And then, if you go deep into the heartland of America's country-bumpkin' lands... you find those mega-Wal-Marts... the ones with a full-on grocery store and other amenities. It's sick. It's scary. It's like taking over the world.

Wal-Mart has quickly taken over the market of inexpensive "get-it-all-here" stores - much like K-Mart, Ames, and Bradlees did during the 70s and 80s. However, while stores like K-Mart have taken a turn for the worst by being referred to as the WORST OF THE WORST, Wal-Mart has risen to the top alongside it's quite shi-shi-er competitor, Target. Incidentally, there are also those Target stores with grocery stores. Again, scary.

So yeah, Wal-Mart... it's an evil thing, I tell you. It makes life so much more easier, but at the expense of your freakin' wallet. Cause while you're spending money on dirt-cheap things for the home - you're still spending money. And you tend to spend A LOT of it while you're out there gallavanting in Wal-Mart. And let me tell you that I've gallavanted through Wal-Marts cross-country: from the home base to Florida to even Texas. Why do I do it?! Who knows... The bottom line is, Wal-Mart is the work of the devil! So I'll see you there sometime, ahahaha...

On a non-related issue --- I really hate this old woman who works here in the office. She's always tryin' to creep up to see what you're doing, then she'll try to play it off and come to you to ask a question or something. What makes it worse, and in my particular case, she'll see my ass busy at work, right?! So why does trife lola go and SIT in my guest's chair and waits for me to literally give her a damn SECOND?! OH NO SHE DON'T!! And she's all smackin' her gum on her dentures, and that sound ANNOYS me to no end. Sometimes, I'll keep doing whatever I'm doing and let her ass sit there for like 10 minutes, and she'll STILL wait! OK, now SHE'S the devil. Forget Wal-Mart. This b!tch takes the cake. And she just WALKED passed my cubicle AGAIN. Oh see, I'ma have to take some holy water and bless the entrance of my cube. Maybe she'll melt or at least feel repelled from coming into my cube.

OH, and one other thing I hate... THE FREAKIN' RADIO COMMERCIAL FOR THAT TV SHOW SEVENTH HEAVEN. OK, this is the same damn commercial that they've been playing since Christmas time LAST year... the one where Lucy goes, "Dad, please don't let me down..." Then she cries, "I LOVE YOU, DADDY!" GOSH, can I vomit at that?! No really, what is that? Hasn't that episode already aired? Gosh, please update your freakin' commercial, 97.1! Does the WB even still show Seventh Heaven?! GOSH! 97.1 sucks. Too bad it's one of the only damn stations that I can get decent reception of here in the freakin' office. Hello?! Are we not in DC?! Do we not have super-mega antennas to help us get stations from like Guatemala and stuff?! I am super-peeved right now. Sing it Stevie Wonder. At least 97.1 plays Stevie Wonder.

So my cousin and I have been on the phone and on e-mail discussing the different things to take into consideration... Reception hall ideas (we have many... who ever knew that there were so many non-conventional hotel halls in the metro dc area?!), caterers, ideas for table center pieces, wedding favors, name plates, flowers, etc.-etc.-etc. Then there's the whole deal with fashion: namely figuring out what "to do" and what "not to do" in terms of fashion DOs and DON'Ts. First of all, they're having a fall wedding next year, which is OK. The weather can vary between a little warm to nice and comfy, so she's got a lot to work with here. She's looking into a tube dress with a wrap of some sorts (my cousin has ARM issues... LOL). For the guys, since it's fall I gave the nod to do anything with tails and flapper-tuxes. If they were getting married in the spring or summer, those tuxes with tails (penguin tuxes) would be a major FASHION DON'T. Also, since it's a fall wedding, they can actually sport gray tuxes. Black is the quintessential color, but during the spring/summer you can rock whites or navys. But reserve the grays for fall/winter weddings. Then for the ladies, she's looking into a wine color - which is perfect for fall. And she's considering having them walk down the aisle with a stalk of calla lillies --- totally the "IN" thing in weddings these days.

I'm excited for my cousin(s), Jackie/Warren... and excited for my other friends - esp. Florence/Jun, Charisse/Josef, and Debbie/Godfrey. It should be an awesome year of weddings. Even though I feel all wedding-ed out, it'll be fresh and new next year. This year, I've had my share of weddings... I should say the past few years. My cousin(s), Chrissy/Alvin, had an awesome wedding last summer. Fr. Dan was their priest, and they had a pretty gorgeous reception at the JW Marriott on Penn Ave. AWESOME reception: elegant and classy. Ditto for my friends, Arlene/Mike. Their wedding early this summer at the Capital Hilton was simply amazing. Everything from the rehearsal dinner to the ceremony to the church to the reception was just BOMB. You can tell that they both put their heart and soul into their wedding to make it truly "one to remember..." Hey, it's THEIR wedding, so they did all they could to make it BOMB. With that being said, I've had my share of big and small weddings this year. My friends, Krishna/Pat, had a relatively small wedding (compared to alvin's and then mike's), but it was nonetheless classic. The church ceremony was simple, yet very homey. Then the reception hall was PERFECT. It was beachside, with a pretty awesome pre-lunch reception, and an awesome selection of dishes for lunch. Totally good. I think that the dinner/lunch menu that you choose in a wedding is really important. You gotta have the right mix of cuisines - and your main?! Make sure you hit either that chicken breast, the prime rib, or a shrimp combo. AHAHAHAH... No really, that makes for an elegant wedding reception.

The church also plays a major role. The brighter, the better. I must say that the best church I've seen in recent times was in Seattle, where my friends (now my Godsis/Godbro) Grace/Tyrone got married. The church wasn't overwhelmingly huge, but it wasn't small either. But the best thing about it was the lighting. There was so much natural light that everything was just bright and great. It worked well with the color scheme that Grace chose for her wedding. So you gotta be wary when it comes to picking your church.

All this wedding talk can be quite overwhelming. Makes me wanna get married. But that will come in time... In due time. AHAHAAH... In the meantime, let me just laugh about something OFF subject here. The other night, at Li's grad dinner, we were totally laughing about "double-dutch" stances. Do you know what that is? It's what those girls do right before they enter the double dutch ropes... They'd stand off to the side and kinda rock back and forth until they were ready to jump in. ANYWAY, I made a joke about it - about being like those ghetto girls from southern PG county who'd rock HARD back and forth (with a puckered lip) before jumping in. After I did my impression, we could NOT help but laugh. So then I asked Carrie and Ning what their double dutch stance was, so tell me WHY they did some thing with their arms in the air... It was SO funny. We could NOT stop trying to figure it out. AHAHAHAAH! We came to the conclusion that it was pretty much a northern PG county thing --- we got the ghetto, they got the white. LOL! Awww, I love you double dutchers. You guys rock my world. AHAHAH.

I'm officially on diet mode. I have roughly 3-4 weeks before I head out to Riverside (CA) for the SFC Conference. I'm on a mission to lose 10 lbs. before then. Diet mode starts NOW.

My current song of inspiration: YOU SAID. You can find it on one of the Hillsongs compilations which you'll most likely see in the Christian Music section at your local music store/Best Buy/Target. Check it.

So anyway - the surprise started off poorly. Everyone was running late - traffic was horrendous. Couldn't help that. But it was just embarrassing. If you do these reservation-types of restaurants often, you KNOW the etiquette. It's quite "cheap" to have to change reservations up and down in any given time frame (especially within a day). And it's even worse to have a large party with people showing-up late. It's just something you DON'T do. But anyway - it was all a very bad misscommunications issue: CORRECT messages were NOT being relayed, messages were NOT being passed-on ON TIME, yada-yada-yada. It was a big mess, and when we were first arriving there, it was worse because it was kind of crowded. But as the night moved on, and the restaurant started to empty, things got a LOT better. THANK GOD.

What made it a great night was that, for the most part, the whole TG was present - and we're not just talking about the usual (the usual being Godfrey, Jun, myself, Elle, Katz, Debz, and Romella...), but we also had Josef, Charisse, and Tyrone - original members of what used to be "the Tuesday group," now fondly referred to as "TG." LONG STORY. ANYWAY. So yeah, we were one complete FAMILY and that was the best. Hope that Cha had a good time. happy birthday, gurl!!

But lesson for the wise here... PLEASE do not do this AGAIN - esp. when you're at a restaurant that requires reservations. And I'm not speaking to anyone in particular, I'm speaking to ANYONE who reads this damn thing, MYSELF INCLUDED CAUSE I WAS ALSO LATE. When you're at a restaurant that bascially requires you to make reservations, and IF you're going to be a part of a HUGE party, then PLEASE... follow the correct protocol:
#1 IF YOU'RE GONNA BE LATE, please advise at LEAST one hour before hand. IF you know you're gonna be late even before that, then by all means PLEASE let someone know EVERY detail (i'm really late, might not make dinner; i'll be 15 mins. late; hold seats for us, we're comin' in a half hour; etc.).
#2 BE courteous to those who are planning the event... they're the ones who have to go through the stares, the comments, and the complaints (if any) that the restaurant staff may have. The event planner is the one who stresses about the plans, NOT the celebrant. The celebrant is there to enjoy his/herself.
#3 IF everyone gets there late, but still receives impeccable service - the party AS A WHOLE should tip generously. Holding-up a server's table (or tables) can cost them valuable TIPS. So compensate them with your generosity. If they add the tip to the bill, then HEEEEEEEYYYY! Yo' a$$ is SET.
#4 Enjoy, have a good time... And just be glad that the celebrant is having a great time, too.
REMEMBER, if it ain't Bennigan's of TGIFriday's or IHOP, and if it requires reservations... pump the etiquette up a notch. Don't treat a dinner experience at TenPenh as if it's a dinner experience at Sweet Water Tavern. Both may have equally exquisite quisine, BUT they're both totally different in terms of ambience. Use your judgement. And if you're out often, learn from your experiences...use what you know. And knowing is half the battle.

Instead of wallowing in the sorrow that are my bills, let's move on. Oh wait, I still have to pay for my SFC Conference registration -- *ACK* I really don't wanna pay for it, but shoot. Might as well. I should start soliciting a "PAY FOR WEN'S CONFERENCE FEE" fund. You think I'm kidding?! Shoot... I'm about to. OK - didn't I say enough about financial woes?! DAYAM!!

So it's Friday, and it's gloomy. I saw on the news last night that it's gonna be trife for the next WEEK. It'll be rainy and trife. I don't really like "rainy and trife." But I guess you gotta just deal with the cards that Mother Nature hands you, right?! Yeah. So - life is fine. Life is good. Life is BEAUTIFUL. That should be my personal mantra: LIFE IS BEAUTIFUL. I'm always saying that... You see me say it on this thing at least once a month; maybe even more. Whatever. While I totally believe that life IS indeed beautiful, right now I personally feel ugly and FAT. GOSH. And I'm sore. Man... that's what I get with my inconsistency at the gym - well, with the weights, at least. I'm sore, It's gloomy outside, and I'm broke. And to top it all off, I feel fat... it's the cherry to top the very, very FATTENING sundae that is my life today. *ARGH*

But it's August, and that means we're getting closer and closer to FALL! OMG, I totally cannot wait until fall! I get to sport my jackets, and coats, and sweaters, and all that other good stuff. FALL is the season for looking your best. Seriously. While summer is all about looking your best NAKED, fall is all about looking your best a la Abercrombie & Fitch. It's when you start to layer the clothing...and the layered look has so much appeal. AHAHAHA... Here I go with my mental babble on what looks are IN and stuff. I don't feel like talking about it anymore.

Last night I saw that they were playing some Mary Tyler Moore show on PRIME TIME. Now I don't know what that was all about, but it was a total TV retrospective. Personally, I never watched the show. I think I may have been too young to care about the prime-time TV sitcom back in the day. I was more concerned with watching "The Muppet Show..." YOU KNOW YOU WATCHED IT, TOO. But yeah, I know that Mary Tyler Moore had a show and that Valerie Harper was in it. So yeah, some Mary Tyler Moore/Valerie Harper show was totally on last night. It was weird. I thought I had stumbled on some history channel or something, but it was straight-up ABC or CBS.

But speaking of "The Muppet Show..." I remember being young in Jacksonville, FL. I may have been in kindergarten. But I'd come home from school, after whining and crying about not wanting to go to school in the AM, ready to rest. My mom would make me take a nap, then she'd wake me up to watch the Muppets, and she'd have a sandwich prepared for me: peanut butter and jelly. YUM! And then after the Muppets, the network would segue to Sha-na-na. OMG, SHA-NA-freakin'-NA! Can you believe I used to watch that ish?! But yeah, I remember those times. I remember those days... when I was young and unassuming. When I had no care in the world. Then we moved to Washington, DC - and the power-bug bit me. I quickly adapted to the "DC LIFE" even as a child. I became mean, fast, and definitely hard-faced. I didn't watch Muppets anymore. Instead, I watched "Superfriends..." And then "Smurfs..." And then I just became mean to everyone and everything. Ahhh, how I love my life.

Can I just tell you that Elliott in the Morning's laugh is the most annoying thing I've ever heard?! He's a smart and witty guy, but that laugh... it's like a cackle that makes you so angry that you just wanna punch your fist through the radio and hit his face so hard that he can't laugh ever again. Do you ever feel that? AHAHA... Oh well. Maybe it's just ME. *rolls eyes*