Two weddings and a cookout

I know I've been absent from the blogscene for almost two weeks now, and I apologize (but come on, you didn't really miss me, did you?). But seriously, this has been a busy couple days, as I have been out:

1. Getting into a fight with Ben about the Cavs
2. Attending a wedding in Syracuse for Ben's cousin
3. Attending a second wedding less than 24 hours later back in Ohio for my good friend Marita
4. Eating too much food at a cookout at my parents' house
5. Booking an oboe trio to play at my wedding
6. Harrassing Ben about getting his save-the-date info together

and so on.

The weddings were of particular interest (although I'm sure there are some of you out there that would love to hear the particulars of my fight with Ben, which ended with me sobbing about how Sasha Pavlovic is purposefully trying to sabotage our chances at success), because they were the last two weddings I will ever attend as a single person, so I was trying really hard to inconspicuously take note of every single detail.

I did learn, at Ben's cousin's wedding, that Puerto Rican-style dancing is really fun to watch, but really, really difficult to do, especially when there's no alcohol involved. It also strengthened my resolve to not do the dollar dance, because surely no one would dance with me, and I would have to do the Carlton on the dance floor just to avoid looking unloved.

And at Marita's wedding, I learned that Marita does everything way cooler than me, and my wedding will look like a BBQ at the state park in comparison. And I learned that too much alcohol mixed with a lot of jumping up and down is not good for you.

All in all, an excellent weekend, especially since I got to meet Ben's family, who were totally awesome and really, really funny (and they laughed at my dumb jokes, which is a sure way to gain my trust). And of course much love to Marita and Chris, who (curiously enough) did the Carlton by dancing the wedding party dance to Sugarhill Gang's "Apache."

Congratulations, Kathy and Jose and Marita and Chris! Now, don't mind me as I shamelessly copy all your wedding secrets.

Done and undone

Done:

• Called Direct Loans re: student loan default letter. No answer, but I'm not as worried anymore, as I now have the letter in my possession, and have found that it doesn't actually have my name on it anywhere, meaning it was probably just mailed to the wrong person. Will begin obsessively calling tomorrow at eight a.m., just to make sure.

• Purchased corset for wedding. Not as easy as it sounds, as it also included a quest to find the apparently no longer open Solomon's Corset Shop, famous in Cleveland for its excellent corsets and mean employees who tell you your bra is wrong and saggy, even if it is made of cast iron. Ended up at David's Bridal, where I also bought my veil. The only downside-- my mom had to see my boobs. Gross.

• Washed and dried four loads of laundry, although sadly, got purple fabric softener spots over 80% of the whites.

• Wrote two new columns to send to the Dispatch while doing the ill-fated laundry

• Watched season finale of The Office-- twice! Anyone who wants to begin obsessively discussing the season premiere should contact me immediately.

• Harrassed Ben about making his guest list.
  

Undone:

• Did not mail save the date cards, as one half of guest list is missing.

• Did not upload new songs to MP3 player in an effort to get it to stop playing the same songs over and over and over again.

• Did not ride bike.

• Did not sign and mail contract for oboe trio for ceremony as promised.

• Did not return Netflix.

• Did not begin rereading Harry Potter series, despite looming release date of book seven.

Good news/Bad news/Weird news

Good news: Despite rumors to the contrary, I have easily conquered the mail merge, effortlessly producing beautiful labels on clear sticky paper to be applied to my awesome, awesome save the date cards. (By "easily conquered," I mean "conquered after seven tries." But still!



Bad news: According to my parents, I have received a vaguely threatening letter from school, stating that I have defaulted on my student loans. First of all, let me state categorically that I have NOT defaulted on my student loans. I have, in fact, made every payment early since the first one in November 2004. This does not, however, stop me from having terrifying thoughts of somehow having not been informed about some clause stating that I needed to hand-deliver each and every copy of my cancelled checks to the registrar's office in that horrible building on-campus that smelled like sweat and pencil shavings, and that now, I owe the school some catastrophically high amount of money that will prevent me from taking a proper honeymoon, and I will end up spending it in Hershey, PA.

Good news: the Cavs won, which must mean that they are not pissed that I called their playing pathetic. This is probably a good sign that LeBron will, in fact, be attending my wedding, and bringing a totally awesome gift, and probably high-fiving me, at which point I will pee my pants.

Bad news: My MP3 player (which, Frisby, is 1G SanDisk Sansa) is still only playing the same songs-- fortunately, it has selected new ones, as I was getting really tired of fucking "Bad Day." The list is now:

• The Real Slim Shady, Eminem
• Stacy's Mom, Fountains of Wayne
• Seven Nation Army, The White Stripes
• Ready to Go, Republica
• We Can Work It Out, Stevie Wonder (still)

Weird news: Two girls at work witnessed a chipmunk attack and behead a bird, which I thought very odd, as chipmunks are supposed to be vegetarian, forcing me to worry that the chipmunk has rabies, and might charge out at me at any time and gnaw on my ankle, turning me into a rabid monster a la Teacake in Their Eyes Were Watching God, and someone will have to shoot me.

Kim smash!

So, my happiness level has decreased dramatically since my last post, due mostly to hormones (currently, my normal, happy self has been swallowed deep into the belly of an evil, raging monster who earlier today compared one of her co-workers unfavorably to a ball of yarn). Luckily for all involved, I did not Blog While PMSing (BWP), and have allowed myself to mellow out from Super Angry to Generally Pissed Off. About what, you ask? A number of things:

1. As I type this, the Cavs are losing in a most spectacular fashion. I don't have the sound on, but I imagine that they're just playing the audio track of one of the cameramen's daughter's middle school intramural games. It would probably sync up very nicely to the action.

2. No matter how many new songs I put on it, my MP3 player insists on playing only the following songs, again and again and again:

• End of the Movie, Cake
• Bad Day, Daniel Powter (I am the only person still to have this on their MP3 player, right?)
• We Can Work It Out, Stevie Wonder
• Zoot Suit Riot, Cherry Poppin' Dadies
• Jesus Walks, Kanye West

3. The railings on the stairs leading to the front door of my office building have been removed, and these vaguely ominous silver speed bumps have been put up along the stairs, ostensibly to prevent skateboarders from using our parking lot for their illicit purposes. I'm actually torn on this, because it seems sort of fascist, but also, I believe all skateboarders secretly make fun of me whenever I walk by.

4. Jaslene won America's Next Top Model, despite the fact that she is a man.

5. The dog went and slept on my pillow after a long walk in the rain, and now my pillow reeks of wet dogness.

6. Every time I tried to get a book from the shelf at the library today, a weird old man in a Lake County Captains raincoat magically appeared and wanted the same book. Or else he wanted me to look at his ween. I was not willing to find out.

7. In general, all people, everywhere, are annoying (except for you, my faithful blog readers, who are cool and understanding of my Incredible Hulk-esque tranformation, and know in your hearts that I will become a functional member of society again within a few short days).

In conclusion, someone needs to invent something, other than wine, to which I am allergic, that can free me from this hormone driven beast! Please, do something! Before I start bitch-slapping nuns and kicking the invalid!

NOTE: LeBron James just got hurt, probably because I wrote something crappy about the Cavs. I am the worst person ever.

Happy Happy Joy Joy

Things haven't been too exciting around here (with the exception of Amy's big 30th birthday blowout), so I apologize for my lack of bloggyness. But, I have exciting news-- I crossed the 20,000 hit threshold yesterday! Because I am a gigantic web-counter whore, this obviously makes me very happy.

Other things that have been making me happy lately:

*My super-sleuthing skills, which led me to find Amy D., long-lost trombone hero (p.s.: Amy, I sent you an e-mail at your [probably very old] yahoo account-- write me back, or else.

*TiVo's sudden, intense desire to tape old episodes of the cartoon classic Home Movies, which is about the greatest show ever made.

*That commercial where Dwyane Wade tells Charles Barkley that his old short shorts make him look "sexxxy."

*The imminent arrival of the sample of my save the date cards, which is totally going to blow your mind with its sheer awesomeness.

*The smiling, non-thuggy pictures of my favorite Cavaliers (I have a problem with athletes who feel the need to look like they want to beat the shit out of me in their team photos):

*The fact that I had a column in the Dispatch last Wednesday-- it didn't run online, but e-mail me and I'll send you a scan of the article if you're in the market for funny shit involving the name Mojo and mounted police.

I don't know why, but I am totally, totally obsessed with uncovering the identity of the trombone commenter. And I feel the only way to do this is with a set of overly long lists.

The following is a list of every single person I know that plays the trombone (as far as I know):

• My grandpa
• My dad
• My Aunt Emily
• Cristin
• Randy
• Jordy
• Travis
• John
• Justin
• Dana
• A different John
• Eddie
• Brian
• Becca
• Beth
• Drew
• Nathan
• Kelly
• Adam
• Jared
• Marty
• Vern
• Amy D.
• Amy B. (for like 15 minutes)
• Mike
• Rich
• Jena
• Some other people in jazz ensemble that I totally forget right now
• Hank
• Dan
• Yet another John

From this list, I can deduce that:

1. I know A LOT of people who play the trombone.


2. If your name is John, you are highly likely to learn to play the trombone.


3. More dudes play trombone that girls.


4. Of the nine girls on this list, one is my aunt who does not know of the existence of this blog (as far as I know), three likely don't remember that I exist, one only played trombone one in one concert, just to piss somebody off, and two have left comments under their own names, meaning they are not the person who left the comment on my trombone blog.


5. This leaves only two choices (unless there is YET ANOTHER person out there who plays the trombone that I know and yet cannot name): Cristin, or Amy D.

Am I right? Did I do it? I would be so freaking proud of myself if I solved this. I would probably go around boasting of my Columbo-esque powers of deduction. Which is way hot.

Anyway, mystery trombonist, whoever you are, I'm really excited to find out your identity. And don't worry, I could never consider you a foe-- any trombonist is a friend of mine.

Which is sort of depressing, really.