Jen and Pat's Wedding: An Ithaca Photo Blog

Yay! Only 570 miles to Ithaca.




At Buttermilk Falls, which is much tougher to hike than it looks. (So I'm told.) During an intense game of catch, The Tall Drink of Water (TDW) jumped into the creek and fetched out the softball. Great throw Dan!




Saturday's wine tour.




Patrick Murphy: Chronic wine swirler.




Behold the deliciousness that is Cranberry Essence wine. No more UTIs for me!




After about 35 "tastes."




Ithaca is Gorges.




Unless there is a boy slobbering on you. Then Ithaca is kinda Gross.




Old friends Chris and Hugh, who just happen to live in Ithaca right now. (Chris, my Jen when I lived in Virginia.)




Jen's pop takes her down the aisle. (Er, grassy vineyard.)




It rained all day Sunday. Poured. But it stopped in time for Jen and Pat to have their ceremony outside. (Here I am screwing up the poem.) After the ceremony the sun came out. Amazing.




Notice anything unusual about this photo? Only the relatives gasped. No one else noticed, including Pat, Jen or the officiant. Funny.




At Last... Nine years in the making.




We admit to feeling very smug about the gift we got them. And not just because I sliced up my thumb curling ribbon to tie onto it.




Happy Wedding!

Well, Hello There Gorgeous

Well, they're the exact opposite of what I was looking for. They're sandal-ish, strappy and satin-like. Certainly not the open-toed leather sling backs I had hoped for.

But they're perfect.

Today was the last day for me to find shoes. Sue declared the situation an "emergency" and off we went to DSW, where I had been twice already. But after declaring several pairs of black open-toed sling backs too tall (stripper-like, was the exact term I used), I came across these sexy to the point of madness beauties.

And they look fantastic with the dress.

The dress, however, is different than I remember. Different in a much tighter way. Different in a "Did I gain ten pounds in the last month" kind of way.

Really, Is It That Difficult?

I've been loathe to find a pair of shoes for Jen's wedding. At this point, I'm ready to go barefoot. The wedding is outside, so why not?

Over the last few weeks I've been to every shoe store in Greater Cincinnati. Is a pair of black, open-toe heels or wedges that difficult to find? You wouldn't think so, except that they're strappy, or the heel is too high, or too low, or brown, or the upper is black and the bottom is brown, or some cork-like material, or they're patent leather, or they don't have my size, or they're just ugly.

Sigh... I've got only three more days until I leave and it's not looking good. Usually I love shoe shopping. But right now, I hate it. It was so upsetting it forced me to eat an almond toffee bar this afternoon.

Fear and Job Loathing

My first CiN video.

You can also see it here on the CiN Weekly site.

How do you know if you hate your job? (Other than the fact you want to kill yourself every morning?) Take this excellent quiz I wrote. But if you answer yes to five or more of these, you're dead already.

Vicious Dog Burn (The Worst Kind of Burn)

THE SCENE: Barnes and Noble. The Tall Drink of Water (TDW) and I are sitting on couches flipping through the same dog book.

ME: I'd only want one if it were furry in a hilarious way. And maybe a little mean, like a Chow.

TDW: But greyhounds are so cute. All they do is lay around and soak up the affection.

ME: They're ugly and you know it. Besides, no one fears a greyhound. I want my dog to be cute AND feared.

TDW: What about a Whippet? They're like greyhounds, only smaller and cuter.

ME: Says here that Chows are independent, sometimes agressive, and can be difficult to train.

TDW: You and your Chow will be perfect together.

ME: Ooh. Sick burn.

Ice-Cream Cone Cupcakes

Before


After

And This One Belongs To The Reds

Dear Reds,

Just when I start to eat my helmet sundae and not pay attention, you go and pull another one out in the bottom of the ninth. No one can make me double high-five like you can.

LaRue, you know I love you like no other Red, and you know I loathe those other catchers who keep you from the field, but tonight, I had to give it up for Ross. And Dunn, you big hunk of man meat, you drop the bomb on me like you dropped that bomb into the left field seats tonight. And I love every inch of your sweaty, 275 pound manliness. (Call me.)

Also, you guys might want to give me free tickes to the rest of your games, because the last two I've attended you've pulled out thrilling wins in the ninth. I've high-fived strangers because of it!

Darlings, you thrill me.

xoxo,
Gina

Last Night's Dream

John Cusack and I were chatting, just a foot or two from each other's faces. Wherever we were was well lit because his face was very clear and in the dream I concentrated solely on his face.

I was telling him about my first iMovie. I was being self-depricating about it, saying how it was just an iMovie but that I had a lot of fun working on it. Which led us to talk about movies in general, and I told him I wasn't a big fan of Clerks II. (Which is true. I saw it Friday night and I thought it kinda sucked. Though there were a few funny lines.)

He told me he didn't much care for it either and in the dream I started thinking that we had to be soulmates since we both didn't like Clerks II.

Then I told him how I've been "struggling" to find another iMovie subject and that I would need to enlist friends to execute any future ideas. I went on to tell him how I've been a huge fan of his since Better Off Dead. But I refrained from quoting any of his famous lines because I thought people probably did that all the time when met him so I was calculating how I'd be "different."

Then John Cusack told me he'd love to be in my next iMovie and that he'd do some acting for me, or I could just film him doing whatever and use it in my iMovie. I was completely elated. Then I gave him my blog address so he could watch my first movie.

It was a good dream.

Find out which John Cusack you are with this fun quiz. I'm Rob Gordon: Lovesick, stuck in the past but with a kick-ass record collection.

New Hobby Alert

No one is safe!

A few days ago I got the very tiny, very clandestine PureDigital point and shoot camcorder, which allows me to take videos with this little beauty no bigger (or heavier) than an iPod.

Needless to say, I've been busy uploading to YouTube.

Last night Paul and I spent three hours making my first full-lenth iMovie (three hours for four minutes of entertainment), which consists mostly of Ronson talking about his new haircut and Rob pornographically eating ice-cream.

It goes without saying that the movie is pretty awesome.

Now the trick is to find more subjects who want to appear in my D-movies.

So far, the cats seem willing subjects and were the stars of my first experiments with iMovie. The film consisted of them meowing into the camera while "Damn It Feels Good to be a Gangsta" played.

Go Mud Hens!

I ordered a box of checks a while back and when the lady asked me what kind I wanted, I told her just the plain ones.

You know, the plain ones. The ones without cartoons, dolphins, watermark swirls and decorative borders. There are no sunrises I want to see on my checks and no teams I'm interested in supporting.

Or is there?

Apparently there is, because when my box o' checks arrived, each one had a Toledo Muds Hens logo on them. At first I thought it was an ad. You know, like, Your next box of checks can have a cool logo like this one! But no, that wasn't the case. Every check in the box had a angry looking Mud Hen (whatever that is) holding a bat.

I'd never heard of the Toledo Mud Hens before. I've since learned they are a minor league ball team. (Sometimes when I tell this story to people I accidentally call them the Toledo Mud Heels.)

Briefly I thought about calling the bank, just to tell them they had made a mistake. But I thought, Eh well, so I love the Toledo Mud Hens, it could be worse.