(Last) Lunch With a Loved One

Liv's school had 'Lunch With a Loved One' yesterday. I like this program for a couple reasons. First, they have two a year and they divide the school up. So there is never one day for all the loved ones. On each of the designated days, fully half of the kids will be eating lunch with their buds as usual instead of with a guest. So there is never that one kid eating alone while everyone else eats with their loved ones. And that brings me to the second thing I like: It's not a parents luncheon or a grandparents luncheon; it's lunch with a loved one. Not all kids have parents or grandparents who can make it to the school. Heck, not all kids have parents or grandparents. Asking them to invite 'A Loved One' levels the playing field a little bit. I like that.

So I marked the calendar, but forgot to record what time Liv's lunch was. I told her it was no biggie, I'd just call the school in the morning. She left the following note on the table for me as a reminder. A reminder that I'm a moron...

My teacher is Mr. Geist.
Mr. Geist is not pronounced Geest.
You could probably just say The Green Team.
That would work.

You know. For a simpleton such as yourself who might not be able to get the complicated pronunciation of my teachers name right.

She went on to inform me that I could hug her at school and I could call her any fond nickname I wanted to but that I was not to kiss her under any circumstances because kissing is against school rules. I guess that's good...

So, armed with the accepted pronunciation of her teachers name and the official school policy on PDA's, I showed up at the school right on time with lunch for the two of us. She was happy to see me. I refrained from kissing her. I did not refrain from calling her Punky Punk.

We were joined for lunch by her buddy C. and his mom. Liv and C. were in pre-school together and have had the same teachers almost every year. In the friend department, she could do a lot worse. Liv and C. explained to his mom and I that the school was really showing off. That the lunch they served was much nicer than the usual lunch and that half the students were eating lunch in their classroom to make room for the loved ones, thus providing a much quieter and more civilized environment. The effort did not go unappreciated.

After that we took a quick walk through the hallways to her classroom, artwork was pointed out and admired, and we headed out to the playground. Where I was promptly ditched in favor of younger more agile playmates who were in no danger of forgetting the rules and accidentally kissing her.

I love and hate that part.

I hate being ditched.

But I love sort of getting a glimpse of my child in her natural habitat. I love seeing her interact, not only with her friends but with the whole school community. I love how carefree and happy she looks when she plays outside. I love that she loves her life.

This was my last 'Lunch With a Loved One'. The program doesn't continue into Jr. High and that's probably for the best. I don't think I love ANYONE enough to risk entering a crowded noisy hormone addled Jr. High cafeteria (well, I DO, but, you know, I'd rather not)... So it was a little bittersweet. But mostly sweet.

Go ahead and grow up, my little Punky Punk. But take your time. There's no rush.

And I can still kiss you when you get home, right?

Average Joe

I think I'm pretty average. I imagine you think you're pretty average, too. Most of us do.

When Lea was a baby I remember describing her progress as "Right on track. Average." My mother hit the roof. She couldn't imagine why I would say such a horrible thing about my baby. It wasn't such a horrible thing. Average isn't bad, it's, well, average.

By its very definition, most of us are average.

graph courtesy University of Kansas Medical Center

This is so dissatisfying.

We all want to be special. We all want to be remarkable. I may have offended you when I implied that you were probably average. You're probably not, really. Not you! But me? Yeah. (Heck, sometimes I find myself WISHING for average...) Because we all want to beat this curve. We all want to be that 2% that is definitely superior. Or at LEAST the 14% that is probably superior. We all want to be special.

I think people who are constantly reminding us of how special they are are usually just trying to convince themselves. Those who are truly awesome don't need to tell us so. We know.

It's not such a bad thing to want to be in that 16%. We should always strive to be better, I suppose. If we settled for average - well, I guess that would be pretty dull. I'm not implying that we should ever become complacent. Just, maybe, that we shouldn't look on 'average' with such disdain.

We all have our gifts. The bell curve isn't as straightforward as it appears. We fall at different points along the spectrum in different aspects of our selves; positioning ourselves very low in some aspects of self and much higher in others. In the end, though, it all - um - averages out.

When I was teaching, I told my students that I didn't want their grades to align perfectly on the bell curve. I wanted a lot of A's and few if any F's. I felt like, if I was teaching the material well, the curve should look more like a slope than a bell. Usually it worked out that way, too. But there was one test that I wrote - and I administered this same test almost 20 different times to 20 different sets of students - and each time - each time - the results shook out into a perfect bell curve. When I recorded a lot of C's, a few B's and D's and only a couple A's and F's into my grade book, I hated that test. But when I plotted all of those scores on a graph and saw that curve appear - it made me feel really good about my test-writing abilities. But then I would wonder about my teaching abilities. If I was truly teaching the material well, shouldn't there be more A's? The answer is, of course, no. A C isn't a bad grade. It's an average grade.

And average is, well, most of us.

Average grades, average looks, average income, average level of talent or ability - average.

So here's to the average Joe. May we stop beating ourselves up while we continue to strive. And by we, I of course mean me. You're probably way above average. But if you're not? Well, welcome to the club. It's a big one. And here's to ya.

(apparently my ability to get the whole image to display is below average...)

Morphine and Chocolate

Well, maybe just chocolate.

I wanted to go to Starbucks for hot chocolate this morning after I dropped Liv off at band practice. It was dark and cold and just felt like a hot chocolate sort of morning. But then I thought about the price tag on a cup of Starbucks hot chocolate and thought - "that's something I should indulge in with someone, as a treat, not take home and drink alone."

So I came home and made hot chocolate from scratch. Because I wanted to. Because I wanted the whole process. Because, I found, I didn't just want hot chocolate. I wanted to make hot chocolate. I wanted to measure ingredients and stir them over low heat. I wanted to smell the chocolate as it heated up. It took a long time. And as I'm enjoying these first tentative sips, I'm appreciating it much more than I would be if I'd just picked it up at the drive-thru.

And here's the kicker: It's really not that good. I made it with skim milk. I used cheap cocoa. It's - mediocre at best. So why am I enjoying it so much?

I think it's one of those 'everything I need to know, I learned in kindergarten' things. Sometimes the process is more important than the product.

A couple years back I visited the Crayola factory with my family. Lea was a pre-schooler and Liv was barely a toddler. At the end of the factory tour, they had different stations set up to play with Crayola products, old and new. At the time, ModelMagic was new. Lea made a few things, smashed them, started over - in a word, she played. I played, too. No, I didn't. I worked. I started making this elaborate little sculpture. I was meticulous. When Liv started to cry and Tom suggested we move on I became very irritated. I'm not DONE! It wasn't that I was having so much fun with the process, I became quite obsessed with the product. Which I wasn't going to keep anyway.

How many times have we seen a child work for a long time (in child years) coloring a picture, only to casually throw it away when they were done? Our adult response to this is that they're not taking pride in their work. We retrieve it and carefully smooth it out and tell them how pretty it is. We ask them to tell us about their picture. The truth (more often than not) is that they're just done coloring. The process is over. The product never really mattered. And we are annoying them.

That's a difficult concept for success-oriented adults to wrap their brains around.

But I can wrap my cold hands around a warm cup of mediocre hot chocolate.

That'll have to be enough for today.

A Nice Pair of Pants

When I arrived at my parents' house, it was late(ish) and Mom said, "I have some ironing to do. Why don't you come up to my bedroom and keep me company?" So I left my dad and Thursday night football and headed upstairs with my mom. I don't care how old you are, is there anyplace more comforting than your mom's bed? I sprawled across it sideways and arranged the throw pillows for maximum comfort. We chatted as she ironed her outfit. She and Dad had a funeral to attend the next morning. They attend a lot of funerals. The funerals I attend are few and far between. The funerals they attend seem to be weekly occurrences. I do not look forward to that part of getting older.

Anyway.

She finished ironing her outfit and yelled down the stairs for my dad, "TUT! Get up here and show me what pants you're wearing tomorrow so I can iron them!"

My Dad - Tut - has done this drill before. To say "after this play" or "when there's a commercial" or, God forbid, "What?" would have been a grave error. He came upstairs immediately.

There is a bathroom at the top of the stairs and there was laundry hanging over the shower curtain rod to dry. I had noticed this on my way up the stairs. There were about six pairs of khaki pants neatly hanging there. They all looked the same to me. He grabbed one of them and brought them into the bedroom and handed them to my mom. "You can't wear those." She pronounced, like it was the most obvious thing in the world. "Tammy, he's wearing this jacket and this shirt and this tie, what pants should he wear?" Now don't ask me why she chose the jacket and shirt and tie but needed him to choose the pants. Pointing that out would've been a grave error. The jacket was navy, the shirt was white, and the tie was a very pretty navy, purple, silver and white paisley.

"Gray?" I answered tentatively.

"Get your gray pants, Tut."

"I don't have gray pants."

"Yes you do."

He emerged from the closet with another pair of khakis. "Not THOSE! Those are golf pants!"

I was out of my league here. They just looked like pants pants to me. "Help him, Tammy."

So I reluctantly left my comfy perch on the bed to look in my dad's closet. There must have been 25 pairs of pants, covering the entire array of hues from stone to tan. I picked a pair on the lighter side of the spectrum and presented them to her.

"Not those. Those have the tags on them." To inform her that tags were easily removed would've been a grave error. I put the pants back in the closet and shrugged at my dad, in an attempt to convey the message, 'you're on your own, dude'.

He handed her another pair. To my eyes, they looked exactly like the three pairs that had just been rejected. But she liked them. He was dismissed and sent back downstairs to his game. She started ironing his pants. Suddenly she stopped mid-press. "He can't wear these! TUT!" Back up the stairs he dutifully trotted. "You can't wear these, there's a HOLE in them!" She showed us both the offending hole. It was less than 1/2 inch right along a seam on the underside of the crotch. It did not spread when she pulled at it. I would've totally worn those pants. For Dad to say the same would've been a grave error.

He chose another pair.

He returned to the game, she returned to the ironing board. "Oh my God, Tammy, look at these. They're DIRTY! Why would he hang dirty pants in the closet? Oh, I swear, that man is such a crumb bum." It probably goes without saying that I saw no evidence of dirt. Sometimes I wonder if my mom and I live in the same world. "There's a HANKIE in the pocket! Now why would you hang up pants with a hankie in the pocket? TUT!"

Up the stairs he trudged. She handed him the offending pants. He folded them neatly over a hanger and returned them to the closet, but not before he threw a quick conspirital wink in my direction. He was making a grave error on PURPOSE! He was stirring the pot! Oh my GOD these two are a hoot!

The next pair he chose also passed muster. He went downstairs and she pressed them without incident.

The next morning when he dressed for the funeral I was sure to tell him how handsome he looked. It wasn't a lie. His white hair was really set off by that navy jacket and the pretty tie. I told her she looked pretty, too. Also not a lie. She was wearing a very smart eggplant pantsuit with a little ruffled peplum jacket. It suited her. What I failed to mention was that my dad's pants had those little hanger wrinkle marks around his knees. Tut can stir the s**t just fine. He doesn't need any assistance from me.

A Road Trip With Mrs. Chicken

It was a dark and stormy night. (Ok, it was really more misty than stormy. I'm trying to set a mood here. It's called poetic license. Roll with it.) I was driving alone through the mountains of West Virginia en route from my home in Central Ohio to my Home in Western Pennsylvania. How did I come to be on this dark and stormy road alone in the middle of the night, you ask? (It was more like the beginning of the evening. But with the late time change this year, it felt quite a lot like the middle of the night. Would you be as intrigued if I'd said, 'just after rush hour? I thought not.)

It was simple, really. The kids had a four day weekend, and I had a hankering to go Home and visit with my family and a few friends. We'd leave Wednesday night and come home Saturday. That way Tom would get a little alone time after work for a couple days, which can be very relaxing, but wouldn't have the full weekend alone which can get awful lonesome. It was win win. Except I forgot we had an appointment Wednesday night. (An appointment with a bottle of wine and some fine tapas. Wednesday night was out anniversary, remember). So, ok, no problem, we'd leave Thursday morning. Except the reason the girls had Thursday off was that it was parent teacher conference day and I had an afternoon conference scheduled. Ok, we'd leave right after the conference. That would work. Except I forgot that Liv has drum lessons Thursday night. And she didn't want to miss her lesson. "Why do we have to go to Memaw and Pepaw's anyway?"

I shrugged. "I don't know. No zombies." I don't know why I said that. (Probably a reference to 'Zombieland'. The characters didn't refer to each other by name, just by cities. The main character went by 'Columbus Ohio' which is home. So we sort of dug that. Even though it was destroyed. I don't think that requires a spoiler alert. It IS a movie about a zombie apocalypse. When 'apocalypse' is part of the explanation, you sort of expect a little destruction. It's always neat when home gets a mention. Springsteen mentioned Home in 'The River'. It wasn't a flattering reference, but I held it near my heart anyway. It's like these famous important people know a little piece of you when they mention places and things you hold dear. I just read 'A Walk in the Woods' and every time Bill Bryson mentioned a State or National Park I'd been too, I felt like we were sharing the adventure. Which we totally weren't. Ohmigod - how am I ever gonna get you back to my story?)

"No zombies!" Tom exclaimed. "You practically drive right through Monroeville between here and there! You go through zombie mecca, zombie homeland, zombie ground zero." (I don't really drive through Monroeville. I do pass an exit for Pittsburgh, though. Oh, and for anyone not with me at this point, Monroeville, a suburb of Pittsburgh, is the setting for 'Dawn of the Dead', the seminal and arguably definitive zombie movie.)

"I don't want to go." replied one or both of the kids. This decision may or may not have had to do with zombies.

"They can stay with me." Tom threw out casually.

"Kthnkxbye!" I said, running up the stairs to pack before he had a chance to change his mind. Two nights and one full day to live in my parents house and play with my friends without worrying about stopping arguments or anything else involved in the care and keeping of a teen and a tween? Yes, please.

So I was set to leave Thursday afternoon. Mom calls Thursday morning and says, "We're really looking forward to seeing you, but I wanted you to know that they're calling for snow." Snow? Really? It's the middle of October! I'm not ready for snow - I am not ready to entertain even the possibility of snow. Nope. Lalala, I can't hear you, no snow. But she'd planted a wee tiny seed of worry.

Thursday afternoon, Tom and I attended the parent teacher conference. When we came out, my car gave us a little trouble about starting. Tom says to me (he says), "Your battery is shot".

"Does that mean I can't go?" (that seed of worry was sprouting fast)

"That means you need a new battery and you're lucky we figured it out now instead of halfway through your trip."

"Ok." But I didn't feel particularly lucky, because I was now off schedule by about an hour and a half which was supposed to be the amount of time I would be able to bargain shop on the way Home. I love bargain shopping. Bargain shopping sans kids? Well, at the risk of repeating myself: yes, please. So that was denied. Bummer. But I was on my way. Well, sort of. When the battery was replaced, my stereo went offline. To get it back involved finding a code and, oh, for Pete's sake, if I wasted any more time I was gonna have to give up dinner as well as shopping. "I'll be fine without a stereo - I need to go."

"You'll go nuts alone in the car with no stereo for almost 5 hours."

"No I won't. The voices keep me company."

So off I set, almost two hours later than planned, with nothing but the sounds of the road (and, of course, the aforementioned voices) to keep me company.

The first leg of the trip was gorgeous. Not a lot rivals the beauty of driving through the mountains during peak foliage season. I felt sort of - blessed. Like this amazing display was just for me. Don't burst my bubble on that one, it wouldn't be nice. As the sun began to set in the rear view mirror, though, things took a turn for the spooky. It's no accident that Halloween is celebrated in Autumn. Autumn days are beautiful. Autumn nights are eerie.

So I'm singing to myself - trying to keep my thoughts occupied by things other than the general gloominess of the night - when I smell cigarette smoke. I don't smoke. Tom doesn't smoke. No-one has ever smoked in my car. (Well, that may or may not be true. I'm not the original owner. But I've had it a couple years. You'd think any residual odors in the upholstery or carpeting would've manifested before now.) My senses are now on red alert. And I smell a fart. Now I'm alone in the car. And I haven't farted. I'd tell you if I had. I'm not shy. It's a very natural thing. Everyone farts. Except I hadn't. And I was the only one in the car.

I'm deep in the mountains now, it's dark, it's rainy, it's spooky. There isn't any snow, but the 'Bridge Freezes Before Road Surface' signs are being taken seriously because I'd encountered a little slush. The wind is blowing and the fog is creeping in more quickly than slowly, almost instantly obscuring my vision. Leaves are blowing in the wind and being illuminated by my headlights like unpredictable little specters. And there's an apparition smoking and farting in my back seat. I DO believe in spooks, I do, I do, I do, I DO believe in spooks...

Two small lights on the road ahead. Not headlights. Eyes. Then, before I had time to process this latest development, an eighteen wheeler, coming out of nowhere - coming out of a side street I didn't even know was there. So this is how it ends. All this spooky, eerie stuff going on, and I'm gonna be taken out 'Maximum Impact' style. And without the cool AC/DC soundtrack.

The truck went on it's way. The deer in the road was avoided. The fog dissipated as my altitude decreased. The odors cleared. Home was in sight. That's where I went to High School. That's the church where Daddy and I got married. That's where I went to kindergarten. It's an office building, now. All those landmarks I point out to my family every time we make this trip. Except this time I'm alone, so there's no one to say, "I know, Mom, gawd, you tell us every time!"

I remarked on all of the landmarks out loud, anyway. It was good to be Home.

Ooooooo Kids - This is a Scary One!

Portions of this post were originally posted 10-17-08, but since it had NO comments, I felt pretty safe re-posting a revised edition.

You know what I don't like? I don't like Haunted Houses. Or Haunted Hayrides. Or Haunted much of anything. Tom says I'm ridiculous. Most of you will, too, probably. My line of reasoning is this: If I were a deranged killer, these are the sort of places where I would seek employment. This would be an easy place to get away with murder. The kids are very tempted by these attractions. I won't go. I have been convinced that I'm being irrational. But I still won't go. If he wants to take them, I won't stop them. But I won't join them, either. I. Don't. Like. Haunted stuff.

My aversion to haunted house/designed to scare stuff goes way back.

When I was 10 or 11, I was a big fan of Tom Sawyer/Huck Finn. When a family vacation found us spending the night in Hannibal Missouri, the home of Mark Twain and the setting for my beloved stories, my parents had no trouble indulging me with visits to Tom Sawyer's fence, Mark Twain's homestead, and the Becky Thatcher house. They did not, however, want to take me into the Haunted House on Hill Street. I was too young, I'd be scared. My sister was 2 years younger than me. Definitely too scary. But I begged and I pleaded and I pleaded and I begged and I showed the brochures to my sister who agreed it looked like just the coolest thing ever and she joined me in the pleading and begging and my mother eventually caved. Dad didn't. He didn't approve, and he wouldn't go. If she wanted to take two small children into a walk-through haunted house, she was on her own. She looked at our sincere pleading little faces and decided she could handle it. Foolish woman! As soon as that first puff of cold air hit our ankles, my sister and I were scared too stiff to move. My mother was able to talk them into letting us come out the way we went in, but there would be no refund. My sister and I cried and my father went into "I told you so" mode and we lost a nice chunk of change. That's what she got for being a nice guy.

A year or two later, I decided it would be a good idea to read "The Exorcist". My mother did not agree. She forbid it. You will not read that book and you will not bring that book into this house. The foot had spoken. Except my 12 year old self thought I was a little smarter than the owner of the foot and I knew what was good for me better than she did. Ahem. So a battered paperback copy was sneakily transported from a friends home to their bookbag to my bookbag. And I read it cover to cover. And I didn't sleep properly for 2 weeks. My mother, for the first time in my life, locked her bedroom door. No crying to her and interrupting her sleep because I thought I knew better. Worst punishment ever.

When I was 9 - 9, folks - making my sister, if you're following along - 7! - My parents, along with my aunt and uncle and 2 cousins all loaded into my uncle's Dodge Charger and headed to the drive-in. Ok, first off, do the math, that's 4 adults and 4 kids in a Charger similar to this one. The grown-ups wanted to see Play it Again Sam. And really, what 9 year old isn't a big Woody Alan fan, eh? So, ok, not necessarily an appropriate choice, but whatever. An outing is an outing. We unloaded the lawn chairs and the kids set them up in the parking space next to the car. Can you say white trash? I thought you could. Now anyone who remembers drive-ins also remembers, no doubt, that they were always double features. On this particular night, the second film was (the not yet cult classic) Let's Scare Jessica to Death. Also, please recall, that in those days you didn't listen to the movie through your car stereo - you listened to it through little speakers that you attached to your window. Well, at a particularly scary moment in the movie, I panicked. I wanted my mom. I screamed and ran for the car. Except I was disoriented and I ran for the wrong car, knocking their speaker out of their window at a particularly tense point in the movie and causing them to scream. At this point my mother is screaming, too, because she realizes it's me causing all this ruckus. So I'm screaming, man in the car is screaming and Mom is screaming. This disruption to the movie causes all the cars around us to start blowing their horns and - well - yelling more than screaming. It was - memorable.

I just don't do well with scary.

One more story.

Fast forward to my late teens.

Where I grew up, everyone knew the legend of Becky's Grave. It was something everyone always talked about, but one night we decided it was time to pay old Becky a visit. There was a carload of us, and, yes, it's true: we'd been drinking a little. Maybe a lot. Probably a lot. We parked the car, and I'll never forget it - the radio (Or was it a cassette? Or perhaps an eight- track?) was playing Alice Cooper: Dead Babies. We left it on while we went trekking through the woods. I was starting to get a little creeped out, as one will when one is pursuing a ghost in the woods on a cool Autumn night with a couple few beers in one. Then, just as one of my friends proclaimed: "there it is!" I tripped into a little ditch. I am so completely freaked out at this point, I don't know which way is up, and as I try to pull myself to an upright position, it seems that the roots on the ground have conspired to keep me down. Why yes, this was around the time Evil Dead came out. Why do you ask?

So, yeah. I'm older and wiser now and would really rather live without the thrills. But I understand why my girls want to pursue them. Lucky for them, they have a more-than-willing dad.

Happy Halloween, (just a little bit early), ya'll.

It's a Nice Day for a White Wedding

I told you the love story for Valentine's Day. This story picks up practically where that one left off.

"I'm pregnant."

"Are you sure?"

"Peed on a stick..."

"What do you want to do?"

"I want to get married."

(hugging me and kissing the top of my head) "We will be the happiest family ever."

That was our romantic proposal. Jealous?

We talked about just rockin' it City Hall style given the circumstances, but my mother wouldn't hear of it. She and my father had eloped and she'd always regretted the fact that they hadn't had a wedding. I was going to have a wedding, damn it.

So we threw one together in three months. It was not a dream wedding. I realize this may be surprising to those of you who had always aspired to be 33 and pregnant when you walked down the aisle, but it's true.

My mom hired a photographer - the only one she could get at the last minute. She chose the cake (I couldn't make it to my hometown, where all of the preparations were being made). We bought a dress. It was not a lovely, feel like a princess dress. It was - what's the word I want? - tasteful, you know, given the circumstances.

Tom's aunt, who had served as a mother figure after his mother passed away, enthusiastically offered to do the flowers. Silk flowers. Oh, kids, I love fresh flowers. I try to have some in my home all the time. I can assure you that I did not want silk flowers on my wedding day, no matter what the circumstances were. Did I tell her that? No. I thanked her profusely and accepted her generous offer. I really wanted his family to like and accept me. A refusal of such an enthusiastic offer didn't seem like a step in the right direction. I didn't feel like I had much leverage, given the circumstances.

We talked to the pastor in preparation for the wedding. We stressed that we were equal partners in the relationship and that we did not want anything in our vows or in the service about a woman giving it all up to become subservient to her man. He smiled and nodded and made some notes.

Mom found a DJ who listened to every word we had to say.

The big day arrived. I spent the morning like most brides do, getting my hair done, pampering myself a little bit. Making sure the reception hall looked nice. Tom used the opportunity to peruse some of the places of historical significance in my hometown. Namely, the Johnstown Flood Museum. Yep. He spent the hours leading up to our wedding immersed in learning about the single greatest disaster my little home town had ever known. Despair. Disaster. Devastation. Now get me to the church on time!

We didn't have miles of attendants in matching dresses in my favorite color - we just had my sister and his cousin stand up for us. More, I was told, would've been inappropriate given the circumstances. The pastor devoted his entire sermon to women becoming subservient to their men. If it hadn't been for - you know - the circumstances - I may have walked out right then. Tom later confessed that he would have, too. This was not what we had agreed to agree to. But agree we did.

As our guests headed to the reception, we stuck around for pictures. Apparently when you hire your photographer at the last minute, you get what you get. We got a lot of JC Penney catalog worthy pictures of me in my tasteful dress with my silk flowers attempting to hide my thickening waistline.

"Why yes, I DO have the time..."

The popular 'newlyweds in front of the heating vent' pose.
Notice how strategically the photographer has placed the lovely bouquet. There are a whole lot of things about this picture that aren't fooling anybody...
And no, I'm not wearing a bustle and you're mean for asking.

Then we headed for the reception ourselves. I'm sure you know without me telling you that it was raining. I swear to God, if one more person had told me "rain on the bride is good luck" I probably would've greeted them with a roundhouse kick. Circumstances or not. No bride wants to be rained on. Luck, schmuck. (Chuck Norris has nothing on a pissed off/rained on pregnant bride!)

Things took a turn for the better at the reception. The food was delicious. The DJ had indeed listened to us and respected every one of our wishes. And best of all - the guest list was small. We were able to not only spend some quality time with each of our guests, but we were also able to have a good time with each other. We danced - and not only the obligatory bride and groom dances - we danced when we liked a song. And - remember? - the DJ had listened to us. We liked a lot of songs. Oh - for my Western PA readers who may be wondering - there was no money dance. My mother informed me that it would be inappropriate, you know, under the circumstances. But we had a blast. We started our married life on a very happy note indeed.

That was all fourteen years ago today.

Since then I've been to beautiful, storybook, dream weddings. I've been to elegant weddings. I've been to intimate backyard garden weddings. I've heard of insanely romantic proposals. I've seen wedding pictures that are so beautiful they make me want to weep. A couple of those marriages even lasted...

So, yeah. The proposal was lame. The wedding will not be used in any wedding planner's portfolio. The honeymoon did not exist. But the marriage? Solid as a rock. Maybe we should put the emphasis back where it ought to be. A nice wedding is, well, nice. But the happily ever after? That's the endgame, ya'll.

I think the past fourteen years have gone pretty well.

And the circumstances turned out pretty well, too.