outer-jessie's Diaryland Diary ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- four plane rides and a nine-hour car ride later :) Well you know what they say, some vacations are better than others. Actually no one says that, but I think I will from now on, as it has that just-right ring of almost meaningful-ness but secretly not-ness. In any case, this vacation was better than my last. Even though, in many ways, it really sucked. But it was great, we slept a lot, ate a lot, sweat a VERY lot, as those of you in any corner of North America can attest. We also played ridiculous amounts of yahtzee with enormous multi-colored dice and played with each other ridiculously frequently, when you consider in the fact that we were surrounded by nosy relatives and the fact that there was only a mere cubicle-like partition between our room and the one housing my brother and his de facto girlfriend. There are two kinds of cabins there at the park: those that suck, and those that suck hardcore. We got one of the ones that suck hardcore, whose builder believed that the concept of having indoor walls reach allllll the way to the ceiling was foolishly wasteful pish and posh. We ate more beef than nearly-vegetarian-purely-by-accident people normally do, by virtue of being in cow country. We saw lots and lots of little Bambis running around, and we ate some too, by virtue of my being related to Good Ol' Boys, you know the type. They're good people, all of them, but backwoodsy indeed. *screeching brakes* I skipped the wedding portion of the story! Let's go back in time. In fact, prepare for a lot of these anachronistic additions, as I am unable to think in a straight line. Might as well start at the beginnning, I suppose, and go more or less forward from there. Saving the best for last, of course. Thursday night we entertained the Spookster and the Cafe in the Abode of Jessie, which involved my pathetic attempts at falafel patties and gyros, and sweet potato biscuits which turned out way too good for the rotten fate they fell to in my parents' kitchen later in the week...and Tang. Ok, so my relatives may be one step removed from the woods, but I'm just one step removed from white trash. I'd been expecting another friend to arrive (forgive me if I've been over this), a friend from Mount Holyoke, but she never showed. I found out later that this was due to her totalling her car and winding up in the hospital. She's all right, but you know what...this is exactly the kind of thing my mind jumps to when someone's not where they say they'll be. Can't tell you how many times I've imagined Rob or my parents or friends into early graves by letting the worry take over. But you can't do that; eventually you have to put your foot down and say "worrying gets me nowhere or less than anywhere" and laugh it off. But then your friend crashes her car and winds up in the hospital. I have nothing real coherent to say about this subject, I'm just saying. Onward. After the party (although I think it's an insult to parties everywhere to call this a party) Rob and I finished up the packing and the cleaning and the unplugging of stuff and the uninstallation of air conditioners and took off for the Cape; I think we got there some small amount of time before 2 in the morning. We headed off for Michigan the next day; all uneventful except that I'm a stupid idiot who DID consider that she couldn't put her razor in carry-on, but did NOT consider that our wedding gift complete with knives and bottle opener was not an appropriate carry-on item. Slight delay; moving on. We got severely lost IN Lansing. Not out of it, not arriving into it, but in the city itself, going up and down all the streets and highways that have four names apiece, which just (smack!) happen to have the same names as every other highway in the vicinity. I'd like to meet the person who designed this system, so I can give that smack to its rightful owner. Anyway, yeah. So we were lost for about an hour before we found the road we wanted, and got to the town at 1:48 for a 2 o'clock wedding. That's right, just enough time to race to a little bookstore and buy two bagels, and race back to the church to...be completely confused, because there was nobody there. After wandering around like idiots for a few minutes, getting in the way of the groomsmen pictures (whew did the groom look handsome -- Fae, for a second I confused him with Ian Nottingham), and sitting in an empty church, we timidly went out to ask the girls decorating the "Just Married" car what time it was. One o'clock. We had magically gained an hour, and for a long time I was so confused that I could no longer think about it, until we realized that one of us had hit the button in the rental car that advanced the clock an hour (this, for some reason, was unnervingly easy to do in this car). Well, better to gain an hour than to lose one and be late for the wedding right? Especially as we got to see Angie briefly before the ceremony and watch everyone getting ready before it all started. Angie looked like a doll, she was so cute and sweet and so happy. But she cried through the entire ceremony, when she wasn't laughing, poor thing! She was crying coming down the aisle, crying before the priest, crying through the song she sang for Mike, crying during her vows...and I so know the same thing is going to happen to me. I might have to take some lithium before my wedding. The ceremony was lots of fun -- even Rob thought so! I got to sit and dance with my darling Kathleen and her younger sister, and we even got Angie to dance with the two of us for half a song. It was really fun, just simple and festive, and the cake was fantastic. Rob and I picked up a few pointers about what to do and not to do at our wedding (i.e. no girl will be enduring the embarrassment of having a strange guy slide a garter up her leg at my wedding. And I can only hope that my mother-in-law won't be a fraction as drunk as Angie's was. It was almost sadistic how often and how hard she would ring her little "the couple must kiss now" bell. It's almost three in the afternoon and I'm still eating my lunch. My eating schedule is all screwed up. Let's continue. Well, it's kind of hard to continue because after a week goes by all your mini-adventures blend together and you can't say what you did when...let's see, I went over the yahtzee and the sex and the sweating...have I told you that the shower water, only respite from oppressive heat, was scalding hot for the first five days? Lovely. Rob and I bummed around, mostly, for those first few days. A lot of the time for this week is allotted to sitting around the campfire and gabbing anyway, so we weren't missing much. We went down to the river one of the days, baking on the way down, freezing in the water, and cooking on the way back up again. Wednesday we went to Niagara Falls (first visit to Canada, woohoo!) which was a horrific MISTAKE! Don't get me wrong, I always wanted to see it and I'm glad I've finally set foot on that big hunk of land north of here, but I don't think we could have possibly picked a worse day to do it if was the Apocalypse and angry alien life forms were landing on the strip. It was so ferociously, simperingly, angrily, pitifully hot that there was just no way to enjoy it. No, we did not go on Maid of the Mist. No, we did not enjoy any of the disturbingly abundant rides or attractions. All we did was eat lunch, cross the street to look at the falls for five minutes, and go home. Worst Canadian Adventure Ever! A mockery of an adventure, that's what it was. My brother needed a smacking, too, the little pissant. Pissanthony, I call him. Or I will, from now on. Thursday the heat wave broke and it was all better, and things got enjoyable for once. We put on sweatshirts and jeans and the shower water became temperate and friendly. We saw Men in Black II at the drive-in, which I thought was plenty funny and exceeded my very low expectations. My parents liked Spiderman, which Rob and I refused to see again, better than Men in Black, but they're a little crazy so that's ok. We went to a creepy town carnival for about a half hour (wherein I kept attempting to get myself lost because I was peeved by the whole situation, namely Rob and my young teenaged girl cousins -- groundless, but shut up) before reclining on a grassy hill for fireworks. We weren't much more than a half a football field away from the fireworkers, or whoever they are, so the finale was extra exciting as flaming debris showered us all. I thought it was great; Rob was afraid his eye would get poked out. I laughed and laughed. Saturday was set aside as the day for Minnehans, which is, sadly, the highlight and main attraction of the week. It's just a little, I don't know, mini theme-park not really kind of thing, with cars to race in and arcades and cheesy ticket-winning games and laser tag and burgers and fries, much fun but nothing to brag about. Saturday was an unfortunate day to choose, as it was way too busy for us to go, so this turned out to be a Minnehan-less year. But Saturday night was hot air balloon day for a bunch of the group, the adult group that is. My yo mama's next door neighbor surprised my mother with one for this week (my mother has always wanted to go on one) for her and my father, my grandmother surprised my grandfather with one, we in turn surprised my grandmother with one for her, and my Uncle Frank and cousin Mark decided they'd go up to. So the six of them and two or four strangers went up with our whole family waving up at them from the ground, and it was really pretty great. I can't wait to go up with Rob this summer or fall, although it won't be as fun to go by ourselves with what I guess will be 8 other people we don't know. But that's ok. *kisses Rob* I wanted to have sex in the woods but Rob deliberately walked loudly when I asked him to walk softly, so that mission was aborted in anger. One of the rare occurrences of anger of the past week, but notable, as it prevented me from having any of the sex in the woods. Boo hiss. BUT That's why we have sex on the beach. *screeeeech* Let's go back to the beginning again, after the party, before Rob and I arrive at my parents' house. We were tired and feeling rather accomplished for getting all our possessions together and readying my apartment for our absence. Rob suggested we stop at the beach. Ok, say I, as the ocean is my most favorite of earthly wonders and the beach a dear friend of mine. As we arrive at the Horizons beach in Sandwich, Rob says, "this is our beach," and visions of our early dates and passionate pawings dance in my head. "Want to get out of the car?" asks Rob; nuh uh, says I. Too cold. He slams his door from the outside, and I slam mine from the inside. But ok, we're at the beach, I love the beach, I follow him out onto the sand. We wander onto the rocks and watch the dueling lighthouses; in my scrambling I stick my whole foot into a not-so-empty crevice in the rocks and douse it in sea water. Woops. We exclaim over the phosphorescent creatures that glimmer secretly on the rocks' surfaces; I say something lewd and Rob calls me a naughty girl. I'm being deliberately unromantic at this point; romance weirds me out, kids. I'm also shivering uncontrollably back on the sand. Rob puts his arms around me to warm me up, "will you marry me?"s me and hands me a ring. Because I'm a wise ass with no concept of the inappropriate, I say no. "Oh ok," says Rob. I'm clasping the ring and Rob's neck and his arms are wrapped around me, and so we stay for a very long time. "Don't let go," I say. The world wasn't actually spinning, although it still somehow seems like an accurate description. It may have stopped moving entirely; I'm not sure, but I am fairly certain that there was a breach in the time-space continuum and that the universe would explode if Rob let me go. So it was imperative, that hug. It's a gorgeous ring. So luminous it was sparkling even in the 2 a.m. darkness. Platinum band, round one-carat diamond, and two round sapphires on either side. Perfect, perfect, lovely ring. Silver and blue, Rob's and my colors. So sex on the beach, yes. Or rather, mad passionate sex in the car, at the beach. With a ring. I didn't mean it. I meant to say yes, of course. I've been wearing it for three days short of a week now, but it already feels like I've been wearing it forever. It's already gone and become a part of me. I'm not being romantic; this is all true. And I did not cry. Some People think tears are "requisite", but dear fellows, they are not. Kindly mend your views. So all in all the vacation was a great success. I was happy for most of it, Rob was happy, no one fought, mostly, except my brother and me, some of us got rings (three in all), and unlike the Jessie who returned from the last vacation, I am calm, cool, refreshed, and not entirely horrified to find myself here yet again. But that's not all! Somewhere between last night's Witchblade and three o'clock this morning, I developed a hideous writhing pink itchy rash. Yay! I get back from camping unscathed, and catch some infectious skin malady here in the city. Greeeeeaaaat. It wouldn't be so bad except that I couldn't stop myself from scratching my eyes this morning, knowing it wasn't a good idea but not really thinking that a rash on my neck could spread to my eyes just by scratching them, and in the shower no less. Yet it happened. Or maybe the rash was already there and the scratching was an effect, not a cause. In any case, my eyes are swollen ever so slightly; not enough that you can tell they're inflamed, but just enough to give them a most peculiar lopsidedness they don't normally possess (speaking of such things, I noticed last night that one of Molly Ringwald's eyes is bigger than the other. I was watching Sixteen Candles after a scary Witchblade that I watched alone, leave me be). I'm itchy. When I get home, I'm bathing in calomine lotion. So that's what I've been doing, kids, or most of it. I spent today reading up on all of you, as well as doing a good solid half hour of real work. Yep. Oh shit, and it occurs to me that I have five minutes now to finish the last solid five minutes of it. (kisses) Jet! 2:04 p.m. - 2002-07-09 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
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