We arrived in DC, back from a trip to the shores of Puget Sound, late Thursday night. It was a great trip. We got to spend a lot of time with family, both sides, so that was wonderful. S's cousin's son, who grew up in Federal Way, about 25 minutes from where I grew up, is getting married in India in the near future, so there was a big stateside engagement ceremony for him and his bride-to-be that we attended. And then there were several other less formal related events throughout our trip that we also attended. We stayed with my parents, however, and they live within a three-mile radius of the rest of my immediate family, so we got a full mix of both sides. It was terrific, although the downside is that I did not get as much time with my old chums as I would have liked. We stayed one night in Seattle with our friends JW and YW, and then I went up by myself for an afternoon, mainly to hang out with my pal JY, and then that was pretty much it. Oh, I also got to briefly see an old buddy RV, whom I hadn't seen in like ten years, so that was cool.
Anyway, the engagement ceremony was very cool. It was at a Hindu temple,* and there was food and pageantry, and everybody was dressed up in Indian garb or nice western clothes. The ceremony itself was a bit slow, as religious things often are, and I have to confess that I half-slept through a lot of it. In my defense, I was sitting on the carpet, almost lying down, in one of those low-rider beach-chair thingies, and there was a lot of melodic, almost hypnotic, chanting going on, so it was damn near impossible for me to keep my eyes open. At least I wasn't on Twitter the entire time like the guy sitting next to me.
*I think it was a Hindu temple, at least. It was some sort of Indian place of worship. The guru who preaches there is advertised as having a "gold medal in astrology," which made my dad and me chuckle.
I've been to several weddings for people younger than me -- my little brother, younger cousins, and what have you -- but I believe this is my first wedding/engagement ceremony for somebody a full generation below me. I'm now at the stage in life where the kids of people roughly my age are getting married. S's cousin's son is in his late twenties, and a few of his friends came out for the ceremony, so, I spent some time hanging out with a small group of late-twenty-somethings. In my head, I'm perpetually 32, so this felt pretty natural to me at first, but then at some point it dawned on me that I was an oldster to them -- not like an old oldster but definitely not of their age cohort. To bond with them, I had to whip out the big guns. I clocked them as a very erudite, slightly nerdy crowd (doctors and lawyers), so I started humblebragging about my crossword puzzle construction.* It totally worked -- completely broke the ice. Everybody was properly impressed, and one woman even asked if she could get a picture with me to send to her mom who solves the NYT puzzle religiously. I said yes, of course.
*This is actually very unlike me. I don't talk about that that much. I'm not being modest. I just usually don't even think about it. It only came up this time because somebody mentioned Wordle, and so I showed everybody my pic with the Wordle editor.
The one pall over the festivities was the absence of my in-laws. They were supposed to come out, but my father-in-law is not in great health at the moment, so they couldn't make it. He's in stable condition, and he can function and live a mostly normal life and all that, but he's been having some issues. His feet were really swollen last time we were visiting because he had some sort of blood disorder that took a long time to diagnose, and he eventually had to spend a few days in the hospital. Then he fell somehow* on the sidewalk while out for his daily walk and got all cut up. So, he and my mother-in-law decided, prudently, I'd say, that a cross-country flight was not in the cards. Just moving through airport security and getting to the gate would be an ordeal, and if something went wrong, being in a 500-mph missile 35,000 feet above Arkansas would not be the greatest place to be.
*It's unknown whether he accidentally tripped, as people of all ages do, or he collapsed because his 82-year-old body betrayed him at that moment, or some combination thereof.
We're dropping off the kids at a week-long sleep-away camp tomorrow afternoon, and S and I thought we were going to have some time to ourselves. But instead we are flying to Tampa on Monday to visit S's parents. They could use some help with logistics -- appointments and such. S's sister went a few weeks ago, so now we are going next week. I don't mind. It's usually pretty chill down there, and not having kids is a vacation in and of itself, no matter where you are. Plus, it's the 4th of July next Thursday, and S and I are planning a day trip to the beach then. Also, not to be morbid, but we might be in the visit-while-we-can stage of things with S's father -- we might not be; he could fully recover from his current maladies and live another 15 years, relatively healthily and happily -- but we might be. That's one of the problems with this stage: You never know for sure when it will start or if it already has.
Thankfully, we don't seem to have entered this stage yet with my parents. By all appearances, they are doing very well. They're relatively mobile physically and still quite sharp mentally. They don't "act really old" yet, if that makes sense. And it probably does make sense, because we all just witnessed the exact opposite of what I mean, in Joe Biden in his debate performance. I didn't watch it live, and I've only seen a few clips, but they were beyond depressing. I don't know where we go from here -- I guess, I think he should drop out of the race -- but we should probably all get ready for another four years of "Tangerine Idi Amin" in the White House. I mean, I'd vote for Joe Biden over Trump, if Biden was 182 years old and only existed in hologram form, but, judging by the polls, I'm not most people.
And if this post was depressing enough already, I've now surely crossed the Rubicon. Let's end on a high note with some beautiful pictures.
Until next time...
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