The Engagement Party -- Preparations

Saturday, 12/26/2009

Tonight is the engagement party that everyone has been looking forward to. It looks to be a mini-wedding in terms of scope and expense. Knowing the daily schedule in these parts, we are girding ourselves to last until 4:00 or 5:00 in the morning. I'm sure that, at that time, it will be only the Americans who have been worn out.

For some time I was plotting to make a toast at the party to the coincidence of two great occasions: the engagement and the birthday of my wife. That should be impressive, but its value has been diminished by the fact that I forgot to wish Gloria a happy birthday this morning.

This afternoon I'm left alone while the women are having their makeup and hair done. They met at Sylvia's home at 3:00 for this ordeal. When I consider such an experience, the Spanish Inquisition comes most readily to mind. I am so happy not to be a woman. Now I know why that prayer is in the traditional service.

The up-side is that the two mothers get to commiserate with each other and to become better acquainted. I am to show up this evening at their home around 8:00 so that we can go to the party together.

In the meantime, I am left to my own designs. I have already taken a bus to Santa Fe to browse the shops and to pick up some items that we had planned to get. Otherwise the outing was useless other than to provide me with considerable exercise walking.

The preparations for the party had been kept secret, in part, from los chicos, because we had performed in a video to surprise them. I have refrained from blogging the events, in case the kids read this blog before tonight. It has been difficult accounting for huge chunks of time on two separate days of production.

Leandro's parents had set words to a very famous tango, “Cambalache,” and the whole immediate family met at a professional recording studio to sing the song. It was an hilarious experience, especially since the two of us had never seen the words previously. We had been told what the tune would be, and I located a few recordings on the Internet. I downloaded two, put them on my mp3 player, and we listened to them many times on the flight from the US. We had learned the tune so well that it kept both of us awake one night, swirling around in our heads.

The recording session was the afternoon of our first day in BsAs. Our jet lag only added to the comedy of the afternoon. Occasionally, there were too many – or too few – syllables in the substitute words to fit the music. That caused some giggles and some consternation trying to work it out. After three hours of grueling effort, we wrapped up the recording session.

But that was not to be the end of our ordeal. Nobody told us that we would then have to do a video production; we had always understood that the surprise would be a video of something related, accompanied by our recorded singing. But no. We all met at the Puerto Madero a couple of days later, instructed to dress in black and white.

We arrived not knowing what to expect. The film crew was there with the finished, mixed recording. They gave us black hats and scarves to make us look like tango dancers, and divided us into groups. Each group performed a routine – luckily very simple – to a couple of lines of the song. The killer was that all of the scenes required us to sing – or to lip synch – the words of the song. But remember, Gloria and I had not seen the words before a few days ago; we had not known to study them in the interim; we had no teleprompters for these routines.

We sang or mouthed the words clumsily and did several takes until the camera crew decided that it could have been worse. Some of the family actually knew the words and did a great job with the video recording. I felt rather foolish, but it should provide for some good laughs when we view it tonight at the party.

It will be nice to have such a lavish affair tonight. Many of Leandro's friends and relatives will not be in a position to attend the wedding next September; it's a long way from Buenos Aires to Atlanta. This party gives them an opportunity to celebrate the occasion with the couple.

Well, let's see if I can nap for an hour or so before the party.

(Read about the party in tomorrow's post.)