Back From the Heartland!

I'm back, the wedding was beautiful and great, many visits with friends and family and babies, along with a fabulous haircut were packed into 2 days.

I've never seen a Shaker Heights back yard look so big and beautiful as this one did. It was clear, so we were 'under the stars,' or under the trees decorated with subtle lighting. An 8-piece band (I think) was the soundtrack for the evening, and much dancing was done among glasses of champagne and a scrumptious drink called I don't know what, but there was peach juice, Champaign and a strawberry slice in it. Yum! It was so neat being in the house, and all I wanted to do was show David where I would sleep over on the air mattress that we blew up with the vacuum cleaner, and the basement where we played hours of Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego and preformed theatrical lip-syncs to the Beach Boys for an audience of her younger sisters. Hers was the house where I gagged on skim milk for breakfast, played with her sweet dog Hathaway, and evaluated everyone in our middle school class. Al (I'm using her nickname to protect her innocence) was my first best friend when I changed schools to go to private school, and we have many memories outside of that house, all the way to Maine! I fact, we left a blueberry trail one time on our bikes, just so we wouldn't lose our way back...

The bride was beautiful and so happy. Her dog Lucy made an appearance just before she and the groom whisked away for their honeymoon, she dressed in a light brown cotton suit top with a ruffle down the front and an a-line skirt from Anthropology. She looked very Argentinean and glamorous. Her good friend from high school seized the microphone before the night was over and passively forced the bride to play a song for us all on the piano. Al played the theme from Ice Castles - our old favorite! and a huge gulp rose in my throat as I sat on her couch in her old living room. We're talking about two middle-schoolers who night after night called Bob McKay on Light Rock 106.5 to dedicate Wind Beneath My Wings to each other. Once, the whole class took a trip to Cedar Point, a Cleveland theme park, and Al and I went into the record-a-song-booth and recorded ... I think it was the theme from Ice Castles! and I had to hit a high note for a really long time, and Al, to my embarrassment, played that song for the whole bus. It's about time she had her own audience to perform solo for!

The night was capped of with 2 Krispy Cream donuts and a long ride down memory lane as the evening came to a close.