On feeling moderately better

Wedding scouting takes a lot of footwork. Even in the days of the Internet, there are some places you just need to see to believe, and since we have decided to shackle ourselves in T-town (for convenience's sake for my family) we needed to go check it out.

We started at this place called the Varsity, now the home base of The Vault, which used to be on Pac Ave. and had a really great venue. This one, eh, not so much. It's pretty, don't get me wrong, but the old one had a view of Puget Sound. But it has big windows to let in whatever natural light will avail itself to us. The food at the open house was pretty tasty, I could see us going with some variation on it. The owner, who looked like she'd been smothered by Claire's Accessories and only just fought her way out (I mean this in a good way), was a little hyper. I like that in a food service manager. Ray gets put on edge by people with manic energy. Yet he's marrying me.

Then we went to my good buddy Blackberry's house for enchiladas and more talk about colonoscopies and hysterectomies than you could imagine. Mrs. Blackberry showed me how she got her tummy tuck with her de-organization, and you know what? I'm not a plastic surgery person, but it was tight. No pooch on the hooch. Her naval looked real. I am adding tummy tuck to the short list of plastic surgeries I would consider if I get out of control sagged out bagged out as I gracefully age. Tummy tuck joins eyelid lift and structural hitching up of the girls. Let it be noted that I'm probably too lazy and afraid of surgery for any of the above.

Blackberry is a musician in a band that has played more weddings than you can shake a stick at, and he had some alternative suggestions for venues to hold a reception at. One of which I find oddly compelling though I have not seen its inside.

Luckily, Alicia is on the case and hopes to send inside pics soon. That's what I'm talking about. I got resources, and I work them like a good little reporter.

We also had our first meeting with Dave, the nice minister who will hitch us together. He asked us if we had a "vision" for our wedding, and we looked at each other in horror. I kind of went on a rant about how stupid most weddings are (I didn't mean yours, reader), and somehow all that verbal diarrhea (on the order of, "I hate how it's all about THE COUPLE, well, we're all together in this, and the whole world is sharing love, it's like we're in a river of love, but we're peeing in the river, and we're peeing love, and we're all swimming in each other's love-pee," but not quite so vulgar) transfigured itself into a vision of something that will be probably maybe not too awful. I'm not going to spoil the surprise, but when your honey gives you a, "dang! Nailed it!" look and the minister says, "You don't need to do all this homework after all," I think it's possible to say, oh yeah, we've got the makings of a real barnburner of a wedding. Prepare for shock and awe, y'all.

The chapel is also really pretty. The bridal-prep room doubles as the Muslim room because it is the only one with a washbasin. Take from that what you will, but the University of Puget Sound does not have any muslim students.

Alicia's kids are so freaking big now it's insane. How fast they grow up, yet I remain superfoxy and mentally 13 years old.

We did a chore at the Tacoma Costco and it was horrific there. The traffic, the parking, the people. Inside, it was like piranha feasting on the corpses of a lot of dead cows. The mall parking lot was crammed. What recession? At the REI, site of another chore, I was looking at a bottle and this random dude who was spending WAY TOO MUCH TIME going through water bottle selections completely denigrated the bottle I had in my hand (one of the few with a sippy top) to his lady, then said, "Oh, but you're going to buy that." I said, "Well, I'm not taking it packing, I'm using it indoors." Then, very quietly, I called him a name. I was quite stressed by the traffic and the crush of humanity that had descended on the commercial district of Tacoma, in my defense.

Either that shows I'm becoming an intolerant bumpkin, or that I'm the same old high-strung Northeastern chick I've been trying not to be. I need to remember that that dumb guy? As well as the old dingleberries who went left around Ray's car while we were about to turn left into a parking space and signaling we were going to do so (parking lots don't have passing lanes!)? They are all swimming in the river of love in my love pee and vice versa. Or something. We all seemed to be feeling pretty pissy, that much I can tell you.

But we're back in the safety of the low-traffic, uncrowded Harbor. And we're more confident about planning Hitchin' Shindig '09.