I’m sorry the comments don’t work. They don’t work for me, either. I can’t even get them to stay on the page long enough to read any that you *have* been able to leave. I’m sorry the RSS doesn’t work.  Please don’t give up. Or, if you must, come back in January when I relaunch at the original thisfish.com. Until then, I will fulfill my end of the contract honorably, and will have new posts up here three times a week.

I couldn’t find my kittens this morning. The Dork Lord says I’m allowed to call them mine just as long as they don’t end up in our apartment. I’d fight him on that but one, the beard is my priority death match and two, he’s working dilligently, researching and learning and making grimacey faces at his laptop to develop an iPhone app for the new blog. An app! For me! How fun, right? I figure, if the blog needs to generate revenue, it doesn’t have to be with ads that get in the way of the actual purpose of the blog. Ahem.

In fact. A couple of important fundamentals for the new site include a strict advertising policy, a business platform based on giving back to the community and increased interactivity. I can’t wait. I hope you’ll join me!

“Good news! It came in a little under what I’d estimated.”

It didn’t seem at all appropriate to hug the woman at the jewelry counter, but even still, I was tempted to see if I could get away with it. C’mere you! Saturday afternoon marked the very first time something wedding related has come in under budget. Those words are so yummy – under budget. Next to, “I thought you were 27*” they might just be my recent favorites.

So, now the Boy has a wedding band – and it’s really pretty perfect. Since he created it from a little of this and a little of that, we never actually saw what it was going to look like. It’s nice. Really nice. And it has some fairly nice heft to it. So, you know, the next time he’s out of line and needs some… gentle reminding, I’m gonna chuck that thing at his forehead. Thunk! The love thunk. In stores now.

Speaking of what’s in store: For those of you who don’t have a) Facebook b) Twitter or c) patience enough to hit reload like eighteen times to make the comments work here, This Fish Needs a Bicycle will be relaunching at thisfish.com in January, followed shortly (I hope!) with an iPhone app and some other cool stuff.

* Someone actually said that to me the other weekend and I was pleased. Until he followed them up with “You look like Barbara Streisand. A younger, better looking Barbara Streisand.”  Uh huh. Just what every girl wants to hear. Let’s go back to the part where you told me I don’t look my age. That was good stuff.

Raise your hand if you miss Christmas vacation. Go on, it’s okay. If your cubemate wonders why you’ve got your hand in the air, you simply say, “I miss Christmas vacation.” Alternatively, you could say, “I miss Winter Break” if you grew up somewhere not predominantly baby-Jesus oriented. Either way, it’s likely that they will join you in your salute to nostalgia and napping.

Aside: I could really use a nap. Those four hours of sleep I got last night were pretty cool and all, but I could use about eleven more. And also maybe being sung to sleep by Neil Patrick Harris. Please.

Anyway, my dad stayed home with us when I was a kid and so my Christmas break memories are mostly made up of tomato soup, my dad’s cocoa (which I made for the Dork Lord the other night, failing to acknowledge when he complimented its tastiness, that the recipe actually comes from the container of Hershey’s cocoa) and defrosting our toes over the heater vents wearing his gigantic tube socks, fresh out of the dryer. Warm socks. Warm food. Add a Law & Order SVU Marathon and right there you basically have the recipe to my happiness. Okay, also maybe add cheese.

The other night, the temperature dropped so sharply that even after adding a layer of the Boys clothes to my own, I decided I still wasn’t warm enough. So I went upstairs, pulled open his unmentionables drawer and dug around for some of those gigantic warm tube socks. And there weren’t any. Not a single pair.

One lovely commenter (you precious thing, you) sweetly pointed out that the Dork Lord and I are going to get divorced in five years and you know what? If we do, it will be because he hasn’t got the right hosiery. All of which I mean to prevent by giving him the gift of tube socks this Christmas. Yeah, I know we said we wouldn’t buy gifts for each other this year to save for the wedding, but I’m doing it for the children. And,  uh, me. But mostly the children.

I apologize for being so scattered, my lovies. Stuff is Going On. For those of you who don’t know, there are going to be some big ole changes around here in the next month. Join us over at Facebook or email me a thisfish at gmail dot com to find out more.

After I finished addressing our Save the Dates, they sat for almost a whole week on our dining room table – because I wasn’t sure I wanted to send them. At all. Ever.

It’s not often that I don’t know what to do. In fact, I’m guessing it’s closer to never. My super power, while physically unimpressive, would be an unbending, hard fast certainty. In every situation, self-assured and possessing clear direction.

Until the week before Thanksgiving.

You couldn’t call it a fight, really, because even if you’re being very King Solomon about things, it was horribly one-sided. Something had been plaguing me for months – a new behavior, one that had me wondering who exactly this was I’d decided to marry – and one evening, on our way home from his folks’ house, I got up the courage to talk about it. And all hell broke loose. He was in the wrong and knew it, but his response to my “I’m uncomfortable with…” was unexpected and harsh and personal. He made it clear that it was my fault he wasn’t spending time with me. That I was boring. I said nothing, just turned my face to the car window and closed my eyes for the rest of the 30 mile drive.

That night I spent hiding upstairs in my office, shocked and sad, and for the first time in our relationship, one hundred percent uncertain. What should I do? Take off my ring, pack a bag and stop this thing right in its tracks?

“Do you even like me anymore?” I finally asked the next morning. I was bleary and sick to my stomach and genuinely not sure of what his answer would be.

“Yes, I do. Very much.”

It was all his fault, he said – the one thing I actually already knew for certain. We spent the morning talking it out. But even after he made his most heartfelt apologies, it took me some time to actually accept them. In my head, I couldn’t reconcile what had happened – that he made me doubt everything, and now I just had to let it go. But then, I did. And when I realized I had, that’s when I went home, picked up those blue envelopes, and drove them to the mailbox.

Okay, I thought. I’m in.

Boy, did I miss you guys! I’ve got many things to tell you – like how I spent Thanksgiving in a place called Uncertain, Texas (a bluntly obvious and yet  appropriate metaphor). But first, I wanted to get a little color up on these walls.

of note: I was not involved much (read: at all) in the design aspect of the new page, so please bear that in mind when leaving your two cents in the jar. I believe we’re also collecting two cents on Facebook.