Denny's, Catholics, and The Red Cross

A glimpse into the past weekend:

On Friday I worked a busy afternoon shift that included an enormous delivery to a local nursing home -- I suspect they were trying to kill off some of the patients with all the grease that comes with twelve pizzas. The bill came to $98 and some odd change. The guy pays me with a $100 bill and says "keep the change." My eyes nearly bugged out when he said this, and it took all of the restraint I had been forced to learn during Capstone (which was a lot considering some of the "characters" we had in that class) to keep from asking the man where my tip was. I usually get a dollar tip when I deliver a $10 or $20 order, but for a $100 order I expected a bit more. Heck, the starving ER doctors usually give me at least $5 for their $30 orders. Oh well, I ought to be thankful I got anything, considering how tight so many people around here are.

Friday night I drove to Findlay and met everyone's friend Erin Miller for dinner at Denny's. We got to chat and "catch up" over some great diner food. Mmmm... We were later joined by my buddy Joel and our mutual friend Laura Schlabaugh (sp?). Finally, the candle on the cake arrived when Ms. Mandella Wolke stopped in to join the gathering. Erin had to eventually leave so that she could rest before a long day of library-esque work the next day, but the remaining four of us stayed at Denny's and discussed theology until around 1:00a.m. It was great conversation, and it was good to talk with friends (who are college students) after a long week of conversations that revolved around pizza production and Kenton gossip. After bidding farewell to my Bluffton friends, I stopped by one of Findlay's pubs to rescue an intoxicated friend from a boring group of people and get her tucked into bed. I then drove back to Kenton and Cherry Street to find my faithful, friendly bed waiting to receive me.

Saturday I woke around 11 and went for a walk before showering and preparing for my cousing Adam's wedding. Adam is one of the few relatives I ever really hung out with much as a child, and we spent a significant portion of our childhood racing our bikes, burning G.I. Joe men tied to popcicle sticks in the sandbox, and jumping on the trampolene while thinking of how we could write revisions of folktales and Disney movies. So I was really looking forward to seeing Adam again and getting to meet the young lady he had chosen to marry. Then only thing that made me slightly fearful/anxious was that Adam's wedding was a very CATHOLIC wedding (terrifying words to we Protestants who are used to 40 minute weddings). Well, the service went very well, without clear signs of any Protestant faux pas... that is, until the recitation of The Lord's Prayer. As we were saying the words out loud, I kept thinking in my mind: "Now they do something different with this...but what could it be?" And right when I got done saying those words in my mind, the Catholics (and some of the more knowledgeable Protestants) stopped speaking after "... but deliver us from evil." However, I, along with several others in the church, continued with "for Thine is the --" stopping abruptly and turning rather red. I stood frozen with my lips clamped tightly together watching several Catholic shoulders rise and fall in suppressed giggles. It was quite amusing. But the wedding music was very beautiful -- I'm tempted to start attending mass once a week in order to treat my ears to the soloists' angelic voices. Oh daddy.

Anyway, that was the wedding. I got to speak with Adam at the reception and found out that they bought a house only a couple blocks from my parents' house. I told him he had a week to enjoy the Mrs., and then I would be stopping by regularly... probably at meal times.

Sunday was a day of pajama lounging, pleasure reading, laundry doing, and pizza delivering.

Today, my first day off in a week, has consisted of relaxing in my bath robe with a hot cup of tea while watching old reruns of Daria and Nightcourt -- what a great combination, eh? I also forced myself into the shower and then went to the local Moose Lodge to donate blood at the Red Cross' bloodmobile. It was pretty uneventful, except that I did get to hear a male nurse jokingly badger an old Amish woman for filling her bag too quickly. I may have just been goofy from the blood loss, but I found it hard not to laugh when I heard him say: "Mattie, you're going too fast. You're wearing me out, Mattie, you bad, bad girl."

They gave us free coney dogs afterwards. They were warm and delicious.