bigmacbear (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
bigmacbear) wrote2006-07-10 07:50 pm
bigmacbear) wrote2006-07-10 07:50 pm
Weekend Part I -- The Wedding
Friday night I left from Sea-Tac Airport for Cincinnati to attend my nephew Steve's wedding.
I thought I'd wear my new Seattle Men's Chorus polo shirt and as a result got a lot of comments from Chorus fans throughout the airport, including one of the TSA screeners at security. Once on the concourse I realized I'd forgotten to pack a tie, so I picked one from a display at one of the newsstands/gift shops where I also picked up The Last True Story I'll Ever Tell, a memoir of a soldier in Iraq. I figured I would be sleeping most if not all the way to Cincinnati but would like some reading material for the return trip, and had heard glowing reviews of the book on the radio.
On the flight I sat in the very last seat on the aircraft, 45F, and found it a surprisingly comfortable seat in which to sleep because I could lean my head against the bulkhead. Next to me were seated a Russian woman and her decidedly non-Russian boyfriend or husband. My first thought was "mail-order bride", but I said nothing of the sort. They were en route from Anchorage, Alaska to Traverse City, Michigan. I heard her companion say that he had already booked her flight some weeks hence through Moscow to Rostov, presumably the latter is her hometown. After a minor gripe about hating to sit in the back of the plane, we all went to sleep.
On arriving in Cincinnati and waiting for all the other passengers to deplane, I found my bag right away at the baggage carousel and caught the shuttle to the car-rental place. They didn't have the full-size car I'd ordered so they rented me a Mitsubishi SUV at no extra charge. This would prove problematic when it came to getting Mom in and out of the vehicle, but the ride was very nice. I took I-75 north to my folks' place, and was impressed with what they had done with the reconstruction work surrounding Fort Washington Way some years ago.
I arrived at my folks' place about eight. They were still upstairs and couldn't hear the doorbell so I ended up calling from my cell phone to let them know I was on the doorstep. ;-) I think they were awake but just hadn't gotten dressed yet. Once they were dressed we went to a nearby IHOP for breakfast and had a nice conversation. Afterward we went back to the townhouse and I took a nap until about two. We had Skyline chili for lunch, and I tried to show them the concert video from SMC's Judy Garland tribute back in April, but the DVD player wasn't cooperating. By then it was time to dress for the wedding.
We arrived at St. Cecelia's church about ten after five, just before the wedding party pulled up in a big black limo-bus. The ceremony went very smoothly, with a minimum of glitches (one of the ushers lit the wrong candle). My niece Erin was escorted by a red-headed giant -- think Larry Bird, but better-looking. Another of the bridesmaids had two escorts -- one a round fellow who would be considered cubbish if he hadn't shaved off all visible hair including his head, and the other an Army Ranger in full-dress uniform. The bride, Amanda, wore a modern wedding dress with a long train but instead of a veil, she wore a thin headdress with a small tiara attached. Amanda chose both a maid-of-honor and a matron-of-honor, while Steve's best man was his father.
After the ceremony we stayed so Mom and Dad could have pictures taken with the bride and groom, and then went to the reception hall in downtown Covington, Kentucky, the Madison. It was a bit of a struggle for Mom to get from the SUV to the sidewalk but she managed. After parking, Dad and I rejoined Mom in the lobby and waited for the elevator.
There was a minor mix-up in seating: while they had reserved seats for my folks, my sisters Colleen (mother of the groom) and Sheila, and for Sheila's husband, they hadn't reserved seats for Sheila's children and by the time they arrived there were only seats in twos and threes available, sitting with people they didn't know. That was solved by seating the youngest of the children with their parents, and moving my parents to a table where Dad's siblings were already seated, which worked out to be agreeable to all concerned.
I got a chance to catch up with Mom's friends Del and Sis, who were often around as we were growing up, and Del's children including Bob. Bob is a member of the club, so to speak, and although it seems obvious when speaking with him, he is not out to his mother. I suspect she knows but doesn't want to know. He and his brother Mark recently bought a pub at a foreclosure sale, in addition to the bed-and-breakfast Bob already runs which used to be run by his sister and her family. Anyway, I finally got to mention to him that I thought what he needed at the bed-and-breakfast was a houseboy, and he was quite amused.
I also got the chance to speak with my aunts and uncle on Dad's side, and my cousin Kathy who is the closest to me in age of all my cousins. She's not married but has a steady boyfriend whom I got to meet. She has grown into a very nice-looking woman; not to put too fine of a point on it, in Dad's words "she's broad where a broad should be broad".
As the reception came to a close, Erin's boyfriend (not her escort) got so drunk that he fell backwards down the foot of the grand staircase. Fortunately he wasn't injured. The wedding party's limo bus had long since Gone Away, so I drove my parents and my niece Kate and her daughter Alyssa back to the hotel, while most of the rest of the wedding party returned on foot (it was about eight small blocks to walk).
This is getting really long so I'll continue later with the events of overnight and the next day.
I thought I'd wear my new Seattle Men's Chorus polo shirt and as a result got a lot of comments from Chorus fans throughout the airport, including one of the TSA screeners at security. Once on the concourse I realized I'd forgotten to pack a tie, so I picked one from a display at one of the newsstands/gift shops where I also picked up The Last True Story I'll Ever Tell, a memoir of a soldier in Iraq. I figured I would be sleeping most if not all the way to Cincinnati but would like some reading material for the return trip, and had heard glowing reviews of the book on the radio.
On the flight I sat in the very last seat on the aircraft, 45F, and found it a surprisingly comfortable seat in which to sleep because I could lean my head against the bulkhead. Next to me were seated a Russian woman and her decidedly non-Russian boyfriend or husband. My first thought was "mail-order bride", but I said nothing of the sort. They were en route from Anchorage, Alaska to Traverse City, Michigan. I heard her companion say that he had already booked her flight some weeks hence through Moscow to Rostov, presumably the latter is her hometown. After a minor gripe about hating to sit in the back of the plane, we all went to sleep.
On arriving in Cincinnati and waiting for all the other passengers to deplane, I found my bag right away at the baggage carousel and caught the shuttle to the car-rental place. They didn't have the full-size car I'd ordered so they rented me a Mitsubishi SUV at no extra charge. This would prove problematic when it came to getting Mom in and out of the vehicle, but the ride was very nice. I took I-75 north to my folks' place, and was impressed with what they had done with the reconstruction work surrounding Fort Washington Way some years ago.
I arrived at my folks' place about eight. They were still upstairs and couldn't hear the doorbell so I ended up calling from my cell phone to let them know I was on the doorstep. ;-) I think they were awake but just hadn't gotten dressed yet. Once they were dressed we went to a nearby IHOP for breakfast and had a nice conversation. Afterward we went back to the townhouse and I took a nap until about two. We had Skyline chili for lunch, and I tried to show them the concert video from SMC's Judy Garland tribute back in April, but the DVD player wasn't cooperating. By then it was time to dress for the wedding.
We arrived at St. Cecelia's church about ten after five, just before the wedding party pulled up in a big black limo-bus. The ceremony went very smoothly, with a minimum of glitches (one of the ushers lit the wrong candle). My niece Erin was escorted by a red-headed giant -- think Larry Bird, but better-looking. Another of the bridesmaids had two escorts -- one a round fellow who would be considered cubbish if he hadn't shaved off all visible hair including his head, and the other an Army Ranger in full-dress uniform. The bride, Amanda, wore a modern wedding dress with a long train but instead of a veil, she wore a thin headdress with a small tiara attached. Amanda chose both a maid-of-honor and a matron-of-honor, while Steve's best man was his father.
After the ceremony we stayed so Mom and Dad could have pictures taken with the bride and groom, and then went to the reception hall in downtown Covington, Kentucky, the Madison. It was a bit of a struggle for Mom to get from the SUV to the sidewalk but she managed. After parking, Dad and I rejoined Mom in the lobby and waited for the elevator.
There was a minor mix-up in seating: while they had reserved seats for my folks, my sisters Colleen (mother of the groom) and Sheila, and for Sheila's husband, they hadn't reserved seats for Sheila's children and by the time they arrived there were only seats in twos and threes available, sitting with people they didn't know. That was solved by seating the youngest of the children with their parents, and moving my parents to a table where Dad's siblings were already seated, which worked out to be agreeable to all concerned.
I got a chance to catch up with Mom's friends Del and Sis, who were often around as we were growing up, and Del's children including Bob. Bob is a member of the club, so to speak, and although it seems obvious when speaking with him, he is not out to his mother. I suspect she knows but doesn't want to know. He and his brother Mark recently bought a pub at a foreclosure sale, in addition to the bed-and-breakfast Bob already runs which used to be run by his sister and her family. Anyway, I finally got to mention to him that I thought what he needed at the bed-and-breakfast was a houseboy, and he was quite amused.
I also got the chance to speak with my aunts and uncle on Dad's side, and my cousin Kathy who is the closest to me in age of all my cousins. She's not married but has a steady boyfriend whom I got to meet. She has grown into a very nice-looking woman; not to put too fine of a point on it, in Dad's words "she's broad where a broad should be broad".
As the reception came to a close, Erin's boyfriend (not her escort) got so drunk that he fell backwards down the foot of the grand staircase. Fortunately he wasn't injured. The wedding party's limo bus had long since Gone Away, so I drove my parents and my niece Kate and her daughter Alyssa back to the hotel, while most of the rest of the wedding party returned on foot (it was about eight small blocks to walk).
This is getting really long so I'll continue later with the events of overnight and the next day.
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