Happy Chris and Monique’s Wedding Day! I’m so sad I couldn’t be there to celebrate with everyone, but I know it was a magical day. I instead tried very hard to preoccupy myself with busyness to not think about how much it stinks that I can’t be there with everyone.
Now, to preface, a few clarifying points. First, the scene that Geoff and I are doing together is from Tom Stoppard’s Arcadia. I haven’t read a lot of Stoppard, but he’s considered the most respected living playwright. I really dislike one of his plays because I think they seem too higher-than-thou, but Arcadia is a wonderful play. It was playing in London at the beginning of term, but I didn’t get a chance to see it. In any case, it takes place between alternating time periods in which we follow the story of characters in 1809-1813, and people from the modern era (modern for when it was written) try to piece their lives together. It’s much more complicated than that, but wiki has a lot of useful information on there. In any case, I’m playing Thomasina and I love her a lot. She’s easy for me to connect with and the scenes we’re doing are both wonderful. Second, I do know about Freud. Not extensively, but enough to know that I don’t like his ideas. I think that by his own analysis, he has vagina envy. I believe strongly that he was a sexist pig searching for meaning in meaningless areas of life, and keen to blow things out of proportion, trying to justify inconsequential information to fit his own preconceived judgments.
Today, Sienna and I got up early-esque to go to Burrow Market. Tim Pinn, a TFL (Transport for London) employee - he works at Warwick Avenue and always cheers us up - recommended it to us for our veggies. We needed leeks for Thanksgiving dinner tomorrow, so we followed his advice and made the trek to Tower Hill to visit this market. Turns out, it’s actually pretty famous? Anyway, it was big. It very much had the feeling of being set up for the long run - an impression we got both from the fact that it was on our maps, and that the stalls were so big, just one of them would more than fill our flat. They had a lot of stalls with dead animals in them which was upsetting (saw a dead mallard hanging by its feet as well as some mammals I didn’t look too closely at, and giant fish heads next to a squid), as well as kangaroo burgers and duck eggs, but there were lots of yummy vegetarian things. It’s weird to think of how many different kinds of food there are in the world… I got some tofu which I made for dinner, and it was the best tofu I’ve ever had, hands down. I also got leeks for tomorrow and Sienna got some garlic. Then, since we were just down the river from the National Theatre, we walked down. There was a book that I wanted to get from their bookstore that I didn’t think I would find anywhere else, and the National is far for a trip all on its own for a book. But man, it was cold. As I was paying for the book, which thankfully they had in stock, it took about three times as long as it should have because my fingers were so stiff.
From there, we trekked off to Harrods. Man, I thought last time it was crowded because of the parade, but no. It’s just always like that. It was overwhelming and not necessarily pleasant, but we did learn that Harrods sells helicopters. Woah. We had some lunch, then headed towards 221b Baker Street to visit the Sherlock Holmes museum, but at he last minute we decided that we would rather just visit the gift shop, because we thought it a bit too expensive.
In short, it was a good day. We were out from 930 in the morning till about 4 in the afternoon, and I spent the rest of the day doing nothing. Felt good.
Tags: london
Oh yeah, what a treat: another entry! Thank you.
You are right, the wedding was magic and we all had a fantastic time. You were missed. Margaret even took a piece of the cake for you (even though it would never reach you).
The ceremony was outside in a garden adjacent to the golf course (remember that we are at a golf resort). It was a bit nippy but beautifully sunny. The 4 daughters were the wedding party. They were beautiful, touching and touched. Melissa (Monique’s oldest daughter) read her poem (I’ll send it to you when I get it by e-mail). Monique and Chris gave each other their own vows and were married by one of their best friends who got the notary license just so he could marry them. Randy was the perfect person to marry them with his tall size, his deep and warm voice and his gentle manners.
Pictures were taken and we all went for the reception. It is a big room with one side facing the beautiful course. Your Dad and Uncle KC gave their fun and witty toast that was loved and appreciated by all. Tears and laughter were de rigueur and we all let it out on the dance floor. Your mother had a blast dancing.
Then we all had a 4 hour break to meditate (in Steve’s words). Some went for a walk on the beautiful grounds, some watched TV, some studied and others snoozed. We all needed the rest before the dinner at 6:30 which was another episode of all of us getting together for more conversations, laughter and craziness.
We all bid goodbyes in the morning to return to our respective lives. D-Mommy, KC, Sue, Josh and I are all returning to Orlando together tomorrow morning. It was a great week-end.
Happy Thanksgiving to you and your friends.