You Know How I Know You're Gay?

Yeah, hold that thought because we'll get to the Coldplay!

First, apologies for the delay. I've been busy doing a lot of nothing and waiting for a rainy-ish day in which to pen this next exciting installment. So, without further ado, I bring you the blog entry on the wedding of the year!

As you may remember our heroines were looking forward to a weekend away from the grind of not having to wake up and go to work. This doesn't mean we (I am far too lazy to continue in the third person) don't get stressed. We do. Very stressed. It's just that our stress inducers are different. They live in the brown house across the street. They gave birth to us. And in some cases, they wear fur and live with us. They can just sense when we are dreaming of a get away so there is simply no better time to contract HGE or develop a face swelling infection. After three nerve wracking and expensive days, we are finally able to pack our bags and get out of town!

Our chauffeur, let's call him Ron, arrives on time and we are quickly whisked away to Cleveland Hopkins International Airport. As usual there are no lines and after successfully navigating the moving walkway, we deposit ourselves at Gate D9 for our on time departure to Reagan National Airport. I decide that I should get a coffee and as I drop my bags, I look up and see the co-pilot for our flight walking out of the jet way. I notice that he is tall, dark and handsome with the added advantage of having some fairly piercing blue eyes. A combination that since Randolph Mantooth, has always grabbed my attention. I alert Stacey but she is too busy texting some dude who is not tall, dark or handsome. I shrug. What more can I do. After waiting far too long for a cup of questionable coffee, we board our express jet and are immediately informed of various safety precautions by our flight attendant, Natasha. Now I don't think her name is Natasha. I only call her Natasha because she has a Russian accent and as soon as she makes her announcement, Stacey runs to my seat (I am two rows behind) to say "Moose and squirrel". Yeah, it's going to be like that. The short flight is uneventful and we soon arrive at our gate. I tell Stacey I will meet her inside as she has gate checked her bag. A few minutes later, she bounds up the jet way, bag in tow, with this silly smirk on her face. She says, "Oh man, the co-pilot is hot! Did you see him?" Whatever...

The Metro ride to the hotel is fairly uneventful other than we thought we'd be smart and by an "all day" pass only to find that the "all day" pass doesn't work until 9:30 a.m. and it's only 9:15. After purchasing a one way ticket to get to the hotel, we wait on the platform until a little after 9:30 at which time our "all day" pass would have worked! We check in and call Hallie and agree to meet her at a restaurant that is not open but we do hook up and head on out to the Mall. As we depart the Metro station, Stacey manages to fall over some crates. That's one. At least two guys come to her aid. It's all very gallant but it's like 95 degrees with 98% humidity by this time and we need to hit the WWII Memorial before we melt. After navigating the morons and very fat sweaty Americans (see left), we arrive. It's lovely but I can't help thinking it looks like Albert Speer designed it (see right).

At this point, we are melting so we head to the National Gallery to lay on the marble floor. We end up spending a very lovely, cool afternoon amongst some of my favorite pieces of art. We are the only people laughing and having fun. Everyone else walks very quickly and then takes pictures of the important pieces of art that they were there to "see". I can say that the one place they do stop is in front of the grossly overrated portrait of Ginevra de Benci. I can only assume they believe that there is a secret code buried somewhere in the small, drab piece. I look around and notice no tall albino monks but still decline to look at it professionally. It's kind of like when The Cure play Love Song or the Bunnies do Lips Like Crack and I dance ironically. But soon we are off to the Boticelli's, the Rosso's, the Bronzino's, the Hals', the Ingres', the Whistler's (yes, I love Whistler). The day is full of classic art history one liners: "Sir Jeffrey, get that monkey off your back", "Boy, that's a really ugly baby Jesus", and the instant classic, "And how can you miss a Rodin!". Well, you can't. We view some of the recent acquisitions, including White Bread by James Rosenquist (sublime) and Bagpipe Player by Hendrick ter Brugghen (one of the loveliest paintings I have ever seen) and the Munch exhibit (how uplifting). Stacey runs into two of her favorite men, Napoleon and the Security Guard from Louisiana. Sadly, the afternoon must end as we have to return to the hotel and wash off the afternoon's stank as we are attending the pre-wedding BBQ at some swanky private club in Georgetown established in 1796.

Refreshed and redressed, we get in our taxi only to find that our cabbie is not real happy about driving from Dupont Circle to Georgetown at 6:00 pm on a Friday night. I can understand. The traffic sucks, it takes forever, and the fare is low. It is one of the worst cab rides I have ever had and I have had a cabbie fall asleep on me. Stacey doesn't agree but then she was on the phone with her mother discussing Charlotte's personal habits. As we descend from our coach, whiplash now fully developed, we are met at the door by Joanna (the mother of the groom) and Rhonda (the step-mother of the groom). Now, I know a lot about Rhonda even though I've never met her so it requires all my social skills to not make faces at her. Luckily, we head right to the bar and then meet up with Tom (the step-father of the groom) on the patio where our evening transpires.

It is here that we meet Joanna's siblings, her nephew Fauxhawk, and the future Attorney General of West Virginia (in the yellow pants). Smashing! We meet Fauxhawk's brother who has been living in China and has brought his Cambridge educated English girlfirend to the wedding. She asks Stacey and I if we are "business partners". Now, I've spent a lot of time in Old Blighty but I've never heard it called that before. She gets away from us as soon as possible as it's "catching" I hear. At some point I notice a waiter who keeps darting in and out of the tables. He intrigues me. He looks like the D-List version of Stephen Dorff and even though I try desperately to get his picture, he eludes me. At some point, Stacey stops him and chats him up. He's French (what else?) but from some town she's never heard of so I determine that he is actually Belgian. Stacey attempts to explain the "Stephen Dorff" thing but it goes nowhere and she dubs him "The Dorffmunder". You know, like the beer Dortmunder, a pale blonder lager! The allusion is sheer perfection so we call it a night.

Saturday is a big breakfast and a day by the pool. Delightful and uneventful. Refreshed we shower and dress for the wedding. We hit the bar for a pre-ceremony refreshment and then cross the street to another private club. This one is swanky as well but only dates to the mid-19th century. Still, it's nice. We take up our seats for the ceremony and admire the artwork. Stacey calls that the bride's niece will have a temper tantrum during the ceremony. She does. Now as ceremonies go, it was fine. I can't say I paid much attention to anything other than the music. The had a nice five piece (I am guessing here as I never counted) that was playing assorted Beatles songs as people filtered in. The songs for the ceremony included The Verve's Bittersweet Symphony, the Bryan Adams "classic" Everything I Do I Bloody Well Do For You" (during which I kept looking around for Alan "The Sheriff of Nottingham" Rickman) and finally, Coldplay's Viva La Vida. At which point, I knew they were gay.

After the ceremony, I move to get a closer look at my sassy dude. He is sassy isn't he? Joanna's brother joins me. He has no idea why I am staring at this painting until I tell him he's my dream man, "Romantic, poetic, and slightly syphilitic". I think he believed me. We then move on and grab drinks and run into the lovely Joanna and Tom.

We drink some more and then mosey on in to the ballroom area. Stacey and I don't know we are supposed to sit with Joanna and Tom so, like a couple of good Sicilians, we find a table by the wall and face the door. We are soon joined by a friend of Bart's (the groom) who is from New Jersey. Another Sicilian! He is attending a girl named Allyn who makes it very clear that she is not with that guy but a guy in the wedding party. We chat. We scare Allyn. We are her worst nightmare: over 40, not married, and with another female at a wedding. Once I make a crack about Stacey giving me cancer, she leaves for good. Easy peasy.

What else can I tell you about the wedding? The band was white and played Motown classics. We dubbed them the Below Average White Band. Visits to the bathroom were thrilling, especially as Stacey and I had apparently donned cloaks of invisibility. Other than Joanna, Tom, Joanna's family, the Italian kid and Allyn, absolutely no one saw us! On Stacey's trip to the WC, she encountered one young woman who felt strongly she should be on American Idol. To prove her point, she sang "Isn't She Lovely" (performed earlier by the BAWB during the Father/Bride dance). On my trip to the loo, I learned that one of the girls had a brother who was "hot"! In fact, when I found out that not only was he "hot" but that he was the "Dean" of the English Department at some prep school, I knew the girl in stall number three was correct when she said the sister needed to introduce them. I mean, she was an English Lit major! Of course, I agree he'd have to shave that beard if she wanted to take him to her "club" but that's okay because it was only a "vacation beard"! Whew. Crisis totally averted. After all this excitement, we called it an early night.

On Sunday, we hit the Mall again. This time we went to the Korean War Memorial. I find it quite stunning even if some of the people there admitted out loud that they "don't even know how that war started". Oh, I don't know? WWII and that whole 38th parallel thingy? We then hoofed it over to the Vietnam War Memorial where we actually overheard some whiny teen tell his mother that he was "hot, tired, hungry, and thirsty". For some reason, his mother did not smack him in the face. Stacey and I did so in our heads.


Over heated, we went to the airport a little early because it would be cool and there was a bar right across from our gate. Before we could get there, I had to get in the security line behind a lady with a very big behind. She was traveling with some breathing equipment in a suit case so this caused some issues for TSA. To make matters a little more complicated, she decided to pack a can of bean dip. Apparently she didn't think this would be an issue. It was. She made it out of security as we were sipping our first drinks, for which Stacey was carded. We both laughed and I said, "do you want to see mine as well?" Our less than charming waitress said, "No, I don't think so". My lovely buzz was ruined when on the flight home. I was across the aisle from a young lad who had crossed that threshold of puberty but was still unaware of the fact that this meant his feet now stunk.

And now the rain has cleared and the sun is out and I have come to the end of my tale. I am sure I missed something but I lost my notes as the airport bar. I blame the waitress!