12 July 1998
12 July 1998
Okay, so I started out by running late.
No shock there, really.
It was Cynthia's fault, actually, because she had to pick up Molly from camp before I could borrow her car (what do two-year-olds do at camp, anyway? Archery? Lanyards? Lifeguard tests?) and either I misunderstood her to say how long she would take or she flat out lied to me (I'm not saying which), but whichever it was, I was about 45 minutes late picking up Tracing in the city.
Good thing she had something to read!
So we started the trek into the Wilds of New Jersey. It was about a three-and-a-half hour drive, including a half hour stop for lunch at a Nathan's at a rest stop. I remember thinking that working at a Nathan's at a rest stop off the New Jersey Turnpike must be about the worst job on earth.
We were following the directions and things were going very well--there was only one small scare where I was certain that we had missed the turn to Route 55, but it just turned out to be a longer stretch than I had expected.
Then we had to look for the turn to Amanda and Jeff's.
Here is a quote from Amanda's directions:
Drive just under 2 miles, on your left will be a small Lane (green road sign) called *** Lane.Don't turn down this lane, but it's just before Bryan and Cathy's driveway, also on the left hand side. They have the beginnings of a large brick wall, and a ginormous driveway leading back to their house. There will also be a sign that Jeff is now making that will say something like KYMM & TRACING TURN HERE!!!
Personally, I found that mildly insulting. "What the hell does she think," I said to Tracing, "I can't follow some simple directions? I need a big fucking sign like a dingbat who can't turn into a driveway after seeing a sign saying *** Lane?!"
Of course, I sailed right by that sign.
I turned and went back, and drove right by it again! At this point, both Tracing and I were simply weeping with laughter. That's what I get for drawing myself to my full height and getting all huffy!
So we drove down the 200 mile driveway, got to the house, and there was Jeff to meet us! Of course, being a remarkably rude person, I didn't introduce Tracing to him, so she didn't realize that it was Jeff for about half an hour. I was abashed.
"Amanda's at the hairdresser," he told us, "Who know's when she'll be back?" so Tracing and I passed the time by wandering around the property (after being told to watch out for ticks), meeting Amanda's grandmother, and walking all the way back up the Longest Driveway in New Jersey to get a shot of that sign. The sign that wasn't nearly big enough!
We had just decided that we really should get dressed rather than falling asleep in the back yard, so we went back out to the car to get our clothing, and there was a new car parked near ours! Out leapt a blonde girl with an Australian accent (Amanda's sister, Sam), who ran by us, saying something about fixing her hair,and then Amanda and another girl got out, Amanda being the one with the Big Jersey Hair. I didn't think that it looked so bad, but Amanda was insisting that she would need to get married with a brown paper bag over her head (which I thought would be interesting for one photograph, but might get a little tedious for rolls and rolls).
Then, Amanda said "O, this is Renee!" she being the other girl who got out of the car with Amanda. Of course, about twenty minutes later, Tracing mutters to me "Was that Amanda?" so I guess that I wasn't as abashed as I thought I was after not introducing her to Jeff! I was batting zero in the introducing line that day.
So anyway, there next came a flurry of changing clothes and yanking on pantyhose and my God fixing that hair (apparently, the hairdresser was less than, um, competent) and all the while Renee was tapping her foot and glaring at her watch, because she seems to be one of those odd people who think that you should be on time places! While Amanda was fairly secure in the notion that they would probably not begin the wedding without her, and not having hair looking like the dog's dinner was far more important.
Actually, it ended up looking great, the hair that is, and Amanda put on her bright red wedding dress and, looking absolutely beautiful, calmly sailed out to the car.
So we drove to the wedding site, which was in back of an art studio by a pond. All weddings should be outdoors, man. Not only was there all this nature all around (hey, I'm a city girl, it is possible for me to never see a pond from years end to years end!), but the light is great. Since I don't work with a flash, this cannot be underestimated!
The two most interesting things to happen during the ceremony were 1, as the clergyman was giving the sermon, he told a heartwarming story about how one of his parishioners recently murdered his wife (an interesting choice for a wedding!) and 2, as Amanda said her "I do"s, a giant bullfrog plopped into the water. I am the kind of person who sees omens everywhere, but I can't figure out what that meant! Something good, I know that much.
Afterwards, Amanda and Jeff had their reception line (after walking back up the aisle to dead silence, because the person in charge of the music, who shall remain nameless, couldn't get the cd player to work, plus the fact that Amanda didn't want to wait for it and fair sprinted away!) and I snapped pictures in between getting properly aquainted with Renee.
I've seen Tracing so often that she has basically become as much an off-line friend as an on-line one, and I talk on the phone to Amanda so often that I forget that I had only met her in person once before. My point being that I cannot even remotely remember what my first impressions of them were!
Renee, however, is another story.
First of all, she was awfully skinny for being five or six months pregnant (and I'm not buying that it was just the outfit), and she sounded just like Holly Hunter but what really got me was the great contrast between being this little, cute blonde chickabiddy looking about eighteen years old and like butter wouldn't melt anywhere, let alone her mouth, but with this great brash manner whenever she started to talk! Not to mention a sense of competence and organization to the point that I felt that if only she could take charge of my life, it would be whipped into shape in mere minutes!
Anyway, after complaining loudly that we were starving and pretending to faint and things ("This woman is pregnant! She needs to eat immediately! No, it's not me that needs to eat--I resent your implications!!), we finally all went to the reception. Which took place at the bottom of a coal mine.
No, just kidding, it was a lovely place, but it was dark as pitch (and you know how dark that is!) and full of mirrors, which meant that what light there was was reflected right smack into the camera lens. The staff kept promising to turn up the lights, but I didn't notice that much difference, so I did the best that I could with what I had, and ate about twelve pieces of bread while waiting for the starting bell to go to the buffet table. ("This woman is pregnant! She needs to go first! And I need to go with her, to, um, protect her! Or something--just get out of my way!!")
We ate, we talked, toasts were raised, pictures were taken. A swell time was had by all.
Afterwards, we drove to Jeff's parents' house and changed back into our civilian attire and opened wedding presents and marveled at the Giant Box of Australian Food that Amanda's folks had lugged overseas, got our share (TimTams, yay! Fizzy Lifesavers, um, thanks...) hugged everyone several times, finally leaving for the drive back to New York at 12.45a.
Now, the drive from New York was 3 1/2 hours long, remember? And that was including a leisurely lunch. So we figured that the drive back would be similar.
Ha ha ho.
The directions weren't the kind that reversed easily, you see, but we didn't notice that for rather a while. We got off 55 and were looking for the Turnpike, and we were driving and driving, reminding each other periodically that we had thought that the drive was rather long between 55 and the Turnpike on the way to the wedding, but then I saw a Fun Fair, you know, set up in a vacant lot, complete with a ferris wheel, and that was when I realized that I must have missed the turnoff.
So we stopped at the only place that was open, a sort of 7-11 type place (there was literally one on every block) and I went in and asked this bovine-looking chick where the Turnpike was, and she indicated that it was 45 minutes in the back where we had come.
"What an idiot!" I said to Tracing when I got back into the car, "We've only been driving for half an hour, it couldn't possibly be 45 minutes back!" That is an example of "foreshadowing", in case you didn't notice.
So we drove back the way that we came. And we drove, and we drove, and we drove...until we realized that we must have missed the Turnpike again. "How could we possibly have missed it twice? How small are these signs?" So we stopped at another 7-11 knockoff and talked to a very nice woman with a long, flowing black moustache (honestly, she could have waxed the tips like Snidely Whiplash!) who told us a different route to the Turnpike, but also mentioned that had we stayed on 55 we would have gotten to the Turnpike.
It was then that I though that I was wrong when, many hours earlier, I thought that there was no worse job than a counter guy at a Nathan's at a rest stop off the Turnpike. The really worst job would have to be the over-night shift at a pretend 7-11 in Nowheresville, New Jersey.
Anyway, directions or no, Tracing insisted on buying a roadmap, and in reading it we realized that we had gone the wrong way getting off 55 more than an hour before, so we decided not to follow the nice lady's directions, but keep going back the way that we had come.
We got back to 55, and we remembered that she had said that we should have just stayed on that road and we would have hit the elusive Turnpike, so I drove purposefully onto it, and, after a bit, saw a really little sign indicating the Turnpike, exited, and did not see said Turnpike! I kept muttering over and over "The sign said the Turnpike was this way, I know the sign said the Turnpike was this way!"
And then, like the Emerald City appearing over the horizon, the Turnpike appeared at long last. I swear, I was beginning to think that it didn't exist! It was only a sweet dream, the Turnpike...We had wasted an hour and a half, driving aimlessly through New Jersey, it was 3a and there were hours more driving to go.
I mostly worked on not falling asleep. There were no internal lights in the car, so I couldn't tell how fast we were going, and I wasn't really wondering either until I passed a car as though it were standing still, so I noticed where the speedometer was and waiting until I got some light so I could see what the number was.
It turned out I was going 90. It didn't feel that fast!
I dropped off Tracing in Brooklyn around 4.50a, got home myself at 5.15a with the sun up and the gas tank completely empty, and was in bed at 5.25a.
Thus endeth the story of the wedding! Congratulations Amanda and Jeff, and the next time you get married to each other again, do us all a favour and have the ceremony in Manhattan!
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