Mambo Number 5

First things first, Is anyone else SO OVER Desperate Housewives this year? I find myself completely bored with the show as of late (which kills me to admit, since my husband has been saying this all along), and I find Teri Hatcher’s character Susan excessively irritating. All the hype surrounding both her and Eva Longoria has gotten to be too much I think, I am officially sick of them both, sick of it all.

That doesn’t mean I’ll quit watching it though, Sunday nights just wouldn’t feel right without it.

So, this weekend was really busy, as usual. Friday night… well, it’s hard to talk about Friday night without some major mixed emotions. I become enraged just thinking about it, but then moments later I’m amused remembering how ridiculous it all was. The story goes back to last weekend, which was the kick off of the Halloween festivities my friends have dubbed “Scare-fest 2005”. Scare-fest 2005 can be described, really, as a homage to the great holiday that is Halloween and the great season that is Fall where we plan an outing every Friday night throughout the month of October. Last Friday’s event was really fun and low key, we met up for wings and beer before hitting up the Fright Farm in Oakdale. It took a nice, quick 15 minutes to get through the haunted house (which was mildly creepy in a fun, campy, lighthearted way), and afterwards we took a ride on the “Tilt-a-wirl”-esque dinosaur ride, which provided us with a hilariously good time, even though it was obviously geared towards a much younger age group. Afterwards we caravanned on over to Liz and Corey’s place to chill and drink and play The 90’s Game (the best board game EVER). It was a great night, and a perfect way to kick off the month’s festivities.

Now I’ll get back to this Friday, which was definitely the most anticipated event of Scare-fest 2005 because we were going to the Trail of Terror, supposedly the best Halloween event in Minnesota. We first met for dinner at Dangerfield’s, which was really fun, despite some really bad service and a waitress sporting an almost-mullet. At 9:00 we headed over to the Trail of Terror, and we were awestruck at what we found: a HUGE field full of cars and HUGE crowds of people waiting in lines. We had no idea that this thing was such a big deal; apparently we should have done a little more homework. This place had a haunted hayride, a ¾ mile indoor maze, something called the “Halls of Horror”, a bunch of carnival type rides, and a tent with a live band and a dance floor. The lines looked pretty over-whelming for the maze, so we decided to hit up the hayride first. We got into the line around 9:30, and you will not believe what time we actually got onto that stupid ass mother-fucking hayride. Midnight. That’s right, you read that correctly, two and a half hours later. We lost a few in our group due to exhaustion and pregnancy-related nausea half-way through the line, but stubborn ass-holes that we are, we stuck it out. Seriously, two and a half hours of my life, gone, just like that, two and a half hours spent standing in a line, in the cold, amongst hundreds of really strange people. I haven’t been around that many obnoxious teenagers since I was one in high-school, nor have I ever before over-heard a conversation between three really geeky twenty-something men about Clingons, laser-guns, and tractor beams. Oh yes, the freaks were out that night. And they were all around us. Wait…what am I saying? We waited in line for two and a half hours for a f#!%-ing hay-ride, WE are the freaks.

On Saturday, Dan and I joined his parents and his older brother and his wife for an early dinner at Granite City, where I had the most delicious meal I have ever had in all my 24 years of living. I got the Grilled Salmon Oscar, which was a filet of charbroiled salmon topped with crab meat, asparagus, and this awesome béarnaise sauce, served over a bed of rice pilaf and with the most amazing medley of sautéed vegetables (carrots, mushrooms, peapods, broccoli, mmm…). It was seriously, so fricken good. Definitely the highlight of my evening (sad, I know). We then headed to the first themed wedding I have ever been to, the wedding of a friend of Dan’s from way back who I had met maybe twice before. It was an evening ceremony, the invitations looked like tickets to a movie, the ushers wore sunglasses and those ear things as if they were security at a big movie premiere and stood in front of the roped off aisle (adorned with a red carpet of course), there was a director’s chair on the alter, and the programs announced that it was “A Reel Love Story”. Very strange. It was nice, I guess, in a weird sort of way. The bride was absolutely beautiful though, I will give them that. She wore her hair down, which, to this day, I wish I had done. But I shouldn’t admit that, because it’s absolutely ridiculous to be thinking back on things I would do differently at my wedding more than a year ago. It was one day, no big deal.

Anyways, they just had a desert bar at the reception, which was really good, but I wasn’t really feeling the “no-alcohol” thing, I would have given my left arm for a glass of Cabernet Sauvignon. “Hey Ya” is without a doubt one of my favorite songs to dance to at a wedding, so when it came on, my brother-in-law dragged Dan and I out on the dance floor. Once there, I seriously didn’t know what to do, neither did the guys, and we all realized that we have never danced to that song without any alcohol in us. To be honest, I don’t think I’ve ever danced at a wedding to ANY non-slow song without the influence of alcohol, it was the most uncomfortable moment of my life. I bounced around a little, praying for the song to end, and when it did, the three of us bolted back to our table, and shortly there-after, bolted from the reception all together. What a horrific experience.

On Sunday morning I went to Target for a few things and ended up bumming around there for about an hour, I love wandering through Target by myself. I spent like a half hour trying on every single black winter hat they were selling, and settled on a really cute beret, which I know I will get ridiculed for wearing by many friends and family members, but I don’t care. It is so cute, and doesn’t give me hat hair, so I’ll just be telling all the nay-sayers to screw off! I get so excited for new seasons and new lines of clothing coming out, especially in the fall and winter; I think all women would agree that shopping for a funky winter coat is much more enjoyable than shopping for a bikini. Am I right? The only problem is that with the cute winter clothes come cold weather, shorter days, dry skin, horrible traffic, and extremely high heat bills for cute old houses like mine. I’m not going to let myself get all depressed about winter yet though, because we’re still in the middle of a gorgeous fall, and then come Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Years! So I predict that come January 2nd, I will be singing a different tune, but for now, all is good and right in my world. ;)