 Catching Up |
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This is a very catch uppy kind of an entry. On Friday night, I went to a rehearsal dinner with J. for the wedding in which he stood as the best man. I gorged myself on some kind of shrimp pasta and cheesecake and chardonnay while he made speeches and ran slide shows. There was no room for us at the big tables so we sat alone at a tiny table where the guestbook was. We were like the kids in trouble. We went to ZZ's after, I think, and ran into Jack and Kak and had a joyous reunion. We made asses of ourselves, I'm sure, covering Kak's greatest hits (she is a very Phoebe-esque songwriter) and some old Air Supply favorites with no regard to our volume. We walked over to Duvic's for cosmopolitans but I ended up having a white Russian with Stoli Vanil. My shirt was sparkly. Saturday morning, I was hungover and mowed the front lawn in an act of contrition. I headed to the wedding, got completely lost (Coursey Boulevard might as well be in a foreign land), snuck in the back, and didn't watch one moment of the ceremony. Is that evil? I basically watched my fingernails. Lame, but true. The reception was fun. I drank lots of mimosas and was somehow roped into the chicken dance against my will. J.'s mom took 8,000 pictures and of course we struck the traditional prom pose for one of them. And you will all be proud to know that there was no hooking up. I left at about 3:30 to meet my sister for tailgating for the first game. We walked around campus, stopping to talk to various people we knew and fixing ourselves Crown and Sprites at her co-worker's husband's law firm's makeshift bar after we finished our margaritas. I am excited about tailgating because frankly it's just debauchery at its finest, even better than Mardi Gras sometimes, because at least your shoes don't get covered in party gravy and lots of times if you know how to mooch it the drinks are free. We made it to our seats just in time for kick-off, and right after the announcer said his usual cry of that there was no chance of rain the skies opened up. Luckily someone shared her poncho with us or we might have been swept off of the Nosebleed section and tossed into the wind. For the first time ever, the lightning was so ferocious that the players were cleared from the field and the game was delayed. We took this as a sign that we should walk to the Ch1mes. The rain didn't last long, but we were soaked from head to toe. We ran into Jack and Kak again and sat with them, enjoying a few beers and some shrimp and corn soup. I do so enjoy being out on a game night. Everyone is festive and lively and in this case, quite wet, but it didn't deter from the good spirits. Having no ride, we decided to walk to my sister's apartment. In retrospect, this was not a wise decision, but it wasn't as bad as it might seem. The worst part was slogging around in wet socks and sneakers which felt like they weighed about fifteen thousand pounds apiece. The sky was clear after the rain and the lakes were quiet, and somehow, although I clutched my pepper spray faithfully, I wasn't scared out of my mind on the dark walk home. Forty-five minutes later, we arrived and soon thereafter I was home and lying in the bathtub with my lemon grass ginger bubble bath soaking my sore-assed feet. Go team! Then on Sunday, my grandmother died. And that was my weekend.  And here are my new sneakers, or trainers as I like to call them in manner of Marcus in "About a Boy" and perhaps all British people. I like them because they are called "supernova cushion" and that is clearly an allusion to the Liz Phair song "Supernova." And I will run so fast that I will be like these lyrics: A solar superman You're an angel with wings afire A flying, giant friction blast Just kidding! Okay, I just looked up the lyrics to this song and I had NO IDEA that this line was: "And your lips are sweet and slippery like a cherub's bare wet ass." BWAH! I thought she was saying they were as sweet and slippery as something to do with a champagne glass! You've gotta love Liz Phair. I went out this morning, walked for ten minutes, ran (and I use the term "ran" loosely) for seven minutes, practically keeled over, walked for five more minutes, and went home. I felt dorky in my blindingly white trainers and tried to step in some grass and mud to make them look a little less wussy. I encountered many lovely walkers, runners, and dogs along the way, including a little black dog with a white chest who lurks around my street all the time who looks sweet and pretty but who always trots away when I come near who used to limp a lot but now he seems okay and he's clearly a stray but he's so lovely that I simply cannot befriend him under any circumstances. In apology for not being able to attend her wedding on Saturday, and really, I still cannot believe that I cannot go, it's mind-boggling, yesterday I sent my friend something from Shari's Berries (thanks for the idea, mo pie) and from what I've heard, the strawberries and cookies were a hit. "They're covered! In chocolate! And white chocolate! And ... almonds!" my friend exclaimed breathlessly. So consider them endorsed. I had wanted to send the package to their hotel room, but apparently what with their getting married on an ISLAND, there would have been some delivery issues. So they got them early. I am considering ordering some for myself, frankly. They kind of sound irresistable. (There will probably be another entry up later today with some thoughts on the wedding.) And this week has been a flurry of obituary organizing (so. many. papers.) and trying to write the prayers of the faithful which I was assigned to read. I delivered my first draft to my mom last night and she laughed and cried, explaining that you can't just write "beautiful prose" and then slap a "let us pray to the lord; lord, hear our prayer" in between every couple of paragraphs and call it prayers of the faithful. Hopefully she will fix it. She wanted to cut out one big part and give it to the bishop for his homily, and I said fine. Even though it was my favorite part. Whatever! A funeral is no time to be quibbling over authorship. Last night my parents called my aunt in a panic because they noticed that the bishop's name was misspelled in the program and that "Ave Maria" was listed as a song in three separate places, and my dad kept barking, "Bach! Use the BACH!" in the background because he still gets very offended when people do the Handel because of the screw up at their wedding which he almost interrupted when the wrong version was played. Anyway. Last night I ate blueberry muffins and some kind of powdery sugary cake delivered by well-wishers and sympathizers and listened to all of this madness while I backed up all of my parents' files onto some CDs because their computer is so fried that my dad just wants the store to rip everything off and start over. I tried to explain that his mp3s can just be downloaded again but he insisted that I burn him a very special back up CD with lots of Andy Williams, John Gary, Joni Mitchell, Paul Simon, and Phantom of the Opera songs on it. And my favorite cousin is flying down from Yale and my other cousin somehow fixed his ticket to get him home early from Las Vegas and people are coming from California and Texas and Georgia and all over, really. It's going to be a massive caravan to the cemetary which is more than three hours away. OY. The siblings and I are going to have to do some serious CD planning to make the ride bearable. Luckily we all like the same kind of overwrought music so it shouldn't be a problem. If nothing else, we can always agree on the Stealing Home soundtrack. How embarrassing, but what fun.
© Copyright 2003 elb |
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