2004-06-01 - 6:31 p.m.
a southern wedding
tuesday afternoon. it's thundering like mad outside -- lovely. it rains enough up here, but i miss the thunder we get at home. this is a nice treat.
stayed home from work today, for the weirdest reason. I am covered with horrible mosquito bites. they happened this weekend in new orleans. which i'll tell you about.
got in friday afternoon. the boutique hotel, International House, was nice. sleek and sexy feeling. the room was small but well-equipped and clean and sleek. i always love places with aveda products. anyway, i ran into harley's mom in the elevator. (reminder: wedding was for Harley, the high-school ex, and his fiancee Nicolle, who he met in college.) anyway, harley's mom invited me to the rehearsal dinner. it was a big crawfish boil outside in a courtyard in the french quarter. i had a couple of hours to waste, so I wandered around the french quarter for a bit to get my bearings, and then went into a little blues bar for a couple of beers. amazingly, the band was playing jimi hendrix covers the whole hour I was there... so my childhood. it was actually quite fantastic. once i was properly near-tipsy, i went to the dinner.
the crawfish boil was fantastic. it was my first time meeting nicolle, who seems fantastic. in a way, she seemed born to be a bride. she had this cute grin on all weekend. i guess she was just ecstatic that it was all happening. anyway, a friend of harley's who remembered me from visiting KU his freshman year became my host that night. Amy made sure I wasn't alone, since I didn't really know many people. actually, though, i had a fantastic time. there were about five friends I knew, and they introduced me to all the other youngsters.
soon enough it was 12am and we'd moved to another place, Napoleon's House, a cute french quarter bar. i must have had about 6 of their specialty drinks, the "Pimm's Cup" which was a little like Long Island Iced Lemonade and quite tasty. I was also spotted consuming cigarettes from Yemen most of the weekend! anyway, that was a riot. at NH i discovered that a guy at our table is a Lawyer downstairs in my work building. Another guy lived in austin and knew Brad, a friend of Courtney, who was coming the following day. It was a blast. Around 4 we went back to the hotel, and i ditched the flock of men at the bar in return for some TV in my room. I woke up to it BLASTING hours later. oh well.
Saturday, even after going to bed so late, I was up around 8 am. God Help Me. anyway, i had breakfast downstairs in the hotel and then set out to see the french quarter. walked through the flea market and did some light shopping, but the prior night's fish extravaganza left my stomach a bit off-kilter, so eventually i headed back to the hotel after a trip for nail polish at Sally Beauty Supply. Courtney found me there a couple of hours later, toes separated and in a soft white waffle robe. we got ready and went downstairs to catch the buses to the wedding.
the wedding was being held about 1.5 hours outside of New Orleans, at a place called Oak Alley Plantation (see it online. awesome.) on the ride, someone mentioned that Nicolle's ex was attending, and he ended up being two rows behind us. anyway, then it came out that I was there, and there were jokes that we should get together. courtney thought he was cute. then we got to the plantation. it was amazing. a huge white house with columns and an alley of live oaks leading down to the river. we took seats in the "oak alley" and the wedding happened there, facing the river. it was lovely. nicolle started crying as soon as harley began his vows. I always cry at weddings, so I had to hold myself back since it would be WEIRD for me to be seen crying at Harley's. afterward there was a reception outside, and a DJ. courtney and I ate and drank for a couple of hours before braving the dance floor. Once the mosquitos came out, it was easier to dance than not to, since they weren't as bad (or were less noticeable?) the DJ played quite good music, and we had a blast. we danced for hours, until the buses were waiting to leave. courtney was pretty drunk at this point, and I think i finally got my tipsy-on while drinking on the bus back. when we got back to the hotel, we changed into shorts and headed to a karaoke bar, Cat's (meow). we hung off the balcony over Bourbon for a few hours, drinking margaritas and hurricanes and chatting with our new friends. Nicolle's ex Joe came (who courtney continued to love) and also Mary who was very fun and laid-back, and Beaves, another friend. I talked to Beaves for a while about adam and about his girlfriend. Eventually we decided to head across the street to the hot-dog cart we'd been eyeing for hours. after that I insisted we go to Cafe duMonde for beignets and coffee. nobody else had coffee but the beignets were delish (and probably the perfect thing to help soak up some of that extra booze.) Finally we headed home to collapse.
The next morning I think we got up around eleven and the desk girl recommended a nearby diner. ka-ching! just what we needed. i had water, coffee and a bloody mary, and then a big fat BBQ cheeseburger with chips. perfect. and just as we're finishing, guess who shows up-- Mary, Joe and Beaves. of course, we stay there while they eat, and set off for combined trouble. I was wearing my dirty-ass napkin as a kerchief, and as soon as we left the diner Beaves took off his shirt.. it was all downhill from there.
(OK my friend Sveta is here. I'm going to pick this back up at a later time. Love J)
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