5/25/09 In which we ride the wind.

In the desert
I saw a creature, naked, bestial,
who, squatting upon the ground,
Held his heart in his hands,
And ate of it.
I said, "Is it good, friend?"
"It is bitter -- bitter," he answered;
"But I like it
Because it is bitter,
And because it is my heart.
-Stephen Crane

My morning started off with a call from Curt. Curt said he was not going to be able to make it back to San Diego in time to meet my flight because while his girlfriend was attempting to drive the two of them back to VT where Curt was to catch a flight home, her car broke down. He was calling to ask me to change my flight.

I told him of my other situation, vented a slight bit without blaming, and tried to get myself calm enough to think. My parents came with me to an internet cafe at the Hawaiian Marketplace. I think the people there felt sorry for me because they didn't charge me for the first hour as I sat there on the phone and on the computer trying to rearrange plans and get things set. I called Ria, because I wanted to know if there was any other chaos in store, and she said no, but she was tired of driving. I made her stay on the phone with me and we made plans.

For the record I would advise people out there not to buy multiple flight ticket packages, because if you miss one of them the whole rest of the series will be cancelled, and on top of that if you have flown one of the flights most of the time you DO NOT have the option to change the others even for a fee.
I will also note that Continental has at least one customer service person who believes that it is a good idea to argue with a slightly sarcastic customer who has just learned this lesson the hard way and is angry. Because of this I will probably avoid flying continetnal in the future. I put a high premium on polite. I can take lost luggage or lateness, but employees who feel the need to argue with someone out a whole bunch of money because of friends plans changing and not knowing obscure airline rules.... well that's where you lose me as a customer.
However I had a ticket from Virgin set up to go from LA to Seattle, and was able to change that one over to whatever type of ticket I needed for their $75 fee.
I turned out that it was actually cheaper to change over the Virgin flight to a Vegas to San Fran flight, and buy a separate ticket from another airline home from San fran than it would be to change the Virgin flight over to a Vegas to Boston Flight. (i think this is because the virgin flight was direct).
This meant I got an extra day in vegas, and got to visit Ria a little early, and she only had to drive me to and from San Fran which was shorter driving, and we were going to get to see her friends who would be in San Fran for the weekend, and see maker faire. This plan made Miss Ria happy, and me well significantly happier than I was. I think I would have been happy, but I was still trying to assimilate everything. Happy came later. Happy came sparkling at me in little doses for the rest of the trip, but the biggest thing was going into the desert to clear the bitter from my heart, and letting it go as I left.

My parents and I went to lunch nearby, and then headed back to the hotel to get ready for the wedding.
The wedding was beautiful and I couldn't not be happy.
My aunt in the middle with my cousin Brian to the left, and my cousin Brendan on the right.
My cousin Sarah and My uncle Jay
The groom cried, and I LOVE that my cousin married a man who was brought to tears, in a beautiful way, at the thought of getting to spend the rest of his life with her.
It was incredibly sweet.
The wedding and the reception were at the flamingo.
The reception was held on the third floor terrace outside. and for much of the night it was gorgeous
OH YEAH
Remember how I said when we were little my cousin and I used to watch Willy Wonka and the Chocolate factory and go the the candy store down the street from my house. (http://www.fariellosconfectionery.com/
I love that even though I grew up in a small town I can find it on the internet ). well this is what Sarah had at her reception.My dad said it was an homage to Sammy's, I'm not so sure, but it made me smile, plus it had little kid pictures of the bride and groom all over it.
They also had a mini photo booth where you could take half your pictures home and put half in the wedding photo album. VERY COOL. I had issues with the photo booth though. I don't always like having my picture taken.
Anyways eating drinking and dancing commenced.
The lasts shot is my cousin Brendan and his girlfriend Katie. Brendan lives in Boston, and I pretty much never see him. This is kind of silly and will likely be remedied in the future, especially considering his girlfriend Katie will be going to Tufts vet school and will probably move to Worcester. Katie is very cool, and we chatted a bit throughout the weekend. I had some really good conversations with both of them, and was really glad about that. I loved finding out that Brendan has grown up into someone with a good sense of humor, a good heart and is smart enough to pick a very cool girlfriend.
SO that was the first part, it was kind of warm early on in the reception, and Sarah's aunt on the other side wished for a breeze to come back. BE CAREFUL WHAT YOU WISH FOR.
The wind kicked up like MAD. At one point I was standing on the dance floor with my arms stretched out and ACDC was playing (I think it was you shook me all night long) and the wind had kicked up full force so i was just feeling it blow against me.
Unfortunately the massive wind caused a few casualties and a little wedding reception carnage (thankfully nothing living was damaged)
more than one of the lights broke
There were taller standup tables with centerpieces on them and this is from the table blowing over and the contents of the dish scattering
But I think the Bar blowing over was the piece de resistance

All in all it DID make for a memorable wedding, and unlike say hail or thunder and lightening or any other major weather event we didn't have to go inside and stop partying. We just had to clean up around the carnage, and staff took away anything electrical that looked like bad things would happen.

It was a pretty long day
I have one more story from the night, but first I kind of forgot to put in the bachelorette party story the part where I pulled out my hip scarf and showed the girls some VERY BASIC bellydancing moves. This whole idea stemmed from a facebook conversation with my aunt, and the fact that bellydancing seemed like a perfectly good thing to do while we were waiting for some of the other people to show up for the bachelorette party.
Anyway at the end of the reception I was waiting by the elevator and a group of the grooms friends from Kansas stopped by. This included one of the girls who had been at the bachelorette party. She said "Well it's okay if we have to wait, because this girl knows how to bellydance, and she showed us last night." The elevator door opened at that point. I blushed smiled and noted that one of the Kansas City guys was checking me out. Really though red head, little black dress, and she can bellydance, who can blame the guy for at least checking.
At the moment however my mom was standing 2 feet away from me, and I was waiting for my dad to either day goodnight or take the monorail back with them to the hotel. so I couldn't just give chase into the elevator. Then ultimately after my dad came over I was too exhausted from the stress of the day to hunt down the cute guy from KC who had wandered off into the casino. (I know I'm totally disappointed in me too, but I needed sleep to make my brain catch up to my plans.) I don't remember what day it was but I did see him again, and again it was in the elevator. We chatted briefly, and he seemed nice as well, but again my mom was standing next to me in the elevator. Alas.
Miss Liz went back on the monorail and got some much needed rest after the winds of change blew through her vacation.