What can Brown do for you?

For one thing, Brown University can be a lovely setting for a wedding. And when they decide to remodel your reception area shortly beforehand, they can substitute an even better venue that looks like the Hogwarts great room. Saturday was a lovely day for a wedding - hot but not too hot, dry, and pleasant.

My friend got married in a lovely ceremony of decent length, mostly non-religious, but with some Quaker and Jewish elements. (This is my 2nd Q&J wedding, for the record.) The bride is an identical twin, so when the very similar looking maid of honor walked down the aisle, a college buddy said, "False Bride" and the people who were there as significant others looked a little confused. But it was all sorted out when the bride arrived in a stunning dress that she got off eBay for $50. And we beheld the lovliness of the bride, the wedding party in their finery, and the backdrop of classic Ivy League scenic campus.

The reception had some of the best food. There were 4 partial-service buffet stations with 2 serving meat and 2 serving veggie so there was little waiting. Although we did let the family go first. There was baked garlic broccoli rabe, goat cheese stuffed portabella mushrooms, build your own salad, other stuff, purple potatoes (I'm inordinately fond of purple potatoes), and chicken and tuna. There was no big cake cutting ceremony, but they laid out several kinds of cakes and dessert bars. Speaking of bars, they had all the Sam's Summer, Guinness, and Hoegaarden one could drink, or some wine. I didn't actually get pics of the food but just think, 'tasty' and you'll get the idea.

I was at the "work friends" table and we had fun stories to share and good food to eat, good drinks to drink... This would be a much improved entry were I set up to show some pictures. I'll try to do that when I get home, but we'll see. Being ultimate frisbee buffs, the wedding giveaway was a memorial frisbee. And I got a great shot of the bride and groom making a decision shortly into the happy hour with the traditional frisbee method of roshambo - or rock-paper-scissors for the rest of us. Very "them."

I had a lovely ride down with one set of friends, and the friend I'm staying with had offered to come to Providence to pick me up. But it started to look like he wouldn't get there before the reception wound down, so another set of friends (that I like but don't know as well as they were new to boston shortly before I moved) offered a ride partway back. Then miraculously, or due to a couple of cousins determinedly staying on the dance floor, the dancing picked up and I left the reception 15 minutes later than I'd originally planned to get picked up. It was fun dancing to the mix that included ska and the ramones, but there had been a wonderful 40's swing band for most of the happy hour and reception. I somehow missed dancing to them - partly because my feet in borrowed shoes said "no", and they started packing up when I finally got my spare shoes. But partly because time passed really quickly.

Sunday, I met my good friend and her son and got to meet her girlfriend for the first time. GF seems nice and at ease with them both. Despite having spent the previous day walking around in the sun on the Harbor Islands, they joined us for a hike up Prospect Hill, upper and lower, to get a panoramic view of Boston. I had found some age appropriate books for her son, and it was all we could do to get him to leave them in the car while we hiked. We promptly undid all the good exercise by eating onion rings and sausages at the Skellig (the bigger Burren).

After a nap, we headed over to Brookline to help a friend unload a U-haul. It's my high school friend's husband and he started today at Harvard Med doing something post-doc-equivalent thing for a year. (At the same hospital GF works at :) She's following in a week or few with their kids, he has the cats. We got his stuff inside, reassured him that a 3 bedroom place near a T stop with 1.5 baths, in-unit laundry, and a dishwasher is quite the coup, returned the trailer, and had a nice wind down at the Sunset Grill. He quite enjoyed perusing the beer menu and thinks my friend will like the place too.

As for today, I got to see my acupuncturist and that was lovely as I'd been going to her for >5 years (before moving) and she kept me functional, and I like talking with her. We did a fair bit of driving around today so I decided to reschedule this evening's visit for wednesday morning so we can sit back and watch movies or play video games. And exercise. A 10 lb barbell is not the same as a body rev, but I'm giving it a fair shot at trying.

Tomorrow we head for the cape, sandwich glass shops, and drag queen theater. After all my pre-trip panic, this is working out marvelously well. It helps that my host with the car is pretty much mine to command for the week, so there are no competing schedules. (Except, maybe, for computer time). And I think having a short time makes me more decisive, and I had a list of people to see. In some ways it was very easy, and in other ways, it makes me realize that I'm headed back to a wonderful place where there's no one that I regularly get to eat dinner with. So I'm cramming in a couple months worth of dinners and we'll see how that holds me.