Monday, September 14, 2009

Hijinx! Mayhem! Hilarity! Wedding Cake!



It's been a few days since I've posted to the blog and I know you all felt terribly deprived because you did not have an up-to-the-minute analysis of my position on various reality TV shows and/or the status of my Freaky Cyborg Hip. Well, dry your tears people of cyberspace because I'm back after a two-day spree of wedding-related awesomeness. (Actually, I'm back after a two-day spree of wedding-related awesomeness and a one-day spree of feeling like death warmed over and being unable to string more than a few words together into a coherent sentence while recovering from pulling an all-nighter, which is a sure sign that I am indeed getting old).

Allow me to lay out a rough timeline of the past 48 hours:

9 a.m: Arley, strung out on coffee, races to the craft store to buy fondant for the wedding cake she's making, still stinging from the Great Fondant disaster of the previous night, the front of her shirt still covered in melted marshmallows and icing sugar (that's confectioner's sugar for those of you from the U.S.)

1 p.m.: Arley dances around to Belle & Sebastian while applying small sugar pearls and dragees to her cake with jeweler's tweezers. Tries to avoid slipping on sugar pearls and dragees, which have rolled to the ground.

2 p.m.: Arley pronounces the cake finished, updates her status on Facebook to reflect this happy occasion, then gets her ass in the shower to try to scrub food colouring off her entire body. Wonders how she managed to get sugar pearls in her hair without any adhesive to hold them there and suspects her crazy hair was salting them away for a little snack so it can fatten up for the winter.

5 p.m.: After a hair stylist tames the ridiculousness that is her hair, Arley gets changed into her little black party dress, which she purchased when she was 19-years-old, and which makes her look a little like a high-end cocktail waitress circa 2001. Tries to figure out this whole "makeup" thing without looking even more like a high-end cocktail waitress circa 2001.

7 p.m: Minor wardrobe malfunction trying to cram the Freaky Cyborg Hip into a limo.

7:45 p.m.: Minor wardrobe malfunction trying to get the Freaky Cyborg Hip out of the limo (you're welcome, men of downtown Vancouver).

11 p.m.: Arley positions herself on the dance floor beside an elderly man wearing some sort of lace-trimmed, bell-sleeved tunic-type shirt, who is trying (read: failing) to dance with his much-younger (possibly mail order) girlfriend to the new Black Eyed Peas song. She hopes that this will make her own dancing look better by comparison, but since her own dancing involves moving one knee a fraction of an inch back and forward and moving her hand holding the cane from side to side the way Muppets dance, she is only minimally successful.

Midnight: The band at the supper club plays an '80s dance-party medley of "Phantom of the Opera" on keyboard while the lead singer wears a Phantom mask, which transitions into "Gloria." Arley, who did not think it was possible to have Phantom of the Opera sound even more '80s, finds her world rocked in a serious way. Arley's hip just wants to sit down.

3 a.m.: Arley finds herself in a busy bar on Granville Street getting her elbows up to avoid being crushed by drunken undergraduates. Hears that stupid Black Eyed Peas song for the 18th time. Watches young men check her out until they see her cane, then look momentarily confused and disappointed. Arley's hip is about ready to pack its bags and head to Mexico.

5:30 a.m.: Arley and her pissed-off hip arrive home. Arley gets changed, throws another party dress into a bag, worries that no sleep + wedding cake + inability to walk down stairs carrying 40 pounds of cakey goodness = disaster.

5:35 a.m.: Arley's dad wakes up and mercifully helps her out with putting the cake in the car (thanks dad!), thus avoiding cake armageddon. Arley drives slower than she ever has in her life to the ferry, hearing that stupid Black Eyed Peas song on the radio for the 19th and 20th time.

9:30 a.m.: Arley delivers the cake unscathed, does a victory touch-down dance, feels the weight of the world lifted from her shoulders, then heads to the coffee shop for breakfast. Changes into her party dress and realizes with great horror that she has neglected to bring a camisole for under the low-cut dress and will be doomed to spend the rest of the evening trying not to have the third wardrobe malfunction of the weekend. Arley's hip has given up complaining, knowing that it will do no good.

11:30 a.m.: Heavy winds + low-cut dress + not very talented in the chest department = third wardrobe malfunction of the weekend. Arley hopes the wedding photographer did not capture this tender moment on film. On the up side, however, S. and J. had a spectacular ceremony and Arley cried a little. Arley's hip cried a lot.

3 p.m.: The cake is cut! The pressure is off! J. and P.A. are playing fantastic live music! Arley is dancing her muppet dance! Touching speeches abound! Arley once again believes in the power of love! She is also in that hyper stage of sleep deprivation and finds everything exciting! So exciting!

6 p.m.: Arley stays for the afterparty and meets fantastic people and listens to more live music and tries to do one of those Jewish dancing-in-a-circle dances. Realizes that she is too disabled, goyish and uncoordinated to partake in said Jewish dancing-in-a-circle dances.

8:45 p.m: Arley waits for the ferry with the fantastic people she met and finds herself relating, with excessive hand gestures, the story of the bat in her apartment and hopes she did not scare the aforementioned fantastic people with her sleep-deprivation-induced exhuberance. Tells herself, "Ok, McNeney. Take it down a notch." Arley's hip offically gives its notice.

9:30 pm: Arley, who thought that she had a PhD in B.C. Ferries after the year she spent living simultaneously in Victoria and Vancouver, is stunned to see that the "Queen of" ferries have received upgrades and no longer look like Soviet battleships circa 1974. Also, they serve yam fries (!!).

11:00 pm.: Arley arrives home and falls into a state of total and utter unconsciousness as if under anesthetic, though somehow manages to wake up with that ridiculous Black Eyed Peas song stuck in her head and now, two days later, it remains there.

I've included some pictures of the cake.

No comments:

Post a Comment