Big Day for Beautiful Daughter minus 2

[gsabc]

The day before the day before ...

Spent much of the day with FSIL rearranging BD's stuff in the PODS container, loading in some more, and starting to secure it. Actually, he did most of the work. Why else do you have children if not to have them do the heavy lifting for you? He's better at tying all the ropes around the boxes anyway. A Boy Scout, I'm not. There will be a goodly amount of room left over in the unit. We probably could have fit everything into the smaller container, but the packing and arranging would have been much more complex. It was easier having the room available. The only real issue was distributing the load more or less evenly around the unit. Also, bricks on the bottom, feathers on the top, as the driver delivering the container told us.

Meanwhile, BD was doing more packing and helping GW with preparations for the evening's dinner. We will end up with around 15 people, so GW made what we call Beer Butt Chicken on the grill (whole broiler chicken stood up on end with a half-filled can of beer containing your desired spices up its butt; she added a homemade spice rub on the surface.). She also made a plain broiler chicken in the oven for BD and the other purists. BD eats hot dogs and hamburgers on the buns plain. She has never even tried ketchup. So no "tangy tomato dipping sauce" for her. Other food items were baked beans (canned but with various additions) and cooked broccoli. Desserts were what we had around from earlier in the week: homemade cupcakes, homemade biscotti, Mississippi mud pie cake (decadently chocolatey) and some miscellaneous cookies.

FotG and his friend/roommate arrived at the house late afternoon, coming up from their hotel in Boston. They're an Oscar & Felix duo, both divorced and now sharing living expenses. They'd driven 14 hours straight to get to MA, getting in at 1 AM and having to go to a different hotel to get some sleep. They arrived too early to check into their planned hotel and a cancelled plane flight had taken up all available space there. FSIL definitely takes after his father in facial features and physical form. Taller, though.

Dinner attendees: Me, GW, BD, FSIL, HS & GF, MotG, Sister-otG, Cousin-otG, FotG, Friend of FotG, GW's BFF and goddaughter, two old friends of BD and their SO's. One of the old friends is BD's oldest friend. They've known each other since age 3 and met in pre-school. She has a long and involved family history, not all of it pleasant, and it's very enjoyable for me to see that she now has her life together and is successful. If not for the family stuff and falling out of touch with BD for a time because of it, she probably would have been another bridesmaid.

A good time was had by all. Food was eaten, drinks were drunk, conversation was made. Line of the night for me: GW was standing by FSIL, who was seated. For a reason that I can no longer recall, she rubbed him on top of his military cut. She exclaimed in surprise, "It's soft!" She was expecting the short hair to be bristly. Everyone cracked up, expecially FSIL.