The Good news. I finished the shawl! In time for the wedding.
I had a lot of moments when grafting when I was sure I was getting the knit purl sequence wrong, or pulled off too many stitches, but as I have to look to find the line where the two sides were grafted, so all turned out well there.
Now getting to the wedding? Well… I don’t think I could make up this story if I tried. It took us close to 5 hours to do what should have been an 1 1/2 to 2 hour trip. Why? What follows is one of those stories that I wish I had made up. Because it’s just insane, that all of this should happen in sequence.
The morning of the wedding, we all met to get our nails done then divided into two groups to drive to the hotel. Group 1 made it just fine, if not with loads of traffic. Our group on the other hand began an epic journey. 3 blocks from where we stopped for lunch got side swiped by a cab. The driver, was smiling and laughing, before knowing if everyone was alright, or even how much damage he had done. Ever want to punch a person in the face repeatedly? While everyone was fine, we still have to wait for the police.
The police arrive, and it turns out in on of those only in NYC things, that because the accident happened on the other side of Broadway we were out of their jurisdiction and had to wait for officers from the other station to arrive. Two of us had our outfits in the trunk and wandered up to the Strand bathroom to change. We did our makeup in the car, as well while waiting.
At this point the driver is rightfully ticked we haven’t seen hide nor hair of these other officers (its been at leas half an hour and an hour and a half since we left lunch) and Cabbie McDouche is reading a paper glancing at us occasionally and smirking. She calls her insurance company to get options, and we all end up giving our information, she collects, what is CLEARLY wrong information about the make and model of the cab from the driver, based on what we could see sitting BEHIND the thing the last two hours. But we are finally on our way.
We drive towards the Queens Midtown tunnel and the traffic there is so bad we move maybe a block every 20 minutes. We get out of that area, and make our way to the Triborough Bridge (Now the RFK? surrrre). We are rolling along until the car stalled in our Lane. Mutter.
We get to Queens, drop off the member of our party that was not heading to the wedding. And drive off to get the belonging of the other two in the car, so we can head to said wedding. So we head into the driver’s building and into the elevator. Can you guess what happened next? If you think, hmm they pressed the button for the 5th floor and then got trapped in the elevator because it went below the basement? You win!
Yes that would be right, trapped in an elevator. It was one of the old type elevators with the safety door on the outside that only unlocks when the elevator is in the proper place which we were so not. We were about a foot or so below where the elevator should have stopped. We were lucky enough that someone heard the alarm. And had been trapped the night before, she told us what had worked for her (didn’t work) then went off to find the super.
Meanwhile our friend in the elevator is a ninja. Poking, prodding, wishing she knew more about elevator construction to get us the hell out. The super shows up a little while later and we take the stairs. The remaining pair, get dress and prepped, and we head back down to the car.
At this point I partially expected the car to have exploded, been whisked away by fairies, or something else. In which case we would have walked to the LIRR because we were getting to that wedding. In retrospect, its amusing that at no point did we think, oh we should just give up.
We pile into the car, which was as we left it, and drove straight to the venue. One of the tensest drives ever, every sound, every speeding car, had us jumping out of our seats. Our nerves were frayed and we wanted a large drink or 12. At one point, in the last mile or so of the trip, fire trucks and emergency things fly past us.
“Well at least it wasn’t us this time.”
“Don’t joke, knowing our luck the reception hall is burning down.” There was a moment of silence in the car, when we all considered the very real likelihood of this. Before laughing because if we didn’t laugh at this point we’d be sobbing. After some lies the GPS told us we get to the venue which is still standing, and make our way to the right wedding.
We arrive having missed the entire ceremony and are greeted by the bride’s father who has been kept abreast of what’s been happening to us, via the Maid of Honor, my reading went to an uncle, and everyone is glad we’re safe, and have made it. We are reminded that this is just the cocktail hour and not to get stuffed on the tons of food making the rounds. Then we head to the bar. Because we deserve drinks. A lot of drinks.
We see friends, including Group 1 who we share our tale with, in person as we were texting with members of the group most of the day. The bride and groom arrive eventually and are just happy we actually made it.
“Well it will make a great story at least.”
Later in the evening the groom pointed out. “I mean if the worst thing that happened today was that you were late, well that’s everyday, you’re always late.”
I suppose the universe wanted to keep things in balance. Great day for the bride and groom, put some guests through the wringer. I remember way back on Friday afternoon when my biggest concern was grafting two halves of the shawl…
Knitting
11 shawls 2011, FOs, lace, life, shawl, wedding
