Michelle Kwan for 1st Lady of RI

The other day I attended a little fundraiser for a friend of a friend, Clay Pell, who is running for governor of my home state of Rhode Island.

Clay is besties with Ateesh and Shideh who I've been at several weddings with over the past year. Clay also happens to be married to my long-lost pseudo-cousin Michelle Kwan.

Ateesh and Shideh are helping out with the fundraising campaign and invited me to come along so we could connect/reconnect.

Dr Rusty happened to be in town from NOLA so I brought him along as well. Hi Rusty!

The fundraiser was held in one of the most gorgeous apartments I've ever seen.

Michelle opened with a little speech introducing her husband.

The crowd very obviously adored her.

She is just the nicest normal-est person.

We haven't seen each other since I was probably 13 years old.

Back in like 1994 when the US Figure Skating Nationals were held in RI, my mom, being a crazy network-y go-getter (it kind of runs in the family), sent a letter (this was pre-email) to Michelle's mom saying "Hey, we're Kwans too! Look us up when you get to RI, we can grab lunch, etc etc." And guess what, THEY DID. And so began a friendship between Michelle's mom and my mom and Michelle and my sister (she was a skater back in the day too). And it was established that we are all originally from the same village somewhere in China and thus may or may not be distantly related. And so she's kind of like a pseudo-cousin. Maybe.

Anyway, she totally remembered me even though I had only spent like an hour with her at a dinner almost 20 years ago. (I was not yet then a giant.)

And then someone shouted out that she needed to pose with both giants and then someone else requested that we enact figure skating moves and so we happily obliged.

These two are so nice. And look. They love posing with stuffed animals!

Looking forward to seeing them in RI!

Did I mention this apt was carayzy?

Here's one of Michelle's greatest performances in case you would like to remember why she is the most decorated figure skater in history.

20 hours in Hong Kong

I landed in HK late Wednesday night.

The first thing we did on Thursday was wake up and go to the market.

After that, it was off to the Jockey Club for brunch with Uncle Bill, Auntie Pearl, and MaMa.

Mmmmmm Mmmmmm. MaMa loooves her waffles.

After brunch we went to the cemetery to pay respects to my Gramps.

MaMa, feeling a surge of energy, decided to attempt the 5 flights of stairs to the top of the cemetery where my grandfather's grave is. Something she hasn't done in about 7 or 8 years!

It was kind of amazing. A 90-year-old lady with two metal legs!

Of course, she needed a breather or two. But we were very proud of her.

And I'm sure gramps was happy to see her.

The way down was kind of scary.

But we made it. Whew!

After a quick dinner, I headed to the airport and hopped on my flight to Phuket, where I'm now sitting poolside looking out on the ocean. Wooo!

Barrington Reunion!

My childhood friend JennySaunders who I haven't seen in years got married this weekend in Boston and I was the photographer.



All of her bridesmaids and many of her guests were people I knew growing up.

I caught this incredible reflection shot in a glass door when I was trying to take a picture of JenMcGovern getting her makeup done.



Seesters!



The wedding was at the Brookline Country Club, supposedly the very first country club in America.

It was kind of fancy. They made me wear a loaner blazer and change out of my sneakers because they have a stupid dress code. Lame.

It was really neat to be there because a bunch of these people I haven't seen in over a decade and some of these girls were the most popular pretty girls in school when we were like 2nd-9th graders.



As a reminder, this is what I used to look like while these girls were ruling the halls of Nayatt Elementary and Barrington Middle School...




Needless to say, we were not all best friends...



Thankfully, we lived in one of the prettiest houses in town, so I was able to save myself from being a complete social outcast by throwing a couple awful "dance parties" in my basement..



Most of the time, though, I preferred to hide out in that room that is the second window from the left (in the above picture) playing really geeky computer games and prowling AOL chatrooms to trick other idiot kids out of their passwords so that I could steal their internet time. (Remember back when we had to pay by the HOUR?)



These girls still look just as pretty as I remember!




There were a couple nice-looking boys as well.



Congrats Jenny!



Lovely to see all the Barrington babes!

Toni & Mike's Wedding!

After days of lounging by the pool, snorkel and scuba expeditions, and feasting the big day had finally arrived.

Toni was by far the most chill bride I have ever witnessed.

Throughout the whole wedding process she was so laid-back. Someone would suggest a color scheme or a flower arrangement or a dress color and she'd be like, "that sounds good." Honestly if you encountered her the day before the wedding you would have had no idea she was about to marry.

But marry she did.

And the day started at the salon for mommy, bride, and maid of honor KristyKwan.



In the morning there was a tea ceremony. Where the bride and groom served tea to all the parents and aunties and uncles in exchange for munny.






Then we went into Toni's auntie's ridiculous jungle-like garden and took some family photos.



Awww Gooma and Charmaine have such lovely smiles...



And Auntie Pearl and her three sisters make that grey hair WERQ!



And the bride and groomboy look so happy.



We even got the notoriously shy MikeyMike (of MikeyMike and the Mikey Mikes) to pose for some pics.



Finally we headed over to the ceremony at Aloha Towers.

Randy escorted Auntie Pearl to her seat.



And Uncle Bill looked like the proudest daddy ever. He didn't stop smiling all weekend. Crazy because when we were little he was the SCARIEST MAN IN THE WORLD.



But on this day he smiled. And even teared up maybe.



Gorgeous!



Happy!



It is worth noting that Kristy spent countless hours HAND-drawing each and every person's place setting complete with name and little Hawaiian map on the back. The tables were named after islands.




(Yes she is nuts.)



It was a small reception. 60 people or so. And it was great because unlike a lot of receptions which are frenzied and huge with the bride and groom rushing off to spend 5 minutes with each and every guest, Toni and Mike really got to soak in the day and hang out with their friends and fam.




There were the usuals: first dances and embarrassing speeches...




And then there was a dance party featuring lots of wedding "favorites" (aka I hear them at almost every wedding and they make me want to jump off a cliff) like "Shout" and "Sweet Caroline" and "Love Shack" !







During the very last song, Toni's contact lens popped out.

It was an expensive gas-permeable lens and not one of those daily disposables, so she was quite upset and every was on their hands and knees searching for it.



There were several false alarms.



I felt bad for Toni, but at the same time I was like, this makes for really funny pictures!



We spent maybe something like 15 minutes searching. And at one point some random busboy dude walked up and was like, "are we searching for jewels?" thinking someone lost a diamond setting or something.



The sight of the poor bride sitting helpless, her entire dress in full contact with the dirty floor was probably one of the most pathetic things I've ever seen.



Sad sad.



But we finally did find it, stuck to Mike's arm.



And then there was a 2 hour partybus afterparty back to our resort. Yay! There was puking.