He’d send me random text messages with lines from Jim Carrey movies and wait for me to guess the name of the movie.  He’d giggle if I got them right and strut if I got them wrong, impressed with his superior knowledge of movies based on butt humor.

In my defense, he had beautiful eyes and a really great ass.

And, well, I kind of have a weird little obsession with movie quotes myself.

I do this thing.  This really dorky thing that I don’t even realize I’m doing half the time until someone new gives me that “what. the fuck. are you talking about?” look.  Everyone in my family does it - from my mother and my brothers to my husband and my children - although I think it’s possible they believe their quoting the Bible or something.  Whatever.  We’re all a bunch of winners.

I randomly drop movie lines into my every day conversation.

For example…

Jared and I are arguing about something which I clearly know more about.  Like, say, life.  Despite my obvious superior knowledge on the subject, he pushes and pushes and tries to thwart me with half ass facts he’s picked up from AM talk radio.

“But, Britt…” he’ll stammer.

“Listen, Jared!  Do you know the dolphin?  Does he call you at home?  DO YOU HAVE A DORSAL FIN?  I think not.  Shut up.”

And that’s how we end serious discussions in this house.  Because we are both winners and Jared knows when he has been trumped.

But it’s not all Jim Carrey, all the time here.  Oh, no.  Our lameness is deep and wide and varied.

Can you spot the movie from the totally irrelevant and yet absolutely relevant movie quote?

“Why are you making a big deal out this, Britt?”

“Because!  It doesn’t matter that I did take care of it for you - what if I hadn’t?  Then what?  What if I ‘forgot’ to handle stuff like you ‘forget’ to handle stuff?  What if no one remember to take the garbage out/make doctor’s appointments/pick up the kids/pay that bill?  I could have forgotten - and then what?”

“THEY WERE CONES!”

——-

I’m sitting on the couch enjoying too much TV far too close to my bed time.  Jared’s puttering around in the kitchen trying to piece together some massively unhealthy dessert from left over halloween candy and sugar packets.  Suddenly, the sound of breaking glass drowns out Tyra’s voice.

“Richard?  What’d you doooo, Richard?”

And he doesn’t even ask me who Richard is.

—–

It’s 7:30 on a Saturday morning.  I’ve been up for an hour because hunger pangs start at 6:30 in this house and no one can ever remember how to poor themselves a bowl of cereal if it’s a weekend.  I’ve just finished negotiating my third “why are you touching me?!?  Make him stop touching me!  THE CAT IS NOT BIGGER THAN ME!” argument of the day.

I disappear into my bathroom in a misguided attempt to pee.

A knock on the bathroom door is immediately followed by “Mom!  Emma dumped all of my Legos all over the floor!”

I hang my head in defeat.  “You’re killing me, Smalls!  You’re killing me!”

————-

I’m poking through my closet trying to find something to wear on a rare night out.  Five minutes later I’m huffing and puffing and staring at the mound of discarded options that’s accumulated on my bed.

“Jared, I have nothing to wear!  I’m not going.”

“Why don’t you wear that dress you wore on our anniversary last year?”

“It doesn’t.. uh.. look right anymore.”

“Why?”

“My parents died when I was ten, do you want to talk about that?”

——

It’s 10:30 at night and Jared’s watching TV on the couch with his eyes closed.  I nudge him as I flip the TV off with the remote.  “Baby, it’s time for bed.”

“Hmmm… yeah… mmm… just a minute.”

“Take me to bed or lose me forever.”

“Show me the way home, honey.”

“Get the light.  Don’t forget to set the alarm.”

——————-

I’m working from home.  A text message from my mom alerts me to a mini crisis back in Iowa.  I send out an update on twitter that my day has just gone from meh to shit.  Seconds later, my office line rings.

“Hey, is everything OK?” my boss asks.

“What?  Oh, twitter.  Yeah, I’m fine.  Just blah blah blah yada yada yada insert detailed description of text message and resulting emotional distress blah blah yada.”

“Do you need me to watch the phones for you?”

“Oh, God.  No.  I promise that my personal drama will not interfere with my ability to do good hair.”

“I’m sorry, what?”

“Heh.  I’m good.”

—————————-

My mother calls.  I can tell she’s upset and trying not to cry.  She sounds overwhelmed.  The strain of school and work and family and not enough sleep is wearing on her.

“I just feel like - what the fuck am I doing, Britt?  Maybe I’m doing this all for nothing.”

“No, baby.  Not for nothing.”

I can hear her smile over the line.

——————————

What movies am I quoting?

Do you quote movies?  If so - what lines?

OK, so today isn’t technically your birthday.  But I won’t be posting on the 4th of July - so this will have to do.

I love you.

And I don’t know what I did to deserve you loving me, but I’m grateful for it.

Happy Birthday, baby.

If you haven’t been following the seemingly never ending saga of what the fuck is up with Miss Britt’s health, this post will make no sense and be of no interest to you.

But for the rest of you - who have listened to me whine, bitch, moan and cry and waited with me, prayed for me, and emailed me constant encouragement - I cannot even tell you how over the moon with excitement I am to tell you what happened at the doctor’s office on Tuesday.

I’m going to be fine.

My second round of post carb coma blood tests came back… normal.

Now, I have to admit, when I first heard the words “you’re healthy.  You’re tests look great.” - I kind of wanted to blow something up or running screaming from the office in an attempt to show that I was not, in fact, fine or healthy.

But I didn’t.  Because, well, I’ve been feeling a whole lot of fine lately.  And even I was starting to forget why in the hell I had taken on this arduous and expensive journey of figuring out what was wrong with me in the first place.  Had I ever really been sick?  Had I ever been -

Oh.

Right.

There was the whole issue of the emotional breakdown in which I did not get out of my bed for four days.

But why was I feeling so fine now?  Why were the blood tests that had been “high across the board” just a few short weeks ago, touting my health and good fortune now?

Because I haven’t eaten carbs for about two weeks.

And I, ladies and gentleman, have Metabolic Syndrome.

It affects as many as 30% of people and it means that my body has no fucking clue what to do with a carbohydrate.  Not only does it not know what to do with it, but it freaks the fuck out - that’s a medical term - when faced with having to decide what to do with carbohydrates.

Someone with Metabolic Syndrome can suffer from all kinds of crazy hormone imbalance induced symptoms.  Including extreme fatigue and depression.

Now, after my daughter was born, I went on a low carb diet to lose weight.  I stayed on that diet for about 3 years.  And then I moved to Florida, and Adam tried to kill me with loaded fries.  And I thought - you know, I’ve been doing pretty good on this diet, what’s one plate of fries going to hurt?

The problem is that when someone with Metabolic Syndrome who hasn’t forced carbs on their body in three years suddenly has carbs, their body whacks out.  It led to a crazy snowball effect - depression, fatigue, using carbs to feed that depression and fatigue (I’m sorry, but show me a person who hasn’t assuaged a breakdown with Ruffle’s Potato Chips and I will show you a god damn liar) - and before I knew it, my body had completely fallen apart.

I ate myself into a breakdown, people.  Tell me that’s not funny.

This is a genetic issue.  It’s nothing I did to myself - and nothing that can be cured.

The good news, as my doctor pointed out, is that the treatment is cheap.

Don’t eat carbs.

I can have 20-30 grams of carbs at a meal.  That’s it.  It doesn’t matter what’s going on with my weight - I cannot indulge in carb fests.  The consequences of gorging myself on carbohydrates are far more severe than gaining a few pounds, as I’ve learned over the last several months.

It’s a very good think that I happen to have already tried a low carb diet previously - it made figuring out the problem much easier.  It’s also fortunate that I discovered this issue as early in life as I did.  In 10 or 20 years, this could have led to diabetes and some other more serious shit.  Apparently.

I can’t even tell you how much lighter I felt leaving that office.

It was such a relief to have a diagnosis that made sense with all of my symptoms.  The more my doctor and I talked, the more we were able to piece together the timeline and the emergence of symptoms and verify that - yep, this is the problem.

I’m going to be fine.

The prospect of spending the rest of my life on a strict low-carb diet is a little daunting, but I’ve been eating this way more or less for over four years now, so I have a pretty good handle on how to do it.  And the temptation to “cheat” on a “diet” pales in comparison to the realization that avoiding carbs means a lot more than maintaining an ideal weight.

If I was allergic to peanuts, I wouldn’t eat peanuts.  Even if I had been “really good”.  Or had a “really bad day”.

It feels so good to have a diagnosis that fits.  I could feel immediately how perfectly it fit, like the first time you try on a pair of designer jeans.  My symptoms weren’t imagined, and my body’s responses aren’t some ambiguous thing that I can’t quite put my finger on.

I have answers.

And, more importantly, I know exactly what to do to keep myself happy, healthy and sane in the future.

I couldn’t be more excited.

“Our Father, who art in Heaven
Hallowed be Thy name.
Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done,
On Earth, as it is in Heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses,
As we forgive those who trespass against us…”

***

His legacy is his faith.

Not the games won or the classes taught.  Not the immaculately kept football field that we lovingly referred to as The Sacred Acre.  Not the state championships or the pep talks or the speeches.  Not the NFL players he groomed or the countless coaches around the state that he mentored.

A life’s worth of work and accomplishment pale in comparison to the gift of grace brought by his death.

“Please remember to visit the Becker family,” his son said in a press conference.

“Our opinion of Mark has not changed,” his family was quoted as saying about the 24 year old boy who took their husband and father.

And we followed their lead - his lead - the way we always have.

Facebook statuses were updated to reflect prayers for the Thomas family and the Becker family.  News articles were written about the person Mark was before he became an alleged murderer.  The grief and shock and anger mixed with compassion, the movement towards grace led by those who we least expected to be able to offer it.

I’m a Christian and a Catholic.  I have heard about grace.  I have read about forgiveness and been taught the meaning of faith.

But never in my life have I seen a more real, tangible example of these abstract principles.

Today, the funeral for Ed Thomas is being held at his church - a church I could see from my backyard when I lived in Parkersburg.  The streets will be lined with cars.  The pews and basement will undoubtedly be overflowing with mourners who have come to pay their respect for the hometown hero and offer condolences to the family he leaves behind.

And I will sit here, more than 1,000 miles away, surrounded by the trappings of my perfect life that goes on just as perfectly as it did last week.

I will not shake Aaron and Todd’s hands.  I will not cry along side old classmates or rest my head on my mother’s shoulder.  I will not hold my own brothers and pat them on their backs as they say goodbye to yet another father figure.

But I will honor his legacy in the only way I know how.

I will forgive.

Today, I forgive the man who hurt me.  Not because he deserves it or because what he did ceases to be wrong.  But simply because, I can.  Because I, too, have been forgiven without being deserving.

Today, I forgive the stepfather who abandoned my brothers, abused my mother, and robbed me of pieces of my childhood with his violence and addiction.  I don’t have the strength to shower him with love, but I can find the power to let go of the anger.

Today, I let it go.  I remember that the grace required for these small mental acrobatics is but a mustard seed compared to the mountain of grace required to show compassion for the person who stole your father and husband.  I believe that the faith and love that affords them this grace is as readily available to me as it is to them.

Today, in lieu of flowers, I forgive.

I wasn’t born there, I don’t live there now, but it is, without a doubt, where I am from.

It is - and will always be - integral to who I am.

On Wednesday morning, that part of who I am was once again hit by tragedy.  But this tragedy was far, far worse than the devastating tornado that wiped out half the town last year.

Last year, Mother Nature ripped away homes and trees and businesses.  Safety and security were torn from the lives of the people who lived there.

But this - this was so much worse.  Wednesday, the very heart of Parkersburg was ripped away in one horrible, senseless act of violence.

Husband, father and Coach Ed Thomas was murdered by former student and player, Mark Becker.

Thomas. That’s what we called him.  Unless you played football for him at some point in the last 30 years - then you called him Coach.  Even if you were a grown man yourself now, the respect and admiration in that title remained.  But it wasn’t just the boys who played football for him that were touched.

It was all of us.

Parkersburg is one of those places you watch movies about.  The community begins and ends at the football field - a field renamed “Ed Thomas Field” just a few short years ago.  So it makes sense that the football coach would be a prominent figure in the town.  But Thomas was much more than that.  As athletic director, coach and teacher, he was committed to helping to raise the kids of Parkersburg.

All of us.

It didn’t matter if you never wore a uniform or caught a pass.  We were his job.

I remember how worried he was about me when I had my first big heartbreak.  My ex-boyfriend was a star player on his football team, and the love he had for him was evident.  But so, too, was the concern he had for the 17 year old cheerleader who found herself feeling lost.

“Hey, Britt,” he’d catch my eye in the hall, “how you doin’?”

And he’d stop and search for the answer in me.  He wasn’t the type of man to bring a girl into his classroom for a heart to heart, but he told you with a nod and a cautious smile, a pause in the hallway and a penetrating look, that he saw you.  And that somehow things would get better.

A year later when I decided to set my sights on a boy in my class with a history of partying and irresponsibility, he made his concern clear again.  He warned me.  He cautioned me.  He reminded me that I was good enough.  Of course that doesn’t say much for my husband, I suppose - the irresponsible teenage boy that Thomas tried to steer me clear of.

But that’s what he did.  Ed Thomas kept his standards high and insisted that you rose to them.  And if you didn’t, he stood steady in his convictions and patiently waited for you to realize yours.

He was a father to my brothers when no one else was.

I got the news Wednesday from my mother.  And one of our best friends.  And my aunt.  And my dad.  And my brothers.  And a former co-worker.  And an old classmate I haven’t talked to in years.  The facts were inconceivable to those of us who knew - who know - what Ed Thomas is to Parkersburg.

I got on Facebook and immediately received chat messages from people I hadn’t spoken to in over a decade.  It was as if we were all searching for our bearings, reaching out to find something we knew now that our anchor was gone.  Someone.  Something.  Anything that could tie us back to that place that we come from.

And then there is Mark.

The suspect.

I have known Mark since he was my son’s age.  He was my little brother, Jay’s, best friend until just a few short years ago, when the drugs and demons that hounded Mark finally became too much for Jay to compete with.

Becker.  That’s what my brothers and the rest of the guys called him.

But my mother and I called him Marky.  Because he was a Marky.  He was quiet and shy with a big, easy grin that spread across his face whenever you told him you were glad to see him.  He sat on my front porch two summers ago and played poker with me and talked about how cool it sounded that we were moving.

He thought my daughter was adorable.

And he killed a man on Wednesday.

Brutally.  Viciously.  He walked into a room full of high school students and shot Ed Thomas with a gun.  Over and over again.

I don’t understand.

I don’t understand the horrible betrayal that must have flashed through Thomas’s mind upon seeing Mark point a gun at him.  I don’t understand what must be horribly broken in Mark’s head that he could be capable of taking a life so violently.

I don’t understand how that town will survive this.

Or why they should have to.

I am, as a general rule, the strong one in almost any situation.  I’m the one who makes decisions and get things done.  I’m the one who bounces back and pushes on.  I’m the one who can handle anything, and usually do it with a self deprecating smile.

But I don’t feel strong right now.

I feel unusually weak and ill prepared to handle even the smallest disappointments.  My ego is frail and prone to bruising.  My sense of self - the thing that has always guided me - is suddenly ungrounded and easily toppled by the slightest breeze.

I’m uncomfortable in my own skin.

I can’t remember the last time I was so aware of my every flaw and so desperate to hide them from the world.

I feel small.

I want to both shrink away to avoid being noticed and curl up to something bigger to avoid being lost.

My God, I’m pathetic and maudlin.

The thing is, I’m not always sad.  Really.

I laugh and play and talk and on the outside, most days, I look exactly the same as I always have.

But on the inside, I feel a tentativeness that is completely foreign to me.  I don’t feel confident enough to charge forward blindly, secure that I can handle whatever I run into.  I am, instead, afraid of running head first into something that can bring me to my knees.  Something.  I don’t know what - because the things that have shaken me lately have been unexpected.  My ability to predict what will sting and what will not is off kilter.

I don’t know this version of me.

But I know I don’t like it.

Shmritt and Shmadam

Once upon a time, in a land far, far away, there was a girl named Shmritt.

Shmritt was best friends with a boy named Shmadam, and they did everything together.  Shmritt and Shmadam had other friends - lots of friends, really - but they always knew that they were each other’s best friends.  And that was important, because Shmritt and Shmadam were 12, apparently.

Then one day, Shmadam made a new friend.

Shmadam liked this new friend a whole lot.

In fact, sometimes, it seemed like Shmadam liked this new friend even more than he liked Shmritt.  At first this made Shmritt very angry.  She yelled at Shmadam for being a bad friend and tried to give back his super special friend decoder ring.  Shmadam said he was sorry and promised to be nicer to Shmritt - and she let him keep his super special friend decoder ring.

But then Shmritt got sad.

The only thing worse than an angry Shmritt is a sad Shmritt.

Shmritt cried and cried.  Then Schrmitt cried some more.  Then Shmritt’s husband, Mister Shmritt, came home and asked Shmritt why she was so sad.

“Shmadam doesn’t love me anymore,” Shmritt sobbed.

Mister Shmritt put his arm around Shmritt and told her everything would be OK.  He patted her on the back and rocked her back and forth while she cried.  And then Mister Shmritt did something really amazing.

“Of course Shmadam still loves you,” Mister Shmritt said.  “No matter what, you will always be special - because you are special.  And Shmadam knows it.”

And Shmritt was amazed at Mister Shmritt’s powers.

Shmritt tried to explain to Mister Shmritt that he was special, because he wasn’t jealous or angry or afraid of her friendship with Shmadam.  But Mister Shmritt would hear none of it.  He just shook his head and smiled and promised Shmritt that everything would be OK.

Shmritt and Shmadam tried very hard to be friends again, just like they used to be.  They talked and talked and talked, because Shmritt and Shmadam loved to talk more than anything else in the whole world.  Shrmitt thought that maybe everything really would be better from now on.

Then one day, Shmritt and Shmadam took their friend, Shmilly, to the Magical Park for a fun day of waterfalls and rollercoasters.  Shmritt and Shmadam and Shmilly had lots of fun together.  They laughed and screamed and were all very glad to be friends.  Shmritt was glad that she and Shmadam were friends again, and she was also glad that she had Shmilly as a friend.  Everything was perfect.

But then, the very next day, Shmritt’s magical beans that she took every day to make her awesome decided to not make her awesome.  Or something.  Or maybe Shmritt was tired.  Or something.  Or maybe Shmritt felt like things were still just not quite right with Shmadam.  Or something.

Whatever the reason, Shmritt decided that once again she was sad.

Shmritt was very upset and didn’t know who to talk to about it.  She was tired of talking to Shmadam about Shmadam.

Shmritt and Shmilly

She talked to Shmilly.

Shmilly listened while Shmritt talked.  Shmilly listened while Shmritt cried.  Shmilly sat and sat and listened and listened while Shmritt talked and talked and cried and cried.  And then Shmilly did something really amazing.

“It’s OK to feel what you’re feeling,” Shmilly said.  “And you’re not crazy or pathetic.  And I’m not judging you.”

And Shmritt was amazed at Shmilly’s powers.

Shmritt tried to thank Shmilly for being such a good friend.  She told her how much it meant to have someone be there to talk through things with her, without trying to fix anything or make her feel bad about being such a cry baby - even though she was, in fact, being a cry baby.  But Shmilly would hear none of it.  She just shook her head and smiled and promised that everything would be OK.

Later that night, Shmadam showed up at Shmritt’s door to show her that they were still friends.  Very best friends, in fact.  Mister Shmritt smiled and was glad to see his wife happy again.  Shmilly called to say that she needed a friend, and Shmritt and Shmadam took timeout from their personal drama to go and return the friendship that she had so lovingly given earlier.

Everyone laughed and hugged and promised to always be friends forever.

Or at least until they grew up and went to high school.

The End.

Two years ago today, the world lost The Puppy Monster.

Dawg, I am thinking of you today, and remembering with you.

We have not forgotten.

Awesome.  Because that’s exactly the first thing you want to hear your doctor say when he walks into the room.

“Unusual?”

“Yes, well, there’s some things that are… strange.”

Strange and unusual.  Again - awesome.

My doctor quickly assured me that there a bunch of really bad things that he knew I did not have.  He didn’t elaborate on what these potentially very bad things were - but I assumed that cancer would fall under the umbrella of “really bad” and therefore breathed a little internal sigh of relief.

“Your hormone levels are a little high.”

“OK.”

“Probably have a slight case of PCOS disease.”

“Aren’t you supposed to call it a syndrome?”

“Same thing.”

“OK.”

“But the really strange-”

“Again with the strange.”

“-thing is your HGH.  You have an unusually high level of human growth hormone.”

*blink*

“I’m sorry, what?”

“Human growth hormone.  Everyone has it, but you have a lot of it.  Way, way more than.. uh.. more than I would expect for you.”

He looked at me and I could tell he was trying not to comment on the same thing I was thinking.

“But,” I stood up, “look at me!  I’m not even 5′2″!”

“Yes, well, um, like I said.  It’s a little strange.”

So apparently somewhere in this barely over five feet body of mine, I am storing a crap load of human growth hormone.  My doctor ordered more blood tests and instructed me to load up on carbs an hour before this new round of testing.

“Juice, bread, maybe some cereal - ”

“Yeah, I know what a carb is.”  I looked at my already swelling legs and thought about the last four years I’d spent trying to avoid carbohydrates - along with the last 4 lbs I’d gained by hoovering them.

I scheduled my blood tests for this past Tuesday and made plans for my carb infested lunch.

By the end of the meal, my stomach was screaming for relief.  I was so full I actually wondered if I might have bloated to the point that I would be permanently wedged into the booth.  I contemplated unbuttoning my pants, and then remembered that I was wearing a skirt with an elastic waistband.

I considered, for a moment, the ramifications of removing said skirt.

And then I wept.

I went back to the office and eased myself onto a couch, where I spent the next 30 minutes moaning and groaning and making my boss rub my belly.  I insisted that I was in much too much pain to work and promptly fell asleep, vowing to never eat another carbohydrate so long as I live, so help me God.

Twenty minutes later, Adam woke me up and forced me into his car so that he could drive me to get my blood drawn.  I was still moaning and groaning and demanding to know why he had let me eat so damn much food.  I cursed my doctor for giving me medical clearance to gorge myself.  I tried to call my husband so that he, too, could share my misery, but had to settle for whining into his voicemail.

We arrived at the lab and I was quickly ushered into a tiny room with a padded chair and phlebotomist.

I counted as she pulled out six tubes and slapped plastic labels onto each of them.

“You’re taking pictures?” the woman in the white coast paused, needle in midair, and looked at me as if I might be strange and unusual.

“What?  This?” I waved my camera at her.  “Oh, um, no.  No, I was.. uh.. I have this… umm..”

She stared blankly back at me.

“Right.”  I put my camera down and turned my head away from the needle.

And there’s nothing strange about that, at all.

That woman is me.

I spent last weekend sharing a hotelroom with Hilly and Becky at the Doubletree hotel in Lexington, Kentucky.  The hotel was beautiful and featured an indoor courtyard with a lovely fountain just inside the front doors.  It was set up like an indoor atrium with the corridors to each hotel room risiing up on all four sides of the courtyard/lobby.

Saturday night as we walked out of our rooms to head over to the ConFab party, we noticed a wedding was taking place downstairs in the courtyard.  Naturally, we made an effort to be especially quiet as we headed down the hall to the elevator.

As I walked down the hall and watched the wedding over the railing, I noticed that the bride was wiping away tears.

How sweet, I thought.

We gathered into the elevator and prepared for the trip down to the main lobby.  There were 7 us sandwiched into the elevator - all bloggers headed for a night of partying.

“Did you see the wedding?” someone asked.

• runaway train free download

download bugs bunny s 3rd movie 1001 rabbit tales online “Yeah,” someone else answered.

“Seems like a strange place for a wedding,” someone commented.

“It’s pretty,” someone else offered.

“Yeah,” I agreed.  “But… well… it just seems like you’re just asking for problems.  I mean, I can’t imagine having my ceremony right in a hotel lobby like that.  Can you imagine someone running through the front doors and before they notice what’s going making a bunch of noise and stuff?”

“No kidding,” someone nodded.

“God, that would be awful,” I went on.  ” Just imagine some family walking in with a loud ass kid screaming ‘MOMMMMM! I HAVE TO GO TO THE BATHROOOOOM!”

“Oh my God,” the entire elevator seemed to whisper in unison and horror.

“I’m just saying - “

“Britt…”

And they all proceeded to file out of the open elevator doors.  Directly into the lobby.  Where the wedding was being held.

I stood in the now empty elevator and the silence around me echoed.  The perfect imitation I had just down of a loud and obnoxious child rang in my ears - in much the same way, I imagine, it had just rang out through the open elevator doors.  Into the lobby.  Where the wedding was being held.

batman robin divx I scurried out of the elevator as quickly as I could and headed towards the front doors.  I nearly ran into the hotel employee who was standing between me and the wedding party, lips pursed, one finger held up to her mouth to indicate that we needed to shush.

And then I prayed really hard that I would die.