Amazing how people are the same everywhere…
Visited the Yale campus (NOW I am going to tell everyone, with a casual wave of my hand, “I went to Yale”…)and had pizza at a restaurant(Frank Pepe’s in New Haven) nearby, so famous for its “tomato pies” (it dates back to the time before it was referred to as pizza!) that there were 30 people in line before us!
Visited the bride's parents in Mystic, and found the bride trying on her wedding dress and joined everyone in making helpful and unhelpful comments...
Felt so comfortable with the bride's parents and grandparents, empathized with the way Cait (the bride)'s mother was feeling (though I must say she looks far more peaceful and organized than *I* did, a day before my daughter's wedding!)
Met up with a lot of the Shaffer relatives and friends who had taken all the trouble to come to the DnA wedding (almost exactly 2 years ago!) or whom I met last year at the wedding reception in Maine..and basked in the warmth of renewed acquaintanceship. Indeed, in several cases, it is ripeneing into friendship now, for example, Gordon Bennett who makes and sells bells (check his SUPERB work at www.grbbells.com) and Denise,Lynn's sister,a graphic designer, and John O'Herne who is a museum curator at Corning, NY....they are all people whom I keep in touch with fairly regulary.
The men of the Shaffer family went to rent tuxedos (that's also something we wouldn't do in India!)...there's going to be a March of the Penguins look at the wedding!
The "rehearsal dinner" was hosted by the S's after the immediate family rehearsed the ceremony (now that's somehting we certainly don't have in India!) and there were a lot of new people to meet, and I thoroughly enjoyed it (it helps that everyone is so appreciative of the fact that we have travelled so far to attend the wedding!)...LS had made things MUCH easier by asking everyone to wear the name tags she had prepared.
I find people really fascinating. I spoke to two of the bridegroom's friends...one, Matt, did an undergrad degree in Economics but is now doing his masters' in theological studies, in a seminary..unusual for a 27 or 28 year old, don't you think?...and the other,Brian, teaches Chinese, after going to China several times as a student and a Peace Corps volunteer, and learning the language.
I met someone who holds s doctorate in the history of music, and teaches at Vassar (it is apparently no longer an exclusively women's college), someone who is a fashion designer in New York (NO she did NOT compliment me on my outfit, sob, sob, but more about my outfit a little later), and so it went...I do wish they would keep their name tags on today because I am going to get a lot of people confused, I think!
I took a trip to the restroom as they call the toilets here and was mighty gratified to be the centre of attention of three ladies who oohed and aahed over the Sri Lankan outfit I teamed with a scarf I bought in Bangalore...
Enjoyed looking at the clothes and the jewellery at the party, and though the colours and the clothes were obviously different, the idea of dressing up and celebrating is the same all over the world...
I am typing this in the early morning now; I am looking forward to the pre-wedding brunch that LS' mother, a redoubtable lady of 83, is hosting, and attending the wedding ceremony and then the reception.
Well….that’s a long account….but I enjoyed putting it down…
KM has bought one of those new matchbox cameras, so today I will take along the Canon and take pictures…posting will be done only in LA or back in St Louis, I think…but don’t worry, I will inflict them on LJ readers without fail!
