Swim Practice, 9 AM

Madison is hosting some kind of Librarian reunion tour right now. Or maybe it's a metadata tagging conference, I don't really know. The important part is that it brought Joanna into South Central Wisconsin from  East Central Iowa for a couple of days. This morning at 9:00 we met in her hotel lobby to continue our series of hotel swimmings.

Leaf Perper

An unexpectedly sunny fall day brought us out for some ancillary leaf peeping over the weekend. I find you get the best peep from right up in there, and what a peep it was.

Early Education

Good thing I graduated elementary school at the top of my class...

Back On Top!

Cache It

Google's really starting to get to know me and my interests.

The Triple Wedding: Part 3

Wedding #3: The Footloose Wedding

Katie and I started this one off with some Jack & Gingers somewhere over Michigan. Disturbingly, it was Katie's first drink plane-side, something we fixed by continuing to drink Jack & Gingers all weekend long. Or maybe that was because they're the perfect drink to kick up your heels with in the crisp New England air. The point being, we drank a lot of Jack.

Unfortunately our destination this weekend was not Portland, ME; The Double Portland would have to wait. But we were going to Maine, and after recovering from our first bottle of Jack, taking a couple of trolleys, and doing some artsy loitering, we couldn't wait to get ourselves up to the Vacation State.

[City Loitering]

[Country Loitering]

Sure, we may have done some leaf-peeping on the way up (don't act like you haven't done it), but what we were really looking to peep were some fat, red lobster butts. Did you know that Southern Maine is chock-a-block with Thai restaurants? We had to peep a bunch of those, not to mention a pile of HPV pumpkins, before we found just the right lobster spot with our preferred list of supplies—lobsters, a pot, butter.

Post-lobster, we had to pop our hopper into high gear and get ourselves dressed and de-lobstered to make sure we didn't miss the wedding trolley out to the barn. This time the very open bar was not sidelined by lack of dancing floors and/or music; the barn was a-dance before dinner was over. Take that Kevin Bacon.

Breakfast saw us reconvene at the hayLoft restaurant down the road. Things that weren't surprising: Katie's poor ordering skillz, the 20oz beers. Things that were surprising: that capital 'L', Crapples being great for breakfast too! It was the game's inaugural New England appearance, and it was a huge success among the Husky alums. So much so that we changed our flight and stayed to play again that night.

Despite the brief scare we had at the check-in counter involving first a missing reservation, and then a single boarding pass to Detroit, it turned out to be a really good decision.

Evaluation:

Location: a barn not that close to Portland, ME

Highlights: Katie, the party trolley, Crapples2Crapplesx2, the barn dance

Music: dance party

Company: 2 new Facebook friends, so many Crapples lovers

Food Discovery: Kristen's brussels, Kristen's sausages

Sway: Chansky's Sway, originator of the reverse headbang

On a scale of 1 to fun: FUN

[Katie, Whitney, Hotdog Hat]

The Triple Wedding: Part 2

Wedding #2: The Drum Circle Wedding

I met Angela & Gary last summer during The Great Barnebey/Sterr Escape 2008. Those few days we spent sleeping on their futon, back when The Sway was still young, were a heady mix of fireworks, Travel Scrabble, and spicy cheese balls; there was even a drum circle thrown in for good measure. Luckily it turned out to be a drum circle party, which is everyone's favorite kind of drum circle.

The big pay off came when Julia's wedding invitation showed up with a strongly worded recommendation that she bring me as her date. I'm going to claim that as a half-invite, and I'm flattered.

Careful planning over the summer ensured that my ORD-LAX-PDX flight would arrive just minutes  after her OKC-MSP-PDX flight, leaving plenty of time to pick up our car and drive out to McMenamin's Edgefield somewhere in the Oregonian hinterlands. Unfortunately Julia decided to take the OKC-DET-SEA-PDX flight instead, stranding us at an unfortunately smelling Super 8 for the night. Over breakfast we played scratch off lotto (I have my own scratcher!) and discussed our playlist options for the coming road trip. Then we got in the car, turned on the GPS, and drove the 8 minutes down the highway to McMenamin's. Beware: objects in Oregon may be closer than Julia believes.

On the upside, our shortened road trip provided just the opportunity we were looking for to break out the Travel Scrabble/wine. When I started to cuddle up to the 200 pt. lead barrier Julia made-up some excuse about a rehearsal dinner she had to get to; I'm still chalking it as a win.

In the morning we needed to get off campus, so we took a drive up the Columbia Gorge, stopped at Multnomah Falls for brunch, and proceeded to gorge ourselves on the most impressive buffet I've ever been a part of. Hopefully you know me well enough for that to mean something. I've never sucked so many crab legs dry.

Later, back at the ranch, there was a ceremony in the grass; short, sweet, and unsurprisingly featuring a drum circle. Later than that, there was a band, and dancing, and jumpshots! I didn't get any compliments from the waitresses this time, which would have been disappointing if there had been any waitresses. I did fall in love with a singer of the band.

Evaluation:

Location: really close to Portland, OR

Highlights: Julia, the buffet, the band, the dancing, the Asian Ringo Starr on guitar, the jumpshots, the sweater opportunities, the Scrabbles

Music: almost Funkiphino good, which is really good.

Company: very in tune with their chakras

Food Discovery: bleu cheese roast potatoes. They're like regular roast potatoes, but much bleuer. And cheesier.

Sway: Jerry's Sway

On a scale of 1-10 Ws: 9 Ws

The Triple Wedding: Part 1

I've been dropping a string of references to The Triple Wedding lately and I'm finally ready to blog it out. Three consecutive weekends, 8 airports, 658 pictures. I promise I won't post them all.

Wedding #1: The Reunion Wedding

The first of The Three, but not the first of the fall, took Joanna and I down to waterlogged Atlanta, GA. We may have each gotten our own invitations to this one but that didn't stop us from signing the guestbook together, or from me trying to match my tie to her autumnal dress (I couldn't). Being the youngest Rochester alumni/ae to get the invites it was a little like freshman year, except with fewer freshmen. And more martinis.

[Ye Olde UofR Attendees]

Usually the amount of alcohol served at this reception would be just the lubricant needed to get the dance floor all a-dance. I know after a waitress told me how good I looked and started filling up anything I was holding with champagne, I felt like dancing. Easiest way to make sure no one dances at your reception? Don't have a dance floor and don't have music. B without A certainly won't do it, A without B might, but both A and B is pretty much a sure thing.

My advice for when you find yourself at such a point: start the auto-tune karaoke while planning the post-reception party out in ATL. Our decision the night before to hunker down in the hotel room over a few Becks(!) and some Crapples2Crapples was suddenly less about the opportunity never arising and more about saving ourselves for the wedding night!

[Things that are sad]

Evaluation:

Location: The classics. A big church for the ceremony, a museum for the reception.

Highlights: Joanna, that waitress compliment, reuniting, my bottomless glass

Music: There was no music.

Company: I already knew 7 people, double the number I would know at #s 2 & 3!

Sway: The Mattress Sway, the first Sway off the ground.

Food Discovery: sugar bacon Like regular bacon, but also available for dessert.

On a scale of 1-10 Ws: 7 Ws and a v.

Chansky's Sway

Last weekend The Triple Wedding successfully ripened into The Triple Sway—three Sways in 3 days

weekends. This time we invaded the aisles of Chansky's Market, and recruited some guy with a pony tail. What resulted was the most hectic Sway to date:

Jerry's Sway

Wedding #2 of the The Triple Wedding happened last weekend. We were out in Oregon where it was beautiful and sunny, just like it is every day of the year. The great thing about McMenamins Edgefield is that they have 9 bars onsite; the weird thing is that those bars only play jam band music.  And that creepy half-Jerry Garcia, half-tree sculpture that we swayed with.