The 800LB Gorilla Speaks

I am somewhat shocked by his quick response to my letter! And a little pained. But he's responded with what I asked for. So, I'm going to take a brief pause from the blog to spend time with the Bear. I may have some posts here and there, but I doubt it. Can't say I care much for wedding plans at the moment. For now, I'm tying up some lose ends and putting on my big girl pants, as they say.


Until then,


Mich

Have a Great Weekend! Thriller Edition

You know, in my twenty some-odd years on this earth, I have yet to attend a bumpin' dance party that did not play at least one Michael Jackson song.  It sounds a little extreme, but if there's an exception to this, I can't think of it right now.  MJ is surefire way to get everyone up and shakin' it.  And so I present to you, the Michael Jackson wedding dance, Thriller edition.  There are a ton of examples on YouTube, but I couldn't resist this one.  Not only did the entire wedding party participate, but the bride is throwin' it down out there in a ball gown and veil (damn girl!).  That's hard to top. 

If only I too could "Thrill the World," but I have a serious lack of rhythm.  Ah well...  

Okay, one more for the road?!?!  Enjoy!

Have an amazing weekend!

"I Bought Those Boat Tickets the Day I Saw that YouTube Video"

Whenever I need a laugh, I can watch this video and let the LOLz take over...  Again and again and again.  I laugh so hard I can only talk for a second at a time, and all I can squeeze out is a really bad play by play amid the giggles. 

For example, this is me (as I watch this scene):

Hahahaha, Andy can't walk because his tore his scrotum!  

Hahaha, he's dancing down the aisle in a walker!! 

Kelly Kapoor and Ryan doing the sprinkler!  I love Kelleeeee! 

Oh my gosh, Kevin and the box shoes.  Oscar is vogue-ing! I CAN'T!

And the biggest laugh of all happens right at the moment when Dwight kicks Isabel, his one night stand in the face.  In the face!  Oh my gosh, I die!  Seriously.  My laugh morphs from a loud giggle to a straight up guffaw and a howl, something like "Blaaagh-Hahahaha!"  I know, I know.  It wouldn't be funny if it happened to me, but it's fake!  So it's funny!

Anyway, this is what I watch when this wedding seems impossible.  I watch it when I feel like we're giving ourselves too much credit, or when I'm taking everything too seriously.  When I want to give up, and hop on our very own "Maid of the Mist," and give ourselves the room to breathe (deeply).  This is it.  My happy moment.  Please Hulu, never ever take it away.   Mmmk?

Here is the Church

Aww...so flippin' cute!  Less cute now that I'm waiting on a brochure from the church I'd like to be married in (yes, I, not WE).  Ever heard that rhyme before?  I remember it well.  And I'm not sure it's entirely accurate.  Maybe it should go something like this--

Here is the church, here is the steeple,
Stretch your wee budget, to see all your people.

Close the door, please, walk away,
Stop being crazy, it's only ONE day.

If there is one thing I want in this "I-want-a-polooza" of wedding planning, it's to get married in a small white church.  It's my number one.  Go figure.  It's more important than flowers.  It's more important than the dress.  And yes, it's more important than the food (sorry, I swear the food will be awesome, but I'm trying to make a point here).  It may have something to do with my childhood.  I grew up attending the most beautiful church in town, yes, my opinion here.  Every single Sunday until I went off to college.   It was first church of our town, built in 1657.  It was burned down during the American Revolution, and then, built again.  It's a simple, yet gorgeous white church, typical of many old churches in New England.  And since we're getting married about an hour away from our home town, it's out of the question.

In that brief period of naive newly engaged bliss, everything is possible.  But when I hung up the phone with the church, I was warned not to be nervous about the price.  Okay, thank you very much.  I know you meant that to be kind and reassuring, but now I'm nervous.  Is this going to be something we can't afford?  Should I brace myself for a large, four digit number to appear in the brochure?  Because, that's what I'm doing.  If you don't ask, you'll never know, right?

This is not a comment on the church, any church, to be honest.  But in this short time, I've been slapped across the face by reality.  Everything is expensive!  Everyone has costs to cover!  Even the church. So I don't fault them for this at all.  I'm just keeping my fingers crossed, and praying (yes praying, I mean, this is a church we're talking about here) that everything will work out in the end.

I just wish that brochure would hurry up and get here already!

To The Eight Hundred Pound Gorilla, With Love

Dear 800 LB Gorilla,

Please forgive me for being such a bad host.  I realize you've been in this room for quite some time now and I have yet to address you.

Let me start off by giving you a warm welcome.  This room may be tiny, considering your sheer enormity and my irritating insistence on bouncing around all the time, but you are always welcome here.  Mi casa es su casa! Or rather, mi cuarto es su cuarto!  (And sharing is caring, yadda yadda).

Now, you are of great importance wherein our wedding is concerned.  As of January, we booked a wonderful venue.  Perhaps you are aware of this?  Of course you are, or you would not be here!  But there you are, and here I am, sitting slightly ever too close... Pardon me, back to what I was saying?  Now, the Bear and I are really quite enamored with the venue, and our current wedding date.  Yes, I may have had my doubts, but let me assure you, we are very much sold on a Fourth of July celebration by the shore.

However, your presence is meant to indicate a bump in the road.  And it is quite a bit of a bump.  A bump, that is becoming more and more like a very large, very annoying, and quite possibly very expensive fender bender in the road to wedded bliss.  Pardon me, but if I may be frank for a moment--  I would like to know when the Bear is going to deploy fairly soon, because neither he nor I have any idea when that will be.  Or rather, all we have are ideas, not dates.  There!  I've said it.

I, for one, am extremely excited to marry the Bear.  And yes, I suppose I could say that I am not particularly tied to any one date. But, our vendors may not feel the same way, when you consider that we would have to sign contracts to work with any of them.  Oh, and of course, the most important and yet somehow 'moot point' of "oh my goodness, I can't get married to the man if he isn't present!"  Yes.  That is also extremely important.

In closing, my dear gargantuan ape friend,  please. I beseech you, go away.  And in your place, send us a little bit of knowledge, more specifically a timeline.  Because without that timeline, I'm afraid we are at a bit of an impasse, now aren't we?  And for the record, this timeline needn't match our current timeline.  Any one will do, as I am not in a rush to see the Bear deploy.  All we ask for is a little bit of information.

Again, please accept my sincerest apologies, I may have been a bit too distracted over the past few months to properly acknowledge you


Regards,

Mich.

Friday! Friday!! (U.S.A!)

By  Futbolete


Happy Friday to everyone!!  This weekend is going to be gorgeous on the east coast, perfect beach weather.  And I will try my best to spend time on the beach, but I make no promises here.  It's the World Cup!  I am bound to find myself sitting in front of the TV, beer in hand, watching the games.   Or, I will look for a solution to this issue where I can lay on the beach and listen to the matches.  


Anyway, the U.S. takes on Slovenia today, and I am one of the only people I know that did not take the day off or call in sick.  Instead, the TV in my office is tuned into ESPN and the vuvuzela app on my iPhone is placed next to my keyboard.  U.S.A!  U.S.A!


Of course, I couldn't end this post without acknowledging the win by amazing win by Hellas (aka Greece) yesterday!!!!  


Have a great weekend everyone!

Special Delivery! Gocco Edition

Look what came in the mail today!

 

Wonder what it could be?  Let's take a closer look--

What?  I've never seen such a cute shipping label in all of my life.  I'm pretty sure the USPS handles packages that contain hearts, hugs, kisses and such, but I'm going to say that this is not their handiwork.

When I got home, I tore the box open to find this.  Bubble wrap!  Bubble wrap around another box!

Before I could get any further, my own personal quality control specialist took charge of the situation. He was skeptical, to say the least. 

So he put the packaging through his own (extremely) rigorous tests.  

Once I was cleared to continue, I ripped the bubble wrap off the next box to unveil my very own Gocco!  Or at least the box belonging to the print Gocco PG-10.

Ok.  Full disclosure:  I bit the bullet and purchased a used Gocco a week ago on Ebay.  It was probably the fifth time I looked for one, but this time, I made the purchase.  And, I made the purchase from a Japanese importer.  Everything seemed alright, but I was a little wary of purchasing anything from a company (or person) outside the U.S.  My urge to create our paper products for the wedding was too strong, and I caved. 

So far, it looks like it worked out pretty well!

Yep.  That's pretty much everything I need to use this machine.  Of course, the batteries are not included.  Thankfully there is a manual. 

 

BUT the manual is in Japanese.  Side note:  I always wanted to learn Japanese.  I even went so far as to register for Japanese when I was in sixth grade.  Unfortunately, my mom did not agree.  And feeling that French would be a much more useful language, she called the school and changed my schedule.  I spent the next 3 years studying French.  Now if I'd only dug my heels in, and studied Japanese, I might understand the manual a little more than I do now. "Useful language," my eye (kidding, French is awesome and useful, I swear).

Since I am not fluent in Japanese, I'm going to have to find another way to get this thing to work.  YouTube, I'm looking at you!

More to come.  Wish me luck!

One Month--

A little over a month has passed since we said goodbye to our Papou.  I wish I could find the words to express what he meant to me, and how his passing has changed my life, but I'm not there yet.  Time has passed so quickly, but it has brought me little comfort.  Maybe time would be sweeter if it didn't fixate on forward motion, but instead brought us back to the sweetest days of our lives.  If I could go back in time right now, I might wake my Papou from a nap by lightly tugging on his nose and watch as the smile of recognition grew on his face as he awoke to my giggles.  If I could go back, I might want to sit next to him as he talked about weights and measures and conversions--I'd probably be looking up the formula to convert Celsius to Fahrenheit right now...

We all know that those we love come and go in our lives.  But do we all know how to make peace with it?  Because I don't have the answer yet.  What I know, is that I miss him every day, especially in the quiet moments.  And I know that planning the celebration of our marriage isn't going to be the way I had imagined.  I knew that he was ill, and his time was short, but I still couldn't let go the hope that he would experience our wedding in some way.  But I am thankful that Papou got to meet my future husband.  They shook hands, and he wished him well.  I remember him saying goodbye to the Bear when he left America for the last time, he told Bear to "be well," and he will be.  We will be.  

I'm going to get back to the world of weddings now.  But I couldn't get back there in earnest until I acknowledged the loss of my grandfather.   He was the greatest man I have ever known. 

S'agapo poli Papouli mou.  Poli poli.  --Mouah 

Three Cheers for Summer!

I've been quiet for a while.  And yet so much has happened.  I suppose when you're mind is 'weddingland' it's easy to forget that life still happens.  Good and bad.  I'm still trying to process the last few weeks, so it may take me a while to catch up.  I will say this--I am so grateful for the love and support of my future husband (eep!).   He comforted and reassured me across an ocean, thousands of miles away.  He picked up where I lacked.  And, he managed to take the little time we had together and squeezed out teeny bit of vacation adventure over the long weekend.

Here is the Bayside Skillet Crepe & Omelet restaurant in Ocean City, Maryland.  Their servings are immense--they urge you to share.  And (this is the kicker), they have an entire section devoted to potatoes!  We spent a day in the seaside town just enjoying our time together.  Can't wait to go back when we have a little more time.  Ah well.