| Jul. 10th, 2011 @ 10:43 pm A few* words about our trip to San Francisco |
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* a lot of
Let me begin by saying, "Dude!" as is my wont. It is a word rife with excitement and glee on this particular occasion. I posted a few weeks ago about my bio on Geoff and Sabrina's wedding website. I loved that right away. As I said, it's all true.
I had the honor of standing in the wedding of a long-time friend over the July 4th weekend. During the festivities, there were two open opportunities to give a toast, and the required people gave them (brothers, parents, best man, officiant, etc), and I debated with myself whether I had something meaningful enough to say. I eventually chose to not speak, and I sort of regret it.
The Dudesmen, as we were called in the wedding ceremony program, consisted of myself, Nick and Alex (who stood as best man). Outside of Geoff's immediate family, we were the only representatives from Caro. Everyone else met Geoff or Sabrina at U of M or Harvard. Since neither Nick nor Alex made it to my wedding, only Geoff and my brother represented friends from my own childhood in my wedding. At some level, out of everyone who isn't Geoff's family, I've known him the longest: since I was in fourth grade and he was in fifth (about 10 or 11 years old). So, I feel like I should have said something. I've played back in my head what I could have said several times since then, but might have gone something like the following.
If at the Chinese banquet, which I'll mention later, I would have started with
"/Ni how/. /Wo shir/ JD.** Haha, tried to say 'Hello, I am (or my name is) JD.' That's all I remember from my one semester of Chinese I took while an undergrad."
I expect laughs there or awkwardness. Either would suffice. (If at the wedding reception, I would have left out the Chinese introduction).
"As one of the very few representing Geoff's hometown of Caro, MI, outside of his immediate family of course, I have to say I'm very honored to be asked to stand in his wedding. And to read from Hitchhiker's Guide, haha!*** I've known Geoff, technically, since I was in fourth grade, and Geoff was in fifth. There were two occasions where our relationship solidified. I'm not sure if anyone else will remember this, but I studied the same karate style that the Svachas did, and my instructor, Cricket, brought me and my brother over to the Svacha house to watch Geoff and Brett practice some forms. Seeing their house filled with tournament trophies supported his reasons for taking us there. Later that same year, I would guess fairly soon after that, Geoff seemed to recognize me on the playground during recess, and somehow both of our classes had the same recess that day or something, and he invited me to play some game he called Zubaru [sic]. I said, 'ok, what's that?' He explained that it's like volleyball, but without the net, and you just try to keep the ball from hitting the ground. 'But don't worry about that; just hit it again.' So I played this totally random game, with no real objective, with him and other kids from the fifth grade. For some reason, I still remember that.
And throughout the rest of grade school and high school, our paths intersected in things like the swim teams and baseball, where my parents were the swim team coaches and DJ and Brett umpired many of our baseball games.
Here's a fun fact though: through high school, we had a weekly ritual of watching the X-Files. We didn't miss an episode from the middle of season 3 to season 8. Well, I kept watching it after the other guys went off to college, so season 7 for all of us. This time contained the majority of my most precious memories of my formative years. And of course we hung out on the campus of U of M quite a bit after high school, as both Nick and Geoff attended, and Alex went to college relatively nearby.
And then, Geoff goes off to Harvard, I go to Virginia Tech, Nick goes off to who knows where, Alex gets a job locally, and that's pretty much where we find ourselves today."
I'm not sure how I would end it at that point, assuming I even said all of that, which would have put most people to sleep, but that's the idea. Maybe bring it back around to recognizing the honor of being one if the few from home, which I very much do.
The Chinese banquet, that I said I'd explain, was awesome. After a sweltering day of winery tours and tastings in the Sonoma valley the day after the wedding, our shuttle bus full of wedding attendees headed to south San Fran to what at first appeared from the street to be any other restaurant front. Inside the Grand Palace was a massive space filled with at least twenty round tables seating probably ten people. There was also a staired balcony where most normal clientele went during our meal. It began with an introduction by a bilingual cousin of the bride as the MC, welcoming everyone. Then came the Lion Dance. Americans likely think these are dragons, as I did at first until I was corrected. And I realized how obvious it is that they're lions, with four legs and two people controlling one costume, rather than ten people. A percussion line kept time using syncopated and nonlinear beats to signal when to perform certain things, like lifting the head up (the hind legs person lifting the smaller head person on their shoulders) or spinning the lion around. It was all very cool to watch. This lasted for around 15 or 20 minutes. Then the MC introduced every vital person involved in the union, including extremely extended family.
The dinner itself was 10 courses of fairly exotic stuff: suckling pig (various pig parts, but none of the common ones like ham), deep-fried crab-claw balls (like a corndog, but crab meat, and the stick was the claw), egg tofu, stir fried scallops, dual whole lobsters (beheaded, but served with head staring at you with their beady little eyes), sharkfin soup, Peking duck (awesome; the best dish in terms of flavor), dual steamed live whole fish (can't remember the kind, but we clapped when the waiter boned the fish with precision), and fried rice. The dessert was fortune-cookie-flavored cakes (spongy and soft) and sesame balls (very squishy, but very tasty). Most of our table didn't care for the consistency of the sesame balls, but I loved them. I saw other guests snag them from nearby tables as they left, so I wasn't the only one.
During the first two courses, Geoff was taken upstairs to change into his costume, which was a traditional robe, but really flashy. I absolutely had to get my picture taken with him. "From humble beginnings to rock-star status," as he was once described.
Knowing Geoff, I expected that this was like a dream come true. All this culture that he's had interests in for a very ling time could likely be summed up for him as "This... is... AWESOME!" And now, he can experience it for the rest of his life.
So, congratulations Geoff! You're my boy!
** that's as phonetic as Chinese gets. "shir" is with a subtle 'r', so it's often romanized without it, like /shee/
*** I was asked to step forward with the book in hand, open it, flip a few pages, study it for a moment with mock seriousness, look up and say, "Don't panic." RAFO. It's worth it. It's also worth finding out what RAFO stands for. |
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