So last night I attended a wedding & went out to eat & a movie with my wife, sister-in-law and her boyfriend. My sister-in-law’s boyfriend of course.
In the grand scheme of the universe, none of this means anything at all I am sure BUT when living your own personal life in this cosmos you have to deal with what you are dealt so here is my take on the rather interesting evening…
The four of us met up at a home (read single wide trailer on the lake) where a cousin’s wedding was to be held. The wedding had a start time of 6:30pm and we squeaked into the yard, scrambling out of our vehicles right on the money. It was another forty-five minutes before the ‘ceremony’ was to take place though as pre-wedding jitters got the best of a critical player in the affair. Apparently the bride’s father needed to consult with liquid courage (and apparently the J.O.P. did as well) before things could commence.
Now here’s the setup, we were seated in folding metal chairs all along the waterfront on either side of the walk up to the boat dock. Living in North Lousiana this proposed a challenge to the usual non-casual occasion with very loose sandy soil, tough tangly grasses and swarms of ‘cypress flies’, not to mention August heat & humidity. There were many occasions this evening of high-heeled shoes sinking into the ground or (as the bride’s did) getting snarled on winding grass tendrils and coming off all together. This made her romp down the ‘aisle’ an uncomfortable one.
Now when I say ‘aisle’ I do mean that in the most general of terms. For this occasion the aisle in question comprised of a roll of lacy fabric pulled out along the ground and up onto a portion of the dock walkway, held in place by loosely placed boards & rocks. I did run between the chairs set up for the groom’s side & bride’s side of the wedding. Without any preparation of the ground prior to stretching out this long roll of fabric though left the ‘aisle’ to be quite uneven and the path no doubt littered with roots, stones, sticks and grass tufts under the fabric. It was really a blessing the brides shoes failed to make it as far as that for I am certain the uneven ground and flimsy fabric would have caused problems of their own.
Now for all observation of the grounds prior to approaching the actual site of the ceremony itself the wedding seemed to be well organized and laid out. There were plenty of tables and chairs set out and appropriately decorated for the ‘Alice in Wonderland’ wedding theme. With little cards scattered all about, a Cheshire Cat groom’s cake and the playing card posters indicating directions to the place along the roadway. Of course there was also a fabulous port-a-potty setup right at the entrance to the back yard for all the guests to pass by when filling thier plates with the provided food. You know the crapper can never really be too close to where you eat if you get my point. Honestly speaking of the theme of the wedding, I have nothing against creativity and self expression here but being that we live in a town full of riverboat casinos and not having been told what the theme was, until we saw the Cheshire Cat cake we all thought their wedding theme was all about poker or blackjack… ooops our bad. And now back to the ceremony.
After much delay the wedding did get along and start moving, unfortunately there were hitches in the execution. The bride’s maiden name is a common male first name & the judge had absolutely NO prior contact with the parties involved before the ceremony, or so it appeared. This lead to the apparently intoxicated (or maybe just it is that he was really old) judge repeating the bride’s last name instead of the groom’s first name as a part of the vows. I can understand this mistake and he only made it 4 times after being corrected by the bride, whom he tried to give away as the husband a couple of times as well. When the ceremony was over the judge signed the appropriate papers and left, crashing into another car on his way out of the yard for good measure.
Well at least once things were all said, done, signed and stained in ink splatters (like the bride’s dress) they appeared to be happy and the party started. This consisted mostly of friends and family congregating for pictures and a race to drian the pony keg of bud lite… but then that’s the way weddings should go!
After the wedding my wife, sister-in-law & her boyfriend (again, my sister-in-law’s boyfriend) decided that we should skip the food provided at the after wedding reception and go out to eat & the movies instead.
This being a Friday night there were some usual delays in cross-town traffic & getting seated but after a nice meal we wandered over to the movie theater and made our choices. The girls picked ‘Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants 2′ while we boys chose ‘The Mummy: Return of the Dragon Emperor’. In all honesty though Matt (the boyfriend) had already seen the Mummy movie and wanted to go see ‘Pinapple Express’ instead, so we ducked in to watch it instead.
All I can say about that movie is this… if you are a pot-head or a post-pubescent boy who wishes he were a pot-head, this movie is perfect for you. I think it can also be described as a haphazard action-comedy trying to revive the Cheech & Chong days of ‘lets get stoned and be hilarious’ movies from the 1970’s. In any case if you like that sort of thing, enjoy the revival. Apparently from the way the two rows of teenage boys reciting the movie word-for-word around us acted, there is still a market for this kind of production. I could swear at least one of the boys said he was watching it for the seventh time.
The whole plot of the movie seems to be a good lesson for all, if taken in an objective big-picture kind of way. If you smoke a lot of pot it can really get you into trouble and dangerous situations outside of your control. But if you also have great friends you can overcome the troubles in life and defeat two major drug cartels in a raging gun battle while losing various parts of your body you don’t really need anyway. Then when you are sitting in a greasy spoon the next morning, bleeding and joking about your friend with multiple gunshot wounds nodding out at the table, somebody’s nice grandma will pick you up and take you to the hospital.
Ok so there, I spoiled the whole movie for you.
My bad.