Breakfast room "after".


Some people plan their weddings all the way from when they are little girls. Others plan them as soon as they get engaged. My uncle and his fiancee decided to plan it the day before.

After an intense night of sourpuss and butterscotch schnapps, I woke up this morning to the piercing sound of the phone ringing in my ear. I forgot, but for some odd reason, I had taken the cordless phone to bed with me.

I reached over to the pillow beside me for yet another early morning call from my aunt-to-be. "Remember to pick up Saku from the airport at 11am today!"
"yeah, about that, I checked out the flights arriving from Minneapolis today and there are no 11AM flights but there is one 11PM flight. You sure you got the right time down?"
*panicked silence as she realises she screwed up yet again*
"I'll have Jason call you*

Five minutes later as I was about to doze off again, my uncle Jason calls. I went through the same "Saku arrives at 11PM not AM" speech with him and finally got him to comprehend. Don't get me wrong. I have a very strong regard for my uncle, but he's one of those Chinese people that insist on speaking to me in their broken English regardless of the fact that I understand Cantonese perfectly. I'll speak to him in Cantonese and he'll respond in English. It's brutal.

I finally convinced my uncle that Saku would be getting here at night in which case, my uncle said "Well then you don't have to pick him then! I will pick him up if I am not too drunk from my stag party!"

Anyhow, the conversation ended with (in a heavy Chinese accent) "By da way, we are coming to your house today for da wedding wehearso."
"What?! You guys are doing the rehearsal? Today? When?"
"At eleffen o clock."
I looked at my alarm clock. It was 10am.
"@$#%!!!"

I hopped out of bed and ran downstairs to tell my parents. My head felt like it was going to explode and I bumped into Karen in the kitchen. She was going to her highschool friends' wedding today and she was busy sticking photo cut outs of her friend's heads on some Family Guy dominatrix dolls.

I told her that my uncle would be arriving in an hour to do the rehearsal at our house. She started ranting to me about my uncle's wedding and how it was so inconvenient and how she was too busy to help out cus she had eight other weddings to go to this summer.

She repeated the "I have EIGHT weddings to go to" like it made her the most important and busy person in the world. For most of the last month, she's been in Costa Rica on a mini "honeymoon" of sorts with her latest in a series of ape-like boyfriends. She just got back on Saturday and she's been doing nothing to help ever since.

Karen began ranting about Jason's wedding again as if she had been the one who was woken up early every morning this week by Lilian's phone calls, as if she was the one who had to drive strange Finnish people around downtown during rush hour and as if she was the one who was stuck at home today trying to pack for Australia but trying to entertain the 15 odd people who were coming over for the rehearsal.

"Oh, and Vivian, I won't be back today until past midnight. I have to go help Rozelle choose a wedding gown and I have to be at Tien's reception." Half the weddings that she is going to this summer are for people she barely even knows but she tries to go anyhow just to tell everyone she went to TWELVE weddings this summer (she already hit 4 of them so she has 8 left).

"Why aren't you helping out with your own uncle's wedding? WHO THE F*CK IS ROZELLE and WHY THE F*CK DO YOU HAVE TO HELP HER CHOOSE A WEDDING DRESS?"

She got all excited and told me with much self-pity "Nope, I can't help out Jason and Lilian today. Oh it will be so awful cus I'm so busy with Rozelle's dress-choosing. It will be a whole day of 'ooh! that looks so great on you' and all that boring stuff. "

"Well you could just be honest with her and be like 'man, that dress makes your ass look huge! oh wait, it's not the dress.'"

Karen sort of sobered up after my mean comment and left the house with another huff of self-importance.

Meanwhile my parents had woken up and wandered downstairs. "Morning dad!"

No "goodmorning back" or anything. Just a pissed off, "WHO BROUGHT A DOG OVER YESTERDAY? THEY PEED IN OUR ROOM."
"What? Vien's dog peed in your room?"
"YES. IN OUR ROOM. ON OUR CARPET. GO CLEAN IT."

I sighed and headed up the stairs. I bumped into my mom on the way up.
"Goodmorning mom, I-"
"WHO BROUGHT A DOG OVER YESTERDAY? IT PEED ON THE CARPET IN MY ROOM. GO CLEAN IT. YOU'D BETTER CLEAN IT OUT NOW!"

I toyed with the idea of telling them that there had been no dog and that it was probably Hugh. My mom gave me another impatient look and seemed like she was about to launch into one of her tirade so I sighed and headed upstairs and spent the good part of an hour trying to get out the stubborn, smelly, dried up, yellow stain out of the white carpet.

As my hands began to burn from the combo of carpet cleaner and urine, I decided to give up and went down to finally eat breakfast. The door bell rang and hte first of hte wedding party arrived just as I took a sip of my coffee.

I realised I was still in my classy pink and green PJs.

I answered the door to find a portly guy in glasses and white t-shirt batting off mosquitos. I ushered him in and informed him he was the first to arrive. "you want juice or water or anything?"
"no."
"You want to watch TV or anything? Jason's famous for being late so he won't get here for another hour you know"
"no."
"you don't want anything? It could seriously be a while."
"no."
"oooookkkkkkk then."

So the guy just sat there on my couch literally staring into space for the next hour while I awkwardly tried to chug my coffee, wash my dishes and clean my kitchen.

Next to arrive was some guy who reminded me strongly of an overeager puppy and a couple that I can only describe as Sergeant Control-freak and Professor I'm-an-expert-on-everything.

Puppy guy bounced in and was practically panting and drooling on the linoleum, "HI! I'm Gill! Nice to meet you! nice place you have here! is Jason here yet? no? OK! What can we do for now? Uh huh. OK!"
For the rest of the day, he insisted on calling me "Viv" which irks me if I don't know someone well. And he'd use it in the most annoying ways. "Is that gettin you riled up Viv, huh?" or "It's all up to you Vivvy-Oh" and stuff like that, followed by a weird laugh or some wannabe-cool cheesey hand actions akin to the double snap finger gun thing.

Meanwhile, segeant control freak and his wife were giving their opinions on everything from the weather to my dad's koi.

The other bridesmaids and groomsmen arrived. One of them accused the younger rock-star looking Finnish guy of being my boyfriend. I have no clue why as I don't even know that guy's name, but she honestly thought that the dude was my boyfriend.

It was 12:30 and we were still waiting for the bride and groom. His best man sat there and was like "Jason's always late. Don't worry."
"I think it's a family thing," I responded, "heck, I'd be late if I didn't live here."

At long last, they arrived and the so-called rehearsal began. My uncle basically ran around like a headless chicken and Lilian sat there pouting. I offered to show her what music I had chosen for her wedding. (she had told me to choose all the songs regardless of my pleas that she should really choose her own wedding songs and left it to the day before to decide which song she likes).

I played her the songs and 5 seconds into each, she went "NO. No no no."

I rolled my eyes and played her some other ones. "NO. Nonono" again.

I asked her what she wanted. "I want something happier."

I played some happier Natalie Cole and Harry Connick Jr. and some old Motown stuff for her.

"Why is all your music so sad?"

Annoyed to death, I handed her to the puppy dog guy to take over the music search. "What about Beauty and the Beast, or some Vanessa Williams?" he asked with much enthusiasm.
"You sentimental fool," I said and walked off to help my uncle.

All along, they had been planning on the wedding to be in our backyard. Suddenly, at 1:30pm, they decided to make it in our breakfast room. Much furniture rearranging, stereo system adaptation and chair folding ensued. There was no plan, no theme, no idea how many guests were coming. Much chaos ensued.

Seargeant control freak and his know-it-all wife got into an argument with the other groomsmen who was the most negative person I've ever met and just kept pouting hte whole way through the rehearsal.
"Your dad's not gonna like this. He's gonna kill us. he's gonna kill us for rearranging his furniture." (no he isn't. My dad doesn't care) and
"Why aren't you playing the wedding march? Who gets married without the traditional wedding march?" (everyone. sheesh. Everyone has a different wedding song to walk down the aisle to. what century have you been living in?) and
"Why isn't the groom waiting at the front of the aisle like in all the normal weddings?" (cus this is a Chinese wedding you dumbass).

We had to explain to him how a Chinese wedding worked with the groom and the bride walking in and all that. He still coudln't get it into his thick Canadian skull. My uncle finally went up the guy, leaned into him and said "Look at me. I AM ORIENTOW! DIS IS AN ORIENTOW WEDDING!"

At which point the guy realised he had been a prick and tried to laugh it off by saying "Oh, you're a RENTAL? Better make sure we return you in the same condition we rented you in!"

No one laughed. I smiled out of politeness but after smiling was tempted to add on the Mr. Burns "Oh, I'll be sore for a week after this".

We carried on and finally decided on the first two wedding songs I had chosen in the first place as the puppy dog guy was driving Lilian nuts with his wedding-song-choosing enthusiasm. It was only after Lilian went "WHATEVER! I DON'T CARE! JUST PLAY ANY SONGS!" that he calmed down and let me choose the songs. Instead, Puppy-dog guy went to fill up the helium balloons and then would go up to me, let the half-filled balloon go and say "Tally-ho Viv!"

Meanwhile, the Finnish relatives and friends were running around my house swimming, playing pool, playing foosball and using all the laptops in the house. The only time they would join in with the planning and come talk to me was when my wireless connection cut out on them and they needed me to reset the router.

I ran around trying to find extension cords, bowls, spoons, stereo systems, string and other stupid things and inbetween, reset the wireless router. Salima came for a much-enjoyed visit amongst the chaos and was nice enough to tolerate it and offer her help. My uncle and his fiance started arguing. Sergeant control freak and his wife ridiculed me for not knowing which was the right way up on the Chinese word "Luck" which I was instructed to hang on the wall.

Finally, at 5pm, they all left the house amidst arguments about how to decorate the cars.

"Have a good night! Remember, this is a happy occasion! HAPPY!" I shouted after my poor uncle who seemed on the verge of a nervous breakdown. I sighed and tried to remind myself that a wedding is a happy occasion.

I ran upstairs with the last ounce of energy I had and flopped on my bed. I woke up in the same position an hour later. I realised that i had slept through the phone ringing as there was a message on my answering machine telling me that someone had left their keys at my house and that everyone would be arriving at 9am tomorrow morning to finish decorating (we are far from finished).

I deleted the message and sat with my head in my hands. My head was still throbbing so I downed a couple tylenols. I opened my fridge and realised I had no food in the house again. I scrounged up some cheese and crackers. Eventually, after giving myself a pep talk and waiting for the tylenol to kick in, I marched myself upstairs and started doing my laundry and packing. It was 8:30pm.

It's nearly 11pm now and I still have two more loads of laundry to do and I have yet to start seriously packing. I still need to burn the wedding music onto a CD, clean the bathrooms and wash the dishes that everyone left behind when they ate lunch here.

I'm totally beat and need more tylenol and definitely more sleep. Here's hoping that tomorrow will run smoothly and that I'll finish packing in time.



Meanwhile, take care everyone and for the love of all that is good and pure, DON'T LEAVE YOUR WEDDING PLANS TO THE DAY BEFORE!


FOR F*CKS SAKE! Lilian just called and it's 11pm now and apparently Saku has arrived but my uncle is too drunk from his stag party to pick him up. I am supposed to go the airport now. Groan.