S'up, Muh DAB? - Is this Bye Bye? Part 2

Allow me to describe the setting of the event which led to the demise of Muh DAB, Brett.

At the time of the wedding, I was engaged in a long bit of cat sitting.

The wedding was in Long Beach. Hotel rooms were utilized.

Normally, I would have gotten a room to be close to the wedding party

for the weekend of events, but I had cats, lovely, lovely cats to sit.

So, what it meant was, in order for me to attend all of the wedding weekend events,

I’d have to drive to Long Beach and back every day.

AND I DID because I wanted to be there for everything;

I had already felt separated, enough!

The first event was a light food and cocktail get together on Friday night,
a night to greet the out-of-towners and make sure people got settled in nicely.
I, for dang sure, wanted to go to that!
How much more would I be separated if the out-of-towners didn’t see/meet me?
…and there were cocktails!

The next day was the day of the wedding.

Close friends of the grooms arrived early, 

shared in some pre-wedding cocktails

and took fancy wedding pictures. 

This is Brett and his gang

I thought not to let the fancy clothes and locale go to waste

and shot a couple of portraits

(Kate Romero turned the camera on me)

After pictures, we had more pre-wedding Cocktails...

People started arriving...

While that was going on, 

the lovely Aynsley prepared to officiate!

Then, it happened.

Aynsley hitched them.

(I don't have any photos of it happening, 

because I actually wanted to be present and

let the hired photographer catch those moments while I

cried enjoyed the ceremony.)

And just like that,

they were married and the reception started!
People went nuts!

We ate!

We danced!

And we drank!

It was a great reception!!

The next day was the post-wedding brunch!

It was a lovely affair

at Parkers' Lighthouse!

We all enjoyed a breakfast buffet

and Mimosas!

After a few hours of enjoyment,

toasts were made,

husbands were kissed,

and we were sent on our merry way

to kill a few hours 

before the pizza party wind down

later that evening.

A small group of us decided to get a four person bike thingy

and ride along the beach path.

I took a few pics of the beach fauna

That dumb thing was terribly hard to power,

which you would think would be easy with four people peddling,

but you would be wrong.

We ran into some copy-cats on our way back

...and they didn't look like they were working as hard as we were...

maybe we had a flat tire.

At the end of the ride,

my fellow riders went to retire to their hotel rooms 

for the next four hours until the wind down.

I didn't want to drive back to L.A.,

then back down to Long Beach.

So I did the only sensible thing,

I walked over to the local movie house 

and bought a ticket to a nap palace

where they read me a bedtime story called 

ALADDIN.

I was very tired from the late night, 

early morning and four wheeling adventures,

so I slept through most of this movie.

After my colorful nap, 
I had just a little time to walk around the nifty shops 

across from the hotel.
The timing was perfect.

Finally, the last wedding weekend event;

The Pizza Party wind-down.
...and because Brett is fun, it was a 

PAJAMA Pizza Party!

We had a lovely time!

Most notably, 

we had fun playing Dennis Hensley's

You Don't Know My Life

And, also because Brett is Brett, 

we had a Pajama photo shoot

(That's how I wound up in Bed with Reba McEntire)

Eventually we said our goodbyes

and I got back to the cats for their late dinner

and that was that.

In the span of three days, 

I celebrated Brett's wedding

and lamented the loss of one of my top DABs.

Die Alone Buddies are hard to come by

and mine are dropping like flies!

Stay tuned, 

and I'll tell share with you 

how the 2 years + of Brett's marriage have gone for me.

Gay of A Certain Age - Craft Night 2020

I hope you are staying home, flattening the curve and reading my spottily-updated blog!!

I am traveling back in time to January, to the night my friends and I gathered for cutting & pasting, drinking & gabbing and crafting & laughing: Craft Night 2020!!
This is the night we gather to handcraft Valentines for loved ones and sometimes ourselves.  ...Well, I usually make for myself.

You may never have seen this amount of hearts, paper, scissors, glue, glitter, ribbon, stickers, magazines and porn all together in one place like you see in my apartment!

Over the course of 6 hours, my friends popped in & out and brightened my yearly reminder that I am not alone!

It is really the only night I ever have anyone in my apartment, so I don't mind the little bit of effort it takes to drag in a few tables and chairs and pull out a crapload of supplies and order some tasty eats to make people gathering fun.

By spreading the time out to six hours, I get to spend more time crafting & chatting with smaller groups of friends, instead of running around making sure everybody is supplied & sated.  That way, I get to catch up with folks I may not have seen in awhile... and I have fun, too!

And, of course, my group of friends is a talented, creative and FUNNY group, so the laughs are plenty.  I can always count on Dudley Beene to keep me in stitches, especially with his hilarious (and often naughty) cards.

That's awful!! ...but I'm laughing.

Another aspect of Craft Night that's really taking hold is is the Craft Night photo booth. 
I recently inherited a king size bed (or bigger reminder that I sleep alone), so I had less room for the set up, but people seemed to make due...

 

 

With all the photo fun, it's surprising there was time to craft cards... but we had 6 hours, so we did it all!

So yes, we did craft cards.  Here's one of mine:

I'll show more of everybody's cards in the next post.

As a Gay of A Certain Age, I know how important it is to bring friends together to let them know they are welcome in your home and in your heart.  I know creating stuff together is a great way to share magic moments.  I know I am not alone.  I know I can't wait for next year!!

I also know, you should always test your photo booth before you have people over!