Barb, my sister and I flew out to Chicagoland (Muenster counts, right?) for my cousin’s wedding this weekend. Everything went off swimmingly, although I had a few too many “I’m an old fart” moments (they’re both just a couple years out of school). Random stuff:
- Why did we even consider driving for a one-day event? I can't wait until we pay off the bad debt and such considerations will only be a memory. (Eight months and counting...)
- Yes, I know I'm running late Ms. Airline Worker, I really don't need the attitude about how I'll barely make it.
- Autoflush standup urinals, good. Autoflush sitdown toilets, bad.
- Homogenization of the American landscape bothers me more and more. Driving around Chicago from the airport, and in the northwest Indiana area, just exacerbated it. Strip mall after strip mall, one crappy food place after another. I still feel like a snob, but whatever. And I know there are indigenous neighborhoods everywhere, places where people have built up businesses from the ground level rather than purchased a prefab business and plan and marketing scheme and code of breathing. But it used to be that everything was done by individuals, customized. Right? (See "old fart", above)
- I was oddly perturbed by the lightheartedness during the ceremony. Not terribly so, but enough. Not that I want everything to be solemn, but it's not like you're getting married everyday. (See "old fart", above)
- Wow, that was a big wedding party
- At the dinner we didn't get seated with any lame people, excellent.
- One of the photographers actually used the, "So, have you ever modeled?" line on one of our tablemates. I thought such things only existed in legend.
- I think I'm actually getting worse at small talk as I age. It should be the other way around from what I understand, but I could be wrong.
- I can't drink a lot without nasty side effects. I used to be able to do this, just like those whippersnapper kids. (See "old fart", above)
- I'm still glad we delayed our honeymoon. (We went to Greece about 14 months after the wedding.) Weddings are just so much happening at once, and you don't want the tail-end of that messing with your vacation. (But I hope Kirk and Abby are having a fantastic time in Maui; they're pretty laid back so they'll probably be fine.)
- I fucking hate fucking Cracker Barrel. (The restaurant that is.) The potpurri the "authentic" signs and bluegrass collections and unique beanie babies and olde everythinge and fatty food in mass quantities and the rocking chairs setup next to a checkerboard and the wood-like material and the numbing standardization of every goddam thing you can sense. It's ground zero (well, along with a few other places) of the revolution, baby.
But I don't want to be an asshole either and raise a stink when other folks want to go, so I'll just have to be content with the hate on those rare occasions.
- Goddam Steelers
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