The Things I Learned This Weekend

You know what I love about life? It's that no matter where I am, or what I'm doing, I can still learn things. Sure, maybe I'm not memorizing the capitals of every African nation or Latin verb declensions, and I'm nowhere near understanding how to graph imaginary numbers on non-existent polar planes (the actual title of a chapter from my high school calculus textbook), but still. I'm learning. Like this weekend at the wedding. I learned so much cool stuff! Like, for example, the following short list.

1. Numero uno of the things I learned this weekend was that (and this is pretty much scientifically true) I have the smallest hands in the known universe. Concomitantly, my friend's husband has the largest. I mean, look at this. Are we even the same species?



2. Second, I learned that, no matter how stressful and difficult doing my PhD in History might feel, the training and work schedule of medical doctors is much much MUCH worse. Want to know how I learned this? My friend Raquelita (see pic below) is in her first year of residency, and hasn't had a day off in a LONG time. She pretty much works non-stop, and when she's on, people's lives are on the line. If I get confused or make a mistake, maybe someday a reviewer will write a withering evaluation of my scholarship. Ouch! If Raquelita gets sleepy and writes "legs" instead of "leg," well. You know.

Brave Raquelita soldiers on diligently, but this Thursday when she arrived in Austin for the wedding pretty much the first words out of her mouth were "beer" and "now." So we went over to the Samurai Warrior's house where tacos and beer were awaiting us in the back yard. I was over in the corner talking to another friend, when we happened to glance over and see that Raquelita was standing by a big cooler full of about a dozen different kinds of beer, and she was on the verge of crying. Actual real tears were in her eyes, and her lower lip was all aquiver. "Why Raquelita, what's wrong?!" we cried. A lone tear slipped over the edge, and with a waver in her voice, Raquelita said, "Oh, there's just s-s-s-s-so m-m-many wonderful beers, and I just c-c-can't drink them all, and I don't even know where to start!"

I mean, wow. To be so stressed that the sight of beer and the time in which to drink it brings you to tears? Not for me. Nonetheless, being the good friends we are, several of us bolstered her spirits by proposing that she drink all the beers, and worked out a nifty plan to do it in alphabetical order. As you can see, this helped relax her considerably, and in no time at all, Raquelita was swinging from the chandeliers.



3. I also learned that being a bride looks like a whole lot of fun. I don't know that I've ever seen the Samurai Warrior smile so much, or look so completely pleased with the world. That might have been the nicest part of the whole evening.







4. Lastly, I learned one very important take-away lesson. In spite of my advancing years, rapidly multiplying numbers of gray hairs, and spreading road map of sexy wrinkles... in spite of all that, I'VE STILL GOT IT. I don't know who took this picture, what we were doing at the time, or why it looks like I might be Shiva surrounded by my adoring minions, but this picture is going to the top of my short list of "Photos I Want Engraved On My Headstone." A list, by the way, that I had never thought of compiling until just this moment.