Getting Married

No, not me. I did that about 23 years ago, and I've been reliably informed that I won't be doing it again, if I know whats good for me. I point out that we need to, since this marriage does expire (after all, people renew marriages all the time, and how can you renew a marriage unless the old one expired?), but I am informed by the same person that this is not true.

So what I did this weekend was, I went to the wedding reception of a relative of my wife. I suppose, if its a relative of my wife, then its a relative of me, too, but I never quite think of it that way. The people I'm related to are the people that I was related to before I got married. All of these other people -- well, I suppose 'technically related' is how I think of them. Whomever they are, given as my wife's of Italian heritage, there's a lot of them. My wife has fun, meeting her twelve thousand different relatives again, and I have fun standing around with a ginger ale, nodding and smiling as if I have a clue who these people might be. Some of them, I at least remember having seen before, but most of the time, nope. I just remember not to shout 'Who the hell was that?' while they still might be in hearing range. Those receptions get noisy, but they do have the occasional suprisingly quiet moment. And I haven't completely lost the lurking feeling, that somewhere, somehow, I'm now related to The Godfather, so I try not to tick people off, particularly the big ones. Mostly, I just sit quietly, eat what they have, and wait for it to be over, which is usually when they do the great garter toss. I'm not all that motivated to watch that stuff. Participate, yeah, that might be fun, but watch, hooting? No, thanks -- though from what my wife says, this time might have been worthwhile, as the second iteration involved the guy who caught the garter putting it on the leg of the woman who caught the bouquet; apparently, she was quite cute, and the guy edged the garter up to her thigh by using his teeth. Oh, my. Talk about an ad for good dental hygiene.

When we got married, the reception was quiet -- about thirty people in a moderately small room. The music was one guy playing classical guitar. No conga lines, no hokey pokey, no garter follies, no clinking of glasses. Well, maybe a little clinking, but then they made me stop. My only complaint from the reception was that I didn't get enough of the Swedish meatballs, which were not only quite good, but were the best I've ever had. What happened was that they called me away to take yet another group shot, and when I came back, the buffet was no more. (They tricked me, by saying that my wife's family was having a group shot; I, not being part of their family, went out of the room. They tracked me down in the men's room. And afterwards, no meatballs.) At least the wedding cake, Italian Rum Cake, was still around. Excellent stuff, IRC. We still have it from time to time when we want to Celebrate something. No, not the original, squirreled away in a freezer -- new ones. Though we did actually do the 'squirrel a piece away, have it later' thing. It was awful. One bite and chuck it. Like the Great Fruitcake Disaster.

The marriage, though, has worked much better, and I highly recommend the state. With the right person, it's delightful.