August 13 '07

Friends, neighbors, countrymen, here it is a full 48 hours past Weddingthon '07 and I am still gassed beyond reason. I'm sitting here in Popsy's big blue lazy boy that my mom keeps threatening to throw out; she's more a delicate-chair-covered-in-cute-fabric, such could be found in Country Home magazine and the like; he's, well, a guy. But they've been married 51 years, so apparently it isn't about chairs. If only I'd had my wits about me enough on Saturday night, that last sentence would've made a nice little toast. As it happened, however, my wits had left the building by about 7:15 and my toast was "OMIGOD I LOVE THIS SONG CRANK IT!"

Billy kicked me out of the big sweet chair. I'm on the couch with several needlpoint pillows wedged into my spine. My neck hurts.

So Saturday began the way any wedding day should; with tears, recriminations and threats of bodily harm. MJ was bawlin', mom was crabby, Margy was drunk by noon...I wouldn't have had it any other way. By the time guests started trickling in at 5:30, the tears were dry, all was well and Margy was ready for round two. Which lasted until the wee hours.

It hasn't rained here all summer, but somehow Jehovah decided he'd send a big fat thunderstorm to pour all over our garden party, obviously knowing that this crowd would appreciate it. I don't care if you've got more money than Bill Gates and access to the fanciest venue in the kingdom, you are not going to have more fun than I had in my parent's mud-caked garage this weekend. And anyway, the rain separated the wheat from the chaff; when the clouds finally parted, only those ready to truly party remained.

The bride ended up changing into a sexy black number and shaking her money maker all over the kitchen counters until the rooster crowed; I awoke to find myself the proud parent of a cantaloupe-sized, Courtney Love-worthy bruise on my left hip, a stiff neck and what I believe may possibly be a cracked rib. I came, I saw, I reveled. How often does your little sister get married?

Yesterday we had a family gathering on Miguel's side; it was a perfectly perfect day for sitting quietly in Jennifer's zero-gravity lounge chair, eat a cheddar brat and laugh, really all I had the energy to do.

Muzz, Margy, ML and Mumsy are behind me, gasping and sighing over the wedding gifts...Muzz just sang out "Yaaaaay, presents are fun!"

Yes they are, young lady. Yes they are.

August 11 '07

Yuuuuuge day today; Muzz's big wedding extravagnza out at the 'rents compound. All the elements are in place: family's in town, MJ's trying her best not to lose her s*** and mom is snappish. It's gonna be glorious, glorious I say! And last night was the wedding of the beautiful Jason and Kristen, two wonderful kids who feel like family. I was looking around at the guests and wedding party, and it struck me that I was observing quite possibly the fittest group of people ever assembled under one roof. I turned to Miguel and whispered, "I'm the fattest woman here." Weddings make me sentimental like that.

And hey, check this out!! Yay to the ladies of Zeichenpress, you deserve it. Sometimes the paper gets it right.

August something '07

Unless you've had your head stuck in the honeypot for the last week, you know what's been going on here in the Minneapple...everyone was driving home from work, minding their own business, and suddenly we were a third world country.

Miguel had left to go downtown and do the Kevin Garnett press conference; he usually takes that very bridge to the FSN studio. I turned on the television to watch my beloved, and not realizing he wouldn't have taken that bridge to the Target Center, which was where, of course, the PC was to be held, my bowels nearly melted. He called me seconds later, safe and sound.

This summer's been a weird one for the TC's; two huge, terrible things put us in the national news within weeks of each other. I can tell ya'll right now, we're simple folk and we don't like this kind of attention. Here's hoping the worst thing that happens here by September is they run out of Pronto Pups at the State Fair.

Moving on, and no, that doesn't mean I'm heartless, not about stuff like this; I mean go ahead, call me heartless when it comes to Paris Hilton or injured bunnies but stuff like this, nyet, not heartless, but we all deal with heartache in our own way and mine is to provide people a peek into the insignificant fluff that's stuck betwixt my ears. I said betwixt. I honestly don't think I've ever used that word before.

Last Saturday was my 20th high school reunion.

20th? Never! It can't possibly have been twenty years; you don't look a day over, um, over ...well you look just perfectly acceptable for a woman your age. You really do, I'm not just saying that.

Flatterer.

Twas was a blast. A blast, I tell you! The last one was really fun, too, but the fact that we're all older and wiser now also means we're all just more willing to cut loose and have fun. I got there late and the open bar (open bar: veddy veddy dangerous) was juuuuust about to close, but thanks to the deep generosity of my fellow classmates and their seemingly endless supply of drink tickets, I still managed to guzzle my body weight in chardonnay. Is there anything more cliche than an almost 40-year old woman from the 'burbs tanked on white wine? I think not, but I care not, either. And that, my friends, is what separates us from the apes.

That's true, by the way, it's not one strand of DNA or whatever those gene- splicing eggheads tried to feed us however many years ago, it is our ability to drink white wine with impunity. Have you ever seen an ape do that? They get embarrassingly embarrassed, so much so in fact that you just want to wrap it in a warm towel and tuck it into bed, but you don't because you're kind of afraid it (I'm saying "it" because I don't know the ape's sex, I haven't really thought that far ahead) still has enough control over its motor skills to maul you, and the last thing you want is to wind up on the front page of the newspaper under a 3-inch headline that reads

SUBURBAN WOMAN MAULED BY DRUNKEN APE

Onlookers say it had been compassionately wrapped in towel

So you leave the ape, sodden and sobbing, and you feel sort of guilty about it so you call it the next morning to find out if it's OK, because you didn't sleep so well what with picturing it choking on its own ape-vomit.

Straggled home at 3 am.

This week is shaping up to be nutso. Muzz and Kent's big fat wedding reception is on Saturday, the fam is coming into town in waves starting Wednesday.

© Katie McCollow, 2007