitely NOT sustainable.

Anyway, those are some of the major update. This has been hard enough for me to get back into the swing of things so I'll just leave it at the basic update level. Here's to hoping I can write more often!

Costa Rica - 3/3/13!

And old post I never had a chance to publish...

So after much searching, including an entire week-long trip to look at places up and down the West Coast, we decided to leave the US altogether and head to Costa Rica for the wedding. Sadly, this means Dajilicious will not be able to participate in the festivities. However, it does mean we can actually afford a nice wedding, which is key.

The trouble with weddings is that they are freaking expensive. I have redone the budget as many ways and times as I possibly can, but haven't really been able to fit too many more people into the mix. It sucks to make tradeoffs when you'd really want more family and friends to come. But it is what it is. We still love all the people who can't come even when they are invited so I hope those we weren't able to invite will still love us as well.

Despite all this drama with the invite list, I am very excited for the place. How did we decide to have the wedding in Costa Rica? (an often asked question). Well, I was flipping through a destination wedding magazine and saw this amazing picture. I showed my fiance and he actually said "wow, that places looks cool." Since most of the time I just got a non-committal grunt when I showed him places, this was a huge endorsement and I decided we should at least look into it. Turns out, the place is beautiful and affordable (by crazy insane US wedding standards). Hence, it wins! So the date is 3/3/13. It's so far away but this March would have been too soon (it was September by the time we booked it) and then it would be rainy season until November (and November/December didn't seem good because of all the holidays involved). Plus, then we get 3/3 and since three is my lucky number, I like the feng shui involved!

I ended up hiring a wedding planner - Randy from Weddings Costa Rica. So far, she's helped us pick out a photographer and has secured our DJ, ceremony musicians, and the lawyer who will make it all legal. Next up is cake and florist. And I've been searching for my wedding dress back here in SF. I think I have a few great contenders... just need to figure out which style I want. There are some that are sexier and others that are more classic. Stay tuned!

Oh, yeah, and here is the place: Villa Caletas

Finding the perfect venue

As soon as we got engaged, David and I promised we would give ourselves some time before we started wedding planning. Yeah, that lasted all of about a week after I got home. It was good in theory but when everyone asks you when and where the big event is going to happen, you start to feel like a slacker for not having an answer... and I have never been good with that feeling.

So, we (ok, I) went off and running to answer this question. I immediately looked up every exotic location I could think of. My top choices were amazing, but not realistic.

1. Buglari hotel's water wedding venue in Bali, Indonesia:

2. Amanyara on Turks & Caicos

3. Villa d'Este in Lake Como, Italy

Yes, perfect for the Princesa but then the Princesa realized she is a princesa in nickname only and the lack of title and sufficient royal funding would have to keep her closer to home. So I scaled back and at least started looking just in the States... but at this point, I was still swooning over fairly unrealistic choices given that we do actually have a budget that revolves around us not going into debt.

1. Ritz at Laguna Niguel, CA

2. Amangani (part of the same hotel chain as Amanyara above) in Jackson Hole, WY

3. Post Ranch Inn in Big Sur, CA

Finally, I gave in to the reality of our cash flow situation and started looking at site after site in the wedding magazines and wedding websites (www.herecomestheguide.com has been a big help). In Northern California, people tend to gravitate to the wineries. While they're pretty, I just haven't felt drawn to them the way other people seem to be. If they had a beautiful garden or a nice cliff-top venue overlooking the valley, I would consider it but I haven't been getting really excited about anything (except one beautiful garden spot - Beaulieu Gardens - that was insanely expensive).

So David and I have decided we should narrow the field a bit so we can visit a few places that we may want to have the wedding for reals. I have started looking up and down California for some places we could visit on a road trip. I really want to be warm... that's really all I ask. Unfortunately, that rules out the city... "coldest winter is the summer in SF" and all that good stuff. Oh, and I'd like it to have beautiful views so we have beautiful vistas to enjoy and pictures to remember the moment forever (that's where it starts getting tougher). So far, a few places have really caught my eye... here are my top 2 and then I need to figure out the rest.

San Ysidro Ranch

Rancho Chiquita

There is definitely still the possibility that we eschew the whole "big" wedding thing - big in quotes b/c we're thinking only 80 people at the absolute max and probably more like 60 in reality. Sometimes it seems ridiculous to spend so much on one day when that means we can't save for things like the honeymoon, a house, kids, etc. Every time I feel overwhelmed with this process (often), that options looks and feels so good.

So fingers crossed that we figure out the venue situation soon... probably more to come on that.

Daji is back to beautiful!

Oh my goodness. It seems that from my lack of posts that Daji hasn't done anything awesome in a while. But that's not at all true... he's still a great little boy! Unfortunately, he went through an ugly phase though. And by ugly, I do not mean awkward or anything nice like that... he was plain straight UGLY. He got a canine papilloma virus in his mouth (yes, it's similar to one of everyone's favorite STD's - genital warts - but we're pretty sure he didn't get it fooling around with any female doggies). We gave it a nickname that was slightly easier to pronounce and would make it less obvious we were talking about a nasty virus when we discussed it between ourselves out in public- hence, the warts became known collectively as "the Pamplona." That lasted from January through May and it was quite noticeable. We spoke to the vet who assured us it would go away on its own. Not satisfied, David looked for home remedies online and found that some people had luck with L-lysine supplements acting as an immune-system activator to help their little furry friends fend off the virus. We started feeding that to Daji with each meal and, sure enough, the darn things started to shrink and they have now disappeared entirely! Go natural remedies! As you can see, he is back to looking handsome as ever. :)

Now for the truly exciting news... Daji isn't going to be a bastard dog anymore! His parents are making things official and getting married. And so now, I have a feeling that my blog will be an outlet to talk incessantly about wedding planning. Ye be warned...

The End of an Era

Daji endured a move across town the other day, and you would have thought it was the end of the world. I know that dogs, in general, do not like change. They like routine and consistency. We thought Daji might be different because he seems to like to explore new areas on walks... he prances around like a very happy little fellow every time we go out and head off in a new direction. Apparently, this sense of adventure does not extend to changes in living arrangements...

It all started innocently enough. The couch disappeared. Daji was actually excited about this development. He had more room to frolic about and wreak havoc, two of his favorite nighttime activities. But then other things started changing and he became worried.

Next, all sorts of boxes appeared. He was definitely concerned at this point, especially when things that used to be around the apartment started going into the boxes. "Hmmm," the little brain said, "something is amiss! I will watch this all very carefully and try to stop anything else crazy from happening." But despite his pleas from the kennel, the bed disappeared next! Now he was getting really scared that this recurring trend would continue and kept whimpering is near-quiet desperation. But he still seemed cautiously optimistic that his parents would make it right.

However, what finally broke his spirit was when he saw his beloved carpet (affectionately termed his "blanket") rolled up and set at the side of the room. At that point, he was positive his life was over and he responded accordingly. His face practically screamed "just kill me now... I can't go on without my beloved blankie!" Poor little guy. He decided at this point that it was time to pee, poop, and vomit all over the floor just to make sure his parents understood just how strongly he felt about the change in situation.

At that point, we had just a shell of a dog. He didn't even look up when we ousted him from the apartment and made him wait out in the hall while we finished up the cleaning. It was like that experiment they did with the dogs and learned helplessness except it wasn't repeated electricity that wore him down... just the demolition of his everyday world being dismantled and moved to an undisclosed location... same difference apparently.

Luckily, he seemed to feel much better when he saw his new place. It has several rooms and he soon discovered he could run around in a circle like a wild beast. Unfortunately, we didn't have any rugs yet and this place has wood floors so all we heard was click-click-click-click as he ran. The poor downstairs neighborhoods probably thought some hoard of pointy-toed elephants had moved in upstairs.

However, the new place presented its own special challenges. For instance, Daji had never encountered the wood floors that he enjoyed tearing across so much. So he had also never tried to stop on wood floors at full-speed. He went barreling through one room, right into another, and skidded all the way between the two coffee tables into the tree (which had mistaken as a potential tasty treat until that point... the needles soon convinced him otherwise).

The other major issue was the stairs. Having grown up in the city, in a very tall apartment building, Daji has only seen stairs once. And since he was just a puppy, he basically climbed one before we realized that wasn't going to happen so we carried him the rest of the way. His approach to the stairs up to our apartment in the new place was to simply throw his legs out at top speed and deal with where they fell in whatever way he could handle at the time. The result was a slightly out-of-control tipsy ball of Rhodesian jumping/sliding/running up and down the stairs for the first week. Apologies be to anyone who thought they could be on the stairs at the same time because Daji was a crazed maniac who wasn't stopping for anyone else.

In the end, though, he adjusted quite well and even let us put his Santa outfit on for a picture we posted to announce our new house to the world! :) Although, as you can see, he is still a little bit woebegone.

Daji: Genius or Idiot?

I often wonder if our dog is a genius or an idiot. Let's explore some evidence...

Observation 1: Daji recently managed to destroy a pair of my socks. Not that impressive you say? Well, what if I told you that he ate the pair whole and then vomited one up and pooped the other out? Somehow his throat, stomach, or intestines managed to separate the two socks and send them hurtling off in different directions. Genius or idiot?

Observation 2: Several months ago, David decided it would be fun to spin around with Daji until he got dizzy (this was before he weighed 70 pounds). So around and around they go. David puts the dog down and promptly runs into the door when he tries to walk away. Daji sits down for a moment than walks away completely unfazed. Genius or idiot?

Observation 3: Last night, Daji was sitting on his blanket on the couch, and David and I were up at the other end. He always wants to be hanging out where we are but knows he's not allowed to move his butt off the blanket (he has anal gland issues; that's a story for another time). So he leaned farther and farther and farther back, trying to get closer to us while keeping his bottom in the same place. He proceeds to completely fall backwards and get himself stuck between my legs and the couch. He looked so uncomfortable at that point but refused to move. We were laughing at him until we realized he was probably exactly where he wanted to be. Genius or idiot?

These are just a few of the examples we've gathered over the few short months with our little boy. I wish I could say what the true answer is, but I'll let the audience deliver the final verdict...

The Birth of the Daj-maholic

Apparently, I started this blog in October 2009 with zero posts. Fast-forward to November 2010 and here is post numero uno. Why break the impressive inertia I had built up? Well, like a little kid, I want the toy that someone else is playing with. In this case, the someone else is actually my boyfriend, who blogs from time-to-time about our dog. Not to be outdone, La Princesa (that's me) has been thinking that I needed a creative outlet to share in this little habit. Plus, I read a fantabulous blog today that made me laugh so hard I cried and I was inspired to try to make my random observations about life funny, too. Sadly, I have never been all that funny so I'm looking forward to near-utter failure on that goal (see? attempt 1... crash... burn).

Anyway, since my blog is entitled "Thoughts from a Daj-maholic" so perhaps I should start with that for some background? Daji is our Rhodesian Ridgeback, currently 7.5 months old. Here are some quite random, but nonetheless informative, bullet points about this amazing beast!

1. RR's were used to hunt lions in Africa. We like to tell people this to make it seem like our dog is the ultimate badass... but we're basically operating on the "wizard of oz" principle in that it all seems impressive until you actually pull back the curtain... because if you meet our dog, you would realize he would clearly get mauled in a second if he were to ever encounter a lion. I suggested taking him to the zoo for some training runs, but apparently this kind of thing would be frowned upon.
2. Daji loves to stick his whole entire foot up to his elbow into his mouth on a regular basis. We are still trying to figure out how to monetize this amazing feat.
3. I am slightly obsessed with our dog. I try to keep it under control, but you are most likely going to have to listen to me talk about him for at least 5 minutes. Ok, 15. The time increases linearly based on glasses of wine consumed, and no social cues of boredom will save you. I'm sorry, I really am. But on the other hand, he's really so cute that you should just appreciate you get to be a part of it. ;)
4. Despite being 70 lbs, the dog is a stealthy ninja in the night and somehow makes his way onto the bed, wiggles into position directly in between us, and then proceeds to lock his legs straight out, effectively pushing two fully grown humans to opposite ends of the bed and taking all the covers in the process (This has resulted in me waking up at various times to see the silhouette of a dog being launched across the air... turns out my boyfriend isn't very lenient toward cover thieves. Hmmm... note to self.)
5. Daji sometimes likes to drink, as evidenced in his picture above. He is remarkably good about not begging for food but he has used the above-mentioned ninja skills to procure beer and wine from time-to-time. His parents do not approve.

So, that's a little taste of the lovely morsel that we call Dajilicious to get us started. I really just needed to stretch out the writing muscles... don't want to strain anything on the first try, ya know? But I'm not going to lie, this first post may also be the last. I'm fairly uninitiated unless I have something specific to write about. Well, fingers crossed... ;)