Whine whine whine - i wish i had a landlord

It all starts with yesterday I'm feeling very blah.  Sick blah.  Probably came down with the second grade or the kindergarten funk.  No worries, I'll go home and get all snuggly and get better.  So I go home, pick up some and set up a space heater in my bedroom as now only one of my wall heaters works, and it's in the entirely opposite corner.

I warm up the room and go to take a shower, after 10 minutes there is no hot water.  There's not even something other than freezing cold ice water.  So no shower, it must be because I didn't insulate my pipes, well, that will be a plan for Saturday.

Saturday I wake up with a sinus headache, sniffles, runny nose, sneezing, and no voice.  I make my way to Morgan's for a shower, as i smelled funny, and we went to Lowes and Home Depot looking for baseboard heaters.  Apparently they can install anything except for these baseboard heaters, which are relatively simple and I would do myself if I trusted myself to not kill me.

So back to my house to get the ingrediants for some bortscht and to check on the kittens and the low-running space heater.  We forget the ingrediants.

After a while I investigate electricians more and see that Home Depot DOES have electricians to install all their stuff.  I call them expecting to be told "just not where you live." But the woman who answers the phone is very helpful and tells me that someone will get back to me in the next few days.

now to figure out the hot water heater.

Marriage Equality Rally!

[newsbreak] Good news! Larry Summer is no longer up for Treasury Sec.  If you didn't know, he's the ex-ivyleague-pres who said women were inheantly inferior at math and science.  He even set up a home ec class for women so they didn't need to worry their little heads with all sorts of numbers. [end newsbreak]

So, Saturday was the Anti-passing of all the no gay marriage acts/props/ammendments.  Morgan and I made up posters (seen below), and he met me at the museum at 2.30PM with the plan to head right over to World's Fair Park.

Well... I head over to the museum, where I had 1PM a program to give, at 12.15.  I pull into the lot and am told that I need to pay, there's a basketball game.  I explain to the attendant that I am going to work at the museum and, not only that, I have 20 young girl scouts with parents coming at 1.  They tell me that they will need to find parking.  I respond that this is not acceptable, they were told where they could park before this, and the museum lot is to remain open for museum visitors.  Well, apparently there are only 5 spots left, and goodness knows how we'll do this.  So they call the head guy, who is very not pleased to see me.  The museum and the parking people have been at odds for as long as I've worked there.  The museum needs weekend visitors. When the museum advertises free admission and free parking, people expect that.  If they need to suddenly pay $5 to go do something free, they'll just as soon go home.  The museum loses visitors, and no one buys anything cool in the museum shop.

So he and I argue that parking a few cars in the free lot with everyone else having to pay is not acceptable.  I threaten to call people, like the museum's director, in order to give my girls a good experience.  At this point one of the original attendents comes running up and tells us that most of the cars in the lot are high school students here for visitation, and their program is supposed to be over at 12.30.  How about we just close the lot down for everyone except Girl Scouts (and other visitors, I pipe in).  That, I tell them, will work, assuming enough people leave.  What if we don't have enough spots still?  The attendants point out a bunch of open space, normally used by the daily attendant's kiosk, and say they'll park them in there.  We should be guarenteed 15 spaces between what's already open, what will open, and the informal spots.  So they change the sign to "Lot Full" and I head in hoping that the girl scouts are carpooling, like good environmentally concious individuals should.

I have 15 minutes to run upstairs, downstairs, middlestairs in order to get my 45 minute program, my 15 minute tool demonstrations, my 20 minute clay-based craft, and my 5 minute story set up.  I'm not ready on time, but that's ok, because the "Lot Full" sign confused some parents looking for the museum so they're on their way.  We get started about 15-20 minutes late.  Gargh!

We do the program, take a little longer on the initial program because they ask so many gosh durned questions, do the tools, take a quick break for me to move around the set up for the craft, make our darned clay pots, Morgan shows up, wash our hands, tell the story, and I clean up in record time.  I tell the guard the few things he needs to do (re-set some alarms, re-lock a few doors) since I don't have codes or keys.

3.20PM Morgan and I rush out of campus and over to Worlds Fair Park.  Everyone is gone!

Noooo!

So now I have two virgin signs for the next protest rally.

I'm annoyed.  Stupid parking.

Come to find out, about 120 people were at the rally, and the only counter protest was

LINK TO ARTICLE ABOUT RALLY IN KTOWN!  I really like this article.  Especially that it is written with a lean toward supporting same sex marriage and even includes religious leaders' comments supporting the equality of the right.

In other marriage-equality news:  December 5 is "No Gay for A Day" day, where the LGBT community and their supporters stay home from work.  Where I work, at the museum, we all feel that marriage should count.  The people I serve, children, would be the ones effected.  While children may repeat what parents say, they are still impressionable.  I'm conflicted whether my staying home would help.

Theresa's Wedding -Drama Mama's, Dancing Grannies, and Problems with the Pastor's Ex.... AND PICTURES

My LITTLE brother.


My mother.


The other weekend I went to PA to see my bestest best best BEST friend from high school get herself married. I had met David, the groom/husband before. It was so long ago that JUSTIN met the groom/husband. He asked "are you still with that guy i met when Theresa got her wisdom teeth out?" I'm like "no" and Theresa says to me "No, you're with that guy that you went to Texas with." and i'm like "no" and they're like "how many boys have you been through!?" and I answer, "I'm on my third." I only counted "real" relationships, if you know what I mean.

So on to the wedding.

I drive up on Thursday, after the TN drama quiets down (she's back from the hospital and feeling better, btw), leaving Knoxville at about 8AM, stopping somewhere in VA for a BLT and fries at 2 PM and then pulling into Bumblefuck, PA at 6PM. I unload my stuff, including some produce for my mother and make dinner with the TN eggplants, sweet potatoes, and her asparagus. Yummy!

Friday morning I call the bride because I know I'm supposed to be, at some time some where for a rehersal. I also ask if she needs help. So I spend the next while in a freezing old theater with a stamped tin roof stringing up miles of Christmas tree lights and lit up grapes, setting tables, and laying out alchohal. Each table got one bottle of Arbor Mist and one bottle of Maneschevitz (grape flavored wine? what?).

We rush off to the wedding rehersal, where the rev/priest/pastor informs us that while we must be at the church at 12:30, she can't get there till 1 because her exhusband doesn't have their 2 year old this weekend, so she'll drop the kid off at her parents and then come over.

After the rehearsal, dinner at the Prime Rib buffet of Country Cupboard, where we stuffed ourselves full of the best mac and cheese ever concocted on this green/brown/blue earth. Then, after the rehearsal dinner, it's halloween, so we go back to the reception hall and set up candies and peanuts for the favors, rewash all the stem ware, and make sure the tables are set properly.




The reception hall when we finished.

I get home at about 10, get tired of the tension between my mother and myself and go to bed.

The next morning, up at 7 to do my hair and get back to the reception hall at 9. At the hall we get the baloons ready, set up cookies, and any last minute details. We finally shoo Theresa (the bride) out at about 10:30, I stick around about another 20 minutes, and go home. My hair fell horribly, a combination of the silicone straitener I used and a light misty rain I was in the middle of, so I shower and redo it.

Then off to the church, where I start taking pictures. The bridal party is in one of the study rooms, the groomsmen are... who knows. My brother drove me and helped me bring my dress, shoes, purse, other purse, makeup, and jacket. Everyone was so surprised to see him. He's tall, filled out some, and back from Iraq.

Everything getting ready goes pretty well. We get Theresa into her dress, and then we get into ours, taking pictures of us ladies as we go. Crystal and Corralyne (spelling?) and I looked marvelous. Then we looked at the flowers. The bridal bouquet was purple Cala Lillies with white flowers. And us bridesmades had three white Cala Lilies. Absolutely Elegant! They complimented the gowns gloriously.

The flowergirl gets in, M, and she's told that her direction is that she will walk behind me. We did this so that she won't get stage fright of being the first person out.





Then Theresa decides that since we have time and all the cousins and family seem to be here, we'll take pictures, including some of her family, before the service. So we all head outside while the cousins gather the aunts, uncles, grandparents, and greatgrandparents. They aren't coming out so after we do our bridesmaid pix we go back inside.

At which point Theresa's mother comes running into the preperation room, grabs the photographer, and yells at her:

"I DO NOT TAKE ORDERS FROM THE HIRED HELP"
(T's mom is a nurse and her dad is an electrician. They're not normally in positions of having people "beneath" them, so this is/not normal at all.)

The religious officiating figure comes rushing in and leads her mother out "What do YOU still need to do, let's focus on that. The wedding won't start without everyone, and everyone else will wait."

Thank God's helpers. At this point the flower girl is quivering and literally interpreting her direction to stand behind me. My dress is clenched in one of her fists, and she has a death grip on the basket of flower petals.


The religious official helping diffuse the situation.

So then we continue with what we're doing, get in line for the wedding, and her father looks at her and says: "That's the veil? How the hell do I get THAT out of your face?" We all eyeroll and hope that her parents won't continue this and other, nonreported, attempts to be at the center of the event. IT'S THERESA AND DAVID'S DAY DAMMIT! Then we show him that although the veil is massive, the part up front is smaller and you bring it over her head just like if it were a welder's visor.

Music starts (finally!) and we file out and to the front. The veil is done fine. The pastor/reverend/ordained person said some marvelous things about love and togetherness and trust - very little if anything about GOD and JESUS - it actually made me a little weepy, hoping to find someone who I can share that sort of emotional intimacy/trust with for so long.

Then we headed out of the church, did a receiving line. Atleast 5 people I graduated with were like "Oh Hi! How are you?! It's been so long!" And I couldn't remember their name, just something about how I didn't like them because they were mean so why the hell were they here, they must have changed and keep in touch with Theresa. And I smile saying "Yes, it has been too long, hasn't it."

Once everyone was outside, they had bottles of bubbles, and when the bride and groom came out of the church wwe blew bubbles. I managed to get a gob of the solution flicked into my eye, so before the NEXT round of pictures I ran inside and redid my eye makeup.

Pictures in the church, pictures outside, then we jump in Corralyn's car and head to the reception hall. Once there, we wait about half an hour for the bride and groom (they went to ANOTHER location to take pix... an archway in the cemetary). Then we all get introduced and sit down at the head table.


The favors and place cards.


Food was delicious! Appatizers were Kelbasa (aka kelbessy) and meatballs. The main meals were BBQ beef briscuit or chicken cordon bleu. Vegetables were typical big seating medley of cauliflower, carrot, and something else. I was SO hungry between getting the reception hall ready and all. I had a sandwich at lunch but I was still hungry. So when the caterers brought extra chickens to our table, I (and others) totally dug into it.


Cakes


Theresa and Crystal

Through this, I wandered over to a table populated with my friends from high school, some with their significant others and one pregnant (with her second!!!), and took some pictures of them. My mother was sitting with them. At one point, I hear one say "I don't mind when someone talks politics, but I figure why should I try to convince someone of my view?" and someone responds "I totally agree, it's just not polite." And, ironically, I fight back responding that convincing people is more of educating them to views they aren't aware of yet and that my future is dependant on others making properly informed decision.





She's 6 month's pregnant. With number 2!

Then we have all the dancings. Daughter daddy. Wife and husband. Dollar dance (1 dollar gets you a shot!).


The bride (I'm so proud of this picture!)


With her father





Then more dancing!


Theresa's Grandmother Boogieing on DOWN!



Theresa's GREAT GRANDMOTHER DOING THE TWIST!!!


Happy Couples!


Beth dancing and messing with a camera.


And more hanging out!


We were all elsewhere.


Bonnie (David's mom) David, Theresa, and Matt taking a quick break from the people, people, and more people.


The siblings and their SigOthers.


See - where's still not around.


Crystal with Johnathan

About 10PM we shut down and started cleaning up. Thankfully we finally get things set to a good point, after Theresa's mom goes on for a while about... I'm not totally sure entirely but I think it had something with the kegs. Corralyne and Theresa's brother Matt gave me a ride back.

Success.

And then I drove home.

PA farmland


Carlisle War College

Am I too nice? - communication with an ex

I got an email from A this morning - yes, the ex.

So, as I find it hard to forget because I was there, and as I think multiple people have heard, my last relationship (with A) didn't end too well.  It was full of tears and screams and spite.  He checked my blogs and myspace continually.  He wouldn't let me be at my house.  When I saw his roommate/coworker at Brewers Jam who kept hanging out with my group, I was told that he's not over me, that he keeps talking about me.  I was asked, in front of Morgan, if there was any chance we would get *back* together so that A would calm down.  Imagine what he would be like if I had been the one who broke up with HIM!

In this process, after a series of not plesent emails that I left unanswered he sends a more ominous one that makes me think he'll start (again) with the random showing up at my door.  This is when I finally respond to him simply telling him that I don't want to ever see/hear him again and to leave me alone.

He got the hint.  He still hit my blog for a while.  It was after this that I saw his roomate who talked to me.  But eventually I stopped getting hits from Cookeville and Crossville on my Myspace and my blogger.  So either he stopped reading or he found a really good IP hider.

And I was happy that the negativity of the situation had left.  I was still friends with his sister-in-law, so that was cool.  I'm a little upset that this has made it so that if she has something awesome (like her first friday show) I need to check that there will be no potential for drama, but that hasn't been a problem yet.

But then this morning I get an email from A. subject line "hello friend! how are you these days"

I wonder if I should open it, but something doesn't seem right about it.

1. I was up about 9AM. I went to bed about 1AM.  He's not normally up before 10AM and is in another time zone, so that would be my 11AM.  And he wouldn't bother sending me anything after his midnight.  Not after so long.
2. It wasn't capitalized right.  A was big about proper grammer. it used to annoy him when I would write/chat all in lower case
3. The exclamation point after friend.  A hated exclamation points.
4. He called me friend.  After all that I explained
   

I open it and find it's a spam advertising for some electronics site.  I sit there and wonder what I should do about this.  Am I the only one who knows? How will he figure out?

So I respond to his other email address.

"I think someone other than you has access to your email address. this looks like spam. I'm responding your other email as resending to the one that may be compromised seems pointless."


I hope I didn't open up some unwanted connection.  But at the same time, having an email account compromised is serious.

Party!

brewers jam (part ii)

... continuing this at an ungodly early hour as i can't seem to sleep. Yay for bad dreams and general anxiety. Last night I had to get one of the waiters to leave us alone at the taco, he kept harassing the females at the table. Somewhere between there and here I left my purse. I think I left it at Morgan's place when his mom and I had some wine and discussed stuff/ i sobered up and calmed down over a glass of wine. i'm really really hoping i left it there. in the general annoyance of the taco i may have not noticed that i didn't have my purse, but i think that i did have it over my shoulder when we walked h and d to their car. h was the target of the waiter most of the night.

we're going elsewhere next monday. we don't need this.

now i have low battery. you know what. screw it. i'm taking a shower.

Weekend

Enjoyed the weekend.

friday night was first friday, it was my first first friday also, and lee and rusty and claire had exhibits opening. the plan was to dress up meet up at lee and rusty's gallery (@ cumberland and gay), do the "ooh, awesome!" thing then grab food @ 7 @ the bistro and make our way down to w summit hill for claire's stuff and then hit sassy ann's for a little cutthroat action.

so i dressed up, green low cut sweater hoodie, brown tank, short denim skirt, and brown boots. i had just had my hair done, and i even put on makeup. i felt so much like an undergrad getting ready for a night out. my normal "lets go out" clothes consist of a pair of ripped jeans and a tank top. ah well. it wont kill me to get dressed up now and again.

but the others were running a little behind. lee and rusty weren't even there when we had to leave for our dinner reservations.  so we ate, shared a bottle of wine, and went back.  at lee and rusty's there was a water cooler full of wine. a WINE COOLER if you will. so much wining was had, and there were multiple people who i hadn't seen in a while so there was a bunch of catching up going on there when it was like OK! MUST GO FIND CLAIRE!

morgan was driving (thankfully) so he toted my and shannonette's arse up to w summit hill in which progress i call claire up twice, the first time thinking i had a bad connection. the second time realizing it was just REALLY LOUD where she was. she was at the crown and goose, apparently her thing was over for the night (BOO!) I felt like such a pathetic friend missing her thing, especially since when i showed up at the crown and goose to talk for a few moments i was obviously feeling the wine.

when i first got to the c&g i saw nate and adam, so i talked to them for a bit. morgan and shannonette joined me in there, so they both said hi. it was morgan's first meeting of this cookeville group, but shannonette had met them previously. i guess bringing morgan may have been somewhat transparent (bringing the current boy when meeting up w the ex-boy's bro) but at the same time i wanted to find claire.

finally found her! after running into one of our prof's, that is. i was so intent on finding claire, though, that i just gave him a half wave while trying to figure out what she was saying. i'm doing great with my personal interactions. found claire, talked for a while, left, ran back by nate and adam, and asked about a wedding this coming weekend.  then asked about the ex's plans for this coming weekend (which is also brewers jam, and yes, is where i met him last year, and i hoped wouldn't be a big deal, but with some of the emails that he had been sending me and the fact that he kept checking my blog and myspace somewhat consistently until about 2 weeks ago, i'm honestly a bit worried about what might happen if we both meet face to face utterly beer-plastered) i find that not only does he not have plans to attend brewers jam, he also does have plans for something else. so no worries there.  i just don't want drama. i'm tired of stupid boys.

any way, after that, off to sassy ann's, where i change into my jeans and chacos. it was easy as i was already wearing a skirt. yay me.

cutthroat was cutthroat. yay. i was beat, though, i had been on the move since 7AM. had done the oil change thing, the hair cut/color thing, and then the social thing, so we cut out at about 1AM.  and went home. and passed out.

zonk.

good times.

the following day the morning was spent reading, and taking a shower, and getting things together, as that afternoon there was another dnd game (yay?). i think i'm enjoying it. I'm just trying to decide if i really like spending 5 hours i could devote to school stuff with this limited tangable reward system.  after the game we hit the mall and i had to physically restrain morgan from purchasing for me an item from williams sonoma. i know, what was i thinking. dinner was lovely mashed taters and tomatos with mozzerella with olive oil and balsamic viniger. because that was what i wanted. and the trend seems to be with him that i get what i want. i can't abuse this, but with wierd food cravings while cramping, it's totally legit.

sunday was good brunch at sunspot, grocery shopping, and more reading (read that as "napping), and monday was monday.

tonight i have options. morgan might still be in town, or he might not. if he isn't i may go watch the debate with jim (where? does he have a tv?) and play www.palinbingo.com with the prez candidates. or a may go see dennis at his open mike at the pres pub. or i may stay in and read this book about fair trade coffee if i don't get it done by then.

blargh.

proudness

so i did it. finally. i made my very own myspace picture. i don't like pix of me, so i go ahead and rip off other sites. my latest picture stated that my marxist feminist dialectic would bring all the boys to my yard. the newest newest one is to the left. thank online translators for the translation. hopefully i have it right!

maybe not all, but i do have one at the moment. i don't know if it was the MFD that did it or simply the fact that i could actually speak intelligently after multiple beers on random uber-esoteric,paradigmatic-shifting, rhetoric challenging, possibly-important topics.

woot.

i also, this afternoon erased all email correspondance with people i don't like. err.... a person i no longer like. i didn't realize quite what had piled up, but when i saw something with his name on it, i dug a bit and realized "damn, don't need this mucking up the inbozzle". Hitting the "trash" choice surely isn't as cathartic as burning things, but who needs catarsis when you've moved on.

and no, me stating that i've moved on is not denial that i haven't.

speaking of moving on, back to the MFD/Beer incident... YAY!

that's all. if you haven't met him, you obviously haven't seen me in the last 2 weeks, as we seem to do many things together. i'm home alone now for the first time in a while. i should be doing laundry....

hit the disc exchange today. picked up tickets for brewers jam. not missing it for anything. there's a crew of boucoup zwanzig joining me: eric, morgan, shannon, shannon, kimberly, heather, paula, jim, and more. yay.

also grabbed a PJ Harvey CD. i blame my DE dude for hooking me on her last last summer. damn him and his lucious prematurely entirely gray hair coupled with being a band teacher and a husband and father (i think he said he had kids) with awesome tastes in knowing what i want.... in music. DAMN HIM!

ask me about my recipe for curry. and remember that the farmers market has awesome summer squash this week. it goes well with curry.

and to the Ktowners who read this excuse for a blog... i'll be at GreekFest sometime after 3. I have some brownies that need my attention until then.

you know that you're not the crazy one when...

after recieving a slew of insulting emails with the final one stating "i'm not over you" and begging for a meeting: friends offer you the services of lawyer fathers, others refuse to let you sleep at home for fear of him doing something "not good"... all are a little bit of an overreaction in my belief, but it's a nice feeling to know that people give a shit about me.

phew... and I was worried that i would be viewed as having handled the break-up poorly because i moped for a few weeks and was sorta angry over someone i determined to be not worth my time.

can i just have no drama. please!