Engagement Shoot

Today JP and I are having our engagement pictures taken. At this late date, you may be asking yourself. Why bother? And I agree wholeheartedly, HOWEVER, if I have learned anything from 26 years of living, it is to pick my battles with my mother, and this is one I chose not to fight.

From an email sent to the photographer:

ALSO, I know that you guys spend a lot of time editing these and choosing the best ones, but if you could send me like 2-3 pictures from the shoot shortly afterwards, I would be indebted to you FOREVER. My mother is really anxious for us to put our engagement in the local newspaper, and she has been driving me NUTS to go ahead and get these photos taken. We can get the rest of the pictures literally whenever, I just told her I would try to go ahead and get one sent in to the LaGrange Daily News ASAP. :)

His reply:

That’s fine. Your mom sounds awesome.

Ha. Oh, photographer. At least he’s accommodating. Also, I’m getting my hair done today as in having my extensions put in. This will be me:

Except with clothes.

The estimated temp for our shoot time is 95°F. Yes, August was definitely the best choice for this. AND I’m supposed to go by the florist and the courthouse beforehand to take care of other wedding-related activities. When I told JP we had to do the second thing together, he said: “Can’t you just take care of that yourself? I just want to go [to LaGrange] and relax.” To which I said: “Number 1, no I can’t, and number 2, relax this!” [As I punched him in the face.] Correct me if I’m wrong, readers, but getting your wedding license taken care of needs to be done by both individuals getting married, right? I mean, otherwise I could have just gone to the courthouse alone and “taken care of this” myself years ago, CORRECT? Ugh.

I’m sure everything will turn out fine. I’ll let you know how it goes!

Mom-tastic Voyage

My mom's coming to visit me this Mother's Day, for the first time ever. I keep trying to come up with activities for us to do and places for us to go, but I think she'd have just as much fun just hanging out with me. So, with that thought in mind, I put together this momtastic playlist, just in time for Mother's Day. 

Oh, yeah. This is happening.

1. "Slipping Through My Fingers" from Mamma Mia
2. "Beauty Mark" by Rufus Wainwright
3. "You'll Be in My Heart" by Phil Collins
4. "Sweet Child O' Mine" by Guns N' Roses
5. "The I Love You Song" from The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee
6. "Take Your Mama" by Scissor Sisters
7. "Blues in the Night (My Mama Done Tol' Me) by Judy Garland
8. "No One Loves You Any Better Than Your M-O-Double-M-Y" by John Lithgow

Also, this. It cracks me up, but I can hardly watch the whole thing.

Snack Pack Weekend

So, I'm headed to my parent's lake cabin this weekend for Easter, but I feel like it's going to be weird.

(JK, robbers! I will be AT HOME with my hand on my .22 THAT I OWN.)

Firstly, it's Easter, which ranks third in the list of holidays in which food plays a central role, e.g., 1) Thanksgiving, 2) Christmas, 3) Easter. But preparing/eating food at the cabin is always kind of strange because despite going there approximately every other weekend, my parents don't really keep any food staples there. Although, I must say I'm not really surprised by this as the staples at their permanent residence consist of onions, Pam, and pimento cheese. 

The one food I can count on to be at the cabin, however, is LIttle Debbie snack cakes. Every time I go over there, I find like six boxes, all opened, of the ageless treats. The thing that kills me the most about this is that growing up, when I begged my dad to PLEASE provide me with name brand treats for my daily sack lunch, he not so politely declined. But now, you'd think an entire third grade class lived over there for all the holiday-themed cakes, peanut wafer bars, and swiss rolls you're likely to find. AND, I've never seen my parents eat them, either! Where are all these snack cakes coming from/going???

The other thing that I am preparing to be weirded out by is the Easter egg hunt my mom has planned for me to throw on Saturday. Will a number of my young relatives be stopping by, you may wonder. No, my friends. I purchased plastic eggs, gummy fruit, and cookies today all for Stella, my tiny second cousin, who, while adorable, is merely 18 months old and will be interested in this shenanigan for approximately as many seconds. I feel like I could just as easily "hide" said plastic eggs behind my back. Despite what the movies tell you, babies are no geniuses.

Oh, well. As long as I get some time in the sun to read, relax, and munch on a plethora of Little Debbie snack cakes, I guess I'm golden.

Have a festive Easter weekend, everybody! Hope you find the prize egg!

True Life: I’m Turning into My Mother

Sadly, I think this is unavoidable. (Sorry, mom! You’re not that bad.)

Here’s the tale:

So things have been pretty tragic in my life lately (not hyperbole). It has been brutal, but my adorable boyfriend is doing his best to keep me in good spirits. Specifically, he has been extra nice, but he also keeps offering to buy me “prizes,” aka gifts, to make me feel better. I haven’t really been in the mood for gifts, but last Tuesday, it struck me; I knew what I wanted my prize to be—Tina Fey’s new memoir, Bossypants.

For the record, I have a huge lady crush on Tina Fey and will always accept Fey-related paraphernalia as gifts.

Anyway, as soon as I realize this is what I want, I email JP my request and include very specific hyperlinks to where the book can be purchased…not like the time I sent him the link to the Amazon home page and he mistakenly thought I was requesting all the random baloney found there, but that’s another tale for another time.

So I go home very excited about the prospect of my new book and am wondering if he will take me to Barnes and Noble that very night to pick up a copy. When I get to my house, however, what should I see on the front hall table but a book-sized package from Amazon?!

“What’s this?” I ask him.

“I don’t know. It has your name on it,” he says. So coy.

I rip into the package only to find the thing I had requested that very morning—a shiny new copy of Bossypants!

“Oh my gosh, JP! You are magic!”

“What is it?”

“How did you know?! Did you secretly order it like a week ago?”

“Is that that book you wanted?”

Now, as JP’s picture is placed squarely next to guileless in the dictionary, at this point, I realize that the book really isn’t from him. But where could it have come from, I wonder. The receipt only has my name and shipping address on it. A QUANDRY! Could someone have sent it as a gift without their name showing up in the packing material?

After about five minutes of pondering this CONUNDRUM, a vague memory from a few months ago returns to me. I had just heard about the book—set to be released in April—and I immediately went to Amazon.com to check it out. At the time, the pre-order price was down to around $13, and I suddently remembered thinking; I will definitely want to read this book—especially for $13! Preordered!

I think the worst part is how I really thought JP had blown my mind on this one, but alas, I’m just losing my marbles and becoming my mother. Sigh. At least I have a great new book to entertain me!

“It’s so hard to believe it’s 2011 already. I’m still writing ‘Tina Fey, Grade 4, Room 207,’ on all my checks!”

UPDATE: I'm not insane! After reading my post, my friend emailed me to let me know that this book was Part II of a care package they had sent and let me know to be on the look out for. But, in classic sitcom style, the book arrived the day before the main package, thus the confusion. It's a good thing John Paul didn't slyly accept credit for the gift as several have suggested. True Life: I have the best friends!!!

In the Next Life

Best. Brother. Ever.

John Prine, Or, How I Am the Best Daughter EVER

When I was growing up, my dad used to drive around this ancient, black Ford Bronco. I think it was an ’84 (like me), and he drove it from the time I was 10 until around my first year of high school. I feel like the air conditioner in it must not have worked because what I remember most about it was how stale it was in there, no matter the season. In the summer it was hot and stale, like stepping into a wood shed; in winter it was cold and stale, like stepping into an attic. Another key element of this vehicle, though, was that it only had a tape deck, AND, for whatever reason, my dad owned approximately three tapes during this period: Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers’ Into the Great Wide Open , Melissa Etheridge’s Your Little Secret (?), and John Prine’s Greatest Days: A John Prine Anthology, all of which were rotated on an endless loop.

This song brings me back to that Bronco every time.

But back to the post, my dad LOVES John Prine. Even back then, he would tell me to stop my preteen jibba jabbin’ and really listen to Prine’s words. Prine is a country/folk guy along the lines (if not the fame) of Bob Dylan, and he’s always been known for his clever wordplay. It cracked my dad up that he could come up with lyrics like:

Last time I checked my bankroll,/
It was gettin' thin/
Sometimes it seems like the bottom/
Is the only place I've been/
I chased a rainbow down a one-way street... dead end/
And all my friends turned out to be insurance salesmen.

That “insurance salesmen” line is a throwaway, but it in an AMAZING/amazingly apt analogy.

Now my dad writes songs himself, and you can tell that Prine truly inspired him:

Stomped into our trailer/

With the 12-gauge from his truck/

Passed several mounds of deer heads/

Like a choir of singing bucks.

So when I discovered that John Prine was paying one-night-only show at the Fox in Atlanta, I knew I had to get my dad tickets. And it was SO GREAT when I gave them to him Christmas morning; he is notoriously stoic when it comes to receiving gifts, but when he pulled the tickets from their envelope and read that the headliner was his all-time favorite, John Prine, his face broke into a wide grin.  

WHICH IS WHY I am the best daughter EVER and why we are going together to that concert tomorrow night!

SO, in honor of Music Thursday, I present to you a classic from JP himself: