Weekend
Wrote most of this last night, but didn't get a chance to post it 'til now.
Saturday I flew to SeaTac, then rented a car and drove down to Tacoma. Had dinner with family at East & West Cafe (see also another review), an excellent Thai/Vietnamese restaurant that I strongly recommend, should you ever find yourself in Tacoma. Grandma was tired, having spent the morning at a Kerry rally, but I hung out with my father and his wife Nancy for a while after dinner. Played pinochle—I had astonishingly good luck, getting dealt four different aces on three or four different hands, and four different queens on two or three hands—and chatting about books and math (my father showed me an interesting math problem I may post at some point), and then I drove up to Seattle.
I had been expecting that I would be staying in a mother-in-law apartment (that consisted of the bottom floor of a house) on my own, but it turned out there were three people I didn't know (other wedding guests) up and about in the house when I got there at 10:30 p.m.; they had all flown in from the east coast, but they were talkative and energetic, while I, even though on west-coast time, was totally exhausted. A fun conversation about the usual sorts of topics—jobs, art, computer stuff, nipple piercing—but I was already low on social energy and knew I'd need a lot of it for Sunday, so around 11:30 I stumbled off to bed, barely able to keep my eyes open.
I slept deeply but (to nobody's surprise) intermittently. (I told David H. that I'd had trouble sleeping, and he said, "~You? Trouble sleeping? Impossible!~" or words to that effect.) Got up and immediately headed off for breakfast/brunch with Debby B., John P., their daughter Rose (who's become a toddler while I wasn't looking), David H., Annie S., and their daughter Claire, who's likewise suddenly toddlerized herself. It was great to see them all. Both children were extremely cute, and I played with them on and off through the morning. Rose had been told that company was coming, which she apparently interpreted as indicating that my name was Company; it took a while to disabuse her of that notion. (My sleepy brain wants to make a joke about child disabuse, but I'm trying to dissuade it.) After we ate, we went to the park for a while; eventually it was nap time.
I got lost on the way back to where I was staying—Seattle is not the easiest city in the world to navigate, even with a map, what with all the streets that dead-end and then continue later, and the ones that you can't turn left from, and the two-lane roads that look like they go straight but turn out to consist of one left-turn-only lane and one right-turn-only lane. Eventually I managed to cross I-5, and found Broadway, and went to Starbucks (sacrilege, I know, in the City of a Thousand Excellent Independent Coffee Stands, but I knew I could get exactly what I wanted there, which I guess is why people eat at McDonald's while traveling too) and got a frappucino, figuring that if I were that tired in the early afternoon I'd be a zombie by the time of the wedding. So I had some caffeine, and later took some painkillers and drank some water, and ironed my shirt and put on my suit (I've got to get the waistband of the suit pants taken out a little, sadly, or else I've got to start getting more exercise), and drove off to the wedding site. Fortunately, I left the house early, 'cause I figured I would get lost. And I did; getting to the area of the wedding included a good 20 minutes of driving around a neighborhood that appeared on the map to be a simple grid. I think next time I come up, I'll get a better map.
Ellie's wedding took place on the shores of Lake Washington, in a park in the sunshine, with Mt. Rainier in the distance. Couldn't have asked for nicer weather, especially in Seattle. I helped set up the sound system ahead of time; the sound guy was running the system off his car battery, and halfway through the ceremony the mic suddenly went dead; disaster was narrowly averted through the amazingly rapid application of a jump-start.
Other than that, the ceremony went smoothly. It was a fairly traditional Jewish wedding, aside from both participants being female. (John said, "Wait, are we on the bride's side or the bride's side?") A nice ceremony, officiated by a nice and friendly rabbi (also female) who I think is a longtime friend of Ellie's, and who knew how to use a microphone while officiating. I got a little teary right at the beginning, and spent a lot of time grinning. Took several blurry photos.
Afterward, we wandered up to the place where the reception was to eat scrumptious food and listen to a klezmer band. There was a great deal of dancing, all of which I successfully avoided. Spent most of the evening chatting with folks I already knew, but did get a chance to introduce myself to Ellie's sister, who I've been hearing about and seeing photos of for, oh, fifteen years, but hadn't ever previously met (I don't think), and to chat briefly with Els (sister of someone I know via email fictionary game, cousin of a well-known sf writer; also knows Dominus and Ranjit, but who doesn't? I'd met her very briefly years ago, but don't think I'd ever really talked with her before). And to chat (and perhaps flirt just a little bit) with another old friend of Ellie's whom I'd never had a chance to talk with before. There were a bunch of cute dykes in attendance, many of them long-term couples with children—I still think there ought to be a "Dykes with Tykes" contingent in Pride marches.
At various points in the evening I meant to mention last week's excellent Dick Cheney quote, but I kept forgetting. Did you folks hear about this? Speaking in Iowa, in response to a question about gay marriage, Cheney talked about his daughter being a lesbian, and said:
With respect to the question of relationships, my general view is that freedom means freedom for everyone. People ought to be ... free to enter into any kind of relationship they want to.
There are still plenty of reasons to dislike the man, but I thought that was really cool. For more about that, see the Denver Post editorial. You can hear the sound clip at the NPR site.
(While I was typing the above, a song from The Music Man came up on iTunes: "You ought to give Iowa a try. . . .")
Anyway. After the reception wound down, I headed back to where I was staying; spent a while trying to re-enlist with AOL in order to get a Net connection to post the SH issue, 'cause I didn't think Brian was around to do it, but it turned out he got home early and got everything posted. Yay, Brian!
There was more socializing with the others staying at the house, but I was too wiped to talk with them. I'm afraid they may've found me standoffish, but nothing to be done.
Got up early (for me) this morning and drove to the airport; the drive and the ensuing flight were uneventful. Came home and worked at home.
