Pixie's 2nd Letter to the WAD Fans in Corinth, as read at most weddings

It turned out to be a nice wedding, nice service with a funny, kinda-progressive Catholic priest (try to wrap your mind around that), nice reception, and nice next-day brunch. I got to meet a lot of Guy's dad's relatives, which was good indeed. Guy's dad is one of eleven, and only one is deceased, so there was a passel of peeps to meet this weekend. All good folks, all a good time.

Now, I mentioned that I hate weddings. I've only met/spent time with the bride in this wedding (Guy's cousin) about four times in seven and a half years, and I've never met the groom until this weekend, and I'd had a hard/icky week and just felt like staying home, but alas 'twas not to be. And frankly, it doesn't look good for me to stay home with no really good reason other than being obstinate. So, we got ready to get up at 6am, just like a weekday, on Saturday, and go get on a plane to do this nonsense. I barely drug out of bed, Guy's alarm didn't go off, and we made it out the door 15 minutes late. By the time we got to the airport, we realzed in order to make our plane, we would have to park in the $18-a-day parking deck. We ran in and got to United's check-in, and it was packed. They had half their gates closed. There was no way we were going to check in before 45 minutes before the flight to check our bags. I then noticed that we had a kinda-hard-sided hangup bag with wheels and a carryon with wheels; maybe we could just carry those on? The United agent at the end of the line said that the hang-up bag was too big. Guy asked me if they had lockers at the airport, and I responded with a really loud and way-unnecessarily mean "Excuse me?!" His thought, it turned out, was to buy a bag to put our hang-up clothes in from the airport luggage store (side note: highway robbery) and store our nice bag in a locker til we got back. No dice: lockers were removed from all airports after 9/11.

Guy makes the executive decision: we're checking in with carry-ons, and Pixie's heading for the gate while Guy Fixes This Situation. I ran to the security at A Concourse (the regular security was backed up from hell to breakfast) and made it through. By some miracle, I decided to pack my powdered makeup instead of my liquid tubes and bottles (thanks for giving me the powdered stuff, Kitty!) so everything I did have was under 3 ounces and fit in the quart bag they give you in line. I get to the gate, walk down the gangway, and this airline dude closes the door behind me. I then have to argue the door back open, because the door closes at ten minutes 'til the flight leaves and it was, indeed, twenty minutes before. The airline gal outside the gangway opened the door--I was right. I stood at the top of the gangway...and Guy coasts in two minutes before they close the door for good. We barely made it on the flight.

I was stressed and furious while all this is going on, livid that this is how I was spending my Saturday morning. It took a while on the plane to settle down and realize that we made it on the plane, and Guy managed to figure out some kind of solution, and here I was being a complete bitch. When we arrived, Guy told me that he had to run in, buy a non-structured garment bag, and throw our original bag away. That only pissed him off on principle--the bag broke the first time we used it a few months ago, and it was quite inexpensive to begin with. He managed to also get through Concourse A's security too. I threw my arms around him and kissed him. "Why do I keep doubting you?" I asked. Guy shrugged. "I dunno. I'm so cool!" he responded.

So cool indeed. Weddings are only nice when you get to the vows, and those vows are a good reminder for me. As 2 Corinthians says, Love is patient, Love is kind, Love is not boastful or seek it's own end, Love doesn't give you shit for underestimating the line at the airport or forgetting to get ground beef at the grocery store, Love doesn't start a screaming fit when you refuse to ask for directions because you totally know where you're going it's that damned Mapquest that's wrong, Love is forgiving when you snap at every little thing because a 56-hour week would do that to anyone. Love lip-syncs along when that "I'm Winning" song by Carlos Santana comes on, Love sneaks a digital camera into the new Steven Holl museum and takes photos of the unusual curtainwall glazing, Love goes up to a Baroque painting of Jesus on the cross with his arms up in a "Y" and holds up her arms like an "M" and he holds up his arms like a "C" and can't get Love's dad to understand why we want him to do an "A".

Love is patient, Love is kind. Love is my partner in crime and I will wipe applesauce off his chin when he's old and senile. But I'll also keep telling him he still owes me twenty bucks like four times a week. Love has a sick sense of humor.