It started with a 5:00 AM ride to the airport with the kindly id slightly groggy James. From SFO to ATL, I hitched a cab ride to the outskirts of Buckhead to Margaret's place where I could wait for my parents to pick me up on their way from Nashville.
Margaret and I are part of a very special extended family. We were raised a few doors down from each other on a dead-end street with four families whose parents have known each other since childhood. These families all have three children and we all went to the same schools and carpooled together and traveled together and played German Spotlight in the yard on long summer nights. My mother is Margaret's godmother, and we were pretty much raised as siblings. I call her my pseudo-sister.
Margaret travels a lot for her job, and is currently in India. She left a key for me so I could chill at her place and let my parents avoid the airport and shave half an hour off their trip. I had to make sure to put the key back in the lockbox as her mother was descending with her landscapers to plant the front of her new house.
Margaret left me a few welcoming notes, including the copy of Town & Country with a big spread on her friend Blair, an art dealer married to an art auction house expert, and their unbelievably fabulous Manhattan apartment. Truly impressive, and my life is so not their life. No Town & Country spreads for me unless I manage to do some really creative plantation remodeling to my studio on Golden Gate Park.
Margaret invited me to chill, but to be fully aware that lounging would have some consequences to my traveling clothes.
Margaret's note indicated that the TV remote was dead and I didn't feel like standing in front of the TV to channel surf, and she forgot to leave me the password for her WiFi so I couldn't check my mail. Instead, I was suitably entertained by standing at the back kitchen door, peering through the window, and watching the high school/college summer job landscapers blow each other in the back yard.
It was over 90 degrees and with syrupy southern humidity and the shirtless boys were taking turns cooling each other off with the leaf blower. I was too slow to get a photo for the blog.
After a while I went out front to get a picture of the house, and the landscaper's truck (they were working several homes on the street) drove up and asked me if I knew "Miss McAlliser." (HA! I have never heard her called that.)
The boys wanted me to let her know they had caught a king snake in the back yard. Now I don't know snit about snakes other than if it is not someone's pet I'm high-tailing it the other way.
I was informed that king snakes mostly eat bugs and rodents and are generally harmless to people (if it's harmless, why not let it stay in the yard and eat bugs and rodents—but I imagine Margaret and her puppy would just as soon not come across it.)
The Yard Dudes return from the hunt.
I did feel the need to tell the landscapers about that time when we were kids and I showed up on Margaret's doorstep gingerly petting my brother Mac's rubber squirrel. Margaret was terrified of it and froze on the other side of the glass door. She declared—as if it were a standing Rule of the House, like "don't leave the house without telling me where you're going," "never swim alone," or "no playing in your father's office"—"SQUIRRELS AREN'T ALLOWED IN THE HOUSE."
Then she ran to the bathroom and hid under the sink.
Yeah. Just so you know, Jimmy the Landscaper knows that story now. Hee hee hee.
While trying to figure out Margaret's internet set up (clearly, I get e-mail withdrawal) I noticed her media box. I felt the need to take a couple of shots for commentary. (Margaret is also a regular blog reader so this is also just a little prod to welcome her back from her trip.)
Let's take a moment for these two things:
First—they say you can learn a lot about a person from their movie collection:
Really Margaret? This is your DVD collection? Wedding Crashers and Kingpin? Do you have a Woody Harrelson fixation or something. Though I was warmed to see Stripes and Trading Places, as Margaret and I used to watch those two movies over and OVER as kids. Like, hundreds of times a year. It was a sickness.
and Second—
I totally get the Grease and Pretty in Pink titles (I sent her a personalized 'box set' of the John Hughes oeuvre for her 30th birthday), but Honey, VHS?
Okay enough of the Margaret silliness. Thanks so much for letting me stay at your place. Mom and Dad loved it. And had I known how many photos are all over your house, I totally would have printed out about 235 photos of me and superimposed them over your displays. And welcome home.
And now to the actual stories of the wedding! (To be presented in new post.)
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