The Wedding

I woke up, which was the last sensible thing I did all day.

I drove to my parents' house to get my mother and deliver her to the Macy's salon, which is in what I think of as the Emporium building. (Everything has changed around here--every building near Union Square is now a Macy's.)

Deirdre was already there, getting her hair done, and she informed us that the hairdresser had calculated astrologically that she and her fiance were compatible.

"That's awful convenient," I said.

"Yup," she said.

The hairdresser put my hair in an "up-do" and fixed every last strand in place with an inch-thick layer of hair spray. Then he looked up my birth data in an ephemeris and quickly interpreted it to mean that I was going to be a big--nay, a huge--success in Hollywood, and that Deirdre was going to be an important part of it.

"Okay then," I said.

We bundled Mom into the car and drove to my parents' house, there to get Mom into her wedding gear and to get Deirdre's dress into the suitcase to take to the wedding staging area. My Mom made both of our wedding dresses, amazingly enough. Both are gorgeous.

We got to the wedding hall, which is the Flood Mansion--also the site of where Deirdre and I went to high school. Before you wonder whether my sister has lost her mind, you have to know that the question is not, "Why would she want to get married in her high school?" but "You went to high school here?"--Exhibit A: The Flood Mansion. The Grand Hall is incredibly spectacular (though you tend not to notice it as you grumble on your way to a geometry exam), with marble floors and soaring ceilings and murals and...well, it's gorgeous.

The problem with getting in early had to do with the First Communion ceremony going on. I snuck in and went around to the side door, which I propped open. We then unloaded the car, went in the side entrance, and made camp in one of the rooms (with hardwood everything, soaring ceilings, etc., etc.). Deirdre started getting ready, Mom sewed dress shields into the dress, and I ran around trying to coordinate everything.

Amazingly, everything worked just the way it was supposed to. Deirdre's in-laws stopped at my parents' house and picked up the flower arrangements. The caterers showed up and arranged everything. The cake arrived--a big relief to me, let me tell you. The photographer arrived. I still fit into my slinky dress. It was a good day.

The bride and family took lots of pix with the photographer. Then Deirdre hid again and the groom and family took pix.

(What I'm skipping over at this point was the major dark cloud behind the silver lining of the day--my mother went ballistic at the photographer's assistant, who was also his wife. I will say only that my mother behaved badly--how's that for a sitcom idea? Mothers Behaving Badly--and irrationally, and she embarrassed and angered all of us there who either witnessed it or heard about it when she went around telling everyone proudly what she'd done. I took on the job of smoothing things over with Sophie, the assistant/wife, who couldn't understand why my mother lashed out at her like that. I told her it would take too long--say, 20 to 30 years--to fully understand it.)

Deirdre asked me if Mom was still up for doing one of the readings, since her mood seemed to be a little...off. I went and talked to her and made the command decision that she wasn't doing it--I was. Good thing my voice had come back.

The ceremony itself was beautiful: the sun was out, it was warm, everyone had loud, clear voices. The priest--the Reverend Bob, who is evidently some kind of rogue Catholic priest, part of an order that broke away from the Catholic church...shhh, don't tell my father--cued everyone at the right times as to what they should do and say.

The reading, from the Gospel of John, had to do with the wedding of Cana and how Jesus turned water into wine because there wasn't enough wine at the wedding. I could tell Deirdre was looking at me, and we were both thinking about how she and Gregory had bought way too much wine for this wedding. (Enough champagne for 250 people...although there were quite a few Irish relatives invited...) I knew that if I looked at her, we were both going to lose it, right there, and the ceremony would have to stop until the bride and her sister managed to calm down a little. So I steeled myself and refused to make eye contact through the entire reading.

After the ceremony came the reception line (typical exchange: "Hi, I'm Bob, I'm a friend of the groom." "Hi Bob, I'm Diane, I'm Deirdre's sister. Thanks for coming."), then some more pictures got taken, then we had a wonderful sit-down dinner, then dancing.

(Then my mother lashed into Sophie again and I finally explained to my mother that her behavior was completely unacceptable on this day, which wasn't her day, it was Deirdre's day, and my mother went off to sit by herself for a few hours, until the priest came and brought her over to dance a little bit.)

Then we had cake.

Darin and I agreed that that was the secret signal: Time To Flee. We made the rounds and said goodbye to everyone, ending up with all my Irish relatives, who were sitting out in the courtyard smoking. (I thought it was very cold, but of course I was wearing a tiny slip of polyester. They probably thought it was a typical evening.) They all invited me and Darin out to Ireland to visit them, and since I've been working on the Irish-themed Rewrite Script, a trip to Ireland has been much on my mind recently. The best thing would be to get a film company to spring for it, but in the meantime...we bid everyone adieu.

Darin and I went back to the hotel and got in bed to watch the first installment of Merlin. We enjoyed it a lot; as I attempted to sum it up: "Wow, CGI in service of the story, rather than the other way around!"

I had contemplated pouncing on Darin when the show was over, but it had 30 minutes yet to go, I realized it was going to be a neat trick even to stay awake until the end. The pouncing would have to wait for another time.

Lies, Damn Lies, and Statistics

No running this day, unless you count running around like a chicken with its head cut off, running your mouth off, or running from trouble.