A Wedding

My niece, who I have watched grow up, not from birth, but definitely from toddler stage, got married yesterday. Nice little ceremony, not too fancy. Both girls were attendants and were very honored and pleased to be part of it. The cycle is beginning again, with another generation maturing and going off to their new lives. My oldest's cousin, the younger brother of my niece, is in the same grade as my oldest...the race is on.

The night after the wedding everybody went to a local bar for karaoke. Intimidating enough, as I don't sing, and I don't really drink any more (lots of diet soda which interacts nicely with endorphins), but more so when you realize that the groom and his family are all hugely talented singers, as is my niece, who is attending college on vocal scholarships. The groom, his dad, two of his groomsmen and about 8 other friends sang an amazing Ave Maria at the start of the wedding.

Being the crazy person I am, though, I distributed books of songs (and this guy had TONS of songs...three ring binders with dozens of pages) and song slips to everybody, hoping that some not so good singers would go...because the groom and his brother were hammering harmonies and real "singing" songs. I think I was the first non-singer to go...but I cheated because I picked a song that doesn't need to be sung. Cake - Short Skirt, Long Jacket. I had been singing it in the car for weeks, so I was hugely amazed to find it in the list. Then I pushed a bunch on stage for an "everybody" song...Why don't we get drunk (and screw) by Jimmy Buffet. Later everybody got up to do Bohemian Rhapsody. It didn't hurt that we were about the only people in the bar (there were about 20 of us) until 11pm.

While grocery shopping today, I realized that we currently are expected to do things for ourselves that used to be an actual paid job for somebody. Pumping gas, banking, bagging groceries. But it doesn't seem that I save any money doing this...