Marriage Day One: Sooooode Tired

Sunday, after a long wedding weekend filled with more wonderful moments and emotions than we could possibly recall, Lib settled on to the couch completely exhausted, and fell fast asleep. At eleven, when I tried to wake her for bed, she kept mumbling nonsense; all I could make out in her tired voice was "is everyone tying them in the front or just the bride?" My little wife, tuckered out from her long weekend had settled in to a deep slumber dreaming of more weddings.

A Wet Knot Is Harder to Untie

Seconds before the overcast let loose on the forest, just before we ducked into a small potting shed at Rutgers Gardens, there is a picture of Lib, only minutes my wife, in the mist, standing expectantly beneath a tree on a circle of stone by the coy pond, floating in her dress between ferns with a red sash tied around her waist--a picture that no one will ever get to see, but is preserved perfectly and forever for me.

Carpet Diem

After a long winter of Annie dragging her dog blankets around the house combined with those early puppy months last year, the house started to smell like dog as the weather began to warm up. We decided, since we didn't want our house to smell like animals, to rent the carpet shampooer, two weeks before the wedding, and get to work, last Saturday. Not that our house smelled like piss or anything, it just smelled like dog. It worked like a charm; we moved all the furniture and gave everything the once over. By the time it dried, the carpet smelled fresh and new.

A few days later, however, the house began to smell like acrid piss! Had we stirred up some ancient smell, or had one of the animals thought the place smelled too clean and left her mark? Either way, it reeked of piss. It made no sense, so I got on my hands and knees, put my nose to the ground and began to sniff out the stain. I noticed a slightly darker spot in front of the couch, and when I hound-dogged it, the smell of piss sent me reeling. A whole two days after slaving away on the carpet and we were way worse off than when the whole thing began. Not only that, but the piss smell was also at the top of the stairs leading from the sun room to the basement. It was an all out shock and awe-ful piss war!

I suspected there were hardwood floors beneath, and casually suggested that we rip up the carpet, but Lib would have nothing of it. I even peeked beneath the edge and saw the hardwood; Lib would not even look. I have always wanted hard wood, real hard wood, not this fake crap on the DIY channel, so was a little disappointed. Besides, the old woman who lived here before us carpeted the entire house with the same carpet; it would be nice to have some variety.

We soaked the stain, dried it, tried Spot Shot repeatedly, and nothing. So it was back to the grocery to get the Rug Doctor...again. I had to work, but Lib went over the carpet a number of times, but to no avail. Dumbfounded by the tenacity of the stench, Lib, in the little white dress she had worn to work, then proceeded to hound-dog the entire room searching for another piss stain, but could find nothing. The Seinfeldian stench would not leave the room, and even seemed to grow stronger with each day.

By Thursday, our spirits were broken. There was no getting rid of it. And then Lib said something about just wanting to rip out the carpet. I wasn't sure if she was kidding or not, but the switch in my brain, the same switch that flicks on when regular kissing might turn in to sex, told me that if I played this just right, we would rip out the carpet and expose the hard wood beneath. I walked over to the spot where I had peeled back the carpet a few days before in front of the hearth, and once again exposed just a bit of the shining hard wood beneath, and as Lib approached to give a peek, I pulled back just slightly more carpet so she could get a good look. That's all it took. Lib went down to the basement and emerged with two crowbars, a hammer and selection of small pliers--she was ravenous. She grabbed a corner of the room and went to town on it. Carpet and foam were flying out the front door; the neighbors must have thought we were tearing the whole place down. She couldn't wait till after the wedding. It had to be done now, and we both went at it for a couple of hours until there was nothing left to do but clean up and lie supine on the floor as the diminuendo of our hearts brought us back to earth.

The floor needs work, but Lib has decided, that it is probably too big of a project to sand and refinish this week, so we are going to show some restraint and wait till after the wedding, but I couldn't be happier.