mission accomplished

The wedding went off without a hitch, no worries. Acutally quite a few worries, but no problems. Lots of mirth and merriment...yeah, lots of mirth.

The only two concerns that I had the entire time were:

- The priest looked a hell of a lot like Freddy Mercury and acted a hell of a lot like Freddy Mercury. The time we spent together in the back of the sacristry reminded me a lot of my youth. I made sure to sleep with one eye open if you know what I mean. The priest was a great guy, but when it came time for him to deliver his homily he climbed this ornate staircare up to a giant marble lectern that towered over the congregation and for the briefest of moments I swear he was going to start singing, " MAMA ! JUST KILLED A MAN....." That got me giggling and got me some angry glares from the matron of honor.

- The reception went well with one exception. Two of the chess players showed up. The older one Marty is a miserable wretch of a man. He's too normal to tolerate and of the other chess players and he's equal parts super-genius and inpatient bastard which makes it just about impossible for him to tolerate almost anyone else on the planet. His sidekick for the evening was a young Russan prodigy name Ivan who's spent the last 25 years with his nose in a chess book trying to become a grand master. The prodigy decided to take the year off of chess to try and experience some other things in life. Well I guess Saturday night was his opportunity to experience red wine...and lots of it.

Just as the reception was starting to break up he approached myself and Ron's ( the groom) brothers. With his russian accent slightly slurred he said, " I hear that you are an expert in the field of wrestling." to Ron's oldest brother who was an accomplished collegiate wrestler. He continues, " I want to learn of all things and I want to learn from the best people...so you must teach me of this wresting..I must wrestle you until I understand."

And then he assumed a rather aggressive stance.

Now this was a very bad idea. Ron has 40 brothers, all wrestlers, who spent their lives beating on each other in preparation to beat on other people, and all of whom, at this particular time, were jacked up after 4 solid hours of an open bar. The oldest brother, as politely as possible, suggested that Ivan NOT try to wrestle him. Undeterred ...Ivan advanced. I stepped between them in an attempt to avert disaster, but I had a pretty strong feeling that everything was about to go wrong and I was going to very sorry to be in the middle of the scrum.

Ivan was juking left and right and Ron's brother started to take his jacket off when all of a sudden there was a flash of movement.

Now I should preface this by saying that Marty isn't a small man. He's not fat, but I would put him in the huskey categoy. After Saturday night I think the most accurrate desciption of him would be 'nimble'. From across the room where he was trying to pick up some middle-aged Peruvian woman, he saw what was going down. Before Ivan could seal his own fate Marty was on the scene. He stepped into the middle of the circle that was forming, pushed me aside, sized up Ivan, and in one amazing quick and short movement punched him right in the ear.

I don't mean that he punched him in the head, or clapped his ears, I mean somehow and with tremendous accurracy he punched the dudes ear and only his ear.

It's stopped Ivan right in his tracks... " HEY ! WHAT ARE YOU...."

CRACK ....he nailed him a second time. And then Marty pointed toward the exit..." MOVE !"

" BUT I WAS JUST..."

CRACK....Jesus the kid was going to be all coliflowered if this kept up.

" MOOOOOVE !!! " and he pointed to the door again.

There was a hesitation and Marty drew his fist back...Ivan still holding the affected ear ran for the door.

With a knowing nob and a slight scowl he said " Carry on...as you were..." then Marty saundered toward the door and after his sage. Disaster averted.