I know, I know. Why the long
wait, you ask.
Well.
I’m not as young as I used to be. The 72-hour whirlwind of wedding, family, and friends had my Energizer Bunny sleeping in his drum.
And he just woke up yesterday.
That along with the super-sized
bag of emotions every dad picks through when a wedding happens.
We pull each one out, hold it, look at it, then file it away.
Each emotion is clipped to a moment that is gently studied, and cherished, before going back into the bag.
Yeah. Still doing that.
Anyway, the weekend started
officially as the Wife’s family from California, friends of the DAGU, and the
Little-House-On-The-Corner crew began to setup the room for The
Reception.
There were birch logs, 40 feet of ‘em, that I had cut into 2, 4, & 6 inch lengths on the Bro-In-Law’s
table saw in his garage.
(I don’t have one, remember?).
And painted wine bottles.
And baby’s breath.
And roses.
It was like reading a
passage out of the Old Testament.
“And, lo, they brought to the appointed place 120 pieces of wood.
40 each of small, medium, and large pieces did they bring, along with 320 wine bottles, 80 each of olive green, 80 of mint green, 80 of evening blue, and 80 of periwinkle.
And for the bottles they brought 300 roses of single stem, each cream in color and lovely
in fragrance.
And for the roses, they brought therein huge clumps of fresh baby’s breath with that annoying fragrance of inflatable air mattresses
in hot sunshine.
All this the faithful brought to the appointed place.”
I’m not exactly sure how the
first hour and a half went.
I was in the men’s bathroom filling painted wine bottles with water.
Using a beer pitcher and a 5 gallon bucket of water.
Yeah.
I filled bottles while simultaneously baptizing the room in true ecumenical fashion.
Some parts were sprinkled.
Some were immersed.
Bud kept swapping out full buckets for the empties, keeping Mike (who was doing the same thing in the women’s bathroom) and I filling and baptizing.
Darlene, Grandma, and Cheryl were carting off the wine-into-water bottles and bringing in empties.
The Wife and others were attacking the horde of white-clothed round tables, setting up log pieces, then bottles, then baby’s breath, then
roses.
(I would like to mention the names of those helping the Wife but I was in the bathroom.
You know who you are, you valiant warriors of decorating.
You who endured birch blight, noxious baby’s breath, and prickly roses, I salute you.)
Around noon, I wandered out
to the minivan for a nap.
The decorating had reached the point where the women were doing that barely-veneered squabbling over the minutiae.
“Don’t you think the settings need more…?"
“That looks lovely, but wouldn’t it look better…”
“See how much better it looks this…”
Yep.
Time to flee. Time to hide.
The Wife woke me up in time to join the “Almost S on-In-Law” (ASIL) and TechnoBoy on the tuxedo run.
The tuxedo place was hopping
for a Friday afternoon.
I sat at a high unstable table on a high uncomfortable chair as the two younger folks tried on their uniforms.
To pass the time, I paged through a rather large book full of colorful pictures.
Pictures of lean, strong-jawed,
handsome young men looking seductively at the camera as if selling almost-butter while behind them bevies of doe-eyed, fabulous-figured young women in bride’s gowns look on with great interest.
I glanced up from the book
and appraised the herd of guys waiting for their tuxes.
Obviously this wasn’t
photographed in Northern Wisconsin.
Back at the hotel, TechnoBoy
and I shot a few games of pool then headed for the Oasis of Sealy Posturpedic while the ASIL went off to find his folks.
A couple hours later the phone rang in the Oasis. It was the ASIL.
The In-Laws had checked into the hotel.
“Come on up when you can.”
The Wife was out with the
DAGU and womenfolk doing "wedding-tomorrow" stuff.
I told TechnoBoy to spruce up.
We’re gonna meet the In-Laws.
Heads were raked, faces were
soaped, and pits re-crayoned before we hopped the elevator up to the room. The ASIL met us at the door.
“They said they had a Raspberry Tea left in the car so they went down to split it.”
Okay.
They’re as terrified as I am.
I can appreciate that.
TechnoBoy and I wander back
to the elevators and punch the button.
We stare out the window waiting for our ride.
“Hey, Dad.”
"Yeah, bud."
“Those folks are drinking
Raspberry Tea.”
I look down.
4 floors below us there’s a couple sitting in the outdoor “Lounge Area” by the pool, passing a bottle.
“You sure?”
“Dad, I have to stack the
shelves with the stuff at work. That’s Raspberry Tea.”
“Okay, then.”
And what great folks they
were and are.
Already kinda figured they were, judging by the ASIL.
We talked for a bit, then it
was time to head over to The Rehearsal, that pre-game warmup held about a day ahead of the game.
The pre-game had just started when we found out about a roster change.
The Varsity referee for the
game was supposed to be a big white guy, according to the DAGU.
He wasn’t coming so he sent the JV ref.
Who was, and still is, a small black gal.
The DAGU and ASIL didn’t
know her.
And she didn’t know anybody, probably leaving her feeling like a a licorice stick in a snow bank. It couldn't have been an easy situation for her.
But what a great surprise it was for us.
She was great.
Patiently she walked us through the timing of the ceremony, gently allowing the bantering and horse-play of 20-somethings (and the fathers),
and high-fiving the best man when things finally went right.
Yeah.
An hour later we're all sitting at The Rehearsal Dinner, talking to the Almost-The-In-Laws over chicken wings, pizza, and watching multiple TV sets as the Brewers pounded the stuffin's out of St. Louis.
As I reached for another chicken wing, I had a happy epiphany.
Tomorrow oughta be a hoot.
(To be continued…)