Late Night Report From The West Coast

1. Never, ever assign three opinionated, type-A personality women to decorate for your wedding.

2. If you are one of those woman, just STEP BACK, y'all, STEP BACK and let the others put up as much ivy and twinkly white lights as they want.

3. Contrary to my niece and sister-in-law's opinions, it is, indeed, theoretically possible to have too much ivy and twinkly white lights. I might possibly have had to wrest the box of ivy out of their hands before they started decorating the house next door.

4. No matter how much people tell you to FORGET what time it is back in Kentucky because you are in California now, you can't help thinking that even though it's only 9 at night, it's actually MIDNIGHT in Kentucky and you are EXHAUSTED.

5. IHOP has these new fruit crepes that are TO DIE FOR. Try the black cherry. Seriously. These things are the food OF THE GODS. We had a late breakfast, so we availed ourselves of the Continental breakfast at the hotel ealier. Then we had some snacks during the wedding preparations and then went to a huge and quite fabulous Italian dinner with gelato for dessert. But then we realized on the way back to the hotel that we had never actually eaten lunch today. Score! We will probably lose all kind of weight this weekend.

6. I think we are going to actually find it difficult to eat all the snack food we purchased for our rooms. We might just possibly have gotten a teeny,tiny bit carried away at 7-11. Although if for some unforseen reason, our plane is delayed on the runway for hours, which has TOTALLY happened, we will be in high cotton. We can eat for days. And barter for important items like foot rubs with the rest of our food.

7. So we are ready for the wedding. The tables and chairs are set up, the dance floor is put together, the lights and ivy are draping the altar and it looks quite, quite lovely. We are smugly proud of ourselves.

And I would like to write a little more about the happy couple who appear to be honestly in love and their friends and family who have come enjoy this wonderful time in their life with them.

But I can't keep my eyeyeyeyeyeyeyes open because I am so sleeeeeeep....what was I saying? Oh,yeah, I wanted to say how much I love my family and appreciate them. They are fun and generous and kind and absolutely the salt of the earth. I am so very LUCKY to have them.

Even though they desperately want to hang that last box of ivy I hid in the closet.

Man. I hope I don't forget to light the pool candles. It's my only job. Wish me luck.