Marriage in Mexico

Today I got an email from my pal Cakes (or, Big Daddy Cakes as he now wants to be called). I’ve been friends with Cakes since 1989. That’s thirteen years, folks. We met in college, and became fast friends. He grew up in Honduras in a missionary family, but came to NC for a college degree. When he first got to campus a lot of us called him Cameron, because of his striking resemblance to Alan Ruck from “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off” (see left – that’s Alan Ruck).

His name isn’t actually Cakes, he gained that nickname in college – something to do with Little Debbie Snack Cakes. He also went by Huevon, Pa-keep and a few other names before we settled on Cakes. For a while I spent a lot of time with Cakes, Oscar (an exchange student from Bolivia who spoke NO English upon arriving at GWU, and learned to speak it by watching trashy tv reruns) and Jones (that’s his last name)- they made me laugh almost all the time and were my dancing buddies – we’d go to the Pterodactyl Club in Charlotte every Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights. Occasionally we’d head to the Waffle House and chow down while playing the “-ation” game before the final trek back to our dorms. I still play the “-ation” game with myself sometimes, if I have to stay awake in a meeting or in the car. You simply try to come up with as many words as you can that end in “-ation”. You know – graduation, contemplation, radiation, obfuscation – you can go on forever, really. No repeats allowed.

Anyway, through the years we kept in touch – I would meet up with him in Raleigh if I was in town for a rave, or he’d periodically make it up to DC to hang out with me. In 1997 he made it to my wedding – bringing Dave and Oscar with him which was a wonderful surprise. We’ve all changed – Jones is married, Oscar is somewhere in NC, and Cakes become an employee and a casualty in the dotcom world.

And so today I got an email in which Cakes told me about his downsizing out of his dotcom job (he lasted longer than most), about his sojourn to Mexico for a few months, and his impending marriage to a lovely senorita. Cakes. Getting married? I can hardly believe it. I’m thrilled for him, but can’t picture him married. The wedding will be in February in Acapulco and I’m hoping we can go. I’ll be at the end of my 7th month of pregnancy, but if I’m still doing well, I’m hoping to hop a plane for a quick weekend jaunt to Mexico to see the man get hitched. That’s a once in a lifetime experience.