My Cousin's Wedding: Part One

I am safely back from Chicago and have only one thing to say about the traffic down there: whiskey tango foxtrot?? Where are all those people going all the time? And almost all the cars had multiple people in them, so can you imagine if they drove one to a car like the fools around here? Of course I don’t have one of those I-passes, since I’m not driving on the tollway that often, so I brought a roll of quarters and a roll of nickels and had basically used them up by Saturday afternoon. Almost every toll herded us non-I-pass peons to the furthest right lane, but of course there was one toll where cash users were supposed to go to the left, and by the time I realized it, there was nothing I could do. Fortunately the state of Illinois is so generous as to allow you to pay your missed tolls online.

The wedding was very beautiful, and I have lots of pictures but haven’t had a chance to download them off my camera yet. It was in a gazebo behind a country club, and my father, who is an Anglican minister, presided over the ceremony. Tiffy was laughing through his entire sermon, and afterwards she said, “I ought to have your dad do my wedding if I ever get married!” I cannot remember the entire thing, of course, but I will try to reproduce the highlights here:

He talked a good deal about my cousin’s genealogy, and how if our rich British ancestors hadn’t sold their property on the North Shore, we’d all be millionaires today. Then he said he knew nothing about the groom’s family, but since he was from Denmark, my dad assumed he had the same qualities of “Minnesota nice” that Norwegians and Swedes do. He said in the Victorian era, blue was the color of purity rather than white, but people don’t worry about that in this day and age (and I heard Tiffy make a little gasp because my cousin is expecting), but that they should have spiritual purity. Maybe Tiffy can remember some more of the sermon. It left me wavering between squirming in embarrassment and trying not to burst out laughing.

Since it was an unpaid day off of work on Friday, and they had strongly encouraged us all to use the day for volunteer activities, I wore the T-shirt they had given me and had Tiffy take a picture of me picking up a piece of trash. In another state! Where there are actual Bears fans! Am I a good Samaritan, or what? (At the rehearsal dinner I had commented that I was probably the only Packer Backer and the only Papist in the room, but one of the bridesmaids said she is Catholic too.)

This post has gone on long enough, so I’ll continue tomorrow, hopefully with some pretty pictures.

Famous Hat