Despite All My Rage I am Still Just a Rat in a Butt

Thjs entry is titled in honor of one of the significant moments of the bachelor party which I entirely forgot to mention, that being the Dobs' contributions. The Dobs always has at least one or two contributions at any event, especially those where intoxicants are involved and the rare form of the pure Dobs brilliance is in full effect. Dobs was out of whichever poker tourney happened to be going on at the time and, sitting on the lower half of the bunk bed realized that it was a cage like structure. Hence the immortal, depsite all my rage I am still just a Dobs in a cage. You have to deliver it in Dobs style vocal patters to get the truly humorous aspect involved but you get the drift. His other moment of glory came a little later, in another tournament. The only concession to the classic bachelor party mode of naked chicks was Andy's insistence that we use naked lady playing cards in the tourney. Andy K was of course also the only person who spent significant amounts of time ogling the cards and, if I would have studied them a little further to pay attention to the features of each, probably gave away his hand based on how he looked at his hole cards. The term hole cards gains entirely new meaning when you realize that of the two decks which were in use one was a standard Dream Girls set, featuring strip club style girls with their tops off, some butt shots, etc. The other deck was like some grotesque hustler version with alot of cards just featuring (hmm, how to say this in a manner which will not bother my wife, the connundrums ensue...) extreme close ups of genitalia often spread like Parkay on a warm dinner roll. (that should work). Anyway, after taking a big drag off the Jerome Baker (free JB!!) device in circulation Dobs deal came around. Classic poker narrator he is, in true Phil Gordon fashion, he revealed "The turn is the FIVE OF AYASSS!!"

In a way, the turn is always the five of ass. But thats another story. We resume our story later Friday morning, I awoke early as planned, but most people had sobered up and departed before that time. The campsite was clean for the most part, which certainly made my life easier. What made my life slightly more difficult was that my bro, Maroney, Sanjay, Dobs, and Andy were the only people around, and only two cars amongst them. My bro was not easy to awake, reasonably enough, since I imagine he had been asleep for only a very small amount of time. I finally convinced him to take me home around 10:00, though Katie was, also reasonably, not very pleased with my tardiness. After getting stuck behind a train in St. Paul (for like 20 minutes no less, a fucking train in St. Paul on the fucking street, what the fuck, this is what bridges are for by the way, I am all for using trains and shit, and I tolerate having to wait for them in Rosemount or areas even further ruralized, but in the fucking city, ricockulous, I felt like I should have just turned the horse and buggy around before realizing that we were not, in fact, in the old west, (or to make matters more interesting and Will Smith-like, the Wild Wild West) but still St. Paul. irregardless...) I made it home as Katie was on her way to get the all important pre-wedd manicure. I talked to Carole for a bit and grabbed a couple extra zs. We had some preparation still to do, placecards, programs, etc. But we had a fairly relaxing afternoon. Leading up to the rehearsal and corresponding dinner, to begin that evening at 5:30.

Truth be told there were some complications I was not entirely sure would be resolved by the time the rehersal was to start. At some point I hope I can let everybody know a little more about what those were, but believe me when I say that I was thoroughly relieved that they were no issue. The rehearsal was interesting, though fairly short in itself. Wilking was late and I think Father Malone was a little pissy about it, though he was pretty much doing us a favor by even being there. I also don't think he realized how generally goofy funloving our gang can be. Regardless, we went through the motions a couple times, had some humorous moments regarding people's inability to hit their marks etc. A sad and frightening note involved Natalie, who was a victim of what sounds like a not very fun car accident (not that there are many of the amusing variety) and was unable to make it. Our thoughts were certainly with her. We wrapped it up at Mac and headed out to downtown St. Paul for the dinner at the Landmark Center. The place is the old St. Paul courthouse, located right on Rice Park accross from the Ordway and the St. Paul Hotel. We eventually found a place to park and trudged up three flights of stairs to a beautifully renovated old courtroom, apparently the one Dillinger was tried in in Minnesota. The event was catered by Cossetta's which Katie and I both thought was a great choice, though neither of us realized how well it would go over. The food was fantastic, a ceasar salad, a grilled vegetable platter, their famous mastacolli con ricotta, chicken parmesan, and last but without question not even approaching least, my favorite Cosetta's dish, the tiramisu. I believe I had three servings of dessert. Katie had at least 3 servings, if not three bottles, of wine, in a good way of course. There was good food and drink all the way around. My dad spoke for a little while and was very nice. Tom did the same. Carole and her musically inclined family members enjoined us with the "Katie Beautiful Katie" song which you may have heard her chant at some point of particular joyousness. Her aunt Cindy and cousin Sabrina also had some regailing to do with a more specifically wedding related number, all of which were very good. Katie and I thanked everybody and gave a little trinket to our bride or groomspeople. Katie had carefully selected some wedding jewelry and a pretty little box. while I had opted for engraved lighters. It will be interesting to see who has held onto their lighter over the days or weeks, but I think they got the message of the thing, even if it wasn't much of a present. I mean, they were zippos, they are cool, but I felt a little cliched. Irregardless. Sanjay drank more than his share of the bottles of red wine which were distributed at the table. It was a good kickoff to the official festivities, I think that was unanimous. I also got to see and talk to alot of people in my family whom I hadn't seen for a long time, some of them for a good decade. I also got the chance to meet Katie's grandparents for the first time, which was odd. I have heard literal assloads about them from all members of the family, and despite their frightening reputation, were actually very pleasant. They had only kind and gracious words for us. though we didn't get to socialized too much with anyone specifcally.

The rest of the evening featured a program assembling machine that featured myself, my lovely fiance, her rents, Chrissy and Andrea, and two of Katie's rents' friends from KC. We worked on the multicolored extravaganza of ribbon and tying and hole punching and smoked a little of our own. This was an especially interesting thing to do with a couple of middle aged women I didn't know at all, especially funny to hear them using very high school terminology to refer to the material in question. Anticipating the next morning's crazinessosity, we kicked it relatively early, and slept quite well. I was really, not nervous at all. I am not sure if most people really aren't nervous when they are getting married, if that's just something non-getting-married-people speculate about, but the few people I know who have taken the ole plunge, were not shaking at all. Then again, maybe we are just more confident in the bonds of our love, unlike the rest of you cheapass motherfuckers.

I'm gonna break off here and post this, because I am just not moving at an adequate pace. I will begin the composition of the actual wedding day post and get back to ya'll. Almost caught up, then we begin with the usual witty banter which defines my, I don't know what.

Peace,

MB-K