that's how we roll

Or, as Matt referred to recent events last night when my mom called, "Two catastrophes." Nothing serious, though, by real measures. Just bad in a Last-Minute, Dear Lord, What Can Go Wrong With Our Wedding A Week Away sense.

We went to church yesterday, which was lovely. We talked about Rosh Hashana (sp?), more specifically, new beginnings and the Jewish New Year. Also, what bugs us in other people, and what of these traits are inside us.
Afterward, we planned to run a couple of last-minute wedding errands. We stopped at the Party Store -- Lizzy scored a pair of Belle slippers for Halloween, and we got a bunch of balloons to hang on signs so folks can easily see where to go, etc. Then we headed back to Hwy. 66 to go to Manassas and do some other things -- and, very shortly after hitting the on-ramp at Centreville, ran out of gas. We RAN OUT OF GAS. Okay, maybe this happens to other people with frequency, but it's never happened to me. We sputtered to a halt, and Matt got out and started haulin' himself down the highway on the shoulder. I mean, what else do you do? Lizzy and I stayed in the car. We weren't far from the rest stop, if that gives anyone better reference as to our location. So, there we sat -- I won't bore you with tales of sitting roadside, apparently pointlessly, with a 3-year-old. Not my chosen activity, but I think Matt still had it worse. He eventually returns, with a 2-liter bottle that once recently held Sprite, but now holds sweet, sweet gasoline. (the gas station he went to, EXXON IN MANASSAS -- so there, Exxon!), didn't sell gas container thingies! How, as a gas station, do you not?!?) Okay. Cool. So we start the car -- oops, not quite. The car wants more. The car is not yet satisfied with its lot. And, so, neither are we -- we jerk down the shoulder to just past the rest area. Matt gets out again. After awhile, Matt returns again, this time in a police car backing up on the shoulder. Two gallons of gas -- roughly $4.40 these days. The opportunity to see your fiance cheesily grinning out of the passenger window of a cop car six days before your wedding -- priceless! This time, the car was satisfied, and we went directly home. No errand was that important, at that point.
Matt told me afterward that he thinks God was speaking to him through that. And, he adds, he got a pre-wedding workout! It would seem that the two people who stopped to help Matt on his way(s) to the gas station(s) were: Bolivian, and Mexican. Anglo-Saxon types are too busy, apparently. Or too cautious? We sometimes (often) aren't too fond of the inexorable direction our neighborhood's profile seems to be heading. But maybe we could use just a wee more tolerance.

I need to go, so the second catastrophe, which, in fact, so profoundly had me freaking that I clean forgot about the first catastrophe by the time my mom called: Or pianist/organist bailed out on us last Thursday. Matt had a guy in mind, but the more we thought about it, the more we thought, uh, maybe he's not the best choice. Also, he had another role in the wedding. So then we thought of another friend of ours, but he's got an even bigger role in the wedding -- see! This is what happens when friends help you. You can't, um, replicate them and get them to help you again! Yeah, that made no sense to me, either -- so we were totally pulling out our hair last night. Desperately casting about online for a solution, six days out.
In short, we found a guy. He used to be the organist for the church where we're getting married. Praise God that he agreed to do it on such insanely short notice! He probably won't be able to learn and use all of the songs we carefully selected for each opening element of things, but right now? I truly could not care less.
A wedding with no music was not going to be.