It’s been a wild and wonderful week. I get married in 5 days. I am truly looking forward to it. I got a great gift Saturday night that has helped me to look forward to these upcoming days. More on that later, for now, I just need to verbalize some things that rattled around my brain before that time.

In many ways, I just want the ceremony to be over. Getting prepared for the ceremony and making arrangements for the ceremony prevented us from doing a lot of things together. It turned our relationship into a deadline and took away the ease we had. We had ease of communication, ease of schedule – if we wanted to do something, we did, if we wanted to go dancing, we did. Now, it’s an endless parade of meetings and coordinators and details and stress. I cannot wait for it to be over.

Granted, it will be a beautiful ceremony. She did a great job of creating a ceremony that is beautiful, touching, and unique. I will enjoy taking part in it as something that is uniquely ours, not hers. I have had fun planning parts of it and some of the details give me a good block of time to think of her while she is away.

I am glad that folks in MN are stepping in and taking things off her plate. Our caterer is simply wonderful. I’ve eaten her cooking before and it is exquisitie. Her ability to put things together is wonderful as well. She is the coolest.

Her Dad has done an incredible amount of work for this weekend: I’ve told him this repeatedly. He paid for the wedding, he is hosting the rehearsal dinner, he is just taking care of all of it. Tis really wonderful.

My Mom is great, too. She’s in town with me this week to do some moving and packing. Most of all, she is emotional support so that I don’t go crazy. I’m glad she’s here, even if it was a full day earlier than I expected.

Other than that, I have to say that my groom-honoring (or whatever it’s called these days) was a lot of fun. We watched NC State play football (although I was upset about the final score), we ate Chili intended for Neaderthals and we demolished a three foot sub, we had a good time. I have to say, though, that my gift from Victor was the best of all:

I thought it strange that I had to go outside to receive this gift, but I played along. When he said I had to close my eyes, I should’ve known that something was afoot, especially when he added that I had to count to three. At the count of two, I felt my life flash before me, but since I had my eyes closed, I didn’t see anything. When I opened my eyes, I tried to figure out the strange shape before me only to realize it’s contents a moment later.

I was hit in the face with a lemon meringue pie.

I still laugh when I think about it, because it fits in with a way of life I have tried to embrace my whole life, namely, that I don’t take myself too seriously. Since getting hit with that pie, I have completely relaxed and I can enjoy these days leading up to marraige.

Thanks Victor, it was the best present I ever got.