Michael Koren is my cousin, and when I was little we would be at Aunt Nancy and Uncle Joe's house in Hubbard...we would play kickball and baseball and wading pool in the backyard and Nintendo in the basement and build LEGOs (he still does) and go trick-or-treating and see Indians games...until Marc got old enough, he was the closest male relative of mine I had fun with. And when we got older, there were several occasions where he would give me some crucial wisdom, such as how to think about and talk to your parents, how to look at life with confidence, and (this was done with Smashing Pumpkins as the key example) how to move beyond the cultural tastes older generations instill in you. In these senses, he has always been in an ultra-general way a sort of older brother, and conversely in his eyes I often feel like I am still the little Andrew who's behind in things...and that's alright. Now...Mike saw a few girls in his life, how many I don't know because I only saw the ones who were here at family gatherings, but after he graduated from OSU he met Kate Martin, who was a classmate of his sister Michelle. Kate is very pretty, very delightful, very smart intellectually and emotionally (I have never seen her lose her cool or respond in situations without total diplomacy), equipped with a great sense of humor, and...is the most extraordinary creator of baked goods I've ever met. If I had met Kate in some circumstances and gotten as close to her as Mike did, I would have fallen for her, so there was absolutely no surprise when Mike DID fall hard for her, and yesterday they were married in Columbus, with almost the entire Rostan family, including Grandma and her eight children, present.
All the men wore pink socks because Grandpa loved to wear pink socks...it was our spiritual tribute to him. Rarely have I wished more that I could have known him, and we said a prayer for him at our table before dinner.
Marc picked me up at the airport...he's more handsome than ever with his very well-cut facial hair. He ushered and we had to go pick up his tuxedo, which turned into a two-day process and a stressful try-on involving tails, suspenders, vest, the works.
I had ice cream every day in Columbus at either lunch or breakfast...Jeni's, purveyors of the Buckeye State and Sweet Corn with Black Raspberry flavors, is the finest in Ohio that isn't Handel's.
We stayed at the Blackwell Hotel on OSU's campus. Marc gave me a tour of the Short North district, which is like the best neighborhoods in L.A., and his favorite Ohio State locales, including the renovated library which I would never leave to the point of sleeping, the student union, and University Hall, which was modeled after Independence Hall in Philadelphia and on the oval sits next to OSU's Independence Hall, which was modeled after nothing. (His words.)
Mommy and Daddy arrived on Thursday and we caravaned with John (who seems a happier man than the last tiem I saw him and is working on the long-awaited follow-up to "The Quest for Just and Pure Law"), his date Kris, a very, very nice woman who teaches Roman History and was born in Chicago (we had plenty to talk about), Aunt Mary, Beth (the loveliest pregnant woman in the world), Bonnie and Mark, Uncle Richard and Aunt Jodi, and...
I'll catch hell for this because I'm almost sure Uncle Bill and Aunt Candy rounded out the party but I'm not. I lost brain cells this weekend. In three days I drank an infinite variety of beer, wine (red and white), champagne, screwdrivers, vodka and tonic, gin and tonic, whiskey sour, Diet Coke with rum and Southern Comfort, and bourbon. Continually. Until 1 a.m. every night. Weight gained: no idea. Do I care? Not at all.
Anyway, we drove through downtown (which I'd never seen before) and ended up at Thurman Cafe, featured on "Man Versus Food," and had fried pretzels, fried brownies, and the most awesome 3/4 pound burgers I've had in forever. As John said, when you go to Columbus, you go on the Thurman diet.
The Blackwell is next to Ohio Stadium, and down the street is the Varsity Club. Every night featured the Varsity Club at some point. The drinks are cheap, the patio allows cigars to be smoked, and the jukebox is full of country music and whatever you want.
Friday morning, breakfast at the hotel where Dylan the waiter told us right off the bat he was tired and then proceeded to bear out that statement with some incompetent, inattentive waiting.
The great tradition of me caddying for Daddy continued when we played a fine course in the Columbus MetroParks, arriving after two wrong turns and an old man out for a stroll giving us directions and telling us "You can't miss it." Obviously we could. We played with Kate's father Robert (he who closed the hay sale on the seventeenth tee) and uncle Jim, who both do not golf. It was still a more-than-fun morning. Lunch was a hot dog and a hot fudge sundae, the latter being consumed when Uncle Frank decided we had to stop at Graeter's, a very old-school ice cream maker.
Dinner that night was a very fun cocktail party at Woody's, where the Ohio-style pizza and banana pepper salad were uniformly superb.
People arrived all through the weekend. Andrew caught a red-eye from a very frustrating meeting in Los Angeles and immediately joined the golf game. (I gave him a list of movies for nights when he and Beth will take care of the baby. He gave me some excellent financial advice.) Frank, who is honorably serving the country, arrived right before the actual ceremony. I saw Ron and Danielle for the first time since Mike's college graduation and met their adorable children. And Cathy showed up in the middle of the cocktail party and stunned me with a short, very attractive haircut. Indeed, all of my female cousins looked absolutely beautiful, causing Mommy and the other Aunts to point out that we have the best-looking third generation of them all, capable of doing a photo shoot.
The night went back and forth between the hospitality suite and the Varsity Club. I debated musical merits with Uncle Richard and John, bought six-packs with Marc, and danced with Cathy, who grew more and more...fun, the way Mommy can...as the night went on. I remember vaguely going to bed. Or vaguely remember.
Saturday Mommy, Daddy, and I had breakfast at Northstar, which makes an egg-sweet potato-black bean-cheese-onion-and-tomato burrito which is TO DIE FOR, plus biscuits and ricotta pancakes of equal powers. We were joined by Cathy, who we ran into searching her car for her phone and kept her shades on almost the entire morning. It was a lovely way to start the day.
The wedding was at St. Andrew's Church, and what stands out so much from that afternoon...
...the church program coordinator, who dragged the rehearsal on Friday to two hours, pushing everyone out of the entrance hall
...Bonnie single-handedly sewing the Maid of Honor's split dress back together
...Marc walking Grandma down the aisle
...the solo vocalist waving her hand at us like a cheesy variety-show star during the responsorial songs
...the priest ordering the photographer off to the side and preaching a very heartfelt sermon about the Beatitudes, with baseball analogies!
...Julie, the next Rostan to be married, gently leading the prayers
...Mike's eyes lighting up as Kate walked down the aisle looking like a princess, pure Audrey Hepburn or Jean Simmons...but no, unmistakably Kate...maybe I've never seen a bride so lovely...
...the Maid of Honor running around to pick up Kate's three-foot train
...the entire church laughing when the bridal couple's hands got misplaced during the exchange of rings
...the bridal couple's euphoria, which never ended
Dinner: soup and salad in cups and glasses, pasta, smoked turkey, roast beef, Kate's cakes, homemade cookies...somehow I still was standing at the end
Dances: plenty of jumping up and down for Lady GaGa and Ke$ha and Katy Perry, riotous country turns, a classic-rock finale where Uncle Donald shook Uncle Frank around during AC/DC, an impromptu Script Ohio, and all of us surrounding Mike and Kate for a final "Piano Man" sing-along, closing in, a mass of loving humanity, including so many great people from Kate's family and their circle of friends whom I never knew existed. "If I don't see you again, I'm glad you saw me."
We took pictures with Grandma. The grandchildren drank a shot of Crown Royal.
There were no arguments that lasted longer than 30 seconds...at least none witnessed by me or which I was part of. Mommy and Daddy and Marc and I...we were so exuberantly happy, we all were, as the conversation flowed endlessly and the storytelling kept up at a marathon pace. And we all hugged. We all let each other know (as Mike and Kate separately did with me at one point at Woody's when they obviously had far more important things to think about) how happy we were to be there together, that we all could make it and wear pink socks and drink and eat and laugh and love.
This proves the personal axiom that you can basically drink ceaselessly for three days and, if you're in the GREATEST of company, the company who will give everyone the best they can give and believe in everything you do, you'll never get drunk. I pray that all the world could feel as loved as we feel. I pray that Mike and Kate share lives of shared work, shared hopes and fears, and undying love.
And I have to get a job now to go back for Thanksgiving. Kate's orders. And in the words of Ken the best man in his toast, Kate is always right.
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