Five Years No Why

Tomorrow will be a sad anniversary – five years since Mr. Why died. Wow, half a decade! It’s hard to believe he’s been gone that long. Children have been born, learned to walk and talk and possibly even read since he left us. Tomorrow Richard Bonomo will be putting flowers on Mr. Why’s grave, like he does every year, and hopefully some of us will join him. (I’m not sure about myself yet because I sort of double-booked myself.) It’s terrible that someone so talented and full of life had to leave us for the most tragic of reasons – he just didn’t want to go on. And it is sad to think that we all said we’d have to get together again under happier circumstances, but five years have elapsed and we still haven’t done so. How does time fly by so fast? 

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Daring Zoo Escape

Today three wildebeests escaped from the zoo and gathered at the watering hole. The zookeeper was on vacation and the tattlebird had flown the coop for the day, so they were able to break out and drink water while discussing the problem of the zebra. Why the zebra? Because she makes everything complicated. Once they returned to the zoo, one wildebeest saw the zebra looking for them, and she mentioned to another one that maybe the zebra suspected them of breaking free. He said who cares, they deserved a few moments of freedom and some fresh water. He’s right, of course.

OK, I admit it, I have nothing to blog about today so I’m trying to make our coffee break sound exciting.

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More Wedding Planning with Light Bright

Last night Travalon came into town to watch the Badgers play basketball, so he and I got together at Nick’s for a quick bite. Since I was eating dinner at Light Bright’s house later, I just had a bowl of chili. Then Travalon came with me to Adoration and even wrote a couple of pages in my prayer journal that were very sweet, about how he thanked God for me. And I thank God for him!

After Adoration, I went to Light Bright’s house for soup and salad and red wine. We worked on the wording to my wedding invitations, so hopefully you will be receiving one in the mail very soon! I bought the invitation kits online, but I ordered enough for the number of guests I’m inviting, and of course many are going to be on the same invitation, so I’m going to have plenty of leftovers. Just another blonde moment in my life… Maybe I’ll have an anniversary party to use them up next year. After we finished the invitation wording, Light Bright suggested we look for program templates, so we worked on my wedding program too. She is so organized! She has been a huge help with this whole process. All my friends have been very helpful, so thanks for that!

My thought now, as I watch my savings get drained by the Matrimony Industrial Complex, is that it’s time to get a second job. Of course, with wedding planning, I don’t have time for such pursuits. Such are the paradoxes of life. Too bad this blog doesn’t pay enough to help much… I am just a few dollars away from getting paid again, so that’s exciting. Guess what I’ll be using it for? Wedding expenses!

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Italian Cinema and Bomono-less Workout

Sunday afternoon a coworker and I went to La Grande Bellezza, an Italian film about a party boy who has just turned 65 and realizes there is no meaning to his life. I would not have understood this movie at all in my twenties, but now I can identify with the nostalgia for lost youth. What I couldn’t identify with was a guy who made so much money off one book that he was set for life; the annual royalty checks I’ve dealt with nobody could live on, never mind party continuously on. Maybe he invested wisely…?

After that, Luxuli and I worked out without Rich, and our workout did seem shorter than when he is with us, so maybe we were forgetting some critical step. I do feel less sore after working out without him, but that could be my muscles adjusting to weightlifting as much as my routine without Rich lacking something. Good (?) news – we won’t have to work out without Rich much longer, because the health club did grant him a temporary membership. As he said in the email notifying us of their decision, “Prepare for the ‘burn!’” With a smiley emoticon after it. I’m not sure if that’s a reassuring smile that he won’t be too unkind or an evil smile that he is preparing new tortures for us even now. We’ll have to be prepared next week when his temporary membership begins…

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Marriage Prep Class #3

Friday night Travalon and I met up with a coworker of mine at Tony Frank’s for fish fry, then he and I went to Richard Bonomo’s house. Rich was there with Kathbert, so we hung out with them until it was time for me to head home, while Travalon stayed all night. He said Rich turned up the heat so he was quite comfortable, and oddly enough he and I both dreamed about Florida that night. He dreamed about alligators getting married, and I dreamed I was staying in Atlanta, but there was a huge fire so I fled due west until the next big city I hit, which was Tampa, like that makes any sense. Then I was looking for a Catholic Mass, and the only one I could find was at 11 at night. Travalon says we are both dreaming about Florida because we are so sick of winter, which is probably true. This time last year we were down in New Orleans… sigh…

Saturday morning Travalon and I were up and caffeinated before 8:00 in the morning. We had our second all-day marriage prep class, this one a little closer, in Sun Prairie. Once again we were the oldest people in the room besides the presenters, who had been married for years. They told us helpful stories about problems they had encountered and how they had worked them out. Again we had a workbook, and we doodled a little in it, but much less than the last all-day class since this one was more interesting. We answered questions in the workbook and then shared our answers with each other, and we seem to be in agreement about the important things. These classes do seem more geared toward twenty-somethings who don’t have a lot of life experience; by our age, most of this stuff is common sense.

After the class, Travalon and I drove to Columbus and attended Mass at their modern church, then we went to the Hydro Street Brewery for their cream ale and some dinner. Little breweries with good beer make Wisconsin so much fun! That and the Packers. Then we dropped in on Rich and had some tea with him, but the Welsh tea Travalon bought for him is gone now. That’s okay, there’s plenty of Builders Tea and Lifeboat Tea and of course our old favorite, Barry’s Tea – Ireland’s favorite tea since 1901, or so they claim. They do not tell you what Ireland’s favorite tea was before that. Thanks to Travalon and Catzookz for bringing such delicious tea to Rich’s house!

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Famous Hat Medals

Why does anyone read my blog? I always think one motivation is to see their (fake) name in print, and so, inspired by Richard Bonomo’s medal-granting at his birthday party, I’m going to award medals to my regular readers. Just give me a holla if I missed you, and I’ll award you one too.

Travalon – Romance medal because he is the definition of romantic

Richard Bonomo – Engineering medal because he can fix anything

Hardingfele – Perseverance medal for being such a die-hard Cubs fan

A-Joz – Valor medal for bravery in the face of Cashmere

Luxuli – Enthusiasm medal because she can make anything fun

Tiffy – Friendship medal for putting up with me for so many years

Jilly Moose – Design medal for doing my wedding shower invitations

Banjo Player – Writing medal for her blog, which is much funnier than mine

Ma Hat – Inventor medal for inventing the Cuddly Rosary

The medal-bestowing ceremony will be on the 29^th of this month, so mark your calendars!

As a random aside, there was an ad on this blog saying, “Can hot dogs kill?” and when I saw it out of the corner of my eye, I read, “Can dogs wear kilts?” Now I’m picturing Rodney in the Hat Family Tartan.

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