A return to my hometown this weekend, for the most amazing wedding I've ever been to. Two sisters were marrying on the same day, one to an Egyptian, and one to a Bahamian. So the wedding and reception was a wonderful celebration of love that transcends national boundaries and contained elements from each culture's wedding traditions. The wedding cake was a pyramid, we danced the limbo to soca music, and the toast was champagne and karkadeeh.

I don't know how in the world the parents managed to pull it off. There were two wedding ceremonies that shared a reception. They had flown members of the groom's parties into the States, many for their first visit. The buffet contained a dish I'd never seen before- a whole salmon, presumably steamed, with its skin removed and replaced with scales of cut cucumber. You took your crackers and just dipped the meat right off the fish, garnishing it with some capers and such from the platter. Amazing, and delish. Fish dip!

I drove around town and dropped in on a bunch of old friends. Saw my brother's place, which is an apartment carved out of a converted church. High ceilings! He was working on a painting at the time that absolutely stunned me. He took a big rock tile with a sort of pebbled pattern to it, and painted a fish on it as if he were looking down on the fish and the rock tile was the creekbed. Then he laquered the tile with bar topper and painted the surface of the water on top of the lacquer. It looks like a square foot of actual creek, so realistic is the illusion of depth. As my brother and his girlfriend are taking off to live in the woods for a year, I'm going to care for some of his art and some of his plants. Next weekend Singular and I will have to browse his collection (he's incredibly productive, always painting and most of it's in storage) and pick out some pieces for our new place.

One of the guests at the wedding was a freak-biker! He was the bride's friend from college and hangs out with the Hard Times Bicycle Club in the twin cities. He says the movement is quite alive up there, meeting every Monday and going on rides in crowds that stretch for blocks. That's good to hear. There aren't so many people into it in Chicago, but we are going to go on a ride on Wednesday.