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Day’s Verse:

A righteous man may have many troubles,

but the LORD delivers him from them all;

he protects his bones,

not one of them will be broken.

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Please help me raise money for the MS Bike Tour Cape Cod Getaway. Donate today on my MS Participant page.

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The day of the wedding, as I mentioned, we woke up at 3:30 am. This felt somewhat painful, having gone to bed some time after 10 pm the previous night. Fortunately, the 3:30 alarm was a mistake, so we were able to remain in bed a couple more hours. Unfortunately, I usually wake up permanently when I wake up at all, almost totally regardless of the time. I may have dozed off, but eventually we got up at around 5:30, since the bridesmaids at least had an excessive amount of primping to accomplish before the wedding commenced at 1:00 that afternoon.

We ate breakfast, and about 7:20 Mom and I hooked up. Not long after that, Ian, Mom, and I picked up Colleen and Katie McClintock (the other bridesmaid) and arrived at the salon around 8:00, I think. We actually drove by it the first time, since Colleen was a little fuzzy on its exact location, but eventually we found it and embarked on the arduous ordeal of becoming beautiful.

The less said about the salon the better, I think. This is the type of experience I bend over backwards to avoid, but this time it really wasn’t for me. Some notable aspects:

1. They continually offered us food and drink — muffins (bad), pastry bites from the European bakery next door (delicious and still warm); water, tea, coffee, and, most memorably, mimosas. Actually they just brought us mimosas. I left mine alone, but Katie and Colleen drank theirs and loosened up noticeably.
   
2. The guy who did my hair put glitter in it. What he told me was, “This will just add a little sparkle to your hair.” OK. But when you say “add sparkle,” I don’t think of literal sparkles. Colleen and I found it a bit much — no amount of glitter in my hair will make me feel magical — but Katie Mc loved it. So at least somebody was happy with it.
   
3. Make-up — goodness me, the make-up! I applied two slimy cream things to my face first, followed by foundation that she painted on with a paintbrush, atop which she powdered innumerable fluffs of powder. I tried to tell her to take it easy, that I wanted a minimal amount of goop on my face, and I suspect that what she gave me was her idea of minimal. Even so, I felt utterly caked on, especially around my eyes, and my face certainly didn’t feel “light,” which is the word she used for it.
   
4. Price. When I paid (with Mom’s credit card), I was floored. $540 on top of the $100 deposit Colleen had already made? And then I had a moment of panic when I had to decide how much to tip. Eventually I added $45, an even $15 for the three people who worked on us. I still have no clue if that was too much or too little, but they didn’t remark either way and we made our escape immediately thereafter, so I’ll probably never know. The rest of the day, every time I saw Colleen and Katie Mc, or whenever I wanted to itch my face or head (very often, thanks to all the stuff applied there), I remembered the $585 and kept my hands at my sides.

At the church, we dressed upstairs in the 5th and 6th grade classroom, which had a huge bank of windows along one wall. Real private, but we managed to hide behind some screens they had up (enthusiastically draped, I might add, with home-made posters of the HALLELUJAH type). The dress felt OK, and not too revealing of my *ahem* blemishes once we put on the long wraps.

The most difficult part of dressing, actually, turned out to be the ties at the back of Colleen’s dress. Eventually I got them kind of done, Karolyn Alford fixed them, and Katie Mc tied a nice bow — it only took three tries and three people. I pitied Jordan trying to undo all of that at the end. All dressed and beautified, we were ready for the photographer. Don and Carol Marshall did the photography; they did my wedding pictures, which turned out beautifully, so I expect good things from them. They took some photos in our dressing room (strategically omitting the hangings), after which we carefully descended the stairs, making sure Colleen didn’t trip on the gown. More pictures, this time outside with the gentlemen. I’m always amazed how nicely the guys in my life clean up. Lots of pictures and smiling.

Then all of a sudden it was time to line up just as we practiced the night before; some hair-raising waiting ensued as everybody finished arriving. We entertained Kallie, since you can hardly tell a 3-year-old to stand still and wait patiently. Then we processed in and the highlight, aside from Colleen looking lovely and Dad walking beside her kind of smirking a bit, was Kallie actually walking down the aisle to her beckoning daddy. Everybody made it down the aisle without tripping or looking stupid (I think; I cannot, of course, speak for myself on the stupid part), and we took our places correctly.

The ceremony itself went off smoothly. The pastor was calm and practiced; the readers and organist did their parts; Colleen and Jordan both looked very happy and spoke clearly and enunciated well and managed to light the unity candle without catching anything else on fire. We went through the simple motions easily enough. The only slightly awkward part was that Colleen and Jordan had a couple hymns they wanted the audience to sing, but nobody led the singing and the organist played through the entire first verse once before we were actually supposed to start singing. Even so, it went smoothly and the pastor presented them as Mr. and Mrs. Jordan Boye — Mom cried — and we all recessed out.

Hugs and happiness and relief it was over ensued, all while carefully keeping our $100 faces away from shoulders. Then more pictures, this time with family members in various combinations. After all the different family members had appeared in one photo or another, we made our way to the church multipurpose room, which served as our reception hall. Nancy and Clyde Languanet, a lovely couple who flew from Seattle just to help with the reception, had done a nice job setting out tables and preparing everything (with the help of numerous volunteers, of course). At one point we slipped out to decorate Jordan’s car, which the groomsmen had already filled with balloons. Crepe paper and soap were our main decorations of choice.

The reception went nicely: They had a slide show of pictures of Colleen and Jordan, followed by toasts by John Matsuki, the best man, Katie Mc, my dad, and Jordan’s dad. Then we just mingled and chatted with people, which I really enjoyed, since I don’t see these relatives nearly often enough. I wish I had gotten more time to catch up with everybody, but time seemed to fly until Colleen and Jordan cut the cake (a brownie cake, which was incredibly rich and did require the special Dr. Bob’s vanilla ice cream that Ian and Mom drove to Pomona for the previous day) and made their way out. We handed out rose petals to toss (and then pick up moments after they drove off) and bubbles to blow, formed an aisle, and cheered Colleen and Jordan to the car, where they were suitably surprised at the balloons filling the car. Hehe. The only down side for me was the dress, which had started feeling extremely restrictive: After a while, all I wanted was to take a big, deep breath, which was impossible in the incredibly tight, stiffly boned gown.

After that we socialized a bit more, but by then I was really tired, so Ian and I left. We rested for about an hour in the hotel room; this also involved me washing my hair twice and removing 31 bobby pins (one of which I only found in the shower) and scrubbing my face vigorously. The eye make-up required some special attention with diaper wipes that we picked up on the way home. Ian suggested them based on his experience with stage make-up, and they worked quite well at removing the remainder of my expensive face. Once clean, rested, and looking normal, we walked to Acapulco’s to join my parents’ “Out of Towners Dinner.” I ended up talking at Pam and Jim Dillon and Joel and Pam Garcia, both long-time family friends who I haven’t seen in years. The restaurant was so loud we spent the whole time hollering at each other at the tops of our lungs when not eating our first real meal since breakfast. The reception was nice, but it was all cookies (including Girl Scout cookies — brilliant!) and sweets.

After a couple hours my exhaustion really caught up with me, so Ian and I rode back to the hotel with Ken, Karolyn, and Kallie. We packed quickly, having only to toss stuff back into the three carry-on bags we had brought, and hit the sack relatively early Pacific time.

…Of course, we also woke up early Pacific time, early enough that nobody else was on the roads. We gave ourselves two and a half hours from the hotel before the flight left. Little did we realize that the Pasadena Marathon, which was scheduled to start later that morning, involved having nearly every road between us and the freeway completely blocked off. We kept being shunted aside, with no helpful detour signs; finally we ended up completely lost in windy neighborhood roads less than two miles from our hotel. This is where we pulled out Ian’s trusty G1 and I put on my navigator’s hat — not actually a difficult task, since the G1 marked our location on Google maps. Mostly we kept being thwarted by road closures everywhere. Ian estimates that we hit a dozen closed roads, and I have to admit it started feeling a little ludicrous after a while. Fortunately, with Google maps and our GPS location, we found our way out and to the freeway.

The rest of the trip went smoothly, which is to say boringly. We returned the car, zipped through security (Ian had mailed my knife back to me and I finished my yogurt in the car, so we had no contraband with us), waited for a while at the airport, and flew back to Boston. It was a long and boring flight, and I started to feel airsick at the end. The airsickness did not dissipate on the all too exciting Framingham Shuttle ride back to our car, but eventually I did start feeling better. On the way home we obtained basic food and X:3, which we watched before bed.

That night we found out that Ian was starting night shift work. That topic will get its own post very soon. Monday we woke up about 7:00, not bad for having spent several days on Pacific time; I went for a 40-mile bike ride in blustery headwinds and below-freezing temperatures while Ian obtained food for us. Then back into our normal life.

Today, four days after landing back at Logan International Airport, I feel tired. Actually I feel more tired than I was before, because I have not slept well any of the 3 nights Ian spent at work. I guess eventually I will adjust to that, just as Ian will eventually become nocturnal.

And that was our whirlwind trip to California.