Finally, my little brother is married. It took at least three attempts at setting a date. We took a week off, shared a house with Elder Brother + Clan, met up with the Plaid Amoeba, and generally wandered San Francisco. This was a great week, I think. My kids and I got to meet my niece (their nephew) for the first time. She’s a sweet, sweet child — right between Chilkat and Chilkoot in age. Both our kids loved her.
Northwood is also married now. This is the only marriage I’ve seen where I’ve thought, “There can be no better match for this man.” Because, there can be no better match for Northwood. I love him dearly, but he is one gruff, unapproachable son of a bitch (sorry Ma). Seeing someone understand him well enough to recognize the sweet, lovable little boy inside is just heartwarming. He’s about as loyal as I am (which is to say unhealthily so), so I don’t think she’s gone too far off her own optimal path, but I think that he got either the good end of a stick or an end of a very good stick.
We tried two new modern things on this trip: VRBO/AirBnB, and Uber. Both were successful, I think. We used VRBO to get a a biggish place, suitable for Elder Brother’s clan as well as mine; this was a genius move. We had space and walls for the little ones to go to sleep and be isolated, without the parents being crippled. So, the kids could sleep while we drank and chattered. It was awesome. We used AirBnB to get a smaller room for just our own clan, which was equally successful. We got to put the kids to bed and not automatically be in bed (reference our catastrophic hotel stay in San Francisco for Monocular Ben’s wedding). Uber was nice, although no one was comfortable with driving around small children without carseats. Definitely convenient and easy.
Congratulations!