Sunday – 27 September 2009
Holy cow. This has been one helluva weekend. It has also reaffirmed my thoughts and feelings that I have an amazing fiancee and some equally amazing friends.

Saturday started with sleeping in. It was nice. SaraRules and I had planned on a relatively low-key day together, before the last week before the wedding. When we finally got in gear and out of the apartment, we headed to the Garden of Sweden and Hobby Lobby – we were looking for some picture frames (IKEA) and some ribbon for our wedding guest book. We found both. AND, we even had Slurpees! We eventually meandered back home. We straightened up a few things and chilled out before heading out to Tucano’s, a Brazilian steakhouse, for dinner.  Mmm… food-induced coma.

Then things went completely off the rails.

Around 6:00, when we were supposed to be leaving, there was a knock on the door. I looked out the peephole and thought I saw . Opening the door, I was more than “a little” shocked to see standing there, instead. Then he yelled, “Get ‘im!” and rushed in the door. He was followed by seven other people.

My first reaction: Fall into defensive mode and prepare to start throwing punches.

That’s when I noticed that loonybin88 was one of the people…

::: processing:::
::: processing :::
::: processing :::

It then clicked that I recognized the people and could stand down from preparing to fight, but I was still resistant to them trying to usher me out the door. (According to SaraRules, it apparently took four of them to push/pull me out.) As they got me out into the parking lot, looked at me and announced, “Welcome to your bachelor party!” As I was still in shock over the abruptness of what had just happened, the only thing that came to mind was:

“But I have dinner plans…”

Yeah. Brilliant. Because it hadn’t clicked in my head that my beautiful bride-to-be would have anything to do with me getting kidnapped and taken out for a surprise bachelor party. (Tricksy like a Hobbit, she is.) Apparently, she and had been planning this for weeks, once it became fairly public knowledge that I wasn’t planning on having a bachelor party. Their co-conspirators included: , and Chris S., , loonybin88, and Land.

We headed to Rodizio Grill, where , Chris (whom I play ‘Clix with) and SaraRules’ brother, Logan, joined us. While it wasn’t the quiet evening out with my fiancee that I was expecting, I enjoyed the deadly sin of Gluttony just as much. The food, as ever, was very good. The company was equally good.

After dinner, we piled into cars and headed to Fat Cats for some bowling and to shoot some pool. (And me without my bowling balls or shoes… *sigh*) According to Ye Olde Blog, I hadn’t been bowling since April 2008. Sad. We got in two games, I bowled a 170 and a 143; that wasn’t too bad, considering the lapse in time on the lanes. Next we played a couple hours’ worth of pool. There was a lot of slop, but we also had a lot of fun.

Next stop: and OnlyAly’s place for poker and drinking and general shooting the bull. We played until 0330 this morning. I bummed a ride home from Chris and Nox.

All told, I had an excellent game/geek-inspired bachelor party in the company of some great friends, to whom I can only say, “Thank you very much.”

Not too surprisingly, I slept in a bit on Sunday morning. I couldn’t sleep in very late, though, because it was the season’s first meeting between the Browns and the Ravens. We headed over to ‘s place, where Nox was already waiting. We also met a couple of ‘s friends, Christy and Clark… who were also Browns’ fans – we won’t hold that against them… much. Besides, it will be nice for to not have to drink alone for the next game. The Ravens brought their “A” game today, handing the Browns a 34-3 shellacking.

Cleveland Browns at Baltimore Ravens
3 – 34
Joe Flacco had another excellent week, posting 342 passing yards.

Let me repeat that, for those who missed it: Thirty-four to three. SaraRules, Nox and I did one shot, each, to ‘s seven. It was a beautiful thing.

After the game, SaraRules and I headed down to Kate and Perry’s; we were babysitting the kids this evening. Two of us… four kids… GO! Of course, watching the kids was a piece of cake. They started off watching a couple episodes of Lazy Town. (SaraRules noted that it will only be a few years before we are subjected to shows like this on a regular basis…) Next, they watched Next Avengers, which wasn’t too bad. We then fed the group and then sent the older kids to baths. We popped corn and let them watch Cars before sending them off to bed.

And now, it’s pre-Monday winding down time.

But, it’s been a great weekend.

Namaste.