An International Affair

We stumbled upon the International Folk Festival and Street Fair this evening by accident. We were looking for the new barbecue food cart, Blister, and there we found it: smack in the middle of almond-eyed Egyptian dancers, Rexburgian Mexicans with flat tops, and ragged toddlers dodging their parents.

The pulled pork sandwich was okay, but nothing to write home about. A little dry, if you must know. We then sampled various fudges. I preferred the pinoche, but theirs was too soft so we brought home a baby brick of turtle fudge.

Meanwhile, crazy pre-teen double-dutchers were getting down to Lady Gaga in the middle of Main Street. I was a little shocked that the parents in this convent-esque town allowed their children to jump rope to such "controversial" music. Lady Gaga represents everything Rexburg abhors: Bisexuality, free love, and lookin' good.

I'm a tad ashamed to admit I saw Salt this weekend, and enjoyed it. I think I get embarrassed when I want to see something that has Angelina Jolie in it because I think of her as a tramp. I don't care how many kids she adopts or how many things she does with the UN, the woman's trampy. And weird. However. I always like a good spy/action movie. Maybe it's because I'm a total badass in my dreams. That's right, I fight and shoot guns with the best of them.

Friends, Flowers, and a Graduation

What's going on in Rexburg?

Well, there are still packs of unnecessary six-tire diesel trucks roaring around, regularly breaking the sound ordinance. And I say unnecessary because these aren't the farmers hauling potatoes, these are the pretty boys. Our neighbors are pretty boys. We've got 'Lexus boy' on the right and 'I'm-too-cool-to-drive-a-car-with-only-four-tires' on the left.

What else, what else? Oh, yes. Z.Bob's wedding. And Danny's graduation. We'll do graduation first because he's my spouse. But let's face it, while graduations are exciting, nothing really compares to a fun wedding.

Yay! Three schools in 10 years and now graduation!

What-what.

And now for the big guns. 

Bob and Dave!

Disclaimer: I'm not very good at taking pictures. Any good pictures you see below (that are arranged in no order whatsoever) were taken by the lovely Kristin. Thanks Kristin, for letting me rip you off. 

Look at that dress! Gorgeous! And it was so her. She was perfection!

Bob's bouquet...sorry I had to chop Lisa off.

The Stauffer family.

Amigos. This is my public apology for messing up the picture by looking at the wrong photographer. Whoops. L to R: Siera, Me, Bob, Alex, Lauren, Kristen.

The bride looked so fine.

Enough said.

Guest table. Their theme was lovebirds, so instead of a guest book, you put your thumb print on a tree.

Delicious cake.

Tables.

After fireworks about to make the sparkler tunnel.

Carrie primping Bob. Carrie is does amazing hair and makeup.

Another shot of the tables. They're still missing quite a few flower arrangements here.

Head table. The meal was catered by the taco bus. Yum!

Beverage table/Bobbie & Dave memory lane.

Yes, they had a pinata. It was AWESOME.

At the end of the night, all the flowers were going to be thrown away! I was distraught. So Danny ran home and got a box and we will filled it with flowers. I have three arrangements in every room. Like the roses, peonies, and dahlias with Frida...

Hydrangeas on the bookcase...

Roses in the bathroom...you get the idea.

The end. Posting this many pictures was annoying. So it may be a while before I blog again.

Holiday Weekend Wrap Up

I just ate Milk Duds and Sour Patch Kids for dinner while watching The A Team for the second time. It's pretty funny, you should see it if you haven't. My stomach hurts. And now I'm going to go finish Girl with a Pearl Earring. Friday we watched The Dark Knight and el DHT said I woke up around 2 a.m. thrashing and yelling. Most likely I was dreaming about the Joker slashing my face. Is it just me, or did that movie get twice as creepy after Heath Ledger killed himself?

Fourth of July was pretty good. More accurately, it was a bit of a bust. The parade in the morning was very commercialized, with only three actual floats. The temp never got above 70 and it put me into a depressive spin in the afternoon. Why does Idaho hate me and hate summer? Why does it have to be cold on Independence Day? People shouldn't want to buy hot chocolate instead of popsicles. It's wrong.

Later in the day Danny coaxed me off the couch and away from my beloved Spanish cooking channel and we made it to the fireworks/wannabe fair/who-can-be-the-most-white-trash contest in Idaho Falls.
We saw:
- a lady driving a motorized cart with food in one hand, while the other hand burped the cat wrapped in a blanket resting on her shoulder. Like a human baby. Please take a moment to fully visualize that.
- fourteen pregnant or still nursing teenage girls.
- various asians and mexicans who have adopted the signature stiff, ratted, extra deep side part Idaho hairdo.

The fireworks were good too.

Around midnight at the grocery store we sighted three unidentified--actually I knew one of them--BYU-I males trying, unsuccessfully, to buy wine without anyone noticing. They waited in the long line, clutching bottles against zip-up hoodies under which were surely hairless chests. All three were carded. I don't know what they were doing with a bottle of wine each. White Zinfindel no less. If you want to get smashed, maybe get something harder?

It's a Rexburgian Miracle

So it turns out that we have roses and daylilies in front of our porch. The roses were scraggly and barren all winter, twice I mistook them for an overgrown weed and tried to rip them out. Good thing I never finished the job.

The plant is a weird shape. Should I have pruned? I don't know, I'm just a renter who regularly polishes all the baseboards. They also look like poor man's roses, but I'll take what I can get. Especially here. If you click on the photo to see it up close, you can see a brownish smudge on the porch. That would be from when I got depressed this past winter and started blasting everything within arms reach with gold spray paint. 

One lone orange daylily.

We sat on our porch for good while tonight enjoying the fresh air, talking and eating grapes and brownies. (It was my night to cook dinner.) It stinks to be cooped up in an office all day long. Sometimes I feel like Pinky and the Brain with Danny. Me being Pinky, of course. If I weren't the one bringing home the bacon I would feel like a one of those not-so-bright humans I make fun of all the time. (You know, the ones that still write checks at the grocery, drive 25 in a 45, give their four-year-old a mullet.)

Baby bum for good measure. This is my naked nephew Asher. He likes to swim (hence the nudity). He is also anti-talking. He's stubborn and refuses to talk. I like that.

Also, is anyone else SUPER excited about 4th of July? I don't know what we're doing yet, but GOD BLESS AMERICA. 

The Neighbor

I apologize. This blog has taken a brief hiatus due to the fact I that I’ve been wasting my vacation time roaming around the west coast attending birthday parties (An 80^th birthday party? Oh please let me die before I hit 80), jazz concerts, and weddings.

I’ve also been having neighbor issues. Last night marked the fourth time I’ve been woken from a dead sleep by our shiny red Lexus driving neighbor who comes home music blaring, headlights boring through our windows. He may as well shoot a cannon through our bedroom.

The clock on my nightstand shone 12:01am when I whipped out of bed, furiously threw on my robe, bounded down the stairs and flew out the front door. The look of terror that registered on the neighbor’s face as I rapped on the driver’s side window was precious. Scared out of his wits! I’m sure I looked a fright.

His window was halfway down when I began my tirade.

“Excuse me, but this is the fourth time—FOURTH TIME—that you’ve woken me up after midnight and I don’t appreciate it or your taste in music! I’m trying to sleep, and I like to sleep with my window open, and your music and your lights go right into my room! What do you have to say for yourself?!”

“I’m so sorry! I didn’t know anyone could hear it,” he cowered.

And then I stalked back into my lair house. Actually, that’s a lie. I had a few more choice words for him and then I went back inside. But we’ll omit that. It’s not exactly becoming of a lady.

Was I being absurd? Was it not rude? I’m all for loud music but not late at night. We’re not teenagers with our parents out of town or college freshman their first night away from home. Is it wrong to insist on sleeping with the window open? I get hot. It’s not fun to sweat in your sleep.

On a side note:

Lately I’ve been admiring the 63-year-old white woman at work who keeps a hair pick in her right front pocket for on-the-go fluffing of her perm afro.

Also:

If one more person asks me if I’m pregnant (I’M NOT EVEN GAINING WEIGHT RIGHT NOW, WHERE IS THIS COMING FROM?) I’m going to puke on them and blame it on morning sickness.