Summertime Happenings Wrap-Up: July

I've been lazy again lately about posting blogs. So, here's a little picture catch-up to my extremely busy summer, which has decreased my blogs posted average. Plus, I just have some entertaining pictures up my sleeve for those of you who don't already a) spend all your time with me and are featured in most the pictures, b) are my MySpace friend or c) are my Facebook friend. Enjoy!

I spent Amanda's last week in Seattle doing pretty much nothing else but this:







We spent Fourth of July in Brett and Angie's pool all day...


Then up on their rooftop patio, watching the fireworks of Elliot Bay




Where on the way back down, we got stuck in the elevator and had to be evacuated by firefighters!


And we finished the night off with a stop at Peso's to celebrate Adam Hipple's birthday...



The next weekend was John's birthday at Spitfire


And then Girl's Night with the Pop-Offs!


Justin came in town from L.A. for a night of debauchery that began with drinking Jenga, then food and shots at Peso's



A silly cab ride to drink some more at Kell's


Dancing at Belltown Billiards


Raping the pigs on the streets of Seattle




We were the best of friends, we were the worst of drunks


Kristin and I polishing the night off at 7-Eleven, then on to DDR and Karaoke at Justin's sisters


Tuesdays in July you could find me at Drinks on the Links at Interbay Golf Course


With our fantastic team, Stick it in the Hole


Where we're big fans of the vagina rock

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Drink talls can and spout sexual innuendos all night


And have team announcements with our mascot, Oscar the bull dog


Last week, we celebrated Adam's birthday afterward


Where I broke an all-time record and celebrated super silly style!


The last weekend of July, I went camping in Lake Chelan with Larisa, Dave, Aaron, Andrea, Kristen and Bri where we did but what else, but play Drinking JENGA!


Our camp site was directly on Lake Chelan


We floated on Floatzilla all day!


Even the dog was tuckered out from boozin and sunbathin


Kristen wowed us all with her headlamp



And we ate lots of midnight snacks!


Instead of going home like I should of Sunday night after camping, I met up with drunken Adam in Kirkland who was still wearing his tux from a wedding the night before and let him talk me into being irresponsible. Which of course ended my summer month of July in just the right way: debauchery.

But this. I remember this. I want this.

The more I become involved with blogging, the more obsessive I get and the wider my circle of "Blogs I Read" becomes. Metroblogging Seattle, Seattlest and Slog are all great about linking to other local blogs to point-out interesting posts around our community of bloggers. We're all self-sufficient, for the most part, so why not support each other? One local blogger, Gluten-Free Girl, recently got married and Seattle Metblogs posted a congratulatory link to her wedding post. I skimmed through the post, mostly because it was long, and mostly because I don't know this person enough to read about her wedding. However, at the end, a thoughtful commentary about what she remembers most about her wedding caught my eye. With dating and relationships always on my mind, I thought it spoke well to what I, and most of my girl friends, want. Plus, it's so beautifully and eloquently written with love that it made my day a little bit more sentimental and bright. Enjoy...

I have so many memories of the wedding. Well, quite clearly. There are a hundred dozen more that I could never record here. It’s all too elusive, like the light slipping from the sky outside the window as I write this.

But this. I remember this.

I was never a girl who imagined her wedding. I never wanted to be a princess. I never imagined my gown or fixed on how everything should look.

In fact, for much of my life, I never thought I would get married. Not that I didn’t want it. I wanted it. But all through high school and college, I felt like the ugly duckling. Plump and ungainly, a bookworm in vapid southern California in the 1970s and 80s, I just never thought I could be loved.

Even when I grew out of that phase, slowly, I didn’t have much chance to meet good men. I didn’t go on my first date until I was 21 years old, and even that was awkward. (Now I know: how could it not be?) I fell hopelessly in love with every young man who seemed to have a decent brain and made me laugh. For awhile, life seemed an endless array of hopeless crushes, all deeply felt and unrequited.

And then I was a teacher. No single man crossed my path for years at a time.

When I lived in New York, I made up for lost time. Flings and big relationships both. Finally, I felt like a woman. I let go of the notion that I could never be loved.

But I was in my early 30s. Easy predictions in the media said that a woman had more chance of being hijacked by a terrorist than marrying in her late 30s. I grew indifferent. It would never happen.

And then I was in a terrible car accident. And in pain for nearly two years. And then I grew sick with celiac.

And then I was reborn.

After I was diagnosed, and went gluten-free, I felt it in my gut: I needed a year to myself, to be with this new self, before I started dating again. I met the Chef four days to the year after I had been diagnosed.

And then I was reborn again.

But through it all, even in the years when I thought it would never happen, meeting that man who would love me entirely, there were moments I believed. And it always happened when I heard Stevie Wonder’s “For Once in My Life.”

Throughout those years, I danced. In my living room alone. In clubs in New York. In the car as I drove to where I needed to go .Whenever that song came on, I danced. And immediately, I always imagined playing it at my wedding, dancing with that unknown love.

And then I would cry.

At our wedding, the Chef and I danced to a slow song, something meaningful to us. Truly, it wasn’t much more than the seventh-grade shuffle. We didn’t care that everyone was watching us.

But the second song on that mix? “For Once in My Life.”

When I heard the first few notes, I thought I would start crying. But the Chef grabbed my hand. And he started twirling me.

There we were, in our own back yard, on the green lawn, everything green light and trees, that blur of green that can only come when you’ve given yourself to the world and you don’t mind which way you are spinning. And we twirled. I lay out my arm to the side and let the force of the spin take me, whichever way I would go. I felt his hand in mine. I twirled and twirled, faster and faster, laughing.

I looked down at my red cowboy boots, spinning quickly. I saw the grass brush the hem of my dress, staining parts of it green. I didn’t care. I was dancing with my love, after a lifetime of dancing alone. With his hand in mine, I could give up gravity for a moment, give up knowing the best way to be, give up all those hopes and dreams. And just dance with him.

I saw of blur of faces around me, snatches of color. People I loved, someone with a question, a face open wide in laughing. I felt his hand, and I danced.

We laughed, and we danced, to the song I always imagined at my wedding.


And in the end, it feels like that is how life will be, with him. A sometimes dizzying spin of images: the smell of great food in the air, people we love gathered around us, the feeling that we might fall. And we will go around and around, again and again, in a circle that feels different each time, but not really. Sometimes, I will want to close my eyes and not take in so much. Sometimes, I will want it all to slow down. Sometimes, I might worry that the song will end.

But through it all, in this whirr of brilliant, beautiful images, in the middle of this twirling circle, will be the feel of his hand in mine.

Currently Feeling: A ulcer-esque nagging stomach knot. Blech. Too much drinking? Not eating properly? Too much coffee? Who knows.
Currently Anticipating: Little Miss Sunshine at Redhook Brewery tonight with everyone!
Currently Loving: That I'll be basking in 90-degree weather this weekend.

Welcome to sunny seattle!

Looks like that goal of living in Sydney, Australia with Sarah by this time next year is looking sweeter and sweeter...

Currently Feeling: A little hung after six tall cans last night on the green.
Currently Anticipating: Sushi dinner with my dolphin sister and cousin tomorrow and bowling at The Garage with Justin Lawson!
Currently Hating: E-stalking.

meat cake!

In my current state of looking-for-a-new-job postmortem boredom (that just sounded nice), I've found some amazing things on the Internet lately. Seriously, I think I'm addicted to the Internet. The first one I discovered today. Look at this cake:


Looks fantastic, eh? Would you say buttercream frosting with raspberry glaze? Maybe a cinnamon-flavored cake? Or perhaps marzipan?

Nope. Guess again. It's a Meat Cake!! It's made of meatloaf with mashed potato icing and ketchup glaze. Freakin weird, eh? Read the thoughts and process behind it here. There's even a whole meat cake gallery. Apparently, meat cakes aren't as uncommon as one would think. I just about barfed when I first realized what it was, but then after reading the ingredients, it sort of made me hungry. I could eat mashed potatoes for the rest of my life! (And be fat.)

The second great Internet find of the month is ICanHasCheezburger.com, where I endlessly laugh. How can it get any better than a Gene Simmons ferret?












Currently Feeling: Anxious to get off work and start drinking before DOTL.
Currently Anticipating: Justin Lawson coming into town this weekend.
Currently Reading: Suite Francaise for the book club at Queen Anne Avenue Books.