Cue eerie music
It was a dark and stormy day. I was feeling lazy as usual. The rain pelted the side of the house like an angry woodpecker with A.D.D. and O.C.D armed with a 12-gauge. This was my Friday. I finally got up the gumption to get ready and drive to Spokane, three cranky kids in tow. It was the start of the long weekend, so the traffic was as crazy as a meth-addled squirrel after a ride on a tilt-a-whirl. People had completely lost all common sense while driving, all seemingly concentrating on what they were all going to do whenever they got to wherever it was they were going off to.
I made my way carefully - with my cruise control set at 60 - to the wedding site for the rehearsal. It was at the rehearsal that I met a woman that I shall call "Controlling Bitch." She attempted to control every aspect of the rehearsal... even the stuff she couldn't possibly know anything about, including how to time my music to the activities of the bridal party. I made my best attempt at ignoring her.
After the rehearsal, I hurried home to cook dinner, but with the traffic and nothing to drink, I decided to swing into the Ram Drive-In on our way home. I am so not shitting you: we must have waited there in the drive-thru lane for over an hour. When we got to the window, I'll bet we weren't there more than 45 seconds. PATHETIC SERVICE. Stupid teenagers. I'd have fired the lot of them, were I the manager. But, hell. I'm not. So, I'll shut up about that.
I got home and started cooking dinner and was helped my aunt work on her new laptop. It was during this that I was looking for my Dreamweaver CD and realized that I lost it in the move. Le sigh. After dinner, I put Cait's hair up in pincurls and put the kids to bed. I had some computer stuff to do, so I didn't get to bed until almost 3 AM.
I got up at 8AM and we drove into Spokane and met up with my aunt, uncle, and the twins at Pizza Hut. After lunch we all went to the wedding site. Me, Kenny, and the kids were the only ones there at first. About 5 minutes later, Controlling Bitch showed up and told us to move our car so "other people didn't park" where we did. No matter how many times we assured her that we would, indeed, move our car as soon as our musical equipment was unloaded, she wouldn't shut up until the car was moved. Finally, we just moved the thing just so she would STFU.
The day was hot, and I spent the majority of the day just sitting in the shade and getting nervous over my piano performance. The ceremony got going after while, though, and I did play pretty well. I started with "In The Garden," just like at practice. And I did the performance just as the Controlling Bitch told me I should: play "In the Garden" until the groomsmen appeared, then play "Ceud Mile Failte (100,000 Welcomes)" (a song I wrote) for the bridesmaids. Only, there was a pretty big delay between the appearance of the groomsmen and the appearance of the bridesmaids. So I ended up playing "Ceud Mile Failte" WAAAAAAAAAY longer. The controlling bitch had told me earlier to start playing the wedding march as soon as I caught sight of the ring bearer because, she said, the bride would be "right behind him."
Well, clearly, "Controlling Bitch" was wrong. I saw the ringbearer, but the flower girl and bride, et cetera, were some distance behind him, so, I started playing the wedding march as soon as I saw the ringbearer... and ended up playing it, like, 100,000,000,000 times. I felt so stupid. Thanks, Controlling Bitch, for the great musical advice. Ha!
After the ceremony, me and Kenny played some music for the guests. After the wedding me and Kenny came home and I made some ravioli and we watched a football game replay on the NFL Network with my Dad until Dad went home, and then me and Kenny watched some stuff Kenny had taped on the DVR. Kenny wanted to get a Pay-Per-View movie, but the phone line hasn't been plugged in for a while to the receiver, so just using the remote wouldn't work. So the kids brought me the laptop to order the movie via the Internet. Well, I hadn't looked at the laptop for some time; I have let the kids use it pretty much exclusively since they moved in. Well, I booted it up and it was then that I realized that Something Had Happened to my laptop. The left click key on the touch pad was sticking down, and something was stuck under the "t" key. After cleaning up the left click key, I kept touching the "t" key, and it spontaneously fell off, revealing a PIECE OF RICE under it. To my surprise, unlike the last time this happened, the key popped right back in place, but I was peeved, so the kids have a week-long ban from all my computers. Hopefully, that will teach them to keep food and drinks away from the Expensive Equipment.
I ended up falling asleep on the couch. Kenny woke me up at about midnight and we went to bed.
I woke up at about 10AM the next day and got ready to go to Spokane... again. Three days in a row of driving in an out of Spokane... arg. Anyway, went in to the studio and traffic (still the long weekend, yanno) made me late by almost half an hour. I told them when I got there that I had to leave by 5:30 PM, but then, at 4PM, they were all, like, "okay, we've got all we need. You can go." And I'm like, "Are you sure you don't want me to do more harmonies or something while I'm here?" And they're like, "No, we're good. Lots of music work tomorrow, though."
So, bewildered, I left. Stopped at Dairy Queen and bought a Moo-Latte. Stopped at Safeway, took a leak, and bought pop and cat food. Came home, and cooked pancakes, bacon, eggs, sausage, and hash browns for the band and the kids. Then, we practiced. Mom and Dad stopped by.
We had band practice scheduled for the next day at 4PM. The bassist and drummer showed up, and we practiced.
Later, I put the kids to bed, did the dishes, talked to my friends, and then dropped dead (i.e.: slept). I had set the alarm on my cell phone for 9:30 AM, and simply slept through it, so I didn't get up until 11AM this morning.
Made coffee and got the kids started on their school work. They did all right, and were done by 12:30 PM. I ran a scan on my computer, filled out the rebate forms for our cell phones, and sent Cait's check to her savings account. Once my computer scan was finished, I worked on a web site.
I cooked dinner for the family and two of my cousins, and then helped the kids and Kenny make their picks on the band's Pick 'Em League on the forum.
Tomorrow, the kids have school again, and then they have football and cheerleading practice. The kids have games late Saturday afternoon. Sunday, I am going to WATCH FOOTBALL!!!!
