i woke up at 10am and walked to the nearest brooke's pharmacy to buy a wedding card for daisy and manny, a birthday card for renata, and some wrapping paper. by the time i got home, before i could even get a chance to wrap the presents, i got a call from bruce asking if i was still up for some stone paving work. so after a quick shower i went down to dennis' place at 11am for 4.5 hours of work, including an hour for lunch. susan made some chicken sandwiches, reheated some homemade pizza slices, with a bowl of mango banana blueberry salad and flavored carbonated water to drink. we sat out on the sidewalk, everyone including jack, and ate lunch in the sun. occasionally neighbors would walk or drive by, curiously drawn to the handful of people lounging outside enjoying the weather. i even rolled up the sleeves of my t-shirt so i wouldn't get a farmer's tan. we were done by 3:30pm, probably need another day to finish everything up.

i came home, took another shower, then my father drove me to the galleria mall so i could return my tuxedo (on father's day no less). when i returned home, i went back out to buy some groceries. amy and renata were going to come over tonight, i was going to make dinner, then amy and i would kidnap renata and "force" her to sing at a karaoke bar. making dinner is stressful because it involves a lot of prep work. usually if i'm making dinner for someone, it takes the whole day to prepare. i had about 2 hours. i decided to have a barbecue, nice and easy and gave me an opportunity to play with fire. i also got a small carvel ice cream cake from star market.

i vacuumed then waited for the guests to arrive. renata was the first to show up, bringing with her some leftover pagoda cake her parents wanted to share with amy and i. she had told me in an earlier phone call that she too went to the gay pride parade with her brother. i showed her the photos i took, all 156 of them, followed by the wedding pictures, all 215. when amy showed up, i went out into the backyard and started the grille, giving the brickets enough time to heat up.

renata opened up her presents, amy gave her a peridot necklace, while i gave her a dream dictionary. we went outside to cook the food, then came back inside to eat it. hamburgers, hot italian sausages, salad, marinated pickles, with veggy chik'n gardenburgers for amy.

on the radio was a mixture of 80's music with 70's disco, courtesy of special pride week programming. after dinner (where once again, i was the last person eating, since i'm a slow eater), we had some of that pagoda cake and everyone had some carvel ice cream cake. it was very important to superstitious renata that i didn't put 4 candles on the cake, so instead i went with 6. as it was getting late and tomorrow being a work day, renata opted not to let us kidnap her to a karoake bar. both amy and i were disappointed, both revealing that we'd been practicing all week for singing.

photos courtesy of renata

after amy and renata left, i watched the san antonio spurs beat the new jersey nets to win the nba finals. i was rooting for the spurs, they were more deserving of the championship than the nets. david robinson last year before retirement, plus this new victory will erase the asterisk that said the spurs' championship victory a few years ago wasn't legitimate because it was during an abbreviated season (due to the players strike). now that basketball season is finally over, all that's left is baseball.