probably not somewhere I went

I arrived back in the P-dot last night, much to the relief of the 3 people who know I live here. The bananas which had been unripe when I left are now spotted like a leopard. My jaunt down to the city of glass was fruitful, fairly blurry, and is conveniently recounted below:

Stepping off the bus in my hometown, it took me all of 30 seconds to accidentally run-into my dad. That's what's great about small towns, at least for the non-claustrophobic among us. We ate fajitas, talked about various things and watched his dog Gamgee chase ducks.

The day of the wedding, which was the main purpose of the trip, began with an ominous rainbow over the pond outside my window. Ominous in a good way, I should say, because that adjective is unfairly dominated by negative connotations. The wedding was inconveniently 450km South of my hometown, so the morning was spent driving. 6 deer, 2 bald eagles, 1 chipmunk and a few short 'detours' later, we arrived at a garden in front of a big, pristine heritage home. The bride was my mom's best childhood friend, which doesn't explain why I was there, but it does explain why I didn't know anyone there. Fortunately, the wedding party included a 150lb German shepherd with a pink bow, so I had him to talk to if it turned out everyone spoke only Portuguese.

Most of the people were a generation or two my senior, but they did speak English. I recall talking to a lot of them, but I'm not sure what about. Probably a lot of it was explaining why I had on a gorilla suit (that's apparently not what semi-formal means btw). One person did stand-out though, a Mr. McNaughton who had been a friend of my grandpa. They were both on ski patrol in Quebec in the late 1950s, and spent some time skiing in Switzerland as well. The details aren't the thing. He was unexpected, as I don't think I've met a friend of my grandfather before.

Champagne is nice, but I decided to go see Chris and Mikara, who are expecting their second child this fall (hooray!). We mostly wandered around, drove around, and hung-out in general. That's all we need to do though. Our meetings are kind of like an episode of Seinfeld: a succession of pointing out different things that we find funny. And we happen to find everyone and everything funny, so the episode never ends.

The next day Dash took me to her family's Sikh temple. That was unexpected and fascinating. Fortunately there were only about 4 people there, so my various misunderstandings of what one is supposed to do in such a temple went mostly unnoticed. The carpet was soft to the bare foot, and I ate some tasty, doughy substance. I also met 3/4 of her immediate family, who were very nice.

There you have it. That is most of what has waylaid me lately.

P.S. I got my atlas back from my mom's house, and I finally put a new battery in my watch. I don't know how I survived for several months without those things, but now all is right with the universe.

*the photo is copyright 2000 (C) Guninder S Bagga