My Dad the PCP Fiend, or How Jen's Wedding Went
Posted by erin at October 20, 2004 01:14 PMI went back home to Michigan last weekend for my friend Jen's wedding. Jen, as you may or may not know, was my best friend for about eight years, from 7th grade to my sophomore year of college. I've known Jen even longer than that - she was in my kindergarten class and my 4th grade class. So I got to be a bridesmaid in her wedding. But I didn't get to be the Maid of Honor, because Jen has a sister.
Anyway, while I was home it turned out my dad had gotten a job at somewhere that required a drug test. His drug test came back positive for PCP use! This was extremely funny to all of us, particularly since my dad couldn't pronounce the word "phencyclidine" when the nurse showed him the test. My dad is clearly not a PCP fiend, so they sent the test on to a different lab for more testing. Meanwhile they suspended him from working at the place, and he received a check for $9.12 for the brief time he'd worked there so far. The $9 check was also a great source of fun. To top off the weekend, my dad shined N.'s shoes before the wedding. My brother reported to me that this was the highlight of his entire week.
The wedding itself was not nearly so bad as the last wedding Hal went to. It wasn't too fancy or expensive-seeming, but it wasn't lame or anything either. Everything was very tastefully done and not at all stuck up. Even the country club the reception took place at was not snobby at all. You could hardly tell it was a country club, according to N. N. was even impressed at the ceremony, that the minister was an OK guy and not too preachy at all. The ceremony wasn't too long and boring.
Now I go on for like 20 minutes about my parent's barn...
It was somewhat emotional for me, which was sort of weird. I mean, of course Jen was really nervous beforehand, but I'd been expecting that day to come since about 7th grade. On the other hand, it was odd to see that the day I'd been expecting had finally arrived. And here was Jen, once a sullen fourth grader, and now in a wedding dress.
Often on trips back home it seems as if everything has stayed the way I left it. This time, there were many signs of the passage of time. A lot of new houses had been constructed in the area. A tree in my parents yard that had been a seedling when I left is now a really thick tree. Two of my high school friends had children that were a year old. There was a part of downtown Ann Arbor where a one-way street was now two way, and a massive new building had gone up. My parents informed me that my uncle, next month, would be moving the barn in front of our house down the road and attaching it to his store.
Moving the barn is something my uncle has been talking about for several years now, but I couldn't picture it actually happening. My parent's barn is huge, and over 100 years old, and it towers above the house, elevated on a little hill. The view from the house is of the barn. The barn might actually pre-date the house. The paint faded a long time ago, probably before I was born. The barn is so old that one gets the impression it has always been there, and as a kid, I assumed it always would be there. I've seen other old barns in the area collapse and decay over time, but our barn, still in use for some storage of straw and occasionally pigs, was still in use, and not collapsing at all.
The cupola started tilting a couple years ago and blew off maybe last year or the year before. So it's kind of like the barn's been "topless" for a little while. The weird part is that there are small plants growing out of the top where the cupola used to be.
But here I am going on for pages and pages about the freaking barn. I'm sure you'd like here more about the wedding.
I got to see my old track coach from high school. She quit coaching and working when I was a junior because she got pregnant and there were complications. She was in bed for months because of a blood clot. The birth went fine and stuff, BUT THAT CHILD IS NOW EIGHT YEARS OLD! It's weird that my cousin who was born when I was in college is in kindergarten, but it's weird that this 8-year-old was born when I was in high school. The coach in question decided to have a second child recently, and this time the pregnancy had proceeded normally.
I also got to see my old chemistry teacher. He was also the athletic director of the school after I'd been in high school a bit, and unlike the previous athletic director he went to ALL the sporting events, not just football games. He even took over coaching the cross country team when our other coach had to leave. His son coached the track team for a while. Long after I left the chemistry teacher took Jen's sister's cross country team to the state meet... and they did really well... which is a big deal for me and if you know the history of the cross country team. What a great guy.
I felt kinda bad for the fuss I'd made in the pre-wedding planning. I didn't like the strapless bridesmaid dresses Jen and her mother required, I hated the shoes, I complained about this and that. In the end, the dresses looked great on everyone, including me, despite how strapless dresses usually look bad on me. The shoes didn't fit, but I didn't wear them for long anyway. Jen's family gave me (and the other bridesmaids who had to travel very far to get there) little gift baskets of cookies and other things. Jen gave everyone in the wedding party a flask as a gift. So now I have a flask that I can take to sci-fi and anime cons and stuff. After all that, I felt like a jerk for complaining so much.
It'll be a while before the pictures are up. I should've planned ahead and borrowed a digital camera, but meh. My hair was done in a really interesting way (by someone else) and my make-up was also nice (also done by someone else) to the point where I looked like someone else entirely, what with a hairstyle and a dress and make-up and all.
Oh yeah, and at the end of the weekend, my dad got the job after all.
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October 21, 2004 09:48 AM, N. said:
Your dad's check was for $9.18 - don't stiff him the $.06, he might need it!
Also, getting my shoes shined may have been the highlight of my weekend too, although the wedding was the least uncomfortable of any I've ever attended (not that many at all, I'll admit, but still).
Other, unmentioned highlights were --
The minister was either affecting a dead-on Jimmy Stewart accent, or Jimmy Stewart rose from the grave and wore a minister's costume for the service.
The groom flashed this nerve-wracked shit-eating-grin to everyone right before the actual ceremony began. Ear-to-ear. He looked like one of Hal's sheep drawings.
When the bride put the ring on the groom's finger she said, "um. . . Here you go!"
Adorable.
November 8, 2004 05:49 PM, JEN said:
I dont actually remember saying, "um...here you go!" when i gave josh his ring, but I sure might have. Though I missed the huge grin on his face, I betcha it was all nerves. Funny thing, as I was the freaking nervous bride in the months before, (taking sedatives to calm down and make it through each day) I was totally fine on my wedding day. The groom, who was not nervous at all in the weeks before the wedding, was gulping shots out of one of the new flasks because he was scaired to death of, "standing in front of all those people."
I knew those flasks would come in handy!
One of the best parts of the day was actually seeing Erin all dressed up, considering only a handful of times in my life have I seen her in something other than jeans and converse. I got many, many comments on how nice she looked with her hair all done up and makeup on.
By the way Finnegan, my mother mentioned that there was as much make-up in her bathroom the day of the wedding, as there was years ago, when we did that anti-makeup movie in her bathroom. Gee, how ironic.
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