Roped
2004-02-16,

By all accounts, this was certainly an interesting weekend.

Saturday was thankfully pretty sedate, at least for the first part of the day. I spent some time with Final Fantasy X and some time with the kids. Simon has just finished the sanding phase of creating a Pinewood Derby car. Being six, he naturally didn�t do any of the shape-cutting; that was done by me and my inadequate supply of power tools. Hard to do detailed power sawing when you don�t even have a worktable. It came out all right, though, and things are progressing nicely. At some point in the very near future will be painting and then weighing of parts to see how much weight we have to add back to the vehicle, which must be 5 oz. or less. The race is this coming Saturday, so we must get cracking.

Saturday afternoon brought us the crumbled remains of a wedding and reception. H�s friend from Jr High and HS, Amy the Pianist, was to be married on St. Valentine�s Day. The groom, however, was having none of this. He managed to tizzy himself into a nervous breakdown sometime over the course of last week, and the festivities were called off; this, after it was already postponed once from October, when the groom came down with, of all things, mono (that�s mononucleosis to you and me, kids; want to know more? Read the tragic story of Ashley). As you might expect, a number of things were already paid for, one of which being a grand tour of Severance Hall, so she invited would-be attendees to come along for the tour, as well as some casada cake (in the classic strawberry fashion, of course) made in Cleveland�s food central, Little Italy. Severance is a splendid place, trying very hard but never quite reaching the level of gaudy opulence. It also has an excellent sound, as displayed at the time by the Cleveland Youth Orchestra.

I was amazed and the would-be bride�s levity under such circumstances. General opinion in the two families involved seemed to be that they were surprised that things were even looking optimistic by a week before the wedding, so I guess it wasn�t a total shock that the thing screeched to a halt when it did. Still, not an easy thing to deal with.

After the tour Amy decided to fend off bad associations from the failed weekend by having dinner with friends at the place where they would have had their rehearsal dinner, the Mad Greek in Cleveland Heights, which is a Greek/Indian restaurant, a bizarre but tasty combination. At dinner was a pleasantly culturally diverse group of attendees: H and myself, representing Hungarian, German, Italian and what I can only describe as American (H as roots going back to the mid 1600�s on her mom�s side); Amy, representing Italian and Hungarian as well; another HS friend Melanie, showing her Greek roots, and; a pianist friend of Amy�s (her name escapes me at the moment), who is Indian/Filipino, along with her Indian father and Filipino mother. Excellent conversation abounded at a table where I was, in my view, the least qualified to be considered intelligent. I managed, somehow, to make it seem like I had even a slight chance of belonging there, and only managed to stick my foot in my mouth only once, when I believe I insulted the would-be bride�s religious stance by saying, during a conversation regarding gay marriage, that once all of the old extremist fundamentalist Christians died off, there�d be less fervor over the word �marriage� being applied to gay unions. Did I mention that I have some opinions? It was a light barb, and I certainly wasn�t lumping Amy into that group, but it was at a time when barbs are not called for. My bad. Hopefully I�ll get a chance to make up for it in the future.

All in all the evening ended on a good note (well, good considering), and I added to the list of H�s friends that I wish were still living within the state, rather than across or out of the country. Sigh.

Meanwhile on Sunday, I somehow got myself roped into a part in a community theatre production of L�il Abner. As of 11am Sunday, I took on the small but catalytic role of Evil Eye Fleagle, a guy who puts Whammies on people. On the Smeagol/Gollum scale, he registers at about a 6 out of 10. I get to let my hair go out wild and may possibly be given a green pallor. Should be interesting. Especially since I�m replacing someone who dropped out due to illness (if by illness one means having broken up with the lead actress he was dating and not wanting to be around her) and the show starts in less than three weeks. It�s a very small part, so I should be fine. Plus, I need to get my foot into the community theatre�s door if I�m to have any chance at getting Sancho Panza in their upcoming production of Man of La Mancha. I�ve always wanted to play the Eternal Companion to an Eternal Champion. It suits me.

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