Learning

I am 28 years old and I am learning to drive. Stick. Because it is the only car my husband and I have, and it's been the only car we've had for 4 years now. So, it's high time I learn to drive it. Especially because we're in the midst of football season and I am stuck at home every Sunday unless I want to bike it, hoof it, or metro it. Also, husbands can only take so many trips to the mall (when you're still in courtship mode they actually seem to enjoy it, but then things change).

In an effort to broaden my horizons and deepen my knowledge of world events I have started reading The Economist, a British news/economics magazine that is better than anything similar in the US. I think the magazine is great, but I kind of wish that there was an American edition available because the grammar bugs the heck out of me. They spell "Mr" without a period at the end! Eg. "Mr Yellow is mellow, but Mr Brown must go down." And they spell "loath" as "loth," they say "take a decision" rather than "make a decision," and they have a strange way of conjugating verbs sometimes, but I have that issue with American English as well. I used to think that the only differences between American and British English where the extra "u"s (i.e. "colour") and "s"s instead of "z"s to spell stuff ("stabilise")but boy was I wrong. I am always learning something new. Whether I like it or not.

Weddings

I am going to a wedding today, on 10.10.10. I know several people getting married today, on this auspicious day. I think of how I have only been to a handful of weddings in my life, and each one has been so different.

The first one I don't remember because I was three: I was the flower girl at my own parents' wedding. Then when I was a teenager my oldest brother got married in a tiny Vegas chapel by a very unfortunate-looking chaplain. I remember we took a limo there, and during the ceremony I cried my eyes out I was so touched. My mom married again a few months before I did. It was at the church I used to attend when I was in high school, and the reception was at her house. I helped her pick her dress, and during the ceremony I lit a unity candle with my new sister-in-law, whom I had only just met.

Then I got married, and it was good.

A few months later, one of my friends from college had an Indian wedding in Connecticut, with Indian food, Indian music, and Indian guests. My husband and I sat at the non-Indian, college friends table. The colors, smells, sounds, and traditions were amazing. Later on that year, my brother-in-law got married in Chile, where the pastor never showed up and someone had to step in and impromptu marry the bride and groom, and where an aged pseudo-pop star hijacked the wedding by crooning for an hour. His music was not conducive to dancing.

Months later my husband and I were in Serbia, at a beautiful Orthodox ceremony with Roma music and incense and strong brandy sipped from 10:30am onwards. Now I am in anticipation of today, a Jewish wedding of two special ladies in a chimney in Georgetown.