So I've had to call CitiBank for about the 15th time . . . and I'm usually indefatigably sweet during all of these calls that have to do with their gross inefficiencies as related to my accounts. But yesterday, I lost that sweetness. I had a definite edge in my tone of voice; the kind of edge that says, "What are you? An idiot?" It wasn't pretty.

And I think what pushed me over the edge wasn't the fact that they sent me a letter telling me that they were closing my account for mistakes on their part, nor the fact that they repeatedly gave me misinformation, nor the long periods of time listening to international Muzak, nor even the fact that I was assured last time I called that I didn't have to fax those documents in again. What pushed me over the edge -- I'm pretty sure -- is that I was having to explain and re-explain my account situation and finances to a woman in Bangladesh who can't pronounce "Portland, Oregon."

Please transfer me to someone who speaks English. Thank you.

I'm still getting over that one.

So a wonderful thing has been accomplished. Josh and I have unpacked. I mean, really unpacked. I can't tell you what a nice feeling it is. After we finished painting (and repainting after I realized that I had bought the wrong colors. . . . which explained why the walls looked a little too, uh, pink) we could finally get our stuff out of the boxes and into the closets, onto the shelves, and hung on the walls. Peace has been called out of the land of chaos.

So, anyway, Joshua are unpacked. Woohoo!! Only now we have an unforeseen problem. Let me explain.

My dad has a good friend from work named Tan (prounounced "Tahn") that was married several months before Josh and I. When the Vietnamese get married (at least this is what I've been told) they invite a LOT of people and have huge weddings. And the way it works is that if you were invited to their wedding, they are invited to yours, and vice versa. And all the guests are expected to leave very generous cash gifts on the table of the reception. But everybody does it for everybody, so it all evens out in the end. Or something like that.

Well, my dad and stepmother and brother all went to Tan's wedding -- so Tan and his wife Linda were automatically invited to mine (which I didn't mind at all; they're very nice). As a wedding gift to me, Tan arranged to have one his friends in the (large) Vietnamese community in Portland take our pictures. They were supposed to be pre-wedding pictures with our wedding clothes but 1) we didn't know that until we got there and 2) our clothes weren't ready anyway. So we showed up, embarrassed because we didn't have the right clothes, but we we figured that could be the engagement pictures we never had . . . or something. So we brought different outfits and the very nice photographer took lots of pictures of us. All of them, of course, with one of four distinctly Asian backdrops (moonlit bamboo, for instance).

So for our wedding they printed the photos for us and we put them in a book and had people write in messages to us at the reception and stuff. It was fun and made a very nice keepsake. BUT -- as a bonus they threw in a special photograph of us. That was 2 feet tall and 18" wide. Us: big and in living color.

After the wedding we left it at my dad's house. (Were we going to pack it on the plane? I don't think so.) And when we went to visit my dad and stepmom last night (now that we live so close), Chris, my stepmom, made a special point of digging it out for us and making sure we had it. Now we have it. And that's the problem.

What are we supposed to do with a big photograph of ourselves? (It is nicely airbrushed, though, I have to say). Where are we supposed to put this thing? It is anything but understated and I don't think that egoism matches our existing decor.

Any advice?

moves and removes