Falling in Love Is Like Owning a Dog

by Taylor Mali

First of all, it's a big responsibility,
especially in a city like New York.
So think long and hard before deciding on love.
On the other hand, love gives you a sense of security:
when you're walking down the street late at night
and you have a leash on love
ain't no one going to mess with you.
Because crooks and muggers think love is unpredictable.
Who knows what love could do in its own defense?

On cold winter nights, love is warm.
It lies between you and lives and breaths
and makes funny noises.
Love wakes you up all hours of the night with its needs.
It needs to be fed so it will grow and stay healthy.

Love doesn't like being left alone for long.
But come home and love is always happy to see you.
It may break a few things accidentally in its passion for life,
but you can never be mad at love for long.

Is love good all the time? No! No!
Love can be bad. Bad, love, bad! Very bad love.

Love makes messes.
Love leaves you little surprises here and there.
Love needs lots of cleaning up after.
Somethimes you just want to get love fixed.
Sometimes you want to roll up a piece of newspaper
and swat love on the nose,
not so much to cause pain,
just to let love know Don't you ever do that again!

Sometimes love just wants to go for a nice long walk.
Because love loves exercise.
It runs you around the block and leaves you panting.
It pulls you in several different directions at once,
or winds around and around you
until you're all wound up and can't move.

But love makes you meet people wherever you go.
People who have nothing in common but love
stop and talk to each other on the street.

Throw things away and love will bring them back,
again, and again, and again.
But most of all, love needs love, lots of it.
And in return, love loves you and never stops.

congrats dave and maureen!

brand new parents to a baby boy :) born yesterday! :)

beach bound iveys!

lots of reading, eating and laying around are in order this weekend ;) see you on the other side of sunday! we're off to venice beach!

thursday :)

ah, the week's almost over! nate and i finally have things settling a bit - he's going to work on his dissertation some tonight and i'm going to do whatever it is that i do when he's not entertaining me :) namely, working on our wedding album, reading my latest dessert book (that is to say athe literary equivalent of dessert, not a book on the subject of dessert) and whatever else i happen upon :)
this weekend we are headed to venice beach thanks to nate's aunt's condo which is a short 2 hour drive from here -- we wanted to pack up the bikes, but mine's out of commission since we've not made it to the bike shop just yet to get those brakes fixed!
rambling a bit, i know. last night we went to trivia with friends (think m.c. type guy announcing trivia questions, not little computers like i orginially pictured).
i think that's it for now :) hope everyone is well and a bit cooler than it is here in FL! i know phoenix is definitely warmer than us in the triple digits!

last time i actually blogged, it was MAY!

and now it's june 18th- which incidentally, is my four month wedding anniversary :) nately and i celebrated with some tasty mini beef wellingtons for dinner and a busy day!
since it's been so long, i guess i'll work backwards ;) this morning we went out for brunch downtown (tasty stuff! and $2 mimosas!)
yesterday evening we spent in since we wore ourselves out! we went biking on the west orange trail in the morning with some friends from work and had a great time :) the first 7 miles, i was really worn out and had everyone finish out the last couple of miles without me. i thought "wow! i'm even more out of shape than i thought i was!" but i did a bit of detective work and figured out my front brakes were essentially "on" the entire time-- must have been banged up when the bike was moved! so on the way back, nate rode my bike with the front brakes detached and we all had a much easier time of it ;) on the bright side, i got a much better workout!
last weekend anna and rick were in town with anna's family, so we had a great time at the park with them over the weekend and then spent an evening in winter park at dinner with them :) we took them to one of our favorite orlando discoveries, a wine bar where you have a smart card and the wine is dispensed and charged off your smart card ;) 1 oz, 3 oz, or 5 oz! it's quite an entertaining rip off and a nice way to pass an evening.
ooh i left out a great highlight :) nate took me on a surprise data last week to a "cinema cafe" -- v. cool -- you eat dinner in comfy chairs and tables in what otherwise is a normal theater (you know, big screen, big room) -- we had a tasty pizza and wine while watching prarie home companion, which i really enjoyed :)
yaaaaawn... okay, time for bed-- and since it's 11:30 pm on sunday, i've kept my weekend blogging promise!

baby steps!

in my quest to update the blog, i've posted pics of rick and anna's trip to FL, as well as an outing to downtown disney for work (a rainy one!), and our foray onto a great nearby bike trail! :)

kettle? it's bri. you're black!

title shamelessly hijacked from mark's comment below ;)

yes, i need to blog -- and i will! this weekend ;) expect a looooong update and details on my love-hate relationship with orlando :)

never go to bed mad. stay up and fight!

just kidding ;) guess who officially moves in today?... nately does! he'll be arriving on an 11 pm flight and hightailing it to our apartment where i will be scrambling to clean and shove furniture aside to make room for all the boxes scheduled to arrive in the morning! i can't wait ;)
in other news, i had a fantastic weekend with the ivey clan and co. in PA this weekend. lots of great hits were played and i discovered my hidden talent for the kazoo (also known as the substitute horn section). i also sang the dolly parton classic "why'd you come in here lookin' like that" which was fantastic fun :) we also celebrated john and nina's anniversary with songs specially written from them by granny :) after a day of music, we canoed down the yough, ate some great pizza and wings at phil's, and canoed some more! monday we played crouquet and drank tasty cocktails :)
tonight, i'm picking cleo up from "a pet's palace" on my way home, her orlando home away from home :) she appears to enjoy it - she was scheduled to have a bath this morning and should be nice and worn out from playing with the other dogs :)
lunch hour's about over- back to work! :)

how much is your house worth?

crazy internet and it's privacy controversy. know someone's address? well then you know how much their house is worth, complete with a satellite picture and assigned values for all nearby homes. check it out. i'm not sure how i feel about this... mostly, i think i like being able to easily access the info but still. what do you think?

happy middle of the week!

this week is speeding along quite nicely ;) nate headed home yesterday midday and returned to a flurry of packing and getting ready for the movers this morning. mom and marty are in england this week, so i'm missing my regular phone calls with my mother :) they'll be back on her birthday next week!
i'm so excited to leave for PA this weekend :)
i had a great time at the industrial engineering conference (it was here in orlando). it was so much fun to be a "disney IE" running around wearing my pin lanyard and talking to people about what i do. we had a great time clowing around with the engineers from starbucks (based out of seattle! i'm jealous!)
in other news, the powder princess (my lovely blue bike) has returned home after a stint in new york city and multiple trips out on the huckleberry trail thanks to my sister :)

beat the five o'clock rush, leave work at noon!

The Soul by W.S. Merwin

Is anyone there
if so
are you real
either way are you
one or several
if the latter
are you all at once
or do you
take turns not answering

is your answer
the question itself
surviving the asking
without end
whose question is it
how does it begin
where does it come from
how did it ever
find out about you
over the sound
of itself
with nothing but its own
ignorance to go by

hip hip hooray!

nate's coming to florida today! :) it's smooth sailing from here on out (at least from my end- he still has to pack and move!) we'll be hanging out in orlando this weekend, and then next weekend we'll both be in PA for music weekend and everyone will be home :) i can't wait! i sent nate a list of lisa loeb songs per his request so i'll know at least one of the songs he plays. then we're going to hit the road with our talent! (visions of tobias and lindsay on arrested development are playing in my head)
i've gotten lazy with blogging about travels and visits since i can now post entire albums of pictures ... but my mom and i had a WONDERFUL time! the flower and garden festival at EPCOT was tons of fun as was magic kingdom. we had breakfast with winnie the pooh and friends and dinner at the animal kingdom lodge. i think my favorite was the spectro magic parade though. i know it's silly, but i tear up. i'm a sucker for the music and the characters and the magic of it all ;) but i guess that's why i work here! it's a bit of an occupational hazard to be that emotional about your product though, don't want to be reaching for the kleenex box at meetings!
last weekend, m was here to visit her sister and family and i got to spend some time with them which was great :) we had a great time at animal kingdom with her nephew s and finished off the day with ice cream (as every good day should end).
i think that's it for now :)

stolen from jilian's blog...

i belong in paris! :)

You Belong in Paris

You enjoy all that life has to offer, and you can appreciate the fine tastes and sites of Paris.You're the perfect person to wander the streets of Paris aimlessly, enjoying architecture and a crepe.

notable 'quote'able

"There are people who think that everything one does with a serious face is sensible."
- Georg Christoph Lichtenberg

stranger than fiction.

there are 58,000 people that work for disney in orlando. the nation's largest single site employer. that's more people than live in blacksburg! isn't that crazy?

low lowercase word of the random interval in which i will post one

is innocuous.

Pronunciation: i-'nä-ky&-w&s
Function: adjective
Etymology: Latin innocuus, from in- + nocEre
1 : producing no injury : HARMLESS
2 : not likely to give offense or to arouse strong feelings or hostility : INOFFENSIVE, INSIPID
- in·noc·u·ous·ly adverb
- in·noc·u·ous·ness noun

i heart orange yogurt

mandarin orange to be exact. i used to LOVE that stuff and then i could never find it at the grocery store anymore. but here in sunny florida, the grocery store has it's own tasty brand of it...mmmmm.... okay, back to my breakfast!

exciting visitor to the orlando realm

my mom arrives tomorrow! :) i'm so excited to show her around -- we have a few things planned, but mostly plan on playing in the parks since she's never been to walt disney world :) (we were a disneyland family, which made sense geographically).
short post as i'm off to bed, but i'll post pics next week from our many adventures :)
oh! and 26 more days until nate moves to FL!

home again home again...

well after two wonderful weekends and wonderful hosts, it's hard to come back to a city you don't know very well yet! i spent last weekend in atlanta with ashlea and jules, and this most recent weekend with nate visiting laura and drew in nashville (pics posted). had a wonderful time at both!
i flew back to orlando this evening and realized, i'm not so crazy about it yet. i can always tell if i've grown attached to where i live by whether i'm excited to come back home or not. i'm sure there are several factors at play here, the main one being that my husband doesn't live here yet! also, cleo is at the kennel still tonight since i'm back too late to get her tonight.
so, i was a little down on my "city beautiful" this evening, and spent some time researching new places to check out. i did find several :) on my list to explore (keep me honest!):

1. brandywine books: used bookstore with over 30,000 titles - i'm excited about this one ;)
2. tim's wine market: organized by type, then by region - they not only have tastings, but also wine classes!
3. harry p. leu gardens: apparently beautiful gardens and a house that can be toured as well- $4 admission for a nice way to spend an afternoon.
4. park avenue shopping: a refreshing absence of strip mall- just neat bistros, boutiques, etc.
5. orlando science center: what it sounds like! complete with planetarium :)

so that's the start to my list. when i'm done, i'm writing a guide to orlando that's for residents, not for toursits! ;)