It’s been a while since I wrote something, mostly because I worked my ass off last week and was tired when I got home each night and then this week has been nothing but drama.  I’m really starting to realize that you can’t go 100% at my job every week, sometimes you have to take days off (not completely, but just do more low key stuff) cause it’s not easy to be “on” all the time and excite people about changing jobs.  I guess I’m still learning how to most efficiently run my desk and try to stay positive, which has been particularly tough considering the universe decided to wind up and shit all over my life time after time for the last few months.

In any event, on Saturday my “little” sister (she’s 6′1″) drove up to my place from San Diego and left my parents Solara with me, as my parents had agreed to take my car and sell it and give me the Solara as opposed to just selling the Solara since my sister is moving to NYC and will no longer need it.  We drove up to San Francisco for my cousin, Rebecca’s, wedding.  If you’ve ever taken this joyful little trip up I-5 you can back me up on the fact that there is literally nothing between LA and the Bay Area.  And I don’t mean that in the “oh there are some boring towns that aren’t as cool as San Francisco” way…no, there is literally nothing but farmland and open space.  As a result, when my sister decided to nap half the way up, I had to jam 3,286 sunflower seeds in my mouth to keep myself awake – I now have fulfilled my body’s sodium intake through roughly 2013.

We got to my aunt’s place and my other cousin Scott, his wife Becky and their two kids Maya (3 years old) and Sebastian (9 months old) were there and I was quickly reminded of how much I love kids.  After dinner my aunt handed Sebastian off to me and though he had been crying pretty much instantaneously when anyone he didn’t know was holding him, he warmed up to me pretty quickly – of course this may have had something to do with the fact that he had napped and been fed immediately prior to sitting with me but let’s not get caught up in the minutia.  We played with my iPhone, he danced a little and then promptly sharted on my left thigh…fortunately for all parties involved he was wearing a diaper at the time.  A little later Maya and I played jumprope, which basically consisted of her holding a rope of beads in each hand like a jumprope and I would lift her up and she would jump over it and then back again.  Endless entertainment.

The next morning I was still a bit groggy considering my sister decided that the best way to inform me that I was snoring the night before was to throw a candy bar at my head and tell me to shutup at 3 AM.  I took a nap while my sisters shopped for outfits for the wedding and was ready to go upon their return.  I’m used to getting dressed up as I had to be suited and booted  every day of the week at my old job but my family is a different story.  We’ve never gone to church and so we don’t have “church clothes” and given that my parents live in the Northwest (unless you work for a REALLY snooty company, wearing Birkenstocks and jeans with a flannel button up shirt to work is pretty much par for the course) getting all gussied up isn’t exactly in the Russell repertoire.  I was really pleasantly surprised by how great everyone looked…my mom and sisters wore dresses (*gasp*) and makeup (*GASP*) but my dad attempted to wear three markedly different shades of grey with the only commonality in the garments being a notable lack of ironing.  My sisters quickly remedied this somehow and off we went.

The wedding was at a great winery in Napa and the setting was perfect.  It was a really small ceremony and I was surprised at how few people my cousin’s age (25) were there – which was naturally a disappointment for me, as I was informed by the Wedding Crashers that weddings are the perfect place to meet hot single women.  Fuck you for getting my hopes up Wedding Crashers, fuck you in your stupid face.  The actual ceremony from start to finish was only about 10-15 minutes, which I found to be VERY quick but probably the right amount of time given the fact that the groom (my cousin was the bride) looked eerily similar to a deer in the headlights.  It was as if as soon as he walked down the aisle his central nervous system shut down and he was on autopilot.  The one thing his body remembered to do was smile so he had an enormous smile paired with terrified eyes and a Frankenstein body as he made his way from singledom to married life.  I was actually a bit concerned that this had greater implications but it was quite evident during the reception that it was just nerves and that he and my cousin are going to be very happy together for a very long time.  Immediately after the ceremony when the bride and groom were making their rounds and saying their thank you’s I managed to catch this little pearl of a conversation between the groom and an elderly woman I can only assume is somehow related to him.

Woman: “Congratulations!  I’m so proud of you, you managed to hold it together, didn’t even cry!”

Groom: “Are you kidding?!  I was crying my balls off up there, I just managed to hide it from everyone.”

Woman: “Crying your balls off?”

Groom: *shrug* “I dunno, I’ve had a lot to drink…”

Woman: “….oh…”

The food was good, the wine was great and as soon as I was done eating, little Maya was tugging on my shirt.  ”Um, Clint…I wanna play jumprope.”  It became quickly evident that we were sans jumprope as no one thought to bring one to a wedding, but we improvised and ended up using my tie as the rope.  I took Maya up on the porch overlooking the reception and we started playing jumprope for all to see.  And for any that weren’t already paying attention, Maya felt the need to alert them – “MOMMY!!!!  MOMMY!!!!  WATCH ME JUMPROPE!!!……….GRANDMA!!!!  GRANDMA!!!!  LOOK HOW HIGH I’M GOING!!!”  This prompted another little girl, presumably from the groom’s side of the family, who I had never met before, to wander up and announce that she, too, would like to take part in the jumproping festivities.  Who am I to say no?

Pretty soon we were jumproping backwards and forwards and I was teaching them how to limbo and then i tied them together and they walked around and showed their parents that yes, they were in fact tied together.  I had forgotten how easily little kids are entertained.  We’re so laden with fast-paced images and immediate sensory gratification via TV and the Internet and cell phones that we often forget that when we were younger we could play with a cardboard box that a refrigerator came in for HOURS and then get up and do it all over again the next day.  The three of us also branched out and played hide and go seek and tag and about halfway through this 3 year old pentathlon my aunt came up and sat down next to me.  

Aunt: “This is SO cute, you’re really good with kids….tell me the truth, are you doing this to impress a girl?”

Me: “Um, no, just having fun”

Aunt: “Well why the hell not?  This is adorable and it would TOTALLY work.”

Me: ”Duly noted.”

About a half hour went by (and apparently several drinks for my Aunt) and after the girls were tired out and went to go have dessert my Aunt came up to me again.

Aunt: “You really are great with kids.”

Me: “Thanks yeah we had fun.”

Aunt: “Here’s the thing, you need to get a girl-”

Me: “OK”

Aunt: “-because a girl can PROVIDE you with kids, that’s how it works.”

Me: “No I get it, just been single for quite a while, so I’m working on the girl part before I jump into any offspring endeavors.”

Aunt: “Well what the hell’s the problem?!”

Me: “I’m shy at times and I don’t always go after what I want.”

Aunt: “Oh….well fix that.”

Me: “Good talk.”

The night wrapped up with the traditional display of moderately coordinated dancing on the part of all the white folks in attendance (read: 94% of the party).  The newlyweds kicked it off with some dance that looked as if it was a mix between a waltz and a swing dance, but in slow motion.  My parents then jumped in after much prodding from us kids and we watched my dad hobble a bit on his bad knee and my mom somehow managed to miss every single bass-line.  I was convinced that she either legitimately could not hear the same song we were listening to, or it was some act of defiance against rhythm everywhere – “No no rhythm, I hear you…I’m doing this my way.”

I spent most of Monday traveling, 2 hour drive to SF from Napa, 2 hour BART ride from SFO to Oakland airport, delayed flight so another 2 hours til I actually got home.  I was so relieved to be home that I went in and sat down and relaxed for a couple hours before hunger overtook me and I trudged out to my new (to me) Solara.  As I was walking up (I had parked down the block a bit to avoid a Monday morning parking ticket) it appeared that my rear tire was a bit flat.  Once I got close enough to see what had happened I just stood there stunned for several minutes.  It was as if the universe had decided that the 2 month long series of financial difficulties wasn’t enough…it was time to up the ante.  Based on the information I gathered from my neighbor soon thereafter, apparently at around 2:30 AM on Sunday morning, a drunk driver decided to take that turn a little bit more briskly than his motor skills were ready for and he slammed into 4 parked cars in a row, a la 40 Year Old Virgin.  The last car he hit hugged onto his car like a father clings to the image of his daughter being a virgin and the rest of us that got hit were all thankful since he couldn’t escape and was arrested, his car impounded and his insurance information obtained.  He decided to kick off this little display by smashing up the entire driver’s side of my car, blowing out the rear tire and rendering the car undriveable.  Awesome.  Just.  Fucking.  Awesome.

I spent the next 2-3 hours on the phone with my insurance company, his insurance company, the police, the department of transportation and my parents trying to sort out this mess.  After which it was concluded that nothing could be done until the morning.  Awesome round 2.  I missed most of work getting the car towed, talking to the insurance companies, filing a claim, etc. but one little conversation cheered much of that up.  I was at Enterprise (they picked me up!) getting a rental car and they had me all set to drive some Kia Optima or some such shit and we had this conversation.

Enterprise People: “We picked you up!”

Me: “You sure did.”

EP: “So, you all set with the Optima?”

Me: “Yeah, unless you got a Benz lying around here.”

EP: “Actually we do, right out back, an E350…it’s nice”

Me: “Really?….How much more a day is that?”

EP: “Normally $100 more than what you’re paying but we can do it for $65.”

Me: “Ha…nah I can’t afford that.”

EP: “$35″

Me: “Nah, that’s too much.”

EP: “$25″

Me: “Sorry, I don’t think so.”

EP: “$25″

Me: “Sold.”

So now, for the last few days I’ve been driving around this 2008 E350 and loving it.  I’m fairly certain this car was made for me.  Unfortunately I have to return it tomorrow because of some mixup on the insurance company’s part, but it was fun while it lasted.  Here’s to hoping this is the start of something new cause that E class is damn sure what the future looks like.