Paul once spent three days with me in Nashville and was patient and chivalrous as I tried to hunt down the perfect piece of fried chicken. So it was with automatic delight that I went to see him get hitched, in what was probably the social event of the season for our long-departed law school crowd.Without having been told, Paige and I knew we were charged with the task of reconnoitering information for our Denver office. So, armed with this season's strappy heels and spring season handbags, we pulled our plus ones to the Mission Valley Marriott. Traffic congestion on the 5 forced us to arrive fashionably late. Luckily, the only real repercussion of tardiness was getting the flotsam and jetsam of the shrimp cocktail tray. More luckily than that, I'm a staunch believer that extra cocktail sauce can remedy just about anything.
And we were not so late that we could not "celebrate good times, come on" when it began blaring on the speakers. So we made the rounds with those people that had once been a part of our daily legal eaglery*, shaking hands and exchanging half-hugs and nodding ever so politely. Many in utero babies and new platinum bands on ring fingers. And a host bar at a wedding always makes the progression of the party seem like Rome burning down. (Anybody see Quo vadis?)
I also thought that the tossing of the bridal bouquet was rigged. I was vehemently waved onto the dancefloor to participate, with impatient "what's wrong with you?" gestures. There were three "botched" throws and redos, before the bouquet plopped onto the patch of floor in front of me and the girls formed a small opening to allow me to grab it. "What the hell," I thought, and snatched the wilting white roses, flinging it up in dejected victory.
Back at our table, the antics were picking up. Chris, Paige, Justin and I had some kind of nonsensical conversation about arm hair. I was jocking Justin's shirt. Justin W.'s male buddy-cum-date** was slowly becoming la vie de la fete, complete with Russian accent, and the waiter forced us to concede that he was a Jeff Foxworthy incarnate. I spent ten minutes trying to figure out what you called meat cooked in pastry before asking Cirrus once and for all, who folded her napkin in her lap and answered politely, "Wellington." But I believe the best part of all was being ribbed once again by Dean, something dearly lacking in my life in the last year.
We were neglecting a whole other part of the San Diego posse so, at Cirrus's predictably perfect suggestion, we headed to the JBar downtown. The last I remembered, the area was a sprawl of decrepit warehouses, but now it was a confectionery of brightly colored buildings wrapping Petco Park. I blinked, and there was Erik and Natalia. And eventually we were all upstairs and I was passing cocktails around. Bluish lighting, full-bodied Shiraz, a sea of best buddies, with the promise of Cantina in the morning.
The next morning, efficiently planned logistics found us all seated together at Cantina in Pacific Beach. After I got caffeinated, all the stories told were making me giggle. Nothing better than talking shit and shop over protein scrambles and organic coffee. The only thing I regretted that morning was not knowing that the sour cream was actually horseradish cream sauce for my roast beef hash. I didn't even take one bite of beef with that horseradish cream, and now the recent jonesing for prime rib is acutely worse.
We headed back to Big Bad LA by way of Coronado and PCH. I thought about my books waiting for me at home, so lonesome and clamoring to be opened. I won't tell them where I went, though. They'd only be jealous.
* Thanks, J., was this non-exclusive?
** Forgive me, J.
posted by Lucy Sloan @ 4:49 PM
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