A little known fact--John likes to get drunk and clean. He does a really, really thorough job and cleans and organizes like a maniac. Apparently, this runs in the family. Last night I went out with my girlfriends from college. Ever see a 27 week pregnant woman at a bar? Well I was there tearing up the town...what? I drank water, the bars are smoke free and the music wasn't loud. I thought I could be there if I wanted to be (that being said, I got the stink eye from quite a few women...I'm guessing it's because I'm such a hot mama. Um, maybe).

So anyways, while I was downing water like nobody's business; John, his mom, sister and my niece had a rum and Coke party/dance party/cleaning party (heavy on all three). I have to admit...the place was getting a little run down and I just didn't have it in me to give it the full work over. I'll blame it on pregnancy but I never have it in me to give the house a thorough cleaning. Cleaning is someone else's work, I just live here--I do enough to keep people from talking about me, John's family KNOWS how to clean. Anyways, now I'm sitting in my perfect clean house. After getting over the initial embarrassment of them seeing the place in this state (I mean it was pretty bad in here), I relished in the awesomeness it is to have a nice clean house. They vacuumed my couch (who has the time for that!)! My stairs (you know how hard that is)! Things are clean that I didn't even know could come clean.

I'm getting them all drunk on a bi-weekly basis from now on. That's a promise.

Every year (um for me, that means the past two years) we go out for John and his sister's birthdays since they are only two days (and four years) apart...and every year we go to Red Lobster. This is what happened at this year's luncheon:

Along with other gifts, John's dad gave him a newspaper clipping of the Star Wars exhibit in the city. It was really cute because his dad took notes to show John how cool it will be for him. His dad was utterly shocked when I told him that John didn't want to go to see it! And then I went on to explain that John's "trying" to branch out and find more interests other than just Star Wars (which isn't really true...he already has TONS of interests other than Star Wars but I was trying to get everyone to understand that). I mean, I'm doing this for my own self preservation. I now live with a Darth Vader cookie jar, we have Star Wars chess, DVD Trivial Pursuit Star Wars edition, and a life size fathead of Darth Vader down in our bar***none of which was purchased by John***, but honestly? I don't really want to have to keep decorating around Vader. He's cool and all...but he doesn't quite mesh with my love of Crate and Barrel.

Good thing I stopped explaining the lessened interest in Star Wars when I did because just then, John's mom arrived with three lovely gifts. A plush Vader who inexplicably had a baggie of jelly beans tethered to his arm, a Vader coin purse in the shape of an egg and a Star Wars Easter egg decorating kit. The jelly beans were quite tasty, and I will use the Vader coin purse because I won't look as dorky as John will if I leave it in my desk drawer. I guess we'll have to make Easter eggs and post the pictures because...well...that's just what you do when you receive an egg decorating kit.

Our waitress looked very frightened of us and very new...this appeared to be a messy combination. She became flustered when dropping off the entrees and ended up spilling butter all down John's brother's back leaving a very greasy and ugly stain. Let's just say he wasn't happy and he quietly expressed his unhappiness with the rest of the table. But John can't let anything go, so he flung cocktail sauce on the shirt (I'm not sure why? But he did it with glee...that much I know), which led most of the people at the table to believe that the waitress spilled that too. John cleared it up to keep his karma slate clean and received glares from his brother and a bemused look from me...I'm still not sure why he was flinging sauces!

Because John's brother was so upset about his sweatshirt, both John's sister and mom went into what I call "Mom Mode" (you know when your mom does anything and everything to make something right, even when you don't want them to) and began plotting the demise of the waitress...OK, so they didn't so much plot her demise as they plotted on getting free meals out of the deal. In fact, in a very loud voice John's sister exclaimed, "You should at least get a free dinner for that, or maybe even three!" She, was just trying to be helpful and cheer her brother up but it was loud...and it was embarrassing! In fact, so much so that John and I ran away from the table just to get away from everyone and the whole sweatshirt debacle. We received more than a few glares on our way out for our temporary reprieve. Because we all love each other, all was forgiven when we got back to the table but of course, John can make a joke of anything so we heard this from his mouth:

-Man, crab legs are messy….. Miss? Could I get more of my brother's shirts when you get a chance?

The rest of the long lunch almost alludes me because between our Alotta Colada (insert alotta vagina jokes here...) , Red Lobster's code word for ENORMOUS pina colada shared Lady and the Tramp style between John and I and my belly full of food, causing us both to slip in and out of a food coma. I came to here and there listening to John's brother talk about the military, Iraq, shooting things and martial arts. Don't get me wrong, his stories are always interesting but I was too focused on how much longer I could keep my jeans buttoned without dying.

Lunch with the fam, obviously there's never a dull moment. Seriously, it was 3 hours of pure blogging gold but I couldn't take notes at the table!! Next time, I'm just going to do it!

What is more fun than priming the back bedroom on Cinqo de Mayo? Laying on the guest bed drinking wine while John does it!

Favorite quote after bottle number one? Um, M? I think you need to eat your other half of your hoagie...you know, to soak it up?

Did the hoagie work? No. There was no real bringing me back after that. However, I was entertainment for others that night.

What's less fun than getting drunk in your spare bedroom? Going to baby showers slightly hungover. It was a happy occasion where John's sister looked gorgeously pregnant (she's one of those people that can pull this off...I fear, that I will pull off the house-like pregnant woman look). However, one conversation sticks in my mind as the worst train wreck of conversations I've ever experienced. Here, let's see what you think:

John's Aunt (from now on known as JA): Melina, you look like you've lost weight since the wedding.

Me: Um, maybe. **starting to blush** (no, I haven't lost weight)

JA: It's always a shame when a bride is a little heavy at her wedding because those pictures stick with you for a lifetime and you'll always have to see them.

Me: Uh, yeah...I guess...I don't know, I don't care that much, I was happy so I ate a little more than I would've. **trying hard to keep my game face on when I wanted to crawl under the table and rock a little**

John: (trying to help a little, patted his belly) We both did!

JA: John you looked good in the pictures.

**subcontext** apparently, I did not! There was much more to this conversation, including when she told me I wasn't as big as "a poor 300 lb girl that she photographed" (! what?!? I'm not even FAT!!! was I a little chubbier than I would've like to be at my wedding, sure...but fat? NO), but the sad part of the whole thing was, she was trying to give me a compliment. It just went horribly wrong.

After that, any time that John asked me if I wanted anything to eat, I declined politely.

1:41 am, that's what the clock said to me when I looked at it blearily as the dog was going wild. "What's going on?" I thought to myself. The dog rarely barks and when she does, it's for attention. This time the dog was beside herself, running up and down the stairs--growling and snarling at the door. That was enough for me to be concerned.

I had just relocated myself to the couch downstairs about a half hour beforehand because I couldn't stop coughing. I didn't want to keep John up so I just decided to curl up and be miserable downstairs. I sat up in the darkness and said, "What's up? What d'ya hear?" and then I heard it too...the front door knob was turning! I thought for a moment, "Did we remember to lock the door before we went to bed?"( sadly, I'm a little lax here in the Cornfield, but I guess I probably shouldn't be). And then again, I thought a little harder, "HOLY SHIT! Did we or did we not lock the door?!?" With that petrifying thought running wildly in my head. I quickly screamed up the stairs, "John! There's someone here! And they're trying to get inside!"
He yelled back to me, "I heard! Don't worry, it's locked and I'm taking care of it!"
From downstairs I heard him throw up the window in our bedroom and bellow out into the darkness, "Hey! What's going on down there? What do you want?"
And then I heard, "Hey, it's ER...can I stay here tonight?" followed by some girlish giggles in the background. It appeared that ER was not alone.

Finally, it all came together for me, and my heart slowed a little. John's brother has just moved back into the state after his three year relationship ended, and he's staying with John's dad who expressed that there should be no sleepover guests of any kind...a rule that ER already broke last week, and because of this caught a little hell. This morning it was nice to see that he tried to give us a head's up. ER sent both of us a text message at 12:30 am asking if it would be ok if he brought a girl over to our house. Unfortunately for him, we'd already been sleeping for about two hours and never got the message.

ER is a good looking kid so to be safe, I think we should probably just give him a key...or we'll be waking up the neighborhood on a daily basis! Who knew our cuddle puppy was actually a half decent guard dog??