Musings
an Online Journal of Sorts

By Alyce Wilson

My sister came up this past weekend to help me with some wedding preparations. So I took the day off on Friday to do some things with her.

Turns out she didn't get in as early as she'd hoped: she got on the road late and arrived around 3:30. We were both kind of exhausted and ready for dinner by then.

I had been hoping to work on the images we're going to project at the reception. Instead, we worked on my eye makeup. We wanted to get kind of the '60s eye, and we looked online for some source pictures, determining the key component was a strong lash line.

I'd picked up some false eyelashes, the the kind I picked out required that you use adhesive. I'm going to look for self-adhesive eyelashes, which I'm fairly sure is what I used for Halloween the year I went as a lounge singer. I'll buy several pairs so there's room for mistakes.

We used a tip from one makeover show I'd seen, which suggested cutting false eyelashes in half and just using them on the outside of the eye. This seemed to work better, and we got the eyelashes to stick. I'm going to look for a more dramatic eye liner for the wedding, too. And I'm going to try out the waterproof mascara I bought at Clinique. I also need to find a nice lipstick that suits the look. But at least we're on the right track, I believe.

My sister straightened my hair then and used hairspray to give me a kind of rocker hairstyle. She also did her own hair and makeup and then we caught the train into the city to get dinner.

I wanted to take her to the Continental Midtown, and we had no trouble getting seated. Maybe Saturdays are their big night, or maybe we were there early enough for it not to be a problem. My sister loved the place, and we both took pics of the cool chandelier.

Since most of the entrees are designed to be shared, we split a Continental salad and a serving of seared tuna. The salad was big enough for about four people, but the seared tuna was basically one serving, which we split between us. But it did come with risotto, and between that, the salad and a couple fun drinks, we felt full.

We had fun joking around with the waiter, and I asked him if you had to look cool to work there, since it seemed like most of the wait staff had kind of happening looks. He just laughed and said thanks. (He reminded us a lot of a gay friend of ours, but we didn't ask him if he was gay.)

The desserts are really small there, so I suggested we each order one. I ordered something called "Hot Chocolate", which I insisted on ordering because I wanted to have dessert in quotes. My sister got something with chocolate and caramel. Even though the two dishes were very small, we did trade bites. They were totally worth it, though: delicious, melt in your mouth goodness.

We were joking around that this was my bachelorette party, so we deserved to splurge.

I settled the bill, and then we walked outside and snapped a couple pics, and a very nice woman took our picture for us.

We had a little time before the next train, so we walked down to Cosi on Walnut Street and ordered some of their special coffees with a splash of alcohol in them. Mine had Frangelica. Tasty!

The mood was really mellow in there, as there weren't too many people except for us. We sat in the front window and watched people, as my sister compared them with what she'd seen recently, visiting D.C.

I was fascinated by a shadow on the wall of some of the frosted glass, and I took a photo.

Unfortunately, we waited a little too long to leave, and we just missed the train. We could have made it if we'd gotten on the right platform, but unfortunately, we got on the wrong one and watched it speeding away.

I told my sister it was no biggie: we'd just take a taxi. Sure enough, we found one within minutes.

All in all, it was a nice night out with my sister, and we got to test out my makeup for the wedding, so we even did something worthwhile, too!

More on Alyce's wedding planning:

Musings on Alyce's Wedding

Copyright 2006 by Alyce Wilson

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