Last weekend was absolutely fantastic!  I am so excited for summer and all the fun plans that come with it.  On Friday, I met up with Mina and Amy for some dinner + a movie.  We met up at The Outback for some delish dinner.  I really love that place, but sometimes it doesn’t agree with me.  I think as I grow older, my “lactose intolerance” has jumped to even higher levels.  On Timmy’s recommendation, I’ve tried Lactaid, but it hasn’t been working how I hoped.  After dinner, we headed over to the AMC to watch Bridesmaids.  Since Mina is the only bridesmaid I still talk to, I thought it was a fitting send-off before she goes back to China for a month.  That movie was absolutely hilarious.  My face and side were hurting since I was laughing so hard.  I’d see it again, it was that good!  I thought it was about 15 minutes too long, but otherwise, love love love!  (Except the last scene with the sandwich.  As Mina said, “It’s like The Human Centipede but with a sandwich.”  Haha… actually… no, not at all Mina.  Oh sweet innocent Mina.)  In the middle of the movie, the character of Helen is saying something in Thai, and of course I looked at Mina and asked what it meant.  She just nudged me, “Umm I’m from Taiwan.”  Oops.  Mina’s chinese is really improving though.  She has taught me a few words. 

On Saturday, Matt and I had a very busy day.  He is the president of PMN up at the Marion plant, which means he is a party planner, meeting chairperson, and event coordinator all in one.  He has talked about it for weeks about this game at Victory Field to watch the Indianapolis Indians.  Of course, it was going to rain, so he was in a pretty sour mood most of the afternoon.  I did a lot of gardening in the morning.  I’m not the greenest thumb, but I’ve actually been growing things this year and not killing them.  As you can see in the picture, I’ve got flowers, tomatoes, basil, morning glories, and lavender.  Whiskey sometimes goes in the garden to make me angry. 

So eventually we went downtown for the game.  We went to one of my favorite places in Indianapolis, The Rathskellar.  There’s nothing like a huge banquet hall with exotic European beer!  I found a new favorite beer, which is called Piraat Ale.  It is not for everyone since it tastes a lot like honey.  (In good news, they serve this at The Ale Emporium, which makes me very happy!)  The Rathskellar is also known for its spicy mustard, and eaters better beware!  (Matt didn’t listen to me or the waitress and dipped his pretzel in there only to be crying in a few moments.)  I should really start calling The Rathskellar “Jen’s Lucky Place” since good things always happen there.  Last time I was there, I had just met Steven Page. 

When we got to the game, it had unfortunately started to drizzle.  I bought a new hoodie since I was freezing while Matt just wanted a poncho.  He looked pretty ridiculous.  We had really great seats in lucky section 105.  So as the game began, a staffer from the Indians came over to check with Matt to see if everything went smoothly.  He then said, “Make sure you don’t leave at the top of the next inning” and winked.  I thought that the mascot, Rowdie, would be coming over for a picture or something. Of course, one of Matt’s co-workers called right at the bottom of the inning saying they had arrived at the gates.  They had forgotten picking up their tickets on Friday.  Matt was about to go find the guy, when I said, “No, the staffer told you to stay here.  I’ll do it.”  So off I went on an adventure to find someone I had never met.  Luckily, it didn’t take long for me to find the guy.

I went to go grab a quick beer since I was getting rained on, and I needed a refill.  Sure enough as I am buying two beers from a Rachel Maddow clone, the announcer starts saying that “The Free Dinner For Two Winner Is… Section 105… Row J…. Seat 10!”  Of course that is where I was sitting, and I start going bananas!  “That’s ME!  Look, I have the TICKET!”  And I start jumping up and down looking for a camera crew that was most likely following me and recording my outburst.  Then I realized, duh, they are filming MATT AT MY SEAT… and I AM NOT ON THE JUMBO TRON!  The lady points at the Jumbo Tron and says, “Is that your fella in the poncho?”  and of course as I look… I MISS it.  Boo!  So I quickly scamper back to my seats to see all the GM people happy and clapping and throwing high-5′s.  Yup, Matt and I got a Free Dinner for Two at Fogo de Chao.  I love winning things!  It makes me very, very happy!  The rest of the game was awesome.  There was only one major sketchy part, and that was the half-time relief.  There were all of these inflatable characters that were doing bizarre skits.  They had crazy named like “Roger Clammons” (a man with a clam head) and my favorite, “Rammy Johnson” (yes, I laughed and laughed and laughed).  During the Roger Clammons skit, the clam head ate the bat boy… and then spit him out.  However, the bat boy was only wearing boxer shorts.  It was very strange.  I missed the skit where one of the characters got cut in half and a spine and guts were thrown on the ground. 

I love Indians games.  I always get drunk for cheap and see strange things.  In other news, one of my high school friends, Courtney, was at the game too.  She saw Matt on the jumbo tron and recognized him from my Facebook pictures.  Ironically, I had just finished her baby blanket and mailed it earlier in the day.  That’s right, Baby Blanket Patrol – 2 blankets given, 1 finished and waiting for the baby shower, 1 in process, and 2 more to go before the fall!  Chris sent me a picture of baby B in the cocoon and hat I made him.  This kid is so adorable! 

On Sunday, it was raining pretty hard, so my scheduled pictures were cancelled.  Hopefully next Sunday will have sunny weather.  I can’t wait to get professional pictures taken of the house and Whiskey!  Yes, I have become that woman who gets action shots of her dog running in the background.  People put their babies and dress them up as flowers and fruits, so whatever!!  I had forgotten that I taped “The Planet of The Apes,” so I watched it a few times.  Yes, I love Marvel movies and Star Wars, but Planet of the Apes was probably my first obsession.  Ironically, Jefferson Middle School in Ft. Wayne that is mentioned in the movie is where Matt went to school.  Who doesn’t believe in fate?  Of course I would marry a guy that was taught at The Planet of the Apes school.  Life makes sense again!

As I said before, I can’t wait for the summer.  Mina will only be in China for a month this round and will be back in late June.  My cousin is getting married at the end of the month.  July will be hectic with me going to Chicago, then Gino & Jen’s Christmas in July party, followed by NSM and the wedding of all weddings.  At least Tim is giving me a chance to buy pierogies at his wedding.  I’ve tried to help them out as much as I can.  It’s going to be a hectic week for me since I’ll be in Florida and then zooming off to Chicago again! 

Oh summer, I love you.  Hurry up and get hot again!

This weekend was very spirited if I say so myself.  The Royal Wedding was Friday morning, and I watched it in its entirety that evening while sipping champagne.  On Saturday I went to Dana’s Bridal Shower/Bachelorette Party which I’ll get to later in this post.  On Sunday, I did a lot of cleaning in preparation for Nikki’s sleepover.  My laundry is a monster, and I am trying to kill the beast.  Only a few more loads to go! Matt and I finally got around to watching Game of Thrones, which I am not impressed with.  Personally, I find Medieval/Camelot style stories boring.  Maybe I dislike since it seemed like a stupid comic book plot.  Look, incest!  Let’s add a dwarf who happens to be royal!  Now let’s get some baby wolves which you know are going to die!  The entire thing is so predictable to me.  Matt is frustrated with me since I called out all major plot points in each episode.  It’s all a formula.  Booorrrriiinnng.  I do like the little girl/badass.  The Dave Navarro looking guy has the best job on the show.  He has to work out, have sex with a fairy looking bride (which I predict to become a warrior queen) and brood.  Blah.

I was happy to be interrupted on Sunday night with the news of Usama bin Laden’s demise.  Nothing like solidifying 2012 Obama.  Nicely done if I say so myself.  I haven’t been paying much attention to how he was killed or what they did to his body.  Personally, I find it a bit gruesome how some people are so balls out on Facebook/blogs/etc about it.  I was also very surprised to see the crazy college crowds at the White House after the news broke.  I thought it would be a candle-light vigil mourning the loss of the U.S. dead over the years — but no, there were college kids chanting and doing cheerleader pyramids and such.  On Monday, I was reading all the humorous posts on the social networking sites, and even though I didn’t take part, I did just shake my head a few times.  There were the obvious MLK quotes about not wishing death for anyone good or bad, to the “I hope they wrapped his body in bacon fat when they threw him over the boat!”  C’mon people, his body was put to rest respectfully even if others don’t agree.  Do you know how much flack America would get if we just threw his body off an air craft carrier?  Sigh.  I just wish I could wear shoes at airports now.  That is my one wish from the end on the War on Terror.  Shoes.

Now onto the fun part of my weekend!  It was Dana’s big party weekend, and I was pretty excited.  I usually don’t go to bridal showers or bachelorette parties since I hate them, but I wanted to see everybody.  Dana’s twin, Kara, was down from Chicago to throw the shower.  I’ve known them since middle school, and I’ve become better friends with Dana since we got our house and started throwing parties.  Her fiancée, Phil, is a lucky guy.  He is so funny.  They are going to be so happy, I know it!  (Pictured from left: Amanda, Jen GN, Dana- the Bride, and Emily)

After the bridal shower, I went home to relax a bit.  Well, I accidentally fell asleep while laying out.  (It is not pleasant to wake up with a dog sitting on your head meanwhile).  Emily had called me to make sure I went to the bachelorette party and didn’t puss out, which I am good at doing.  After a lot of phone calls to miscellaneous girls, I finally got a ride.  My neighbor and friend, Katie, offered to be the DD, and we picked up Amanda before going downtown.  Katie had to work at 7 AM on Sunday and Amanda would be teaching Bible Study, so I was glad to have a good endgame time to keep me from getting into trouble!

I’ll say this, Dana has a lot of awesome friends.  They are all just as crazy and cool as her.  We were all dolled up and ready for some action!  Matt was working on Saturday, so I promised him that I wouldn’t be out all night and get crazy.  I decided to be a bit ambitious with my outfit.  Granted, I have been working out a lot and not losing much weight.  I feel a lot better however.  I decided to wear clothes that were a size too small.  And gigantic Fraggle earrings.  And sequins on a skirt and a disco bra.  Yeah, I was being ambitious alright. (Here is a fun group shot taken on Amie’s small camera.  You can see my sparkle.  Yeah!)  We headed out to Nicky Blaine’s martini bar, which would be my one and only stop unfortunately.  I had never been to Nicky Blaine’s but had heard a lot of good things about it.  I love a great martini, so yes, I was excited.  Unfortunately, I ordered two sub-par and nasty martinis.  For your information, watermelon vodka does not mesh well with pineapple and blue Curacao.  At around 11:30, the trio of early birds left the party. As much as I bitch about bridal showers and things of that nature, I actually had a good time.  It is a bit weird when you are married and most of the girls are single.  I just don’t look at dudes that way anymore.  Is that sad?  Probably.  I dress up for myself obviously.  Screw boys.  Dana and Phil will be getting married at the end of the month in Portland, Oregon at a vineyard.  They are going to have so much fun with a destination wedding.  They won’t have their reception right away, in fact, they are waiting until Labor Day weekend.  I like it- get married Memorial Day and celebrate the last weekend of summer.  Ha!

In other amazing “Dana” news, our friends, Chris and Dana had their baby boy yesterday!  Baby Brayden arrived after a long day of labor.  I can’t wait to see more pictures of him.  He is definitely a cutie!  It looks like we’ll have to go down to Oklahoma again to meet the little guy.  I love this picture since he is waving “hello” to the world.  I’m not sure if he looks more like Dana or Chris yet.  I wonder if the hat that I made will fit him?  He’ll probably grow out of it in a week.  So yup, Baby#1 is out, and I think about 3 more babies to go this year!

In other news, I did two unnatural things today.  #1.  I finally listened to that Ke$ha song that everybody seems to like.  I refuse to listen to her, but my Pandora station had other ideas.  #2. I voted for a Republican.  So today is election day, and I always vote if I am available.  Sure enough, I went in to my polling place and was dismayed when I saw there were no Democrats in my precinct.  So, I went in and voted for a Republican mayor and some other miscellaneous Republicans for the Council Board.  I did vote for the one candidate who broke his teeth in his youth since he was driving a car while getting a blowjob and smashed into a tree.

This is why I love living in a small town.

And I absolutely love this picture.  Emo + Me.  True love, haha!