Chapter 924. In which our heroine goes to a wedding.
My room smells like lavender. That's not entirely random.
Today I went to the wedding of![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
samildanach and llynecat. I'm usually a little apprehensive about weddings in the last year or two, since I've been going alone and often don't know many people.
But, this time, it worked out okay. I should have guessed the minute I saw the seating tags, and all the tables were named after sci-fi/fantasy authors -- Heinlein, Gaiman, Tolkien, LeGuin, etc. I was at the table of pretty much the only author I hadn't heard of -- Charles Stross. They had helpfully put a book by each author on the tables, so we had Iron Sunrise. As it turned out, about half the people on the table knew who he was and half didn't. Either way, the upshot was, most of the guests were geeky enough types of people and pretty friendly, the sort that didn't blink at naming tables after sci-fi authors, basically.
I got there at about 3:58pm for a 4pm wedding, due to some construction or something on Mercer. I think there was some mixup with parking though, and things got underway about 10-15 minutes late anyway.
They had a nice non-religious ceremony with lots of poems and other readings. Jack's sister Peggy was the maid of honor and our boss Rich was the best man. No, I'm really not making that up. I was sitting next to Jack's godparents and I was like "Oh my GOD, that's my BOSS!" It made sense in a strange way though, since Jack usually acts more like Rich is an older brother than a boss anyway.
I didn't bring a camera for once. I felt like the only person there without one. It was funny and an odd reversal.
Our table at dinner had 7 people at it including me, 3 of whom were Llyne's friends from back east, 2 of whom live down the hall from J&L (well, at least I know Jason does, I'd met him once before, I'm not sure if his girlfriend lives here or not), and 1 of whom wasaquatwo who I hadn't seen in a while. After the dinner part we were joined by one of Llyne's friends whose name I'm not sure I caught (Kristen?), and there was cake-cutting and toasting and stuff.
For the toast, they had shots of scotch for everyone. The scotch was from the specific island in Scotland where they got engaged. Unfortunately, I am incapable of drinking scotch apparently, though I think I amused everyone else at the table with the faces I was making as I attempted to sip it after each toast. I felt sort of bad, like this fine scotch was wasted on me.
I talked to a guy at my table for a while, who it just occurred to me I never caught the name of. He was being antisocial and refused to dance, and I was wearing somewhat undanceable shoes and am somewhat awful at non-structured dancing, so I sat around and chatted for a while. Then I foundpedantka (who was, appropriately, at the Tolkien table) and her husband who I hadn't met before, and talked to them for a while. Her husband is a dead ringer for my one of my CMU friends, which was both good and bad. Good because it meant I didn't even have any "I don't know this person, what do I say to them?" alarms going off in my head, but bad because I kept almost calling him by my CMU friend's name instead.
Jack's family is really pretty cool. His dad also works at GE, actually, but I'd never seen him before; maybe I've just not been around if/when he's visited our floor. His mom is funny and back-led a ton of dance steps with Jack, who looked completely baffled and which was entirely entertaining. And well, Peggy is cool but I knew that already. I didn't really get to meet Llyne's family at all, come to think of it.
Anyway, eventually the partying wound down and we all were given these little sacks of lavender seeds, and we went outside and everyone threw lavender seeds (instead of rice, see) at Jack and Llyne as they left the reception hall and went into a nice white car which they were chauffered off in. (They don't own a car, so we didn't get to decorate one with cans and stuff. I never thought of what happens in that case, heh.) I was sort of near the end of the line though and as such didn't get a chance to throw much, so my bag is still filled with seeds.
I came home after that, and sat around hanging out with Zach and Carl a bit, and then did some chores like taking out the trash and whatnot. I came back upstairs to write and read and stuff, and put in the Garnet Crow best songs album that I'd picked up in Japan, and it's really good.
As an aside, I ended up wearing the shoes Eli used to refer to as my "dress chucks", the black-black ones, because well... I can't FIND my black maryjane flats OR my high heels or well, anything other than sneakers. I'm hoping they're just in one of the last few boxes I didn't unpack, rather than lost in the move. I can't actually remember if I had the flats when I was in California for that wedding; I think the last time I wore my heels was swing dancing in Pittsburgh, before the move.
And, as it is, lavender seeds have a pretty strong smell. I think I should probably put the bag in a drawer somewhere.
Today I went to the wedding of
samildanach and llynecat. I'm usually a little apprehensive about weddings in the last year or two, since I've been going alone and often don't know many people.But, this time, it worked out okay. I should have guessed the minute I saw the seating tags, and all the tables were named after sci-fi/fantasy authors -- Heinlein, Gaiman, Tolkien, LeGuin, etc. I was at the table of pretty much the only author I hadn't heard of -- Charles Stross. They had helpfully put a book by each author on the tables, so we had Iron Sunrise. As it turned out, about half the people on the table knew who he was and half didn't. Either way, the upshot was, most of the guests were geeky enough types of people and pretty friendly, the sort that didn't blink at naming tables after sci-fi authors, basically.
I got there at about 3:58pm for a 4pm wedding, due to some construction or something on Mercer. I think there was some mixup with parking though, and things got underway about 10-15 minutes late anyway.
They had a nice non-religious ceremony with lots of poems and other readings. Jack's sister Peggy was the maid of honor and our boss Rich was the best man. No, I'm really not making that up. I was sitting next to Jack's godparents and I was like "Oh my GOD, that's my BOSS!" It made sense in a strange way though, since Jack usually acts more like Rich is an older brother than a boss anyway.
I didn't bring a camera for once. I felt like the only person there without one. It was funny and an odd reversal.
Our table at dinner had 7 people at it including me, 3 of whom were Llyne's friends from back east, 2 of whom live down the hall from J&L (well, at least I know Jason does, I'd met him once before, I'm not sure if his girlfriend lives here or not), and 1 of whom was
aquatwo who I hadn't seen in a while. After the dinner part we were joined by one of Llyne's friends whose name I'm not sure I caught (Kristen?), and there was cake-cutting and toasting and stuff.For the toast, they had shots of scotch for everyone. The scotch was from the specific island in Scotland where they got engaged. Unfortunately, I am incapable of drinking scotch apparently, though I think I amused everyone else at the table with the faces I was making as I attempted to sip it after each toast. I felt sort of bad, like this fine scotch was wasted on me.
I talked to a guy at my table for a while, who it just occurred to me I never caught the name of. He was being antisocial and refused to dance, and I was wearing somewhat undanceable shoes and am somewhat awful at non-structured dancing, so I sat around and chatted for a while. Then I found
pedantka (who was, appropriately, at the Tolkien table) and her husband who I hadn't met before, and talked to them for a while. Her husband is a dead ringer for my one of my CMU friends, which was both good and bad. Good because it meant I didn't even have any "I don't know this person, what do I say to them?" alarms going off in my head, but bad because I kept almost calling him by my CMU friend's name instead. Jack's family is really pretty cool. His dad also works at GE, actually, but I'd never seen him before; maybe I've just not been around if/when he's visited our floor. His mom is funny and back-led a ton of dance steps with Jack, who looked completely baffled and which was entirely entertaining. And well, Peggy is cool but I knew that already. I didn't really get to meet Llyne's family at all, come to think of it.
Anyway, eventually the partying wound down and we all were given these little sacks of lavender seeds, and we went outside and everyone threw lavender seeds (instead of rice, see) at Jack and Llyne as they left the reception hall and went into a nice white car which they were chauffered off in. (They don't own a car, so we didn't get to decorate one with cans and stuff. I never thought of what happens in that case, heh.) I was sort of near the end of the line though and as such didn't get a chance to throw much, so my bag is still filled with seeds.
I came home after that, and sat around hanging out with Zach and Carl a bit, and then did some chores like taking out the trash and whatnot. I came back upstairs to write and read and stuff, and put in the Garnet Crow best songs album that I'd picked up in Japan, and it's really good.
As an aside, I ended up wearing the shoes Eli used to refer to as my "dress chucks", the black-black ones, because well... I can't FIND my black maryjane flats OR my high heels or well, anything other than sneakers. I'm hoping they're just in one of the last few boxes I didn't unpack, rather than lost in the move. I can't actually remember if I had the flats when I was in California for that wedding; I think the last time I wore my heels was swing dancing in Pittsburgh, before the move.
And, as it is, lavender seeds have a pretty strong smell. I think I should probably put the bag in a drawer somewhere.
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(Rooibus and lavender not so much; I haven't experimented widely yet.)
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I have this feeling a lot of people there have pretty interesting stories behind them too, but it's really hard to talk to anyone at a wedding, especially when the music is loud and all!
But now that you mention it, I remember Cort's post of "My friend Amy is moving to Seattle! You should all say hi to her!" except I think my reaction was "Amaze is on the other side of the stupid lake! Grr!" Though I think I know who you are through Cheryl, and I also grew up in Philadelphia before heading to Carnegie Mellon, so indeed, small world. I guess the only people there who would have known we were both CMU people were Jack and Llyne though, and they were a little bit busy with other stuff for the evening :)
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Where in Philly did you grow up? Cheryl and I lived about half a mile from each other but didn't meet until we were at CMU. My boyfriend is also from Philly (we met out here).
I wonder what it is with Philly people moving to Seattle. Are we indicative of a larger trend?
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I don't think I know that many Philly people out here. Just an ex-housemate from CMU who moved here a year ago or so. Hmm.
Anyway, yeah, to reply to both things, hi! We should hang out sometime. Preferably we could get that silly redhead Cort to come visit one of these years too.