One More Down

I started off my weekend by getting up early on Friday (well, that was the intention, anyway), throwing some bags into the car (packing some bags to put in the car), and after a three hour drive, showing up in Houston at 10:30 (11:30) in the morning to begin the drive to Oklahoma.

Despite the slow start, my travel companions and I managed to make it to the OK City vicinity around 8:30pm, eventually made it to the last few minutes of a holy hour, and wound up at a restaurant for a late dinner with various other Ave alumni. (The excitement of the evening managed to counterbalance Detroit's depressing loss.) The general tone of the weekend remained the same; many, many Ave alumni hanging out as much as possible and celebrating an Ave wedding. We stayed with a large family of four people and six on Sunday, and one very friendly cat that I was rather unfortunately stopped from bringing home with me, mainly due to the fact that it drooled.

Oklahoma, at least the part that we drove through, is in many respects very beautiful. There was countryside; rocks, fields, flowers, hills. There were colorful trees! The stars were visible and bright at night, the weather was closer to fall weather than TX has yet produced, and there was a light and warm breeze during much of the day. We even saw signs of wildlife (fine, so it was a raccoon) while driving.

The wedding itself also went beautifully, with all of the generally understood wedding stuff occurring, and much dancing afterwards. Of special note, there was an event with the bride's bouquet that needs mentioning. You see, I managed to catch it during the traditional throwing, despite my assurance that I would not do so. It was a result of pure instinct really; there was something large coming within a close distance of my head, an event which one naturally ought to do something about, and which when combined with many years of softball skills more often leads to an easy catch than any other possible reaction. There would have been the same result had it been a shoe, a grenade, or a frightened porcupine. (At least, I assume a porcupine would be frightened if it found itself flying through the air like that.) Now, one might expect that after such an event, I would be accommodating to the perceived rules and consider being the next of the group to get married. There are certain flaws in this line of thinking. For one thing, it supposes that I generally follow the rules instead of making my own.

I can't break my own traditions, so in keeping with my own usual acts, I have no intention of following the rules here either. I intend to let every one of those other girls marry first. This may be made somewhat more difficult by the fact that I don't know who they all were and so cannot keep track, but I will not give in so easily. I will have a long and happy life with my boots, who will be extremely faithful and follow me everywhere, and will finally get married at 93 to a man who thinks my cane and five inch thick glasses are beautiful. He will probably be named Arnold, drive a yellow tractor, and have five little dogs all called Toto.