Monday, August 16, 2010

Behind the Music

As usual, it is 2:09 am and I am trying hard to coax my body to sleep. I can't believe that the weekend has come and gone. That much closer to the "sanitarium white" painted walls of AMD 250 and a persistent daze of research, readings, and Rollos. I wish that last one was true but alas, an obsession with the chocolate covered car-A-mel candies has prevented me from ever consuming another drop of chocolate goodness. I was all aboard the "R" train and couldn't end it with just two cabs. Geez, I am definitely going to have to gather my thoughts to stay afloat in the seminars this semester.

I promised further wedding posts but got caught up in the craziness of contacting our wonderful musician, Tini, and hopefully our photographer for the wedding; that and my farm and frontier do not tend themselves. I am so thrilled about possibly booking Tini. As I have already blabbed, I was not the little Asian who has intricately planned out her nuptials by the age of seven. Not quite sure why I escaped the wedding thought police. Perhaps the lack of women of color in the adverts or my socialization that focused less on Barbie's Dream Wedding Palace and more on allowing me (and the Troll with the green gem-ed naval, Rainbow Brite, and Captain Planet) to play in the grass.

However, while I was spared from the neurotic collecting of clippings from Elle, Vogue, and Seventeen that featured hairstyles, dresses, and decorations for my future wedding I did trip and one day found myself in my college classroom dreaming about my future wedding. Did I dream of Dr. McDreamy/Steamy/Ginger with his fortune and fame waiting at the end of the aisle with his million...pardon, billion-dollar smile? Not once. Did I dream of the color palette or the wedding cake? Unfortunately not. Of the wedding dress hanging perfectly on a wooden hanger in my changing room? Once again, I unfortunately have not been planning this one for over two decades. Nope, I dreamt of walking down an aisle of petals to an acoustic version of IZ's "Somewhere Over the Rainbow." Gently navigating the freshly picked rose petals, I walk in the afternoon's warmth toward a darkened silhouette waiting at the end of the aisle. The music lifts me up and I slowly make my way towards my partner, gliding softly forward on each note. Ahh...I dreamed a little- well, large and intricate- dream.

Thus, when Chris and I started planning for the wedding I had one request: a ukulele player to help me glide down the aisle. Well, that along with a ceremony that was outdoors and devoid of any religious pomp. My dream wedding was one similar to the final wedding ceremony in Runaway Bride. Except the horses. While I do love horses I do not want to be dragged down a hill on the most important day of my life. Ok, so maybe I did read a couple of magazines...but I bought them so I could read the articles, right boys? I remember watching that movie and thinking, "Hrhm. I want that. Nothing frilly- just an aisle of leaves and petals, a minister, and my partner."

So I incorporated my simple wedding with my Hawaiian heritage. I googled "ukulele player" in our area and came up with Ukulele Ray. Click. WTF? Ukulele Ray is white and an uber creeper? He looked like someone who owns a window-less van. I'm just sayin'...While it isn't necessary to be Hawaiian/A,P-I in order to be a ukulele player; I envisioned a trim version of Brudda IZ playing "Under the Rainbow" while I walked down the aisle. A major collision crash clogged my gray matter- I want a ukulele player but Ukulele Ray? Can he just play while clamping his mouth shut? I want to honor my heritage and there is nothing Hawaiian about Ray other than his guitar. What is a girl going to do? After finding no other alternatives in our area, I expanded my search to include the entire state- maybe someone got lost in the tubes and tunnels of the internet and would pop up on this search. A site that has information on all ukulele players in the State? Click. Ohh, this guy looks Hawaiian/A,P-I...and he has really positive reviews that are all in reference to weddings in...SoCal. Frack. Please tell me he just really enjoys traveling...not so much. He had recordings of some of his songs (including covers) up on his site so we listened just for the fun of it. He had a cover of IZ's "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" and I hoped it would make Heidi Spencer/Pratt sound like Enya. Not so much. His version brought tears to my normally dry eyes. Crap. He is it. He is our wedding singer. We checked out his calendar to see if he was booked near our wedding date, well wedding month- we haven't quite hammered out a date quite yet- and as luck would have it, he was playing about an hour and a half away from us during our wedding month. We inquired into his availability and his willingness to stretch out his NorCal tour a couple of days. Crossing our fingers and toes, we sent the email and waited anxiously. He was willing to visit us up North and if all pans out, will be present at our ceremony to help me down the aisle (musically, not physically as that is the job of my Momma) and play during the reception. Eek!

So that is that. That's the story of the man behind the ukulele and the girl geeking out to the Island flavor and the man holding the previous individual's purse. I rode the crimson wave hard today/yesterday which prevented me from partaking in the religious drowning of a friend's toddler, the bustling marketplace under the freeway, and the drunken debauchery of my elementary/middle school's festival. I enjoy the latter's face painting and dime throwing booths and frequent the pizza ("Yummy, Yummy/ I got pizza in my tummy") rather than the beer garden. Why do they coin it the "beer garden?" The phrase alludes to some gentle and beautiful atmosphere in which people mingle amidst blue mountaintops and galloping Clydesdales (with the occasional donkey) but reality gives you smelly, uncoordinated messes that can give Ke$ha a run for her dollar dollar bill$, yo. Argh! Concentration lost! Back to my lost day and the lack of activity's hindrance on my wedding planning. As I did not bustle with the rest of cow-town (minus the Asians and some haku-jin) at the farmers' market, I did not get any more pictures of flowers. I still need to get a florist to do the arrangements for the tables and my bridal bouquet- Casey, you get to just stand there. If you want to hold something, you can hold onto the tree. So any suggestions on florists that are too legit to quit would be awesomely awesome and perhaps beautiful. Not quite sure how well all 8 of you are at memory recall. That was a test. It is always a test. There. You have all received an immeasurable life lesson but I guess I could measure that bad boy at about $500 USD. I will contact you all to give you my bank's routing number and account.

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