apropos of anything

My parents were never really big on painting rooms. (Except, I think, for the one time I got a pink room and the boys got a blue room, and I think my pink clashed with the carpet — it was a very Sheila the Great moment for me when I first stepped into that room.) As a result, I was never really big on painted rooms either. I didn’t see the problem with having plain white walls, and painting was far too complicated a task for me to waste my time trying to do.

That all changed in college, when I saw Heather and Mary’s brightly painted apartment. And it changed some more when I helped Heather paint her new apartment and realized painting wasn’t nearly as difficult as I’d thought. In fact, it was fun!

Last night I finally painted one of my own rooms for the first time. AM came over, and after a quick anti-Dan dinner (fish and cream sauce, wheeeeeeee!) and a not-so-quick trip to Home Depot where we stood in line behind a man who pontifcated endlessly on the possible ramifications of his paint color choice (we finally side-stepped him and handed my sample to the man behind the counter), we applied the primer for Ralph Lauren’s Hunting Coat Red. Then we applied a coat of the Hunting Coat Red itself, which turned out to be a drippy, drippy paint. When we finished the second coat at 2 a.m. — having stopped for a brief ice cream break — the wall was blotchy enough that I knew I’d have to do a second top-coat in the morning.

So I did. And I may have to go back and redo some of the white on the crown molding. Maybe painting is a little complicated after all. Still fun, though!

The room looks great. I keep walking into it every couple of hours just to marvel in its redness. Next up: the spare room!

That is all.

At approximately 8:30 a.m. today I put on a pair of pink Chinese Laundry shoes (similar to these, although I think my heels were shorter) that I found at DSW in five minutes yesterday. (In five minutes ’cause I only had five minutes as I was technically on my lunch break — my 3:00 lunch break — and I had spent the bulk of it in traffic and picking up my pink dress from the alterations shop.)

At approximately 6:30 p.m. today I took them off, having spent the day wearing them as I trotted up church steps, around hallways, down aisles, down church steps, into bathrooms, across ballrooms, and through parking lots.

Owwwwwwwwwww.

Sarah and Joe cut their gorgeous cake. Sarah’s wearing her Korean dress at this point.

Otherwise, Sarah and Joe’s wedding was lovely. They were married at noon at Christ the King in a picturesque formal ceremony that was followed immediately by a reception of waaaay too much food at Maggiano’s. The bride changed clothes twice and everyone ooh’d and aah’d appropriately. My dress ripped as I was driving from the church to the restaurant, but Jessica managed to pin me up so I wasn’t flashing the crowd. And four hours after it began, the reception ended in a cloud of bubbles as Sarah and Joe ran into their waiting limousine.

(On a tangent, they disappointed a little girl who came running out the restaurant door because she wanted to see the bride. The limo was already pulling out of the drive by then.)

There are some friends you love like family; in fact, these days, when family can be defined in so many ways, they are part of your family. For me Sarah is one of those people. I have not yet come to terms with her moving across the country (for the duration of the ceremony and reception, the m-word was banned in my presence), but it is wonderful to see her so happy. Congratulations then, to my shopping buddy, the girl who taught me to wear makeup, my partner-in-baking, and the sewer of my Odyssey of the Mind costumes. And to Joe too, ’cause he’s getting a great girl.

If you’ll excuse me, I need to go pass out now.

There’s work. There’s weddings — and the associated dress-altering, shoe-shopping, scarf-shopping, nails-and-eyebrows-doing. And there’s traffic. Sitting with a hundred other vehicles on four lanes of GA 400 because a car stalled in the second right lane. And more weddings, shower plannings, and mehndhi decoratings. Dholke partyings. Cousin visitings. Room paintings that have to be canceled because of — you guessed it — work.

Somewhere in there, I’m going to squeeze in a social life.

‘Cause it’s been all about work lately, with the CMS launch we had early yesterday morning. Pre-launch, we have frenzied preparations; post-launch, it’s resigned mopping-up of outstanding issues.

Bubba lounging in the guest chair.

I have pictures to put up (including one fabulous one taken in Madison that Dan beat me to posting) and a weekend to recap, but that will have to wait for the next post. Right now, I’d like y’all to meet Bubba. He’s to your right.

I rescued him from the car yesterday so he wouldn’t explode in the heat. He spent the morning signing autographs until someone defaced him by scribbling “Don’t eat me!” in dry-erase marker on the side of his face. He then grew sullen and refused to talk to anyone else for the remainder of the day, choosing instead to spend the time learning the intricacies of that complicated internet software, AOL.

(How did Bubba find a copy of AOL for Dummies in my cube? Ken gave it to me for my birthday this year.)

Bubba’s studying. Or sleeping.

Today we may ritually sacrifice Bubba in the breakroom. For the Greater Good of the office, of course. It’s possible I might change my mind at the last minute and steal him away in the midst of the post-launch hubbub so he can survive another day. It’s tough being a watermelon. Until then, though, I have to go do some work relating to Dale Earnhardt Jr.’s recent escapades on the track.

Very quickly in other news… Lance Armstrong is currently wearing the yellow jersey at the Tour de France… the Braves are sitting at the top of the NL East… the Cubs are currently beating the Cardinals… my bridesmaid’s dress is at the alterations shop for massive reconstructive surgery… room painting is scheduled for Sunday afternoon… my fortune cookie from lunch says I am “strong and brave” — wonder what crack it’s smoking… and Spiderman 2 was so much better than the original. More on all of that later…

For various reasons, I can’t put up the monster post I have been working on for the last hour or so. Instead, I just want to say this — Dan and AM, congratulations on a beautiful, perfect wedding. It was straight out of the movies. I love you both, and I am so happy for your happiness!