On a Whim

The house that my parents live in now is not the house in which I grew up.  Although my six siblings and I were all born in California, we moved to Western New York when I was eighteen months old.  For this reason, all of my memories center around the rambling farmhouse and its overgrown grounds that I called home until I left for college.  My first visit home from Smith confirmed my worst fear: an obnoxiously yellow and red "For Sale" sign stuck crookedly from the frozen ground in front of my beloved house that Thanksgiving.  By Christmas, it was sold, and by my birthday, my parents had moved an hour north and west to their dream retirement house, a pint-sized, winterized cabin on Lake Ontario that requires enough renovations to keep them busy for decades yet.  I've long since gotten over the hurt and anger I felt about the selling of my childhood home, but there are moments when the old scars twinge slightly. 

For instance, it takes me an hour to drive to my hometown to visit my one remaining friend from high school.  She and I share not only a first name and an identical tattoo, but a history that is full of memories, inside jokes, old hurts, healed wounds, and fiercely-kept secrets that only a friendship that spans so many years can acquire.  On a whim, we had decided to start our day together by visiting a dress and boutique shop that has been in my town for ages.  It's where giggling teenage girls go to get their prom dresses, where grandparents pick out tiny soft pajamas for their family's newest additions, and - the reason for our visit - the first place a girl goes to look at wedding dresses.  We wandered in, laughing as we reminisced over our cringe-worthy prom dress choices we made in that very shop more than five years ago.  We meandered over to a large rack marked SALE that was full of white dresses.  "This looks right," I said, glancing around.  "I don't know what I'm doing," I whispered to Cait.  "Me neither," she said, helpfully.  "I've never done this before either."  Sighing, we dove in, quickly realizing that looking in the size 20 section was probably a bad idea.  We pulled one down off the rack that looked vaguely promising.  I hefted it high into the air, surprised at how heavy it was, and remarked as much to Cait.  "That's the weight of commitment, honey," she said, and we laughed.  I saw another dress I thought I liked and asked Cait to pull it down.  She did and I sopped short.  "I really like that one," I said, all laughter gone.  "Me too," she said quietly.  "All right, well, let's go for it, soldier.  Into the dressing room you go!"

A few requisite jokes about my Christmas tree-printed underwear later later, (in my defense, I did not pack nude-colored underwear for this trip because I was not aware that I was going to be going wedding dress shopping, even if on a lark) I emerged in the first dress.  It was underwhelming.  "I look like a tablecloth," I said.  "Or a sheep," suggested Cait, ever helpful (Our unflagging honesty with each other has sustained our friendship over ten years and six hundred miles.  I wouldn't change a thing.)  Back in the dressing room, I slipped into the second one and emerged for my zip-up.  I tiptoed, barefoot, over to the mirror, clutching the too-big dress to my chest and looked in the mirror with a gasp.  Cait grinned from behind me.  "I think...I think this is it..." I said, trailing off as I stared transfixed.  "And it's on sale!" quipped Cait, making me laugh, because I could see how much she loved it too without her having to say it.

We headed downstairs and I wrestled my way into another four gowns, mostly for the sake of saying I tried on more than two.  Eventually though, I slipped giddily into the other dress for one last look - this time with the help of the shop owner, an old friend who's known me since I was in diapers.  She held the back closed with four clips and assured me that it would be easily altered to fit "my tiny self" (Let's not get into that, shall we?).  "Is this your dress?" she asked me, smiling at me fondly.  "Yes!" I said, in a barely audible whisper.

I couldn't believe it.  On a lark - on a whim! - I had found the dress.
Today, for the first time in a long time, I felt beautiful.

Tonight, at my parents' gorgeous lake house, we enjoyed the bounties of the season and the last sunset views of the garden for this trip.

I still can't bring myself to drive past my old home.  Maybe someday I will, or maybe I'll decide that there's no point.  For now, I'm just basking in the gratitude for a day well-spent.  After all, it's not every day that a girl gets to pick out her wedding dress with an old, dear friend right by her side.

The Good, The Bad, and the Overly Caffeinated

I am extremely hyped-up on coffee right now. (I thought I had kicked my college addiction but it's back.)  This post will be in bullet form since my brain feels like it needs some Ritalin in order to function at a more coherent pace.

• I hesitate to write anything negative about my job here but I will keep it short and sweet and say nothing that I wouldn't say (or haven't already said) to my bosses' face(s):
• On Saturday night, my boss called to try to change my schedule for this coming week, asking me to give up my day off on Monday when Alix and I had planned to visit another wedding venue.  I apologized and said that no, I couldn't work that day.  She was more than a little annoyed and made no effort to hide it.  Then, she changed my schedule for the rest of the week so that I have to wake up at 4:15 every day now.  Fun.
• My other boss just called me to tell me that he will be half an hour late home tonight....again.  I have not gotten out on time in the past month.  The cab fare that I am given on these nights to compensate for staying late isn't enough to cover the cab fare home.  My solution to this problem is now to politely refuse money at the time, and explain that I will simply save the receipts from all of the cab rides and the total can be added to my pay check at the end of the week.  Sounds good, right?
• Anyway, in other news, Alix and I found a wedding venue!  The place we looked at on Monday is absolutely, unbelievably perfect.  It is exactly the kind of place we envisioned our wedding taking place and the reality of having a venue is making it so much easier to have fun imagining planning the rest of our wedding.  The location is gorgeous and more importantly, the people who will be helping us along the way are wonderful.  We require extensive amounts of hand-holding since we are such wedding know-nothings and they provide exactly that service.  They're also gay, and very much in love, and specialize in gay weddings.  All good things.  We no longer have to worry about any negative or awkward reactions from people because every vendor that these people work with choose to work for a couple that basically run a same-sex wedding business.  This removes a huge source of stress for us and the relief itself is worth every penny we will spend.
• We now have a date, a venue, and a tentative guest list for said wedding.  Scary to have so many plans in place!  The reality is sinking in that not only are we going to be married, but we are having a wedding.  A real one.  In a state where it's legal (Connecticut).  With a license and name changes and joint checking accounts and everything.  Holy shit.
• I have one pair of pants that fit.  I had two, but I tripped on a broken escalator in front of hundreds of people and ripped one of the legs of my jeans so bad that they're essentially unwearable.  It doesn't look chic in that expensively-ripped-jean kind of way, either.  It looks like I tripped and ripped my pants.  So, I have one other pair of pants and you can imagine how dirty they are since I take care of an 11-month-old all day.  I think I need to buy more pants, slash, wash these ones.
• I love the gym.  I feel at peace there because I can stop thinking about the worries buzzing around my brain all day.  It calms me down and the endorphins make me happier and more sane.  Alix and I took to spinning so much that we bought spin shoes.  So worth it!  We feel hard-core and legit, not to mention our workouts have suddenly become way more effective with the correct gear.

Whew.  I think that's it for now.  Any adoring and congratulatory comments on finding a wedding venue are greatly appreciated :-)  I love how many more comments I've been getting lately!  Keep it up everyone.  You have no idea how happy it makes me.

So, this is for a wedding, right?

...And so began our first wedding venue viewing.
"Um...yes...?" was our eloquent reply to the gum-popping, dirty t-shirt wearing, over-dyed blonde who greeted us at the venue for which we'd driven two and a half hours in the pouring rain and blowing snow to see.  We arrived fresh-faced and eager, my digital camera and moleskine notebook in hand for note-taking (go ahead, call me a nerd).  We were more than a little surprised by her apparent lack of knowledge about why we had shown up on the doorstep of the B&B that she runs, since Alix had spoken to her extensively on the phone about our wedding, our visit today, and - most importantly - the fact that this is a same-sex (i.e., GAYGAYGAY) wedding.

Which then left us utterly nonplussed by the next question: "So, which one of you is the bride?"
*insert long pause*  "Um...we both are...?"
Gum-popping blonde looks confused, then shrugs and says, "Well here's the rooms...you can look in this one, don't worry, someone's staying in it but he's out at the movies right now."  Right, because it's totally okay to look in the room that someone is paying $200 a night to stay in when he's at the movies.  Good lord, but if I were spending that much money, I would consider it my God-given right to leave my dirty clothes and pornographic material all over the damn room, since one would assume that visitors wouldn't be casually waltzing through.  Thankfully, this poor man whose privacy was so nonchalantly invaded had not left either of said items out, and Alix and I retreated as quickly as possible.  Our next mission then became that of howsooncanweleavethisawfulplace.

We politely thanked our host, smiled while telling bold-faced lies about how we'd keep in touch and walked quickly to the car in utter silence, realizing en route that my camera and notebook had not made a single appearance.  Once the doors were locked and the engine on, we looked at each other and simply said, "Nope.  Not the one."  And the search goes on.