too much beer

Yesterday was fun. It's alumni weekend in Windsor, and for the first time in EONS, I hauled my carcass outta bed in time to catch the parade. It was at 10 AM. Yep, that's usually too early for me to make (heeey, it's Saturday! )

I parked just outside of the center of town and walked in, and I was surprised at how many people I ran into on the way downtown. I don't know why, I had just been presuming that it wasn't that big o' deal. (well, ya know *I*hadn't been going the past 5yrs or so...in my
Sandra-centric noggin that woulda had a HUGE negative impact on general attendance)

The parade theme was "Movies" (always a good one. Just wait 'til next year when my class has to build a float...we'll be faced with some dreadful theme like "Kitchen Utensils" or "Major Export Industries of Paraguay") The Cinderella float (Class of '69) was the best one, also "Bonnie & Clyde" ('59) and Ghostbusters ('84) were very good too.

The big talk of the parade though, was my hairdresser taking a spill onto the pavement and having to be put in a neckbrace & backboard and sent off in an ambulance for an MRI. She was not as I jokingly reported to my sister, knocked on her ass because she saw what I did to my hair the night before. I dyed it--red w/ strawberry blonde highlighting. Used Couleur Experte #6.4 Ginger Twist, to be specific. I like the color a lot (though,now that I've checked out the website, I think #5.5 Cinnamon Stick looks very pretty. However, that was N/A on the shelves of my neighborhood Walgreens. Bah) I really do like the color, but I wasn't all that artful in applying the highlights. It's not too bad though. Looks good pulled back and looks very good in ringlets) Anyways, back to Jill... and her spill (haa!) I was right across the street from the action but didn't see it happen--it caught my attention a nanosecond afterward, just saw that she was suddenly flat on her back on the road, with people rushing to her aid. At first I thought she fell off a motorcycle, and well, she kinda did, but I heard she wasn't even riding it yet, was trying to hop on the back of it. And uhh, yeah, that didn't turn out so well. It was a tense & scary half hour or so, I think the head injury SOP makes it even scarier (how they make you remain absolutely still). But Jill's MRI turned up nothing troublesome and I saw her last night at the country club and she seemed a-okay.

Ah yes, the country club. Ever since I can remember, the Elks Club has been the venue for the annual alumni "dance" (I use the " marks because there is a pretty minimal amount of actual dancing at these soirees. It's more of an alumni social. The primary activity would be milling around & drinking). This year, though the alumni assoc. moved it to the country club. Possibly related to my non-attendance of the past 3yrs, eh? I like to imagine the meeting going a li'l somefin' like : "Ladies, Gentlemen, one of our PREMIER alumnus appears to have lost interest in the annual alumni dance. Whatever can we do to entice Sandra back? It may require a bit of extra fundraising, but I believe we've got to class this bash up.."

Well anyways, it worked . The change of venue intrigued me + some light crowd-polling at the parade indicated there was going to be a large-ish turnout. So, yes, to the "dance" I did go...after a little pre-dance gnosh at the Harpoon Brewery Pub (it was in that parking lot that my car spent the night) The wings there, if I may quickly digress, are just so-so. If you like 'em sloppy and too fecking HOT, that's a good place to order 'em. Anyways, I got a ride from the brewery to the country club (about a mile down the road).

They had a hell of a turnout, really. Saw a lotta classmates I'd not see in forever. I certainly don't intend to be so outta touch with everybody, it's only that I'm a chronic slacker. When I actually do exert a little effort into socializing, I almost always have a great time!! Last night, I was a little excessive, but didn't do anything too embarrassing. I don't think... Naw, I didn't. I got hellah loquacious, and that was about the extent of it. (Didn't piss on my shoes like I did Memorial Day weekend. Hurray ME!!)

One smallish disappointment... there's this guy that graduated a year ahead of me that I had something of a crush on back in h.s. He was in an art class with me and my friend (who also dug him) and Becky (aforementioned friend) and I used to get all sorts of psyched &twitterpated when we got to mix plaster of Paris in the same bucket as him. Because we'd fleetingly bump our goopy hands against his. Very hot...or we thought so then. (our own little rendition of the Ghost pottery scene, right?) Anyways, I'd all but forgotten about this dude (Keith) until I spied his name on Facebook last month (he was a new friend of one of my FB friends) He's got the public-to-all security settings for his wall, so without friending him, I was able to poke around on his page a bit. I looked through his photos and--DAAAAMN! Looking better than I remembered. Looks a bit like Bradley Cooper I was thinkin' (was thinkin'). He constantly writes these New Agey motivational diatribes on his FB wall and really it's sort of obnoxious, but I'm a benefit-of-the-doubt kinda gal, (or I try to be) so I figure : Ok it's that rotten, cynical streak in me that's annoyed by these nuggets-o-wisdom...at least it shows he has some depth to him?? So anyways, to make a short story loooong, he mentioned on his wall he was coming to town for alumni weekend. I was pretty positive he'd be at the dance (you don't drive in from CT for alumni weekend and then skip the major social component of alumni weekend, y'know?) so that was sort of a motivating factor in my decision to go, I gotta confess. I was looking forward to chatting him up. When I finally got face-to-face with him for a tête-à-tête it was less than stellar. Firstly, was not looking Bradley Cooperish at all. But I am reasonable enough not to hold that against him. Secondly, he was drunker'n 4 tons o' bastards*. It would be hypocritical of me to frown upon his tippling when I , too, had imbibed a goodly amount. Word around the party was, he'd been drinking since noonish. I don't know if that's true or not, but it seems like it very well might take a big time & booze investment to get him drunk, since he is about a head taller than Big Bird (and since I mention that, he was looking gaunt and waaay too tan. I didn't want to dwell on the superficial aspects of the disappointment but, uhh, there you have it) And OK, so maybe I am hypocritical, but I feel he was TOO drunk. A nice, goofy tipsiness would have been perfectly acceptable. But he was like, unable-to-speak drunk. Not merely having trouble with sentence formation, or slurring, or stumbling over words...it was like he lost the capability of forming words. Total TROGLODYTE. I was not psyched, nor was I twitterpated.

But, overall, I had such a good time that that disappointment was barely a blip on the evening's radar. I did a pretty fair job of tarting myself up and was satisfied. (Well, I did have a little assistance--my 4 yr old niece Lucy was in the bathroom helping me primp--handing me hair pins to pin up sections & wielding the hairspray-- and she said "Oh, Auntie, they are going to LOVE your style!!" 'Twas SOO cute!) I took a 1/2" barrel curling iron and did all over ringlets (usually I don't have the patience to execute anything like that)

I fell asleep on my sister's sectional with my contacts in and they painfully fused to my eyeballs, so I got up (with a POUNDING headache) at 6am to extricate 'em. It had been many a year since I'd gone to mass in the same outfit I had on Saturday night. I was sorely tempted to skip, but didn't wanna vex the ol' man on Father's Day. I was kind of anxious about my P.O.S. car I'd abandoned at the pub. But don't you fret-- it was still there when I came for it at 10am..then,a coupla Advil, a coffee, McSkillet burrito, & a nap, and I was restored to norm.

* "drunker'n 4 tons o' bastards"--This is an expression I heard outta my Uncle Bud a couple weeks ago and ever since I've been dying to appropriate it for my own usage. Unfortunately it is not half so funny in prose as it is when you hear my uncle sputter it in his old timer Vermonter accent