Pardon My French

We're back from the wedding and still recovering. The bride and groom were young, charming, and seemed very much in love. There were several entertaining speeches that included a formal announcement of plans to divorce (from the bride's best friend...and the rest of us are still not sure if that was a joke or not), details of how the bride and groom met on the internet, and my personal favorite, a speech on the evolution of sexuality that mentioned woolly mammoths, amoebas, and some kind of tree (I think).

This time around I am proud to report that I managed to socialize and have successful discussions with a lot of the family and wasn't too intimidated by them. I discovered that one extremely safe way of maintaining a discussion with the extended in-laws is to ask a lot of questions about their vacation plans. Knowing this, I feel armed and ready to go to my next family event. I managed to keep one sweet uncle talking about Las Vegas and then his trip to Andalousie for at least a good 20 minutes. I also had a long conversation with the speech-making uncle about evolution. My husband's family is from the south of France, so they have a particular accent that usually doesn't pose too many problems but does throw me for a loop once in a while. Thus I am sure I looked quite taken aback when Uncle Francois started talking about "les dongs des mammouths." Mammouth, as you've probably guessed, is the word for mammoth in French, and this is the uncle who had just spoken about the history of sexual reproduction. I said, "Les dongs?" He said, "Les dongs!" I repeated, "Les DONGS?!?" and he shouted back, "LES DONGS!!" and tapped his teeth.

The light bulb went off.

Les dents. Got it! My uncle-in-law was talking about mammoth teeth. And we managed to keep talking until someone's neighbor arrived and wanted to talk to him about sports.

It was a great wedding.