September 2005 Archives
That’s it folks! I’ll see you on the other side of the tulle. In case you are dying for details of the mystery (to me) bachelorette party, the exciting rehearsal dinner, and, of course, the Goddamn Wedding I’ve been blabbing about for, oh, forever now. I encourage you to check out these other wonderful blogs of people who might be able to give you real, live, firsthand detail. And maybe if you ask nice, pictures. Otherwise, I’ll be back after Columbus Day when I’ll hopefully have some good honeymoon stories and then, finally, we can all move forward, full throttle, into reality television season.
Kelly is a bridesmaid!
Willow is a bridesmaid, too!
Wow, so is Heather!
Jennie is, too. Jennie, where is your blog??
Krista is the best man. Or J’s maid of honor. Or some such title.
Abby is baking the cupcakes!
Catch the conclusion of the Cupcake Project here!
And our lovely guests include:
Real Girl!
Sam!
Perry!
Chronic! And Mitch! Perhaps there will be a wedding poem.
Thanks for all your well wishes! Until October, lovelies.
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More pics on Flickr.
I am sort of panicking. I know everything is under control and now is when all the fun stuff starts. Nonetheless, I have a bellyful of butterflies and nervous energy.
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My mom got in on Friday and we spent the weekend cooking up treats for the reception and messing around with makeup. Heather, childhood friend and (lucky for me!) florist, emailed me pics of some sample bouquets she put together and I am SO excited! First of all, you should know that the bouquet we had originally imagined had red calla lillies in it, which didn’t seem like much of a problem until Heather actually went hunting for them. Everything at the flower markets and from her vendors turned out to be a bit orange or pink or purple in a way that just wasn’t working with the rest of the flowers in the bouquet. Even though I’d given her permission to get creative and told her not to stress over these illusive flowers, she was a woman obsessed. After awhile I think it became more of a personal mission to see if these flowers actually even existed at all. There were lots of pictures of them, but she was beginning to think they were altered digitally, or perhaps there was a week in there where slightly purple callas turned bright red. I’d sorta given up thinking we were going to randomly find them, so you can imagine my surprise when this picture came to me:
Red! A perfect red! I’m in love with these flowers. Aaaand in case you’re interested, here’s a pic of the sample pomanders that the bridesmaids will carry. The jury was sorta split on whether they liked the nontraditional shape and the pearls and all, but I am completely head over heels, so whatever.
As we’ve whittled our way down to these final few days, the tiniest of details all have to be attended to, and I’m not sure they’re things you can always anticipate. For instance, I wanted the traditional (but oh so lovely) Pachabel’s Canon for the processional, but then wasn’t sure how I was supposed to work the pause before I come down the aisle. Do I restart the song? Simply pause it? Start a new song? I finally decided on just using the Trumpet Voluntary by Clarke for my stretch. I played it for J yesterday and he looked at me and said, “Isn’t this the theme music from the CBS Morning Show?” Then there was a few minutes of nerd freakout, but it turns out that the theme song is actually something called Abblasen. Although, truly, I’m not sure what we were exactly worried about; Bill Geist jokes? Guests getting the uncontrollable urge to curl up on a couch with coffee?
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Let’s not talk about rain. Let’s talk about Morning Star Breakfast Strips, or what we refer to as “facon.” Facon is delicious. It tastes basically like one long strip of Bacos, and resembles something a child with access to pink and white Play-Doh might make if they were attempting a bacon-like sculpture. I find facon very delicious, but J has a near obsessive love for the facon. It’s calmed down a bit from when we first discovered it, but for awhile, he would make the whole package at once and set to eating all of it, with a few pieces tossed my way. Yes, it is made from soy, but a closer look at the nutritional information will tell you that it is also made from fat. In fact, I think Morning Star worked hard to make the soy to fat ratio as similar as possible to the meat to fat ratio of real bacon. J would sometimes get stomachaches.
Unlike garden burgers, which all stores have, only select stores will carry the whole Morning Star line and include facon in the lineup. When we lived in Park Slope, we had our facon joints mapped out by price, and could pretty much enjoy it whenever we so desired. Moving to Sunset Park, as I have discussed before, has severely limited our access to such things as facon or frozen yogurt or other such LUXURY items. So sometimes when we’re in the Slope, we’ll get all giddy like we’re on vacation in Hawaii or something and start buying local fare to eat. “Oh, honey look! Dried mangoes! You love those. Oooo, organic sorbet: yum! And we should stock up on these Baked Tostitos and brie while we can.”
I had to be in Park Slope last night for a bit and decided I’d bring home some facon to make sandwiches (FLTs). While at the store, I was overcome with my frozen yogurt urge and decided to risk the ride home with two frozen pints of Ben and Jerry’s. I was very proud of myself, thinking how overjoyed J was going to be to get facon and frozen yogurt.
We’d had a brief yogurt respite when I had the novel idea a few weeks ago that, hey, maybe I could ask my ghetto Key Foods if they would ORDER frozen yogurt. This idea turned out to be sheer genius and I was directed to Ed the Frozen Food Guy, who promptly ordered an entire shipment of Half Baked. This was awesome. We stocked up, two cartons at a time each time we’d shop. But alas, it seemed to be a one-time gig, and the supply eventually dwindled.
So last night I came home with all the frozen goodies and was all set to surprise J. I set the bags on the counter and pulled out the two cartons at the exact moment J said, “How much do you love me?” and flung the freezer door open revealing two more cartons of Ben and Jerry’s.
I may have just written up the longest description possible of something that could not sound more lame now that I’m staring at it. But at the moment? It was like an anti-O. Henry story where irony is replaced with frozen treats and everyone is happy and love-filled.
Thought:
Sometimes when the subways stall, a pre-recorded message comes over the intercom and says, “We apologize for the unavoidable delay.” But sometimes, you just get, “We apologize for the delay,” which always makes me think the conductor is pissed at someone and going all passive aggressive.
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The M&Ms were initially to be put in little bowls on the cocktail tables, along with little bowls of snack mix. However, when we told the caterer this, she reacted as though we told her we thought we’d just pop up on the tables and pee a little bit for each guest. But she regained composure and suggested we put them out with dessert instead of at the beginning of the evening when all the savory food would be served. Hey man: whatever. As long as my ten pounds of candy gets served, I think we’re in business.
J is researching fun things to do on the honeymoon. I put him on a mud bath mission and he called me up to make sure I really wanted to go through with it. For me, mud bath = luxurious, relaxing, fun. For J, it’s more like: mud bath = repugnant, dirty, germy. I was looking at the website thinking, that looks sooo nice, while J’s saying, “Look at that guy. He’s totally farting.”
This aversion of his stems from his general queasiness about swimming pools, hot tubs, baths, and other communal places where one is submerged. In fact, I think he was pretty much on board for the mud baths until he got to Step 5, as outlined on the website, where you get a private hot Jacuzzi. I do love me a Jacuzzi, but J is right:
What’s up with them picking a model with all that nasty chest hair and smarmy mustache? And what’s with the rubber duck?
All you shoe-concerned people will be glad to know that I’ve been dutifully tromping around the apartment in the high heels, breaking those bitches in. I have also purchased a cute pair of flip flops that I will bring in case my feet just give out.
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In between the shopping we squeezed in some hair appointments to get trimmed up. I made J go to my fashion hair place because I didn’t trust myself with the clippers for something big like this. Unfortunately J doesn’t enjoy strangers massaging his scalp or giving him a shampoo, both of which he was submitted to; and boy if looks could kill…I just read my magazine and smiled at him and pretended I couldn’t tell that he was in a personal hell with the scented scalp oil. Lalala. His hair is very fashion.
Remember the long and tiresome project the invitations were? I thought we were pretty much done with all the art, but I’d forgotten about our little favor tins, which we designed labels for. They turned out super fantastic, but took almost ALL DAY. If you want the boring details, they involve us needing to special order 2-inch round labels, which aren’t a standard size and for which Word doesn’t have a template. The ordeal also involves J’s computer being a little bitch and doing things like printing out labels perfectly on a draft setting, then moving everything a half inch down on a normal setting. See? FUN.
Last week Kelly took me to Macy’s and we got a bag load of makeup, as she will be my personal makeup person for the wedding. This was pretty fun and I had to get a makeover so the lady could properly demonstrate the different powders and blushes and sell them to us. I don’t really wear much makeup generally—just a little eye shadow and mascara, some lipstick—so seeing myself in full makeuped face was a little hard to get used to. Kelly and the saleslady assured me it wasn’t much makeup at all and perfect for an evening wedding. They then had a discussion where I disappeared and they talked in hushed tones about how they couldn’t IMAGINE what it would be like to not wear makeup and then have someone show them the light and how it must feel like wearing a mask or something. I felt a little like Podunk Polly who’s never heard of moisturizer or worn low-rise pants.
I'm feeling a bit on the sick side. Nothing awful, just a sore throat and that rundown feeling. I'm vitamin C loading and pretending it doesn't exist. Sick? Wha...who?
My co-worker gave me this flyer after she mentioned that her gym has a bridal fitness package. I guess I understand wanting to get in shape before your wedding, but this just strikes me as ridiculous for some reason. Maybe it’s just that it seems anyone at all can make money off a marriage as long as it’s packaged right.
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The government personnel were all stern like you’d expect, except they’d tell you congratulations and smile at you. After we filled out the application, we got on line to get the actual license. We lucked out and were in front of the best, most entertaining couple that has ever existed. They were both young and foreign, although from different countries. If I had to guess, I’d put her from the Netherlands, and him from somewhere in Central America. They were approximately the same height (shortish) and she had dyed orange/red hair and wore a little plaid mini-skirt and BOY did they like to make out. The were making out against the walls and the barriers and all over the place. The only time they weren’t making out is when they were fighting, which was approximately every five minutes or so.
He would say something in an attempt to be funny and she would stalk off and stand with her arms crossed, not looking at him. Eventually she would wander back and he would coo, “Are you finished with your little games now?” Getting the license required sitting down with someone who would take your application and process it, asking you questions if they needed clarification. She got nervous when she saw this and asked what they were asking people. He said they were testing people, asking them if they really loved each other and if they really wanted to marry each other. This alarmed her: “Why would they ask that? That’s private. Really? It’s none of their business. Humph.” Then they made out. Then she slapped him quite hard several times in a row.
The line was up against these cheap white walls that had tons of graffiti all over it. Obviously it was from people with pens waiting in line and being bored. BUT, here all the bored people also happened to be in love, so the wall is really just filled with little hearts and names and dates. It’s quite something. As you can see from the Scarface + Juice heart down there, this was a wall to behold.
We got our license with little fanfare and then went out for Thai food to celebrate, feeling very almost married.
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Sally: How are wedding plans? I see you bought your wedding kitty litter.
Liz: Yes, kitty litter; instead of the unity candle thing, we thought we'd do something, oh I don't know, a little more creative. I really want to write an entry about going to the get the marriage license because it was really quite hilarious, complete with a crazy, young foreign couple behind us alternately making out and fighting. And we did about a million and one errands this weekend, which is mostly pictured in that photo (the kitty litter is from Target, because we were there and who knew it came in such a giant jug for such a small price!). This has continued into doing a million and one things for work, which has left me no time to update! Just when I should be updating most! (Although I seem to have found time to write you this email...) We were trying to put together programs last night and it got hard because I couldn't think of three different ways to phrase "And special thanks to..."
And! I keep meaning to ask you, oh book person, do you know any great wedding readings? We're trying to find something to read during the ceremony and nothing is calling to us. Something not too sappy or rhymey. I would really be into a short prose piece or an essay, or something about New York that had love parallels or something. I would even be into projecting a photo essay. I'm stuck.
[Internet: insert help here]
Bonus Story
I am a strange creature if I fall asleep with the light on and wake up a few minutes later. I am completely disoriented, I snap at whoever is near me, and I have irrational, dream-like thoughts coursing through my brain. I would liken it to a state a sleepwalker takes, but to a much lesser extent. J usually has to bear the brunt of this startled state, as the light is usually on because he’s still reading. I end up barking something about going to bed and he’s real nice about it and complies.
But last night? Poor guy. He was finishing up something in the other room and I fell asleep for a few minutes. Who knows what was going on in my head, but when he appeared in the room and inadvertently woke me, my eyes flew open and I let out a loud, terrified scream. Which then scared the shit out of him and caused him to scream back. According to J, I then threw my head back down on the pillow, looked up again and said, “What happened?”
It took me awhile to calm down and get over the giggling fit that took over once I got a grasp on the situation. Whoo boy, I’m lucky that boy loves me.
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It is now September. Do you know what happens in September? I'M A GETTIN' MARRIED! Woo! I can't believe that it's almost been a year since J proposed up in Phoenicia, which is funny because when we decided on a fall wedding, a year seemed like AGES to wait. But I’m glad we went ahead with the autumn season, because I’m getting excited for the city to start its cool down and leaf-changing bit. That will be very pleasant.
Because we’re closing in on the big day now, all the little things that didn’t have to be done until the last minute now have to be done. Because it’s the last minute now. Anyway, I made a big list of everything I have to do and remember (all those things that jump into my head at the 4:00 a.m. wake up call from Max) and I was very proud for being so thorough and organized. I then promptly lost the list completely and was faced with the task of recreating it from scratch. There are some pretty boring things on there like: buy ribbon, write program, ask Picnic House about signage. But there are a couple of fun ones too, my favorite at the moment being: go to wine store and get recommendation. This will involve some buying and drinking of wine, and how often is THAT on your to-do list, honestly? There’s also some prettification stuff that won’t break my heart to do either (facial, buying and testing makeup, finding a necklace).
So this weekend will pretty much be full of checking off as many things as possible from the Big List. Also, the weekend will be starting in approximately 2 hours, as we get half a day today and all of tomorrow and Monday off.
Please, please, the jealousy, it hurts me!
If you weren't reading this blog a year ago and you would like to see some Phoenicia pictures, you are in luck because here they are. I don't know why I set them up on snapfish. Really, I think this is the only time I've ever used it. You need to sign in, but here's a handy email address and password given by bugmenot.
email: nayhoema AT yahoo DOT com
PW: photos
There are patriotic eagles and horse balls and ass grabbing: enjoy!
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