It has been a busy few days. Half week. Something like that.
Mom is now Mrs. Magner.
It's a good thing I took Thursday and Friday off. Thursday, I took care of the errands of running to craft shops - Michael's and Joann's - to get stuff pertaining to flowers, decorations, and various other wedding festivities. I also picked up my tux. This might not sound like much, but, given that I'm not super artsy or anything, and being given a list of items I'd never heard of and sent on a seek-and-obtain mission to get them... It's kind of like a commercial scavenger hunt. I've been told that this was a "nice guy" thing to do, as other males would have simply looked askance. On the bright side, I got everything that was needed and managed to get the pew clips for just $1.oo instead of $2.00.
Friday, I dealt with more back issues and spent half the day with an ice pack on my back. I was originally going to deliver the goodie bags to the hotels where out-of-town guests were staying, but, my brother-in-law Scott got roped into that. My brother-in-law is awesome like that. Instead, we just had the rehearsal dinner Friday night. After the dinner, I went out for coffee and quiet time, and when I got home, I had apparently missed the festivities of the bridal attendants who helped finish making the centerpieces and assembling flower stuff. Instead, Mom was busy printing out the programs. Since she had had little sleep the night before, I helped fold them and cut the insert pages and so on. I did what I could to help her get to bed at a decent time in preparation for the next day's events. Except, she couldn't find the tiara hairpiece, and we spent the next hour and a half going through the house looking for it, to no avail. Turns out, it was with the rest of her stuff for her dress at the church.
Because I was up late, I got up a little later than originally planned on Saturday. Mom had already left with the rest of her entourage for hair and make-up. Rich called from down the street to make sure it was safe to come home and get breakfast, which it was. He left to get the lunch sub tray and pick up one of the groomsmen and head to the church. I stayed to grab a shower, make sure all the furkids had food and water, give Rocky his insulin, put the dogs out to go potty, and so on. I should note that the humidity was oppressive, and I was sweating even after my rather cold shower. Also, all the furkids were off the wall. Brigid and Brandon were almost constantly barking, which was excessive even for them. Yoda seemed to be permanently hungry and doing the alarm noise ad nauseum. Rocky was bordering on aggressive and howling more often than usual. Fortunately, I got everyone calmed down enough before I left. Giving Yoda a leftover stuffed shell from the rehearsal dinner seemed to mollify him immensely, and he was then able to call for Rocky and yell at the dogs, which helped get them all under control. Anyway, after the kids were taken care of, I made a pass through the house for anything that might have been forgotten and left for the church.
At the church, I changed into my tux. Of course, the room we had was sweltering. Thankfully, the rest of the church was decently air conditioned. While getting dressed, I helped Paul and Rich with their tuxes. While competitive dancing doesn't need a full tux at the level I danced, and even dance tuxes are different from regular tuxes, I still had done enough shows to know how to take care of bow ties and cuff links and so on. The tux pants we had were adjustable. Of course, I had a broken adjuster. Fortunately, Mandie had safety pins and helped me out.
Then began the busy-ness.
Somehow, I was drafted at random to take care of the boutinears. I found the 'fridge with the flowers in them, snagged my sister to help me figure out who gets what, and began distrubution of flowers. I had barely gotten that done that people started arriving. Got the young ladies set up with the programs and started escorting people to seats. Did what I could remembering who Mom said was to get front-row seats. This has a lot to do with the people who were there for us during some of the shittiest times of the past ten years.
Then the ceremony begins. Or, at least, the processional. They changed, at the last minute, where us groomsmen where entering from, which was neither here nor there, but, anyway.
Then the ceremony begins. And fortunately, my sister and I get along rather well these days, so, I see the look of horror slowly crossing her face right before she mouths to me, in front of the pastor and the priest (Rich is Catholic, so, we had two officiants), "Oh shit! I lost the ring!"
You know that sinking feeling you get right when you realized you jumped out of the plane
before strapping on your parachute?
So, I start thinking about my options. Do I pass out, let them cart me out of the sanctuary and then spring to life and go look for the ring? No, too dramatic. Sneak out? Might be considered rude. Fake a coughing fit or a bad sneeze? Yeah, that could work, but, let's save that as a last resort. And to note, this was planned to be a
short ceremony. I look around me, as there's a piano behind me, some sound equipment off to the side... Maybe there's a coupling or somesuch that could work in a pinch. No such luck. So then it dawns on me that at least two of the other groomsmen are married. I whispered urgently to Nutsy next to me the situation and ask if he has a ring we can borrow. No, he's had problems getting his ring on lately,
BUT, he had his father's wedding band on his keychain. Unfortunately, his fingers are still a little too swollen to get it off, so, I got it off, and we passed it down to my sister. Crisis averted. The ring, the
"real" ring, was recovered shortly after the ceremony. It fell off of Mandie when she was adjusting Mom's train right before the processional.
After that was the receiving line and becoming borderline germophobic. Thankfully, there were the anti-bacterial hand sanitizer bottles throughout the narthex. After that was getting my Magic Murder Bag (
Venture Brother's reference) packed with my clothes, and then pictures. Before the rain. Woot.
Fortunately, the rain stopped by the time we got to the reception, and we had a nice walk-in.
( Pictures )Now, the wonderful people at ThinkGeek.com have dinosaur plushies...
Thanks to internet memes, Mom and Rich have this joke about "I love you this much" with the picture of a T-Rex whose arms aren't very long, and so it doesn't look like very much. So when I got one of my regular e-mails from Think Geek advertising these new plushies, I got two of the T-Rex for Mom and Rich for a wedding present. I figured it would be a cute novelty thing that they'd like and would be better than a picture frame or somesuch.
Turns out, they were a big hit with them. They have been playing with their dinosaurs (curse their sudden and inevitable betrayal!) since I gave them to them. In fact, they had left them with the caterer to put on their sweetheart table (to raised eyebrows). You can even see one of them in one of the pictures above. Anyway, Mom told me that just about everyone, at some point, had come up to their table and asked about the dinosaurs, so, they had to explain the joke about 100 times. Mom says she should have just gotten on the mike and explained. I'm just glad I managed to get them a gift they enjoy, and are still enjoying. Especially when I wasn't expecting it to be such a hit.
Mom and Rich had a nice dance to their song (can't remember the title, but it's by Lady Antebellum). Mom and I danced a Fox Trot to Michael Buble's rendition of "The Best is Yet to Come." Mandie and Rich danced to "Thank Heaven For Little Girls." Then Mandie and I did a Cha Cha/Hustle to some 70s song. That was way too long.
At this point, I need to pat myself on the back while thanking my coaches Lisa Bently and Pete Taylor. They both taught the difference between competitive dancing and performance dancing. Both when dancing with Mom and with my sister, I thankfully knew enough floorcraft to make sure
they were the center of attention. Having taught enough dance classes and having a derth of experience working with new dancers, my leading skills are still sharp, though I'm sure my sister felt tossed around a little. But, hey...
performance! It was eough to impress pretty much everyone.
As for me? My footwork was atrocious (note to self:
NEVER go to a wedding where I
know I'll be utilizing my Captain Tango skills without my dance shoes!). My frame was okay and I felt my leading was on par with bludgeoning my partner to go in the right direction. However, again, I am forced to remember what I've been taught about the differences between competitive dancing and performance dancing: In competitive dancing, the judges know the steps and the technique and will grade you on it. In performance dancing, the audience doesn't give a fuck (Pete's words).
They had remarks from the best man and maid (matron?) of honor, which included my sister. She wasn't expecting that part, and the invective she used when she was called up was amusing. Nevertheless, she made a good speech and managed to use our phrase of "putting the 'fun' into 'dysfuntional.'" I don't think I've ever seen her husband, Scott, laugh so hard.
On an aside: I have to say I'm very proud to have Scott as my brother-in-law. He's cool to begin with, and I am glad that he takes care of my sister so well. He helped her where he could, made sure she had something to drink, and so on. After three (or is it four?) years of marriage, and years of dating before that, and he still dotes on her, is something nice to see in this day and age. Such treatment, I think, went a long way to keeping my sister on an even keel throughout. It was a good example of, "It's not
her problem, it's
our problem to solve." Hence, the support thing.
I think that about covers the reception. Afterwards, we changed and loaded up the cars and trucks and tralers with decorations, gifts, and so on. Managed to get the bulk of the stuff loaded before the clouds opened up again.
To give Mom and Rich some time to themselves, Mandie insisted I stay with her and Scott last night. So, I stopped at the house, gave Rocky his shot, refilled everyone's food and water, packed an overnight bag, and left.
Loki, one of Mandie's cats, who was adopted when she still lived with me and Mom, was taught well by TomTom. He remembers me from when we lived together, and in the same way TomTom would make sure to visit with Mandie when she came over after she'd moved out, Loki makes sure to visit with me whenever I go to my sister's. Anyway, he followed me around while I got set up in her guest room, looking at me funny. "Why are you here? What are you doing? You're not normally over here this late. Why are you sleeping here?"
I slept like the dead, but woke up around 10:30 to the sound of someone going through my stuff. I sat up on the bed, and sure enough, Loki and Lily were rummaging through my book bag and overnight bag. I asked them, "What are you two doing?" And they both looked at me like, "We're um, um, um... We were going to iron your clothes and put your books away for you. Hi. How are you?" This might be off-putting or just plain weird for most people, except, my cats do the same thing, so, yeah. They do better security than the TSA.
In general, I'm glad the wedding went off almost without a hitch. The only hitch being the intended hitch of Mom and Rich getting hitched. I'm glad my sister and I get along well these days, which has been the case since we had to break Mom out of a nursing home three years ago when she got her hip replaced. That helped a lot this weekend with averting possible situations and whatnot.
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