Ch. 166; Vol. 10
Posnians. [PAW-z-nee-ehns.]
That’s what the brochure called them, buried deep in the caves of Augusta. The ancient archaeological site Puck and I discovered, and inadvertently mangled. Skull and skinny bones. Shiny orange and yellow ceremonial rattles. Shrink wrapped.
Puck voyaged into the glass bubble biodomes of Minecraft by nine o’clock that morning, beside himself…
“This is so much cool!!”
But we couldn’t play all morning. Library books, dish gloves, Father’s Day chocolate, cat scratcher, Chick-Fil-A. And then Wedding #2 on the year. A month after the wedding of childhood friend — Curly — Annamaria would tie a knot in St. Peters with Joe’s newest addition best bud, Thunderbird.
Showers. Blue robot underwear for my son. A little brown magic marker to blend in the cowboy boot scuffs. Out the door, in the car.
So, for the third English wedding – and third girl – the largest turnout. Annamaria is one popular kid. Looked like Thunderbird was, too. We joined old friends from Baptist days, Louisiana, Alabama.
Miss Annamaria found herself standing under an arch of white gauze and silk roses crafted by my sisters and Mom.
The ushers were having “issues”. Joe didn’t wear a suit coat [apparently no one told him to do it]. Then Tor forgot to meet Joe in the foyer so they could roll out the aisle runner together, which, when they finally did walk rapidly back down the aisle to grab it, it started to snag. Red-faced, they continued to tug until…
R-i-i-i-i-p!
I’m not sure how they did it, because I was trying to disguise laughter, as were my siblings, but they eventually got it rolling again and the ladies made their appearance in brown curls, sapphire dresses, and bundles of yellow roses. Annamaria marched to an original composition of Bing’s creation, and the deed was done. Despite the antics of rookie ushers, whom, as I have been told, originally requested to be administered the roles of “flower girls”. After all, what’s a wedding without a little funny?
Anyway, when we found seats at the Elks Lodge up 79 an hour later, Carrie and Rose were already facilitating the last arrangements of candles in glassware and bottles of sparkling pink lemonade. While we waited for the party to arrive, Puck chomped goldfish crackers; Grandma Combs is good about anticipating necessities. Francis expounded on his future goals of engineering…
“Yeah, and then I told him I’ll transfer to Lindenwood, no, I mean MIZZOU…”
“No, no, Francis. Not MIZZOU,” I informed him.
[I’m used to this role.]
“Wait, what? Yeah, I’m going to MIZZOU.”
“No, UMSL.”
“UMSL?”
“Yes. It’ll save Dad tons of money. Trust me.”
“Oh, ok. So anyway, I’ll transfer to UMSL…”
Some things in life are easy.
Cheese sticks, STL toasted ravioli, fruit-and-veg trays. Squares of ice cream cake stacked in yellow roses and blue… something… maybe roses? And, I’ll hand it to Thunderbird, he didn’t mess around with smashing any ice cream cake into his bride’s face. But he did make her fish for it a little bit.
I’m pretty sure the party went on for some time. A 20-piece St. Louis swing band kind of keeps them hanging around for awhile. What will people remember about your wedding after all?…
“They’ll forget the dresses and the flowers and decorations,” Carrie says, from years of high school experience working at a banquet center. “But they’ll remember two things – the food, and the music.”
Now, I don’t know about Annamaria, folks, but all I can say is, if I had a perky mini storm float in just around the time the bouquet was tossed – a little driving wind and rain, some cracking thunder – I’d be pretty darn pleased with my whole wedding day situation.
I guess we’re two down, one to go on the year when Magnus gives the nod. Life keeps going on like that. We all have our day in the sun somewhere, somehow, sometime. And so far, it looks like things are going pretty well. Heck, today I even danced with my husband for the second time in my life.
