The Final Countdown

So insomnia is not a wholely terrible thing to have when you are an anal retenstive procrastinator planning a wedding. Helped me get a lot of necessary stuff done over the last few nights.

Friends and loved ones are in town. We have rehearsed, Sweetie cried (as did I, but it was his crying that got me started), pitches have been pitched and anthems have been sung.

I think the priest and her assistant are a bit trepidatious as to how things will go today, as during the rehearsal yesterday there was a lot of joking around going on. It was so we could all get it out of our system then so today will be fabulous, but they didn't totally believe us when we told them that. The priest has indicated that if something happens and she gets the giggles it's a done deal.

I had forgotten to bring the stand-in boquet to the rehearsal (paper plate covered with bows from the shower), and folks think it was on purpose. But really I had thought about it several times over the last week - if I don't bring that damn thing people will be mad - but leaving the house yesterday with the whining cat it REALLY slipped my mind. The upside is that the brother got it in his head that we needed flowers to practice with, so went out and scored us some. Sweetie had an ad hoc boutineire of a flower shoved through a button hole in his polo. I got a stem of something that I probably should know the name of, but don't. It was fabulously sweet.

There's one bit of the service where I'm a bit worried about my physical composure. We kneel on a kneeler pad, and the height of the step on which it sets, combined with the width of said step, and the big-ass dress and heels I'll be wearing make me a bit trepidatious. I was a bit shaky kneeling there yesterday, and that was without the wardrobe. This is our little secret for now, as no one involved needs to know until after the fact.

The rehearsal dinner was perfect - our friends and family got to do lots of on-field promotions and scored pretty big as a whole. During the picnic two random people showed up and started partaking of our food and enjoying the toasts and thank you's and such. Sweetie and I were seriously tempted to go great them with open arms, but didn't. Other than that the rehearsal dinner was perfect. Well, the Aquasox got creamed, but I was barely paying attention to the fact that a baseball game was going on, I was enjoying the friends and family too much.

Today will shortly become a whirlwind - set-up at the hall, make-up, hair, dress, limo to the church, and then I'll be me a Mrs. There will likely be details to follow.

We're here!

Rehearsal today, wedding tomorrow!

Thanks to all readers of this site...there will be a full report after the honeymoon!

Bachelor party tonite!

And my honey, kissing me goodbye as I leave for the day's activities, said: "Have fun whoring tonight!"

Damn! What a woman!

My bride is cute.

Ever hang out with a little kid on Christmas Eve? Particularly a little kid who does not handle deferred gratification well?

Welcome to the world of Swankette.

A few days before her birthday this year, I was going to be home a little late from work. I called to let her know: "I'll be putting in a late day at school, and then I need to change the oil in the car, then have to head to the library for a sec, and then I'm going to shop for your birthday present, then grab a bite to eat and head home. So don't be worried."

That set her in motion. "What is it? What are you getting me? Where are you shopping?" This continued for the several days until her birthday. And Christmases...well, she can't stand waiting.

Take a birthday, and Christmas...and put to the power of about twenty...and this is where my baby is right now.

She's not sleeping much, but only sleeps when I'm with her. And she worked up to and including today. I'm a night owl on summer vacation, so I've taken to bringing the computer to bed with me so that she can sleep a few hours while I chill playing backgammon and checking blog.

Don't get me wrong...I'm very excited too. But I think it's different for me and her, possibly for all boys and all girls. For me, the nerves and excitement were more acute leading up to ASKING her.

Also, I have a personality waaaay different from hers vis-a-vis sleep. I have never in my life stayed up all night. Emotional highs? I get to sleep. Intense negative emotion...stress, grief? No problem. I get to sleep, even as an escape. Swankette? Um...she doesn't sleep much in the calmest of times. But I find it cute that she needs me here like her beloved Paul the Giraffe I got her for our first birthday together.

Paul the Giraffe has been supplanted by Teacherrefpoet the Person.

And come Sunday night, we'll be sleeping like babies on our honeymoon. (Or not.)

Proof of my love

We have all decorations for our tables except for some sand dollars we wanted for one. Where the hell does one buy sand dollars? Well, today, I'm out and about and I come across a JoAnn's Fabrics and Crafts. Crafts, eh? Gotta be some sand dollars in there. So I VOLUNTARILY walked into a fabric store today.

I hate fabric stores. There's nowhere worse or more boring to go to as a young boy. Indeed, that's probably true as an older boy, too. Swankette jokes with me...shields me from fabric stores when we pass by. But dammit, this is a wedding. It's important. I waltzed right in.

They didn't have sand dollars, but Ben Franklin, which I later voluntarily walked into, did.

Decorations: Check.

The Gift That Keeps On Giving

OK, so a lot of people really love us. We've gotten all of our dishes (thanks, boss, who bought 11/12 sets!), all of the board games we've registered for, and the Kitchen Aid mixer. If the registries are correct we're also getting the digital camera and most of the knives we've selected.

However, Sweetie and I are both without someone to manage our fantasy baseball teams for the week we are away on honeymooon (which equals two weeks in fantasy baseball activations). We extended an invite to the members of our league to pinch hit for us, and there were no takers.

I suppose Icould just force my activations to someone in the league and they would graciously agree to do it, but that's just not the swank way.

So, internet, anyone wanna' do my activations for a couple of weeks? You get 2/3 of the Marlins Outfield, Michael Young, Jimmy Rollins, Freddy Garcia, and a bunch of other really not too horrible guys to work with.

SMACK

The realization of the fact that I'm getting MARRIED has been slowly overtaking my body the last couple of weeks.

Some of it has been conscious: In our bi-weekly sales meeting last week I said something to the effect of, "Our next meeting will be the last day that Swankette will be your co-worker." The eye candy I work with started freaking out, "What, you're leaving after the wedding?!?!?!?" Oh, but were our friends that generous as to gift us with enough funds that I could stop working post-honeymoon.... but come August 8 Swankette will no longer be reporting to work, SwankPoet will. (Everyone else got the mind fuck I was playing with them.)

Some of it has been obvious: As in I can't remember the last time I got a full, decent night's sleep. Although my insomnia has started to take on new forms.

Some of it has been random: After the millionth time signing my name the other day, I tried a hand at signing the new name. My current signature is more conceptual than legible - lots of loopy, low letters that lead to a squiggle for a last name. The new last name is much more angular, going to take some getting used to.

But last yesterday it all just hit me like a ton of bricks: HOLYCRAPIMGETTINGMARRIEDINTENDAYS.

Part of it was the actual typing of the new name - informing a colleague not to be surprised when I returned from my impending vacation and she started getting e-mails from SwankPoet.

Part of it is the fact that you can now look up our wedding date on the extended forecast.

But a lot more of it has to do with the fact that everything is taking on this weird, historic quality to it. Like yesterday was the last Wednesday I would ever go to work as a single person. I changed the sheets yesterday, and so now these are the last set of sheets I'll sleep on as a single person. Today was the last trip to the dentist as a single person. And it's not like any of these items is that big of a deal. It's not like my last Thursday at work was significantly different than my last Wednesday, or that either of those will be much different than my first Wednesday back as SwankPoet. There's nothing that special about the sheets on the bed. And the dentist's office was exactly the same as it is every three months (except for the fact that today I found myself in the odd position of having to give a biographical backround of Sweetie and a complete rundown of our relationship in about 15 second to the dentist). But DANG! I'm getting MARRIED!

OK, so it really probably has to do with the fact that I can now say with ABSOLUTE 100% certainty that there will be no Bastard of Swank, and there will be no more nookie until the wedding night, so hormones are a raging at the moment, but DANG! I'm getting MARRIED!

And now we arrive at the insufferable part of the engagement. It's 8 pm on Christmas Eve and the presents are under the tree already, so why do we have to wait to open them, why can't we do it now? Or just give me a hint of what I got. Come on, tell me. Don't make me wait, I want to know now. But the hints are torturing me so I'm just going to go on and on and on and on and on and on because the waiting is just SHEER TORTURE!!!!!!!!!!

Seriously, if we didn't have several thousand dollars tied up in this already, and friends and family hadn't spend hundreds of dollars to come participate, and there weren't that carrot at the end of the stick called Kauai I'd probably be forcing Sweetie to the JP's right this very second so we didn't have to wait any longer.

But wait we must. And I will do my best. Thankfully, there are lots of little details to address that will take much of my time and attention over the next week and a half. But man, I wish it were already here.

Weather report

Very exciting. The extended forecast now includes my wedding day!

For the rehearsal dinner/ballgame on the 29th: High of 72, sunny, with NO CHANCE OF RAIN!!! Dear God, please let the Weather Channel people be right with this one!

For the wedding on the 30th: Partly cloudy, high of 73. 10% chance of rain.

The Pragmatic Bride

Sweetie and I will be spending the night before our wedding apart. Not so much for the tradition that we aren't allowed to see each other, as we'll be doing photos before the ceremony so that shoots that to hell. Rather, it seems best that at least one of us get a good night's sleep the night before we wed, and the only way to do that is to sleep in separate locations.

I've been an insomniac as long as I can remember. When stress is overtaking me I just can't stop THINKING and once that gets going I can't go to sleep. The only cure that I've found is late night TV. It's got to be totally uninteresting, because the noise will quiet the voices, but it won't be intriguing enough to grab my attention.

Usually the problem is I can't fall asleep, but the last week I've actually been waking up very, very early in the morning. And once I'm awake it's hard to get back to sleep. During the week I've just toughed it out in bed, as the alarm would be going off in an hour or so, but this morning I was awake at 4 am. Wasn't going to go back to sleep. Took some online distraction and an hour and a half of British DIY television to knock me out for another few hours.

And when I'm out on the couch dealing with the insomnia, Sweetie doesn't sleep as well either. Which is just about the sweetest thing ever.

Since the engagement I've resigned myself to the fact that I won't be getting a lick of sleep the night before the wedding. But now I'm realizing the two weeks before the wedding I'll take whatever I can get, but it sure as heck won't be enough.

Getting the marriage license.

It combines the glory of young, engaged lovers with the boredom of a trip to the DMV.

Give and Take

So the Rogue Garage Sale was a bust. All they had were 22 oz bottles, and that's just not feasible.

Tried to go to Grant's while we were in Yakima over the weekend. It's not there anymore.

So I went on a quest today, and wasn't coming home until I had a car-ful of booze.

Ended up at Pyramid, which may not be the BEST beer in the world, but it's drinkable and in the budget. As a bonus, their seasonal is a kolsch called Curve Ball. So we get baseball all the way through to the reception.

Tomorrow I tackle the wine. The wine shops with the good wine guys were closed today, and even though we may end up with two buck chuck I at least want to see if we can get something else to work in the budget.