In which there’s so much to tell you. Oh my babies, such a weekend! With pictures, even.

Friday

The Holy Couple’s engagement party was celebrated Friday night at the Dead Cock. There was a party of 30 upstairs in the new restaurant; we were the new kitchen’s guinea pigs. The food — buffet-style hors d’oeuvres — included shrimp alfredo and crab-stuffed mushrooms and bruschetta salad, and was really quite good. It was almost like being in another town entirely! But the flatware was decoratively trendy and blatantly right-handed, which irritated me. I ended up eating with my fingers.

Bread and I were fashionably late to arrive, from having accidentally napped after ravishing one another when I got home from work, but we were just in time for dinner.

After food and drinks and toasts (the bride-to-be’s father almost cried, so sweet), the party moved downstairs into the bar proper. There were champagne-and-rum jello shots, and a keg of Rolling Rock for the party guests. There was a DJ. There were the usual Friday-night-small-town-meatmarket patrons. The party guests and the bar crowd intermingled. Hilarity ensued.

I danced some, drank some, socialized some. Saw my stylist; saw her have an argument with a guy I assume is her boyfriend that went something like, “You said one beer! You’ve had five!” Saw two boys that I rather suspect had once been dating but now appear to be estranged (this is just a guess, neither of them are out) have a really awkward conversation in the middle of a swirling, packed bar. Saw two chicks I don’t know come out of the women’s bathroom with that ‘I just did a big fat line of coke off the back of the toilet’ vibe on.

Saw lots of people react in interesting ways to the jeweled bindi I was wearing. One guy motioned me over and said, “May I ask a question?”
“Sure, ‘sup?”
He pointed at my forehead. “How does that stay on?”
“Glue.”
A beat. “No,” he said. “I’m serious.”
“So am I. Glue, dude. Cosmetic glue. Like for false eyelashes?”
He had no idea what I was talking about, so I went back to dancing. It was cute.

Saw short, fat chicks in oversized t-shirts do excellent Latin moves on the dance floor. Saw my favorite bartender bust his ass making about two hundred Jaeger Bombs. Saw drunken rednecks get all up in each other’s faces. Saw a lot of fantastic cleavage. (Watch out! Here’s some now:)

Basically, I had a really good time. It was especially nice that Bread wasn’t nagging me to leave, and that Ray had shown up so I had my girl to dance with. (She was wearing the most fantastic outfit: a black zipped hoodie with a hot pink AC/DC logo on it, black pedal pushers, and strappy black pumps. She so rocks.) The party was in full fucking swing.

Suddenly, at about ten to one, two guys came crashing in through the plate glass window at the front of the bar and hit the floor hard.

Apparently they’d been fighting, had taken it outside, and then brought it back in by throwing each other through the window. I didn’t see it (I was at the back of the bar at the time), but Bread did and he said it was the absolute pinacle of bar fights. He feels he can die happy now, having literally seen it all. “It was great,” he enthused. “I’ve only ever seen that in movies!”

Within seconds of the crash, the music was shut off abruptly and all three bartenders were screaming, “Party’s over! THE BAR IS CLOSED! Move out, people!” Bread gathered me up like a fussy mother hen and we were probably halfway to Batavia before the ambulance even arrived on the scene.

I heard the next day that both the participants went to the hospital and were released and then spent the night in jail. I heard the Dead Cock’s owner has agreed not to press charges against them if the window is paid for. (It’s a huge sheet of plate glass, so I’m certain the replacement value will be quite high.)

Needless to say, we missed the after-party, if there even was one. I’m proud of Bread for staying out ’til one o’clock in the morning… no doubt a huge goddamned sacrifice on his part.

Saturday

Saturday morning, in bed, I took the following picture of myself and my dog Shiva (and this one, too). Apparently my cell phone’s camera has a built-in “antique” setting:

Aren’t we cute? If there’s one thing I do well, it’s bedroom hair. *wink*

Bread went to Cedar Rapids to look at a job remodelling his sister’s new house, and I lazed around. All. Damn. Day. and enjoyed having the house utterly to myself. NLW and I had mumbled something to one another about maybe seeing a movie Saturday night, but it didn’t happen… which is probably good, since I literally can’t afford it and she’s already bought me a movie ticket this month.

Bread and I are now at that stage of poverty (today marks the seventh week of his unemployment) where it ceases to be at all amusing. We’ve run out of savings. As in, I have ten bucks in cash and that’s literally it. (I am really, really not interested in living on credit cards.) How I’m going to buy gas and lunch all week is beyond me at this point, but Bread mentioned something about hocking an assault rifle so we’ll see how that goes.

I made Thai chickpea curry and jasmine rice for dinner. Bread fell asleep on the couch in front of the TV. I watched some South Park and went to bed. I listened to a lot of remixes on my iPod before falling asleep.

Sunday

Sunday afternoon, before getting in the shower before band practice, I took the kitchen shears in one hand, pulled all my hair back to the nape of my neck with the other… and whacked it all off in one swell foop. I now have a completely crooked bob – crooked as in tacky, 80’s-style noticeably asymmetrical. Ah, fuck it: I graduated from highschool in the 80’s and I can have asymmetrical hair if I want to!

Rehearsal was fun, as always. The band learned a song I wrote, and BvB and GSW came up with the catchiest, most adorable backup part IN THE KNOWN UNIVERSE. The drum-playing half of the rhythm section was in a fantastic mood; the bass-playing half had fucked up his back and was grumpy and required lots of petting and hugs. (BvB’s hubby eventually gave him a handful of hydrocodone, which probably adjusted his mood much for the better when he got home and took them.)

I got home at a quarter past seven and promply went to bed. Now it’s Monday and I’m at work and I really should be, you know, working. I’ve got a failing server full of sites that need to be moved — yay tedious goddamned server chores! Yay extra hours at work!

In which a full weekend looms! Finally, proof that God loves me and wants me to be happy!

Tonight, I have an all-girl dinner date with Aimée and Barbara, at Aimée’s house. Barbara’s making tofu enchiladas and I’m totally excited. (She’s in town for some battle of the bands thing Bambu did a few nights ago; normally I don’t see her so many times in a year.) After dinner, I have rehearsal with House 11. I haven’t seen my band in a week and dang if I didn’t miss those little rascals.

Tomorrow I’m working, because Buzz has been out of the office nursing his woman — who just had eye surgery — back to health, and he won’t be in again tomorrow for that reason. Since I need the hours, this working-on-Friday thing is actually good news.

And tomorrow night? A PARTY! A bona fide motherfucking actual party. The Holy Couple are having their engagement party at the Dead Cock, upstairs in the new restaurant for a small group and then a free-for-all down in the bar for the rest of the evening. It’s about time there was an event; no one’s bothered to throw a big party in this town in ages. I’m seriously thinking of taking seperate cars so that Bread can leave at 9:30* without utterly pissing me off.

I’m going to wear my tux pants and the shoes I bought for New Year. I haven’t made a decision on what top to wear yet, but I don’t have many tops to choose from. In fact it’ll probably choose itself by virtue of being the only one that’s clean and matches my slacks.

(*Last Friday Bread and I went out. Twenty minutes after people I actually knew showed up, Bread said, “Are you going to kill me if I tell you I want to leave now?” ARGH! We’d been there for two hours by that point, and I’d quietly sat by myself reading a book while he socialized and played pool with his friends and monopolized the juke box. When folks I knew showed up and the tunes swung toward dance instead of “classic rock,” he suddenly got tired and we had to go home. *bangs head on desk* Another chilly drive home where I fumed and stared out the window. Ah, wifedom.)

In which I get out of town and laugh my ass off.

So my girlfriend took me out on a date yesterday. She took me to Iowa City and we saw a movie and had dinner and coffee. It fucking rocked. I totally needed a girl day.

The movie was Chronicles of Narnia, which had killer sFX; the witch was Tilda Swinton, who totally fucking rocked; and the dinner was at the Olive Garden, where we split an appetizer and an entree and were still both too full to walk properly for about an hour.

The girlfriend was Tahm, who led me to believe that she needed her own blog nickname. So from here on out I’ll be calling her Nasty Little Whore, or NLW for short. (She seems fairly reformed nowadays, but I’m quite certain I’m not the first person ever to call her that.)

Anyway, it was unneccessarily cold outside so we scuttled from car to building, building to car like little crabs. Winter’s beginning to get on my nerves.

On the drive to Iowa City, I was complaining about my hubby. How his being home all the time is driving me nuts. How I could really use a few hours of alone time. How now that he’s doing the goddamned dishes he’s finally, finally started to rinse them rather than leaving them all crusty on the counter. How he’s constantly harassing me for sex.

“We’ve got time, we could pull over up here,” quipped NLW.

“Huh?” I said, not tracking.

“For sex,” she said. “We could pull into a field up here.”

“Oh my gawd! Stop it!” I yelled. “I came with you to get away from that!”

She laughed. “I didn’t want you to feel too comfortable,” she said.

“You, uh, you bastard!” I yelled.

Then we laughed. Then we talked about her business for awhile.

At the theatre, as we were wending our way toward the seating we wanted, she said, “You know, if you had just put out on the drive up here, I would have bought you those Junior Mints.”

“Oh Christ!” I exclaimed, then I started laughing.

“I almost wish I’d said that in the lobby, to see your face,” she giggled.

We sat down and wiggled out of coats, put drinks in holders, arranged purses and candy. I kept an eye on the screen, and when it exhorted me to turn off my cell phone during the feature presentation I said to NLW, “Put your phone on vibrate.”

“Why?” she asked, brightly. “Are you going to call me?”

“Yes,” I laughed, throatily. “Repeatedly.”

“Oh,” she moaned in Porn Star Voice, “Call me! Call me! Oh! Call me now!”

“Dial me again!” I hissed, giggling. “And again and again and again!”

“Call me! Oh my God, call me!” she said, laughing out loud. “CALL ME HARDER!”

At that, we collapsed into hysterical giggles.

“Oh my fucking GAWD,” I said, when I could breathe again. “That’s the funniest thing I’ve ever heard.”

It’s just luck that we happened to the only people in the theatre at the time, because we’re pretty loud talkers when we’re busy cracking ourselves up.

In which we visit chez DeSchepper-Flora, and eat.

Saturday night a group of us descended upon Mr. J in his home, at the behest of his woman, to celebrate his birfday. She’d made nachos, soup, and appetizers, and there were cookies and pie and a variety of tasty beverages. Hilarity ensued.

Actually, both Bread and I took naps while we were there. (They provide a comfortable atmosphere, to their credit, those Flora-DeScheppers.)

Because these events always sex-segregate, I hung out with T. and J. and Amazon Blonde. We gossipped and looked at T.’s new line of jewelry until Amazon Blonde had to leave for work. And the menfolk ate much pie, seated on the couches watching TV.

We all went through their discarded A/V pile before leaving; I took a couple of DVDs and a CD and Bread snagged a few CDs himself.

All in all, a fabulous evening. God but it’s nice to have actual friends!

In which there’s a full moon, Friday the 13th, and Amazon Blonde’s birthday all on the same day.

Friday night we went bowling for Amazon Blonde’s birthday.

I bowled three games (scored 111, 113, and 112) and drank a lot of cocktails. Bread bowled one game. In each of my three games I bowled a spare and two strikes in the 4th-6th frames. At least I’m consistent.

I have a hand-me-down ball that is actually a reactive ball drilled straight, so it bowls funny. I doubt I’ll ever increase my average without a new ball.

I love bowling shoes.

I hung out with lots of cool chicks.

The whole party was headed to the bar after bowling, but of course Bread didn’t want to go and so I had to go home. I was pissed and didn’t talk to him the whole drive; I can’t even count the number of events we’ve left early over the years because he didn’t want to hang out and he was driving. He’s selfish like that: must get his way, never making a little goddamned personal sacrifice for his wife.

In other news, we’re obsessed with Tang. We bought a container of it at the store and in the past 24 hours we’ve consumed like five quarts of the stuff.

In which I got wasted by accident and for no apparent reason whatsoever.

So I left work at five last night and drove homeward. I turned at the Libertyville turn-off and stopped at the Dew Drop for one drink. Just one, because it sounded good.

Okay, maybe two.

Sure, I’ll have another, thanks! What the hell, pour me another! Okay, one more – why not!

I had no intention of getting drunk, but the folks at the Dew Drop – they pour ’em so strong, and the patrons are always buying rounds, and, well, it’s just dangerous in there!

I was wasted when I got home. Hubby made tuna melts, I made a salad, we ate. My drunk ass passed out in bed before eight o’clock. I’m lucky I didn’t wake up drunk this morning, that’s how wasted I was.

But the rash is almost gone, and I didn’t even have to pee on it.