Tuesday, August 31, 2004

Clowns to the Left of Me, Jokers to the Butt

Tsup. I know its been a long time, there have been some delays, for which I apologize. I usually remember to mention when we are going to be MIA for some time, but the whole end of the summer not working at Wal-Mart nonsense kind of fucks it all up. While this shouldn’t be the blog updating epic that I think the wedding in June sort of ended up, it might take me a couple days to catch up completely. That will also be complicated by the fact that my laptop is in the shizop (I didn’t really want to write “shizop” as opposed to “shop” but it has better fucking rhythm) but should be around soon. I am also back in school which can be both a blessing and a curse for the world of blog.

Anyway, we left for Minnesota immediately after I finished work on the 18th of August. Work finished up pretty strongly, all the people I work with are cool and ended up throwing me a little party, we had corn dogs, cookie cake, and brownie cake. Very solid all around. The only thing that blew goats severely was that I was sick like a mofucker. I don’t get sick very often, but I will fully admit that I am a pretty miserable bastard when I am. I feel that modern medicine, even modern over the counter medicine, should be able to pretty much entirely cure my symptoms. I guess that’s what naïve faith in the medical sciences get you. Anyway, while I was feeling better than I had the day before, when I came home after only three-ish hours of work and slept all day and night, I was still feeling like ass.

I began by sleeping and Katie took care of the first shift of driving. We made it to the first post-Cleveland reststop on the tollway before I took over. I was feeling good for the first hour or so of driving then it started raining like it often does through Ohio, in what I imagine is a concerted effort to make me hate that state even more than is humanly possible. The rain started tired me out pretty quickly, as well as slowing me down to around 45-50, which is a crawl at 1:00 am on the freeway. By 2:30, shortly after we entered Indiana, I had no prudent option but to pull off at a rest stop. Katie wasn’t ready to take over yet, so we slept in the car for almost three hours. I would wake up every 40 minutes or so, try to convince myself I could drive, ultimately determine that I was insane, and go back to sleep. Eventually I was so furious with the devastruction this break had done to our attempt to make good time that I drove in what may not have been the world’s safest condition. My intent was to get us through Chicago before rush hour, but since I forgot that Chicago’s rush hour runs from 4 am to midnight, that was a futile effort.

We switched on and off, eventually got to St. Paul sometime in the late afternoon early evening. We dropped by Katie’s parents place, where Katie hung out while I went to James Hart’s bachelor party. I should note that besides the fact that our families live there and we love it there and all that, the real reason we were in the TC was the wedding of James Hart and Cassie Doll. James’ situation was not completely dissimilar to my own, excepting the Harvard Law School graduate, real job in Chicago situation. I mean simply that he was only in town for a short period before the wedding and since so many of his friends were from out of town the bachelor party was held at short-ish notice. Brad Hart, James’ little brother, was in charge as the best-man, and did a solid job. I think Brad had a lot of pressure on him, at least he perceived that there was a lot of pressure on him.

As someone who recently had his only brother as his best man, I can say with a fair amount of certainty that absent showing up at your bachelor party and being kicked in the crotch, flown to Abu Dhabi and sold to an alpaca farm, its virtually impossible to be disappointed by what he does. That said, the situation Brad was in was somewhat different from my brothers, most notably because Lil’ B is not simply acquainted with my friends, but is friends with all of them as well. If my brother had his own bachelor party the guest lists would be virtually identical, with maybe a few extra people from Mad-town included. I think that meant that Brad felt that he was responsible not only to James about the whole evening, but just as importantly to James’ friends, to provide whatever it is they would imagine as a bachelor party. It ended up not being an issue and I think Brad figured out fairly early on into the evening that he had gotten it right. I didn’t get to try out Mannings’ new 2 pound beast of a burger, but I will someday. I also didn’t really get to party, since I had 3 hours of sleep the whole time and still had to go down to Rosemount to meet my dad at his new townhouse. Anyway, the action was picking up as I left, with some crazy-James-drinking-challenge getting under way. From the reports I received it remained a hella-good and for the most part wholesome guys night at Brad’s apartment. That makes RHS debate 2 for 2 on naked-lady free bachelor parties, a trend which I can’t imagine continuing for too many more members.

My dad was at one of his clients’ boxing matches and didn’t get home until like 11:30, we met him around midnight. The place is right by the new St. Joe’s church in Rosemount, only about 2-3 miles from the old rents place. For one person it is quite large, three bedrooms on two floors with the living room and kitchen essentially wide open on the first floor. He has technically moved in, he has the TV and the couch and chairs and lamps and a table and stuff, his bedroom furniture etc. but besides that the place is not really furnished. I know he doesn’t need much more than a couch and a TV and a bed, since the time he spends at home is pretty much just limited to watching legal drama and football. Nonetheless, I think he felt a little awkward about the fact, though neither Katie or I could care less. After a long pseudo-argument we ended up staying in my dad’s room for the entire week we were there. It seemed to be what he wanted so we were happy to acquiesce, but next time we are around we will be more in control.

Katie had to work early on Friday morning, so we got up at a reasonable time and said hey to my dad before we left. I came back and did laundry virtually all day while she worked. When I picked her up we ran to Southdale to get a wedding present, to Chipotle for a burrito, and then to Dave and Amy’s place to play some poker and hang out. They have gotten two pretty sweet things in the past month or so, the first one is a house in St. Paul. Its in the Midway area and a pretty nice joint. Its not huge, but it has space to expand if that is something in their future. If you’ve been in an average St. Paul residence you know what I am referring to. The other one is related and probably less important in the big picture, but much cooler in my book, that being a puppy. Specifically, a golden retriever puppy named Milo, who is fucking adorable. I mean, golden retriever puppies are pretty much the picture of cuteness in the first place, but this guy was above and beyond. He was hopping up the stairs, he was chewing on my shoes and hands, he was just adorable. I am not one of those people who is hugely into the golden retriever, I mean, I dig them, but I don’t plan on getting one, but I must admit that the puppies are the me-fucking-ow.

The poker game that went on was alright, I came in second technically, since only me and one dude had chips at the end. I could have gone short stack master and tried to take him out, though he had like a 4 or 5-1 chip advantage, but nowhere near the necessary experience to finish things off. Nonetheless, it would have taken some luck and probably a bit of time, so I just won Katie’s money back and took my own, essentially a 5 dollar win for me. Not shabby. I really didn’t play much more poker the whole time I was in Minnesota, unfortunately, maybe I will fix that over the holidays.

More may come later tonight whenever I decide to go for the discussion of Saturday and the wedding proper. Check it.

Peace,

MB-K

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