Weekend Wedding--A Bronx Tale

I just got home from a wedding in New York! We did some cool stuff and hung out with some really really nice and sincere family, my dad's side from West Virginia. The bride is Allison, she and her sister Alana are the daughters of Jeanette Lynn and Ricky. My dad's mom, Genevieve, was one of 4 sisters, along with Wanda and Glenna and the baby, Jeanette (Jet). They all stayed in the same area of Belle, just south of Charleston and raised their families in the sticky cloud of a DuPont chemical plant alongside the Kanawha River, which is Iroquois for "canoe river." So Wanda and Ralph lived right next door to my dad's house, where Jeanette Lynn was raised. And it was her daughter that married Bobby, and Irish New York cop, last weekend in the Bronx. We stayed in White Plains, this wealthy white area north of the city, along with lots of family on both sides.

Our trip started out ok, my family meeting at the Raleigh-Durham airport, boarding the plane and then remaining in the plane on the runway because of icky weather in Philadelphia, where we were to be connecting to White Plains. I was sitting in the row behind my sister and we texted each other for most of that time, nonsensical things like This sucks and What is mom talking about? and When do they start serving cappucinos? Stuff like that. For quite some time. And then we were off! Easy flight, especially with my Bose noise-reducing headphones on. They work sort of like auditory morphine

I find that, like pain, you don't necessarily need sound to go completely away, as long as it is distant enough that you simply cannot be bothered with caring about it. And that's what these do. Get some. You will find yourself looking around the plane with a silly grin on your face, quietly reading your People magazine and slurping a warm, frothy cappucino with the distant hum of screaming babies and whining engines purring through your puffy headphones.

So anyway, we get to Philly and the icky poor visibility weather has moved up to exactly where we want to land and by the end of an hour we had rented a car and bailed on the delayed flights to drive the rest of the way up to New York and it turned out to be such a nice drive on the New Jersey Turnpike. The leaves were incredible and we chatted and argued and laughed and debated about routes and maps and memories of routes and maps and Ella slept so Leigh touched her tongue because her mouth was ajar which is always hilaroius when someone slumbers right in front of you and our mom scolded us because she thought it was mean-spirited to make fun of someone who is sleeping and cannot defend themselves. Especially a child. Whatever. It actually reminded us of my dog Georgia who used to fall asleep with and the tip of her tongue (that we called The Slab) just poking out of her furry snout, and we would touch it as well, and laugh and laugh at her expense until she woke up, licking and slopping her now dry-tipped Slab around her lips and our faces.

We timed our drive perfectly and hit the Bronx exactly at rush hour so we had a chance to really see the underside of many a bridge. Thank god there was a Whole Foods just one block from our hotel! We ate dinner and breakfast the next morning, Leigh and Ella and me in one room, adjoined to mom and dad in the other, and had a fun little morning at Sunnyside, home of Washington Irving, author of The Legend of Sleepy Hollow and Rip Van Winkle. It was really cool, actually, we took a tour from a woman dressed in period costume and had the countenance and personality of an opossum.

She was good enough, but our family got called out three times for chewing gum in the house, for leaving the group without telling her (this sent her into a barely restrained flurry of panic) and for interrupting.

I will have to wait to add some photos that are on my sister's camera from the tour so if you read this and all I have is photo of a hungry hissing 'possum, check back on Tuesday or Wednesday and I will have added some house pictures too.

Leigh and I had to run into the mall that was exactly beside our Crowne Plaza Hotel and I have to say, not really being a Mall Person, it was quite impressive. Here is a partial listing of the shops that are featured along the quiet, carpeted walkways:

Coach

Kate Spade

Dooney and Burke

Tiffany's

Kenneth Cole

Gucci

Anthropologie

Brighton

Louis Vuitton

Michael Kors

Stuart Weitzman

Aveda

Origins

Crabtree and Evelyn...

you get the idea. And they have a whole WING dedicated to childrens' and babies' fashion. Oh and the two anchor stores are Nordstrom and Neiman Marcus. It was all a bit overwhelming and we made it about, oh, 40 minutes before we both felt our chests tightening and we escaped with a pair of hose for my sis and tights for Ella.

The wedding was that night, Friday. They bussed us into the Bronx to a Catholic church and an eternity away where Bobby's childhood friend-turned priest/minister whatever you call it, and rather haphazard and humorous. There were hired paparazzi that were aggressively (and I mean aggressively) photographing and videotaping the ceremony and then later, the reception. Here is Allison and Ricky, her father (duh) who is quite cool and a weekend spelunker:

A lot of stand-up-sit-down but not as bad as it could have been, although they did manage to sneak in a reference to abortion and euthanasia issues. Nice.

And then it was off to the reception, at the Marina del Rey on the East River, another endurance race to get there, but so worth it! We had a cocktail hour with unbelieveable food. Let me detail some of it for you because all of it was worth mentioning.

There was a sushi bar, with fresh nigiri and rolls and Japanese dudes waiting to make more. Beside that was a mashed potato bar. Yes, you could spoon some buttery, whipped mashers into a martini glass, top it with either veal, beef or turkey gravy, then add grated cheese, chopped up bacon and sliced green onions. Pasta station with any sauce you wanted. Carving station with little meaty things and rolls. Sandwich station with a huge round of cheese and sliced salamis and ham. At the other end of the room was the open bar and in between were two more buffets, one hot and one cold. The cold one had shrimp guacamole, crab salad, marinated artichoke hearts, egpplant rolls, antipasto platter, sliced tomatoes, mozzarella and basil, tabbouleh, oysters. The hot one had stuffed mushroom caps, meatballs, beef rolls with prosciutto, pizza, mussels, pasta, steamed clams and christ knows what else. When we had finished stuffing ourselves there we were ushered into the dining room to dance and eat an entire 4-course meal until midnight. We actually left before the cake cutting (Ella was deeply disturbed over this turn of events), which must have occurred somewhere around 2 am.

Ella became smitten with the bride and I fell, swiftly and unexpectedly, from my niece's graces. I simply cannot compete with a white silken gown it turns out and the next night she let Ella wear it for a brief and somewhat disturbing photo shoot.

I was actually surprised at how much she loved it as well as how much my sister knew she would love it. I guess that's why she is her mother, right?

Saturday was the only real disappointment, as we had originally planned on doing a day in the city, although exactly what was still up for grabs, but I fell ill with a regular old cold but was too under the weather to get out of bed all day, and Leigh realized that Ella would not do well in the city for the day, especially after being up until midnight the night before! But Dad got to go into NYC with Ricky and see a ship he had missed on his previous visit last summer and then we all had a really good dinner at a neighborhood Italian place around the block from our hotel.

I am going to try including a link to all the photos I take from an event in case anyone cares, so you can click HERE to see them all. If that doesn't work, someone let me know, ok?

I liked it up there. Hudson River Valley with all those red and gold leaves and the charming homes. Nice people too. But they sure talk funny!