A lovely day

Onc couldn't really ask for a much nicer day than today. Sun shining, breeze blowing, mild temps. Sitting out on the porch now.

Mary made it in a little before midnight last night, still all revved up about the pictures she had taken but a little wistful about only figuring out how to scout for locations as she went along and opportunities she had missed. As for me, I'm just glad she's back. I feel more whole and would have slept a lot better had I not been experiencing some pretty bad knee pain while going to sleep. At length I found a comfortable position, but only after taking some more acetaminophen and writhing there. I only hope this does not signify that I'm moving towards a reckoning with the arthritis we documented already four years ago about this time of year. 

Yesterday I also learned that a friend's daughter is, at long last, getting married, though I also learned that she plans to have a destination wedding and just invite her friends and, presumably, family. On the one hand, this is America and this kind of thing falls squarely into the category of Enduring Freedoms. On the other, the whole cycle of life thing should in principle provide us 50-somethings with a stream of weddings to offset the ongoing litany of memorial services for our friends parents and even our friends, who keep getting picked off by the Grim Reaper. 

In Brittany in August David gave a lovely toast at the rehearsal dinner where he thanked everyone for coming to, and I quote, "our wedding." On the one hand, it was a bit of a slip because it was of course his daughter's wedding. On the other, the wedding was really an occasion to bring family and friends together, as are funerals, they just have a different tone. When we got married we had a little bit of an instinct to have a smaller wedding in a more rustic place, but Mary's dad wanted it to be closer to their home and saw it as an event to bring together people from throughout his life, and I get that. Our wedding was the first time I met Mary's cousins and aunts and uncles -- and the last time for some of them. I think we did it right for us and I do hope we get to go to a bunch more weddings soon.