Ob La Di, Ob La Da

Life goes on.

When the hurricane hit and ran, when the levee broke, there was a strong urge to write about it. But what could I write that others had not already said, and said well. Would it help to rant about the government, from Bush on down the line? Nope, it would just raise my blood pressure. Would it help to state the obvious; that this was one mother of a storm, that it will take years to regain a sense of normalcy, that my heart goes out to those who've lost everything? Nope.

So I'll tell you about the wedding we attended Saturday evening. The bride's second wedding, the groom's fourth. Yes, fourth. The groom's five, yes, five children were in the wedding party, along with the bride's son. It was held at a private residence, overlooking a pond on a perfect summer's day. The wedding had a beach theme, so all of the wedding party were in Hawaiian prints, and many guests wore Hawaiian shirts and casual wear. It all went off without too many hitches, other than a small boy falling into the pond. He was quickly fished out and ran through the crowd screaming, but it was all right. For the rest of the evening his name was "Scuba Steve," and he continued to cause mischief such as sucking on the beer-laden ice cubes from around the keg while his father virtually ignored him and his brother, who had earlier asked us for "matches to build a fire." Charming.

On Labor Day we had a small gathering, and the step-varmints discovered the oversized hula hoops we've made from irrigation tubing. Russell, who's fourteen, caught on amazingly and hooped most of the afternoon. Given that his usual past-time is sitting on the couch with his game-boy, this was a welcome breakthrough. Of course his little sister was appalled that she was not the center of attention and behaved in an obnoxious manner for most of the day. But they're alive, we're all alive, we're all together, and that's no small thing these days.