Wedding Bells are Ringing

Soooo tirrreeeeddddd ... I really need to hit the hay but I wanted to touch base. My computer has been out of commission for a few days (I mean seriously out of commission, as in I can't turn it on) and I just took it to the Apple Store today and found out that oh hurray, I get to shell out 192 bucks to get the power supply fixed just so I can turn the thing on again. Great. The "Mac Genius" who was examining me politely informed me that he hadn't worked on a computer "this old" (i.e. six years old! ohmygosh! a dinosaur!). Um, isn't that what being a genius entails? You're not a genius if you only handle the easy stuff! (I didn't point that out to him, but I wanted to.)

There's so much to write about, so many temptations to detail you on the trials of the last week, but I will focus on something immediate and positive and then head to bed. My good friend Grace is getting married this Saturday, and her fiancé, Luis, is staying at our house -- sleeping in the bottom bunk in Ian's room, bless his soul. It's all kind of weird and ironic how things turn out because the whole reason I came to know Grace is that she was sort of expecting to marry, sort of pre-engaged to, someone else, someone who is, uh, close to me (and is not my husband ;-)). When that didn't pan out, we stayed friends through the long months of sadness and I prayed often for her to meet the person who would be right for her. There were several prospects but no one she was really interested in, until she met Luis while staying in Mexico last summer. Now here he is, staying at our house! I think she is hugely brave and adventuresome (and okay, a little panicked at times) for going off to marry a man who will move her to an apartment she has never seen in Mexico City, where she will need to learn Spanish pronto. She wants Tim and me to speak at her wedding, and I have no idea what to say at this point so I guess some beseeching for divine inspiration is going to be necessary. Not that I have nothing to say to/about her, but there is the whole aspect of what to say IN PUBLIC that is brief, maybe witty, and meaningful, and not lame or embarrassing or meandering. Huh.

On that note, she and I and two of our mutual friends (three of us already married) got together tonight at a tearoom for dinner (chick food!) and sort of a send-off slash "welcome to the fold" kind of thing. I hope it was a blessing to her, but honestly, it was just what I needed! LOL! To be able to spend some time with friends, including one from California and one longtime one I don't often get to see, and just talk and connect and speak in complete sentences and, if I may be frank, not really speak of children at all (although husbands, yes ... but in a nice way) -- ah, it was lovely. Lovely in a similar and yet different way from when I used to have monthly-or-so gatherings in Simpsonville, our last place of residence, with the moms from my old playgroup, and we just knew each other's kids and husbands and foibles and kids' quirks had HISTORY together -- my goodness, that was so nice. Hey gals? Remember that weekend away we were going to take, until I got pneumonia and gave birth to #3? I'd still love a rain check! :-)