Tales from the Shark Tank

Back last August, we had a discussion with our offspring to the effect that holding pants was not adequate to meet social expectations for answering the door. Today we had another, similar discussion as he stood in front of the open sliding glass door to encourage the cat to come in, about five minutes after we’d come home from swimming.

“Son, put on your underpants before you stand in front of the door!”

“But I’m holding underpants!”

“Just like pants, son. Holding them doesn’t count. Wearing them counts. Now put them on!”

And with much dramatic stamping, he went and sat down on the couch and did as he’d been told.

I’ve been walking as part of a quest to reclaim something that resembles my familiar body and personality, adding a little time and/ or distance to the walk every so often. Not only do I get to walk between seas of corn dense enough to provide their own sort of isolation, but I see all the things that bloom and set fruit and ripen by the roadside. Right now what’s ripe are the wild blackberries, so I took a covered measuring cup with me when I headed out. I figured I could pick a couple of cups of berries easily.

I did some freestyle berry picking, getting anything I could reach without sticking my arm into the bramble, but for all that only gathered about a cup. They’re very sweet, but they lend a whole new meaning to tiny. I’d say they’re no more than a fourth the size of those grown and sold commercially. They’re also considerably more fragile and easily squished, as is frequently the nature of fruit that hasn’t been bred more to survive transport than to taste like fruit. So my sky-born images of collecting enough to make cobbler will remain in the sky, but there are enough to make a lovely addition to breakfast. And I had fun.

When I was growing up, the phrase I always heard as we would drive out of the city in early summer was “knee high by the Fourth of July”. That was the first marker as to whether the corn was growing well in hope of a good harvest.

I now live, of course, right in the midst of many fields full of corn, which I get a much closer look at than is possible while speeding by in a car on a highway. Any time I go walking, I pass some; the furthest I can get in any direction without passing a corn field is a quarter of a mile. (Well, ok, I could do better if I went north, but I don’t particularly want to go into the marsh.) And I can tell you that if a corporate reviewer were looking at the corn, the check mark would go next to “exceeding expectations”. It is not yet the Fourth of July, and the corn is somewhat above knee high. It is somewhat above shoulder high. In fact, it’s already over my head, and I’m not short.

Well, alright, maybe it is knee high…if you’re a giraffe.

My foster-daughter was duly married on the ninth and as happy about it as ever I’ve seen. I suspect others might be able to give a more coherent account of the event, since what I have are mental snapshots of the wedding and the week or ten days leading up to it. Some of the things that stood out:

The hunt for a boy’s suit. Our son was to be ring-bearer, and needed a suit. I figured I’d get one for him the same way I do for his dad – walk in to the department store, look at suits, hold them up and determine what was pretty close by eye and then take it home and do any necessary alterations. (Ok, I let the tailors alter his dad’s suits, but I can still choose them by eye. Not that I’ve had to lately; my beloved husband is a pearl among men, and shops for himself.) I hit my first snag in the fact that department stores don’t keep boy’s suits in stock normally, and that the selection they do have is both limited and of very poor quality. I couldn’t alter the suits, because all the allowances built into adult suits to allow for modification aren’t in those department store suits for boys. Then my friend mentioned that she’d found sport-coats for her son at Burlington, and I headed over there with less than a week before the wedding. And lo, they did not merely have suits. They had racks of them, by the same manufacturers as my husband’s suits and with the same construction. So I found a nice black one and a couple of dress shirts and ties, altered as indicated myself, and had it ready for him to wear. I have never seen him look so grown-up or dignified. He behaved perfectly and stood perfectly with the groomsmen through the ceremony. It was a shadow glimpse of the man he will be, and nearly overwhelming for mom.

The indulgent smiles when I asked for the rings and those present realized that the young man with the satin cushion was the judge’s son.

Commenting that one of the first things I had observed when I met the groom was that he thought his bride made the sun rise, and having him nod emphatically. It’s a good thing you can’t hurt yourself smiling, because he would have.

Realizing I must have done something unusual with the ceremony, because right after when I walked through the wedding site about every third person stopped me to comment on it.

Lots and lots of hugs.

The four year old flower girl in the bride’s room, giggling delightedly as she spun and made her long dress swirl while her mother finished dressing her older sister.

My son’s beaming pride at being entrusted to be first in the bridal procession and set the pace.

The contrast between the two ten-year-olds, my friend’s son and mine. Hers settled himself at the table with the teenagers and participated in their conversation, and was fully accepted , not indulgently tolerated. Mine started playing tag with the flower girls, ages 9 and 4. Before that, he’d had been skipping from rock to rock in the landscaping.

Giving J. a choice of shirts and ties, intending to take back the ones he didn’t want. Instead he chose one for the wedding, and asked to keep the others for future fancy parties. I thought briefly, realized that just in this year we have a bar mitzvah and another wedding to attend, and kept them.

Writing the ceremony, then coming back to my in-laws after talking to the couple at the rehearsal dinner and commenting that I was swearing off writing the things ahead of time, because I always ended up doing a ground-up rewrite the night before and this was no exception.

Seeing my younger foster-daughter in a dress. Suffice it to say that is not her usual choice of apparel. She looked absolutely beautiful, and was the first of the bridal party to change back into comfy clothes. She may have been preceeded by the two little flower girls, but if so it was a near thing.

Making up our own table full of chosen family, consisting of three couples and two boys, one for each of the two already married. Of the six adults, five were attorneys. The sixth is a force of nature unto herself, and could have had the rest of us surrounded and outnumbered had she chosen.

Lots and lots of food, and no need to question what one could or could not eat because the friends who catered the dinner made signs telling what each dish was and giving a complete list of ingredients.

Three of us on our knees behind the bride trying to figure out how the train of her dress attached. We got it on the fourth try, when K. thought to look and see where the center seam was and line it up with the center back of the dress.

Smiling to myself as the bride’s near-sister fixed her hair, thinking that I felt considerably more maternal than judicial.

Pressing my dress (embroidered pure linen) and duster vest (pure dupioni silk) in my friend K’s hotel room, and blushing when she had to point out to me that I hadn’t turned the iron on, I’d turned it off.

Looking at myself in the mirror and thinking it was perfect: elegant of line and material, but flashy only if you knew what you were looking at.

Telling the Maid of Honor that there were two things she could do to make the ceremony itself go more smoothly: hold the bride’s flowers during the ceremonty itself and straighten her train quickly when she went to come back up the aisle after the ceremony, so that she didn’t find it in front of her feet and wrapped about her ankles when she turned around.

Going to the wrong wedding first, realizing that the music was rock and that I did not recognize a soul when I should have known at least half of the people there. We walked up to a young woman and asked whose wedding it was, trailing clothes and my small suitcase. She gave me a very odd look and said “Andrea’s”, whereupon I looked at my friend, said “wrong wedding”, thanked the mystified wedding guest and headed us back to the car, cursing under my breath because we were already very late. But as my friend pointed out, it was still 45 minutes before the designated time, and they couldn’t start without me.

Driving through the woods on either side of the road leading up to the site, and wishing I had time and proper shoes for a walk through that peacefulness.

It was a wonderful wedding. The weather couldn’t have been nicer if it had tried. It had been beastly hot in the days leading up to it, but that day it was just pleasantly warm, sunny and not too humid. I could hear birds in the woods that surrounded the retreat center where the wedding was held as I spoke. Both bride and groom were glowing, and it just seemed perfect.

Our boychick’s last report card for third grade came in the mail. Straight A’s. I have the All-A honor roll bumper sticker on my mommy-van.

Outback and Borders, here we come!

It has been pointed out to me how long it has been since I posted anything here. I haven’t fallen off the face of the earth, I promise. My foster-daughter is getting married on Saturday. I thought I would take care of things over time, but I lost a month or more to the mindlessness of hormone hell. So I have been busier than I realized until I started making mental lists. Here’s the list, with a promise to post a proper entry or three when I catch my breath.

To Do:

I know there’s more. I rattled off the list talking to my friend yesterday, and there was more to it than this, but I can’t think of what it was at the moment. I’ll remember it at some random time; I always do. It will all get done in time, but it doesn’t leave much time for writing about it. I’m too busy doing it!