Saturday, December 23, 2006

Red Pill Junkie The Reader Chooses Kindly

One of my most faithful commenters, Red Pill Junkie The Reader, has sent the groom and me an extremely generous, uber-appreciated engagement gift. Somehow videographer battles are now far easier to bear. Thanks so much, my friend.

Thursday, December 21, 2006

Buffet

It's been said that you can't put a price on friendship. As a bride, you most certainly can. It is $21.95.

That is the per-head price for the reception dinner, and suddenly I'm not feeling incredibly close to a lot of people anymore. Everybody who gave birth to me is in. Those who amuse me, also. The rest of you are on the bubble. Lifelong knowledge is no exemption. The guiding issue is what have you done for me lately? Held doors? Arranged jobs? Hurled scorn upon my head?

Those who hurl scorn shall receive this suggested wedding party gift, without content added:

It's quality because it's monogrammed.

ballet slippers beneath the gown at: mb@blondechampagne.com

Merge

A few friends have sent me "Congratulations on Being Engaged ELOOOOOOOOOOOPE" cards, which are lovely and much appreciated and accidentally hilarious. "Cherish this special, romantic time," one says. Last week I threw my special, romantic sneaker at the special, romantic wall.

This was precipitated by the groom having the audacity to tell me to stop work on the invitations, because he had perceived that I was becoming overwhelmed.

Thus began a torrent of bridal screeching, a diatribe entitled "I Am Working So Hard On This Wedding And YOU DON'T EVEN CARE." It covered an impressive rage of wedding-related topics, including, but not limited to:

-Ageism in Western culture
-The lamentable condition of my windshield wipers
-Something called "halogen fluid"
-Grade inflation at the university level
-My raging self-hatred
-Windows XP

The closing line consisted of "...and I have PMS!"

The groom then spoke for the first time in twenty minutes. "But you're dealing with it very well."

I am much better today. I merely hurled pillows into the couch during the fight over the videographer.

advil at: mb@blondechampagne.com

Tuesday, December 19, 2006

Night Train

Courtesy of The Stack, I was unable to see Discovery's launch from the Space Coast, so I made do at the University of Airplanes. Here it is as seen from Digi the BlurCam:

Liftoff was like a Daytona Beach sunrise, the glow warming the unmufflered choppers and airbrushed IT'S NOT A BALD SPOT, IT'S A SOLAR PANEL FOR A SEX MACHINE tshirts.

This is just after solid rocket booster separation. I'll use pure NASAese to explain what's going on here: The fat orange blur is the spaceship that carries the astronauts, and the two smaller blurs are the white pencilly things that make it go up in the sky. Now you know.

I've seen one other night launch, at Cocoa Beach, and this was a completely different. For instance, for this one I had my hair in a ponytail instead of straight down. It completely changed the entire experience.

fast FAST comet at: mb@blondechampagne.com

Bounced

How are your holidays going? My godchild ejected me from his house.

This evening, Jim The Small Child Nephew and I played Up (Aunt Beth carries Jim around the room on her back while he shrieks and kicks her in the kidney) and Aunt Beth Falls Down (Jim hurls himself at Aunt Beth as she collapses on the carpet, and then he shrieks and kicks her in the kidney). Aunt Beth is good for kidney-kicking, apparently, but not general company, as when I attempted to escort him to bed, there was a great deal of furor and shoving at the general direction of my knee.

"Do you want me to go away?" I said, completely just throwing it out there. You have to do this with two-year-olds at times, I have found, eliminating brewing tantrums by knocking out each potential, completely random want or need that two-year-olds tend to develop: "Do you want some maize for snack?" "Do you want an abassatorial appointment to Paraguay?" "Do you want a new career for Scott Baio?" "Oh, you want me to make Sesame Street magically appear on the air now, at nine o' clock at night? Well, that's easy!"

But no. Tonight, Aunt Beth was to go away. "Bye-bye," he said the instant I suggested it. The Paraguay thing would have honestly surprised me less, and caused far less umbrage.

This was honestly the best thing Country The Brother In Law had seen in his entire life. "You just got bounced by a two-year-old," he pointed out. Last time I saw the bouncer, I brought him french fries. Next time? Geese.

I think Jim was mad at me because earlier in the evening I had been a terribly mean aunt, denying him the bottle of children's Tylenol perched on the kitchen windowsill. I cannot imagine what I was thinking, preventing him from accidentally poisoning himself like that.

"I'll remember this," I said darkly, "in sixteen years when you're looking for college money."

"Bye-bye!"

"Yeah, bye-bye."

well I never at: mb@blondechampagne.com

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