I have a Tall Drink of Water Texan Brother-in-Law. It’s one of those spicy twists in life I never could have foreseen, like living in New York City or marrying a boy I met in high school. TDWTBL is more than your average Coor’s Lite-drinking, Stetson-wearing, two-stepping, fence-mending, calf-branding desperado: he’s also a math genius who turned down a Harvard scholarship, an engineering wizard who can build custom work vehicles out of his head without ever drawing up plans, an ace golfer, a state-ranked marksman, a good cook, and a helluva gentleman. He married Mr. Garter’s twin sister a year ago, and we all met up in NYC for the wedding of our friends Ian and Cindy.

Cindy is Italian-Canadian and Ian lived in Italy for about eight years studying and practicing architecture. Here they are:

What I like most about this picture is the paparazzi in the background. Now you want a full shot of Cindy’s awesome dress, don’t you?

It’s Carolina Ferrera, but not from the actual wedding-gown line. The underlayer has green and yellow stripes, and there are little sprays of yellow and green floral motifs on the outer layer of organza. At the reception she wore a wide green belt that goes with it. Cindy and Ian always look sharp. It was quite the mix of people at this wedding: uber-fashionable Milanese designers, urban New York types, Idaho back country kids, Montreal cosmopolites, everybody’s parents, and TDWTBL in his spanking new white Stetson — the first new cowboy hat he’s ever purchased, because he wanted to do New York City right. Here’s the closest Mr. Garter came to capturing the Stetson on film:

TDWTBL grew up in Terlingua, Texas, which is marked as a ghost town on most maps. It’s just outside Big Bend National Park, the least visited of the national parks and also (or perhaps because so) one of the most worth visiting. Parts of it look like the surface of the moon. Drive for five minutes and the desert is suddenly riotous with blooming cacti and other formidable plants, or a towering range of vermilion mountains heaves in sight. At the southern perimeter is a lush belt of cottonwoods full of bird life and javelinas, and the muddy Rio Grande muscling through. It’s literally a stone’s throw across to Mexico (we threw stones). I grew up on the Canadian border (or rather with the knowledge that it was about three miles offshore, that that some of the islands were arbitrarily on our side and some on theirs, and that you could see the headlights of the cars driving north from Victoria at night), but the border at Big Bend is a national border as borders have only ever existed in the folkloric section of my imagination. There’s the river, and a few scrubby yards of shore, and then there are the Cliffs of Insanity. Seriously. The face of Mexico thrusts up so vertiginously that you feel you could break against it. You feel small. You wonder at the fortitude of anyone who ever eked out a living in that landscape in the days before air conditioning and indoor water faucets. This is where TDWTBL grew up.

The trip to NYC was his third airplane ride. The first thing he and Mr. Garter’s sister did on arrival was to whip out the ironing board. They are obsessive ironers. Anything that will lie prone long enough to be soused in starch gets vigorous and daily ironing. They iron socks. TDWTBL’s blue jeans can stand up by themselves: I have seen them do this. Once everyone was pressed and armored to brave the big city, we all went down to Ian’s mother’s house for a big wedding-eve party. Afterwards, it was suggested that the groom ought to do a little drinking on his last night of bachelorhood. Some of his friends went out to scout the area for a bar. The area in question is the East 30’s, and anyone who’s lived in New York knows what that means: all the bars are basically extensions of the college frat party scene, but with smarter clothes and more disposable income. Most of them are meat markets with no character and bad music, and it was one of these that Ian’s friends chose. We knew what we were in for, but we didn’t want to be party poopers.

First we needed to meet with the approval of the two colossal bouncers, so we dutifully presented our IDs. I still have a New York driver’s license, so they let me right through. I squashed myself between a couple of budding investment bankers and tried to make my way to the bar; then I realized I’d lost the rest of my party. I squashed back out again. Sure enough, the bouncers were giving my Stetson-clad brother-in-law a hard time. He’d taken the test for his commercial driver’s license a couple of weeks earlier, they clipped his old license when he passed, and he’s still waiting for the new license to arrive. Knowing that many establishments won’t accept a clipped license as valid ID, he presented his concealed weapons permit. The bouncer took one look at this Texan with a handgun license, called his colleague over, and pulled TDWTBL aside.

“Are you carrying, man?” one of the behemoths asked him, sotto voce. TDWTBL does a very respectful “No sir”, and fortunately the bouncers bought it and didn’t insist on patting him down. (Not that they’d have been able to feel much through all that starch.)

We lasted about a minute and thirty seconds in the bar — long enough for TDWTBL and his Stetson to draw a lot of astonished and rather appreciative looks from the clientele. We decided Ian would understand if we opted out of the debauchery. As it turned out, TDWTBL’s favorite part of the trip was a night stroll through Battery Park to see the Statue of Liberty all lit up and listen to the waves lapping the pier and the night fishermen conversing amicably between casts. Afterward we ambled up past Ground Zero and St. Paul’s and City Hall (TDWTBL said the gas lamps made him think of Jack the Ripper; I was busy exulting over the Calder stabiles on display down there), and a couple of us developed a craving for noodles. We found a little place in Chinatown that was still open at midnight and cranked TDWTBL’s horizons just a little bit wider.

He was a tremendously good sport about the whole trip. He patiently suffered the Italians to take pictures of his hat, but he was disdainful of his overcooked filet mignon at the wedding supper. He plucked the rosemary sprig from the center with distaste and remarked, “I ain’t never seen a steak grow grass before.” After the wedding, I helped him find a place to buy some Copenhagen. This is a habit he’s trying to quit, but I believed the man when he said he needed more than gum to handle New York City. I’ve never bought chewing tobacco before (in fact, I’d sooner pack my lip with rabbit turds … and I’ll thank my mother not to bring up what I may or may not have done in this line as a country baby), but I like being the kind of girl who knows where to find things people need, and I did live in the neighborhood for two years.

All in all, a fulfilling trip. I’ll save my reunion with my knitting pals and my indiscretions in Habu for next time: if you’ve made it this far I applaud your stamina and bow in thanks.

I hope all you mothers out there had a wonderful day and felt fully appreciated.