Hail-Fellow-Well-Met

I just got off the horn with my old bud TK.  He is in bachelor mode, with his wife off to Greece for a couple weeks. I called to console him, as we both drift into melancholy when our significant other is gone for more than a few hours. We compared notes on some physical ailments, and also congratulated ourselves on escaping East Coast winters. It was forty years ago Saturday that I hopped on a jet at JFK to begin my California residency.

Let’s talk about Belmont weddings.  We had two of them this month. I told you about our Kenosha gig earlier in the month. On the 23rd we headed up to Sebastopol for the wedding of Unc and Mashie’s daughter. She married a young man she has known since pre-school, and they re-connected a few years ago.

We stopped at the Lagunitas brewery on the way up. We had a good lunch and a sampler of their beers. They had quite a selection, but you can only get many of them at that site. After that we headed to the Courtyard Marriott in Santa Rosa, located conveniently across the street from the Hyatt, where the welcome party was. There was a slight chill in the air that evening, but they had heaters. In any case, I grew up in those rough and tumble East Coast winters, remember? We had a good time there and I also got to see a guy dressed up like Ricky Bobby. His main sponsor was Wonder Bread.

The wedding day turned out beautifully. We were shuttled from the hotel to a gorgeous venue. A good family friend did the officiating, and it all went off without a hitch. Before dinner we communed with nature and a couple glasses of wine. My wife made sure we got some good family photos. I sometimes kid her about that, but the only reason we have a good archive is because of her. Maybe I should work on being a better planner before I hit 70.

Dinner was family style, and they did an excellent job. The chicken was just right, so I put a few extra pieces in my wife’s purse. It is a real art to be able to serve so many people a quality meal. Once I have more than six people over to my house for dinner, everything goes to hell. Ask my FC crew.

Speaking of them, Unc and Mashie have a Belmont crew, which we married into last year. They are a great bunch of people, not as witty, urbane and successful as the FC crew, but nice folks nonetheless. We got to hang with them throughout the event. One of them was even nice to enough to help me up when I fell on my ass coming off the dance floor, where I only moved from the waist up due to my bum hip.