Posting from Dad's in Wadsworth, Ohio, this time around. An around-the-world blogger, me.
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The car: apparently, it's a total loss. Our mechanic, Jose, heard something in the engine (my brother-in-law Greg advised me that what he heard is likely a "knock", as a opposed to a "click" or, I suppose, a "chink" or "blip" or "fart"... the difference between a "click" and a "knock" is, well, one signifies nothing and the other heralds explosive doom and disaster for the engine. So, FYI from Greg.) and, since the cost of repairing/replacing the engine is greater than the cost of the car... well, you know the deal.

Totalled.

So, I can already forsee trouble with getting an appropriate settlement out of Mercury because I waited too long like a doofus. Either way, a new car (or, likely, a used car) is in my near future. I have no idea what to get. Something for poor people, I suppose.
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Sent all the appropriate faxes from the Moyers' computer to our loan processing and Escrow folks. So, it's out of our hands. Again, we have to be out by the 17th and we still haven't closed.

Can't anything big also be easy?
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The first half of yesterday was filled with driving to Akron from PA. The second half consisted of Lauren's rehearsal and rehearsal dinner.

What to say about the rehearsal... well, Lauren had complained for weeks that The Chapel (the church) had assigned her a moron to coordinate the wedding. "She's airheaded! Incompetent! She doesn't know anything about weddings! We spend most of our time reminding her of things she's either forgotten or doesn't understand!" We all smiled and nodded: the bride was needlessly rattled. It's to be expected, after all. Everything would be fine.

Except...

During the rehearsal process, it turns out that Lauren's fears were all too realized. Pat, the coordinator in question, was indeed all of the above: Airheaded. Incompetent. Knows nothing about weddings. Lauren and Steve spent terrific amounts of desperately-needed time reminding her of things she'd either forgotten or didn't understand. By the end, I wanted to choke her myself. But, to me, the corker came when she announced to everyone:

"No one's allowed to be nervous tomorrow! Smiles! I'll be nervous enough for all of us!"

Listen, you old scag, this is the biggest, most important day in my sister's life. She's tremendously stressed. If there's one person she needs to count on to have her shit together, it's you. So, even if you're as ignorant as you look, at least do us the courtesy of pretending to know what's going on. If that was supposed to be some sort of warped joke, it wasn't funny. If you were serious, and your scattered lizard-mind leads to a bad wedding experience for hundreds of people... I'll gather up a posse and we'll beat you down ourselves.

Smiles!
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The rehearsal dinner was really nice, though, and Steve and Lauren got some really great gifts for the wedding party. We ate at the Akron City Club, thanks to the generosity of Steve's parents. Sat near some interesting people (an Indian couple that had just been married a week before) and, generally, had a lovely time.

And then home, and then to bed.

And I post this the morning of the wedding. I'm sure it'll all turn out, but I think everybody's a bit nervous. At least the pastor, Jim College, seems to know what he's doing.