2002-05-06 - 1:53 p.m.

Long last few days. But I'm back, and not quite in black. Wedding, Wedding, Wedding. Here we go . . .

So the wedding was perfect. It was held in an old stone church in tropical Yorktown Heights, New York. Despite the fact that Tim Curtis' shirt shone to the heavens as a beacon of purple passion, the ceremony went off without a hitch (even if Rich kept winking at Peter and I every time he ushered someone down the aisle - which was only the beginning of the LHS crowd getting stalked by Rich over the course of the weekend.)

But let's go backwards a bit, shall we?

So, pianos be damned, my father and I made it to Spider-Man on Friday morning with time to spare. The place was packed! At 10 in the morning on a weekday! And children dressed as Spider-Man, with their faces painted, and webshooters and all . . .oh it broke my old Scottish heart. The Hulk preview before the movie kicked ass too. The movie itself? Well, you KNOW I loved it. Sure, I had a quibble here and there (ie - not enough Spidey-quips during fight scenes) but the special effects were incredible! I also was happy to see how big Harry Osborn's part was. James Franco was a perfect choice as Harry (and it certainly helped that in a few scenes he seemed to slip into Daniel Desario mode). Tobey Maguire was perfect as Peter, and I was really happy with Uncle Ben and Aunt May. Willem Dafoe is scary enough in real life so he was just fine as Green Goblin. The Thanksgiving Dinner scene was especially good. I am already waiting for the sequel. And I plan to go see this one again several more times. Oh Spider-Man, they call it puppy love. . .

SO MUCH COOLER THAN SUPERMAN IT HURTS. . .

So the rest of Friday seemed to happen in equal amounts of fast-forward and slow-motion. Sort of like a Radiohead album. Getting ready for the trip to CT seemed to vie for equal time with multi-media vertigo, at least until Peter got here. After Brooke and Ben got here, we finally left for that emerald isle known as Danbury, CT. We were also smart enough to forget not only the wedding card, but the directions, and the picture of our gift (the infamous "Inviso-Grill"!). So that seemed to be a bad omen. But it worked out. Friday night we got our hotel rooms squared away. While we waited for the wedding party to get back from the rehersal in NY, and Tim Curtis from a fabtastic Celtics game (where the 76'ers got PUMMELED), Brooke, Peter, Ben & I dined at the mind expanding culinary acid trip that is Rosy Tomorrows. It was everything we ever expected in a restaurant that we had never heard of beforehand that was built on top of a caboose. A rockin' 70's cover band, a working train set that choo-chooed a sinuous trail of excitement throughout the eatery, an antique fortune teller machine, and flashing beer promo signs. It doesn't get any better than this baby. Unless you factor what happened at the hotel later.

So the wedding party descended into the hallways of the Danbury Garden Hilton Inn and we all converged in Kevin and Chad "Mr. Wonderful" Presher's room #205. We hung out there most of the night, while Rich and Jimbo partook in the deliciosity of both gin of the Blackest and Redest Labels. And poor Peter, after he left Brooke in our room #413 to sleep (the room that came to be known, thanks to Rich, as "Spring Break in Afghanistan.") joined us in #205 and as punishment was forced to drink a heaping helping of said gin. Tim Curtis soon made the scene, fresh from the Fleet Center, and #205 became that much more crowded. So we drank probably a little bit more than we should have and several noise complaints later, we dispersed - which was probably for the best, as it was 2 AM and we all had a wedding to go to the next day. But that didn't stop Peter, Rich, Jimbo, and I from continuing to drink down in #223 (aka - Ben & Tim's love nest). What happened next has been repeated throughout the weekend and often embellished to the point that Chad and Mackenzie's relatives looked at me askew at almost every occasion. The truth is gross enough. I'm not sure why it would have to be "jazzed up". It's as simple as this: Ben kept falling asleep/passing out on his bed while the rest of us drank around him. The following, detailed in steps, is what happened:

-Step One: Peter jumps on Ben and starts wildly gyrating on him and screaming "Yippie-I-Ki-Ay!". We all laugh. Me, already having a hard time breathing (due to the constant cloud of cigar smoke that Mackenzie's uncles have created on the 4th floor) and having forgotten to pack an inhaler, laugh pretty hard and barely am able to catch my breath.

-Step Two: Peter waits for Ben to pass out again and jumps on him and again proceeds to buck him like a bronco, this time screaming "Me hump you now, Me hump you now!" over and over in a Mexican accent. Tim Curtis and I almost pee our pants as we fall over in our chairs laughing. Had I known what would soon happen to me, I would have picked the peeing of the pants.

-Step Three: Jimbo comes back into the room, having missed the first few hump attacks on Ben and is sad to have missed what was still making Tim, Rich, and myself laugh. Peter promises Jimbo a repeat performance, but warns it will be a while, as super-paranoid Ben is desperately trying to stay awake (but failing at it) as he knows that as soon as he does he will be molested yet again. Soon, he fell asleep and this time they had an extra special treat for him. Peter went to the left side of the bed (where there was about 1 foot of space between the bed and the wall) and Rich to the right. It was going to be a double-barreled assault. But, right as they were about to strike, Ben's Spidey-Sense must have gone on Code Red as he woke up suddenly, screaming "Get the fuck off me, get off me!!", to which Peter and Rich had no choice but to jump on him, while Peter now screamed "WE hump you now, WE hump you now." At this point, I could honestly not breathe. My head was killing me (from laughing and coughing, not from drinking, although the beer wasn't doing me any favors). It was getting even later (3 AM) and louder so we decided we should probably all go back to our respective rooms. But as we were getting ready to go. . .

-Step Four: . . .Tim Curtis runs across the room and leaps into the air with the attempt to hump Ben in the style that had become fashionable in the last half hour or so. But Ben was ready for him. Now, I will try to describe this in the best way possible. Ben shot both his legs up and seemed to "catch" Tim's stomach with his feet. This kept Tim briefly aloft while Ben shifted his weight towards the wall. Tim slammed into the wall with a seismic force that was felt in Kalamazoo. Now, if you can imagine, Tim somehow landed against the wall ass-first, with his ass falling into the crack between the wall and the bed first as well, with his back against the wall. His legs bent upwards in front of his stomach and his arms stayed straight up towards the ceiling. So all I can see over the side of the bed is Tim's head, through his legs and arms, which are outsretched above his accordianated Six and a Half Foot body. He then started grasping at the air with his pinned extremities like a drunken turtle. And mewing. This I could not take. Frightened that the HUGE noise of Tim's carcass shaking the foundation of the Hilton might cause another noise complaint, Jimbo, Rich, Peter, and I fled down the hall. But all I could think of was Tim Curtis in his HI-larious perdicament. I kept laughing as a I ran. I couldn't stop laughing. And then I started coughing. And I couldn't stop laughing and coughing, while I was running. And then the inside of my cheeks started to sweat and I knew what was coming next. I puked. But in an effort to stem the tide, I brought my hands up to my mouth. This only made things much, much worse. As Peter, Rich, and Jimbo turned around to see what was keeping me they saw my vomit launch up my hands, which were acting as unintentional puke ramps, and splash my glasses full of vomit and then rebound on to my shirt and arms. People - it doesn't get any grosser than this. So instead of going to the bathroom and cleaning up IMMEDIATELY, I went outside with the three of them and gawked at my pukey body. I tried to clean myself off on a nearby pinic table. It didn't really work. Rich announced that I was SO gross that I was kicked INSIDE. He said that I was voted out of the OUTSIDE. So I cleaned up, and went to bed.

I didn't get much sleep, as Brooke would wake me up every 20 minutes or so and ask me if I could stop Peter from snoring. This proved to make sleep that lasted from 3 to 8 seem even shorter. After two crippling muscle spasms in the middle of the night I woke to Tim and Ben calling and wondering why the hell we weren't up yet, despite the wedding not being until 2:30. In order to get us up and keep us up, Tim and Ben came up and played a game of frisbee in our room. It worked. We ended up collecting an unhealthy amount of wine (both for us, and the happy couple) and finally got dressed and left for the wedding. The wedding which, as stated way way way above, was perfect AND a perfectly pretty and precious shade of Curtis Purple.

After the wedding, the bagpipe players, and Jimbo's limo getting pulled over by a New York State Trooper for excessive urination, we got back to the Danbury Hilton. This is when "horse fever" overtook Tim Curtis, and dragged the rest of us down with him. That's right, mint juleps in hand -and while Brooke decompressed for the reception- Tim, Ben, Peter and I began formulating what horse we would each bet on for the Kentucky Derby. Tim bet on Proud Citizen, Peter - Came Home, Ben - Castle Gandolfo, and I - Saarland. Saarland had the best odds to win. Which made it all the more crushing when Saarland blew it big time and came in third to last. None of us picked the winning horse, and we proceeded to drown our sadness in cheese and wine.

Oh Saarland, we had such plans . . .

Soon enough, we were at the swanktastic Fox Hill Inn off of Exit 7 in beautiful downtown Brookefield. This place was richer than all of our blood combined. Brooke, if she hadn't chickened out at the last minute, almost fulfilled her life long dream of having someone walk by with appetizers on a silver platter that she could just grab with a toothpick. She definitely choked. The open bar was a sensation that rivals the pure bliss that is the Superman Rollercoaster. Unfortunately, the evil that is the Bacardi Bat sunk his teeth into me early and often. Luckily, Peter and I instituted a "buddy system" that gave each of us the ability to shut the other one off whenever we wanted for up to 20 minutes. It worked quite well. Except when we had enough drinks that we forgot about the buddy system. Rich made an excellent Best Man speech, and Mackenzie's sister (as the Maid of Honor) made a teary speech as well. Doing things in a teary fashion seems to be par for the course for females in the Wenderoth family. Throughout the reception, Rich seemed to be around every corner one of us turned. It was very spooky. One time, as I was entering the downstairs bathroom, I looked up on to one of the upper floors that was covered with mirrors. On the perch of the balcony was Rich, multiplied a thousand times in the mirrors, all by himself. He was looking at me and just said said "How ya doin?" I was sufficiently creeped out and hid in the bathroom. Peter was CONVINCED the entire night that the Salome's were stalking him in order to dance with him, and that it would only be minutes before Mr. Salome, as Freddy Mercury, would change into his gold-sequined unitard and sing "We Are The Champions". Sigh. Anyway, it was super fun, and the shuttle ride home (aka - the drunk tank) was an opportunity for Peter to make friends with other pathetic Mets fans.

"My bite is MUCH worse than my bark."

What followed back at the hotel was one of the oddest thing I have been involved with in a while. Due to there being 7 noise complaints in the first 20 minutes after we all got back from the reception, the hotel staff decided it was in the best interests of everyone to let all those in the Presher-Wenderoth group TAKE OVER THE ENTIRE LOBBY and just party down there. Which we did. We put beer in a big bag in the middle of the room, and all of us (including Mackenzie and Chad's uncles, aunts, parents, cousins, friends, etc.) shared the beer, ordered pizza, and stayed up until wee hours. It was fun. Similar to other parties I've gone to, instead of people coming up to me and saying "Aren't you the one who hates Veronica's Closet?" the new variation became "Ewwwww. You're the one that puked all over yourself, right?!"

So yes. It was fun. Chad and Mackenzie make a perfect couple, and any future wedding/reception will be hard pressed to top the Super Happy Fun Time Wedding Weekend Package that we experienced.

Well, this entry has become long enough in the teeth to rival the story of Spring Fling, so I shall close. Table #17 will live on in infamy!

It's been real,

War Emblem

ps - "Pete and Repeat walking down the street . . ."

�

<-- Back to the Salt Mines! - Onward, to the Bee-Mobile! -->

�