Well, first things first. Another friend of mine is getting married. This weekend, in fact. Another Anna and I were suite-mates in college for a while, and have had a bit of tumultuous history together. We’re very alike, except she’s…more so. We fell out of touch about two years ago and to be honest I didn’t even know where she was living, when out of the blue she called and was all, “Uh, I’m getting married! Let’s have lunch!” This is going to turn out to be Wedding Week, as I went to a bridal shower for her on Sunday, and am going with her to Vic’s Sec tomorrow after work to get her something to wear under her wedding dress, and then Thursday is her bachelorette party, and then Friday is the rehearsal dinner, and then I have Saturday off, which is good because I need to get tickets for Sketch Fest so I can see Omar perform, and then Sunday is the wedding. I think I’m going to get my hair cut, too.
I haven’t ever been to a bachelorette party, nor a bridal shower. You’d think I would, right, with all the millions of bajillions of weddings I’ve been to/in. I kind of gave My Friend Anna (not the one that’s getting married this weekend but the one I talk about all the time) a shower when I was her maid of honor (or “honor attendant,” as I prefer) but that was lunch at a restaurant and it was, for various logistical reasons, a full year before the actual wedding. Usually I have to travel across the country for the weddings I go to, and hence miss out on some of the pre-wedding weekend festivities. The one I went to on Sunday was the real deal. Fancy lady food (which in the Northwest means salmon, I guess), and little napkins with “Bridal Shower!” written on them, which matched the balloons that had “Bridal Shower!” written on them, and lots of kitchenware for gifts. I was disappointed in my expectation of stupid shower games, to which, I confess, I was sort of looking forward to for cattiness purposes. It was mostly the mother of the groom’s mom’s friends, I think. It was pretty good. I spent a long time talking to Another Anna’s mom, whom I like very much, and for some reason we all ended up talking about mental health issues for quite a while. And of course, my admiration and delectation for hollandaise sauce knows no bounds, so it was all good.
It was just sort of weird. I know Another Anna feels slightly strange getting married…she’s said several times that she always thought she would end up an old lady with cats, and here she is at twenty-five with a ring and a fiance and a wedding and, I have to say, some really really nice towels and a great caphalon pan. She does still have a cat, but I don’t think she’s where she thought she would be at this point in her life…especially not with someone so nice. She’s happy (and not a little stressed, at this point, which is part of the reason we’re going to Vicky’s tomorrow), but it must still be freakish for her. At least I think it would be.
However, freakishness aside, I’m expecting to enjoy her wedding very much more than I did the last one I went to. I’ll know the people getting married, for a start, and I think that’s the first step to enjoying a wedding. The succeeding steps, of course, involve good food and entertaining parents of the couple, at least one or two of whom ought to make slightly drunken sentimental speeches. It’s especially good if someone tips over a table arrangement or something, or if there’s a really stupid dancer or a girl in an innappropriate dress to look at. Good times, you know?
So, in other news, I don’t really have much. I voted in the primaries today. Pretty straight Democrat. Voted for a low-income housing levy which ought to soothe the liberal guilt beast inside for a couple of days at least. I had a fun date this evening with Carl at REI. He got bike tape for his newly-painted bike and I got some really cool shoes (thanks, Mom! I owe you one!). I went for a short swim. Carl got this special Italian orange and white handlebar tape that is orange and white. Guess what I call his bike now? CreamCycle, of course. Laughs galore, my friends.
Well, that’s about it for me right now. I should wash the chlorine out of my hair pretty soon, but before I do, it’s time for…
And today’s movie is: Adventures In Babysitting. I babysat a lot at one point in my life, as most pre-teen girls who live in the suburbs do. My first summer home from college, before I went to Mexico on a mission trip, I nannied for one of my mom’s co-teacher’s kids for a month or so. Two boys, one of which had ADD. For real. I would go over there in the morning, get them up, help them put on their roller blades, take them to the beach, take them to the library, play in the backyard with them. Most of the time I ate and read while they rollerbladed up and down the street, occasionally yelling “Come back to where I can see you!” without looking up from my book. The kids didn’t get run over or anything, so it worked out pretty well. Only one incident stands out: after I applied Lee Press-On Nails for the first (and last) time, thereby discovering that I have a debilitating deformity called “flat nail beds.” I found this out because the nails, once applied, began to rip up my (flat) nails from their beds, slowly and excruciatingly. To be fair, the package did say “Don’t apply these if you have flat nail beds because, girl, it’s going to hurt like you can’t believe and you will stop short of taking a machete and hacking your hands off only because they hurt too much to form a fist,” but how was I supposed to know I had flat nail beds? They look normal to me, you know?
I had to go to the kids’ house the next morning for work, and my fingers hurt so badly by then I couldn’t lace up their rollerblades or the rollerblades of ther eighteen friends who had come over that day. They were all yelling and screaming that they wanted to go outside, but I had to get those nails off that minute. I dumped a bottle of polish remover I had sneakily brought with me into a bowl and instructed the kids to gather round, as I would be demonstrating a phenomenon known as Zombie Hands. “My fingernails are going to just fall off,” I told them, “in the most disgusting way possible. You will have to watch very very carefully.” And, yall, they did. I mean, the nails eventually came off, and the kids watched closely the whole time. “Zombie Hands!” they yelled, as I wiped the tears of pain off my face and knelt to lace up their skates. “She’s got Zombie Hands!” And pretty much, for the rest of the summer, I did. Adventures in Babysitting, indeed.