June 25, 2005
At The Wedding
We walked from the bride'n'groom's apartment to City Hall, just a matter of a few blocks, the guys in suits suffering in the unusual heat, women feeling luckier about sleeveless dresses. We were supposed to be led by an accordion player Marie had found in the metro, but he was stuck in traffic: the only subway musician who drives to a paid gig, Guillaume pointed out. Halfway to the mairie, as the crowd blocked traffic on a cross-street, Marie realized that a patient bicylist was a friend, so of course he hopped off his bike and joined the procession. In the event, the mayor, who came popping out of a side door to perform the ceremony (a very civil jack-in-the-pulpit), held the documents from which he read in his right hand while with his left he adjusted, every few seconds, his tricolor sash, which was perpetually in danger of falling to the ground, taking his trousers with it.
At dinner that night, all the tables in the cavernous Chinese resto had names bestowed by our hosts; mine was called MLA, an acronym (as the provided note explained) for Major League Asshole. Here I was delighted to sit between Frederic and Pepita, both of whom had voted Non. Marie danced in four-inch heels, as she would do again the next day in the sand at the picnic, as the kids swathed themselves in cotton candy, which is here called barbe à papa; when a child sez this, it sounds like nothing so much as babababa, and shouldn't all candy be indicated via nonsense syllables?
Posted by jane at June 25, 2005 01:28 AM | TrackBack