July 29 - Lipstick, Tigers and Rings - oh my!

 July 29th - there's a few things to say about it.

First off, it's the first time I've seen on my lists that National X Day is the same both in Canada and the USA.. it's National Lipstick Day.

We have a lipstick manufacturer in town here too - Hail Cosmetics!

On the world front it's International Tiger Day.

Still wowed by these majestic beasts, and I've only ever seen them up close so few times.

Then for the rings, there's 2 options.

In 1954 Tolkien released the first book of the Lord of the Rings series.

And in 1981 Prince Charles married Lady Diana.

Congrats Rob and Sue

Thanks to Rob and Susan for including us in your special day.

It was awesome weather and beautiful all around (seriously the sister who did the decorations could start her own business and give most of the companies in town s good run for their money).

For our part, Rory, Bill and myself were asked to pipe for the ceremony and... We'll it sounded good. Hope it looked even better!

We practiced several times throughout the week.

I piped down the bridal party and then the three of us played Susan down with Highland Cathedral (now that we have it and some seconds, we should have to play it in the band).

Then later in the evening we played a mini concert with Rob. It was awesome and very tight sounding!

Now, can't wait until that guy finds those photos (someone left their camera at a table so Rory took a few photos for him)!

It's been how long? [45/70]

Seriously the 9th is the last time I wrote an actual article on this blog for myself (and not a reshare of my AiC stuff, or a recap of the vacation)??

Let's remedy that shall we?

Rory & Rain's wedding [50/63]

Took 'em long enough, but finally Rory & Rain are married.



It was a great time, and I was proud to be able to play my part in it.  Rory has been instrumental (pun intended) for a lot of what the pipe band is today.

Too bad I screwed up the intro.  We set it all out, the only thing was timing - I couldn't play in sync with the band all the way over on the other side.  As soon as I had the tempo going I started to march and then I realized "I can't hear a thing" so I fumbled it a fair bit.  By the time I got to the bottom of the stairs I knew I was out... I looked to Rory and he just shook his head to say 'no'... so I fumbled a bit more and eventually got in time.  Hopefully not many other people noticed... to me it sounded horrendous.

Other than that - it was hot... very hot.  You would think in those cases it was best to dress coolly... not so for Rory or the priest.  And then the priest didn't let anything back in terms of the ceremony. That was one long ceremony, but full of cool appropriate rites and whatnot.

After the ceremony I piped them back up and and we all rushed into the hall for some A/C.  We mingled and talked etc... for some time, as in typical Bain fashion, it was delayed.  But we enjoyed it nonetheless.  Dean, who we thought was over-cooked from the heat, really enjoyed it as he danced and ran around.

Then at some point in the evening, the A/C stopped working.  And man was it hot.  Sticky hot.  You could either stick outside and get eaten by the bugs, or stay inside and sweat.  Oddly enough, nobody complained, we just trudged along and enjoyed the company and the speeches and the food.  Did I mention haggis?  Rory never said what 'haggis lite' was  tho', but it was good.

Dean really enjoyed himself.  He really wanted to dance and jump around.  He was dancing with Anna a bit, and then after a while she tired of it, but he still wanted to... it was like that annoying non-social guy who kept asking but kept getting shut down.  Kinda felt bad for Dean, and wondered when Anna was going to slap on the restraining order.  Aah, youth.  Eventually he just played with the other kids at the party - he had a blast.  [and slept in until 9 this morning]  Even better was he got so hot, we took off his shirt, and left him in his 'wife beater'.  People found this most histerical, the kilted kid in a wife beater who was just hitting on all the girls ... he even had a pretty good shot of taking Brandy's date home with him [you the man, cool guy]

All joking and everything else aside - it was a majestic day for Rory and Rain - and I was glad to be a part of it!

[And congrats to Mark and Allison - nobody reads these anyways, so I'm telling their secret]