Stuff you're not allowed to buy when you're married

Oh, is it fall? I didn’t notice because I’m not allowed to buy an iPad.

Apparently when you get married and start merging your finances with another person, you have to “make responsible decisions” and “wait until you get your first paycheck at your new job” before you start buying “unnecessary” things like the iPad you really really really need because your five-year-old laptop and your six-year-old desktop are so decrepit you literally can’t replace your also-outdated cell phone because you would have to buy a whole new operating system just to be able to download the iTunes update that would let you even sync the phone at all.

I’m telling you people, it’s like I’m living in a Third World country here. *

This is the argument mature, married people discussion the hubs and I had in the Apple store earlier this week. (Oh yeah, Anchorage totes has an Apple store now. We’re getting real fancy up in this piece.) And this is where being married bites the big one. Because if I were still single and I were in the financial position in which I currently find myself, I probably would have replaced my desktop and bought FIVE iPads by now. And some really great boots. But instead I have to “make good decisions” and “wait for Dividend time” because “we’d like to buy a bigger house” — the unspoken subtext being “so we can fill it with those chubby-cheeked Irish-Jewish children you claim to want so much.”

So instead of posting this from the shiny new (refurbished! Because I’m being responsible!) iMac I’m not allowed to buy yet, I’m chugging away on my same old laptop, which huffs and puffs and wheezes and is all like “What’s going on? Where am I? What is this Inner-Net you keep trying to access? What does this Aeroport device do? Let’s just flash it on and off until something happens! Microsoft Word — Microsoft Word?!?! I can’t take it! Too much memory! I’m melting! Me-e-e-e-l-l-l-t-i-i-ing...”

I have been allowed to update my grownup business lady wardrobe (which, during my years of re-entry into the blue-jeans-and-clogs world of journalism, took a serious nosedive) in preparation for returning to an office setting that requires a bit more care in dress than the good old Dispatch did. This I have done mostly responsibly; I used Ebates when I ordered from the Banana Republic “Mad Men” collection, and I did the rest of my shopping at Filene’s Basement when I was in Boston last week. Which saved us literally tens and perhaps hundreds of dollars. Dollars that I am not allowed to spend on an iPad.

In the meantime, any post-wedding hopes I may have had of updating my casual wardrobe has been dashed. Which, fine, OK. I suppose I can make do with the jeans and sweaters I already have. And honestly, I would rather have a bigger house than some new boots. (We’re running out of room for my craft supplies.) So I guess it’s for the best that I have someone around who will stand in my way when I try to make frivolous shopping decisions. Like building a new fall wardrobe around the Burberry tote MLB bought me for my birthday last year.

To that end, I suppose it’s time to say goodbye to this aspirational Polyvore set...

Fall: Dressing to the tote by maiaknolan

...and hello to compromise.

For the record, despite the whining, I do feel I’m making the right decision here in letting go. Those boots cost almost as much as an iPad, and you can’t even play Angry Birds on them.

* I realize I’m not actually living in a Third World country. I just ate organic beef and watched an entire television show all about people making desserts, for crying out loud.

Cheese Balls’ Epic Journey

I had the following exchange with a pair of TSA agents recently at Ted Stevens Anchorage International Airport:

TSA Agent #1: “Do you have any liquids, ma’am?”
Me: “No.”
TSA Agent #2: “Just a whole lot of cheese balls.”

How did we get here? Backing up...

We received a tremendous number of lovely gifts for our wedding. Some were expected and others were slightly more surprising. For example, we arrived home from our honeymoon and started digging through the mountain of accumulated gifts to find these:

Yes, that’s a large plastic jar of Utz Cheese Balls, a gift from my dear camp friends Kevin and Murph. (Side Note: Murph would feel slighted if I didn’t also mention that they did, in fact, send actual wedding gifts as well.) The gift is hysterical if you’re party to an inside joke from a snack shopping outing last summer at America’s Camp during which Murph and Kevin purchased a similar jar of Utz Cheese Balls and were assisted by a Price Chopper checker who made an unfortunate remark about balls and bags.

I guess you had to be there.

At any rate, we didn’t open them; the hubs doesn’t like flavored snack foods (something about the powder weirds him out), and I was afraid I’d eat all 35 servings in one sitting if I broke the seal. So we decided I should bring them to camp with me. I mentioned this to Murph on the phone the week before camp.

“You can bring them to camp,” she said. “But you can’t check them. You have to carry them on.” I would, however, be permitted to carry them in a bag for ease of transport.

The gauntlet thus thrown down, I had no choice but to accept the challenge and carry my Cheese Balls all the way from Anchorage to Peru, Massachusetts, via San Francisco and Boston. To prove I hadn’t chickened out and checked the jar, I documented the trip via iPhone photos texted to Murph and Kevin throughout the day...

Cheese Balls travels in a chic Steve Madden shopping bag for earth-friendly convenience.

Cheese Balls visits with some distant cousins before boarding a flight to San Francisco.

Cheese Balls wonders if the airplane is being stocked with an adequate supply of tasty snack foods...

Cheese Balls prefers a window seat.

The play area in the San Francisco airport is a great place for Cheese Balls to take a break from the stresses of air travel.

Sometimes exhaustion gets the better of even the most enthusiastic traveler.

Cheese Balls peruses some San Francisco souvenirs.

Cheese Balls prefers Alaska Airlines and its 20-minute baggage guarantee, but doesn't mind waiting for the luggage... as long as it doesn't take too long.

Cheese Balls' first taxi ride -- Logan to Copley Square. Step on it!

Cheese Balls buckles up for safety in a Camp Danbee van. Next stop: The Berkshires!

At last, Cheese Balls arrives at camp, ready to bring 35 servings of powdery goodness to AC10.

As for Cheese Balls’ ultimate fate... well, I don’t have photos of that, but the demise of my traveling companion looked something like this:

End of an Era

This week marked the completion of the last session of America’s Camp, a program I’ve been involved with since 2005.



I’ve written about what America’s Camp has meant to me in Portland Magazine and at Alaska Dispatch. I could be wrong, but I don’t think I’m more proud of anything else I’ve ever been involved with. So far, the media that visited camp during our last week have chosen to dwell on the end of camp, but those of us who were there know that while we won’t be together at camp again like we have been, we’ll always be connected — and we made something wonderful out of something terrible.

Generation Gap

Dinner table discussion at my parents' house last night: Facebook. My parents are both on. Although this exchange perhaps illustrates the fact that we probably use it very differently:

Me: "I hate when people you don't know try to friend you without any sort of note -- like 'I'm friends with so-and-so,' or 'We met at that thing' or something."
Dad: "Yeah, and then you see that they have, like, eight or nine hundred friends."
Me: "...Um ... I have eight or nine hundred friends."
Dad: "No. You don't." (Pause.) "You might have nine hundred Facebook friends, though."

A New Day Dawns

Well, hello there, friends. You may have noticed things look a little different around the old homestead. That's because this isn't actually the old homestead. You've been redirected to a whole new Own The Sidewalk.

Why? Well, I'm embarking on a new era in my life. OTS has chronicled most of what I would consider my adulthood. And we've had a lot of fun along the way. I was a 25-year-old single New Yorker when I started blogging, and now as a 32-year-old married future pillar of the Anchorage community, I'm ready to close the door on OTS 1.0 and start fresh with OTS 2.0. An OTS with less whining and more rhinestones.

The Sidewalk has been refinanced, if you will.

I haven't destroyed the old Own The Sidewalk, but I am going to close the archives to public perusal. I've moved over a handful of favorite recent posts. If there's something you're dying to have access to, e-mail me and maybe we can work something out.

Thanks for coming along for the ride. And thanks for sticking around for the new (possibly improved) OTS. I feel obligated to caution you, though, if you're not interested in screen-printing misadventures and cocktail recipes, you're going to be terribly disappointed. Consider yourselves warned.