In which I tell you about last weekend

Man, what a month March has been! I didn't get the chance to post last week. It's been a busy month at work. Our department is a couple of people short right now after one person got promoted and another one walked off the job in the middle of a workday, and everyone left behind is stressing over extra work to make up the slack. I've been too tired to do much of anything. I wanted to tell you about a couple of things that happened last weekend, though, so here I am!

We went to the Gladiators game on Saturday evening. It was St. Patrick's Day so I wore my special St. Patrick's hat that I got from Darlene's Uncle Ray. Unfortunately we didn't charge the camera before we went to the game so I don't have a photographic record of my seasonal haberdashery. I do still have it in the closet, though, so just holler sometime and you can see it.

We had a big Brady crowd at the game--13 of us went. The six of us in the Brady Bunch, my brother Bill, his wife Liz (who is 8 1/2 months pregnant, so I guess we had 14 people there if you count the internal Brady), their daughter Mia, my parents, Darlene's cousin Anthony "The Man" White (who came from Waynesville, NC just for the game), and Steven's friend Courtney. It was quite a group. The girls all had a lot of fun singing and dancing and screaming (Sage was the one who didn't even like hockey and didn't want to go to the game at all, and she wound up saying it was "her first fun hockey game!"), the boys chilled, and the grown-ups watched the game and chatted. Gwinnett won 5-1 to solidify first place in their division. The coolest thing of all was the fact that the ice was green. Pretty cool! In my opinion, the puck was easier to follow on the darker ice. It wasn't a shrill Irish green, more of a sort of pale pea-soup olive. It certainly made for an interesting experience at the game.

The next night after we dropped Sage off at her mom's house, the other five of the Bunch plus Courtney went to Chili's. The meal was great, but our waiter left a little to be desired. He was doing well until a female friend of his and her mom came in and sat at the table across from us. From then on, he was overattentive to that table and neglected the other tables in his area. The people next to us got a little cheesed off, but we pretty much kept it together until Courtney asked for a to-go cup for his milkshake. 15 minutes later the guy had been to his friend's table at least five times, squatted down to flirt with her and to look down her shirt for extended periods, but had not brought us our cup. Keep in mind that we had already paid, so unfortunately his tip was locked in. We just needed a cup so we could leave.

After a while it became a war of attrition between Darlene and the waiter. She was determined not to ask again for the cup. Courtney was taking copious, noisy swigs from his shake every time the guy walked by, hoping to draw his attention. No joy. Finally, Darlene grabbed the shake and headed for the door. One of the kids asked me, "Is she going to steal that cup?" I got up and followed, saying, "Looks like it." She didn't, though. She went to the hostess and proceeded to tell her exactly what had been going on at our table and the one across the aisle for the last 15 minutes. Then she told the story to the manager while the hostess got our cup. Needless to say, the manager was not pleased.

It was neat to see my wife cut up a little and "get ghetto" (as she calls it). She didn't raise her voice a whit, but she let them know that she was unhappy. It was a side of her I haven't seen before. Remind me to stay on her good side. I love you, baby! Your blog is better than mine and you're so sexy!