What are these numbers– winning lottery numbers? The numbers printed on the mysterious hatch on the television show “Lost”? The combination to my luggage?
No, these were the table numbers at our wedding. Instead of starting at 1 and ending at 8, we decided to make our table numbers have multiple purposes. In addition to telling people where to sit, each number represented an important milestone in our lives– measured in days.
Anyone who has been to a wedding with a buffet knows that you can’t just let everyone get up and start filling their plates all at once. So I went around to tables and asked them what their table number meant. It got a lot easier once the first table figured out to answer in the form of, “number of days since…”
Here are the answers:
12862: Number of days since Omar was born.
11561: Number of days since Katherine was born.
67: Number of days we were officially married
2465: Number of days Omar worked at UPS, or number of injury free days for Omar at UPS
762: Number of days since we adopted our dog Maury.
-178: Number of days until the baby is due. (This got quite a few people’s attention. Not everyone knew she is pregnant, so we figured this was as good of time as any to announce to everyone.)
938: Number of days of safe driving for Omar at UPS.
1292: Number of days since we met.
Some people were very fustrated by their numbers. My UPS supervisor ended up having a bit of trouble getting the number of days of safe driving number, but it was a lot of fun to make fun of him with a microphone in a room full of people, many of whom were fellow UPS drivers. His table ended up going to the buffet last, after giving him several big hints.
So when all was said and done, it was a fun activity to keep people occupied during the buffet down time.
For everyone just catching up on my life, a few weeks ago I married my long time partner in crime, Katherine. So in any future posts here on my website I will, at one time or another, refer to Katherine, Kat (though not Kathy, she hates that–I think it has something to do with the cartoon strip), my wife, my baby mama (more on that as it develops, but the short version is: yes, yes, December 15, 2009), and finally the one person in the house who knows where things are located.
In our consistent approach of reaching our relationship milestones in the complete wrong order, we decided to go on our honeymoon a few weeks before the actual wedding. We decided, for no exact reason, to spend a week in New York City. Our flight from Denver to LaGuardia was uneventful. Katherine gave me the Dan Brown’s novel “Angels and Demons” to read during the flight. I quickly started thinking the book would make a great season of “24” if Tom Hanks hadn’t starred in the big screen version that came out last week. And, let’s be honest here, the script just doesn’t have enough gratuitous torture sequences to show off the talents of Kiefer Sutherland.
After a relatively short cab ride to our hotel, we got our luggage put away and started randomly walking around the city. Central Park to the north, and Times Square to the south– we had plenty of areas to explore. My first impression of Times Square: this is not the bisexual prostitute cowboy part of town I saw in that John Voight film. (Who, coincidentally, was also in the most recent season of “24”, but I digress.) I didn’t even see that naked cowboy. No, Times Square is a busy mix of automobile traffic and pedestrians who stop in the middle of the sidewalk because they need to get a half dozen pictures of the 37 foot neon “Mr Peanut” on the corner of 45th and Broadway.
As we visited different parts of Manhattan, we noticed everyone has formed an alliance. Times Square, Chinatown, Midtown, and of course the magicians have all resorted to aligning themselves– presumably against one another, or at least against the magicians, who always seem to have some kind of trick up their sleeve. Keeping a fragile peace over the island is the Ray’s Pizza Alliance with has locations literally on every block of the city.
Whenever I would see a scene from a movie or television show involving Central Park I always thought it looked like a back lot somewhere in southern California. But I can now personally attest that, yes, that is what Central Park looks like. The rest of the island has been stripped of all natural vegetation, but one rectangular area in the middle was spared. I think of it as an island with a mowhawk. A pamphlet about the park when on and on about the beauty of Central Park. Maybe the island would look better if they just built the city where Central Park is and left everything else how it was when they got there. Somehow I think it is a bit too late for that.
For no particular reason, I wanted to go see Coney Island. We took the N train all the way south and walked a block to the boardwalk. The weather was warm, the sun was shining, and Coney Island was closing up for the night. We arrived at 6:05 PM five days before the unofficial start to summer, Memorial Day, and the place was a ghost town. We got there just in time for the restrooms “convenience hours” to have expired. Nothing promotes tourism more than locking the bathrooms when people might be interested in using them. We headed back to the subway, and we saw an ad on the side of a bus for Coney Island that read, “Coney Island: Really Fun, Really Open.” And no, I’m not making that up. We stopped in the bathroom at the subway station before getting back on the train. Not the best facilities I’ve been in, but I wouldn’t call it a shithole. Katherine, however, did use that exact description for the ladies room.
So that wraps up the highlights of our trip. I finished the book on the flight home and we made our way back home to Loveland. Now I’ll be busy getting everything ready for my wedding in a few weeks.
I started watching “Dancing with the Stars” with the intention of learning a few good dance moves for my upcoming wedding. After about 20 seconds of watching the show I came to the conclusion that either A) the entire show is completely computer generated, or B) Dancing cybernetic robots are scheming to take over the planet. (SPOILER ALERT: In the soon to be released “Terminator Salvation” the machines hypnotize people with their smooth steps and jazz hands– humanity never saw it coming.)
After watching the first episode I came to the following conclusion: Shawn Johnson, the 17 year old Olympic gold medal gymnast, was going to win this season. At first I didn’t believe she won a gold medal in gymnastics due to her regular womanly proportions. I had always thought the rule for these young women is that their breasts must be smaller than the top of their pelvic bone jutting out of her abdomen when they stand up straight.
I felt a bit empty after watching the finale. I think they should have one last show where Shawn Johnson and Gilles Marrini compete together against their coaches to see if it is possible for the students to surpass the teachers. Steve-O and Steve Wozniac will dance together for comic relief. The rest of the contestants with be the judges, the judges with attempt to play musical instruments, and the hosts will do their best to operate the cameras.
Most importantly, none of the dancers get to talk about how much fun they had just being here and the directors will be forced (at gunpoint if necessary) not to use previous footage to fill up 63% of the show’s air time.