Life Doesn't Get Much Better

I do not know where to even begin. . . if Stephen and Mary had set out to give me the absolute best possible last weekend here, they could not have planned things any better.

It all started Friday evening (I guess it was just yesterday), when I threw some clothes and a toothbrush and a bunch of cds into a bag and headed one neighbo(u)rhood over to the Ruxtons'. Travis and I brought way more stuff than any two people have any right to bring with them overnighting (I swear my mom sent as much food as Travis and I brought stuff, but who can complain about that?) and found that TJ had arrived pretty much right before us. We all crashed around the living room watching tv and then Bill and Andy and Mary showed up (with smoothies and not to share, no less!) and we started trying to figure out what kind of pizza to order and from where. This was far more of an ordeal than it should have been- instead of having too many opinions, however, we have next to none among us- Stephen finally got us to commit to 3 pepperoni, 2 cheese and 1 sausage pizza, and we went for Domino's because it is cheap and delicious. Stella didn't want to order the pizza over the phone (I can't blame him- phones are scary) and there was another hilarious fight, but we finally got the 'zas ordered and planned for Bill to go pick 'em up. In the ensuing time, we played with my camera and were entertained by a microwaveable bowl of cheese salsa (do not judge, ye who were not there!) and I painted Nick's toenails and Andy took a picture of Mary with a halo (I'll upload it eventually). After eating, we decided to play Cranium, and it was awesome. Teams were as follows: Green Team- Andy, Travis, Me; Yellow Team- Kathy, Tim, Bill, TJ; Blue Team- Stephen, Mary, Nick. We start playing and I show off my ability to guess the meaning of "complaisant" from a list, and then my memory becomes a blur of Sensosketches and Cloodles and Humdingers and Cameos and Polygraphs and the Blue team could NOT seem to get any of the Creative Cat things, and we were accused of cheating because Andy and I are totally on the same brainwave, and I swear that nobody in the world (except MAYBE Steppenwolf) knows more than the first few bars of "Born to be Wild." Should I mention that Stella's song is "Girls Just Wanna Have Fun?" My team won, because we are awesome, and then we moved onto Twister. Stephen v. Bill v. Mary v. me. 4 people on a Twister mat can be very difficult, and Mary claims that I pushed her, causing her to go out first- Bill was leaning on me, however, and I was trying desperately to push back against him. I went out second, although I lasted a little bit longer, and then it was some crazy death match of Bill v. Stephen. There is no way I can begin to relate the entertainment of watching these two wrestle across a Twister mat- Bill eventually won, but there was probably a great deal of cheating on both sides (not to mention on Tim the Spinner's part), so I'm not sure he should get too much glory. Feeling lazy, we decided to chill and watch Hidalgo, which was a pretty sweet movie. Viggo Mortensen's character was a little too much like his LOTR character Aragorn at times, but there were exciting action sequences and it was light on the sap without being all about shooting people and horses running really fast. I also got to entertain myself by picking the real horses from the fake barrel horses, although I am perhaps the only person in the world who would enjoy this activity (which is why I kept it to myself). Stella, who put in something like 50 hours in the warehouse this week and was very knackered, fell asleep halfway through the movie, and, upon waking, completely missed the fact that there were people in his house. He picked himself off the floor and went up to bed, disappearing until Kathy went up to remind him that we were all downstairs. I'm sure he was still half asleep when he drug his blankets downstairs and went back to sleep on the floor. With the movie over, Mary started trying to convince everyone to go play sardines outside (it was nearly 2 in the morning and so so so so humid). The crazy people followed her, but Tim and Kathy and sleeping Stephen and I stayed inside. Stephen woke up for real while they were out (I managed to get one of his toenails painted first, though) and blew up the Aero bed. The game lasted about half an hour, and then we figured out sleeping positions and Travis and TJ and Kathy went to sleep (Stephen of course had fallen asleep again) and Tim went to his own bed because he is sensible and Bill suggested that the 4 of us still awake play cards. Thus, at some ungodly hour like 3 in the morning, I was playing Phase 10 with Bill, Mary and Andy. Mary won, and there were some great moments during the game that my exhausted brain can't even begin to reconstruct, as well as a lot of bending of the rules because we were all so very very tired. We fell asleep after the game (I should probably mention that Futurama was on at some point and dealt with time jumping due to holes in the space-time continuum and Bill and I shared many giggles over this coincidence and his own take on it, which lacked Globetrotters).
Saturday morning (this morning, though I can't begin to think of it that way) opened with various fights over prime locations- started by Stephen, who rolled and somehow managed to get his hand onto Mary's face (Mary was on the couch and Stephen was beside it on the Aero bed). As we became more awake, Andy and Stephen in particular were responsible for many shenanigans and rowdy activities, from which I of course restrained, angel that I am. I refuse to hear any talk of me stealing Stephen's blanket or tickling or otherwise participating in their morning games. Kathy made us delicious waffles for breakfast and we watched the anchor on the Today show wear a blazer that looked like it was made out of very bad drapes and people started heading home. Stephen, however, had exciting plans for Mary and I to accompany him to Maryland to pick up his Oma. Mary ran home and I took a quick shower and Kathy, unsure of how sure Stephen was of the way to Oma's house, decided to come with us. Around 10, we dropped Travis off and picked Mary up (after a scenic tour through the wrong side of the Highlands) and headed for 95. I was wearing Stephen's new trucker hat from his work, which I then gave to him to wear, and he passed it to Mary who wore it far too well, and it eventually wound up back on my head. We passed Stephen's work (sort of) and Mary's former school and enjoyed the great fun that is 95 North. There were moments where Mary had to prove her leadership and courage by picking a cd, and times when Stephen road-raged a little, and I even critiqued his driving, but mostly his road rage (Bill will want to know this, I'm certain). We stopped at Subway and rich man Stephen bought us lunch (via his mother's credit card because he forgot to cash his check, so he owes her) and there was a fender-bender that blocked traffic more than it has any right to, and we drove on Route 1 for a bit to be scenic, and I think I'm going out of chronological order, but refer to Bill's panorama theory. We got around DC without a hitch and into Maryland and soon we were at Oma's! She was so excited to see us and speak German to me and Stephen gave us the grand tour of her field (she has a pond with a HUGE turtle in it!) and we petted her dog and put blue eyeshadow on it and then we got in the car to visit Stephen's Uncle Paco. Stephen has a very very entertaining family, to say the least. His Oma is so much fun to talk and listen to, and when we got to Uncle Paco's, Stephen's Aunt Stephanie and family were there because cousin Katie keeps her horses there. I fed the horses (Hope and Nina) animal crackers and they loved me and were very piggy but adorable and sweet and it was so funny for me and Mary to listen to Stephen and his relatives together and we hung out there for an hour or so. We hit the road again and made pretty good time- there was a bad accident northbound that tied us up for a bit (rubberneckers) but 95 could have been far far far worse. We stopped at a RaceTrak in Fredericksburg for gas and it was $2.09 (the station just down the street was $2.21) and there were SO many people there! There were adventures just getting a pump, including a jeep that took so so SO long to fill and circling a few times and backing up and a mean glare or two from other drivers. On the road, Stephen taught Oma how to pout via example (she's even better at it than he is) and we had so many funny funny conversations and Oma would talk to me in German and then she'd talk to Stella in German and he'd ignore her and we decided it would be fun to see Wedding Crashers later. We called a few people to try to get them together, but nobody wanted to join our trio. We got back to Stella's around 6:45 and Kathy warmed up leftover pizza and Stella downloaded a copy of R Kelly's "Trapped in a Closet" which I thought would be so lamesauce, but it was actually hilarious- they'd only seen the 1st chapter (there are currently 5, and it promises at least 10) and were so excited to see 2-5 and we laughed and laughed. We also watched the first half of Anchorman (I do love that movie- it is so so funny) and left for our movie, which started at 9:20. Unfortunately, Wedding Crashers is R and Stevie's still 16. They carded him, of course, and, because you have to be 21 to buy multiple R tickets, we couldn't get him a ticket. That, and, because the movie would let out after 11 (curfew for those under 17), they wouldn't let him get a ticket to any movie. We were most upset and complained loudly in the car. Tropical Smoothie closes at 9, so we couldn't go there, and we decided it was time for Mary to learn to drive a stick shift (which Stephen drives). We went to Bird parking lot and Mary is possibly the fastest learner of this skill- she barely stalled at all, and picked up shifting gears really quickly. She actually drove back to Stella's house from Bird! There was one moment when she stalled in the middle of an intersection because we told her to stop one street too soon, but it was in a neighborhood and there wasn't really any traffic anyway. Otherwise, she was so awesome and is my personal hero. Back at Stella's, he looked up this very site for a bit and perused and then Stephen dropped me off here and I plopped down at the computer and wrote this.

I have the best friends in the world. How can I leave them on Thursday?

Gender: 61% female