A wedding and some light carpentry

I think I mentioned that I had been invited to a co-worker's wedding last night. It was an interesting cultural experience if nothing else. The invite said 9:30pm, but I'd been warned not to show up before 10:30 or 11:00 unless I wanted to be there alone. Tanya and I actually had time to have a cup of tea, watch a DVD and go out for dinner (apparently dinner is never served before midnight) before we even got there. When we arrived at around 10:45 and things were just getting started- the first thing we saw as we walked into the ballroom was a gigantic flying horse made of white roses-- the thing was about 7 feet tall- picture a My little Pony on steroids! Yikes! (I was so shocked I didn't even think to get my camera out-- darn.

We made our way into the ballroom and found the table with our co-workers-- as we were in the middle of double air kissing about 100 people, this star wars (the ominous music, when darth vader comes- Dun dun dun, da da dun, da da dun...) kind of music suddenly started blaring from the speakers and a stage smoke started billowing out of a smoke machine under the stairs... and suddenly the bride appeared with her father... then the groom came out and took her and they made some speeches. A lot more drama and fanfare ensued, but what was most prominent was the LOUD music- an traditional zaffeh band played- which is about 20 people with drums, these straight trumpet things that sound sort of like oboes, and my personal favourite, egyptian bagpipes. These guys in silky pants that sort of reminded me of sigfreid and roy, pranced onto the dancefloor carrying a huge flower, and suddenly the flower started moving and a belly dancer popped out-- sounds like something you might expect at a bachelor party, not a wedding, but when in rome, I guess... Here's a short video I did this morning... defintely not my best work but gives you an idea of what it was like. (for full screen you can look at it on FB).3 of the 4 members of the HR team: Sylvia, Ehab and Me

Dinner was finally served at about 12:30am and when I left at 1:30, the belly dancer was jiggling her way through the crowd. I didn't get home till about 2 so needless to say, I skipped the 14miles run, (but not breakfast, of course, although I was too slow and all the bacon was eaten before I could get any!)

So about an hour ago, I was sitting on my bed with my computer and there was a weird sound and a huge crash (like, HUGE, I'm surprised the people below didn't come up to see what was happening!) and suddenly the mattress (and I!) were on the floor-- I guess a screw had worked itself loose and one of the support beams that was holding up the mattress gave way! It's a king bed, so it was holding a lot of weight.... anyway I wasn't hurt, just surprised. I managed to get the mattress off the bed, and took a better look- I needed to lift the beam, align the holes and put the screw back, I tried a kitchen knife and a potato peeler before I remembered the I actually did have a screwdriver-- in the toolkit Gus bought me when he was here this time last year- it came in really handy (thanks Gussy!) and the issue seems to be resolved. Now that my bed is intact again, I'm going to take a nap for a few hours before heading over to Julie's for dinner!

Hope you're all having a great weekend!

C