Midwest

We’re going to Cleveland this weekend, for a wedding. I’m hard-pressed to be excited about a trip anywhere right now. Nothing against Cleveland but we’re going to go there, stay overnight, go to the wedding, stay one more night, and get the hell out first thing on Sunday morning. I don’t need to Google anything about Cleveland other than the best land route out of town. No offense, Cleveland. It's not you. It's me. 

*****

It's Friday afternoon now and we're on our way. Our original plan was to fly, but I couldn't find reasonable nonstop fares and with two college tuitions, a new water heater, and a very expensive recent overseas trip, $1000 airfare to Cleveland and back was not in the budget. 

Yeah I know I sound like an old lady. That's because I am. I turned 58 last week and let me tell you that any 58 year olds out here identifying as "middle aged" are kidding themselves. The women in my family live a long time but not 116 years. 

And I feel like an old lady too. A few days ago, I slipped and fell down in the parking lot at work landing hard on my hands and knees. Thankfully I didn't break anything but I'm still sore. I expect to break a hip any day now. But not today. Today it's a beautiful sunny early fall Friday afternoon. We're just past the I270 northbound early rush hour traffic, with nothing but open road all the way to Ohio. You can't feel old when you're on a road trip

*****

Ohio is a five-hour drive from the DC suburbs of Maryland, give or take. It's not that far. But as soon as you cross the Pennsylvania - Ohio line, you see signs that say things like Great Lakes and Mississippi River Watershed, and you know that you're out of your zone. Ohio is definitely of the Midwest. It's flat and open, industrialized, gritty in some places and fancy in others. We attended a wedding in Berea, a charming town with a strong Polish flavor. I hadn't heard a polka played at a wedding in many years, but they played three. They all sounded the same. 

What I danced to:

• Miley Cyrus’s “Party in the USA”

• Usher's "Yeah"

• Nicki Minaj's "Starships"

• "Cupid Shuffle"

• Sister Sledge’s "We Are Family"

• Justin Timberlake’s “Can’t Stop the Feeling”

• All Pitbull because you can't sit down when Mr. Worldwide is singing

What I didn't dance to:

• Slow country

• The chicken dance

• Polkas 

*****

The drive to Cleveland was pleasant and easy, and it was lovely to fall into a comfortable hotel bed after a very long day. The hotel was fine - clean, simple, everything we needed and nothing we didn’t. It even had a pool, and we got to swim on Saturday morning, since the wedding was not until 1. The wedding was beautiful, and the reception was a blast. Even the clean-up was fun. Yes, we cleaned up afterward. The reception was held in a parish Knights of Columbus hall, like every wedding I ever attended in my working-class Catholic youth, and that’s how it works - you rent the hall for a very nominal fee, you hire your own DJ or band, you bring in your own food and liquor and decorations, and you clean it all up at the end. Technically, the guests can just walk out and leave the hosts to take care of the clean-up, but that is not how it’s done. That is not cricket. Everybody lends a hand with the clean-up. 

The dishes were rented and needed only to be collected and stacked for pick-up - we didn’t have to wash them. We gathered trash, stacked dishes, removed tablecloths and chair covers, and were out of there in 30 minutes. The young people then held an after party in the hotel. They kindly invited their elders, but it was after midnight, and I had already turned into a pumpkin. After party. These kids, I tell you. Crazy. 

*****

Have you ever had food poisoning? Well, I have, and it’s no way to end a weekend. No, it wasn’t the wedding food, thank goodness. That would have been bad. I ate one thing this weekend - a turkey sandwich - that my husband hadn’t eaten - and I paid for it dearly. I didn’t think it was possible to vomit that much. And vomiting wasn’t all I did. 

The illness ran its course very quickly. I woke up on Sunday morning feeling vaguely unwell. Within an hour, I had gone from vaguely unwell to very very sick. Within another hour, the sickness had passed, leaving me pale and weak and exhausted but otherwise OK. Barely OK, but OK. My husband drove us home while I alternated between waking and sleep, wrapped in a blanket in the shotgun seat. I felt vaguely guilty that he had to drive the entire way home in the rain, but I couldn’t have driven even if I wanted to. And he would have driven anyway. 

*****

And you know, that was still an 8/10 weekend. Food-borne pathogen encounters are an automatic two-point deduction, but 8/10 is solid. I’d do eighty percent of that weekend over again, no questions asked.