June 22nd
Before the party was the mass where Mama and Papa renewed their vows. The church had AC, so the process was much more enjoyable than I expected. Though the music was too loud for me, and there were certain notes that resonated in a most unpleasing way.
Then the power went out. They fired up a generator, but it didn’t cover the AC units, so it got warm quick. The next wrinkle was they’d sent the cars back, as the reception hall was just a ‘short’ walk away and the wrong way on all the now one-way streets. My wife forgot to bring a belt, resulting in my pants dragging on the ground, so I walked with my ‘skirts hitched up’ all the way to everyone’s amusement. If I were in jogging shorts and tennis shoes, the walk would have been inconsequential, but because it was in dress clothes/shoes, it was a very long, hot, tedious walk.
Thankfully, either the power had come back on or the reception hall had beefy enough generators to power the AC, the hall was cool. But not the bathroom, which stank quite badly. The music wasn’t too loud, evidently my mother-in-law’s entreaties to turn the volume down were taken seriously. It was a one-man band, in that he sang and played saxophone with a recorded music background. He was quite good, actually.
The food was good and I was seated next to someone I enjoyed conversing with, but the main issue for me was the official start of the reception wasn’t until 7 and we were there before 6. I would have much rather spent that hour taking a nap (the reception hall is only a few blocks away from the house). I left around 9 ish, I believe, and went right to sleep. I think they wrapped up around 1, as that’s the time my wife said it was when she joined me in bed.
I was told we were going to leave at 2 in the afternoon for our 5:30 flight to the house in Cebu we’ve rented for 5 days. I was very unhappy about getting to the airport 3 hours early for a 45 minute flight, but learned my opinions in these regards mean nothing. I was surprised, then, when we didn’t leave until around 4. The drive was a long one, but probably not even 30 minutes. So we supposedly only had an hour to kill. Our fearless leader in the airport was my sister-in-law Lolyn (she and her husband built a house about 12 miles away from our place in Shenandoah) and she decided to check in all the bags for everyone by herself. I’m quite certain it would have been faster if we checked in ourselves, but we had time to kill.
Way more time than I expected, as the damn plane was an hour late. A prop plane and it has no AC, so it was a hot sweaty ride. And only 35 minutes in the air, barely enough time to hand out bottled water and a peanut butter roll. I declined both, but had one of the saved rolls later and it was quite tasty.
When we landed and deplaned, one of my nephews (actually, a grand nephew), couldn’t find his passport. Thus, our party wound up getting split, with our son on the wrong side of it. Fortunately, nothing came out of it; our nephew found his passport and our son connected with us at the baggage claim. We wound up waiting a lot longer, again, than I wanted for the vans to arrive to pick us up. Two vans only held 20 people, so some had to wait for one to come back. The drive, supposedly only 10 miles (probably as the crow flies; we drove nearly completely around the airport) was probably at least double that in minutes. The house is very nice, though. A small pool, a big open common area and three large bedrooms in the main house and two small ones in another building. But not enough beds for the bodies we had. Eleven twin sized, two full sized and three king sized. Even putting three bodies on the king and two each on the full, meant space for 24, so we had a couple on the couch and inflatable mattress.
As usual, I went to be early. Eliz and I snagged one of the full-sized beds in the other building, as I figured it would be quieter than being in the house. Everyone got up at 4 as most of the party (nearly 20) were going to do a long day trip to a ‘nearby’ beach (supposedly we’re only a few minute walk from the beach; not sure why that one’s not good enough). The main downside is the house has no food in it, so today some of those that remained will go shopping.
I got the final script coverage report I asked for and blogged on it here:
Not encouraging, though the feedback did help me with how to market/position the script for best effect.
I’m almost finished with the synopsis for my dominatrix sequel. I’m pretty happy with it, but have a transition I haven’t been able to work out (yet). I plan on continuing to work on the main body of the script; I have about 3,200 words written of a target of around 25K. I’m writing it prose-style and will convert to screenplay style once I’m reasonably happy with the story. Regular prose is much more compact and, I feel, easier to read than screenplay style. Maybe after a few more scripts, I’ll write directly in screenplay style, but not for now.
The Internet connection here is much better than at Mama and Papa’s house, so checking email, etc. is a lot less tedious. Hopefully the pretty location will inspire me to write more, or at least read (I’ve totally neglected beta reading up to this point).
