Super (Bowl) weekend

Last night I dreamed that Eric Clapton invited my mom, my brother, and me into his New Orleans apartment for snacks in the middle of Mardi Gras. Whatever could this mean? That I watched the T-Mobile myTouch Fender commercial right before bed? That I'm cheering for the Saints on Sunday? That I'm overly enthused about seeing Miss Layla this weekend? Yes.

Cat trick

*ETA: The video works now, which is nice. Thanks for nothing, Blogger.

When my brother returned to his "lonely" one bedroom oasis in College Station last Friday, he took my favorite snot-nosed, ungrateful, no good, spoiled rotten, co-dependent kitten with him to keep him company. (A wise move, given that Layla is the intrusive equivalent of four roommates and a pack of large dogs. And no, I'm not even remotely kidding.)

I felt like the worst kitty momma ever as I stood back and watched her cry at the window as Trey drove away, and a thick layer of gloom has settled over this house now that Layla's not here to stir things up. She'll return to me one day, of course, but right now I am despondent. Boy, I hope that when I have occasionally obnoxious children I love them half as much as I love my frequently obnoxious cat.

Anyhoodle, I thought I'd share something with you, dear readers, so that we might all remember my child as she was--a holy terror with the greatest cat personality you've never seen. Behold! Battle of the Birthday Card:

Play on (and on and on)

Good heavens it's late. Worse than that, the only reason I'm still up is because I'm too obsessed with this to turn it off:


And too engrossed in the Vitamin String Quartet to stop perusing their catalog. Can you blame me though? I mean, really? VSQ Does The Beatles. I thought not.

Discovering new music is hard on a betty, no?

"Je m'appelle le croissant"

The following videos are the property of my absolute favorite blogger, Heather Armstrong (aka Dooce). If you've never read Dooce, you should know that she's manning the camera in the vids and that the tall man with all the hair is her hubs, Jon. You should also know that she's HEE-larious and if you want to laugh until you pee your pants you should really read her entry about Jon's vasectomy. No, seriously, it's comedy gold.

Regrettably, it's quite unlikely that I'll ever be able to support my family with my biting wit and impeccable linguistic abilities the way she does, but I hope to God that Sean and I will at least be as deliciously wackadoo as Jon and Heather are some day. Given our record so far, I'd be willing to bet that that goal is already within our reach.

Turn up your speakers and enjoy! Les Haricots Verts & Happy T-day, everybody!

Destination. Wedding.

One of Sean's old amigos is getting hitched next October and called last night to ask Sean to be one of his groomsmen. In Sacramento. We were just trying to decide where our next vacation spot would be and lo! California, here we come! We were considering an east coast destination--Boston, Philly, and NYC all at once, perhaps--and well, NoCal is about as opposite as we could get without leaving the 48 contiguous. It's ok though, because NoCal means wine country and San Francisco and cool weather ALL THE TIME. Sean's so excited that he looked up airfare (totally reasonable) and Silicon Valley ("We have to visit Google! Or Apple!") as soon as he hung up the phone.

I mentioned the trip to my mom and she was all, "Well, I guess it's a good thing you and Sean aren't getting married next October!" Right mom, good thing. I can still dream in wedding, and when I do, it's about the centerpiece (notice the fiddlehead ferns!) and the chandelier here and here:

[Classic Bride]

The gorgeous macaron cake here:

[Flights of Fancy]

And the future Junior Bridesmaid here:

She'll only be nine come wedding time, and I've said over and over (out loud, this is the first you're hearing of it) that I don't want little ones in the wedding, but she's just such a doll that I can't leave her out. Plus, she'll be the token member of the wedding party who'll have to toast with Diet Coke, so at least we know one of them will still have the dexterity to catch the bouquet at the end of the night.

Just can't get enough!

Sean and I paid a visit to College Station last weekend, and we spent the entire ride down on Friday night arguing about music. As it turned out, he was sick of hearing Death Cab and The Beatles on infinite repeat in my car. How lame is that?

Anyway, my car is full of Sean's old CDs that didn't have a place in his new ride, and I was using my laptop (which is chocked full of my favorite tunes from waaaaay back) to do dreadful teacher homework, so to resolve the music situ, we started searching for gems in our old music collections to play for each other. Sean discovered a Depeche Mode CD in his stash and played the seemingly innocuous tune "Enjoy the Silence" (you know, "all I ever wanted, all I ever needed is here in my arms"). At first I thought it was silly (Depeche Mode? As in, "reach out and touch faith"? Whatever, Sean.) but then yesterday I popped the CD in and listened to the whole thing and oh my gaw, HUGE MISTAKE! It is so outrageously awesome that I predict that Depeche Mode will be just as dead to Sean as Death Cab and The Beatles are by this time next week.

Depeche Mode - Policy Of Truth
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"Great wedding idea"

When you're practically engaged to that oh-so-elusive man who actually wants to be involved in wedding planning, the ideas that you bounce off of him actually bounce back! With feedback! And sometimes he even comes up with his own suggestions, like this amazing one that I received from my beau today:

That this bride was a Lutheran and her groom was a Baptist is doubtful indeed.