Author: Sarah

I almost forgot! We also went to Krispy Kreme with Denis’ parents and aunts – they had never experienced the warm gooey goodness that is a fresh, hot Krispy Kreme donut. Mmmm. And, of course, we had to go to mega-Wegmans, because that is a tour stop for all out-of-town guests. For some reason, the mountains of fresh produce and refrigerators of meat and fish astound and amaze everyone who is not familiar with Wegmans. I just take it for granted that I can get blueberries in January, in August and cookie sprinkles at 1:00 Christmas Eve morning. If Wegmans ever went away…well, it doesn’t bear thinking about.

I’ve figured it out – just like some people have a biological urge to have children, some people also have a biological urge to encourage other people to have children. It doesn’t matter what family event we go to – now that we’ve been married for just over two years, the first words out of people’s mouths tend to be “Hi. Why don’t you have kids yet?” Especially if we go near anyone else’s kids… To me, this seems like a rather rude question to ask someone. I mean, it’s not that I don’t like children. I love them. I want them. Eventually. But that’s not a good enough answer to that question. I just need to find a polite way to say “butt out”! I hope I never become that nosy when I’m older. But, if it’s a genetic thing, both Denis and I are doomed. :P

Anyway, it was a good weekend. Denis’ family came to visit, and I think all we did was eat and play dominoes for 24 hours – oh, and we wandered around Shoen place by the canal. I did my first solo stint in church – without a sound system, because they moved mass into the parish center. We had a family reunion. Molly spent about three hours in the pool over two days. And we introduced my cousin’s dog, Casper, to the pool too. My house is (relatively) clean, because I had to clean it for our visitors. And I got nothing at all done on my master’s project. Oh, well. But I did get a little too much sun, and I think I’m going to go to bed now and hope I don’t look like a lobster in the morning.

Technology Addicts Anonymous
Ok, I admit it – I am a technology addict. I was in Kmart last night and while I was standing in line, I noticed the line next to me was beeping and booping and awful lot. I looked over and they had…self-checkout registers! Being the addict that I am, I immediately left the line I was in (even though I was next) to go over and try out the self-checkout. Pretty cool. Until I realized that they are in fact just making me do the work that the cashier usually does, while the cashier was standing behind me and explaining the thing to me like I was a total idiot. The interface was actually pretty self-explanatory, if a little talkative – it tells you the price of everything you’ve scanned. At least it doesn’t announce the name of it – that could be embarassing…for other people, not me. I never buy anything I’d not want my grandmother to see me with, since she only lives 5 minutes away! ;)

Argh. Since the wedding on Sunday, at random times one particular song keeps getting stuck in my head… I don’t even know all the words (probably why it gets stuck) but it goes something like: “If you want to be happy for the rest of your life, don’t make a pretty woman your wife…” It’s got a catchy tune, but I can’t help but think that it wasn’t a very flattering song for the bride, no?

New Features
I’ve added a list of people who link to me (very short at the moment) and a guest book for comments. Please comment? (And please be nice!)

Monday
I’m not sure we’ve ever taken the drive from NYC back to Rochester at such a leisurely pace – it took us almost 7 1/2 hours to get home. Not that I’m complaining – it was nice to stop frequently and stretch and look at the scenery – yesterday was beautiful. Molly is very happy that we’re home – but I’m wondering if she’s also a little sad – she spent the week hanging out with my parents and their two dogs, and I think she liked being part of a “pack”. On the up side, she wasn’t crated all last week and didn’t do too much damage to my parents’ house, so we didn’t crate her last night – and she was still sleeping behind her favorite chair when we got up this morning. Nothing out of place, chewed, slobbered on or eaten. Could this be that point where all dogs start to mature? Or could it just be a false sense of security? :)

Sunday
I guess I never realized how…interesting…Long Island weddings are. While I’ve been to weddings located in the area generally known as “Long Island”, apparently I’ve never been to a true Long Island wedding. Who ever heard of having the dancing during dinner? They played all the best slow songs while we were eating. :( And we missed the coffee and cake because we were dancing. Oh, well. But it was fun – that side of Denis’ family is very Italian. Even though my whole family is Italian, I’ve not seen the Tarantella danced half so well at any family gathering. Plus we got to try out a couple of the dances we’ve learned the last few weeks. All in all, it was a blast!

Last Week
Well, even though we had to go for a funeral, it was nice to be in NYC and visit with the family. I got to play with my neice Lizzy, who at 21 months is at a very cool age! I also got to see the twins. They’re 2 months old now, but they were 2 months early, so they’re about the size of newborns right now. They were a lot of (less interactive) fun, too. Valerie, who is going to be Denis’ goddaughter, has a little blond streak in her hair, and Katherine has an unerring sense of direction – if she’s going to blurf she always does it on her mom! We went to a bunch of family gatherings, attended a funeral, a barbeque, a wedding, popped into Manhattan for lunch one day, and sat around cuddling the twins another. Plus, I had to do some stuff for work, and I also spent some time pondering why my master’s project is being such a pain. All in all, a very full week.

When it rains, it pours

Actually, I think I’m in the middle of a monsoon… Denis’ uncle passed away this weekend, so we have to go down to NYC for the funeral. We also have a wedding to attend in that neck of the woods next Sunday. So, rather than going down and coming back and going there again, we’re going to spend an entire week there. This is only a problem because we have very little vacation left, and because we have a somewhat handicapped puppy who will have to stay with my parents for a week. Aside from that, my Grandpa was in the hospital this weekend, and they aren’t really sure what was wrong with him… Lots of scary stuff happening lately.

And, although it’s such a silly thing, we no longer have cruise control on our Jetta! We brought it in to have the turn signals fixed (they wouldn’t work in the half-pressed position – like for merging). When I started to drive home, I look down at the turn signal arm, and lo and behold – there are no longer any buttons for cruise control! So I drove it back to the repair shop. The tech was pretty confused – he wanted to know what was wrong, so I told him the turn signals worked perfectly, but we no longer had cruise control. He said, “what’s the matter, it doesn’t work?”. I said, “well, it would probably work fine, if we still had the buttons to use it with!” They didn’t have the right part in stock. No big deal, we weren’t going down to NYC until next weekend. Oops. Murphy’s law I guess. So, they’re either going to find the part at another VW dealer or put the old one back on – today. After all, when you’re driving 300 miles, cruise control’s much more important than merging turn signals. And, in NYC, no one uses their turn signals anyway.

I won’t have much internet access while I’m away, so I may not post for a while…

Take me out to the ballgame

Last night was our kodak.com summer picnic. We went out to a ballgame. The local AAA baseball team – the Rochester Red Wings (who are affilated with the Baltimore Orioles) – has this wonderful picnic facilty that can be reserved for large groups. We actually had 170 or so people there! It ended a little late for a work night – most people left before the end of the game. But, a good time was had by all – except, of course, the Red Wings, who lost…

Nickname, anyone?

I just realized that I have never had a nickname. Well, if you don’t count the mean nicknames (i.e. four-eyes) that little kids give each other in grade school… That’s the problem with having a name like Sarah. There’s no way to create a nickname from it. This, according to my parent’s, was intentional. Why they proceeded to name my brothers Daniel and Michael is beyond me if they were trying to avoid nicknames. Besides, in the grand tradition of my family, I should never go by my real name – I always thought my great-grandmother’s name was Virginia. When she died, I found out her real name was Vincenza. I didn’t know my great-aunt’s name was Angelina until I went to write out my wedding invitations – even though we’ve always called her Aunt Amy, people sometimes called her Betty, so I assumed her real name was Elizabeth. Nope. And the list goes on.

So, I think I need a nickname – anyone have any ideas?