Cousin's wedding

My cousin's wedding was last night. It wasn't that bad. I barely talked to my mother at all- after the chuppah we happened to be standing near each other and she was like "oh abandoning eden I didn't even know you were here" and gave me a quick hug. I'm pretty sure she did that because a lot of people in our family were right there. Later my dad was like "you should talk to your mother, come on" and we talked for about a minute about where we parked our cars. It was exactly like I thought it would be- like hanging out with an ex boyfriend making polite conversation. My dad at least was nice to me.

Other things:
*My cousin D from Israel (who earlier sent me a message saying she was happy I was getting married) got us a wedding present! it was a card and this coin necklace thing that was says "my soul will be bound to yours" in hebrew. Kinda weird, but I highly appreciate that she got us anything, that was pretty awesome

*a LOT of relatives were like "where have you been, it's been years, how come you haven't been coming to our events?" Apparently I haven't been invited to a whole bunch of stuff over the past few years (which is what I told them- I had no idea, if you would have invited me I would have come). It was nice to feel like people were happy to see me, and a lot of people said they were.

*I met my third cousin, who is getting a Phd in economics. We talked for a while about our mutual academic awesomeness. His grandmother was my grandfather's cousin.

*At some point I walked up to my cousin D, who was sitting with this dude, and she was like "Abandoning Eden isn't religious!" And I was all "what now?" and apparently this guy was complaining that all the girls at the wedding were religious. I was like "yep, I'm not religious, but I'm engaged." hehehehe I'm engaged... it's fun to say that to random boys :)

*babies! My charedi second cousins were there- they have 10 kids, almost every kid is married, and all the women were either pregnant or had a baby with them. It was weird to see so many babies in one place, since I normally see no children at all (there's not a lot of children on a college campus/college town). Definitely did not help with my current bout of baby fever.

*I took careful note of all the aspects of the wedding ceremony to see if there was anything that I would want to incorporate into our wedding ceremony. Nope.

*They used the chuppah that my mom made for me when I was engaged the first time like 5 years ago (I designed it and she quilted it- it's really cool and has this big tree thing in the middle). It's very nice. I would have loved to be able to use that for our wedding, but I didn't even bother asking, as I know there would be no way in hell.

*My grandfather and aunt were there, and this is probably the last time I will see either of them. My aunt has advanced breast cancer and also lives in Israel, and this is the first time she's been in the US in 7 years (and now that her 2 kids living in the US are married, she probably has no reason to ever come back). My grandfather has dementia and lives with my parents, so there's not a whole lot of opportunity to see him either. My grandfather had no idea who I was, and told me that he's "living with his son now" (his son being my father)

*I sat at a table with my brother- the one who told me B is going to die if we don't break up/he converts. Apparently he still has some hangups from when I made fun of him a lot as a kid, and I told him that that was 10 years ago, so we should try to move on from that now that we are both adults. We'll see how that goes. Apparently also the 'apartment with some other jewish guys' that he told me he lives in is actually a dorm for a yeshiva where he learns full time after coming home from going to college full time.

He told me he has no time to have hobbies, and that he hasn't had time to watch the collection of animated short films I sent him for channukah (and he used to be a huge movie buff who loved that kind of stuff). He also is thinking of becoming a rabbi. I tried to tell him that he should consider that he is shy and not very sociable, and that if he becomes a rabbi he's going to have to speak in front of and to other people all the time. Oy. Did I mention before he went to Israel for a year of brainwashing he wanted to go into film making, and he used to make these awesome short films all the time that were hilarious and really really good? I know people change and all, but it's sad to see him not doing the stuff he used to love cause he's too busy learning obscure fairytales all day.

*I think it wouldn't have been a problem to have brought B to the wedding- I forget sometimes that my dad is a baal tshuva (someone who becomes religious later in life) and that there are a lot of members of his family who are not as religious as he is. There were tons of people without a kippa, there were lots of people who I'm pretty sure were not jewish at all.

*Also my cousin's new wife is a baal tshuva too- as of 2 years ago. And apparently she was a great concert pianist/singer before (they played some of her music as she was walking down the aisle, and it was very Tori Amos-esque), and the rabbi was talking about the "amazing career sacrifices she made to go on this great spiritual journey and we should all learn from her example." I wish B would have been there so I could roll my eyes at him...well I hope she knows what she's gotten into, cause now she's married into it, and it'll be a lot harder to leave.