Alright, let's get this party recounting started...
Friday was the start of my great ascent into madness, zipping away into the mild blue yonder in the early afternoon and plunking down in Gardenmooning some time in the middle of the late early afternoon. I'd buffered a little bit of time between my plane trip and my train plip so that I could fit in a little time with my folks just as I came in. Got some new deodorant out of the deal, so I'm content.
As luck would have it, two of the old gang from Sandy Fjord walked right past us as we were reuniting. They either didn't see me or didn't recognize me, so I got the chance to sneak up behind them and bellow "What do you think YOU'RE doing here, civilians?" as way of greeting.
After that short double-reunion, I had to hop skip and jump my way onto my iron horse and start down the long road to someone else's home... Namely that of Hatman and Catwoman, the lovely wedded couple-to-be.
Due to train timings, I wound up sharing space with the FHS duo in the car back to the marital abode. Good times with small spaces, not to mention getting so many members of the old gang back together.
Not long after we'd made ourselves comfortable, more people arrived. John Smith, his old roommate the filmmaker, and Hatman's old friend who, while having technically also attended Skiringssal, was there so rarely that it wouldn't really be right to call him a student. He was always appreciated when he did choose to make an appearance, though.
So there we were, the old gang back together again... Such a strange feeling seeing these people again, many of whom I hadn't seen in over a year and a half. But things got back into the good vibes so quickly it was almost hard to believe... Sitting around talking about old times and new times, and times that hadn't even happened yet. I've rarely felt more at home, and it was an amazingly well-appreciated break from my military grind.
With the pleasantries finished, we observed the devilish logistics issue that had popped up... Neither Hatman nor Catwoman would be staying in their own home (odd... Still don't really know where they slept that night. If they did), but that still meant that their "cozy" little apartment would have to be split between six people... Including the single shower/bathroom.
The plan was thusly planned according to plan: I would be sleeping in the guest room as per usual, but they'd swapped the old single bed out with a larger one for two people. The idea was apparently for me to share this bed with the filmmaker roomie of Smith's, while Smith would be bunking down in the inconspicuous camping trailer located on the side of the house. The two I'd met up with at Guardedmoan, an amicable tall chap and his very petite fiancee/caretaker (not really sure how he survived before he met her, she takes care of everything), would be laying claim to the master bedroom.
Well that's five... Who's number six? No, I'm not counting the two cats, although they certainly made their presence known (STOP. HITTING. THAT. WINDOW. Gaaah!)... No, entity number six was the chickfriend of Catwoman's that we'd gone up to visit during the baptism of her child. Yes, the homospeculative one who asked Catwoman if I was gay, because a guy just can't be that handsome-smart-funny-charming without also being a pooper tooter.
According to the planned plan of plans, she was supposed to knock out on an air mattress which would be set up in the corner of the living room. Unfortunately, as luck would have it, the people in charge of air mattressing forgot to bring a pump.
...they also forgot to bring an air mattress, but that's not important.
So forward-fast a little bit into the evening... The Gang is sitting around the table and making the most out of the one beer each they managed to find (Tuborg tastes like camel ass, by the way), reminiscing and ruminating, and generally not paying a whole lot of attention to what's going on.
Enter stage left: Entirely new and spontaneous bedding arrangements! Chickfriend lays claim to the guest bedroom, filmmakerman drags his things out to the trailer with Smith (the two had actually pushed their beds together of free volition during their time there, so sharing a napspot was no strange idea to them). I attack the couch.
Saturday morning, everyone starts crawling out of their holes. My military routine prods me awake at 6:30, long before anyone else is even considering the prospect of booting up. However, instead of actually getting up and possibly changing into something more substantial than the military netting underwear provided by Uncle Olav, I toss a giant imaginary middle finger at the prospect of outward appearances and just slouch for a bit with my eyes closed. Once people start moving around a bit, I become a conversation piece, thanks not only to my peculiar attire, but also to the facts that I'm still fairly flexible and have never really slept in a position that's normal for most humans.
Once the morning had really gotten started (some time around 12:30. The weekends just start later), we started shoveling ourselves into our standard forms and functions before griping about our sleeping conditions while luxuriantly lounging in the mid-day sun that was beaming onto the little patch of grass outside the apartment.
Smith and Co. had apparently discovered that the one window in the trailer that faced the land of the rising sun lacked curtains. This was of course the one positioned directly over the bed, so oversleeping was a complex and exhausting affair. Chickfriend had slept uneasily thanks to curling up as far on "her side" of the bed as possible so as not to disturb, only to discover the next morning that I hadn't actually made use of the other side of that bed. The fiancee couple had apparently encountered the dreaded cat plague, and were still somewhat mentally shaken.
Oddly enough, I slept just fine. The couch was great!
Sunbathing, philosophizing and showering taken care of, we started readying ourselves for the main dish of the weekend... The great big-ol' weddin' thang.
While I can't really communicate the experience, I can say that it was a truly beautiful wedding. Everyone looking their finest, the smiles and good cheer, the absolutely GORGEOUS weather... Not to mention the devilishly fancy car the bride and groom were chauffered away in (no cans on strings though, sadly).
The dinner afterwards was likewise an experience to be lived rather than written about... Suffice to say that the food was good, the company was even better, and the speeches were thoughtful, caring, and more often than not quite funny (Hatman's father bringing out the elephant-studded hats of the groom's long-hoped-forgotten childhood being of course a high point).
...and then one speech in particular... That of the bride. She stood up, welcomed us, thanked us all deeply for being there today (at the party she had labored on EXTENSIVELY to bring to form), and then mentioned that there was one more thing she would like to announce.
Several months from now (right around Christmas in fact... Funny), there's going to be a little HatCatManWoman brought into the world.
All I need to do now is amass a small fortune, and then I'll be able to be the little blighter's Rich American Uncle.
Alright, so I've covered the ceremony that couldn't be accurately depicted with words, the dinner that couldn't be accurately depicted in words... Now all that's left is the party afterwards. Which can be accurately described in words. Many words.
At least the parts I remember of it.
Cake and coffee was served later on in the evening, and of course had to go along with that other after-dinner thing that starts with "C", namely Cognac. After that and a few more speeches, the bar was officially, truly, and irreversibly open. As were a few of the side gates to hell, it would turn out.
Disappointingly, I had awaited the moment during this evening where I would be able to taste a right and proper Black Russian, but fate turned its back on me with the stern gaze of a... Well, a stern gazey thing. Fact of the matter was, they didn't have any Kahlua, and I wasn't so keen on just having a regular old Russian. I mean, where's the fun in that? There are millions of the things.
Deeply saddened by this cruel chain of events, I quickly decided to make amends with a mojito. A disturbingly good mojito, as it turned out. A mojito that made me want another mojito. Which made me more gracious when it came to the prospect of taking over for the strawberry daiquiri a friend had tried and which wasn't quite to her tastes. Which in turn encouraged me to accept another friend's offer of joining him in an Irish coffee. Which led to me following the suit of yet another person I'm fairly certain was male, and who I'm almost positive I know from somewhere, and ordering a gin and tonic. And then another one. And then some other drink I can't quite remember the name of, or pronounce (CERTAINLY not at that point in time).
It was around that time of the evening the thought popped into my head that "Damn, screw driving... I'm about to have my walking license taken away!". A different thought, one regarding how much I'd had to drink and how much I shouldn't have on top of that, never really made an appearance. I kinda missed him.
So... We already know my background. Tall, thin, not a lot of boozing in his history... Probably shouldn't be playing games with Gerry Thomas and his Cuban brothers in the first place. And absolutely, positively, certainly shouldn't be treating his stomach like a goddamn cement mixer.
Dinner's appetizer was served with white wine, the main course with red wine, the dessert with cognac, and then the party afterwards presented a vibrant blend of gin, vodka, whiskey, rum (dark AND light), and that well-known bane of digestion, Baileys Irish Cream.
Needless to say, shortly after getting back to the apartment my stomach decided that it just wasn't quite ready to go to bed until it had engaged the toilet in a deep philosophical discussion. The kind that tends to go on for quite a while about seemingly everything and nothing at all at the same time.
Sadly, I didn't quite follow what they were talking about and fell asleep partway through the proceedings. Thankfully, one of the four other apartment guests (yes, we'd lost two and picked up a new one on the way) was kind enough to hammer on the single bathroom's door until I woke up. I partially remember grunting something at the door before bidding my last goodbyes to the toilet and rinsing my mouth out as thoroughly as possible.
I started wandering towards the couch, but Chickfriend (who had apparently felt quite sorry for causing my exodus to that iconic furniture of rejection) insisted that I take my rightful side of the bed, promising not to take advantage of me in my current state.
Being drunk, I was more open to suggestion. Being tired, I was more open to bed. The couch, being occupied, was more open to not being double-parked.
I picked the bed.
Stagger, crawl, land on bed, crawl under covers wearing only kinky military fishnets. The bed's already nice and warm thanks to Chickfriend heating up her side of things, and I'm hysterically beat. I close my eyes and start drifting...
...
...
...and then I drift back. I've got at least three sheets to the wind, and my forethought is about as impaired as my peripheral vision. My hand starts drifting. I'm a soldier on a three-day leave, and I haven't touched a woman's body since... Well, ever. My hand drifts closer, bumping into her leg.
The, eh, "drifting" carries on for a little bit... I'm fairly certain that at this point I think I'm just getting away with some touchy-feely on the sly. Then after some more manual investigation, I realize that I'm not just getting away with it... She's friggin' awake.
I'll try and spare the gory details from here... Escalation occurs, clothes start flying in random directions, the fishnets are lost in the black hole of bedsheets in chaos, and things... Happen. Repeatedly. And... Extendedly. For the next hour or so. I'm so busy trying to get her flight to takeoff, so to speak, that I'm completed oblivious to the fact that it already has... A few times.
Then I'm fairly certain we fall asleep. She's apparently satiated, and I haven't actually gotten anywhere but I'm too tired to do anything else.
The next morning (actually, just two hours later on the same morning) I wake up to my alarm clock phone gadget thing. I remember that I was begged the night before to help the fiancees from the gang to get out of bed at 07:00 Sunday morning, and I was hardly the kind of man who would say no.
I was actually truly impressed at my ability to stand up... Not only because I hadn't slept worth a damn, but also because of the staggering (literally) amount and variation of alcohol I'd consumed the night before. Which, interestingly enough, again left me with not a trace of a headache the morning after consuming it. Fun stuff. Might have had something to do with that philosophical discussion late at night... Amazingly refreshing, those discussions.
After performing my duty as an alarm clock, I go back to bed and take off whatever rags I had put on for the trip out of the room before crawling under the sheets again. Here I was, my first morning after a... Well, one of those nights. I spent a little while staring at the person I'd just shared the experience with, and started wondering if maybe I could have spent a wee bit more time or at least clarity thinking things through... It just seemed like a mild social faux pas to spend a rampant night with the slightly crazy single mother (they split a few weeks after the baptism) close friend of the bride, who on top of everything else comes from Trondheim (Norwegians will understand what I'm talking about).
"Well...", I though, "Not a whole lot I can do about that now, hyuk hyuk!". And then I woke her up gently. At first...
A few hours later I got up and got out of bed to start lounge around a bit before making my way back up to glorious and sweet Bardufoss...
...oh, yeah, and then I screw up completely and in a fairly brain-dead state miss the last train which would have made my flight, then begin hurried explanations to both the airline and the acting chief in my platoon. Better luck Monday morning, you putz.
I got to spend some time with my folks because of that though. Yay.
So, that was my weekend... How 'bout yours?
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Topic: All I Want For Xmas is an HK416 (Read 74781 times)