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Our friend Shezan, come all the way from France, helps my mother unpack
the great loads of prezzies she got the night before for being the high-muckety muck of
the Amaranth. (My mother is a high-up Amaranth overlord and wields great political
power. Really! The Amaranth are the female branch of the Masons, in case you
didn't know, so yes, my mother is a member of a secret society...) This
freed my Mom up to run around a lot and take care of all the last-minute things for
everyone, and generally be the wonderful person she is. |
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Gabe, another internet pal of ours who came all the way from Chicago
— not quite as impressive as France, but we give her full marks — also helped
out my Mom. We were so happy to have her there, because for awhile we weren't sure
whether she'd show up thanks to heavy children-care problems. But she found someone
to look after her little ones, and she came here! Yay! I hardly ever write
the word "Yay" in print, incidentally, so you know she's special to me. |
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While my mother cleverly has set the bridesmaids to sorting out her horde
of ill-gotten political loot, our third internet pal — Linda — is helping Gin
put her face together and such. Gin normally does not wear makeup, which is in fact
one of the reasons why I married her. But on your wedding day, I guess you gotta
cake it on. Gini looks darned good. Linda is proudly showing off her work,
mainly because Linda and her husband Ralph were the people who bought her five Long Island
Iced Teas in celebration of the wedding the night before, and almost crippled her with a
hangover the morning of her wedding day. Fortunately, I happen to be somewhat of an
expert on hangovers and was able to get her enough water in time. But Linda must
have felt guilty enough to take point in this... but hey, they're both smiling. Woo
hoo! |
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My blushing bride, before the wedding. This is not the best picture
of her... but frankly, if mere pictures coulda caught exactly how beautiful she is, then
every joe on the internet woulda been scoping for her long before I did. The
choice of a black velvet cocktail dress was arrived at after much discussion. We
tried shopping in Ann Arbor together when she came down for the first time, but she began
to panic because none of them looked right on her. I looked her in the eyes and told
her that if she showed up wearing a freakin' garbage bag, she'd still be more than I ever
wanted.
Next was a pink taffeta thing she bought in Alaska, which according to all reports made
her look like a ball of cotton candy. Thankfully her daughter — and my stepdaughter!
Whoah! — told her to ditch the pink thing and go with a black cocktail dress
she had in her closet.
Of course, she had to call me up and ask whether wearing black was okay. Anyone
who knows me will have some idea of what my reaction was.
Incidentally, there is no truth to the rumor that her arms are purple because of her
hangover. She merely ate the stick of gum before she asked Mr. Wonka. |
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This is my mother's back yard, where the entire ceremony was held.
There used to be a pool here, but fortunately for us she took out the pool a long time ago
and put in a lovely little terracotta tile thing. (I don't know whether it's
actually terracotta, but I just loooove the word "terracotta".) It was a
glorious day — Hurricane Floyd had swept through two days before and cleared every
last cloud out of the sky, providing gorgeous weather. Ralph (Linda's husband),
Gabe, Shez, and my stepbrother's wife Erycka help out by tying balloons to the chairs. I
was grateful for the chairs. I had to go help my mother and Bruce pick them
up. It gave me something to do at noon when I was starting to get panicky. |
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