Three beautiful shoes stand in front of me...

It was a bitter battle of clashing fabrics and stuck-on shiny things, but in the end, there could only be one shoe who could go on to become Liz’s…Next…Top…Wedding Shoe. And the lucky shoe is…Ettora! The Tammy Pump, with its unredeemable name, was predictably too dark (and never really gave the cameras that umph we were looking for), and though I now want to wear Camille with a pair of jeans and a cute top, it ended up too sparkly (and couldn’t keep her mouth closed during photo shoots). Ettora’s simplicity won out in the end. It’s actually a totally different color than the dress, but I think it works. Krista said it works, so I’m gonna trust her.

Today is my grandma’s birthday; she turns 85. My dad is down in Tulsa now for the celebration, which I’m sure will be lavish, and I’m sad to be missing. It is also my friend Tom’s birthday. Rumor has it he was fairly desperate (at least while in a drunkenly state) to go to Medieval Times for his special day, but we are bad friends and just ran out of energy to figure out a way to get to Jersey and back while drunk on a Wednesday night. Instead, we are taking him to Jekyll and Hyde’s, which he is considerably LESS enthused about, but it is close and there are skull goblets to drink out of. Skull goblets!

In honor of the two birthday people, here is a story about each of them:

When my grandma first met my grandfather it was at a party where he told her his last name was O’Brian. She liked him and spent the rest of the week after the party hunting down George O’Brian. No one knew who she was talking about. When she finally bumped into him again she said, “I’ve been looking all over for you!” and he bashfully admitted that O’Brian wasn’t his real last name. He was Irish and was afraid if he told her his real last name (Coen), she’d think he was Jewish, which he wasn’t. Ha ha.

Anyway, there was marrying and taking of last names, thus starting the Coen legacy (messy divorce story a different day). Over the years, a lot of fun has been had with the last name (Dad: We were going to name you Silla!). One time, my grandma was invited to a costume party. This was the height of Saturday Night Live humor and she thought it would be awful clever to go as a CONEhead (get it?). So she made up this elaborate costume with a giant cone head and cape and the whole bit and heads off to the party. My grandma arrives, opens the door, and realizes all at once that everyone is dressed up for an elegant masquerade ball. With delicate little masks and feathers and such. I love this story because my grandma was so embarrassed, but it’s obvious she thinks the whole thing was beyond hilarious.

I’m having trouble thinking of one good Tom story. He’s has a very deceptive demeanor of a quiet, unassuming guy who you would never suspect of launching into the splits when dancing or knowing entire Ja Rule albums by heart. There are several good stories involving the punch line “and I woke up on the floor with the lights on and one shoe missing.” But aside from the fact that he is a really fun guy, he’s also just a standup person. Once, when a common acquaintance randomly started shit talking some of us to Tom, he stopped her cold by simply saying, “Those are my FRIENDS.” And once when we were at a post-9/11 tribute, the rock band started playing “The Star Spangled Banner” and I got a little misty-eyed. Tom half-rolled his eyes at the band and whispered, “They played that all the time before,” which was true. That he found some dark humor in the moment was comforting to me, and that he hugged me anyway. And then there was a birthday where he ate an entire flourless torte and spent the rest of the evening moaning, “Ooooh, that was a lot of torte.”

Happy birthday!

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