JUDGE BRICK

The Friday night wedding (the REAL wedding) was to take place at Boldt Castle. That's in New York State. We needed to find an officiant. In New York State people use judges if they do not wish for a church wedding. We asked the Town of Alexandria Bay for a few recommendations, and I called and left messages with three or four. Judge Calvin Brick was amongst those who replied. I liked the sound of his voice. He SOUNDED like a very nice person. And I REALLY liked his name. Very solid: Calvin BRICK. Probably not Catholic. "The guy pronounces marriages that last." And you KNOW what his bathroom is called...

So I called him back and told him that we were interested. Again I was leaving a message. I told him a thing or two about our plans. By now I had put an answering machine message on our phone that suggested that we had reached the limit of how many guests we could invite to "The Wedding of the Summer", and further suggested that we were really tired of hearing from "Liz Windsor"--- that, "No, she could NOT come to the wedding, and furthermore, we KNEW who she REALLY was... we had traced her calls to a phone booth near Buckingham Palace".

This message revealed to me that very few people in Canada seem to know that our Queen's real name is Windsor. "The House of Windsor". Until W.W.One the family name had been Saxe-Cobourg and Gotha, but it had been decided that that was just a little too German sounding, so it was changed to something a little more English. Elizabeth Windsor was the name she used when she served in the army in W.W.Two. Even lesser known fact: Her two favourite corgis were originally called Blitzkrieg and Wolfslair. In 1939 they were re-named... and Banzai and Samurai each lived ten more years. True story.

Banzai, Liz, and Samurai

ANYWAY... Judge Brick returned my call and this time I was home and we spoke for the first time. He sounded worried. "We have a problem." "What!?" I asked. "The Queen. She just called me. She's pissed. She really wants to come to the wedding. I have to call her back. What am I going to say?"

By this time I knew that he was the perfect choice for our wedding. I told him: "The problem is... We were not invited to HER little wedding in the spring... Kate and Will."

"You weren't there?" he said. "Don't worry. You really didn't miss much. I was disappointed, frankly."

"What was wrong?"

"Well.. What wasn't wrong? I mean, the hors d'oeuvres?"

"Costco?" I said.

"Yes. You don't expect that from the Queen, do you?"

No you don't.