for the good of us all i'd better eat that cake.
The quote of the day:
I did have a 20 minute sermon planned, but what do you say I cut it down to 5 minutes?
Running news:
None. Are you kidding?
It was hot today. Very hot. Not only was it so hot that Tiffany encouraged us to wear cool, comfortable clothing (as opposed to the get-ups one normally wears to a wedding), but I went ahead and brought a liter of water with me, despite the fact that I knew they'd have a bar there.
Better to have too much water than too little.
It was so hot (over 100 near us, just under 100 in the Basin) that as we walked the one block from the garage on Santa Monica Blvd. to the Schindler House, where the wedding was held, Darin said, "We have to walk very, very slowly. Or else I'm going to be covered with a giant sweat stain."
By the time we got to the Schindler house: "Doesn't matter."
The Schindler house is a center for the study of 20th century art, architecture, and design. It's a Japanese-styled house that contains art exhibits. It's the house that inspired Wyndham to study architecture.
It's also a house without air conditioning. So everyone was dying.
We wandered around and said hello to several of the people we saw yesterday at the party. I got a mai tai at the bar and then headed out to where the wedding would be held to snag some seats in the shade. Everyone was doing that--all of the seats that were inside the house had already been taking. All of the seats in the shade by the wall of the house were taken. Lots of people took chairs and put them up against the house to stay in the shade.
As uncomfortable as the day was (you could see the orgasmic shivers run through the crowd when there was a light breeze), the ceremony itself was beautiful. Tiffany was gorgeous in a straight-line satin and lace gown; Wyndham looked very handsome in his blue shirt and white linen jacket. Allison was the Maid of Honor and wore one of the wedding colors (purple). David, the Best Man, wore a suit, although he may have lost the jacket at some point. The music was by a Hawaiian music trio (the whole ceremony/party had a Hawaiian theme).
They had readings from the Best Man and Maid of Honor; the bride's and groom's families blessed the rings; everyone made jokes about the heat. Olaf the minister kept things moving along at a good clip. When Tiffany had explained all the elements that were going into the ceremony, I was afraid we were going to be there for a full Catholic mass or something. But not to worry--the whole thing was much shorter than I expected.
There was general milling about after the ceremony--some people went up and congratulated the bride and groom (there wasn't a direct receiving line), and some made a mad dash for the bar. Darin and I stood out on the tiny lawn, somewhat near the bar, basking in the breeze, such as it was.
The sprinklers came on.
Most of the people out on the lawn tried to get out of the way of the water. Maybe it's just because I had a cotton sundress on, but I loved it: I got my skirt wet, I put my legs in the spray.
People made their way to the giant lawn, where lunch would be served, in order to snag tables in the shade. It turned out that the caterers were putting umbrellas over all the tables, not just a few. So we staked out a table with the couple from Hawaii (who said, "It never gets this hot there!") and Allison and Adam, and we waited for our umbrella.
Once we had the umbrella, we began angling it to maximize its shade.
The two last seats at our table were taken by Julia and Stephanie, two friends of Tiffany's from Stanford (though I'd never met either of them while we were there). Julia and Stephanie took the chairs...around to where I was sitting, so that they could sit in the shade as well. We figured no one would mind if they kept their plates on their laps.
The lunch buffet was wonderful--somen and soba noodles, salmon, seared ahi tuna, chicken, rice. The downer was not enough elves running around with pitchers of water, and my liter of water was quickly disposed of.
The main entertainment was the Hawaiian trio. They hung around the tables near where we were, like a trio at a Mexican restaurant. It took us a while to figure out that they were hanging where the shade was the greatest.
The best entertainment came in two separate and personal events. In one, Tiffany and her mother did a hula dance for Wyndham. (Tiff's mom grew up in Hawaii, which may explain some of the Hawaiian theme.) I'm not sure what the story of the dance was, but it involved much finger-waggling. And it was cool to see the two of them moving in sync like that.
The other event was Tiff's father coming up to the front, taking a ukelele, and strumming along as he sang a song (I don't know what it was, but it had the words Endless Summer repeated a lot). Lots of people started crying at that. Evidently he used to sing that a lot when she was little. I was reminded of how my father called me "Princess" right before I got married, which he used to call me all the time when I was little.
At the end, of course, was the cake. The caterers kept taking the cake out and putting it on the cake table, and you could just hear the psychic screams--"Put it back!" The final time I could see one of the frosting seashells on the side of the cake slide right off onto the table. Tiff and Wyndham cut the cake (without so very much pushing it into one another's faces, thank you) and the caterers whisked it away to cut it up and dole it out with mango ice cream.
Strangely, no one had any coffee with their cake.
After the cake, Darin and I said our goodbyes and headed out. I was completely enervated by the day (even though it had been very beautiful and fun). As we walked back to the garage he said, "We can walk as fast as we like. I'm totally covered in sweat."
Not surprisingly, we were out like that when we got home.
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Copyright 1998 Diane Patterson
Send comments and questions to diane@spies.com