Genevieve

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another weekend at the races...
2002-06-04 - 1:36 p.m.

Hello my faithful readers...

I had a fabulous weekend, of mostly relaxing, and some getting dirty.

Friday I ran around town for my final fitting for my dress, picking it up, running to Ellicott City to apply for and pick up Marriage License, then over to Oakland to go over stuff with their folks and give them a big fat check, then over to the chiropractor, then to the grocery store and finally home. I also did a little bit of impromtu shopping for shoes and Matt and Erin's wedding present. My timing was impecable as I arrived home as Bob and Laura were getting out of the miata.

Yes, the pinnacle of the evening was that Laura had a dinner party urge, and we had empty stomachs. So she was kind enough to make dinner and bring it over to our place where we ate in our dining room at the dining table like civilized folks. It was ideal, we got to be in the luxury of our own home (piles and all), Laura got to get over her dinner party urge without cleaning her place, and she got to test our new appliances, revel in the non-small kitchen of the new place (when compared to the old place) and Alan and I only had to clean up. We all felt we got the better part of the deal, and that's what really matters. Then we beached around the family and living rooms, occasionall nibbling at dessert before retiring for the evening.

Saturday morning came and I read a bit in the morning and Alan decided it was time to remove the shrubs at the base of the drive way. Uh, okay, I'll help. So I put on an old Tshirt and shorts and slipped on some shoes to see what I could do. We started by taking the motorcycle straps and wrapping them around the first shrub. The theory here was to condense them, or something. We clipped away at the lower branches to gain access to the trunks to fell them. This mostly worked. By the end we crammed most of the shrub pieces in the truck and took the rest up to the brush pile at the top of the hill behind the house. We were both covered in dirt, pieces of juniper, and such and attempt to rinse off briefly with the hose in the backyard. I go make Alan a sandwich and grab a bottle of water for him and he heads off to the transfer station to dump the load.

Note, we only got one shrub down and completely filled the truck and had extra to add to our brush pile. I head inside, take a shower, grab something to eat and sit and read some more. Alan arrives back from the transfer station and has a beer sitting and contemplating when we are gonna have time to take down the other shrub. We decide that it only took an hour and a half to take down the first one, and we have 3 hours til we need to head up for the wedding, so we suit back up, in my case, and get to work on the other shrub.

Since I had already washed my hair and scrubbed my irritated skin, I put on a baseball cap, sweatpants instead of shorts and a longer sleeved old shirt. This time we skipped the motorcycle strap idea and just worked together me pruning off the smaller branches so Alan could reach the larger ones. He also took the saw off the pole saw and used the lopper to break off some medium sized branches which means we didn't have to be as far under the bush. This went much faster.

And then we discovered the small nest of yellow jackets. Meep! We didn't get stung thanks to our flight reflex, but this did present a bit of a problem. While waiting for them to calm down we discussed the idea of leaving half a shurb as a topiary on drugs, and also made the large branches we had taken off smaller. Due to my prompting Alan finds wasp and bee killer spray in the mess that is the garage and has just enough to kill off the small nest of little buggers. Yay! Better living thru chemicals. After the yellow jacket-icide we went about taking down the rest of the shrub and stuffing the truck full and cleaning up a bit around it. At this time we crammed the tailgate and back of Rhett closed and left the hauling of said brush to transfer station until Sunday morning, and went to shower, again for me. Yay! Evil overgrown ugly shrubs is gone!

We arrive half an hour early to pick up Mike and Kirsten since they never got the message on cell phone I left for them. Oh well. We got to visit with her dad, a very pleasant fellow while they got ready to head off to the wedding. We also had the joy of harrassing Max a bit before leaving her with Mama and Papa Niemann. We make it to Wilminton, DE in 1.5 hours from Columbia, find the church and still have an hour to grab some food. We try out a pizza place and use the opportunity to get a little wine or beer in us before the ceremony and dessert reception. We arrive at the wedding after dinner and are the last folks seated before the ceremony starts. Talk about good luck. They take us to the front, which was slightly disconcerting, but we got great seats! The boys looked so cute and dashing in their tuxes, and the girls lovely in lavendar. Erin was, of course, a vision in ivory with a gorgeous dress, and lovely long tulle veil. And the cake was rocking! I got to spend a bunch of time just chatting with Genie and the groom and making sure they got one good pic of Susie by distracting her from the photographer... And using her polite nature to not turn away from me while I was talking to her. hee hee hee... Susie and Genie both looked ravishing in red, by the way. All in all, we had a grand time and then Alan, Mike, Kirsten and I headed back to the DC metro area. I had M&K back to her folks house before midnight, and Alan and I crashed in bed as soon as we got home.

Sunday morning, Alan got up and took the second shrub pieces to the transfer station and I got up to go grocery shopping for brunch. We wanted to do brunch with Mike and Kirsten, but since they had Max, we had a tough time coming up with a place that would be dog friendly. So we decided to do it at our place, and therefore could visit as long as we wanted to and not have to lock the dog up in the car or something. Max and Mike got to see the new place and chase enough other around the house like animals. We got to sit and have a nice brunch of bagels, salmon, muffins, fresh strawberries, coffe and tea. It was lovely. Afterwards I said my goodbyes and headed off to Katie's birthday party at the Muvico.

See, I couldn't miss Katie's party, but wanted to do brunch, so I compromised. Showed up a few minutes before the movie, freshly fed, and got to sit next to Mel while we watching Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron! Now, it is no big secret that most girls grow up loving horses. After books like Black Beauty and the Black Stallion and movies like National Velvet and the last Unicorn, it's only natural. I was lucky and even got to take horseback riding lessons, went to a few shows, got a few ribbons, and grandpa even had a few ponies for us to play with on the farm. Keeping this in mind, and that I was unwilling to subject Alan to this movie, I loved it. It was not painfully Disney with talking animals and such. But it showed a bit of the crap horses had to put up with as part of the conquering of the Wild West. Being captured, and broken, and being beasts of burden, and everything. And they did horsey communication through whinneys and snorts and grunts instead of speaking english. The only spoken bits that weren't human was Spirit's thoughts. It was very well done, I thought. I'll buy it when it comes out. Bryan Adams did the music, and it went very well with the movie. I'm a sucker, I loved it.

After the movie, Mel gave me two of the CD's she's compiled for the reception music on Sat, and I headed home. The CD's are faboo and Mel is da bomb! Already listened to them at work and got complements and quizzical looks. The best! Then I read the rest of my book, and watched the King of Texas on TNT. Nice, lovely relaxing weekend, mostly at home. I need more of these.

4 days til the wedding. It'll be lovely. Really. And think of how relaxing my life will seem when it is all over with. Kirsten already asked me what I was gonna do with my free time after the wedding is over. Sadly, I had an answer for her for the next project in the queue...

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