Now I know what it’s like to really live

Yesterday was the day of the wedding. The wedding that everyone had been talking about for ages. The wedding which I was not looking forward to, because I wasn’t invited, and was dreading the boringness of having everyone gone all day.

Which, really, just goes to show how far I’ve come, because boringness of that sort used to be rather normal and ordinary.

But the night before the wedding, as we stood around with nothing to do because the Mexican Supper we had been planning to go to was canceled due to the rain, Kay said, “are you going to the wedding tomorrow, Emily.”

“Well, I wasn’t exactly invited,” said I.

“Oh, I’m sure you’re invited,” said Kay.

“They invited all the youth, and single staff, and stuff,” added Tonya.

So that was how I ended up going to the wedding after all. I was very excited. Weddings are wonderful things.

But the wedding wasn’t until four, so I had plenty of time to have a little adventure before it started.

It happened because of the video I was supposed to make of myself to send to my editor so that she could make a book trailer for my book. I had so many troubles making and sending that video. Once I started to write a blog post about it and I got to problem number 18 before I finally decided it would be a pretty boring blog post. Because there were many more problems after problem number 18.

But the last problem was that when I sent the DVD to my editor, there was a mix up, and she didn’t get it. So I had to send it again, asap.

That’s what I did Friday morning. I burned another dvd, got on my scooter, and rode to the post office.

I had to send it FedEx, and there is just this little FedEx drop-off box at the post office where you fill 0ut the form yourself, attach it to the package, and drop it in the box.

But oops, I forgot a pen.

So I ran to city market and bought a package of cheep pens and a loaf of bread so I could make myself some sandwiches to keep in my purse. When I walked out of the store I though, “man, the sky is really dark.”

I got back on my scooter and returned to the post office. All of the sudden the wind blew like crazy, until I could hardly control my scooter. And the dust flew in my eyes till I couldn’t see. And as I was just guiding my scooter into the bike rack next to the FedEx drop off box, the rain started. It was all I could do to grab my wallet and keys and dash inside.

Well now what? There was no way I could make it home. I was stranded in the post office.

So of course I called Knepps and asked for someone to come rescue me.

While I waited I took another brave dash outside, this time to grab my DVD, a pen, and a cardboard envelope and mailing form from the FedEx box. I tried to fill out the form while sitting on the floor of the post office entryway, desperately shielding it from raindrops whenever someone entered or exited.

And when I dashed back out to drop the package in the box, Dallas was there in his truck.

Oh glory be.

I hopped in. Dallas got out and put my scooter on the back. By the time he climbed back in there was hardly a dry spot on his shirt. “Well, I guess I don’t have to take a shower, now,” he said.

It was such an adventure. And when I got home I realized, “I like rain again.” Because all of the sudden I remembered rain for what I had always seen it as in my younger days; exciting, refreshing, and wonderful smelling, not the dreaded monster that made mold grow.

Well then, of course, it was time to get ready for the wedding.

I love getting ready for weddings. Normally I’m a sort of “roll out of bed, dress, rush out the door, and get there late” type, but weddings are different. For weddings I start way early, and shower, and primp, and iron my dress, and make sandwiches to store in my purse, and leave way early. There is nothing rushed.

The wedding was beautiful. Of course. All weddings are beautiful, but that doesn’t make the next one even less beautiful. And it was also kind of cool to go to a wedding even though I wasn’t related to either the bride or the groom. That hasn’t happened in ages.

For the last four weddings I’ve gone to, I’ve sat way up front on the right side. Usually it’s because I’m the grooms cousin, but this time I’ve never even really talked to the groom, so I have no idea why I got that seat.

I just thought that was interesting.

Then, when the service was over, what do you know, Benji Mast shows up and starts talking to me. It felt strange, like meeting a celebrity. If you don’t belong in my family it’s a little hard to explain why it felt like that. Partially because the only way I knew him was through the Internet, blogs and facebook and such, and partially because people in my family, especially my mom, tend to talk about the people in his family quite a bit. I mean, not creepily or anything, just like, in a hypothetical situation, you don’t say “somebody,” you throw in the name of one of the Masts.

For example, instead of saying something like, “Hey Mom, wouldn’t it be cool if somebody wanted to buy an autographed copy of my book?” I would say, “Hey Mom, wouldn’t it be cool if somebody, like Hans Mast or something, wanted to buy an autographed copy of my book?”

Now that I think about it it’s kind of strange. But still, it was cool to meet the famous Benji Mast.

At the reception most of the food, like I suspected, either contained something I was allergic to, or else it could have, and how would I ever know? So I made frequent little trips to the bathroom to munch on the sandwiches in my purse.

Then once someone sent me a text, and it sounded like a chicken clucking. So we had this joke going on that I brought food along with me in my purse, only I hadn’t killed it yet. Sometimes I would say, “I think I’ll go cut the head off a chicken,” and then I would run off and eat part of a sandwich.

But it was a dumb joke because I’m actually allergic to chicken.

Afterwords, at Knepps, there was this funny old couple that I was talking to. I can’t even remember their names, but the man bought my book, and they were talking about how much they like my Mom’s books. They were also talking about all my relatives in Hutchinson Kansas that I didn’t even know I had. They were really cool and funny.

And after that, Tonya and I went on a walk, and then sat in the car wash across the road from my house for like, an hour. We felt very cool, just hangin’ in the car wash on a Friday night. We even took pictures with our cell phones, cause we felt so cool.

When I went to bed that night I thought, “now I know what it’s like to really live.” And I could hardly sleep for the wonder of it.

I thought, “how can people have days like today all the time and never know how good they have it?”

I thought, “I used to have days like today all the time. How come I never knew how good I had it?”

I thought, “God, how amazing are you, that you made your world so lovely and exciting!”

Because right then, a car wash on a rainy night in Canon City Colorado with Tonya felt similar to, perhaps, a lamp post in a snowy wood inside a wardrobe with a faun.