Everyone can relax, I have a primary date (Paul Newman from ‘The Hustler‘) as well as a backup date (Mr. Dave ‘Sherritt’ Gordon) for Kelly’s wedding! And there wasn’t even any passive-aggressive waffling of the ‘Well I hate weddings but I’ll go if you really want me to.’ What a relief. It’s hard to spend social events with someone pouting so hard you keep tripping over his bottom lip. The only problem now is that the primary date happens to have four sisters and ‘as such’ refuses to be my wingman. (Me: “As such? As such? What the hell? You won’t back me up and help me find the few single guys who took friends instead of significant others?” Him: “Nope. And if anybody asks you to dance, I have to cross-examine him first.”) Stupid twazzcock. Anyway, if I can’t change his mind about that, Dave may have to be promoted to primary and the Hustler will have to be backup.

So, this past weekend was what I considered to be a success, as it involved a barbecue, an interview, free lunch, Long Island Iced Tea, and ponies (not in that order). Friday was the Sherritt interview (at which the main interviewer fudged me off at the end by saying ‘Well, I thought your interview was fine, but keep in mind we do have many excellent candidates,’ grrr), followed by lunch with Sherritt Gordon, and then Saturday the Hustler called to see if I wanted to go to lunch, which I OK’d. When he came to pick me up, though, he said, “I thought we could go to the Rainmaker Rodeo, since you said you’d never gone,” which is embarrassingly true - I guess I’m not a true Stalbertan - so, buoyed by the thoughts of corndogs for lunch and midway rides afterwards, I put my stamp of approval on that plan too. Note the clouds which seem to predict success for the meteorological ambitions of the rodeo.

One of his roommates was working at the beer gardens, so there were actually a couple of people we knew at the rodeo. We skipped the monster truck show, because how much fun can two trucks possibly be, and went to get good seats on the rodeo grandstand instead. And oh my God, there’s an event where little kids get into teams of three and have to get one of the kids onto the back of a tiny, adorable, bucking pony with the sweetest miniature neighs! I was all “Squeeee!” and the Hustler was like, “Hey! It’s not meant to be cute, it’s meant to be an adrenaline rush!”

As if. Check this out:

Awwww! There were also events where grown men got stomped into red strings by humungous walking steaks, but those failed to hold my attention the way the kids did. Maybe my biological clock is going off? After that, we got corndogs and a bucket of mini-donuts for lunch and went on a couple of rides (good combination, eh?) and played some games. Good times all around, see how the rodeo makes people happy:

Then we ended up going back to the Hustler’s house for a birthday barbecue, of which I did not get many photos because, annoyingly, I wasn’t allowed to do my usual ’sit around and look pretty whilst watching satellite television’ routine. I got conscripted into shopping (aarghhh) and then doing an Iron-Chef style team event wherein we assembled potato packets, smokies, steaks, porkchops, salad, and snacks at a speed so reckless that I seriously thought one of us was going to get stabbed while we ran around the kitchen. Word to the wise, if you don’t get home with groceries till 6:30, for God’s sake don’t tell people to start showing up at 7:30.

And then there were the usual beverages and cake and everybody’s teeth got stained blue from the frosting and then almost everyone left and I sneakily called a cab so that when the Hustler announced “Come in and help me load the dishwasher!” I was able to say, “Shorry, my cab ish here!” Muahahahaha. So bad I am. Though I admit I was feeling a little green around the gills on the bus ride home yesterday - probably as much from the beverages as the excessive food I consumed, plus three pieces of birthday cake.

How was your weekend? Tell me some stories! :-)