So, this weekend was the gorgeous wedding of Adam and Katie, and I am so glad we went to see these two amazing people get married. Their personalities and passions were so clearly demosntrated in every detail of the event and you could tell that all the elegant simplicity took huge amounts of attention to detail.
The Blogger weekend was not so detail-oriented, a bit to our detriment, though not necessarily to our disappointment.
First, I worked from home Thursday to get things organized. I cleaned. I packed. I went to the grocery store. (Where I missed the part of Not Your Average Blogger's e-mail where he said to buy cat food.)
Then, for reasons I still don't remember, NeighborGirl floated the idea of going to see the midnight showing of Cars II, and I decided that might be a fun thing to do. NYAB assured us we could count him out, as he would be sleeping in preparation for the drive to Rhode Island the next day. The Young Prince, on the other hand, was absolutely over the moon at the prospect. He was practically vibrating as he walked into the theater, yet he was incredibly well-behaved -- and alert -- for the duration. This, although NeighborGirl had given him carte blanche to talk as much as he wanted and to kick the chair in front of him because three other people had decided that out of the whole fairly empty theater, they wanted to sit Right In Front of Us. I do tend to wonder about people who do that. Are they just That Angry about showing up second and not getting their perfect preferred seats? Or are they clueless with no sense of social space? Or some other idea I'm missing? I mean, I rather doubt they sat right in front of us because they knew we would have such sparkling MST3K badinage. Whatever, they were fine, we were fine.
After the movie, we came home, where I worked and stayed up pretty much straight through. The YP did his level best to keep up, but he conked out at 5:30, about 20 minutes into the original Clash of the Titans. He woke up when we bustled him into the car and stayed awake for another hour, but crashed for a good chunk of the trip.
So sleep-deprived and a little spaced out, I parked myself in the passenger seat. I'm not sure when I fell asleep, but when I woke up I saw that Not Your Average Blogger had taken a route that I thought we'd agreed not to take, and we were in gridlock upon gridlock. This, however, simply gave us more time to listen to the iPod.
We got to Providence and drove around town once trying to figure out how GPS thought we should get to the hotel.
We got dressed, and wandered the streets, taking a couple wrong turns trying to figure out how GPS thought we should get to a pre-wedding gathering at the Other Hotel.
We had dinner that was Not Bad because even though we got lost, we still showed up a half-hour early. The sea bass was pretty good. The salmon was nice. THe kid's burger vanished, so I assume it was edible.
When we were done eating, people had arrived at the lounge, so we went back in, where the YP introduced himself to the other kids, we chatted with a few people, said our hellos to the bride and groom, and then bolted back to our hotel, stopping along the way for dessert and a book. (Because my kid, y'all, said he'd rather have a book than a brownie. I think that must come from NYAB's genes, because I can't imagine he got that from me.)
Next day, we wandered the mall (connected to our hotel by a skywalk! So exciting!) in search of dress shoes for the boy. We went to every store in that place -- most didn't carry dress shoes for boys, one place only had them in sizes 4 or 12. So I finally ground my teeth and stepped into Nordstrom.
Seriously, if you are of my age/weight/income bracket and want to feel terrible about yourself, just go spend a few minutes in Nordstrom's fancy-dress section. It's terribly demoralizing. Gorgeous dresses that look lovely on the rack, but would look awful on your lumps and bumps, were you able to afford such togs. Of course, we did find shoes for the boy there. Kenneth Coles. At the age of 8, my son got a pair of shoes that cost as much as the last 3 pairs I bought for myself at Payless. He better wear them more than once, is all I have to say.
Then we went back to the room and decided to get ready and head out early -- at which point NYAB discovered that although I had set out a dress shirt and tie for the kid, I had somehow managed to pick up only six out of seven hangers. So we got as ready as possible, reversed course back to the mall, got a shirt and tie, realized we'd left the parking voucher in the hotel room, doubled back again, and finally got on the road. We drove to Little Compton, where we spent a few minutes playing on the beach (with repeated admonitions to the YP that he Not Get Dirty,) and then driving back up through town (and yes, dad, we stopped at Charles Wilbour's house, but decided not to pay the $15 to get in since we'd have to leave in 20 minutes,) and arriving with a bunch of other guests at the wedding.
The YP was immediately recruited to hand out programs and fell in with a gang of other kids; with the exception of sitting with us during the ceremony, we barely saw him for the whole evening. He did deign to dance to Forget You with me -- and the groom joined him for a flail-heavy interpretation of Katy Perry's Firework. Video was taken, but the YP and I agreed it should remain classified.
After the wedding, we returned to the hotel, and took off the next morning to head back home. We stopped in Coventry along the way to check out the Nathan Hale memorial, and the YP took a little solo hike down a hill to the edge of a lake, where he doused his feet and threw some rocks. A nice drive back, and we got home last night.
Today is all recovery/cleaning/laundry. Tomorrow is Lady Katherine!
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