Wading in the Velvet Sea

Now, most of you along the East Coast got hit with snow and shite a lot more than us Bostonians. God knows it. You might think we hardy New Englanders could handle a few inches of the white stuff (snow, people, snow…as in falls from the sky, as in…oh nevermind) but alas, it’s all talk. Come a few inches, and we turn into frickin’ wimps---traffic slows, schools and canceled, and all you have to do is wipe the stuff off your windshield with your gloved hand. But lo and behold, I leave work a full 3 hours early, to make it early on the road. I hit the road at 3:15, for what is usually a 30 minute drive.

One hour and fifty minutes later, I get to the church.

I’ve never seen traffic snarl so much without any accidents. Just stunning. It’s almost like the escape from Gondor before the climatic battle, when the king is leading people to be burned alive, and…oh yea, back to the story. So I go through like 5 CDs on the way, including one I really shouldn’t have listened to. More to come on that.

Anyways, I had the heat cranked up pretty high. I decide to both turn it down and go from vent to more of a front blowing system. Keep the heat on, just stop it from redirecting right into my face. Well, within about 10 seconds the whole windshield fogs up something fierce. Quickly I readjust back to Vent and crank it all up. But to no avail, the damage has been done, and now the line of fog is creeping up as slowly as the incoming box office receipts for ‘Paid in Full’. So I have about 6’’ of space to look through, so by the time I get off Route 2, I’m Quasi-Frickin’-Modo in the car. Just insane. I finally resort to wiping the windshield with my sleeve, which of course mars it all up, and, oh hell, I’m getting mad typing it all out, sufficed to say the car ride did sucketh the fatteth one.

OK, so now I am 30 minutes early to the church, but no way in hell am I getting back on the road, even to get a coffee, which I need since I had a 14 hour workday yesterday and 6 hours of sleep after that and a balls-out work day today. So here I am, alone in church, and wouldn’t you know it, the last CD of the car ride is in my head and I just can’t get it out. I had been listening to ‘The Eminem Show’.

Now, I’m not what you’d call a religious man, but I knew that was bad. I mean, Jesus. Literally.

So here I am, in this holy shrine, and this is running through my head:

They call me Superman,
Leap tall hoes in a single bound,
I'm single now,
Got no ring on this finger now,
I'll never let another chick bring me down,
In a relationship, save it bitch, babysit? you make me sick,
Superman ain’t savin’ shit, girl you can jump on Shady's dick,
Straight from the hip, cut to the chase,
I'll tell a mo'fuckin slut to her face’

Any so on. Not good times. Serious bad times. Doesn’t help that, as I’m taking pictures sans flash, that this church is giving me the creeps.

This looks like Hogwart's Church, with the floating lights and all.

In a little bit, everyone else is there, and suddenly I’m wishing to be alone again. The tension could power a city block. Just…ack. Unbeknowst to me and my dad, we’re both in the procession. We think this is weird. I inform him that I am supposed to only do a reading, and what were we doing now?

‘The same thing we always do, Ryan,’ he says. ‘What we’re told.’

Point taken. So, the priest proves his incompetence rather quickly by announcing that my grandmother will lead the procession down the roughly 100 yard walkway by herself. OK, I love her dearly, but she can’t make it across the living room on her own. I whisper to my cousin’s boyfriend, ‘Do you think they have Segways here? That might come in handy.’ (I’m already going to hell, another blasphemy in a church ain’t gonna hurt my fall.) So, solution is my cousin Larry will walk her down.

Well, he was also supposed to walk my mom and her sister down the aisle, and have a great photo op. The priest explains that it would take too long for my cousin to walk my grandmother down, walk back, then walk the other two women down, and people just want to see the bride anyways. I had never seen a mental middle finger given to a priest before tonight, but hey, there’s a first for everything. This guy is oh for two at this point.

I don’t know what it is about rehearsals for weddings but somewhere along the line the rules dictate that everyone is supposed to completely lose their shit, apparently. We now sit in the third row, myself, my mom, and my dad. On Saturday my aunt and girlfriend will be in this aisle. My grandmother is completely befuddled in the 2nd row, and out of nowhere an Abbott and Costello routine busts out in a hushed whisper so the priest can’t hear us trying to undermine his plan, apparently.

Mom: Now, on Saturday you’ll be in the 4th row.

Grandmother: I don’t know what’s going on.

And so forth, which culminating in my mother all but offering to tazer me. Now, bless her heart, my grandmother has hearing problems. Eventually we discover my grandmother should have been in the 3rd row after all. She’s happier but still utterly confused. My mom is still banishing from the row in two weeks. And my dad keeps telling me that Who’s on First. And while it’s not nice that my grandmother is hard of hearing, it is amusing to hear Mom say, ‘Jesus Christ, she’s gonna drive me up a frickin’ wall’ in a church with my grandmother 4 feet away, completely oblivious.

OK, so much for writing it all tonight, will update you guys on the party afterwards, along with more pics....including one of a special blogger I finally met tonite out of the clear blue!