OK, so here’s to me finally updating since my last post actually updating stuff about my life. Where to begin? Probably right after my haircut, since that’s where I left off. Um…lessee, I think the weekend after that was Jamie’s bachelorette party. We ended up walking all over creation in downtown Indy trying to find a bar/club to hang out in because the one we wanted to visit (which has tons of arcade games, bowling, and TVs) was charging $20 cover because some boxing match was going on. Yeah, I remember now–it was Cinco de Mayo (or “mayonnaise” in its unabbreviated form, heh) and I had to ride in the back of the minivan (as in trunk space) because there weren’t enough seats and they forgot to let me out and nearly left me in the parking garage. We did end up hitting several bars, and oddly, the one we were supposed to go to was right next to the one I went to for Sarah’s bachelorette party. (And just to make sure we’re all on the same page, a “bachelorette” is not someone studying for their Bachelor’s degree. Thanks a lot, University 101 students.)

I ended up driving home from that Sunday in Jamie’s car, similar to how I drove Lushbaugh’s car home from the bridal shower. Now I just need to drive Miller’s car and Jim’s truck and I’ll have driven all my Hautian friends’ vehicles. Random aside.

The following week, I started tutoring a college girl in French so she can brush up on grammar before taking a literature class this fall. She’s cool, and her name is Erin too. Whee! Then Damien came up–I think it was Thursday or Wednesday–to stay the night because he was hitching a ride with a Hautian for the Anime Central convention in Chicago, and they were going to need to leave early, so why not just stay in the Haute for a night rather than drive up before the sun rises? Makes sense to me, and we always love having Damien up anyway. The following Friday, Ian and I rode up to Renssalaer (sp?) with the Twins (i.e., Mike and Mike) in Miller’s car which I think he named something like Mathilda or Gertrude…I don’t remember. I know Jamie’s car is something like Stuart and Lushbaugh’s is Kitt after that Knight Rider show. Random. Enough about cars!

So once in Renssalaer (sounds kind of like rents-a-leer, hehe), we hung out at the town square for the rehearsal in the gazebo thingie, then we went out to eat for the rehearsal dinner. We got to see Carbaugh again which was cool, and we got to meet Carbaugh’s girlfriend Ann who’s just an awesome person. She and I ended up spending a lot of time together because the girly stuff confused us both and we had a great time coming up with insanities. After the rehearsal dinner, the husband and I went back to our hotel room and watched Spiderman and were watching the first part of The Mask when the Twins stumbled in drunk from the bachelor’s party. Miller flopped out on the second bed immediately, but Lushbaugh meandered around removing his shoes and flannel shirt and raving about random stuff all the while saying, “But I’m not staying here tonight; I’m going back to my room.” Yeah, right. He flopped out on the bed next to Miller and was whining about the room spinning, so I took his glasses, hit the lights and went to sleep. It was nearly three in the morning, after all.

So the next day was spent running around trying to figure out who was supposed to be where because for some odd reason, the bride’s maids were all in the know and kept telling each other what needed to be done but never got around to telling the groom’s men (or if they “told” them, they didn’t check to confirm anyone actually heard them or understood them) what they needed to be doing all day. So Ian and I sort of played intermediaries between the two groups and it remained that the left hand had no idea where the right hand even was up until the wedding itself. Pretty amusing, from my point of view. Then the actual ceremony with Miller playing Johannes Pachabel’s Canon in D on his guitar while Jamie and the rest of us came down the sidewalk by the courthouse to the gazebo. The ceremony was short, and then we spent about twenty minutes trying to get people organized to get into cars for the strange ritual of driving around which would make sense if we were giving people time to get to the reception hall, but didn’t make sense in this case because damn near everyone was already there since it was less than a block away. Logic? At a wedding? Hell no!

The reception was spent hanging out with the gang in the back of the hall with a couple dart guns and cameras. Ian had a pic up on his page with the execution I’d suggested. Hehe. We came back to the Haute that night and Ian and I slept for about two days. I’m not actually a big fan of weddings; they’re unnecessarily stressful and that stress rubs off on everyone making everyone on edge and testy and snappy and that’s not exactly the best way to remember two people’s commitment ceremony. But that’s in the past and now Ian and I are absolutely correct when we refer to them as “the Lushbaughs” whereas before we were just too lazy to say “Jamie and Mike.” Hooray for them!

Damien came back the day after the wedding so we got to hang out with him some more since he stayed the night. Ian and I got a couple dart guns ourselves, and when the Lushbaughs came over to look at their wedding presents (We had packed the car up with them so they wouldn’t have to haul them to their honeymoon.), they had a dart fight royale. Hi-larious.

Damien left that Monday, leaving some of his stuff here from the convention on accident, and Ian and I went back to EQ and WoW, respectively since I beat Puzzle Quest last week. Wanna know why I wasn’t updating much (uh, or at all)? Well, I reactivated my WoW account the day of the bachelorette party and then the Thursday Damien arrived, I also got a DS game I’d ordered the week prior which is called Puzzle Quest. Highly addictive. That’s pretty much all I did for a week, but now I’ve beaten it and have gone back to WoW, my comics and crocheting. I’ll have to loan it to Dad or something; I think he might enjoy it.

This past weekend, we helped the Lushbaughs move in next door. And when I say “next door” I literally mean next door. They’re now in the other half of our house. We headed out early Sunday morning, grabbed a couple six-packs of water bottles (It’s good to be hydrated!) and went at it. They had a ton of boxes, totes and random stuff on their lawn already which I loaded into the Mom-mobile myself while Jamie, Mike and Ian loaded furniture into the moving van. Around one, the boys left to get Quiznos (friggin’ awesome sub place) and Jamie and I moved more stuff until they got back. Miller came in around that time to help load, and we finally had enough stuff to haul over here. Once here, we met up with Jim who’s definitely the strongest of us all, so unloading went a lot faster. I unpacked the Mom-mobile in the back yard and Ian took all of it in through the cellar door. At long last, Jamie, Ian and Miller took the moving van back while I broke out the beers I’d been keeping in the fridge for the occasion. We eventually ended up ordering pizza and hanging out on our half because our half was more accessible. Since the Lushbaughs have moved in next door, we’ve helped with a bit more random moving-related things like attaching wires, putting furniture together and laundry. It’s cool that at any time we can just wander over and pester each other without using any gasoline.

And yet, there’s still no time to rest because the plans for this weekend are already filling up. Mom and Dad are coming up for my cousin Josh’s graduation at RHIT and they’ll likely drop Rook off before they go so he can hang out here for the day while they’re at the ceremony. Afterward, Mom wants to see my office on campus (even though it’s a wreck just like I left it) and I figured we’d hang out here and maybe go out to eat at Mogger’s. Saturday I also plan on making ice cream using the ice cream maker Ian’s parents gave him in 2003 for the cook-out we’re co-hosting with the Lushbaughs Sunday because Jamie’s parents are coming down. Oh, did I mention that Ian and I got a grill? Yup, picked it up Monday or Sunday or something. I’ve already used it and I like it a lot. Grlling is fun (if time-consuming), and I look forward to having the chance to burn more this weekend.

And that’s pretty much it. I’m sure that there was a lot more going on, but those are the highlights with or without a lot of extraneous detail. It’s really the weekends which are heaviest hit, so during the week I work on mundane stuff like laundry, taking out the trash and crocheting (The afghan for Eric and Michelle’s wedding is about a third done–I did fifteen rows yesterday.) and I’ll probably play more WoW as well. For today, it looks like it’s going to be laundry, dishes and cleaning up the living room…and some WoW. 🙂 Sorry this post was so long, but three weeks of stuff requires a lot of rambling.