Wedding

So last Friday (29 May), Allison and I were married, and we then took off to an adventurous and lazy honeymoon. But let's back up a bit..

I stayed with my brother and my sister-in-law, both of whom were very gracious and kind hosts. I could have stayed at my parents' house, but I would very possibly been in a constant state of battle with my mother. She and I (though we are good now) have a long history of arguments, and pre-wedding stress would not help our relationship if we were forced to be close for long periods of time. Allen and Leah (my hosts/relatives) were very sweet to let me come and go as I needed or pleased.

Speaking of coming and going, I had a few late nights during the week leading up to the wedding. We had a bachelor party sort of hang-out thing Tuesday night, the events of which will not be disclosed on this blog. Let's just say that I had a great time, and that said time involved drinking, talking about interesting things, and fireworks. In attendance were groomsmen Matt, Jeffrey, and James (and Matt's dad who was extremely entertained by the evening's events). The next day I felt fine, and had the usual morning late that my hosts prepare each day. I also had some burn marks on a couple fingers.

Wednesday Allen, Leah, Jeffrey, and I went to pick up our tuxedos (not Leah, she was there for the pleasure of our company). We then enjoyed a delicious meal at Olive Garden (during the wait for our table, I sneaked over to BAM to read Uncanny X-Men 510... thoughts: love the fight scenes, loved that they featured the younger mutants, and am thrilled to see what happens with both [original non-Asian] Psylocke and perhaps Jean coming back from the dead. Spoilers, by the way). Back at the restaurant, I enjoyed the unlimited soup and salad with the Chicken Gnocci soup. It was delicious without making me feel like I had ordered too much food (a rarity for Olive Garden).

That day, my beautiful bride and some of her group began to arrive, and I was able to see some of them. Later that night, as I began to prepare for bed, Matt called me to tell me that he and Jeffrey were coming to pick me up for more adventuring. We did some fun things, which, again, I will refrain from describing, but this time including snake-handling copperheads in the street and road trips out of the area. I slept on the car ride home.

Thursday, I got my oil changed and had lunch with Allison and her ladies at the Subway in Wal-Mart. Then, I went home to wash my car and messed with the wedding and reception music (thanks again to Tim who edited the departure song, Los Campesinos! - You! Me! Dancing!, to something with a better intro). I don't remember a whole lot more of the afternoon, but for dinner, all of Allison's family came over to eat with all of my family at my parents' house. It was busy and surprisingly fun--I expected it to be much more quiet and awkward than it was. Everyone sort of talked with everyone else, and the meal went smoothly.

The day of the wedding, I got up early to head over for the brunch and rehersal, but I kept forgetting things. While checking the car to make certain I hadn't forgotten something, I activated the car's hazard lights. To get through the story quickly, the button broke, and I had a panicked and unscheduled visit to the Chevy dealership, where they kindly fixed it in about five minutes' time (for free!). There was tons of food at the brunch, but it was really quite nice and I had a good time hanging out with my boys and Kevin (Dr. Youngblood, my old Greek teacher and our officiator). The large group at the brunch excused themselves, as I had previously asked my family to do, and we had a brief rehersal for the wedding. Afterwards, I left to take care of a few errands, and I also got to spend some time talking to Spike as we cruised the backroads.


Skipping to the wedding proper, we took our wedding pictures at 5 and the wedding began at 6:30. It went without a hitch, and according to one souce, Allison and I looked very beautiful and super excited and happy the whole time. Huzzah! I teared up during the vows, but I don't think many people noticed (no one has mentioned it to me, but Alli noticed). The reception went well despite the unplanned absence of two desserts, and I had a great time seeing people and drinking lots (~six glasses) of the green party punch that Leah made for us. My groom's X-men carrot cake turned out very well, and as far as I know nobody tried to take the Superhero Squad figures that we placed on it.

All in all, the wedding was a brilliant success and I'm fairly certain a good time was had by all. I'll describe some of our honeymoon in a later post.

Of roommates, music, plans, and jealousy

Karel is moving out this weekend, lordwilling, and we signed the roommate release forms yesterday. With him packing and me starting to move Alli's stuff here, the apartment is pretty much a wreck. He gave me a talk about how he felt like we had been treating him rudely, wherein he complained about silly unimportant things and things that happened over six months ago. I just apologized and have continued to be positive and friendly--he's moving out so soon that there's no reason to stir up or develop any more agression or enmity. I'm a little worried about his friend buying me a new headset (he stepped on my brand new one) since Karel's moving out, but I'm pretty sure the guy will come through.

I've recently been wanting more new music, and a lovely conversation with Justin has led to several downloads. This year's new albums include two I already had; Animal Collective's Meriwether Post Pavilion was great, but the Decemberists' Hazards of Love has yet to woo me. Fortunately, my good friend has informed me about new albums by Akron Family, Immaculate Machine, Metric, and several other bands. So I downloaded the new Camera Obscura, the Akron, and the Metric albums, but I have yet to find the Immaculate Machine album. I'll track down the other bands (the Thermals, the 1990s, etc.) after I've given these a listen. I'm listening to Akron Family's Set 'Em Wild, Set 'Em Free as I type--very good so far.

I've been sort-of busy with misc. wedding stuff. Making honeymoon confirmations, moving her stuff over here, and cleaning my stuff so moving will be less painful for everyone--that's how I've spent my last week. Yesterday her best friend got into town, but I'll get back to that. Friday her mom comes into town, and she's bringing us furniture! Her parents are moving overseas soon, and they're giving us their couch, chair with ottoman, and some bookshelves. She's also bringing us our bed from Ikea, all of which are awesome (she, the bed, and Ikea). That means that I'll be able to sleep on our queen-sized pillowtop bed for the next weeks. I've been sleeping on a creaky and ancient twin bed since I moved here in 2006, and it will be nice to roll around a bit more. Also, in that vein, I'm trying to train myself to only use one pillow to sleep. It's weird, and I don't like it, but we were given two feather pillows at one of our showers, and I find that using two is perfect, just like normal pillows, but better. But I feel like I'm being unnecessary and that I should wean myself down to one. Anyway, the next few weeks are going to be busy, and they will probably involve stress and some petty fighting.

As these weeks begin to become more and more stressful and busy, Allison will soon be off work and free to do more for the preparations. Also, her best friend Reena is in town to hang out and help. I met her very briefly last night, but already I get weird vibes--not from her, but from Allison. She acts quite differently around her friend, and that included hugging me and pecking me goodnight, which was weird and a bit lame. I feel vaguely like this is a friend from the past who makes her revert to some past self. Also, in some bizarre development, she reminds me of a girl I used to know here who makes me feel weird and awkward that moved away. So in knee-jerk reaction to my beloved's best friend, I feel awkward and annoyed. She seems nice, but the initial weirdness of similarity makes me want to avoid her, but then there's also resentment that I'll probably only get to see Allison with her around, too. We probably won't have any "just us" hangout time till the honeymoon, or at least it will be minimal. At this point I kind of wish I had caved to her and let us elope to avoid this headache. So now I'm bored at home without much to do, and I just want to go help Alli with whatever she might need, but she no doubt wants to spend time with her best friend she hasn't seen in a year, which is totally understandable. She told me yesterday that she doesn't want me to leave town so I can be her moral support, but I'm not even sure how much I'll get to see her with all these people coming to visit her. Maybe I'll just run to visit home or a friend this weekend or next week. I know I'm being a good bit petty and jealous, but I just want the headache of wedding prep to be done and for us to start the happily (and sometimes grumpily) ever after.

Dungeons and Dragons

So! Allison and I are visiting my parents in order to manage some wedding business, and we scheduled a very important event for our first night in town! As no one wants to DM (almost ever) I ended up running the game, but that's sort-of fun too. Here's the party make-up:

Alli - Bowsey the Elf Ranger
Allen - Avdron the Dwarf Fighter
Spike - Oberlectrisk the Dragonborn Warlord
Tim - Thraak the Dragonborn Barbarian
Jenna - Kyllakin the Elladrin (?) Wizard
Ian - Rellyk the Half-Elf Warlock

Pretty decent party make-up, really. I've been running one of the WotC pre-made adventures (because I am a Dungeon Master by necessity rather than choice) and it's pretty fun and easy. Fourth edition's style of listing monsters with all of their attacks with the bonus of each makes pre-made adventures especially helpful.

We only get to play when I visit for a few days (mom always gets grumpy if I come and don't spend much time with the family, so one night must be "family night," [or Settlers of Catan / Ticket to Ride night] that's tonight this time). There are two main issues with gaming in town. First, at the beginning I have to remind everyone what they have done and are trying to do for the mission (here, they're in catycombs that have been inhabited by hobgoblin forces to secure a town's buried relics and captured prisoners). Second, and this has always been a major issue with gaming groups here, people talk too much and pay too little attention! It's not that bad, but I continually have to say, "OBERLECTRISK, GO!" or "Your turn, RELLYK!" etc. (it makes me feel a bit like a pokemon trainer in battle!). I guess it just makes sense that everyone wants to talk to everyone else about their personal preferences about geeky stuff (examples: Spike - Mother 3, Ian - Warhammer Online, Allen - randomy neat geeky stuff he can do with his iPod touch). Oh well. Also, this was Alli's third game and she did better than ever. I was not only really impressed with her, but I was also super in love with her. Boo-ya.

Ian has said officially that he'll DM after the adventure is over. I am going to play either a rogue (Striker) or a Bard (leader). Whoop!