And the winner is...

Crystal!

For guessing the exact number of times J would flip flop on whether he was going to go to Ohio with me. At the time, I didn't include my guess because I didn't want to influence other guesses with my relatively inside information. My guess was 6. One for each day plus one just because. Obviously I went over. Crystal, your prize will be in the mail just as soon as I figure out what it's going to be.

The trip went well. He got dismissed early on Friday, so he was waiting for me when I got there at 3 o'clock. Some nasty holiday weekend traffic delayed us by about an hour, but we still managed to arrive by 10:30. My brothers were on relatively good behavior. On Saturday, Mom was shockingly chill about the schedule, but we still managed to squeeze in a lunch to celebrate Jake's graduation from auto body technician school, which was an excellent surprise for him. The wedding itself was not nearly so painless. First of all it was a Greek Orthodox ceremony, which means it was rather long and painful, boardering on offensive for those of us who don't think that

1) A woman should "submit to her husband in all things"
2) Marriage is about babies
3) Virginity has any particular value (or that we should talk about it in public)

The thing that really pushed me over the edge though was the fact that they made my cousin change her first name. For the record, I'm slightly torn on the whole changing of last names thing. I feel pretty strongly that my name is MINE and you can't take it away! On the other hand, I see why having the same name as your spouse (and kids if you should choose to have them) is important to some people. And even further, I can see why it might not be important enough to some people to take the trouble to go against the system. So on the subject of changing last names, I know where I stand on it, but I don't let other people's choices on the matter bother me. The first name is a whole different story though. I can't seem to get past the idea that this stupid church has told my cousin that her name, the one thing that is uniquely hers, is not good enough for them. Rest assured that if someone said such a thing to me the response would be particularly unlady-like. And despite the fact that my cousin is an adult, and went into all this ridiculousness willingly, and that she won't actually use her new Greek church-approved name, I feel inclined to defend her from it. To my mother's relief, I did manage to sit through all the offensiveness with only a few irreverent notes scribbled on the program and passed to J.

The reception was equally lame. Everything was overly elaborate, and didn't really add to the effect. Instead of having a good time, we mostly agonized about which fork or glass was appropriate to the current course and how to navigate the elaborate place setting without knocking anything over. The music was provided by a Greek band, and there was much disappointment and confusion about why the bride's family, which made up about 70% of the attendees, was not dancing. Perhaps because we didn't know the appropriate dances and no one bothered to teach us? Who would have foreseen that?