A Dream and A Wedding

I had the craziest dream last night. Someone asked me to babysit their baby.  There were obvious signs of a filled diaper, so I tackled the task.  I carefully cleaned the soft little butt and then reached for the baby powder.  After a couple shakes, I realized that I sprinkled the kid with paprika!

Earlier in the evening I'd watched a contestant on the Food Channel rub a Cornish game hen with paprika, and that's the only thing I can figure would cause such a goofy dream.

Strong northwest winds are starting to blow where I live, and gusts of 45-50 mph are expected between now and tonight.  The boulevard ash trees are losing their leaves in droves, and our lawn and front porch are mottled with yellows and browns. 

My Wedding Flower

Tomorrow will be our 44th Wedding Anniversary.  Neither of us can remember being scared or nervous before our wedding day, just incredibly excited. Our traditional hour-long Catholic ceremony started at 10:30 in the morning.  The Best Man, who wasn't used to the business of kneeling, fainted at the altar.  When the ushers saw him go down, they dutifully marched up the two steps, lifted and propped his body up, and helped him into the sacristy just as if it had been rehearsed.  My Maid-of-Honor leaned over and whispered in my left ear, "Thank God that wasn't me!"

At the reception, a personalized silk ribbon wrapped around a cigar was pinned on each guest's suit jacket or dress for a souvenir.  Two of my girlfriends opened all the wedding gifts for the guests to see, which was the custom back then.  I praise the newlyweds today who choose to open gifts themselves on a separate day and have the surprise and fun of seeing what's in those elegantly wrapped presents.  That was one part of our wedding that we wished had been different.

Brides these days are paying outrageous amounts of money for their wedding-day dresses.  In the thousands.  The price tag on mine was $125, and that was on the high side.  Personally, I feel that weddings have outgrown the middle-class wallet.

Back in the 1960's, couples didn't dare live together without being married, so the honeymoon was the trip of a lifetime.  We drove our red and black '62 Chevy Super Sport up into Canada, back down into Montana, through the Bad Lands, and visited the famous and impressive Mt. Rushmore.  When we came back home ten days later, there wasn't a leaf left on a tree.  We felt that the trees were starting a whole new stage of life right along with us.