If you bring your fiancee to America on the fiancee visa, you've got to get married within 90 days of setting foot in America. So after some discussion, my foster son and his fiancee decided to get married quietly and to have a party later. The Rev. Mikel Satcher, pastor of our church, Trinity Baptist, agreed to perform a small wedding in the church's parlor. Because the pastor was leaving town for a few days to visit his mother, Manyang left the date open on the license application. He picked it up a few days later with the date blank.

So last Wednesday at 3 p.m. Manyang asks me to call the pastor to confirm. I thought I was calling to confirm that he was back in town.

"Yes, I got back last night. We're on for 7 o'clock tonight, right?"

"Tonight?!"

So we put together a wedding on four hours' notice. If you ever need striking but very affordable wedding bands in a big hurry, go to Crossroads Trade. My husband had just finished installing some custom woodworking there and Kate and I talked about what was available in the right sizes (which, fortunately, we knew). My husband came home with a ziplock bag of choices, and the bride and groom found two silver bands from Nepal -- hers a sort of angular Celtic knot design, his a band of elephants.

By some miracle, all the dress-up clothes for all the African ladies were in shades of red. I didn't know we had a color scheme until we got to the parlor. Me, I wore the African clothes Manyang bought for me in 2007.

We had two dinner guests who didn't know they were coming to a wedding, looked down at their clothes, and I'm glad to say, came anyway.

We had a delightful service.

I read First Corinthians 13.


Vows were exchanged.



And those rings were exchanged.





Then the pastor, continuing the evening's surprises, turned to me and said that a solo was customary here. I racked my brain and came up with "Song for the Asking," which I had on a Peter, Paul, and Mary cassette long ago but was, I have learned, written by Paul Simon.

No one had told the bride about this American custom of kissing in front of everybody.
 

You know, maybe every wedding should have a couch for the restless.


 
And then we had some pictures




And went home, because a wedding on a Wednesday night is a wedding on a school night.

Rebecca is reading to Ngor.
Abuk is cooking.
Achan is either petting the cat or watching Achol.
Manyang is helping Abuk.
Alan is sleeping in front of football with the cat on his lap.
Me, I should go to Target after we eat.

L'chaim.

Shred, file, recycle -- shred that half, recycle that half -- how much money did we lose in October '08, don't look, it's coming back. Can we just save the annual summary, is there an annual summary? Shred insurance policy of car son no longer owns, the record of daughter's cashing out a CD, better keep that student-loan info a while longer. How is that annuity doing, and that 401(k)'s not bad, have to roll that one into something else now though. Do we have to shred more to make everything fit in that file box? No, it fits, the pile is gone, recycling is this week. Should do this more often.