Okay SO

My childhood friend Padma got married this weekend, and I am still sooooo excited for her, but also for me because I do not get to wear my sari very often. Which is a shame, because somehow everyone looks amazingly feminine and completely awesome in a sari. Anyways, it was a gorgeous wedding and it went on for three days which is a little shorter actually than most Hindu weddings and poor husband was completely overwhelmed but he was a sport about it, and on Thursday which was the night before the wedding we had her Mehndi party and a couple of us brought our kids, and Henry was getting into everything so we hanna-ed him too.We thought it would be funny to put a henna mustache on him, which....now will wash off in about a month if we're lucky.
Husband is thrilled.
So then Friday night was the Ghari Puja, and then the Swagatum, the ceremony itself, was on Saturday morning, with a party after that lasted....longer than we did.
So then today we were both exhausted and both had a lot of work-related things to do, (Grades for him, lesson plans for me and how is it that I have nineteen days before I quit work and ahhhhhhhhhh I have to get both my students and Matt squared away before I can go.) so my parents who were also at Padma's wedding (we grew up in a cult together so our parents are all very good friends!*) stayed over and Mommy and I went to the store together and bought pork ribs and now my parents are making ribs and corn on the cob and salad and cornbread and entertaining Henry, who seems to be having some kind of pots and pans war in the kitchen. At least, he raises up his wooden spoon, lets out a battle cry, and toddles at full speed towards my chili pan, where he whacks it with a spoon for a couple of minutes before backing up and repeating the operation. He's having fun, but it's incredibly noisy.
I have no idea what to teach my students for the next three weeks.


* When I was about seven or so, I was staying with my parents for a brief period home when they randomly decided to move onto a soybean farm where the men were separated from the women and children and us girls weren't allowed to cut our hair, eat meat, go inside the temple if we were menstruating, men weren't allowed to talk to women or girls they weren't related to, we all wore these long red sheath/robe/tunic things and men weren't allowed to shave their beards. My mom will still say "It was a nice little farm, it's not like THAT!" and we will say, "It was a cult, mom." and she'll say, "Maybe according to the LAWS OF MAN." Anyways, while my parents and Padma's parents were busy being total fucking loons, Padma and my brother James and her sister Gita and I used to ride ponies and play house and chase chickens.