I went out with Rachel for lunch yesterday – she is a funny lady, she’ll drive all the way to Annandale for Korean food. Rachel is a nurse friend of mine who I met on our med/surg unit who kind of bosses me around (Jeremy is kind of shocked) and I’m going to her daughter’s wedding in Miami this spring. She is making bank as a travel nurse – so so much more than I make as an engineer, but she is 10,000 times more tired than I am. It’s the fabulous wedding that she is trying to pay for, kudos for her. We had a long discussion about the cost of the wedding on the way to the restaurant and I was trying to explain how I could not stomach spending a whole year’s worth of a private college education on one day and she said – I just want my daughter to have what she wants, all her other friends are from nice, rich families and had a big weddings, I want to do this for her. So she’s doing it. Her daughter is training to be a pediatric anesthesiologist, the soon-to-be husband is going to be a critical-care anesthesiologist, so the money is not there now, but soon will be. Then they will be making more than an engineer+travel nurse put together.
Of course, I didn’t realize it, but she took me to a Korean neighborhood in Annandale and I realized there was a hanbok rental place about three minutes from the restaurant and I asked her if there was going to be any Korean ceremonies or outfits (the groom is white) and she said no. And I asked if she would wear a hanbok – you can rent one! She laughed and said – you are taking away my chance to wear a beautiful American gown (black-tie wedding!) – and I said – oh no! Hanbok for the ceremony & then gown for the reception. And then she said – maybe and I dragged her to the hanbok rental place.
Of course, she talked to the proprietress in Korean and I didn’t understand a word, but some of the words were no pictures, please, but I didn’t understand, so I made her take these photos and then Rachel told me – the lady said no pictures! And I said – oh well. Rachel also, with her late husband, were champion dancers in Korea in their youth and I asked her to teach me to dance at the wedding and she laughed and said oh my god, no way! I’ve forgotten how to do it. And I said – oh, everyone will be a little drunk, it won’t matter. Your body remembers all the things we did as children. We will dance together and she almost smiled.
