"She's Going To Ruin My Life Again, Just Like She Did When She Was Born"

We had a pretty eventful weekend. A very us kind of weekend.

First a short story about me. I went to play cards with my brother and his friends in the suburbs on Saturday night, which afforded me the opportunity to get stinking drunk. At some point later in the evening I decided to bum cigarettes from one of the guys there, even though I've decided several times over the last few months that I'm never going to smoke again. I've never been much of a habitual smoker anyway- I'm the annoying guy who never gets truly addicted but still smokes when he goes out. But I don't even do that any more, as nearly everyone I know has quit. Still, once I get drunk and someone is smoking, all bets are off. We smoked a couple of cigarettes before we ran out of matches. No biggie, as the place we were at had a gas stove. I've probably lit a thousand cigarettes in just this way over the course of my life, but through some miracle of misfortune I manged to singe both eyelashes in my right eye this time around. Awesome. How I didn't just go ahead and melt my contact lens onto my cornea will remain a mystery until the end of time.

But the big news of the weekend actually came the night before, on Friday. Baby's middle sister lives in LA, and she's been living with this guy for years. She had been getting frustrated that he'd yet to ask her to marry him, and she told us over Christmas that she was fixing to give him the ultimatum. To his credit, he's a nice guy and he lives for her. But he's not exactly the most romantic guy, and I get the feeling he's not so in tune with the ladies. He may have just even realized that it was high time for him to shit or get off the pot, as my scholarly mother always says.

So on Friday night he finally asked her. Well, that's not entirely true. He never actually asked her, he just gave her the ring. What can I say, the dude has game. Of course she said yes. Well, I guess she said yes. She took the ring, so that probably signifies yes. Anyway, they're getting married.

You would think, if you're a man and you're not retarded, that Baby would have been thrilled that her younger sister, who has so desperately wanted to get married for so long, was finally going to be a bride. I expected Baby to hang up the phone and tell me how excited she was that she was going to get to plan their weddings together and exchange 476 emails a day while they conduct research to find ice sculptors who can capture the essence of what they feel THE! MOST! SPECIAL! DAY! of their lives is truly all about.

No, not so much. Turns out Baby was bitter, and I'm a lot more retarded than I originally thought.

She nearly burst into tears, and she said, "She's going to ruin my life again, just like she did when she was born!" Because now Middle Baby is going to get all the attention, all the affection, all the focus. Baby has always resented this about Middle Baby- she's very much the "me too" sister to Baby's very grown up, mature example. Baby remembers actual conversations from nearly 30 years ago where Middle Baby was begging for attention, and she still holds grudges about them. That's not to say that Baby doesn't heart Middle Baby, because they're BFF. But she's definitely not stoked that she's had all her thunder stolen.

I've replayed that scene in my mind a million times, and as much as I love Baby there is no way I ever could have guessed that she'd react that way. Oh well though, it's probably just an isolated incident. And the chances of some strange reaction to the wedding planning process happening again in the TWENTY MONTHS between now and the actual day we get hitched are slim, right?

Brief Updates: Now With More Fiancé

The people who read this blog who are most likely to care about the details of the weekend were probably there to witness it, so I won't bore anyone with sappy romance. But Baby and I got engaged over the weekend. She was completely surprised and, from what I can tell, very happy. I owe a lot to you guys for helping me out. Thank you all.

To make a long story short, I asked her to marry me just outside our apartment, after running errands on Friday evening. When we opened the door to our place, Baby found her closest girlfriends there to surprise her. It was very sweet.

People have been asking about a date for the wedding, and we haven't set one yet. We're almost positive it will be Fall 2008, but I guess there is an outside possibility it will be Spring 2008. We have to buy an overpriced condo first. I need to remind myself to blog about that search. Hilarity abounds.

We went out to DC9 after our little engagement party on Friday. When we left at 1am everything was still calm, but soon afterward a seventeen-year-old girl was shot and killed in the go-go club across the street. That can't be a good omen. Idiots on the DC Council are considering a ban on underage kids at nightclubs serving alcohol. I'm furious about that, and I'll definitely blog about it soon.

But perhaps my favorite part of the weekend came on Saturday. We were sitting around, working off hangovers. I was reading some internets about the snow, and I turned to Baby and said, "Looks like we're going to get one to two inches in DC."

She deadpans, with perfect timing, "Big deal, I get that all the time in DC."

I love this woman.