Events Surrounding My Sister's Wedding

Positives:
1) Unlike at my cousin's first wedding, when we arrived we did not see the groom being restrained by the best man, preventing him from 'opening a can of Whup-Ass' up on the bride's brother (since myself and my 2 brothers are actually the Bride's brothers, you can imagine our relief).
2) The imps behaved.
3) Girl.imp was the flower girl (pictures to be posted when we actually have any. It seems somebody forgot to pack the camera...)
4) Several of our relatives commented on the 20 minute ceremony (reminding us that sister's ceremony was NOT as long as a certain Catholic ceremony that they sat through 12 years ago--I would put this in the negative category, but, since I was a member of the audience this time, the shorter ceremony was appreciated)
5) Several relatives showed up that we did not expect to see.
6) Because we hosted my brothers at our house, our house is now mostly clean

Negatives:
1) We showed up at the church 21/2 hours before the ceremony for pictures our imps missed out on lunch. (we eventually left and were able to feed the imps but lost our premo parking space)
2) During the ceremony Girl.imp insisted on sniffing her armpits while standing in front of the church--MORE.THAN.ONCE!!
3) My older brother lost the card that our great aunts entrusted to his care after the ceremony. OOPS!
4) We discovered both imps love to DANCE.IN.PUBLIC (thus bringing home the nightmare that will become my future!!)
5) Somebody forgot to pack the camera and we do not currently have pictures of this event. We will gave pictures but not as soon as we initially hoped.
6) Everyone in the family knows of my lack of rhythm and inability to keep time...ANY time. Thus it should not have been a surprise to the bride that I planned to leave after the dancing and drinking (did I mention that wife.imp and I do not drink?) got into full swing.

Sister-Bride made a personal appearance at our table forbidding us from leaving early. So the latter 1/2 of the reception sucked. I sat and stared at sister until she disappeared (after all, I wanted her to be aware of our presence) then we left.

7) Somehow our TV switched channels (I was recording the game) and I lost the last 3 minutes of the OSU v MSU football game, with no hope of getting them back--EVER!

"...but mommy! I'm crying!!"

I had boy.imp in bed and mostly quiet when wife.imp rolled home from work. For the next few hours boy.imp ran in and out of his bedroom.
'I want a drink'
'I want Mozart' (he goes to be listening to Mozart -- what a boy!)
'There is a bug on the wall'
'I'm hot'

and on and on...but every request was finalized with 'go back to bed'.

You might have guessed boy.imp was not entirely supportive of his curfew and was trying to wear us down. After all, if he was not downstairs, then who was going to have fun playing with his toys.

In fact he was getting downright frustrated. After all, who were we to rain on his parade when he was working his ass off to get out of bed.

So then the wailing started. It started at the top of the stairs. It went down the hall. It went into his bedroom and GOT.LOUDER.

Then b.imp came running out of the room and issued his proclamation.

A week full of memories and bad internet connectivity has reduced them to the following one...

For what it is worth, we have had intermittant internet connectivity at the Playground this week.

So, what has happened?

wife.imp went to Boston on Tues. (a one day trip). So, girl.imp's kidar goes off at 3:30 a.m. and she wakes up wailing becuase she had a 'bad' dream.

What was this dream, you ask?

girl.imp: (wailing) mommy! MOMMY! I had a bad dream!
wife.imp: shhhh...I'm here. What did you dream.
g.imp: I dreamed you went to Boston and that you stayed there for two days!!! (renewed wailing)

Yes. You read this correctly. Girl.imp woke the household at 'too-effing-early' in the a.m. because she dreamed that wife.imp was going on a two day business trip.

There have been other events over the last week but this is what sticks out in my memory at the moment.

The Phone Call that makes one Proud to be from a Large Family

brriiing--briiing


me: Imp's residence

sister.imp: You know, I do not appreciate getting a phone call, 9 days before my wedding, from my sister who tells me she got a call from my eldest brother, who lives in Illinios, telling her to tell me that he is not going deer-hunting with 'brother-in-law' on the day of my wedding and that he will attend my wedding, because he got a phone call from one of my other brother's telling him that I was told that (eldest brother) was going deer hunting on the day of my wedding!!

me: (laughing...I was actually having trouble breathing too!)
s.imp: I really did not need this extra-stress 9.DAYS.BEFORE.MY.WEDDING. I am already stressed out as it is!
me: (laughing)--so brother.imp called sister.imp and she called you?
stressed out s.imp: ...yes?
me: because she called me to sell me popcorn for her imp and she told me that she was going to call eldest brother to sell him some too.
s.imp: she sold you popcorn? We are not allowed to sell it until Oct. 15.
me: Really? Then she called me and got my pre-order for the popcorn.
s.imp: really? you didn't buy any from my imp
me: he didn't call me. Tell you what. When he is allowed to sell the popcorn have him give me a call.

I called the eldest sib and confirmed that he was not going to miss the wedding (I don't know. Just how do these rumors start). In fact he informed me that he would have asked sister.imp if the wedding ceremony would be over by kickoff (OSU v MSU kickoff at 3:30 p.m.)

Here I am with my previously long hair...

I do not currently have a photo with the shortened tresses...

Ok, diana, you and wife.imp have worn me down!!

...so about 9 years ago I had a stressful day at work and had a headache (I was still in 'Office Monkey' work mode) and saw an open beauty salon on the way home. I pulled in and told the unfortunate woman that I needed a haircut.

me: Use the size two clippers. all over.
clip.imp: um, are you sure
me: yep! take it all off!
clip.imp: ok...are you really sure about this?

This haircut took about 45 minutes because every three seconds the clip.imp would stop and verify that I was not about to sue her for denuding my head!

Why do I bring this story up now?

Because I woke up Sunday late, with a headache, and sore throat, and was not feeling good at all. My solution? What will make me feel better? Let's go see the clip.imp!

So I went to the beauty salon (I gave up going to the barber after my first trip to the Philippines) on Sunday and asked for a hair cut.

Now this time I did not ask to be remade into the image of a cue ball with a spiky red bristles. No, this time it was sized 41/2 clippers!

I look smokin!!!

Now should I get a goatee or a Burt Reynold's 'stache? (in classic orange-red of course!)

Weekend Update

Sunday:
Wife.imp has been at a loss to purchase something nice for my sister's wedding. It looks as if sis wants more practical items. While wife.imp understands this desire, she views weddings as the opportunity to acquire those pieces that can be 'showcase' items that gain in value as they age.

Soooo, after struggling to find something that qualifies both as practical and 'showcase', she turned the job over to me. I went to the store where sis was registered and inside of 15 minutes (I had to buy new boots, a ps2 for the fam, and decided to toss in a pair of slippers for me) I had the gift.

No fuss, no muss and the box makes it easy for wife.imp to wrap!

JOB.WELL.DONE!!


or so I thought...

While wife.imp picked apart my choice (a coffee maker that was identified as desireable on the list of registered items...apparently sis is not a coffee drinker--who knew? It WAS on the list) she then asked if I:
a) scanned the barcode for the registry (HUNH???)
Yes those columns of numbers on the side of the list actually mean something. Perhaps reading the document for more than the listed items would have been beneficial AND scanning the barcode on the list apparently updates the list in order to reduce chances of someone duplicating our gift.

again...WHO KNEW?

I think this is something that women inherently know. They just seem to absorb this info out of thin air.
b) got the register's Gift Certificate, in case sis accidently placed this item in her registry and needed to return it (or as wife.imp pointed out--perhaps more than one party would purchase this item as it was not annotated as being already purchased on said registry).

Saturday:
Two hours before game time (OSU v IOWA) the neighbor.imp came over and asked of girl.imp could go outside and play. As it was still daylight outside and the rain had not yet arrived, I was forced to allow this intrusion into my gameday preparations.

Then boy.imp wanted to go outside. So then I HAD to go outside. We have no t.v. outside. MY gametime was slowly eroding away as the imps tried to throw rotten apples at each other or smack each other with sticks. WAY.MORE.FUN.THAN.FOOTBALL
Thankfully the thunderstorms arrived 45 minutes before gametime!!

Friday:
The imps finally got hair cuts and boy.imp actually looks like a boy!