Jolene, is it still raining everywhere you are?
Hey look, Livejournal is back! Huh. I should probably do one of those mirror thingies sometime soon and get my own site or whatever. Because who knows when this sucker (which I love sort of like put up with am just used to using and therefore unwilling to change) will sink like a giant, off-gassed dead squid under the weight of DDOS or whatever attacks and never come back. Er, probably sooner I should do that is what I am thinking.
I did have a post started about my brother Dusty's wedding, and family, and pretty dresses and shoes, and LA, and the travel hell that dogged Scott for the first day and a half of our trip ... but the great squid that hasn't quite off-gassed entirely but still was swamped and starting to go under, AKA this journal, ate it, and it wasn't all that well written anyway. So never mind. I'll just give you the short version.
Scott lost his wallet and phone from one plane to the next, in SFO. They recovered his wallet, but not his phone. We almost missed the connecting flight in dealing with this. Upon arriving in LA, we discovered that his bag never made it onto the first plane. And also his sunglasses broke. Much cursing and grumbling and smiling of the angry smile ensued. Customer service reps were not all that customer servicing. Until a certain angry and disappointed father voice was used. Even then, we still had to miss the rehearsal to shop for emergency clothes for Scott, just in case. Bad GPS directions sent our ride to the emergency clothing shopping place the wrong way, and we ended up 30 minutes further away from where we were supposed to be, dropped off in the middle of some strip malls, with some hope that someone would rescue us. My older brother Quinn, with some difficulty and confusion, finally found us, and we went to the rehearsal dinner. Scott's bag finally made it to our hotel sometime around midnight. The airline people called to tell us it was coming at 1145. I didn't even have the energy to snarl at them.
Yes, that was the short version.
The wedding itself was pretty visually, and the bride was beautiful and Dusty was handsome. The service itself was ... not my cup of tea. The church that Jessica (my new sister-in-law), and now Dusty too, belongs to is evangelical. The homily was patriarchal to say the least. I had difficulty restraining myself from sighing and rolling my eyes. But it was not my wedding, and I sternly reminded myself that if that's how they want to roll, it's their business. Fair warning though, I will never ever go to church with them. I don't think anyone would expect or ask that, but I thought I should just state that for the record. Also for the record, I like Dusty a lot, but I don't think anyone ought to be submitting to him. Just FYI.
The reception was fun, and Jessica had the brilliant idea of a candy table. A table filled with candy. Different types of candy in jars and bowls with scoops, and each guest had a paper bag at their place setting that they could fill up and take home with them. (I've since learned that this is a common thing now, but I've never seen it at a wedding. It was awesome. And so very, very tempting for the small children. But who can blame them?)
As for relatives I don't get to see very often, my aunt Kris, cousin Nicholas, and cousin Alex were there. (Holly and Terry were off to Paris to see Matthew, who just got married and is living there with his French wife, and Amanda, who is, um, just over there or something. Traveling Europe? Working? I don't remember.) (But Holly called while we were at the reception, and the plane she and Terry were supposed to board at odarkthirty am had been delayed, and after something like 12 hours in the airport they were still in LA. STILL. IN. LA. They totally could have come to the wedding. Bad travel day for them, indeed.) And on my dad's side, my aunt Karen flew out, in her own version of travel hell (giant storms in the midwest causing 8 hour delays and such) and was having a good time seeing us nieces and nephews, and her grand nephew Lucas, and hanging out with my mom and dad.
Speaking of Lucas, he is so tall for 6! And a really nice kid, too. He's a little spoiled (The presents, MY GAD, the presents, at his birthday party!) due to being an only child of 6, but not in a mean, cruel way. Just ... when his little brother arrives in November (Vania is 6 months pregnant), he is in for a bit of a shock. But being an only child does mean that he entertains himself relatively quietly (for a 6 year old) a lot of the time, and is utterly adorable humming to himself as he makes every type of toy fight every other type of toy. Because that's what toys are for. They all fight each other. Yes, the random piece of plastic, too. Quinn tells the story that he rented "Iron Man 2" to watch after Lucas had gone to bed, and the next morning he woke up to find a wound-up 6 year old bouncing up and down unable to contain his excitement from the awesome. He loved it so much, he wanted an Iron Man themed birthday party. He got an Iron Man mask as one of his presents. He wanted to wear it in the car ride taking Scott and me to the airport. (He wore it for all of 1 minute, then took it off, and used it to store the other toys he'd brought in the car with him. Which lay next to him on the car seat as he curled over in the shape of a question mark, completely asleep.)
OK, that's a little less short than I intended. But anyway, we came home, travel uneventful, and petted the disgruntled cats. Well, Medea. Millie let me touch her tail in passing. And we've spent the last two weeks dealing with other crises. Like my car dying. There goes $1000! Yay? And paying for a new phone for Scott, because of the irretrievably lost part. And there was the hotel bill, which was expected, but still a big chunk. And the lawn guys actually wanting more money than (I thought) we'd agreed upon. (I feel so awful because I can't understand 65% of what that man says. And I tend to have a good ear for accents. But not his. Apparently. There goes $250 more. Crap.) July is beating us up, money-wise. Stupid July.
BUT, the month is almost over. And August is beginning. And August is awesome, because it has my birthday in it. And my birthday party. And I am going to boogie and eat and boogie and chat and boogie and hug people and boogie and have cupcakes. So there. Go August! Go me! I will be 39 for the first time. I intend to make it a good year.
I did have a post started about my brother Dusty's wedding, and family, and pretty dresses and shoes, and LA, and the travel hell that dogged Scott for the first day and a half of our trip ... but the great squid that hasn't quite off-gassed entirely but still was swamped and starting to go under, AKA this journal, ate it, and it wasn't all that well written anyway. So never mind. I'll just give you the short version.
Scott lost his wallet and phone from one plane to the next, in SFO. They recovered his wallet, but not his phone. We almost missed the connecting flight in dealing with this. Upon arriving in LA, we discovered that his bag never made it onto the first plane. And also his sunglasses broke. Much cursing and grumbling and smiling of the angry smile ensued. Customer service reps were not all that customer servicing. Until a certain angry and disappointed father voice was used. Even then, we still had to miss the rehearsal to shop for emergency clothes for Scott, just in case. Bad GPS directions sent our ride to the emergency clothing shopping place the wrong way, and we ended up 30 minutes further away from where we were supposed to be, dropped off in the middle of some strip malls, with some hope that someone would rescue us. My older brother Quinn, with some difficulty and confusion, finally found us, and we went to the rehearsal dinner. Scott's bag finally made it to our hotel sometime around midnight. The airline people called to tell us it was coming at 1145. I didn't even have the energy to snarl at them.
Yes, that was the short version.
The wedding itself was pretty visually, and the bride was beautiful and Dusty was handsome. The service itself was ... not my cup of tea. The church that Jessica (my new sister-in-law), and now Dusty too, belongs to is evangelical. The homily was patriarchal to say the least. I had difficulty restraining myself from sighing and rolling my eyes. But it was not my wedding, and I sternly reminded myself that if that's how they want to roll, it's their business. Fair warning though, I will never ever go to church with them. I don't think anyone would expect or ask that, but I thought I should just state that for the record. Also for the record, I like Dusty a lot, but I don't think anyone ought to be submitting to him. Just FYI.
The reception was fun, and Jessica had the brilliant idea of a candy table. A table filled with candy. Different types of candy in jars and bowls with scoops, and each guest had a paper bag at their place setting that they could fill up and take home with them. (I've since learned that this is a common thing now, but I've never seen it at a wedding. It was awesome. And so very, very tempting for the small children. But who can blame them?)
As for relatives I don't get to see very often, my aunt Kris, cousin Nicholas, and cousin Alex were there. (Holly and Terry were off to Paris to see Matthew, who just got married and is living there with his French wife, and Amanda, who is, um, just over there or something. Traveling Europe? Working? I don't remember.) (But Holly called while we were at the reception, and the plane she and Terry were supposed to board at odarkthirty am had been delayed, and after something like 12 hours in the airport they were still in LA. STILL. IN. LA. They totally could have come to the wedding. Bad travel day for them, indeed.) And on my dad's side, my aunt Karen flew out, in her own version of travel hell (giant storms in the midwest causing 8 hour delays and such) and was having a good time seeing us nieces and nephews, and her grand nephew Lucas, and hanging out with my mom and dad.
Speaking of Lucas, he is so tall for 6! And a really nice kid, too. He's a little spoiled (The presents, MY GAD, the presents, at his birthday party!) due to being an only child of 6, but not in a mean, cruel way. Just ... when his little brother arrives in November (Vania is 6 months pregnant), he is in for a bit of a shock. But being an only child does mean that he entertains himself relatively quietly (for a 6 year old) a lot of the time, and is utterly adorable humming to himself as he makes every type of toy fight every other type of toy. Because that's what toys are for. They all fight each other. Yes, the random piece of plastic, too. Quinn tells the story that he rented "Iron Man 2" to watch after Lucas had gone to bed, and the next morning he woke up to find a wound-up 6 year old bouncing up and down unable to contain his excitement from the awesome. He loved it so much, he wanted an Iron Man themed birthday party. He got an Iron Man mask as one of his presents. He wanted to wear it in the car ride taking Scott and me to the airport. (He wore it for all of 1 minute, then took it off, and used it to store the other toys he'd brought in the car with him. Which lay next to him on the car seat as he curled over in the shape of a question mark, completely asleep.)
OK, that's a little less short than I intended. But anyway, we came home, travel uneventful, and petted the disgruntled cats. Well, Medea. Millie let me touch her tail in passing. And we've spent the last two weeks dealing with other crises. Like my car dying. There goes $1000! Yay? And paying for a new phone for Scott, because of the irretrievably lost part. And there was the hotel bill, which was expected, but still a big chunk. And the lawn guys actually wanting more money than (I thought) we'd agreed upon. (I feel so awful because I can't understand 65% of what that man says. And I tend to have a good ear for accents. But not his. Apparently. There goes $250 more. Crap.) July is beating us up, money-wise. Stupid July.
BUT, the month is almost over. And August is beginning. And August is awesome, because it has my birthday in it. And my birthday party. And I am going to boogie and eat and boogie and chat and boogie and hug people and boogie and have cupcakes. So there. Go August! Go me! I will be 39 for the first time. I intend to make it a good year.