New York pt 2

Day 4? 5? I don't even know anymore - We went to Trader Joes and bought absolutely fucking everything. I went all nostalgic over frozen enchiladas I ate as a sad single person in Bakersfield, as if that was a high point in my life or something. Bought another .99 grocery bag, since the one I have been using as a book tote for work every day for 4 years finally crapped out. I am classy. The boy won after chanting "Red Lobster Red Lobster Red Lobster" for a week straight, and we ended up in a booth with 7 children at lunch time. The waitress actually trembled. Gavin realized partway through his lobster tail that he actually preferred my crab legs, which was both annoying and a relief to my future vacation budget.

 Day... Wednesday - we went to Target, because suddenly it was cold and blustery instead of hot and sweltering, and the kids had no proper clothes. Seasons are freaky and unnatural. I convinced my tiny sister-in-law to take us to Cornwall to visit the yarn store. Mike's sister's husband ran off with his mistress and took all his belongings with him (the dark haired lover!!). Mike's brother made a pie and screwed it up, so the caramel was all heaped in a mess on the top of the crust. He declared it unfit for human consumption and went home, so we ate it with a fork while telling their sister we'd be happy to put a brick through her husband's windshield.

THE WEDDING DAY FINALLY: We ditched the kids with Mike's brother and his tiny wife. Their large dog was doing backflips of excitement, flailing claws at my precious panty hose as we stepped inside, so Rob grabbed her by the collar and hauled her up off her feet to toss her out the back door. We gawked after him. "He won't do that to the kids, right?" Mike made an ambiguous Scottish noise.

We drove to the city and ended up getting stationed at the top of the hill guarding the flower arrangements for a few hours. We chased squirrels, heckled old ladies eating sandwiches, and I demonstrated my plans for the open bar by posing for a photo in my nice dress and pretending to throw up into a trash can.

 Mike meandered off and disappeared, so I finally abandoned the flowers and ran down the hill, right into the mess of photographers and posing groomsmen.

Salvo was kicked out of the pictures for wearing a bow tie, so he and I stood to the side and talked smack about the photographer's mustache. I kept an eye out for Noah, the jerk from Binghamton who told me the book I was reading sucked back in 1999. "I am going to tip him down some stairs," I promised. [I ended up kissing the guy on the mouth and eating a cream-filled donut with his girlfriend. Close enough.]

The ceremony was beautiful. Salvo officiated in his fantastic bow tie. Lorenz wrote his vows a few minutes beforehand and read them off his iphone.

It was perfect anyway, and he had to stop for a full minute to cry. The audience did, too. After all the weeping and kissing and ring exchanging, we broke out mini maracas and everyone - including a few optimistic hobos - danced down to the reception, where we were greeted with Elderflower cocktails and TINY TACOS. In all-caps, because that is how I said it every time the servers came by with them.

The Korean ceremony that followed was very fun, with tossing of dates and chestnuts and a piggy-back-ride exit for the bride. Mike took a lot of pictures of Lorenz's mom, because her boobs looked fantastic.

There was a photo booth, and fancy miniature food, and dancing, and endless cocktails, and then all the kissing of hapless men, and I broke a potted plant.


My embarrassing advice to the groom: "You will meet other people. Several of them. And you could fall in love and marry them and be happy. When you meet these people, recognize them for who they are, and then never speak to them again." I may have shaken him a bit.

Because I asked about 6 different times and made absolutely no mental effort to retain the information, Sal finally wrote the cocktail recipe down for me:

Here it is:
1. St.-Germain (elderflower liqueur)
2. Earl Grey infused gin
3. Lemon juice
4. Simple syrup
xoxo

For the fancy bartender-invented Earl Grey infused stuff, I'm pretty sure a warm tea bag in a bottle of gin will do the trick. There will be some experimenting with this in coming weeks.

At about 1am, Mike tipped me into the car, spent a few minutes getting lost in the city after a detour that led to nowhere, and we got home to find the kids safely asleep on the couch-bed in tv-watching position. Giant win, all around.

Friday: oh god, elderflower cocktails. Why does grandma only have pre-formed meat products in her freezer? Let us lay around watching the F Word on BBC, and then lay in the grass by the lake, and nobody will speak to me of gin.

Mike's brother came over with another pie, and I ended up cooking chicken francais for 16 people. I waited until the aforementioned brother was carrying two of his sons, then hugged him from behind so he couldn't escape. It's been 14 years. I will force my affection on him until he learns to like me. I told him so, and he said, "Oh, huh."

Saturday: flew everywhere. Pressed face to plane window and watched gridwork of farmland turn to crumples of desert mountains turn to endless carpet of LA rooftops. Got home at midnight - exactly 24 hours after heading out from New Windsor - to find that the cats had completely hosed the house down with pee and shredded the memory foam mattress like raccoons. Considered using their pelts to mop up with.

Home again. Skin rehydrating and lungs re-inflating. Kissed my coffee pot and stood under the cascading shower head and talked to my mom on the computer. A big chunk of my love lives on the East Coast, but I'm happy to be in my own bed again. I hope it won't be too many years before we return.