Flutterbys

Joanie at Joanie's Random Ramblings gave me a Butterfly Award because she thinks I have a cool blog. So now, it is my duty to pass this along to five people who I think have the coolest blog ever. And I pick:

how the beck...
The Everyday Adventures of Me in the City
Paca-Blog
Two Crazy Knit Chicks
DiSpace

So, my challenge to you ladies is to pass this on to other blogs and keep the butterfly chain going.

An now for something completely different, I hate the ice. I'm all for having four seasons with cold, warm, and hot weather... but I really despise winter precipitation. It took me 30 minutes to scrape off the ice from my car this morning. At least the northeast in the greater Philadelphia area isn't getting as much ice and snow and such as the mid-west and Chicago is getting at the moment. My heart goes out to those people.

It's all the customer's fault.

We went out to dinner last night with Gene's parents and Gene's brother and the fiancee. There's this cute little mom and pop Italian restaurant that we can walk to from our house, and they have great pasta and wonderful homemade sauce. We also know the owners. I mean, everyone in Delaware knows everyone it seems, but at this restaurant, they know exactly who we are. Sometimes Gene and I will get take out from there. So, we go in and they're slammed. Not hard to do, because they only have about 12 tables in the whole restaurant. They clear a table they hardly use for us...it's by the coat rack and separate from the dining area.

Our waitress comes by.. a little rude.. and is annoyed that we don't order appetizers. Gets our drink order and comes back maybe 15 minutes later. Not one drink she gives to the right person. My water goes to Gene's father, who ordered chianti. Gene's mom's water goes to the fiancee. Gene's drink goes to his brother. That leaves Gene's brothers sprite and the wine. She's holding the sprite in her hand out over the table, completely lost, and the red wine on the tray (first mistake. Red wine.. get it off the tray FIRST). I reach to get the sprite, far from the tray and everything. But she jerks and spills the red wine all over me and Gene. AND THEN BLAMES ME! She says "You put your arm out! It was you!" Um. Excuse me. First of all, even if it was my fault, which it wasn't, you don't accuse said customer, let alone in front of the entire table. Our entrees were also all turned around too. I was waiting for her to dump spaghetti sauce on me and have it be my fault again.

I have nothing but respect for waiters and waitresses and the food industry. My family owned a restaurant for about 6 years in Pennsylvania, and my mother is a server now, as well as a lot of friends of mine (all actors. big shock there.) so I'm a notoriously excellent tipper. I usually make friends with whoever my waitress is. The other day my friend Sara and a bunch of Katies were at a sushi restaurant in Delaware and we had a whole 10 minute conversation with our waitress about "the lemonade diet" and why it makes you crazy and you shouldn't do it. I tried sushi that night and was not a fan. But at least I tried it! The point is, I don't know why this woman tried to sabotage me. I guess she was trying to save her tip by not being at fault for dumping red wine all over me and Gene's khaki pants. Blaming the customer isn't the way to do it. An "I'm sorry" would have been nice...but we never got that. Just a "you moved your arm... it wasn't my fault."

I sing because I'm happy?

So there's this girl who used to be my best friend. We had a bit of a falling out our senior year. And I don't think she quite gets it how much she hurt me, but she never really talked to me all through college unless I ran into her at work (she worked with my mom) or if we ran into each other at a mututal friend's house. She recently got into this let's be friends again kick and has been calling me and trying to get together. She just moved closer to me... and she's on this kick.

Anyway, she just had a baby and when she was pregnant, I saw her at a party of a mutual friend. A mutual friend that this girl despised for years, but that's an entirely different story. At this party, it was like nothing ever happened and we were still bff... it was as if she didn't ditch me during prom, during senior week, during the entire last two months of high school, and during my breakup with my boyfriend at the time. Now all of those things seem really stupid, but back then it was as if my entire world crumbled.

She calls me yesterday and asked me to sing at her wedding. And I said yes. Should I have said yes? Aside from the fact that I haven't sung outloud in three years. I'm completely conflicted. On one hand, I'm absolutely honored. On the other hand, am I just being a doormat again? Also, this girl doesn't know the first thing about Catholic wedding music.

It also doesn't help that when I told Gene he says "Well I'm absolutely not going." I don't think he knows how much he hurts me by saying stuff like that either. Sometimes... when I need him the most... when I need him there for support... he refuses to help me. He wasn't there when I met my dad's stepmother, he won't go to any weddings to people I'm related to, he won't go to weddings where I might need someone there to make sure I don't fall apart. But the wedding we're going to in June that's going to have my ex boyfriend and the girl he slept with while we were together? I'm going to that. And the other wedding we're going to in June that I'd rather eat rancid sharkmeat than go to? I'm going to that one too.

New Year, New Problems.

I am definitely not ready for my very very short vacation to be over. I need about another 4 hours of sleep and another two days to finish laundry.

Now that we're in the throes of 2009... Gene and I are already getting the "Oh, you aren't engaged? I thought for sure this would be the time." No. We're not engaged. Because I don't think we'll ever be able to get married. Not because we don't want to, because we'd go to the JOP tomorrow. Because our families can be assholes. Because we don't want people there. Because we'd like to invite friends, immediate family, and like 10 other relatives and that's it, but we'd never get away with it.

We've already started preparing people for a far away wedding... and people first get mad, and then assume that we're going to have some kind of party afterwards. No. We're going away and getting married. If you want to come, great. I told my Dad on Christmas that we were seriously (and by seriously I mean we've decided) considering going to Hawaii, and he gave me the "but not a lot of people would be able to go" speech, to which I responded, "Yeah, Dad...that's the point."

And then I started to feel guilty... and then I started to get upset because when I go to weddings and brides have their first dance with their husband and they dance with their father... I think "I will never have that." It's almost like some supreme being is saying "Sorry. All of your relatives get to have big fancy weddings with the hooplah and the dancing, but you don't deserve that. You have to run away." It isn't fair. And it gets me really really upset. But I'll never win that arguement. Mentally, I want to go to Hawaii. Emotionally, I want the big poofy dress and the big wedding where everyone cries. But then mentally again, I know that it will never happen.

And also, I got sprung on me today "we might send you to Los Angeles for a convention." It's probably not going to happen, but I looked up the dates to the convention...and it's like 10 days away. And it runs right in the middle of when I'm hosting a Silpada party (it's silver jewelry... and super pretty...). Who knows. With my luck, I'll have to reschedule my party and then the convention would fall through.