Vegas, Baby, Vegas

It's been a busy week at the Bizarro World household. And I can't even blame it on children. My work has been really busy, and with a holiday in the middle of the week, I found it hard to find time to post.


I'm afraid I have a confession to make....we may go to Vegas this weekend. Not to get married, but to check out the chapels, hotels, buffets, etc. It's strictly for research. No fun will be had. Since we aren't usually childless, I brought up the idea that we should go now before Number Three Son arrives Monday night. We would start out early Sunday (it's a 3-4 hour drive and hotel rooms are cheaper Sunday nights) and come back Monday afternoon before "the boy" arrives at 9:30 p.m. After checking out hotels online we figured we could do it for around $200. I could use my birthday money $110 and Basil just sold $50 worth of art, plus he got a $20 tip at work yesterday, and I had a whole day of overtime this past week which would more than cover the rest.

Then Basil did something that's usually Bianca's forte....he said maybe we should just put that money toward the debt. I'm always the cheap one, getting a big chunk of money and just putting it in my savings until I decide how to spend it (hence still having a $110 to spend on my birthday even though it was almost a month ago). We decided that maybe we didn't need to run to Vegas this weekend, and that we could probably go in the winter when it wasn't 117 degrees when Number Two Son was visiting his brother at college. This weekend we could create art, relax and maybe spend his tip money on eating out. We decided to sleep on it, and as Basil is still asleep, I'm still not sure what we're doing. We both have to enter in all our receipts and deposits into Quicken, and then we'll know. It would be so much more relaxing to just hang out at the apartment all weekend...but on the other hand, Basil insists on wandering around naked. So maybe Vegas is sounding better after all.

Basil Pops A Question

First things first - when I was signing into my Blogger account I glanced at the rotating "Just Updated" feature, and I'm pleased to report that "Ebony Ass Gallery" has updated its blog. I didn't check what was added, but I think it's safe to say it was some ebony asses.

Second things second - Bianca and I got engaged over the weekend. It was all terribly romantic and would probably have induced vomiting if people were watching, but since we were on a secluded beach on an island, dinners were spared. The below photo was taken moments after I popped the question.
We had hiked in seven miles, and I had hidden some chilled champagne and glasses in my backpack. The ring was handcrafted by an artist on Etsy.com, and contained zero diamonds. If Bianca was someone who had to have a huge rock to show off to friends who actually cared about that kind of thing, she wouldn't be the person I would ask to be my wife. And any industry that tells you what percentage of your salary you should spend on something is suspect at the very least. It's almost laughable watching the diamond industry combine love and societal peer pressure to increase profits. In fact, the wedding industry is a little microcosm of the consumerism-fueled U.S. economy. Girls are trained from an early age to feel they deserve the perfect wedding, deserve to be a princess for a day. To paraphrase my dad, "you don't deserve shit." It's about love and relationships, not dresses and cake. Dresses and cakes have their places, but they should be realistic places. A traditional wedding is a whirling tornado of increasing costs and is the perfect example of how people get into serious financial trouble - they let their emotions get in bed with their money. It would make my heart glad to have wedding planners and bad DJ's out of business if it meant more couples focused on the huge commitment they're taking on. May the "Electric Slide" rest in peace. Let "Celebration" die a painful death.

When we returned to the mainland, I was intrigued to find that the newspaper had an article titled "Love extravagantly, but cut wedding costs." The article states that the average wedding cost in the U.S. is $27,000. A chart within the article ranked the average wedding costs by city. Vegas came in at $15,257, L.A. at $26,930 and - get this - a wedding in New York will cost you $40,000. Let's just say that our wedding will cost less than what someone in N.Y. would pay for music ($1,677). Number One, Two and Three sons all play guitar beautifully, so we've got the music covered there. We're looking forward to a small, close-knit affair.

Another article in the section was titled "Bare all debts, assets before the big day." This shouldn't be a problem, since we share everything with complete strangers every day. The article states a couple of horror stories, "one about the bride who found out that her husband had a $20,000 tax debt only after the IRS put a lien on her home" and "a bride who canceled the nuptials after finding out that her fiance had paid his gambling debts by draining the joint account they'd established to pay wedding bills." Brent Kessel, a chief executive at a money management firm says, "Money is one of the leading causes of divorce."

But financial matters aside, a beautiful, amazing woman wants to spend the rest of her life with me.

Celebrate good times. Come on!