Flying with beck can be adventurous - for all the crap I take re: ophidiaphobia, she has her own pteromerhanophobic tendencies and does not particularly enjoy the taking off, the landing or the part in between. We've discussed the stats, the physics, etc., and it doesn't seem to matter. She has taken to distracting her fears with a slew of B-grade movies, normally starring Sandra Bullock. This time Kate & Leopold was put up to the task. I can't speak for the dialog - Beck had the headphones on - but the action scenes looked painfully dumb. Beck's review: "I find this movie implausible." You know, because of the inaccurate period dress. And/or the time travel. Still, between that and a February 14 Xword (which involved the symbol for heart, which i figured out a solid 1.5 hours in, ugh - like "gave up," five letters, was "LOST♥"), this pair of flights was tolerable for the Kwia (unlike the ones home, where Beck was given a window seat sans window. WHAAA?? Not worth recounting, but claustrophobia + flying does not a happy Beck make. We survived).
Touched down in Raleigh at about 4 NHST (normal humans standard time) and headed through 103 degree, 98% humidity atmosphere to the rental car place. They offered us a million "upgrades," all for cost. No, thank you, we do not need Oil Slick or Smoke Screen. They did, however, ask us if anyone had wronged us in the recent past, and if so would we like to deliver their comeuppance in typical American gas-guzzling style. Why yes we said, Beck's eyes twinkling mischievously. She grasped the keys to a Dodge Avenger. The week was set. Greg / Meghan were getting in at 5:30, so we hung out at Dollar until they showed up. I imagine they don't get a whole lot of folks who rent a car and then sit in their lobby for an hour, but no one really bugged us.
Grabbed M/G and headed to the hotel where a whole lot of construction signs (Please Teddy With Us? Huh?) greeted us. Beck had to a sign a "no-party" clause while checking in, seriously crushing our hopes for the weekend. (Thankfully, the iPs did not have to sign one, so we tore up room 116 instead. YEAH!). Chilled at the hotel very briefly and soon headed down to Clayton for Hilary and Travis's rehearsal dinner. We had been warned well ahead of time that this was to be a pig-pickin'-centered event, so we prepared ourselves for a carcass-focused evening (and were not disappointed, though honestly it resembled a fairly typical barbecue more than the Hawaiian full pig on spit scenario we had been envisioning):
Unfortunately that picture did not capture the flag of a happy pig that flew over the BBBQ pit. The cartoon sow was, indeed, clutching forks and knives.
Hilary, btw, is Beck's cousin, the daughter of iPMM's brother who travels incognito via the alias "Uncle Henry." He is alternatively known as Daniel to other family members and, well, the readership of the Raleigh newspaper. (Incidentally, he kept a running blog of the experience of being father of the bride, so check that site for an in-family account). Hilary married a boy named Travis - they knew each other in high school but apparently did not start dating until the college years. They are both fairly young and just bought a house in a suburb of Clayton (Greg nailed it - as we were driving through farm fields, their neighborhood popped up out of nowhere, and Greg said, "But there's no 'urb'") which was where the pickin' of pig took place. Hilary put on her best Southern Miss mask and took on a tour of the house, introduced us to folks, and the like. Travis was dressed to the eights. Quite a nice little party there - free flowing Bud Light and Coronas and tons of food. Good times. Speaking of our new favorite Belgian beer, Greg drank the first Bud he had in 20+ years. He does not regret the hiatus. We thoroughly enjoyed our status as "the weird cousins from Boston" and even managed to snag a table off in the corner so that our fringe-status would be both figurative and literal*. Here are some pics from the event nabbed from the wedding photographer:
I think that might be the actual Bud Light in question in Greg's hand btw. Also, off screen, Uncle Daniel is exhausting his entire life's quota of talking to me - we had a really nice conversation about my program next year and how he thinks we should drop everything and invest all research money in alternative fuels. Somewhere, a cilia-expert is crying. Seriously, though - I think that ten minute talk was the longest I've been in the vicinity of Henry without him reaching for a mobile computing device. Props to the man.
* - Side note: is "literal" the new "ironic?" I can't count the number of times in educated conversation I heard people spout things to the effect of "I was literally hungry" or "She was literally going to kiss him." Either I'm missing some subcontexts, and these are supposed to mean things like "it is important that you realize that I am talking about hunger for food and not a more metaphoric meaning like desire for power," or another word is suffering colloquial wrenching. I am figuratively not kidding.
Uncle Richard, Beck's grandfather's brother, and his wife Shirley also made the trek up from Florida for the occasion. Good to see them in a happy setting - I think the only other time I had been around the two of them was at Alan's funeral, not the peppiest of settings. Richard has a lot of the same mannerisms, voice, facial expressions and gait as Papa did, so that made for a weird feeling all weekend. He apparently mashes bananas with a vengeance, as reported by Shirley in detail. Richard was advertised as a surlier version of Papa, but he definitely loosened up as the weekend went on, capping things with a nice speech about the Barkin requirement to become a Red Sox fan on Sunday. Good stuff. Fun times chatting with Shirley, too, though she left us with a "have a nice life" on Sunday. That's the second time a relative of the iPMM has bid me adieu with that line - though to be fair, the other time it was Aunt Florence who said, "Have a nice wedding; I'm not coming. Have a nice life."
We woke up Saturday for a full brunch that was better than the one at the Best Western Cavalier Inn (later!) by about 1017%. Delicious! Meghan, Beck, iPMM and I hit the gym that morning for weights and treadmill running in a sauna before showering and heading to lunch at the mall. Oh, the mall: where specific location is dashed in faux-decadent architecture like so many perfume sample girls' dreams. Sigh. I could not believe the number of beaming smiles that adorned this place - it was an extended "YAY COMMERCE!" that I could barely stomach. After unfruitful stops at the Apple Store and Banana Republic (ba dum - ching!), we headed to something I could surely stomach, lunch at P.F. Chang's. The food was fantastic, but our waitress was a complete freak show - she excused forgetting our soups by informing us that she had just been a surrogate mother for her sister. Thanks, no, really. Bewildered, we left, attempted to buy sunglasses, and then braved the heat back to our rooms to get ready for the shindig-event-main, the wedding. To be enjoyed in the next post.
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