After the wedding, off to the reception in the big hall. This was a farm back in the day, so this was the barn. There is a little room off to the side called the Milk Room. Which Doug just referred to as the Red Room or the Room with the Very Slow Filling Ice Machine.
It is a big beautiful space, and it was decorated wonderfully. the Bride & Groom had a shared loveseat couch, and the Bride's Side table consisted of Team Us. Jess was the "Best Mate" which made me smile, and their toast was very lovely.
M&D set up "signature cocktails" for his & hers, but asked if they could add a third. In tribute to my husband, who once said to the bride he was "sweating like a toilet bowl in August" and that "blue drinks are the BEST drinks." She remembered his recipe for our favorite blue drink, minus one ingredient...
His drink is at the top, her drink the middle, and Doug's at the bottom.
Doug seemed kind of surprised, overwhelmed a little, and honored.
Pineapple juice, midori, blue curacao, vodka. The missing ingredient that M didn't add in was ginger ale, which makes it bubbly and poppy. But that's okay.
Doug informed the bartender that this drink was entirely his fault. She found that amusing, but at the end of the night said it was the absolute most popular choice. She had to mix up multiple containers of it - they served all 3 coctails out of big lovely glass containers, which were so pretty next to each other. Here's a pic of Jess and Liz, modeling with the cocktail "Toilet Tank in August." The name of which I'm sure confused a lot of the wedding guests. But. We know the story!
There was some bride's family drama, which I won't get into. Suffice to say, it's kind of heartbreaking when on your wedding day your family pushes you to the brink of tears and frustration. The groom said to me that she was suffering from "death by a thousand cuts..." and he felt frustrated by them all. Welcome to your wedded life, honey. I'm here if you ever need to talk.
Jess, as Best Mate, will be following up with her. They wanted to give the newlyweds a lot of peace and grace, but when you're someone's best mate, and you usually talk every day of the week, a touch base after giving that wide swath of space is important.
C took a ton of fantastic pictures at the reception, I spent about an hour combing through and looking at them on Wednesday morning while finishing this post. So many to pick from... they need their own blog entry.
We clean up very nice.
Sunday
I was up until after 1am the night before hanging out with Lin and Jess. Doug went to bed but his belly ached from too much delicious and too much Blue Drinks are the Best Drinks action.
Thankfully, Lin texted me and my alerts were on, so that woke me up. Otherwise I would have missed them.
Lin and Ronnie were headed for the ferry in CT, so they left off early.
Missed them before they were out of the parking lot.
I had a little Jess time before they had to go back to the doggo.
Check out was strictly at 11am, so we obeyed and got our shit together. So much stuff, so many bags, so much mess. Throw it in the car we'll deal with it later!
Doug and I had the day free to meander around Southern NH. Our goal was the seacoast but we ended up lolling about at a library booksale fundraiser, (Doug thought the sign said "Boob Sale" because of the telephone pole in the way).
Then he was hungry, wanted an omelet, and we tried to find a place C had taken me to in the past but it is out of business. Sadly! We discovered we were a mile or so away from C's camp. So let's swing by there, grab her, and go to the place I had suggested we go to earlier in the discussion after the book sale - The Big Bean cafe in Exeter.
We had a lovely late lunch, and took a toodle aboot in Exeter, which is a lovely little town. Back at camp we had a burger grill night, cocktails by Doug, including a lovely purple thing.
One can never get enough camp.
For as crummy as the weather was on Thursday when we were all there (the night of my wipe out) Sunday more than made up for it with sunshine and wonderfulness.
Monday did too.
Monday
C delayed going to work until absolutely necessary. We played with her dog on the porch for a super long time before she went and it was the best. I love her dog. Ginny can play and play and play for hours without stopping. But eventually falls over sideways.
After C left, Doug and I discussed doing something, anything, such as maybe making it to the seacoast. But, he picked up his book and went upstairs to the bed.
"I live here now." he said to me as he slunk off to read, and nap.
Okay then.
What to do with myself? I didn't need a nap. I didn't want to go for a walk. I should have but I was kind of meh about it.
C had recently purchased some garden plants. She has this old picnic table that every year we say "this is the last year for this table!" yet she continues to stand up. Resilient!
I went into the garage, and got all the pots out, some potting soil (ended up not needing that bag since there was plenty of dirt in the pots overall). Got the shepherd's hooks and the hummingbird feeders.
Farmer Chris then went to work repotting the plants, making sure none of the plants and pots of the same color were put together. Can't have that. She has so many to choose from. And I didn't even repot all the plants. C's sister R is coming this weekend and I wanted to leave some work for them to accomplish together. Farmer Chris can't steal all the work!
Doug came down after a while and made comments from the porch. I put him to use and got him to pull out the hose and hose-holder, which were too heavy for me to really lift and move around (my right arm still hurts).
I watered all the babies, and we watered her hydrangeas and other shrubberies that were along the house. Doug talked about what needs to be cut back in the fall, what's good to let go to see how it does. She's had no luck with a lot of bushes over the years but the hydrangeas in back are going to be amazing in a few weeks.
We met Jess at the Dog Park in their current town, and had a load of fun with Miss Dijon and her pals. Then we went to dinner for yaps and apps, and hockey on TV. C was in bed when we got back, Doug went to bed shortly after, I quietly stayed downstairs in the front guest room so as not to wake anyone up by going up the stairs. And I slept fitfully.
Tuesday
C headed to work because it is Bagel Day for her team and she is the Bagel Fairy. Doug and I plotted our course of travel, and got out the door by 11:30. He scraped tree sap off the car window, I stripped beds, unloaded the dishwasher, and organized our stuff a little better than it had been "organized" on Sunday when we left the wedding.
Our plan was to drive 101 West across Southern NH to Vermont's Rte 9, then into NY State to the Catskills to Rte 30 around Broadalbin. We'd head south from there to see what happens.
It takes 9 years to drive across NH, but 5 minutes to get from Brattleboro to Bennington. It's a beautiful ride.
NH and VT were gorgeous on the ride. Tons of pillowy clouds, mountains rising in the distance and suddenly you are at the top of them. We stopped to overlook everything by the Beer Naked Brewery, and I'd love to go back there for a visit sometime.
Not the best picture. Lots of overgrowth and nowhere really good to get a shot of the valley below, unless ... we were in the brewery (behind me) up on the patio. That would have been sweet.
We stopped for lunch at the Vermont Country Deli in Brattleboro. The sandwiches were amazing and we both got dessert. They had a great selection of local beers, and they even had some Butterfly Bakery things for sale.
Clare at Butterfly Bakery is a huge Guster fan, so folks like to take pictures of her stuff in the wild. I'm no different. Hats Off to you, Clare!
Somehow, we got twisted about with a detour near Bennington, finally making it over to NY in Hoosick. That cost us a good chunk of time, and as we approached the Albany area wouldn't you know it traffic was the absolute suck. We managed to get on I-87 South and didn't make it over to our Rte 30 excursion.
Doug decided and declared that he just wanted to drive home in one fell swoop. I kind of really wanted to stop off and spend one more night somewhere. I also wanted a walk to keep the steps streak going. But.
As he was the driver, I acquiesced to his wishes. Away we went.
We did stop for dinner in Allentown, PA. We didn't want a big long stop, just something quick, but not Taco Bell. Doug saw a sign for this hot dog shop, Yocco's. Well. A hot dog shop, can't be that bad, can it?
This is going to get its own entry, so be sure to read the side quest write up over here.
And enjoy this comedy photo that I had Doug take of me of the Satan Hot Dog poking me in the butt.
Things moved very well until we got to Harrisburg. Night paving/work on the highway slowed us right down and we were stuck for quite a time in Carlisle.
He suggested we bail and take the backroads, which wouldn't be a bad suggestion if it wasn't late at night on unfamiliar roads so we stuck with the highway. At the state line, literally right at the state line, no more construction so Maryland welcomed us with a wide open road and about 10 minutes left in the journey.
Hallelujah. Home. 12 hours of a trip. Albeit with lunching and detours, it was a good day.
But sadly... the end of my 10k steps per day streak. I made it 226 days. By the time we got home, I needed close to 2k steps to hit the goal and I was not going to jump on the treadmill for a run. So I let it happen. I let her go.
Before we left, I thought of walking down to the mailbox and back, but really wanted to clean up and get going more than get the steps. And, I thought we were going to stop along the way. There's the wonderful Walkway over the Hudson, which we've visited in the past. I would have enjoyed that. Oh well.
Today begins a new streak, I guess. Digits below.
Tuesday digits
exercise: 9/12 hours. No walk. 8200+ steps by bedtime
blood glucose:
8am: 119
xpm: n/a
11:45pm: 156
food & meds:
8am: jardiance + phentermine
10:30am: piece of danish
2pm: turkey sandwich on sourdough; slice of carrot cake; met+glip
7pm: double dog, mystery sauce, a couple fries; met+glip
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