Tonight is my last video blog for the month of December. Because it is New Year's Eve, it seems unlikely that is any song more appropriate of traditional to play than "Auld Lang Syne." I know the song gets done to death each year, but I love this arrangement by my guys, Straight No Chaser. It's good to switch things up every once in a while.
I also consider Auld Lang Syne an appropriate song for today because it's meant as a farewell of sorts. Farewell to times gone by, farewell to the old year, farewell to old friends even. Literally translated from Old Scots as "old long ago," Auld Lang Syne is a song about love and friendships past, and toasting current friends.* I am personally more than ready to toast 2011 goodbye. It has been a year of medical mishap for me, and I would like to see the back of it sooner rather than later, with the hope that 2012, apocalyptic or not, involves less battering and bruising. I would like to say farewell to old burdens and hello to new experiences. I would like to say farewell to injury and hello to an occasional injection of excitement. But mostly I would like to say farewell to the gift of a year, even a bad one, and hello to the blessing of a new year, full of potential and possibility.
I hope everyone has a safe New Year's Eve, and that the blessings and peace of tomorrow are made manifest throughout the entire year for each and every one of you.
Happy New Year--rock it like it's the end of the Mayan world!!
*Source: http://www.carols.org.uk/auld_lang_syne_song.htm
31 December 2011
Auld Lang Syne - Straight No Chaser
Tonight is my last video blog for the month of December. Because it is New Year's Eve, it seems unlikely that is any song more appropriate of traditional to play than "Auld Lang Syne." I know the song gets done to death each year, but I love this arrangement by my guys, Straight No Chaser. It's good to switch things up every once in a while.
I also consider Auld Lang Syne an appropriate song for today because it's meant as a farewell of sorts. Farewell to times gone by, farewell to the old year, farewell to old friends even. Literally translated from Old Scots as "old long ago," Auld Lang Syne is a song about love and friendships past, and toasting current friends.* I am personally more than ready to toast 2011 goodbye. It has been a year of medical mishap for me, and I would like to see the back of it sooner rather than later, with the hope that 2012, apocalyptic or not, involves less battering and bruising. I would like to say farewell to old burdens and hello to new experiences. I would like to say farewell to injury and hello to an occasional injection of excitement. But mostly I would like to say farewell to the gift of a year, even a bad one, and hello to the blessing of a new year, full of potential and possibility.
I hope everyone has a safe New Year's Eve, and that the blessings and peace of tomorrow are made manifest throughout the entire year for each and every one of you.
Happy New Year--rock it like it's the end of the Mayan world!!
*Source: http://www.carols.org.uk/auld_lang_syne_song.htm
I also consider Auld Lang Syne an appropriate song for today because it's meant as a farewell of sorts. Farewell to times gone by, farewell to the old year, farewell to old friends even. Literally translated from Old Scots as "old long ago," Auld Lang Syne is a song about love and friendships past, and toasting current friends.* I am personally more than ready to toast 2011 goodbye. It has been a year of medical mishap for me, and I would like to see the back of it sooner rather than later, with the hope that 2012, apocalyptic or not, involves less battering and bruising. I would like to say farewell to old burdens and hello to new experiences. I would like to say farewell to injury and hello to an occasional injection of excitement. But mostly I would like to say farewell to the gift of a year, even a bad one, and hello to the blessing of a new year, full of potential and possibility.
I hope everyone has a safe New Year's Eve, and that the blessings and peace of tomorrow are made manifest throughout the entire year for each and every one of you.
Happy New Year--rock it like it's the end of the Mayan world!!
*Source: http://www.carols.org.uk/auld_lang_syne_song.htm
30 December 2011
Twenty-Five: Silence is Golden But Duct Tape is Silver
Today is my twenty-fifth wedding anniversary. My silver anniversary. This just seems highly improbable to me for any number of reasons, not the least of which is that I can't possibly be old enough to have a silver anniversary.
Twenty-five years ago I was sitting in my future in-laws' house, fielding a call from my fiancé's colleagues. They were trying to get me to reconsider my decision by pointing out what an inadequate spouse he would make and by suggesting that he might not go through with it anyway, considering the dinner plate-sized sweat stains he was no doubt sporting under his arms.
Twenty-five years ago my nerdy fiancé and his old college roommates were occupying themselves outside of the church by rigging up flood lamps on boards outside the stained glass windows so that the windows would be properly illuminated inside during the evening ceremony. No one had ever thought of doing so before.
Twenty-five years ago I was being told by family members whom I barely knew that I looked like Princess Diana. I still don't see it.
Twenty-five years ago my veil was nearly set on fire by a candle during the ceremony. Given that I have always been a closet arsonist, there's an irony there I find nearly irresistible.
Twenty-five years ago my parents couldn't really afford to give me a big wedding, which was fine by me. I've never been a big frou-frou, over-the-top sort of person anyway, at least not with anything other than my personality, so I was perfectly happy to have a relatively small ceremony instead.
Twenty-five years ago I was busily trying to coordinate a wedding with mothers in two different states and making bridesmaids dresses while trying to finish up my last semester of college.
Twenty-five years. A quarter of a century. More than half my life. It just doesn't seem possible.
My actual wedding day twenty-five years ago was somewhat atypical. Because my parents didn't have a lot of money, my fiancé and I paid for most of the wedding ourselves. I think all my parents paid for was their own wedding attire, my bouquet (which my mother insisted on getting made) and travel from Indiana to eastern Tennessee. I made all of the bridesmaids dresses, charging each girl only for the cost of the materials since most were poor college students like myself. My future mother-in-law was supposed to make her own daughter's dress, but with all the excitement and other preparations she never quite got around to finishing it; I ended up completing most of it two days before the wedding. I also made all the boutonnieres and corsages, some of which, in retrospect, were truly hideous or at least ridiculously big. I'd only been to a couple of weddings in my life, and both were when I was a child. Also, I just wasn't the sort of person to spend hours devouring bridal catalogs. I learned a few things while working in a bridal shop as a seamstress and figured that was more than enough.
I was wrong.
I quickly discovered that a Northern girl's wedding sensibilities were just not gonna fly in a small Southern town. To her credit, my mother-in-law (an unfailingly kind, Pollyanna-sort of woman) was more accommodating than some of the extended family members and locals were, perhaps because she was afraid of scaring me away from marrying her very introverted and complicated oldest son. In any case, my wayward and "wild" wedding ideas (or lack thereof) were carefully redirected into things considered more "appropriate" or traditional for weddings in the area. Before the wedding day, I was forever getting calls from my mother-in-law about little organizational details, such as "can So-and-so be one of the servers/ushers/whatevers?" For the most part I didn't give a rat's patootie about all these details, because I considered them largely irrelevant--I foolishly thought that a wedding involved some fancy clothes, a few flowers, a little cake and some vows in front of a minister. At least those were the only parts important to me. I was quickly disavowed of my misguided ways. I can remember spending a lot of time on the phone with my future mother-in-law nodding and blindly saying "Sure" to one random detail after another. In fairness, much of this was necessary because I got married in her hometown; still, so much of it just seemed excessive to me. As I said, I'm not generally one for a big fuss over things, so my determination to keep things simple made more than a few people twitch. I found out years later that there had been a significant quantity of "blessing my heart" over the whole thing, since the Yankee girl clearly hadn't been raised properly enough to know how things are supposed to be done. And for those of you who don't know? "Bless her heart"? Really not a compliment.
The downside to having my mother-in-law doing so much of the planning long-distance was that my own mother became sulky and petulant because she felt left out. I decided long ago that weddings are not really for the couple getting married, but for the families of the couple who are busily trying to fix all the things they didn't get to do because their own families were busy dictating how their weddings should go. As a result, there often end up being all sorts of ridiculous politics and placating involved in navigating the treacherous wedding waters. In the end, I was able to placate my mother by asking her to address all the invitations, because her handwriting was so much better than mine. Recipe for a wedding: take a gallon of drama, stir in some damaged egos, add a pinch of kissing up and a dash of deference. Bake in a hot oven and hope no one slams the oven door hard enough to make the vows collapse.
The day of the rehearsal dinner, I was given a new sweater and black wool pencil skirt, presumably because my in-laws didn't entirely trust me to wear something appropriate to the dinner instead of my jeans and sneakers. While insulting, it probably wasn't far wrong given that I rapidly changed into my jeans for the rehearsal once the dinner was finished. At the rehearsal everyone insisted it was bad luck for me to walk down the aisle so my mother stood in for me, which was just weird. Watching my mother---who looked more than a little like Mrs. Claus--standing next to my intended and saying wedding vows was a more than a little disturbing. Meanwhile, the best man was running around in a t-shirt emblazoned with "The bride never marries the best man," which no doubt would have been much funnier had I not just discovered that he'd had a crush on me for the last 2 years. As if that weren't complication enough, my intended also invited one of his other old roommates and my ex-boyfriend. Now I like to think I'm a fairly liberated sort of person, but at age 21 I just wasn't Noel Coward enough to cope with having an ex in the wedding party. I refused to allow it on the grounds that it was tasteless (See? I do have some sense of decorum...), so the ex was relegated to videotaping the ceremony which both gave him something to do and kept him out of my way. As Jan Brady would say, "drama, drama, DRAMA!" Weddings are little more than marital minefields. Admit it...you know it's true.
To make matters more interesting, we didn't get married on a Saturday like normal people. Because I had graduated early, it was a little more challenging to find a day not too close either to Christmas or New Year's but still before most of the attendants had to return back to school/college. So we picked the 30th--a Tuesday (though secretly I wanted to get married on New Year's Eve at approximately 11:58 pm). This wouldn't have been so bad except that the University of Tennessee was unexpectedly playing in the Liberty Bowl that year, which was local and to which my father-in-law and several others had tickets that they grudgingly had to relinquish. While they were fairly good-natured about it aside from the odd chaffing, it still didn't stop them from bringing a pocket television to the rehearsal so they could follow the game between instructions.
The day of the wedding, after the aforementioned phone call from his work colleagues, my intended and his nerdmates spent most of the afternoon rigging up lights outside of the church to shine through the stained glass windows because they decided that darkened church windows were silly. At least it kept them out of trouble for the day. After a light dinner, all the ladies headed up to the church to begin the protracted primping. I refused to allow my own mother in the bride's room, horrible person that I am, because I knew she'd spend the entire time making passive-aggressive comments while critiquing me and picking imaginary lint off of my every available surface. My mother-in-law graciously avoided the bride's room most of the time too so as not to make my mom feel any more left out. She was all about the treating people equally, was my mother-in-law.
After the primptasm, we all walked around to the front of the church. Even in the South, it can get a bit chilly in the evenings in late December. And by "chilly" I mean "not 60 degrees." Fueled by adrenaline and my Yankee insulation I was actually pretty comfortable though my face remained flushed for much of the day, causing my makeup to lean a little towards the prostitutional palette.
Because my in-laws' church did not have a center aisle, I had to walk down one side aisle with my father and up the other with my new husband. This sounds like it should have been an easy enough thing, except that my father, who liked to pretend to be all gruff and macho and crap, was dissolving into emotional puddles faster than Jello in the sun. The poor man, who was overcome with emotion and flustered by the militant bossiness of the "wedding coordinator" (and I use that term loosely because she was really just somebody's brother's cousin's wife or something), completely and utterly forgot how to do the wedding walk he'd practiced the night before. So there I was, veiled and generally laughing my ass off at him while muttering under my breath "Right...together...left...together..." as we processed down the aisle. I'm pretty sure I was holding him up far more than the other way around--no mean feat considering the man was 6'3" and well over 200 lbs. I was told later, much to my sardonic amusement, that my new husband thought I was crying all the way down the aisle, overcome with emotion as I must have been. Sorry, dude--wrong LaRue. If my shoulders were shaking, it was only from the strain of suppressing my laughter at my father (bless my heart).
After successfully navigating the aisle with a slightly swaying father, I arrived at the front rail next to my groom. The minister then proceeded to natter on for some time, making my supremely nervous and wholly unstable father stand while he did so until he finally got to the part about "Who gives this woman" some 10-15 minutes later. My father all but shoved my hand in the groom's direction, before escaping with all haste and colossal relief to his seat beside my mother.
The ceremony continued on about like one would expect, at least until it came time for us to kneel. When we did so, my veil wafted disconcertingly close to the unity candle, staying within spark's reach of the flame. For the wedding video, my ex positioned himself in the choir loft so he could see our faces during the ceremony. As we were kneeling, you can clearly see my mother's face, eyes agape, slowly lean into frame around the side of my head so she could monitor the progress of my veil, just in case she needed to leap up and batter flames from my head (which knowing her, she probably would have enjoyed). In fact, the danger was so obvious to most of the viewers that I'm pretty sure she wasn't the only one paying more attention to the potential disaster than to the prayer being said. To this day I couldn't tell you what the minister prayed, focused as I was on peering out the corner of my eye at the edge of my veil and that candle. I did manage to remain inflammable, though my veil did wave across the tip of the candle as I stood. Everyone breathed a heavy sigh of relief, as did I. That wasn't really the kind of "hot" honeymoon I had in mind.
The rest of the ceremony went smoothly enough, and we were pronounced "man and wife." Afterwards, we did pictures, during which the atmosphere loosened up considerably; if memory serves, we may have even done the wave at one point.
Following the formal photos, we went downstairs for the obligatory cake cutting and drink toasting pictures, after which we settled down to the serious business of eating everything from cake to the ubiquitously Southern cheese straws. I am still of the opinion that the assorted photographers had a pact to wait till my mouth was full before snapping pictures of me; nearly every shot of me at the rehearsal dinner and reception are right after I'd taken a bite. Eventually it came time to shoot the garter and throw the bouquet; the single women were pretty ruthlessly enthusiastic about diving for that bouquet, most notably my sister-in-law and my maid of honor; in the end, my husband's sister and brother ended up winning the free-for-all.
After the indoor festivities, we headed out to do the requisite "going away" shots. When we got outside, however, we discovered that the car had not been painted up as per usual (someone's paint job had been recently damaged that way) but was instead filled to the brim with balloons. The moment we opened the doors of the car, they all started flying from the back seat to the front seat, making it nearly impossible to get in the car. This becomes important later.
Eventually we were able to get around the balloons for the photo op, after which we went back inside to change into more comfortable clothes for the hour or so drive from the church to Memphis, where we were staying for our honeymoon. Before we could leave, however, we had to do a second run-thru so that the participants could assault us with handfuls of birdseed, lobbed enthusiastically from close-range with all the force of a trebuchet. The reason for this was that someone had recently read you weren't supposed to use rice anymore because then the pigeons and birds would eat it, drink water, swell up and explode. Lovely. Nothing like driving off to one's honeymoon with thoughts of birds spontaneously combusting all around one. Projectile bird guts--quite the mood setter.
After surviving the birdseed blitz, we once again got into the car and headed for Memphis for real. Once there I went into the hotel bathroom to change into something less comfortable; while disrobing I discovered that I had yet more bits of birdseed stuck to my skin, giving me the inspiration for a short story I still have yet to write. "Birdseed in My Bra" sounds like an excellent title, don't you think?? We stayed the night at the famous Peabody Hotel in Memphis, where we had the "Legendary Honeymoon" package, which basically meant we had a tiny suite, swish bathrobes (which we did not steal because my stupid new husband had scruples), and a bottle of Peabody Champagne and a small fruit basket. The next morning we were treated to a champagne brunch in the room with more of the Peabody champagne (complete with the Peabody ducks on the label)--which tasted approximately like battery acid, in my humble opinion. We kept the other unopened bottle under our sink for over 10 years at which point I finally threw it out, figuring that industrial solvent probably didn't improve with age. We only stayed one night at the hotel; since the next night was New Year's Eve, all the room prices instantly doubled to take maximum advantage of drunken revelers, making the cost a little too steep for us. It's pretty bad when you spend four of your first five days of married life with one set of parents or the other. That's almost as romantic as flaming pigeon guts.
After we checked out, we went to the curb to wait for the valet to bring our car around. The driver was a small Hispanic man who spoke almost no English. By the time the guy got back with the car he was completely flummoxed by all the balloons and stood around half gaping, half agitated. The head valet yelled at him, snapping him back to attention. He opened the trunk of the car to put in our luggage, only to discover yet more balloons inside. He started speaking rapidly as he loaded up the baggage, no doubt cursing vigorously. When the suitcase hit the bottom of the trunk it created an updraft which caused one of the balloons to fly out. The valet completely freaked out. I don't know what on earth he thought was going on with those balloons, but he was absolutely horrified at the thought of losing one; he probably thought they held state secrets or something. After standing stunned for a second, he started gesticulating wildly and hysterically, pointing towards the balloon which was now bounding across the parking lot. We tried to assure him that it was okay, that we didn't need it, but before we could stop him he took off across the parking lot after the errant balloon. We just wanted to leave but we could hardly go away with the poor guy all wound up like that, so we waited. For over 10 minutes. When the guy came back, he was more deflated than any of the balloons we'd popped the night before. His abject horror at having lost one of our possessions had him nearly in tears. We again tried to calm him down and convince him that it was not a problem for us when he suddenly stopped freaking out. You could almost see the light bulb go off over his head. Before we knew it, he was screaming in heavily accented English "You no go--you wait here! I be right back!!" and he was gone again. We looked at each other and the head valet with bewilderment. A couple of minutes later the valet came back, proudly brandishing a giant burgundy balloon imprinted with "The Peabody -- 1987" in white letters. He'd climbed up to the first floor loft over the lobby and somehow reached into the large net beside the rail where hundreds of balloons were suspended in anticipation of a midnight release for New Year's. The valet presented this replacement to us with no small flourish, quite pleased with himself for having successfully remedied his accidental loss and making us again whole and accurately ballooned. The hubs tipped the guy generously for his efforts; his short little head bobbed up and down in our rear view mirror as he waved goodbye enthusiastically, justice served.
When we returned to my in-laws' house to collect all the wedding gifts for the drive home, we discovered that the hub's cousin had short-sheeted our bed and strewn a layer of rice between each sheet and blanket and in the pillowcases. In the hub's rented tux shoes was another half pound or so of rice. When I opened up my suitcase to pack, I discovered two balloons tied to the strings of my sweatpants and yet more rice, most of which was concentrated in the same corner as my stack of neatly folded underwear and which was helpfully layered between each pair. I was still finding kernels of rice years later. Turns out the cousin's own in-laws had a huge thing about the tradition of rice and she wasn't about to let us off the hook with mere birdseed. Turns out we got off easy; it seems her own father had soldered a cowbell to the bed springs of her bed before she got home from her honeymoon.
Later that afternoon we were expected at the house of my husband's grandparents for dinner. Did I mention that every newlywed couple should get to spend four of their first five days together with their parents? Because hanging out with relatives is the first and foremost thing on every newlywed's mind, right? Never mind that awkward moment when you first return from your honeymoon, however long or short, and have to stand around being peered at by any number of knowing faces clearly reeking of the smug thought "I know what you just did." My new grandfather was the best about it, though. During the ceremony the day before my husband's grandmother had fallen victim to a nasty coughing fit. Knowing that we were videotaping the ceremony, she became agitated over it and decided to leave, so as not to "mess up the movie," dragging her husband along in her wake. She was most distraught over having missed the whole thing, but Grandaddy was much more sanguine about it. After being subjected to my father-in-law's smirk when we came in, Granddaddy pulled me aside and informed me in all (seeming) seriousness that we "weren't really married" because he had not seen it happen. I looked at him thoughtfully for a minute, then burst out "Too late!" He just laughed. I loved that man. He was quiet, but had a wonderful, sly humor that I adored.
We stayed a couple of nights in Tennessee to visit and then loaded up the car and headed back to South Bend, IN, stopping a couple more nights at my parents' house in the Honeymoon Suite there (aka two sleeping bags zipped together on the living room floor). Attempting to have sex in a parental home and in a public common area? Score! (Or not, as the case may be...) I suppose I should have taken this significant lack of alone time for our honeymoon as an omen, because let's face it--shacking up in a hotel room for just one night, however nice the hotel, is ultimately not that different off from taking a hooker to a seedy motel with an hourly rate. Still, at 21 I was hardly worldly enough to know the difference. Anyway, after the excessive parental bonding time, we finally made it home and began our married life together.
Twenty-five years later we are still together, though I sometimes wonder how. Like most couples, we have had our share of ups and downs through the years. We have shared many happy times, many not-so-happy times, a couple of great times--such as the birth of our daughter--and have been through a couple of epically horrible times. We have survived cancer, surgeries, job changes, job losses, financial difficulties and financial boons, undiagnosed Asperger's, multiple moves, 3 dogs, depression, travel, broken limbs, family deaths, car wrecks, child-rearing, and much, much more. While the years have not always been kind to us, while our life together has taken turns and falls I never could have anticipated, and while so very many things have not gone as I might have either hoped or expected, I am still proud of the fact that we didn't give up (even though I personally considered it on more than a few occasions) and that we stuck it out. In fact, at dinner tonight I gave my husband a gift. He opened the box, pulled out a very large roll of duct tape, and sat there with a distinct "WTF??" face, trying to figure out what I was up to this time. Then he saw a folded-up piece of paper in the bottom of the box and pulled it out. It read:
"WHY?
Because:
1) It’s silver. (Duh.)
2) You stuck around when you’d often rather have gone.
3) To assist you with continuing to attempt to mend what needs mending."
He scanned the simple words, then bent over the box and the remains of his cheesecake and started shaking. With laughter. A few minutes later, when he had once again composed himself, he admitted it was very clever and more than a little apropos. He even said it was as good or better than the Valentine's Day (1-2 weeks after he'd had just had surgery for testicular cancer) when I'd given him a card on which I'd penned "Roses are red, violets are blue. I'll love you forever, with one ball or two." He may get flabbergasted by my weirdness, but clearly he secretly he likes it. At least I'm still surprising him, twenty-five years later. Can anyone really ask for more than that?
Twenty-five years ago I was sitting in my future in-laws' house, fielding a call from my fiancé's colleagues. They were trying to get me to reconsider my decision by pointing out what an inadequate spouse he would make and by suggesting that he might not go through with it anyway, considering the dinner plate-sized sweat stains he was no doubt sporting under his arms.
Twenty-five years ago my nerdy fiancé and his old college roommates were occupying themselves outside of the church by rigging up flood lamps on boards outside the stained glass windows so that the windows would be properly illuminated inside during the evening ceremony. No one had ever thought of doing so before.
Twenty-five years ago I was being told by family members whom I barely knew that I looked like Princess Diana. I still don't see it.
 |
| Reddish hair + big nose = "Princess Di" |
Twenty-five years ago my veil was nearly set on fire by a candle during the ceremony. Given that I have always been a closet arsonist, there's an irony there I find nearly irresistible.
Twenty-five years ago my parents couldn't really afford to give me a big wedding, which was fine by me. I've never been a big frou-frou, over-the-top sort of person anyway, at least not with anything other than my personality, so I was perfectly happy to have a relatively small ceremony instead.
Twenty-five years ago I was busily trying to coordinate a wedding with mothers in two different states and making bridesmaids dresses while trying to finish up my last semester of college.
Twenty-five years. A quarter of a century. More than half my life. It just doesn't seem possible.
My actual wedding day twenty-five years ago was somewhat atypical. Because my parents didn't have a lot of money, my fiancé and I paid for most of the wedding ourselves. I think all my parents paid for was their own wedding attire, my bouquet (which my mother insisted on getting made) and travel from Indiana to eastern Tennessee. I made all of the bridesmaids dresses, charging each girl only for the cost of the materials since most were poor college students like myself. My future mother-in-law was supposed to make her own daughter's dress, but with all the excitement and other preparations she never quite got around to finishing it; I ended up completing most of it two days before the wedding. I also made all the boutonnieres and corsages, some of which, in retrospect, were truly hideous or at least ridiculously big. I'd only been to a couple of weddings in my life, and both were when I was a child. Also, I just wasn't the sort of person to spend hours devouring bridal catalogs. I learned a few things while working in a bridal shop as a seamstress and figured that was more than enough.
I was wrong.
I quickly discovered that a Northern girl's wedding sensibilities were just not gonna fly in a small Southern town. To her credit, my mother-in-law (an unfailingly kind, Pollyanna-sort of woman) was more accommodating than some of the extended family members and locals were, perhaps because she was afraid of scaring me away from marrying her very introverted and complicated oldest son. In any case, my wayward and "wild" wedding ideas (or lack thereof) were carefully redirected into things considered more "appropriate" or traditional for weddings in the area. Before the wedding day, I was forever getting calls from my mother-in-law about little organizational details, such as "can So-and-so be one of the servers/ushers/whatevers?" For the most part I didn't give a rat's patootie about all these details, because I considered them largely irrelevant--I foolishly thought that a wedding involved some fancy clothes, a few flowers, a little cake and some vows in front of a minister. At least those were the only parts important to me. I was quickly disavowed of my misguided ways. I can remember spending a lot of time on the phone with my future mother-in-law nodding and blindly saying "Sure" to one random detail after another. In fairness, much of this was necessary because I got married in her hometown; still, so much of it just seemed excessive to me. As I said, I'm not generally one for a big fuss over things, so my determination to keep things simple made more than a few people twitch. I found out years later that there had been a significant quantity of "blessing my heart" over the whole thing, since the Yankee girl clearly hadn't been raised properly enough to know how things are supposed to be done. And for those of you who don't know? "Bless her heart"? Really not a compliment.
The downside to having my mother-in-law doing so much of the planning long-distance was that my own mother became sulky and petulant because she felt left out. I decided long ago that weddings are not really for the couple getting married, but for the families of the couple who are busily trying to fix all the things they didn't get to do because their own families were busy dictating how their weddings should go. As a result, there often end up being all sorts of ridiculous politics and placating involved in navigating the treacherous wedding waters. In the end, I was able to placate my mother by asking her to address all the invitations, because her handwriting was so much better than mine. Recipe for a wedding: take a gallon of drama, stir in some damaged egos, add a pinch of kissing up and a dash of deference. Bake in a hot oven and hope no one slams the oven door hard enough to make the vows collapse.
The day of the rehearsal dinner, I was given a new sweater and black wool pencil skirt, presumably because my in-laws didn't entirely trust me to wear something appropriate to the dinner instead of my jeans and sneakers. While insulting, it probably wasn't far wrong given that I rapidly changed into my jeans for the rehearsal once the dinner was finished. At the rehearsal everyone insisted it was bad luck for me to walk down the aisle so my mother stood in for me, which was just weird. Watching my mother---who looked more than a little like Mrs. Claus--standing next to my intended and saying wedding vows was a more than a little disturbing. Meanwhile, the best man was running around in a t-shirt emblazoned with "The bride never marries the best man," which no doubt would have been much funnier had I not just discovered that he'd had a crush on me for the last 2 years. As if that weren't complication enough, my intended also invited one of his other old roommates and my ex-boyfriend. Now I like to think I'm a fairly liberated sort of person, but at age 21 I just wasn't Noel Coward enough to cope with having an ex in the wedding party. I refused to allow it on the grounds that it was tasteless (See? I do have some sense of decorum...), so the ex was relegated to videotaping the ceremony which both gave him something to do and kept him out of my way. As Jan Brady would say, "drama, drama, DRAMA!" Weddings are little more than marital minefields. Admit it...you know it's true.
 |
| "Hahaha--you're so funny! Except not." |
To make matters more interesting, we didn't get married on a Saturday like normal people. Because I had graduated early, it was a little more challenging to find a day not too close either to Christmas or New Year's but still before most of the attendants had to return back to school/college. So we picked the 30th--a Tuesday (though secretly I wanted to get married on New Year's Eve at approximately 11:58 pm). This wouldn't have been so bad except that the University of Tennessee was unexpectedly playing in the Liberty Bowl that year, which was local and to which my father-in-law and several others had tickets that they grudgingly had to relinquish. While they were fairly good-natured about it aside from the odd chaffing, it still didn't stop them from bringing a pocket television to the rehearsal so they could follow the game between instructions.
 |
| "UT scores!! Wait, what? Of course I'm paying attention!" |
The day of the wedding, after the aforementioned phone call from his work colleagues, my intended and his nerdmates spent most of the afternoon rigging up lights outside of the church to shine through the stained glass windows because they decided that darkened church windows were silly. At least it kept them out of trouble for the day. After a light dinner, all the ladies headed up to the church to begin the protracted primping. I refused to allow my own mother in the bride's room, horrible person that I am, because I knew she'd spend the entire time making passive-aggressive comments while critiquing me and picking imaginary lint off of my every available surface. My mother-in-law graciously avoided the bride's room most of the time too so as not to make my mom feel any more left out. She was all about the treating people equally, was my mother-in-law.
 |
| Excessively white girl, evening wedding--thank goodness there are no sparkles involved or everyone would have thought I was a vampire. |
 | |
| Receiving the Order of the Garter. Geez, I miss those legs! |
After the primptasm, we all walked around to the front of the church. Even in the South, it can get a bit chilly in the evenings in late December. And by "chilly" I mean "not 60 degrees." Fueled by adrenaline and my Yankee insulation I was actually pretty comfortable though my face remained flushed for much of the day, causing my makeup to lean a little towards the prostitutional palette.
 |
| Mugging for the photographer, because I am shy and retiring, as always. |
Because my in-laws' church did not have a center aisle, I had to walk down one side aisle with my father and up the other with my new husband. This sounds like it should have been an easy enough thing, except that my father, who liked to pretend to be all gruff and macho and crap, was dissolving into emotional puddles faster than Jello in the sun. The poor man, who was overcome with emotion and flustered by the militant bossiness of the "wedding coordinator" (and I use that term loosely because she was really just somebody's brother's cousin's wife or something), completely and utterly forgot how to do the wedding walk he'd practiced the night before. So there I was, veiled and generally laughing my ass off at him while muttering under my breath "Right...together...left...together..." as we processed down the aisle. I'm pretty sure I was holding him up far more than the other way around--no mean feat considering the man was 6'3" and well over 200 lbs. I was told later, much to my sardonic amusement, that my new husband thought I was crying all the way down the aisle, overcome with emotion as I must have been. Sorry, dude--wrong LaRue. If my shoulders were shaking, it was only from the strain of suppressing my laughter at my father (bless my heart).
After successfully navigating the aisle with a slightly swaying father, I arrived at the front rail next to my groom. The minister then proceeded to natter on for some time, making my supremely nervous and wholly unstable father stand while he did so until he finally got to the part about "Who gives this woman" some 10-15 minutes later. My father all but shoved my hand in the groom's direction, before escaping with all haste and colossal relief to his seat beside my mother.
The ceremony continued on about like one would expect, at least until it came time for us to kneel. When we did so, my veil wafted disconcertingly close to the unity candle, staying within spark's reach of the flame. For the wedding video, my ex positioned himself in the choir loft so he could see our faces during the ceremony. As we were kneeling, you can clearly see my mother's face, eyes agape, slowly lean into frame around the side of my head so she could monitor the progress of my veil, just in case she needed to leap up and batter flames from my head (which knowing her, she probably would have enjoyed). In fact, the danger was so obvious to most of the viewers that I'm pretty sure she wasn't the only one paying more attention to the potential disaster than to the prayer being said. To this day I couldn't tell you what the minister prayed, focused as I was on peering out the corner of my eye at the edge of my veil and that candle. I did manage to remain inflammable, though my veil did wave across the tip of the candle as I stood. Everyone breathed a heavy sigh of relief, as did I. That wasn't really the kind of "hot" honeymoon I had in mind.
The rest of the ceremony went smoothly enough, and we were pronounced "man and wife." Afterwards, we did pictures, during which the atmosphere loosened up considerably; if memory serves, we may have even done the wave at one point.
 |
| I must have said something particularly obnoxious...the boy doesn't smile that naturally in pictures very often. |
 |
| It's official! |
 |
| With my bridesmaids and the little cousin who would have been my flower girl had I not adamantly insisted on no children in the ceremony. Had I known this particular child ahead of time, I would have had her in the ceremony, because she was (and is) awesome. This is probably the only real wedding-related regret I have. |
 |
| Seriously-how adorable is this child?? |
Following the formal photos, we went downstairs for the obligatory cake cutting and drink toasting pictures, after which we settled down to the serious business of eating everything from cake to the ubiquitously Southern cheese straws. I am still of the opinion that the assorted photographers had a pact to wait till my mouth was full before snapping pictures of me; nearly every shot of me at the rehearsal dinner and reception are right after I'd taken a bite. Eventually it came time to shoot the garter and throw the bouquet; the single women were pretty ruthlessly enthusiastic about diving for that bouquet, most notably my sister-in-law and my maid of honor; in the end, my husband's sister and brother ended up winning the free-for-all.
 |
| See what I mean about the smile? |
 |
| Never come between a gaggle of girls and an illogical marital omen. |
 |
| The victors, pleased with their plunder. |
After the indoor festivities, we headed out to do the requisite "going away" shots. When we got outside, however, we discovered that the car had not been painted up as per usual (someone's paint job had been recently damaged that way) but was instead filled to the brim with balloons. The moment we opened the doors of the car, they all started flying from the back seat to the front seat, making it nearly impossible to get in the car. This becomes important later.
 |
| Balloon-mobile. |
 |
| Sitting on balloons all over car = Extreme Bubble Wrap Popping. (And notice the balloon escaping...) |
Eventually we were able to get around the balloons for the photo op, after which we went back inside to change into more comfortable clothes for the hour or so drive from the church to Memphis, where we were staying for our honeymoon. Before we could leave, however, we had to do a second run-thru so that the participants could assault us with handfuls of birdseed, lobbed enthusiastically from close-range with all the force of a trebuchet. The reason for this was that someone had recently read you weren't supposed to use rice anymore because then the pigeons and birds would eat it, drink water, swell up and explode. Lovely. Nothing like driving off to one's honeymoon with thoughts of birds spontaneously combusting all around one. Projectile bird guts--quite the mood setter.
 |
| Attempting to dig out wads of birdseed. |
After surviving the birdseed blitz, we once again got into the car and headed for Memphis for real. Once there I went into the hotel bathroom to change into something less comfortable; while disrobing I discovered that I had yet more bits of birdseed stuck to my skin, giving me the inspiration for a short story I still have yet to write. "Birdseed in My Bra" sounds like an excellent title, don't you think?? We stayed the night at the famous Peabody Hotel in Memphis, where we had the "Legendary Honeymoon" package, which basically meant we had a tiny suite, swish bathrobes (which we did not steal because my stupid new husband had scruples), and a bottle of Peabody Champagne and a small fruit basket. The next morning we were treated to a champagne brunch in the room with more of the Peabody champagne (complete with the Peabody ducks on the label)--which tasted approximately like battery acid, in my humble opinion. We kept the other unopened bottle under our sink for over 10 years at which point I finally threw it out, figuring that industrial solvent probably didn't improve with age. We only stayed one night at the hotel; since the next night was New Year's Eve, all the room prices instantly doubled to take maximum advantage of drunken revelers, making the cost a little too steep for us. It's pretty bad when you spend four of your first five days of married life with one set of parents or the other. That's almost as romantic as flaming pigeon guts.
After we checked out, we went to the curb to wait for the valet to bring our car around. The driver was a small Hispanic man who spoke almost no English. By the time the guy got back with the car he was completely flummoxed by all the balloons and stood around half gaping, half agitated. The head valet yelled at him, snapping him back to attention. He opened the trunk of the car to put in our luggage, only to discover yet more balloons inside. He started speaking rapidly as he loaded up the baggage, no doubt cursing vigorously. When the suitcase hit the bottom of the trunk it created an updraft which caused one of the balloons to fly out. The valet completely freaked out. I don't know what on earth he thought was going on with those balloons, but he was absolutely horrified at the thought of losing one; he probably thought they held state secrets or something. After standing stunned for a second, he started gesticulating wildly and hysterically, pointing towards the balloon which was now bounding across the parking lot. We tried to assure him that it was okay, that we didn't need it, but before we could stop him he took off across the parking lot after the errant balloon. We just wanted to leave but we could hardly go away with the poor guy all wound up like that, so we waited. For over 10 minutes. When the guy came back, he was more deflated than any of the balloons we'd popped the night before. His abject horror at having lost one of our possessions had him nearly in tears. We again tried to calm him down and convince him that it was not a problem for us when he suddenly stopped freaking out. You could almost see the light bulb go off over his head. Before we knew it, he was screaming in heavily accented English "You no go--you wait here! I be right back!!" and he was gone again. We looked at each other and the head valet with bewilderment. A couple of minutes later the valet came back, proudly brandishing a giant burgundy balloon imprinted with "The Peabody -- 1987" in white letters. He'd climbed up to the first floor loft over the lobby and somehow reached into the large net beside the rail where hundreds of balloons were suspended in anticipation of a midnight release for New Year's. The valet presented this replacement to us with no small flourish, quite pleased with himself for having successfully remedied his accidental loss and making us again whole and accurately ballooned. The hubs tipped the guy generously for his efforts; his short little head bobbed up and down in our rear view mirror as he waved goodbye enthusiastically, justice served.
When we returned to my in-laws' house to collect all the wedding gifts for the drive home, we discovered that the hub's cousin had short-sheeted our bed and strewn a layer of rice between each sheet and blanket and in the pillowcases. In the hub's rented tux shoes was another half pound or so of rice. When I opened up my suitcase to pack, I discovered two balloons tied to the strings of my sweatpants and yet more rice, most of which was concentrated in the same corner as my stack of neatly folded underwear and which was helpfully layered between each pair. I was still finding kernels of rice years later. Turns out the cousin's own in-laws had a huge thing about the tradition of rice and she wasn't about to let us off the hook with mere birdseed. Turns out we got off easy; it seems her own father had soldered a cowbell to the bed springs of her bed before she got home from her honeymoon.
Later that afternoon we were expected at the house of my husband's grandparents for dinner. Did I mention that every newlywed couple should get to spend four of their first five days together with their parents? Because hanging out with relatives is the first and foremost thing on every newlywed's mind, right? Never mind that awkward moment when you first return from your honeymoon, however long or short, and have to stand around being peered at by any number of knowing faces clearly reeking of the smug thought "I know what you just did." My new grandfather was the best about it, though. During the ceremony the day before my husband's grandmother had fallen victim to a nasty coughing fit. Knowing that we were videotaping the ceremony, she became agitated over it and decided to leave, so as not to "mess up the movie," dragging her husband along in her wake. She was most distraught over having missed the whole thing, but Grandaddy was much more sanguine about it. After being subjected to my father-in-law's smirk when we came in, Granddaddy pulled me aside and informed me in all (seeming) seriousness that we "weren't really married" because he had not seen it happen. I looked at him thoughtfully for a minute, then burst out "Too late!" He just laughed. I loved that man. He was quiet, but had a wonderful, sly humor that I adored.
We stayed a couple of nights in Tennessee to visit and then loaded up the car and headed back to South Bend, IN, stopping a couple more nights at my parents' house in the Honeymoon Suite there (aka two sleeping bags zipped together on the living room floor). Attempting to have sex in a parental home and in a public common area? Score! (Or not, as the case may be...) I suppose I should have taken this significant lack of alone time for our honeymoon as an omen, because let's face it--shacking up in a hotel room for just one night, however nice the hotel, is ultimately not that different off from taking a hooker to a seedy motel with an hourly rate. Still, at 21 I was hardly worldly enough to know the difference. Anyway, after the excessive parental bonding time, we finally made it home and began our married life together.
Twenty-five years later we are still together, though I sometimes wonder how. Like most couples, we have had our share of ups and downs through the years. We have shared many happy times, many not-so-happy times, a couple of great times--such as the birth of our daughter--and have been through a couple of epically horrible times. We have survived cancer, surgeries, job changes, job losses, financial difficulties and financial boons, undiagnosed Asperger's, multiple moves, 3 dogs, depression, travel, broken limbs, family deaths, car wrecks, child-rearing, and much, much more. While the years have not always been kind to us, while our life together has taken turns and falls I never could have anticipated, and while so very many things have not gone as I might have either hoped or expected, I am still proud of the fact that we didn't give up (even though I personally considered it on more than a few occasions) and that we stuck it out. In fact, at dinner tonight I gave my husband a gift. He opened the box, pulled out a very large roll of duct tape, and sat there with a distinct "WTF??" face, trying to figure out what I was up to this time. Then he saw a folded-up piece of paper in the bottom of the box and pulled it out. It read:
"WHY?
Because:
1) It’s silver. (Duh.)
2) You stuck around when you’d often rather have gone.
3) To assist you with continuing to attempt to mend what needs mending."
He scanned the simple words, then bent over the box and the remains of his cheesecake and started shaking. With laughter. A few minutes later, when he had once again composed himself, he admitted it was very clever and more than a little apropos. He even said it was as good or better than the Valentine's Day (1-2 weeks after he'd had just had surgery for testicular cancer) when I'd given him a card on which I'd penned "Roses are red, violets are blue. I'll love you forever, with one ball or two." He may get flabbergasted by my weirdness, but clearly he secretly he likes it. At least I'm still surprising him, twenty-five years later. Can anyone really ask for more than that?
Twenty-Five: Silence is Golden But Duct Tape is Silver
Today is my twenty-fifth wedding anniversary. My silver anniversary. This just seems highly improbable to me for any number of reasons, not the least of which is that I can't possibly be old enough to have a silver anniversary.
Twenty-five years ago I was sitting in my future in-laws' house, fielding a call from my fiancé's colleagues. They were trying to get me to reconsider my decision by pointing out what an inadequate spouse he would make and by suggesting that he might not go through with it anyway, considering the dinner plate-sized sweat stains he was no doubt sporting under his arms.
Twenty-five years ago my nerdy fiancé and his old college roommates were occupying themselves outside of the church by rigging up flood lamps on boards outside the stained glass windows so that the windows would be properly illuminated inside during the evening ceremony. No one had ever thought of doing so before.
Twenty-five years ago I was being told by family members whom I barely knew that I looked like Princess Diana. I still don't see it.
Twenty-five years ago my veil was nearly set on fire by a candle during the ceremony. Given that I have always been a closet arsonist, there's an irony there I find nearly irresistible.
Twenty-five years ago my parents couldn't really afford to give me a big wedding, which was fine by me. I've never been a big frou-frou, over-the-top sort of person anyway, at least not with anything other than my personality, so I was perfectly happy to have a relatively small ceremony instead.
Twenty-five years ago I was busily trying to coordinate a wedding with mothers in two different states and making bridesmaids dresses while trying to finish up my last semester of college.
Twenty-five years. A quarter of a century. More than half my life. It just doesn't seem possible.
My actual wedding day twenty-five years ago was somewhat atypical. Because my parents didn't have a lot of money, my fiancé and I paid for most of the wedding ourselves. I think all my parents paid for was their own wedding attire, my bouquet (which my mother insisted on getting made) and travel from Indiana to eastern Tennessee. I made all of the bridesmaids dresses, charging each girl only for the cost of the materials since most were poor college students like myself. My future mother-in-law was supposed to make her own daughter's dress, but with all the excitement and other preparations she never quite got around to finishing it; I ended up completing most of it two days before the wedding. I also made all the boutonnieres and corsages, some of which, in retrospect, were truly hideous or at least ridiculously big. I'd only been to a couple of weddings in my life, and both were when I was a child. Also, I just wasn't the sort of person to spend hours devouring bridal catalogs. I learned a few things while working in a bridal shop as a seamstress and figured that was more than enough.
I was wrong.
I quickly discovered that a Northern girl's wedding sensibilities were just not gonna fly in a small Southern town. To her credit, my mother-in-law (an unfailingly kind, Pollyanna-sort of woman) was more accommodating than some of the extended family members and locals were, perhaps because she was afraid of scaring me away from marrying her very introverted and complicated oldest son. In any case, my wayward and "wild" wedding ideas (or lack thereof) were carefully redirected into things considered more "appropriate" or traditional for weddings in the area. Before the wedding day, I was forever getting calls from my mother-in-law about little organizational details, such as "can So-and-so be one of the servers/ushers/whatevers?" For the most part I didn't give a rat's patootie about all these details, because I considered them largely irrelevant--I foolishly thought that a wedding involved some fancy clothes, a few flowers, a little cake and some vows in front of a minister. At least those were the only parts important to me. I was quickly disavowed of my misguided ways. I can remember spending a lot of time on the phone with my future mother-in-law nodding and blindly saying "Sure" to one random detail after another. In fairness, much of this was necessary because I got married in her hometown; still, so much of it just seemed excessive to me. As I said, I'm not generally one for a big fuss over things, so my determination to keep things simple made more than a few people twitch. I found out years later that there had been a significant quantity of "blessing my heart" over the whole thing, since the Yankee girl clearly hadn't been raised properly enough to know how things are supposed to be done. And for those of you who don't know? "Bless her heart"? Really not a compliment.
The downside to having my mother-in-law doing so much of the planning long-distance was that my own mother became sulky and petulant because she felt left out. I decided long ago that weddings are not really for the couple getting married, but for the families of the couple who are busily trying to fix all the things they didn't get to do because their own families were busy dictating how their weddings should go. As a result, there often end up being all sorts of ridiculous politics and placating involved in navigating the treacherous wedding waters. In the end, I was able to placate my mother by asking her to address all the invitations, because her handwriting was so much better than mine. Recipe for a wedding: take a gallon of drama, stir in some damaged egos, add a pinch of kissing up and a dash of deference. Bake in a hot oven and hope no one slams the oven door hard enough to make the vows collapse.
The day of the rehearsal dinner, I was given a new sweater and black wool pencil skirt, presumably because my in-laws didn't entirely trust me to wear something appropriate to the dinner instead of my jeans and sneakers. While insulting, it probably wasn't far wrong given that I rapidly changed into my jeans for the rehearsal once the dinner was finished. At the rehearsal everyone insisted it was bad luck for me to walk down the aisle so my mother stood in for me, which was just weird. Watching my mother---who looked more than a little like Mrs. Claus--standing next to my intended and saying wedding vows was a more than a little disturbing. Meanwhile, the best man was running around in a t-shirt emblazoned with "The bride never marries the best man," which no doubt would have been much funnier had I not just discovered that he'd had a crush on me for the last 2 years. As if that weren't complication enough, my intended also invited one of his other old roommates and my ex-boyfriend. Now I like to think I'm a fairly liberated sort of person, but at age 21 I just wasn't Noel Coward enough to cope with having an ex in the wedding party. I refused to allow it on the grounds that it was tasteless (See? I do have some sense of decorum...), so the ex was relegated to videotaping the ceremony which both gave him something to do and kept him out of my way. As Jan Brady would say, "drama, drama, DRAMA!" Weddings are little more than marital minefields. Admit it...you know it's true.
To make matters more interesting, we didn't get married on a Saturday like normal people. Because I had graduated early, it was a little more challenging to find a day not too close either to Christmas or New Year's but still before most of the attendants had to return back to school/college. So we picked the 30th--a Tuesday (though secretly I wanted to get married on New Year's Eve at approximately 11:58 pm). This wouldn't have been so bad except that the University of Tennessee was unexpectedly playing in the Liberty Bowl that year, which was local and to which my father-in-law and several others had tickets that they grudgingly had to relinquish. While they were fairly good-natured about it aside from the odd chaffing, it still didn't stop them from bringing a pocket television to the rehearsal so they could follow the game between instructions.
The day of the wedding, after the aforementioned phone call from his work colleagues, my intended and his nerdmates spent most of the afternoon rigging up lights outside of the church to shine through the stained glass windows because they decided that darkened church windows were silly. At least it kept them out of trouble for the day. After a light dinner, all the ladies headed up to the church to begin the protracted primping. I refused to allow my own mother in the bride's room, horrible person that I am, because I knew she'd spend the entire time making passive-aggressive comments while critiquing me and picking imaginary lint off of my every available surface. My mother-in-law graciously avoided the bride's room most of the time too so as not to make my mom feel any more left out. She was all about the treating people equally, was my mother-in-law.
After the primptasm, we all walked around to the front of the church. Even in the South, it can get a bit chilly in the evenings in late December. And by "chilly" I mean "not 60 degrees." Fueled by adrenaline and my Yankee insulation I was actually pretty comfortable though my face remained flushed for much of the day, causing my makeup to lean a little towards the prostitutional palette.
Because my in-laws' church did not have a center aisle, I had to walk down one side aisle with my father and up the other with my new husband. This sounds like it should have been an easy enough thing, except that my father, who liked to pretend to be all gruff and macho and crap, was dissolving into emotional puddles faster than Jello in the sun. The poor man, who was overcome with emotion and flustered by the militant bossiness of the "wedding coordinator" (and I use that term loosely because she was really just somebody's brother's cousin's wife or something), completely and utterly forgot how to do the wedding walk he'd practiced the night before. So there I was, veiled and generally laughing my ass off at him while muttering under my breath "Right...together...left...together..." as we processed down the aisle. I'm pretty sure I was holding him up far more than the other way around--no mean feat considering the man was 6'3" and well over 200 lbs. I was told later, much to my sardonic amusement, that my new husband thought I was crying all the way down the aisle, overcome with emotion as I must have been. Sorry, dude--wrong LaRue. If my shoulders were shaking, it was only from the strain of suppressing my laughter at my father (bless my heart).
After successfully navigating the aisle with a slightly swaying father, I arrived at the front rail next to my groom. The minister then proceeded to natter on for some time, making my supremely nervous and wholly unstable father stand while he did so until he finally got to the part about "Who gives this woman" some 10-15 minutes later. My father all but shoved my hand in the groom's direction, before escaping with all haste and colossal relief to his seat beside my mother.
The ceremony continued on about like one would expect, at least until it came time for us to kneel. When we did so, my veil wafted disconcertingly close to the unity candle, staying within spark's reach of the flame. For the wedding video, my ex positioned himself in the choir loft so he could see our faces during the ceremony. As we were kneeling, you can clearly see my mother's face, eyes agape, slowly lean into frame around the side of my head so she could monitor the progress of my veil, just in case she needed to leap up and batter flames from my head (which knowing her, she probably would have enjoyed). In fact, the danger was so obvious to most of the viewers that I'm pretty sure she wasn't the only one paying more attention to the potential disaster than to the prayer being said. To this day I couldn't tell you what the minister prayed, focused as I was on peering out the corner of my eye at the edge of my veil and that candle. I did manage to remain inflammable, though my veil did wave across the tip of the candle as I stood. Everyone breathed a heavy sigh of relief, as did I. That wasn't really the kind of "hot" honeymoon I had in mind.
The rest of the ceremony went smoothly enough, and we were pronounced "man and wife." Afterwards, we did pictures, during which the atmosphere loosened up considerably; if memory serves, we may have even done the wave at one point.
Following the formal photos, we went downstairs for the obligatory cake cutting and drink toasting pictures, after which we settled down to the serious business of eating everything from cake to the ubiquitously Southern cheese straws. I am still of the opinion that the assorted photographers had a pact to wait till my mouth was full before snapping pictures of me; nearly every shot of me at the rehearsal dinner and reception are right after I'd taken a bite. Eventually it came time to shoot the garter and throw the bouquet; the single women were pretty ruthlessly enthusiastic about diving for that bouquet, most notably my sister-in-law and my maid of honor; in the end, my husband's sister and brother ended up winning the free-for-all.
After the indoor festivities, we headed out to do the requisite "going away" shots. When we got outside, however, we discovered that the car had not been painted up as per usual (someone's paint job had been recently damaged that way) but was instead filled to the brim with balloons. The moment we opened the doors of the car, they all started flying from the back seat to the front seat, making it nearly impossible to get in the car. This becomes important later.
Eventually we were able to get around the balloons for the photo op, after which we went back inside to change into more comfortable clothes for the hour or so drive from the church to Memphis, where we were staying for our honeymoon. Before we could leave, however, we had to do a second run-thru so that the participants could assault us with handfuls of birdseed, lobbed enthusiastically from close-range with all the force of a trebuchet. The reason for this was that someone had recently read you weren't supposed to use rice anymore because then the pigeons and birds would eat it, drink water, swell up and explode. Lovely. Nothing like driving off to one's honeymoon with thoughts of birds spontaneously combusting all around one. Projectile bird guts--quite the mood setter.
After surviving the birdseed blitz, we once again got into the car and headed for Memphis for real. Once there I went into the hotel bathroom to change into something less comfortable; while disrobing I discovered that I had yet more bits of birdseed stuck to my skin, giving me the inspiration for a short story I still have yet to write. "Birdseed in My Bra" sounds like an excellent title, don't you think?? We stayed the night at the famous Peabody Hotel in Memphis, where we had the "Legendary Honeymoon" package, which basically meant we had a tiny suite, swish bathrobes (which we did not steal because my stupid new husband had scruples), and a bottle of Peabody Champagne and a small fruit basket. The next morning we were treated to a champagne brunch in the room with more of the Peabody champagne (complete with the Peabody ducks on the label)--which tasted approximately like battery acid, in my humble opinion. We kept the other unopened bottle under our sink for over 10 years at which point I finally threw it out, figuring that industrial solvent probably didn't improve with age. We only stayed one night at the hotel; since the next night was New Year's Eve, all the room prices instantly doubled to take maximum advantage of drunken revelers, making the cost a little too steep for us. It's pretty bad when you spend four of your first five days of married life with one set of parents or the other. That's almost as romantic as flaming pigeon guts.
After we checked out, we went to the curb to wait for the valet to bring our car around. The driver was a small Hispanic man who spoke almost no English. By the time the guy got back with the car he was completely flummoxed by all the balloons and stood around half gaping, half agitated. The head valet yelled at him, snapping him back to attention. He opened the trunk of the car to put in our luggage, only to discover yet more balloons inside. He started speaking rapidly as he loaded up the baggage, no doubt cursing vigorously. When the suitcase hit the bottom of the trunk it created an updraft which caused one of the balloons to fly out. The valet completely freaked out. I don't know what on earth he thought was going on with those balloons, but he was absolutely horrified at the thought of losing one; he probably thought they held state secrets or something. After standing stunned for a second, he started gesticulating wildly and hysterically, pointing towards the balloon which was now bounding across the parking lot. We tried to assure him that it was okay, that we didn't need it, but before we could stop him he took off across the parking lot after the errant balloon. We just wanted to leave but we could hardly go away with the poor guy all wound up like that, so we waited. For over 10 minutes. When the guy came back, he was more deflated than any of the balloons we'd popped the night before. His abject horror at having lost one of our possessions had him nearly in tears. We again tried to calm him down and convince him that it was not a problem for us when he suddenly stopped freaking out. You could almost see the light bulb go off over his head. Before we knew it, he was screaming in heavily accented English "You no go--you wait here! I be right back!!" and he was gone again. We looked at each other and the head valet with bewilderment. A couple of minutes later the valet came back, proudly brandishing a giant burgundy balloon imprinted with "The Peabody -- 1987" in white letters. He'd climbed up to the first floor loft over the lobby and somehow reached into the large net beside the rail where hundreds of balloons were suspended in anticipation of a midnight release for New Year's. The valet presented this replacement to us with no small flourish, quite pleased with himself for having successfully remedied his accidental loss and making us again whole and accurately ballooned. The hubs tipped the guy generously for his efforts; his short little head bobbed up and down in our rear view mirror as he waved goodbye enthusiastically, justice served.
When we returned to my in-laws' house to collect all the wedding gifts for the drive home, we discovered that the hub's cousin had short-sheeted our bed and strewn a layer of rice between each sheet and blanket and in the pillowcases. In the hub's rented tux shoes was another half pound or so of rice. When I opened up my suitcase to pack, I discovered two balloons tied to the strings of my sweatpants and yet more rice, most of which was concentrated in the same corner as my stack of neatly folded underwear and which was helpfully layered between each pair. I was still finding kernels of rice years later. Turns out the cousin's own in-laws had a huge thing about the tradition of rice and she wasn't about to let us off the hook with mere birdseed. Turns out we got off easy; it seems her own father had soldered a cowbell to the bed springs of her bed before she got home from her honeymoon.
Later that afternoon we were expected at the house of my husband's grandparents for dinner. Did I mention that every newlywed couple should get to spend four of their first five days together with their parents? Because hanging out with relatives is the first and foremost thing on every newlywed's mind, right? Never mind that awkward moment when you first return from your honeymoon, however long or short, and have to stand around being peered at by any number of knowing faces clearly reeking of the smug thought "I know what you just did." My new grandfather was the best about it, though. During the ceremony the day before my husband's grandmother had fallen victim to a nasty coughing fit. Knowing that we were videotaping the ceremony, she became agitated over it and decided to leave, so as not to "mess up the movie," dragging her husband along in her wake. She was most distraught over having missed the whole thing, but Grandaddy was much more sanguine about it. After being subjected to my father-in-law's smirk when we came in, Granddaddy pulled me aside and informed me in all (seeming) seriousness that we "weren't really married" because he had not seen it happen. I looked at him thoughtfully for a minute, then burst out "Too late!" He just laughed. I loved that man. He was quiet, but had a wonderful, sly humor that I adored.
We stayed a couple of nights in Tennessee to visit and then loaded up the car and headed back to South Bend, IN, stopping a couple more nights at my parents' house in the Honeymoon Suite there (aka two sleeping bags zipped together on the living room floor). Attempting to have sex in a parental home and in a public common area? Score! (Or not, as the case may be...) I suppose I should have taken this significant lack of alone time for our honeymoon as an omen, because let's face it--shacking up in a hotel room for just one night, however nice the hotel, is ultimately not that different off from taking a hooker to a seedy motel with an hourly rate. Still, at 21 I was hardly worldly enough to know the difference. Anyway, after the excessive parental bonding time, we finally made it home and began our married life together.
Twenty-five years later we are still together, though I sometimes wonder how. Like most couples, we have had our share of ups and downs through the years. We have shared many happy times, many not-so-happy times, a couple of great times--such as the birth of our daughter--and have been through a couple of epically horrible times. We have survived cancer, surgeries, job changes, job losses, financial difficulties and financial boons, undiagnosed Asperger's, multiple moves, 3 dogs, depression, travel, broken limbs, family deaths, car wrecks, child-rearing, and much, much more. While the years have not always been kind to us, while our life together has taken turns and falls I never could have anticipated, and while so very many things have not gone as I might have either hoped or expected, I am still proud of the fact that we didn't give up (even though I personally considered it on more than a few occasions) and that we stuck it out. In fact, at dinner tonight I gave my husband a gift. He opened the box, pulled out a very large roll of duct tape, and sat there with a distinct "WTF??" face, trying to figure out what I was up to this time. Then he saw a folded-up piece of paper in the bottom of the box and pulled it out. It read:
"WHY?
Because:
1) It’s silver. (Duh.)
2) You stuck around when you’d often rather have gone.
3) To assist you with continuing to attempt to mend what needs mending."
He scanned the simple words, then bent over the box and the remains of his cheesecake and started shaking. With laughter. A few minutes later, when he had once again composed himself, he admitted it was very clever and more than a little apropos. He even said it was as good or better than the Valentine's Day (1-2 weeks after he'd had just had surgery for testicular cancer) when I'd given him a card on which I'd penned "Roses are red, violets are blue. I'll love you forever, with one ball or two." He may get flabbergasted by my weirdness, but clearly he secretly he likes it. At least I'm still surprising him, twenty-five years later. Can anyone really ask for more than that?
Twenty-five years ago I was sitting in my future in-laws' house, fielding a call from my fiancé's colleagues. They were trying to get me to reconsider my decision by pointing out what an inadequate spouse he would make and by suggesting that he might not go through with it anyway, considering the dinner plate-sized sweat stains he was no doubt sporting under his arms.
Twenty-five years ago my nerdy fiancé and his old college roommates were occupying themselves outside of the church by rigging up flood lamps on boards outside the stained glass windows so that the windows would be properly illuminated inside during the evening ceremony. No one had ever thought of doing so before.
Twenty-five years ago I was being told by family members whom I barely knew that I looked like Princess Diana. I still don't see it.
|
| Reddish hair + big nose = "Princess Di" |
Twenty-five years ago my veil was nearly set on fire by a candle during the ceremony. Given that I have always been a closet arsonist, there's an irony there I find nearly irresistible.
Twenty-five years ago my parents couldn't really afford to give me a big wedding, which was fine by me. I've never been a big frou-frou, over-the-top sort of person anyway, at least not with anything other than my personality, so I was perfectly happy to have a relatively small ceremony instead.
Twenty-five years ago I was busily trying to coordinate a wedding with mothers in two different states and making bridesmaids dresses while trying to finish up my last semester of college.
Twenty-five years. A quarter of a century. More than half my life. It just doesn't seem possible.
My actual wedding day twenty-five years ago was somewhat atypical. Because my parents didn't have a lot of money, my fiancé and I paid for most of the wedding ourselves. I think all my parents paid for was their own wedding attire, my bouquet (which my mother insisted on getting made) and travel from Indiana to eastern Tennessee. I made all of the bridesmaids dresses, charging each girl only for the cost of the materials since most were poor college students like myself. My future mother-in-law was supposed to make her own daughter's dress, but with all the excitement and other preparations she never quite got around to finishing it; I ended up completing most of it two days before the wedding. I also made all the boutonnieres and corsages, some of which, in retrospect, were truly hideous or at least ridiculously big. I'd only been to a couple of weddings in my life, and both were when I was a child. Also, I just wasn't the sort of person to spend hours devouring bridal catalogs. I learned a few things while working in a bridal shop as a seamstress and figured that was more than enough.
I was wrong.
I quickly discovered that a Northern girl's wedding sensibilities were just not gonna fly in a small Southern town. To her credit, my mother-in-law (an unfailingly kind, Pollyanna-sort of woman) was more accommodating than some of the extended family members and locals were, perhaps because she was afraid of scaring me away from marrying her very introverted and complicated oldest son. In any case, my wayward and "wild" wedding ideas (or lack thereof) were carefully redirected into things considered more "appropriate" or traditional for weddings in the area. Before the wedding day, I was forever getting calls from my mother-in-law about little organizational details, such as "can So-and-so be one of the servers/ushers/whatevers?" For the most part I didn't give a rat's patootie about all these details, because I considered them largely irrelevant--I foolishly thought that a wedding involved some fancy clothes, a few flowers, a little cake and some vows in front of a minister. At least those were the only parts important to me. I was quickly disavowed of my misguided ways. I can remember spending a lot of time on the phone with my future mother-in-law nodding and blindly saying "Sure" to one random detail after another. In fairness, much of this was necessary because I got married in her hometown; still, so much of it just seemed excessive to me. As I said, I'm not generally one for a big fuss over things, so my determination to keep things simple made more than a few people twitch. I found out years later that there had been a significant quantity of "blessing my heart" over the whole thing, since the Yankee girl clearly hadn't been raised properly enough to know how things are supposed to be done. And for those of you who don't know? "Bless her heart"? Really not a compliment.
The downside to having my mother-in-law doing so much of the planning long-distance was that my own mother became sulky and petulant because she felt left out. I decided long ago that weddings are not really for the couple getting married, but for the families of the couple who are busily trying to fix all the things they didn't get to do because their own families were busy dictating how their weddings should go. As a result, there often end up being all sorts of ridiculous politics and placating involved in navigating the treacherous wedding waters. In the end, I was able to placate my mother by asking her to address all the invitations, because her handwriting was so much better than mine. Recipe for a wedding: take a gallon of drama, stir in some damaged egos, add a pinch of kissing up and a dash of deference. Bake in a hot oven and hope no one slams the oven door hard enough to make the vows collapse.
The day of the rehearsal dinner, I was given a new sweater and black wool pencil skirt, presumably because my in-laws didn't entirely trust me to wear something appropriate to the dinner instead of my jeans and sneakers. While insulting, it probably wasn't far wrong given that I rapidly changed into my jeans for the rehearsal once the dinner was finished. At the rehearsal everyone insisted it was bad luck for me to walk down the aisle so my mother stood in for me, which was just weird. Watching my mother---who looked more than a little like Mrs. Claus--standing next to my intended and saying wedding vows was a more than a little disturbing. Meanwhile, the best man was running around in a t-shirt emblazoned with "The bride never marries the best man," which no doubt would have been much funnier had I not just discovered that he'd had a crush on me for the last 2 years. As if that weren't complication enough, my intended also invited one of his other old roommates and my ex-boyfriend. Now I like to think I'm a fairly liberated sort of person, but at age 21 I just wasn't Noel Coward enough to cope with having an ex in the wedding party. I refused to allow it on the grounds that it was tasteless (See? I do have some sense of decorum...), so the ex was relegated to videotaping the ceremony which both gave him something to do and kept him out of my way. As Jan Brady would say, "drama, drama, DRAMA!" Weddings are little more than marital minefields. Admit it...you know it's true.
|
| "Hahaha--you're so funny! Except not." |
To make matters more interesting, we didn't get married on a Saturday like normal people. Because I had graduated early, it was a little more challenging to find a day not too close either to Christmas or New Year's but still before most of the attendants had to return back to school/college. So we picked the 30th--a Tuesday (though secretly I wanted to get married on New Year's Eve at approximately 11:58 pm). This wouldn't have been so bad except that the University of Tennessee was unexpectedly playing in the Liberty Bowl that year, which was local and to which my father-in-law and several others had tickets that they grudgingly had to relinquish. While they were fairly good-natured about it aside from the odd chaffing, it still didn't stop them from bringing a pocket television to the rehearsal so they could follow the game between instructions.
|
| "UT scores!! Wait, what? Of course I'm paying attention!" |
The day of the wedding, after the aforementioned phone call from his work colleagues, my intended and his nerdmates spent most of the afternoon rigging up lights outside of the church to shine through the stained glass windows because they decided that darkened church windows were silly. At least it kept them out of trouble for the day. After a light dinner, all the ladies headed up to the church to begin the protracted primping. I refused to allow my own mother in the bride's room, horrible person that I am, because I knew she'd spend the entire time making passive-aggressive comments while critiquing me and picking imaginary lint off of my every available surface. My mother-in-law graciously avoided the bride's room most of the time too so as not to make my mom feel any more left out. She was all about the treating people equally, was my mother-in-law.
|
| Excessively white girl, evening wedding--thank goodness there are no sparkles involved or everyone would have thought I was a vampire. |
| |
| Receiving the Order of the Garter. Geez, I miss those legs! |
After the primptasm, we all walked around to the front of the church. Even in the South, it can get a bit chilly in the evenings in late December. And by "chilly" I mean "not 60 degrees." Fueled by adrenaline and my Yankee insulation I was actually pretty comfortable though my face remained flushed for much of the day, causing my makeup to lean a little towards the prostitutional palette.
|
| Mugging for the photographer, because I am shy and retiring, as always. |
Because my in-laws' church did not have a center aisle, I had to walk down one side aisle with my father and up the other with my new husband. This sounds like it should have been an easy enough thing, except that my father, who liked to pretend to be all gruff and macho and crap, was dissolving into emotional puddles faster than Jello in the sun. The poor man, who was overcome with emotion and flustered by the militant bossiness of the "wedding coordinator" (and I use that term loosely because she was really just somebody's brother's cousin's wife or something), completely and utterly forgot how to do the wedding walk he'd practiced the night before. So there I was, veiled and generally laughing my ass off at him while muttering under my breath "Right...together...left...together..." as we processed down the aisle. I'm pretty sure I was holding him up far more than the other way around--no mean feat considering the man was 6'3" and well over 200 lbs. I was told later, much to my sardonic amusement, that my new husband thought I was crying all the way down the aisle, overcome with emotion as I must have been. Sorry, dude--wrong LaRue. If my shoulders were shaking, it was only from the strain of suppressing my laughter at my father (bless my heart).
After successfully navigating the aisle with a slightly swaying father, I arrived at the front rail next to my groom. The minister then proceeded to natter on for some time, making my supremely nervous and wholly unstable father stand while he did so until he finally got to the part about "Who gives this woman" some 10-15 minutes later. My father all but shoved my hand in the groom's direction, before escaping with all haste and colossal relief to his seat beside my mother.
The ceremony continued on about like one would expect, at least until it came time for us to kneel. When we did so, my veil wafted disconcertingly close to the unity candle, staying within spark's reach of the flame. For the wedding video, my ex positioned himself in the choir loft so he could see our faces during the ceremony. As we were kneeling, you can clearly see my mother's face, eyes agape, slowly lean into frame around the side of my head so she could monitor the progress of my veil, just in case she needed to leap up and batter flames from my head (which knowing her, she probably would have enjoyed). In fact, the danger was so obvious to most of the viewers that I'm pretty sure she wasn't the only one paying more attention to the potential disaster than to the prayer being said. To this day I couldn't tell you what the minister prayed, focused as I was on peering out the corner of my eye at the edge of my veil and that candle. I did manage to remain inflammable, though my veil did wave across the tip of the candle as I stood. Everyone breathed a heavy sigh of relief, as did I. That wasn't really the kind of "hot" honeymoon I had in mind.
The rest of the ceremony went smoothly enough, and we were pronounced "man and wife." Afterwards, we did pictures, during which the atmosphere loosened up considerably; if memory serves, we may have even done the wave at one point.
|
| I must have said something particularly obnoxious...the boy doesn't smile that naturally in pictures very often. |
|
| It's official! |
|
| With my bridesmaids and the little cousin who would have been my flower girl had I not adamantly insisted on no children in the ceremony. Had I known this particular child ahead of time, I would have had her in the ceremony, because she was (and is) awesome. This is probably the only real wedding-related regret I have. |
|
| Seriously-how adorable is this child?? |
Following the formal photos, we went downstairs for the obligatory cake cutting and drink toasting pictures, after which we settled down to the serious business of eating everything from cake to the ubiquitously Southern cheese straws. I am still of the opinion that the assorted photographers had a pact to wait till my mouth was full before snapping pictures of me; nearly every shot of me at the rehearsal dinner and reception are right after I'd taken a bite. Eventually it came time to shoot the garter and throw the bouquet; the single women were pretty ruthlessly enthusiastic about diving for that bouquet, most notably my sister-in-law and my maid of honor; in the end, my husband's sister and brother ended up winning the free-for-all.
|
| See what I mean about the smile? |
|
| Never come between a gaggle of girls and an illogical marital omen. |
|
| The victors, pleased with their plunder. |
After the indoor festivities, we headed out to do the requisite "going away" shots. When we got outside, however, we discovered that the car had not been painted up as per usual (someone's paint job had been recently damaged that way) but was instead filled to the brim with balloons. The moment we opened the doors of the car, they all started flying from the back seat to the front seat, making it nearly impossible to get in the car. This becomes important later.
|
| Balloon-mobile. |
|
| Sitting on balloons all over car = Extreme Bubble Wrap Popping. (And notice the balloon escaping...) |
Eventually we were able to get around the balloons for the photo op, after which we went back inside to change into more comfortable clothes for the hour or so drive from the church to Memphis, where we were staying for our honeymoon. Before we could leave, however, we had to do a second run-thru so that the participants could assault us with handfuls of birdseed, lobbed enthusiastically from close-range with all the force of a trebuchet. The reason for this was that someone had recently read you weren't supposed to use rice anymore because then the pigeons and birds would eat it, drink water, swell up and explode. Lovely. Nothing like driving off to one's honeymoon with thoughts of birds spontaneously combusting all around one. Projectile bird guts--quite the mood setter.
|
| Attempting to dig out wads of birdseed. |
After surviving the birdseed blitz, we once again got into the car and headed for Memphis for real. Once there I went into the hotel bathroom to change into something less comfortable; while disrobing I discovered that I had yet more bits of birdseed stuck to my skin, giving me the inspiration for a short story I still have yet to write. "Birdseed in My Bra" sounds like an excellent title, don't you think?? We stayed the night at the famous Peabody Hotel in Memphis, where we had the "Legendary Honeymoon" package, which basically meant we had a tiny suite, swish bathrobes (which we did not steal because my stupid new husband had scruples), and a bottle of Peabody Champagne and a small fruit basket. The next morning we were treated to a champagne brunch in the room with more of the Peabody champagne (complete with the Peabody ducks on the label)--which tasted approximately like battery acid, in my humble opinion. We kept the other unopened bottle under our sink for over 10 years at which point I finally threw it out, figuring that industrial solvent probably didn't improve with age. We only stayed one night at the hotel; since the next night was New Year's Eve, all the room prices instantly doubled to take maximum advantage of drunken revelers, making the cost a little too steep for us. It's pretty bad when you spend four of your first five days of married life with one set of parents or the other. That's almost as romantic as flaming pigeon guts.
After we checked out, we went to the curb to wait for the valet to bring our car around. The driver was a small Hispanic man who spoke almost no English. By the time the guy got back with the car he was completely flummoxed by all the balloons and stood around half gaping, half agitated. The head valet yelled at him, snapping him back to attention. He opened the trunk of the car to put in our luggage, only to discover yet more balloons inside. He started speaking rapidly as he loaded up the baggage, no doubt cursing vigorously. When the suitcase hit the bottom of the trunk it created an updraft which caused one of the balloons to fly out. The valet completely freaked out. I don't know what on earth he thought was going on with those balloons, but he was absolutely horrified at the thought of losing one; he probably thought they held state secrets or something. After standing stunned for a second, he started gesticulating wildly and hysterically, pointing towards the balloon which was now bounding across the parking lot. We tried to assure him that it was okay, that we didn't need it, but before we could stop him he took off across the parking lot after the errant balloon. We just wanted to leave but we could hardly go away with the poor guy all wound up like that, so we waited. For over 10 minutes. When the guy came back, he was more deflated than any of the balloons we'd popped the night before. His abject horror at having lost one of our possessions had him nearly in tears. We again tried to calm him down and convince him that it was not a problem for us when he suddenly stopped freaking out. You could almost see the light bulb go off over his head. Before we knew it, he was screaming in heavily accented English "You no go--you wait here! I be right back!!" and he was gone again. We looked at each other and the head valet with bewilderment. A couple of minutes later the valet came back, proudly brandishing a giant burgundy balloon imprinted with "The Peabody -- 1987" in white letters. He'd climbed up to the first floor loft over the lobby and somehow reached into the large net beside the rail where hundreds of balloons were suspended in anticipation of a midnight release for New Year's. The valet presented this replacement to us with no small flourish, quite pleased with himself for having successfully remedied his accidental loss and making us again whole and accurately ballooned. The hubs tipped the guy generously for his efforts; his short little head bobbed up and down in our rear view mirror as he waved goodbye enthusiastically, justice served.
When we returned to my in-laws' house to collect all the wedding gifts for the drive home, we discovered that the hub's cousin had short-sheeted our bed and strewn a layer of rice between each sheet and blanket and in the pillowcases. In the hub's rented tux shoes was another half pound or so of rice. When I opened up my suitcase to pack, I discovered two balloons tied to the strings of my sweatpants and yet more rice, most of which was concentrated in the same corner as my stack of neatly folded underwear and which was helpfully layered between each pair. I was still finding kernels of rice years later. Turns out the cousin's own in-laws had a huge thing about the tradition of rice and she wasn't about to let us off the hook with mere birdseed. Turns out we got off easy; it seems her own father had soldered a cowbell to the bed springs of her bed before she got home from her honeymoon.
Later that afternoon we were expected at the house of my husband's grandparents for dinner. Did I mention that every newlywed couple should get to spend four of their first five days together with their parents? Because hanging out with relatives is the first and foremost thing on every newlywed's mind, right? Never mind that awkward moment when you first return from your honeymoon, however long or short, and have to stand around being peered at by any number of knowing faces clearly reeking of the smug thought "I know what you just did." My new grandfather was the best about it, though. During the ceremony the day before my husband's grandmother had fallen victim to a nasty coughing fit. Knowing that we were videotaping the ceremony, she became agitated over it and decided to leave, so as not to "mess up the movie," dragging her husband along in her wake. She was most distraught over having missed the whole thing, but Grandaddy was much more sanguine about it. After being subjected to my father-in-law's smirk when we came in, Granddaddy pulled me aside and informed me in all (seeming) seriousness that we "weren't really married" because he had not seen it happen. I looked at him thoughtfully for a minute, then burst out "Too late!" He just laughed. I loved that man. He was quiet, but had a wonderful, sly humor that I adored.
We stayed a couple of nights in Tennessee to visit and then loaded up the car and headed back to South Bend, IN, stopping a couple more nights at my parents' house in the Honeymoon Suite there (aka two sleeping bags zipped together on the living room floor). Attempting to have sex in a parental home and in a public common area? Score! (Or not, as the case may be...) I suppose I should have taken this significant lack of alone time for our honeymoon as an omen, because let's face it--shacking up in a hotel room for just one night, however nice the hotel, is ultimately not that different off from taking a hooker to a seedy motel with an hourly rate. Still, at 21 I was hardly worldly enough to know the difference. Anyway, after the excessive parental bonding time, we finally made it home and began our married life together.
Twenty-five years later we are still together, though I sometimes wonder how. Like most couples, we have had our share of ups and downs through the years. We have shared many happy times, many not-so-happy times, a couple of great times--such as the birth of our daughter--and have been through a couple of epically horrible times. We have survived cancer, surgeries, job changes, job losses, financial difficulties and financial boons, undiagnosed Asperger's, multiple moves, 3 dogs, depression, travel, broken limbs, family deaths, car wrecks, child-rearing, and much, much more. While the years have not always been kind to us, while our life together has taken turns and falls I never could have anticipated, and while so very many things have not gone as I might have either hoped or expected, I am still proud of the fact that we didn't give up (even though I personally considered it on more than a few occasions) and that we stuck it out. In fact, at dinner tonight I gave my husband a gift. He opened the box, pulled out a very large roll of duct tape, and sat there with a distinct "WTF??" face, trying to figure out what I was up to this time. Then he saw a folded-up piece of paper in the bottom of the box and pulled it out. It read:
"WHY?
Because:
1) It’s silver. (Duh.)
2) You stuck around when you’d often rather have gone.
3) To assist you with continuing to attempt to mend what needs mending."
He scanned the simple words, then bent over the box and the remains of his cheesecake and started shaking. With laughter. A few minutes later, when he had once again composed himself, he admitted it was very clever and more than a little apropos. He even said it was as good or better than the Valentine's Day (1-2 weeks after he'd had just had surgery for testicular cancer) when I'd given him a card on which I'd penned "Roses are red, violets are blue. I'll love you forever, with one ball or two." He may get flabbergasted by my weirdness, but clearly he secretly he likes it. At least I'm still surprising him, twenty-five years later. Can anyone really ask for more than that?
I have Seen the Light
Though I used to sing this song as a solo years ago, it's really meant to be sung as a trio by three men, usually representing the three wise men. I realize it isn't yet Epiphany, but considering I only have two days left in the month for seasonal music videos, I thought I'd try to squeeze this one in for today. The song is pretty as a solo, but the harmonies of the trio, especially when done well, are beautiful. Unfortunately, it's somewhat difficult to find a good video on YouTube of the trio that doesn't fiddle with the harmonies or excessively embellish them. I've found one with a good tenor, and one with a good bass; sadly they aren't in the same video. This video is the one with the good tenor; it's a little more countrified than I normally go for, but the harmonies are clean and effective, and the lyrics are still cool.
Happy (early) Epiphany!
I Have Seen the Light
I was a seeker for light in a dark world,
I looked for truth but settled for lies.
I had been blinded, I couldn't see
Till the Star in Bethlehem's sky opened my eyes.
I have seen the Light shining in the darkness,
Bursting through the shadows, delivering the dawn.
I have seen the Light whose holy name is Jesus,
His kingdom is forever; He reigns on Heaven's throne!
There in a manger, an innocent baby;
Who could believe He was the One;
I can believe it, I know it's true;
He changed my life; He is the light; He is God's Son!
I have seen the Light shining in the darkness,
Bursting through the shadows, delivering the dawn.
I have seen the Light whose holy name is Jesus,
His kingdom is forever; He reigns on Heaven's throne!
We must tell the world what we`ve seen today in Bethlehem!
He`s the promised King; we bow down and worship Him!
Worship Christ The King!
I have seen the Light shining in the darkness,
Bursting through the shadows, delivering the dawn.
I have seen the Light whose holy name is Jesus,
His kingdom is forever; He reigns on Heaven's throne!
Happy (early) Epiphany!
I Have Seen the Light
I was a seeker for light in a dark world,
I looked for truth but settled for lies.
I had been blinded, I couldn't see
Till the Star in Bethlehem's sky opened my eyes.
I have seen the Light shining in the darkness,
Bursting through the shadows, delivering the dawn.
I have seen the Light whose holy name is Jesus,
His kingdom is forever; He reigns on Heaven's throne!
There in a manger, an innocent baby;
Who could believe He was the One;
I can believe it, I know it's true;
He changed my life; He is the light; He is God's Son!
I have seen the Light shining in the darkness,
Bursting through the shadows, delivering the dawn.
I have seen the Light whose holy name is Jesus,
His kingdom is forever; He reigns on Heaven's throne!
We must tell the world what we`ve seen today in Bethlehem!
He`s the promised King; we bow down and worship Him!
Worship Christ The King!
I have seen the Light shining in the darkness,
Bursting through the shadows, delivering the dawn.
I have seen the Light whose holy name is Jesus,
His kingdom is forever; He reigns on Heaven's throne!
I have Seen the Light
Though I used to sing this song as a solo years ago, it's really meant to be sung as a trio by three men, usually representing the three wise men. I realize it isn't yet Epiphany, but considering I only have two days left in the month for seasonal music videos, I thought I'd try to squeeze this one in for today. The song is pretty as a solo, but the harmonies of the trio, especially when done well, are beautiful. Unfortunately, it's somewhat difficult to find a good video on YouTube of the trio that doesn't fiddle with the harmonies or excessively embellish them. I've found one with a good tenor, and one with a good bass; sadly they aren't in the same video. This video is the one with the good tenor; it's a little more countrified than I normally go for, but the harmonies are clean and effective, and the lyrics are still cool.
Happy (early) Epiphany!
I Have Seen the Light
I was a seeker for light in a dark world,
I looked for truth but settled for lies.
I had been blinded, I couldn't see
Till the Star in Bethlehem's sky opened my eyes.
I have seen the Light shining in the darkness,
Bursting through the shadows, delivering the dawn.
I have seen the Light whose holy name is Jesus,
His kingdom is forever; He reigns on Heaven's throne!
There in a manger, an innocent baby;
Who could believe He was the One;
I can believe it, I know it's true;
He changed my life; He is the light; He is God's Son!
I have seen the Light shining in the darkness,
Bursting through the shadows, delivering the dawn.
I have seen the Light whose holy name is Jesus,
His kingdom is forever; He reigns on Heaven's throne!
We must tell the world what we`ve seen today in Bethlehem!
He`s the promised King; we bow down and worship Him!
Worship Christ The King!
I have seen the Light shining in the darkness,
Bursting through the shadows, delivering the dawn.
I have seen the Light whose holy name is Jesus,
His kingdom is forever; He reigns on Heaven's throne!
Happy (early) Epiphany!
I Have Seen the Light
I was a seeker for light in a dark world,
I looked for truth but settled for lies.
I had been blinded, I couldn't see
Till the Star in Bethlehem's sky opened my eyes.
I have seen the Light shining in the darkness,
Bursting through the shadows, delivering the dawn.
I have seen the Light whose holy name is Jesus,
His kingdom is forever; He reigns on Heaven's throne!
There in a manger, an innocent baby;
Who could believe He was the One;
I can believe it, I know it's true;
He changed my life; He is the light; He is God's Son!
I have seen the Light shining in the darkness,
Bursting through the shadows, delivering the dawn.
I have seen the Light whose holy name is Jesus,
His kingdom is forever; He reigns on Heaven's throne!
We must tell the world what we`ve seen today in Bethlehem!
He`s the promised King; we bow down and worship Him!
Worship Christ The King!
I have seen the Light shining in the darkness,
Bursting through the shadows, delivering the dawn.
I have seen the Light whose holy name is Jesus,
His kingdom is forever; He reigns on Heaven's throne!
29 December 2011
Belleau Wood - Garth Brooks
While I love most types of music, I've never been a big fan of country, or at least not "old-school" country. I do like some of the crossover artists, though, or occasionally I'll like a particular song from a country artist, even if the artist himself or herself is not high on my list. Such is the case here. Garth Brooks is okay; he's not my favorite but I do like a couple of his songs, especially this one. I would love the lyrics regardless, but I'm a sucker for a song with a real story behind it.
Belleau Wood is a section of land in Picardy, France, near the Marne River; in 1918 it was part of the Western Front in World War I and the site of a nasty battle between the Germans and the US Marines, which ultimately the Marines won, though not before sustaining nearly 10,000 casualties and taking 1,600 Germans prisoner. Though well-known for this battle, Belleau Wood has become far more famous for the Christmas Truce of 1914, largely because of Brooks' song.
Long before the US joined the war or before Belleau Wood, British and German Soldiers had fallen back to the area to maintain defensive positions after the first Battle of the Marne. In the months leading up to Christmas 1914, there were several largely unsuccessful attempts at establishing peace initiatives, most notably by Pope Benedict XV who, on December 7, 1914 (apparently December 7 has an even longer history of unusual things occurring than most people realize) begged the opposing governments "that the guns may fall silent at least upon the night the angels sang" (Harrisondaily.com), a request which was refused.
In spite of the unsuccessful attempts at securing peace, some 100,000 British and German troops ceased hostilities in an "unofficial" truce carried up and down the Western Front, beginning on Christmas Eve of 1914, when the German soldiers began lighting candles along their trenches and singing Christmas carols. The British responded by singing their own carols, and before long both sides were hesitantly meeting in No Man's Land to exchange small gifts of food or tobacco and to exchange souvenirs such as hats or coat buttons. Wounded and slain soldiers from both sides were retrieved during the unspoken truce, after which a joint burial service was held. Afterwards, many of the soldiers from both sides engaged in a friendly game of football in the middle of No Man's Land. No artillery was heard the whole night.
The Christmas Truce at Belleau Wood lasted throughout the night, though at other spots along the front the truce lasted longer, even up to New Year's Day in some places. The British commanders were furious over the truce and demanded that all troops cease friendly relations at once; a young German corporal named Adolph Hitler is also said (unsurprisingly) to have disapproved of the truce.
Co-written by Joe Henry, Brooks' song "Belleau Woods" was released 1n 1997 on his album Sevens. Though not a big Brooks' fan as I said, I still purchased the CD years ago (before iTunes was readily available)--just for this song, which beautifully commemorates the Christmas Truce.
The lyrics are as follows:
Oh, the snowflakes fell in silence
Over Belleau Wood that night
For a Christmas truce had been declared
By both sides of the fight
As we lay there in our trenches
The silence broke in two
By a German soldier singing
A song that we all knew
Though I did not know the language
The song was "Silent Night"
Then I heard my buddy whisper,
"All is calm and all is bright"
Then the fear and doubt surrounded me
'Cause I'd die if I was wrong
But I stood up in my trench
And I began to sing along
Then across the frozen battlefield
Another's voice joined in
Until one by one each man became
A singer of the hymn
Then I thought that I was dreaming
For right there in my sight
Stood the German soldier
'Neath the falling flakes of white
And he raised his hand and smiled at me
As if he seemed to say
Here's hoping we both live
To see us find a better way
Then the devil's clock struck midnight
And the skies lit up again
And the battlefield where heaven stood
Was blown to hell again
But for just one fleeting moment
The answer seemed so clear
Heaven's not beyond the clouds
It's just beyond the fear
No, heaven's not beyond the clouds
It's for us to find it here
I hope all of you had a peaceful holiday of your choice, and that this peace continues to carry you through to New Year's and into 2012 before the dogs of war (or at least life) are once again let loose.
Sources: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Belleau_Wood
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christmas_Truce
http://harrisondaily.com/opinion/miracles-brighten-christmas/article_758ae5c8-a68d-59f3-9a4f-bb5df3dbcbce.html
Belleau Wood is a section of land in Picardy, France, near the Marne River; in 1918 it was part of the Western Front in World War I and the site of a nasty battle between the Germans and the US Marines, which ultimately the Marines won, though not before sustaining nearly 10,000 casualties and taking 1,600 Germans prisoner. Though well-known for this battle, Belleau Wood has become far more famous for the Christmas Truce of 1914, largely because of Brooks' song.
Long before the US joined the war or before Belleau Wood, British and German Soldiers had fallen back to the area to maintain defensive positions after the first Battle of the Marne. In the months leading up to Christmas 1914, there were several largely unsuccessful attempts at establishing peace initiatives, most notably by Pope Benedict XV who, on December 7, 1914 (apparently December 7 has an even longer history of unusual things occurring than most people realize) begged the opposing governments "that the guns may fall silent at least upon the night the angels sang" (Harrisondaily.com), a request which was refused.
In spite of the unsuccessful attempts at securing peace, some 100,000 British and German troops ceased hostilities in an "unofficial" truce carried up and down the Western Front, beginning on Christmas Eve of 1914, when the German soldiers began lighting candles along their trenches and singing Christmas carols. The British responded by singing their own carols, and before long both sides were hesitantly meeting in No Man's Land to exchange small gifts of food or tobacco and to exchange souvenirs such as hats or coat buttons. Wounded and slain soldiers from both sides were retrieved during the unspoken truce, after which a joint burial service was held. Afterwards, many of the soldiers from both sides engaged in a friendly game of football in the middle of No Man's Land. No artillery was heard the whole night.
The Christmas Truce at Belleau Wood lasted throughout the night, though at other spots along the front the truce lasted longer, even up to New Year's Day in some places. The British commanders were furious over the truce and demanded that all troops cease friendly relations at once; a young German corporal named Adolph Hitler is also said (unsurprisingly) to have disapproved of the truce.
Co-written by Joe Henry, Brooks' song "Belleau Woods" was released 1n 1997 on his album Sevens. Though not a big Brooks' fan as I said, I still purchased the CD years ago (before iTunes was readily available)--just for this song, which beautifully commemorates the Christmas Truce.
The lyrics are as follows:
Oh, the snowflakes fell in silence
Over Belleau Wood that night
For a Christmas truce had been declared
By both sides of the fight
As we lay there in our trenches
The silence broke in two
By a German soldier singing
A song that we all knew
Though I did not know the language
The song was "Silent Night"
Then I heard my buddy whisper,
"All is calm and all is bright"
Then the fear and doubt surrounded me
'Cause I'd die if I was wrong
But I stood up in my trench
And I began to sing along
Then across the frozen battlefield
Another's voice joined in
Until one by one each man became
A singer of the hymn
Then I thought that I was dreaming
For right there in my sight
Stood the German soldier
'Neath the falling flakes of white
And he raised his hand and smiled at me
As if he seemed to say
Here's hoping we both live
To see us find a better way
Then the devil's clock struck midnight
And the skies lit up again
And the battlefield where heaven stood
Was blown to hell again
But for just one fleeting moment
The answer seemed so clear
Heaven's not beyond the clouds
It's just beyond the fear
No, heaven's not beyond the clouds
It's for us to find it here
I hope all of you had a peaceful holiday of your choice, and that this peace continues to carry you through to New Year's and into 2012 before the dogs of war (or at least life) are once again let loose.
Sources: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Belleau_Wood
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christmas_Truce
http://harrisondaily.com/opinion/miracles-brighten-christmas/article_758ae5c8-a68d-59f3-9a4f-bb5df3dbcbce.html
Belleau Wood - Garth Brooks
While I love most types of music, I've never been a big fan of country, or at least not "old-school" country. I do like some of the crossover artists, though, or occasionally I'll like a particular song from a country artist, even if the artist himself or herself is not high on my list. Such is the case here. Garth Brooks is okay; he's not my favorite but I do like a couple of his songs, especially this one. I would love the lyrics regardless, but I'm a sucker for a song with a real story behind it.
Belleau Wood is a section of land in Picardy, France, near the Marne River; in 1918 it was part of the Western Front in World War I and the site of a nasty battle between the Germans and the US Marines, which ultimately the Marines won, though not before sustaining nearly 10,000 casualties and taking 1,600 Germans prisoner. Though well-known for this battle, Belleau Wood has become far more famous for the Christmas Truce of 1914, largely because of Brooks' song.
Long before the US joined the war or before Belleau Wood, British and German Soldiers had fallen back to the area to maintain defensive positions after the first Battle of the Marne. In the months leading up to Christmas 1914, there were several largely unsuccessful attempts at establishing peace initiatives, most notably by Pope Benedict XV who, on December 7, 1914 (apparently December 7 has an even longer history of unusual things occurring than most people realize) begged the opposing governments "that the guns may fall silent at least upon the night the angels sang" (Harrisondaily.com), a request which was refused.
In spite of the unsuccessful attempts at securing peace, some 100,000 British and German troops ceased hostilities in an "unofficial" truce carried up and down the Western Front, beginning on Christmas Eve of 1914, when the German soldiers began lighting candles along their trenches and singing Christmas carols. The British responded by singing their own carols, and before long both sides were hesitantly meeting in No Man's Land to exchange small gifts of food or tobacco and to exchange souvenirs such as hats or coat buttons. Wounded and slain soldiers from both sides were retrieved during the unspoken truce, after which a joint burial service was held. Afterwards, many of the soldiers from both sides engaged in a friendly game of football in the middle of No Man's Land. No artillery was heard the whole night.
The Christmas Truce at Belleau Wood lasted throughout the night, though at other spots along the front the truce lasted longer, even up to New Year's Day in some places. The British commanders were furious over the truce and demanded that all troops cease friendly relations at once; a young German corporal named Adolph Hitler is also said (unsurprisingly) to have disapproved of the truce.
Co-written by Joe Henry, Brooks' song "Belleau Woods" was released 1n 1997 on his album Sevens. Though not a big Brooks' fan as I said, I still purchased the CD years ago (before iTunes was readily available)--just for this song, which beautifully commemorates the Christmas Truce.
The lyrics are as follows:
Oh, the snowflakes fell in silence
Over Belleau Wood that night
For a Christmas truce had been declared
By both sides of the fight
As we lay there in our trenches
The silence broke in two
By a German soldier singing
A song that we all knew
Though I did not know the language
The song was "Silent Night"
Then I heard my buddy whisper,
"All is calm and all is bright"
Then the fear and doubt surrounded me
'Cause I'd die if I was wrong
But I stood up in my trench
And I began to sing along
Then across the frozen battlefield
Another's voice joined in
Until one by one each man became
A singer of the hymn
Then I thought that I was dreaming
For right there in my sight
Stood the German soldier
'Neath the falling flakes of white
And he raised his hand and smiled at me
As if he seemed to say
Here's hoping we both live
To see us find a better way
Then the devil's clock struck midnight
And the skies lit up again
And the battlefield where heaven stood
Was blown to hell again
But for just one fleeting moment
The answer seemed so clear
Heaven's not beyond the clouds
It's just beyond the fear
No, heaven's not beyond the clouds
It's for us to find it here
I hope all of you had a peaceful holiday of your choice, and that this peace continues to carry you through to New Year's and into 2012 before the dogs of war (or at least life) are once again let loose.
Sources: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Belleau_Wood
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christmas_Truce
http://harrisondaily.com/opinion/miracles-brighten-christmas/article_758ae5c8-a68d-59f3-9a4f-bb5df3dbcbce.html
Belleau Wood is a section of land in Picardy, France, near the Marne River; in 1918 it was part of the Western Front in World War I and the site of a nasty battle between the Germans and the US Marines, which ultimately the Marines won, though not before sustaining nearly 10,000 casualties and taking 1,600 Germans prisoner. Though well-known for this battle, Belleau Wood has become far more famous for the Christmas Truce of 1914, largely because of Brooks' song.
Long before the US joined the war or before Belleau Wood, British and German Soldiers had fallen back to the area to maintain defensive positions after the first Battle of the Marne. In the months leading up to Christmas 1914, there were several largely unsuccessful attempts at establishing peace initiatives, most notably by Pope Benedict XV who, on December 7, 1914 (apparently December 7 has an even longer history of unusual things occurring than most people realize) begged the opposing governments "that the guns may fall silent at least upon the night the angels sang" (Harrisondaily.com), a request which was refused.
In spite of the unsuccessful attempts at securing peace, some 100,000 British and German troops ceased hostilities in an "unofficial" truce carried up and down the Western Front, beginning on Christmas Eve of 1914, when the German soldiers began lighting candles along their trenches and singing Christmas carols. The British responded by singing their own carols, and before long both sides were hesitantly meeting in No Man's Land to exchange small gifts of food or tobacco and to exchange souvenirs such as hats or coat buttons. Wounded and slain soldiers from both sides were retrieved during the unspoken truce, after which a joint burial service was held. Afterwards, many of the soldiers from both sides engaged in a friendly game of football in the middle of No Man's Land. No artillery was heard the whole night.
The Christmas Truce at Belleau Wood lasted throughout the night, though at other spots along the front the truce lasted longer, even up to New Year's Day in some places. The British commanders were furious over the truce and demanded that all troops cease friendly relations at once; a young German corporal named Adolph Hitler is also said (unsurprisingly) to have disapproved of the truce.
Co-written by Joe Henry, Brooks' song "Belleau Woods" was released 1n 1997 on his album Sevens. Though not a big Brooks' fan as I said, I still purchased the CD years ago (before iTunes was readily available)--just for this song, which beautifully commemorates the Christmas Truce.
The lyrics are as follows:
Oh, the snowflakes fell in silence
Over Belleau Wood that night
For a Christmas truce had been declared
By both sides of the fight
As we lay there in our trenches
The silence broke in two
By a German soldier singing
A song that we all knew
Though I did not know the language
The song was "Silent Night"
Then I heard my buddy whisper,
"All is calm and all is bright"
Then the fear and doubt surrounded me
'Cause I'd die if I was wrong
But I stood up in my trench
And I began to sing along
Then across the frozen battlefield
Another's voice joined in
Until one by one each man became
A singer of the hymn
Then I thought that I was dreaming
For right there in my sight
Stood the German soldier
'Neath the falling flakes of white
And he raised his hand and smiled at me
As if he seemed to say
Here's hoping we both live
To see us find a better way
Then the devil's clock struck midnight
And the skies lit up again
And the battlefield where heaven stood
Was blown to hell again
But for just one fleeting moment
The answer seemed so clear
Heaven's not beyond the clouds
It's just beyond the fear
No, heaven's not beyond the clouds
It's for us to find it here
I hope all of you had a peaceful holiday of your choice, and that this peace continues to carry you through to New Year's and into 2012 before the dogs of war (or at least life) are once again let loose.
Sources: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Belleau_Wood
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christmas_Truce
http://harrisondaily.com/opinion/miracles-brighten-christmas/article_758ae5c8-a68d-59f3-9a4f-bb5df3dbcbce.html
28 December 2011
Toetally Hosed
[I wrote a draft of this entry nearly two weeks ago, but then got distracted by the crush of holiday preparations and never actually posted it. Lucky you--you get to see it now. Misery loves company, after all...]
Everyone occasionally has a bad day, a bad week--even a bad year. With everything that's happened since we moved here, I'm starting to feel like Georgia is trying to reject us like my body might reject an organ transplant. Maybe Georgia has figured out that I am a dyed-in-the-wool Yankee (or "damn Yankee," which is what I'm told you call a Yankee who moves here and doesn't leave) and is rejecting me on general principles. All I know is that stuff keeps happening to us. Since we've moved, my daughter has broken her ankle, we have had a thermostat stop working (which is pretty bad considering that through a fluke of realty we ended up in a brand-spanking new house), causing us to go through 3 thermostats before the issue was resolved, we have cracks that are starting to appear where the 3-ish story house is settling, I have broken a wrist, then a toe (crushed it, actually), my daughter has sustained multiple injuries (though to be fair most were during fighter practice for the SCA and in NY), my husband's Miata (or as I like to call it, his "sports p*nis") has been dinged twice in a parking lot--once on each door (it's important to coordinate these things), and my mom van has been rear-ended by a student (negligible damage, though I now have the outline of her front license plate holder imbedded into my bumper). As if all that weren't enough, I also had an appendectomy right before Thanksgiving, which was followed a week later by a badly infected toe (the result of part of my damaged toenail--from the break 6 months earlier--coming off and allowing bacteria into my nail root) and subsequently an adverse reaction to antibiotics which smelled suspiciously like Satan's farts, or at least like how I imagine they would smell. Let's just say sulfur smells tasty by comparison. The past 16 months have been nothing but one mishap after another. Maybe I'm just being pessimistic, but if that's not Georgia trying to exorcise me from the premises, I don't know what is.
At the very least, I'd settle for having a do-over of the last seven days. The chaos started last Tuesday (December 6). I had an appointment to get my hair cut with good old Ricky, which I'd never gotten around to canceling after the mini-mullet debacle. Since it was also the day of my concert and I need a trim, I figured I'd give him another chance, mostly because I'm lazy and it was just easier than finding someone else in one day. Besides, I figured his errors were still 100% better than the other couple of cuts I've had down here. We had a long chat about my mini-mullet, and while it's still iffy, he did blend it slightly better. However, a week later, I still have stubby hair around my ears that gets hung on my glasses; meanwhile, my bangs are already too long because I forgot to remind him I don't like hair in my eyes. Sigh.
Anyway, later that Tuesday afternoon, because I am a moron (who should know better) I started fiddling with the damaged toenail that is still in the process of growing out from when I broke my toe. It's been six months now--the actual bones have long-since knitted, and I've had a new nail attempting to grow under the old, damaged nail for some time. This process has caused the old nail to contract as it dries, pulling in the sides of my nail bed along with it. This has also necessitated occasional trimming and angling of the nail to relieve the pressure between the two nails and at my cuticles, as well as to assist my toe in resuming something remotely akin to normal shape. I know I should have just left well enough alone, but I just can't stop myself most of the time. Knowing full-well it was a bad idea to mess with the toe right before I had to stand around in new dress shoes for hours, I fiddled with the nail anyway, popping out one side of the older nail out of the cuticle in the process. Okay, that's wasn't so bad. It didn't even hurt. Of course, that also meant I was left with a semi-attached nail saluting me from the ground. Yeah, that wasn't gonna work. So I pulled it off. It bled a little, but didn't hurt too much. After a little cleaning and bandaging, I got ready for the concert; I was at least clever enough to wear flip flops for rehearsal and bring the dress shoes with me to wear for the actual concert.
Before Tuesday, I had never been on the UGA campus, so of course I overshot the driveway for the Performing Arts Center and had to wind around the road for another 5-10 minutes before finding a good place to turn around. I found my way into the relevant parking garage and got out, helpfully leaving my bottle of water in the car. Instead of following some random guy dressed in black through a back door (that would have been too easy), I cleverly figured I could walk around to the front of the building and find my way in. Except the doors of the building were locked, and it was starting to rain, so I went to the next building, which was emblazoned with "Hodgson Hall." I figured that was okay, since that's where the concert was supposed to be. Unfortunately, I did not realize that the music department is also called Hodgson Hall, in addition to the concert hall in the first building I attempted to access. After touring the music department for a few minutes and almost invading a completely different recital, I ended up walking all the way around the original building, ending up at the stage door the random guy had used 15 minutes previously. Fail. I did manage to arrive at the rehearsal on time (barely), though I was out of breath, sweaty, and waterless. Not good.
Shortly after I climbed to the back of the risers the rehearsal started, complete with burning stage lights to amp up the sweat factor; we stood for the entire program's worth of music, merely a half hour before having to do it all over again. Awesome. Meanwhile, I was standing all in black and baking under the lights, having never had a chance to cool down from my campus tour. There's nothing quite as special as singing beautiful music while sweat gushes down your legs as though your water had just broken. Quite the interesting experience, that. We had a couple of extra chairs along the top row, so when we finished rehearsing someone came along to remove them. As we spread our remaining chairs apart to close the gaps, one leg of my chair started to go over the edge of the riser. I quickly stood up and my neighbors helped me catch the chair and re-situate it saftely. All I could think at the time was not that I was about to fall over backwards and break yet another who knows how many bones, but that my other choir director would kill me if I injured myself again. One has to have priorities.
After the rehearsal we all got a sack dinner of sandwiches and chips and were given about 20 minutes in which to wolf it down. Once finished, I changed into my dress shoes, only to discover that the left shoe had not been adequately stretched because a couple of my toes were badly pinched, even without the now ouchy big toe. Needless to say, as soon as we processed into the auditorium and got to our places, I slipped my shoes back off. No one was going to see my feet from the top row anyway. The concert itself went well, though we still made a few mistakes here and there, but as the piece was in German, most of the audience never knew the difference. We got a small break 2/3 of the way into the concert while some soloists were singing. There was a men's trio that was particularly outstanding. When I sat down for the break, I noticed some water spots on the riser from where the sweat had rolled down my legs, making it look like I'd peed myself. Special. I erased them as best I could with my stockinged feet.
When the program was over, I went to chat with some friends who'd come to see the concert. My husband missed me, so went to wait in the lobby. He ended up leaving without ever having seen me afterwards. We always seem to be missing each other in one way or another. Sigh.
Not surprisingly, my toe was tender for the next couple of days; I kept soaking it in warm water and trying to squeeze out any ickiness that was oozing, but it didn't seem to help. By Friday night it was swollen and angry-looking, so red that it could easily lead Santa's sleigh in place of Rudolph's nose. Just breathing on it seemed to make it hurt. Clearly it had become infected and it wasn't clearing up after a couple of days as such things usually do for me. So Saturday morning I headed back to the Minor Med here in town, where once again I was seen by the F Doctor who had sent me to the emergency room three weeks previously on suspicion of appendicitis. I asked if he'd missed me. He asked how my appendix was. I told him "gone," and he just nodded and smirked. I really like this guy. He has my kind of humor. He checked out the toe, agreed it was badly infected ("Cellulitis," he called it), and prescribed thrice-daily soaks in Epsom-salted water and the antibiotic Keflex. I also got some more narcotics (me and the drugs this year are like this), only this time it was Lorcet (Hydrocodone) instead of Lortab. He told me to take two of the Keflex per day for 10 days, and that if it wasn't getting less red in a couple of days I'd have to come back and have the toe numbed so he could remove the nail and "cleanse" the entire nail root area that I'd gotten infected. I didn't hear most of what he said because I was too busy doing the "Ewwww, GROSS!" oogy dance to listen.
I got my meds and some groceries from Publix, then went home and sat around the rest of the afternoon in a drug-induced stupor. That night I felt vaguely dizzy and queasy, so I ate a little and fell asleep. Gotta love narcotics. Who doesn't enjoy feeling like your brain has just been soaked in bleach? On Sunday I went to church, though I was sensible enough not to narcotic up before driving. When I got home I downed another of the hydrocodone and again started to feel very out of it and vaguely nauseous. I ended up napping for a couple hours, which I considered a fine alternative to hurling from unbalanced brain, before having to head back to church for a kid's program which featured the adult choir. I made the hubs drive, though, because I didn't trust myself to think straight and because I was still slightly queasy. By the time the program was over, my head had mostly cleared. At this point my toe had already faded some and my whole foot was no longer pale pink, nor did the toe hurt just from me looking at it, so I stopped taking the Lorcet and switched to Advil. I even went to bed before midnight (okay, maybe 2 minutes before midnight), which I am pretty sure is one of the signs of the Apocalypse.
On Monday morning I had to get up unpleasantly early to go to my post-op visit with the surgeon. The nurse actually made me get on the scale which, like most women, I abhor. Usually I can get away with just telling them how much I weigh, which is only marginally less embarrassing than seeing it in living technicolor, because the scales at the doctor's office never weigh the same as the one at home does. The disparity is often so great, in fact, that I have decided in future I'm going to any and all weigh-ins stark naked since my clothing seems to have been woven with weight-enhancing magnetic threads or something, making it weigh an additional 50-60 pounds. There can be no other explanation for the number on the scale. I'm just sayin'.
When the surgeon came in, he glanced at my chart and commented that I wasn't "normal." I thought, "Well, gee, that's a little rude, even if it is true." Of course he meant that my appendicitis hadn't presented normally, what with the unimpressive pain for several days and the not ralphing on everyone constantly. I considered that a good thing. But whatever. Doctor (don't call me) Shirley inspected his handiwork and seemed pleased enough with it, though he noted there was some redness around my navel (which there hadn't been a couple of days before). I was then told not to worry, that sometimes the sutures irritate the skin and that if I saw any white threads sticking out, I should just pull them out with a tweezers. Nice. Now I'm gonna go home and obsess over the dental floss sawing through my belly button for the next 5 days. Thanks, Doctor Shirley.
The surgeon went on to tell me that my hernia wasn't currently any big deal and then told me what to look for so I'd know if and when it was becoming an issue. Lastly, he said I was pretty much released officially, including from weight lifting restrictions, provided I didn't go doing something stupid like lifting 100 pounds. I love how he looked me straight in the eyes as he said this, almost like he knew me well enough to be suspicious. Hmmm....
By the following Tuesday, I was still not feeling "normal" (apparently because I'm not); whenever my stomach was empty I felt queasy, my head was just as fogged as it had been on the painkillers (yay, narcotics! ) and I generally felt crappy. My dear Posse girlfriends convinced me I was having an allergic reaction, in spite of the fact that I hadn't burst out into hives or started vomiting on people (I guess I'm just too cool ever to do that). I called to see about getting my antibiotics changed and was told I'd have to see the doctor again. I also discovered that I'd been taking half the required dosage for the previous 3 days because I am apparently too illiterate (or too hopped up on narcotics) to accurately read the prescription label. Woot. When I got to the Minor Med, the nurse showed me to the same room I'd had before; we decided that I might as well move into it to save time, given the way the last three weeks had gone. Doctor F halfway made a face upon seeing me again, and I was told for the second time in two days that I'm basically not normal. (Yes, and your mother smelt of elderberries. Geez.) This time it was because the antibiotic I'd been given rarely causes reactions, so clearly I'm just "special." Still, to the guy's credit, he didn't blow me off. Instead, he listened to my nebulous symptoms and figured out another medication to try. As I was leaving he told me that I could stop the Epsom salt soaks on Thursday, and that if the toe became inflamed again, it was "Cuttin' Time" and that he had a knife all ready and waiting in his pocket. Weirdly enough, that's a lot of why I like this guy. I need people with bent senses of humor in my life because that sort of humor diffuses my tensions. I get that sort of humor. Heck, I am that sort of humor.
Off I went with a new and improved prescription. For the most part it appears to be working, and while I wouldn't say I'm 100% back to "normal" (or at least my own version of "normal") my brain has at least cleared enough now to be mostly funtional and, other than knocking a bottle of lemonade all over my piles of Post-It notes yesterday and flinging oatmeal around my desk today, things seem to be improving. Which is a good thing, because I only like sharp and pointy implements when I am sewing and am the one in control of said implements.
Edited to add: Christmas has now come and gone, and I still have a toe (and nail) attached. The toe in question has mostly returned to normal, though there is still a hump of old nail trying to climb up and off of the nail bed at an inexorably slow pace. At this rate, it will be a year before my toenail looks like it did before I broke it, if indeed it ever does. Still, at least it's no longer glowing red and is no longer sensitive to the merest touch. Small favors, right? Nevertheless, I am looking at my calendar at the four days remaining in 2011 and wondering if I can make it to the end of the year without anything else happening to my rapidly deteriorating body. This year cannot be over with quickly enough to suit me. I am desperately hoping that 2012 goes better, medically-speaking, at least. And, if not, I'll only have to make it to December 21, at which point the world will end anyway, so it won't really matter one way or another anymore. So that's something.
Everyone occasionally has a bad day, a bad week--even a bad year. With everything that's happened since we moved here, I'm starting to feel like Georgia is trying to reject us like my body might reject an organ transplant. Maybe Georgia has figured out that I am a dyed-in-the-wool Yankee (or "damn Yankee," which is what I'm told you call a Yankee who moves here and doesn't leave) and is rejecting me on general principles. All I know is that stuff keeps happening to us. Since we've moved, my daughter has broken her ankle, we have had a thermostat stop working (which is pretty bad considering that through a fluke of realty we ended up in a brand-spanking new house), causing us to go through 3 thermostats before the issue was resolved, we have cracks that are starting to appear where the 3-ish story house is settling, I have broken a wrist, then a toe (crushed it, actually), my daughter has sustained multiple injuries (though to be fair most were during fighter practice for the SCA and in NY), my husband's Miata (or as I like to call it, his "sports p*nis") has been dinged twice in a parking lot--once on each door (it's important to coordinate these things), and my mom van has been rear-ended by a student (negligible damage, though I now have the outline of her front license plate holder imbedded into my bumper). As if all that weren't enough, I also had an appendectomy right before Thanksgiving, which was followed a week later by a badly infected toe (the result of part of my damaged toenail--from the break 6 months earlier--coming off and allowing bacteria into my nail root) and subsequently an adverse reaction to antibiotics which smelled suspiciously like Satan's farts, or at least like how I imagine they would smell. Let's just say sulfur smells tasty by comparison. The past 16 months have been nothing but one mishap after another. Maybe I'm just being pessimistic, but if that's not Georgia trying to exorcise me from the premises, I don't know what is.
At the very least, I'd settle for having a do-over of the last seven days. The chaos started last Tuesday (December 6). I had an appointment to get my hair cut with good old Ricky, which I'd never gotten around to canceling after the mini-mullet debacle. Since it was also the day of my concert and I need a trim, I figured I'd give him another chance, mostly because I'm lazy and it was just easier than finding someone else in one day. Besides, I figured his errors were still 100% better than the other couple of cuts I've had down here. We had a long chat about my mini-mullet, and while it's still iffy, he did blend it slightly better. However, a week later, I still have stubby hair around my ears that gets hung on my glasses; meanwhile, my bangs are already too long because I forgot to remind him I don't like hair in my eyes. Sigh.
Anyway, later that Tuesday afternoon, because I am a moron (who should know better) I started fiddling with the damaged toenail that is still in the process of growing out from when I broke my toe. It's been six months now--the actual bones have long-since knitted, and I've had a new nail attempting to grow under the old, damaged nail for some time. This process has caused the old nail to contract as it dries, pulling in the sides of my nail bed along with it. This has also necessitated occasional trimming and angling of the nail to relieve the pressure between the two nails and at my cuticles, as well as to assist my toe in resuming something remotely akin to normal shape. I know I should have just left well enough alone, but I just can't stop myself most of the time. Knowing full-well it was a bad idea to mess with the toe right before I had to stand around in new dress shoes for hours, I fiddled with the nail anyway, popping out one side of the older nail out of the cuticle in the process. Okay, that's wasn't so bad. It didn't even hurt. Of course, that also meant I was left with a semi-attached nail saluting me from the ground. Yeah, that wasn't gonna work. So I pulled it off. It bled a little, but didn't hurt too much. After a little cleaning and bandaging, I got ready for the concert; I was at least clever enough to wear flip flops for rehearsal and bring the dress shoes with me to wear for the actual concert.
Before Tuesday, I had never been on the UGA campus, so of course I overshot the driveway for the Performing Arts Center and had to wind around the road for another 5-10 minutes before finding a good place to turn around. I found my way into the relevant parking garage and got out, helpfully leaving my bottle of water in the car. Instead of following some random guy dressed in black through a back door (that would have been too easy), I cleverly figured I could walk around to the front of the building and find my way in. Except the doors of the building were locked, and it was starting to rain, so I went to the next building, which was emblazoned with "Hodgson Hall." I figured that was okay, since that's where the concert was supposed to be. Unfortunately, I did not realize that the music department is also called Hodgson Hall, in addition to the concert hall in the first building I attempted to access. After touring the music department for a few minutes and almost invading a completely different recital, I ended up walking all the way around the original building, ending up at the stage door the random guy had used 15 minutes previously. Fail. I did manage to arrive at the rehearsal on time (barely), though I was out of breath, sweaty, and waterless. Not good.
Shortly after I climbed to the back of the risers the rehearsal started, complete with burning stage lights to amp up the sweat factor; we stood for the entire program's worth of music, merely a half hour before having to do it all over again. Awesome. Meanwhile, I was standing all in black and baking under the lights, having never had a chance to cool down from my campus tour. There's nothing quite as special as singing beautiful music while sweat gushes down your legs as though your water had just broken. Quite the interesting experience, that. We had a couple of extra chairs along the top row, so when we finished rehearsing someone came along to remove them. As we spread our remaining chairs apart to close the gaps, one leg of my chair started to go over the edge of the riser. I quickly stood up and my neighbors helped me catch the chair and re-situate it saftely. All I could think at the time was not that I was about to fall over backwards and break yet another who knows how many bones, but that my other choir director would kill me if I injured myself again. One has to have priorities.
After the rehearsal we all got a sack dinner of sandwiches and chips and were given about 20 minutes in which to wolf it down. Once finished, I changed into my dress shoes, only to discover that the left shoe had not been adequately stretched because a couple of my toes were badly pinched, even without the now ouchy big toe. Needless to say, as soon as we processed into the auditorium and got to our places, I slipped my shoes back off. No one was going to see my feet from the top row anyway. The concert itself went well, though we still made a few mistakes here and there, but as the piece was in German, most of the audience never knew the difference. We got a small break 2/3 of the way into the concert while some soloists were singing. There was a men's trio that was particularly outstanding. When I sat down for the break, I noticed some water spots on the riser from where the sweat had rolled down my legs, making it look like I'd peed myself. Special. I erased them as best I could with my stockinged feet.
When the program was over, I went to chat with some friends who'd come to see the concert. My husband missed me, so went to wait in the lobby. He ended up leaving without ever having seen me afterwards. We always seem to be missing each other in one way or another. Sigh.
Not surprisingly, my toe was tender for the next couple of days; I kept soaking it in warm water and trying to squeeze out any ickiness that was oozing, but it didn't seem to help. By Friday night it was swollen and angry-looking, so red that it could easily lead Santa's sleigh in place of Rudolph's nose. Just breathing on it seemed to make it hurt. Clearly it had become infected and it wasn't clearing up after a couple of days as such things usually do for me. So Saturday morning I headed back to the Minor Med here in town, where once again I was seen by the F Doctor who had sent me to the emergency room three weeks previously on suspicion of appendicitis. I asked if he'd missed me. He asked how my appendix was. I told him "gone," and he just nodded and smirked. I really like this guy. He has my kind of humor. He checked out the toe, agreed it was badly infected ("Cellulitis," he called it), and prescribed thrice-daily soaks in Epsom-salted water and the antibiotic Keflex. I also got some more narcotics (me and the drugs this year are like this), only this time it was Lorcet (Hydrocodone) instead of Lortab. He told me to take two of the Keflex per day for 10 days, and that if it wasn't getting less red in a couple of days I'd have to come back and have the toe numbed so he could remove the nail and "cleanse" the entire nail root area that I'd gotten infected. I didn't hear most of what he said because I was too busy doing the "Ewwww, GROSS!" oogy dance to listen.
I got my meds and some groceries from Publix, then went home and sat around the rest of the afternoon in a drug-induced stupor. That night I felt vaguely dizzy and queasy, so I ate a little and fell asleep. Gotta love narcotics. Who doesn't enjoy feeling like your brain has just been soaked in bleach? On Sunday I went to church, though I was sensible enough not to narcotic up before driving. When I got home I downed another of the hydrocodone and again started to feel very out of it and vaguely nauseous. I ended up napping for a couple hours, which I considered a fine alternative to hurling from unbalanced brain, before having to head back to church for a kid's program which featured the adult choir. I made the hubs drive, though, because I didn't trust myself to think straight and because I was still slightly queasy. By the time the program was over, my head had mostly cleared. At this point my toe had already faded some and my whole foot was no longer pale pink, nor did the toe hurt just from me looking at it, so I stopped taking the Lorcet and switched to Advil. I even went to bed before midnight (okay, maybe 2 minutes before midnight), which I am pretty sure is one of the signs of the Apocalypse.
On Monday morning I had to get up unpleasantly early to go to my post-op visit with the surgeon. The nurse actually made me get on the scale which, like most women, I abhor. Usually I can get away with just telling them how much I weigh, which is only marginally less embarrassing than seeing it in living technicolor, because the scales at the doctor's office never weigh the same as the one at home does. The disparity is often so great, in fact, that I have decided in future I'm going to any and all weigh-ins stark naked since my clothing seems to have been woven with weight-enhancing magnetic threads or something, making it weigh an additional 50-60 pounds. There can be no other explanation for the number on the scale. I'm just sayin'.
When the surgeon came in, he glanced at my chart and commented that I wasn't "normal." I thought, "Well, gee, that's a little rude, even if it is true." Of course he meant that my appendicitis hadn't presented normally, what with the unimpressive pain for several days and the not ralphing on everyone constantly. I considered that a good thing. But whatever. Doctor (don't call me) Shirley inspected his handiwork and seemed pleased enough with it, though he noted there was some redness around my navel (which there hadn't been a couple of days before). I was then told not to worry, that sometimes the sutures irritate the skin and that if I saw any white threads sticking out, I should just pull them out with a tweezers. Nice. Now I'm gonna go home and obsess over the dental floss sawing through my belly button for the next 5 days. Thanks, Doctor Shirley.
The surgeon went on to tell me that my hernia wasn't currently any big deal and then told me what to look for so I'd know if and when it was becoming an issue. Lastly, he said I was pretty much released officially, including from weight lifting restrictions, provided I didn't go doing something stupid like lifting 100 pounds. I love how he looked me straight in the eyes as he said this, almost like he knew me well enough to be suspicious. Hmmm....
By the following Tuesday, I was still not feeling "normal" (apparently because I'm not); whenever my stomach was empty I felt queasy, my head was just as fogged as it had been on the painkillers (yay, narcotics! ) and I generally felt crappy. My dear Posse girlfriends convinced me I was having an allergic reaction, in spite of the fact that I hadn't burst out into hives or started vomiting on people (I guess I'm just too cool ever to do that). I called to see about getting my antibiotics changed and was told I'd have to see the doctor again. I also discovered that I'd been taking half the required dosage for the previous 3 days because I am apparently too illiterate (or too hopped up on narcotics) to accurately read the prescription label. Woot. When I got to the Minor Med, the nurse showed me to the same room I'd had before; we decided that I might as well move into it to save time, given the way the last three weeks had gone. Doctor F halfway made a face upon seeing me again, and I was told for the second time in two days that I'm basically not normal. (Yes, and your mother smelt of elderberries. Geez.) This time it was because the antibiotic I'd been given rarely causes reactions, so clearly I'm just "special." Still, to the guy's credit, he didn't blow me off. Instead, he listened to my nebulous symptoms and figured out another medication to try. As I was leaving he told me that I could stop the Epsom salt soaks on Thursday, and that if the toe became inflamed again, it was "Cuttin' Time" and that he had a knife all ready and waiting in his pocket. Weirdly enough, that's a lot of why I like this guy. I need people with bent senses of humor in my life because that sort of humor diffuses my tensions. I get that sort of humor. Heck, I am that sort of humor.
Off I went with a new and improved prescription. For the most part it appears to be working, and while I wouldn't say I'm 100% back to "normal" (or at least my own version of "normal") my brain has at least cleared enough now to be mostly funtional and, other than knocking a bottle of lemonade all over my piles of Post-It notes yesterday and flinging oatmeal around my desk today, things seem to be improving. Which is a good thing, because I only like sharp and pointy implements when I am sewing and am the one in control of said implements.
Edited to add: Christmas has now come and gone, and I still have a toe (and nail) attached. The toe in question has mostly returned to normal, though there is still a hump of old nail trying to climb up and off of the nail bed at an inexorably slow pace. At this rate, it will be a year before my toenail looks like it did before I broke it, if indeed it ever does. Still, at least it's no longer glowing red and is no longer sensitive to the merest touch. Small favors, right? Nevertheless, I am looking at my calendar at the four days remaining in 2011 and wondering if I can make it to the end of the year without anything else happening to my rapidly deteriorating body. This year cannot be over with quickly enough to suit me. I am desperately hoping that 2012 goes better, medically-speaking, at least. And, if not, I'll only have to make it to December 21, at which point the world will end anyway, so it won't really matter one way or another anymore. So that's something.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)