Ten Tips for Marriage: Advice from the Maritally Seasoned

 Here's a few rules my sister and I made up one night while we were drinking wine. Sixty three years of marriage between us. We call them "Tips for Transitioning between Honeymoon and Honey-do."

ADVICE FROM THE MARITALLY SEASONED 

1.        Tools are important to men.  When you borrow something from his tool chest, leave the tool drawer open so you’ll remember where to return it when you’re finished.

2.    Before you disturb anything, study the method he uses for storing his tools.  Know whether he sorts by order of earliest purchased, (FIFO), biggest-to-smallest (BIGO) or pile-on-the-workbench-and-search (SWEARO).

 

3.      A real man never borrows. If he plans to use a tool more than once he'll purchase the Professional Model with every attachment. No matter how much it costs, his argument is that “It’ll pay for itself in time.”

 

4.      It is a far graver thing you do by leaving his screwdriver on your kitchen counter than for him to forget it on the driveway so it punctures your tire when you run over it.

5.      When he offers to take over a chore, put it in contract form and try to get his signature notarized.  “Paper Trail” may seem like an ugly phrase now, but after the honeymoon, good intentions dry up faster than an open bottle of cinnamon body oil.

       

6.      Get him to landscape your yard before he signs up for a gym.  Try to convince him that a good push mower will work the same ab cluster as a rowing machine.  A shovel will substitute for a stairmaster.  Pulling weeds-two-three-four will stretch the calves.

   

7.      Before planting anything precious or expensive in your yard, observe his path and avoid those locations.  Men, cattle and deer make paths. Don’t try to change nature.

8.       He possesses the remote control as surely as you own your grandmother’s pearls.  He won’t expect to wear your jewelry, leave his remote alone.

9.      The toilet seat is the first to know you’re now married.  Till death do you part, the lid will stay up.  It’s the man’s trade-off for wearing a ring.

10.    A man’s memory is fail-proof. If he doesn’t remember making a mistake, then it's your fault. This rule moves up the list with each anniversary.

  

Bonus Hint: a married man keeps his dirty socks on the floor so they’re easier for you to find.

That’s my advice.  Now I have a question.  Could one of you young brides explain why all my honeymoon lingerie shrunk?   

 Got any to add to the list? Or rules for women? Thanks for commenting.

A Thank-You to the Universe for my Zihuatanejo Connection

Shameless promoter that I am, this essay is entered in Sonia Marsh's Gutsy Story competition. I'd love you to drop by and vote for me. I  write about this trip and other experiences of the Social and Sexual 
Revolution in my baby boomer memoir, Ordinary Aphrodite

The flight is on time as it descends over the basin rim into the desert. Phoenix in mid-April is green golf courses and swimming pools surrounded by alfalfa fields and sprinklers. I pull my eyes from the magazine I’m pretending to read. My hands are trembling from the apprehension of meeting my oldest daughter, Sam, to board a plane to Zihuatanejo. I know she has not agreed to this trip without persuasion.

The trip itself is the result of many hands. God has a plan.

In the taxiing plane I hear my friend’s stern voice, two months earlier, brooking no dissent:  “Just hear me out before you say anything. I’ve booked you into a writer’s retreat in Zihuatenajo for late April. You need to go. You’re not writing and you need to be. Go and let it change your life.”

That phone call had frozen me with apprehension. Mexico—alone? From the way my stomach dropped at the idea I knew I was not brave enough to go alone. My heart, my instinct, called for my daughter.

She had voiced her objections—a single week of vacation built up, not enough money—but beyond the stated, I heard her apprehension about spending a week together. And her fears weren’t without reason.

I was fresh off the farm, a college sophomore when I got pregnant. Her childhood was over before I figured out who I was and what I had to offer her. She was born at the end of the baby boomer generation—stuck between two generations without seeming to belong to either.

We were the classic Peter Pan and Wendy with no idea what to do about it. I knew she didn’t like me very much—but what if I discovered she hated me? She had left home at seventeen for college and never returned. What if after all the years of living apart—of chasing separate dreams and missed connections—this was our only chance and we blew it?

If we didn’t try we would never know. Still—maybe knowing wasn’t all it was cracked up to be!

She stalled. I fussed to her father about her indecision when secretly I was doing the same thing. It was her father who negotiated the truce, the guy who didn’t really want me to go—because it was southern Mexico and he would have no power to save me if something went wrong—this husband of mine called his daughter and told her I wouldn’t go without her.

Fate had decreed it was time.

 Miles from home, the novelty of adventure frees us. Tears turn to laughter as we struggle to find common ground, mother and daughter, offspring of my teen years when I had little to offer her except my love.

Lying on our beds that first night, lost in the weight of awkward silence, we begin to talk, first of inconsequentials, then of the disappointments we have each suffered at the other’s hand.  When exhaustion claims us my firefighter daughter demands that we make an evacuation plan. She places a flashlight and our shoes by the door while I scoff, not yet ready to relinquish the parent role to this adult daughter who has grown tenacious in the missing years.

When the first temblor rocks the hotel I accept the small earthquake as a sign that flexibility and respect might be a good thing.

Seven days later we are friends in a way we have never before managed, our hearts healed of the nagging fear that we have somehow missed our connection. Here’s what I write to celebrate our week.

                                                Thank you, Zihua’

The week was productive and inspirational. My daughter and I left our mark on the little town. I asked questions of every bartender and waiter, every vendor and taxi driver who would tolerate our Spanish. We rode a bus with broken windows to Petatlán and were taken in hand by a couple of eager seventeen-year-olds. We caught the stench of freshly-butchered pigs, ate cow head enchiladas, and brushed off flies and proposals of marriage with equal adroitness.

We adored Lenore and Veronica and Elsa and her husband. We dined with an opera singer from Mexico City and advised her in her marital distress over a bottle of wine at midnight. We rose at dawn and ate cerviche at the fish market, and enticed Jose the cantina owner into telling us his story of lost virginity at the hands of a Greek goddess who was nineteen to his seventeen.

Sweet days. We made friends with the geckos on our wall and nodding acquaintance with the iguana in our tree. We toted home fresh cocos and pinas and laced the shells with rum. We tossed Else's bougainvillea into the sea at midnight and made a wish to return. We bought Latina sandals that made our legs look long and hootchie- mama dresses that made us feel great.

We danced to a Bolivian CD in the dark and watched the houses on the hill

swell with the afternoon light. We bought morning coffee for the Indian woman who carries flan on her head, and turned down an offer of product from the local drug dealer. We taxied to Ixtapa and ferried to Las Gatas and attended Easter Mass at the church of the Virgin of Guadalupe. (And knelt in reverence at the cathedral at Petatlan) and saved our sunburn for the last day.

Oh yes, I finished twenty-five pages of most excellent prose for a total of seventy-five pages on my novel. If we missed anything we'll be glad to retrace our

steps. We have found paradise.

When we returned, my husband wanted to know why I looked so relaxed. I told him it was the humidity.

           In a lifetime a mother should be so lucky. We were both profoundly touched by our experiences. The words started flowing, woman to woman, and they’ve never stopped. Thank you, Universe, for your part in my journey.

                                                      

What's your story? Any life-changing adventures with your children or grandchildren? Share them with us and please write them down for yourself. 

When Your Body Says “No:” The Stress/Disease Connection

I came across this amazing link and I want to shout it from the rooftops. 

Vancouver-based Dr. Gabor Mate argues that too many doctors ignore the research. They’ve apparently forgotten the once commonplace assumption that emotions are deeply implicated in human well-being.

Well, HELLO! A couple of friends and I were discussing this very thing (we’re grandmas, but never too old to diss our upbringing!) 

Tina mentioned that her mother was an “I love you, BUT…” type. My friend grew up feeling she’d never quite “made the grade” with her mother. In her words, by adulthood this feeling had oozed out to include everyone in the whole world. She calls herself a Pleaser. Not surprisingly, she’s plagued with health problems. I love her the way she is, but I can see that she says “yes” way too often.

Our other friend, Mary, said her mother is a narcissist who manages to deflect every triumph back to herself. If Mary brought home a good report card, she was told she took after her mama who always got straight A’s. Mary’s fought a weight problem her entire life. Her mother, of course, is a perfect size 6. Her horror is that she will spend her golden years caring for her mother's dramatic, malingering passing. We coined an unflattering nickname for her mother that makes Mary laugh. After all, what are friends for?

My mom is a raver--in the good sense. She raves over us. Her favorite phrases involve, “Isn’t that beautiful!” or “You made this all by yourself?” Three generations of her progeny tease her about her attribution skills as we glow in the light of her appreciation. 


I took the joy of accomplishment for granted until I began noticing that not everyone had it so good. Dr. Mate says her joy helped me develop a sunny disposition that supports a healthy immune system. Were it this simple!

I inherited her attribution skills and for that I’m grateful. But my awful twin makes it easy to interject sarcasm and deflect attention to myself. My attribution skills come at a cost. I’ve had to learn to sit and really listen. To take a backseat. (See, not easy. Count the I’s and me’s in this paragraph and you’ll see.)

So what is this rant really about? To take it back to the top, I’m an expressive who apparently has been tending my immune system my entire life. If I live to be 90, I’ll have to thank my mom, my blog and everyone who has had to listen to me verbalize my feelings.

How about you? Any insights into your emotional/physical connection?

Don’t forget to check out Dr. Mate’s interview. 

"Chocolate Necessities"

I'm a lazy blogger this week. Here's an excerpt of my Baby Boomer memoir, Ordinary Aphrodite.   
Call me crazy, but I don’t like chocolate. Never have, even as a little girl. I know I’m supposed to—how can I call myself a woman if I don’t splurge on a chunk of Ghirardelli’s dark when my hormones are raging? How can I pass by the See’s booth on my way through the mall without veering in for a little pick-me-up?

Theobroma cacao. The Aztecs called it “fruit of the gods.” Who am I to spurn the naughty little aphrodisiac their high priests fed the royal concubines? Who to decline an intoxicate so indelicate that Victorian ladies had to nosh it behind their husbands’ backs? I swoon to imagine! So stimulating, sexy and addicting it shouldn’t be legal without a prescription—Spanish fly, thy name is chocolate!

I beg a question—is chocolate food or medicine? After all, it took a Supreme Court to decide about the tomato. Whichever, do I owe it to my kids to indulge in a daily ounce of chocolate so I don’t end my life a half-baked, confused old lady? Like my guilt isn’t bad enough, am I endangering my mental clarity without a daily fix?

But vegetable, candy or fruit, I’ll have to pass. Truth is—my body doesn’t process theobroma very well. Call me lily-livered; I was born with a raging case of jaundice. Some of my kids are just like me; they don’t like chocolate, either. That’s where the blame comes from—motherguilt for messing up their chocolate gene.

My life was one gooey mess. Then I saw the movie, Chocolat.

Chocolat was one of those movies I decided to watch after I’d seen the trailer. I didn’t know exactly what to expect, but Johnny Depp was in it so how could I go wrong? Juliette Binoche wore a pretty dress and high heels, and she looked on the outside exactly the way I felt on the inside, so I knew she had something to teach me about myself. I was going to be glad I went.

And I went, and that’s exactly what happened. I emerged from the theater deliriously happy. I was in love with chocolate—and myself. I wanted to wear silk scarves in my hair and hug strangers, and meddle in everyone’s business and inspire them to be greater than they were. I wanted conservative men to fall into confusion when I was around. I wanted a wild young lover, and I wanted to weigh a hundred and fifteen pounds soaking wet and eat truffles without consequence.

The movie made me crave a bowl of the wonderful remedy our family uses as a curative for the blues. We call it “runny.” Runny is hot-fudge sauce we cook up whenever one of us comes home with a problem of the heart. Tea and runny.  My Great-aunt Josephine started the tradition: Whenever one of her daughters had a problem with a man or his money, she would make a batch of runny in her heavy steel kettle. Depending on how many sisters and daughters crowded around the table, she would spoon the batch into cereal bowls or saucers. When I was eleven I was invited to sit at the table and eat mine with a teaspoon along with the women.   

After seeing Chocolat, I rushed home and boiled up a batch of runny. And fanaticized about a wild young pirate licking it off my belly.

One day the Fates conspired to give me a Chocolat moment of my own. Opportunity arrived in the form of a gift from a dear friend—a dozen decadent truffles made with imported Belgian Callebaut chocolate. From first bite it was clear we were destined to be together—the chocolate, not the friend. With one passionate nibble, truffles and I began a wild, passionate affair of the heart.

I remember it was Thursday, my birthday. My husband Steve’s friends had given him a gift certificate for a night at the Parkfield Inn, a rustic log cabin Bed and Breakfast in Parkfield, the Earthquake Capitol of the World—Ground Zero for The Big One!

We were in the car, pulling out, when the UPS truck pulled into our driveway. The driver jumped out, ran over with a package that needed signing for, jumped back in and drove off. I opened the outer wrapper. It was a gift-wrapped carton with a gold sticker from Chocolate Necessities in Bellingham, Washington.

I ran back into the house, grabbed a bottle of Brandy and two snifters, and packed everything in a basket along with my CDs of Govi’s “Guitar Odyssey” and Emilio Castillo’s “Modern Gypsy.”

Fast-forward to late night.

We are sated by steaks and wine from the Parkfield Cafe across the road. We have thumb-tacked our business cards onto a naked spot on the ceiling, along with a prerequisite dollar bill. Now it is time to adjourn to the inn, where our room is furnished with a queen-size bed made of lodge-pole pine, with iron ranch implements hanging from a chandelier over our heads.

Around ten we break out the bottle of Brandy and slip the gold cord from the exquisite box. I feel like royalty that my friend has sent such an extravagance. Inside, two rows of six fresh, stunningly lovely truffles fill the long, narrow box, each one more beautiful than the next. Each is decorated with a squiggle of icing to differentiate it from its neighbor. At first I can’t imagine breaking up the perfect set, but then I remember the reason for the gift is to teach me to embrace luxury.

With one sniff the bouquet of the Callebaut invades my limbic brain and I am lost.

I bite into an Irish Cream liqueur truffle. Steve chooses a plain chocolate. We exchange nibbles, but he prefers his. With my second bite the Universe hits me with a star-bursting, lightning strike of esoteric clarity. It is a Nirvana moment when all the hidden knowledge of the Universe accrues inside my brain. For a moment I am Juliette Binoche

AUNT JOSEPHINE'S RUNNY
2 cups sugar
4 Tbsp cocoa
2 Tbsp butter
2/3 cup milk
1 tsp. vanilla
Combine sugar, cocoa, butter and mild. Boil until mixture starts to thicken. Let cool slightly and eat with spoons. 
(Pirate Optional.) Enjoy. 

Ahoy, Matey, what's your secret passion? Your secret's safe with us.  

Singing Our Whine-Song

Not talking about a drinking song here. Every generation has something that drives them crazy about their mother. I call it the whine-song.   

My blessed mama probably won’t read this. And if she does, she’ll laugh. Because she knows there was one thing about her that drove me crazy. Her favorite theme was the twenty-seven years she went without a new coat. It was true. I was there and I saw her, always making sure her brood was fed and clothed—even if it meant doing without. 

Most of the time she was happy to serve. But every now and then something would remind her and out would come the pathetic coat story.  

Funny how things work out. Her lack of coat became a theme for my abundance. In college the family I cooked for gave me a beautiful red poncho that I wore through three years of college and another three pregnancies. On my first married Christmas, my brand new in-laws handed me a gorgeous Bullock’s box. In it was a fawn-colored faux-suede pants coat that made my heart sing.

In the intervening years a friend gave me her mother-in-law’s elegant emerald green overcoat (a serious East Coast wool garment.)  One Christmas I sewed five down jackets for Christmas presents. I live in Central California and it isn't even cold here! 

What is it about my mother’s lack that the Universe overcompensated with me? Was it some erratic force laughing at us? My mother-in-law left coats hanging in every closet. She hoarded them, child of the Depression that she was, and after her death I filled my car with them and distributed them to a homeless shelter.

So what’s my whine-song? Naturally it has to be different from my mother’s. And my daughters will have to find different yet. I think mine is the poor-me-I-don’t-eat-enough-to-be-this-damn-fat song. Yeah, that’s the one my daughters will remember. With a chorus of, “why me, why me.”    

They won’t remember the coats. Why should they—their closets are full of them. It’ll be something else, maybe plastic grocery bags or—here’s a good one—the unequal distribution of household chores.   

And, so the beat goes on.

What’s your whine song? Have a theme you’d care to share with us?  Come on--you know you want to!

A Room of Her Own

Does your secret heart yearn for a place that is yours alone? Where no one will intrude? My dream writing room promises to eliminate all my excuses.

As I write this a carpenter is putting the finishing touches on a 10x12’ writing room in my backyard, complete with a set of solid wood, double pane French doors that I found twenty years ago at a garage sale for $30, and a vintage leaded glass window I found at Edna Valley Antiques.

This little room, like Julia Cameron advocates in The Artist’s Way is my way of reclaiming creativity after a few years devoting too much energy to caretaking my mother-in-law and newly-retired husband. Everything in my little room will resonate creative expression because I’m a crazy woman seemingly incapable of compromise.

My husband thinks the white beadboard will make the room seem smaller, but I’ve carried a picture of wainscoting for so long that I’m intractable. Painted that very light green that changes to peach when the setting sun infuses shadows in the room, this room will ooze creative charm. The wicker furniture will be glossy white with airy cushions. A tole-painted makeup mirror from the forties will have a place of honor, its relic lightbulbs left unwired since the only lighting will be a battery powered, faux mariner’s lantern hanging from the open beam ceiling. 

Here it is the day I finished

We began calling it my writing room when it wasn’t a room at all, but a storage shed built by a college construction class and delivered on a flatbed trailer. It was a disappointment from the first day, its lovely eaves chopped off for some indiscernible reason so that it set like a forlorn outhouse in the pasture, slowly rotting from moisture until I asserted my claim.

My husband and I rolled the shed into the back yard on steel pipes, then jacked it onto concrete pyramid blocks. We built a free-standing deck to meet the requirements for a non-coded room and rebuilt the roof with real eaves. I hired a carpenter who shares my vision for small rooms and used lumber.

When Eric is finished I’ll paint it. I’ll seal the deck and rails. They’re old-growth redwood from a small barn we tore down years ago. I’ll polish the vintage brass hinges and doorknobs I've been collecting with this project in mind. I’ll install antique glass pulls on the leaded glass window and shine the crank-open window—the only thing in the room that is new—an Anderson crank window with a view of the creek.

Granddaughter Ava and Annie the hen

Every day is a delight, listening to the hum of the Skil saw, the splat, splat of the nail gun. The process makes my heart happy—not the bursting happy when something surprises, but the savoring joy that occurs when life is good.

 My writing room has become a metaphor for taking control of the things in my life that I couldn’t change even if I wanted to. It’s become a playhouse for me in middle-age, a replacement for the one built for my three sisters and me by our father so that—ironically—we could practice our homemaking skills. (Now we’re burned out and we wonder why we didn’t spend our childhoods riding horses or something.)  

Unlike previous projects there's no rush to completion. (see note)  The process is a journey, not a destination. Paying for it out of my writing income is part of my agreement with myself. Staying true to my vision is giving me a room of my own.

 Truth time. I'm such a liar! I wrote this last year and the act of writing it made me realize how anxious I was to finish it. I stayed up nights sanding and priming. I'm happy to say the room has already seen a novel born within its walls. Stay tuned for the particulars.

 My advice is to do what you have to do. Claim the bathtub, climb a tree, slide into Starbucks, but find a place of your own. In high school, with a family of nine, I used to climb into the front seat of the car bundled in a blanket and read. I didn't do this a lot, but the barn was too drafty and sometimes just I needed a place of my own.


So where's your secret place? Tell us where you go to create. 

.

$2,500 For a Wedding? But Wait 'Til You Hear!

The guest list came to 150 guests. When I told my daughter that we were spending $2,500 TOTAL for her wedding, she thought we were nuts. But we did it and I have the receipts to prove it.

First the background: My daughter is a Peter Pan. I’m a Wendy. That’s the nature of our relationship. I was born to annoy her, apparently. But this time she was living in Seattle and she had only enough time to drive in the day before the wedding and had no money to contribute. Best of all, she said the magic words, “I trust you!”

Another bit of background: Months before she entrusted me with the task, I had found a stationery store/giftshop in its final three days of a closing sale. I stripped the store clean—invitations, plastic wine and champagne flutes, napkins and a ton of ribbons. I had them sitting in bags all around the house and when the call came, I wasn’t about to waste my treasures. 

Fair to say, I wasn’t wild about the groom, but that’s another story. We saw this as a chance to demonstrate the power of common sense. Actually, her father named the amount we’d kick in and he wasn’t about to budge. I had to agree; if they wanted a bigger wedding, they could contribute, but it seemed they didn’t care that much. “Surprise us!”

Did I mention, she wanted to get married in six weeks?

More than a vote of confidence, I saw it as a lark. I was a fabulous money manager. I had no fear. But now it seemed that my daughter was “untrusting” me.

Back to the phone call. 

“Twenty-five hundred dollars!” That’s how much the dresses cost that I’ve been trying on.”

“Then you better go back and try on some more,” I replied calmly, hoping the sweat on my brow wasn’t obvious across the phone line.

(Truth in disclosure—this all happened in 1993—we had phone lines back then.)

THE PLAN

The next day she stopped at a fabric store that was going out of business and bought 10 yards of silk dupioni at $16 a yard. The clerk recommended a seamstress—who made her a stunning dress from a Vogue pattern for $200. It had rosettes and a bustle, and they cut it shorter in front for a lawn wedding.

In the next week my hand molded around the phone. I checked event centers. Nada. The wineries wanted a fortune. After calling around for a few days I discovered that if I joined the Historical Society for $50, I could use the Dallidet Adobe and Gardens for a couple hundred dollars. Right in my budget. (I checked it out for this article. It now costs $2,900. I knew my deal was too good to last.)

Problem--the gardens were booked every Saturday in August. By some stroke it was still available on one Sunday, but the gardens were open to the public until 3:00. The decision took ten seconds; I booked the wedding for 2:00 and decided the guests could arrive early and tour the adobe for free if they wanted.

But Sunday was still a problem. The rental agency wasn't open to deliver the tables and chairs. We couldn't get them on Saturday because there ...was...a...wedding! It was like I was hearing, Don’t ask, don’t tell.

"What...are...you...doing with the ...Saturday tables?"

“Oh, we’ll Pick them up on Monday.”
"What if we..."
"We won't be picking them up until Monday!"

“UH HUH. Well, can I just rent tablecloths?”

I chose dark green cloths. They matched the lawn and I didn’t have to add any decorations. Now committed, I held my breath. This wedding planning business seemed to depend on luck and blind faith. But I was feeling lucky.

Let’s see—what's next? Photographer. I phoned around and got several bids for $700-$1,000. Yikes! (Remember, it was 1993 and there were no digital cameras, only studio photographers with film.) I decided to let that one go for the moment.

On to food. The caterer was over my budget. My daughter wanted Santa Maria style BBQ and his price was $15 a plate. So I asked him how much it would cost to just barbeque 15 tri tips, some linguicia and Swiss sausage appetizers? He was a friend of my husbands. He said Free. I said $100 and he’d pick up the meat for me. He said okay and agreed to toast the French bread and warm the beans—as a favor. What a gentleman.

I went to Vics, our local redneck diner and asked the chef if he could prepare four gourmet salads in my stainless steel commercial bowls. Sure--$25 each. Same for the homemade beans.

The week of the wedding I made dozens of deviled eggs, bought veggie trays, did a buffet of appetizers. Laid everything out on cookie sheets. Truth in disclosure—at the time I owned a take n’ bake pizza restaurant. I used my commercial refrigerators to store the deviled eggs, salads, and lots of the bubbly. (I happened to win a raffle at a winery where the prize was a case of sparkling wine. I added a case of mixed whites and reds and got a discount.) The lucky streak continued.

 

My daughter had always wanted to ride in a carriage for her wedding--but to rent one was $200 delivery. I phoned the Apple Farm. For $60 an hour I could book the carriage if I was a guest. So I booked a room for their wedding night. When it was time, the carriage driver drove across town (20 minutes), took all the children on rides around the block (20 minutes) and spirited the wedding couple back to their hotel (20 minutes.)

Remember the photographer? Well I forgot about hiring one until four days before. After panicking, and phoning everyone I knew with a camera, I redialed a professional who had seemed nice and asked him how much he would charge an hour. $25 dollars. So I hired him for four hours. He came to Grandma’s house, took the getting-ready pictures. Then he drove to the gardens and took photos until his time ran out. And gave us a 25 photo book of prints as a gift.

THE BIG DAY

On the day, the entrance to the gardens looked like a fairyland: Tiny gardens separated by hedgerows, bricked walkways and shaded pergolas. Hundreds of flowers tended by volunteers. It was magic. We hung garlands of ribbons on the pillars at the garden gates and let the ribbons festoon in the breeze.

The children? Well, instead of a bridal party we stopped all the children when they arrived and asked them to wear a wand of ribbons in their hair (girls) or on their wrist (boys). They went down the garden path in front of the bride waving their fairy wands.

 The bride’s younger sister was lovely in a strapless dress I made of Ashley chintz (technically a floral upholstery fabric. Remember the fabric shop that was closing out at the start of this story?) I made it with a generous zipper allowance. After the wedding (and before they left for the honeymoon) I removed the zipper, reset it and viola! Off went the bride on her honeymoon in her new dress.)

When we arrived at 8:00 am, the day of the wedding, there were 12 tables and 126 chairs stacked and waiting to be picked up. We took the bride's name off and promptly set them out again. I hired two of my pizza employees to don fancy aprons and keep the food refreshed so I could concentrate on the guests. We put the wine and beer near the buffet table and let everyone imbibe while the photographer took pictures.

My husband trailered an antique “hit and miss” engine onto the gravel area and cranked homemade ice cream in a five-gallon ice cream maker while the male guests stood around palavering like old farmers.We offered three varieties—maple nut, vanilla and strawberry. The cake—we ordered a lovely professionally decorated cake for 25 people and offered sheet cakes to go with the ice cream. (Served in little dishes I bought from the stationery/giftshop that was going out of business.)

During my early phone marathon I made a strategic decision to hire a magician/juggler instead of hiring music. The day of, I saw grandfathers and children "oohing" together while the magician tossed flaming clubs in the air. Other guests strolled the gardens. Some played croquette or used the over-sized wands in tubs of soap to make soap bubbles. Everyone was wearing weinerdog balloon hats and unicorn knobs. Contented ladies were discussing the adobe they had toured earlier. 

The young people danced to music tapes on a system we borrowed from someone (not my job.) A family friend sang. A former priest performed the service. The sun shone through the pergolas and people couldn’t stop telling me how it was the most fun they’d ever had at a wedding.

My stress level (as I remember) was about a 5—although there were a couple of spikes--like realizing the bride had forgotten to order the flowers. We ran to the market and bought a few bouquets and laid them around on the green tablecloths. Punched some into the lattice backdrops. Whatever. The place looked grand.

When we realized we had nowhere to put the gifts, someone found an empty wheelbarrow behind the shed. We draped it with something white and the gifts spilled onto the lawn as though we’d planned it.

THE WRAP-UP

At the end of the day we cleaned up. Collected the disposable cameras. Stacked the chairs and tables. Two hours later it was like we’d never even been there. (We even retaped the Saturday bride’s name back on the tables like we’d found it) and closed the gate as we left.

That night we joined our daughter and her groom at a local bar for a nightcap. I was more dead than alive, but we all agreed that it was the perfect day.

And the receipts—including the hotel room, our gift to the couple, came to $2,519.60. I swear. 

The only problem with the wedding came afterwards. The guy at the store where we took the photos managed to misplace the photos. The staff looked in every drawer. Not there. Never showed up. But at least we have the memories.   

My daughter had some photos, but she tossed most of them after the divorce. We cut the groom out of a few and she looks gorgeous. Like a...bride!