Missives from the 6th Floor

In case I haven't mentioned it yet, the groom is Armenian, so this was - apparently - "My Big Fat Armenian Wedding" - complete with the deranged and inebriated extended family, loud middle-eastern music, tons of great food, and belly-dancing (more on that later).

We bailed the party just before midnight, and called Vince and Donna when we got back to the hotel -- good friends don't mind when you call late - really good friends say "yes" when you call at midnight and ask them to breakfast the nest morning ;). We got up around 8, left at 9, and were at BC in Claremont before 10. After a large breakfast, we said our good-bye's, made a pass by Geoff and Kathey's place (knowing they wouldn't be home as they were at an SCA event that weekend), and made a stop at BevMo in Chino Hills - where Jan and Steven met us to shop and chat briefly - before heading back to the hotel to prep for the wedding.

The ceremony was held at St. Mary's Armenian Apostolic Church, which was beautiful, in a slightly "this place gives me the heebiee-geebies" sort of way - and was attended by about 100 people, mostly the groom's family, and a handful of the bride's friends who had come down from Seattle. It was blessedly short, and by 7:30 we were gathering at Carousel on Brand for the reception.

The food was fabulous and plentiful, as was the alcohol. And the belly dance troupe was truly impressive. We left the party around 12:30, and were back in the hotel ready to collapse around 1. The next morning was check-out. We had talked about driving out to Corona to meet my mom and sister at Faire, but the GPS said it was about a 90 minute drive, and we had a late-afternoon flight, so instead we called Jason and Robert and made hasty brunch/spend-the-day-in-long beach plans.

We left the hotel around 9, and before 10 we were at their new place in Long Beach. From there we piled into Roberts car and went to a wholly forgettable dive for br/lunch, and spent a while walking around the downtown area. (We went into a kick-ass used CD store, and I ended up coming home with 8-9 cd's, some of which I'd been looking for for a long while.) We spent the last bit of our time playing the VH1 80's trivia game, before heading to the airport to drop the car and wait for our flight.

The trip home was uneventful, though it's worth noting that the United customer service agent was kind enough to put us in Economy Plus when we asked her about trading our separated seats for two together.

Tuesday we stayed local, met our landscaper to start the next phase of the work around the house (cobblestone walkway on the up-hill side, another french drain on the down-hill side, etc. etc.) and 'cause Dawnise had a class that morning (which moved to that evening).

We had planned to drive to Mt. Saint Helens on Wednesday, but the weather turned wet, and I wasn't so interested in driving the mountain just to stand in the rain, so we deferred that trip for another time.

Instead we've done some shopping, I've taken care of some stuff around the house, and I'm generally decompressing from work. I'll probably go into the new office a couple times next week to get things T'd up for my official start on Monday the 12th.

Tonight, Donna's going to be in town on business, so we'll meet her for an early dinner, tomorrow night is the Improv, and Sunday night is a BBQ at Ed & Holly's place - so we'll certainly not be bored...