It is a bloody freaking miracle that I am still alive after this weekend. On second thought I must qualify that statement with the word ‘just’. It is a bloody freaking miracle I am ‘just’ alive after this weekend. [In fact I’m so wiped out I can’t even type properly so what you see is the words after I’ve typed them at least twice. Over.]
This confirmation business is madness, I tell you. Madness! But a culturally condoned madness, in fact a culturally enforced madness, so a madness you must actually participate in unless you want to be considered, well, mad.
As loyal readers will know, AAH opted for the civil confirmation madness, as opposed to the even-more-mad ecclesiastical madness. [How many times can I write the word madness in this post I wonder? See my mind is jumping all over the place – I’m going mad! Ness!] So anyway, we showed up this morning at the University Cinema and Conference Hall [where the ceremony was to take place] at 10.30, all nine of us [nine was the quota for each confirmation kid so the extended family had to stay home]: me, EPI, EPI’s three daughters, my mother and aunt who came ALL THE WAY FROM CANADA to witness the madness, and my father and his wife.
OK I have to say that it was a pretty groovy kind of madness ’cause it was sort of a hippy thing, with great speeches and little diversions like a totally hilarious three-piece band doing a mad, mad rendition of Queen’s Crazy Little Thing Called Love and an actress doing a clown skit and making everyone feel all warm and fuzzy inside. Then there were some very highbrow things like a translation of Imagine and other Poetry Readings, which could have deteriorated into utter sap had it not been for the openness, sincerity and artless enthusiasm of the confirmation kids who were just so wonderfully bright and clever [teenagers get such a bad rap, I tell you], and after all the whole ceremony was intended to celebrate their uniqueness and energy and this rite of passage into adulthood so there was a lot of joy and laughter and positive energy all around.
YT even managed to stay awake and alert and to clap her hands in the right places and tap her foot when appropriate – despite having been up until two in the morning baking cakes and making all these dishes for the banquet, even though I ordered a catering service and really didn’t need to be doing all that extra work but what can I say, I’m a stressaholic. And this all came after spending the whole day running around and then decorating the banquet hall and generally not sitting my ass down on a chair for more than a minute. The only thing my EXTREME FATIGUE did at the ceremony was make me all tearful and sentimental in places that were not inherently sentimental or tearful at all.
So anyway, after the ceremonial madness YT dashed over to the hall while EPI dashed to the bakery to pick up the cake and then YT dashed to the theatre with the dishes that needed heating and then lots of other people dashed in lots of other directions … and then the guests arrived. And for about two hours everyone sat and ate and talked and socialized and generally HAD A BLAST, until, with the wave of a hand, they were all gone.
It was like a cyclone had hit and then in a flash disappeared and I found myself sitting there, scratching my head and thinking: Did all this really just happen??
[But I know it did. Because AAH’s got the loot to prove it. Plus my feet hurt really bad.]
THE WEATHER
Who cares? All I know is it’s not freezing and there’s no freaking storm like yesterday when standing on your own two feet outside was virtually impossible and the sun came up sometime and went down not too long ago and regular reporting shall be resumed in due course.