Life in Interesting Times

I guess we're in a global pandemic. Which I guess gives my life the distinction of being lived in "interesting times."

So what's interesting about it?

As things were just starting to ramp up, Heather came for a planned visit. It's hard to self-isolate when your best friend is a night shift nurse with ADD on vacation, so we had to get out of the house despite the flurry of warning. Our days were bookended with trips to the weed store or Costco and epic games of Scrabble. I took her to get Botox from the guy who does mine. We wandered around the neighborhood, grateful to live in a place with lots of beautiful plants and houses and murals and a beach at the end of it.

In the middle of it all, we escaped to Joshua Tree to stay at a Zombie-themed shack next door to a trailer park hotel, where we binged awesome pizza, saw shooting stars, and sat by a fire in a teepee.
We let Mack lead us off a trail to a boulder-filled riverbed in search of a palmed oasis and hoped our ankles held up. Heather got spiked by a cactus and I plucked the pricks from her thigh while she stood bravely in her underwear in a room full of fellas.

I took her to the airport with a handful on N95 masks I had in the garage for cleaning my chicken coop. There was some mouse poop in the bottom of the box, so perhaps they'll end up being the source of Covid-20. We do what we can.

After Heather left, I did a few-day stint at work, which was as dead as it's ever been. I almost burst into tears as I turned into the parking lot on my first day back. I was terrified and obligated, torn in half by a desire to protect myself and help others. It felt like I was lining up for the firing squad. I had to swallow that worry down and remind myself that being brave meant doing things despite being afraid. I talked about this bizarre conflict with some co-workers in the break room and tears welled up in our eyes. Cops brought us donuts and coffee, restaurants sent us meals, we felt loved and appreciated. We had to plead our case to get a mask from our supervisors.

I checked the temperatures of every ambulance run that came in that wasn't on the verge of dead and offered it to staff if they asked what the hell I was doing. I felt like a Walmart greeter. I also spent a shift in triage, where I wore a mask and goggles and made everyone who entered use the hand sanitizer upon entering the room. In 4 days I think I saw 10 patients, most of whom were psych. It ended up being a great time to connect with my coworkers and use our sick sense of humor to make us feel a little more at ease with our enemy and the battle ahead. A battle that I knew I'd watch from the sidelines, since we had a month-long getaway/renovation job in St. Thomas that was planned way before Chinese New Year ignited the coronavirus.

Everything was cancelled. Volleyball for me, medical conferences for him. Bubba's nursing school graduation. Laila's classes. We took it as a sign and moved our departure date up. Our plane to the island had maybe 30 people on it, including one grouchy guy who was pissed about paying extra for the better seats when the plane was mostly empty. It sounds romantic and fortunate, and in a lot of ways, it has been. Especially before they closed the beaches. But in a lot of ways it's added an extra layer of torture. Is that interesting? Or disgusting?

We have a lot of time to feel guilt and gratitude right now, and it's a swirly mix daily. Frustrated with boredom, elevated by books. Annoyed that we can't get 90-Day Fiancé here because Hulu loves boundaries, renewed by a little dips in the aquarium outside our door that we do illegally most days.

I look forward to throwing rice at the chickens when they walk by with their babies. I love the sound of the wind in the palms and the crash of the waves. I feel obligated to check on the two lobsters hanging out at the reef we visit to make sure I can still find them. It's a thrill to see a soldier crab walking on the sidewalk. I hate that I love the air conditioning, not because I can do things without sweating but because my mosquito bites itch so much less. I miss touching people. I miss being careless about touching pens and keypads and door handles and shopping carts. I miss restaurants. I miss the sound of other people's laughter, especially if I was the thing that got it out of them. Mack's great and all, but the burden of isolation is really too much for one human. I'm jealous of big families. I bet parents of big families wish they were me. Is this interesting? Or pathetic?

The isolation has made us weirdly social people. We befriended our contractor Jose, who learned that we are late sleepers without any conscious input from us. We polished off two bottles of wine and ate black bean stew with (and courtesy of) our neighbors Corrine and Ivan, a brilliant combination of British sailor and environmentalist and Caribbean Olympian/actor/spear fisherman/community-made mayor. I'm looking forward to Scrabble night with them this week. I need to bring them some chocolate if I can find it. And wine.

Other items on the List of Things to Look Forward to This Week include a trip to get groceries since hardly any restaurants are operating and, hopefully, the arrival of Mack's electronic piano. We miss the music that usually fills our mornings. Maybe we'll also get our washer. We ordered it 2 weeks ago, but the handle was broken and the ferries weren't running and then there was Easter and island time. Last week, we managed to move in, get our dryer, get WiFi, and have the air conditioner installed. I'll probably keep up my routine of sweeping the floor and mopping daily. I have really cultivated a love of sweeping, probably because our place is so small it's low effort for high yield. I have also cultivated disdain for FaceTime, probably because it shocks me into harsh reality every time I open it. I love to see my lovies faces, but I can't stand the look of my own... it matches my voice. We haven't had a mirror in our lives since we moved in, and I forget how wild and greasy I can look, especially in muggy climates like the one we're in. Today I had to apologize to Jose when I opened the door for him to do some plumbing work because I went to bed with wet hair and I know the range of appearance that can get.

(Mack just caught a mosquito with our electric racket: "Mess with the bull, get the horns." The thrill of catching one of those bastards is worth remark.)

I don't know how long this will last. But I do know that the sweet agony of it has settled down on us, and I hope that at the end I'll feel the same fondness for it that I feel about my last summer vacations as a kid in Kentucky. That hot season when my mom kept us out of the house since she was trying to sell it and we were living disasters who survived on Nerds and Nachos at the swimming pool. When Heather and I bounced around the neighborhood between our houses like nomads. When I kissed my first boy and discovered that I could inflate my bathing suit top to make it look like I had giant boobs. When I broke my collar bone coming home from the dentist and had to swim in a brace. When we climbed into the bathtub to protect ourselves during a tornado warning and Leiah peed on all of us since Heather's mom refused to let any of us get out of the tub. When everything was carefree and slow, drastic change was on the horizon, and I was learning without even trying to.

The 2014 Tour of Dead People in American History

Last fall I was talking to my mom about taking an adventure and since it was our first ever solo expedition together, I told her to pick wherever she wanted to go in the entire world.

She picked Washington, D.C.

I have a running list of dream places on Pinterest. Washington, D.C., was never ever considered for that list. But the point of this trip was to do something fun with my mom, to visit one of her dream places, so in June, we made the journey to the nation's capital/went on a quest to steal Barack from Michelle and have him for ourselves.

Here we're trying to figure out who makes the cutest couple.

I had been to D.C. two times before, once with Mack a few years ago and once with my 5th grade class when we took a whirlwind 1-day tour of the city and its sites. I still remember that trip and everything we saw and did, and I figured if it stuck with me this long, it must be worth seeing again. I emailed my Congressman and submitted our info to get us cleared for a tour of the White House, the Capitol Building, and the Kennedy Center. Also on my radar was the Ford Theater, the Washington Mall (which includes, of course, the Lincoln Memorial, my favorite place in D.C.), and the Arlington Cemetery.

The first day we got there, the airline conveniently lost my mom's luggage, which meant that our afternoon was a little sabotaged waiting for a delivery. We managed to find a place to eat, the Woodward Table, where we ate the most delicious French Fries ever made and had sauteed greens made with walnuts and raisins that were out of this world. My mom and I like to cook together, but more than that we like to eat together. The Woodward Table got our vacation started off right. With a full belly I climbed into bed next to my momma and slept for the first time in like 40 hours.

Our first touristy spot, and the one that put the taste of dead in our mouths, was the White House. We, along with 75 of our closest strangers, lined up and got screened five times to get access to five rooms of the White House. There was the yellow room with the big tall ceilings, which is where the dead bodies of Lincoln and JFK were showcased after their assassinations, then the green room, which is where they place all the gold eagle-adorned knick knacks they've bought over the years, then the blue room, which is roundish, then the red room, which is, you'll never guess, red, and then the giant dining room. We saw portraits of all the first ladies and presidents and got kind of excited that maybe Hillary Clinton will be the first woman to have one of each.

Dammit, Barack, we came to your house to see you and YOU WEREN'T EVEN THERE. How will we ever get our marriage proposal to you now??

It was perfect weather, so we decided to spend the rest of the day walking the National Mall. We saw the Lincoln Memorial of my favorite dead president, the World War II Memorial, the Reflecting Pool/Forrest Gump Memorial, and the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. Then our feet died because we'd worn cute shoes for Barack which were bad shoes for walking thousands of miles on concrete so we went home.

As we walked around the city, it seemed like we encountered a dead person or genocided culture every where we went. The National Museum of the American Indian - we gave you smallpox blankets for your babies and herded you along a trail so we could steal your home, but here's a place for your canoes and bedazzled Chuck Taylors. Never forget.

It was kind of hard to be jolly around all this dead and memorializing, so we ate good food and shopped to break it up.

Salmon Eggs Benedict and Crabcake Eggs Benedict. Dead chicken fetuses to help us forget the dead humans. Also, a Bloody Mary to drown out all the bloodshed. (Thanks, Cedar.)

We also had a break from the dead to explore the house of the might-as-well-be-dead: the Capitol. We got in a line with 75 of our closest strangers, donned headsets, and were herded like Native Americans on a death march through rooms with domed ceilings. Luckily, our guide was uber sassy and smart ass, so Mom and I got a good laugh on this otherwise mundane tour of the place where our elected officials do nothing but waste money and time. 

Debra Hensley for Congress. That woman will whip them into shape with a stick ;)

To recover from the display of American waste, we took a taxi to Georgetown to explore. First stop was frozen goodness at Thomas Sweet, where I downed some cinnamon ice cream and mom restrained herself and ate frozen yogurt. Then we got some way overpriced shorts that show my butt fold if I bend over but that are really cute otherwise. (With these legs, when I find something cute on them, I buy it.) We had a fashion show in some consignment shops, and even though we didn't score any treasures, we scored huge laughs revealing terrible outfits to one another and doing bad dressing room dances that really make the clothes look awful. Mom's tea addiction kicked in, so we stopped for iced tea and a beer before making our way back to our neighborhood to find a place for dinner.

And then, I got my mom to eat octopus. When Shannon came to visit last summer, we ate octopus for the first time together and it was delicious, almost like pork. Our version was cut up and served with beans, so it was a little easier to get over the fact that it was octopus, but the version Mom and I had was full-on octopus in all its tentacles-with-suction-cups glory.

A little offering from the ocean at Mourayo.

Going for it!

The last couple days of our trip the weather decided to give me a full summer 100% humidity, temps in the 90s experience. We got up early one morning to go to Arlington Cemetery, but by the time we made it to JFK's grave site and the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, I was so hot I took my shoes off and cooled my feet on the marble steps. I didn't care about these fields of dead people, anonymous or not, because I was about to become one of them. Oh, did I mention it was only like 10:30 am? It's kinda hard to be reflective at a grave site with an eternal flame when you're being burned alive by the sun.

Look how excited Mom is to look at dead people in 1000-degree temperatures!

Hey Congress. Read this, assholes.

This sign almost read Place Where Amber Died of Heatstroke, with an arrow pointing downward.

The heat made us go inside, which meant museums and shopping malls. We toured the Ford Theater, which is so different than when I visited there 25 years ago. Like there's technology now. And the street is lined with giant tour buses. And the 75 of my closest strangers that I waited in line with are gaa-gaa for taking selfies in front of the theater box where Lincoln got his brains blown out. And the Peterson House across the street, where I remember seeing a bloody pillow on a tiny bed after going through an entrance to a basement below a Burger King, is now a full fledged museum, with four floors and a gift shop and an amazing tower of books all written about my favorite president.

We also went to the Holocaust Museum, which, although it was the most epic death downer of the entire Tour of Dead People in American History, was fascinating. The tour starts with you getting a pamphlet of an actual Jew's story, and as you go through the museum, you refer back to your story for updates on that person's experience. At the end, you find out if your person died or not. There is no hope. Your person is dead.

Along the way you get to step into train cars that took people to concentration camps and see miniature replicas of gas chambers, complete with people clamoring for their lives. One particularly unsettling thing was a paved road that was cast from a road in Europe built during the war. It was built using headstones from Jewish cemeteries, and you can read parts of the names on some of the "cobblestones." It made me sick. It's not enough that you capture people and enslave them and starve them and slowly kill them, but then to demolish their sacred places and turn a person's last remaining presence in the living world into a building block for a road? What kind of monster does that? There was also an installation of shoes taken from dead Jews that kind of blew my mind. Of all the dead people memorial tours in D.C., this one was definitely the best... and worst.

At our last supper, I asked Mom where she wanted to go for our next trip, and she said I could pick. I warned her that most of my dream destinations are a pain in the ass to get to, pretty uncomfortable to be in, and change the way you see the world. With that, I lost the picking privilege, but that's okay. Wherever we go, as long as I can cuddle up next to my momma with a full belly, I'll be in a dream destination.

What I Did on My Summer Vacation (Part 5 in a Series of 5)

This is the last vacation one, I promise. Only contemporary adventures from here on out. Don't get too jealous!

Originally emailed June 23 and June 30. Enhanced August 6.

Alright. I've been in Iran long enough to make some summary judgments. First of all, they are very interested in keeping up appearances. they are all poor, but they all act like they're not, even though everyone knows everyone else has to be poor since there are no jobs here. Thousands of educated, competent engineers, and taxi driver is the most secure job they can get. Mack's uncle Ali has been working for the last four months and has not been paid, and if he complains about not being paid, he gets told to quit if he doesn't like it. If you have a job you can borrow money, if you don't, you can't. So he keeps working for free. It's sad to see how hard he works and know that he gets nothing for it. his is the same story as a lot of people, I gather. Also, in their attempt to keep up appearances, they leave the plastic on things... from car seats to cell phone screens (BRETT!) to computer chairs at every internet cafe we've been to. Like the plastic makes it look so new they haven't even had time to open it. Mack and I call this type of behavior "boughaz," named in honor of the ghetto ferry we took to morocco last year that left four hours later than it was supposed to and seemed like it hadn't had a heyday in 30 years.

Iran Air, the main airline here, has great commuter flights (they give you an Iranian Creme Saver before take off... they love sweets here!), but its international ones are boughaz. Our plane hade a board room in the front of it, complete with board table and spiral staircase to an upstairs lounge (at least I'm imagining it's a lounge since i didn't get to go up there and it makes it more exotic if it was in fact a lounge), but it also hadn't been updated since the 70s and people SMOKED in the back of the plane NEAR THE OXYGEN TANKS and babies stood in the aisle when WE WERE LANDING! That is boughaz. I felt like i was on one of those indiana jones planes where there are caged chickens around you and feathers are flying all over the place. Mack was convinced the emergency door we sat next to had an air leak so we had to sleep in shifts, which was a silly propostion in the first place. sleeping would have been a dream come true considering all the people leaving Western civilization and heading back to Persian had to get one last actual toilet use in before landing. 400 people must have gone in and out of that bathroom. They also like silk flowers and plastic fruits here, which is totally boughaz, but then they have these incerdible gardens with real roses and palm trees and grass that they spend the entire day watering... not boughaz. We've decided, after our wedding party last night, that Iran is suffering from an identity crisis unseen anywhere else on the planet. When we were in Chefchaouen last summer, the Muslim townspeople didn't drink beer or carouse with women because it was forbidden by their religion, but they didn't make it illegal for people who visit their town. Part of its attraction and the reason I would visit there over and over again was the acceptance of other ways of life and how peacefully and wonderfully (as in full of wonder for other lifestyles) they integrated. Not the case here. In Shahin Shar, which is a pretty small, very conservative town where we've spent most of our days, the identity crisis is really felt. Here we are in this place where women must cloak themselves from head to toe, but then the preferred type of dance for both men and women has you moving like a stripper, with shoulder shaking, and hence boob shaking, a must. It's like extreme no sexy to extreme sexy, and how people can coexist in both spheres and keep all the right times and right places straight in their heads has proved too hard for me. I get looked at everywhere I go because I am white looking, regardless of whether I'm walking with my head down or slow motion running because I am playing with Laila (turns out any display of fun is frowned upon when in public, but as soon as you step behind a 10-foot brick wall into your own yard, you should be having the time of your life). They love their families deeply and spend all their time with each other, but they don't have the emotional intensity that i'm used to in my family and which i credit for the deep love i have for them. Cousins often marry here, which makes Kentucky and iran a little similar, because the families know each other and can stay close. It's different, and some of it's weird and some of it's beautiful, but the overall feeling I am taking from small town Iran is one of sympathy. It's boiling with potential that is stifled because of its religious government, where forbidden is illegal and where people are scared to be human.

Off to Amsterdam...

About two minutes off the train at Central Station in my Amberdam and I was once again ready to move here. Coming from a place so conservative and where I was so watched and so guarded made it even sweeter... although I just looked over at Mack's computer and he's looking at gayromeo.com followed by gaydar.nl and I'm wondering if freedom really is so great for our relationship. Hee hee. We've been here about four days, and I've been spending roughly 10 hours out of my hotel room and 14 hours in it. Retoxing is what we're calling it. Trash tv (and by trash I'm not talking about the porn that comes on but episodes of Real World and Larry King Live), french fries with mayonnaise (don't knock it till you try it), short-sleeved t-shirts and beer. The first day we were here we dropped our luggage off at our hotel and went to have a Guiness at the Irish pub around the corner. Mack brought out his magic tricks and won over a couple of British mates named James and Ryan who then amused us until 2 p.m. (we started drinking at 9 a.m.) when we went to check in all the way at our hotel.


Well, we apparently asked them to move our reservation up a day later than we expected so when we checked in they only had one room left and it was roughly the size of my bathroom. Oh, it had a bed, tv, shower, toilet and sink in it, but it was still the size of my bathroom. Mack let me have the bed while he laid on the floor, and when we started to wake up at around 11 p.m. from our naps, our hangovers put us right back to bed. The room was stiflingly hot, so we had to sleep with our door open, which was fine for us but which probably puzzled all the people stepping off the elevator and looking in at our pathetic selves. So the next day...

We've been pretty low key since then. I've been trying to stay out late enough to see the nakeds in the red light district just because they're an interesting breed to observe, but it doesn't get dark here until no kidding 11:30 p.m. so by then I'm absorbed in some really great episode of the Wayan Brothers show that I've never watched before and don't feel like going out. Mack's ventured out a couple times and brought back reports of people with darker skin whispering "cocaine" as he walks by. I have yet to verify this account, but I tend to walk around in a self-amusing daze and don't really notice stuff directed toward me if I'm not interested in it. (update: The red light distict is, it turns out, one of the most beautiful parts of Amsterdam at night. The women are sort of sectioned off by race -- Asians, then blacks, then whites, and cover lots of blocks -- and there is one stretch that has red lit windows on the left and the back of a church on the right, and the sex being sold makes that passageway so beautifully lit. And there's also the added bonus of "good" versus "evil" laid out in front of you. Evil is more interesting, in my opinion. There are also a ton of boats in the canals of the district at night. It's like floating bachelor pads and the boys just cruise through the canals drinking beer and looking at all the women in the windows. Some of the little passages are only one person wide with two lanes of sideways traffic going through them. You can taste the animal hunger in the air, but luckily these are men and not animals, so most have some self control or friends to control them. Plus, if they want to satisfy themselves, they have hundreds of girls ready and willing. They have all kinds of girls there... fat, thin, every race on earth, big boobs, no boobs, long hair, short hair, old, young, majorly stripperesque and girl next doorish. And the coolest thing, the canals aren't gated off, so if you step too far back to gawk you get a punishing plunge to deal with. That, and there were no cops pushing you with billy clubs or accusing you of being guilty for satisfying your curiosity.)

We've seen a lot of awesome things this time around... went to the Van Gogh Museum, and the Riljksmuseum (it has rembrandt paintings), which were incredible;

I loved this downspout!

Went to Madame Tousseau's Wax Museum where I joked with Gandhi and the buddhist guy I can't remember what we call him,,, Dalai Lama,,, had dinner with George Clooney, compared prisms with Isaac Newton and, alas, discovered that Mack is the vitruvian man, much to my dismay and to his inflated ego;





Went to the Amsterdam Zoo yesterday, which was really beautiful and had lots of animals that, believe it or not, didn't look depressed to be at the zoo. They use a lot of water barricades around their exhibits so it's like you're right up on the animals. The grounds were really pretty and we stumbled across a bonus aquarium which was really cool;


Went to the Heinken experience for 10 Euro, which basically paid for the three beers we got along the tour. It was pretty cool, and it was the best Heineken I've ever tasted in my life.

We've been walking everywhere and have pretty much covered every square inch of the city's center by foot twice. I told Mack this morning that vacation has been long enough, we either need to move here or go home and move to LA. His response was, it's better that vacation was too long than too short, which is true so I shut up after that. I think we're going to try to go to a jazz club tonight or tomorrow so Mack can get his music fix, but it remains to be seen if I stay awake that long. (update: I did stay awake that long, and it ended up being an awesome night. First we went to a sports bar to watch the Brazil v. Someone World Cup game and there were these awesome (and hot) Brazilian drummers making a sound so dynamic everyone was bobbing their heads in the air.

Football has a ton of followers there. People lined up outside the patio where we sat and watched from the streets.

After the game we walked down to the jazz club and were the first ones there. It started to fill up quickly though, so we ended up with the best seats in the house. We got to meet the leader guy, a sax player named Akos Laki, and his apprentice, a guy named Rex from New Orleans. It was cool to see a New Orleanian performing in Amsterdam, but also kind of sad to see just how displaced New Orleans' musicians had become from Katrina, etc. I generally don't like jazz, except for like Louis Armstrong and Etta James kind, but I had a really good time watching them play. I'm sure the few beers I'd had added to my fascination, but whatever.

It was a great night, until we had to ride our bikes home and I completely had no idea where things were in the dark. I could remember if it was daylight, but night in Amsterdam looks completely different.


I guess since ít's the weekend I'll live it up and retox some more. I'm just so glad I don't have to do anything all I want to do is nothing. Vacation.
Hope everyone is doing well and not cooking in the hot pre-July weather. Love and hugs!

In the words of Vincent Vega, the guy who saved John Travolta from being a has-been: "It's the little differences. I mean they got the same shit over there that they got here, but it's just - it's just there it's a little different."

Examples?
The bikes made to carry an entire family and their groceries.
The conversation hearts brought to your table after dinner with Dutch on them.
The light poles in Shahin Shar that are made to look like illuminated trees.
The headscarves that mannequins and drawings of women wear in Iran at bathrooms, prayer rooms and other women-only entrances.
The toilets that are different every place you go.

What I Did on My Summer Vacation (Part 4 in a Series of I Don't Know How Many Yet)

The big day has arrived. The day that I will share our wedding woes and enlighten you with that experience. Best wishes.

Originally emailed June 23, Seriously Enhanced August 3

Our wedding yesterday was pretty strange. Shahin and I went to get our hair done by the beautician, who got her post because she bought a compact of 50 colors of eyeshadow and thus was the most qualified. She colored my eyebrows red and used theatrical makeup to make me white (i thought i already was but apparently you're supposed to be porcelain white, who knew) and started to put a ponytail on the top of my head when I finally had to intervene. Instead of doing what I asked, she tried to sell me on what she wanted to do, which was something out of Boughaz Weekly. I ended up with a lopsided french twist and some brown-red makeup on top of my porcelain skin, which still looked pretty bad but was 1000 times better than what she first did. And i got my eyebrows shaped by a professional, so they look a little better. Oh, and I got a good shave. Yes, she shaved my face with a straight razor sized for women. She got peach fuzz from my cheeks and held it up for me to look at with a look on her face like "oh, see all this nasty hair coming off your face." that's when I decided my degree of maintenance was just right, and that i would from here on out forgive myself for having hair on my face. As long as it doesn't grow in thicker and coarser than before.

I was ready to get the hell out of there as soon as Shahin got her makeup done, so I suggested we just get dressed at home. We called Ali to have him come get us only to learn that he was on his way with Mack and the photographer. We put on our dresses in about two seconds flat, got all of our crap together, and as I started to put my headscarf on and walk out the door, Shahin said to leave it off. I opened the door to a handsome but annoyed Mack, heard the words ACTION, and received a bouquet of red and white roses. Apparently we didn't do this impromptu exchange very well because we had to redo it a couple of times. I walked to the car, the first time I'd been outside without a headscarf in more than a week, and climbed in... with Shahin, Laila, Mack, Ali, and the photographer all in a compact car in formal wear. Let the sweating begin!
I was positively glowing!

We walked into the courtyard and Mack's aunts immediately started singing something. Because I'd been conditioned over the last 10 days I started clapping to the beat of their song... not recommended. I think the bride is just supposed to be still and smile and dance when the people want her to. So I stopped clapping as they brought out some burning sage and waved it over our heads. We took our seats on the marble deck-turned-stage and watched our DJ and singer set up their enormous speakers. It was going to be entirely too loud up where we were so we relocated our chairs to the courtyard amidst the other chairs. Cherries and bananas and peaches were out on all the tables, and as soon as the DJ started up, the dancing ensued.

It started inside, where I was told to sit so my makeup wouldn't melt, but when I couldn't stand it anymore and went outside, the dancing followed. I asked Mack's dad, Tom, if I could have a cigarette... not because I wanted the nicotine but because I wanted the habit that doubles as an excuse to get away for a minute. He laughed, whether it was at my desperation or my dramatic eyeliner, I have no idea. My legitimate smile was morphing into the God-I-Love-Jesus-So-Much-I-Could-Explode one that I see on preacher shows... a little coma stained with numbing mind control. I hope I looked delightful, but I doubt I was fooling anyone. Mack was trying to pull off the same look that I was, and I could see how badly he was executing it, so I can only assume I was just as transparent. Luckily, it got dark pretty quickly and lots of people started showing up.

I got a bouquet of flowers from one of Shahin's relatives and a ring from another. People just kept coming and coming, all of them shaking my hand and saying things I completely didn't understand. I just said, "Salaam" and "Merci" whenever it felt right. Some of the women were really beautiful with hair that went past their butts when they took off their scarves, and the men were all over the place. Young, old, ancient, babies.

Everyone danced. And danced. And made us dance. And we are not dancers. I wish I could upload video because there are some dance moves on there from Jaffar that are youtube worthy. They also do this fantastic shoulder shake thing that basically vibrates their shoulders without moving their chests. I tried it and my boobs were flopping like a stripper on The Sopranos, so I decided just to stick with the wavy arm move. And to try to dance as little as possible. At one point, we had a belly dancer girl who was about 14 with quite a tank butt but a good dancer perform for all of us. She was wearing a white mini skirt, a shirt that accentuated her pointy bra boobs and some white thigh highs that peeped out from under her skirt on certain movements. I was proud of her outfit, but after a few dances she was asked to put on some pants. That kind of made me mad, but she didn't seem to bothered by it. An Iranian tradition is for the groom's family to give money to all the people dancing, so when Shahin walked out with a wad of tomen, people got out of their seats and started shaking even more. I'd earned enough gold this trip, so I didn't dance for dollars.

At one point we had to do our first dance together as a couple. We took dance lessons at one point a few years ago and learned the waltz and the box step and the swing and the foxtrot. The music came on, Mack started doing a box step that was robotic even by my standards, and our attempts to loosen up and have a good time failed. I kept telling Shahin if she could get us a few beers we'd dance our heads off, but alas. While we were sharing this forcibly intimate, awkward moment, Mack mentioned that the song sounded really familiar. It did. I got visions of shootouts in a restaurant setting. Where had we heard this? Then he said, "It's the song from the Godfather!" How appropriate.

We knew dinner was on the itinerary, but we'd already been fed fruit and cookies and ice cream, so we were thinking maybe the itinerary had changed. Not quite. We were herded into the neighbors' courtyard where tables had been set up with soda and lamb kababs and rice and salad, and we all stood around the tables and pigged out. It was pretty good food, but it was quite a challenge to shovel rice into my mouth from 2 feet away. I filled up pretty quickly, snuck back over to our courtyard, and snuck into the bathroom to pee one last time while no one was around.

The music, which rubbed my tolerance for techno completely raw, resumed, and I danced one final time for the remaining guests. It was so funny. I can't dance the way they do, so when I stood up, I just did my typical arms-in-the-air, I-can't-care-what-you-think-this-is-how-my-body-moves dance. Then everyone else started trying to do my dance. They all tried to imitate my move and I thought, "Dear God, don't let them think I'm a dancer to be copied."

About 11:30, that would be four and a half hours after our nuptial soiree began, we snuck into our bedroom and hid behind the door so no one would see us. I practiced the shoulder shake, realized it would just be one more dance move I'll never absorb, laid down on the floor behind the door, and fell asleep. About 30 minutes later, Shahin woke me up, told me to wash my face, which was one of the most painful things I've done, and the day came to an end.

It wasn't at all the wedding I would have made for myself, but it was really wonderful to be able to get Mack's entire family together and to celebrate our relationship with them.
Shahin, Me, Bobba Bezorg (Shahin's dad)
Me and Momma Bezorg (Shahin's mom and the hardest working woman I've ever met in my life)