my teeming brain: To Marry, or Not Too Merry

[Ok, I will shamelessly congratulate myself just this once on the clever title of this blog. Please take a moment to consider and appreciate the multiple entendre that are at work within it.]

This seems a very appropriate place for my reiteration of the disclaimer I made in the "Seven Brides for Seven Brothers" entry [another title of which I am justifiably proud]:
"Before I continue any further, two facts need to be established to indemnify myself against potentially erronious accusations. These points are: a) I believe that marriage is highly esteemed in the Bible, and so I, too, esteem it; and b) I am very glad to celebrate the joinings in matrimony of all of my friends, and will joyfully participate (or already have participated) in their wedding ceremonies."

So I have finally finished running through the gauntlet of the SIX (6) weddings of 2006, and I have to say, I am growing a little weary of these newly married couples pushing their values onto me. (And I guess by "values" I mean weddings, or the idea of marriage in general.) Sure, it's fine for them to be happy: happy to be "joined together in holy matrimony", happy to have found "that special someone" with whom to spend the rest of their lives, happy to "embark on their new journey together," etc. (Notice all the quotation marks; maybe it's not so much the weddings that have engendered my petulance as it is the repetition of platitudes I keep hearing at the ceremonies.)

Anyway, why do they have to drag me into all their happiness? Isn't it enough for me to be happy for them from afar? Sure, I want to celebrate "that special day" with my friends, but does celebrating with them necessitate celebrating within their immediate vicinity? (Maybe the weddings of the future will be telecast, so that guests can enjoy the ceremony in the comfort of their family rooms...and in pajamas...without having showered that day...while eating potato chips and swigging back a cold one. It would be like the Super Bowl! Maybe I could even just catch the highlights footage for weddings that I'm not super interested in.)

And it's not as though once one is invited to a wedding he can easilly decline the offer. So it can, at times, feel as though one's engaged friends have him over a barrel: once invited, one must attend; if attending, one must bring a gift. Isn't that just extortion? And now, with gift registries, one is expected to bring a desirable (often pricy) gift, nothing frivolous, or re-gifted. Gone are the days when one could wrap up something he hoped the bride and groom would find "humorous," or "light-hearted;" now, such gifts will label the giver as "tacky," "cheap," or "a former friend."

Then again, I have to concede that by and large, the food at this year's wedding banquets was very, very satisfying, and this owes mostly to the large number of couples who selected "Chinese Wedding Banquet" as their food of choice. Next to sharing the joy of my friends, the food is, of course, nothing, but there are few meals in which I take so much delight as the Chinese wedding banquet; the relative infrequency of my partaking in those multi-course feasts contributes significanly to my enjoyment. Since, by definition, one can only eat Chinese wedding banquet after a Chinese wedding, I have little to no control over when I will sit at the table of sea food-y goodness.

Speaking of sea food-y goodness, for those not acquainted with the menu, these meals usually consist of shark fin (and crab meat) soup (with the red vinegar), scallops, either crab or lobster (both if the hosts are particularly generous), fried chichek, steamed fish, fried rice, wedding cake, and red bean soup with rice balls. Sometimes there are variations: abalone, Peking duck, sections of roasted pig, jellyfish, sea cucumber, etc, but everything listed above is standard fare.

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After some reflection, I can see that enduring the sermonizing, platitudes, and the happiness of my friends is worth it for the gustatory delight that awaits me afterward. I guess the banquet is like the lollipop one earns after "being brave" during the doctor's visit.

Below are some photos of my culinary adventures this summer: