Wedding Weekend

My last weekend was an excellent one. The fact that it was 4 days long helped, of course. But it also involved a trip to Greenwich, CT, for a wedding, and the whole stretch was quite nice. Even the 10 hours of driving didn't really take away from it.

It started out with a dinner party in honor of the bride and groom at a family friend's house in Greenwich on Thursday. I knew about 4 people there, including the bride and groom, but it was fun anyway. The bartender kept bringing me a new beer every time mine was empty, so it was hard to go wrong. Plus, the catering staff were walking around the patio with lobster nachos, coconut shrimp, and mini cheeseburgers for hors d'oeuvres. Mini cheeseburgers! At dinner, I sat next to a woman who might have been the wedding coordinator. Or she may not have been. I do know that, when I claimed to be a freeloader (which she believed since I wasn't part of the wedding party), she told me she wouldn't let me into the reception if I wasn't at the church. There's nothing quite like being threatened by an eccentric, older woman you don't know.

Friday, I drove out to Pomptom Plains, NJ, to play golf with my friend, Big Daddy. It was great and awful. Great to see Big Daddy and to hit the links. Awful to shoot a 108. Big Daddy shot a 76 and was irked. Sometimes, I hate that guy.

Saturday morning, we got to play 9 holes at Round Hill, where golf is really just strolling and swinging, since you have caddies to carry your bag. It was fun, and I even played better. However, the lesson I took away is that you should ask the caddy for a club and have him give it to you. That way, you can avoid accidentally pulling the wrong club for your approach to the 9th green and nearly killing the father of the groom as your ball arcs gracefully over the flagstick, flies the green, and hits the road 3 feet from the groom's dad before bouncing onto the roof of this very nice clubhouse. (Yes, I know there are numbers and letters on the soles of the clubhead. I have no idea how or why I pulled the wrong one.)

The wedding was gorgeous. Everything about it was elegant and classy. Well, maybe not the part where the church had no air conditioning, but some would argue that's a touch of old-school class. The reception was at a yacht club, the weather was nice, and the band was excellent. This wedding was classy enough that the band mercifully avoided playing all of the Big Four wedding dance songs (Electric Slide, Hokey Pokey, Macarena, and YMCA; if you're from northern OH or PA, substitute the Chicken Dance for the Macarena.) Plus, I've never been to a wedding so completely chock-full of good looking women. And the bride and groom were the picture of beauty.

A nice brunch on Sunday, during which I chased Scotty's little dude all around the yard, was a nice lead-in for the drive home that showed me two things I hadn't seen before.

First, traffic slowed way down on 95 South (that I had seen plenty). It was to rubberneck the goings-on on the other side of 95 (also a common sight). What was unusual to me was that, amidst a noticeably large cloud of dust and dirt in the air, I saw a woman rubbing a man's arm on the side of the interstate near some cars pulled to the side of the road, obviously saying comforting things to him. He was clearly freaked out by something. (That's a bit unusual, but not something I hadn't seen before.) As I wondered what was freaking him out, I saw a car (a Cadillac STS, I think) resting askew across the two right lanes. The thing I hadn't seen before was that it was resting on its roof and hood, all four wheels pointed at the sky and spinning, like a cockroach that had been flipped on its back and couldn't move.

That sight made me think it was about time to stop for a soda. As I did, I saw the second new-to-me sight: not one, but two people, asked me for gas money as I walked in and out of the service area building. I guess gas prices really are high. Flustered by these developments, I spied a sign that said "MEN" and headed in to relieve myself. I stopped short and flushed (no pun intended) pretty quickly, though, because the view from the doorway indicated that the part of the sign I had read was just the second part of "WOMEN." I am clearly an idiot.

Despite the strange and idiotic, finish, I hope all your wedding weekends can be as good. May the location be picturesque, may the food be tasty, may the dancing be smooth, may the eye candy be plentiful, and may you never see or hear the Macarena again.