I don’t know why I always face weddings with such dread. Maybe in part because I never know what to wear. I can imagine how stoopid that sounds to anyone who really knows me. Y’all are probably scratching your heads, thinking something like, “but she always wears that same outfit.” And that’s pretty close. I hate to get dressed up and I hate to shop for things to get dressed up in and so I wait until it’s too late and then I panic and end up wearing some 15-year-old outfit or other. And shoes. It’s summer and I must’ve dithered all day yesterday about whether I could get away with wearing my nice new velcro hiking sandals. Chacos, that is. New? I bought them the week before I went to California. That’s over a year ago. But that’s “new” for a pair of shoes in a place where vee-hickles last 16 years and counting. I remember the young whipper-snapper clerk at Bivouac eyeing my knobbly old feet with great suspicion and telling me he didn’t think the sandals fit me right and he’d have to check with his manager (!!!!!) before he could sell them to me. Say what???? Hey, I was, uh, *shopping*! Did I mention how much I looooooooove to shop? All I needed was for him and his “manager” to be analyzing my feet. I was mortified. These are velcro sandals, fer kee-reist! Somehow I managed to talk him into just letting me pay for the blasted sandals and then I high-tailed it out of there. And for the record, those sandals have about a gazillion miles on them now and my feet are fine, thank you very much.

And then there’s the small-talk issue. Like, I have a horrible time answering questions like, “how are you?” Um, doo-ya have five hours or so? I mean, I will be saying something like, “I’m fine”, in a limp little voice and my brain will be skyrocketing all over the universe thinking about my work and my family and all the fascinating projects I am furiously working on (or more likely day-dreaming about and not working on). But I never know what people really want to know when they ask that and I suspect most human beings (myself included, unfortunately) are just asking because it’s polite and may not really be all that interested in the answer. Or may not understand it. Like when I was in college. I always hated the question, “What is your major?” Because I would say, “music”. And then (if they didn’t think I was a singer, god forbid), they would ask what instrument I played, and when I replied, “flute”, they would say something like, “oh wow, that’s sooooo cool, have you heard of Jethro Tull?” Sigh. Yes, I know who the flutist Ian Anderson is. He’s in the band Jethro Tull (helloooo). I think he is very cool but I am a classical flute player and you just wouldn’t understand music by composers like Ibert or Jolivet or Bozza. Or even Mozart, for that matter. We won’t go into the stuff that would follow any truthful answer to, “where are you from?” and I have no words for “what’re you into?”

Yesterday, with my usual wedding trepidation, I waited to get dressed until 15 minutes before we left. I decided *not* to wear my Chacos, although I probably could’ve gotten away with wearing them. And I took a deep breath about the small-talk stuff. And what the heck was I worried about? I had an absolutely wonderful time! I mean, these are my wild, wonderful, non-stop-talking (at least in my generation), fun-loving *in-laws*. The Courtois clan knows how to throw a party (among other things) and this was a beautiful wedding and we gabbled and cackled and hugged the whole night. I am honored to be a part of it all. I even danced at the reception. Once. With my brother-in-law, also father of the bride, our niece Suzie (spelling?). She married her fiance Mike, of non-trivial zeros and other mathematical adventures. I won’t try to tell their story here because it is their story if when and where they want to tell it. But congratulations to all and an official welcome to Mike as he joins our family.

Love to all. Kayak Woman.

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