Tem-uh-COOL-uh!

Recently, my baby brother got married.  His partner is a lovely woman – smart, sassy, good taste, beautiful, and gives my brother a solid run for his money.  She possesses all of the qualities one could hope for when being an overly judgmental sister, 10 years his elder, and I really like her alot!  They met in San Diego, before he was transferred back to Denver for a new job.  She decided to move with him, but not before they both agreed to dole out a bunch of cash to get married in some of the most beautiful wine country Southern California has to offer.

Soooo…a few weeks ago, we all flew out there to mark the beginning of their new adventure together.  S and I arrived a couple of days prior to the ceremony, for some play time in San Diego; we are also desperately scouting locations to move to (and away from this GAWDforesaken city).  If you know of any companies hiring back out West, be sure to put in a good word for us! I am awesome at pretty much everything; S is awesome at music production, cool event shiznit, freight logistics, and not knowing how to make the bed.

The evening of our arrival, we were blessed to meet a fabulous concierge at our hotel, who directed us to a fabulous little Sushi joint, just across the street, which blew our skirts up with some fabulous nigiri, sashimi and rolls made from out-of-this-world goodness.  Okay, in all fairness, neither of us were wearing skirts, but if we had been I would have totally shown our waiter my goodies if I thought it would have got me some more of those delicious rolls…or at least to the front of the line…because there was a line…at the sushi joint…on a TUESday…cuz that’s how real cities roll (eeekkk, bad pun, sorry)!  Cities like the one we currently live in on the other hand?  Meh…they only roll the sidewalks up at 5pm.

Anyhoo!  The next day was wedding rehearsal day, and since I was asked to be a grooms-dude (which I was officially nominated by all of the other grooms-dudes in the wedding party – holla!), we had to cut our fun time short to leave plenty of time to get to the venue by 5pm for the rehearsal.  According to ‘The Google’, the estimated drive time was 64 minutes, but we thought it best to allot for some extra time due to the no less than TEN wildfires raging across the San Diego Area that week.  I know, I know…what excellent timing for an outdoor wedding right?  Yet, who would have thought, when planning began a year or so ago, that my brother and his fiancee would need to worry about 95-degree weather and wildfires in San Diego in May?!  And people want to believe that climate change isn’t happening…pffffffftttttt!

S and I decided it was best to leave our hotel at 3:15pm.  If you know me, you know that this is a Christmas miracle in the making that I would allow for plenty of extra time to get to where I needed to be on-time.  You can blame S — he works in logistics and understands time, or rather the need to be on time, better than I do.  And, because my brother does know me so well, he sent a text at 3:35pm confirming that we had indeed left the hotel, to which I was proud to reply that we were already on the road.  (So there!)

California has a “don’t-use-your-fucking-phone-while-driving” law, so I left S in charge of navigating us to the winery.  Now that we live in modern day times of GPS and Siri, he did what any of us would do and asked her for directions from San Diego to Temecula [tuh-meh-Q-luh].  And she replied, “Which MacUla?  Tap the one you want”, but actually listed the “Salon DE Manila and the Manila Bakery…in Florida” on the screen.  Say what??  Obviously, S mumbled, so I told him to speak more clearly into the microphone.  He tried 8 more times to ask her before I decided it was time to break the law and asked for directions myself from my phone.  Here is what that bitch had to say for herself (shows me what I get for doubting the most awesomest man EVAR):

“GAWD damn you, Siri! S, just enter the directions manually then, since she doesn’t seem to understand either Native American or Spanish languages!” I shouted.  For those of you who know me, also know that I often yell and curse while driving in traffic and California gives ample opportunity to do both simultaneously (yet another reason why we need to move here!).  After manually entering the destination, we were told that our arrival time was estimated some 3-hours from now…3-hours to drive approximately 58-miles, WHHHYYYYY?  I have no effing clue why, but I only allotted for one hour and 45-minutes…ohhhhh, my brother is gonna be so pissed at me…um, um, um, let’s not tell him, okay?!

Unfortunately, when traffic came to a dead stand still on I-15, some 20-miles outside of Temecula because one of the wildfires had jumped the highway, I knew it was time to call and tell him that we wouldn’t be making it to the rehearsal (at all).  Fortunately for me, I was not the only one driving up from San Diego.  Two other bridesmaids were also stuck on the same highway waiting for it to be reopened, so my brother couldn’t be mad at me for being my typical late-everywhere-I-go self.  This time it really was something other than my inability to tell time that caused me to be late.

To help with damage control, I sent my mom a text and asked her to stand-in for me and take notes.  That way, she could fill me in later on what my duties as a ‘grooms-dude’ were exactly.  (Sitting on the highway technically does not count as driving, so I didn’t feel the need to obey the hands-free law at that moment, okay? Stop judging me.)  We arrived in time for the rehearsal dinner…early, in fact…so when everyone else showed up, I took it upon myself to declare, “You’re late.  We’ve been here for 15 minutes already, so I had to start drinking without you.”  With the traffic headache past us, and everyone safely at the destination, the rest of the evening was full of laughter, tears of celebration, good food and fun.  We made it back to the San Diego hotel later that night without delay (because that’s how Murphy rolls of course).

The next day was an off-duty day, in between wedding rehearsal and actual wedding.  We checked out of our hotel in San Diego and drove back up to Temecula to stay near the rest of the wedding party for the remainder of the trip.  Upon arrival, we all had lunch together.  Then, the ladies were whisked away to enjoy manis and pedis, while the men went to lounge in the 105-degree heat at the pool…the ladies definitely got the better end of that deal, yo!  During our pedis, my mom and I quickly conspired to arrange for some sort of gift to be delivered to my brother and his wife at the hotel the night of their wedding.

Typical of most of our ideas, this was a good one, dreamed up at the last minute, executed in secret and not without error.  With pedis complete, and the other girls still getting manis (and me rejecting the very notion of a mani since nail polish chips right off my nails within five fucking minutes of getting them done), we set off for their hotel to do good deeds.  Of course, we had no idea where we going, but never fear, because GPS and Siri are here!  This was her chance to redeem herself from the previous day’s FUBAR.  Instead of asking her for directions, I input the destination point myself and began the navigation program.  There were the usual “turn right here”, “turn left there”, but when we got to the actual road the hotel was on – Temecula Parkway – Siri says “take a right on ‘Tem-uh-cool-uh’ Parkway”.

My mom and I burst out laughing!  No WONDER she couldn’t understand S’ request from the day before – he wasn’t saying it “right”!  Feeling all learned and shit, we quickly ordered some champagne and chocolate deliciousness for my brother and his wife, then headed back to our hotel to share our new found knowledge with the rest of the group (minus my brother and his wife, or we would have killed the surprise!).  Explaining the scenario to the other grooms-dudes was futile – they didn’t understand the humor, so to prove our point, I whipped out my phone and asked Siri for directions to “Tem-uh-cool-uh”.  To which she replied, “Sure, Bootylicious.  Where would you like to go in Temecula?…with proper pronunciation and all!  Siri just made me out to be either crazy or a liar.  I am already crazy, which means now the grooms-dudes just think I am a liar.

Siri is a whore.  The End.