T minus . . . oh shit, the breakdown's here

My whole goal has been to plan a wedding so that nothing could really go wrong. All I want is to friggin get married and have a party. Apparently, bridezilla lives within all of us. Or at least it lives within me. I was supposed to meet with the crazy lady's assistant today. When I got there, she was M.I.A. and the crazy lady couldn't meet with me,* so she said I had to reschedule. Apparently this was all it took to send me straight over the edge - convinced that these people would ruin my wedding. I talked to the fiance and hung up on him when he suggested that there wasn't a whole lot we could do at this point. Jenn reminded me that nothing could go so wrong as to ruin my wedding. Ann counseled that I shouldn't commit to doing anything until I've calmed down. I was about to call Abbey and then I realized that I had wasted Jenn's time at work and that maybe Abbey had work to do. So I e-mailed her. Turns out everyone was right and I'm just crazy. I won't even write about the dress drama. Let's just say it involves me at a boutique crying to the sales people that I'm not that bride - you know, the crazy one. But clearly, I am.

Thank God for the future SIL. Some internet surfing for shoes, a few drinks, and all is well. Love ya, Ellen!!

*She apparently had a mediation and her lawyer was there. All I could think of was how I told her someone would sue her ass and how she got all mad at me for saying that. Karma sucks, don't it, beyotch??

Going to the cleaners . . . getting taken to the cleaners

I just dropped an insane amount of cleaning at a cleaners close to the new place. If my experience dropping this crap off is an indication of things to come, I have a feeling that I will be driving 20 miles out of my way to take my stuff to my old cleaners on S. 1st St. that I loved. When I first walked into the new cleaners, it was abundantly clear that the woman working the counter has a very limited command of the English language. Fine, whatever, it just takes a little longer than normal for her to get my phone number. And about five minutes for her to get my name into the computer.

Then I pull out the button-downs that need to be laundered. She tells me, "dry clean, same price." First of all, I doubt it's the same price. Second, I want them laundered and pressed, not dry cleaned. They're cotton; I only take them to the cleaners because I am insanely lazy and like a pressed shirt. I relent because the language barrier prevents me from understanding what she's getting at. Do they not launder? Are my shirts too small to be laundered? I guess they'll be dry cleaned.

Then she goes through and counts everything. Lots of cardigans since I apparently can't live without cardigans. I look at the receipts to see that everything is there and I saw that she rung up three dresses (at like $20 a pop). I point out that there's only 2 dresses. She picks up the dresses plus a silk empire-waist top and says, "this is dress." Yeah, if "dress" means "flowy and over-priced," then it is a dress. However, seeing as how this thing barely goes past my hips and the word "dress" has yet to encompass anything flowy and over-priced, it's still a shirt. It takes a little while to communicate to her that the shirt is not a dress. I'm pretty sure she was pretending to not understand me. When she finally relented and changed it on the order receipt she seemed all put out, sighing and whatnot, like it was sooooo unreasonable for me to not want to get gouged any more than this place is already gouging me.

I hate change. And this experience shows that I am right to hate change.

Home sweet home

We made it to Austin on Saturday night after a 15-hour trek. I got us through the first three states and Mr. Raisins was in charge of getting us through Texas. All in all, it was relatively uneventful. We sedated the cats for the drive. Opie was stoned as hell. I think maybe he was over-medicated - the vet told me to give him a pill and a half every four hours in light of his girth. We decided he'd had enough after his second dose. Pretty awesome to watch, though. He drools a lot when he's sedated and it sort of forms a drool beard. Nice.

Lap of luxury

My bed is gone. My couch is gone. I have an air mattress. It's kind of a nice air mattress, but it's still an air mattress. I have consolidated my living space and am now existing in the living room only. It sort of looks like a flop-house. With a flat-screen.

I'm working my last weekend here. Which blows. Oddly enough, the clerk I'm partnered with for this group of cases got one that sounds just as bad as mine and he's here, too. So I would have been hosed either way. It makes me feel a little better to know that I'm not suffering alone.

My latest nomination for "this person should be fired" - whoever wrote the little news blurb for CNN this morning that informed me that the 10th death in the Tennessee heat wave raised the death toll to 11. I'm still trying to figure that out.

Happy, then sad

Happy to go home in a week. Sad to be leaving the best job ever. Happy to get to do new things. Sad that those new things will probably be tedious and boring. Really, really sad that my last case here is a clusterfuck and I'm at a loss after more than a week of working on it. I think I've typed one sentence for my memo and I think it says what the standard of review is. I've never felt dumber in my whole life. Even when I took income tax. But I figure going out with a whimper isn't all that awful. It's not like I got fired.

In other news, we went to BFE, Maine for Ann & James's wedding. It was pretty, the weather was nice, the wedding was fun. Ann looked fabulous in a gorgeous Melissa Sweet confection that pretty much reminded everyone that she's tall and thin enough to pull off a drop waist (or maybe I'm the only one who (a) knows what a drop waist is and (b) knows enough to know that I can't wear a drop waist).

I finally got my turn at the library for the Clarence Thomas biography that came out in April. I'm about halfway done and, so far, it hasn't annoyed me as much as I thought it would. I've heard a ton about the book, but I'm reserving judgment until I'm all done with it. I'm gearing up for the real deal this fall and I can't wait. No comments from the peanut gallery, especially anyone wanting to say, "but I thought you were a liberal." I was just fooling you.