In addition to celebrating the nuptials of my cousin and her new husband, the trip to Cleveland served to introduce K. to my parents (and half of my family) for the first time. This was a pretty big deal for me. Since I've moved to New York, my parents have only met one other man that I've dated and, without going into a lot of details, nobody was really that into him. Some of the pressure was off, as K. had already met L. and T. in September, and Fireman and Firewoman just last month.
Fireman and Firewoman picked us up at the airport, a gentle way to ease K. into the stress of meeting the entire clan later in the day. For this trip, we flew into Akron because it's a dirt cheap fare from LaGuardia ($110 roundtrip each). The trip between Akron and Cleveland is nothing but rolling expanses of farmland and outlet malls, so there isn't much to see. We tried to convince K. that as we got closer to Strongsville, our hometown suburb, things would change dramatically. As we drew closer to home, Fireman asked K. if Ohio looked like what he had envisioned.
"Yup, it's pretty much what I..." K. stopped mid-sentence as he peered out the window. "Um, guys...is that a llama farm?"
It was. Welcome to Ohio.
Tune in tomorrow:
K. gets molested by my mother and discusses watersports with my parents.