The Best... uh...Person...

I'm back from Oakland. I'm safe (even though Brenda dreamed I'd been quartered) the only major changes: I've got more freckled surface area on my outer arms than white. I still have my arms and legs.

I promised Neal stories. I promised California stories... and so here we go, the first (and probably the best, honestly) Neal story from California.

I'm pretty sure I mentioned that Sam and I were in the wedding. The invitation went something like this:

"What do you mean you'd go to your cousin's wedding over mine? You are in my wedding!" "Um, what? (this could actually mean any number of things)." "You are in my wedding, Katie, and I get you. Um, huh?" "You're on my side." "Um, I'd be honored Neal." "Sam too."

I gave Neal some time to ask Sam... he didn't. So I wound up telling him awhile later. "Neal wants you in his wedding." "Was he going to ask me?" "Eh."

Others:

'Bec & Mark (sister and her husband)
Jane and Woody (business partner and her husband)

That was sometime last February. In the meantime Sam was measured for a tux and on a conference call with the other groom's maids we decided we'd all buy black dresses. Other details were fairly well unknown.

We got to the rehearsal and were asked, by a very flustered wedding coordinator... who's the Best Man.. er the Best Person. Neal already had his answer "we're drawing straws in the morning." "How are they going to know what to do?" "They'll pay attention." Sure Neal.

So we practiced for an hour and a half for a twenty minute ceremony. Fifteen of which was to stand still. Then we went to dinner. The groom's gifts were expected: A business card holder and a book... with a titles like Flushed: How the Plumber Saved Civilization and The Third Chimpanzee: The Evolution of the Human Animal. It was nice.

In the morning we putzed around. We set up tables and went to lunch. We were late getting back and all got dressed really fast. We went to the church for pictures at 3PM. Neal called to say we were thirty minutes late, that we needed to be there at 2:30. We got there. The photographer wasn't there. We drank the Two Buck Chuck from Trader Joe's out of glasses borrowed from the hotel. We eventually took pictures in random orders.

At 4:30 we drew straws, but Neal wouldn't tell us if the long straw or the short straw was the Best Man or the secondary Dirt Bearer (another story).

At 4:45 he told us... long straw. Mine was pretty long, as I came back from retrieving it I was told to compare it to Mark's, the longest of the others. There we were, Neal hadn't really bothered to make them very different. There was perhaps a millimeter's difference between the grasses... so he was the Best... uh... Person.

Neal and Karen were toasted by just about all of us. As for mixed weddings I'm for them, even if Texas people kept calling it "a California thing."