Weekend Wasting!
4 Comments Published by Oh Wayward One on 07 September 2009 at 9/07/2009 09:20:00 am.
The same thing keeps happening! What is the definition of insanity? Doing the same thing and each time expecting a different result or something like that??? Now that I'm working from home every other day, it seems I get the days when Emelda is here cleaning. And every morning I put coffee in the coffee pot to brew and lo and behold every time, it's finished and calling me JUST as she's starting to mop the kitchen floor!! AGH! Torturous! I have to wait for up to 20 minutes before I can go in and collect the perky goodness. That is just about the worst.
Well what's also the worst is this blasted weekend, which, the majority of was centred around this *%&$ wedding (well it wasn't even a wedding, it was a RECEPTION, but the couple has been referring to it as a "wedding" for the past 8 months or whatever - even sending out "wedding invitations" etc etc. I'm sorry, but if you want to call it a wedding, there HAS to be a ceremony. Some dude or gal has got to get up and say the words "I now pronounce you husband and wife" or at least "you may kiss the bride", etc. This, God help me, was nothing more than speeches and a dinner and dancing. Is that a reception or a wedding? I thought so. Not to mention that they went to the church and did the church thing earlier in the week. Now THAT would've been the wedding. Oh and dont forget the "traditional wedding" that happened last month. The one where cattle and suits and blankets and MONEY were exchanged for Jr.'s right to marry Mma Finance.)
OK so first we had to wake up early ON SATURDAY (sin!) b/c A.) the Mr. had to work (poor thing - uber pressure on his projects at work these days) and B.) I had to go buy a present and some wedding-outfit accessories and the like, wrapping paper, a card, etc etc etc. Then it was all rush, rush, rush, to get home, get dressed, wrap pressie, eat SOMETHING (thank GOD we did, after what later would ensue), bundle up Miss Baby JuJu Fartypants, and whisk her off to the Animal Peeps Shelter where we would meet Soo (who was babysitting for the night), do the baby-drop, and then drive alllllllllllll the way to as far away as one can geographically get (from the shelter), where the "NOT a WEDDING" was happening. The invitation said "4pm". We were there at 4pm. No one else was. So we went to the restaurant and had 2 glasses of wine. By the time Leto&TT got there (again thank God they at least came) it was 5. We got on one of the open-air safari vehicles and were driven through the dust and wind to what was called on the invitation "the picnic place for finger foods and snacks". OK. So where were the "finger foods" and "snacks"? Yes, there were potato chips. And peanuts. And some bottles of water. And no bride, and no groom. Luckily there was Simon & his gal. So the 6 of us sat and sort-of ate chippies and talked about all the things we could POSSIBLY talk about, while all the other lost-looking guests sat around and did the same, and watched some hippos and crocs in the lake.
NEARLY 2 HOURS LATER.... AND WELL PAST SUNSET....we started getting shuttled up to the main venue which was on top of a mountain in an open-air conference centre. Where the "NOT a WEDDING SO STOP CALLING IT THAT" was being held. In the windy season. Sooooo as luck would happen, Simon & his gal get seperated for us because we were not on the first shuttle to arrive, and all the large-number-of-seats-together had been taken at the tables. LUCKILY, L&T and The Mr. & I found the last batch of 4-together (at a table with a bunch of old biddies & 1 grumpy old man, all of whom didn't speak to us throughout the whole night, and fair enough, how could they... we were sitting at the table RIGHT UNDER THE ONLY SPEAKERS IN THE WHOLE PLACE which were turned up to "Insanely Hazardous" because they had to reach everyone in the whole place's ear-holes!)
9pm passes - still no couple (did I mention that the invitation said "4pm"?). No drinks, either, b/c it's a drywedding NOT a WEDDING. Biddy No. 1 next to The Mr. is cleaning out her ears with a q-tip that she conveniently brought along. Well, you gotta do SOMETHING! 9:30pm - the couple finally arrives. Everybody goes apeshit because they do a little dance (which I know they've been rehersing religiously for the last 4 weeks because Jr. has had to leave the office every evening at 4:59 in order to make it to Mma Finance & her Bridesmaids' instructional classes), whilst coming into the conf. centre. Everyone at our table misses out on witnessing said dance b/c everybody else bumrushes the scene and forms a human wall past which no one else can see.
After the dance-in, the couple takes their seats and the speeches start. All in Setswana, of course, so again NOT ENTERTAINING for those of us who catch about every 5th word. Sweet old L. translated bits and pieces for us, but again, TOO FRICKIN LOUD to really hear anyone at your table. There was a prophet who prophesied over them. There was a "poet" who channeled the voice of god and prophesied over them again (this is not an exaggeration), there was a preacher who screamed into the mic and burst all our ear drums, then there was the bridesmaid and the groomsman and Jr. and Mma Finance, who at least did their speeches in English. Then some Auntie or whoever it was got up and screamed in Setswana some more, and according to Leto, this is where she was giving instructions on how the tables were to be served food. (Number by number, go figure. Help yourself-type serving line). It was round about this time (the time when all the old ladies at our table were fast asleep in their chairs) when I SHIT YOU NOT, a minimum of 45 new people came strolling into the function. These people were obviously gate crashing because the Mother-of-the-bride's eyes got super big and people started rushing around like crazy - screaming at young people to give their chairs to old people, and delegating people to sit on the stone wall, the ground, the band's chairs, etc.
I happen to know some behind-the-scenes info here, whereby Jr. told me that because the Mother-of-the-bride's family had agreed to fit the 60,000-buck-bill for this NOT a WEDDING, they told him that he could give out 50 invitations, and they would give out 150. Well, in the setswana culture, this is just a giant snub to the family of Jr., and apparently he had some uncles and cousins that were NOT cool with this whole arrangement. Not that I ever found out who they were (Jr. has the next week off work), but I'm betting they were his disgruntled people. At any rate, every single table was taken up and every chair filled by this time, not to mention the caterer who had always been under instructions to cook for 200. Looks like there's gonna be trouble...
So, you can imagine what happened when we finally (an hour later - 10:15 pm... the time we had told Soo would be the LATEST that we could POSSIBLY be expected to be at her place to fetch the Joo) got into the serving line. Where the bridesmaids were on dishing-up duty. Instead of "goat pieces", you got "goat piece". Instead of "vegetables" you got "vegetable" (I literally got one cube of pumpkin... it looked so lonely there on my giant white plate...) instead of "lasagne", we got "la sag". The funniest part was when I got to the girl serving from the goat dish... she said "goat?" and I said "sure". She looked disappointed. She served me a begrudging 1/2 spoonfull of what was in the big silver serving dish in front of her. It was sauce. I poked at it and said "can I have some goat"? and she looked up at me with that "DOH! BUSTED!" look on her face. Dumbass ho had the nerve to think that dumbass whitey wouldn't notice that GOAT STEW IS SUPPOSED TO HAVE GOAT MEAT IN IT! I laughed. I wasn't mad, I thought it was creative. She then put a tiny little bone on my plate. I gave her another look and she begrudingly then put a tiny piece of meat the size of my pinky toe into the mix. You gotta admire a girl who takes her instructions that seriously (it was clear to everyone by now, that the said "instructions" had come flying down the buffet line by the Mother-of-the-bride, as soon as the gate-crashers arrived: "only half-portions for everybody! We're in 'Loaves and Fishes Mode', here, people!!! Half-portions only!!!") What was really hilarious was seeing the girl at the dessert table who was literally cutting a variety of things like cupcakes, trifle, cake pieces, and custard tart pieces into 1/2. And then when you saw everyone's eyes light up at the sight of all that variety of potential desserts, you heard her burst out a very curt: "there is only one option!!!", Soup-Nazi-style.
OK So I'm not proud of it, but we wolfed down the burnt-tasting (well it HAD probably been on the warmer for up to 4 hours) half-foods and blew the hell out of there. I know eating and running is very poor taste, but it was now 11pm and Soo is 9 months preggers and probably dying of exhaustion, waiting up for us to come pick up the Joolington. Also you had to GRAB one of the shuttles that would take you back up to the entrance gate (2-3kms away through the bush), because there was a MASS RUSH by other disgruntled, tired, old people who just wanted to go HOME. We found Simon and agreed he would keep an eye out and a foot in the queue, and jump on and save us 2 seats. We left poor TT&L in our wake and found out the next day they only escaped 2 hours later. I felt horrible about this, because out of all of us, it was TT who was the most freezing cold. I'm telling you, after the sun goes down in this country, it doesnt matter if it's winter or spring. . . . if you're on top of an un-protected mountain top, in a strapless dress, in the windy season... you're gonna freeze your tatas off!!! But in chivalrous Titanic-style, both of them had agreed: "save yourselves! You guys have babies to live for! We'll make it on the next ship!"
Final bonus? All 4 of us (L, TT, Me, Mr.) were terribly sick the next day with the evil poopies. Thannnnks.
It was funny though, I kind of had a bit of a laugh about this whole horribly bad experience (because I had forecast it all, knowing the M-I-L), whereas The Mr. was VIOLENTLY angry about it. He was screaming profanities and carrying on the whole drive back home, and then couldn't even settle down enough to sleep once we got home after midnight. He even woke up angry the next day, and on the way to the Hash, was still carrying on about how pissed off he was. Then when the evil poopies struck, he got even MADDER! All day long it was ranting and raving from the Mr. It was kinda funny, but I felt bad for him being so angry. While this had all been happening at the NOT a WEDDING, I was trying to just keep on keepin on, updating my twitter feed and snapping ridiculous photos of Leto & TT on the ol' iphone. Meanwhile he was just *stewing*. Like the non-existant burnt goat pieces. Trying hard not to, but failing. The poor guy had soooo much work to do this weekend and a deadline to beat by monday morning, and here he was, wasting away in the bitter cold, starving to death while getting screamed at by an ill-placed speaker and a wailing, ululating Motswana woman professing that God was going to strike down anyone who didn't help the prophets cast out the demons of the shadow of the devil from the blessed marriage of the Jr. & his M.F.
At any rate, Sunday was supposed to be our "worth-it-all" weekend moment, because we just dearly love our sunday hashing sooooooooo much. But unfortunately that was when we got sick, and we barely made it through the 7km (which just HAPPENED to be the longest one of the year so far - how timely!) doubled over in intestinal cramps, desperate for the nearest toilet, dyyyyying in pain. We didn't even stay for the beer & braai on afterwards (also b/c the Mr. still had work to do), but came home and felt quite a bit better after some quality bonding time with the porceline god.
Sunday night, we had promised Leto & TT that we'd drop the JuJu Monster at their place and that The Mr. and I would go out for dinner while they babysat. We were feeling better at this stage, so we did. But we kind of did it more for them (TT hadn't met her yet and was dying to) than our own need for date-night, because we still weren't feeling 100%, however it turned out to be a great arrangement because eating a bit of pasta and garlic bread turned out to be just what the dr. ordered for our abused tummies. And it was a nice note to end a horrible weekend on. Except for that the poor Mr. had to come home and work SOME MORE. Well anyway, we bought L&T some muffins, went back to their place where we picked up the JooPoo Machine, swapped muffins for baby, said a terribly rushed goodbye, and sped home to get this weekend over with. I was asleep by 9pm, and the Mr. pulled the plug on his computer by 10.
At last it was over!
I did get a terribly cool spring wedding outfit of the whole gig however. And a 7km run. And a nice italian meal - which didn't go straight to my waistline because it went straight out the other end without stopping. Awesome!
But in a bittersweet moment that just couldn't be more appropriate for the weekend - The Mr. turns on his computer this morning at 6am to finish his project before it turns into a pumpkin and finds.... an email from La Client saying "um, we've put the project on hold. Stop working on it for now."
DOH!
Priceless!
Anyhoo, poor guy is going to come home early because I'm going to yoga this afternoon, so hopefully a restful long evening at home with nothing to do will be just what he needs and we'll just try to pretend like it was a 3-day weekend and that the week officially starts afresh on Tuesday.
Well what's also the worst is this blasted weekend, which, the majority of was centred around this *%&$ wedding (well it wasn't even a wedding, it was a RECEPTION, but the couple has been referring to it as a "wedding" for the past 8 months or whatever - even sending out "wedding invitations" etc etc. I'm sorry, but if you want to call it a wedding, there HAS to be a ceremony. Some dude or gal has got to get up and say the words "I now pronounce you husband and wife" or at least "you may kiss the bride", etc. This, God help me, was nothing more than speeches and a dinner and dancing. Is that a reception or a wedding? I thought so. Not to mention that they went to the church and did the church thing earlier in the week. Now THAT would've been the wedding. Oh and dont forget the "traditional wedding" that happened last month. The one where cattle and suits and blankets and MONEY were exchanged for Jr.'s right to marry Mma Finance.)
OK so first we had to wake up early ON SATURDAY (sin!) b/c A.) the Mr. had to work (poor thing - uber pressure on his projects at work these days) and B.) I had to go buy a present and some wedding-outfit accessories and the like, wrapping paper, a card, etc etc etc. Then it was all rush, rush, rush, to get home, get dressed, wrap pressie, eat SOMETHING (thank GOD we did, after what later would ensue), bundle up Miss Baby JuJu Fartypants, and whisk her off to the Animal Peeps Shelter where we would meet Soo (who was babysitting for the night), do the baby-drop, and then drive alllllllllllll the way to as far away as one can geographically get (from the shelter), where the "NOT a WEDDING" was happening. The invitation said "4pm". We were there at 4pm. No one else was. So we went to the restaurant and had 2 glasses of wine. By the time Leto&TT got there (again thank God they at least came) it was 5. We got on one of the open-air safari vehicles and were driven through the dust and wind to what was called on the invitation "the picnic place for finger foods and snacks". OK. So where were the "finger foods" and "snacks"? Yes, there were potato chips. And peanuts. And some bottles of water. And no bride, and no groom. Luckily there was Simon & his gal. So the 6 of us sat and sort-of ate chippies and talked about all the things we could POSSIBLY talk about, while all the other lost-looking guests sat around and did the same, and watched some hippos and crocs in the lake.
NEARLY 2 HOURS LATER.... AND WELL PAST SUNSET....we started getting shuttled up to the main venue which was on top of a mountain in an open-air conference centre. Where the "NOT a WEDDING SO STOP CALLING IT THAT" was being held. In the windy season. Sooooo as luck would happen, Simon & his gal get seperated for us because we were not on the first shuttle to arrive, and all the large-number-of-seats-together had been taken at the tables. LUCKILY, L&T and The Mr. & I found the last batch of 4-together (at a table with a bunch of old biddies & 1 grumpy old man, all of whom didn't speak to us throughout the whole night, and fair enough, how could they... we were sitting at the table RIGHT UNDER THE ONLY SPEAKERS IN THE WHOLE PLACE which were turned up to "Insanely Hazardous" because they had to reach everyone in the whole place's ear-holes!)
9pm passes - still no couple (did I mention that the invitation said "4pm"?). No drinks, either, b/c it's a dry
After the dance-in, the couple takes their seats and the speeches start. All in Setswana, of course, so again NOT ENTERTAINING for those of us who catch about every 5th word. Sweet old L. translated bits and pieces for us, but again, TOO FRICKIN LOUD to really hear anyone at your table. There was a prophet who prophesied over them. There was a "poet" who channeled the voice of god and prophesied over them again (this is not an exaggeration), there was a preacher who screamed into the mic and burst all our ear drums, then there was the bridesmaid and the groomsman and Jr. and Mma Finance, who at least did their speeches in English. Then some Auntie or whoever it was got up and screamed in Setswana some more, and according to Leto, this is where she was giving instructions on how the tables were to be served food. (Number by number, go figure. Help yourself-type serving line). It was round about this time (the time when all the old ladies at our table were fast asleep in their chairs) when I SHIT YOU NOT, a minimum of 45 new people came strolling into the function. These people were obviously gate crashing because the Mother-of-the-bride's eyes got super big and people started rushing around like crazy - screaming at young people to give their chairs to old people, and delegating people to sit on the stone wall, the ground, the band's chairs, etc.
I happen to know some behind-the-scenes info here, whereby Jr. told me that because the Mother-of-the-bride's family had agreed to fit the 60,000-buck-bill for this NOT a WEDDING, they told him that he could give out 50 invitations, and they would give out 150. Well, in the setswana culture, this is just a giant snub to the family of Jr., and apparently he had some uncles and cousins that were NOT cool with this whole arrangement. Not that I ever found out who they were (Jr. has the next week off work), but I'm betting they were his disgruntled people. At any rate, every single table was taken up and every chair filled by this time, not to mention the caterer who had always been under instructions to cook for 200. Looks like there's gonna be trouble...
So, you can imagine what happened when we finally (an hour later - 10:15 pm... the time we had told Soo would be the LATEST that we could POSSIBLY be expected to be at her place to fetch the Joo) got into the serving line. Where the bridesmaids were on dishing-up duty. Instead of "goat pieces", you got "goat piece". Instead of "vegetables" you got "vegetable" (I literally got one cube of pumpkin... it looked so lonely there on my giant white plate...) instead of "lasagne", we got "la sag". The funniest part was when I got to the girl serving from the goat dish... she said "goat?" and I said "sure". She looked disappointed. She served me a begrudging 1/2 spoonfull of what was in the big silver serving dish in front of her. It was sauce. I poked at it and said "can I have some goat"? and she looked up at me with that "DOH! BUSTED!" look on her face. Dumbass ho had the nerve to think that dumbass whitey wouldn't notice that GOAT STEW IS SUPPOSED TO HAVE GOAT MEAT IN IT! I laughed. I wasn't mad, I thought it was creative. She then put a tiny little bone on my plate. I gave her another look and she begrudingly then put a tiny piece of meat the size of my pinky toe into the mix. You gotta admire a girl who takes her instructions that seriously (it was clear to everyone by now, that the said "instructions" had come flying down the buffet line by the Mother-of-the-bride, as soon as the gate-crashers arrived: "only half-portions for everybody! We're in 'Loaves and Fishes Mode', here, people!!! Half-portions only!!!") What was really hilarious was seeing the girl at the dessert table who was literally cutting a variety of things like cupcakes, trifle, cake pieces, and custard tart pieces into 1/2. And then when you saw everyone's eyes light up at the sight of all that variety of potential desserts, you heard her burst out a very curt: "there is only one option!!!", Soup-Nazi-style.
OK So I'm not proud of it, but we wolfed down the burnt-tasting (well it HAD probably been on the warmer for up to 4 hours) half-foods and blew the hell out of there. I know eating and running is very poor taste, but it was now 11pm and Soo is 9 months preggers and probably dying of exhaustion, waiting up for us to come pick up the Joolington. Also you had to GRAB one of the shuttles that would take you back up to the entrance gate (2-3kms away through the bush), because there was a MASS RUSH by other disgruntled, tired, old people who just wanted to go HOME. We found Simon and agreed he would keep an eye out and a foot in the queue, and jump on and save us 2 seats. We left poor TT&L in our wake and found out the next day they only escaped 2 hours later. I felt horrible about this, because out of all of us, it was TT who was the most freezing cold. I'm telling you, after the sun goes down in this country, it doesnt matter if it's winter or spring. . . . if you're on top of an un-protected mountain top, in a strapless dress, in the windy season... you're gonna freeze your tatas off!!! But in chivalrous Titanic-style, both of them had agreed: "save yourselves! You guys have babies to live for! We'll make it on the next ship!"
Final bonus? All 4 of us (L, TT, Me, Mr.) were terribly sick the next day with the evil poopies. Thannnnks.
It was funny though, I kind of had a bit of a laugh about this whole horribly bad experience (because I had forecast it all, knowing the M-I-L), whereas The Mr. was VIOLENTLY angry about it. He was screaming profanities and carrying on the whole drive back home, and then couldn't even settle down enough to sleep once we got home after midnight. He even woke up angry the next day, and on the way to the Hash, was still carrying on about how pissed off he was. Then when the evil poopies struck, he got even MADDER! All day long it was ranting and raving from the Mr. It was kinda funny, but I felt bad for him being so angry. While this had all been happening at the NOT a WEDDING, I was trying to just keep on keepin on, updating my twitter feed and snapping ridiculous photos of Leto & TT on the ol' iphone. Meanwhile he was just *stewing*. Like the non-existant burnt goat pieces. Trying hard not to, but failing. The poor guy had soooo much work to do this weekend and a deadline to beat by monday morning, and here he was, wasting away in the bitter cold, starving to death while getting screamed at by an ill-placed speaker and a wailing, ululating Motswana woman professing that God was going to strike down anyone who didn't help the prophets cast out the demons of the shadow of the devil from the blessed marriage of the Jr. & his M.F.
At any rate, Sunday was supposed to be our "worth-it-all" weekend moment, because we just dearly love our sunday hashing sooooooooo much. But unfortunately that was when we got sick, and we barely made it through the 7km (which just HAPPENED to be the longest one of the year so far - how timely!) doubled over in intestinal cramps, desperate for the nearest toilet, dyyyyying in pain. We didn't even stay for the beer & braai on afterwards (also b/c the Mr. still had work to do), but came home and felt quite a bit better after some quality bonding time with the porceline god.
Sunday night, we had promised Leto & TT that we'd drop the JuJu Monster at their place and that The Mr. and I would go out for dinner while they babysat. We were feeling better at this stage, so we did. But we kind of did it more for them (TT hadn't met her yet and was dying to) than our own need for date-night, because we still weren't feeling 100%, however it turned out to be a great arrangement because eating a bit of pasta and garlic bread turned out to be just what the dr. ordered for our abused tummies. And it was a nice note to end a horrible weekend on. Except for that the poor Mr. had to come home and work SOME MORE. Well anyway, we bought L&T some muffins, went back to their place where we picked up the JooPoo Machine, swapped muffins for baby, said a terribly rushed goodbye, and sped home to get this weekend over with. I was asleep by 9pm, and the Mr. pulled the plug on his computer by 10.
At last it was over!
I did get a terribly cool spring wedding outfit of the whole gig however. And a 7km run. And a nice italian meal - which didn't go straight to my waistline because it went straight out the other end without stopping. Awesome!
But in a bittersweet moment that just couldn't be more appropriate for the weekend - The Mr. turns on his computer this morning at 6am to finish his project before it turns into a pumpkin and finds.... an email from La Client saying "um, we've put the project on hold. Stop working on it for now."
DOH!
Priceless!
Anyhoo, poor guy is going to come home early because I'm going to yoga this afternoon, so hopefully a restful long evening at home with nothing to do will be just what he needs and we'll just try to pretend like it was a 3-day weekend and that the week officially starts afresh on Tuesday.
Labels: aggro, BW-general, work
If I ever get married I'm hoping to do a Justice of the Piece thing and leaving it at that. When my Mom and Dad got married the Jewish bakeries in Chicago were on strike and they could only get madel bread (think biscotti) and my grandmother walked out during the ceremony, the rabbi had to stop and plead for 20 minutes to try and coax her out. Yay for weddings!
Ort a Justice of the Peace thing I guess.
or maybe you want Just Pieces?
or maybe invite this Justice to the event?