from the bookshelves: heretics, by g.k. chesterton
i have a writer friend who tells me he’s going to write a book titled pancakes at midnight. that title has the perfect cadence to it … so much so that it’s a bit too perfect. no, my friends, “cherry pie at 1 am” is where it’s at … and, coincidentally, is what was occupying the conscious part of my brain at 1 am sunday morning.
but the important part is why i was eating cherry pie at such an odd hour. the story is as follows.
my (very good) friend amanda thu got married this saturday, and my (pretty much best) friend (since birth) strawberry sunshine, who was in charge of all the food for the reception, was also a bridesmaid. well, you can’t do both at the same time and retain your sanity, so i volunteered to help strawberry, and was put in charge of organizing the setup and distribution of the food before and during the reception. fair enough.
then it snowed. snow is common in kansas city during the winter months, so that wasn’t much of a surprise, but it was an added hazard in getting food for 320 people out to a community center in the middle of a park, which strawberry and crew discovered when their van got stuck on a hill. fortunately i was able to make it all right in cricket, my green honda accord, but there were some near brushes with calamity (especially when a car fishtailed across the road in front of me, and then when i missed my highway exit).
but everyone eventually made it and we started unloading the food from the van. upon crashing ungracefully to the sidewalk i discovered that it is not a wise idea to jump from a van onto an icy curb, especially when your arms are filled with something perishable. but a few extra bruises are all in a day’s work for the adventure-prone in life. my adopted (and strawberry’s real) brother, peter pan, did inquire after my well-being as i scrambled up from where i’d fallen, which was quite thoughtful of him. enough of my clumsiness, however.
adventures after strawberry and peter pan left included melting an animal cracker tub with very hot coffee, wondering how to clean up a boxful of very groaty-looking mushrooms, and wondering where on earth the rest of our plates were. strawberry’s friends susannah and hannah, however, made the most beautiful-looking display of fruits and vegetables, and i’m still kicking myself that i didn’t take a picture of its magnificence. they were exceedingly sweet, too, and an enormous help.
then came time to dash back home and get ready for the wedding. i think i took my fastest shower on record.
i don’t have any pictures of the wedding ceremony, but the bride was beautiful, the groom handsome, and everything was quite wonderful.
during the reception i got to boss more people around. i’m still trying to figure out whether that qualified as “fun” or not, and what it says about my sense of humour if it does. they were all very, very sweet, though, and didn’t put up a fuss or object to what i told them to do. and miss b.was a lifesaver with the composure of a queen. anyhow, although i didn’t really get to talk to them, it looked like amanda thu and her husband, jon, had a lovely time at the reception and quite enjoyed the first stages of being married. i’m sure they enjoyed whatever happened after their heart-shaped sprinkle-showered mad dash to their getaway car, however, much, much more.
after all that was over, friends lyssa, stevie, tigerlily and i went to see he’s just not that into you… at 10 o’clock at night. it being a two-hour movie, we didn’t get out ’til after midnight. then we were all hungry, so we made the required late-night stop at a grocery store on the way home, and, as usual, temporarily lost stevie as she engaged in some unchaperoned aisle-wandering. we eventually found her, checked out, and drove back to stevie and tigerlily’s house … where — you guessed it — i ate cherry pie at 1 am whilst contemplating my relative giginess (gigi is a particularly boy-crazy/man-obsessed character in the movie — not to say i’m boy-crazy/man-obsessed, but i did notice a couple of parallels …).
suffice it to say that after church later on sunday, i took a very long, very much needed nap.
