Tiny Grass

And who do you think this is? It’s Arp, of course!

We are still recovering from attending my sister’s wedding a week and a half ago. One of the highlights of the wedding was Arp’s performance as an Elvis impersonator during the reception. The bride and groom requested this special performance, as the groom’s mother is obsessed with Elvis (you can see her in the picture). Rosalie is so enamored of Elvis that every time a person says his name, she literally lets out a little excited yelp. It’s kind of funny to start arbitrarily saying “Elvis” at quiet dinner parties when she is in attendance. It tends to spice things up. Besides being just a plain old nice person, she is a welcome new member of our family due to her fun quirkiness!

Back to Elvis….Arp prepared for his performance for quite some time. He debated over wearing a 50’s Elvis costume or the jumpsuit. But we both decided that the jumpsuit would be more instantly recognizable as Elvis, and more fun besides. He sang Blue Suede Shoes, and did a rockin’ good job of it. Frankly, it turned me on. And he didn’t look as fucked up as Elvis did in some of the videos we watched (in preparation) of his jump suit days. No downers for Arp.

I was able to see many friends and relatives at the wedding that I haven’t seen in a long time. See me and my old friend Meg at right? We lived next door to each other through childhood. Went to kindergarten together. I used to envy her Playmobile. Now I have my own Now M has plenty of Playmobile to play with, thank goodness.

I got seriously drunk at this wedding. When I got married, my little sister got more drunk than I have ever seen her before. She literally fell down a few times on the dance floor. People still talk about how crazy she was. I felt I needed to continue that tradition by doing some craziness of my own! Actually, the big reason I was a tad tipsy was because it was Arp’s turn to be the designated driver. Here’s the funny part: I was already tipsy during the salad course when all these friends of my sister were being called up to do speeches. I had told her a week or so previously that I would try to come up with something to say, but I ended up unable to write a good speech. Unfortunately, my sis didn’t realize that I might not come through. As I sat there, sodden, over my bowl of salad, I heard my name being called up to the mike.

Here is how my speech ended: “So let’s all raise our glasses in honor of missing cookie crumbs, and to welcome John to our family. We love you John!” Don’t ask me how I got from “Congratulations” to cookie crumbs. That is a whole ‘nother blog.

See these two? I can honestly say that they are meant to be. I have no doubt, and either do they. They had the mostly interesting wedding I have ever had the opportunity to view. Much of it was about equality. This a man who is a real feminist, and doesn’t hesitate to say it. I’ve been proud of my little sister for a long time. She is rather idealistic, just like me. Only she lives her idealism and works for change in a way I can only aspire to. She is brave. She helps women who have been sexually assaulted or who need help handling domestic violence. She faces horror every day and works to turn it around. She is fearless. Her new husband is pretty brave to. To love and support a woman who works in domestic violence is pretty hard too, I’d imagine. These two are true friends. I always say to Arp that the part of our marriage that I value the most is our friendship. I’m not sure how my little sister feels about this, but if she values friendship as much as me, I believe her marriage is destined for greatness.

Just a few more pictures that captured the day…

This entry was posted on Tuesday, July 29th, 2008 at 7:34 pm and is filed under reflections. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.