Julie and Ben get married, Part 3: The Wedding

Ah, the wedding. It was a beautiful and touching affair. The ceremony and reception were at the Milwaukee Yacht Club. The colors were red and black and there was of course a bicycle theme. For those of you who do not know Ben and Julie, they are avid bikers and met when Julie rescued Ben after he got hit by a car on his bicycle. As explained in their ceremony, it's kind of a damsel in distress story except Ben was the damsel.

The pretty cake. Note the aforementioned red, black, and bicycle:



The happy--no ecstatic--couple during their first dance. Julie looked gorgeous!




This was the view from my seat--if you were really short:

Obligatory photo of Kenny dancing. This one with our friend Audrey.

And this is the bar we went to after the wedding. It was in the wedding hotel and it was hilarious! It's called the Aqua Elegant Restaurant and Lounge. It's hard to see in this photograph, but there are bubbly tanks all along the bar. This place took the contemporary/water theme and went as far as the lucite and fountains could carry them.

This concludes our three part series. Tune in next week when we see what work is like outside of the cubicle walls. I start my new job this Sunday as a professional organizer. Yikes!

Julie and Ben get married, Part 2: The Essence of Wisconsin

Ben and Julie's wedding was in Milwaukee and no trip to Wisconsin would be complete without paying homage to the state's two pillars: beer and cheese. We of course did our duty with great fervor and deference. Our first stop was the Sprecher Brewery. They are famous for their root beer, which apparently the owner developed so that he wouldn't have to buy somebody else's soda products to give to kids after brewery tours. The tour guide pointed out that you can get quarter kegs of the rootbeer for kids' birthday parties--and that it was a great way to get them used to the tap concept early. I didn't take notes or anything during the tour, but I think you make beer by taking some of this:




And then putting it through things that look like this:

Then adding some of this:

And voila! You have beer. I really like the idea of a yeast room. I imagine that to be much like a living room or a dining room as in, there's two bedrooms on your left and on your right you'll find our yeast room.

On our way back, we also stopped at the Mars Cheese Castle. With a name like that, how could you not? I find the name to be very coercive--so much so that it should probably be illegal. I'm not sure it's possible to see the name and continue driving. I'm sure some people have attempted it. I just don't know how they lived with themselves afterwards. We bought some smoked string cheese, white cheddar cheese that is older than Jack, and cheddar bratwurst. The brats were made by Klement's and probably due to the fact Kenny lived in Wisconsin for 11 years, he is not capable of just saying Klement's. He has to say, "Klement's, easily the best." Sometimes he tries to just say Klement's, but invariably 15 seconds later he has to add, "easily the best." You may notice the Mars Cheese Castle looks oddly like an amusement park. That's because it is.

Julie and Ben get married, Part 1: The Bachelorette Party

Over the past several days, my liver, dignity, and uncoordinated dance moves have been challenged in ways with which only a freshman frat boy can really identify. This is the first of a multi-part series chronicling the recent road to marital bliss of Ben and Julie. Today, let us examine the bachelorette party.

Exhibit A: note the innovative use of the glow-in-the-dark penis straw in a wine glass full of either champagne, beer, or Sparks. When comparing this drinking experience to other's I've had, I'll employ the phrase a friend used to differentiate Perkins from Denny's this weekend, "It's just classier."

Exhibit B: the T-shirts. In my experience, for a successful bachelorette party, you need T-shirts and catchy tag-line. Note both are present in the image below. I plan on wearing this shirt for part of every day for the rest of my life.

Exhibit C: Wherein all dignity is lost. The tagline on that t-shirt might have foreshadowed this next picture for some of y'all. This is me seconds after mounting the bull and seconds before giving up and sliding off the bull. There is some unfortunate video footage of the incident. Note: pants would have been a better option considering the evening's planned activities.

Thank God there are no real pictures of the dancing. I'm still sore because really? I was doing it wrong. All in all, it was an excellent and thoroughly memorable evening. Did I mention there was a limo? Because there was a limo, and it was awesome. Not since prom have I been in a limo, and that one certainly did not have a bar.

Does this mean I'm gonna have to help do the laundry?

Every morning I remove about five pillows from the top of Kenny's head so that I can find his face and kiss him good bye. If Jack has relocated himself to the couch, I pick him up and put him back in bed with Kenny.

When I get off the train coming home from work on most days I find Kenny and an excited little black puppy waiting for me on the corner. I really look forward to that part of my day.

I guess we'll have to come up with a new routine since yesterday somebody decided to hire that husband of mine.

Failing

So today I woke up with one red eye and a scratch across my nose. I went on to curl my hair for the first time since getting it cut short. It was partially successful--and by that I mean that one side of it curled and behaved and the other side had a completely different idea. At work, I made the mistake of thinking I could get a cup of coffee successfully to my mouth. Since I'm not wearing pantyhose and can therefore not get a run, I imagine I will just fall and skin my knees this afternoon.

Now I can die knowing my existence mattered

I came to work with a sense of purpose today. A sense that I could make a difference. When I went to the kitchen to get some coffee, I realized that the beverages in the refrigerator could stand to be restocked. The fridge is once again fully stocked and organized. I eliminated any and all possibility that problems might occur if like ten people showed up out of the blue and all wanted a cold diet coke.

Next! I straightened the already neatly organized (because the person who was here before me didn't want me to have anything with which to occupy my time) drawers and cabinets. I restocked the cups and candy jars as well. There are five people in the office most of whom do not eat the candy? Surely we need at least five full bowls scattered around the common areas on the off-chance somebody gets a craving. This move may in fact save lives.

Finally, and I don't mean to brag when I say this--but I totally reloaded and fixed two staplers all by myself and in less than four hours. I won't say that I didn't have to go to the Swingline website to look up diagrams and I won't say there was no profanity involved. I will say I now have the option of stapling in either the copy room or at my desk and I can staple up to 150 pages at one time--no problem, whatsoever.

I better take it easy for the rest of the day.

Running to get my aquanet

Just check this out.

Princess Jack deigns to enter Lake Michigan

Kenny's parents came for a visit this weekend and brought their dog, Rosie. We decided to take the pups to the doggie beach. Now, Jack is not what you would call a friend of the water. While other dogs at the dog park lay down in puddles, Jack will go out of his way to walk around them. He also avoids mud and sometimes his own water bowl. In instances of rain during walks, Jack has been known to throw giant fits and try to pull us back home. I imagined Jack would stay about 50 feet back and probably get an infection from sand blowing in his eyes during our voyage to the beach.

He came to the edge of the water and let it touch his toes. He ran back away from the water, but after much coaxing with Charlie Bears he came in a little further. He eventually allowed his whole body to submerge and for a brief moment he swam. My little baby swam! After the short-lived swimming episode he high-tailed it out of there and began to walk home (by himself). But he swam!

Though I failed to bring my camera to capture the event, I did take a picture of the adorable aftermath at home.

Our life in Chicago, quantitatively speaking...

Between the visits that have already occurred and the ones planned through September we will have had

25 nights booked in that cozy guest room of ours
13 people stay with us
8 additional people who have visited but stayed elsewhere and
13 nights spent by Kenny and I in
5 other Midwestern cities

Also, as of today we have had

4 temp jobs
9 interviews and
0 full-time jobs

And we've only made

1 trip to the Magnificent Mile
1 trip to the Navy Pier
1 trip to the beach
1 trip to a concert
0 trips to museums
0 trips to plays (in Chicago)

But we have made

3 trips to the $3 movie theater
5 trips to Boystown
4 trips to the Cozy Corner Diner (home of the cheesecake stuffed french toast)
5 trips to BYOB restaurants

And we've been to

10 grocery stores
3 farmers markets
3 liquor stores
3 Chicago-style deep dish pizza places