Cousin's wedding, very long post.
So, I came back from Oregon on Thursday night to go to San Diego due to the fact that I had to go to my cousin’s wedding; that cousin that I haven’t seen for over a decade. Yes, a decade. And do I need say more that the wedding reception was so, so fucking boring I could barely breathe. Let me begin to tell.
So I stay at my uncle John’s house in San Diego --- John is pretty cool, but they’re Unitarian; this so-called religion which I basically think is just a bunch of people from different points of views coming together and gossiping about their lives, eating food, and being social. Though at sermons they discuss their beliefs and views or whatnot. Whatever, it’s more like a support group then an actual religion---wow, Atheist actually going to church...funny.
So back to uncle John [who’s wife Jess is actually quite cool and Jess’s 90 year old mother Cathy who is not only cool, but fucking rocks] who feels really bad about his brother Bill [my step dad] decided to invite Billy, his daughter, and his stepdaughter to his son’s [my cousin] wedding.
My dad, of course, tells me at the last minute that we gotta go to Chris’s wedding [as in “last minute” I mean “the-very-day-before-the-wedding”] because I have lost a lot of years of visits with John, Jess, Chris, and Lauren [Chris’s younger sister who is also my cousin (dur)]. So I decided, yes, I would go.
And I got a new outfit for the wedding. Black slacks, a white button up blouse, and black shoes. My feet had hurt so bad from walking in those black Macy’s [or Andy’s or Jennifer’s, whatever that’s called] for so fucking long.
Well, before the wedding, before the reception, and before all the mayhem of my hyped-up Uncle John who got so nervous and frustrated he was literally jumping off the walls --- we had the morning to deal with. I didn’t take my medication so I went to bed at about 2 AM and woke up at around 3:30 AM and had been up from that time to about 3:30 the next morning. But anyway, everyone woke up at around six [everyone as in everyone except for me]. Right from the start, John raced around the house doing those-things-that-father’s-do-for-their-son’s-wedding and making sure everyone was dressed and ready to leave at exactly 10:00 AM and be there at exactly 10:30 AM. So we were.
[First, I can’t begin to tell you how embarrassed my stepfather made me feel...he says the most obscurest shit that no one understands and it just gets me all red inside. So like John, I feel sorry for him and I feel bad that a very talented man with both sketches and animals wasted his life on booze and drugs. It hurts, because really, Bill is the only thing of a father that I’ve ever had, so I have to deal with it and him.]
So the wedding was at a Karl Strauss restaurant in San Diego, which had beautiful Japanese gardens and courtyards surrounding it. There were trails behind and around the restaurant and a fitness center, another restaurant, and a park. It was nice.
When we first got to the wedding, everybody had to take a bunch of professional photos, I took ones with Lauren and my sister and cousin Shantell. The men, Chris, Chris’s friends, Bill, and John all took pictures. Then Bill and Chris took pictures, Chris and his best man took pictures, Chris and John took pictures, and then of course, after the ceremony before the reception, Chris and Janelle [his new wife] took pictures.
[Let me tell you about Chris. Say, the last time I saw him was about ten years ago when he was 15 or 16 and he was tall, skinny, and pale. The way I saw him yesterday, however, he had shrunk and somehow gained sixty something pounds over the years making him yes, my friends, fat. Yes, fat. Janelle, too, was fat. And had red hair.]
The ceremony I guess was nice, but since both Chris and Janelle are Christian but John and Jess are Unitarian agnostics along with their daughter Lauren [but Lauren thinks she’s a mystic, when she’s really just a...a....dork] they got their minister, Margo, to wed them. Margo is the worker of the head of their church, and as Jess puts it, “is very smart”. Margo too, is agnostic, but she also believes she’s a mystic. I don’t know Margo, so I can’t judge --- all though she did say hello to me, gave me a hug, and wished me the best of life on earth...you know, minister talk.
So Janelle’s dress I guess was nice, and her bride’s maid read a quote from the Velveteen Rabbit...something about being beautiful and real on the inside, whatever. Lauren read a poem about not having any fears, and Chris’s best man read something about something but now I forgot. Oh well. That was basically the ceremony and the morning, so onto the reception and dancing and trail-wondering.
The reception was...overly long. I sat at a table with the “Clark” family, my dad, Shantell, and my sister. I didn’t eat because I had a stomach ache all day, you know, that feeling you get when you want to hurl all over the place? Yeah, that was it. So I kept on getting up and going to the bathroom, not actually using it, but I guess I looked kind of awkward; you know, like a scarf and barf. But, whatever, there was some other really tall guy who kept on going to the bathroom, too, but I don’t doubt that he wasn’t following me around.
When it came the time to make a toast to the newly weds, I got my first glimpse of SuperSexyHotFrenchGuy no. 1 who must of mistaken me for 21, because he poured my glass with champagne instead of cider. I had to tell him I was underage so I could get cider rather than champagne because alcohol sucks.
The centerpieces on the restaurant contained bowls of Betas [those of you who don’t know what a Beta is, it’s a type of fish that fights with other fishes so you have to keep them separate. I had this great idea that we could take two fish and number them with white out and then throw them in the same bowl and bet money on which fish wins. The winning fish, of course, would go to a nice fish bowl in a nice house with nice flakes of food; and the people betting money on the winning fish would get to keep theirs and the losers money (like regular bets). The loser’s corpse, of course, is pecked out of the bowl and then placed into the loser’s mouth while on fire. Unfortunately, Lauren and several other giddy teenagers were party poopers and didn’t let the drunken bachelors place great stakes of money on the fish] along with a ring of flowers gyrating around it. It was kinda cool.
After the reception everyone moved out to the dance floor except for me and some old bats still hanging around the tables. While the people and my new family [and their friends] danced outside to hot tunes [sarcasm] such as Jenny from the block, We are family, Lets get it on, Hot in here, etc; I myself was watching the waiters [especially SuperSexyHotFrenchGuy] clean up around us. I even hung out and talked about poker parties with 80 year olds, it rocked.
Then I started to get bored and took off down the trails behind the restaurant, scuffing my black shoes and getting some dust on my slacks. About half way down one of the trails, I sat on a couple of large rocks and dug at the dirt with a couple of sticks. I kind of felt incomplete without one of my books, I notice when I’m without my reading material around large groups of people --- I tend to get very, very nervous. Sitting on these rocks, however, calmed my moods and I began to feel great. I listened to one of the waterfalls off in the distance, and the small clank of a nifty little water fountain...kind of hard to explain, you’d have to see it to know what I mean.
When I finally heard the music stop coming from the restaurant [after about an hour and a half of waiting], I walked back to it. John said everyone was almost gone and it was time to leave, he also asked if I'd start gathering up center pieces and dealing out the fish to people. My sister took two of the Betas, Lauren took two, Lauren’s friend Laura took one, and Shantell didn’t care about them, nor did I. After all, in a couple of days, that Beta’s gonna be cat food.
So that was basically it, besides peeling the drunken bachelors off the floor, watching SuperSexyHotFrenchGuy clean up a little bit more, and waving good bye to a new family I probably will never see again [or at least not for a very long time].
Did I have fun? My trip in San Diego didn’t end there. If you’d like to read about the evening after the wedding and brunch, my friend, click on the cut off.
So here I am again, prepared for a long story, but not as long as the wedding. After all, I’m not putting much detail in this, just getting straight to the point as best as I can.
A couple of Jess’s weird Unitarian Christian friends came over, along with that woman Marsha’s son and that girl Laura [who I do not like, and I hated sitting at the same table with her. Seriously, I could of bit her ugly little nose off and...ahem, back to the story].
Anyway, Marsha’s little sixteen year old son kept on making odd glances at me and staring at my shoes. I’d turn to look at him and he’d throw his head down real quick, then when I wouldn’t look at him he’d start looking at me again. Barf, barf hard. When he came over the next day for brunch, I stayed well out of his sight and completely concealed myself in the pages of a book; sitting alone in the loft.
The morning for the brunch wasn’t as hectic, but since John is crazy, he did things a little fast and odd. They gave me candy for Easter, and I ate half of a muffin. It wasn’t too exciting, except I talked to Chris for a couple of minutes and his wife smiled at me. That was about it, except for the long drive back home on the road, listening to Simon and Garefunkel the whole way there.
That’s my weekend. Weddings, I hope I never have to go to another one like that again.
So I stay at my uncle John’s house in San Diego --- John is pretty cool, but they’re Unitarian; this so-called religion which I basically think is just a bunch of people from different points of views coming together and gossiping about their lives, eating food, and being social. Though at sermons they discuss their beliefs and views or whatnot. Whatever, it’s more like a support group then an actual religion---wow, Atheist actually going to church...funny.
So back to uncle John [who’s wife Jess is actually quite cool and Jess’s 90 year old mother Cathy who is not only cool, but fucking rocks] who feels really bad about his brother Bill [my step dad] decided to invite Billy, his daughter, and his stepdaughter to his son’s [my cousin] wedding.
My dad, of course, tells me at the last minute that we gotta go to Chris’s wedding [as in “last minute” I mean “the-very-day-before-the-wedding”] because I have lost a lot of years of visits with John, Jess, Chris, and Lauren [Chris’s younger sister who is also my cousin (dur)]. So I decided, yes, I would go.
And I got a new outfit for the wedding. Black slacks, a white button up blouse, and black shoes. My feet had hurt so bad from walking in those black Macy’s [or Andy’s or Jennifer’s, whatever that’s called] for so fucking long.
Well, before the wedding, before the reception, and before all the mayhem of my hyped-up Uncle John who got so nervous and frustrated he was literally jumping off the walls --- we had the morning to deal with. I didn’t take my medication so I went to bed at about 2 AM and woke up at around 3:30 AM and had been up from that time to about 3:30 the next morning. But anyway, everyone woke up at around six [everyone as in everyone except for me]. Right from the start, John raced around the house doing those-things-that-father’s-do-for-their-son’s-wedding and making sure everyone was dressed and ready to leave at exactly 10:00 AM and be there at exactly 10:30 AM. So we were.
[First, I can’t begin to tell you how embarrassed my stepfather made me feel...he says the most obscurest shit that no one understands and it just gets me all red inside. So like John, I feel sorry for him and I feel bad that a very talented man with both sketches and animals wasted his life on booze and drugs. It hurts, because really, Bill is the only thing of a father that I’ve ever had, so I have to deal with it and him.]
So the wedding was at a Karl Strauss restaurant in San Diego, which had beautiful Japanese gardens and courtyards surrounding it. There were trails behind and around the restaurant and a fitness center, another restaurant, and a park. It was nice.
When we first got to the wedding, everybody had to take a bunch of professional photos, I took ones with Lauren and my sister and cousin Shantell. The men, Chris, Chris’s friends, Bill, and John all took pictures. Then Bill and Chris took pictures, Chris and his best man took pictures, Chris and John took pictures, and then of course, after the ceremony before the reception, Chris and Janelle [his new wife] took pictures.
[Let me tell you about Chris. Say, the last time I saw him was about ten years ago when he was 15 or 16 and he was tall, skinny, and pale. The way I saw him yesterday, however, he had shrunk and somehow gained sixty something pounds over the years making him yes, my friends, fat. Yes, fat. Janelle, too, was fat. And had red hair.]
The ceremony I guess was nice, but since both Chris and Janelle are Christian but John and Jess are Unitarian agnostics along with their daughter Lauren [but Lauren thinks she’s a mystic, when she’s really just a...a....dork] they got their minister, Margo, to wed them. Margo is the worker of the head of their church, and as Jess puts it, “is very smart”. Margo too, is agnostic, but she also believes she’s a mystic. I don’t know Margo, so I can’t judge --- all though she did say hello to me, gave me a hug, and wished me the best of life on earth...you know, minister talk.
So Janelle’s dress I guess was nice, and her bride’s maid read a quote from the Velveteen Rabbit...something about being beautiful and real on the inside, whatever. Lauren read a poem about not having any fears, and Chris’s best man read something about something but now I forgot. Oh well. That was basically the ceremony and the morning, so onto the reception and dancing and trail-wondering.
The reception was...overly long. I sat at a table with the “Clark” family, my dad, Shantell, and my sister. I didn’t eat because I had a stomach ache all day, you know, that feeling you get when you want to hurl all over the place? Yeah, that was it. So I kept on getting up and going to the bathroom, not actually using it, but I guess I looked kind of awkward; you know, like a scarf and barf. But, whatever, there was some other really tall guy who kept on going to the bathroom, too, but I don’t doubt that he wasn’t following me around.
When it came the time to make a toast to the newly weds, I got my first glimpse of SuperSexyHotFrenchGuy no. 1 who must of mistaken me for 21, because he poured my glass with champagne instead of cider. I had to tell him I was underage so I could get cider rather than champagne because alcohol sucks.
The centerpieces on the restaurant contained bowls of Betas [those of you who don’t know what a Beta is, it’s a type of fish that fights with other fishes so you have to keep them separate. I had this great idea that we could take two fish and number them with white out and then throw them in the same bowl and bet money on which fish wins. The winning fish, of course, would go to a nice fish bowl in a nice house with nice flakes of food; and the people betting money on the winning fish would get to keep theirs and the losers money (like regular bets). The loser’s corpse, of course, is pecked out of the bowl and then placed into the loser’s mouth while on fire. Unfortunately, Lauren and several other giddy teenagers were party poopers and didn’t let the drunken bachelors place great stakes of money on the fish] along with a ring of flowers gyrating around it. It was kinda cool.
After the reception everyone moved out to the dance floor except for me and some old bats still hanging around the tables. While the people and my new family [and their friends] danced outside to hot tunes [sarcasm] such as Jenny from the block, We are family, Lets get it on, Hot in here, etc; I myself was watching the waiters [especially SuperSexyHotFrenchGuy] clean up around us. I even hung out and talked about poker parties with 80 year olds, it rocked.
Then I started to get bored and took off down the trails behind the restaurant, scuffing my black shoes and getting some dust on my slacks. About half way down one of the trails, I sat on a couple of large rocks and dug at the dirt with a couple of sticks. I kind of felt incomplete without one of my books, I notice when I’m without my reading material around large groups of people --- I tend to get very, very nervous. Sitting on these rocks, however, calmed my moods and I began to feel great. I listened to one of the waterfalls off in the distance, and the small clank of a nifty little water fountain...kind of hard to explain, you’d have to see it to know what I mean.
When I finally heard the music stop coming from the restaurant [after about an hour and a half of waiting], I walked back to it. John said everyone was almost gone and it was time to leave, he also asked if I'd start gathering up center pieces and dealing out the fish to people. My sister took two of the Betas, Lauren took two, Lauren’s friend Laura took one, and Shantell didn’t care about them, nor did I. After all, in a couple of days, that Beta’s gonna be cat food.
So that was basically it, besides peeling the drunken bachelors off the floor, watching SuperSexyHotFrenchGuy clean up a little bit more, and waving good bye to a new family I probably will never see again [or at least not for a very long time].
Did I have fun? My trip in San Diego didn’t end there. If you’d like to read about the evening after the wedding and brunch, my friend, click on the cut off.
So here I am again, prepared for a long story, but not as long as the wedding. After all, I’m not putting much detail in this, just getting straight to the point as best as I can.
A couple of Jess’s weird Unitarian Christian friends came over, along with that woman Marsha’s son and that girl Laura [who I do not like, and I hated sitting at the same table with her. Seriously, I could of bit her ugly little nose off and...ahem, back to the story].
Anyway, Marsha’s little sixteen year old son kept on making odd glances at me and staring at my shoes. I’d turn to look at him and he’d throw his head down real quick, then when I wouldn’t look at him he’d start looking at me again. Barf, barf hard. When he came over the next day for brunch, I stayed well out of his sight and completely concealed myself in the pages of a book; sitting alone in the loft.
The morning for the brunch wasn’t as hectic, but since John is crazy, he did things a little fast and odd. They gave me candy for Easter, and I ate half of a muffin. It wasn’t too exciting, except I talked to Chris for a couple of minutes and his wife smiled at me. That was about it, except for the long drive back home on the road, listening to Simon and Garefunkel the whole way there.
That’s my weekend. Weddings, I hope I never have to go to another one like that again.