Hubuduh What?

notes weekend!
2006-10-19 : 9:25 am

It's been a while since I've posted a This Is What I Did This Weekend entry and I know you've all be suffering, so please, suffer no more.

Friday afternoon I had to borrow my boss's car to go run some errands for the company and, using the single key on the separate key ring that he uses for his valet parking, I proceeded to LEAVE HIS NORMAL KEYRING at the shop that was doing laptop repairs. Car keys, office keys, house keys, all stuck in the computer shop. He said he had another set but I really felt stupid, and this was after a day of feeling like shit anyway.

So I went home and in true family fashion poured myself a honking glass of wine, then immediately started to scan in pictures and momentos to my computer. See, the a cappella group I was in in college had its HUGE reunion this weekend, which was UNH's Homecoming Weekend. Last November I volunteered to create a Digital Memory Book (read: slideshow with background music). Because I'm me, I of course didn't even begin working on it until the night before. I needed to set it to the recording of 12 songs that we've sung over the years, and since I didn't want to make it 45 minutes long, I mixed the 12 songs together into one 10 minute mix. I finished at 3am. It turned out pretty well, I think.

So 6:30 the next morning Ken and I woke up and got ready. We were in Durham by about 10:30. I met a slew of old Notes and new Notes (the group was called the Notables, Notes for short) and we all sang the Alma Mater at the unveiling of this bizarre sculpture of some a big ferocious cat outside UNH's sports arena. Go Wildcats! By 1:00 I had met up with more Alumnotes, by 1:45 I'd had 3 beers and we were headed off to rehearsal for that night's concert.

43 of us by 2:00 pm. We had a rehearsal to sing Carry On My Wayward Son (almost all of us had sung that arrangement at some point in our stint as Notable) The old ones and the young ones were sober and singing pretty. All the women from my years were already half in the bag. Hey. That's just how we roll. Lots of hugs and newborns and husbands and we started about 15 songs while the bored boyfriends sat and watched. We decided we could pull together 3 or so old songs for the reception that night after the concert, when we were supposed to get together with Alumnotes from our years and sing old songs. Having decided that and located a few more girls we hadn't seen in 5 years we headed out to dinner.

Let me just take a moment to showcase the 1 and a half year old daughter of my college roommate.

Her face is dirty but those eyes just kill you, don't they?

Several margaritas and large glasses of sangria later we got to the concert. We heckled the guys group (actually, their alums did most of the heckling, loudly saying things like, "Nice try... nice try" after their songs. It's a 27 year tradition, so that makes it totally okay to laugh). Our current group went on and were absolutely amazing. Better than they've been in years. We, the 43 Alumnotes, were asked to come up to the stage to sing the Alma Mater and Carry On. I was asked to conduct the Alma Mater, which is not difficult, but I'd had a few. At the rehearsal I had messed up a bit (again, I'd had a few) which only proved that a director isn't just some person randomly waiving her arms around, because they all followed me and just blindly went along with the random 5th beat I accidentally put in there. At the actual concert I did fine. We sang Carry On and apparently did a pretty good job. I'll be getting an mp3 of it and I'll find some way to put it up. The Dude was dutifully sitting in the back taking pictures, but he said he really wants a copy of it on cd for his car. Awww...

The concert ended and we headed to the reception where I learned one very, very important life lesson: Black Russians should be called Tomorrow You Will Die. I had one Black Russian, then wanted to try a White Russian, but I hate the taste of cream, so I asked the bartender to just put a little dollop of cream in there (I got to use the word dollop!!!) and so we called it a Mulatto Russian. I took pictures, I finished the slideshow, we sang and drank. A great time was had by all. I was actually quite honored, as they asked my group to sing a song that I had soloed. I had always kind of pussied out at this one part in the song where I'd either have to belt and pray that God loved me or pop up into my head voice. For the first time, like, ever, I belted and prayed and while I certainly didn't QUITE make it, I did earn a few whistles, so A for effort and everyone gets that, which is cool. :) The slideshow had a better reception than I'd hoped for, eliciting laughs and awwws in all the right places. I'm pretty psyched about that.

Back to the hotel room where... ahem... and we went to sleep. Then, I woke up in the middle of the night visited by the Black Russian of Death who spoke to me AND HE SAID, "plaaayyyy the best sooonnnnnggg in the world... or I'll eat your soul (soul!)"

Oh, wait, no. That's what Jack Black said.

The Black Russian of Death said to me (in a Bond-esque Russian accent, of course), "Da, Jenny, you have angered me, I vill send you to ze bassroom for to vomit now!" And he raised his mighty Pointer Finger of Pain and I had a little powwow with the toilet. Just like in college!

We woke up the next morning and... ahem... and then we went to The Best Buffet Brunch EVER TO EXIST. This sucker costs $19 per person and we took some serious advantage of that. We ate for a SOLID HOUR. It was great. I still felt like horrific death not quite warmed over, but it was good.

The Dude and I then went out to College Woods where I made him traipse about my old paths with me, and we hiked out to this wooden bridge where, in college, many a game of Pooh Sticks was played. It was gorgeous. Picture the most beautiful stream/river/fall leaves combination you can. Yes, that was it.

We laid out on the bridge for a while and enjoyed the air (when the world wasn't spinning for me) and then played a few games of Pooh Sticks (I kicked Ken's ASS on that one. Whew! I told him there's no pouting in Pooh Sticks and he said, "I guess I just don't have a natural Pooh Sticks athleticism." That's okay, though, because he's still willing to play.

We tredged back into town and met Daphne and David and their two kids at an apple picking farm, only to find that there were no apples left to pick, so we went back to their house for dinner and THE BEST APPLE PIE IN THE WORLD, made by the Daphinator. Then I finally got what I've been trying to get for over a year, a copy made of THE BEST Halloween movie EVER: The Worst Witch. The Worst Witch features a, um, music video (?) of Tim Curry (what a dreamboat! I lurve him!) and, because I love you, I have displayed it below this post. Now, I'd like for you to try to appreciate, yes, for they are phenomenal, the special effects, but pay particular attention to the lyrics.

Actually, that's all I'm going to write, so without further ado, I bring you... Tim Curry!