Things I Learned This Weekend

Nordstrom has very pretty dresses. 
Friday night was our first attempt at finding bridesmaid dresses for B's wedding. Since we'll be wearing black, we're trying out a few national chains in addition to the standard wedding sources. We haven't found "the one" yet, but it was fun to try pretty dresses on. 

It never gets easier to watch your team lose.
Oh, Carolina basketball. I'll love y'all forever, but you're kind of killing me.

Never let your freakishly strong friend handle the wine stopper.
I have the cutest/tackiest wine stopper with a woman's legs coming out of the stopper. Brandie, who you'll recall is an arm wrestling beast, was trying to get it out and ripped her poor legs right off! 

Playing Wii games with friends is a good antidote to bad basketball.
This was our second Wii Game Night and it was another success. I finally got a second remote and we played Wii Sports. And laughed a lot.

We're a little too good at punching.
The boxing game is awesome for pent up aggression. Which we had a lot of apparently.

Tennis is really really hard.
For me. B and K did great. We may have to credit B's commitment to the game, as she's seen here pretending to bounce the tennis ball, just like the pros.

Rameses makes a good bowling partner.
At least according to Brandie.

Vindication can be found in Wii bowling. 
For years, my family's made fun of the way I leap a little when I Wii bowl. My friends were making fun of me too, until I had 2 strikes and about 6 spares, all because of the leap. How do I know it was the leap? Because as soon as K and B tried the leap, they too, scored higher. It's all in the leap, people! 

 
I can quote the vast majority of "Clueless." 
And not just sporadically. 

Justin Bieber needs to stay away from my "Saturday Night Live."
I've seen every episode of SNL since 1997. Even the ones where Eminem was the musical guest. So I feel confident in saying that Bieber seriously needs to leave my show alone. 

Every Sunday should start with "Sabrina" on the big screen. 
My friend Sasha alerted me to the fact that a D.C. theatre was showing Audrey's "Sabrina." I, of course, leapt at the chance to see it and to introduce Sasha to another Audrey film—it's only her second one! (Her first being BAT outside a few summers ago.)

I could listen to "The Weight" on repeat forever. 
I found myself really enjoying the Grammy's this year, no part more so than the collaborative tribute to The Band's "The Weight." I seriously love that song

A Wee Bit of Wii

My brother finally relinquished his Wii to me last year. (He had a new system and never played it, it's not like I beat him to get it.) However, I only ever use it to stream Netflix. But since the ladies and I wanted to get together before Karey left for work travel, and none of us really felt like going out, a Wii night in it was! K and I picked up Bojangles from Union on the way to Brandie's, we all changed into comfy clothes, and then settled in for a night of carbs, wine, and Wii.

Karey didn't have a system growing up and Brandie played Super Nintendo more, so it was up to me to school the ladies in the ways of the original Super Mario Brothers. And by "school" I mean, despite still knowing all the shortcuts, die repeatedly as I screamed obscenities and tried to still my rapidly beating heart.  And the stress only ratcheted when B played due to her refusal to hit every coin. Seriously, who just speeds by perfectly good coins?

After Mario, Mario 2, and a few random games, we found an air hockey game we all liked. Though, as you can tell from the pictures, Karey casually dominated at it. I mean, look, Brandie and I are standing up, half-hunched over, and Karey is just sipping her wine on the couch as she destroys us. That's cold.

After the more active games we settled in for what would end up being a very long game of LIFE. Which I won.

I don't think we'll be totally eschewing brunches and dinners and drinks, but it's nice to know we can always spend a night together in our PJs sucking at Wii.

The Mighty Wii

I almost forgot about the most enlightening/demeaning part of the Fourth. As the night wound down, when we should have been slipping into our fireworks and food comas, Joey pulled out the Wii fit.

I've been hearing about this nifty, albeit odd, exercise contraption since they bought it a few months ago. I'm not a big fan of video games -- I don't mind them, I just don't like to play them -- but I am intrigued by all the capabilities and features of the Wii. Which was what led me to step on the spaceship-like Wii board and place my health in its non-existent hands.

The good news? I'm just barely above underweight. The bad news? Everything else. After I painfully and slowly completed the first balance test, I was haughtily inquired of by the avatar: "Wow, do you find yourself tripping a lot when you walk?"

You know, little fake person whose sole role is to live in a computer and judge others, I do have trouble walking, but at least I can walk.

I wish I could say it only got better, but no, Snooty McAvatar didn't stop there. It then went on to calculate my Wii Age -- whatever the hell that is, it didn't actually define it or give you some idea of where they are coming from, which I have a problem with, but anyway -- which is, drum roll please, 50!

50!

Nothing against 50 year olds, but I'm 25. Unless my Wii age comes with the benefits of an AARP membership and the knowledge that I can retire in 15 years, I'm not too thrilled about this. It also means that when I actually do hit 50 my balance will be so off I won't be able to stand upright.

As if not demoralized enough, I then attempted the step program. Oh no. Rhythm is apparently a key ingredient to Wii Aerobics and I've known for years I just don't have it. Notice the clenched right fist? I was contemplating punching all the little perfectly synchronized Miis.


The Perfect Child then steps up to the mat and proceeds to step and kick his way through the Step and Advanced Step programs. (He likes Advanced Step best because "he likes to kick.") Bastard.

The Perfect Child's girlfriend then takes her turn and steps, swivels, and dodges her way to high score after high score.

In the meantime I sit on the couch and deplore the completely unjust distribution of rhythm, athletic ability, and, apparently, the capability to walk without tripping, in my family. Whereas the brother excels at soccer, tennis, baseball, football, basketball, and Monopoly, I run into things and trip over my own feet. (To go even further on the subject of gene pool distribution, I have panic attacks in the middle of the night while he can count on one hand the number of times he has felt stressed. And let's not get started on which one studied to the point of sickness to pull A's while the other barely had to glance at a book to get theirs.)

Forget the Wii, I'm going to stick with walking in the evenings, which, as it turns out, is a difficult enough task for me.