Sibling Of The Groom

Update

2007-03-31T13:57:00.000-07:00

Sorry it's been so long since I've written here. Everyone's been busy, so family fun time has been at a minimum. As you can see, I'm terribly broken up about this.

But here's a quick update. As in so much of my life, there is a theme, and that theme is... boobs.

Mom's December breast cancer surgery went well, and she bounced back quickly. Two days later she was at a party, and three days later she was frying latkes. Granted, they were pre-made Trader Joe's latkes, but I think they got the same recipe out of the same cookbook as she did -- so, really, not much difference.

So, there she was, frying latkes... and going on about how single and childless I am. Way to buck those Jewish mother stereotypes, Ma! Her theory: "You might be coming off like you think you're too good for everyone." Yes, my mother -- feminist, educator, put me in a particular junior high school program that wasn't about to let me slide into any sort of "I don't want to look smart in front of the boys" adolescent timidity (good thought, but totally unnecessary in my case) -- was about half a step from suggesting I dumb myself down for guys.

I stifled a laugh. "Mom," I said, "if a guy is scared off because he thinks I think I'm too good for him, then I probably am too good for him. I don't think it's too much to ask that a guy be able to hold up his end of the conversation."

I mean, really: I know the woman wants grandchildren, but that's not the way to get them.

The only other thing worth noting from that evening is that my parents gave us GPS navigator thingies. I think Dad's tired of them calling for directions from the road -- and if they get one for the kids, then they have to get one for me. Fine, then! New toy!

Fast-forward to late February. Mom had demanded a surprise birthday party. Yes, you read that right. She'd wanted to throw one for Dad's birthday in November, but he wasn't going along with a party of any sort. Dad indulged her. He quietly summoned about 15 friends and relatives to show up at a particular restaurant the night before Mom's birthday. It's a restaurant where they go all the time, this nice, comfy Chinese place in Glendale. She had assumed that Dad would find some way to spring his surprise at brunch the next day, so she actually was surprised.

I was sitting near the end of the table with B., G., one of our cousins, his wife, and their three-year-old. The kid was so well-behaved that he surprised his parents, but he's still a wiggly three-year-old. B. was heard to mutter, "We are not having one of those."

"Yeah, we're sticking with one," my cousin's wife said. "I love him, but it's a lot of work."

The conversation turned to Mom's recent surgery. B. turned to me, holding her chopsticks. Despite being married to a Jew, she's still not exactly adept with the things, and was showing no embarrassment in using plastic things to hold the sticks together. I still can't decide if it was sweet or painful to watch.

B. started in on how I'm at higher risk for breast cancer.

Okay...

And since I'm clearly not going to have children, I'm not going to be reducing my risk by breast-feeding.

Oooookay....

So maybe I should just have a double masectomy now and get implants!

Oooo.... whaaaa?

I stared at her for a moment. She looked very proud of herself for having thought of it. It's absolutely logical, and, I fear, exactly the kind of preventative advice she hopes to give professionally someday.

Finally, I thanked her for her concern, but told her I'm rather attached to the boobs. They do balance out the ass, after all.

She nodded sagely, but encouraged me to think about it.

If the waiter hadn't chosen right then to bring out Mom's cake, things could have become... unpleasant. But he did bring out the cake, and I busied myself talking to some of Mom's oldest friends.

"So, do you like your brother's wife?" one of them asked.

"We get along." I smiled thinly. He got it.

"Family," he said.

"Yup."

Family.

Holidays, Part One: Thanksgiving

2006-12-29T19:23:00.000-08:00

Apologies for the lack of updates. Darn life, always getting in the way...

As you probably surmised, this here is the Thanksgiving roundup. Chanuka Family Fun Time deserves a post of its own, which I'm hoping to get up in the next couple of days.

Thanksgiving

As predicted, dinner was had at my aunt and uncle's house. Since Mom's test results came back with the best possible outcome for the situation, that subject was off the table. Instead, people kept asking me when my brother and his wife were going to have kids.

Um... I should know this... why? I can only guess that when they asked my parents, Dad shrugged and Mom sighed.

Instead of the response that the question warranted, though, I just politely said that as far as I knew, there were no immediate plans. B. is applying to med school and, anyway, she's only 25.

"Oh," the questioners all said, sitting back, looking simultaneously disappointed and relieved. "They've got time, then."

Okay, people, I know that there haven't been a lot of babies in this branch of the family lately, but seriously. Back the hell off. If you're nice, I'll see if I can get one of my east coast relatives to ship you one of theirs.

Dinner wasn't as bad as it's been in previous years, thanks mostly to the presence of a visiting cousin, his wife, and my uncle's caregiver's new dog, a teeny-tiny chihuahua who took a liking to my cousin.

(My cousin and his wife don't get bugged about kids. His sister has two. Turns out that takes the pressure off considerably.)

After dinner, I went and spent the rest of the evening with some friends, pointing out once again the subtle distinction between "relatives" and "family".

Day After Thanksgiving

You know how when B. and G. are late, it's cute, but when I'm ten minutes late, it's a catastrophe?

It turns out that there's a catastrophe threshold for them after all. It's about an hour after the the time that we were supposed to sit down to day-late Thanksgiving dinner.

Dad tried to brush it off with his usual joking about G. marrying into a family of tardy-types, but this wasn't just a case of the kids not realizing that traffic doesn't take time off for the holidays.

This was a case of my brother -- my brother, the PhD -- being completely oblivious to the fact that it was going to take time for his pumpkin pie to set.

I arrived at the parental homestead a few minutes after six. The pie, I'm told, was just about to come out of the kids' oven.

"The turkey's not quite done yet, anyway," Dad said breezily.

"Why did you get the apple pie from the freezer case? I told you to get the one from the refrigerated section," Mom berated me.

"Okay, Mom? First of all, I called you when I was at Trader Joe's, told you that I was getting a frozen pie and asked you if there was anything else I should pick up. You didn't say anything then. Second? There were no apple pies in the refrigerated section."

"I guess we'll just have to defrost it in the microwave."

"Just set it out. It looks like we'll have time."

B. and G. called with a pie update. They were just about to put their green bean casserole in their oven. I suggested that they skip it.

6:30. Mom and Dad started to take turns yelling about how late B. and G. were. One shouted; the other was calm. The see-saw tipped every ten minutes or so.

I assembled the salad and stuck it in the fridge, undressed.

7:00. "I thought that people would be on time, since I have CANCER," Mom yelled.

"Oh, come on," Dad yelled right back. I agreed. If the latest test results had been of the really-bad-news variety, we might have been more sympathetic to the cancer card. But after the whole stage three business of a few years ago, the fact that this latest lump turned out to be malignant but totally localized -- and therefore removable -- is wonderful news, and therefore gets only the sympathy due a relatively minor surgery.

7:30. B. burst in. "Let me tell you about the idiot I married," she said tersely, as she made a beeline for the paper towels.

"You don't need to tell me," I replied.

"I have pumpkin pie filling all. Over. Me. It would've been fine if he hadn't made that sudden stop on the freeway...."

"I didn't have a choice," G. protested, entering with the pie and the mashed potatoes. "Anyway, the pie tastes fine. It's just a little liquidy."

The potatoes heated in the microwave while the turkey re-warmed in the oven. I brought out the salad.

G. brought wine to the table. I mentioned that I was going to go easy on it tonight, since I'd had a few glasses last night at my aunt and uncle's.

"Oh, you went there," B. said, her voice full of pity. "We went to Hometown Buffet."

Okay. Hold up. This second Thanksgiving dinner was only happening because she'd been scheduled to work on Thursday night. So she took the night off after all, and didn't spare us the Friday dinner? I can understand if it were just a question of wanting to spend their first married Thanksgiving by themselves, but it seemed more like they just didn't want to go to the big extendo-family event. I can totally understand that impulse -- which, frankly, is why the situation bothered me so much. I bucked up and dealt with the family. Why couldn't they?

My store-bought pie came out perfectly. G.'s homemade pumpkin pie was half-liquid, half-Jello-like. "But at least it tastes good," B. assured him.

I was glad I'd limited my wine consumption. It made a quick getaway much easier.

I went home, changed into something a little less comfortable, and met up with the de facto gang at my favorite bar. You would have, too.

Movin' On Down

2006-11-13T08:56:00.001-08:00

The kids are moving.

"Well, that makes sense," you're probably thinking. "It would be nice for them to be in a better place that's closer to where they both work."

Oh, they're not moving closer. They're moving five miles farther south.

Yeah. I don't get it either. They say that the new place is quieter and more secure, but they don't exactly have a great track record on sussing out quiet neighborhoods. As for security and affordability... well, I guess they've decided that that's the only area they can afford, or something.

Whatever. It's their gas money. I'm just glad they're not moving up by me, since B. works so close to my apartment. I really, really didn't relish the prospect of running into either of them at my favorite bar.

I wonder if I can spend Thanksgiving at said bar.

Mom called me today to inform me of the Thanksgiving plans.

"We're going to your aunt and uncle's on Thursday, but [G.] and [B.] aren't coming, because [B.] has to work." (And... G. can't be compelled to share the turkey-night joy?) "We'll have dinner at our house on Friday."

Spiffy.

"Oh, you wouldn't believe what your aunt pulled."

You may remember my aunt. She's the one who refused to come up the hill to my parents' party, the one who's never let reality get in the way of how she sees the world. The one with whom my mother's patience is wearing very thin.

"Last year, we said we'd do it together this year. So I called her and asked what the plans were, and she said, 'Oh, I already have ten people coming'. I don't know if she didn't remember or what, but I had to guilt-trip her into having us. I told her that I have an appointment the day before that's going to be either bad news or worse news, and I'm not going to feel like putting on a dinner."

(About that appointment. It looks like Mom's got a recurrence of something she had a few years ago. The day before Thanksgiving is when she's scheduled to get all the test results in and start planning treatment. Fun times, if by "fun" you mean "not at all fun, and, frankly, pretty freakin' stressful".)

"Mom," I said, "that's just her being her."

"Well, I don't like it."

They've been in-laws for... let me think. Thirty-six years.

"You just have to laugh at some things," I told my mother. I tell her this every now and then. Despite a generally good sense of humor, she never quite gets it. But, then, she never quite gets how much of my comedy comes from me trying to make sense of my meshuggene family. Which is a pity: The rest of my family would probably enjoy this blog. My mother would say she enjoyed my "unique take," but would end up complaining about how bad I make her look. Just to be on the safe side, I don't invite relatives to any show in which I poke fun at the clan. As far as they're concerned, I only do political comedy. And that, right there, is my strategy for dealing with relatives (i.e., Mom): throw so much information out there that they don't realize you're not really telling them anything.

New Year, Same As The Old

2006-10-02T19:41:00.000-07:00

Some things are inescapable: Death. Taxes. Rosh Hashana dinner with the family.

Rosh Hashana started on a Friday night this year, but my parents decided to hold off on dinner until Saturday night. Mom said they were doing this because they didn't want us to have to contend with Friday traffic, which was a nice thought. The reality was that I had just enough time to dash home from my previous engagement, change clothes, and make the drive.

Naturally, when I got there, I found out that dinner was going to be delayed, because something wasn't done cooking yet. Naturally.

B. and G. were already there. I said my hellos, mentioned that I had spent the afternoon having Rosh Hashana lunch with some friends who are more religious than I am. I was telling the kids that while my friends consider themselves Modern Orthodox, they don't go in for the full-on dress code. Mom took this as an indication that she should give B. a crash-course on frum dressing. She ran and got a book with a passage that described the restrictions posted on some random town somewhere, and launched into a dissertation on how she wanted to go take a picture of her grandfather's house when she's in New York, but it's in the middle of Crown Heights, which is Hasidism Central...

By this time, G. was reading the paper and B. was looking like she wanted to flee.

"Mom, just wear long sleeves and a long skirt and cover your hair if you feel like it. No one's going to kick you out," I sighed.

"Well, that's not hard. It's going to be cold."

I refrained from asking why, in that case, she'd just put us through all of that, because by this point B. was saying to G., "I didn't know your parents were going out of town."

G. looked up from the paper and took a beat. "Yes, you did," he said patiently. "You've been telling people about the trip they're taking."

"I knew about the cruise, but I didn't know that was them!"

"Well, it is." And he went back to the paper.

It's further proof that my brother has married our mother.

I grabbed a beer, stepped outside, and stayed there until dinner was ready.

Mom likes to have the traditional Rosh Hashana challah. Instead of the more familiar braided loaf, it's round, like the year, and has raisins, for a sweet year. Mom explained the challah to B., and told her that people usually tear chunks off. B. tentatively pulled a bit from the loaf and put it in her mouth.

After a moment, her eyes lit up. "Mmmmmm! This is good!"

Once again, B. has discovered that Jewish tradition? Not so scary. Too bad she hadn't tried challah before the wedding: Forgoing the huge community loaf was one of the reception compromises.

During dessert, B. pulled back her shirt collar and pointed out something to G. "See? I just got another one!"

B. had apparently been bitten by an invisible flea.

"You know," Dad said casually, "I didn't spot any evidence of fleas when we got home."

"She had bites all over her legs," G. shrugged. "I saw them."

"And the cats have been sleeping on the bed since we got back, and there haven't been any fleas," Mom said. "I have to be careful about flea bites because of my lymphodema." She indicated the compression sleeve she has to wear on her left arm.

"Maybe we got rid of them."

Dad kind of shrugged.

I still don't know what's going on there. If the kids are to be believed, the house is infested with fleas that are only visible to them and drawn to her.

What I do know is that the kids won't be house-sitting when the folks go out of town later this month -- or, I'm guessing, ever again.

I don't remember much about the rest of the evening. I spent most of it petting the cat that had decided that now that the food was gone, it was her turn on the table, and plotting my escape. I think we talked about the illogic of airport security, which does limit the escape radius.

B. and G. left before me. Once they were safely gone, Dad turned to me.

"I really don't think there were any fleas."

"Me, either."

"She could have been bit by something, but if she did, I don't think it happened in the house."

"Or else she's allergic to something in the detergent, or she's breaking out from stress," I suggested. "She is a little high-strung."

Dad shrugged. "I'm just saying, I didn't see anything."

It's nice when we're in agreement on something.

--

In other, related news, the gifts thought to be lost surfaced in another bag. I don't know if security moved them, or Mom had just been wrong about which bag she'd put them in. Experience favors the latter.

I don't want to sound ungrateful, but the museum stuff that Mom had mentioned? Turned out to be a set of pins -- not a collectors' set, but card-affixed buttons meant to invoke the Mods exhibit at the Victoria and Albert; a small spiral drawing set, which inadvertantly invoked the Spirograph I was given at age seven; a blank journal from Harrod's, and a bag from Harrod's. Were it not for a very nice pair of earrings purchased earlier in the trip, I'd've thought she just ran through Harrods and the V&A gift shop and grabbed random stuff that she'd hoped I'd find whimsical. But, hey: at least they remembered the Smarties.

At least it looked like Mom had tried to take my personality into account when she selected the tchotchkes. After dinner, Dad gave G. a bottle of scotch to make up for an unacceptably lame present that they'd brought him. I could've told them that the ancient Roman cookbook wasn't quite his style. Yes, G.'s a pretty good cook; and, yes, it does seem like the kind of thing he might find amusing at first glance -- but he'd rather have things he can use. I'm the one who would think a totally useless cookbook was funny. G.? Not so much.

B. got a Harrod's bag. I didn't ask if anything was inside.

I know. I should be grateful that my parents came home safe and sound, etc. And I am, I truly am. You didn't see me wrangling a make-up gift, did you? (Though I get the feeling it was more Dad's idea than G.'s.)

No sign of the camera battery. I'm sure some TSA agent putting it to good use.

Life in the Big City

2006-09-06T20:29:00.000-07:00

The folks are back on this side of the pond. They'd taken off a day or two before the latest terror scare, so they found that they had to do things differently on the way back.

On the way there, they'd each had a roll-aboard and a separate carry-on. On the way back, they had to check the roll-aboards. They transfered the super-important stuff to the carry-on bags, and checked the rest.

You can guess where this is headed, can't you? Of course you can. The parents arrived home with bags that were lighter by a camcorder battery and several gifts.

Including, of course, a very nice whatever-it-was they got me.

At least, I'm assuming it was a very nice whatever-it-was; they've got some serious ass-kissing to do if they want me to house-sit for them next month.

Dad made all the proper complaints, but it doesn't look like anything will be recovered from TSA limbo. He figures he's done all he can, and at least he'd thought to put the cameras and memory cards in his carry-on, and, really, it's kind of silly that they couldn't lock the checked bags after they were searched, because they got to do that before their transatlantic flight, and that seemed to work out okay...

Yeah. Whatever. Your airport security, ladies and gentlemen: Keeping the country safe from batteries and much-deserved trinkets, if not actual bomb components.

"But your Smarties came through okay," Dad assured me.

I know, I know. The important thing is that they had a safe trip, that my chocolate made it, and that the cats survived three weeks with B. and G.

"They said there were still fleas all over the back bathroom," Dad said. "I didn't see any signs."

"Yeah, I didn't when I went over, either."

"They said you only came over once."

(Which was true. Sorry for the lack of parties, but even that one evening was more trouble than it was worth.)

"I did go over, and that was before they set off the flea bombs. I didn't see anything. Maybe a couple got in from outside, but that's what happens when you've got those portals to the outside world in half the walls."

"Well, if they were there, I don't know why they only went for [B.]," Dad said.

"Yeah, if there were any fleas to begin with."

Dad couldn't really say anything to that, because it's a fair thing to wonder. I mean, I don't want to be any snarkier about my sister-in-law than necessary to preserve what little remains of my sanity, but I'm thinking that those "flea bites" were really a reaction to realizing that living in a house wasn't quite as idyllic as she remembered. Yeah, see, it's one thing when you're living with family and not paying much by way of rent. It's another thing when you're working the graveyard shift about as far away from your usual residence as it's possible to work, because you were so sure you were going to be working in the next county south for years and years. Kind of a bitch to end up with a job that's a lot closer to where your husband's sister suggested you look for a place, isn't it?

There was no evidence of any sort of biting insect. There were just signs that life in the big city isn't quite what B. thought it was going to be.

The parents are going out of town again next month. Dad says they're not even going to mention the possibility of house-sitting to B. and G.

I hope they brought me a lot of Smarties.

Transatlantic

2006-08-14T19:25:00.000-07:00

Dad called me yesterday, just a bit too early, by which I mean that there were still two blurs in front of the colon on my clock-radio. In my defense, I'd been awake for quite a while; I just wasn't ready to get out of bed. But if Dad was calling, it meant that he was calling from the other side of the world, and it would be bad form for me to let the call go to voice mail.

"I just talked to your brother. He says there are fleas all over the house, and they're biting [B.]. I don't know why there are fleas, because I just put some of that flea stuff on the cats before we left, and there weren't fleas in the house when we left..."

I fiddled with my computer while I waited for his train of thought to reach a station.

"...so they're going home, and you need to take the cats to the vet and set a flea bomb tomorrow."

?

I left aside the obvious first response, which would have been something along the lines of, "Wait -- it seems perfectly reasonable to you to send me into a house full of fleas after two people have fled in horror or hypochondria?"

"Dad," I said instead, "I wasn't really planning to go over there today."

"I thought you were."

"I said I might. I've been able to reshuffle stuff, so I've been able to keep out of their hair."

"Oh. Well. You'll have to work something out, then."

"So they're freaking out over a few fleas?"

"He says they're attacking her. Just her, though."

Of course.

He continued: "From now on, you're my default person for the house. They're just too..." I missed the next word, but it may have been "flaky," "unreliable" or "overly sensitive to the realities of life." Or maybe I just filled in that last one. I refrained from pointing out that that -- whatever it was -- was exactly why I'd been the default house-sitter for years. It wouldn't have done any good, and anyway he'd gone on to telling me how he'd run into my kindergarten teacher, her husband and their daughter for the second time.

(This isn't as far-fetched as it sounds. My parents are active in the teachers' union, as are the other couple. Mr. and Ms. My Kindergarten Teacher's daughter was a year ahead of me in school; we went to the same high school and university, but we never really crossed paths. She was on that side of the globe to perform at Edinburgh, and her parents were along for the ride. I'm sure my mother went into a whole thing about how she keeps telling me that my friends and I should take our little comedy show to all the fringe festivals. She never mentions how we're supposed to fund this tour.)

I said goodbye to Dad and called the homestead. I got the answering machine, of course.

"Hi, it's your sister," I announced to the telephonic abyss.

G. picked up the phone and said hello.

"So I just talked to Dad," I said. "He says you said the place is full of fleas and you and [B.] are leaving and I need to come over and take care of everything."

I could hear G.'s eyes roll from across town.

"I told him that there were fleas, and we might go back to our apartment. We were still figuring it out. Tomorrow I'll drop the cats off at the vet and set a flea bomb, and if that doesn't work then I'll just stop by and feed the cats on my way to work."

"Is it really bad?" I asked.

"Well... [B.] has a lot of bites. And I did see a couple."

Now, I'm not discounting that B. could, indeed, have a lot of bites, while G. escapes relatively unscathed. Bugs are funny like that. At the same time, it's not like G. to be chased out by some fleas.

Which left me to wonder who the bigger drama queen is: B. or Dad?

I'm sure both of them would strenuously object to the label, insisting that Mom and/or I are the drama queens. Which, if you ask me, would be a pretty clear sign they were in denial, and raise their drama queen quotients accordingly.

G. called me later that day.

"Do you remember where the gas shut-off is?"

He didn't sound panicked, so I assumed that the place was not about to blow. Instead, I asked him what was up.

"The flea bomb says you're supposed to shut off the gas."

Huh. Last time I read the directions, it said to shut off all flames and lights, including pilot lights. The house doesn't have a pilot light. Well, whatever; the instructions could have changed, or G. could be being overcautious (and, perhaps, not a little clueless).

"Um... it's been a while. I think it's in the basement. Or it could be the valve outside, in the front."

"I know one of those is water, and one of those is gas, but I don't know which is which."

"Why not turn them both off? It's not like anyone will need water while you're flea-bombing."

Apparently, this had never occurred to him.

"I'll email Dad," he declared. "I'll just hope he checks his email sometime in the next couple of days."

I haven't received any more calls, so I figure that either they're waiting to hear back from Dad; they're still checking and re-checking the directions on the package; or they've set off the flea bomb and have decided to spend a couple of days at their apartment, which suddenly doesn't seem so bad.

I'm starting to wonder if they'll last the rest of the month.

Always The Last To Know

2006-07-31T21:32:00.000-07:00

Dear readers, you are about to see a side of me that's not very pretty. If you would like to continue to think of me as a slightly bemused observer of family insanity...

Oh, who am I kidding? This is right in line with everything that's happened before. I'm just particularly pissed about it, enough so that I don't care if I come off as whiny and petty.

In a nutshell: Next Tuesday, my parents go out of town for three weeks and change. They had asked me to house-sit, as usual, and so I rearranged my life around house-sitting. As usual.

Today I got an email from G:

"So, talking to Dad yesterday, it sounded like he hadn't mentioned this to you yet--[B.] and I will be staying at the parental house while they're off on their vacation..."

Um... what now?

Oh, and I'm to call ahead if I want to use the laundry facilities.

I wrote back:

"Uh, yeah, this is the first time anyone's mentioned it to me.
I really need more than a week's notice on this sort of thing. Since I've already planned around it -- and have been doing so since the parents made flight reservations and told me when they'd need me to be there -- you might be stuck with me and some visitors for some of the time anyway."

G:

"Yeah, I was a bit surprised when Dad said "I haven't gotten around to mentioning it to [Sib] yet...", even though they asked us if we wanted to stay there several weeks ago. I figured I should say something to you, so..."

Several weeks? Several weeks?! And neither of the parents had thought that... oh, I don't know, maybe I'd need to know this?

After a bit about how how he works early days and she works graveyard, so they need quiet so they can get their sleep shifts in...

"If you've already made plans to be there that can't be changed, let me know what they are and we can try to figure something out. Extra visitors might be a problem, though...

Just the messenger,
[G.]"

Wow. Just when I think my parents have some sort of respect for my time...

It's not that they're out to screw me over, exactly. They just seem to give a lot more thought to G. than they do to me. I used to think I was being oversensitive, but even G. notices it.

When I finally got a hold of Dad, he said he wasn't sure if it was going to happen, and, yes, he should have told me, but I was overreacting. In fact, I should be happy, because I wouldn't have to schlep across town. And it's just so much closer to where the kids work...

Overreacting. Overreacting? You mean, that thing when I have some emotion in my voice?

I think I'm reacting quite appropriately.

I hadn't pinned down a lot of specific events, but I think it's now quite necessary to have parties all weekend, every weekend. If you need a place to hold an event; if you've been thinking of coming into L.A. and but didn't have anywhere to stay; if you have a weekend afternoon or evening that looks free and you suddenly think that it sounds like a very nice idea to come over and have a drink with me -- please speak up. Post a comment or shoot me an email at siblingofthegroom at gmail dot com, or whatever other address you may have for me.

If B. and G. decide that they're invited simply because they're there (I know, such a leap of logic), guests are welcome to toy with the kids, or ignore them altogether. I don't want to be outright mean -- after all, it's not their fault -- but I do want to decrease the likelihood of this happening again.

Who's in?

Party Notes

2006-07-16T13:31:00.000-07:00

I keep trying to write about what went down at my parents' anniversary party, but it keeps coming out all jumbled.

I was pretty sick to begin with that day, but as I told J., illness is not a suitable excuse for missing anything being put on by my parents. I'm not exaggerating when I say that to be excused for health reasons, I would need to be hospitalized -- and even then I would need letters of explanation from at least two doctors, one of whom would be appointed by them.

J., of course, didn't believe me. That is, he didn't believe me until I tried to lie down to get some much-needed rest, which was hard to do when my parents kept stomping through the room yelling things like, "Get up and work;" "Today's not about you;" and my personal favorite, "Take yourself to a doctor if you're that sick."

I managed to get a little rest in anyway. When I wandered into the kitchen afterwards to see if J. could use any help, he suggested I might want to start hitting the beer.

And that was before I had to make the below-mentioned ice run. (Speaking off which, a little tip: If you're in a grocery store and see a haggard-looking woman pushing around seven twenty-pound bags of ice as she tries to give directions to someone on the other end of a cell phone call, please refrain from commenting, "So, big party?" )

So, here are some things that happened. They're in no particular order, but numbered for easy reference.

1. With the party starting at four o'clock, B. and G. were supposed to come around two to help set up. They called to announce that they were leaving their place around two. About half an hour later they called to announce that they were stuck in traffic. Wow, imagine that. Oh, wait, that's right: They get stuck in traffic Every. Single. Time.

They got there around 3:30. Which means that they'd been sitting in an air-conditioned car for about an hour when B. walked up, kvetching about the heat.

2. As long as B. has known our family, you'd think that she'd have figured out a few things by now. Things like, my parents like to have parties in their backyard, instead of somewhere air conditioned like "normal people". (This was where I had a very hard time not strangling the girl.) Also, she might have recalled that most of the socializing takes place on my parents' deck, which is not some prefab slab o' fake wood; and, as such, is not the best surface on which to wear shoes with kitten heels.

"But they're Steve Maddens!" she said. "They're so comfortable! And I got such a good deal on them!"

Oh, she also hasn't figured out that no one around here cares what shoes she's wearing.

3. There is never a number three, so this is reserved for people conspicuous by their absence.

Quick rewind to the last party my parents threw. My father's brother, my uncle F., is not in the best shape. After a series of strokes, he's in a wheelchair, diabetic, and has a hard time speaking. My aunt has never let this get in the way of her reality, which seems to be located in the richer part of whatever world B. comes from. When they arrived at the last party, my aunt requested fruit salad for my uncle, right then and there, in a tone that suggested that everyone was there for her convenience. Now, as it happens, there was fruit salad in the fridge; it was to be put out later, but any other of our relatives would have either taken care of it herself or waited until the people throwing the party had a spare moment. Not her.

Mom has never forgotten this. Before this year's party, when Dad was on the phone with my aunt, Mom hovered until he found a way to politely address the situation. (Which I'm sure my aunt had forgotten.)

Due to the wheelchair, we'd set up the tables and such so that there was a clear path from the driveway. We'd asked everyone else not to park in the driveway, so that F.'s access would be unimpeded. He and my aunt were scheduled to show up early enough for us to get him into position with minimal obstacles. So, half an hour before the scheduled start time, we got a call from my aunt. They were at the bottom of the hill my parents live on, and her car was acting a little funky, with blinking lights and sputtering and all that fun stuff. My father offered to drive her car up the hill, or at least give them a ride in his car.

No, that was okay. They were just going to leave.

Yep. They drove 20 miles to get to my parents' house, called my father down to pick up a card and a balloon, and turned right around and left.

Dad shrugged. Mom freaked. She managed to get my aunt on the phone, and took her to task for every bitchy thing she'd ever done, intentionally or otherwise.

Earlier, J. had asked me if I thought there might be any impending meltdowns he'd have to work around. This one was right on schedule.

4. Also not appearing: B.'s parents. I was the closest person to the phone when her mother called; she was terribly sorry to be missing it, but she had hurt her foot. And had a sinus infection. And about five other things. I guess B.'s father was staying with her to take care of her, or something like that.

5. My parents seem to think that just because people say they're going to show up, they're going to show up.

This is how we ended up with twice as much food as was needed. Leftovers for all!

6. If I overheard correctly, a couple of my parents' friends have, well, coupled up. It never occurred to me that that was why I'd been seeing them together so much; they're part of the same wide-ranging group of friends from the neighborhood that my parents are, and they're involved in similar fields and activities, and they live near enough to each other that carpooling would be logical. Good for them, I guess. Still, it's a little disconcerting to contemplate the coupling-up of the father of one of my childhood friends and the mother of another.

7. No one from the neighborhood has any idea what I'm doing with my life. They just know it has something to do with computers.

8. My father was wise to position the grill out of the way of where everyone was congregating. He probably thought that putting the food smack-dab in the middle of that area was easiest for everyone. That made it pretty hard to get from the kitchen to the grill. Or from the grill to the table with the food on it, for that matter. I spent a lot of time yelling (croaking) about food coming through.

9. "How come you got to invite friends?" B. whined to me. Um, because my parents were actually the ones who invited them?

10. The guy who photographed the wedding is an old friend of my dad's, but seems to prefer to hang around my peer group. He brought beer of which J., the friend of his that was helping him out, and G. all approved. After a couple of bottles, the photographer friend started telling me what a great personality I had and that I was, in fact, "the shit". When I was leaving, he insisted on hugging me goodbye and didn't take his hand off my shoulder for a long time. It was just the slightest bit creepy.

11. "Hey, were you in a movie?" my cousin's wife asked me. "A friend of mine saw this movie and is sure she recognized you from my bridal shower."

I thought about it for a couple of seconds, then came up with a movie for which I'd done a couple of scenes. I only knew that the movie was ready for viewing when other people started coming up to me at parties and shows and telling me how much they liked my bits. I finally saw the part I'm in, and it did come out really well, but I await the day when I can see the whole thing.

Anyway, my cousin's wife said she'd relay that to her friend, while a passing-by Mom quietly freaked out that I'd done something without telling her. I don't know how Mom got it into her head that we're best friends and tell each other absolutely everything, but I wish she'd let it go. There are some parts of my life she really doesn't want to know about, whether she knows it or not. Which she doesn't.

12. I have known many of the people in attendance for longer than I can remember, and I still can't put all of the names and faces together.

Postscript: I went to see a doctor the next day and was informed that I was, indeed, sick. When I relayed this to Dad, he ret-conned to, "Well, I know you weren't feeling well when you got here on Sunday, but you were fine after a nap."

Uh-huh.

Declaration

2006-06-26T22:19:00.000-07:00

In the future, if B. walks up the driveway complaining about the heat, when she's been in an air-conditioned car and I've just returned from taking a break from party setup to schlepping one hundred and forty pounds of ice in ninety-plus-degree weather...

Well, she'd better not. That's all.

But, y'know, after she had a couple of brews, and I had a few glasses of wine, and the family friend who did the photos for the wedding showed up with a case of some really good beer, she got much easier to take.

Mom, on the other hand... well, I was glad when the first guests' arrivals cut short her long tirade about her issues with my aunt. Not that they weren't justified, but given that my aunt married my father's brother not too long after my folks tied the knot, I don't know why Mom expects my aunt to think about other people. Things would be much less stressful around there if Mom would just shrug it off like the rest of us do.

More soon. In the meantime, huge shout-out to J. for making all that outstanding food to the background noise of a steady stream of familial meltdowns. If anyone in the general L.A. area needs a caterer who can put together a kick-ass spread in the midst of chaos, I'd be happy to put you in touch. And, gals? He's single.

Walkthrough

2006-06-21T20:34:00.000-07:00

By the time I was able to get my parents together with my friend J. a couple of weeks ago, he'd already agreed in principle to cater their anniversary party. That meeting firmed up the commitment, set the menu and put some deposit money in his pocket.

My parents were just a little obsessed with getting him to their house to see the kitchen before the event -- which is undisputedly a good idea, but they were almost as obsessed with it as Dad has been with hunting down a particular piece of serving paraphenalia that J. requested. And that's pretty damned obsessed.

Since J. doesn't have a car, I picked him up after our respective day jobs yesterday, and we made our way across town. Dad tried to get me to give him a time when he'd called me earlier, but I was busy -- you know, that whole "work" thing -- so he and J. settled on a time of, "we'll get there when we get there." At about a quarter after 7, my phone rang.

"That's my dad, wondering where we are," I said.

Actually, it was someone else, but the call-waiting beeped as we were saying goodbye.

"Where are you?"

"Um... getting on the 110, right near the Convention Center."

J. noticed the Erotica L.A. sign on the Convention Center, pulled out his phone, and dialed up a friend.

"I know there's a Dodger game tonight, but it's just, we're getting hungry," Dad said.

"We'll get there when we get there," I reminded him.

Dad sighed and signed off.

"Oh yeah," J. said, holding the phone to his shoulder. "Your dad said something about a coffee table and dinner?"

"Yeah, the Coffee Table. It's this cafe they like." J. nodded and went back to his phone call while I got the hell off the freeway -- sometimes it's faster to go the long way -- and wondered when I was ever going to get dinner out of J. The previous night, I was driving him and his very drunk neighbor back from our usual Monday night bar, and he'd declared that he was going to cook me dinner after we saw my folks' place. Yeah, there went that payback.

(At this point, I'd like to clarify that J. is a friend. That's all. A good friend and drinking buddy. The lack of anything but pure friendship between us is so apparent that my parents haven't even bothered asking me questions about him that aren't related to his cooking.)

We finally made it to my parents' house. J. was fine with a quick look around at the kitchen layout and equipment and a careful examination of their knives, but my folks had to do their botanical garden tour thing. If J. ever wondered about the effect of a cold March on peach trees... well, now he knows.

Dinner was fine. J. was really impressed by the food. A friend of his lives nearby. I think I know where they're eating next time he visits.

I think it was when we got back to their house that Dad started his running monolog on... something. I don't remember. I just know that I was pulling my car away from the curb and J. was getting in, and my father was going on and on about how Tuesday was his usual day to volunteer at this museum, but he went there and someone who should have been there wasn't there, so the volunteers left early, and isn't it strange that they make the male volunteer docents wear a jacket and tie or bolo when the staff members don't have to dress up that much...

"Dad, we gotta go," I finally called. I waved and left before he could get another word in.

"And you thought I talked a lot?" I said to J.

"Compared to them? Nah."

Very observant guy, that J.

As if to prove my point, J. said, "They correct each other a lot."

"Yeah. I guess it works for them."

J. was dead tired, so I drove him straight home. Apparently I'm picking him up on Sunday morning at some unholy hour. My job will be to keep my parents the hell out of the kitchen. One of his friends is coming to help out later on, so J. will catch a ride home with him.

Last weekend, at this thing we had no choice about attending, I told my brother, "Hey, you'll get to meet two of my drinking buddies next weekend."

I don't think G. thinks I have drinking buddies. He's about to see a whole 'nother side of my life.

Oh, and he concurs: The parents didn't give us a definite date or time for the party until Mother's Day. They may have thought they did -- and clearly, they do think they did -- but they didn't. Being right would be so much more satisfying if the feeling of victory weren't so fleeting.

("La gloire c'est pas mal inutile/Au prix du gaz c'est trop pénible..." Anyone? Bueller? Never mind...)

"It's like I have ESPN or something!"

2006-05-30T20:53:00.000-07:00

From February:

"You need to plan us a fortieth anniversary party," Dad told me. "We'll pay for it, but you and [G.] have to plan it."

"Which means I'll be doing everything." I know how these things play out.

"They'll help you."

"I'll still end up doing everything."

After days of trying, I finally got an answer from G. about the invitations: He was "nutso busy" (I wish I were only "nutso busy"...) and he and B. didn't have any ideas -- but, gosh, they'd be more than happy to look at whatever I came up with and handle the actual mailing.

Uh-huh.

Dad called me yesterday to point out that the invitations hadn't gone out yet.

"I didn't know that I was going to be stuck doing them until late last week," I pointed out in reply. "And you didn't tell me what you wanted on them until Mother's Day."

"We told you weeks before that."

"Uh, no, we couldn't get a straight answer about the time until then."

"Well, obviously, we're remembering things differently." Which certainly looks like a reasonable statement on paper, but was spoken in a manner that said, "You're remembering it wrong, but I'll patronize you because we have to get these invitations out."

"You didn't even get us a guest list until, like, last week. And you keep changing it."

"I didn't get you a guest list because there weren't invitations."

"There weren't invitations because we didn't have the information, and because [G.] and [B.] gave every indication that they'd be doing them."

A sigh. "This isn't very productive."

Really.

"Anyway," I continued, "I sent [G.] some possibilities to look over, but I haven't heard back."

"They're at the beach today."

Of course.

Long story short? I designed the invitations. After I spent a couple of days trying to get some answers about who was doing what, Mom and Dad just printed them up and mailed them out.

I'm also the one who secured a caterer -- fortunately, a friend who can handle the insane uncertainty we're foisting upon him.

I'm the one prodding G. to ask questions like, "Where are all these people going to sit?" And then not knowing whether he asks. Or, at this point, caring.

The kids have... stopped by the parents' house to borrow a cooler for the beach.

I'm done.

And, yes, I know I've said that before.

If anyone reading this can come up with a very good reason for my presence to be required elsewhere on Sunday, June 25, now would be a good time to share it. It'll have to be a very good reason, but I think if we put our heads together we can come up with something. Who's with me?

The Mother's Day Huddle

2006-05-25T20:55:00.000-07:00

B. and G. were only about half an hour late for the Mother's Day gathering at my parents' house. I'd made it there at about ten after four, so by the time the kids arrived I'd been sitting through one of Dad's monologues for about 20 minutes, waiting for enough of a pause that I could get a glass of water. Dad often accuses me of rambling. Wonder where I got that from.

B. said her hellos, then immediately went looking for the cats. I refuse to snark on that, because I've been known to do the same thing. Those cats are keeping my parents from constantly bugging us for grandchildren, and I like to make sure they're okay.

Mom decided that B., G. and I had to go into the backyard and examine every single color of iris that had bloomed this year. One of the cats was nearby, rolling around in the grass. Once Mom wandered off, the three of us stayed there and huddled.

"Your parents' anniversary is in, like, six weeks, and we haven't done anything."

B. was getting a little stressed out, even for her. Sensing this, the world's second-most laid back cat yawned, rose, stretched, and sauntered off from her spot under the tree next to which B., G. and I stood, leaving the parents' backyard to us. (The world's first-most laid back cat was inside, snoozing on the couch in the den, which would have been my preferred activity for the afternoon. Smart kitty.)

"We haven't done anything because we can't get a straight answer about what they want," I pointed out.

"I thought that since they love that lodge in the park so much, we could do it there, but they want to do it here. I don't know where here, but... I mean, do they want a theme? What about decorations? Are we going to have time to get the invitations printed up and mailed out? Can we just use eVite?"

"Dad doesn't want to make any decisions without our mom, and Mom just knows that she wants a party," I explained.

G. sighed heavily in agreement. B. blanched.

"Welcome to the family, sweetie," I said.

Apparently, in B.'s neck of the woods, parties are big deals that involve, like, planning and stuff. In Mom and Dad's neck of the woods, it's a rare party that's not a potluck.

"Did Dad tell you about the catering?" I asked them. Blank stares. "I have a friend who's willing to do it pretty cheap."

"Oh, thank God," B. breathed. "I was worried we weren't going to be able to find any available caterers at this point."

"This is Echo Park. Caterers aren't that busy," I did not say.

"I forwarded them a list of his menu suggestions," is what I did say. "They still haven't told me what they want."

"So what time are they doing this, anyway?" B. asked us. G. shrugged. I rolled my eyes.

"Okay," I sighed. "We need to corner them and get some answers."

So we did.

Mom maintained that she'd said the whole time that she wanted the party to go from four to eight. Funny, that was the first any of us had heard about it. Invitations? She figured we could buy some of that fancy paper at an office supply store and print them out.

"Can we just use eVite?" B. asked hopefully.

"Not all of our friends have email," Mom explained patiently.

"Well... do you want a theme or anything? My mom said she'd come help decorate."

B. is awfully hung up on themes and decorations.

"Do you have a guest list yet?" Like I didn't know how this was going to play out. Sure enough: Mom looked at Dad. Dad looked at Mom.

"We'll send you one," Dad said. "Were you going to make the salad now?"

Right. Dinner. Good thing I went with the "dump stuff in a bowl and let people choose their own dressings" routine, because Dad was having trouble with the grill. I put the salad in the fridge.

"This was working fine yesterday," Dad kept insisting. That was yesterday. Today, the grill wasn't too sure if it wanted to heat up.

I think this was when I hit a point where I needed to either eat something -- immediately -- or take a nap. With Dad, Mom and B. all talking at the same time (G. was staying out of it), a nap was out of the question.

Ever try to get past three people who think you should be giving them your undivided attention? At the same time? Yeah. I had to get really, really pissy before I was able to get some bread and butter.

Once the food was ready, things mellowed. I think the ale helped, too.

After dinner, B. launched into a very long account of every detail of her high school cross-country running career. Why? I have no idea. She, G. and I were sitting at the dining room table (why? again, no idea), so I pulled out my laptop and kind of grunted my way through her tales of 6am runs and wrecked knees. She didn't notice, or if she did, she didn't care. Mom was in the next room and kept trying to insert comments, but B. just kept right on talking. It would have been fascinating if I didn't have such an urge to flee.

I don't remember how the subject came up, but I mentioned that there was a Channel 101 show that had filmed part of its most recent episode on the football field of G.'s and my high school. I pulled up the video, and B. was just completely mystified.

"That field's not in very good shape," she said, with what I'm sure she thought was great tact. "Was it always like that?"

"Oh, I think it looks better than when we were there," I replied airily.

G. nodded his agreement. "Yeah, about once a year they try to plant some grass and see if it takes."

I paused the clip. "See how the track is kind of a funky shape? They only had room to make it a fifth of a mile around."

"Yeah," G. nodded again. "When they'd mark off the football field, it had to go out onto the track."

B. was, I think, shocked that anyone could have to go to school in such shoddy athletic conditions. Yeah, well, good thing that neither of us were exactly the athletic type. And yet somehow, our athletic friends managed, and bear no apparent ill effects. Well, no ill effects you wouldn't expect from going to high school, anyway.

I mentioned that Channel 101 had been the launching pad for several people who were now at Saturday Night Live, which B. took as a cue to go on about how much the show sucks now. Uh, first of all: "Now"? B. is 24. What is she going on, "best of" compilations? Is that really fair? Hell, even the cable reruns have half an hour of the less-great material cut out.

I tried to point this out, but B. wasn't having it. Dad, who was passing by, sort of agreed with what she was saying. So I did exactly what needed to be done: I gathered B., G., and Dad 'round my iBook and pulled up the previous evening's opening sketch: Al Gore addressing the nation. (If you haven't seen it yet -- or if you have, but you want to relive the magic -- you can view it here or here.) Once B. accepted that that was, in fact, Al Gore saying all those funny things, she had to admit that it was pretty good. Dad appreciated the sketch, but I think he was more entranced by YouTube.

B. and G. left a little before Desperate Housewives. They seemed to indicate that they'd be doing the invitations. Um, sure. See the previous post.

Me, I was a good daughter and stayed to watch tv with Mom. Those of you who have read this far are invited to tune in for a new episode of Mom's Greatest Hits Theatre, starting... now.

--

The location: My parents' den.

The time: Sometime during Grey's Anatomy.

The cats: World's most laid-back snoozing on the bed with Dad; world's second-most laid-back chilling on my lap.

A commercial comes on, one that's mostly made up of quick vox pops.

ME (of a woman who appeared on the screen and quickly disappeared): Hey, I know her.

MOM: Her?

ME: No, the one who was just on.

MOM: Her?

ME: No, she was already on. You missed her.

MOM (not paying attention to that last part) : Her?

ME: Never mind.

WORLD'S SECOND-MOST LAID-BACK CAT: Mrow.

MOM: I think Katherine Heigl's scrubs are tailored.

And... scene.

I'm Sensing A Trend

2006-05-22T15:34:00.000-07:00

While I'm writing up the action from last weekend's Mother's Day assembly (darn temporary day job, always getting in the way of what's important), I offer this little tidbit:

Every time I've asked the folks how many people they'll be expecting at the party, they've said, "about fifty". This is what I have told my caterer friend.

They keep sending more and more addresses for the invitation list. Current rough count? Seventy invitations going out to 125 people, most of whom live within a neighborhood or two. I'm guessing the final count will be more like 80. Never mind the food -- where were they planning on putting all these people?

Hey, wait a minute... why does this all sound so familiar?

Oh, right: Because it is.

Last we spoke, it sounded like B. and G. were going to do the invitations, but I haven't heard from them since. I'm quite tempted to take them on, and then take a page from B.'s mother's book and hold the invitations hostage until I get some workable numbers. If this continues, I may have to design an invitation that includes a response card, just so I can replicate B.'s mother's handling of the wedding invitations (and if you're new to this blog, please do go read that entry).

Okay, so I wouldn't really pull a stunt like that, even if 95% of the invitees didn't live within a three-mile radius of my parents' house. I'm just saying, it suddenly doesn't seem like such an unreasonable course of action.

So help me, I'm not turning into my mother after all. I'm not even turning into her crazy aunt. I'm turning into my brother's mother-in-law. If I ever start dying my hair the same color as my face and wearing unflattering pastels, please alert me.

So Much For The Staying Out Of It

2006-05-11T19:16:00.000-07:00

Did I say that I was going to just sit back and let B. and G. plan the parents' 40th anniversary party? Yes, I do think I did. And I even believed it for a little while.

With the big day about six weeks away, Dad is getting nervous that nothing has actually been planned. Well, of course it hasn't been planned: The kids are wrapped up in their own lives, and Mom just wants a party. Dad won't make any decisions on his own. He keeps trying to get B., G. and I to sit down and do some face-to-face planning, I think he's starting to realize the futility of that.

A little while back, I met a guy who's been known to do a little catering. I mentioned the theoretical party, and he jumped at it. "Tell me what kind of food they want," he said. "I'll send you a list of suggestions."

"Um... let me get back to you on that one."

What the hell do they want? I still can't get a straight answer. Evening buffet? Afternoon munchies? Gourmet stuff? Hyper-healthy?

We got tired of waiting, so I had my friend send me a bunch of general suggestions, which I forwarded to Dad. He called and said that they were a little too broad, and could I bring him over for a meeting?

"They're broad because I still have no idea what you want to do," I pointed out. "That's the first thing he's going to ask. He doesn't need to be there for that." In more ways than one.

At this point, the idea is to do some planning on Mother's Day. Dad said the kids should be over around 4.

"So that means 5," I said.

"No, that's you. I should have told you 3."

Sigh. "Hi. I'm not the one who's been late the last few times."

"Well, it was raining..."

Whatever.

"I guess I'll be there at 4," I said. "If that's when [B.] can be there, then that's when I'll have to make time."

Dad couldn't argue with that statement. It's not pissy. It's just true.

I know how this is going to go down. B. is going to come in with all these completely unfeasible ideas that sound reasonable on the surface, and be kind of miffed that tentative decisions have already been made. Then she'll say, "I thought you wanted to use that restaurant from last time," and I will patiently point out that time is running very short. Dad will point out that while no decision has been made, he'd rather give a friend of mine a chance -- especially if said friend can guarantee his availability. Which he can.

Yeah, yeah. I should have just stood back and let B. and G. deal with this. I ask you, dear reader: Would you want to be around if Mom were to realize that the party might not happen? I didn't think so. So, I retreat to the old patterns, comforting myself with the notion that at least I get to help a friend.

I think I have to do something really, really monumental, just so I can make the rest of the family throw a party for me, without me pitching in. Sure, benefitting humanity would be nice, but so would a little payback.

Passover Of The Living Dead

2006-04-22T18:58:00.000-07:00

Now that B. is officially part of the family, there was no way for her to get out of coming to my family's Passover seder. As I have been part of the family since birth, and am in charge of the matzo ball soup, and have absolutely nothing going on all day*, there was no way for me to get out of going over there early.

A couple of friends of mine came of their own free will. I think it had something to do with the free dinner and wine.

Matzo ball soup is about the only thing I make, and I take it very seriously. I interrupted Mom's nattering about all the stuff I could pick from the garden and put in the salad to ask about soup vegetables.

"Do we have any onions?"

"No."

"Carrots?"

"No."

"Celery?"

"Why didn't you tell me you wanted them?"

"Because we have this same conversation every year, and I keep thinking you'll remember."

In the end, she recalled that there was one carrot out in the garden. The chicken broth already had some veggie flavor to it (yeah, I use pre-made broth -- I'm not that obsessive), so I tossed in some freeze-dried onion and garlic flakes, fresh scallions, some pepper and a bunch of random herbs from the garden and kind of hoped for the best.

With Dad out running errands most of the afternoon, I spent a lot of time getting stuff off high shelves for Mom. She did drag out the stepladder when she launched her search for Elijah's cup.

"I always put it right here," she whined. "It's. Not. Here."

"Maybe it fell."

"It. Didn't. Fall."

Dad found it when he got back with the kugel and tsimmes. Of course, it turned out to be nowhere near where she was looking. He complained loudly about this.

(Yes, they ordered a lot of the food. Obviously, I get my food non-obsessiveness from somewhere. Anyway, it was all at least as good as we would have made.)

G. showed up and I assigned him to the salad. Mom hit the ground running with a series of demands for their anniversary party.

"Mom," he said, "put it in an email and send it to us."

"But --"

"That way we'll have everything together in the same place."

"But --"

"Mom, that's the only way we'll remember everything," I said. "Otherwise, you'll have to do everything yourself, because we won't remember."

Normally, Mom would have launched into her lecture about different learning styles, and how she guesses we're just visual learners instead of whatever she is, but B. arrived and threw Mom off-track.

I think the seder was another of those Jewish things that B. resists on principle, but once she finds out what's going on she kind of digs it. She'd been to one of our seders a few years ago, but all she remembered was that G. kept telling her that there was a lot of wine involved. (Though since she had to be up at some ungodly pre-dawn hour, she was going to stick to juice.)

My friends filtered in. The cats made themselves scarce, as they always do when there are too many feet around.

Turns out that one of my friends had read the Four Questions as a kid, so that meant that Mom and I didn't have to deal with all the Hebrew and Yiddish ourselves. It's transliterated into English, but it still throws people off. (My other friend in attendance isn't Jewish, but she is from Brooklyn, which is almost the same thing. Just without the Four Questions.)

Our hagada has a passage in Yiddish which isn't transliterated, and I'm the only one who can read Yiddish. So read it I did. Mom thinks i'm getting better. She usually criticizes my accent or lack thereof. Yeah, Ma -- I don't see you reading all those squiggly Hebrew letters.

The wheels really came off around the obligatory singing of "Go Down, Moses". "Hey, one I can sing!" B. noted brightly.

"When Israel was in Egypt land..." we sang.

"Let my people go," most of us intoned.

"Let my Cameron go," my brother sang.

It took a few minutes to explain to the parents and B. why G., my friends and I were laughing.

The rest of the evening was uneventful, though B. was just a little too enthralled with the particulars of my friends' food allergies. I now know my friends on a whole new level. I kind of wish I didn't. Thanks, B.!

Mom brought out a torte for dessert. Apparently, they don't have tortes where B. comes from.

At some point, I mentioned that on Friday night, this movie theater near my house was showing a bunch of horror trailers and the like at midnight, followed by a screening of Night Of The Living Dead.

"Let's go to that!" B. said to G.

"Have you ever seen Night Of The Living Dead?" I asked her.

She hadn't.

This was going to be interesting. My friends looked like they were sorry they were going to have to miss it. That, or like they never wanted to eat dinner with B. again.

--

Friday night.

"I'm actually voluntarily hanging out with my brother and his wife," I told my roommate, a bit mystified.

"That's not a usual thing for you, is it?" she asked. No, not so much.

The plan was for me, B., G. and former 'maid (hi!) to meet up at the theater at 10 and maybe go get a drink. I was about to walk to the theater (yeah, I said "walk" -- it's only a few blocks, and on a Friday night I wasn't going to get much closer anyway) when G. called. They were just then leaving their place.

Yup. And when I'm late, it's a catastrophe.

After we got our tickets, former 'maid and I walked to a diner to nosh and wait. This place isn't the tops of local cuisine, but they do serve beer and have some vegan options for former 'maid. We'd just ordered those beers and I was trying to get out my ID when my brother called for more directions. I asked him to hang on, but he didn't seem to understand the concept any more than he did the concept of reading street signs. Ever try to have two conversations at once while holding a cell phone and extracting an ID? It's not easy. Fortunately, the waiter seemed used to it.

The kids finally joined us. B. declared that they'd parked on a "dark, scary alley". B. started talking. And talking. And talking. She only interrupted her discourse on the local ice cream truck (comes by three times a day and attracts many "gangbangers") to ask our poor server many, many questions about the dessert options. Really, what does she think is usually in bread pudding? Fish? In any case, they were out of all but two of the pies, so B. and G. each got a piece of one. B. took a bite and started trying to compute how long the pie had been in the dessert case. G. just kind of shrugged and drank his beer. I guess he's learned to pick his battles.

Maybe it's true about guys marrying their mothers. Except somehow, I can't see our mother insisting that cows lay eggs. (Don't ask. I didn't.)

B. really does come from a different world than we do.

As we walked to the theater, B. somehow got to talking about how the checks that our family had given them were lovely and much appreciated, but they were all in these "denominations of nine". Guess that answers the chai question.

The audience was probably smaller than it would have been on a night with better weather, but the theater was as full as I've ever seen it for a Friday midnight show. The host announced that because the first part of the program featured so many trailers, they were going to forgo the trailers for their own coming attractions.

"What's a trailer?" B. asked.

"It's the 'coming soon' commercial-type thing," I replied. I think my brother supplemented that, too.

"Ohhhhhhh." B. had just never heard the term "trailer" -- which seems kind of odd, given that she's lived in SoCal all her life, but whatever. Different world.

The host introduced a very special guest: Judith O'Dea, one of the stars of Night Of The Living Dead, who was absolutely thrilled to be doing a surprise Q&A. Unfortunately, I can't tell you all that much about it: One of the first questions was about how much of the dialogue had been ad-libbed, and G. had to explain to B. what ad-libbing is. ("Ohhhhhhhh.") He did it quietly enough, but my attention was split between listening to Judith O'Dea, not listening to B. and G., and sending a text message to a guy I know who's a huge Romero fan to see if he had any questions for me to pass on. (He didn't get back to me. What else is new? I really shouldn't bother. But that's a whine for a different blog.) I do remember her saying that when the movie first came out, exhibitors got complaints that the movie was frightening to children. Well... yeah. She also talked about hanging out with George Romero (a regular guy from Pittsburgh, it seems) and casting an African-American man as the male lead (he had the best audition of any actor who came in to read for it, which was really what Romero cared about).

The trailers were fun. The movie was... well, it was Night Of The Living Dead. Out of the corner of my eye, I occasionally saw B. glancing over to me to see how I was reacting. I don't think she expected to see my expressions of pure glee. Night Of The Living Dead! A beautiful print, on a big screen! Zombies! I'm not all about the clever comedy, you know.

Being a budding doctor, B. didn't wince too much at some of the grosser parts towards the end of the movie, but I think I did hear her shudder at a couple of points. Or maybe that was me. There's a bit after the truck explodes that always gets to me, even when I know it's coming up.

As we left the theater, B. chattered enthusiastically about the movie. She'd liked it, but she was having a hard time wrapping her head around the fact that all the main characters die. "He made it through all the zombies, and then he gets shot in the head! They didn't even wait to see if he was a zombie!" Yup. You'd shoot him, too, if you'd been beset by zombies.

The kids peeled off to head to their car. B.'s "dark, scary alley" was an average side street. It wasn't particularly well lit, but I certainly didn't see anything scary or alley-like about it.

Like I said, different world.

--

A few nights later, I was talking with one of my friends who'd come to our seder. "I like your brother's wife," she said. "She should hang out with us!"

It's tempting to corrupt B. by dragging her out to karaoke nights and sketch comedy shows, but... no. I don't know if I could handle explaining everything to her all the time.

"This is a very strong drink. It's probably stronger than anything you've ever had, but it tastes good. Sip it slowly. I drank mine quickly because I have experience. Now I'm going to go up and sing. The boys will all stop and stare. Some of them will stare because I'm good and stacked, and some will stare because I'm doing an uptempo song which will prompt my friend here to get up and shake her groove thang. Then some guys we know will pretend that they didn't know until just now that we're here, and come over and join us. If they offer to buy you a drink, turn them down. You shouldn't be more than halfway done with your first one at this point if you want to be sober enough to drive home at one-thirty. Us? We know what we're doing, and we know a 24-hour diner within walking distance. It's fun not being married!"

"We're going to a sketch comedy show. There will be profanity, and possibly some nudity. Brace yourself. Then we will wait until our friends in the cast come out to greet us, schmooze a little, and either get drinks at the restaurant next door or go to this one guy's apartment across the street, where he will show us a movie he made and which the rest of us have all seen many, many times. There is profanity, and nudity. Brace yourself."

Could be interesting, but... no.

*Have I mentioned that I'm, um, between jobs right now? 'Cause I am. Resume available upon anything resembling a request.

Have They MET The Parents?

2006-03-31T19:37:00.000-08:00

So G. emails me the other day. Seems he and B. have been talking about the parents' anniversary party (good to know someone is), and she thinks that it should be held on Saturday instead of Sunday, because it's easier to get people to come out on a Saturday night.

Um... okay. I'll give B. a pass on this one, because she's only known our parents for five years or so. Clearly, that's not enough time to actually get to know them. But G.? Come on.

After I finished laughing, I sent a response. In this response, I pointed out that while B. is absolutely right about it being easier to get people out on a Saturday night than a Sunday night, the assumption was that this would be an afternoon affair, like every other party the parents have had. That certainly seems to be what they want. Anyway, I continued, you know what would happen if we were to try to throw an evening party: Dad would be cranky by 9, and Mom would spend the whole time kvetching about how people couldn't see how pretty the backyard looks.

I haven't heard back.

If they decide that nighttime is the only appropriate time to have the part, then they can't say that they weren't warned.

La la la.

Thanks?

2006-03-19T15:06:00.000-08:00

G.'s birthday was this past week.

"Don't forget, your brother's birthday is next week," Dad IM'd me the previous Friday.

"I'm not the child you have to remind about that sort of thing," I replied. G. may be a scientific genius, but I'm surprised he remembers what day the Fourth of July falls on. Me, I can't forget birthdays, even if they're just cluttering up my brain.

The birthday happened to coincide with the Jewish holiday of Purim, which quite appropriately requires getting totally schnockered.* I decided to send him a Purim e-card with an "oh, by the way, happy birthday, too" addendum.

(Odd how Hallmark has e-cards for seemingly every holiday in the world except Purim. You'd think it would be exactly the sort of holiday Hallmark would love; I mean, someone has to provide all the party goods. On second thought, given the selection of "Tree of Life" e-cards on their site, it's probably just as well that they skipped this one. I really don't want to see their artists try to make that yarmulke-clad cartoon dog look like he's properly celebrating.)

I ended up sending him a card from a site that doesn't let you know when the card has been viewed. The fact that I didn't get a call from either parent chiding me for not sending him anything would indicate that G. viewed it. While I don't suppose a "thank you" message is technically required for a birthday e-card, one would think that he would be in the habit of writing such notes by now.

Hmm.

I still haven't given the kids a wedding gift. Opinions about whether this is required seem to be split. In any case, even if it is, it will have to wait until my employment situation stabilizes. Hey, anyone know anyone in L.A. who needs someone who can do all sorts of web-type stuff? 'Cause I'll be available after this Friday...

*If have no idea what I'm talking about and actually care about that sort of thing, I have a bit on Purim on my other blog. If you leave a comment, please note that that blog may be monitored by people who don't know about this one, and it would be better for everyone if it stayed that way. Trust me.

Friday Night's Alright For... Well, Not This

2006-02-25T19:04:00.000-08:00

I should have refused to go to dinner at my parents' house last Friday. I didn't have any particular plans, but there were plenty of other things I could have been doing.

See, Mom got it into her head that with all of us living in the same area, it would be nice if we got together for dinner every now and then. In theory, this is fine. In practice, the dinner schedule has to revolve around B.'s schedule, and my new sister-in-law works some pretty funky hours. Still, I can't help but think that there must have been some night besides Friday that she didn't work last week.

"Just come over after work," Mom said, just a little too condescendingly. "We won't keep you that late."

"It's free food," Dad IM'd me.

Okay. Fine. Well, not fine, but I believe in choosing my battles. So I got to my parents' house a little after seven, expecting to sit down, eat and be out of there by 8:30.

"They just left half an hour ago," Dad informed me, making no move to help me as I navigated the driveway in entirely the wrong shoes.

Half an hour ago.

On a Friday.

A rainy Friday.

For a drive that takes almost that long when there's no traffic.

Let us pause for a moment here to recall what's happened when I've had a drive take much longer than I anticipated, shall we? (Newer readers may wish to check out the posts about B.'s bridal shower and the wedding rehearsal.) One would suppose, then, that every time the kids called in with a status report, they were yelled at, right?

Not so much.

"He must have learned it from his in-laws," Dad said of G., and turned on the television. "And why did you wear those shoes?"

(Some people have asked me if I feel like I'm in competition with my brother. It's not that, really. I think the problem is that in our parents' determination to treat us the same, they forget that G. and I are very different people, and ultimately end up accomplishing exactly the opposite of what they set out to do. Even G., who arguably comes out with the better deal, thinks it's ridiculous.)

Around 8:30, my parents conceded that we really should just start eating without them. They showed up about 10 minutes later. G. had his usual, "well, what are you gonna do?" demeanor. B.? Not so much.

Once B. had calmed down a little, they joined us at the table. B. proceeded to tell us about people who'd come into the emergency room at which she works. None of the stories ended well. Nothing says "family dinner" like colostomy bags and death!

During dessert, Dad broke the news about the anniversary party that we will be planning. In a concession to reality, he's talked Mom into having it at home. Still, B.'s reaction was about the same as mine: "Um... and we're going to find a caterer at this point... how?"

G., for his part, reminisced about the time my parents had way too much paella delivered for a party. We were eating leftovers for weeks. I still like a good paella, but it took me a while to stop cringing whenever I hear the word.

The parents want music. G. offered to hook up his iPod. Dad's no technological slouch, but he still doesn't quite buy that this is a better idea than pulling out his 5-CD boom box.

Mom suggested renting a dance floor and setting it up in front of the garage. B. and G. kind of choked on their ice cream, leaving me to patiently explain that even if setting out a dance floor weren't a sure-fire way to guarantee that no one will dance, the area in front of the garage isn't exactly ideal for a dance floor. It is only flat and level in comparison to the rest of the yard, and it is not very large. "If people want to dance, they'll dance," I assured Mom, knowing full well that she's the only one who's going to want to dance. If I slip some folk dance music into the iPod mix, I might get a few of her friends up for a few measures. Even then, they'd probably just be getting up for the novelty of dancing with someone their children's age. (Yes, that would be me. Macedonian coceks, German polkas, Japanese bon dances, Israeli horas -- it's amazing what one can learn while one is pursuing an American Studies degree.)

This was about when I started trying to leave, but couldn't get a word in edgewise. Yeah, I know. I should have just left. And I would have, had it still been early enough to do anything. I finally managed to excuse myself at about 10:30. If this happens again, I'm so taking up former 'maid on her generous offer to have plans with me.

The next day, I found this on my father's blog:

The newly weds and [Sib] were here for dinner last night. It took [B.] and [G.] an hour and 45 minutes to travel from [the city in which they live], 14 miles away. Freeway just a crawl and neither one of them is terribly great on alternative routes at night. By the time they called for suggestions the other ways might have been too confusing.

When they do it, it's cute. When I do it, it's a catastrophe.

That's it. I'm calling the anniversary party invitations. Let the kids deal with the logistics.

(I know. I say that now, but I'll probably end up helping anyway. If I had any time to see my therapist, I'm sure she'd have a field day with that.)

It's Not Paranoia If They're Really Out To Get You

2006-02-11T14:06:00.000-08:00

"You need to plan us a fortieth anniversary party," Dad told me. "We'll pay for it, but you and [G.] have to plan it."

"Which means I'll be doing everything." I know how these things play out.

"They'll help you."

"I'll still end up doing everything."

I don't mind the concept of throwing an anniversary party for my parents. What I mind is being ordered to do so. And since it's their money, I'm sure they'll end up with veto power over everything...

Hey, wait a minute. This sounds awfully familiar.

I guess the first order of business will be finding a venue that doesn't have the end of June/beginning of July period totally booked.

No, wait. The first order of business will be trying to comprehend this whole business, while dealing with the business of my own progressively-more-challenging life.

Maybe I had it right as a teenager: My family may love me, but I don't think they like me very much.

Reality Bites

2006-01-29T18:03:00.000-08:00

The kids' apartment building has termites.

To hear Dad tell it, this isn't the only indication that the building hasn't been kept up terribly well. I don't know whether this is a case of one's first apartment usually being a disaster; the kids not recognizing the signs; or reality finally catching up with them.

The parents showed me the official wedding pictures this week. Since I had gone over there with the stated goal of taking a nap (I was feeling really ragged, and they live about 20 miles closer to the day job than I do), I must admit I wasn't paying terribly close attention. Even had I been fully alert, though, I think I would have had the same overall impression, which is: After the first album, pictures of the same people in the same setting wearing the same things start to look pretty much the same.

My secondary impression was that I really don't look like myself in those pictures. I think it's the hair.

Dad says that Mom "picked out some pictures for [me]". This should result in a visual overview of the events in question, and/or a peek into my mother's mind. I'm quite curious, in that "I've been sick, so anything that distracts me from being sick is interesting" sort of way.

Pictures, Part Two: The Reception

2006-01-14T18:50:00.000-08:00

Part One's disclaimers apply.

Here's B., looking a little shell-shocked. At least now she can walk without tripping over the train.

Dad talking with a friend of the family. Not the most action-packed shot of the bunch, but I'm putting it up for those of you who wanted another look at the fish tie.

Me with a couple of Mom's cousins. That's the fake-looking cake in the back. And this is where we get into my issues with the dress. See all that draping and ruching? There is simply no way to look like you have any kind of figure in that dress. Don't think it's that bad? Take a look at the next shot.

See what I mean about the dress? This picture also shows its unsuitability for a stacked chick with broad, round shoulders. Well, at least it's blue... Oh, yeah, those are a couple of my cousins -- sons of the cousins in the previous page, as it happens. (Yes, I know that makes them second-cousins. That's just getting picky.)

G. and B. pose for a shot with a bunch of Dad's cousins and their assorted spouses and offspring. Fascinating fact: One of the people in this picture has half a brain. No, seriously. (And, no, it's not the bride or groom.)

And now is the time where they dance. Hey, there's the photographer again! Hi!

The hora kicks into gear, so to speak. You can just see B.'s mother encircled -- look over the brightly-colored shawl.

More hora. The absence of non-bridegroom men in this picture has nothing to do with a culturally-mandated separation or anything like that. It's just that few men ever seem to want to dance at these things. Oh, there I am in the back, looking like I'm dragging half the garment district with me.

This shot manages to get a lot of B.'s family. From the far left: B.'s sister's boyfriend with the kilt; B.'s sister's friend who actually wanted to catch the bouquet; and B.'s sister in the champagne. (The other woman are with G.'s side.) B.'s mother looks on with an undefinable expression. In the background, the fathers stand around, still wondering why the kids didn't take them up on their offer to pay for them to go to Vegas.

Welcome to the family, B. There is no escape. One of us. One of us. But at least your sister is having a good time.

G. assures B. that this will all be over soon. And, no: B.'s hair did not move.

So those are the photos I have right now. I spoke with Dad yesterday, and he says the actual photographer's shots are ready for review. You'll see them shortly after I do.

Pictures, Part One: The Ceremony

2006-01-09T23:52:00.000-08:00

At long last, some photos from the ceremony. Please note that these are not the official photographer's pictures, although can see the official photographer in some of them. These are photos sent to my parents by various relatives. Some of them were passed on to me, and some of them I snagged while the parents weren't looking. Shots from the reception will be posted soon. Click for larger versions, yadda yadda yadda.

This is Mom, hanging out with our family's officiant-type by the gift table before the ceremony. Why was this taken? I have no idea. But I do love the implied conversation: "Don't worry. Your soon-to-be-daughter-in-law is coming. You will not have to help your son write 'thanks, but I have to give it back' notes. Even if she bails, that's his job."

Here's me walking down the aisle with the groomsman with whom I was paired. One of us had spent the previous hours trying to calm down a panicked bride. The other one had been drinking scotch with the groom. I think it's pretty obvious which is which. You can just see Dad in the background. Hey, wait, is he... can we get a close-up here?

Thanks. It's fuzzy, but, yes -- Dad is indeed wearing a tie with a salmon on it. He swears the groom requested it. I guess it did increase the probability of Dad wearing a tie. That's B.'s family's officiant behind him.

B.'s father walks her down the aisle. You thought I was kidding about the panicking on her part? That is not the face or bearing of a calm person.

Your master and mistress of ceremony for the next half-hour or so.

A vertigo-inducing long shot from someone near the back of the crowd. Notice how the bride's train actually cascades over both steps to the platform.

Under the chuppa. I still don't get why B. didn't want one. Where else were they going to put all the flowers?

A picture of the photographer taking a picture. It's kind of a meta thing.

What's better than culturally-sanctioned drinking? Culturally- sanctioned destruction of glassware! Our family's guy mentioned a few theories as to why a glass is broken at the end of a Jewish wedding, ending with, "It's a good way to start things off with a bang." I guess someone had to say it...

Presenting B. and G. None of that "Mr. and Mrs. G." stuff. Wait -- you mean we could have avoided all the mishegas with the invitations? I seriously need a pocket-sized time machine.

G., B. and the dress make their escape. See? I wasn't exaggerating. That's a serious train. It's, like, the length of an actual train. And it's getting all dirty.

Five More Things That Happened

2006-01-08T15:02:00.000-08:00

To tide you over while I format some photos (yes, finally):

Something like half the guests had left the reception by the time lunch was over. I'm sure they all had their reasons, but it did look a little odd.
All those dancing lessons paid off. B. and G.'s first dance was lovely, and the impressive dips made up for the fact that B. was obviously trying very hard not to count out loud.
At most weddings I've attended, when it comes time for the bouquet and garter tosses, some of us hang around the edges of the throwing area, chatting about how we're planning to duck the bouquet, and how we wouldn't be up there if it weren't for such-and-such a relative. However, this is the first wedding I've been to where there was only one person of each gender who wanted to catch the tossed thing. All we single women stepped back and let B.'s sister's friend make a lunge for the bouquet. B.'s sister's boyfriend was the only guy who would get within 20 feet of the garter.
"So I guess we're, like, sisters-in-law now," B.'s sister said to me.

"Yeah, I guess so," I responded, and took a bite of cake.

B.'s sister and I seem to have more in common with each other than we do with either of our siblings. This could be dangerous.
This is how the recpetion ends, not with a bang but a whimper: The remaining people say goodbye and leave, and B. and her mother hysterically running around trying to pile everything onto a bellman's cart because they're positive that all will be tossed if we're in the room a minute past 5pm. And, of course, I end up riding in an elevator with all of them, B. complaining the whole time about how her feet were killing her. Isn't that why she didn't want to wear heels in the first place? I guess a bride must make sacrifices when said bride is dead-set on wearing a dress that can't be hemmed enough without cutting into the beading along the bottom.

Scenes From A Wedding Reception

2006-01-02T20:38:00.000-08:00

B. and G. were, indeed, ushered in by the opening chords of "Eye of the Tiger". B.'s dress had been bustled up, and she looked much relieved.

I was, of course, between B.'s sister and cousin at the head table. As soon as we were seated, B.'s sister flagged down a waiter.

"See this?" she said, indicating her glass and slipping the waiter a twenty. "Keep it full. The bartender knows what I want."

"Who's that holding my kid?" the cousin asked me, more curious than concerned. I looked up to see one of my cousins holding the baby.

"That's one of my cousins. She has girl-baby radar. Don't worry, the kid's in good hands. She's got two boys who are okay so far."

"I'm not worried. I don't think my husband would have let her hold the kid if he didn't think it was okay. He's a good dad."

After her girl-baby fix, my cousin came over and introduced herself, explaining how she had the two boys and she loves girl-babies, et cetera. They talked babies for a minute. I accepted more champagne from a passing waiter.

--

The maid of honor and best man gave lovely toasts. He had champagne; she had her martini.

The parents spoke, trying to welcome everyone they could think of.

And that was it for the speeches.

My threatening to say "L'chaim, dawgs" may have paid off.

--

While we ate, the deejay played B. and G.'s special selection of Christmas and Chanukah songs. Biggest reaction of the afternoon went to Adam Sandler's Chanukah song. B.'s cousin is not someone I would have expected to chime in on "O.J. Simpson - not a Jew," but it takes more than that to surprise me these days. Then "Grandma Got Run Over By A Reindeer" came on.

"My grandma hates this song," the cousin said. "She thinks we want it to be about her."

--

Frequently-asked questions:

Q: "Is that cake real?"
A: I hope so, because we're going to eat it.

Q: "Are you having a good time?"
A: I'm a bridesmaid. I'm just trying to get through with a smile on my face.

Q: "Do you like the dress?"
A: I lucked out the color. Not so wild about the strapless, but it's not my wedding.

--

My mother's cousin waved me over.

"Why is that guy over there wearing a kilt?" she asked me.

"Because he's Scottish."

"Oh."

--

Okay, it's nice to be told that I look beautiful and all, but did people have to sound surprised about it?

--

Ever since the music was picked out for the wedding, the bride and her family had been anticipating the hora with growing skepticism. I think they were especially afraid when the deejay announced it was time for the hora, and two dozen Jews rushed the dance floor.

Once they realized that it was just a lot of people running around in circles and kicking every now and then, they got into it. Even B.'s mother seemed to be having a good time.

Me, I forgot that I was going to have a hard time breathing when it was over. Oops. Goddamn flying buttresses.

--

The kids didn't set out to smash the cake in each other's faces, but they both ended up with icing on their faces anyway.

--

It seemed that whenever the presence of all three bridesmaids was required, at least one was nowhere to be found. I spent a lot of time rounding up bridesmaids.

--

Someone decided it would be a good idea to take a photo of everyone from my father's family. It was an impressively large group. We may have set a record for neuroses per cubic inch.

--

When the wedding favors are votive candles, should they really be lit at the tables?

Smile

2005-12-29T23:20:00.000-08:00

What can I say about posing for pictures? We stood where the photographer told us to stand, with whom he told us to stand. Things went smoothly until the parents decided that whichever pictures involved them should be taken first, so that they could get back into the guests. The entire order of picture-taking dissolved. We didn't get the final bridesmaid photos until much later in the afternoon, by which point we looked like we'd been run ragged for the day. But more on that in time.

It was during the picture-taking that I noticed that both mothers had loosened up considerably. They were even... well, it looked like they were genuinely getting along. I couldn't tell if it was due to relief, a new sense of family togetherness, or champagne.

While we were taking photos, the guests were encouraged to head into the banquet room. Rather inexplicably, we attendants were then corralled into the reception area, which was empty except for the picked-over nosh table. The maid of honor and I managed to snag some limp melon. This did not bode well.

"I think I need more champagne," I said.

"Want a strawberry lemonade?" the maid of honor said, indicating her glass. "Well, it tastes like strawberry lemonade..."

"Sure, what the hell."

The maid of honor walked over to the bar, said a few words to the bartender, and returned with a glass for me. "Strawberry lemon drop. It's Grey Goose, triple sec and strawberry puree," she informed me. "First night I was here, I showed the bartender exactly how to make them."

I drank. It tasted remarkably like one of Amalfi's wild strawberry martinis, only a little more citrusy. I drank it down while the wedding coordinator and the deejay haggled over the order in which we'd be heading into the reception. Most of the rest of the attendants were working on more champagne. A little disappointingly, none of us were even tipsy. So, there was no choice but to be put into line, instructed on where to walk, and wait for the deejay and coordinator to get out of the way of the door.

Smile and walk, smile and walk.

Barflies

2005-12-29T22:55:00.000-08:00

After the ceremony, we attendants were corralled next to the bar to wait to have photos taken. Ironically, this put us at the greatest possible distance from the people pouring champagne.

"Dammit, I'm in the wedding! They should be giving me a steady stream of champagne!" B.'s sister declared, quite rightly.

Mom wandered through our area, trying to figure out why we were all standing around instead of taking pictures. One of the groomsmen finally managed to flag down someone with a tray of glasses. I took one.

A few guests came over to say hello to me. Either they were worried that I'd feel left out with all the attention going to my brother, or the crowd around the nosh table was too thick.

First up was a woman who falls into the "might as well be a relative" category. She said she told her nephew -- who I've known since birth -- that I looked beautiful. He sternly told her that she should use my given name, not my nickname. I assured her that I really don't care.

The best man watched her walk away. "Hey, is that [guest's name]?" he asked, a bit amazed. Oh, yeah, that's right -- she's also a politician of some prominence. Welcome to the neighborhood, even if it's in the next county south of where it usually is.

A couple of my parents' friends came over. It took me until halfway through the conversation for me to place them. Smile and nod, smile and nod. The woman gushed about what a great color that particular shade of blue was for me, how I should wear it more often, et cetera. Which was certainly nice, but I couldn't quite shake the suspicion that my mother had sent her over to sway me from wearing so much black.

And so it went until we were finally summoned back into the courtyard for photos.

(Damn Holidays)

2005-12-28T20:35:00.000-08:00

(Haven't forgotten. Just busy. Hoping to get more up tonight or tomorrow.)

Why Is This Ceremony Different From All Other Ceremonies?

2005-12-24T16:14:00.000-08:00

This is where cutting and pasting may become necessary. Details of the ceremony are going to be posted pretty disjointedly, and probably over a few entries. It's oddly fitting.

--

The important part: Yes, they got hitched. The woman voted most likely in her family to be a runaway bride stayed put.

(Spending the better part of the day standing or sitting between B.'s sister and cousin proved very informative.)

--

For all B.'s trepidation about the chuppa, it turned out to be quite lovely. It also provided some shade, which was a good thing. The weather cooperated, which isn't always a given in December. I think our east coast relatives are starting to see why half the family settled in California.

--

"Jewish tradition allows the bride and groom to celebrate before the rest of us," said the officiant from our side of things, producing a glass of wine.

G. took a drink.

B. took a drink.

"Seconds are permitted," said the officiant, who has come to know B. well.

B. took a couple more drinks.

She was in much better shape after that.

--

Remember how the maid of honor thought the best man was supposed to hold the groom's ring as well as the bride's?

As G. put the ring on B.'s finger, B.'s sister handed me her bouquet and went to take the ring off her thumb. It promptly fell and rolled... straight to the best man.

Thank goodness this was after the wine. B. even laughed.

--

It's very hard to keep a straight face when you're the middle of two bridesmaids, and all three of you have noticed that there's a bee hovering around the flowers on your side of things.

--

Our officiant read a few lines from Solomon's Song of Songs, first in Yiddish, then in English.

"That's beautiful," sighed B.'s cousin.

(If anyone's interested, I'll dig up the program and post the translations here. Just have to find the program first...)

I have noticed that it's the people who wear large cross pendants who are least likely to be familiar with the Song o' Sol. I think a lot of Christian Sunday school teachers gloss over it, hoping their charges won't open a bible and find eight chapters of very hot erotica right in the middle.

--

More to come...

Showtime

2005-12-22T21:10:00.000-08:00

We waited while the elevator made its ten-floor descent. The closer we got to the ground floor, the more hysterical B. became. When she came up with her father, I think she had a full-blown panic attack. We bridesmaids decided it would be a good idea to give her some space, so I didn't hear much more than, "What if I trip walking down the aisle?!" While her father and the wedding coordinator calmed her down, we milled around with the groomsmen. The other bridesmaid in blue found her husband and handed off the baby.

"[G.]'s cool as a cucumber," one of the groomsmen told me, as if this was news. "Well, we did have some Scotch. But he didn't need it."

"[B.] had a couple of glasses of champagne," I told him. "I don't want to think about what she'd have been like if she hadn't."

B.'s sister muttered something about B.'s high school graduation.

As people in the audience were starting to wonder what the heck was going on, B.'s father finally led her into position. She was still pretty shaky, but okay to walk. The coordinator gave us final instructions: The processional music wasn't all that long, so walk kind of quickly. She'd tell each bridesmaid/groomsman pair when to go.

The doors to the courtyard were open. The wedding coordinator took her position next to them. The first chords of "All You Need Is Love" wafted towards us. The coordinator waved us forward and sent the first pair on their way.

One of G.'s college friends and I were second. The coordinator counted to herself.

"Go now."

I pasted a pleasant smile on my face, took the groomsman's arm, and started the walk.

"Left foot first!" the coordinator stage-whispered, well after we'd started.

"Does it matter?" I asked my escort.

"I don't think so."

We got to the chuppa and went to our assigned spots. One of my cousins from my mom's side of the family mouthed to me, "You look beautiful!"

"I love that cousin," I whispered to the bride's cousin. "I can always count on her to tell me I'm gorgeous, no matter how I look."

We were soon joined by the maid of honor, who had a rather bemused expression on her face. G. stood there, looking, well, cool as a cucumber. The officiants stood on the platform on which the chuppa was erected.

And then B. and her father appeared at the door.

"Stand up," I heard someone in the audience hiss to whoever was next to them.

Everyone who hadn't been standing stood. B. deep-breathed her way down the aisle.

Showtime.

Suiting Up

2005-12-22T20:32:00.000-08:00

After all the stressing about people being late, the bride ended up showing up much later than planned. Her level of stress about her father's slow start eclipsed her state at the rehearsal -- pretty bad, but, to hear her cousin tell it, nowhere near as bad as she was at her high school graduation.

"[B.] and my aunt [B.'s mother] are pretty high-stress," she understated as she tended to her month-old baby. "[B.'s sister] and [B.'s father] are more laid back. I'm more like them." I guess when you have two little kids, that's a good personality attribute.

So, B. made it to the bride's room later than expected, mother in tow, nearly crying about how my parents had tried to waylay them on their way up. I called my father, who claimed that they were just trying to ask how B.'s mom was doing, like normal people do in a normal situation.

"This isn't a normal situation," I said. And repeated until it was time to get my hair done.

B. yanked out her phone, pushed a few buttons and held it out to me. "See what's up with my sister," she said tightly.

B.'s sister answered with a very calm, "My hair's done. I can come up whenever you want me to."

"It's [me]. I'm sure your sister will be glad to hear that," I responded.

"Is she totally freaking out?"

"Of course."

"I'll be up in a minute."

B.'s cousin, the other non-maid of honor bridesmaid, wanted to have her hair up, which would clearly take longer, so I had let her go first. While the woman doing our hair got to work on a freaking-out B.'s hair, her friend ("Don't call me your assistant!") went over mine. I've never understood why every hair-doer's inclination is to re-curl my hair, but there you go. So, I ended up with a head of slightly looser curls, pinned back on one side. Simple.

"It's funny," said the woman doing my hair. "You look just like [G.], but you sound just like [B.]."

B.'s sister finally showed up. She'd opted to do her own hair. Despite her sister's fears, it looked fine.

As the hour got later, B. freaked out more and more, despite our pointing out that the wedding couldn't very well start without her. She sat there, hysterically obsessing over everything that could go wrong, until we got her to drink some champagne.

B.'s sister did up my flying buttresses and the dress. (The other bridesmaid and I were in our assigned royal blue, but the MOH was in the champagne she insisted on. Just in case you were wondering.) Then we got B. into her dress, a production which required all three bridesmaids and the mother of the bride. From then on, B. couldn't go anywhere without her sister carrying the train.

B.'s dad kept popping in with stuff that had been forgotten. He was also trying to smooth things over with my parents after B.'s interpretation of their attempt to say hello. He may have been the day's hero.

B. told her sister to make sure she had the groom's ring. "Isn't the best man supposed to have this?" her sister asked as she took it. Remember that.

The wedding coordinator popped in and announced that it was time. And so we grabbed our bouquets and walked down the hall to the elevator: A wedding coordinator loaded down with clutch purses; a very stressed bride; a very laid-back sister of the bride, clad in a champagne strapless dress; a bridesmaid in a royal blue halter dress, pushing a pink stroller; a scattered mother of the bride; and me.

Saturday Night Way-Too-Live

2005-12-21T22:35:00.000-08:00

20-odd relatives and guests.

One banquet room.

The El Torito down the road from the Irvine Hilton will never be the same.

All of the people attending were from my father's side of things, which seemed to suit Mom just fine. These are the relatives that actually like hanging out with each other. I think it came out to seven or eight first-cousins from my father's generation, plus their spouses, a few of my cousins and second-cousins and their significant others, Dad's friends from the Bronx, and one very cute three-year-old boy who wanted to know all about my cats.

It's kind of funny how much of a character this kid is, and how obvious it is that he's One Of Us. I told one of Dad's cousins how I've tried to explain our clan to outsiders, but it's hard.

"I say that we just never left the sixties," she said.

"Plus there's that compulsion to fix things," I pointed out.

"Or break them," she shot back.

Anyway, the conversation with my three-year-old cousin may have been the most intelligent, insightful conversation I'd had with a single guy in weeks.

One of my cousins was in from Albany with his girlfriend. They had spent the day doing touristy stuff, and were bound and determined to drive through Hollywood after dinner. Never mind that Hollywood's about 50 miles north of Irvine. Compulsion is another family trait. I wish I'd seen more of this side of the family when I was growing up. My other relatives never quite understood that aspect of how G., Dad and I work.

I had to pick up some stuff after dinner. On my way back to the hotel, I was stopped in a "license and sobriety check" checkpoint. The officer looked at my license and asked if I'd been drinking tonight.

"I had a margarita about two and a half hours ago," I replied truthfully. "And I ate a lot."

He seemed satisfied with that. Some officer on the other side of the car wanted to know what was in a baggie in my purse. I think he was rather disappointed to find out that they were just batteries.

Anatomy Of A Goodie Bag

2005-12-21T22:28:00.000-08:00

Here's what ended up in the goodie bags:

1 liter bottle of Trader Joe's Natural Mountain Spring Water. (Fun fact: It's certified kosher.)
1 lb. bag Trader Joe's Tempting Trail Mix. (What makes it tempting? Peanut butter chips and Godiva chocolate chips. Plus nuts 'n' raisins 'n' stuff.)
1 4-piece box of Cheri's Desert Harvest Southwestern Candy. (I got Prickly Pear Cactus Chocolates.)
Deck of Yosemite National Park playing cards. (I think there were various decks, all featuring California parks, but I couldn't bring myself to care enough to check. Sorry.)
Invitation from my parents for dinner Saturday night and breakfast on Monday. (Food and nonalcoholic beverages on them; booze on the individual diner.)

It's All Coming Back To Me Now

2005-12-21T22:25:00.000-08:00

I tried to sit down and report the weekend's events in some sort of chronological order, but it just doesn't seem to be working that way. So the best way to go seems to be to post it in bits and pieces. If you want to cut and paste later, feel free.

Heading Back

2005-12-18T21:55:00.000-08:00

So, no dispatches from behind the Orange Curtain. That's some screwy broadband they've got going in the Irvine Hilton.

I'm still not quite home -- I'm sitting outside a Starbucks in Torrance, as it happens -- but I just wanted to assure everyone that I survived. I think everyone else involved did, too -- but, hell, they can get their own damn blogs.

Thanks for all of your well-wishes and good vibes. It was a long day, and I don't think I'm ever going to get all this hairspray out, but at least this phase of the process is over. The details will come once I'm thinking a bit more linearly.

Does anyone want a big blue satin dress? Only slightly used....

Heading In

2005-12-17T14:42:00.000-08:00

I'm writing this when I should be packing for the wedding. Not that there's much to pack; I'm only planning to stay in the hotel for one night, and I know what I'll be wearing for most of tomorrow. Anyway, the online traffic maps show the 405 looking pretty clear.

The rehearsal was last night. While I'd initially planned to take the whole day off and make a leisurely drive down to Irvine, I took a look at my bank statement and decided to work for a few hours first.

So, I headed out of the office thinking: Cool. I have about three and a half hours to get there. It's about 50 miles from Pasadena to Irvine. I've made this sort of drive on Friday afternoons in the past. There's no way it could possibly take longer than two and a half hours -- three at the most. Why, I'd even have time to make a quick stop to buy shoes (bless you, Target).

Uh. Yeah. The fuzzy thinking around this wedding has obviously affected my brain.

The rehearsal was scheduled to start at 6:30. Mom promptly called me on my cell phone.

"Where are you?" she asked.

"Um... I think I'm almost in Irvine."

"Why--"

"Don't start, Mom. I've been driving here for three hours. Do you know how to get to the hotel from the 5?"

"Why the hell did you take the 5? That's the slowest way you could go. You should have taken the 405."

"How was I supposed to get to the 405? I'm coming from work, Mom, not from home. Not a lot of options."

Someone tried to give her directions to give me, but I couldn't hear them over her seething at me. She finally snapped that they were starting without me.

"Fine," I said. "I'll see you when I get there." But she'd already snapped her phone shut.

I got to the hotel around 7, nearly bowling a couple of slow walkers over in my hurry to get to the courtyard. I found a very upset bride. Apparently, her mother was home with a fever, the deejay hadn't shown up, and everything was generally going to hell in a handbasket. "Nice of you to show up," she snapped at me.

"Sorry," I said. She whipped around to glare at someone else. The other bridesmaids rolled their eyes.

"She's been like this the whole time," her sister said. She didn't even bother to whisper.

The wedding coordinator barked an order for us to do the recessional so the processional could be practiced with music. So, really, I didn't miss much. I took the arm of whichever groomsman I'm paired with and we walked.

Six out of six attendants agree: This thing is out of control.

"I don't know why she's so stressed out," B.'s cousin, the other bridesmaid, said as we waited for B. to stop crying about whatever had set her off this time. "Everything that can go wrong at a wedding always goes wrong at a wedding."

I made another attempt to apologize to the bride. "I don't want to hear it," she said. Her sister shrugged.

We proceeded down the aisle again. We couldn't hear the music until we got to the area where the ceremony will take place. It was "All You Need Is Love." Later, B. and G. told me that they also plan to include "Eye of the Tiger." I'm not sure if that's the greatest thing I've ever heard, or exactly the opposite.

The couple and officiants ran through the ceremony. The photographer and my mother snapped pictures. The bridesmaids and I discussed how best to bring flasks in.

(Shoot. I'm packing and I have no idea where my flask is. I guess I can get another one, if I have time. Ha.)

After the run-through, B. and G. went off to confer with the wedding coordinator, and the rest of us milled around the bar and compared how long it took us to get there. Behind us, a group of people who looked to be a little older than my parents gathered round a piano and sang Christmas carols in the sort of harmonies that only a self-appointed choir can produce.

Eventually, we were done, and we went out to dinner at a nice restaurant a couple of blocks away. Once she had a drink, B. relaxed considerably. She even admitted that it took her and G. a lot longer to get there than they thought it would. She's just stressed, that's all. And this was without her mother there. I think we lucked out.

B. is still unhappy with standing under the chuppa. "I'm making compromises for him. He's not doing anything for me."

I considered pointing out that the heart of the ceremony is straight out of the Book of Common Prayer, which ain't so common in our parts, but decided against it.

Dinner for 17 people adds up quite quickly, it turns out. "You're drinking away your inheritance," Dad mock-grumbled.

"Oh, like we won't drink it away after we get it," G. said. His friends laughed. They know him, and they know B. Two drinks, and B. was totally gone. G.? He'll carry her up the stairs if he needs to. Ah, love.

Okay. I think I'm going now. Next dispatch will be from behind the Orange Curtain. Wish me luck.

Shoe Angst, Continued

2005-12-15T16:25:00.000-08:00

Tuesday night, I visited Shoe Pavilion and the largest Target I know of.

Yesterday, I hit a larger Shoe Pavilion, a DSW, and a major department store's shoe department.

The hunt continues.

During lunch today, I went to Payless. I figured that since they always have a little of everything, they must therefore have something resembling what I need which will hold up for the day.

So, after twenty minutes of carefully scrutinizing the selections in every shoe size that could plausibly fit me, I accosted a clerk.

"I need a closed-toe dress shoe without any appliques on it," I told her.

"Uh..."

"See, something like this," I suggested, picking up a sparkly shoe with a crocheted flower stuck to it. "Only without the flower."

She examined the shoe. "You could take off the flower, but then you'd have to cover up where the flower was."

"You see the problem."

She looked at me apologetically. "Have you tried next door?"

"Next door" was a shoe store that caters to women with wide feet, a description I happen to fit. I had gone in there first. Their selection of dress shoes was, as usual, limited. They had a couple of styles that looked like they would work, but on closer inspection were revealed to have clear vinyl affixed to the area where the foot goes. They would feel like plastic socks. Um... no.

Tonight I will hit another Target, Ross, Marshall's and the back of my closet. I will also attempt to finish the garter. I should probably call my parents to find out what time I'm expected for tomorrow evening's rehearsal. Oh, and I have to buy a bunch of stuff, like makeup.

I need a clone. With a separate, well-seeded bank account.

Shoe Angst

2005-12-14T17:16:00.000-08:00

It's the middle of December. It's the height of the holiday party season. It is, presumably, a bit chilly in most parts of the country.

So why is it so hard to find a pair of closed-toe shoes suitable for wearing with a big, shiny, royal blue dress?

Not that anything's inherently suitable, really -- but, geez. You'd think that if there were ever a time of year for that sort of shoe, this would be it.

I have a lovely pair of tan boots that I am very tempted to wear.

Jammed

2005-12-13T09:59:00.000-08:00

Did I say I was going to get the garter supplies on Saturday? I meant that Saturday was the day that I was going to start trying to find a store with aisles that weren't packed as tightly as the Sepulveda Pass at rush hour. During a rainstorm. With two lanes closed.

See, one of the problems with scheduling a wedding for a week before Christmas is that while everyone remotely involved with the wedding is running around buying last-minute things, everyone else in our corner of the world is doing their holiday shopping.

The regular stores are bad. The craft-supply stores... oy.

There seem to be two types of people in craft-supply stores this kind of year. There are the people who have a vague notion of making something, and can only solidify the notion by wandering through the aisles for inspiration. These are the people who will not finish their projects, and will end up buying everyone's gifts at Old Navy. Then there are the people who've already started their projects and have a prayer of finishing them on time if they can just get that one item they need. These types are analagous to the two types of people who always seem to be driving over the Sepulveda Pass in less-than-ideal conditions: The people who are naturally inclined to move very slowly and carefully, and the people who are naturally inclined to get the hell through and past the situation as quickly as possible. People with single balls of yarn tripping over people who are very carefully comparing spools of rick-rack may lack the drama of a ten-car pileup, but the effect is much the same.

Last night, I finally found a store with the supplies I needed. The aisles were still a little tight, but this was due more to poor layout than an 8:45pm run on ribbon. (Somewhere, there is a course in craft store layout in which students are instructed that any aisle or bin containing any sort of trim must have no more than ten inches in front of it. That is the only explanation.)

So, I bought the stuff, and plan to make the garter tonight. "Plan" is the operative word here; this is, after all, an endeavor related to B. & G.'s wedding. I'll do my best to document the project, though I woudln't be surprised if both my digital camera and my cell phone camera managed to be out of service during the actual process. Because, well, see above.

Eight Days

2005-12-10T13:34:00.000-08:00

In the length of time it takes to get through Chanukah or Passover, this will all be over. This phase of it, anyway...

B. had G. ask me if I wanted to get my hair done by the woman who's doing B.'s hair. I resonded that there's not much to be done with my hair, but it might as well be done by someone who can see the back of my head. I also included the warning that the hair woman would have to work with whatever degree of curl my hair happened to show up with that day. Attempts to loosen or straighten it are futile. Hey, the woman's doing this as a gift to the bride; I wouldn't want her wasting her time any more than necessary.

I'm told that I'm on my own for makeup. Why do I have this urge to go out and get a whole bunch of glitter?

Today's task: Head to craft supply store; buy supplies for garter. I did get a nice, respectable one at an actual lingerie store this week, but I have a feeling she'll prefer the cheap-o ones they have at Michael's. Eh. They're cheap. I'll get an extra one. And I'll try not to think about how the groom's sister getting the bride's garters is... well, kind of weird. But what about this wedding isn't?

Mishpokhe

2005-12-08T07:59:00.000-08:00

We were at an extended family thing this past weekend, and someone was trying to explain to B. how she fits into the puzzle of relations.

"I'm a cousin of the birthday boy, but on a different side," she said.

B. looked confused.

Dad tried to help: "She's mishpokhe."

B. looked downright bewildered.

G. and I did our best to define the term. "Mishpokhe" encompasses anyone you're related to, anyone they're related to, and anyone
they're related to. It's your whole extended family, including the people who aren't blood relations but are every bit as much a part of your family as the relatives. This particular cousin is someone we see at every event on that side of the family, and she and my parents get along famously, but she's not a close enough relative to be invited to B. & G.'s wedding. So, she's effectively family, which makes her part of the extended clan. Mishpokhe.

While B. was busy being relieved that there wasn't an invitee she didn't know about, I reflected on how different our perceptions of "family" are. Well, strictly speaking, that's not true; I was distracted by a magician's attempts to get my two-year-old cousin to participate in a trick. But then I started thinking about it.

B. comes from one of those families where everything's pretty clearly deliniated. Grandparents, parents, children, siblings, cousins, in-laws -- you know, the labels that can fit on a mug below the words "World's greatest" and above a sprinkle of hearts or baseballs. With us, it's a little more fluid.

"That guy? Okay, I've known him since birth, and his parents are like two aunts and an uncle to me and my brother, except these days he's more connected with my parents because they see each other at work-related stuff all the time. So, I guess he's kind of like a cousin that my folks sort of work with...."

The magician interrupted my reverie. "Has anyone seen the invisible card trick?"

Fortunately, our mishpokhe are generally good folks. Take the relative who has to have a kosher meal. His daughter was going to pick up something for him, but it turns out the hotel kitchen can't heat up outside food.

"But we want you to have a good time," my mother said, or at least words to that effect.

"Oh, don't worry about me. I never have a good time," he replied, as jovial as he ever gets. When he says he never has a good time, it's not an indictment of anyone or anything. It's simply a statement of fact.

This relative is on my father's side. My mother has an aunt who never has a good time, either. (This is the great-aunt to whom B.'s father had to profusely apologize for the lack of response card in her invitation.) If the aunt shows up (after, of course, saying she'll be there, and then calling that morning and saying that she doesn't feel well) my mother will be sure to introduce them.

The big bridal couple news is that they finally found an apartment. It's in one of those communities to which new residents feel compelled to attach a disclaimer: "It's in [let's say Springfield]. Springfield does have some nice parts."

B. is in love with the place. Two bedrooms, counter space in the kitchen, a nice little balcony -- "and water's included! I can take a
20-minute shower if I want to!" G. seems happy that they found a decent place that meets his storage space qualifications, that it isn't too far outside of their original price range, and that he doesn't have to live in my parents' guest room anymore. I thought about pointing out that their location guarantees an equally unpleasant commute for both of them, but that wouldn't have been nice.

B. was supposed to get some furniture from her grandmother, who's moving into a mobile home. However, her cousin -- the bridesmaid I haven't met -- is squatting at the house, and she and her husband can't very well be asked to leave immediately, what with a new baby and a toddler. I think B. and G. are taking a couch and a mattress from there. If the cousin weren't living there, they could take the fridge, too, but it looks like they have to get one. Can you guess how they're going to afford that? Take a wild guess. I'll give you a hint: It's the same way that they can afford to make the deposit on the apartment.

Meanwhile, I have an unexpected medical expense. I briefly considered asking the source of all funding for assistance, but I've a feeling my parents would protest that they already helped me buy a computer this year. Plus, I have this whole weird conviction that as a nominal adult, I should be able to cover the cost of my own life. Unexpected expenses? That's why I have a credit card.

At this point, I feel compelled to mention that my parents are not exactly billionaires. They're middle-class people at the end of long careers, and they've been careful with their money. They do have a little money from her parents, and Mom's dipping into that on the grounds that Grandpa loved a good party. (He did. He would have wholeheartedly approved. Grandma would have thought it was frivolous, but gone along with it.) Mom seems to think that as a parent, it's her duty to throw her children the kind of wedding that she wishes her parents had thrown for her. I'm obviously never going to give her a chance. If I ever get married, I'm doing it on my terms. While I wouldn't be doing this simply to spite my family, it might be a nice little side effect.

I think I'm going to play the "I have a year to send a wedding gift, right?" card. I know that that particular theory can cause etiquette mavens to turn very interesting colors. But if everyone else seems to buy into it, then it's a custom, and what's etiquette but codified customs?

My mother's comment: "Isn't [B.] supposed to give you a gift for being in the wedding?"

"Yes, but I still have to give them a wedding present. There's this whole gift economy thing."

My mother's solution: "I have a nice vase on the porch that I never use. You can wrap it up and give it to them."

"Mom, I can't just do that."

"Why not?"

I'm not sure whether she's oblivious, or on to something.

By the way, the above-mentioned magician took a liking to me and gave me an eight-person pass for the Magic Castle. Still have to pay the admission fee, but, hell, it's the Magic Castle. Who's in?

Home Stretch

2005-12-02T19:07:00.000-08:00

Miscellaneous notes as we head down the home stretch:

The RSVP deadline passed a little while back. All but two of our side's invitees had responded; the two who hadn't had misplaced their invitations but knew that they'd be seeing my parents within the next few days. Still, they apologized profusely.

B. and her mother have had to make a lot of phone calls. Mostly, it's people who haven't sent in their response cards (or figured out some other way to respond, I guess), and seem rather mystified that their answer might be needed in advance of the wedding. And then, of course, you have the relatives who included their daughter's name on their response card, despite the invitation having been addressed to the parents only. B. doesn't care how well-behaved the parents insist the six-year-old is. ("That probably means she can sit through an eight-hour evangelical thing at a sports stadium," B. said, rolling her eyes.) The policy is that if you're not old enough to drive, you're not old enough to be at this wedding.

Our only potential problem guest seems to be one of our few relatives who keeps kosher, and wants a certified-kosher meal. This is the relative whose midlife crisis was a turn to Orthodoxy. (Better than leaving one's wife for a Porsche, I suppose.)

"It's those darn born-again Jews," my brother said wryly.

"Yeah," I said, "but there's also Matisyahu. I think it all evens out."

--

At Thanksgiving dinner, Mom was going over the current count and trying to figure out if she could invite more people. How does that work, less than a month before a wedding? Do you go with, "I just noticed that you didn't get an invitation. I'm so sorry! I know it's late notice, but can you come?" Or perhaps you go with, "Guess what! There's room for you after all!" Or do you just say, "Look, I wanted to invite you all along, but my son and his fiancee and her parents were mean and wouldn't let me invite every single person I wanted at first -- but now we're getting RSVPs in and I get to invite some of the people who had to get cut at first. So can you come?"

--

I've figured out who B.'s mother reminds me of. You know the Weaver family on The Amazing Race: Family Edition? B.'s mother reminds me of the Weaver mother, minus Ma Weaver's constant praying.

--

I've decided against getting the dress altered. It's an acceptable length as-is, and I frankly don't care enough to get it nipped in anywhere else.

I still need to get shoes, not that anyone will see them. I may just wear whatever decent black shoes are near the top of my box o' nice shoes. Finally, an upside to wearing a floor-length dress: Sure, it's incredibly over-the-top for a Sunday morning wedding -- especially one which will be outdoors, weather permitting -- but at least it doesn't matter what I wear on my feet.

--

I know it's awfully petty of me, but I just keep thinking of how much this damn wedding is costing me. I got my mother to spring for the dress, and the folks are paying for my hotel room, but everything else is adding up. The flying buttresses. The shower gift. Having to take two days off of work, which means I don't get paid, because I'm a lowly contractor. Without getting into specifics, I'm going to be out about as much as I took home in a typical week at my last long-ish term job. Yes, I know that I'm lucky to have some of my expenses covered, and that I don't have to pay for air fare. That would have priced me out of it entirely.

("I understand taking Friday off so you can make the rehearsal, but why Monday?" Dad asked.

("Recovery," I replied.

("Can't you play Monday by ear?"

("It's easier for everyone if I can give a definitive answer ahead of time." And, really, what are the chances of me not needing recovery time?)

Meanwhile, I can't think of anything that the kids are paying for themselves, with the probable exception of rings and the license. Oh, they might be springing for the dance lessons. But I wouldn't bet on it.

I mean, I understand the situation, I guess: B. and G., being of modest means and generally not spotlight hogs (the latter description would be more properly applied to their sisters), set out to have a small wedding. Somehow, the parents took over. If the parents are the ones who've blown it up into this... thing, then, fine, let them pay for the overages. But wouldn't you at least want to pay for the basics? Otherwise, it's less your wedding and more a big ol' party your parents are throwing for family and friends, with you as the excuse to do it. At the very least, don't act surprised that that is what seems to be happening.

If I were a different kind of person, I'd keep notes on how much my parents are spending on this shindig and present the tally to them at the end. "You know how you said that you'd give me the same amount of money for my wedding?" I would say. "Can I have it now, please?"

It's really, really tempting.

--

Still no clue what to get them. I may use this opportunity to take up glass-painting. Everyone has to appreciate a hand-painted vase, right? Or a vase with stuff glued on it? Right?

--

If people give checks or gift certificates in multiples of 18, I wonder if G. will bother explaining to B. that this is a Jewish tradition, or if she'll just assume it's our family being wacky with the wedding date.

(For the uninitiated: Hebrew uses letters to stand for numbers. The letters that signify 18 -- chet, yod -- spell out "chai," which means "life". Many people wear jewelry with the word on it; it's rather like wearing an ankh, only far less trendy. "Chai" is pronounced like you are trying to clear your throat and say "hi" simultaneously, and should not be confused with the differently-pronounced beverage. It is very hard to drink a word.)

--

The kids are still looking for somewhere to live. G. is still adamant that he wants a two-bedroom place for less than most one-bedroom places cost, and B. doesn't want to drive any farther than she absolutely has to. Why, yes, B. is still working two to three days a week in Santa Ana, and, no, she doesn't have any inclination to look for a similar job in Los Angeles County.

Sometimes, it looks like they're so used to having a long-distance relationship that they're not quite sure how to go about this whole "together forever" thing.

--

Party in my hotel room the night before. Seriously. If you're going to be anywhere in southern California in two weeks, you're invited. Bring the libation(s) of your choice. I don't think the mini-bar is going to suffice.

Shower Trek

2005-11-23T18:28:00.000-08:00

"This is a catastrophe!" Mom screamed, though I'm sure she just thought she was speaking loudly.

"Why is this a catastrophe?" I asked.

"Because I don't like being late!"

"See, I usually reserve words like 'catastrophe' for big natural disasters in which thousands of people die, not for being late to a wedding shower."

I freely admit that it was my fault that we got on the road late on Sunday. My apartment: Three people, one bathroom. Sometimes the math doesn't work out in favor of punctuality. Mom had wanted to leave at noon to make a one o'clock event in Corona, which is... not next door. It's about an hour away if there's no traffic, a condition which I hear was in effect one Tuesday morning at about 3:05. Though Mom had already decided that the day was ruined, the fact is that my being ten minutes late wasn't actually going to make a big difference in the scheme of things.

The big problem came when I got on the freeway. Thanks to Mom's constant stream of blame ("You should have taken a shower at our house," she said many times, as if it made sense; for starters, if I can't get into my bathroom to swap my glasses for my contacts, I have no depth perception and therefore am not too keen on driving across town), I decided I was going to try to bypass some traffic. Mom was too busy yelling at me for being late to scream at me that I needed to get over one more late until it was too late to do anything about it. And then she was too busy yelling about that to tell me that I needed to get over more to the right if I was going to catch the first exit. And once I got off the freeway in an effort to find an on-ramp for the opposite direction, Mom was too busy yelling at me about -- well, everything, really -- to be any help in finding an on-ramp.

After ten of the longer minutes of my life, Mom angrily pulled out her cell phone. "Well, I guess I'm going to have to tell them we'll be late," she spat. She called Dad and yelled about how he was going to have to call G. to call B. to say we'd be late because of my "dumbfuck move" until Dad finally broke in with the location of the proper on-ramp.

We finally got on the freeway, which, of course, was jammed. As I so often do, I took out some of my aggression on the brakes.

"Quit wasting my gas!"

"I'm just trying to--"

"That was really stupid, trying to get around the traffic. Now we're going to be late."

I clenched my jaw. It stayed that way for much of the afternoon.

"You know, I don't think her family's really in any position to complain about us being a little late," I pointed out. "I mean, this is what happens when people have to come all this way to something. And weren't they three hours late to dinner at your house?"

"But they're at a restaurant. They probably only have the room for a certain amount of time."

"Fine, so I'll go in there and tell them it was all my fault."

"Good, because it was. That was really fucking stupid of you to..."

And so on. And so on.

It was tempting to do what she would have done were the roles reversed, and yell out, "Don't hak me a tschaynik," but I knew she would have just spent the next five miles correcting my pronunciation of her favorite Yiddish admonishment. ("Hak me a tchaynik" literally means something like "rattle a teapot at me". In its idiomatic sense, it means to rattle on and on about something. Yiddish rocks. Oh, and Mom? Pot, tschaynik, schvartse.) Instead, I finally said, very calmly, "I heard you the first fifty times. Unless you have a time machine in your purse, please be quiet about it, because there's nothing we can do about it. I have accepted the reality of our situation."

That actually kept her quiet for a little while. Eventually, we got to a point where it was very clear that had we left on time and made no errors, we would still have been quite late.

We finally made it to the restaurant at 2. Mom started in all over again.

I played my trump card: "You know, at least I'm not twenty-eight and living in my parents' guest room."

"He didn't have time to find a place before he moved out here."

"Please. If it had been me, I would have stayed with you for a month, tops. He's been there for three months already."

She started to say something about how it took a while for G. to start getting paid, but she knew I was right. If I were in his situation, I would've found a way to leave, even if it meant saying, "You know, I appreciate your spending so much money on the wedding and giving us our honeymoon as a wedding gift, and I know it's terribly impolite of me to ask this, but could I maybe get the honeymoon money in the form of a loan so I can get out of here already?"

We walked into the restaurant. I found the room in which the shower was taking place and announced that our tardiness was all my fault, and that I was very sorry. Probably to Mom's disappointment, people understood about the traffic and were just glad that we'd made it safely. Anyway, they were still eating, so it wasn't like we'd held them up or anything.

The shower was attended by B., her sister, her mother, her grandmother, me, Mom, my aunt, B.'s officiant, and, sitting at the end of the table clearly wondering what they were doing there, B.'s father and grandfather. B.'s mother was hopped up on cold medicine. This probably spared us several scenes.

The shower wasn't too bad, but I could be saying that because I am apparently the queen of wedding shower games. Admittedly, it was hard not to come up with a pile of prizes when B.'s sister had prizes for the top three finishers in each contest, but still. After winning three games in a row, I tried to take myself out of the running, but no one would hear of it. When all was said and done, my ability to draw with my eyes closed, remember details of what B. was wearing, dig up a lot of stuff from my purse and not say my brother's name netted me four little bags, each of which contained a handful of Hershey's Kisses and a fruit-scented toiletry from the dollar table at Michael's. I would've gone five for five if B.'s mother had been a better construct of toilet paper wedding dresses. Not that I'm competitive or anything. I'm just saying.

Somewhere in the course of the afternoon, it was determined that I would be procuring B.'s garters. I honestly have no idea whether I offered or was drafted. Whatever. I might as well do something bridesmaidy besides wear that dress. B. said she wants two: One to wear and one to throw. The former should be simple; the latter can be as crazy as I want it to be. Oh, dear. B. still doesn't know better than to tell me that? Sequins, feathers and glitter lace, coming up!

Though it could have been the cold medicine, I think B.'s mother has decided that I'm the one reasonable person in my brother's family. Amazing what attempting to stay the hell out of things has done for my reputation. There's probably a lesson for me in there somewhere.

"Twenty-nine days," I commented to B. on my way out.

"Don't say that! It's four weeks! If I think of it in weeks, it sounds like I still have time to get everything done."

Everything minus procural of garters, one would suppose.

The drive back up to L.A. was better than the drive down to Corona, but I still got several lectures about how I should attempt to maintain a slow creep through slow traffic. I lay off the brake and dug my nails into the steering wheel instead.

My jaw hurt for days. Other than that, I escaped unscathed, and richer to the tune of many Hershey's Kisses and enough artifically-scented bath products to keep me smelling like an obnoxiously perky fruit basket for weeks, should I so desire. Which I don't. But, hey. Chocolate.

Early Returns

2005-11-17T21:19:00.000-08:00

B.'s father has been compiling the RSVPs -- such as they are, given that half the invitations didn't have response cards included and that checking the PO box seems to be an occasional afterthought.

I saw an email from him in which he listed the responses he'd collected so far, and then went on to profess utter surprise that removal of some of the response cards could be construed as somehow mean-spirited. After all, B.'s mother removed them from her family's "will not come" invitations, too. I guess the logic there is that if the means of responding were removed from both sets of WNC invitations, it's not a snub against either one, and therefore is fine and dandy and acceptable.

B.'s mother has managed to give our families something in common: A whole lot of confused, bemused and/or just plain pissed-off relatives.

Actually, most of my relatives are taking it in stride. On my father's side of things, everyone's pretty much shrugging and saying, "Okay, I'll call or email you when I know if I'm coming." They understand that These Things Happen. Mom's family... that's another story. When we were compiling the invitations, there was one great-aunt discussed at length as an example of people who wouldn't come but absolutely, positively, absopositivelylutely, must be invited. You'd think that B.'s mother would have remembered that name and at least left the response card in that one.

"You don't want me there!" the great-aunt wailed to Mom, launching into a screeching rant about her response card-less invitation. Gee, wonder where she got that idea.

Wisely, B.'s father sent her a response card enclosed in a note of apology.

A set of Mom's cousins is upset because one of their names got left off the invitation. Mom had been told that this particular cousin would not be able to make it, and so quite logically -- to her -- only invited her husband and adult kids. Yeah, I don't get it either. In any case, I don't think it's worth demanding a second, correctly-addressed invitation over. And these are Mom's low-maintenance cousins.

Meanwhile, many B.'s "will not come" relatives seem to be confirming their attendance out of sheer spite.

This is gonna be fuuuuuuuuuun.

I think I'm so stressed by this wedding because I seem to be the only person involved who's thinking three moves ahead. Just about everyone else is thinking day-to-day, with the occasional flash of foresight. By now, even if I don't know a particular player's motives, I know their patterns of behavior. Tell me who's involved, and I can predict how a given situation will play out way down the road. Really, you'd think I would be better at chess.

It's easy for me to judge, of course. I have the advantage of perspective, and I know better than to offer my superior insights unsolicited. Everyone else is so sure that they're doing the right and proper thing that even asked-for advice tends to fall on deaf ears.

The scary thing is that things could have been so much worse. It turns out when the wedding date was picked, there was a good chance that B. would be in school in another state this December, and that G. would have a job at the same institution. The plan was to have been for her to finish her finals that Friday, jump on a plane, and get married two days later. I'm sure B. and G. thought that they could take care of everything long-distance and have their parents deal with on-site stuff per their instructions. Nice thought, but have they ever met their respective mothers? Never mind that; have they ever been anywhere remotely near a wedding before? Things are never that cut-and-dried, even when people listen to each other.

But, hey, what do I know? I'm just the sibling of the groom.

A note to those of you in L.A.: That writing class I've mentioned? We have a "hey, look what we wrote!" show on Monday, November 21. My monologue will sound quite familiar to regular readers. But, heck, the show's free, so it's not like you'd be paying for a song you already have. Wanna come? If you aren't on my shameless plug list, email me at siblingofthegroom at gmail dot com and I'll forward the info.

Buttressed

2005-11-15T23:21:00.000-08:00

I am now the owner of what may be the least attractive undergarment in the history of undergarments.

Obtaining it was approximately on a par with the day's earlier visit to the dentist. The dentist had some kick-ass numbing stuff and worked quickly, but the under-dress architecture was on sale.

After taking my measurements and mercifully skipping the lecture about how I was wearing the wrong sized bra, the bra-fitting woman rummaged through the vast storeroom of Wizard of Bras and returned with two strapless selections. One was almost pretty and had a nice waistline, but it came up a bit too high for the dress. The one I ended up getting is... white. Plain. Functional. Does nothing for the figure. If I have to wear an undergarment that comes down to the bottom of my waist, I'd prefer to have something to show for it besides stationary boobs, but there you go.

Not that it matters anyway. I seriously doubt that anyone else is going to see the thing.

One thing I will say for the flying buttress set: It comes with garters. With a little ingenuity, I think I can rig up a couple of flask-holders.

Conversation With My Mother

2005-11-11T14:08:00.000-08:00

I stopped by my parents' house the other night in order to retrieve my bridesmaid's dress. I have a dentist appointment this Saturday, and what better way to finish off the afternoon than the fun of getting squeezed into heavily boned undergarments?

Mom, of course, sees things differently. Strapless? "You'll look so glamorous!" Yeah, um, there's a reason I don't usually wear stuff that requires special undergarments: Looking glamorous is nice and all, but I prefer to breathe.

"Why didn't you just tell her that you weren't going to wear a strapless dress?" Mom asked.

"Because I'm a bridesmaid. Part of my job is to wear what the bride tells me to wear. I'm not going to be the Bridesmaid from Hell. She's already got her sister doing that."

Mom thinks I'm being too negative about this whole experience. "You've decided that you're not going to have a good time," she said.

"Mom, I can't even get anyone to come with me to the wedding. And, frankly, I don't know that I'd want to leave any of my friends to fend for themselves in the middle of everything."

"Our relatives are very friendly people," Mom pointed out.

"That's not going to help when we eat. I'm in the bridal party. I have to be at the head table. So does anyone I bring. I will probably have to keep getting up from the head table. Our friendly relatives won't be anywhere near that table."

"Why are you setting yourself up like that? Why can't you just relax and have a good time?"

"Because I know I'm going to spend the whole time running around taking care of whatever comes up." (Plus, I may not be able to breathe.)

"That's not your job."

"Mom, that's what I do. In any event, unanticipated things come up, and someone has to take care of them. Who else is going to do it? One of the other bridesmaids will be recovering from surgery, and the other is [B.'s sister]. Her sister's not going to be much help, because it's not about her, and because she's bringing two friends with her. She'll be too busy with them."

"Why does she get to bring two guests?"

"Because she's [B.'s sister]."

It's so cute when Mom expects things to have rational explanations.

Someday, when I have all the wedding-related brainspace back, I think I'm going to work on tweaking ELIZA to emulate a conversation with my mother. The original is actually pretty close. I'd just have to throw in some sighs, eye-rolls and tangentially-related asides. The resulting MOM chatterbot would be slightly more responsive than ELIZA, yet leave a user with the distinct feeling that they need to reacclimate to the real world.

Cake: Taken

2005-11-06T12:24:00.000-08:00

And now, that thing I promised to write about.

Dad got a couple of very strange emails the other day. They were from people who wanted to RSVP, but were unsure how to go about it, because their invitations included no response cards.

The logical conclusion would be that somehow, a couple of invitations made it past the rigorous quality assurance process sans response cards.

Occam's razor can't even begin to slice this one.

As previously mentioned, B.'s parents took the invitations to mail. They were short a few stamps, so it made sense to let them take the box, stamp the remaining envelopes, and mail all of the invitations at once. The ensuing hostage situation was out of deep left field, but it seemed to have been resolved.

Well. It turns out that while the invitations were being held, one of B.'s father's coworkers mentioned something about writing numbers on response cards, so that if someone forgot to put their name on a card they'd know who it was from. Thinking, perhaps, that this seemed like a sensible idea, B.'s mother decided to open all the invitations, number the response cards, and re-seal the envelopes. Okay, that was out of the parking lot beyond left field, but there was a certain logic to it. Shouldn't have mattered in the end.

Except that when B.'s mom opened up the envelopes, she took out the response cards for the people on our list who were listed as "not coming".

Let me repeat that.

B.'s mother removed the response cards.

From wedding invitations.

I'm sure she felt completely justified in doing so; after all, the people in question would absolutely, definitely, beyond-the-shadow-of-a-doubtly be conveying regrets. Why bother? Especially when there were perfectly good stamps in there?

Admittedly, I am speculating about the stamp part. But if she wasn't taking the stamps, then she was doing it for the sole purpose of making extra-damn sure that our side's attendance stayed down, and that's just...

I can't even think of a word. We're no longer talking "out of left field" -- we're in "so far beyond left field, it's like she wrapped around the world and appeared to come out of right field" territory.

Dad has been responding to emails as diplomatically as possible, explaining that the actual mailing of the invitations was out of my parents' hands. What else can he say, really? "My son's marrying someone whose mother is even crazier than the one he already has"?

We have no idea if any of the sent-out response cards have been returned. According to B., her mother doesn't check the post office box on a daily basis. (Even when expecting RSVPs? Apparently.)

I have turned the master list-keeping reins over to Dad. My guess was right: B.'s father is going to be the one in the best position to compile the data, which he will send to Dad. The fewer hops the data has to take, the better.

I used to wonder why B. always had Thanksgiving dinner with us, even that year that G. was out of town. What kind of family situation would make her prefer the relative peace and sanity of ours?

I'm starting to get an inkling.

Thank goodness for my aunt, reminding me that my family is, in fact, all-around nuts by loudly complaining that B. and G. hadn't registered for anything she considered suitably expensive. And for my mother, replying that if she goes online, she can get the more expensive stuff for something like thirty percent off. I was starting to worry that we were slipping.

A Line In The Asphalt

2005-11-04T13:07:00.000-08:00

(Now with an update. Wheeeee!)

Mom called last night.

"Have you heard anything about the shower? It's supposed to be in a couple of weeks, but no one's got their invitations."

"Nope," I replied. "The shower is [B.'s sister]'s thing. All I know is the date and the general geographic area."

"Well, have you heard anything from [B.'s sister]?"

"Nope. She put herself in charge of the shower. She hasn't asked me for any help." And I don't want to seem like I'm trying to infringe on something to which someone on B.'s side has vocally laid claim, I added silently to myself, although I was not the person involved in this conversation who needed to hear it.

Mom sighed.

"I've stepped in and solved a lot of problems already," I reminded her. "This one's all on [B.'s sister]."

Yes, I have drawn a line in the asphalt, somewhere around the point where the 405 crosses the OC county line. I will prod, cajole and placate to keep blood from being shed at the actual wedding. I'm kind of involved by default. But the shower? The event for which B.'s sister said we didn't really have anything to discuss other than the time of day, because she'd take care of everything? The event which will require me to get up far too early and drive well over an hour, because if I hadn't pointed out that people would be coming from quite a bit away in several directions then B.'s sister would have set a time that would have easily tripled the travel time (yes, even on a weekend)? I'm done. If B.'s sister asks me to do something, then I'll do it, because that's part of being a bridesmaid -- but I'm not going to track her down via B. and nag her. If and when I receive an invitation, I will purchase a cheap-but-lovely gift and ferry it to the shower. The invitation list was pretty short to begin with. As one of the few (presumed) invitees who knows about the (presumed) shower in advance of the (presumed) date, attendance may be sparse. B. ought to have something to open there, if only so that she can take out her agression on the gift wrap.

I was tempted to speculate on whether B.'s sister was cutting this close to get attention or what, but then Mom told me about something else. And it's something so... bizarre that I'm going to have to hold off on posting it until I can devote a little more time to writing it up properly. Sorry for the cliffhanger, but I think you'll find it worth it.

(Whatever you're imagining it involves? You're not even close.)

Update

Later, G. brought home shower invitations for me and Mom. It was claimed by someone in B.'s camp that they didn't have my address. (It's so darn hard to ask -- or, worse, look it up on one's own.) There was no excuse offered for why Mom's hadn't been sent. G. says he's told that the rest of the invitations have been mailed. I can't help but suspect that they're still sitting in B.'s sister's car.

Interestingly, the shower is noted as being given by B.'s mother. B.'s sister is not mentioned.

Odd. You'd think that someone who's apparently such a stickler for etiquette that she advocated rather archaic wording for the invitation would have thought it unseemly for a mother to throw her daughter a wedding shower. You'd think that even if her daughter dropped the ball, she'd still put B.'s sister's name on the invitation, just for appearances. Hmm. B.'s sister is living with her parents for a few months; perhaps she did do the necessary legwork on the actual shower, but B.'s mother thought that the sister wouldn't be around enough to warrant being the person asked for by callers.

When all of this is over, I'll probably be able to look back on these entries and discern people's motives. At least, I hope so. I don't really care why people are doing the things they're doing; I just want to know why they're doing them. (Cf. Bob Dylan.)

Release

2005-10-31T20:50:00.000-08:00

It seems that the invitations have been released into the wild. I only know this because Dad mentioned that a couple of people have mentioned that they've received them. I have no way of independently confirming this, as no one has reported any RSVPs to me, the Keeper of the Master List.

As the response cards are going to B.'s parents' house, I suspect that if I am actually provided with any response information, it will come through B.'s father. While B.'s mother is on the phone, either complaining about Mom or to Mom (and vice versa, for that matter), B.'s dad will quietly look at the responses and email the information to Dad, who will tabulate and forward to me on a regular basis.

If this is not how it works out, it's still how it should work out, because, frankly? At this point, I'm not sure I'd trust a report from either mother. Even plain old simple numbers would be invested with spin and counter-spin.

A couple of my parents' oldest friends won't be able to make the wedding, because they didn't realize it was going to be a morning affair, and they are otherwise committed for the afternoon. I get the distinct impression that they expected an evening wedding, which to me seems rather unlikely for a wedding taking place on a Sunday that's not followed by a Monday holiday. Factor in the fact that people will have to drive in from far and wide, and that it would probably be a good idea to get the main reception stuff over in time for those people to stop at a bar, get drunk and sober up before their drive home, and I think you're looking at a start-time window of 11am to 1pm. But, hey, what do I know? Every time I think something about this endeavor makes sense, I find three things that don't. While it would be nice to have those people there, I'm just glad that the potential for attendance figure-related inter-maternal drama has decreased in direct proportion to two negative responses.

The other night, an old friend of mine suggested I take a deep breath and release all the wedding stress to the universe -- or at least to my family -- and just show up at the rehearsal. Really, it's supposed to be that easy? I'd think anyone who's known me for as long as she has would be a little more familiar with the realities of my family's dynamics by now. I could walk away, but the fact of my walking away would utterly fail to register. How do I know? Because it's never registered before, and no one's had any drastic personality changes since the last time I tried. Better for me to just go with it, and continue to post these dispatches from the front.

I was just looking over the pieces I've written for this class I've been taking the past few months. The plurality of them are about being thrust into wedding hell. Gee, wonder why...

Fly, little invitations! Fly!

Hostage Situation

2005-10-20T19:31:00.000-07:00

When we last saw the invitations and guest list, B.'s parents had the box of addressed and stamped envelopes, and I'd assembled the information on various bits of paper into some sort of master list. The total number of people expected to respond "yes" came to four under the seating limit. I went home and whimpered.

Dad called me this morning. It seems that B.'s mother called -- last night, probably -- and is very, very upset that I left two names (representing three people) off the guest list. I don't know if she thought that this was intentional on my part; it was certainly inevitable, given what I had to work with. Anyway, B.'s mother complained that our side invited too many people, and it sounds like she's not going to mail the invitations until this gets sorted out.

Yes, B.'s mother is holding the invitations hostage.

Dad has done his best to assure her that this isn't going to put us over the limit. He knows that two of his relatives who he thought would come can't make it, and he's pretty dubious about another. I don't know that it helped.

Dad spoke with the contact at the hotel. It turns out that the cake can be placed on a smaller table, which technically gives ten more seats to work with.

"Don't tell Mom," I said.

Too late.

Dad's the first to agree that Mom's gotten more than a little carried away, but he's trying to keep a lid on things. B.'s father seems to be trying to do the same thing with B.'s mother. The two fathers have taken to emailing each other under the radar.

"Why am I getting pulled into all this?" I asked. "I'm not the one getting married. I'm the groom's sister."

"You're doing what you can," Dad answered.

"But that's the thing. For some reason, I've been designated the neutral party. I'm the one who gets to deal with the address list and try to convince the maid of honor to shut up and wear what her sister wants her to wear. I think I'm going to have to start charging."

Dad laughed sympathetically.

"I'm serious," I said.

Conveniently, Dad had to leave for an appointment.

Maybe I'll just credit the time toward a wedding gift. Though if this continues for another two months, they'll actually owe me some towels.

Friday Night: The "Highlights"

2005-10-18T20:42:00.000-07:00

I'm in the process of writing up a summary of Friday evening. It's very long, and almost exhausting as the actual event. I may even post it at some point. For now, here are the essential highlights:

Everyone got along just fine through dinner. It was when we sat down to do the invitations that all hell broke loose.

Mom is still insisting on sending them to far too many people, which seems to have caused B.'s mother to snap in a very particular way. While her objections are justifiable, the confrontation was not pretty.

Because I have this complex about trying to solve everyone's problems, I suggested that we combine all lists and see how many people were actually getting invited. B. jumped on this, saying that at this point, I'm the only one she trusts to do it. I think this means that I have been crowned the most neutral, trustworthy and -- get ready to laugh -- sane person involved in this whole mishegas.

The initial combined list had about 30 too many people. B.'s mother's reaction was... strong.

The mothers retreated to their corners and figured out which invitees almost certainly wouldn't be coming. That took the list down to just under the maximum number of people the room can hold. B.'s sigh of relief very nearly drowned out Mom's delusion that if too many people respond "yes," a way can be found to shoehorn them in.

Mom has decided that she must take all the out-of-towners out for dinner the night before the wedding, and provide a breakfast spread on one of the mornings. Why? I think it's because she's seen it done at a couple of particularly lavish weddings on my father's side of the family -- you know, like the one where the floral budget was roughly equivalent to the gross national product of Cambodia. She has extended the invitation to anyone visiting from B.'s side, but I don't know if they actually have anyone coming in from out of town and staying at the hotel. In reality, it's mostly for our relatives -- more specifically, the relatives from Dad's side. Now, she didn't exactly consult with B. and G. on this, and she's already upset that they aren't planning on dropping everything to put in an appearance at the night-before dinner -- which is not the rehearsal dinner. That's happening two nights before, and B.'s mother is absolutely insisting that the groom's family is supposed to pay for that. Which I guess might be true under some schemes, but it was phrased as an indictment of my mother's decision that she must feed everyone around the clock. B., G. and I basically agree with B.'s mother, but there are certainly nicer ways of putting it.

B. had a total meltdown at one point. She's tired of people deciding things about her wedding without even telling her, especially when there wouldn't be a party if it weren't for her and G.; she's pissed that even when it's taken up her dress is going to be too long, meaning she'll have to wear heels instead of flats; she doesn't want as big a wedding shower as the mothers do; and, at this point she's not even sure she wants to get married, not if she has to go through all this.

Had I a death wish, I would have pointed out that the timing of this wedding insured that she would end up out of the loop on some things. If she and G. wanted to feel like they actually had some control over their wedding, then they might have held off on setting a date until B. was done with finals and G. was living in the same city. But for some reason, they decided that they absolutely had to get married this December. They should have seen the consequences a mile away.

But they didn't consider the consequences, and my goal is to get out of this thing alive.

B.'s sister is still being stubborn about the dress. She wants to hold off on getting it. She wants to wear gold. When it looked like B. would be wearing a gold dress, B. talked her into wearing blue like the rest of us. Now that B.'s sister has found out that G.'s vest will be silver, she has declared that she is wearing champagne. Oh, and she's boycotting David's Bridal, because they're overpriced and what is she going to do with the dress when she goes overseas in a few months? If I hadn't heard from all sides that she was determined to be difficult, I might have taken her objections at face value. I carefully said, "As far as I'm concerned, my job as a bridesmaid is to wear what the bride wants me to wear and stand where they tell me to stand." B.'s sister shrugged that off. It is now officially back to being B.'s problem.

I know. None of this should be my problem. Those of you who've met my family will understand the futility of that sentiment. The rest of you... well, by now, you probably understand it, too.

So, that's the overview. Details may follow if I can type them up coherently.

Whimper

2005-10-14T23:41:00.000-07:00

Just kill me now.

Description of the evening's events to come when I'm past feeling like I want to curl up and hide under a bed. A bed that's far, far away.

*whimper*

Pregame

2005-10-14T17:35:00.000-07:00

Things were supposed to get started about half an hour ago.

About fifteen minutes ago, B.'s parents called. They left their house in Orange County at 3 o'clock, and after over two hours on the road were still only a little more than halfway here. Mom piped up that they should've just got off at some street or other -- which would be great if a) they had a time machine and b) they were at all familiar with things on this side of the Orange Curtain. Neither of which is the case, apparently.

B. just got off the phone with another update.

"They're still at Hacienda, they've been on the road for two and a half hours, and they all have to go to the bathroom," she reports.

"They should look for alternate routes," my mother says.

Thanks, Mom. Really helpful. Almost as helpful as... oh, I don't know... scheduling this thing at 5 o'clock on a Friday afternoon. Because if there's one thing you can depend on in this wacky town, it's that there will be traffic on all freeways at 5 o'clock on a Friday afternoon. Your best time for getting between L.A. and O.C. is probably Sunday morning, but heaven forbid anyone ask me for input.

"My mother's really not too thrilled about sitting in a car for all this time on her birthday," B. says.

Ya think?

B. and G. have taken advantage of the time to meet with the photographer. Alone. Mom has been kept occupied by flipping through the photographer's album.

"What was the bride thinking, putting her mother in that dress? You can see every roll of fat!"

"Maybe the mother of the bride picked it herself," I suggested.

"Well, I guess some people just don't have an accurate perception of themselves," says the woman without an accurate perception of herself.

Oh, dear. Now Mom has cornered B. and suggested that since B. still has all four grandparents, they should be extra-sure to take pictures with them. Because, you see, the only picture she has of one of her grandmothers was taken at a wedding. And also, they should take pictures of everyone, because my cousin let's-call-him-George's mother failed to order any family-group photos at his wedding, and see this picture?

Even halfway across the house, I know which picture Mom's pointing to. It's from George's wedding. There are about eight women from our family, arms around each other, smiling from the dance floor. I am next to my cousin let's-call-her-Michelle, who passed away about 18 months later. Due to both the angle and Michelle's lean build, I look very fat. And because I'm next to Michelle, who my mother has practically fetishized in death, there's no chance of cropping myself out of the photo.

"We call this the Chorus Line picture," my mother says, using the royal "we". "This is the only picture we have of all of us together. Who would've thought that one of the young ones would be the first to die?"

B. excuses herself. Mom tries to get G. to make the salad right now, even though B.'s parents are over an hour away. I sit here with the calm cat, wondering where my mother got the notion that the groom's mother is in charge of ordering photo groupings.

It's going to be a long evening, isn't it?

A Truly Pressing Question

2005-10-13T19:29:00.000-07:00

When one is facing a day that includes at least one job interview, the Future Mishpocha Schmooze 'n' Send, and a post-that excursion yet to be determined (current front runner: Oktoberfest), what does one wear?

I have two go-to outfits for this sort of situation. I wore one to interviews last week and one to Kol Nidre last night. I suppose I could go home at some point and change, but that would be awfully time-consuming -- and if I'm going to maintain a serene countenance tomorrow evening, I'm going to need all the practice time I can get.

I know, we should all have such problems.

In other news, today I remembered why shopping for architectural undergarments is not a solo endeavor. Ow.

Birthday Party Follow-Up

2005-10-10T18:21:00.000-07:00

B. and G. were hampered by bad colds last week, and thus did not make it to my birthday shindig. I realize that this all seems a little too convenient, but I swear I had nothing to do with it.

Thanks, Mom

2005-10-06T10:23:00.000-07:00

My mother has invited G. and B. to my birthday party. No, she has no authority to do this. Has this ever stopped her before?

I give it 50/50 odds that he'll show up, and slightly lower odds that she will. If they do, remember: Blog? What blog? There must simply be someone else out there who's going through exactly what I'm going through! Mid-December is too a popular time for weddings! And, really, how odd is it that our birthdays would be at the same time of year? There are only a few hundred days to choose from, after all, and doubtless there are millions of beleaguered bridesmaids out there. As long as the kids are there, the math falls firmly in favor of this not being me. That's our story and we're sticking to it. It's for our safety.

Thanks, Dad

2005-10-04T14:11:00.000-07:00

In order to fully appreciate the following exchange, you need to know the following:

For the past couple of months, I've had sporadic work in a location much closer to my parents' house than to mine, the result being that I've spent more than a few nights there in an effort to save money on gas. (As you may have already figured out, sanity is not a high priority for me these days.)
The past few Friday nights that I've ended up spending at the homestead, I've come in at 3:15am, 2am and 2:30am.
My father goes to bed by 10pm.

So:

I mentioned something to Dad about not being thrilled about the upcoming Friday Night Insanity Exchange. (Like it? I'm trying out titles.) It's not so much the event itself as the part where the kids cleared the date and time with everyone except me.

"Don't go there," he growled.

"What? It's not like I don't ever have anything to do on a Friday night."

"You really don't want to go there. You don't have anything planned for that night."

"What makes you so sure?"

"You don't ever have anything planned ahead for Friday nights."

Now, it's true that on the Friday mornings I've been at my parents', I've announced that I have no idea what time I'm getting in that night. Perhaps it escaped his notice that on none of those nights was I home before his bedtime. Perhaps he did not fully comprehend my answers to his oh-so-casual "What time did you get in last night?" on Saturday mornings.

Oh, wait, that's right! I'm single! I'm not dating anyone! I rarely know ahead of time whether I'm doing a Friday night sketch show! Of COURSE I don't have anything in the pipeline for Friday! Of COURSE I will be available for the Interfamily Photo Op and Throwdown! After all, everyone ELSE can be there. So of COURSE I can, too. No need to check with the single chick who has no idea if or where she'll be working that afternoon. Why would you bother checking with her?

"I'm just kind of upset about being the only one not consulted about next Friday, and then being told my attendance is mandatory," I said.

"Tell me about it." He's not exactly in the decision loop either.

"Hey, at least you don't have to wear that dress. Unless you want to trade."

Dad did not seem terribly opposed to the idea.

Hmm.

My birthday is coming up in a few days. Any readers in the Los Angeles area who have not received an invitation are welcome to email me for party info. (There will be drinks, karaoke and perhaps some open flames. I may have no identity of my own on this particular blog, but I'm still me. Yo.) All who attend are encouraged to bring eligible bachelors. W-Day is fast approaching. An on-the-scene ally -- especially one in the form of a date -- might not be such a bad thing.

A Glimpse At My Future

2005-09-26T23:15:00.000-07:00

So the other night, I was sitting in the audience for a show, minding my own business, when the hostess comes out wearing a dress that looked awfully familiar. The cut, the beading, the particular way the light hit the satin in the skirt -- I hadn't seen it in that shade of cream, but I'd seen it before.

I leaned over to one of my friends and whispered, "David's Bridal".

About three seconds later, the hostess explained that she'd worn the dress when she was in her friend's wedding, and was trying to find excuses to wear it so that she could justify the expense.

Yup.

It's official. I'll never be able to wear that dress again.

Not that I was planning to -- I mean, really, it's not like I don't have another dress in that exact color that travels much better -- but it would've been nice to have the illusion of the option.

Things are much calmer than they should be right now. The Battle of the Invitations has drawn to a -- well, a draw, I guess -- and we're gearing up for the Battle of the Invitation Inserts. I don't think the problem will be the wording, which is something to the effect of, "Mr. and Mrs. [Dad's first name] and [Mom's first name] [our last name] are pleased to join Mr. and Mrs. [B.'s dad's first name] and [B.'s mom's first name] [their last name] in inviting you to the wedding of [G.] and [B.]". The battle will be over something like the font, or the ink color, or the paper used. It promises to be a very polite battle, through clenched jaws and artifically sweet smiles -- but I'm sure there will be a clash. If there isn't, I'll really start to worry.

Assuming it goes down, it will go down on a date about two and a half weeks from now, when the families will assemble to send out the invitations. When G. asked if I'd be available on that date he gave me the impression that if I couldn't make it, they'd live. I should be so lucky. I have been informed that attendance is mandatory. The date works for everyone else involved (right, thanks for asking me if perhaps there's something I'd planned for that particular Friday night), and her family would like to meet me. I have also been informed that I am to use part of the time to discuss a bridal shower with B.'s sister, who it sounds like has already got one pretty much planned out. Why do I get this sinking feeling that the shower will end up occuring at one of the dates and times I've said that I absolutely cannot make? I've already paid for a series of Sunday afternoon classes; I'd rather not miss any, but there are a couple that I can't miss, period, end of discussion. If that's when the shower is, and my attendance is required, is someone going to reimburse me for the class? It cost a lot more than that bridesmaid dress.

B. has taken to discussing aspects of the wedding with me in front of Mom in hopes of getting the message across. Most recently, she turned to me and said that she and her mother had agreed it would be best to keep the location of the getting-ready room secret from those not in the wedding party, as she'd like to avoid having people traipsing through and, anyway, the room is too small for the people who already have to be there -- i.e., her, her mother, the three bridesmaids, and the friend who's doing our hair as a favor. No one else gets in. No. One. Else.

Mom started to complain that she's going to need to get her hair done. "So get it done somewhere else," I said. How was she supposed to find somewhere to do her hair on a Sunday morning?, she wanted to know. "Ask at the hotel," I suggested.

Heavy sigh. "It's all right. I'll do it myself. It looks okay like this, right?"

Nice try, Mom. B. doesn't really respond to the guilt thing, and I've got too much on my mind to try to interpret.

A bit less than three months to go. I thought I had a potential actual date, but for various reasons I don't think it's going to work out. Ever. But that's angst for another blog.

The G-List

2005-09-13T23:45:00.000-07:00

Over the past week or so, everyone involved with this wedding has said that Vegas might be the best way to go.

And yet, the planning continues.

Current problem: The guest list. At the outset, it was decided that each family would invite an equal amount of people. B.'s family invited their quota, figuring that a good portion of them wouldn't be able to make it. I believe they're expecting about 45 or 50 people. Simple enough.

As longtime readers may have surmised, the problem is with my family, by which I mean my mother. Her interpretation of the agreed-upon quota is that our side can have that many people there, even if that means inviting far more. Okay, I can see where the relatives who definitely won't make it but have to be invited anyway shouldn't all have to count towards our side's total, but this goes beyond that. This is Mom deciding that she has to invite half the freakin' world.

The problem seems to lie with her compulsion to invite the children and siblings of friends and family members with whom we are actually in regular contact. For example: Dad's cousin and her husband are planning to come out from New Jersey. Their daughter lives near me, and we see her all the time, so naturally she's invited. Mom thinks that they must also invite their son and his wife, who they haven't really communicated with since their wedding several years ago. If this were a wedding on the scale of theirs -- hundreds of people; big, fancy restaurant; floral budget roughly equivalent to the gross national product of Cambodia -- then, well, sure. But it's not.

Another example: There's a family with whom we've always been close. Some of the members we see on a regular basis, and some we just sort of vaguely hear of. Mom wants to send invitations to those in the latter camp as well, reasoning that if some of the siblings fall into the mandatory invite category then we must naturally extend the invitation to the others. Again: That could work nicely for a big wedding in a nice big space, but not so much here.

(Notice how I haven't mentioned any friends of the bridal couple. I think they're at a point where they can have their attendants and their dates, plus about two or three friends and their dates. Isn't there something... I don't know, kind of wrong about that?)

Mind you, I don't think any of us have seen Mom's complete list. It seems to have changed since they sent out the save-the-date magnets, and I can only assume that it's grown longer. Mom is planning to call the hotel's wedding coordinator and ask what happens if they go over the number of people that the ballroom can hold. I'm thinking that best-case scenario, there's not enough room for everyone to sit enough food for them to eat; worst-case scenario, the fire department gets involved. I think you and I would find that quite funny and appropriate, and Dad and G. might secretly chuckle. B.? Not so much. Mom? I shudder to think.

Over dinner a few nights ago, Dad, G. and I had an impromptu summit. I opined that the best way to control the number of invitees would be to let Mom have absolutely nothing to do with the physical invitations. B. and G. should be able to invite whoever they want to invite; if Mom has promised invitations to too many people, then she can be the one to apologize to those who don't get them. This led to a discussion of containment strategies.

It also emerged that G. didn't have quite as much to do with the approval of the invitations as B. has claimed. He says he was told of the wording after the fact. I guess if the problems with the wording had jumped out at him then he might have been able to do something, but he had quite a lot else on his mind at the time.

I have suggested to G. that if Mom really wants to have a party and invite half the freakin' world, then perhaps he and B. should offer to let her throw a do after the dust has settled. That way, she could invite half the freakin' world to something wedding-related, and B. and G. wouldn't be caught in the wedding invite list crossfire. He seemed down with that, as long as he and B. didn't have to be there. Nice try.

I wish this blog didn't read like a compilation of rants on the theme, "Can you believe what my awful mother did today?" I'm sure B.'s neruoses, Dad's frustration and G.'s resignation will become greater factors as the date draws nearer. But lately, it's pretty much been Mom reacting to decisions that other people have made.

She's been lying pretty low the past few days. This can't be good.

She Said/She Said, or: Hilarity Arrives Early

2005-09-01T00:38:00.000-07:00

The invitations have not yet arrived. And yet, the hilarity, it does ensue.

The undisputed facts are these:

B. and her mother were adamant that they take care of (i.e. pick out, compose and pay for) the invitations.

The text reads (or would read if B.'s father was named Jason and my father was named Davey but everybody called him Dave):

Mr. and Mrs. Jason Brideslastname
request the honor of your presence
at the wedding of their daughter
B.
to
G.
son of Mr. and Mrs. Dave Groomslastname

at (etc., etc., etc.)

(And, okay, I may not have the wording exactly as it is on the invitations, not having seen them. But trust me: It's close enough for our purposes.)

B's version of the rest of the story: "Your mother is upset about the invitations. She said we could do what we wanted. I went through books and books at the printer's. [G.] said the wording was fine. And now she is Flipping. Out. She just keeps saying, 'Well, that's not acceptable to us'. She offered to pay to have a new set printed up. I was like, 'No, it's done'. So now she wants to print inserts for the invitations, which I think just calls more attention to it. Oh, and good luck matching the ink."

Mom's version of the rest of the story: "All I asked was that our names be on there somewhere and that they get them right! They didn't get your father's name right. We are two separate individuals -- and, anyway, we're paying for more of it than her parents are, so I'm really not happy about the way it's put together. She could have emailed us first. And now she won't let us print up another set, because that's the kind of invitation they saw at the printers, and her mother is so insecure that she'll do whatever someone in a store tells her, and all our relatives agree with me. So, we're having some inserts printed up." (Subsequent repitions and tangents about B. and her mother omitted.)

To B., I said that I could see where Mom was coming from; saying "Mr. and Mrs. Dave Groomslastname" may be an acceptable way of doing it, and may be what she's used to seeing, but we're more used to seeing both parents' first names. And that we have a lot of elderly relatives who might not remember who the heck the invitation's talking about if they don't see Mom's first name. (Which could very well be true.) And that, no, she was certainly under no obligation to let Mom in on one of the few wedding things that she'd claimed as her own -- period, end of discussion, don't try to offer your opinion 'cause it'll only make me mad -- and that, yes, she had checked with G., but for something so big, it might not have been such a bad idea to double-check with Mom and Dad before committing to anything. And, anyway, isn't she the one getting married, not Mom?

To Mom, I said that while I basically agree with her, in the etiquette guides that govern weddings in B.'s neck of the woods, the only thing wrong with "Mr. and Mrs. Dave Groomslastname" is that they left off a letter at the end of Dad's first name. And that doing an insert would really only call more attention to it. And that she has to remember that G. is getting married to someone who has different expectations of a wedding than we might. And, anyway, aren't B. and G. the ones getting married, not her?

B. sighed heavily and went on to say that Mom had better not try to give any opinions on the wedding favors.

Mom repeated what she'd said above, in various combinations. When I reiterated that it was done, she went off on a tirade which pretty much boiled down to: B. is from a different culture and class, B.'s set on this idea of a wedding, G. doesn't care, and Mom's getting tired of them threatening to run off to Vegas (even though she'd throw them a nice party afterwards), and I'm never going to get married anyway because I think that no one can be right except for me.

That was when I shot back that as a de facto neutral party, I'm hearing complaints from all sides. What's done is done, and are you really going to let this completely ruin the fact that your son is getting married? If you had a feeling something like this would happen, why didn't you hire a wedding coordinator to deal with things like this?

"It's. Important. To. Us. And. They. Didn't. Want. A. Coordinator. And. We're. Paying. For. More. Of. It. Than. They. Are. Even. Though. We're. Not. Really. Talking. About. It." she nearly hissed. Again.

At which point I proclaimed that if I had to hear another word about invitations, I wasn't showing up for the wedding.

It seems to be working so far. For added insurance, I told Dad that I am going to look into being seriously ill on the day of the wedding -- but don't worry, 'cause I'll be fine by the next day.

Hopefully that'll hold both parties off for a week. I'm sure that it won't be long before I hear about something else that will have me wondering why B. and G. didn't wait until they could afford to pay for their own wedding -- or go to Vegas and arrange to be deathly ill on the day of Mom's party.

I used to think that my family was a gift from the comedy gods. I'm starting to wonder if perhaps they aren't here for the sole purpose of testing what little bit of sanity I have left.

The One With The Sharks

2005-08-27T12:58:00.000-07:00

"If you ever get attacked by a shark, stick your hands in it gills," B. said. "Or I guess you could just go for the eyes."

It was Shark Week on the Discovery Channel. B. was sitting on my parents' couch, rivited. I had just returned from seeing The Aristocrats. B. was going to visit G. Since my parents' house is considerably closer to the airport than her place, she usually leaves her car in the driveway and saves a bundle on the shuttle. Me? I'm cat-sitting.

B. has issues with sharks, but they seem to pale in comparison to her issues with Mom.

"Your mother is taking over our wedding!"

Welcome to the family, B.

"She keeps doing all these things that she just assumes people do, and it's like she's going behind my back," B. vented.

"All these things" seem to fall into three categories:

Things which come along with having a lot of relatives in town for a wedding. Case in point: Goodie bags for hotel guests. B. had never heard of such a thing, and looked at me incredulously when I told her that, yes, I'd often received them when I'd stayed in hotels at which a block of room had been reserved for wedding guests. They're a gift from the people involved with the wedding and tend to include little things like a couple of granola bars and some nice soap. "It's a three-star hotel," B. objected. "They'll have perfectly nice soap in their rooms. I don't want people coming up to me and thanking me for stuff I didn't know I was giving them." I refrained from pointing out that, well, now she knows. Also: The bride's and groom's families have very different ideas of what "invite 75 people each" means. The bride thinks that that means, "invite 75 people per side, assuming that at least one-third won't be able to make it, which would be fine with the bride because she doesn't do well with large groups of people." The groom's side interprets it as, "you can have 75 people there, and sending invites to elderly out-of-town relatives who clearly won't be making the trip, but who would flip out if they didn't get invitations, doesn't count in the total".
Things which stem from different understandings of the intersection of tradition and logistics. For example: Mom assumes that B. and G. will show up at dinners on the two nights preceding the wedding. I don't know where my brother's staying the night before, but B. will be at her parents' house, which isn't exactly next door to the hotel. She sees no need to drive down to put in an appearance at a dinner which is entirely Mom's thing.
Actual cases of Mom overstepping what B. perceives to be her boundaries, such as Mom constantly pushing for her and Dad to walk G. down the aisle, and constantly telling her that "at a Jewish wedding, [this]..." See previous entries for more on those. It's really the same-old, same-old.

B. told G. that all this was going on, and G. sat down with our parents and told them that from now on, everything was to go through him. This should seem pretty clear, but Mom tends to latch onto things and decide that That's How They Are. I told B. that if she was really worried, she should set up a weekly phone check-in with Mom so she could make sure that they were on the same page.

B. is offended that Mom's not respecting her. She says her mother can't believe it, either. "That's NOT how we do things where I come from!"

Meanwhile, B. is still really bitter about the chuppa. I asked her why, point-blank; I wasn't bein accusatory, I just really want to know. She started by saying that she thought it was ugly (even with all the stuff she's having wrapped around it the posts?), but what it really seems to come down to is that she feels like it was forced on her. She's only doing it because my brother agreed that her officiant should read the vows. The vows are a whole 'nother story, which I'm sure we will revisit in the next few months; the upshot is that, being the granddaughter of ministers, she wants to refer to Christ in her vows, and doesn't understand why anyone from G.'s family might wince a little. Or maybe it's that she doesn't think that anyone from G.'s family has any business wincing. I started to explain, but quickly decided that that would be a matter for the officiants to work out. They're used to it.

In my most soothing voice, I told her that everyone has different assumptions of what a wedding should be, and may have a hard time understanding that other people don't go in with the same assumptions. It's not a question of Jewish vs. Christian; some of the most intense wedding spats I've heard of have been at intrafaith weddings where each family has a very different understanding of custom. At the end of the day, people were going to be there to see them get married, and that's the important part.

What I really wanted to say?

"If you feel like my mother's taking over your wedding, why don't you two TAKE CHARGE OF YOUR OWN GODDAMN WEDDING? If you freak out when you're faced with large groups of people, why didn't you say something BEFORE you reserved a place and sent out a gazillion save-the-date magnets? If you're marrying someone from a different place and cultural background, when are you going to start suspecting that 'compromise' does not necessarily mean, 'If you make me do this, then I'm making you do that'? If you're fed up with my mother, why don't you CHECK YOUR CALLER I.D. and make my brother call her back? And while I'm on this imaginary rant, if you really think you dress is going to be so heavy, why don't you CUT OFF THE DAMN TRAIN? And, yes, I appreciate that you went for the strapless dress that doesn't dip way down, but have you noticed that it's STRAPLESS?"

(Actually, I did say something about the train, complete with former bridesmaid in 'zilla hell's suggestion to flash a pair of scissors. Only I said it gently and in terms of solving a problem... which she probably interpreted as me trying to force her to let me do it.)

I'm hoping that this time, B. actually follows my unsolicited advice and checks out Anita Diamant's The New Jewish Wedding. I once again explained that it's not a book about how you must do things at a Jewish wedding; it's more about making the ceremony your own and dealing with the merging of two families. I hope that she notices the section on heading off potential conflict with parents. It's very practical. Unfortunately, I think she'll stop when she sees a ketubah.

The invitations have been ordered. I anticipate much hilarity when they arrive.

Note: In order to cut down on comment spam, I've turned on word verification for comments. Please play along. And: Oy.

The Pick-Up

2005-08-14T23:06:00.000-07:00

It took a few minutes to get anyone's attention at the bridal shop this afternoon. The same thing happened to me yesterday at La Salsa in the Westside Pavilion food court. They were also out of trays.

I finally managed to flag down someone with a nametag. "I'm here to pick up a dress," I announced.

"What's your last name?" She started to walk to the register.

I stated my last name and started to spell it. And then stopped, because she was still trying to log in. She typed in the first few letters, and got two of them wrong.

I patiently re-spelled my last name twice.

"Carol?" she asked.

"No."

"That's the only one I have under your last name."

I peered over. Carol had a mother-of-the-bride dress on order.

"Maybe it's under the bride's last name," I suggested.

"Nothing there."

"I got a message that my dress was ready," I protested. I did not add that I'd just spent an hour schlepping down here (there was post-ballgame traffic), and given the price of gas I'd rather keep those 20-odd mile trips to a minimum, thanks very much.

The clerk looked helpless.

"Just enter the first couple of letters of her last name," advised a clerk with more experience. "Sometimes the names get misspelled."

Sure enough, that was the case. It was even a misspelling I've never seen before. That takes talent.

The clerk fetched my dress and handed me a pick-up confirmation form to sign. I seethed a little as I scribbled something approximating my signature. "Sorry, I'm a little bitter about the whole strapless thing," I explained.

The woman who'd solved the mystery of the lost name indicated a small bag attached to the hanger. "It comes with spaghetti straps."

"Yeah, I'm not so sure the bride would go for that."

"Are you sure?" she blinked. "There's also a shawl you can wear over them."

I looked at her. She was a very small woman. So was the other clerk.

"I really don't think the spaghetti straps would help," I carefully explained. "I'm not built for wearing strapless dresses. I am going to have to construct some flying buttresses just to get through four hours in that dress."

There was a moment as the clerks tried to parse the meaning of the architectural reference. The one who'd indicated the spaghetti straps slipped away.

"I don't think the bride will go for the shawl, either," I informed the remaining woman.

"When's the wedding?"

"December. In the morning. Outside, unless it's seriously pouring."

She gaped.

"And the bride's wearing a full beaded train."

"She is?"

"Yeah, she said she didn't want anything too big, but somehow that's the one she went with. And then there's the dresses." I indicated the full-skirted, deep blue, beaded gown I was holding.

The clerk smiled weakly. "Good luck."

"Thanks."

As I lugged the dress out of the store, the clerk called, "You'll get her back!"

"I'm thinking, if I ever get married? Vegas."

The clerk looked like she wasn't sure whether to laugh or cry.

I finally got to my car. The dress very nearly matches the car's paint. I opened up the trunk and carefully laid the plastic-enshrouded garment on top of the spare tire.

There was a shoe store across the parking lot. I'm so not ready to go there.

I Had No Idea My Eyes Could Roll That Far

2005-08-13T15:01:00.000-07:00

I hear lots of stories about difficult bridesmaids: Ones who absolutely refuse to wear the dress, ones who bring even more drama to the situation, ones who flake on whatever there is to flake on. As soon as the date was set for this wedding, I set about trying to figure out how not to be that bridesmaid.

I needn't have worried. Of the three attendants on B.'s side, I am a distant third.

Taking second place is the other non-maid-of-honor bridesmaid. I know, it's not really her fault that she's having major surgery so close to the wedding date and might not be able to stand through the whole thing. B.'s still fretting. I pointed out that, if necessary, a wheelchair can be decorated in an attractive manner.

The winner, by a Malibu-scale landslide: The maid of honor. B.'s sister has, for some unknown reason, decided that she wants to wear a different style and color from us proletarian bridesmaids. As the color that she wants to wear would make her more coordinated with the groom than anyone on our side of things, B. has an issue with this. She also has an issue with the fact that her sister wants to wait until the last possible moment to order her dress. Whether this is so that she can get something which properly fits her for the ceremony -- "She's losing weight," says B. -- or to freak out her sister is left to the reader.

I don't know why I feel this need to smooth over problems before they escalate, but I do. "It sounds like [the other proletarian bridesmaid] and I went with different styles," I pointed out to B., who was very nearly hyperventilating. "Your sister could get any dress in the same color and she wouldn't stand out." (Which, I imgaine, is part of why she wants to wear something in a different color, and, from the sounds of it, something which shows off her, um, assets to better effect. Hello? Trust, me, dear. Either of the designated dresses will show off your assets to some extent. If they don't show them off quite as much as they show off the other bridesmaids', it's because one recently had a baby and the other is just plain asset-encumbered. Deal with it.)

B. and I were discussing dress issues when Mom waltzed through and declared how I didn't like any dress which required me to get a special bra. Thanks, Mom! Always helpful! I took a breath, let it out slowly, and said that I'd selected a dress, that I would take care of the flying buttresses, and that no more needed to be said about it. Which, of course, was Mom's cue to start in on all the places where I could go to get the necessary undergarments, and how I could even get them sewn into the dress. I suddenly felt an urgent need to go check something in my car.

I shouldn't be so surprised that B.'s sister is whipping up all this fuss over a dress. B. is the Dress Drama Queen. To hear her tell it, her gown is a "monstrosity". She hates the train, she hates the heavy skirt, she hates feeling like she can't make a quick escape -- but it was the only one with a front she liked. "You know," I said, "you *could* just cut off the part of the skirt you don't want."

"But it's all beaded!"

"I do beadwork."

"You do? Will you look at these earrings I just bought? One of the beads just fell off."

Um... yeah.

It should be noted that B. is trying to be considerate of her bridesmaids. For example, the florist will be making bridesmaids' bouquets in proportion to the bridesmaids so that nobody looks like they're carrying anything huge or tiny. "So you'll get the biggest bouquet!" she brightly informed me. Thanks. I think my eyes just rolled clear down the hill. Given all reports, I may well end up not being the largest one, and it wouldn't surprise me in the least if her sister demanded a larger bunch of flowers anyway. Probably not going to happen, though. Somewhere early in their relationship, B. decided that G.'s sister was huge, and that's how it's always been in her mind. I think she was genuinely surprised when I told her about having to decide between two sizes of dress, like it honestly never occured to her that I wouldn't have to starve myself to fit into the largest size available off the rack.

B. is feeling very encroached-upon when it comes to the ceremony. "Your mother keeps saying, 'In a Jewish wedding, this...' or 'In a Jewish wedding, that...'. What about my traditions? It's bad enough I have to stand under the chuppa the whole time."

Far be it for me to say that any one culture's traditions are superior to another's. It took great restraint for me not to ask, "Do you want to do the something old/new/borrowed/blue thing or not have G. walked down the aisle by his parents because they're important cultural traditions, or because that's just what you think you're supposed to do?"

I think Mom's falling into the trap that so many mothers do when it comes to their kids' weddings: She had an idea of what she wanted her own wedding to be, but her mother ended up exerting too much control. It's obvious that when it comes to marriage, I'm either a lost cause or someone who will do exactly what I want to do, no matter how hard people outside the immediate bridal couple try to "help," so this is Mom's big chance to do whatever she wanted to do thirty-odd yeras ago. It's not a conscious thing, and she'd certainly never admit to it, but it's exactly what's happening.

My dress has arrived at the shop. I will pick it up this weekend, and promptly shove it into a closet in my parents' house for a few months. About a month before the wedding, I'll take it somewhere and say, "This is the size I was when I had to order the dress in July. Yeah, I know I'm two sizes [smaller/larger] now. Can you have it ready by the 15th?"

And then I'll rush off to deal with some other crisis, which will likely involve all B. and G.'s procrastinating over securing a deejay. Will they deserve to have me call in favors and fix things because it took them that long to realize that they won't be able to get a friend or relative to do it for free? Probably not. But I will, because that's what I do.

Technical Difficulties

2005-08-03T18:02:00.000-07:00

My computer is out of comission. Actually, it's pretty much toast.

Please stand by while I work out the access issues. I'm hoping to have another machine in time to document the insanity of alterations.

(Um, you wouldn't happen to have a spare laptop lying around, would you?)

(Just thought I'd ask.)

The Verdict

2005-07-25T01:26:00.000-07:00

After dealing with late-afternoon traffic to the nearest outpost of the chain at which B. has registered her preferences for bridesmaids dresses -- a 20-mile or so trip which was made in under 90 minutes only because I took surface streets instead of the freeway -- my brain was pretty fried, so I asked one of the sales clerks for her opinion.

"The halter is... really... cleavagey," she said, very carefully.

So, the strapless dress it is. Kill me now.

Oh, wait, don't kill me yet -- that would spoil the fun of seeing how differently the dress fits as we approach the wedding. Given the amount of stress I'm currently under, and under which I will probably be until at least the wedding date (stress which has little-to-nothing to do with the wedding, but that's for another blog), I expect some serious weight fluctuations over the next several months. I wonder how long I can hold out on final alterations.

At least Mom has offered to reimburse me for the cost of the dress. As bridesmaid's dresses go, it wasn't too bad -- but given my current lack of employment, it was wince-inducing. So, even though it's kind of cheesy, I think I'll graciously accept the help. If I invest it in some fast-growing stocks now, I might be able to afford the necessary under-dress architecture in time for the big day.

On third thought, kill me now.

Dress Anxiety, Part 2

2005-07-15T17:50:00.000-07:00

From April 1:

I'm sure that whatever dress she chooses will come in my size (which really isn't that huge), but whether it should be worn by someone like me will be another matter. For starters, if it's strapless, spaghetti-strapped, off the shoulder or a halter, there's going to have to be some serious architecture going on under the bodice.

And the finalists are... strapless and halter top. Somehow we've gone from "pick whatever you want as long as it's full-length and in one or both of these colors" to, "I've picked out two dresses."

There will be three bridesmaids. Two are top-heavy on any given day; the third is likely to be quite pregnant.

This should be interesting.

The bride's gown will have a long train and beading, with two veils. Now, I'm all for the train -- I mean, how often do you get a chance to wear one? -- but between the description of the dress and acoutrements and the insistence on full-length bridesmaid dresses, I'm starting to wonder if she's forgotten that she's having a late-morning wedding at a hotel in Orange County.

B. is still upset about G. insisting on having a chuppa. I'm getting the distinct impression that no one has actually sat down and explained what a chuppa represents, never mind the full range of stylistic options or that generally people with any sort of Jewish self-identity -- religious, cultural or whatever -- consider it a pretty important thing to have. I think the final agreement was that she'd give in on the chuppa if her officiant could do the vows. I'm sure G. shrugged and said, "Okay".

I have related these events to several people. Two-thirds have nodded sagely and said, "Ever see that show 'Bridezilla'?"

I think B. is being pretty reasonable as brides go. There are, however, five months to go. That's a lot of time for the beast to emerge.

Vegas, kids. Vegas.

Another Lull

2005-06-27T13:28:00.000-07:00

Nothing to report right now. If anyone has contacted any of my relatives to gush over how wonderful the "save the date" magnets are, then those relatives aren't sharing the feedback with me.

While we have this time to relax, why not consult the Mixilator? We may find that we require a variety of good, strong drinks over the next several months, and this gizmo will suggest cocktails based on your particular preferences. For example, based on my input, the Mixilator has suggested a Martingale Ballast Heaver Cocktail:

In pre-chilled cocktail shaker combine

1½ oz Bacardi 8
1½ oz rye whiskey
½ oz cocktail Sherry
1 dash apricot syrup

Do the Mambo whilst shaking with shaved ice.

Strain into chilled cocktail glass.

Lightly balance fruit garnish on glass rim.

Well, hell! Any cocktail with a recipe that includes the phrase, "Do the Mambo whilst shaking with shaved ice" is fine by me.

Product Review

2005-06-14T12:47:00.000-07:00

I finally saw the "save the date" announcement magnet thingies. They're very nice. I'm sure Mom isn't enamored of their safeness, but that's her issue. The magnets are meant to serve the dual purposes of announcing the date and sticking stuff to the refrigerator, and that's what these do. The end.

As there are apparently quite a few leftovers, I am going to attempt to snag some. No guarantees, but if you'd like one (assuming I obtain them), feel free to email me. Remember to include your address and an acknowledgement that if you should reveal the existence of this blog to anyone who is even remotely involved in the wedding, the Sibling of the Groom reserves the right to use that address for puropses other than sending you a magnet. Kiss-kiss!

Breather

2005-06-08T15:53:00.000-07:00

Having finally recovered enough to write about it, here's a rundown of how my Sunday went. All times approximate. Real life is seldom this well-segmented.

Before 2pm: Personal stuff.

2pm: Arrive at parents' house to work on announcements for the wedding. Mom has a bunch of ideas. While they are very nice ideas, and while I'm still not entirely clear on what B. & G. want, I'm quite sure that Mom's ideas don't mesh with theirs. Mom advocates for a particular font. G. has already decided on one of my font suggestions, without her input. This goes on for a while.

G. and I finally sit down to work on the design. We finally come up with something that's nice and simple. I'd brought along a pack of fancy papers in their wedding colors, and he likes the metallic gold. It turns out that Kinko's will require extra time for metallic gold ink. I tell him that he and B. can go to just about any craft store, pick up a brush and some gold paint and do it themselves. Sounds good to him.

3pm: We decide the best way to print out samples is to print to the parents' computer from my laptop. Whoops -- they don't have that kind of network set up. We finally track down the driver I need. It takes forever to download. The fault lies in the parents' connection, but G. mocks me for not having as much RAM as he does anyway.

3:45pm: We're finally set to print. I introduce G. to the wonderful world of PANTONE. We print out many, many samples. Dad keeps Mom from inserting her input. Mom points out that she was an art major in college. O.... kay. And I have no formal background in art, yet I get paid for laying out stuff. Goofy world, isn't it?

4:45-ish: By this time, I am very, very tired. The parents leave for a dinner thing. I do some reading and take a nap.

6pm: B. arrives. G. proudly shows her the design we worked out. "I said I wanted simple, not plain," she protests. G. is surprised. She was involved in every communication with me about what they wanted; how could they possibly have such different ideas? I fear that this does not bode well for their marriage.

B. and I sit down in front of both computers and she shows me the bridesmaids' attire she's been looking at. She doesn't care if we pick different styles, as long as they're the same color. She's even open to two-toned ensembles. Hallelujah. Only problem is, the site doesn't show much selection in the color she likes. Rather than go to the next-darkest shade of blue, she's thinking about going to the next-lightest, a shade of blue which will do absolutely nothing for me. (I know, I know -- it's not about me. I'm just reporting it.) On the bright side, she doesn't expect us to get our dresses right away. I'm hoping that in the intervening months, the chain in question adds more items in the shade B. originally picked.

6:30pm: G. orders a pizza.

7pm: Pizza arrives. We eat. B. and I finish going over the dresses, and we turn back to the announcements. B. likes the font and the color; she just wants something ever-so-slightly more elaborate, like a thin border or a scrolly thingy at the top or little thingies in the corners or something. We play around with a few ideas.

7:45pm: I pull up a site with a bunch of borders to flip through, and the three of us start looking. Mom and Dad return. Mom stands over our shoulders, trying to be helpful. "There's a nice one!" she says. "Too thick," B. says. Mom points out another one. It's even thicker, and entirely the wrong color to boot. This goes on for a long, long time.

We find a border, but I'm having a hard time downloading it.

8:30pm: G. remembers that our aunt called while the parents were out. Mom heads off to call her. It's impossible not to hear her end of the conversation, and the more she hears, the more upset B. gets. She sees no reason for Mom to tell anyone who's paying for what, and she has no idea why Mom is running down the guest list for said aunt, never mind that B. doesn't know who most of these people are. When Mom gets off the phone, she is surprised that B. and G. have any issues. "She's just nosy and negative," she says of our aunt, and starts to give examples. B. explains that, really, as far as she's concerned? People just need to know that there's a wedding.

Mom is miffed.

9-ish: I finally download the border and get to work sizing and positioning it. B. mentions that they're still working out a lot of the compromises for the ceremony. For example, she's given in on the chuppa, but she's not too wild about the idea of G. walking down the aisle too. Mom's expression says, "We'll see about that."

During the course of tweaking the design, I learn that as intrusive as Mom is being, B.'s mom is even worse. She says her mother wants to do everything by the book, but hasn't bothered showing the book to her daughter, never mind asking her daughter's opinion on the book itself.

I think it is at this point that I write down the title and author of a book I'm sure her mother hasn't considered, and hand it to B. "Get Anita Diamant's book, I tell her." She takes it, but I can't tell whether it's just to be polite.

The overwhelming feeling I get is that each mother thinks that this is their individual party, for them to plan as they see fit. The fact that their kids are getting married? Oh, yeah, that too. I'm sure they don't think that's how they're coming across, but they are. B., in particular, is starting to get really frustrated. I point out to her that they know how to get to Vegas.

I also learn that B. has been instructed to throw the bouquet to me. I tell her that I'll be in the bathroom.

10:30-ish: I'm done. The border's not absolutely perfect, but I've given G. all the pieces to nudge around if he feels the need. I am very, very tired.

11-ish: I finally start to leave. Mom says she doesn't understand how she's so terrible. I explain that she's not terrible; it's just that things would go a lot more smoothly if she and B.'s mom would at least pretend to give the kids a say in their own wedding. When she protests, I tell her that they know how to get to Vegas.

I go home and collapse.

Postscript: It turned out that the guy I talked to at Kinko's gave me entirely the wrong information on file types, so when B. and G. dropped off the invites, they had to pretty much re-construct them with the help of someone who actually knew what they were talking about. I am told that the final product will be very similar to what we came up with. Um, yay?

I have had a splitting headache since sometime Monday. I'm pretty sure this is not a coincidence.

For Future Reference

2005-06-04T23:39:00.000-07:00

If, in the future, I mention anything about working on B. and G.'s wedding invitations, please remind me of that Saturday in June on which, after weeks of silence, G. emailed me and asked if the folks and I had worked out who was paying for the announcements; where I'm planning to have them made; how much they'll cost; how long they'll take; and do I need to have them go with me to pick them up or can I get the announcements to them by 3pm on Friday?

(Excuse me. I need to scream again.)

(Okay, I'm back.)

What happened to, "Put something together and we'll take them to Kinko's"? And HOW THE HELL MANY DO YOU NEED?

I sent a very polite reply asking for some crucial details -- such as how the hell many they need and which font they want to use -- but did not hear back before I made the drive to Michael's. At a total loss, I called the folks.

"How the hell many announcements do they want to send out?" I asked Dad, only slightly hysterically.

Dad conferred with Mom and handed the phone over to her. It seems that right after G. sent the message, he and B. headed to the beach. How nice for them.

I presented every question I had to Mom, growing more and more frustrated by the minute. She hasn't been able to get much out of them, either. They get upset whenever she asks them anything about the wedding. Okay, granted Mom doesn't seem to recognize that fine line between asking and nagging, but it's not like they're spending hours a day making plans behind closed doors. It's like B. and G. expect a wedding to fall, fully-formed, into their laps. There's a place where they do that, kids. It's called Las Vegas.

A few minutes after I got off the phone with Mom, G. called. (Not that he'd checked his email. Dad tracked him down.) He seemed totally mystified that I needed to know how many announcements they plan to send out, totally flummoxed that their minimal guidance wasn't enough, totally puzzled that I was still asking them for some sort of structure instead of letting those creative juices flow.

Tomorrow, I am going over to the parents' house with my laptop, and forcing them to make some decisions. If they are not there, Mom will make the calls. They've been warned.

If I make the colossal mistake of agreeing to do their invitations, I'm charging them. And if they send any emails that result in me pretty much giving up my weekend, I'm charging them triple my usual rates. As Mom and Dad are pretty much covering all costs, I don't think it will affect the happy couple too much, but at least I'll be a little less disgruntled.

Vegas, kids. Vegas.

No News Is... No News

2005-05-29T14:56:00.000-07:00

Sorry for the recent lack of updates, but we seem to be in one of those lulls. I'm still trying to figure out a design for the announcements, despite a sneaking suspicion that G. will complain that whatever I come up with is exactly what he told me they didn't want. Um... yeah.

I was hoping that there would at least be a season-ending flurry of bad tv bridesmaids dresses. Alas, the only major wedding seems to have been Rob and Amber's. That would be cheating: The wedding was arguably real, and the bridesmaid dresses weren't actually that bad.

Until things pick up again, why not spend a little time over at The Baby Name Wizard NameVoyager? It's a fun little Java thingy which enables you to check out how popular about 5000 different baby names have been over the past 100 years or so, and should not be construed as any sort of commentary on the connection between weddings and bearing children -- or the lack of said connection. It's just something to play with. And educational, too!

Oy-nnouncements

2005-05-17T19:04:00.000-07:00

A note to anyone who might have cause to order some form of invitation, announcement, or other type of stationery which must be designed: No matter what you think, "elegant," "cursivey," "border" and "not cheesy" really isn't much to go on. When your designer suggests that you take a look at a site that shows examples of several styles so that you can narrow down the possibilities, do not say that nothing jumps out at you. And for heaven's sake, do not assume that all you need to do is take the final design to a copy place and print it up in the color(s) that have been chosen for your wedding. It's not quite that simple -- especially when you steadfastly refuse to inform your designer how many copies you intend to send out.

I'm not sure if the resounding silence on the "how many" question is due to obliviousness on G.'s part, or due to him not really knowing. Every time I hear Mom on the phone with him, she is explaining that, no, all those people that he has to send announcements and invitations to won't actually be coming. There are certain people who won't attend, but will be quite upset if they feel they're being ignored -- oh, and by the way, get extra envelopes, because when we all sit down to address them, she's bound to screw up a few. Wait a minute. We're sitting down to address envelopes? When did this happen? And how the hell many do you want?

My plan -- inasmuch as I have a plan -- is to first finish my work for paying clients. If I don't have more to go on by then, I will come up with a few designs -- some which fit the letter of what few instructions I have, some which fit the spirit, and at least one that's way out there but which I can use for my design portfolio. If I'm going to be banging my head against the wall for the next seven months, I might as well get something out of it.

(I know that it may come as a surprise to you, given the shocking plainness of this blog's appearance, but I actually do know how to put together a nice layout. The lack of distinguishing design features here is, uh, by design. You know, part of the whole attempt at anonymity. Humor me.)

Mom's Greatest Hits: The Ceremony

2005-05-10T18:53:00.000-07:00

"[B.] is set on her father giving her away. I don't know what our friends are going to think."*

"That you're incorporating her cultural traditions?" I suggested.

But I was too late. She'd already gone on to the unity candle, of which she approves. However, it is not clear whether this is something that B. and G. plan to include in the ceremony, or just something she thinks they should do because she saw it at another intercultural wedding.

* If you're a bit confused by this one: In Jewish weddings, the bride or groom is usually escorted to the chuppa by both of their parents. (Or their single parent, or all three four of the parents that raised them. It's a very adaptable tradition.) There's not really a connotation of a transfer of property, as some see when a father gives away his daughter in marriage. It's this connotation that has Mom plotzing.

Don't Ask. No, Seriously. Don't Ask.

2005-05-04T13:17:00.000-07:00

So this weekend, I was at this community thing with my parents. Mom's greetings tended to go like this:

"Hi how are you great save December 18 for [G.]'s wedding!"

When the person to whom she was speaking looked over at me -- as often happened, perhaps for an indication it was safe to talk -- I would just smile tightly and say, "No one is allowed to ask me when it's my turn." At which point they would either laugh or assure me they weren't going to ask.

This "don't ask" thing seems to be a bit of a trend: Mom has all sorts of questions about the wedding, but G. says B. says no one's allowed to mention it to her until she's done with finals. "Why would they set a date and not expect people to ask questions?" Mom wondered, genuinely perplexed. I suggested that they thought that setting the date nine months in advance would get people off their backs about setting a date, at the same time giving themselves a little breathing room before the next set of questions -- those about registries, showers, dress, that sort of thing -- came pouring in.

They're so cute when they're blindsided by reality.

Mom reports that G. is having attendant trouble. There will, it seems, be three of us in the bridal party, so according to the laws of nuptial symmetry, G. needs to scare up three groomsmen. Problem: He hasn't really kept in touch with his college friends, and he doesn't think that the friends in the city in which he currently lives are going to be able or willing to make the trip.

"I told him to ask some of his cousins," Mom said. "I mean, what's he going to do, call up his old friends out of the blue?"

Um... maybe?

Given G.'s fixation on Things Being The Way They Should Be, I doubt he'd even consider female attendants -- but something tells me that if it gets down to the wire, I'll be standing on his side of the chuppa. Or whatever.

Planning Ahead, Or: It's Not About You

2005-04-26T18:54:00.000-07:00

With eight months to go -- long before the invitations have been sent out, long before the "save the date" announcements have been gone out -- heck, long (I'm guessing) before the person designing the "save the date" announcements has received any actual information to incorporate into said item -- Mom is cheerfully nailing down RSVPs from relatives. While I was over for Passover, it seemed that every phone conversation included Mom asking the caller if they wanted to reserve a room at the hotel. Which makes sense, I guess, as the people at the hotel want a head count ASAP, but I much prefer Dad's suggestion: Say they need 20, and reconfigure as necessary. (Yes, I know the people at the hotel are asking for a specific number for a reason. Good luck, people at the hotel. You're dealing with our family.)

Mom is thrilled that four sets of Dad's cousins will be attending. I doubt G. has more than a passing acquaintance with at least half of them, but from what I can tell, he and B. have resigned themselves to the notion that the guest list isn't about them.

Apparently, B. & G. had originally told Mom she had 75 slots. That didn't go over too well. The list of just the relatives and friends whose kids' weddings, b'nai mitzvah, and quinceaneras she's attended will likely push three digits -- and that's not counting the other friends, the relatives who can't/won't come but will be insulted if they don't get an invite, and the odd last-minute guest.

It's a party, kids. Your getting hitched is just an excuse.

Still no word on what I'll be wearing. I wonder if B. would go for these.

Yeah, probably not. Pretty, though.

Spring Break

2005-04-20T12:09:00.000-07:00

Wedding-related obsessing seems to have been put on hold for Passover seder-related obsessing. I fully expect the former to re-emerge by midway through the subject of the latter.

Until then, links I happen to like. First up: The Genographic Project. The atlas is pretty freakin' cool.

Oh, The Possibilities

2005-04-12T15:05:00.000-07:00

They have asked me to design their announcements.

Seems that neither of them has a definite idea of what they want. I believe G.'s words were, "go nuts".

I'll try to be nice. But, oh, the mean things I could do if provoked...

Hmm. I wonder if this gets me off the hook for one of the material presents. (What? I'm just idly wondering. No harm in that, especially when your blog's all anonymous-like.)

G.'s version of what the wedding colors will be is different from what I've heard before. I'm betting that she always had those particular colors in mind, but by the time the reports filtered down to me the colors migrated a good 120 degrees around the color wheel.

Thank goodness for Hue/Saturation/Brightness sliders.

A Tip To Future Bridesmaids

2005-04-06T12:48:00.000-07:00

Once you have agreed to be in a wedding, avoid reading or seeing Alan Ball's Five Women Wearing The Same Dress until after the event.

(If you're not going to be in a wedding any time soon, I do recommend it -- it's quite entertaining, and features five great female characters... well, maybe excepting Trish. I could never get a handle on her, maybe because there is a particular section near the end that I find kind of contrived. I think I could have a lot of fun playing Georgeanne or Mindy -- after my brother's wedding.)

(Oh, who am I kidding? If someone wanted to cast me in a local production, I'd probably do it. Actually going through the motions could be a kind of pre-catharsis.)

Dress Anxiety

2005-04-01T13:19:00.000-08:00

The other day at work, the subject of bridesmaids' dresses came up. My podmate asked me if I had any idea what kind of dress the bride wants to put me in. And suddenly, it occured to me that if B. is slim and athletic, then odds other women in the wedding party will be as well. I... am not slim and athletic. I'm sure that whatever dress she chooses will come in my size (which really isn't that huge), but whether it should be worn by someone like me will be another matter. For starters, if it's strapless, spaghetti-strapped, off the shoulder or a halter, there's going to have to be some serious architecture going on under the bodice. The sooner I know, the better. Finding something that will get the job done could take 8.5 months.

If, after a few months, I can't find anything, I'll either have to get something made or make something myself -- either of which will be a time-consuming, probably pricey proposition. On the bright side, it will probably be hilarious to everyone involved, except maybe B.

I haven't been able to find out anything more about the Great Chuppa Mishegas of 2005. Dad says it's nothing to do with Mom; it's due to B. and G.'s back-and-forthing on their ceremony. Current imagined scenario: G. told B. the chuppa has to be held up by people, and ask Mom if she didn't believe him.

I am unreasonably interested in this.

She Said He Said She Said She Said

2005-03-27T09:07:00.000-08:00

B. is upset with Mom.

To hear Mom tell it, it's because of their chuppa discussion. According to Mom, B. asked her how a chuppa stays up. (Have I mentioned that B.'s not Jewish? B.'s not Jewish.) Mom told her -- and, again, this is her version of the story -- that a lot of people have their attendants hold it up, but Dad could always build a stand or something. At which point, much to Mom's confusion, B. flipped out.

According to G. (once again, filtered through Mom), B. told him that Mom said that the attendants have to hold the chuppa up, but said nothing about why B. was so upset.

So what's the reality? My best guess is that Mom said something like, well, your attendants have to hold it up... neglecting to explain that it's on posts, so, no, the attendants do not have to have their arms above their heads for the entire ceremony -- something that B. probably did not envision her bridesmaids having to do. Mom was probably also a bit snippier than she recalls.

Mom says she's going to apologize to B. for "whatever I said that made her so upset." I imagine that B. will try to explain, and Mom's report will have little to do with what B. actually said.

Welcome to the family, B.!

Mom's Greatest Hits: Guest List

2005-03-24T19:16:00.000-08:00

"They want to see the list of people we want to invite. What, is she afraid we'll invite too many lesbians?"

B. had a sheltered, conservative upbringing -- relative to ours, anyway -- but I think Mom may have overestimated it just a tad.

Mom's Greatest Hits: Apparel

2005-03-23T13:55:00.000-08:00

"B. wants me to wear a short dress. I don't wear short dresses. Grandma made me get married in a short dress, and I had hives on my legs, and they're in all our wedding pictures, and I haven't worn a short skirt since then."

In this particular case, short = knee-length. Mom has a dress she wants to wear that should fit in with the color scheme (a coordination concept with which she was apparently previously unfamiliar), and she will show it to B. upon B.'s next visit. "I want to wear it," she says. "I have a nice green dress and a nice blue dress and I never get a chance to wear them." As I'm not one to cast stones at the glass house of buying nice dresses without anywhere particular to wear them, I simply pointed out that some people buy new clothes for their child's wedding. Which she does seem to understand, but still: Nine months before the wedding, with no idea what the weather will be like, what her role will be or any minor details like that, Mom has decided upon her wardrobe. Take that, Grandma!

The Coundown's On / Cast of Characters

2005-03-22T17:13:00.000-08:00

The date has been set. The location has been secured. I've promised to stay out of the way and keep my mouth shut unless my assistance or opinion is specifically requested.

I said nothing about blogging.

For the safety of all involved, I'm keeping this anonymous, although it shouldn't be too hard for anyone who knows me to work out who I am (especially I sent you an email inviting you to check out my new blog, with the caveat that you couldn't tell anyone who's behind it).

So, here's what's up: After a years-long engagement, my brother and his fiancee have decided to tie the knot in December of this year. Quite improbably, they have had no trouble securing a venue that falls within the financial means of all involved. The various far-flung relatives are, I think, so pleasantly shocked that one of my parents' children is actually getting married that they'll spare no expense to witness the event. Mind you, if this were my wedding, I would have already encountered enough snags to provoke my mother to call me nightly to tell me that I should have started planning a year ago, and, anyway, I should think about rescheduling for when the airfares aren't so high, which shouldn't be a problem because my third location fell through.

Of course, if this were my wedding, by now I would have decided that I could achieve the same results by getting a friend with a house to host a party, and having the ceremony somewhere between the snack table and the bar, and how's a week from Sunday for everyone?

And this is a big part of why I'm keeping out of it.

And now, the anticipated cast of major characters:

G.: The groom, a.k.a. my younger (and only) brother
B.: The bride
Mom: Mother of the groom and the sibling of the groom
Dad: Father of same

More to be added, I'm sure.

Fasten your seatbelts, kids. And keep the drinks coming.