A Successful Weekend

(exhale).

Well, that's over with.

M. and I are back from our big Introduce-Our-Mothers-and-Find-a-Place-for-the-Reception weekend, with nary a scratch or bruise to show for our troubles. All in all, a swimming success.

We drove up to Massachusetts on Friday night and, somewhere between the Henry Hudson and the Merritt, managed to get into a somewhat major argument centering mainly around Who Takes On Which Role in the Wedding Planning Process (consistent readers and/or friends can, I am sure, take a wild stab at the particulars) - - which, because M. and I have become para-professionals at this pasttime, resolved nicely into a mutually satisfying agreement centering around Increased Visible Excitement about Wedding Planning and Decreased Audible Anxiety about Wedding Planning (again, take a wild stab).

Saturday morning, M. got up at 5:30AM to meet his mother in Boston, where they grabbed the ferry to Provincetown. After a leisurely breakfast of coffee and fruit salad, my mother and I drove out to meet them. I was anxious that my mother would forget M.'s mother's name, or that they would hate each other, or have nothing to say to each other, or that I would throw up on my new shirt. My anxiety only increased when, at the pivotal moment of impact in the parking lot, my mother had to run to the ladies' room, thus throwing a temporary cog in the proverbial wheel, as we were all in Meet the Other Mother mode and therefore had to stand around somewhat aimlessly until she came back (a wait compounded by the bathroom-less ferry load of women who had arrived shortly before us).

In the end, of course, it went off without a hitch. Some slightly awkward silences as we wended our way through the (disappointingly crowded and compact) streets of Provincetown, but as we sat down for panini's at The Patio our mothers were already well into discussing their mutual distaste for needlepoint and humidity, and by the time we were in the car en route to Wellfleet (mothers in front, kids in back) M. and I couldn't get a word in edgewise.


"Hi, Cathy." "Hi, Judy."

The first place we saw was a funky Colonial-type inn -- emphasis on the funky, by which I mean un peu musty -- which we kinda sorta liked, and which had a tavern next door that we loved and would be perfect for our pre-wedding talent show, and which will, regardless, host half of our wedding guests anyways, as it is one of the two large inns in town.



Pretty on the outside,


Less pretty on the inside,


But a bitchin' bar.

The second place was the one we already loved from seeing it on the website and which turned out to be every bit as miraculously delightful as we had hoped - other than their blind, deaf and malodorous golden retriever which the owners' son almost ran over and which didn't seem to stand much of a chance of making it to witness our impending nuptials - and that is where we have decided to hold our wedding, which will be on June 24th, 2006 at 5pm, as long as they write us back to confirm.



The front.


The back (part of it).


The part where you get married (*lawn nymph not included).



The rest of my Saturday night was spent not discussing the wedding with my dad when he and my mother and I went to dinner (M. stayed in P'town eating clams and drinking chardonnay with his mother while they waited for their 7pm ferry, which we would have stayed for had it not been for the Portugese parade, but that's another story for another time), trying not to take offense at his careless ease in discussing Mr. Zine's son's wedding and my brother's second wife's daughter from her first marriage's wedding, and mainly glaring meaningfully at my mother while I stuffed a loaf of bread and a horrific seafood fra diavolo into my mouth.

Speaking of fathers the audience doesn't like, I also watched Swimming Upstream with my mother, an Australian film about two famous and cute Australian swimmers, their clinically depressed mother and their alcoholic, wife-beating, son-controlling father, which had an inspirational message buried somewhere deep below the constant sea of shiny, lithe, young male torsos in Speedos. I would try to be thankful for having a father who will probably end up "coming around" (and ponying up the cash for my Big Day) as everyone seems to be saying, instead of an abusive Geoffrey Rush type father, but any and all gratitude is cancelled out by my deep resentment for not looking like the cute Australian swimmer boys when I wear my Speedo.




That's my mom on the end.