Going-On-In-My-Life-Right-Now Update: I’m happy to report that I received the aforementioned assignment back in class last week along with the others I had turned in early and I got 50/50 on all of them!! I’m happy, but I still don’t know if it was worth the added aggravation.
Picture Disclaimer: Still no pictures during Day 0, but I’ve got pictures for Day 1, so bear with me.
Day 0, Part 2 - Thursday, January 31, 2008
I’m home FINALLY. But it’s 6:30pm, and I still have 3 loads of laundry to get done before I can consider packing. I got right on that. I barely had my coat off and I was sorting. Yes, I sort. Chuck doesn’t sort. That’s why I do the laundry. Besides, laundry is the one chore I usually enjoy.
By 7pm I’m wondering where Chuck is. He often works late, that’s just the nature of the beast that is his job; but come on, the night before we leave?!? I call his phone and it rings once and then goes to voicemail. He threw me into voicemail!! Ooooh, I tell you what, that really frosted my buttons. But then not even a minute later I get a text that he’s at Jon Jon’s.
Jon Jon’s is a strip club.
I’m okay with strip clubs, whatever, rock on. But the night before we have to leave? This is part of why I was so disappointed with Anthony. He really dropped the ball on a lot, including Chuck’s bachelor party. We had talked about it early on and I was under the impression that he was going to plan a whole traditional party. I was down with it and even gave him names and numbers of Chuck’s friends who should be there. People he went to school with, fraternity brothers and the like. Well, it never got planned. The prior weekend they went out for a “man’s night,” the two of them and 3 others. I think they went to Buffalo Wild Wings (it was so unmemorable, that I don’t remember!) for dinner and then to a lame-o bar for some drinks. That was it! Ugh.
So, he’s at Jon Jon’s, but he also said he would be home soon. Okie dokie. I start pulling suitcases out and creating piles of things to pack. I’m not a list packer. And I’m not an early packer. So, I wasn’t too freaked out about the packing, I was just frustrated that I had to wait for the laundry.
Chuck shows up in a relatively short amount of time and when he walks in the door, I’m immediately repulsed. Not because they tore his underwear (is that even sexy? A wedgie?
) but because he smelled sooooooooooooooooooo GROSS. I don’t know what dime store stink the girls were wearing but
ick! So nasty. I had to hold my breath to even hug him. I really kept encouraging him to
TAKE A SHOWER. Then he gave me the whole story. It turns out that they threw him a party at work that day.
They served carrot cake
(his favorite) and presented him with a card (signed by a gazillion people) with a hefty BB&B gift card!
Etiquette Side Bar: For this particular gift... what do I do for thank you notes? Do I need to write an individual thank you for each person that signed the card? I’m assuming that everyone contributed. It’ll be over 30 people. I know it’s probably the right thing to do; I’m just looking for a kick in the pants to ‘do the right thing.’
It’s now after seven and I’m starved. My appetite has returned!! And I didn’t lose it again once before the wedding. I really wanted Pei Wei, but Chuck refused to go pick up food there because last time he had a bad experience, so I settled for (kinda gross) Coney Island. Not everyone has Coney Islands where they live. It was one of the things I would crave while I was living FL! Coney Island is a cousin to the cheap-o Greek Diner. We have a chain here called National Coney Island and it’s a landing spot for many late-night, drunken pig-outs. (Uh... a gazillion years ago, I don't do that anymore. I'm not sure if it's b/c I'm too mature or too old. There's a difference you know.
) I ordered up a gyro and some chili cheese fries and kept at the sorting and pile making while Chuck was out procuring the pseudo-food.
All the while I have the TV on in the background because don’tcha know we were expecting a huge snowstorm! I can't remember if I mentioned this in the previouse installment, but this was a looming concerning that I had been carrying around with me since the night before. I had also fielded calls from both my mom and my sister, as if I had the answer to keeping mother natures wrath at bay?!? They were predicting 10” with snowfall starting around midnight and really picking up speed between 6 and 9 am. Our flight was at 9:10 am. I was panicking. Anthony was on deck to drive us to the airport and we had originally planned on him picking us up at 6:30am to be there around 7am. Earlier in the day we pushed it up to 6:15am to ensure we were on the road by 6:30. Now I was on the phone with him again, insisting on a 6am pick-up. He reassured me that all would be well and if at any time I felt like we needed him earlier to give him a call. I told him that monitoring the situation shouldn’t be difficult as I didn’t anticipate sleeping AT ALL. After some chuckles at how bride-stressed-crazy I was
, we hung up. Chuck returned with my dinner (and his too) and I ate every bit! He tried to push some left over carrot cake on me, but really that was just too much. I’m not even a big carrot cake fan.
I was still plugging away at the laundry and Chuck need a haircut. So, out came the clippers and we got him all dashing looking for the upcoming nuptials. After I cut his hair...
HE TOOK A SHOWER!
It was like a breath of fresh air.
I finished up with all the laundry around 10pm and we started packing all the semi-organized piles into the bags. At one point, I realized that everything I had packed in one bag needed to be removed and repacked into another bag! I can’t really tell you why now... but at the time it was daunting and overwhelming. I think it had something to do with the fact that one check suitcase and one carry-on was not going to cut it. We ended up with the majority of everything packed by 1am or so. We still had toiletries and the like to pack up the next morning after we showered and got ready, but we ended up in really good shape.
If you consider really good shape to be stressed, sleep-deprived, and mentally and emotionally exhausted good shape. I posted up my good-bye on the Dis, a brief break around midnight as the packing frenzy was winding down. I compiled my techie pile to be packed up the next morning in my computer bag along with all of our oh-so-important documents. I didn’t actually put everything in the bag, but left it in a pile as I knew I would have to unpack it and verify it was there (to satiate my OCD tendencies) in the morning. Finally, I crawled in bed around 1:30am. The alarm was set for 4am. And, I actually slept! Oh sweet sleep.
Up Next: Do we get snowed in? Will we make it to Florida? Can I survive yet another day of perpetual stress? And my sister shocks me by being responsible!
I'm sorry your day was so stressful, I'm sure your wedding was beautiful. It had to be it was in "The Happiest Place On Earth." I think all brides have stressful days leading from the time you leave until the day of the wedding. The wedding day becomes beautiful and you marry your prince charming or mafia prince
Just kidding! I can't wait to hear about the rest of your trip and see pictures as well.
that day!
AND CRAMPS THAT WEREN'T SUPPOSED TO BE THERE 
. I COMPLETELY UNDERSTAND!!!! YOU ARE SOOOOO TRUE 
FUNNY BUT TRUE, ITS FUNNY TO LOOK BACK NOW, AT THE TIME I WAS ABOUT TO KILL SOMEONE BUT IT ALL WORKED OUT IN THE END!!!
Sending hugs to you. Looking forward to the rest of your report.
as your relive these days! 
opcorn:: 
