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Halloween is over, and Thanksgiving is on the horizon. The good folks at Apartment Therapy’s The Kitchn have posted five tips to help you prepare now for Thanksgiving; I have to admit that you’ll find the most useful hints in the comments, not the article.
This year, both our families’ Thanksiving plans are uncertain, and The Fella and I miiiiiiight have the chance to celebrate the holiday on our own, with a modest vegetarian feast and a cuddle on the couch. We’ve been cautiously daydreaming about the menu, each dish something special that one of us especially loves, and with The Fella’s squash galettes as the centerpiece.
Do you want to know the clincher, the moment when I went from idly daydreaming to hope-hope-hoping? It was during the conversation about pies: he wants pumpkin, I want blueberry, and neither of us wants a whole darned pie. And then I remembered my mini-pie tins, tucked away in a remote cabinet. This year, I want to be thankful for teeny tiny pies.
After three spring-like days all in a row my spirits are substantially lifted. And to boot, I found a new sweater and top which I plan to wear for my 40th birthday coming up in three weeks. I’ve got the what-to-wear, now to figure out the what and where. I don’t think we’ll be able to top the 30th when JM took me to the Matterhorn, but I’m sure something will occur to me.
I’m also getting in some great walks around my neighborhood and enjoying all the old houses and tall trees. Perth, I think I love you. There are so many little parks, two within a stone’s throw from my house. I could get used to this if only we had central heating during winter…
Happy Swiss Day! To celebrate I made nachos because, hey, melted cheese, and I bought some Lindt chocolates. Mmm. Isch fein gsii. I really should have bought bread and fleischkäse as well, but I’m too tired after all this walking to hoof it to the speciality store to get it. En guete y’all.
Brides and grooms routinely kvetch about delinquent RSVPs. I’m no different. We dearly hope that our friends and family will come to the celebration, but we do need to know roughly how many people we’re seating and feeding and boozing up, and how many tables and how big a dancefloor and how many of this and how many of that.
Ten days before the wedding and a good three weeks since our RSVP date passed, we still have about 15% of RSVPs outstanding. So far this week, my sweetly toned query, “Oh, we sure hope you can you make it to the wedding! Can you?” has prompted the following responses:
“Of course we’ll be there!” They didn’t need to RSVP, because I’m psychic: I knew they wouldn’t miss it.
An offhand “Nah, we can’t make it.” They didn’t need to RSVP, because I’m psychic: I knew they’d have to miss it.
“Didn’t we RSVP? Uh… we did! I wrote you an email last week! Or a letter!” Did you? Hmmm. If you did,
A) I most likely would have received an email or a letter.
B) You’d know which one you sent.
With that in mind, I have a feeling that you didn’t RVSP, and I’m trusting that feeling, because — didn’t you hear? — I’m psychic.
At a pre-wedding tea party, my friend J was kind enough to take some photos. Because I’m The Bride, I figured in many of them. (Yikes.)
As J framed a shot, she poked her head out from behind the camera and chided me. “Elsa, every time I point the camera at you, you make a funny face.”
“I — uh, I think that’s just my face.”
There was a pause.
“Oh. It is. Okay.”
Click.
Since the BITWRATHPLOOB is apparently a longterm houseguest of some family members, it seems only courteous to extend him (?) an invitation to our wedding.
But we have to get a head count, y’know, so he’d better r.s.v.p. (And none of this “and Guest” stuff, neither.)
I recently spent an afternoon flipping through CDs and websites looking for a first dance song that would suit both our tastes. It’s turning out to be tricky, especially since most of Elvis Costello’s work is better suited to a divorce proceeding than to a wedding.
After a few hours, I has a “well, duh!” moment and turned to Google. Ach, my eyes! Ze google does nuzzing! Well, nuzzing except remind me why I have assiduously avoided The Knot: The Knot’s first pick for hip first dance songs is Elvis Costello’s “Alison.”
“Alison.”
Now, I was eight when “Elvis Costello released My Aim is True. “Alison” is probably the first Elvis Costello song I knew word-for-word all the way through, probably the first Elvis Costello song I sang in the shower, probably the first Elvis Costello song that spurred me to buy an Elvis Costello album as I crept toward my teens. This is a song I loved long before I could really get it. This song twangs a string deep inside my chest.
And even as a kid, I understood that “Alison” is not a song about finding your true love and life companion.
No, really. The lyrics to “Alison,” listed by the official Elvis Costello website and fan club, emphasis mine:
Oh it’s so funny to be seeing you after so long, girl.
And with the way you look I understand
that you were not impressed.
But I heard you let that little friend of mine
take off your party dress.
I’m not going to get too sentimental
like those other sticky valentines,
’cause I don’t know if you’ve been loving some body.
I only know it isn’t mine.
Alison, I know this world is killing you.
Oh, Alison, my aim is true.
Well I see you’ve got a husband now.
Did he leave your pretty fingers lying
in the wedding cake?
You used to hold him right in your hand.
I’ll bet he took all he could take.
Sometimes I wish that I could stop you from talking
when I hear the silly things that you say.
I think somebody better put out the big light,
cause I can’t stand to see you this way.
Alison, I know this world is killing you.
Oh, Alison, my aim is true.
My aim is true.
I’ve been studying the giant listing of vows at [wedding forum redacted], and as I do, I’m struck by how many people’s vows make untenable promises about “always”: I will always keep this passion alive, I will always adore you, you’ll always be my beloved and most awesomest best friend.
And I’m thinking, “…really? So, you can consciously control your impulses, turning on and off your flow of oxytocin and serotonin like a tap? Coooooool*. But most people don’t work like that.”
The realist** in me suddenly sees why marriage services are so often three-pronged: a celebration of the present with its smoochy-faced love; a reminder that marriage is Serious Business; a sobering pledge of fortitude in the face of challenges. The couple vows to behave a certain way, because, duh, you can’t control your passions, but you can control your behavior.
Because emotions are slippery, fickle things, I can’t sensibly promise how I will feel in the future. The Fella is my bestest beloved most awesomest best friend, and I’m entering this marriage believing that will always be so. I will nurture and bolster my passion, my fondness, my adoration of him, and do my best to give him reason to do the same. I enter this marriage believing that our love, sympathy, and hard work will keep these feelings vital and growing, always shifting and changing with us.
I can hope and believe and, most importantly, I can strive to make it so; I can’t promise that my crazy hindbrain will follow in step every day.
But I can pledge to treat him as someone I love and adore, as someone for whom I am passionate, as my bestest beloved most awesomest best friend. What, then, does that mean? For me, it means a promise of respect, trust, honesty, kindness, sympathy, and a mutual assumption of good intent now and in the future — even if I’m hurt, even in anger, even if my lizard-brain hisses at me.
Surely this is the crucial part of the vows, in any case. Ardent love and bountiful affection don’t test our vows of commitment. Marriage (or any bond of love or friendship) is predicated not on the continuance of fleeting passions, but on the determination to honor our promises, even (especially) when loving kindness flags or falters.
*I would like to cut you up and study you. Please?
**Yes, The Fella is aware that he’s marrying an affectless robot.
I recently wrote about a friend’s potluck wedding reception, where family and friends fed each other, sharing their joy and love with the happy couple. The Fella and I aren’t having a potluck wedding, but for the past few months, I’ve been musing that our DIY wedding feels like a barnraising: our loved ones keep enthusiastically pitching in, lending their strength and talents to help us build something of value.
If you browse wedding forums or advice columns, you’ll soon bump into shrill warnings against this approach. Naysayers dismiss the handmade, homemade, shared nature of the event. It’s tacky, it’s rude, it’s cheap. It’s inconsiderate to expect guests to contribute to Your Special Day.
Of course guests don’t want to do your dirty work, but you can accept loving assistance (and even ask for it) without being rude or demanding. Some thoughts guiding our own requests:
- Our friends miiiiight enjoy showcasing their talents. They would not enjoy predictable drudgery; we’ll pay people for that.
- Any guest’s wedding-day contribution should be brief. Everyone wants to have fun!
- Things will go wrong. It doesn’t matter. If the cake falls over, if the photos don’t come out, if the iPod freezes… we’ll still be married at the end of the day.
-If anyone seems hesitant, for any reason or for no reason at all, we’ll withdraw our request.
If we ask you to consider helping out, it’s because we value your talent and we trust your judgment. That includes the judgment that leads you to say, “No, I’d rather not.”
In fact, we’ve made few requests so far; our family and friends keep amazing us with their offers of help, offers far more generous, creative, and serendipitous than we could have imagined.
Behind the click is a loooooong list of the help being offered, and a few requests we plan to make.
Elli
Elsa
