Ho-lee Jayzus!

In Stanley Kubrick's Full Metal Jacket, R. Lee Ermey plays Marine Corps Gunnery Sergeant Hartman, whose infamous opening monologue is perhaps one of the most profane, horrifying, and hilarious in modern cinema. Most of you are probably familiar with R. Lee Ermey even if the name doesn't ring a bell: he's the guy you see on the History Channel's Mail Call, often barking into the camera and/or hurtling watered-down insults at the audience; he was the ex-coach in Saving Silverman; he was the judge in Murder in the First; he did voice work in Toy Story and I just heard his voice on a rerun of The Simpsons last night.

Now, I mention all of this because Full Metal Jacket is one of my favorite movies of all time, and Sergeant Hartman is one of my favorite characters with one of my favorite lines: while performing hygiene inspections, Hartman empties a very young and fat Vincent D'Onofrio's footlocker, sees a jelly donut, and growls in that trademark drill instructor drawl, "ho-lee jayzus."

I told you all of this simply because in moments of extreme duress or absurdity, I'm known to mutter either that exact line or something like it.

And you needed to know that because I've muttered that line many, many times over the past several days. How else does one respond to seeing one's father shake his ass to Sir Mix Alot's "Baby Got Back?"

My stepbrother's wedding was essentially four days of minor league debauchery with a few errands on my part thrown in, since I'm moving to that town in a few weeks. But alcohol was consumed in impressive quantities every single night by every single person of age, up to and including my 80-something stepgrandpa. The wedding itself was fine; a thoughtfully brief ceremony in a Methodist church spared those of us in the wedding party, since the 5600 was unusually windy and unusually hot: low 90s, which in the 5600 is damn hot. The reception, however, quickly turned into a dance-a-thon featuring my dad and an old family friend competing for Most Unusual Dance Move Performed by a Male Over the Age of 55. You had to see it to believe it.

So while Pop's dance moves definitely topped the weekend, here are some other highlights:

• Kathryn laughing so hard her ribs hurt the next morning because the bar band we were watching not only played very bad music very well (think small town 40-somethings wearing black t-shirts doing covers of Blue Oyster Cult, Ted Nugent, and ZZ Top), but because they had a groupie in a sundress several sizes too small, wearing a she-mullet and stiletto whore heels.
• The slightly removed (and slightly - how does one put this? - gauche) contingent of family from Denver doing the electric slide en masse.
• Dad taking me aside and whispering something about the potential value of Kathryn's family's land, which he learned from a friend who is somehow familiar with Kathryn's family.
• My cousin's Irish girlfriend threatening to kick my dad's ass for cracking a joke about the IRA and bomb threats.
• At the gift/brunch ceremony, a group of strangers singing "Happy Birthday" to me.
• Seeing the biggest effing trout that ever graced God's green earth in a state park near the 5600. Three feet. No joke. Three effing feet of effing trout.

That'll do for now. Back in the 7200 with a job and an itch to move, soon, to the 5600.