Quick wrap-up of my long weekend:

Thursday. Flew to Raleigh, navigated to Cousin Anne's place. Greetings, dinner, a lot of cheese.

Friday. Finally got a look at the place where Anne and her husband and kids live. Arcadia is an intentional community, or co-housing, if you will. It's a subdivision, but it's based on consensus decisionmaking, sustainable land use and a sense of community that starts with house placement and street design. Cars are parked at the perimeter and houses face into common spaces and trails. There's a community building for meetings and dinners and the children's theatre. There's a garden and a pond and a grandma who walks all the kids to school every day.

Anne and her husband, meanwhile, are Buddhist psychotherapists raising two talented teenagers. They have a pet snake, a hamster, three chickens, and many Lake Malawi cichlids. Their son is a top fencer, their daughter does dressage. In between they yell and pound on each other like regular kids. As one such scuffle tore through the house, Anne smiled and said, "At least they talk to each other." "We prefer violence to silence!" quipped her husband. Timmy and I are going to run away and live with them.

We toured Carrboro and Chapel Hill, then grabbed the kid and went to visit the horse. They actually convinced me to ride the horse. This was an awkward and unpleasant experience for both woman and beast. Between that ride and my recent encounter with golf, I think I can safely stop saving up for polo lessons.

Then we went home and had more cheese and played a card game and taught them to play dice.

Saturday: Farmer's market, with its roasted red peppers and organic goat milk soap and hand-woven baskets. I expected Alice Waters to spring from the bushes at any minute. Sarah and I realized that if we ever moved to Chapel Hill, we would have to stay together because we wouldn't know who to hit on. The short-haired women in overalls selling organic cheese? Straight. The goat herding soap-maker? Husband and kids. We'd be doomed.

We drove three hours up to Lynchburg and met Jersild and headed out to Tripp's wedding. As Baptist weddings go, it had more ass-grabbing than most, but it set the tone for an entire evening of convivial ass-grabbing. Tripp being a proto-minister and all, it had the requisite communion, Baptist-style, which involves passing platters of bread and grape juice through the pews. My stomach was rumbling, so I was sorely tempted to grab a hunk of whole-wheat body of Christ but in the end I held off. They got married, they recessed, we all followed, and at the top of the church steps Jersild had a spectacular wardrobe malfunction that you'll have to read about from her.

The reception was an ode to meat. Prime rib, Virginia ham, chicken fingers, paella, beef satay... good lord. We ate, we drank, we danced. And boy can the bride's family dance. The image seared on my brain is the bride's uncle grinding against her posterior in a manner that is either illegal in Virginia or par for the course. I couldn't decide. We were the token lesbians, and there were certainly more than a few of the old-school Bible-thumpers there, but Tripp's contingent included a posse of hipster Baptists (no really) with multi-colored hair and chunky shoes. Excellent.

Sunday. Sarah doesn't do well the day after a night of excess. She rode home with her eyes closed most of the way except when she was aiming at the vomit cup. I was irritated and enjoyed the fact that she was suffering. We got back to the cousins, snorked some quick pizza, and I took off for the airport. Sarah's off to NY today for a week. At home, nine hours later, Timmy was beside himself to see me. Otis comes home from his grandparents' house today.