Weddings, Fallen Trees, Cars, Tempora, Weekend!

Wow what a busy weekend. Sometimes I like it better when my days off fall in the work week because then I can relax more. I find that a weekend off is more work than "work" itself.

This Saturday I woke up (9ish) and headed out to Concord Mills to buy a suit. I know that is not the most desirable place to buy a suit, but a man who wears a suit only 3-5 times a year need not head to Jos. A. Bank and drop a half a thousand dollars on a suit. So I head to Haggar, where they are clearing out the store and have their $350 dollar suit marked down to $79 bucks. I thought about buying a second one, but I might do that this weekend if there are any left. I then went to Banana Republic and bought a (pink) shirt and a (pink) tie. I came home, put on my suit, and Amanda and I headed out.

We showed up at Meredith's wedding at about 10 minutes to gate. We wandered in, ran into her dad, where he congratulated Amanda on her engagement, her graduation, and her fabulous graduation cap (I am responsible for about 2 of 3). It was held at St. Mary's chapel where Erin got married, I had forgotten how small that place was. I got to spend time talking with three very important men in my life, Major Ainsle who was my Senior Exit Essay Advisor, Colonel Wilbanks, who single handedly gave my mom the greatest compliment that I was responsible for, and Sarge, sergeant Libro, the man, the myth, the legend. I had all three as teachers in school, in fact my senior year of high school, I had 4 JROTC classes. I got to talk with them and many other throwbacks at the Great Aunt Stella Center in downtown Charlotte, as far as I could tell it was an old church. It was a perfect size and a perfect distance from Merph's wedding. The food, music, and cake were all good. Once you hit that trifecta, you know it will last.... God bless Merph and Jeff!!!

After the wedding, we were going to see a movie, but the theatre was just too crowded. I love movies, I love going, I even don't mind paying, but opening night sucks!!! The crowds, the heat in a crowded theatre, it is just not my bag baby. So we headed to Southpark Mall, where Manders and I go when we can't think of anything else to do. She bought some books, I spectated. We then headed to my father's to share the engagement smiles and show off the ring. (I'm sorry, you said you wanted a completely irrelevant side story? Does it belong here? it is like you have deja vue, ESPN, or something!)

So last weekend my dad went to his preachers daughter's wedding. After attending said wedding, he came home and was browsing a magazine and the article he read was about how to plan a wedding and still be friends afterwards, essentially a guide for parents to not rule the day. The article started off like this. "So you just got home from a co-worker's daughter's wedding, you are laughing and thinking to yourself 'I am so glad we don't have to go through this' when the phone rings, it is your child, low and behold, they are engaged..." About 20 minutes later my Dad's phone did ring, and his youngest son is engaged. Cool huh, stay tuned for more predictions in this wicked-retarded-long blog entry.

Sunday Amanda and I skipped church and went to the pool. We are trying to get a base tan going so when we go to Miami in July/August, we don't burn to ashes. After cleaning up, we shared lunch with Marlies and the two of them went off dress shopping. I went to Huntersville to visit with Tim and Sara. Tim was breaking out the deep fryer and tempora, we dipped shrimp, lobster, zucchini, and attempted a blooming onion. Amanda joined us up there, we were too far away to make the Southpark Pops concert that we wanted to make with my cousins and aunt & uncle. While on his back porch we were looking at some trees and noticed a dead one in his neighbor's yard that looked as though the right easterly wind will rock it down on his garage. I told him about my Bradford Pear tree to the right of my driveway and how heavy it looked for such a soft wood. We went to Concord Mills and saw the greatest movie ever made.... CARS!!! (check this cool segway) Wouldn't you fucking know it....

The second tree discussed is the one that fell during our freakishly strong thunderstorms we had on Sunday evening. It layed across the driveway, I am glad Amanda came up because that tree would have done a some damage to the Super-Focus. It was 11:00pm, we were tired, the house had no power, it was hot, and we went to my mom's to spend the night.

My dad came over today. When I came home from work, he was out in my yard sawing up the tree. I got to bust out my horrificly dull chainsaw, it made it about 95% of the way before it reached the effectiveness of a butter knife. Amanda came out and the three of us, along with some short term help from neighbors David and Bonnie, worked on it for a solid 2.5 hours. This is one of my dad's shining moments as a father. He came over to help unasked, he rarely puts himself out there like that but I wouldn't have finished in time for this next freakish storm we had. I will blog about my dad at a later, much more interesting post.