Assorted

Oh my stars and constellations, an update! The poison ivy game is going as well as can be expected, thanks for asking, which is to say that I haven’t yet reached Round Three. Let me see, where to start. It really has been a while, hasn’t it? Let’s see…
Lindsey and I went to see the band Over the Rhine a while back (nearly two weeks), that was awesome. The venue (The Ark) was small and we sat in the second row off to the right of the stage, Lindsey sang along to the songs, and I think it’s safe to say that we both had a great time. I’d picked up their two most recent albums (Ohio and Drunkard’s Prayer) in the few months since getting the tickets so that I’d know some of the material (I’d only heard of them before through Lindsey), which turned out to be a good move, since most of the songs they played were from those albums, with the exception of a few songs from their forthcoming album. They started the show with “Born,” one of my favorites, and ended with “Stella’s Tarantella,” one of Lindsey’s, the whole set was great. Lindsey stole the drummer Mickey’s setlist after the show, then we hung around for a while to meet the band, and Linds bought a poster and got the band to sign the back of the t-shirt she’d made.
The following weekend I went out to GR once again, this time for the wedding of some friends. As always when I go out there the company was great, and time flew by. I finally got to meet Lindsey’s boss Donna, who was as awesome as I’d heard she was and more, and is also a pretty good dancer. It was a great wedding, and this time out nobody caught my merriment on cell phone video and showed it to my girlfriend’s entire family, so I may have left with some shard of my dignity intact. Eh, maybe not. Sunday evening I had a close call with a leak in my tire, which Lindsey’s neighbor graciously fixed, allowing me to get home that night. Praise God! I never did understand a word that he said, but that stranger sure did fix my tire.
This past weekend was a busy one, but fun. I played softball in Saline on Friday night, which I had to leave early to get to a gig in Ypsi on time, only to find out that our band had been pushed back in the bill, and I would have had time to finish the game, run home, and change before running out. As it was, I played in a grimy bar full of indie scene kids with colored tape on their Chuck Taylors and t-shirts of bands that they really really hope you haven’t heard of in a sweaty company softball team t-shirt, athletic pants, and running shoes. ‘Twas amusing. Saturday I drove down to Hillsdale for commencement, saw a lot of friends for a short period of time, cracked jokes with them about "Pomp and Circumstance," commencement speaker Mitt Romney (the speech had nothing to do with graduation, and everything to do with “I’m Mitt Romney, and I’m running for President”), and the name of Hillsdale’s new Student Union, cheered loudly for my friends as they walked across the stage, ate Chinese, and went home.
Sunday I went to Mass, then stopped at home to wish Mama a happy Mother’s Day and to watch a dozen donuts get devoured by four siblings in approximately 2.4 seconds. I stroked my beard in an old man sort of way and explained to them that “back in the day” a dozen donuts would have been split between all 13 of us, and we were grateful, darnit! On the way back to Saline I received a call from Dean, who informed me that he was hanging out with my housemate, and wondering if I was planning to go with him back to Hillsdale for Justin & Emily’s wedding. Apparently, I was running late. I arrived home a few moments later, straigtened my tie, and we hit the road. We arrived with plenty of time to spare, the wedding was nice, the reception was nice, cake was served, and a splendid time was had by all. Offhand, I'd say that the reception had probably the most Salsa music of any Dutch wedding I've ever attended, not that I've attended many.
Anyways, that's all for now. I hope that all's well with you.