Before the rains came

 

I got invited to a wedding yesterday, between the son of an acquaintance and his bride.

"Ok", I thought, "I haven’t been to a wedding in years", and it was nice to be asked, even though I knew the bride and groom just slightly. My biker friend has been friends with the groom’s father for years, so I know him too, but it was nice to be included.

It was a small affair, held in a community center. I didn’t know but a few people, but met some I’ve met before (A is a lot more gregarious than I am, I guess).

It was a simple affair and a simple wedding – a nice scale of an event. The ring bearer was the groom’s 3 year old son, and the flower girl was one of the adults children – it was fun watching them in the ceremony. Both of them paused outside the door to the bride’s prep room and had to be directed to the front of the hall – the boy ran up to the groom and the girl scattered a few flower petals and then ran too to the front of the room – it was cute.

It turned out (I didn’t know this) that my friend was the Best Man, so he was busy most of the time and I found myself alone in the crowd. I knew some of the people and found myself in an interesting conversation later – I’ve lived in Japan and have 50 years of life experiences to talk about, or to use as reference when others tell me things, and despite the fact that I hide in my apartment most of the time, it was good to find that I am not anti-social or so cut off from other people that I can’t interact with them.

A funny scene at the wedding: It came to be time for the bride to toss her garter to "the next one" to get married, and the MC asked if all the unattached women could gather at the front of the room. No one came – everyone was part of a couple or married already.

The dinner was a kind of buffet and was ok – food is food, mostly, to me, and I didn’t drink anything but soda and water – when people ask why, I have a good story to tell them about why I don’t drink and drive (any more), and my friend A adds in the story of him visiting me in the ICU and how he made the monitors rise by telling me that "a hard titty blond is waiting outside for you in a Thunderbird Supercoupe (my dream car at the time) to take you to Larch Mountain"(and dammit, nobody, hard tittied or not, is or was waiting for me, but the monitors went up to levels where they had to give me a shot of something).  I "wasn’t there" for that – off in a coma somewhere but it’s a good story.

I laughed and said "but that was 14 years ago" not to bring anyone down on a happy day. I got to wear my "nice" clothes (A took pictures – I’ll get a few) and to wear my fancy cowboy boots (saved for good occasions) and for me, it was a good day. The bride and groom looked like they were having a good day too (I would hope so!) and all in all, it was an occasion I was glad to attend.

 

 

 

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