Coptic Coupling
Tonight, Mike, Melissa, Kim and I decided that we would do a simple sandwich dinner at the lobby bar. That was a well conceived plan that bore little resemblance to what actually happened. To begin with what we thought was a lobby bar that offered bar food or sandwiches turned out to be a lobby bar that offered a full menu from one of the restaurants. In theory that shouldn’t be a problem, but it caused us to over-order, and between the french fries, the Philly cheesesteaks the Sheesh Tewari and sweet-and-sour chicken, we had quite a feast laid out in front of us on the cocktail table.
One of the games that I play with Mike and Melisa is that I like to order french fries as an appetizer for the table, knowing full well that Mike likes his french fries, but is trained not to order them. Compared to me Mike and Melissa are very disciplined in what they eat, choosing not to order french fries very often. Come to think of it I’m less disciplined than just about anybody I know AND I like to stir things up, so I always order the french fries and see what happens. Tonight, thinking that we were all a little bit hungry, I suggested two orders of french fries, and before the waiter could even write it down, Melisa said
“oh no, we only need one order of french fries.” I respected Melisa’s wishes and let the waiter depart with the order. When the food came, they put down a total of 4 orders of french fries since several of the dishes we ordered came with french fries. Best laid plans and all of that. What I found particularly humorous was that at the end of the meal the french fries in front of Kim and me were sort of at most 1/4 eaten while Mike’s were completely gone and Melisa‘s were almost all gone. Funny outcome, at least I thought so. Mike and Melisa found my humorous observation less funny than I did.
During this trip, Mike, Melissa, Kim and I have found lots of things to talk about. I know full well that I probably talk more than most people because as a natural born storyteller, I am always up for telling stories. Tonight I was regaling Mike and Melisa about one of my Wall Street friends, who has been involved in some pretty funny and shady dealings. While I was trying to tell them the stories, there was a distraction going on behind me on the main staircase leading up to the ballroom in the hotel. Remember, we were eating in the lobby bar.
It seems that there was a large and elaborate Egyptian wedding planed for that night and from the look of it, the bride’s father was a man of means, since it looked like a very fancy and large wedding party. Melissa and Kim were particularly taken by the size and ornate nature of the bride’s wedding dress, made of something like layered taffeta that made the bride’s hips about five feet wide with a train that was perhaps fifteen feet long. You know, just your ordinary, run of the mill wedding dress.
The groom, looked like a cross between Fabio and Omar Sharif and as a storyteller, I pictured them as a couple living off Daddy’s money while hubby tried and failed at multiple seemingly-hip internet start-ups only to find his ideas a day-late and a whole lot of creativity-short.
As the photographers snapped pictures of the bride and the groom on the grand staircase, over and over again, it was an acrobatic event worthy of the Cirque de Soleil. This massive wedding dress was not the sort of attire you wanted to have on a marble stairway, since it looked like it was hard to maneuver even on flat ground. The bride had to have an entourage of hotel service people holding her in place and making sure that she didn’t fall on her face and tumble down in a big wad of white taffeta. They took pictures from above. They took pictures from below. They hung over the railing to get just the right shot. They took every imaginable picture all with great fanfare, and it was all going on behind me while I was trying to tell my stories. It clearly made the storytelling more challenging like doing a comedy set during the CPAC Convention (which is going on right now in Maryland, awaiting the Donald’s triumphant arrival).
Things quieted down when the bride and groom, presumably went from the pre-ceremony photography session into the actual ceremony. I guess Egyptian weddings don’t take very long because in no time at all, we heard a commotion behind us again. It started with one of those shrill Arabic tongue-rolling screeches that Auda Abu Taye got as he led a column of Bedouin warriors out towards Aqaba. This announced that the bride and groom were coming, with the procession of other guests, down the stairway. But this was not a fast process. This process involved a large entourage of what I guess were wedding attendees and attendants. They were accompanied by a full Egyptian band. I couldn’t help but think about that wonderful play a few years ago called The Band’s Visit about an Egyptian band that gets waylaid to Tel Aviv and stuck wandering around in Israel. Well, this Egyptian band sure was making a lot of noise and commotion with the beating of drums, the blowing of horns for the blessed couple coming down the stairs. There were also several women in the group, who felt it necessary to keep crying out their middle eastern trills every once in a while. You know what I’m talking about, it’s those shrill cries from Middle Eastern women when they are either very upset or very excited (who knows which?)
Every time I tried to start or finish a story, the band would strike up their music and the women folk would start rolling their tongues, screaming their cries of pleasure on behalf of the bride and groom.
Mike said repeatedly during this trip that he prefers seeing the real life of the places we’re visiting rather than just the antiquities. I think this is a bit like being stuck in school and preferring whatever there is to look at out the window. Certainly this wedding procession was a touch of real life that would give all of us, including Mike, a special insight into how Egyptians (at least Republican Egyptians) live their lives these days. I think there was more going on outside that window than what Mike had bargained for given that he was still recovering from his earache. Who knows, maybe those shrill cries could break through the ear canal logjam?
After a few moments of listening to this Egyptian wedding band play it’s very Arabic tunes, and to the women rolling their tongues in shrill noises, Mike was clearly rethinking the extent to which he wanted to see the real Egypt. I, on the other hand, carried on with my ustorytelling as though nothing had happened other than a mere distraction of some Coptic Coupling underway.