MI-6, or Edgar Allen Poe Day

Giving "hangover" a whole new meaning . . .

This week, we purchased a washer and dryer.

I know, I know–you wanted to hear about the honeymoon. Here: We went to Montreal, it was great, we spoke fake French in response to real French, we ate a lot, we created a lot of private jokes, then we came home. I may regale you with some stories about it sometime (or maybe I’ll let my Paul, who has the telling of the honeymoon stories down to an art–the tell-able ones, I mean), but I think what you really wanted, without knowing it, was to hear how life after the honeymoon is going so far. So here’s a pericope of it. (Look it up. I just made myself feel 1000 times smarter using that word, even though I’m taking liberties with its usage.) It’s also two such quintessential Jenn Stories so intertwined that I can’t not write about it.

So anyway, this week we got a washer and dryer.

We already had a washer and dryer, but sometime last weekend we realised that the spin-cycle in the washer no longer worked at all. The dryer, in turn, could not handle the excess moisture of the unspun clothing, and so we were left with damp and stinky and dubiously-cleaned laundry. Since we both had a hankering ultimately to get stackable, front-loading versions of these appliances anyway, we decided now was the time. After some internet searching, Paul discovered a set on Craigslist for less than half of what we’d have spent to get something comparable on sale, and we decided this was an excellent use of some of our wedding gift money (thanks, generous wedding-gift-givers!). On Wednesday, my Paul somehow extracted the old appliances and put them on the deck while I was at a Now Church Lenten dinner, and on Thursday we took a ride in the truck (it never ceases to astonish me that I married a man with a pick-up truck–but it does come in handy) to a Neighbouring Town and picked up the new appliances.

Here’s the thing: space-wise, our house is the equivalent of a European car. (Maybe I mean a “whole rest of the world” car. The only vehicles I remember distinctly from India are autorikshaws (yes–extra compact!) and those big bulky, brightly-painted dump-truck-looking things. And do people in Saudi Arabia drive gas-guzzlers? I just don’t know.) So, after moving every piece of furniture in the kitchen just to get the appliances inside, we had to figure out how we were going to get them into the laundry room (read: “closet”) and hook them up without one of us getting walled in behind them for all eternity. Poe’s story “The Cask of Amontillado” came immediately to both of our minds. Fortunately, we trust each other, but the fact that we both thought of that story was maybe a little unsettling.

In the morning, we hooked up the washing machine. I had to climb back and forth over the top of it a couple of times to get it all set up. We did a load of laundry and hung the damp clothes up all over the house. Daughter-by-Marriage came over and was somewhat agog at the appliance-instigated disarray.

“Hey,” I asked her, as we were all kibitzing about this, “can you call my cell phone? I can’t find it.”

Obligingly, she did so. We could hear it vibrating, but, to our dismay, it sounded like it was somehow inside the washing machine. Well, that was impossible, since if it had been, it would no longer be working, considering the inaugural laundry we had just run through it. But maybe it was behind it. Maybe it had fallen out of a pocket one of the times I was climbing back and forth. I didn’t remember having had it in my pocket, but . . . I also didn’t remember where it was at all. So we pulled the machine forward. I climbed back there. Nothing. We shone a flashlight on either side of it. Nothing. We tipped it forward and back to see if the phone had somehow gotten underneath. Nothing. Daughter kept calling it, and it kept vibrating like the tell-tale heart,

We looked in the kitchen cupboards on the other side of the wall. Nothing. Really? Was it in the wall? Because that’s seriously what it sounded like. Eleven Daughter phone calls later, she suddenly said, “What if it’s upstairs?” She and her dad went tearing up the stairs to see who could get to it first. Sure enough. There it was. On the window sill, in a direct line to the wall of the laundry room. Playing its Dr. Who ring tone. I might have felt less stupid if I hadn’t “lost” the phone in pretty much the same place last week . . . Thus words like pericope and stuff like that, to make up for it, I guess.

A thing of beauty is a joy forever . . . or at least hopefully for a really long time.

Anyway. Now I had my phone back, but we were still going to have to set up the dryer at some point.

We couldn’t do that, however, until Paul had cut a hole in the wall of the house for the dryer exhaust, because the old spot was not in the right place for a dryer now stacked on top of the washer. It was sometime after supper that we were ready actually to install the dryer itself. After we heaved the dryer through the door and up on top of the washing machine, I had to climb up a step-ladder and worm my way up over the top of the dryer. Once there, my Paul hung onto my legs and I bent at the waist and tried to attach the vent-duct hose, upside down. No cask of Amontillado entrapment here–I mean, he was holding my ankles and everything–but have you ever tried to install ductwork hanging upside down? I felt like I was on some sort of Mission Impossible, and my Paul observed that he had no idea he was married to someone in Cirque du Soleil. The short version of the story is that eventually I successfully got the dryer hooked up, and we’ve been doing laundry ever since, but it must have taken 45 minutes to an hour to get everything situated. And a pretty terrible headache. Still, Poe-type disasters were averted, and this washer and dryer? Are things of beauty.

They work really well, too.

A Time for Every Purpose Under Heaven?

Well, that’s what Qoheleth (whom some think King Solomon and others decidedly don’t) said, in the book that has come to be known as Ecclesiastes.

He couldn’t have included “a time to hack and a time to be hacked” (and a time to be hacked off?) in his little list of things that there is a time for, because as far as we know, the internet had not been invented yet. (If it had, those guys did a great job of keeping it a secret! Oh Atlantis . . . ) But evidently, those activities, passive and active, could have been included, because in all my days of emailing and blogging and facebooking, my accounts have never been hacked. Until yesterday. I should’ve known I wasn’t immune.

I found out about this from more alert members of The Readership. (Man. You guys are working overtime these days!) I also found out the identities of more individuals included in The Readership. Which was pretty cool. Finding out I had been hacked, however, was not. Finding out the hacking involved my blog linking to unsavoury, exploitative sites was even less so. Some of my friends described what was happening when they tried to read the post about my mother (really? This had to happen with a post about my mother??), and others discussed that apparently this is a problem for which WordPress is (recently?) notorious.

The good thing about WordPress, though? Is that you can send their support team an email, and they actually have live people in their support team who get back to you really quickly and speak regular colloquial English that non-computer-nerds-using-computers can understand. (Note: I’m not saying I’m not a nerd. Oh, I am so a nerd. Just . . . I don’t really know anything about computers.) I sent them a concerned email. I also changed some of my login stuff. I got an email back. It was from a guy named Anthony. He basically said, “Uh–what’s the problem? I can’t find anything.”

I basically said, “My friends who are trying to access my blog through their cell phones are being dropped into the dregs of internet yuckness.” (Okay, that’s not really what I said, but that was the basic idea.)

This morning he sent me this email back:

Hi Jennifer,

This terrible problem should now be resolved. After further investigation, this appears to have been linked to a mobile advertising provider that has now been completely disabled and removed. Your readers will have no further problems reading your site via any mobile platforms, and I’d like to express our sincerest apologies for this mess. This was entirely inappropriate, and it will not happen again.

Thank you for letting us know about this, and we hope you have a fantastic rest of the week. 🙂

—

Anthony

Aww. What a nice support tech. And look what happens when everybody works together: problem cited, alerted, passed to the appropriate people, and fixed. Yay! I suppose some might call it a stretch to say there was a time for this purpose . . . but maybe there was.

Go Team!

Righting the Wrongs

Every so often, I make an error so glaring I wish I could just hide in a cave for a little while. One of the alert Readership pointed out this morning that, though I mention Mom in my wedding-description post, somehow I did not provide a photo illustration. Which is really a shame, because she looked great. (The other day my Paul said that he had heard a man should look at his mother-in-law when he wants to know how her daughter–his wife–will age, and based on his mother-in-law, I’m likely to look good for a good long time. I sure hope he’s right!)

So here we have it–a post dedicated solely to my wonderful–and beautiful–mother.

The Blessed Event

Holy Matrimony

Does anybody still live-blog? I haven’t seen any of those in a while. Once, in my old blog, after I had had cancer surgery, I wrote about it as I might have done if I’d had the means and the ability to blog about it as it was happening. Given the fact that the whole wedding experience was about that surreal, I think I might try the same approach in describing the day my marital status changed entirely. If you read the cancer surgery post either right before or right after this one? You’ll be able to tell the difference between weddings and surgery.

I think.

(One of the differences I can tell you right now is that I had a whole lot better sense of time even on high-powered drugs than I did on 3 March 2012. Times below are approximate. Except for the texting ones. I can look those up.)

6.30 a.m. Snooze button.

6.39 a.m. Okay, that’s enough of that. I get up and head into the shower. Sounds like TWCN is awake downstairs. And some adult (not my dad, who is in Southern New England with his mother and his mother-in-law in order to get them ready for the wedding on time) is up with her.

6.50 a.m. Get out of the shower. No one is making any noise any longer. TWCN is fast asleep. Maybe I imagined it.

6.51 a.m. Text from my Paul. It says, “<3 ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ .” Tradition says the groom can’t see the bride before the wedding on the day of, but it never said anything about texting.

7.10 a.m. Learn from my mother that TWCN has been upstairs to visit her about 5 times in the night, and also intruded on her parents’ slumber about that many times. When I mention that I slept through all of this, TheBro says, “That’s good. I didn’t sleep a wink the night before my wedding. Or the night before yours, either, apparently.”

7.27 a.m. I text my Paul a bunch of these: ” :* ” Then I ask him if we’re bringing our computers on our honeymoon. This makes me feel sheepish, as if for either of us to want to do anything else on our honeymoon that didn’t directly involve the other one is somehow suspect. He says yes. He also mentions how little sleep he got. Obviously for different reasons than the presence of an over-excited three-year-old. I eat breakfast and do a cursory drying of my hair, but I don’t slave over it because I’m about to pay someone else to do that, and besides, it’s raining out. I mean, drizzling. People who believe in omens say that rain on a wedding is a good one, and even though I don’t–officially, anyway–if I don’t mention it, someone else will. As far as I’m concerned, it can rain or not, but if it rains and a) turns suddenly colder so that all the melting snow turns into dangerous driving or b) ruins any chance of outdoor photos, I will be a bit put out.

Scruples?

7.52 a.m. Pour myself a cup of coffee in my travel mug. I never remember to use my travel mug, but somehow it seems special and self-pamper-y to bring a coffee with me to get my wedding-hair done.

8.00 a.m. Show up at the Hairdresser Down the Street just in time. The young woman doing my hair lets me in. We are the first ones there. Nicole the Magnificent Photographer shows up shortly thereafter. Let the games begin!

Curls to die for

8.30 a.m. My hair is taking on the sort of corkscrew curls I would have died for as a child (even though corkscrew curls were never in fashion during my lifetime), but am now not sure is quite the thing I’m going for. Still, I have hopes that this is the first step in a process.

9.00 a.m.Other hair stylists and clients are showing up, as well as a half-blind cat who is entertaining himself (and the rest of us) by chasing his own feet up and down a small flight of stairs.

The Half-Blind Cat

9.30 a.m. My hair doesn’t quite look like the photo I brought in, but it’s not bad, and my hair stylist has attached my new, bought-on-eBay-for-a-tiny-fraction-of-the-original-price lace-flower wreath-crown-thing to my head so firmly that if there were going to be dancing (which there isn’t, to TWCN’s disappointment but nobody else’s), I could do a flip over someone’s arm (if I could do a flip over someone’s arm) and it would stay on. Nicole loans me her umbrella and we head to my parents’ house. She says it’s silly for the bride to drive herself and her mother to her own wedding, so we drop my car off and she takes my mother and me to the church.

Lace-flower wreath-crown thing

Vintage 70's hippie dress and the Jane Addams window.

10.00 a.m. Arrive at church. Nicole absconds with my dress so she can photograph it without me in it, and I put on all the other stuff that goes on underneath it.

10.10 a.m. Sister-in-Lu and TheBro arrive with the children. Sister-in-Lu and the children come into the Bride’s Room. TheBro stays outside. Fortunately. I am wearing my “smoothing undergarment” and a slip over it, with a white-and-sparkly shawl over that so I don’t freeze to death. Oh, and a wreath on my head and too-tight but also sparkly shoes on my feet. TWCN looks at me bemusedly and I say, “Don’t worry. This isn’t Auntie Jenn’s special dress.” She continues mute but looks mildly relieved. And then distracted, because she is now being put into her special dress–the one in which she danced all over the house on the night they arrived.

Waiting

10.15 a.m. The dress returns. I put it on. Then I stand around for a long time, waiting to get married. Sister-in-Lu takes TWCN and Smiley Guy, now all dudded up, upstairs to their stations. Mom goes up, too, and comes back periodically to tell me what other surprising guests have arrived and how wonderful it is we ended up opening up the ceremony to anyone who wanted to come. Based on what she’s telling me, I think she’s right. Nicole is off photographing my Paul or something.

10.40 a.m. Girl-Talk Friend comes in to keep me company.

10.55 a.m. Mom comes down and tells me it’s time to walk upstairs. I do. My shoes are not comfortable but I think I can make it down the aisle in them. I cross the foyer and hide away in the coatroom. TWCN tries to alert latecomers to my presence, but I put my finger to my lips and she hushes right up, conspiratorially.

11.05 a.m. Grandma M. is playing the processional, but apparently my Paul and TheBro have not appeared as planned. Dad is trying to text somebody.

"Nice job, buddy!"

Flower girl: mission accomplished

11.07 a.m. The men appear. Smiley Guy is given the ring pillow by his mother and coached to take it up to his daddy. I cannot see any of this, but judging by the roars of laughter coming from the sanctuary, he is doing what he did yesterday at the rehearsal–tucking the pillow under his arm and racing down the aisle, spiking the pillow like an American football on the stage in front of his father.

11.08 a.m. TWCN is wearing a gorgeous spring-green dress made by my mother (her Grammie), and a wreath of silk daffodils in her hair, also made by her Grammie, and carrying a basket with yellow rose petals. I can’t see this either, but I’m told later that, in direct contrast to her little brother, she is intently trying to follow yesterday’s instructions to drop only one petal at a time, and when they stick together, she stops and waits until she can get them apart before moving on.

On Daddy's arm

11.12 a.m. and following: Finally my dad motions me, and I take his arm, and we are standing in the doorway, and there, down an aisle which seems much longer than I’ve ever noticed before, is my Paul, smiling. And between him and me are people from Now Church and Then Church and Starbucks and Nannyville and even Camp Long Ago, smiling. (Only one of those is actually the name of a place where I know these people from. See if you can guess.) It’s kind of overwhelming, and I’m trying to focus on my Paul, but . . . did I mention I was overwhelmed?

Pastor Ron says something welcoming, and TheBro says something about the joyful solemnity of marriage and prays, and then both of them sit down and my Paul is still there, and Dad kisses me on the cheek and moves to the spot in front of us, and I take Paul’s hand.

Then Dad starts to read us the vows for us to repeat and starts choking up. We do this in our family, and I wasn’t really surprised, but what did surprise me was that his emotion set me thinking (in that out-of-time kind of thought process where you think it without words) about what I was actually doing. Not that I hadn’t thought about it before, of course. I had been thinking about it, and heck–reading books about it. But the reality was hitting me in a way it hadn’t before. I was about to make a promise, out loud, in front of over one hundred of the most important people in my life, that I would love and cherish this man standing in front of me, forever. There is no shred of a second thought in my mind, but the astonishing magnitude of the promise kind of takes my breath away and I start to choke up, too. I can see Nicole swinging around to take magnificent photos, but I’m afraid I’m about to burst into tears, and as Dad regains his composure and starts reading the words I am to repeat, my voice trembles and quavers and shakes and I think that, absurdly, tears are inevitable, when . . . my Paul crosses his eyes at me. No one else sees it, but instead of tears, I burst out laughing instead.

After that little bit of suspense, the rest of the ceremony goes beautifully. Daughter-by-Marriage reads the Scripture verses we have chosen (Genesis 2.18-24 and Philippians 2.1-11), skillfully navigating microphone feedback. We and the congregation sing the hymns I have picked out (“The Servant Song” and “O the Deep, Deep Love of Jesus“), heartily and not as slowly as they are performed on YouTube. Grandma M on the organ? Rocks. (It’s an expression.)

We exchange rings, and Dad speaks to us about the nature of the promise we’re making each other, and then suddenly we’re kissing and people are clapping and we’re Mr and Mrs to each other. We turn around and face everybody, and I see more faces I didn’t notice the first time and I’m still overwhelmed and I’m smiling like crazy and we’re out the door and stopping and turning and everybody’s filing out and kissing us. Apart from one of the Brothers-in-Law whom I’m meeting for the first time in the receiving line because he and his wife live on the opposite coast, I know everybody coming through that line, and I am still overwhelmed. It feels like some kind of awesome and ill-defined reunion.

Man and wife

We take photos in the chapel and then head out to the family reception some distance from the church and take more photos there. The daffodils I’m holding look great against the rustic barns and the snow. It has stopped drizzling. There is a cake made by Cousin Wendy and it has daffodils on it and is a carrot cake, and my Paul and I feed it to each other sweetly, to the dismay of half of the family and the delight of the other half. Nicole the Magnificent Photographer doubles as a magnificent photographer and child entertainer. The inn staff ply TWCN and Smiley Guy with chocolate milk to stave off toddler and preschooler melt-downs, and it works. I snap my Paul’s suspenders and we laugh our heads off. The salmon is delicious and so is the prime rib. And then it’s over, and our family is leaving, and we are leaving, too, as husband and wife, on the first night of the rest of our lives.

For the rest of our lives

Girl Party

AND fruit pizza!

It should probably have been called a “Woman Party” if we were going to get really politically correct about it, but it’s my party and I’ll call it what I want to. Either one is better than “Bachelorette Party” (US–bachelorette is a term that that just basically bugs me, even though I get that it’s an improvement on either of the archaisms old maid or spinster ) or “Hen Night” (UK). Besides, we weren’t doing any of the numerous things that could be associated with those terms. It was just me and a bunch of my local-est Girl Friends, at the apartment of one of them, noshing and imbibing a little (seriously–just a little) and “sharing.” No going out and acting ridiculous. No strippers (none of those for anybody in this wedding, thank you very much). Just a really nice time with some really great women.

Starbecca hosted and she and Sister-in-Lu co-organised by email, and somehow they managed to pull together the aforementioned gift-certificate-of-pampering and a really classy evening. I wasn’t having bridesmaids because if I were going to bring together all the Girl Friends I know from all over the world who have had a significant impact in my life, there would’ve been so much estrogen in the church, probably, that the men would’ve had to fear for . . . well, something. I’ll let you make it up. Anyway. It would be overwhelming and there probably wouldn’t be room for all of them at the front of the church. I wouldn’t know how to narrow them down. But for this Girl Party, I selected just a few of them, who were local and also available, and I feel like they represented the rest very well.

Umm . . . yes?

Besides the stellar people, there was also wine, brie, strawberries, artichoke dip and pretty teacups. So . . . I was happy. Sister-in-Lu was in charge of the “program” which, in part, involved all the women coming up with cheeky questions (although not nearly as cheeky as they could have been) and my answering them. The questions ranged from “Have you farted in front of each other yet?” to “How did you know he was the one?” so I’d say we covered everything. Also, it gave me the opportunity to tell stories, which, while I prefer writing them because I only like being the centre of attention when I can watch it from a distance, was still pretty great since, you know if you’re here, I have lots of stories.

After that, Sister-in-Lu gave each of the women a typed prayer (mostly from the Book of Common Prayer, I believe) on a piece of paper, along with a pen, and encouraged them to write their own prayers for me, for my Paul, for our future. They got to pray them aloud, too, if they wanted. The prayers touched on everything from wedding day details to in-laws to sex, so I’d say we covered everything. Again.

Sister-in-Lu and I didn’t get home (the last night I was to call that place “home”) too late, but we were tired and I went to bed as soon as I could after hearing a brief and hilarious recounting from TheBro of how he and my Paul and The Brothers-in-Law had spent their evening. Evidently nobody else slept well the night before my wedding but I, drifting on the prayers of my sisters, perhaps, slept like a baby.

Some Local-est Girl Friends

We Now Interrupt Our Regularly Scheduled Wedding Rehash . . .

Back in the day when I was newly blogging on Blogger and intentionally courting a blog-community I had never met (though some of them I have now), we used to nominate each other for blogging awards from time to time. Then I kind of fell out of the blogging network (what? people don’t still read your blog when you stop reading and commenting on theirs??) and so I haven’t seen such things in a while. Imagine my surprise and hand-over-my-heart humbled delight to find that a new blogfriend had nominated me for this:

Oh! You shouldn't have! (But I'm kinda happy you did.)

Naturally there are rules that go with the acceptance of this award. Naturally one of them is to thank the nominator. And so, surprised-and-delightedly, I do. Thanks, Bitchy Bride! Irrelevantly, I would just like to point out that she is from England, where I used to live, and I am from New England, where she used to live. Sweet.

Now I’m supposed to reveal seven dirty secrets, which might be disappointing for Ms. BB, since mine are not all that juicy, and I really feel I should avoid any that will embarrass other people . . . Actually, mostly I’m having trouble thinking of any. I’m boring even myself. But here’s one:

1. I have never used the word “bitchy” in my blog before, and what’s more, I’m kind of (no longer secretly) pleased with The Bitchy Bride for creating a scenario in which I had no choice but to do so. Youth group members of The Readership: this is not license to start using this word. Around me. I know you already do. Parental members of The Readership (by which I mostly mean my parents): sorry.

2. When I was a teenager, I used to pray regularly for Kirk Cameron’s salvation because I had a huge crush on him and maybe I thought that would justify the photos I had of him taped inside my locker. Those of you who are ticked off at him for his recent interview . . . could blame me, I guess?

3.

4. This one’s for the Whovians: Two nights ago I had a dream that some composite of the Ood and the Adipose were trying to settle on Earth and trying to get individual humans to foster their babies. Dr Who wasn’t around and no one could discern their motives, but we did uncover an enormous “Oodipose” city underground. And I haven’t seen a Dr. Who episode in weeks. Evidently my brain was trying to make up for this void.

5. No real secret, but, I think, never-before-blogged about: when I was in college, I used to regularly climb out the 5th floor window of the Billy Graham Center, inch my way across the ledge to the next window, shove it open, climb in, and let my friends into the locked attic from the inside. Now there’s a big iron grill over the window, and an alarm on the door.

6. According to my Husband, I snore like a freight train. “How does such a noise come out of such a classy, elegant person?” he says. Probably he’ll stop asking that after he discovers I’m not really as classy or elegant as he thought.

7. I used to fall in love with characters in books, and secretly pretend I was the heroine. Beauty by Robin McKinley and the Westmark trilogy by Lloyd Alexander being my favourite stories to “be,” though Jane Austen novels would do in a pinch.

And now, here comes the point you have all really been waiting for, which is when I nominate 15-20 other bloggers for this illustrious award. We’re going to use the term “Versatile” in the award, “versatilely.” A lot of these blogs have a theme or a focus, but they are, indeed, versatile within that theme. (Others are just all over the map. Like me.) Here they are:

1. Simple Speedy Snacks

2. Kana’s Chronicles

3. Shadow Knife Pen . . . Glot

4. Adventures of the Mischief Machine

5. food4thoughtfood4life

6. A Woman’s Guide to Women: a Blog for Men

7. learning my lines

8. A Life in the Arts

9. L’Chaim to the dance of life

10. Random Human Ecology

11. Jeff’s Deep Thoughts

12. Seedlings in Stone

13. Left Cheek

14. Loud Time

15. Kirsten Creighton Photography

 

The Run-Up

Stress-relief

After deciding to be a higher-maintenance bride than I had theretofore intended, I further decided that on March 1st (St. David’s Day, as any self-respecting Welsh person or otherwise follower of my blogs past and present would know), I would take a personal day. It might be quite nice to take a personal day for St. David’s Day, but I had other tasks at hand.

The first, it turned out, being to shovel snow. Honestly. We get a freak snowstorm that “outens the lights” (as the Pennsylvania Dutch supposedly say) for days at the end of October, and then there’s hardly any winter for the rest of the winter, until the day the BroFam is scheduled to fly in for my wedding. I knew it was very entitled-acting of me and everything (an attitude I greatly dislike in other people), but I “bridezilla’d” away at God as I shoveled the walk after walking Oscar. Seriously? You make me wait until I’m nearly 40 to meet the man I’m going to marry, and then you screw up the weather so my only brother and his wife who’s throwing me a party and his adorable children who are the closest things I have to attendants can’t safely fly in? Thanks a lot!

Mutter mutter mutter. Am I ever glad God is more patient with self-absorbed people than I am. Also that weather didn’t stop Him getting the BroFam here safely and without even a dramatic-yet-boring story of plane delays which are familiar fare when one travels in the winter between the Midwest and the Northeast.

In the meantime, though, it was snowing, and I didn’t know that all would be well, and sometime after I shoveled the walk, I had to dig out my car so I could drive to the Hairdresser Down the Street to take care of those prolific hair follicles I have previously mentioned. I won’t go into all the details, except to say that the two young women scheduled to attend to me were wonderful, personable people, and that it’s a good thing they were, because due to a lack of supplies, what should have been an hour appointment turned into almost three. By the time I got out it was already time to get my nails done.

I was looking forward to that. Pedicures are so relaxing, and manicures are relatively painless, and also, almost as if they knew, I had gotten another frequent-buyer free drink coupon from Starbucks. I had to go near Starbucks to get to the nail place (or at least it wasn’t too out of the way to do so); therefore my plan was to get myself the biggest peppermint mocha I could, head over to the nail salon to which I had been given a gift certificate, and let my stress melt away while I sipped minty, chocolatey goodness and had my feet massaged.

The first part of this plan went okay. I got my free drink and found the salon, but when I got there, even though I had booked an appointment, the place was dark and the door was locked and I hadn’t been notified, dang it! Oops. There was bridezilla again. I decided not to rage at God about this one, but I did call Mom-Elizabeth (who is not old enough to be my mother, but she is a mother, and very generally motherly. In a good way), who had helped provide the gift certificate. “Look,” she said. “There are two other nail salons right down the street. Go to one of those. I’ll reimburse you. Then when you want to go again, we’ll use your gift certificate together.” (This works because my Girl Friends got me enough for two nail visits. Because my friends are amazing like that.)

I got out at the first place I came to. I opened the door, stuck my head in and almost took it right back out again. If I had had time to think about it, I would have been sure that I would die of asphyxiation due to the smell of chemicals in there. But . . . it was a snowy day and though this salon was open unlike the last one, there was no one in it except the proprietress, who, more quickly than I could think about asphyxiation, said, “hellocomeincanihelpyoutoday?” I’m a lousy liar to begin with, and besides, there was no way I could pretend she was talking to someone else even if I were a good one. So I told her yes, she could.

It turned out that, though I probably did inhale and absorb plenty of carcinogens, the actual smell stopped being very noticeable after only a couple of minutes. It turned out that this woman was very friendly and did a terrific job on all 20 of my nails (the polish is still on all of them, even). It turned out that I was able to drink my minty, chocolatey goodness while having my feet massaged after all. And it turned out that when I finally got home that night, the BroFam pulled into the driveway right behind me.

Backlog of Wedding

“You’re slacking,” said my Paul (now also known as my Husband) with a twinkle in his eye. (No, not that kind of twinkle. I know we just got married, but there are different kinds. Sheesh.) “You haven’t written any blogposts in weeks.”

Um . . . we did just get married and go on a honeymoon . . .

Not one to squander an opportunity to tease, however, he continued, “Yeah. But we’re back now.”

Right. Back to work. Which isn’t exactly lacking.

As it happens, he is the one who was literally taking notes all through our honeymoon, and I suspect some of this banter was just his oblique way of angling either for a chance to guest-post on my blog, or at least for a little link love from me for his own blog. (Seeing as he is most articulate and he had me at “library of Alexandria,” I think that’s probably the least I could do.) I know he has stuff he wants to tell you. He knows I have stuff I want to tell you. But you don’t disappear for a week, overhaul your marital status, start waking up in a completely different house and realising it’s yours, and then just, you know, have time for blogging. Not to mention that this week basically kicks off the Busy Season for me here at Now Church (pre-Easter through Labor Day Youth Conference), so, I’m just saying, I have my excuses.

I also have a lot to say. Which always turns out to make me say nothing at all.

All this to explain that I haven’t forgotten you, Dear the Readership, nor have I suddenly been struck dumb with marriage, but please bear with me as I find time to regale you with snippets from the last two weeks, while I simultaneously begin the adjustment to Mrs-hood.

The beginning of Mrs-hood