I had to participate in a wedding this weekend as the Bride's partner or niam tais ntsuab, the literal translation being grandma green. But in other instances I've heard that it's niam txais ntsuab, txais translating as "receive" which makes sense too. Anyway. I was that girl.
I had misgivings and little desire to participate but I had to suck it up and do it. I re-arranged my schedule for work and other planned events on my day off in order to attend the wedding in Madison. After talking to a wise co-worker, I made sure not to bring any bad/negative energy with me, no matter how I felt about the groom.
I was friendly and polite. Like, genuinely friendly and polite. I think the Bride's family liked me, in a "Oh, she's friendly and polite" sort of way. There was an aunt (Bride's aunt) there as well who started telling me about her son and that there were a lot of other "spare" sons there. So they asked me about well, me. It was fine. I know that this is definitely part of the job description as the niam tais ntsuab so I had fun with it.
We stayed and finished the negotiations and then the guys did their thing. We left around 3:30AM. I was going to drive us (6 of us in the Suburban) back to St Paul, but one of the other uncles wanted to drive. I know he only had 2 shots, maybe, and there was time between the shots and us leaving and he had eaten in that time as well, so I didn't force the issue. About an hour out of Madison he pulls off to the side of 94 and we switched. I drove us the rest of the way home. It felt like one of those nights when my friends and I are out until 3 in the morning because we went out to a Denny's or Perkins after a night out doing miscellaneous somethings and I'm driving, because I'm usually driving, the friends home. Except this time, it was a bunch of uncles passed out and drunk and the drive was 3 hours instead of 30 minutes. I got home at 7:30AM and went to sleep. By then, I think I 'd been up for a good 24 hours.
We go back August 1 to finish the Bride's family's part.
2 comments:
omg that stinks that you had to drive the whole way back. although im not sure you would have been safe if anyone else in the car drove lol. it sounds like they were all knocked out! well i haven't talked to my lately, but ill let u know when we finally go over to maisue's house. lets do lunch/dinner sometime!
hmm...i've never been a grandma green. how interesting. you were such a good sport about it...well, i guess you have to be, right. how's your summer going?
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