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Okay, so I�m back at work today. Being out sick really sucks. I wish I had a pretty way to say that, but I can�t seem to get any more poetic than that. I spent two days curled up either in my bed or on the couch. Through most of it I was just too miserable to do anything but shift positions and moan. By last night, I felt better. Exhausted, but better. Today, I came back to work to find that the entire hospital had paraded through my cubicle and left work on my chair. My head is spinning a little bit. I would really like to go home now.
You men may want to turn away here, �cause I�m going to talk about menstruation for a minute. So if the topic makes you uncomfortable, skip this paragraph, okay? One of the things about the stomach flu is that nothing stays in your system. It all comes out, one end or another, including your birth control pills. And when you have no birth control pills for several days, you start to bleed again. Heavily. Just like your period is starting over, because, in fact, your body thinks it should, even if your period just ended a few days before you got sick. Or, at least, this is what has happened to me.
(This paragraph is still about girly things, like gynecologists, so if you skipped the last paragraph, you might want to skip this one, too.) I understood the spotting part, but the full-blown bleeding scared me a little bit. Enough, anyway, that I called my doctor�s office and asked Mary, one of his staff, if this was normal and what I should do about the whole birth control cycle. She took down the information and said she�d call me back. Within ten minutes, my doctor called me himself. �Jennifer, honey, relax. You�re fine. You�re not hemorrhaging�you�re just a woman! I know it sucks, but this will happen, when you get sick like that. Listen, start a new pack of pills on Sunday, but in the meantime, USE CONDOMS! You think the stomach flu was bad, wait �til you get morning sickness!�
Say what you want about male gynecologists, but I love my doctor.
The silver lining of all this, I guess, is that I won�t have to pack tampons for Disney. So I should be thankful for my stomach flu?
Anyway, enough talk about my reproductive system. I feel like it�s been days since I put in a real entry. Maybe �cause it has been. SO many things have happened�I don�t know where to begin�
Let�s see�
Friday night, Steve and I met after work and went to Chili�s for dinner. We always go to Chili�s. We both always order the Monterey Chicken with no green onions and a side salad added on (his with honey mustard dressing, mine with honey lime, both on the side. We�re both salad dippers). This does not mean we�re stuck in a rut. It just means we know what we like.
My favorite point in our conversation came while we were discussing choices of wedding party members. He said, �Jen, honestly, if you had a penis, I would have made you my best man!� Awww�how sweet! I told him I would have found one for the occasion.
After dinner, we headed out to play one of the most dangerous sports ever, Thunderstorm Mini-Golf! In our defense, it wasn�t raining when we started playing. It waited until we reached the 13th or 14th hole to start in earnest. We challenged nature and played through to the end. The downpour started as we reached the car afterwards. We sat in the parking lot and waited for it to let up a little before starting to drive. Steve laughed. �Too bad this isn�t a real date, Jennifer, �cause this is perfect make-out weather!� He was right. The rain on the roof, the steamed up windows, the damp clothes, the heat from our breathing. Hell, I almost kissed him anyway, just so as to not let a perfect moment pass.
Instead, we called his wife on the cellphone and told her we were headed to my mom�s house to wait out the storm, since she lives right near the mini-golf place.
Saturday was the Newport Wedding, which turned out, despite all my grumbling, to be a really nice day. Heidi was just as goofy as a bride as she is day-to-day, and she looked gorgeous. The weather was perfect, the spot (right on the water at Castle Hill) was beautiful, the food was delicious, the music was quiet and pleasant. It was everything she�d hoped for, which was good. Her brother made CD�s for everyone in attendance that contain not only a special selection of songs (including the bride singing �I Enjoy Being a Girl��have I mentioned that she�s a professional singer and actress?�as well as the song she sang to her groom during the ceremony, the song they danced their first dance to and both the father/daughter and mother/son dance songs) but also a slide show presentation of photos of the bride and groom through the years, including photos with many of the guests at the wedding. It was a really cool idea. I might just steal it.
The bride�s mother�s family is very religious, so there was no alcohol at the reception except for the champagne toast (and guests were offered a choice of champagne or sparkling cider) and no dancing except for the three big ones. I managed to not run crying from the tent during the father/daughter dance, despite the fact that this wedding would have been one my dad would have loved to attend. Heidi managed to make me cry later, though, when she mentioned him by name, talking about how he always supported her and encouraged her mom to just �let her light shine.�
Later, in the car, I confessed to the Boyfriend that the wedding made me angry with my dad. Angry at him for not being here to be a part of all of this, for not being around to dance with me at the reception. Then the anger passed, and I was just sad all over again.
We aren�t going to do that part of the reception, the parent dance part. Mom has reminded me that David would love to dance with me. I know he would, and I plan to dance with him, but I can�t have it be a big announced deal. It would be too hard for me, and the day will be emotional enough.
Anyway�
From the wedding, we drove to North Smithfield, RI, home of the Rustic Tri-View Drive-In Theater, where we met Chris, Steve and Erica for a Jurassic Park 3/American Pie 2 double feature. Ain�t nothin� like the drive-in, baby. If you�ve never been, I strongly suggest you locate one in your area and head there before the end of the summer. And if there isn�t one in your area, visit somewhere else. Or move. Sure, the picture quality isn�t great, and you have the noise of the rest of the crowd interfering with your concentration, and the food at the snack bar is no less expensive than at a regular movie theater. But the experience is just so cool, none of that matters.
Jurassic Park 3 was what I expected it would be. Not great, but not the worst movie I�ve seen. I kept sneaking peeks through the side view mirror at The Princess Diaries playing on the screen behind us. At one point, the Boyfriend changed the station on the radio to their soundtrack as well. Now I have to go see the whole thing.
American Pie 2 was also what I expected it to be. Pretty damn funny, if not a little gross in places. Alyson Hannigan cracks me up. I can�t wait for Buffy to start again. But I digress�it was a good sequel, especially considering that neither it nor the original took a lot of brain power to follow. But we laughed a lot, we smiled at the end, we left feeling good, and we kissed through the credits. Isn�t that what you�re supposed to do? Especially at the drive-in?
Sunday was Tanglewood Day for the Boyfriend, his sister, their dad and me. I�d never been there before. Neither had the Boyfriend. It turned out to be a perfect way to spend a Sunday afternoon, especially at the end of such a busy weekend. We stopped at the Publick House in Sturbridge for brunch on the way out. Amy managed to chat personably with me about the wedding without once sounding pushy or difficult. She told me she�s never actually been involved in planning a wedding before. Sometimes I forget that everyone isn�t the same age as me. I know that sounds silly, but I do. Which means I forget that everyone hasn�t DONE all the same things I�ve done, so they don�t KNOW all the things I know. Keeping that in mind should make dealing with Amy much easier.
After breakfast, we trucked out to Lenox, MA, the town that time forgot. There�s still a variety store in the center of town. Or maybe that was still Lee. I don�t know. It�s strangely quiet country out there. Yeah, �cause I�m such a jaded city girl now�
The lawn at Tanglewood is a funny place. Some of the people who come go ALL out�rugs, wicker chairs, candles, wine�the whole deal. We didn�t see much of that, as it was an afternoon program, but there are lots of people who take their classical music experience VERY seriously. We weren�t those people. We brought our blankets and camped out in the middle of the lawn (a mistake we rectified for the second half after almost baking in the direct sun. We relocated to a shady spot along the edge), broke out the picnic Amy had packed and just enjoyed ourselves.
The day only served to reinforce my belief that my future in-laws would be much easier to deal with if the Mother-In-Law portion wasn�t involved. We had an exceptionally good time. Even the ride home was good. Jim asked me a slew of questions about my plans for after the wedding (things like would I be changing my name, and did I plan to keep working in the city and stuff like that). Amy slept. The Boyfriend drove and looked happy. Life was good.
Later, I returned to the city, parked myself on the couch and spent two hours watching the season finale of Six Feet Under. Thank you, Cable gods, for letting us keep HBO through the whole season. I have no idea why we�re still receiving it, but I no longer care. Hey, if anyone out there was watching it, and you know what the tattoo on Brenda�s back says (the one Billy wanted to carve off), I�d love to know. I figure I missed that in the first few episodes I missed. Perhaps HBO will stay long enough that I can catch the reruns.
All in all, it was a great, if really busy, weekend. Too bad it ended with my getting ridiculously ill.
So�Tonight, I�m off to Quincy High School, where I will for the first time rehearse the skit I�m supposed to be in Friday night. Nothing like being well prepared.
If it doesn�t suck, I�ll tell you more about it tomorrow.
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