Please join the ESPN tournament challenge group. The Poop, as always. Vote early and often. Do one for the kiddies, one for the wife, one for the family dog.
Matt and Julie looked cute enough to be the bride and groom on top of the wedding cake -- and short enough too. Badum chhh, thanks Juice.
The Focks affair was a delightful event at the Bethpage State Park, right near the famed Bethpage black course which occassionally hosts golf's US Open.
The grounds were so nice they elected an outdoor ceremony -- in the middle of August. Being the sweaty Jew that I am, I was schvitzing before the bride even made her way down the aisle. In retrospect it might have been our fault for choosing to sit on the empty side rather than the crowded side, which was crowded because it was in the shade.
I survived the ceremony, which was beautiful by the way and made it to the cocktail hour, thankfully. I have heard that the food was delicious, but I wouldn't know because I spent all my time at the mashed potatoes station. This is something I was praying would be at another wedding since I didn't really get to enjoy it at my own.
This would be just the beginning of the delicious food I would enjoy, but more on that later.
The fireworks really started when somehow Juice convinced Mrs. Poop to do a shot of Patron with him. Feeling left out the Juicette and I felt we had to one up them, so we did a shot -- and had sex.
Later Juice tried to order a huge round of Patron shots for all assembled until a woman intercepted a shot intended for her daughter, chastising Juice with a "she's only 16."
Later that same girl was telling Amber and I that her cell phone had been taken away because she went over her minutes and sent too many texts. Sounds like cute, very typical teenage girl behavior. Little did we know.
One of my favorite parts of a Jewish wedding is of course the Hora. Over the years TallSkott and I have become very good at orchestrating the lifting of the bride, groom and immediate family members in the chair. This time we were joined by TON and Juice making a very powerful quartet. We probably could have lifted Brock Lesnar, which is good because it seemed like just about everyone in the place got a ride.
One of the people we lifted -- I think (please forgive any inaccuraccies or omissions in this post, my memory is faulty and my notes were incomplete) was the mother of the groom [corrected: ok, we didn't lift her, the following is accurate anyway]. She was an occassional substitute teacher when I was in elementary school and she still carries those scars to this day. She confronted me about my behavior those many years ago and then proceeded to inform Mrs. Poop about what a "pain in the ass" I was. When I laughed and tried to convince I had changed and become a good man, she didn't seem convinced. Then I told her I had a son of my own now and would probably be cursed by him turning out just like I did, she said "you can't let him."
After that, I was kind of hot and tired again so I went to the bar for a beer and a shot or two.
Dinner, like the cocktail hour, was delicious. I had the filet mignon, Juice has the duck, which I assumed he liked because he screamed out "I want to fuck this duck" while eating.
After a good deal more dancing and partying and drinking, it was time for dessert. Fresh baked cookies, a sundae bar, and a whole bunch of other shit I don't remember eating or seeing because I was too drunk from the Patron, too full from the ice cream or perhaps both.
It started off with a crazed Amber licking sprinkles out of the palm of her hand and saying "they let you eat as many sprinkles as you want."
I then got my own sundae loaded with just about everything you can think of, M&Ms, gummi bears and who knows what else. I also had several chocolate chip cookies and a lemon sorbet to clean my pallette. I never even made it to the other side of the room.
Despite the great location, the great music and dancing and of course the great food, the best part of the Focks wedding was the great friends. The entire crew was there, so were all the ladies (including Mrs. Reissberg, less than two weeks after delivering Darren) and we all had a great time together.
The band was really awesome too. They sang "Just Dance" and "Poker Face." The really hot singer seemed to feel a little ridiculous singing "my po my po my p-p-p-p-poker face" and I was a little disappointed she wasn't wearing this.
Update: They also did "Single Ladies (Put a Ring On It)" which was kind of appropriate.
Even though he doesn't look a day over 18 JLeary got married and since we've been friends for nearly 20 years, I was invited.
I was even a groomsman, along with Reissberg and the Concierge.
Because his lovely bride is from Hershey, Pennsylvania, that's where the wedding was held.
After a long drive through farm country thanks to our GPS, we arrived in Hershey disappointed that the smell of chocolate was not permeating the air as we had hoped. Apparently that only happens on hot, humid days.
Mrs. Poop and I checked into the lovely Hershey Hotel and explored the grounds. On separate trips we ran into the bride, the groom, the Reissbergs and the Concierges.
We had dinner Friday night at an Italian restaurant on Chocolate Avenue, but it wasn't a rehearsal dinner (more on that later).
We got back in time to witness a beautiful fireworks display put on by Hershey Park from the hotel's veranda.
Then we started drinking. It was really weird to drink with J's little brother Jeff whom I last remember tossing around when he was 4. Now he's all growns up and going to school and working as a pastry chef at a hotel. The Concierge tried to trick him into admitting that he uses transfats in violation of New York City's ban, but Jeff didn't even seem to know what Crisco is.
Saturday morning Mrs. Poop and I seemed to be the only ones who didn't pay to have strangers touch us (massage) so we spent the morning at Chocolate World getting a behind the scenes look at Hershey's manufacturing process.
We bought some souvenirs and split a delicious Smores cup and headed back to the hotel for lunch. Our lunch was provided by the bride and groom, a delicious cold cuts platter served in the Concierge's room. I think I ate about 10 pickles. I have a strange aversion to wasting food. If food I like is sitting there, I have to eat it.
After that I got dressed and met the groosmen downstairs for some pictures. Because this was a non-Jewish wedding the bride and groom didn't see each other before, so we were just with the groom for a few pictures and a rehearsal.
We met the pastor who walked us through everything that would happen, while constantly reminding us that he usually does this in a church. And he also mentioned repeatedly that he usually has a rehearsal dinner the night before. He seemed very nervous that something would go wrong, not only because this was a road game, but because we hadn't put in enough practice time.
The ceremony was in Founders Hall, part of the Milton Hershey School. The wedding was in a beautiful huge open space, and the bride got to walk down the stairs.
Since there was no rehearsal, the pastor was diligent in reminding us of our duties, including to usher guests to their seats, a duty I shirked because of my discomfort with non-Jewish traditions.
The pastor evidently spent too much time watching over us, because he forgot to say "you may kiss the bride," kind of an important part. Thankfully, he did get in all the legal mumbo-jumbo so they were married officially, and it was time to party.
I want to mention one more funny thing about the pastor. About halfway through the receiving line he suggested to us that we should check on the groom and see if he needs anything "maybe a breath mint."
The Concierge was offended by the presumption that he carries breath mints. "What is this, the 1950s when everyone carried binaca?"
Before we got to eat, the combined wedding party got to take more pictures, which was fun, but it made us a little late to the cocktail hour. When I arrived I found that Mrs. Poop had saved me a lobster tail (what reason am I up to now?) and I almost bit off the Conciergette's arm while trying to eat it.
I noticed that the table chosen by our significant others was conveniently located next to the seafood bar, which was full of shrimp. After making my way around the room (and getting into a fight with TON over the fact I friended his high school nemesis on Facebook) I returned and began devouring shrimp at a startling pace. Almost everyone in the room used the "Hey Paul, the ocean called..." line on me and when JLeary tried it I told him, "well I just had sex with your wife."
As usual TallSkott was dressed like a member of the wait staff.
The cocktail hour ended which meant it was time to party.
But first the bride and groom had their first dance as husband and wife.
There was also a dance with J and his mom (though this might have come much later on).
Once the DJ shifted from traditional party music to more contemporary music and hip-hop, the party really got rockin.
Thanks to an abundance of fun, young guests at this wedding, the dance floor was always very crowded, except for when someone put a bottle in the middle of it. Apparently this is a Long Island tradition, but it's evidently customary to place a beer bottle or glass in the middle of the dance floor because it somehow forces everyone to form a circle creating an arena for an intrepid soul to show off his or her moves for an adoring crowd. This was done several times throughout the night until Joe, a Mets fan and my best friend for the weekend, somehow broke the bottle with his face, without cutting his lip.
Some of the other featured music included "I Kissed a Girl," during which I ran around the room trying to get two girls to make out with each other. Maybe I crossed the line when I encouraged the bride to do it. At least Mrs. Poop said I did.
They also played "Apache," which got the cognoscenti out on the floor doing the Apache dance and patting their mouths to make the Indian noise.
At a lot of weddings the bride and groom don't get to enjoy their own party, not this time. May-May was out on the floor most of the night acting the fool with me.
When I walked outside the ballroom and noticed that there was a buffet of candy (Hershey's of course), kisses, York Peppermint patties, Mr. Goodbar, Kit Kats and others, along with bags for us to fill up and take home.
Now for those who don't know, The Concierge is not allowed to eat candy, by order of the Conciergette. So Nails and Mrs. Nails decided to play a little joke. Nails filled up a bag full of candy and was planning to stuff the Concierge's pockets. But when he reentered the room The Conciergette was sitting in The Concierge's chair. Mrs. Nails quickly ad libbed and put on The Concierge's jacket, feigning coldness. After a few minutes of subterfuge, she left the room wearing the jacket, with Nails following closely behind. After filling the pockets to the breaking point they returned and placed the jacket on the back of The Concierge's chair where they found it. When he went to put it on at the end of the night he noticed it was a little heavier than when he wore it last. For the next several minutes, he was yanking chocolate bars out of the jacket's every orifice. When the mound of chocolate was piled on the table he tried to explain that he had been set up, but everyone tried to convince The Conciergette that he was sneaking candy past her.
After the wedding ended we stayed at the hotel bar for a few more drinks, and one by one they dropped like flies, then I went to bed leaving The Concierge as the last man standing, in more ways than one.
Traffic, dropping Diesel at the kennel and a ridiculous lack of sleep almost made Mrs. Poop and I late to the rehearsal dinner but we got there just in time to shower and hustle to the rehearsal for Bill to explain to us what a chuppah is.
At the rehearsal dinner, we practiced eating (I still know how!) and Mrs. Poop caught up on baby talk with Mrs. E-Z and Erin. The three of them even went across the street to a baby clothes store...and bought nothing.
Bill took a moment to introduce all of his groomsmen which led to the most inexplicable moment of the evening. When Bill was talking about me, Alison interjected "I swear they're separated at birth." Then Michael interjected "Mary J. Blige." I think he meant that Billy and I are brothers from another mother, and that mother is Mary J. Blige.
Friday night ended with everyone back at the hotel bar. Let me say this, I hate paying $7 for a beer ($21 for 3 yeunglings) but I really enjoyed the hotel bar. At these events I like talking to people I haven't seen in a while and the bar setup, with couches made it easy to hop from cluster to cluster and say hello to everyone, especially the people I don't see that often, like my long lost brother Smokey. And it's nice and quiet (I hate loud bars) so I could hear everyone, even Kristin who seemed to break out of her shell for the first time this weekend, which was nice to see. Plus when Pizza Parlor Derek finally walked in everyone cheered his arrival and he didn't even go upstairs, just started drinking with his luggage in the corner. After the hotel bar closed and they gave me my bill (I thought if you charge it to the room you don't really have to pay), I tried to get some sleep, as I was working on about 3 hours.
Mrs. Poop and I slept so late we missed the gay couples sight-seeing tour, but we did wake up early enough to get cheesesteaks for lunch, or so we thought. We sent Horse, Smokey and PPD to Jim's (or was it Rick's?), but the line was so damn long, that I didn't have time to wait, and Mrs. Poop and Baby Poop, didn't have the patience to wait, so Josh and I walked to Wawa. Wawa was a terrible way to introduce Mrs. Poop to cheesesteaks, but I enjoyed mine.
Then it was time for the wedding. We traveled around the city taking pictures in front of fountains, in front of the LOVE sign and in the middle of the street. Should be some cool photos for the wedding album.
The wedding was held in Philadelphia, so it was sort of weird, because you had this nice outdoor ceremony but you had the sights and sounds of the city.
There was a guy parallel parking a Prius, a hot girl on her way back from the pool, Horse staring at her, but most memorably, the valets somehow got stuck with a car that wouldn't start. So they were pushing this car, right behind the bride and groom, where we were looking, hard not to notice. But it was a beautiful ceremony, Billy stomped the glass easily on his first try, and he broke the glass, not his leg and the party began.
I love cocktail hours. And I was the first one on line and I took a huge plateful of shrimp, and yes I did offer them to Mrs. Poop, but she declined. I also had two Shirley Temples. I don't know who started the trend, but at the beginning of the night everyone was drinking Shirley Temples. The bartender told me that in 10 years of bartending he'd never served so many Shirley Temples to adults.
They also had lobster tails, which were delicious, and shrimp prepared several different ways. I don't know how many shrimp I had, but midway through my second huge plate, the ocean called.
Right after that they did a choreographed routine to "Candy Girl" by New Edition, but it was awesome and very creative.
All night the music was awesome, mostly because Billy (acting like Bridezilla) gave the DJ a very detailed list of songs and the order to play them in.
There was a hip-hop section and I could have sworn during "I Need a Girl" the ghost of my friend Coach came on the dance floor and sang "the sun won't shine forever but as long as it's here then we might as well shine together."
The night really started to pick up when he went into his "rock block" starting with "Living on a Prayer" and "Sweet Child O Mine." That had people, including the bride and groom, dancing on their chairs.
And speaking of dancing on chairs, we did a hora. No one loves a good hora more than me, but I felt a little lost without my partner in hora, TallSkott. Michael was a good substitute but too many non-jews were holding the chairs and I was calling for everyone to walk in circles, but it didn't quite work out that way. But most importantly, we kept the bride and groom upright.
The evening took a turn for the better when they brought out the Viennese/breakfast table. There was your normal assortments of cakes and cookies but there was also a chocolate fountain. Chocolate was flowing from everywhere. You stick something in there, and it comes out covered in chocolate. I wanted to stick my head under but Mrs. Poop forebade me. So I had some chocolate covered Oreos. Then I got to the breakfast part. There were pancakes, and sausage and yes bacon. And it was midnight. I took a little breakfast, in the hopes I could sleep later in the morning. So as I was about to eat my bacon I noticed I had a pool of chocolate on my plate from where the Oreos had been. So I tried it. Chocolate covered bacon isn't as delicious as you would think it would be.
So to recap at this wedding I ate: a lot of shrimp (if I had to guess I'd say more than 50), 2 lobster tails, 2 chocolate covered Oreos, 3 chocolate covered bacon strips, and I drank 2 Shirley Temples and about 10 beers.
Yeah probably 10 beers, which is why at some point I found myself manning a bottle of Tanqueray pouring it onto the ice sculpture and into the mouth of my fellow Redskins fan, Christian. I guess my judgment of what constitutes a shot was a little impaired at that point because the bartender came over and confiscated the bottles.
As the night came to an end a couple of special songs were played giving the groom a chance to do his Vabilla Ice Dance, and immediately the bride's family drew up annulment papers.
And then Billy instructed the DJ to play La Bamba and hand the mic to Horse. A very drunk Horse. A Horse who had been getting disgusted looks from Mrs. Horse for the last two hours starting with his magical attempt to make a lime disappear. Here's the back story on La Bamba. When Horse was just a pony, he had to learn the lyrics for a 7th grade Spanish class. He's remembered them and uses it as his go-to karaoke song. At Michael's bachelor party, Horse delivered a rousing rendition. Well, he tried to duplicate that effort and the crowd was really into it.
Regrettably, the wedding had to end, but that didn't stop the fun. Nor did it stop Horse. He began a sing-along on the bus ride back to the hotel. He started off with his second favorite karaoke song "To Be With You" by Mr. Big, the song that got him attacked on the DC Metro.
Other songs sung include "Hail to the Redskins" (by just Christian and me), "The Humpty Dance" (the girl behind me knew every single word and even admitted later that yes, she uses words that don't mean nothing like "loopid" and that she did once get busy in a Burger King bathroom. The next morning I saw her wearing a shirt that said "real women don't date Yankees fans". Needless to say, I like her.), "Before He Cheats" and several others that aren't worth remembering.
Those of us who didn't want the night to end (almost all of us) hung out in the hotel lobby til 4am.
I also want to give credit to the best man E-Z who did a great job with his speech which had something to do with a man named Horace, Wheaties and Viagra.
E-Z's speech was really about finding things you aren't really looking for. That must have been a theme for the weekend because in the elevator banks on every single floor was a huge, pentagonal cylinder full of Hershey's candy, thanks to a group from the candy company that stayed in our hotel. At first I decided to be judicious and I only took 3 York Peppermint Patties. But with each pass by one of these chocolate havens I became bolder and bolder. By 2am when I was drunk I grabbed as many as I could and when I woke up the next morning after getting yelled at for putting them on Mrs. Poop's pregnant belly, I counted I had taken 35 York Peppermint Patties (not including the 10 or so I'd eaten up until that point).
The next morning I actually woke up in time for breakfast which was nice because I obviously hadn't eaten enough so I stuffed my face with a ton of bacon and got one last chance to talk to everyone and say goodbye to the happy couple and wish them well on their honeymoon and to thank them for a beautiful fun weekend.
