Spiders, Jellies, and Blushing Brides

It's been a very eclectic yet fulfilling, busy yet relaxing, long yet not long enough sort of weekend...

We started Thursday evening by having my dad over for dinner. My mom and younger brother went on a road trip to southern Illinois to visit my mom's side of the family and work in a few college visits at the same time. Needless to say, my dad can't cook, so I promised Mama I'd invite him over at least once so he wouldn't starve! I made my very first pork roast, and I promise, after trying that recipe, it won't be my last! It was fabulous if I do say so myself!! It was nice to have Daddy to myself (well, I had to share him with Patrick, but you get the idea)...even when he mentioned that he had an office potluck to attend this weekend and, thinking my mom might be home by then, had volunteered to bring a dessert. Since she won't be back on the East Coast until Tuesday, he'd planned to buy some sort of sweet thing at the grocery. Well, being the wonderful daughter that I am, I graciously (yes, I am very blatantly complimenting myself here) offered to whip up a Key Lime pie for him to take. Daddy now owes me lunch! Score!

Friday, I didn't have class and Patrick took the day off work, so we went down to the now famous other house (I suppose I can no longer call it The Rental) and made some of the repairs identified at the home inspection. Among the projects were installing insulation, fixing a couple of electrical sockets that were mis-wired (yes, ma'am, I did that, thank you very much!), repairing the handrail on the stairs, and a few other things. The rest we're leaving for a handyman to fix. Here's hoping we close soon. Anyway, while we were there, we saw one of these spiders:

Have you seen one like this? I plan to do some research to find out what type it is, as we recently found one at our house. The web is quite intricate and almost looks like it has strange writing, a la Charlotte's Web, in it. Hmmm...

Saturday we woke up early and I made Dad's pie. Then we went to the gym as soon as it opened and I delivered said pie while Patrick packed the cars for the beach. I say cars because we dropped my car off at the dealership to get my stereo replaced (a few CDs were jammed in there so badly they had to take the whole thing out and just replace it; now they have to send the old stereo away to retrieve my discs and then mail them to me later!). After entrusting my Mazda to the service department, we drove up to Yorktown Beach, a little-known local favorite on the York River (the same place we spent 4th of July). We melted on the beach for several hours (we're in a 110 degree heat wave here in Virginia), and finally decided to cool off with a dip in the water, where I promptly got stung on the ass (ya know, that place right under your butt cheek, where your bathing suit doesn't cover) by a jellyfish. Yay. I happen to have a bad history with jellies (that is a whole different post though) so I was less than thrilled, but this was a minor sting and really just annoyed me since I was really hot and would have loved to relax in the cool water without worrying about annoying stinging sea life!

So, after plucking the little tentacles off my butt, we dried off and went across the street to one of our favorite dives, The Yorktown Pub:

We chose a high-top table by the windows so we could watch the beachcombers and interesting biker folks and ordered a massive plate of loaded nachos, as per Hagan House tradition. Not long after, however, a cougar-looking lady walked in wearing a long white gown. Now call me a snob, but it was one of those dresses that looks like it was supposed to be (or possibly even perceived by the buyer to be) a luxurious satin gown with sparkling diamonds at the bust, but in reality it was a tacky and cheap-looking long nightgown with some plastic "jewels" bedazzled on the front. Yeah, this woman was classy. Anyway, the whole place was staring at her as she hiked up the skirt and began guzzling beers with her biker buddies. Well, after our meal, we went back to the beach chuckling about how it takes all kinds to make the world go round, and how we've certainly seen some weirder (more weird?!?) individuals, and plopped back onto our towels.

Fast forward an hour or so, to when I was aroused from my sun-drenched nap to cheering and hollering down the beach. I looked to see a group of people, all of whom were dressed more formally than the hot beach required, and I realized it was a wedding. Hmm, I thought, Yorktown Beach is quaint, but it's not quite that elegant-quaint I'd want for my own wedding; oh well, to each her own. That is when I heard the roar of a Harley and later saw the wedding party, to include our white clad, bar hopping cougar who was very obviously the bride! Now I don't want to rain on anyone's wedding parade or take away the happiness of her day, but it was a little over the top when she hopping from Harley to Harley and demanded each burly biker man ride her up and down the street hollering "Take me to my huuuussss-band!" the entire time. Oh yeah, and she was still riding and hollering when we packed up and left an hour later...

Like I said, an eclectic weekend...but at least it gave me something fun(ny) to blog about!