Elope Your Heart Out

Friday night’s pre-wedding reception was a great success, when viewed in terms of just about everyone in attendance. All three sets of parents including mine, AJ’s dad & step-mom, and AJ’s mom & step-dad were very pleased with the beautiful atmosphere, bountiful gifts given to their offspring, and the general pleasant and celebratory atmosphere inside the Holiday Inn meeting room where the event was hosted. All the other guests seemed to be having a good time chatting and watching AJ and me squirm a bit in the spotlight of about-to-be-marriedness. The bride and groom to be had a wonderful time entertaining guests, first in a sober "thank you for the presents" kind of way, and later, in a tipsy "let’s do one more shot" kind of way.

It was a really great time. All the shades-of-green decorations turned out very well, and the calla lilies looked elegant and pretty just the way I wanted. Even though my dear Aunt Brenda accidentally dropped the top - and arguably, most important - tier of the cake, we managed to salvage it and camouflage the damage caused by the fall. There were a couple other snafus that night, but they were nothing we couldn’t handle. For instance, we forgot to bring anything with which to cut the cake. We ended up using a plastic knife. It might look a little funny in pictures, but I can live with it.

While playing "the newlywed game," I won by a landslide, but the odds were skewed a bit. AJ apparently doesn’t know my favorite food is steak even though that’s what I always want when we go out. In his defense, that was his easiest question. I got all the other easy ones. AJ’s favorite color? Black. His favorite drink? Bud Light. And so on. Someone in the audience also gave me one of the answers. So, I cheated a little in addition to having all the piece-of-cake questions.That was the only game we had time for. People were already starting to leave, and we hadn’t even opened the finger foods-n-cake buffet. The food, by the way, was really great. And what little I ate of the cake was good too.

I would post some pictures, but they aren’t developed just yet. Later this week, perhaps.

As previously noted, the "after party" with those willing to stick around in room 106 was a happy event as well. Mark the Cousin Bartender kept the keg a flowing as many sloshy, well-meaning pieces of advice were handed to AJ and me. Since nearly every single one of the men who stayed to play were AJ’s co-workers at the activated carbon plant, the conversation naturally steered to the fact that all these men see one another naked (in the plant showers) all the time. And, also naturally, this led to a "whose got the cutest butt" contest, as judged by those fellow male co-workers. Gary won. Gary is, yes, my uncle and - along with his wife (my aunt) - he is also the reason AJ and I met. The on-going joke that night was "what happens at the Locust Grove Holiday Inn stays at the Locust Grove Holiday Inn."

Also, we got a dining room floor full of new appliances, bath & kitchen linens, charcoal grill, weed-eater, cash, and other assorted registry items. We are set.

My man and I have top-notch friends and family, and I’m not just saying that because of the presents. It was nice to see them all in the same room, swirling around each other, sniffing one another out (not really). I think we’re all gonna get along just fine.

Rocky Mountain Backdrop

Colorado was a high time, both literally and figuratively. (That was a stupid way to open this blog, but I’m not changing it).

After about 10 hours’ driving, we arrived at the Country Inn & Suites near the Denver airport. We chose the place because it has a "bedroom with a door" separating AJ and me from the bed where The Champion Teenager and her little buddy would sleep at night. That first evening we just relaxed in the room.

The next morning we visited the Budweiser plant near Fort Collins just to kill some time before white water rafting. We couldn’t stay long enough for the 1-hour+ tour. But we sure did partake of the "sampling" and the viewing of the Clydesdales.

Then we went to A Wanderlust Adventure rafting guide company (or something like that) in Fort Collins. A big school bus hauled the four of us along with a bus full of other people out to the Poudre (pronounced "Pooter") River. I’d like to brag that we were one of the only rafts off of which no one fell, but there really wasn’t much of a risk since we had one guide and two guide trainees on-board with us (the other rafts only had one guide and no trainees).It was very fun and, when splashed, very cold. We had to use our muscles to "dig those paddles into the water" like we meant it. We took two 2-mile trips on one of the more mild trips due to the fact that we had two minors on-board with us. It was still pretty thrilling at times. For some reason, we took more pictures while white water rafting than we did at any other time on the vacation.

Including....Six Flags Elitch Gardens in Denver, where we went the next day. We got up early and arrived at the place around 10:00 am in an effort to avoid the longer lines that would come later in the day. This concept worked well. We scared the wind out of ourselves a few times on the coasters and the free-fall drop-straight-down-from-way-up-high ride. AJ said this Six Flags was small compared to others he’s visited (it was my first Six Flags experience).

Back at the hotel, nighttime entertainment included Tina (Champion Teenager's buddy) wondering where the snow-capped mountains would go at night. She was puzzled by how they "disappeared" in the dark.

Also, during the course of the trip, I bought my first ever pair of brilliant white sneakers. Just thought I should note that somewhere.

Unsurprisingly, the downfall of the trip was the long, tired drive back home. Our sheer will alone would’ve probably brought us back faster, but our lead feet didn’t hurt either. We were back in less than nine hours, shaving more than an hour off the time it took to get us there. I think I sound like a man with all these "hours of driving" time stats. I wonder why I’m bothering to mention all that.

We were so tired when we got home, but I knew I had to get up early the next day and help my mom and aunt set up for the pre-wedding reception, which I did so dutifully and gladly (see next blog for details). By Saturday (the day after the reception), we were pretty much exhausted, and that goes a long way toward explaining why we did absolutely nothing after arriving back home from the hotel except for buying some groceries and staring at the television until time to go to bed.

Wagon Wheels At the Entrance

Okay, there’s this place in Tulsa called "The Farm Shopping Center." It’s a collection of shops with "something for everyone." I’ve been there a few times, mostly to drop off camera film at Moto-Photo when I was an intern at a soft rock radio station a few blocks away. The Farm’s radio commercials feature a jingle that ends with "...and best of all, you don’t get malled at the Farm!" Get it? It’s a play on words. They’re telling the consumer that they will not have to deal with all the unpleasantries of going to a regular shopping mall (i.e., crowds of people, elderly speed-walkers getting their exercise, escalators, etc.).

Clever as this jingle may be, I can never stop the cold chill that creeps up my spine each time I hear it. "You won’t get mauled at the farm!"....... I can’t shake the vision of my legs and arms getting tangled in a tractor shredder. Bloody mess all over a hay field. Cows looking on. In order to appreciate the fact that I will not get mauled at the Farm and why I would want to avoid such a scenario, I must first envision just what it would be like to indeed get mauled at the farm. And those are painful thoughts.

Advertisement agencies sometimes forget that percentage of their target audience with debilitating mortality neuroses and their overactive imaginations concerning such.

Patent Pending

In honor of our Las Vegas wedding, a small attraction at the reception will be the groom’s table decked out in Vegas glamour. The other day I tried to convince my mom to have a "roulette wheel of chips" at the food table. I suggested a dozen or so different varieties of chips (potato, corn, nacho, puffed, ranch, etc.) would be organized on one of those lazy susan spinny things, each inside their own little container, and guests could walk up and take a spin. The "roulette wheel of chips" would decide what type of chip they would get to snack on that evening.

"No chips," my mom repeatedly said as she jotted notes on her little note pad.

I persisted, "and we could have some of those pizza flavored Pringles and sour cream and onion Sun Chips..."

My mom looked up and said, "Would you please be serious?"

"...And some Fun-yuns and Bugles...."

My mom was still scribbling as she said, "do you have any real suggestions?"

"...And Wavy Lay’s, and ooh, those Bacon and Cheddar Fries chips are really good!"

My mother briefly stared at me, blank and unamused.

"And we can’t forget barbecue! We’ll get the non-wavy kind of those."

Long story short, the "roulette wheel of chips" will not be seen at our wedding reception. But if anyone out there is looking for party serving ideas, and you happen to stumble onto this site and read this post, I invite you to create a "roulette wheel of chips" for yourself. I hate to see this innovative and forward-thinking idea go to waste.

Content Without Style

Do you remember that twangy country song that goes "Yes, I ad-MITTTTT! I got a thinkin’ problem!" Yeah, that’s stuck in my head right now for utterly unknown reasons. I just googled those eloquent lyrics, and it looks like it’s a David Ball song.

Since it’s a light ‘n breezy June day today, I think I’ll share some fast facts about myself with the internet.

01. I’ve tried to start smoking a few times in my life, but have never developed the habit.

02. My favorite candy as a kid was butter rum LifeSavers.

03. I’m good at writing résumés and cover letters.

04. I’m not very good at putting little girls’ hair into ponytails.

05. You know that Rod Stewart song that says "get your rocks off"? Well, whenever it comes on the radio, I sing "get your rock salt" instead.

06. I like to throw big fancy words into conversations sometimes, especially when drinking and/or feeling insecure.

07. I currently have no tattoos, but will perhaps get one by age 30 or so.

08. Counting my groom’s family, the ratio of my nieces to my nephews is 3:4.

09. I don’t know if I believe in "random" or not.

10. My favorite video games are Tetris and (lately) SSX Tricky.

11. One time I was talking about this restaurant in Tulsa where the health department had reportedly found trace amounts of feces in the food, and this girl I was talking to (Kylie Weaver) said, "Oh, that is so mean! How could they put little unborn babies in the food?!" (Feces = Fetus). Anyway, she was being dead serious.

12. I’m really good at taking tests for which I’ve had time to prepare.

13. I used to write letters addressed to "My Children Who Will Never Be Born."

14. I’ve never been out of the country.

15. I like the idea of ghost towns.

16. I’m learning how to be a cold-hearted snake when it comes to people who cross me.

17. I just turned the thermostat up to 90º because I’m freezing.

18. Anytime I drop an F-Bomb, people act shocked and amazed. I guess I don’t say it aloud as much as I do in my head.

19. Three weeks from today, I shall become a Missus.

20. I am exactly the same age as Katie Holmes. (D.O.B. 12/18/1978)