Onto the reason why Kris and I were in Boston in the first place: the wedding!

Kris' cousin and best man at our wedding, Mike P, was married, and Kris was in the wedding party (yeah, I think I mentioned that before, when I was trying to figure out if he was in the groomal party, the bridal party or the wedding party). The wedding was supposed to be outside, along the shore next to a light house, with the bride arriving by trolley and a band leading the wedding guests in a minstral march behind the pied piper (or trombonist, as the case was) back to the reception.

The weather didn't cooperate, and the wedding wasn't close to what they planned. Unless, of course, you ignore the frantic wedding planners, the musicians playing in a too-small space, the puking kids and mistaken accents. Do that, and the wedding was exactly what they planned.

Since the weather decided to be crappy, and rain the entire weekend, the wedding moved from the lighthouse grass to the local yacht club. The dance floor was transformed into a squashed theatre, and every crammed into the seats as the wedding planners frantically put up decorations that, had the weather cooperated, would have been out six hours before we arrived. Even as the bridesmaids were lining up, and the music adjusted for the wedding processional, the runner was being laid for everyone to walk up.

The background music when we were waiting for the wedding to start was played by a guitarist and a (snare) drummer. The music was light and pleasant. The bridal processional, however, included a trombonist. Now, as a former euphonist/baritone player, I can say definitively the instrument is not a quiet instrument. Neither is the trombone, many of which I sat next to in band or marched next to at some band competition. Playing a trombone softly is like trying to throw a disc with no spin: it ends disastrously.

The trombonist managed maybe a third of the notes he was supposed to play. Not because he couldn't play them, clearly he had enough experience to play each note with gusto and skill, but rather because he couldn't play softly enough. Brass instruments aren't made for playing softly, and it showed. As he was missing note after note after note, I cringed, feeling bad for him even as he turned red, presumably from embarrassment.

Fortunately, the bride was able to walk down the aisle without musical accompaniment.

The ceremony started with the officiant, I think Rachel's (the bride) uncle. Some of his first words were, "We're not here to mock the start of this relationship..."

At his words, the room gasped. What? What did he say? Well, d'uh, of COURSE we're not here to mock the start of this relationship, are you crazy? We're here to CELEBRATE the start of this relationship, we're excited for them!

The officiant looked up at the crowd, puzzled, found his place in his speech and started again. "We are not here to mock the start ..."

What the heck? No, no we're not.

Oh, wait.

You're from Boston. We're in Boston. You're saying mark. We're not here to MARK the start of this relationship.

Gotcha.

With you now.

The ceremony was fun, with some inside jokes in the vows, as well as other entertainment. Since we were rained out, we weren't able to follow the band from the light house to the yacht club, site of the reception, since we were already at the yacht club. There were other details like that which were lost. Following the band was supposed to take up some time, so that the food was ready once the ceremony was over and we had moved. Unfortunately, we were a half hour too early, and did the usual stand around and wait for the pictures to be taken.

The wedding party and photographers were HIGHLY efficient with their picture taking. I recall being surprised when Kris came up to me and asked what I was up to, and thinking, waiting for you to finish taking pictures.

At the reception, the kids were shuffled off to another room. The main dining room didn't have enough space for the adults and the kids, so sitters were hired to watch the kids while the adults had fun at the wedding.

Well, as Kris says, there's always drama in his family, and today was no exception. His nephew was sick, and ended up vomiting in the middle of the reception. I don't think either Jenn or Shaun had a particularly good time at the reception, which is unfortunate, because it was lovely.

Kris' parents and I went to Mike P.'s welcome barbeque directly from the airport. I met Mike P.'s bride, Rachel, her family and various friends. Lots and lots of people, making the event overwhelming, though having vegetables at the dinner was really really refreshing. Yay, cole slaw and lightly vinegared cucumbers!

We left the barbeque relatively early, around 10 pm, to drive by hotel number one to pick up Kris' clothes. Before we knew what was going on hotel-wise, Kris made reservations at an inexpensive hotel a few towns over from a more expensive hotel where many of the wedding guests were staying.

Kris had crashed in the inexpensive, what am I saying, the cheap-ass hotel when he first arrived in Boston, and hadn't been back. So, when I arrived, he was in the clothes he had been in for the last 28 hours, through sleep, meals, a baseball game, a bachelor party and two trips to the side of the road to puke. Or something like that.

So, we drove to the cheap-ass hotel to check him out of the hotel and gather his clothes, not necessarily in that order.

Getting there was a problem.

With directions that seemed straight-forward, we went out to the cheap-ass hotel. We managed three mis-turns, getting lost, making U-turns. The maps Kris had were woefully unhelpful and detail-less, and we managed to tour a dozen different routes along the way.

The driving experience was completely on par for the day. The drive to the barbeque involved driving 4 miles through bad traffic to find out a bridge was out, and we had to backtrack along a road where, if the road workers had just put up a big detour sign telling us to turn left instead of right for the detour instead of letting us drive 8 miles out of the way and wasting a half hour each, we would have been way less frustrated.

Well, Kris and I had the same experience, driving along roads that were poorly marked: either not marked at all or marked with signs that were 30° off where we turned 75° to the right instead of 45° to the right and ended up driving off in the complete wrong direction.

"I think kids steal signs and put them up on other streets just for fun," was a Kris comment.

"I think they just steal them."

After driving for about 90 minutes to go 8 miles, we concluded the reason why Boston drivers suck, is because they're all frustrated that they, too, can't figure out how to get anywhere, and take out their frustration on the other drivers.

That, and Massachusetts is a no-fault state.

Especially OSBFs.

When Bob and Lil finally found me at the airport, a cluster formed in front of me at the airport passenger pickup curb. Directly in front of me was a parked car, with no passengers loading. Next to that car was another car that was loading passengers. Now, this car was in the "No stopping. No loading" lane, where you really weren't supposed to stop or load passengers. Not that any of the five cars loading passengers in that lane really cared.

Now, behind this loading car was Bob in his rental van. He had just spotted me. He stopped his van rather than rear-end the stopped car in front of him and kill the people trying to load their luggage into the trunk of said stopped car. Clearly Bob is not from Boston.

The car next to him, behind the car directly in front of the non-loading car parked in front of me next to the car, however, clearly had a Boston driver behind the wheel. Not only a Boston driver, but an old, senile fuck that shouldn't be driving at all.

As Bob stopped his car to avoid the parked car in front of him, OSBF (short for old, senile Boston fuck) laid on the horn. He was done loading is OSF friends and was readly to leave the curb, and everyone else better move out of the way. He honked and honked and honked and gestured. He gestured and honked and started cursing at my father-in-law.

I'm clearly not from Boston. This pissed me off.

I went up to the car and slammed my hand down on the hood. "Stop honking!" I yelled. I continued to hit the hood of the car. "He can't move, or are you too blind to see that?"

The driver's reaction?

He pulled forward to hit me. Then started gesturing at me. The other OSBFs in the car continued to gesture at me when the car pulled away.

Lil in the meantime has walked away. Oh, my! My daughter-in-law is causing a scene. Well, it's not like I'm going to see any of these people again.

At least I didn't gesture the middle finger at the guy. I wish I had kicked his car, though. Or managed to get his license plate number.

Bob later commented to me that Boston is rated the worst city in the United States for driver courtesies. Way to go, Boston! You completely suck, and you're proud of it. Be sure to pat all your OSBFs on the back when you see them. They like hitting Hoosiers with their cars, I hear.

What a difference five months makes.

Which isn't to say that boston is exactly ooozing with the best weather ever: quite the contrary - it's raining and I can still see my breathe. But at least my nipples didn't freeze and fall off the moment I stepped out of the baggage claim area, like they did last January. Crappy weather, nonetheless.

This is the weekend of Andy's insanity, also known as the man is crazy enough to have four dogs in his house and think this is a good idea. We already had a crush on him. It may have just turned into love.

I hope he takes pictures.

Kris and I are here in Boston for his cousin's wedding. Mike P was Kris' best man at our wedding three years ago to the week. It'll be fun seeing Kris in a tux again, as part of the bridal (groomal? wedding?) party. He's so dashing when he's dressed like Bond James Bond.

My trip here is short. Since I'm not in the bridal-groomal-wedding party, I didn't have to be here in Boston early, so I didn't take the insane red-eye that Kris took. I hate red-eyes. Unlike Kris, I am unable to sleep well on planes, and red-eyes are merely on way tickets to migrainestonfieldville.

Though flying without Kris sucks, too. I figure if I'm going to die in a plane crash, I want Kris' hand in mine, and his shouting, "Well, it's been a wild ride, babe! And a good life! I love you!"

Not that I'd be shouting anything but "AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!"

Well, maybe I'd be quoting one of my favorite X-Factor quotes: "What a stupid way to die."

So, yeah. Bob and Lil should be here soon to pick me up. Boston, here I am again.

I'm leaving for boston in 45 minutes. Heather will be staying at our house for the weekend, up from Santa Barbara (she loves us, just can't stay away), possibly watching the dogs, maybe not. Andy said he may take them to his house and keep them, so heather may be off the hook. Maybe I should have asked he to water the gardens... eh.

My flight is at 7:00 am. What in heaven's name possessed me in my moment of ticket buying, I'll probably never know, but flight earlier than 10:00 am just do not work well for me.

Especially from SFO.

I figured for a 7:00 am flight, I'd want to be at the airport at 6:00 am, meaning I'd have to leave long term parking at 5:30 am, meaning I'd have to arrive at long term parking at 5:20 am, meaning I'd have to leave the house before 4:45 am, meaning I'd have to be awake by 4:30 am. Assuming I showered and packed and planned well the night before.

Planning well always means staying up until 1:30 am. I fell asleep around 1:30 am, and woke up at 4:30 am, actually made it out of bed at 4:35 am and was out of the house by 4:46 am. And there's where my planning fell apart.

My drive took about thirty minutes. Long term parking was easy to find and well signed, complete with a guy in a golf cart telling me where I could find a parking space on the second level. The shuttle was waiting at the bottom of the parking structure, so from parking to terminal was less than fifteen minutes. Checking in my bag and security took less than half an hour.

So, rather than arriving at the gate at 6:30 to walk straight onto the plane, sit down and pass out, I'm here in the terminal waiting, and hour and fifteen minutes early. Kris would be so proud of my early arrival time.

Me? I'm just tired.