2004-05-23 - 8:49 p.m.
The moving of the co-worker that I was previously nervous about went over quite well. We made 3 trips and I was described as a "Type-A" person by her brother who was also helping move. I guess I do like to be in control. I was telling my dad not too long ago that I don't have the grace to let other people take charge and then watch them fail. Like I know everything!
Saturday there was two parties: Justin's graduation and Tim's housewarming. At Justin's I talked with Heather and Katie for awhile, and when Jacob showed up we played badminton. In a manner of speaking. There was a TON of little kids around who jumped in the game in order to catch the birdies and then throw them over the net. I was having a good time dancing around and pretty much sucking at hitting anything. Katie and I don't have a lot in common these days, but Heather got a little tipsy and was the same old fun Heather that I remember, to rip off something Jacob said later on to my mom. Justin seemed happy and I made plans to hang out with his wife and drink wine and make fun of people at Katie's wedding a few weeks hence. Justin is Katie's former lover and I believe his wife is still jealous and is anticipating a terrible time at Katie's wedding. This confuses me as 1) she's 33 or older and you'd think she'd be over petty jealousy by now and 2) the imaginary competition Katie poses would be diminished by getting married. It's all very strange to me.
About 5:30 Jacob and I went over to my house and played a quick game of Scrabble, and went over to Tim's. There wasn't a lot of people there, but a very interesting crowd. There was a man there who was actually a woman but called herself Brandon and weighed about 300 lbs and had her hair cut short and unshaven legs, and people throughout the night would refer to Brandon as "he" or "she" indiscriminately and I had a hard time figuring out the gender. Finally I had to ask Jacob, who said that Brandon is a woman who thinks of herself as a man, but doesn't want to do any surgery. S/He was a character and fun to talk to, that's for sure. Very gregarious. Tim made some excellent tira misu as well as some crab dip, and I'm looking forward to eating more of his cooking some time in the future. He also made a drink called a "Fire Island Iced Tea" and I got drunk as did my designated driver, Jacob. They both went to the Saloon, a local gay bar, but not before Tim drove me home first.
Today I played Scrabble with my folks, found a tick on my back, talked with Jimmie for awhile, ate breakfast, and went to a promotion Victoria's Secret was doing and spent obseen amounts of money on underwear. 3 bras and 7 pairs of underwear. I'm embarassed to say how much I spent. I had sexy underwear in mind and I think I'm set for the cruise as far as sexy caribbean underwear goes. I also got a thong with gambling in mind. Cherries in sequins!
To celebrate my indiscretion I finally dragged the lingerie chest I got for Christmas out of the garage and assembled it. My new underwear are now neatly laying in the drawers.
More about Jimmie's trip:
I don't believe I've mentioned it so far, but we went gambling 5 times while he was here. FIVE TIMES! The first time we went out on a Wednesday night, just the two of us. Jimmie won $100 on a quarter video poker machine. Unfortunately I wasn't so lucky and was a big loser the whole time. This trend continued every time we went. The second time, we went on a Friday night with my mom, and met Jacob and Tim there. I ate at Ribbons steakhouse for the first time and had a delicious meal. My mom gave us money to gamble with, generous person that she is, and even though we didn't win we had a lot of fun playing. The wild cherries in particular. Tim was hot; beginner's luck, as he'd never stepped in a casino before. Can you imagine it!! The third time we gambled was on a Sunday; we went to the racetrack with Jacob. I had trouble explaining the different bets to Jimmie, who had a fit and sat by himself for awhile. It's too bad my dad wasn't around because I think he would have been able to explain it a little better. None of our horses came in and the only thing we accomplished was to see Jimmie get pissed off. We then went to play mini-putt at Valleyfair, not realizing that Valleyfair ate the mini-putt completely and you had to pay to get in to play. We went down the street and played at the strangest mini-putt course I've ever played at. It had no out of bounds and had mini sand traps and real grass and was in every way like 18 holes of golf miniaturized. No weird windmills or bank shots. It was very interesting and would have been more fun had it not been so damn cold. It was cold the whole time Jimmie was here except the first weekend, and it's still cold and has rained every day since he's left. But I digress. I won mini-putt. On Monday we went back to Mystic with my Dad and Grandma and ate at Ribbons again, and my dad gave me money to play with again, and I lost, lost, lost. Once I had lost $100 I didn't want to play anymore and was content to watch, but my dad kept giving me money, which I lost, lost, lost. I stopped and watched Jimmie play for awhile, and he turned $15 into $100. We took it and spent it on Wild Cherries, not before we tested the aura of every Wild Cherry machine. We went home losers but with smiles never the less. The last time we went gambling was the next night at Mystic, after the Blink 182 concert, where we lost, lost, lost. But we played pull-tabs and walked away with smiles.
Saturday I had a large barbecue and a lot of my friends showed up. Some people didn't show up who said they were going to, and some people showed up that I had no idea were going to come. The kabobs were a hit, and Jimmie's cheeseburgers were delicious, and the jello shots were expertly made. Jimmie made a big vodka watermelon and cut a J and H into it, as well as other assorted shapes. The keg was not a big hit and we had to dump most of it the next day; good to know for future parties. It rained on us a little, and we played loaded questions inside. Later we had a fire, once it stopped raining, and made s'mores. Jacob, Jimmie and I played bocce ball while waiting for people to arrive and Jimmie had never played before. We also played badminton that day and Jimmie and I were dubbed Team Whif-a-rific, which I thought was a clever name on Jacob's part. We also played Sardines later, that eternally fun game no matter how old you get. Ahren kept hiding and then confessing that the actual hider was not there and he was only pretending. Once Jimmie hid and I found them and hid with them, but then they all got up and I didn't notice and finally I got up and saw they had all left and were hiding on the deck, which I would have appreciated more had the trick not been played upon myself. It was a lot of fun and you didn't have to have any particular skills in finding people, just listen for the giggling. I can't currently think of anything else about the barbecue to mention.
Sunday night after the day at the races and the bizarre mini-putt, Jimmie and I went to the Melting Pot. And what a feast! I set a new record for most money spent at a restaurant. And it was worth every penny! Did I already mention this? I've been talking non-stop about the Melting Pot and thinking about it ever since. May 16th it was. Was it really only a week ago? I can't wait to go back. We'll have to go again once I get back to Georgia. It was a wonderful night.
Tuesday was the Blink 182 concert, which I was apprehensive about. I get nervous sometimes when I think about putting myself in a situation where I could be jostled and tossed about. The only thing I should have been nervous about is when Blink was playing. Even though it said the concert started at 7 and when I bought the tickets it said there was no opening acts, there were TWO opening acts, and Blink didn't play until 9:15. AND they wouldn't let us leave until 7:50 for some dumb reason. SO we wandered around for awhile until they let us out, and looked at all the people who were there, and generally felt old. There were a lot of teens and tweens there. What kind of parents would let their 10 year old go to a Blink 182/Cypress Hill concert? But who am I to say... maybe I'll take my kids to a Blink concert someday. Not that I plan on having any!
When we were finally freed from the Target center prison, we went to Solera and had a couple tapas and some sherry, and I had a shot of whiskey with Jimmie. It was pretty good, which is to say the gag reflex only lasted a few seconds.
Back to the Target center, and we mourned not being on the floor, but our seats weren't bad at all. Two cool things about this concert; one of the guys started talking about how back in the 80s everyone would wave their lighters when a sad and slow song came on, but in the fire concientious days of the 21st century we're living in technologically advanced times, and everyone should hold up and wave their cell phones. And the Target Center went dark and everyone held up their cell phones, and the entire arena was dotted with tiny blue glowing lights. Later the drummer rose up out of nowhere in the center of the floor with his drums and the drums and him started rotating while he was going nuts on the drums and there was some kind of strange lighting effect where he was casting all kinds of shadows, and the effect was very neat. I don't know if I would have liked it so much if I had been on the floor for that part of it.
I still have to vacuum the downstairs so I'd better get to it, although I could write about my experiences with Jimmie for at least another hour. Instead I will vacuum and make an effort to stop talking/writing/thinking about Jimmie so much.
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