Reading: Better Homes and Gardens Lawn Care

Moving: nope

House: painted trim again

10 June 2000: Wedding

Saturday was beautiful all day. That was quite a relief, because Tuesday and Wednesday last week were pure hell. With RDC gone, I didn't like to abandon Blake and I figure I should minimize trips to the old pool anyway. So I stayed home, and with it too hot to do anything inside or out and with Blake being quite as demanding as he had been being, mostly I just pet me some buddy head and felt like the ladies in To Kill a Mockingbird who develop crusts of bath water and talc throughout a hot day. Thursday was hot but not humid--is it ever humid here? and Friday cooled down considerably, and then Saturday was just gorgeous, low 80s and purely sunny, all day. (A perfect day to stay inside painting.)

I first noticed how cloudy it had got when we left for the wedding and I looked up and west to clouds. Being as organized as we are, we had to stop at Walgreen's for a wedding card, which I then tucked into the ribbon of the present that had sat in the car since Wednesday. (RDC had a choice word or two on the prudence of leaving a wrapped present in the car (which is parked in the street) for three days, which I admit was pretty stupid.)

It didn't begin to spit rain until we were at the nuptial house, though. And it wasn't really rain, either, not so much as the plants would appreciate and not even so much as a person would feel if she didn't happen to be getting married in someone's backyard. Twice we all pulled the candles and tablecloths from the tables and twice put them back. In between, all the guests crowded onto the covered patio at the front of the house. Now I personally like this kind of thing in a wedding, some one little thing to go wrong for the guests to bond over. This might be a holdover from my own potluck wedding, when nothing went that wrong but in which we needed everyone's help.

Sunlight began to blink through again and, with the bride's go-ahead, for a third time we put everything back on the tables. We scattered petals on the tabletops, which did nothing to hold the cloths down in the gusts that followed.Just before Clove came out, it began to rain again, lightly, and just overhead. That didn't stop Clove, lithe and lovely in dupuoni silk with an incredible sexy open back.

From the west, strong yellow early evening sun streamed slanting under the apple tree that sheltered the bridal couple, and while guests sat in light mist, Dexy and Clove exchanged their vows. This one time, I didn't cry at a wedding but just grinned and grinned for joy at the sunlight, wind, and rain blessing them, and at the rainbow that opened over the house as the officiant pronounced them husband and wife.

Just beautiful.