Nosy Neighbor

There are 2 activities that I really love: people watching and weddings. Not necessarily in that order. Moving into a new neighborhood has provided plenty of good people watching activities but none as excellent as what took place a few weeks ago. My sister was visiting (whoohoo!) and after we arose Saturday morning, we sat down for breakfast/coffee. As I'm going through my weekend ritual of opening all of the blinds in the entire house I noticed quite a bit of activity going on in the street. Naturally, I tried to hide the fact that I'm watching - until I discovered what was going on. A wedding! A Vietnamese wedding! A big one! With people all in the street! And weird traditions! OMG my excitement could not be contained.
So, I called Shells into the reading room where we could look out the giant window facing the street. And we sat. And we drank our coffee. And we watched. With no shame. It was perhaps one of the strangest things I have ever seen. We actually thought of sending her dog outside just so we would have an excuse to go out there and find out what was happening.
If you've never seen a Vietnamese wedding, you are missing out my friends. There were people EVERYWHERE - all up in the next door neighbor's yard (which was not where the wedding was), all up and down the street, all speaking in crazy fast Vietnamese. People. Everywhere. We finally saw the bridesmaids arrive in their cute tea-length red dresses. We saw the groom, but sadly never saw the bride. We saw people bring take out containers of what looked like pancakes or something out of the house. We saw ALL of the guests form a giant line all the way down the street, and the very overeager photographer and videographer snapping away. We saw the groomsmen carry bright red pillows until they got to the entry of the house and then give the pillows to the bridesmaids, then do some sort of ritual before going in the house. We saw a giant red heart shaped banner with words in a language I cannot read on it hanging over their door. We saw all of the guests march into the house - and girls in very short dresses. It was kind of like watching a bunch of clowns try to fit into a small car - I really don't know how all those people fit into that house! I mean, the house is a good, normal size, but OMG there were TONS of people! But then, THEN we saw a pig. A big ol dead pig on a plate being carried into the house - along with giant coolers. Let's hope there were no more pigs in the coolers. Sadly, this was where the entertainment ended for us - with a giant pig bringing up the rear on a plate. OMG.
Welcome to the 'hood!