Wedding!

Big floods in my part of the state, a cold that has plagued me over the weekend, … and my niece just got married!

Flood

All that snow from the past several days had met a night of warm, heavy rain to turn my backyard into a pond that flooded the street next to it. I found on my drive to work that Wheeling Pike south of 750 North near State Road 28 was so flooded, that even the four-wheelers did not dare cross it. I had to back-track to other county roads that were not nearly as flooded until I could reach S.R. 28. It was the same when I tried to drive home down Wheeling Pike, but this time the only county road off my side of the lake was a twisty-turny road that led to another lake, this time just as I would have reached a road that led to S.R. 28.

Cold

I used to get colds a lot. I don't get them so much anymore, probably because I have become immune to the more common cold viruses. But a virus that had somehow eluded me has found me at last. I have been sick all weekend. I have been runny, achy, weepy and sweaty since Saturday night. Even on Monday I felt achy, hot, stuffed in my nose and phlegmy in my lungs. But I am somewhat better today.

Wedding

My niece Staci, the eldest stepdaughter of my brother Bill, got married this past Saturday at a country club in Greenwood, south of Indianapolis. I drove there Saturday afternoon and I actually arrived early. Madre and my sisters arrived in Madre's van about a quarter-hour later.

I spent the first ten minutes exploring the place, trying to find where I am supposed to go, and trying to figure out how Madre is going to get inside, as the front has two flights of small stairs. I found the wedding itself would be held in a veranda enclosed on one side by a fabric wall with transparent plastic windows. Space heaters on the ceiling keep the room warm. The chairs were covered with white fabric, masking the fact that they are chairs that you would find in a cafeteria. I should expect no less: It was an off-season wedding, and my brother was paying for it, and he tends to be … um … thrifty.

I found the Bill himself wearing something I never thought I would see him in: A dark suit, vest, white shirt and tie. I also met my nephews Spencer and Shane. Shane was within days of being shipped off to Afghanistan. I also met Sarah, Bill's youngest, who is maid of honor, or chief bridesmaid.

In time I went to the wedding hall, sat in a middle row, and waited for Madre and company to arrive. When Madre came, someone escorted her and the sisters to two rows of two seats along the solid wall behind the reserved first row. The one chair was left empty; I assumed (rightly) that the seat was mine. The first two chairs were for the Bill and for Joyce, Staci's mother.

interlude

Before I go on, I must admit that this is the very first wedding I have ever attended. I have only read about them or watched television versions of them, complete with the Wagner bridal chorus (from Lohengrin, whose English lyrics start as Here comes the bride) and Mendelssohn's Wedding March from his Midsummer Night's Tale.

I also seen the Daria wedding episode, in which the title character attends the wedding of her cousin, the daughter of her maternal aunt Rita. There Daria is compelled to be a bridesmaid, in a dress that looks like a window curtain on her due to incompetent fitting, and that provokes from everyone the stupid question, Why didn't you get the same dress as the other bridesmaids? The wedding was a fail, of course. Daria's mother and aunt Rita fight like cats when together for more than five minutes. Every single person at the wedding — except Daria, her aunt Amy and her Steven Wright-like escort — has the word GRADE-A MORON invisibly stamped on their foreheads. Finally, Daria's mother and aunt Rita become the nucleus of a brawl that wrecks the reception hall, while Daria and her aunt Amy (who resembles her a great deal) escape to a local bowling alley for cheese fries — finding that the groom had gotten there first, vowing never to go back.

and now, already in progress

The wedding I attended was nothing like that. It was not a traditional wedding, either. No Wagner, no Mendelssohn, just contemporary rock as the groom, best man (his younger brother) and his ushers arrive on a big golf cart. Then came the bridesmaids in their corseted, painfully bright magenta dresses, all alike except one in a frilly hem who cried during the ceremony. Sarah's dress was low-cut enough to show off her uprooted-tree tattoo on her left shoulder.

Finally came the Bill presenting Staci. The minister (who sounded like an evangelical) conducted the ceremony more or less traditionally, with the addition of a key to unlock the marriage for the groom to throw away the day after. Some tiny kid got to be the ringbearer, and it was a miracle of God that the kid could stand still during the ceremony.

While Staci and her new husband were posing at the gazebo in front of a pond full of swans, the guests milled upstairs to the reception hall. I hope the photographer is good at retouching, because the day was cloudy and grim.

The reception dinner was good. I had the fish, chicken, cheesy potatoes, green beans and Spanish rice, with a cocoanut cupcake for desert. All I had to drink was this water with a thin slice of lime. But I drink a lot of it, even from glasses from my neighbors (who thought the water disgusting and would not drink it) because I was thirsty. By this time my nose was running like a faucet with a bad O-ring because the air in the building was full of cruft. (Madre discovered this by finding the black around the ceiling vents.) No amount of any kind of cold medicine could offset the dirt that was making my nose run, especially since my cold was well in progress.

Anyway, after dinner came the after-dinner speeches by the maid of honor (Sarah) and the best man. This was followed by the cake-cutting ceremony, the cake being the mother of all cupcakes. Then came the dance … and I don't dance, even without the cold. At this point I was looking for an excuse to leave (well, to get out of the building), which Madre provided by wanting to leave herself.

Since this is not a charitable donation, I reveal that I have provided for the new couple, from their bridal registry, the T-Fal 10-piece pot/pan set and the Chefmate 51-piece kitchen gadget set, which Staci and groom informed me are already in use. After reexamining the registry I can only come to the conclusion that I have spent the most for the newlyweds (apart from the Bill's contribution of the wedding itself).

I had not noticed this myself, because I was too busy eating and fighting my own nose, but I was informed the next day that several of the guests were thoroughly pickled.