I was sick as a sick beast yesterday, and couldn't even write the wedding entry until midnight, when I began to feel human and could eat food. I don't know what it was; I had held on all day at work, but once I got home I was just laced with tummy pain (but not diverticulitis) and then came the nausea and its accompanying unloading of whatever I'd eaten all day. But I felt much better after sleeping a couple of hours, and I woke up at midnight and had toast. I had already called in sick for Wednesday, which frankly I am too busy to do, but I couldn't see going in after being so sick and not eating real food Tuesday night, so here I am.So, two priests walk into a wedding. In fact, at the rehearsal, Father M ("the gay one") made mention of this being something of an ecumenical service, which sounded good. Father B ("the senile one") nodded and smiled. Now, neither of these guys is from a church the groom or his family belong to, because they don't belong to a church. But they have known Father B for many years and he's a family friend. So they asked him to do the ceremony, and Father M came along because Father B can't be left to do this on his own anymore. All fine with that. And both of them, truly, were lovely.
But as the ceremony began, Father B either forgot or just picked up an old rythm, and all of a sudden, there were lots of prayers flying around in the name of Our Lord, Jesus Christ. Not that there's anything wrong with that, if that's what you happen to believe in. But in this case, the groom doesn't, although his family is technically of some Christian background, and the bride and her whole family are Jewish. Once that name slipped in once, it just kept coming up, and Father M, who knew better, had to say it too because he was saying certain prayers along with the old man and they would both have to say the same thing.
At the end, however, there was a glass for the groom to step on, which is the way a Jewish wedding typically ends: there is a glass (usually a light bulb these days; they pop nicely) wrapped in a cloth napkin, which the groom stomps on and everyone yells "Mazel Tov!" (which means "good luck.")
We were sure that Cousin E would freak at the Christian-ness of the ceremony, but she liked it. She said afterwards that a religious ceremony of any kind is always nicer than a civil one. (Which makes me wonder what she thought of my civil ceremony, but okay.) Really though, a lot of it must have just slipped by her. This is the woman who said 40 years ago when her sons were still children that if one of them ever brought home a non-Jewish bride, she would put her head in the oven. Which was a saying at the time. She has mellowed; her older son (in his fifties) has a non-Jewish girlfriend for many years, and nothing would make E happier at this point than for them to marry. Times change. But she -- E, not the lovely girlfriend -- is a pretty sanctimonious and judgmental sort of person, and always has been, so it's hard to imagine that she's mellowed that much. But maybe.
Back to me, me, me! I slept well and woke up pretty washed out but otherwise not sick. So it's been my day to catch up on laundry (since I didn't do any over the weekend) and even a little food shopping in the afternoon (since I didn't get to do that, either.) My house is a little tidied up, and K is well on her way to assembling what she needs to take back to D.C. on Saturday.
It's real hot here these days, another reason I was not looking forward to going to work feeling less than tip top. When the a/c in the library died last year, we were informed that it will not be repaired since the company that made the units is out of business and there are no replacement parts. What a surprise. Most of our windows are non-functional, and it's just a great big box of dead air in there. The SCM is going to be out tomorrow, which is only fair, since I was out today.
The doorbell just rang, a flower delivery. A bouquet of long-stemmed sunflowers -- how cool is that? From our new nephew, as thanks, for all of us, the family. What a honey.
