Repressed Memmeries

Missing Notes

Today marks a big day for The Boy!

As of right now, he's most likely sitting in our front room - we call it the music room, appropriately - sitting down with his new violin teacher, Ms. Sarah. As Obi-Wan once so succinctly coined it, it's his first step into a much large world. He is excited about his new instrument, although I think that Laura and I are just as excited, if not moreso. Even on first lessons, usually rife with the screechy sounds of missed notes reserved for cats mid-coitus, there's something sweet about the sound of your kids learning how to make music.

But, did you see that "most likely" part? Yeah, that's because I am yet again working 7-5 as part of this voluntary indentured servititude I've taken on called overtime. So, while he's having his very first lesson, I'll be sitting at work, dropping a quick blog note on a small break.

This is all voluntary, of course, and the money is good, no doubt about it. It's helped to cover the rid-goddamn-diculous electric bills that we've incurred over the past couple of months, for example. But, I really miss hanging out with the kids and my wife. It's starting to feel like I'm listening to a concert but only getting about 10% of the actual music.

I just have to remember that there's a larger goal in mind here, and that I'm really fortunate to have this opportunity at all. (Well, that and the fact that at the end of the day, I'm just a shameless hussy for the cash.)  :)

I hope that there's an end to this disjointed concerto in sight. I'll find out next week if OT is going to be extended again. And if it is, I'll probably sign up for another tour of duty.

It can't go on forever... right? :)

 

The Big Four Oh-My-Goodness!

There was  a big surprise birthday party over the weekend, a party which was ostensibly going to be for my best friend and brother-in-law, Mark. I'd been enlisted to make mucho grande food for said party, and I was happy to oblige, of course, because when it comes right down to it, I'm pretty much your bitch if you have a party and want food made.

What can I say? I'm a catering hussy. But I do love it so.

So, after getting into Indy late Friday night, I rolled out of bed at 5 am sharp on Saturday morning and knocked out several large salad dishes. I'll get to those in a second, but let's just say that by the time I was finished, I probably had completed in the neighborhood of around 40-45 pounds of various salads. We were expecting around 150 people, after all!

After we (other than Miss Thing, of course) all got haircuts, Laura and I ended up completing the MASSIVE amount of shopping that needed to be done that afternoon, and then we went over to the the church where this was going to happen to complete Phase 2 of food preparation. That mainly involved chopping of bags and bags and bags of veggies and fruits for the crudite platters and fruit salads.

The gameplan at that point was for me to go back and get Mark, pick up the keg and a few other sundry items before delivering him to the church, all under the guise that this was a party for one of Laura and Barbara's cousins. I noticed as the clock started getting long on the day that my wife was becoming rather pointed in her attempts to get me on my way. But, you know, there's always one more thing that can be chopped or prepared, right? Nonetheless, I finally scooted out at 4:15 and proceeded to go back to pick up the kids and Uncy Mark, and we picked up the fine cask of Killian's that had been reserved.

As we pulled into the parking lot, I called my wife with the pre-determined phrase to let her know that we had arrived. The kids, Mark and I walked in the front door to "Surprise!", of course, and applause. I started to applaud, as well, and then I noticed my mother was also there. Huh? And wait - there's my sister! And another sister! And another! And there's my old college roommates and buddies, too! What the -?

It finally hit me when I looked up and saw the banner they had conspisuously hung, which had a picture of Mark and Me doing our "Lady and the Tramp" thing from a Brazilian steakhouse a few years back: this was a surprise 40th birthday party for BOTH of us!

Or, in other words, I'd just catered my own surprise party! :)

Everything turned out so very well, and it was fantastic to be able to hang with people that we rarely get to see (including Mark's sister Patty, who had flown in from ALASKA!), and the food turned out great, as well!

Along with about 40 pounds of sliced cold cuts, another 15 pounds of sliced cheese, I had made a cold version of German potato salad, as inspired by this recipe by Anne Burrell, along with my famous pasta salad and cole slaw, as well as a bucket full of fruit salad. And yes, the traditional chips, pretzels & other munchies were there. Mark's other sister, Anne, brought over two yummy salads of her own, a layered broccoli and cauliflower salad and an absolutely delicious Asian soba noodle salad. (I really should've hit her up for that recipe, darn it...!)

Needless to say, we all had a fabulous time, even though we didn't finally get to bed until about 1:30 am. But, in the end, it's really nice to know that even I can still be surprised, even at this old ripe age.

Thank you, honey (and Barbara) - you two are two evil peas in pod, you know! :) Love ya both!

p.s. I'm going to see if anybody got any pictures of the food. Had I known, I totally would have been taking them all along...!

Coincidences and The Cat

My dad would have turned 61 today, had he lived this long.

It's hard to believe that it's been almost four years since he died, the deathday anniversary of which is coming up in a week and a half. October 3, the day before my mother's birthday.

It's funny, the way life's little coinkydinks work out sometimes. Another example is that today is also my sister-in-law Barbara's birthday, a grand and joyous occasion that will be properly celebrated this Saturday with big, flaming piles o' meat at a new restaurant to which she and my best bud in the whole world Mark (who, incidentally happens to be her husband. Go on. Do the math. Best friend... wife... wife's sister... hottie... hunka-hunka burning love and we're goin' to the chapel. You get the idea.), along with a close cousin to Mrs. Repressed and the Repressed SIL, Eric and his wife. Yuppers, a gen-u-ine adult night out, complete with babysitters, hot Brazilian... food (not wax, or at least not yet, Friend Linger!) and I'm sure more than a few drinkie-drinkies before the night's tucked away, passed out in a pile of it's own vomit.

Wanna hear another fucked up coincidence? Yeah, this one's a real fucking kicker. Today we found out that our little Ty-Kitty, an 18-year-old family feline that we inherited from my dad and stepmother Pam (since they both died within 18 months of each other, each from a rare form of cancer in 2002 and 2003), the one living link that we really have to remind us of them both... well, Ty-Kitty apparently is continuing on with that fine family tradition, as we just found out tonight that he is completely riddled with large tumors throughout his slender, fragile (did you know that an 18-year old cat is analogous to a 92-year old human?) body.

We knew something was up when he started peeing and crapping all over the carpets, when he'd been so good about hitting up his pookie box anytime nature called prior to that. He'd been doing that for awhile, and we just chalked it up to Kitty Alzheimer's or something like that. Then, over this past weekend, he suddenly started to walk with his head all tilted to the side, and he would walk in circles. Mrs. Repressed packed him up and took him to the vet yesterday, and we got a call earlier this afternoon to let us know that his blood work didn't show any signs of bladder infection or anything like that. The vet already suspected the big "C", but we needed an X-ray to confirm it.

And, as it always seems to, it did. Mrs. Repressed called me from the vet's office to see what I thought we should do.

Now, I should back up just a bit here, just for a moment. It's no secret to anyone who knows me that I'm not a "pet" person. In fact, I generally despise having pets in the house. They smell, they pukepeehackpoopcoughuphairballs all over the place, and considering that I've developed quite an allergy to pet hair & dander over the years... well, let's just say that pets and I do not a good mix make.

That said, Ty-Kitty is a special case. My dad - in the confusing emotional aftermath of losing Pam, was just going to send Ty-Kitty to the pound. I suspect that he just didn't want to have that kind of daily reminder of Pam around. None of my other brothers or sisters had the capacity for another kitty, and even though we already had two cats at the time, we had room for one more. So, I gave Ty-Kitty a special dispensation and we welcomed him into our house. He really is a sweet old kitty, very loving and generous with those cold, wet kitty kisses. Ask Mrs. Repressed every morning about it as she tries to put on her make-up with a black and white hairball not more than 3 inches from her face as she does it!

Over the past couple of years that Ty-Kitty's been with us, we've seen the passing of our two previous cats, Shirley and Edna, which was very hard on us, Mrs. Repressed especially, since they were hers since they were babies. Ty-Kitty is the only kitty we have left now, and it doesn't appear that we're going to have him much longer.

Which brings me back to the phone call. All along, I've been known to say that I've been looking forward to a pet-free existence... but you know, now that I'm staring down that double-barreled motherfucker called Reality, I'm finding the prospect of not having our little Ty-Kitty around is not a happy one, to say the least. In fact, I'm pretty fucking broken up about it. Me, crying about a damned cat!

So, when it came to brass tacks, I just couldn't do it. Not today. And after the day the kids had - a visit to their doctor for their IL-required physical (a long story that I just don't want to go into now), including surprise blood draws (little ones, out of their fingers, but traumatic to five and six-year olds nonetheless) and an even bigger surprise chicken pox booster shot for The Boy (whoooo-boy, was he NOT happy about that) - I just didn't think it was right to add any more Life Events (TM) to this day.

He's not in any discernable pain, and he doesn't seem to have any other ill-effects other than the dizzy-kitty syndrome that's got him all askew. But from the looks of it, he's not long on this world. And we noticed that when he got home tonight, he went to his water dish and just froze there, in place, for several minutes, as if contemplating his long kitty life. The rational part of my brain, however, realizes that he's starting the exhibit the usual "find a cave to crawl away and die" behavior, and that's a sad realization to accept right now.

His time with us will be short, considering the vast expanse of the metastases in his body. We may yet have to lay him down for his final nap. Or maybe nature will just do what it does and take him quietly into the night.

And when that happens, our world will be a little less bright for it.

So, please, excuse me now... I have to go wipe the tears from my face and glasses... for they are many...

Rollin', Rollin', Rollin'

We're dual-household owners once again! Ya-hoo!

Yes, it's true; as the rumbling machinery of relocation grinds ever forward, we took a huge lurch forward yesterday by closing on our new house in Bloomington, IL. The gorgeous missus and I traversed our way over to B-town in the early hours of the morn to give the new Casa de Memmer a final once-over with our realtor before heading over to the title company to sign our lives away. Again.

The process appeared to have gone horribly awry somewhere near the 80% completion mark yesterday. There were fears that our lender had messed up something fierce and that we'd have to have them fax over a whole new packet of documents, essentially starting from the beginning. However, to make a long story short, it turned out to be a whole lotta nuthin', as we only had to go back after our Delicious Lunch (TM) to sign one form - in quadruplicate, of course, but only one.

After that, we had a new house. And by and large, it's a pretty nice house. It's quite a bit smaller - around 25% smaller, in fact. It'll take a little getting-used-to, the cramped quarters. I'm still struggling over how I'm gonna fit all the stuff we have into the new space, especially in the family room and the master bedroom (aka. "where the magic happens"). It's a cute enough house, though, and it's got a nice backyard, along with the fact that we're at the top tip of a cul-de-sac with only one neighbor on each side... which makes it ideal for punkins to pony up on their bikes.

We actually met the former owner at the closing, and for all the rumours we heard about him from the real estates agents involved, he turned out to be a helluva nice guy. We had a good time chatting it up with him before he had to drive back to his new home in Ohio.

Once that was all wrapped up, we zoomed back to the house and unloaded our first vanload of crap: the bed that Laura's going to use until the rest of our stuff gets moved in June (aka. "the place where the kids were made"). So, in proper fashion, we christened the new house by shaggin each other nasty right there in the middle of the daylight!!

*sigh* Just kidding, folks. :) In actuality, the first official task after setting up the bed was to de-spider-fy the main staircase. I'll have to regale you with the legendary arachnophobia that inhabits Mrs. Repressed another time, but let's just say that it had to be done before we left, otherwise she would never have come back.

And, since it's time to boogie on to soccer practice, I'll just wrap this up right now!

Our Own Little Jewel

Yeah, her hair really is that crazy.

Ooooh... You've Made Me Very Angry. I Shall Have to Vaporize You With My XK-1 Space Modula-tor!

8 Years - A Parental Celebration

Yesterday was the 8th Wedding Anniversary for Mrs. Repressed and me. Eight years.

Which means that we've actually been together for nine and half years. That's a weird time scale for me to think on, if for no other reason than it's hard for me to imagine anybody actually hanging out with me for that long!(I'm thankful everyday for the judgement-impairing abilities of alcohol - how else do you think I squeezed a "yes" out of her, huh?)

As I look back and reflect over the past 4/5ths of a decade, I'm amazed at how different things are now than they were back then. We're both not as skinny as we once were (although, frankly, I prefer my wife the way she is now - mrrrrowrrr.....! :) ), we're now four of us and our responsibilities are far more reaching than they ever were back as a young married couple. And yet, it seems to have passed so quickly... I look at our children, and with Alex just a week away from turning six, and Sissy approaching five, I wonder where the time has gone? They're growing up so fast - my son actually used the word "humiliated" in a sentence properly yesterday, and my daughter has the emotive range of someone twice her range (you should see the expressions and inflections she uses!) - that I'm afraid of blinking for fear of missing something important!

*sigh*

So, what did we do to celebrate our life, our love, our good fortune at making it this far? Why, we did what any self-respecting couple with kids does: we took the kids to McDonalds, as Alex was invited to one of his classmate's birthday party. Trust me when I tell you that there is nothing more romantic than 20 Kindergartners screaming, running and playing while you're tossing back McFood and McDrinks. :)

As we snuggled down for the night last night, Mrs. Repressed all sniffly and sneezy, my head nestled against her shoulder with the 11 o'clock news playing softly in the background, I felt the warm embrace of our history envelope me - or maybe that was just gas, you never can tell with me anymore - and it just reminded me of how thankful I truly am for the way my life has turned out thusfar.

"I love you, pumpkin."

"I love you too, honeybunny."

"Everybody be cool - this is a robbery!"

:)

The Disney Post, Part I

In light of Mrs. Repressed and me hitting up Disney.com, contemplating another much-needed vacation at the House of Mouse, well, I figured it'd be only polite to finally get off my hairy duff and tell you about the last one.

Let me preface the whole conversation by stating that all told, we really did have a good time. And while there were a few moments - well, there always are with any vacation, I suppose - I came away from this vacation satisfied, happy and wanting to go back. But there were a few things that kind of stuck in my craw, so first, let me start with the hotel.

Animal Kingdom Lodge is where we chose to stay this time. Having stayed there for a week, I can say that we're not the biggest fans of the place. Unless we get a free trip, we probably won't be staying there again. It's not that it wasn't a lovely hotel, because it's readily apparent that a lot of time and effort was spent in its design. Lots of dark teakwood and African art deco as far as the eye could see! And the sheer size of the place is hard to describe. It's has a scope best appreciated by the eye, perhaps, and not simple words. Yet, for all it's cathedral majesty, it is that same scale that - to us - was the source of our discontent.

For starters, when we got there, we got a free "upgrade" to a room overlooking the savannah. What we didn't realize is that this room was in the building furthest from the lobby. Seriously. It was like a quarter mile walk to the freakin' room! The room was nice enough, and truth be told, one of the reasons that we wanted to try this level of Disney resort was for the Queen-sized beds that come standard in the rooms. What we hadn't anticipated was that the actual room size in this particular hotel didn't increase. So, we got the bigger beds. But it made the room a whole heckuva lot smaller! Not that it really bothered the kids, really:

However, it was so far that after one day, we knew that this wasn't going to work. When we got back from the parks and all we wanted to do was go sit in the hot tub, the realization that we'd have to make the lonnng... freaking... walk allllll the way back to the hottub was so depressing that we just collapsed into beds, defeated.

The next morning, I began making the calls to change hotels.

For it wasn't only the location of our room, but the fact that AKL is arguably the hotel furthest from just about friggin' everything. So, it was a long bus ride no matter where we went. Normally, that's not too much of a problem, but there was also the fact that the "bus station" at the hotel was at the bottom of a not-insignificant hill!

That's right, campers - after getting back from walking around the park all day, howsabout a nice 200 yard uphill climb to the lobby so that you can walk the additional quarter-mile back to your room?   

I was on the horn the next morning, and I encountered my second frayed Disney edge: a massively unhelpful and rude fella at "central reservations"... after a 30 minute wait on the phone, of course. Ultimately, he told me that there were no rooms available at any other resort for the time period we needed (up through the Sat right before Halloween). So, no luck there. However, after initially being rebuffed by some old battleaxe at the concierge desk, I was able to get through to somebody with a little more power there in the hotel, who kindly found a room just 8 doors up the hallway from the lobby. A good enough compromise for us, and it was still a savannah-view room.

Did I tell you that we were doing the Disney Dining Plan this time? In previous trips, we'd spent about $12-1300 on food on average (this, for a typical 7-day trip). Now, please understand that it's not hard to drop $80-90 on a "table service" meal in the parks when you've got four hungry people. The dining plan for the four of us for the week (which we found out when we got there was on a "per NIGHT stayed" instead of a "per DAY stayed", so we had to make up a 1/2 day's worth of food - no big problem there) came in at just under $600, but there were a couple of meals that we were going to pay for ourselves. (We had booked the Cinderalla breakfast, and that took up 2 "table service" meals.) I have to say: for the amount of food that you get on the DDP: 1 table-service, 1 counter-service (like pizza, hamburgers, etc.) and 1 snack per day, each meal having an appetizer, an entree and a dessert for everyone... that was a lot of food! I can honestly say that there was not a single meal that we walked away still hungry. That's not to say that all the food was 4-star quality everytime, however.

There were some notable disappointments, probably because we had heard such glowing reviews of these places, such as the Brown Derby and Boma. Aside from the fact that Mrs. Repressed damn near choked on a watermelon rind salad at Boma - and we did have an awesome waiter there, admittedly - we also had interminably long waits and poor service at the Brown Derby.

I figure that we saved about $500 by doing the DDP alone. Now, there is a cloud to this silver lining... a small one, sure, but one I hadn't expected. In many of the nicer restaurants - the Brown Derby, fro example - the *quality* food was fantastically mediocre. We paid for that out of pocket, and we so underwhelmed that we won't return there. However, that said, we made up for in the German pavilion. My, oh my. Rouladen, wursts, spaetzle and hunter's sauce as far as the eye could see!

Tomorrow, a Not-So-Scary Halloween and the 40-inch dilemma overcome!

Trudging Down The Paths of the Downtrodden

Since no one else really reads this blog other than Friend Laura and occasionally Mrs. Repressed, I guess it doesn't hurt to be a little more frank and a little less measured than other more well-travelled (or at least "travelled") in my writings here. And today I'm really feeling beat down, the kind of ubiquitous life-smackdown that pounces from the shadows unexpectedly, lands on top of your head and your heart and decides it likes it there just fine, thank you very much, nevermind me while I dig in for stay.

The thing that really sent me down the Paths of the Downtrodden was a set of e-mails I received from the Punkin's Kindergarten teacher yesterday. The Boy has been having some difficulty getting adjusted to his new academic life; I freely admit that. To be perfectly honest, I expected that it might be a little hard for him. Not because he's a bad kid; quite the opposite. He's a smart, friendly little guy who's never met a stranger - he and he sister both are armed and gregarious (don't know where they got those particular traits...!) - but the Boy can be a little ball of energy, to say the least, and he's not the best listener in the world. He loves to play, and he loves to play with other kids. He's a sensitive boy, too, so his feelings at this young age are very often sitting right on the surface, easily touched and hurt. However, he can also have the head density of a Pachycephalosaur and have times where he's not exactly aware of just how devilish he's being at that moment.

There have been more than one little chats with him about proper behavior over the past month since school started. He had a good week, then a bad week, then an excellent week last week, and an even better day on Monday. I really thought we had turned the corner with him. I thought that some of the things were had been saying were finally sinking through the marble layers upstairs.

Then yesterday happened. A bad day. A baaaaaad day. A flurry of e-mails between his teacher and me. It didn't really even make me angry, really; instead, I felt disappointed, like the wind had just been sucked out of my sails. And he knew that I wasn't happy, because when I picked him up and was strapping him into his car seat, he looked up with hopeful eyes and said, "Can we let them slide tonight?"

"Them" being the listed punishments/penalties for getting in trouble at school. To which I replied, "Not a chance, little buddy."

What I didn't realize was that after a contentious, sleep-deprived and nightmare-filled night last night I had a follow-up e-mail from his teacher from yesterday afternoon, received by me after I had already left for the day. In it, she made reference that she has received some "unsolicited" comments from his Art and P.E. teachers about his tendency to talk a lot in class.

Well, that was just like a kick in the balls. What a nice way to start off my day. It really has gotten me down today - it's like the latest and greatest in a series of things that have just been monkey-piling up on top of me for awhile now. It bothers me greatly to think that he's starting to get a reputation as a troublemaker and a bad kid, because nothing could be further from the truth when it comes to my boy. But the implication that some of his teachers feel that way makes me feel like the World's Worst Dad... and not a little angry with the school, might I add.

It's very simple. I teach him as best as I can we he's at home to behave well, treat others nice and to try not to throw food in the cafeteria. However, once I drop him off at the door, I no longer have any control over how he's acting. I can't be there to hold his hand all day. That's why I pay my taxes: it's becomes the school's responsibility. Frankly, I'm getting a little tired of hearing his teachers bitch and moan about how they can't control him, because when it comes down to brass fucking tacks, that their job, dammit. Don't feed me a long line of rationalizations as to why I should feel guilty because you can't keep control of your class. Did you ever think that maybe, just maybe, the "punishments" that you're using aren't effective in real classroom situations? Is it possible that it's just my child that is the only one causing problems?

In other words, don't try to pass the blame to me for your failure to maintain your classroom. My son is certainly not the first Tasmanian Devil to blow through your school, and he certainly won't be the last. However, isn't "How to handle a handful" in the teacher training handbook somewhere?

And I know where this is all headed. I can see his teacher building her case. She going to try and say that the boy has ADD/ADHD and that we should medicate him. Bullshit. Now, I'm not saying that there aren't legitimate cases of genuine biological imbalances out there. One of the Repressed's sisters benefitted greatly from Ritalin (I think that's what she had), in fact. But what I am saying is that the ADD/ADHD diagnosis has become a crutch for teachers who would otherwise have to develop some actual skills in dealing with students. It's far easier to stuff a kid full of psychoactive drugs than to learn how to deal with students that have a little spark of life to them.

*sigh*

That said, I've not received any e-mails today, so here's hoping that things are going better for him today. All I want is for my kids to be happy, to learn all that they can and to enjoy school.

Is that asking so much?

[Update 8:30 pm:] Well, I ended up having a good, long conversation with the Punkin's teacher. And you know what? It was actually a positive, productive tete-a-tete. She had some really good ideas on how we might be able to turn this around into something positive, and she was quite complimentary with regards to Alex's abilities. It's his performance that she feels needs direction, a sentiment with which I totally agree.

I did ask about how she viewed his behaviour as viewed through the lens of his tendency to get bored easily, leading him to seek other things with which he could occupy his mind. At this point, she's just chalking it up to him being a 5-year old boy. :) She did have some interesting ideas that might not only help him to focus on the job at hand, essentially rewarding him with other "special projects" that would interest him more. That sounded like an excellent idea, so we'll see how that works out.

I guess that my writer's passion got the better of me this afternoon. Then again, it may also have been the by-product of staying up until the ass-crack of 2 am...! I still stand by my points regarding ADD/ADHD, but I do feel a bit more comfortable that they're not heading down that path... at least, not yet.

Post Wedding Recovery Report

Well, we survived. Most of me did, at least.

Other than the fact that it was hotter than the surface of the sun, a lovely time was generally had by all. But, boy howdy, was it HOT, especially at Holiday World! It's easy to forget that the landscape in that part of the state has a lot more hills and valleys, and HW is no exception: the whole place is built onto the side of fairly steep incline. So, combine that fact with my manly girth, two deranged midgets, 95+ temperatures and very little ambient breeze and you've got yourself a perfect recipe for a massive coronary just waiting to happen! :)

Despite all that, we still had a really good time, and came away remarkably non-lobster-esque, thanks to all the free lotion. I drank about, oh, 4 gallons of Gatorade that day... and it should be telling that I only hit up the head once the entire 8 hours we were there. Laura and the kids held up well under the blistering conditions in similar fashion... it helped a lot that they rode the indoor-and-blessedly-air-conditioned "Turkey Hunt" ride about 8 times in a row while Daddy was waiting in line for the roller-coaster-to-end-all-coasters to open. (Wow, what a ride! Needless to say, I could only feasibly ride it one time per trip without seriously screwing up some internal plumbing...!)

The next day was actually fairly low-key... we putzed around most of the day, including taking a rare afternoon nap, before heading down to for the rehearsal. From there, we wandered down to the Gehlhausen compound - Jill's family's massive tract of land - complete with a family lake, shelter buildings and outhouse with electricity and running water, just down the (another one!) hill from where Jake and Jill are building their house. They had a bunch of chicken and brats grilled up for the rehearsal dinner, along with an industrial-strength swingset for the kids to play on.

As and added plus, we got to see The Hole into which his Royal Jakeness had fallen and broken his foot. The claw marks on the earth were the best part. :)

The next day - Wedding Day - went fairly smoothly, even the arduous picture-taking process before and after. Jeannette has become quite the professional flower girl model, even going as far as asking the photog if he was looking more for coquettish rather than coy.  When the magic time rolled around, despite an organ player who must've been suffering from Tourette's Syndrome of the fingers, the ceremony came off without a hitch. Everybody landed where they were supposed to, and in the end, a kiss sealed the deal.

After the obligatory 1.5 hours for more pictures afterwards, we traipsed over to the Ferdinand Community Center - which, before this weekend, I would have thought to be a lean-to with a pack of Schlitz and an outhouse - which was, in fact, a very nice facility with a built-in bar (and built-in beer, wine and sodas for everyone!), a stage for the DJ and plenty o' air conditioning. Much... much... partying ensued. When I picked up Sissy to dance with her, I'd forgotten that she's no longer the bite-sized infant I could carry in the crook of my elbow; nope, she's a full-fledged solid piece of sweet & spice and everything nice.

The kids, who really did perform admirably that day, finally started to melt down around 9 pm, so we decided to skedaddle back for a quick dip in the pool at our hotel. Naturally, after walking into our room, I realized that I had left my tux jacket back at the reception. Of course, no one was answering their cell phones, so I knew that I was going to have to drive back over (all of a 3 minute trip) and get it. Before that, however, inspiration struck.

I caught one of girls at the front desk and asked them if I could get into Jake and Jill's room (they were staying exactly one floor below us - iiicckk!) before they got back. Once I received their blessing, I went back to the reception, grabbed my tux and immediately made a beeline for "Bob's Liquors" to procure me some yummy Asti Spumante and glasses. Once I got back to their room - with the gracious assistance of the hotel staff, I proceeded to leave the faux-champagne (which Mrs. Repressed actually prefers, incidentally) sitting in a bucket of ice, wrapped in a towel, in the middle of their bed. And, taking advantage of the fact that we were the parents of the flower girl, I spent the next 5 minutes spreading about 1.2 million silk rose petals in every nook and cranny I could find in that room.

I gave serious thought to leaving a big ol ' dookie in the loo for them, but decided against it... which Mrs. Repressed was very relieved to hear.

As I came to find out the next morning, they were big fans of that little presentation, although more alcohol was not exactly what they needed by the time they got there. Nonetheless, they boarded their plane in Louisville and are now sucking up the rays in sunny Daytona.

We hit the road just before noon, and upon returning to Casa De Repressed, we found that our lawn turned a lovely shade of dead, and the house was pretty toasty. (I turned up the AC to 80 whilst we were gone - no reason to pay those greedy bastadges at the 'Lectric Compn'y anymore 'n necessary, right?) After a few hours, it was much more pleasant and we finally hit the hay, luxuriating in the snuggly goodness of our our beds, for a much-needed mid-summer's nap.
And, in what I should have expected as a bit of cosmic irony, Sissy decided to get up four times last night.

Our little Sweetpea has a bladder the size of a thimble, she does.

*sigh*

At least I had a good morning coffee to spill on myself to get woken up properly this morning...! And, with only one sibling left amongst the many who remains thusfar unaffiliated, we may be approaching a time in our lives where we're NOT going to have many more weddings in which we actually need to be involved... instead of just making fun as spectators like everybody else!