Saturday was the Bridal Extravaganza, just to inform those of you who (a) were there but don’t remember, (b) couldn’t make it due to other commitments, or (c) have a penis and so weren’t invited.
Aaron and I were awakened by the phone at about 10:30am (which I tried to answer but picked up just in time for the answering machine to pick up, too, and start this righteous feedback). Good thing we were awake after that, though, ’cause Mom showed up at 11:15am, almost a full hour early.
The original plan was: Mom would show up at noon, and we’d go have lunch. Chris Walmsley, the Best Man, would show up around 1 or 1:30, and he and Aaron would go to lunch while Mom and I were chillin’. Amy would show up around 2:00, and us three girls would go do the BG Artwalk. All of us would reconvene at the house around 3:00, and the rest of the guys would show up. Us girls would head to Sheryl’s apartment around 3:30ish for the party to start at 4:00, and the boys would head up to Windsor for their party. That’s pretty much how it happened, too, except Mom showed up almost an hour early and Amy got caught in the insano Meijer while getting the cake, and had to miss the Artwalk and go directly to Sheryl’s. Do not pass Go, do not collect $200.
So, that’s how it happened. Mom and I left the boys around 3:30 and headed to Sheryl’s by way of Kroger (to get ice cream and bags of ice). When we got there, Eric was just leaving, Amy was already there, and Sheryl had the place totally decked out with flowers and general prettiness and cleanliness. Hung out, had some munchies, marvelled at all the shit Sheryl had put together for my day. *tee-hee* Amanda showed up shortly thereafter, and we almost got worried about Andrea, who didn’t show up until around 5:00 — just about in time for food.
After the gift-opening, of course.
Amy manned the digital camera and took pics of me opening up all my schwag, including a food processor, kitchen utensils, thongs, bras, a teddy, peppermint pecker candies, makeup, body butter, hemp lotion, and a partridge in a pear tree. So to speak. Then we had food.
Andrea is a veggie, so she got fettucini alfredo. The rest of us got one kickass pot roast. There was also salad, and corn-on-the-cob, and fresh green beans, and it was all sooooo good. Simple, yet quite yummy. Then we had some cake, and Mom bailed so she could get home to Cleveland before dark.
Mom’s gone! Bust out the alcohol! 🙂
Sheryl made some mudslides (just add ice), and we hung out in her computer room checking out the Webtender. And we played with DP (Sheryl’s chinchilla). And I tried on one of my new bras with see-thru straps (and it made my boobs enormously threatening). And I read everyone a story about Anpanman (translated from Japanese by Sheryl’s friend Mariko). And we went outside and tried to fly kites, but there was no wind. (Seriously. No wind in BG. It happened. I was there.) And we drank some mudslides. And I made myself an Amaretto Sour with the booze my Mom bought me. And, eventually, we all headed over to my place before walking downtown for some drinking and debauchery.
Amy and Sheryl drove, and we hung out at my place for only a few minutes — long enough for everyone to go pee and for us to decide we were going to Brewster’s. It’s not a hoochie-bar: no dance floor, just tables and booths and a bar and live music (for a while). We walked the few blocks to Brewster’s, skirting the Rocky Horror crowd on the way, and found out there was only a $2 cover. Sheryl paid for me. Yay! We got a booth near the back, and listened to the mildly inoffensive live band. All four girls each bought me a drink, and I requested something different each time. After the three mudslides and the Amaretto Sour I had at Sheryl’s, I then had another Amaretto Sour, a Screwdriver, a Whiskey Sour, and a White Russian (well, Andrea spilled most of the first White Russian all over the table and floor, so I guess I had one-and-a-third White Russians). This was over the course of a couple few hours, during which we really had a kickass time talking and laughing and carrying-on. Of the people there, I think only Amy had seen me completely drunk before (since I so rarely drink, and very rarely get blitzed), so it was a new and fun experience for all, I’m sure. 🙂
Somewhere around 11:30pm (Rocky Horror hadn’t started yet), we left the bar and attempted to find somewhere new to drink up. The next un-hoochie-fied place we could think of was Howard’s — but it turned out that the cover was $5, since they had “a bunch of DJ’s” there, according to the doorguy. We opted to just go back to my place. Sheryl and Amy went back to Sheryl’s apartment to fetch the booze, while I showed Amanda and Andrea the apartment, particularly the computer/media room. Aaron’s 8-tracks were a hit, as were all of our books and DVDs.
At some point, I announced that I was really fucked up. Which I was. Either that, or someone installed a moving floor in the computer room. At any rate, Andrea announced in turn that she was preparing to add to that, and proceeded to dig out of her pockets a baggie with a couple joints’ worth of weed, plus rolling papers. She said she brought them for the “special occasion.” As she was in the midst of rolling, Amy and Sheryl came back with the cooler of pop and booze, so Amanda and I left Andrea to finish rolling and headed back out to the living room. I put some music in the CD changer (Soledad Brothers, Flaming Lips, Matthew Sweet, Catherine Wheel, and the Afghan Whigs), and we all hung out and talked for a while.
Once 1am rolled around, Sheryl was falling asleep in her bowl of munchies and Andrea was ready to spark up. Sheryl took this opportunity to leave before the pot made her fall asleep where she sat. We were all worried that it had made her uncomfortable, but it turned out she really was just tired.
(Now, folks, I know that a publicly-accessible blog isn’t generally the wisest place to discuss illegal activities, like “doing drugs” — oooooooh *collective gasp* — but it was how the evening ended, and it was a new experience for me. So I’m going to trust that no future employers are going to Google “Diana Cook marijuana” anytime in the future, and continue with my story.)
Understand, I’ve never even smoked a cigarette in my life. So, here we all were, crowding about Andrea in my living room. Amy was Designated Driver, so she wasn’t even drinking, and she’s not a big pot fan, anyway. Her brother’s a bit of a pot fiend, and his memory suffers because of it, apparently. So, Amy was out, which left me, Andrea, and Amanda to pass around the Bachelorette Party Joint. Andrea explained to both of us the mechanics of smoking a joint, I lit up some incense, and the joint was lit and passed to me.
My first impressions: drawing fiery-hot smoke into your lungs makes your throat burn. Seeing smoke exhale from your own non-smoker’s mouth is unsettling. Not coughing on the very first drag, however, feels like some sort of accomplishment.
After the third hit, I finally started coughing, and I had to pass on the rest of the joint. My throat was on fire, and the taste of burnt paper and weed was far back in my mouth. I was no more messed up than I had been, though, so I sat down and waited for something to happen.
Which it did.
At the risk of sounding like a total retard, I’ll describe kind of what it was like. I felt like I was in a sea of chinchilla fur, in low gravity or molasses or something. I’d turn my head from one side of the room to the other, to look from Andrea to Amanda, and my chinchilla fur aura would drag behind me as I turned my head, pulling around to the other side and rebounding slowly like a cartoon from the opposite side once I focused on my target. (Sure it makes no sense. It’s not supposed to.)
At any rate, I sat there enjoying the sensation of being drunk and high, feeling rather naughty on some level, noticing that Amy looked awfully uncomfortable with the whole thing, but just chilling out and having a good time on another level.
Around 2:15am, the guys came home. Aaron, Chris, Kris H., Mark, and Aaron’s brother Matt all funneled into the room (Jesse and Kris Fries had already gone home), and realized there was nowhere to sit. 🙂 Aaron took the couch with Amanda, Matt left, and Kris and Mark hung out for awhile before they too left. Amy rounded up Amanda and Andrea, and they all headed back to their respective places: Andrea to her car at Sheryl’s, to drive back to Medina; Amanda to her apartment, two blocks from Sheryl’s place; and Amy to her hotel room in town. Chris had dibs on our couch.
So, that was the bridal shower / bachelorette party. In case you were wondering, no, I didn’t precisely have a hangover on Sunday… more of an all-day exhaustion thing. No surprize, considering. 🙂
(By the way, you can read Sheryl’s version of the night, too.)