I have been quite lax about blogging lately. I was going to post Friday about my wonderful day but then things got busy, and well, you know.

Friday I goofed off more than half the day, but it was Boss-Mandated goofing, so all was well. The Boss invited me to lunch at his country club to celebrate the successful conclusion of a business venture. It takes about 45 minutes to get from the office to the club, so I had to work only a little while before leaving. Then we had a business meeting before our lunch.

I had the crab melt, which is a toasted English muffin split, topped with a slice of tomato and a scoop of shrimp-and-crab salad. That is topped with bacon, avocado and gobs of Swiss cheese melted over the entirety. Yummers. The Boss and I talked about a lot of things over coffee, so once I finally got back to the office I again had to work only a little while before leaving.

One of the things we talked about over coffee was an unexpected bonus! The Boss gave me a bonus from the business venture we were celebrating, which I didn't expect at all because I hadn't been much involved in that project. He's very generous and I was quite happy. I used a small bit of bonus to take Alan to dinner that night (steaks at Bugaboo Creek).

Yesterday we met with our caterers to finalize plans for the wedding reception, sign the contract, fork over a deposit, etc. I love our caterers. Raymond and Terry are the nicest people, friendly, caring, easy to work with - the company is Creolaise Catering. If you're having a party, use them. If you don't live in Atlanta, move here, throw a "Welcome to the Neighborhood" party and use them. They're THAT GREAT. At some point, I'll blog a list of the tasty treats they'll be serving.

After the meeting, Alan and I had a late lunch at Whistle Post Tavern. Once home, I finished my latest Martha Grimes mystery - I'd been about 30 pages from finishing for several days, kept falling asleep or getting interrupted with one thing and another, and I wanted to know whodunit! (I'm not going to tell you.) Then I checked my fantasy hockey lineup, caught up on e-mail correspondence and then Heather called!

We talked for over an hour; she talked to Alan, too. Heather is coming to our wedding, and her father was excited about her trip to the States until he realized she didn't actually know any of us in real life, only through blogging. He thinks we might be planning to sell her into the white slave trade, or to a sheik for nefarious sexual purposes. This quite perturbed me. If her dad is onto us, how the hell am I supposed to finance this shindig?!?

Today my brother Bo and his wife Sarah are coming over to help me edit the processional music. Garage Band was giving me some trouble, which at first we attributed to operator error but Bo had some difficulties as well, so he's bringing over ProTools and we're using that. We need to shorten up the marches because together they're 15 minutes long and it's not going to take us that long to get up the aisle, even if I trip, which I might.

I wanted to use the Invader Zim theme, because mutual love of that cartoon figured prominently in our relationship; after we'd been dating a couple of weeks, we had a standing date on Tuesdays for dinner and Zim-watching. I asked my musician brother for help in adapting the cartoon theme to instruments that would sound better in a wedding setting. He set to work immediately, arranged it for me and gave me a CD: Zim via organ/bells, Zim via trumpets/strings, and best of all, the bass-boomin' boody-slammin' Zim techno remix. It was so cool and I'm thrilled to have it (especially the boody-slammin' techno mix) but Bo's first instincts were right: the theme itself is so short that it would have to repeat too many times - WAY too many times - to get me to the altar - or us away from it, if we used it for the recessional.

So instead I'll be walking down the aisle to a lush orchestral arrangement of "Kashmir". Most of you know how totally apt that is. If not, I'll demonstrate by showing you my Jimmy Page "Zoso" tattoo - for a small fee. Now that my clever Heather-selling scheme has fallen through, I'll need alternative financing.