This doesn’t happen a whole lot, but Esteban and I had a simply wonderful weekend. Oh, I don’t mean that we wade through veritable bogs of shit every weekend or anything, but most of the time, the best adjective can be ‘nice’ or ‘long’ or what have you. But this? This was a wonderful weekend. And there wasn’t really anything that made it wonderful. It just was.
On Friday, I had a half day because of working long hours for my soon-to-be-riffed job. I spent most of the afternoon at the mall, searching for the perfect outfit for Esteban’s cousin’s wedding, which was at 5:00 that evening. Nothing like waiting until the last minute, but with my suck schedule for most of the week, that was literally the first block of free time I had. Also, Lane Bryant, in their infinite wisdom decided to upgrade my LB card from a gold to a platinum. This should leave me feeling ashamed and in search of a self-help group, but it’s rather funny, since I never even hit half my limit with the gold card and I pay off the balance every month. I think they’re playing an elaborate game of chicken with me, trying to find my breaking point.
I settled on a flippy little black skirt and a pink and black twinset (apparently, THE color combination this spring is pink and black, as I cannot escape it, even though I secretly think it makes me look like a box of Good N’Plenty’s), which I paired with my leather superhero boots. Naturally, I was forced by my matching compulsion to also purchase a precisely matched hot pink Dayam!Bra and bikini panties. I love that Lane Bryant is just plus-sized Garanimals.
I then skipped over to my controlled substance dealer (the OPI store, that is) and sat there with the sweater in hand, comparing it to the plethora of polish. I finally settled on one of the new Greek Isles collection (It’s All Greek To Me, for those of you who need to accessorize your Weetabix Action Figure) and then skipped homeward to do my nails and make myself irresistible.
Esteban had some brief angst and didn’t want to get dressed up for the wedding, mostly because he spent an eternity in a suit on Wednesday on the trip to Virginia and really didn’t want to jump back into it, but then his sense of guilt overrode all slacker tendencies, so he made himself look all spiffy and we were off to the insanely early Friday wedding (seriously, a wedding on a Friday at 5? Way to make every single one of your guests take at least a little time off work! Cripes.) I was trying out my new camera and played around with it, still unable to truly finesse the natural light photos. I’ve posted a few of them at the bottom, turned black and white in Photoshop, although I didn’t have the heart to remove the color from this one, as this little girl (Esteban’s second cousin and daughter of the bride) is absolutely breathtaking.
The wedding was lovely and we had it where every Esteban family wedding (except ours) is held, home of the fabulous East End Bars. We sat with Ward and June and one of the many sets of Esteban’s Aunts and Uncles. It was a lovely dinner, however the low point is when we started getting the ‘Why haven’t you squirted a 8 pound human out of your cervix yet?’ from not one, not two, but three different directions. I think I completely shut down during the climax of that tirade, just staring off at the wedding party, ignoring them. It’s annoying. It really is. I mean, I understand. I KNOW that Ward and June would like to be grandparents. I KNOW that Esteban is an only child and my occupied uterus is your Holy Grail. But it’s not like it’s just me sitting there squeezing my legs together. Esteban feels very strongly that he does not yet want to go down the kid route yet. I don’t really relish the idea of that whole messy birth thing either, but would that Esteban want to experience fatherhood, I would probably be looking into adopting a little girl from China. But regardless of these facts, why do they think that constant tirades will change matters? Their latest argument, by the way, is that we’d make absolutely beautiful babies. Because Esteban was a gorgeous child and, you know, just look at Weetabix. You have to give them props for changing their approach. They know damned well that I am a sucker for flattery. Regardless, parenthood should not be something you can be talked into. For god’s sake, they try to push grandbabies with the same arguments that fourteen year olds use with smoking. And what if there were some kind of physical problems? What if we were trying and not succeeding and what if we just didn’t want to advertise that fact to the world? Wouldn’t you feel like a damn asshole then? Huh?
Sorry. Tangent.
Despite the emotional pleas for progeny, it really was a delightful dinner. During one surreal moment, the oldest couple at the table (probably in their sixties or seventies) started talking about bray, which was bizarre, since I had just gone in search of bray last weekend for Esteban. She invited Esteban to come over and try some of the stuff that she makes (by the way, it doesn’t have anise in it but rather cloves), which is apparently better than the stuff from that single grocery store across the county. And then we got to discuss sulze. Yay for Belgian families! I was castigated as the sole French descendent in the entire room. Apparently, the Belgians and the French’ non non non. And then I taught one of Esteban’s little second cousins that when someone asked her if she was an angel (she was wearing an ‘angel’ necklace), she should reply ‘Nope, I’m a princess.’
Ward and June cut out (June has a terrible cold) shortly after dessert. We watched the first dance and then left early to go home and not make babies.
On Saturday morning, I got up super early and decided that I needed to make oatmeal. Not just any oatmeal. Steel-cut real oatmeal. I looked up Alton Brown’s recipe and made a shopping list (I already had the steel-cut McCann Irish oats, purchased on a trip to San Francisco, as I have never seen anything other than Quaker Old Fashioned around here) for cream and buttermilk, then took a shower, jumped into the car and ran to the grocery store out in the snooty ‘burbs, where I learned that the only people in the grocery stores at quarter to eight on a Saturday morning are shelf-stockers and really really old people. Really old people who push their carts reaaaaaalllly slowly.
Back at home, I began my Quest for Oatmeal, which, by the way, was not completed until 10:30. Apparently, real oatmeal takes a really long time. The entire morning was apparently one big lesson in patience. I also made tube biscuit cinnamon rolls and realized that the most stress I ever feel in my home is when I start to unwrap a tube of biscuits, because you’re just never sure if they’re going to explode before you’re done unwrapping them, or if you’re going to have to push a spoon into the seam and cringe. It’s like defusing a damned terrorist bomb. Don’t cut the green wire and don’t stand too close to a tube of Pillsbury Grands.
As it turned out, I wasn’t all that thrilled with real oatmeal. Esteban, on the other hand, was very happy and ate an entire bowl and asked me to save the leftovers for him instead of unceremoniously glurping them into the garbage disposal as I had intended. It tasted kind of, I don’t know, needlessly chewy or something. Maybe I screwed something up. I am willing to try it again, however. Perhaps Alton’s overnight recipe instead. We shall see.
I pottered around the house, started the (fucking) laundry, and then explained to Esteban that it was 11 o’clock and we should really head down to the tiny downtown post office and do our passport thingy. He was game, so we got into the car and started driving that way, but then I mentioned that I also wanted to go to the good butcher on the opposite side of BFE to get some meat sticks. Esteban mentioned that he preferred the hot sticks from a little country butcher in Stangelville (which is even more BFE than the good butcher, if that’s even possible), so I suggested that we skip the post office and scurry out to Stangelville and also get some fresh cheese curds at the cheese factory up the road. Thus, we made a pit stop at Sbux for a venti soy chai and a seltzer water and then I pulled out the map (because do YOU know how to get to Stangelville? Neither do we.) and off we went, trying to beat the clock, as everything would inevitably close at noon.
The cheese curds were disappointing, as they were a day old and had been refrigerated, and so were marginally squeaky. I declared them ‘ass curds’. The country butcher, however, was exciting, as there were posters advertising not only cow brains but also VEAL brains, which were quite reasonable. I kept pointedly asking Esteban if he thought we had enough veal brains or if we should get some more, because I know how he gets the munchies, donchaknow. And then he called me a knob.
After that, we went out in our search for bookshelves which are not fake wood. Esteban needs someplace to put his D&D effluvia but I won’t let him buy anymore Sauder or Crappy McCrapsalot white trash fake furniture, thus we’ve been going everywhere, trying to find something that is the right size and not all country kitsch or light oak or ridiculously expensive. We have not been having the best of luck. This time, we checked out the new Amish furniture place, which has supposedly an actual Amish buggy in the parking lot, as though there are some confused draft horses wandering the nearby mall. We found much of the light wood and Old Mc Donald stuff, swathed in quilts and covered in signs written with cutsey sayings, but nothing that I really loved. However, weird moment when a rather stout lady with a really bad bleach job walked through and she was wearing the very same red ski jacket that I was wearing! We laughed about it and then we walked out (with Esteban loudly exclaiming ‘Amish furniture my ass!’) and saw her also getting into a Chrysler 300M, only in gold. Oh god, apparently I fit the demographic of women who decorate their home all country. Gah.
Afterward, we went home and then cleaned the entire house. Together. I know! It was actually delightful, which was bizarre, because normally our joint venture cleaning situations are fraught with stress and bitchy remarks and reminders to Esteban that he is not the Head Doozer (this time, I only had to remind him of that once). I left him to clean the living room, which turned into an elongated search for the remote control (which has had a picture on the side of a milk carton for the last three weeks and is still a mystery) and then ended with us rearranging the furniture.
After that, we went to Tarzhay, which is starting to feel like my Saturday afternoon home. I swear, I’ve been to Tarzhay the last five Saturdays in a row. I searched for non-objectionable curtains for the kitchen but came up empty-handed (Country crap! It follows me everywhere). Then we went home to retire to the newly placed sofa and Esteban introduced me to some anime that he thought I might like (he was right, Hellsing is not bad), ordered Chinese food (which was really awful), I made a cake with pink frosting (I had an inexplicable craving for birthday cake with vanilla ice cream, so declared that it was in Sundry’s honor) and then sacked out.
On Sunday, we decided that we had expended as much productivity as could reasonably be expected the day before, so we went out for waffles and a newspaper, got the car washed, and then spent most of the day doing nothing in particular. Later, I went to visit my mom and Jonathon (who is behind in math again and has been given an ultimatum’ I will be calling his teacher on Tuesday afternoon and if he is not 100% caught up, he’s losing all of his fun toys again, including the television in his room) and then went to K-mart to see if Martha had decent curtains. She doesn’t. And also, K-mart sucks.
Then I went home and tried to download more of Sex and the City’s sixth season, changed the sheets and decided that putting a duvet around the comforter was too much work and could wait until Monday, then made myself some toast with peanut butter for dinner (more proof that I would live on toast and cereal if I lived alone) and then went to bed.
It was a very good weekend.
I can tell you right now, I’m voting for Chrome Magnum Man in the Diarist Awards.
Scott would shit himself if he were here to see that he made the finals. He wouldn’t even care that he’s up against at least one of the popular kids (although who knows’ everyone protects their stats like it was their paycheck stub these days. It may just be all hype). And then he’d probably write a hysterical entry about how he totally filled his pants with poo. And how it was the poo of a Finalist in the Diarist Awards.
I miss him.
