Wedding Weekend

I'll get the sad news out of the way first, then talk about all the fun stuff.

Q-tip wasn't around Sunday or Monday and I was starting to get worried because she's always around the house, hoping to slip in the door. Last night she drags herself up the front steps and she's all beat up. Her face looked funny, the right eye mostly swollen shut, cut at the tear duct is pussy, she's not closing her mouth... She sniffed at some food and took a lick or two of water and later some milk but not much; all she seemed to want was loving and to curl up somewhere soft. This morning she demanded attention. Her right eye was now open but obviously badly infected and so was her mouth. (WOW is that some seriously bad morning breath, btw.) She didn't protest one bit when I put her in the car or when we got out at the vet's. On top of the infection she had lost weight, was very dehydrated, and her jaw was broken. (The later probably the primary cause of the former two.) After talking to the vet and considering her age (about 14), I had her put down this morning. If she'd just come home Sunday maybe she'd have been alright. She was such a sweet kitty and her lack of grooming meant she didn't make me itch much. I'll miss her but she had a good life.
OK, done with the sad stuff.

Saturday my nephew got married. OMG, they are all (my nieces and nephews) so grown-up! The bridal couple looked very happy and in love. I managed to not actually bite my tongue or massively roll my eyes when the preacher read and talked about 'man being the head of his family the way Christ is the head of the church...' (I think it should be an equal partnership, regardless of what Paul wrote nearly 2000 years ago.) It was a nice ceremony. The only thing I really would have changed about the reception was the location; the room was too small. The groom's cake was deliciously sinful. The bride seem very sweet with, maybe, a feisty side. (The only problem I see there is that her father's name is "Rob" and we don't need any more Roberts in our family*.) And while I would never wish a baby on a pair of newlyweds they have several months to get used to being married and get settled a bit before my grand-nephew is born. After the wedding, we met at my SIL's parent's place for dinner, my family and hers, which was, as usual, very nice. Lulu, also as usual, cooked a fine meal and Sally made some wonderful brownies served with strawberries and real whipped cream. I was actually chocolated out after that. Then my bros, SIL, niece, and 2 nephews went to Nana Funks (in Lakeview (?), on the recommendation of the bartender at my big brother's hotel). NF has, I believe, the smallest dance floors I've ever seen but we cut a rug and had a good time. I think my nephew's were a little embarrassed by us but they stayed at our table. I decided to sleep at my brother's because after riding back to their house (and my car) the thought of driving almost 1.5 hours home was not appealing.

Sunday was Pentecost and we sang some pretty music and the choir is off all of June. (Yay! no rehearsal tonight!) Later I took Honey to the river for a quick walk and swim. Apparently the river is much more fun than the pond in our yard. Monday was a holiday, too. Officially it is Jefferson Davis' birthday but I was celebrating National Go Barefoot Day, which is appropriate because I stepped on some of glass in my kitchen despite not having broken a glass in months, and may still have a sliver in there. Alternative celebrations for Monday are:

International Children's Day
Festival of Carna (either one works)
Discovery of the Magnetic North Pole
First recorded batch of Scotch Whiskey
the release of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Heart Club Band
Birthday of Marilyn Monroe, Andy Griffith, and Morgan Freedman
Death of James Buchanan, and Helen Keller
(all from the June 1st Wikipedia entry)

So other than the glass and being worried about Q-Tip, it was a good weekend.



*We had 3 RTMs there (Jr., III, and IV/father, brother, nephew); I also have an uncle and several cousins named Robert. At a family reunion if you say "Bob" a quarter of the men turn around.

Wha?

I agree with i09 - someone is missing the point.

"There's really no beer like it because it uses 100 per cent barley. Our top seller is the Black Label brand, using additional ingredients such as rice. This one doesn't, and is really a special beer," said Junichi Ichikawa, managing directory for strategy at Sapporo Breweries.(Telegragh.co.uk)

Okay, I don't really now how much a difference there is in barley beer versus other grain beers (although my nephew tried some rice beer once and didn't like it at all) but I'll except that an all barley beer is special. The thing is the really special part of the beer is:

Sapporo Breweries, one of Japan's major breweries, went on to use the crop of barley grown in space to create 100 litres of a 5.5 per cent proof beer ­ aptly named Space Barley.

I've never developed a taste for beer (besides liquor is quicker;)) but I think I'd have to drink a glass (bottle/can/pint/whatever) of Space Barley. It's made from SPACE BARLEY, how could I resist?

This could be one way for the space station to offset it's maintenance costs. Although to be commercial they'd need a lot more room for crops.

Football injury

Ok, all I did was sit in a stadium for 3.5 hours. My nephew badly twisted his ankle in a vicious tailgating game of catch, but I'm fairly sure I didn't actually hurt myself playing bocce ball.*

My oldest brother, his wife, and children came down this weekend to see the ASU Mountaineers take on the Samford Bulldogs. Yosef was denied his stein but got to keep his shotgun. (Damn that thing is loud. I practically jumped out of my skin for each touchdown.) I had to explain to Rob that it may be a dry campus but guns are perfectly fine. Guns are good wholesome family fun in Alabama (and probably in Boone, NC, too). The Mountaineers kicked ass. 35-24 is a respectable score; it was 35-17 for a good bit of the second half. If they hadn't had so many stupid penalties and turnovers they might have kept the 'dogs to a lower score or got down the field a time or 2 more. Additionally, Rob said this was the first time he'd seen the cheerleaders in normal uniforms. Usually they have to wear warm-ups for the games.

A few thoughts on Samford's stadium and tailgating there. They had these cute little signs in the parking lot (across Lake Shore from the main campus) asking the visiting team to respect their tradition of an alcohol free campus. Sure thing, it really took two coolers to carry all that cream soda and water.:) By the way, you might want to treat those ant beds, not all visitors will be as acquainted with fire ants as locals are. (Like my niece) My high school in VA had a bigger stadium. We had a real 1/4 mile track that went all the way around the field too. I think Hillcrest's band was bigger (and the school had fewer than 500 students at the time). We certainly had more color-guard, but then the color-guard, majorettes, and most of the dance line were made up of the extra woodwind players. (That way at least the marching band was balanced.) Thanks for putting the visitors on the sunny side of the stadium, I needed to work on my farmer's tan. And last, but not least, I'd like to suggest not deflating the dog before the end of the game. It looks really pitiful and leads many jokes during the 4th quarter; these would be on top of the inflatable field house comments throughout the game.

After the game we meet back at my brother's house for another nephew's birthday. He turned 21 yesterday. Hopefully, Nathan won't get too blasted tonight (had to work today but is off tomorrow). He's been there and done that; I think he's smart enough to know it's not much fun to barf up all the beer, et. al. Rob and Kate got him great presents - airplane barf bags. Rob hands him one while saying "I know we're a couple of days early but I want you to use this when you go out Monday." The bag was folded up (from where I was sitting it looked a bit like a bank envelope) so Nathan had no idea what it was at first. Nettie had a really good card, too, although I don't think she fully realized why it was so funny. (Is it sad that all of my nieces and nephews drink more than me? Am I old because they can all do it legally now?)

Anyway - Happy Birthday, Nathan. And remember, it's not nearly as much now that it's legal.


*'boccie' can not be the correct spelling, because that would be pronounced, in Italian, baa-chih-ee (baa-chee-eh?). I don't care if dictionary.com says both are acceptable.

Bars are bad for my sef-esteem

Friday (last night) I went out to have a couple drinks and dance. Primarily to dance but the couple drinks are usually necessary to get me on the dance floor. I’ve wanted to go for a while and there was finally a night when this band I like (my brother was their bassist), and used to go hear often (decent chance of running into people I know), and my Little Sister could go. I’ve gone out a few times on my own and it wasn’t good.

Let me give you a brief history focusing on my love life for the last 10 years.
March 1998 – boyfriend/fiancé of 5 years breaks of our engagement. Spend one year in denial that this could really have happened.
Jan 1999 – Move to Andalusia, AL for job.
Sometime in 1999-2000 - Go on 2 dates with a dork who worked with my brother; 1st was blind, dork had asked Bro to fix us up.
Jan. 2001 – Move back to Tuscaloosa for grad school.
June 2005 – Go out to here my brother’s band and meet their “fan club”.
Oct 2005 – Make out with one of the “fan club” guys (real nice, smart, and cute). I’d had my eye on him for some time.
Late Oct/Early Nov – Learn that I have NO gaydar.
Spring 2006 – Get hit on by an old guy (50ish, no offense to the older set but I’m only 31). Actually contemplate calling him even though there was no chemistry on my part and he probably thought I was easier than I am.

Over the course of the dozen or so evenings I have spent shaking my groove thing at a couple of different bars only two random guys have come up and danced with me - one kind of gave me the creeps and I spent the entire song backing away from him and hoping a friend would come save me; the other I accidentally gave the brush off to by moving forward just as he started dancing behind/with me. I was just moving closer to the stage. Three random guys have talked to me/hit on me - one the owner of the bar (this was a different night than the other two), one a really drunk guy who was nice enough but seemed to think he was bothering me and wandered away when guy #3 walked up, and guy #3 who gave me his number.

Friday, LS and I got to the bar and two of the “fan club” people were there. So I walked over and said hi. We ended up sitting with them, since there wasn’t a pool table open and the band didn’t start for over an hour. Several groups of their friends showed up. The first group were three guys. Only one caught my eye, I’ll call him Sailor (he’s in the Navy).

Sailor hit on LS pretty hard until it became obvious that there was a limit to her flirting since she has a boyfriend. He and one of the others started working on a pair of girls, with whom they were possibly friends/acquaintances already, I don't know. I tried to be flirty. I went over and asked him, and the other two, if one would like to dance when the band started a slow song. Sailor said yes. I think I lost him when he asked how old I was. He said he would have guessed mid/late twenties.

I know I really blew it when later I told him, ‘here you are working hard on those two, just like you did LS, but I’m the easy mark’ and then when asked why I was the easy mark I told how long it has been since I got laid. It is a time period guaranteed to scare off the horniest of guys. (Normally I would, at best, just say it had “been awhile” if it came up at all.) He was nice enough the rest of the night and would have walked me to my car but I didn’t think he’d make it that far (he was having a hard time standing up straight at this point).

So here I was dressed in my best club-wear and up for anything a guy could want to do on the dance floor or saying goodnight at the car. (Because damn it, it has been a long time since I was kissed by anyone, much less someone who likes girls!) The dance floor was packed by midnight and yet there was usually a little empty circle around me.

So why don’t I get hit on? Am I too tall? Not skinny enough? Not pretty enough? Not drunk enough? Too old? Do I have “I crazy, but not in a good way” stamped on my forehead? What?