Tonight we went to a party at our neighbor’s house to celebrate their 25th wedding anniversary. On the invitation, they asked people to dress like the wedding party – to come as a bride or groom or mother-in-law.
This kind of thing absolutely drives me insane. You never know if other people are going to do it or not. What if you’re the only one who shows up in a bride’s dress?
I decided I’d put an old bridesmaid’s dress to see if I had the guts to wear it. I was fixing my hair when my husband said, “What are you doing dressed in THAT??!! Actually I thought I looked rather fetching. I was proud I could even get into it, but that was because it was cut on the bias which means you could stick a hippo in there.
I looked out my bedroom window when I started hearing the guests driving up to see if any were dressed in costume. The men were coming in suits and bow ties, but the women were just in regular party dresses. I changed out of my pretty, shimmering floor length dress and put on something more practical.
When we got to the party, there were a few people dressed in bridesmaids dresses, a few men in tuxes, a man dressed like a priest, and a guy in judges robes who turned out to be a real judge. He told me he was ready to officiate in the event the celebrants wanted to officially renew their vows.
I don’t know about these vow renewals. If you make it 25 years, you’d think you’ve invested enough time that you’ might as well go the distance. On the other hand, I went to one of these ceremonies that was actually in a church because the young couple had run off to get married. A priest said a Mass, and then we enjoyed a lovely reception. Seven or eight years later they were divorced, and both have remarried.
I suspect people renew their vows as an excuse to have a party. These neighbors have quite a few of them – Christmas, birthday, summer parties. Why not throw in a wedding vow renewal?
The highlight of the night was walking outside where all the teenagers were hanging out around the frog pond. You can hear those frogs a block away. They’re so loud you’d think there’re millions of big frogs in that pond. The kids had flashlights, and I saw one little frog doing the – you guessed it – frog kick across the water. He wasn’t much longer than a golf pencil. Cute little thing glistening in the spotlight of the kid’s flashlight beam. The frogs weren’t shy. They were just sitting on rocks or swimming. One of the girls crouched down and caught one. It was little, curled up in her cupped hand and looked dark purple in the black night.
Not that the party wasn’t a whole ton of fun, but I listen to those frogs every night from spring through summer and I’ve never seen one. They’re funny the way they will all get immediately quiet at one time, and a couple of minutes later they start their froggy chorus like they’ve got a conductor keeping them in sync.
All in all it was a great party with a whole lot of very good food and a two tiered cake that melted in your mouth. The couple said some very touching things to each other during an informal re-affirming of their commitment, and there was plenty of wine. If I can have all that, AND FROGS, I won’t turn my nose up at the vow renewals we’re bound to be invited to in the future, as long as they don’t make us come in costume. Did I mention how much I hate that?
Showing posts with label relationships. Show all posts
Showing posts with label relationships. Show all posts
Saturday, April 17, 2010
Wednesday, April 14, 2010
Greetings!
I have recently been intrigued by people’s greetings when you pass them on the street or in parks. I used to never know whether to say hello, look away, or what.
I didn’t like having to make this decision every time so I decided I’d say hello to everyone. Usually I say, “Lo.” This seems to be friendly enough without going overboard. I don’t want these strangers to think I’m flirting or being overly familiar by saying the entire Hello.
Once I consistently started saying a greeting, I found it interesting to see people’s responses. I’ve broken them down into a few types.
(1) The kid. These people have speaker buds in their ears and even if their iPod isn’t on, they pretend they can’t hear you. I suspect all teenagers have fake speaker buds to avoid talking to adults.
(2) The fast walker. This is usually a woman on a mission. She’s trying to get her workout done in record time. She’s in stretchy black pants and takes long strides, swinging her arms forward and back briskly to help propel her at optimal speed. If she responds at all it will be with a chopped off, “Hi!” as if anything more will slow her down.
(3) The guy with the little dog. This guy has a small, curly haired dog on a long leash that is lolly-gagging along, sniffing everything and then peeing on it. The dog pees a lot, too. This guy has got plenty of time to talk. He’ll respond by saying, “What kind of dog is that?” It’s his lead in to asking more questions and engaging you in a conversation. He doesn’t want to try and pick you up, he just wants to chitchat. He’s probably got a nagging wife at home that he’s trying to avoid.
(4) Two-somes. If it’s two women, they’ll ignore you because they’re engrossed in gossip. If it’s an older man and woman, they want to exchange pleasantries, probably because they’ve run out of things to say. Two men want to talk as well. When you say, “Lo,” they say, “Good day for a walk.” They are easily distracted from their conversations, if they were having one.
(5) The shy man. This guy will not make eye contact. He thinks a single woman in a park is out to lasso him, and he wants no part of it. He will not respond come hell or high water.
I used to get irritated when people didn’t respond to my greeting until I started classifying them. By doing this I can make them seem like misguided stereotypes rather than rude people or, worse still, people who aren’t so totally into me. Quite frankly, I now see that those who don’t respond are losers. As such, I’m more than happy when they don’t respond. Who wants a loser chatting you up in a park anyway. It’s creepy.
I didn’t like having to make this decision every time so I decided I’d say hello to everyone. Usually I say, “Lo.” This seems to be friendly enough without going overboard. I don’t want these strangers to think I’m flirting or being overly familiar by saying the entire Hello.
Once I consistently started saying a greeting, I found it interesting to see people’s responses. I’ve broken them down into a few types.
(1) The kid. These people have speaker buds in their ears and even if their iPod isn’t on, they pretend they can’t hear you. I suspect all teenagers have fake speaker buds to avoid talking to adults.
(2) The fast walker. This is usually a woman on a mission. She’s trying to get her workout done in record time. She’s in stretchy black pants and takes long strides, swinging her arms forward and back briskly to help propel her at optimal speed. If she responds at all it will be with a chopped off, “Hi!” as if anything more will slow her down.
(3) The guy with the little dog. This guy has a small, curly haired dog on a long leash that is lolly-gagging along, sniffing everything and then peeing on it. The dog pees a lot, too. This guy has got plenty of time to talk. He’ll respond by saying, “What kind of dog is that?” It’s his lead in to asking more questions and engaging you in a conversation. He doesn’t want to try and pick you up, he just wants to chitchat. He’s probably got a nagging wife at home that he’s trying to avoid.
(4) Two-somes. If it’s two women, they’ll ignore you because they’re engrossed in gossip. If it’s an older man and woman, they want to exchange pleasantries, probably because they’ve run out of things to say. Two men want to talk as well. When you say, “Lo,” they say, “Good day for a walk.” They are easily distracted from their conversations, if they were having one.
(5) The shy man. This guy will not make eye contact. He thinks a single woman in a park is out to lasso him, and he wants no part of it. He will not respond come hell or high water.
I used to get irritated when people didn’t respond to my greeting until I started classifying them. By doing this I can make them seem like misguided stereotypes rather than rude people or, worse still, people who aren’t so totally into me. Quite frankly, I now see that those who don’t respond are losers. As such, I’m more than happy when they don’t respond. Who wants a loser chatting you up in a park anyway. It’s creepy.
Friday, December 11, 2009
Oh No, Not Jerry Springer
I had a project due today so this is going to be short. What do you mean, “Thank goodness?!!”
The funniest thing I saw today was also about the saddest. I was having my lunch break at home and decided to watch the end of Perry Mason. I always liked the way Perry tricked the guilty party on the witness stand in the last few minutes. You might be interested to know that Perry Mason plays on KPTV Channel 12 in Portland every day at noon, and has been running for 150 years consecutively. It’s still in black and white, and still has a ton of commercials informing people who have been injured in an accident that they need to call the law firm of B. Ann Ambulance Chaser to get due justice in the form of wads of cash, and it doesn’t cost a penny for a consultation, because they are in your court. Nice play on words.
On the way to getting to Perry Mason, I stumbled on Jerry Springer. Common decency told me not to linger, but I succumbed to curiosity when I saw the title of the show, “My cousin left me for a Tranny,” or something like that. I shutter to think what a Tranny is, and I don’t have time to look it up, darn it. Besides, it was the cousin part that caught my eye. Every time I have the misery of lighting on this show there’s always someone having relations with his relations. It’s moms and daughters with the same boyfriend, or a stepson marrying his stepmother.
I could understand it if we all lived on a deserted island and there weren’t any mates except family. But in the United States of American we have a zillion people desperate for a boyfriend. Why do these people have to stick with their sisters and cousins?
Normal people don’t even get along with their families, much else want to climb in bed with them. But still I gazed on to see a little squirrely guy with hair in cornrows and a too big white shirt with a floppy tie trying to incite the girlfriend and the Tranny to get in a wrestling match. The girls were on opposite sides of the stage, and there were about a dozen security guards on alert to standby and watch the fight for a few minutes before breaking it up. The audience was chanting and shaking their fists in the air, trying to incite a riot.
The two women lunged at each other like it was on cue and started scratching and slapping, pushing and shoving. Jerry Springer, who had a big logo on the screen but just in case you didn’t realize this trailer trash display of tempers was his show, he was holding a sign in the hand he held his microphone that said, “JERRY SPRINGER,” was walking around with a bemused smile, hoping for good ratings.
Well, security finally broke up the brawlers, and the little pip-squeak of a boyfriend had a smirk on his face like the cat that ate the canary, and I moved on. Perry was a lot more civilized, and at least I keep my lunch down watching him. And that Paul Drake beats a shrimp cousin any day.
The funniest thing I saw today was also about the saddest. I was having my lunch break at home and decided to watch the end of Perry Mason. I always liked the way Perry tricked the guilty party on the witness stand in the last few minutes. You might be interested to know that Perry Mason plays on KPTV Channel 12 in Portland every day at noon, and has been running for 150 years consecutively. It’s still in black and white, and still has a ton of commercials informing people who have been injured in an accident that they need to call the law firm of B. Ann Ambulance Chaser to get due justice in the form of wads of cash, and it doesn’t cost a penny for a consultation, because they are in your court. Nice play on words.
On the way to getting to Perry Mason, I stumbled on Jerry Springer. Common decency told me not to linger, but I succumbed to curiosity when I saw the title of the show, “My cousin left me for a Tranny,” or something like that. I shutter to think what a Tranny is, and I don’t have time to look it up, darn it. Besides, it was the cousin part that caught my eye. Every time I have the misery of lighting on this show there’s always someone having relations with his relations. It’s moms and daughters with the same boyfriend, or a stepson marrying his stepmother.
I could understand it if we all lived on a deserted island and there weren’t any mates except family. But in the United States of American we have a zillion people desperate for a boyfriend. Why do these people have to stick with their sisters and cousins?
Normal people don’t even get along with their families, much else want to climb in bed with them. But still I gazed on to see a little squirrely guy with hair in cornrows and a too big white shirt with a floppy tie trying to incite the girlfriend and the Tranny to get in a wrestling match. The girls were on opposite sides of the stage, and there were about a dozen security guards on alert to standby and watch the fight for a few minutes before breaking it up. The audience was chanting and shaking their fists in the air, trying to incite a riot.
The two women lunged at each other like it was on cue and started scratching and slapping, pushing and shoving. Jerry Springer, who had a big logo on the screen but just in case you didn’t realize this trailer trash display of tempers was his show, he was holding a sign in the hand he held his microphone that said, “JERRY SPRINGER,” was walking around with a bemused smile, hoping for good ratings.
Well, security finally broke up the brawlers, and the little pip-squeak of a boyfriend had a smirk on his face like the cat that ate the canary, and I moved on. Perry was a lot more civilized, and at least I keep my lunch down watching him. And that Paul Drake beats a shrimp cousin any day.
Tuesday, December 08, 2009
Adventures in the Parking Garage
I went to my orthodontist today to get my braces off (YIPPEE), and pulled into the parking garage behind an SUV with a Thule on it (pronounced tool-ee and it’s a long storage gizmo that tapers down in the front and sits on top of the rack on your car in case you don’t live in SUV-ville). The car started under the height clearance sign, you know the one hanging from chains to let you know if your car is low enough to make it through the garage without scraping, and the Thule banged right into the sign – not just touched it but pulled it along for a ways.
I said to myself, I said, “Hmmm, surely that car isn’t going to head up the ramp.” But I was wrong, because it kept going and did fine until the ramp hit the next floor and leveled off. The Thule scraped the concrete ceiling. Still the driver forged on. The ceiling was lower about every six feet, and the Thule hit the next low spot. This time I could see it being pressed down into the roof of the car. The car kept going, but more slowly, and I could actually hear it scraping on the next low ceiling spot. A boy about ten years old sprang out of the car as it inched forward. Finally his mom pulled the car into a parking spot that was in the middle of nowhere – about as far away from shopping and the dental offices as you could get. I passed her and she had a strange look on her face – like she didn’t think there was anything amiss about what was happening.
It was mighty entertaining watching her scraping and pressing on. I thought about it to whole time I was in the orthodontist office (did I mention I got my braces off today?), and here’s what I think was going on. Her husband put the Thule on the car and went hunting. When he came home he didn’t bother taking it off because he was too hung over. I know he was hung over because I used to live in a rural place and rode horses throughout the year except during hunting season because drunken hunters would shoot the horse right out from under you, thinking it was a deer or rabbit or squirrel. I think the wife was spited because her husband was hung over and didn’t take the Thule off the car, and when it knocked into the sign, she just kept going anyway.
Her son, meantime, was freaking out. “Mom, you didn’t clear that sign, stop the car.” To which she said, leaning into the steering wheel, “Those signs don’t mean anything, it will be fine. Besides, we’re running late.”
That was enough to quiet the kid, though he was gripping the door handle with white knuckles, bracing for the impact. She kept going up the ramp, thinking to herself, “I hope we do hit the roof. That’ll show him.”
They were doing fine until the ramp leveled off at the next floor. The Thule scraped the ceiling, and the son started screaming, “Mom, oh my gosh you hit the garage ceiling.” To which she said, “It was just a little scrape. It will be fine.”
When it scraped even harder the second time, the kid screeched at the top of his lungs, “Mom, you’re going to pull Dad’s Thule right off the car. You need to stop.” To which she replied, “A little scrape isn’t going to hurt the Thule. Besides, we’re almost there, it’ll be fine. To herself she was thinking, “I hope it rips right off the roof and takes the rack with it. He’ll think twice about coming home hung over next time.”
When it hit again, the kid sprang out of the car and told his mom he would not get back in unless she parked. Which she finally did, and then I drove past and she gave me that odd look.
I couldn’t stick around to see how the story ended. Did the son get back in the car? Did she rip the Thule off on the way back down the ramp? Did she decide to divorce the worthless bum and take him for all he was worth?
Or was she just the most incredibly naïve woman in the world who thought the garage would accommodate her if she just gave it a chance.
We’ll never know for sure. But one thing we do know: I got my braces off today. YIPPEE!!!
I said to myself, I said, “Hmmm, surely that car isn’t going to head up the ramp.” But I was wrong, because it kept going and did fine until the ramp hit the next floor and leveled off. The Thule scraped the concrete ceiling. Still the driver forged on. The ceiling was lower about every six feet, and the Thule hit the next low spot. This time I could see it being pressed down into the roof of the car. The car kept going, but more slowly, and I could actually hear it scraping on the next low ceiling spot. A boy about ten years old sprang out of the car as it inched forward. Finally his mom pulled the car into a parking spot that was in the middle of nowhere – about as far away from shopping and the dental offices as you could get. I passed her and she had a strange look on her face – like she didn’t think there was anything amiss about what was happening.
It was mighty entertaining watching her scraping and pressing on. I thought about it to whole time I was in the orthodontist office (did I mention I got my braces off today?), and here’s what I think was going on. Her husband put the Thule on the car and went hunting. When he came home he didn’t bother taking it off because he was too hung over. I know he was hung over because I used to live in a rural place and rode horses throughout the year except during hunting season because drunken hunters would shoot the horse right out from under you, thinking it was a deer or rabbit or squirrel. I think the wife was spited because her husband was hung over and didn’t take the Thule off the car, and when it knocked into the sign, she just kept going anyway.
Her son, meantime, was freaking out. “Mom, you didn’t clear that sign, stop the car.” To which she said, leaning into the steering wheel, “Those signs don’t mean anything, it will be fine. Besides, we’re running late.”
That was enough to quiet the kid, though he was gripping the door handle with white knuckles, bracing for the impact. She kept going up the ramp, thinking to herself, “I hope we do hit the roof. That’ll show him.”
They were doing fine until the ramp leveled off at the next floor. The Thule scraped the ceiling, and the son started screaming, “Mom, oh my gosh you hit the garage ceiling.” To which she said, “It was just a little scrape. It will be fine.”
When it scraped even harder the second time, the kid screeched at the top of his lungs, “Mom, you’re going to pull Dad’s Thule right off the car. You need to stop.” To which she replied, “A little scrape isn’t going to hurt the Thule. Besides, we’re almost there, it’ll be fine. To herself she was thinking, “I hope it rips right off the roof and takes the rack with it. He’ll think twice about coming home hung over next time.”
When it hit again, the kid sprang out of the car and told his mom he would not get back in unless she parked. Which she finally did, and then I drove past and she gave me that odd look.
I couldn’t stick around to see how the story ended. Did the son get back in the car? Did she rip the Thule off on the way back down the ramp? Did she decide to divorce the worthless bum and take him for all he was worth?
Or was she just the most incredibly naïve woman in the world who thought the garage would accommodate her if she just gave it a chance.
We’ll never know for sure. But one thing we do know: I got my braces off today. YIPPEE!!!
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