It might be adulthood, or it might be America, or it might be American adulthood...but I am just about sick of this.  From the time the alarm goes off in the morning (5:30 am) until the time I come home (usually 10 pm) I am either working or doing chores.  And I am sick of it.  Clearly, the only solution is to move to Europe where they have 5 hour work days and 50 days of vacation per year.  And they can drink at lunch.  Hell, they can probably even get high at lunch.  And they don't have to shower every day. 

This "puritan work ethic" crap is a killer and the reason we are all obese and have heart attacks in our forties.

I went to meet the photographer last night. Instead of actually speaking to the photographer, I spent two hours with his wife.  She was about 70 and a dead ringer for Lilly Tomlin's phone company lady.  She had long, fake nails and cat's eye-ish glasses.  She would stop in the middle of a sentence, hold her long red nails to her forehead and exclaim "Whoops, I had a brain toot!".  I heard her entire life story about three times in the period I was there.  It's not like she had to sell me on their services; I knew I would book them when I walked in.  I thought I was so clever having an off season wedding, but now I am competing with every corporate Christmas party in town.  To be honest, of the 7 photographers that I can afford, they were the only ones open. 

She started off the meeting by handing me a film canister labeled "stool sample" and challenged me to open it.  Basically, opening that thing was about the last thing on earth that I wanted to do.  I knew it wouldn't actually contain a stool sample, but I didn't really drive all of the way to Pontiac for a social visit.  I didn't feel like I could easily get out of this game, so I opened it.  It contained a small wooden stool, the kind that you sit on.  She cracked up and laughed until it became a coughing fit and I thought I'd have to give her CPR.  A little later, she went off on a tangent about how awful she looks when she is dehydrated.  So she offered me a beverage.  Once again, I felt like I needed to go along.  So I ended up trying Sierra Mist for the first time in my life.  It was sickeningly sweet. 

While showing me their album creation software, she gave me this speech:
"I don't cook, bake, sew, or have babies anymore, so this fulfills my need for a creative outlet.  God has instilled in every one of us a need to be creative, and - since I can't have any more babies - I make wedding albums".

Then she told me about her son and how "everything he touches crumbles".  This topic was brought up because I told her that we plan on going to Belize for a honeymoon.  Her son has just quit his job and sold his house because he is going to start a restaurant in Belize.  Then she asked me if I could check on her son during my honeymoon.

She finished the appointment by telling me all about "the gays".  You see, "the gays" ruined her home town public schools by not having babies.  Not that she would want "the gays" to have babies.  Because she wouldn't.  She doesn't even want to think about "the gays" but they keep reminding her about their existence.    She complained that the downtown of her town (this is Royal Oak) is now a bustling center of entertainment, bars and restaurants.  It used to be so much better when it was "as dead as a hammer".  Damn, gays reviving Royal Oaks economy!  How dare they!

Even though this woman is crazy, I still feel pretty good about the place as a whole.  The woman scheduled out my wedding day (complete with "potty breaks").  She insisted that we cut the cake before dinner, which I don't want to do, but I figure that I can work that out in December.