It‘s been a long time since I’ve written anything. I’ve been busy, planning weddings and what-not; settling into the settled life of a responsible adult. It’s been the usual grind of work and commitments and the general running’s of a house. It’s been good. We’ve even had the priest around for food. I’ve felt like a proper adult and upstanding member of the community.
I don’t know why I haven’t blogged, there’s been plenty going on, mostly football; a veritable title challenge, but for some reason I haven’t sat down in front of the computer and ranted. My rants have been face to face, all of them localized.
And believe me, there has been plenty to rant about. The Eldest started college, quit, started another college course and is now talking about going back to the original college course.
The Youngest entered secondary school and is under the impression she has suddenly turned twenty one, at least you’d think that to listen to her. This week she acquired herself a boyfriend. Being twelve this employed a third party. A friend approached the boy and enquired if he’d consider going out with her. He said he’d think about it. Later in the day he approached the friend and confirmed that, yes, he would consider going out with her.
This led to feigned furor in the house; the Girlf fumed, realistically, and I threatened to batter the boy, convincingly, if he stepped out of line.
Much chuckling was had behind collective hands.
All this ended abruptly today when the Youngest informed us that the love affair was over. The cad had sent an intermediary over to tell our Princess she’d been dumped. This was conveyed to us by the Youngest with the detached insouciance of some one who’d lost a Twitter follower. Ever being the hands on, sensitive, step-parent I enquired if she was alright. My reply was a shrug. Delving deeper, I asked if she’d actually spoken to the lad, face to face, over the twenty four hour duration of the relationship.
She said no.
The Eldest has been ‘following her dreams’ for approximately two months. She ditched her A-levels to become a dancer, much to the distain of the Girlf. Now, after two months of hard graft the allure of the profession has begun to wane. There are two reasons for this; firstly, it turns out dancers are pretty thick and shallow, and secondly; the wake up call of a professional audition she’d managed to blag herself into. It turns out that professional dancers, no matter how talented, spend a lot of their time doing shitty jobs and being skint. Being skint has never been an option the Eldest has seriously considered. There has been considerable talk of rich husbands and jaunts to New York. The prospect of being a penniless, jobbing, performer has made her sit up and reconsider. It appears a career in law has more appeal.
The Girlf has been intensively wedding planning since September. We have a wedding list, soul searchingly and painfully finalized; and we have a seating plan, cobbled together as best we could, aided by the fact there aren’t too many blood feuds amongst our guests; and we have a date.
We also have a priest.
The Rev is a curiosity. Growing up, all priests were very Greek and very old. The Rev is different, he is barely older than me; a peer if you will. He reminds me of Chekov’s eternal student from Uncle Vanya. He has three degrees; one in maths, one in law and of course one in theology. The man is a scientist, very geeky and, if you’ll pardon the phrase, very white for a Greek Orthodox priest. A Pentecostal Kiwi convert if you please!
The Rev comes from a monastical background and, subsequently, is rather devote for it. There is no moving the Rev on matters of dogma. All the certainties I was brought up with appear to be merely Cypriot custom. The Rev cares not for custom; the Rev’s concern is for the integrity of the service.
Slowly we have chiseled out a compromise; the Eldest can be the maid of honor, despite of the fact she isn’t Orthodox. The Rev is quite happy for her to stand there and look pretty, as long as she doesn’t play any part in the proceedings.
He is prepared to marry us, but only in a truncated ceremony. The sticking points have been the Girlf’s lack of Orthodoxy and my Agnosticism. The Rev isn’t comfortable bonding us together in the presence of God because she isn’t Greek Orthodox and I’m not devout enough.
This is all good for me. We’ve been honest with the guy, brought him into our strange little home and fed him. We’ve let the girls annoy him and pester him with stupid questions and even feed him their home economics school work. He knows we’re good people, albeit unconventional, and is prepared to meet us half way.
We have an unconventional family and an unconventional priest. I think it’s all rather fitting.
