What are you doing New Year’s Eve? Part II
Written byWhen last we left the wedding, Kevin had completed his Best Man duties with aplomb and followed the newlyweds as they scampered hand in hand down the aisle. Their scamper was a short one, given that the aisle ended at the luncheon tables the caterers had been setting up during the ceremony. (The smell of roast chicken will always remind them of their wedding vows, which I suspect was all part of the mother of the bride’s evil plan.)
With the newlyweds standing slightly awkwardly at the end of the aisle, the minister instructed us to queue up to congratulate them. Half of us were still waiting in the reception line when he told us to report immediately to the beverage table to obtain a drink for the toast.
Our toasting “drink” turned out to be the sweetest Kool Aid I have ever had — and that’s saying something, given that I survived many a childhood summer in South Dakota.
After another five minutes, we were told it was time for lunch.
“No toast?” I asked Kevin hopefully, wondering how many rot-free years the beverage had already shaved off my teeth.
Kevin shrugged, which is code for “Hold your sugar water, woman.”
So we filled our plates with a variety of free food, which included what the woman ahead of us in line referred to as “Nuptial Jello.” We’d just sat down when our by now harried-looking emcee came over and whispered, “The bride and groom are making this up as they go along–” [I gasped in mock surprise and Kevin gave me the stink eye] “–and they would like Kevin to make a toast after the music.”
All this and entertainment, too!
After a young lady with a nice, if a bit churchy, voice had performed a few songs, a gentleman took the stage. I recognized him as the elderly Chinese man who frightened me in the hall. Confused no more, he had the unmistakable bearing of a Family Patriarch in his element, but just in case anyone was fuzzy on that, he opened with, “When Roger came to me to ask if he could marry my sister Pru…”
What followed was his interpretation of Bette Midler’s “The Rose.”
You know that scene from the movie “A Christmas Story” where the family goes out for dinner on Christmas and get serenaded by the Chinese waiters? “Deck da halls with boughs of hah-ry! Fa rah rah rah rah rah rah rah rah!” It was more or less exactly like that. And you know that high note at “Some say ROVE! It is a hunger…” Well, he couldn’t quite make it but he tried really hard. Yet the song was so heartfelt that everyone was pretty riveted and he got a huge round of genuine applause when he finished.
Just after the last petal fell, Kevin was summoned up front to give his Best Man toast. It was very good - or at least we think it was. We couldn’t hear it because he didn’t use the microphone until he was mostly done. When he finally did speak into the mic, we got the Reader’s Digest version, which went a little something like this:
“….Well, I was just babbling about how I met Roger. Just to cut this short, I wish him and Pru a very happy life together.”
His applause was a little less enthusiastic but everyone knew his heart was in the right place.
The groom’s brother also gave a toast, which we also couldn’t hear, this time due to the half-dozen children that were running amok on the stage screaming yah! yah! yah! as children are wont to do when they are all dressed up with no place to go ruin their clothes. At one point there was a loud, rhythmic BANG! BANG! BANG! and I nearly had a heart attack. Turned out one of the little geniuses had found a basketball (in a gym? no way!) and it was careening its way down the aisle toward a camera set up on a tripod. Mommy finally appeared and subdued both child and ball; I guess it’s only fun until something really fucking expensive gets hurt.
Charred toast was followed by about ten minutes of dancing, which nobody did except the bride and groom. I am sure that’s because they are awesome ballroom dancers (that’s how they met) and nobody was going to volunteer to look like the Scarecrow from Oz by comparison.
After a while, when there were no more whispered obligations or runaway basketballs, I started to relax. The end was surely nigh! I swigged my sugar water and ate my Jello with gusto. Which of course is precisely when a photographer hauled my ass up on to the stage with the rest of the “wedding party.”
Naturally, he had me stand right beside Pru in most of the pictures. So now the poor bride is stuck with wedding photos featuring some girl she doesn’t know from Adam with a red Kool Aid mustache and blue Jello in her teeth.
Shortly after the photo session, Kevin and I went back to our table to plot our escape. “We must be stealthy so they are not insulted,” I hissed. “They mustn’t see us. Leaving before the newlyweds do is considered very rude!”
Just then the Patriarch booted us out of our chairs so he could remove their decorations and cram them into a garbage bag.
“I don’t think we have to worry about that,” said Kevin.
Filed under Kevinsylvania | Comment (0)Kermit’s x-ray is vaguely unsettling
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Friday Fucket Bucket
Written by“Casual Fridays” - that’s so ’80s. Where are these pengquins working?
Wet
Written byThis weekend I spent a ridiculous amount of time looking at underwater photography on Flickr. I collected a few of the best images into galleries. Check ‘em out if you have an extra five minutes and enjoy that sort of thing
Beauty Under Water
Married To A Mermaid
A Mermaid Fair
The titles of the mermaid galleries come from poems by Arthur Lloyd and Lord Alfred Tennyson.
Filed under Flickr Faves | Comments (2)Friday Freudian
Written byInteresting how “man” is singular but “women” is plural. So many tunnels, so little time…
Via the reliably hilarious Failblog.
Filed under Fucket Bucket | Comment (0)Help for Haiti
Written byToday I donated a humble sum to Mercy Corps, a Portland-based non-profit that is sending an emergency response team to Haiti. I hope you, too, will give to one of the organizations listed on the What Gives!? site if you can.
Filed under Worthy Causes | Comment (0)What are you doing New Year’s Eve? Part 1
Written byAbout two weeks into December, Kevin said to me, “Oh, by the way, Roger is getting married on New Year’s Eve.”
“I’ll go,” I said, knowing this was code for I hope you didn’t have plans. “Where is it?”
“In a church,” he pouted, holding out his hands. “Look, my palms are sweating already.”
“Don’t worry, it’ll be laid back. Roger is a Buddhist.”1
“Yes, but his fiance’s family are Mormon.” He paused. “Oh, and I have to go in uniform.”
“Why?”
“Because Roger is wearing his.”
The matching outfits revelation was a little odd, but so is Roger. It would be like him to ask his Air Force buddies to wear their dress blues to his wedding so that his lack of tuxedo would seem patriotic instead of frugal.
The day before the wedding, Kevin mentioned that we needed to get to the church half an hour early because Roger had said he “might need help with some stuff.”
Now I was beginning to get suspicious. What kind of “stuff” could a mere wedding guest help the groom with? I mused. Saying his prayers? Finishing off the bottle of Jack? CPR? But I lost interest in the mystery after a few minutes because I was on vacation and had serious loafing to attend to.
The next day we headed out twenty minutes before we were supposed to be at the church. Neither of us had ever been to there, but we had plenty of time to find it according to our handy Google map. About forty-five minutes later, we concluded that Dumbledore had made the church unplottable.
Meanwhile, all that driving around was giving me time to ponder the dress blues again. “If you were in the wedding party,” I pondered, “Roger would have told you by now, right?”
Kevin shrugged. “There’s that 7-11 again. We’re circling.”
“And there would have been the rehearsal, the rehearsal dinner…” I paused as a terrible thought crossed my mind. “You’re not…the best man, are you?”
“If we don’t find this God-damned church in ten more minutes, I’m skipping this whole thing.”
Nine minutes and fifty seconds later we drove into the church parking lot. “Ah-ha!” I said, snapping my fingers in triumph. “You couldn’t possibly be the best man because you would have the rings!” My sympathetic anxiety quelled by my unassailable logic, I got out of the car, took Kevin’s arm, and went confidently into the church…
…where Kevin was immediately set upon by a young woman who stuck a boutonniere in his lapel. Then he disappeared into the men’s room which was doing double duty as the waiting area for the groom and his wedding party, which consisted of his very tardy best man and a five-year-old ring-bearer named Cosmo — who, when he grows up, wants to be a soldier and the tooth fairy.
I still had hope (it ain’t just a river in Africa, folks) that the flower thing was a case of mistaken identity and Kevin would get to be with me during the ceremony, and I didn’t want to sit down and try to him a spot beside me like a brat in a movie theater. So I was hovering awkwardly in the hall outside the bathroom when an elderly Chinese gentleman marched up to me.
“WHERE’S PRU!” he yelled.
“Who’s Pru?” I whispered, terrified. He glared at me and wandered away.
Eventually the music began and I had to go sit down. It turns out that Mormon divorcees who marry Buddhists aren’t allowed to get married in the church proper; they have to seal their love in the adjacent theater-slash-gymnasium. As I sat primly in my metal folding chair, having my feet stepped on by bored, hyperactive Chinese children, I wondered if some of the “stuff” Kevin was supposed to help with might have included a quick game of hoops had we’d gotten there on time.
After the pianist had played her rendition of every romantic ballad of the 70’s and 80’s known to man, the games began. Kevin preceded the groom to the front looking dashing as ever, though I noticed he kept his palms discreetly hidden from view. Two extremely young, extremely confused little girls stood at the back of the room until Daddy finally walked them up the aisle, stopping once or twice to let them dump white flower petals out of their baskets. Cosmo jumped onto the stage and stuck his fingers in his ears, which is how he remained throughout the ceremony. The two teenage bridesmaids were cute in their black t-shirts under their spaghetti-strapped, black and white satin dresses. And the bride, of course, was radiant.
The ceremony itself was short and sweet. It would have been even shorter if the bride hadn’t reminded the minister after the vows had already been said that they had rings.
“Honored guests,” said the minister after the do-over, “may I present to you Roger and Pru Hodges!”
So that’s Pru, I thought.
The newlyweds sauntered happily down the aisle, and the bridesmaids ran after them like gazelles, lest anyone think for a split second they should be escorted by Kevin.
Tune in again soon for What are you doing New Year’s Eve, Part Deux!
- Actually, recently Roger camped out on his porch with a gun and waited for his neighbor’s chicken-eating dog to come around, so I guess that makes him a fair-weather Buddhist. [↩]
Editor humor
Written by“Proofread carefully to see if you any words out.” - Author Unknown
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The Year In Review
Written byStill working on the wedding post; meanwhile, here’s a fun meme I saw over at Lachlan’s.
1. What did you do in 2009 that you’d never done before?
Bought a new car. How thrilling. Not that I don’t appreciate my new car, I certainly do. But it’s not like I pushed the envelope, you know?
2. Did you keep your new year’s resolutions, and will you make more for next year?
I haven’t made NY resolutions since …. well, I can’t remember ever seriously making a NY resolution. The concept has always seemed stupid to me, like going on a diet. It is a truth universally known that a person in possession of a resolution must be in want of a disappointment.
3. Did anyone close to you give birth?
No. Most of my friends are done with the breeding thing, as are my generation of my relatives. It will be a few years before the next wave of weddings/babies/divorces/babies/weddings begins anew.
4. Did anyone close to you die?
No, for which I am grateful. I had enough of that in my youth, so I hope this death-free stretch continues for many more years.
5. What countries did you visit?
South Dakota and Wyoming. Oh, you said “countries,” not “the country.” None then…
6. What would you like to have in 2010 that you lacked in 2009?
A modicum of confidence in my fiction skills and a finished novel. A vacation in the United Kingdom.
7. What dates from 2009 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?
I’ve never been one to remember actual dates for anything. Ask my friend Tom, who in the 20+ years we have been friends has only once received a birthday card from me during the correct month. I do remember events, however, and the first that are coming to mind during 2009 are the inauguration of Barack Obama, and the deaths of Michael Jackson and Farrah Fawcett. New beginnings and sudden endings.
8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?
See #9.
9. What was your biggest failure?
For years now, I’ve refused to rank my undertakings as either “successes” or “failures.” If I wanted to reduce the richness of life to dualities, I’d get religion.
10. Did you suffer illness or injury?
For the past three years I’ve had a recurrings (goes away, then flares again) illness that resembles mono or the flu (minus a fever). I’ve seen physicians, chiropractors, naturopaths; been tested for mono, lyme disease, etc. several times. When they can’t identify it within a few visits/tests, doctors lose interest. So I do not know what it is; all I know is improved a lot when I had my IUD removed.
11. What was the best thing you bought?
Our Subaru. It feels very luxurious to me, what with things like heated seats - though the first time we used the, Kevin turned them on without telling me and I thought I wet my pants.
12. Whose behavior merited celebration?
Whomever chose justice over peer pressure and did not sign that ridiculous Free Polanski petition.
13. Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed?
No names! Bad juju.
14. Where did most of your money go?
I like to think to savings, though like everyone else, we paid a lot in regular old bills.
15. What did you get really, really, really excited about?
Every time I have a good writing day, I get inordinately excited. Of course, a bad writing day makes me go seriously emo - all is sourness and ruin! I’m going to go eat worms!
16. What song will always remind you of 2009?
My mind doesn’t organize music like that. I have a friend who not only associates specific songs to specific years, but also to the season of that particular year. He gets annoyed when it comes on the radio during the wrong one.
17. Compared to this time last year, are you:
a) happier or sadder? Happier. I seem to get happier every year, I’m happy to say.
b) thinner or fatter? Thinner, though I cannot say the same as for a), I am sad to say.
c) richer or poorer? Richer, mostly because we are better at saving money and I have lost interest in a lot of the material fascinations I once had, like clothes. If it doesn’t improve my writing, I’m not very interested.
18. What do you wish you’d done more of?
Writing.
19. What do you wish you’d done less of?
Worrying.
20. How did you spend Christmas?
Kevin’s brother and his sweetie came over. We exchanged gifts, had dinner, and then played some sort of Zombie card game that baffled me so I eventually went off to clean the horrendously messy kitchen which I thoroughly enjoyed. (I am wierd that way.)
21. Did you fall in love in 2009?
In a manner of speaking. A true renewal of one’s feelings of appreciation for someone is just as good, if not better.
22. What was your favorite TV program?
House. Though Saving Grace runs a close second.
23. Do you hate anyone now that you didn’t hate this time last year?
Hate is a pretty strong word.
24. What was the best book you read?
Tie: The Gargoyle and The Shadow of the Wind
25. What was your greatest musical discovery?
Didn’t make one this year, in my attempts to kick my iTunes addiction.
26. What did you want and get?
Gobs of books for Christmas. Seriously, my entire Amazon Wish List under my tree. Sweet!
27. What did you want and not get?
An diagnosis (see #10).
28. What was your favorite film of this year?
Jane Eyre, the Masterpiece Theater version, which I got for Christmas. It’s the first film I’ve watched all the way through in a long time - and that’s saying something since it’s 3 hours long. It’s three years old though - I rarely watch recent films anymore. I watch everything on Netflix and it’s almost always a few years old. Lately, I haven’t even been able to watch the few that we’ve rented. Most films are mediocre to bad these days, so I get distracted easily. I have way too many other things I could do with the precious hours I am not at work or fulfilling some other obligation.
29. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?
I honestly can’t remember. I turned 41, which may explain that. I know I didn’t have a party - that was the 40th. Hmmm…
30. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?
Getting further along in my novel. Or maybe just being happier with my writing. Yes, I think the second one is more accurate.
31. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2009?
Slacker Chic.
32. What kept you sane?
Being creative and my sweetie.
33. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?
This is a good summary of my 2009 celeb crushes; latest is Toby Stephens (see #28). As far as public figures go, I’m impressed with Hillary’s ability to shake off the haters without sinking to their level.
34. What political issue stirred you the most?
Abortion rights. They’re anything but guaranteed, ladies.
35. Who did you miss?
My maternal grandmother.
36. Who was the best new person you met?
A very nice 70 year old woman at the wedding I attended on New Year’s Eve. She was super-friendly and genuinely nice. I went out of my way to visit with her (hoped it would rub off on me).
37. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2009.
This, too, shall pass. OK, I re-learned it…but every time I do, I value it more.
38. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year.
Don’t bring me bad news, no bad news / I don’t need none of your bad news today / You can’t have my fear, I’ve got nothing to lose, can’t have my fear / I’m not getting out of here alive anyway / And I don’t need none of these things, I don’t need none of these things / I’ve been handed / And the bird of peace is flying over, she’s flying over and / Coming in for a landing (No Bad News, Patty Griffin)
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