Childless Adults

"So, how many kids are going to be there again?" I asked Tiffany as we packed on Thursday for a weekend in Cape Cod with some of our best friends and their children.

"Seven, I think," she said.

I considered the number in my head.

"Weren't there seven dogs at Thanksgiving last year?" I asked.

"I don't think it's the same thing," she said.

It's not.

First of all, at last year's Thanksgiving, humans outnumbered dogs 18-7. In Cape Cod, children outnumbered parents 7-6. When you count Tiffany and me, grown-ups outnumbered small people by one sleep-deprived body. But I'm not sure you should count us. Tiffany and I are not parents. We are childless adults. I have a new appreciation for what that means after this weekend. It means:

1) We can go to bed when we want.
2) We can wake up when we want.
3) We can leave when we want.

But we didn't want to do anything without the kids. So we went to bed late and got up early and didn't walk out the door without holding the hand of or carrying someone's child.

As non-parents, Tiffany and I are extra cautious. Whenever we left one child to attend to another, we made an official hand-off to a mom or dad:

"Molly, your son is sitting in your car in the driveway with headphones on. The keys may or may not be in there with him."

"John, does your daughter eat sand?"

"Darren, your son took his pants off. Again."

"Bobby, your daughter tried to pee in her bathing suit behind that tree. You might want to get a hose. And some soap."

"Teresa, your youngest is starting his 1,000th ascent of the hard wooden stairs."

"Megan, your youngest bit that one."

Releases of liability aside, the truth is, we had a blast. When Tiffany and I got back to the relative calm of Manhattan (we aren't in charge of anyone here), it felt weird to just hold each other's hand as we walked to dinner. When we came out of the restaurant, I saw a baby in a stroller and had to think for a second:

"Am I partially responsible for making that baby smile?"

And I was kind of sad that I wasn't, so I made a funny face at her anyway.

"C" is for Cookie...

"I bet Brandon hated you when you were little," Tiffany said the other night while we were eating our dessert on the couch.

She was looking at my plate, which I had balanced on my knees.

"Why?" I asked. Then I looked at her plate. "Ohhhhhh."

Tiffany only had one bite of her Peruvian cookie left. And by left, I mean, the bite on her plate was the only bite she had left in this country. Her aunt had brought the cookie over on her most recent trip and wouldn't be returning any time soon. I had my entire Peruvian cookie, plus most of the frozen banana we had split in two. I was eating the banana first because, although it was delicious, the Peruvian cookie was much better. I'm a big believer in self-deprivation, as you might have guessed by now. (And, yes, "hate" is a strong word, but my brother was bothered that I could make my Halloween candy last until Valentine's Day)

"I am slow," I agreed, proceeding to eat my banana slice by slice before moving onto my cookie. This I pulled apart and ate bite by bite, in between sips of milk.

"Come on," Tiffany groaned.

"I'm savoring!" I cried.

Soon I forgot my slow eating was driving her crazy, fascinated as I was by "So You Think You Can Dance" (for the record, I do not think I can).

When I ate my last bite, I felt a little sad, as I always do.

But I felt much worse when Tiffany yelled: "YES! I knew I could do it!" and then popped her remaining cookie morsel into her mouth.

Sunny Days

Tiffany and I went to visit my brother and some friends in Florida last weekend. As usual, I got too much sun (see here and here). I didn't realize just how much I'd gotten until Tiffany and I went into the bathroom to brush our teeth together before our early morning flight home.

When I looked up from applying toothpaste to my toothbrush, Tiffany was staring at my reflection in the mirror.

"What?" I asked.

"Your..." she tried to finish her sentence, but burst out laughing. "Your... look at your..."

"Oh my god, my lips!" I yelled, when I saw what she was talking about. They were huge. I looked like Goldie Hawn after her collagen injection in the movie First Wives Club.

"'Mustafa!'" I said to Tiffany in the mirror, puckering my mouth at her.

Soon we were both giggling, and that's how Brandon found us when he came out of his bedroom.

"What is going on... oh my god, your lips!" he cried.

"Don't tell mom," I warned him, pointing my toothbrush at him.

Then we all laughed until I had to stop because the skin on my lips was cracking. It was easy to stop because leaving my brother makes me so sad.

But later we had to laugh again when Tiffany--my Greek/Peruvian sun goddess--realized how burnt her back was.

"You did a horrible job putting block on my back," she complained.

I looked at her, confused.

"Did I put sunscreen on your back?"

"Oh my god, no wonder!" she cried. "Nobody was looking out for me!"

"Mustafa," I answered. 

If It Isn't Heaven, It's...

Tiffany and I are pretty good in a car (see the posts on our epic cross-country move here).

But we disagree on the rules of a roadtrip. Specifically, she feels that the passenger should never be allowed to sleep, under any circumstances, while the car is in motion. I disagree. The advantages of having two drivers include having the chance to take a nap when you are not driving, which I did on a recent Sunday when we drove back from New Hampshire.

"Are you sleeping?" Tiffany cried.

"Huh?" I asked, jumping in my seat.

"I was waving my hand in front of your face, and you didn't even flinch!"

"Yes, I was sleeping! That's what you get to do when you're not driving. As the driver, you get to control the radio."

She was not persuaded.

"Let's play a game," she chirped.

But, soon after we began 20 Questions, playing a game became troublesome too.

"I'm thinking of a person..." I started.

"Is the person famous?"

"No."

"Then what's the point of picking this person?" she complained.

During her turn, she thought of a place.

"Is it in the United States?" I asked.

"No," she answered.

"Is it in another country?"

"No."

"Impossible," I said, then: "Is it in Outer Space?"

"No."

"What?? What kind of a place... wait, a minute... have I been there?"

"You may get there eventually," she said.

I narrowed my eyes.

"Is it heaven?"

She shook her head, smiling.

Hell.

Dignity

The cab driver gestured to the back of his SUV.

"Yeah, I think you're right," I said. "It fits."

He shook his head. We weren't really speaking the same language.

He began gesturing again, pointing at me, then the back of his SUV.

"Ahhh," I said. "Oh, you want me to sit back here...with that?"

I waved my hand at the desk we'd just purchased and crammed into the back-back of his car, eliminating his actual back seats.

He nodded vigorously.

As a kid, I loved riding in the back-back of our Jeep. It felt like an adventure, even if we were just going to the grocery store. 

But, at 31, I have standards. And dignity to maintain. You know, the kind of dignity you maintain while standing on Broadway trying to hail a cab with an Ikea desk you bought from a girl who just graduated from college.

I looked at Tiffany. She shrugged and headed toward the front seat.

I crawled into the back-back underneath our desk.

"Yes, ma'm," the cabbie said, pleased.

Crossing Manhattan takes a long time on a Friday night. Twisted up between the legs of our desk, I caught up on lots of emails and posted a status update on Facebook. I even texted Tiffany, concerned at the hardship she was facing up there in an actual seat, with air conditioning.

"Look in your rear view mirror," I typed.

"What am I supposed to be seeing?" she answered.

"My hand!" I responded. I was waving my hand like a maniac through the crack between our desk drawer and the right rear door, trying to catch her eye.

"Can't see anything," she wrote. "Tinted windows."

I sighed and turned around to find the man in the car behind me staring through our rear windshield, which was not, like all the other windows in our cab, tinted.

I gave him a little wave. 

Dignity be damned.

Home Sweet... Wait a Minute...

Of all the things I don't do well, being wrong is what I'm best at being bad at.

Unfortunately, I'm wrong a lot.

Even, it turns out, about which apartment building I belong in.

We live in a dark brown brownstone on a street with approximately three other dark brown brownstones (and other light brown ones, pinkish ones, greyish ones, etc.). For the first few months, it was easy to tell which building was ours (Apart from looking at the address. That's too easy.) because there was a bike chained up out front. But, once the weather improved, whoever owns that bike must have gotten on it and decided not to come back because all that's left is the lock.

Sometimes, I go up the wrong stairs and even into the wrong vestibule before I realize I'm not actually home.

Take, for instance, the other day when Tiffany and I got into a fight on our run.

It went something like this:

(heading out of Central Park onto a certain street)

Me (exhausted): "Why are we going this way?"

Tiffany: "Why does it matter?"

Me: "Because my way is faster."

Tiffany: "But why does it matter?"

Me: (silent treatment)

By the time we made it to our street, I was a few angry paces ahead, so I was first to slow to a stop and walk (read: stomp) up our stairs.

"Where are you going?" Tiffany called, as she walked past me to our real stairs.

Why does it matter?

Candy-Coated Is Forever

It's official.

Tiffany and I are getting married.

Yes, yes, I know. It's been months since I proposed and put a ring on it. But that all seems a little flimsy now that Tiffany's cousin put a picture of us on hundreds of pink and white M&Ms and served them at an engagement party in our honor.

Forget all that stuff about melting (in your mouth, not your hands), nothing says forever like having your joint-likeness on pieces of candy-coated chocolates.

I didn't even know engagement parties existed until I became engaged. I'm not sure if that's because the few married friends I treasure didn't have engagement parties or if it's because the few married friends I have treasure me so little they didn't invite me to their engagement parties, but, in any case, I did not know what they were.

I knew about showers, bachelor/ette parties, and weddings.

At first, I was nervous about the engagement parties our families threw for us (we wanted to get married to throw a party for all of them!). It turns out they're wonderful. Mostly, when Tiffany and I tell people we're engaged, all anyone wants to know is when we're getting married. Never mind that it took eight years to get where we are.

But an engagement party is all about gathering to celebrate the incremental marital accomplishment of asking (and answering). We're lucky to have so many people we love and who love us back cheering us on.

Also, I feel especially grateful to have leftover bags of candy with our faces on it.