All right, enough with the dude mischief and pretending to play musical instruments. Time to tie that knot and have a party. Jeff and Mollie got their lines right. Not one of the wedding party, myself included, tripped and fell mid-ceremony. The limo driver only scraped a couple rocks. The speeches hit quality notes. Eye Street represented. I cut a few moves (not pictured). The happy couple headed out to watch college football.
We groomsmen gathered at Jeff's house to get ready, eat Subway and rehearsal leftovers, fight with bow ties, bang on instruments, and walk to church. A lawn guy shouted to us: "Uh oh! Somebody's in trouble!"
Headed to wedding prep shortly. If you know Jeff, this song works great.
The other night, I was struggling with what to say at Jeff and Mollie's rehearsal dinner. Jonny was speaking too, and he and I went round and round on how to approach it. We considered writing a ridiculous song together. We considered being the good angel and bad angel over Jeff's shoulders. (Guess who would have been which.) We then went solo, but I was still stuck until Lori texted some advice Thursday night. She described giving a toast at her sister's wedding and told me, "You will do well because you care about him and that is all that matters." I was grateful. A few minutes later, words began to flow.
…
How long have I known Jeff? I’ve known Jeff so long… that when we were first friends, in grade school, our principal would confuse us. We looked that similar. Then he got a different haircut! And what a long, strange trip that haircut would be. But when Jeff commits, he commits.
For instance, to friendship.
Like, when you met Jeff at the picnic before kindergarten, at Blessed Sacrament, you were clearly going to spend the next nine years of grade school in your funny blue uniforms, sitting together at lunch.
Or on the field trip to the amusement park at the end of eighth grade, when you weren’t a fan of the roller coasters, and he hung out with you all day. Or in high school, waiting in the cold outside the Metro stop for you and the rest of the gang to arrive, even when he lived the closest and had gotten there first. Or senior year, when prom didn’t go well, and he cheered you up the whole next week. “I am like Peter,” he wrote in an email. “The rock upon which you build your social life.”
Or in college when you came back for break and weren’t really sure what was what anymore, and he said to come out to Maryland for the night. Meet some people, he said, get out there. And you had a great night. Or still later in life, this past winter, when you were still a little lost, he basically said the same thing, and next thing you knew you were on vacation with him, Mollie and their friends in the mountains.
Jeff has never been afraid to put himself out there. He has never been afraid to commit. Or maybe more accurately, when he has been afraid — you see it in his eyes ever now and then — he’s typically, eventually, pushed that feeling aside and moved ahead. This trait has brought him a good, great, life, and it’s something I’ve always looked up to him for.
He will commit — to friendship, to haircuts, to football every day after school in the neighborhood park, to a peanut butter and jelly sandwich every day, to pools, in particular to Speedos, to music, to volume, to so many things and people for whom he truly cares — like now, in more life-changing scale, to Mollie. When he fell hard for her, it was easy to see, at the very beginning, how right it was. This was the haircut. This was the Speedo. This was the peanut butter and jelly sandwich. And as wonderful as she is, she proved right his belief in commitment.
That’s why we’ll always love Jeff. And why he’ll always love us. And love Mollie, most especially. Congratulations on this happy day.
Friend Jeff, whom I met at the picnic before the start of kindergarten, back when Chevy Chase Playground's most beloved attraction was a massive, tipping, iron-and-steel, sun-broiling, grounded ball with only chain-link caging underneath to stop us from a pulverization (or from tipping the ball hard enough to break free from its moorings and roll away, past one's parents, through the playground fence, down a hill and into 41st Street traffic — either way the most legendary death a child in our neighborhood in 1985 could imagine), is getting married.
The bachelor party was Saturday night. His brother James organized. New brother-in-law Wes drove down from Pennsylvania. Friend Mike threw open the doors at Ceiba. We saw our Caps. RFD performed a miracle with never-ending crab pretzels and beer. Many toasts were made. There was no possible way you could repay a guy for being a great friend for so very many years. But hopefully he got the picture.
What my phone brought back:
Occupy DC passes. "What's that? They're chanting, 'Jeff, don't do it…' "
Amid tequila, the picture most representative of the night as a whole.
"If we asked the mascot to give Jeff a lap dance, it'd say no, right?"
The bachelor and his brother, the best man, mission accomplished.
And Caps win! (In OT!) Everyone leaps up. A winning night all around.
What are these handlebars? Why are they at the Lincoln Memorial?
Why am I wearing a helmet? Who are all the people behind me?
Segways, baby. The most overhyped invention of the past decade and so easy to mock from afar, but so very much fun to ride and the closest thing to a Back to the Future hoverboard you've ever experienced. Jess gave me a gift card two years ago to City Segway Tours, and every six months since she's asked if I've used it. And rightly so. I love Segways and my hometown, you know, but I'm bad at using gift cards. With one day left before the gift expired, I finally used it today. It was awesome.
Buddy Jeff and I did the three-hour National Mall tour. Forecast storms didn't arrive, and weather was fantastic. We rolled through downtown traffic, raced the machines to their max speeds and avoided crashing.
See?
I hear Jonny fought the pig, then took off its head with his bare hands.
We lost. But the day was warmer than previous openers, and the sun even appeared for a few innings. The pre-game flyover was different.
The new art was as weird as the Post said ("the Washington Nationals of art"). Placement in the sun would do the mobiles a lot of good.
And this new food stand. Really? Really? …
As far as getting to the game, the Orange line was in great shape.
The L'Enfant Plaza switch to Green wasn't. This was boarding try #3.
Other notes: Top 10 signs of a good work team? They all like going to a ballgame. Happy birthday to Carlos. … Saw good buddy Jeff in right field, and he was equally amused by Adam Dunn's at-bat music: Phil Collins' In the Air Tonight and Silver Bullet Bob's Turn the Page. … After the game, did the walk to Capitol South for the first time, liked it. No crowds, took just about as long. … Pretty girls still love baseball. God bless America. … First time seeing Patti Austin since '98 Jackson Hole crazy trip. (Note of the rarely spoiled Nats fan: She was good but no Placido.) Where were James Ingram, Dorothy Hamill and Colin Powell? … Stadium Gifford's shouldn't run out of hot chocolate like it did. That stuff's great. But the beer stands are now pretty much everywhere.
I joined Mollie for the Wings' unsuccessful outing against the white and blue team at Cabin John last night, but the game was marked by the emergence of The Flying Strahota. Showcasing the results of skating hours or a new kind of Zen oneness with the rink, Jeff was all over the ice — without actually being on the ice. At one point, he won a face-off and somehow got to the puck outside the face-off before anyone else. Good stuff. Also, it had to happen: Jeff invented reverse helmet hair.
Friend Jeff ended up on local news this week. Defying expectations, he was not in handcuffs, a massive fire or red, yellow and black facepaint.
If you've ever had Strahota grilling, you know to expect the best. Jeff doesn't disappoint, and Wendy and Jim practically invite him to dinner.
This post also marks the start of the "Friend Jeff" tag. Injuries abound!
Let it be known to Google.
Kevin Cox and Jeffrey Strahota are hockey players. They don the uniform. They take to the ice. They put the puck in the net.
Their Wings won 7-1 last night at Cabin John, with Kevin scoring two goals and Jeff not injuring himself in any fashion. Neither fell down without good reason. Sure, the Wings were no Quebec Nordiques, but this plucky gang of amateur Canadians played a whole lot better than I expected and put on a good show. They made me want to pick up a stick and hit someone. Jeff's months-long attendance drive paid off.
After the game, the lingering Wings fans — Jonny, Mollie, Jeff's mom, Kevin's parents, and myself — asked the mighty sportsmen to don the fearsome scowls and fists they flash so often on the ice.
But like the Lady Byngs they are, our boys in red insisted on poses that would keep kids off drugs and in school. Bring on the Russians!
