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Dinner, Bridesmaids and the Heat

Ah the beauty of a full night�s sleep. I think writing about my messed up nightmare did the trick because I slept like a log last night. Also, I remembered to bring my keys upstairs, place my phone by the bed, lock all doors and windows, light a candle and blow it out three times in a row while chanting an ancient Kiowa mantra to keep bad spirits away, etc. Plus The Boy and I ate a gigantic meal at Genghis Kahn, the Mongolian BBQ place in midtown Kansas City, with my friend Mo, her husband and her friend, and simply digesting that meal took any ounce of energy I had remaining in me.

Genghis Kahn is a great place though probably not the best choice for a hot summer night due to their spotty air conditioning system. My friends had not been there before so the waitress took the liberty to tell us how it works. �My specialty is the make your own stir-fry. �I offer 28 fresh vegetables and my meat selection includes a variety of fresh meats and seafoods. After you choose your ingredients from my fine selection, you can use one of my recipes to make a sauce for your meal and then you pass it off to my cooks who will prepare your masterpiece right in front of your eyes.�

Now I might just be overly critically here and jumping to conclusions, but I�m going to guess that the woman who stood before us with her dreadlocked hair, pierced eyebrow and drab but colorful clothing made primarily from hemp was not the proprietor of this fine restaurant and thus her choice to describe the process as her own surprised me. I�m sure it would surprise the cooks slaving over a 400-degree sizzling grill for a small portion of her tips to find out that they worked for her as well. Chances are, the small and delicate Chinese woman who came over to bless the bellies of my pregnant friends owns the joint. I mean it is her picture in the articles on the wall and whatnot. Furthermore, HempChick could barely remember to refill our water glasses and bring us spicy mustard in a timely fashion. Maybe I'm wrong about this, and she was just preoccupied with a missing notation in the general ledger and a recent price increase for water chestnuts. Who knows. Her stir-fry was delicious.

Wedding Shit:

As I mentioned above, my friend Mo is pregnant, as is my friend Kiki as was my friend the Snow Princess until just a couple of months ago when she brought her adorable little girl Sydney into the world. In addition, two of Mo�s best friends are also pregnant and I believe Kiki has a couple friends who are pregnant, and well, I think its an epidemic or something. The rampant outbreak of pregnancy is what inspired the making of the bridesmaid dresses. On Saturday, I ordered the fabric for said dresses and it should arrive in about a week. Taerna is also one of my bridesmaids and is my lone ally in the non-pregnant wedding world. (If you visit her site, please sign her guestbook because well, because based on her recent entry, it sounds like she reallllly wants you to.)

The addition of three little ones to my friends' families is making the scheduling for my wedding day a bit interesting as I want to be respectful of the needs of all of these new moms. I think I may be the first bride in history to actually block out time on the schedule for breast-feeding. That sounds odd - I won't be breast-feeding. My friends will - or might be - I really don't know or need to know how all that works at this juncture in my life but if they need the time, its there. And I'm sure there have been many brides who have had nursing mothers in the weddings, but I'm just guessing that they didn't make Excel spreadsheets to detail the minutes of their wedding day and include an entry which reads: 3:00 - 3:30 PM - Break for Breast-feeding. And the fact that I'm making spreadsheets detailing the minutes of my wedding day probably makes me sound anal and obsessed with my wedding - which I'm not - obsessed with my wedding. Not overly obsessed. I am anal though and a bit of a spreadsheet junkie. I've upgraded my wedding Excel spreadsheet into an Access database to obtain better reporting and querying functionality. I'll probably use PowerPoint to diagram the layout for the wedding reception and table placement unless The Boy beats me to it and does an AutoCad drawing....ohhhhh! THAT WOULD KICK ASS!!! So I guess I've just revealed that I'm an inner-geek. Sorry. At least now you know.

I mentioned above that is seriously hot in KC these days. To prove that fact, I took a picture of the temperature gauge inside my parents' car while driving - cause that's safe. Note the crinkle in my brow, my heat-flushed cheeks and the concentration in my eyes - my eyes that were struggling to stay awake after a long day of making the donuts. Yeah. Taking pictures while driving is safe! A few minutes later, the gauge read 106 - I was headed East then - I don't know if that had anything to do in the shift in temperatures or maybe it was because I'd crossed the state line onto the Missouri-side of KC and was hovering over one of the metal plates they use in road repair. Hard to say. Now I know that my gauge is probably not fully accurate due to the mysterious heat index and the proximity of the temperature gauge to the engine of my car, but regardless - its damn hot.

1:32 p.m. - July 14, 2004

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