Garden State

This past Memorial Day weekend, I spent my time doing what I have done the past few summer holiday weekends: attending a wedding. This one allowed me to tour the great state of New Jersey, seeing such places as Cherry Hill, Livingston, and Whippany (a virtual who's who of New Jersey towns).

It started out with a trip to a friend of my girlfriend's parents' house in Livingston. A bunch of us were going to stay there the night before the wedding (Saturday night) so that we could hang out at her pool and then go to the rehersal dinner. The house had been described to me as "a mansion" and "really big, with a pool." Coming from the DC suburbs, I always believed such descriptions until I went to college and began to picture Long Island as the swankiest place on earth with houses the size of Kentucky. It was not until I actually went to Long Island for the first time when I realized that their houses were not necessarily any bigger than the ones I grew up in and around, but the people just loved to brag about things more. So I didn't really believe that this house in Livingston was the Taj Mahal.

When we got there, my skepticism was sort of confirmed. The house was really great. Very nice. I wouldn't call it a mansion, but this neighborhood would have fit in anywhere in suburban DC. We went out back to the pool where everyone was and chilled out for a while. There were probably about 15 people there that were either going to the wedding or friends of the family who lived there. There were also 2 dogs: Ralph, a dumb as nails English Pointer who was either hunting bumble bees or knocking his head on the table for most of the afternoon, and Melanie, a scruffy Border Collie who played with Ralph for most of the day.

It was kind of cold, so nobody went in the pool, but we did get treated to barbecue and beers. Apparently, the family who lives there is loaded, so they have a live in housekeeper and another guy who was cooking the hot dogs and burgers. I always feel uncomfortable around these people, especially when they are doing things like cooking burgers, which I would have done for free. Anyway, things were pretty tame until another friend of the family came with his dog, Kelly.

Kelly was a Boxer/Pit Bull mix. Immediately, one of the guys going to the wedding who isn't into dogs (to put it lightly) was like, "Is that a Pit Bull?" It was confirmed by someone else and he stayed away and waited for the watermelon. The dog was pretty harmless to begin with. Then the dog's owner started throwing a tennis ball into the pool and Kelly would jump in and fetch it. I thought that the J-Man would not approve of this because a dog in a pool (much like a dog in a bathtub) is about the dirtiest thing you could do to the pool. When Kelly would get out of the pool with the ball, the other dogs would go towards her and try and get the ball. Well, Melanie would. I think Ralph just liked to follow the other dogs.

Then after one time in the pool, Kelly got out with the ball and Melanie came up to her. Kelly went nuts and chomped down on Melanie's ear and would not let go. It was actually pretty scary. People tried to separate them, but nobody could do anything until the guy cooking the burgers came over and poured water on Kelly's nose so she couldn't breathe and had to open her mouth. Luckily, Melanie was not hurt in the altercation and Ralph seemed almost oblivious to the whole incident. Shortly after Melanie was confirmed as being ok, Kelly and her owner wisely left. The lesson, as always: dog fights rule.

Next came the rehearsal dinner. We went to an Italian restaurant about 20 minutes away from the house. Now, you should know at this point that the bride in the wedding is a friend of my girlfriend from a semester abroad in Israel in college, so she is about 27. The groom is 39. But you would never know he was that old if you met him. I certainly had no clue about his age until someone told me. I always assumed he was close to my age. Anyway, his friends are all his age and are married with kids. Not babies, mind you, like 5 or 8 year olds. And his friends party. Hard. By the end of the rehearsal dinner, one of his friends was clearly all coked up and not making any sense. This was going to be a funny wedding to say the least.

When I woke up the next morning, I went upstairs to find all of the other people awake and eating breakfast. Even though I made it clear that I don't drink coffee, everyone else must have wanted it because the mother who lived there was yelling at the housekeeper because she didn't have a fresh pot of coffee going at all times. Oh, and by the way, it was the housekeper's birthday. Happy birthday! Everyone else then launched into their crazy ass food neuroses. Since the wedding was a largely vegetarian event (I know, but what are you going to do?), everyone was dreading the Salmon that was going to be served at dinner. Plans were made for pretty much everyone except for me to order the vegetable tower instead and eat a pizza before the ceremony.

The next major crisis was that the wedding was supposed to begin at 3pm, but we were not going to be allowed to check in until 4. This would mean that we would have to get ready somewhere else and take our shit with us and check it before the wedding, then pick it up afterwards. Obviously, this is a rediculous and unacceptable proposition. (If you are keeping track, the tally is up to: wedding on the sunday of memorial day, in bumblefuck NJ, vegetarian, beginning and ending early, and no check in until after it starts). After a few too many calls to the front desk, we finally were able to wrangle 2 rooms for 1 o'clock check in.

After some more laying out by the pool and watching Ralph attack the porch swing, we headed over to the hotel. Along the way, we picked up the aforementioned pizza. The hotel was nice and more importantly had an Irish bar in the lobby. We would be needing this because the wedding was going to start at 3 pm and end at 9. Up to the room we went to eat pizza (not me), get ready, and watch Midnight Run.

The wedding ceremony was pretty standard, with the normal jewish customs, but the strange part was that the Rabbi was a friend of the bride's from growing up or something. Normally when I picture a Rabbi, a middle aged bald guy with a gut and a beard comes to mind, but this guy looked like he could have been a classmate of mine and even danced to 50 Cent during the reception.

When the cocktail hour began, I had my first glimpses of the vegetarian cuisine. I have to say, even though there was no meat served at all as far as I could tell, they did a pretty good job of picking out the appetizers. Spinach pies, spring rolls, and lo mein are always solid choices. The only problem with the cocktail hour was that there were only 2 bars open and the lines were deep. I decided to go with what has become my traditional first drink at weddings: scotch on the rocks. I figure if I am goinng to have to wait a long time for a drink, it better pack some punch.

The cocktail hour was also where I first saw the 40 year old party crew. Amongst the funnier characters were a guy who looked just like Freddie Mercury (before AIDS) including a moustache and white suit and a guy who looked like the scientist from Independence Day. Another guy in that crew was named Ken Marx or something like that but inexplicably had the nickname "Murph."

The reception began with the normal dancing and hoopla, as well as a first course of ravioli, which was pretty tasty. I also got my second (and last) scotch of the night. The bar situation was pretty annoying, so I decided to just stick with wine because the waiters would bring it to me. A few times during dinner, the whole over 40 crowd table would be missing. I could only imagine that they were "partying" in the bathroom, but I had not seen any suspicious actions from them other than being a little more rowdy than the usual wedding crowds are.

At some point I ent to the bathroom and all my suspicions were confirmed. There's nothing that says legal like 5 guys in a handicapped stall. However, the funniest thing that happened in the bathroom was when an old guy (like 70 or 80) from another wedding saddled up to the urinal next to mine and ripped a wet fart for all to enjoy. Me and the other guy next to me could barely keep from cracking up.

Everyone's dinner's eventually came out and the salmon was pretty good. I'm glad I din't go with the vegetable tower because I'm not sure that the chef really understood the definition of the word tower. It was more like a vegetable manhole cover. Dessert was an assortment of pastries and wedding cake. I will say that this was one of the better wedding cakes because it had strawberry in the middle. I hate it when wedding cakes have raspberry. Girls are usually obsessed with raspberry for some reason when strawberry is clearly the better fruit.

The wedding ended at 9 and it felt like 12. I'm getting pretty old when I can't drink for 6 straight hours without getting tired. After the wedding, we went to change into normal clothes and go to the Irish Bar. On the way to the room, some younger guys (in their early 20s) made some small talk with us and called my girlfriend hot as they were loading 2 mini refrigerators into their hotel room. I switched to beer at this point and got my second wind. Somehow, we stayed there until about 1 am and finally went back to the room.

The next morning, we went to the brunch (which was not free, but the bride and groom would be there). Normally, I wouldn't want to eat because I don't really like to eat breakfast, but there were the two words that I can only imagine are written on the gates of heaven: breakfast buffet. I'm not sure what I like the best about breakfast buffets. It is either the rediculous amount of pork products that I consume or the ungodly barrage of poo that I unload afterwards. If I could eat breakfast buffets every day, I would definitely weigh close to 1000 pounds.

After eating and saying our goodbyes, we headed home on the never ending highway that is New Jersey. I have to say that for all that could have gone wrong with this wedding, it was pretty fun. Even though the bars were crowded and the food was mostly vegetarian, I still drank like a Kennedy and ate like an animal. As usual, a good time was had by all.