The Wedding

I took the day off today because I needed to color my hair which had 3 inches of grey/brown growth on it and because I had to check out more wedding gowns with my daughter, and get gold borders put on the dress I wore to last night's wedding for my nephew. A very full day.

The wedding was held at a rather fancy hotel in Jerusalem, and it was American style which meant proper placed seating, it was color themed, had flower girls, etc. and it was going to be somewhere between modern and ultra-Orthodox style. This meant families and friends were able to sit together (Ultra Orthodox weddings have separate seating for men and women) but were not able to dance together and there was a "separation fence" put up to separate the men and women dancers.

I asked my girls to don appropriate clothing. My son, who doesn't attend synagogue and therefore doesn't have the proper clothes for a festive occasion, had to wear the pants he wore last year for his bar mitzvah and he did look a bit like Steve Erkel with the pants hovering just above his ankles. So I took note that I WILL have to buy him a new pair plus dress shoes for his sister's wedding. There was a mad rush as kids who thought they had the proper outfits, didn't and they all made a mad scramble of borrowing each other's clothing and yelling and screaming and tossing all the laundry around so that my place looked like the Salvation Army had a wild clothing sale going on.

My Ultra-Orthodox relatives were there from the US and Canada. My sister looked at my newly red hair and asked me if it was Halloween. I guess that means she doesn't like the color, which made me like it even more.

It was great to see most of my relatives, as I hadn't seen them in years.

My lovely niece is only 4 1/2 years younger than me, and we are as close as sisters when we meet, even though our lifestyles are totally different. She told me it's a custom to invite your dead relatives to the weddings. I told her I hope to invite my parents who "lie" close by but it'll freak me out to no end if I get a check from my dad.

But I think most were a bit shocked at seeing the Complainer (age 18) and Ex-Criminal (age 16) who, after the wedding ceremony, nonchalantly lit up cigarettes.

"YOU CAN'T SMOKE 'THAT' AROUND MY RELATIVES!!!" I whispered loudly to them taking them aside. All I saw were a bunch of men wearing black hats staring at those girls, tsk tsking the way people do when they see something terrible. What passes for barely acceptable behavior around my house, becomes absolutely No Fucking Way around my religious relatives.

Not to mention how I ran over to the Complainer while she was dancing in the women's circle with wild abandon, to pull down her shirt and pull up her skirt as her large tattoo on her back was terribly visible. I was afraid that would give some of my relatives a heart attack. I'm sure the videographer captured this all. They always do. The Ex-Criminal's skirt was also on the low-slung side, nearly baring the top of her rear end and I rushed to her side to remedy that situation as well. The kids must have thought I was over the top and laughed at me, as usual.

My niece looked at my two renegade kids walking past, with their midriffs peeking out between their shirts and skirts, and me too tired to run over to them for the 15th time to get them to pull their shirts down more, and said

"Boy, they must give you a run for your money!"

I replied - "Yeah. I think God gave those kids to me because they're the reason I need to pray to Him - alot