okay, yes, I watched it

By complete chance, I woke at 6.45 a.m. and at 7.15 was in the kitchen drinking coffee. And I thought, oh well, I guess I'll find out about the wedding. I thought it would be over. So I checked the computer and THERE IT WAS, still going on. I came in just as Reverend Curry was finishing his sermon, and I thought, I'm in the wrong place, what is this?? It was amazing, shockingly direct and casual in such a formal place. And then after the vows, a black choir sang a beautiful rendition of Stand by Me, a black cellist played, and it was not at all what I - the world - was expecting.

I turned on the TV and watched till they drove out of sight in their landau, the horses freaking out at the noise, that gorgeous young woman with her bright natural smile that did not fade, that nice young man who looks not unlike another nice young reddish-haired man the same age and closely related to me. Despite my complete indifference to this occasion, I fell under the spell. They do these things well, the Brits, up to and including the weather, the perfect day. The absurd hats, the stuffy royals, and there, with tears in her eyes, was a divorced African-American woman of great dignity, the bride's mother. They all won me over.

The only negative, for me, was that the camera angle kept showing the bride's friends, foremost among them Ben Mulroney, son of an unfortunate Canadian prime minister. Otherwise, it was beautiful to watch, an absurd fairytale brought to theatrical life. Call me a sucker, but there was a tear or two, remembering my own wedding day. Which was in the Vancouver registry office two weeks after the birth of our daughter, attended by the sleeping baby in a borrowed christening robe along with my mother and a dear friend, and that's all. So - not quite the same. But the love and the hope were the same.

This morning, to the plant store on the corner, usually extremely crowded on the May 24 weekend - today, in the rain, empty. I bought basil, lettuce, cherry tomatoes, chives (mine died this winter), parsley, eggplant (trying again), cukes and more. TO LIFE!

'I'm ready for a drink now': What Harry said to Meghan (according to a lip reader). As the carriage pulled away from the crowds into the gated grounds of Windsor Castle, Ms Markle seemed to be in awe of the scenes, lifting her hand to her chest and saying "wow". Harry also seemed to need some help... according to lip reader Tina Lannin, he said to his bride: "I'm ready for a drink now."

My kind of guy.

"Dr. King was right. We must discover love. The redemptive power of love and when we do that, we will make of this old world a new world. My brother, my sister, god love you, god bless you, and may god hold us all in those almighty hands of love."