My Dog is Chelsea

[Ed. Note: I am alive, despite my absence from the blogging world. To be honest, I finished writing this post days ago, and I'm not quite sure why I never posted it. I think it has something to do with the fact that seeing the fam and being at the wedding was exactly what I needed—but this post doesn't come close to capturing the hilarity/wonderfulness/brilliance of the weekend. But anyway:]

A few weeks ago I received the following email:

you should be warned…

i am campaigning for you to come to Cincinnati at the end of this month…

i am going to get married, wear a dress and girl-shoes all in one day. you really should be here.

it would really be great to get to see you,

love

jiffer

Little did my cousin know that I had already purchased my plane ticket. No campaigning would be necessary! I wouldn’t miss this for the world.

And so I flew to Columbus, OH on Thanksgiving day, arriving just in time for a delicious dinner at my cousin Kathy’s house. Things I learned: Kathy and Serge’s two kids are freaking ADORABLE; Aunt Joyce can actually make rutabaga taste good and Uncle Jimmy will only eat cranberry sauce from a can, served at the table in all of its canned glory—still in cylindrical shape and replete with ridges in its midsection.

On Friday, we piled into cars and headed down to Cincinnati to meet up with the rest of the fam. I’m not sure if the hotel my cousin selected for her wedding reception had any idea who they’d be dealing with when they agreed to have us all stay there, but I think it’s safe to say that we brought the decibel level in the joint to a few notches higher than a close-range airplane could’ve done.

After loudly greeting each other, we all piled into the wedding suite for drinks, snacks, storytelling and screaming. A lively debate ensued about where to go for dinner, and, more importantly, how to get there. My cousin Rachel then proceeded to get herself locked in the bathroom, much to everyone else’s laughter and her hysteria, and she stayed there in tears until maintenance finally pried the door open to rescue her.

After the escape, Rachel and I snuck downstairs to check email. The computer room was very close to the front desk, and it was from there that we overheard the following:

“Can you go up and check on 316? The bride called and said that someone needs to move from the third floor to the sixth.”

“I was just up there and they kicked me out!”

“Well…”

“Okay, I’ll go to 611 and try again. These people are crazy!”

Crazy doesn’t even begin to cover the mass hysteria that is my family drinking, shouting (the good kind—the kind that happens when everyone tries to talk at once), eating, joking, laughing, remembering, but still, Rachel and I were slightly offended and we returned to 611 to report our findings. There, Serge was frantically reloading my blog via Blackberry, waiting to read aloud the post about Rachel’s bathroom fiasco. Much to his dismay, it wouldn’t be published until three weeks later.

After Rachel and I shared the news of our collective craziness (it shocked no one), four cars packed to the brim headed out to a restaurant. Three of them got hopelessly lost. This became a theme throughout the weekend: enter car with clearly laid out directions in hand; exit car with directions crumpled in a ball and a strange ringing in your ears. From all the shouting.

I can’t begin to capture every blogworthy moment, but here are a few:

• Saturday night, we went out to dinner (some of us got lost, despite help from Mapquest and a GPS system) and then on to salsa dancing. My cousin Rachel and her mother, my Aunt Joanne, were grooving on the dance floor when two young men asked them each to dance. One of the men said to Rachel, “Is that your sister?” and Joanne was so thrilled that she proceeded to tell everyone she knew (and probably a few she didn’t) about the comment that, she said, “made my year.”

• Breakfast the next morning at the hotel restaurant consisted of shouting, eating, drinking (coffee) and repeatedly hearing about how Joanne was mistaken for a 16-year-old’s sister.

• My cousin James and his wife Kate have the MOST adorable little 6-month-old named Kellie. My mother, who is never very subtle at hinting how badly she wants grandchildren, spent lots of time playing with Kellie—even dancing with her. One of uncles made me take this picture (mouseover for further commentary):

• The wedding day. It was lovely—the sky blue and air warm. Jiffer and Christopher couldn’t have asked for better weather for a late November morning in Ohio—or anywhere, really. It took place at a lovely Unitarian Church, and miraculously, no one got lost on the way there.

I wish I had a picture to offer of the service, because that really is the only way to do it justice. It was simple, beautiful, earnest. The pastor included a bit about how marriage is one way of many to express love, and how it will be a wonderful day when all couples have the right to express it through wedlock if they so choose. Everything—even down to using Jennifer’s nickname “Jiffer” on the wedding program—fit her and Christopher so well.

Christopher gave a damn good speech at the reception, and in it, he described Jiffer as having been “walking three inches off of the ground” ever since her family arrived, and you know what? That was true for all of us. We hadn’t been together in the same room since my cousin James’ wedding three years ago, and the excitement and energy was enough to float all of us the whole weekend.