Memorial Weekend

This past weekend was a blast.

Originally, I was supposed to do David's bachelor party on Friday. However, through a long list of blah blah blahs, it got moved to sometime in June. Which ended up working out great for me as my cousin Mitchell's Bar Mitzvah was this Saturday.

Friday, I drove to St. Louis and had dinner with the extended family and friends of Mitch's at his temple. The layout and the food was amazing, however, it was all really ritzy. I am not a person that is comfortable with being catered to and so the entire dinner was a little bit of an awkward experience. I hope I was able to say enough "please"'s and "thank you"'s to get the point across to the servers that I wasn't trying to act like I was any different than them. I got to meet some of my cousin's family friends and uncles on the other side of the family tree. Needless to say, those people are nuts. We had a blast during dinner and many of the other tables were most definitely envious of all the laughter and loudness coming from our side of the room.

Saturday morning, we got up early and went to the temple for family pictures. Sometimes, I feel a little out of place during family pictures because I am only related by marriage. My mom married into the family after I was already born. So when things are said like "All the cousins get together for a picture" I normally wait until someone tells me that I am included in that before I head over to pose for the cameras. Maybe I'm just thinking too much about things, but I'd rather be safe than look like a fool.

If you have never been to a Bar Mitzvah, you should go to one sometime. If you don't know what a Bar Mitzvah is, here is a description in a nutshell: A young Jewish boy approaching his 13th birthday will begin training and learning how to chant, read, write, and speak in Hebrew; specifically, certain selected phrases from the Torah. He will then go through an entire ceremony in which he is basically leading the congregation in a sermon. His family will often play critical roles during this ceremony. All of it is presided over by the temple's Rabbi and other important persons. This same thing can be done, although as I understand is not done as often, for girls. The girl ceremony is called a Bat Mitzvah.

After the Bar Mitzvah, we went back to the hotel for a bit until later on in the day. The hotel, by the way, had a pool. And I absolutely love to swim. As long as the water isn't opaque. Lakes and oceans give me panic attacks if I can't see in them and I if I am allowed to start thinking too much about the fact that I can't see in them.

The reception part of the event was to be held at a different location. The theme of the party was Sports and people were asked to dress casual and to wear either jerseys or shirts of their favorite sports teams. I wore a MU basketball jersey, white athletic shorts, white armbands, black head band, and lots of pimp juice. I hope I am able to get some pictures from that night, as we all looked amazing. The entire event was hosted by a DJ and my cousin's parents. We had dinner, which consisted of hot dogs, brats, nachos, miniature hamburgers, salads, potato skins, etc. It was designed to be like you were at a sporting event and man, did it work! There was also an open bar, which, as you can probably guess, I took total advantage of. Jack Daniel's and Coke until I could drink no more.

Eventually, dancing started and the DJ mixed in recent songs with some older ones that appeased to some of the older members of the crowd. What I thought was hilarious though was that my mom, step dad, brother, and sister had no idea that I liked to dance and that I actually can dance (yes, I will admit that I can get down). However, I have to be feeling a little tipsy before I even try or I don't do it.

Needless to say, I was more than a little tipsy. For the rest of the weekend I kept hearing many members of the family saying things to me like "Joshy, I had no idea you could dance..." It was pretty hilarious, but I had a ton of fun.

My only regret was letting my step dad down when there was a dance off of Old School vs. New School. I didn't represent and I should have. I blame my liquid courage on backfiring.

However, I've got two more cousins who will be going through their own Bar Mitzvahs in the next couple years, so I will have a chance to redeem myself.

Damn, this weekend was a friggin blast.