A wedding, traditions and dancing all night

This weekend our friends Heather and Vijay got married in a moving, beautiful ceremony, outside on the lawn at a gorgeous house on a perfect fall day. Afterwards there was a live band and a lot of dancing and champagne. All the good wedding stuff. Since Vijay is Indian the event was a melding of two traditions - a traditional Christian ceremony in which the bride and groom said their vows and shared a first married kiss, as well as a Hindu ceremony, which I loved, and wondered, during the whole thing, why I can't find a job as a writer where people would just send me to things, like Hindu wedding ceremonies, and have me write about that. Would I eat the cake and drink the wine afterwards? Sure. But the next day I'd get professional and write a kickass story. Anyway.

A few days before the wedding a bunch of women got together for a Mhendi party - that's where the ladies hang out and have a fabulous time, dance and have their hands painted with henna. Two incredibly talented women painted all our hands while we "ooohhed" and "aaahhed" and talked about how totally great this was and why couldn't we do it all the time? The henna, in a thick, wet, paste form when applied, eventually dries and falls off leaving a semi-permanent design behind, but until that happens - it takes an hour or so - you've got to keep your hand really still. Which made driving stick shift home that night kind of hard and probably really dangerous:

I went to the Verizon store in the mall today to ask about some problems I've been having with my phone and had to stand in an incredibly long line, because apparently people besides me are constantly breaking their stuff. We were packed pretty tight in there and an Indian man and his son were standing right in front of me, and they seemed really nice and all, but I'm pretty sure I caught them checking out my henna and my bet is that they were wondering, "Who the hell does that white girl think she is?"

You can see more pictures of all the fun and me trying to be really exotic here.

I wore a push-up bra to my ten year high school reunion and it was pretty much the best thing I've ever done

This past weekend was my ten year high school reunion. It was a great event, and I'm glad I went, but have to admit that my favorite part of the weekend was hanging out with the people I'm already friends with. Don't get me wrong, it was good to talk to people I hadn't seen in a while, too. I didn't even get to break out my "I'm a freelance writer" line because we were all more interested in remembering the times than catching up. That, in the end, seemed far better than trying to impress one another with our new, amazing lives. One of the highlights of the evening - for me at least - was upon arriving at the reunion (held in a bar in DC) and immediately receiving a few comments on my breasts. Like, that they were bigger than they used to be maybe. While it would have been awesome if these comments had come from people I barely knew, that wasn't really the case, so don't get too impressed. Most of the attention came from Matt Johnson, our former class president, and he and I kind of have a history of getting right into the heart of the matter. That's just how the boy is. And he loves boobs.

Despite the fact that I'm pretty sure my current appearance is based on knowledge I've gained in bra technology, and not at all in any actual size increase, I'm still glad it came up. I mean, what more can you ask for at a ten year reunion, right?

I've uploaded some pictures from the reunion, a get together at my house, and from when Sarah was in NC earlier that week. Pictures I've stolen, by the way, from other people. I didn't take any, so thanks to Sarah, and all the other people I stole from.

Below is my favorite. When we all sat down for the Class of 1996 group shot, and had to wait there for multiple pictures from multiple cameras, Jennifer and I got bored and decided to make things more interesting - putting our hands on each others' legs and whatnot, just kidding around. One of the male faculty members there got really pumped and rushed up to take a close up, which goes to show that it doesn't matter where you are, the thing people are going to be most excited about is even the remote possibility that two girls might make out.

You can see all the pictures here.