The Manliest Bridal Shower Brunch

Manly, or the manliest? Male-maid-of-honor/man of honor Sudeep teamed up with my most-together friend, Melissa, to throw a bridal shower brunch at a hot dog place. (The other selections were Taco Cabana and Lambert’s, a barbecue place). As Sudeep once joked – this will appeal to your very masculine side (is there any other?)

Melissa added girly touches, like a lace runner along the table, adorable favors in cloth baggies with pink flowers on them, and Chinese cherry candies. We drank pear mimosas and ate chicken and waffles (leg and thigh – gotta go with the dark meat), shrimp and grits and hash brown casserole, among other selections. My friend Mon-Pon got me a gift that included a Woman’s Day Magazine — but it was “The Man Issue”.

A huge thank you to the brilliant and beautiful people who took part. A delightful brunch before the frenzy of next week gets underway.

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Close Call?

Our longtime friend Sudeep came to visit this weekend, and from the sound of it, he almost didn’t make it home:

I made it home alive despite the praying 70-year-old woman next to me who kept saying “I have an awful feeling about this flight. Something just doesn’t seem right.”  QUIET DOWN FREAKWOMAN is what I was thinking. “That attitude may not make this much easier on you” is what I said to her. During an hour of turbulence she gasped repeatedly, I laughed. We all survived.

Lawfully Wedded

Travis County District Judge Charlie Baird wedged our legal marriage proceedings after four folks on the criminal docket and before jury selection on some aggravated assault trial. Our closest friends in Austin, many who have small babies or large mortgages and cannot make it to Amsterdam, squeezed into the judge’s chambers with us for a quickie legal ceremony on Monday morning. I vaguely remember some sort of vows we had to repeat. But it felt like a strangely out of body experience once things got rolling. Stiles felt his knees locking so he obviously wasn’t more lucid than I was.

One of the women I asked to be a bridesmaid, Virginia, found out she was having a baby that would arrive one month before the wedding in Amsterdam (and boy is baby girl Cass a cutie). She won’t be coming overseas, but is a fantastic bridesmaid anyway. She hosted a classy, gorgeous engagement party at her house for us and guided me along on all things girly. (She also made a makeshift floral arrangement for me for the legal ceremony on Monday with the random fresh flowers she had around her house. Like I said, Virginia rocks.) So we picked her to be our witness, and she got all teary-eyed upon getting the assignment.

Afterwards, the group celebrated with chili cheese dogs (my favorite food). Matrimony Monday couldn’t have gone any better.

Our Dutch Wedding Planner: Reality TV Star

It’s not just American TV programming that’s drowning in shows about rich people. Our Amsterdam wedding planner, Tim Laan, appears in a Dutch reality show about a bunch of rich girls. I can’t understand the language but Tim explained the premise: One of the rich gals needs a planner for a wedding on the Spanish island of Majorca. From what I can tell, the show is ‘Keeping up with the Kardashians’ meets ‘Cribs’ with a dash of ‘My Super Sweet Sixteen’. In the clip, the girls are interviewing potential planners, and Tim’s brought in to make a quick proposal. It’s all Dutch to me…

Fitz Happens

You may recall my cat Fitz from my earlier blogs. Friggin’ Fitz. He’s my orange tabby who likes living on the edge. Most cats live one of two ways: domestically, in which they stay inside or occassionally go outside and stay in the general home area. Or they’re feral, in which nature is their home. My cat Fitz lives in the area in between. He “runs away” for a year or so, and then surprises us by wandering back into the house through the dog door.

He’s back, for now. Last time he was home was spring 2009, if you don’t count the time he popped into the backyard to say hi real quick on Thanksgiving day.

Friggin' Fitz.

In 2008, he came home on Iowa caucus night bleeding from his neck. It sounds bad, but since I was too busy watching the Iowa caucuses and Fitz is perpetually getting into trouble, I just locked him in my room until all the precincts came in. Fitz has almost died numerous times. He’s on his 18th life or so. The last time I did a count of the numerous times he almost died was early ’08, and since then I’ve stopped counting.

9th life: Being born onto the streets of South Dallas. We’re talking the Oak Cliff area. Somehow finding his way to “safety” on the infamous grassy knoll, which happens to be at the mouth of a major interstate. (Hence the name “Fitz”, short for John Fitzgerald Kennedy Hu-St!les)

8th life: Getting taken into the Spartanburg Humane Society, which has one of the highest animal euthanasia rates in the country. He was miraculously rescued because the same day he was brought in, my friend Myra was outside doing a live report. She saw him and had to take him home with her… which is how I wound up with him.

7th life: Accidentally eating ibuprofen. It looks like he took in at least two Advil liquigels, which is toxic to cats. Almost died, stayed in the Emergency Clinic overnight with an IV in his little arm. Had to shoot him with some sort of subcutaneous fluids for two weeks.

6th life: Running away for two weeks. To this day we don’t know where Fitz was during the last half of September, 2007. We thought he was a goner, fer sho. But then he just came strolling back in when October came around.

5th life: Dog bite. How he got away after a dog got him by the neck is still a mystery to me.

I stopped counting, but I can say without question that the vet fees have cost more than my own healthcare.