Wedding 2018 - Be There and/or Be Square

The entire Motley Crew headed to Seattle in 2018 for the August wedding of Sam & Martha’s daughter, Samantha to Aaron Strauss. The plans (i.e objectives) were to pre-party before the official wedding get-together at a local pub, try not to embarrass ourselves by having too many jello-tequila shots at the official party, try to look dignified the next day at the wedding, try to be “the life of the party” at the reception (to give the “kids” some achievable goals in their lives), and then try to find our way back to the hotel. I thought it sounded a little optimistic and a lot to remember for our group, but then–wait, what was the middle part???

When we arrived in downtown Seattle, I had not fully appreciated how bad traffic was in the downtown area and how easily one wrong turn could force you into a far south loop by the football stadium (...could’ve been a baseball field or Boeing airfield or a Sea-Tac runway...) after all aren’t all big cities easy to navigate? When we finally got into proper, short diagonal, access drive to the fairly well camouflaged entry for the Westin’s valet parking, there was a pretty big push/rush to get everything out of the car so the valet folks could move the vehicle into “storage”. I won’t mince words here...it was decidedly intimidating, humiliating, degrading, and made me wish a had a flask of white lightnin’ in my back pocket. I definitely came to understand what could cause a man to take up drinking. (Please remember the duress noted here as it will be referred to again later in this epic blog.)

Anyway, with the bags all unloaded and carted up into our room, the pain in my head did start to moderate. Once we located the Malicks, Casnes, & the Graybills, life became fabulous again.

Notice that Sam & Martha pulled the excuse of "wedding duties"
to miss the  2018 Ti-Toki tasting.

Years ago, when the Graybills returned to the west coast from New Zealand for a visit, they brought a bottle for each couple of Ti-Toki, the national drink of their newly adopted country. At least they said it was the national drink of New Zealand...I suspect it was simply a ploy by the Kiwi government to make sure all the bottles of this insidious brew were removed from their island nation. Our Motley Crew gatherings since that time have always included either a tasting to see if the drink has mellowed over time or at least to express how much we communally hoped it would be the last bottle of Ti-Toki we ever had to sample. This gathering at the Westin was definitely one of the tasting variety. So here we are, huddled around one of the now, quite vintage bottle of Ti-Toki to ascertain if it has become drinkable as of 2018...it had not...but there’s not much left, so that’s something positive.


So our pre-wedding party was sort of a success, at least we all expended a lot of laughs & smiles. At the pub event, we got to meet a lot of Samantha & Aaron’s friends and didn’t embarrass ourselves too much–or at least none of us remembered anything that might be put into our permanent J. Edgar Hoover files.

(Although, I did notice several of those younger folks pointing at us and walking briskly away when we approached them the next day at breakfast.)

The next day we wandered around Seattle and then as afternoon closed down, we all started to get gussied up for the wedding. (This photo was taken in full gussie-up attire after the wedding since it was the first time we'd been able to get together as a group–with all those mother & father of the bride obligations Sam & Martha had to attend to.)

Now, those of you who know me, know I hate shoes and have been known to wear a tuxedo and my thongs (flip-flops to you youngsters). Well, in the rush to unload the car, (I told you to remember my extreme duress at that time...) my dress shoes did not make it out of the Subaru.

Susan was absolutely convinced I "forgot" my dress shoes on purpose, and although I did NOT forget my shoes on purpose, I wasn’t unhappy about the situation. And besides, they were a really good pair of thongs (yes kids, still talking about flip-flops).

I was told fairly firmly that I would keep my feet under the table and hidden as much as possible. When we arrived downstairs to meet the Malicks and Graybills, Jim had a variation on my foot covering issue...and Susan and Layne seemed at a loss for words (Isn't there a saying about quiet times being the best?...if there isn't, there should be, or maybe I was thinking about the calm before the storm.)


Apparently, Corfam shoes don’t store as well as they look. When I was in NROTC, they were a highly valued new item available in shoe apparel. They had a spectacular shine all by themselves...no hours of spit polish required, an absolute miracle to those required to produce a mirror finish on their dress shoes and who didn't want to spend hours on end polishing footwear.


As luck (or destiny) would have it, Jim’s left foot Corfam dress shoe had apparently been affected by the Andromeda Strain while in storage. With no stores open and being a practical problem solver, he went to the Concierge to see if they had any clear, wrapping tape to solve his shoe's outbreak. They did not, but did offer some scotch tape. So Jim taped the cracked shoe up and figured it only had to last a couple hours.




The left (taped) shoe sorta did last an hour or so...the right shoe sorta did not. After the wedding, we moved into the downstairs of the venue (I don’t know why it’s a building by day and a venue by evening.) Both Jim and I were told by Layne & Susan to keep our feet under a table at all times.

Jim's shoes (need I say...on the right?) at the end of the evening
and I thought it was worthwhile having a pre-storage/taped shoe
in the picture for comparison.

FYI, I have to tell you, that keeping your feet under a table at all times makes it quite difficult to get to your dinner at the buffet or to get your drink refilled without being a bit self-conscious and looking like a fairly suspicious, doddering old man.










I was pleased that Sam & Martha had placed us all at table #1 (out of +15 tables), meaning there were a lot of people at this wedding and the only ones who cared that Jim & I had sub-standard footwear were Susan and Layne–just sayin’...

Dinner was fabulous and we all had a terrific time being together to celebrate Samantha & Aaron’s marriage. Our best wishes for a long and happy union for them.









Sam made the effort to get a picture of the Motley Crew 2018 to go with the picture of the group from 2008 (pre-Motley Crew moniker).



After dinner, we headed back to the Westin, leaving Sam & Martha behind to pay the bill and cleanup the “venue” (not really, but it sounds good 16 months after the event). Both Susan and Layne had brought more comfortable shoes along for the walk back and had changed into them. As we started back, Layne’s toe strap on her Croc thongs (that’s still flip-flops to you kids!) broke. I loaned her mine (Olu Kai’s not Crocs) and I went barefoot back to the hotel. I often wondered if any homeless people saw us walking along and felt sorry for us..."and that one guy was wearing taped up shoes and the other guy didn't even have any shoes, poor buggers..." By the way, my feet got really, really (and I mean really) filthy walking three blocks on Seattle sidewalks. (I’m thinking if I have occasion to walk in downtown Seattle again, I’ll take a backup pair of my Olu Kai thongs/flip-flops with me.)

Now if you’ve been keeping track, arriving back at the Westin was our last goal for the weekend (and since there were no provisions about footwear in that goal, I’m counting it as successfully completed!)

The next day we loaded Jay and Leslie in our car and headed North for our 2018 adventure at HiHium Lake with the Motley Crew. (FYI: No ambitious goals, expected demeanor or attitudes had been set for this upcoming Canadian adventure...just sayin’, we’d already been through enough constraints in the name of big city, “act-your-age” mandates.)