Always a bridesmaid

My wedding dress. The bridesmaids wore eyelet.So last Sunday after church I asked bride-to-be Erica how she was coming along on the selection of a dress to be worn by her three bridesmaids.

She, afflicted with bride-brain, mumbled something indeterminate in reply.

It's time to make it your priority, I said. So that in the event something goes wrong, there will be time to correct it.

(The wedding is taking place sixteen weeks from tomorrow whether she/I/we is/am/are ready or not.)

The future Mrs. Chad Porter nodded in agreement but looked a trifle forlorn.

She's overwhelmed. I get it.

Naturally I decided to help out.

To accurately tell you the number of web sites I combed -- not to mention the number of dresses I zoomed in on and the number of links I copied and pasted into emails to Erica, and the staggering number of hours it all took, this search for the dress -- would be like trying to come up with how many times in my life I have watched Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl.

The answer is: many. Many many. Use your imagination.

Enough that my knowledge on both subjects is near-encyclopedic.

To sum it up: If you want to find a bridesmaid dress that is the right color, the right price, features enough non-see-through fabric to cover a female who will be on display in the front of a church, and is available in triplicate in the sizes you need?

Well. You may as well set out to herd every squirrel within a ten-mile radius into your living room and make them all sit still for a showing of Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl.

While wearing little pirate costumes. The squirrels, I mean.

For extra points, teach them to recite the best quotes. Like: She's safe, just like I promised. She's all set to marry Norrington, just like she promised. And you get to die for her, just like you promised. So we're all men of our word really ... except for, of course, Elizabeth, who is, in fact, a woman.

 Give up? Parlay.

Take that first part: Color. A particular shade of pink. As it turns out, a wee bit too particular. Like, you'll sooner encounter liveried valet parking at the door of your local Walmart than to unearth the dress in that color.

I do believe choirs of airborne swine would have been spotted in the cerulean skies over Columbia, singing I Love You Truly in four-part harmony, before that happened.

Take that second part: Right Price.

It's simple; easy to remember: We want a dress that looks expensive, but isn't, and/or at one point actually was expensive, but now is not. As in, name-brand (preferably designer) quality, but costing several miles south of a C-note.

Ah yes. Eternal denizens of The Bad Place want an ice cold Slurpee from the corner 7-Eleven, too.

There are scads of dresses out there ... you say. But finish the sentence: ... that are just the right color and are modest and available in all the sizes and only cost four hundred dollars.

Precisely. Four hundred dollars. Why not make it a million.

And now for that third part: Modest.

Oh dear. Somewhere, at some time, for a reason no one now knows, someone decided that bridesmaids must dress like a cross between a nineteenth-century debutante and a tart on a street corner.

I'd be scrolling down a web site, blushing, cross-eyed from scrutinizing hundreds of gowns. I'd see one (in any shade of pink subtler than bubble gum), and I'd stop. The front would look as though it could possibly, in the right light, provide enough bodice-type coverage that I'd venture my cursor over the picture.

Boom!

The little internet mannequin would whip around, revealing that the gown had no back.

If it had a back, it didn't have a front. Or much of one.

If it had a top, it didn't have a bottom.

If it had a bottom ... you get the idea.

I mean, the wenches bridesmaids in question aren't nuns but they're not pole dancers either.

And so it would go. Whole dresses -- in the right color, at the right price, feminine but with the floozy factor dialed decidedly down -- were scarce as flip flops at the North Pole. 

But still I scrolled. Still I sent links to Erica, who also stayed up an entire night, scrolling.

I'd sleep, exhausted, and wake to brew coffee and begin scrolling again.

One night -- late -- I was scrolling on yet another fancy department store web site. YES we had considered all the cheap dresses on Amazon, that come from China and have skirts ten feet long and are put together with glue.

You may have ours and yours too. We may be cheap but we're not about to look cheap. And make of this what you will, but we don't want the girls to exactly look like standard-issue bridesmaids, either.

We want to put our own spin on it. Because we are ornery style makers.

In due time I began to feel the beginnings of a low-grade panic. I quelled it by reasoning that not yet in the history of the world (I don't think) has a bridesmaid walked down the aisle at a wedding naked as a jaybird.

And while I wasn't yet technically desperate, I was ready for us to find the dress. And to know we'd found it, so that we could move on to other aspects of planning the wedding.

That's when I found it. Yes. Me! I found it. I am so happy and honored to have been the one to find it.

I scrolled. I saw. I held my breath. I examined in detail. I stared in disbelief. I dared not blink lest it disappear. I clicked on available sizes. I copied the link. I sent it to Erica and to Audrey, who will actually be wearing it (the dress; not the link).

For good measure I texted both girls with news of an impending bridesmaid-dress-related email entitled I THINK THIS IS IT.

And it was. 

The crossing wasn't entirely smooth; Erica did not like the dress at first. It wasn't what she'd envisioned. I didn't push. Much. Twenty-four hours later, the bride saw the light.

The dress is gorgeous. It was an expensive dress, marked to half price, with additional discounts waiting to be applied. And free shipping.

We found the shoes to go with it on the same web site. Not cheap shoes; good shoes. Beautiful shoes, that enhance the beauty of the modest, well-made dress that is in just about the right color.

(To be accurate, the frock is more than one color. But it is the idea of the color that Erica wanted.)

You'll see.

Within an hour, all three girls had purchased their dress and their shoes to go with it, at truly incredible discounts.

Total for each ensemble: One hundred fifteen dollars. Just add earrings.

Fingers crossed that the dresses fit, and that if they don't, the replacement size will be available. We are not out of the woods yet.

But we are at the tree line, breaking into a clearing.

As the pirate said: We're catching up.

Apropos of nothing (except that for some reason, writing this post made me think of it), I leave you with a clip from The Awful Truth (1937) starring Cary Grant and Irene Dunne.

And that is all for now.

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Happy Thursday

Making the Most of Christmas Past

OK so today I realized how much in arrears I have become concerning owing you a blog post.

Apologies.

Mark it down to my Christmas illness, which was prolonged and most inconvenient.

I did intend to share with you pictures of my festive decorations. The ones that were removed from sight and almost entirely packed away by four thirty on the afternoon of Tuesday, December twenty-sixth.

Never before have I whisked the deck-the-hallsies away so fast but by Christmas night I was well and truly OVER IT.

In fact I told the kids after the long day of festivities, somewhere between opening gifts and watching a funny Christmas movie and eating yet more dessert:

If anyone happens to be watching my house in the morning they will see my front door open six inches and a claw reach out to jerk that lit-up wreath right down.

And that's exactly what happened. I was possessed. The trees got unplugged, the ornaments got shoved back into their storage boxes, the lights got wound up into tight balls (only way to store them), and the fake branches jammed back into giant black trash bags before they had a chance to even whisper in protest.

But let's back up the now-departed Yuletide train for a mo, shall we? Because I want to dwell on the past for a short while. I feel the need to recap that week when, in addition to it being Christmas, I had to cough every fifteen seconds and sneeze every fifteen minutes, followed by blowing my nose. Again. Rinse, repeat. 

So here we go.

On Monday, December eighteenth, I woke up knowing I was coming down. With a cold. Notice I did not say a bad cold; I just said a cold. It was neither bad nor good; it simply was.

Considering that a cold was brewing, that day wasn't too uncomfortable for me; I felt okay. TG and I even went Christmas shopping that night. Wrapping up loose ends, as it were.

By the time we got home, I was feeling rough. But the coast was relatively clear until Thursday, when Stephanie, the out-of-town daughter, and her family were to show up for Melanie's birthday celebration and then spend the night for an early Christmas the next day.

On Tuesday, December nineteenth, I worked on finishing the collage table. I told you about it. We may not have put the glass back on top that night, but it was close. And yes; I felt much worse. Thanks for asking.

As you can see by the pictures, our table looks a great deal like it did before. Only, it's different.

On Wednesday, December twentieth, I felt truly dreadful and it was a thoroughly rainy day so I finished the table and worked on some lists of last-minute holiday-related tasks, and that's about all. My voice sounded like the gritty gravel strewn over the road to death's door.

On Thursday, December twenty-first, I felt no better but also no worse. I kept a positive attitude. Since a cold lasts about three days, as we drove across town for dinner out with the family prior to Melly's birthday party, I congratulated myself on having come through the storm with no lasting damage.

We had hamburgers and fries at Freddy's (without Stephanie and her family, as it turned out. My son-in-law is a pastor and earlier in the week, there had been a death in the congregation. Because the funeral was that day, they were delayed in leaving), then drove back home and had a blast at the birthday party.

I revealed the new table and the kids loved it, walking all around and pointing and looking for their pictures.

(The Coca-Cola cake was a big hit too even though in my state of distraction I neglected to fold marshmallows into the chocolatey batter before pouring it into the pan. I don't know what the mini marshmallows do to the finished product but it was fine without them. Next time I won't forget.)

That night we all went to bed excited about having Christmas the next day. All I had to do on Friday was make a big pot of sauce for a spaghetti supper; everything else was done.

Except.

During the wee small hours before dawn of Friday, December twenty-second, I woke up having taken a decided turn for the worse. My throat was so newly sore, it felt blistered. I had spiked a temperature.

I felt so ill that if I'd been dropped off at the intersection of Live and Die and told to find my own way home, I'm not at all sure which route I would have chosen.

I got up, though. I took a shower and dressed. I brushed my hair. I did not, however, apply cosmetics. Only a good moisturizer. Even though we had a houseful of guests, including our soon-to-be new son-in-law.

And that should tell you all you need to know about how ghastly I felt. If you conclude that I was phoning it in? You would be correct.

But the day progressed and Puffs Plus stock price tripled due to my use alone, and we ate the spaghetti supper I'd prepared and we opened gifts, and Stephanie's family left to go back to North Carolina, from whence they'd depart for Pennsylvania on Sunday afternoon.

On Saturday, December twenty-third, I baked several loaves each of banana-nut and pumpkin bread, and made two batches of Russian Tea mix as well as homemade cranberry sauce, to jar up and wrap up and give to various friends and neighbors on Christmas Eve.

On Sunday, December twenty-fourth, I got up and went to church. That afternoon, after lunch at home, I baked a batch of mincemeat cookies. We went back to church at five o'clock for a short Christmas Eve service.

I had to leave the service in progress, however, and spent the rest of the time in the ladies room and the lobby, sneezing violently and hacking and coughing and practically strangling. Such a charming scene.

After church, we all traipsed over to the beautiful home of Chad's parents, where we enjoyed a delicious light meal and exchanged a few gifts.

We were back at the house by eight o'clock and I don't remember anything until the next morning except I prepared a huge pan of overnight cinnamon rolls and popped them into the fridge.

On the morning of the big day -- Monday, December twenty-fifth -- I continued ignoring my symptoms and baked the cinnamon rolls. Audrey, Dagny, and Erica had spent the night with us and we ate like fools, still wearing our jammies, washing all the sugar down with about a gallon of strong coffee.

(Feed a cold. I don't know about bronchitis but mine likes to eat too.)

I made a full Christmas dinner and we ate it and then it was time for presents. My wonderful family treated me to sweet things like Chanel No. 5 and Pandora charms for my bracelets and various other thoughtfulnesses.

At one point late in the evening, I announced my intention to pull everything down as soon as I'd had my coffee the next morning. No matter how bad I felt, I knew that doing so would make me feel better.

Even Chad mused: It all gets to be a bit much, the music and the lights ...

I couldn't have said it with more accuracy, more clarity or conviction. My sentiments but EXACTLY.

And so that is what I did. But I had taken pictures for you before I even got sick! And so I share them with you here in a spirit of semi-wistful nostalgia.

Yes! I finally feel better. Again, thanks for asking. I basically ignore New Year as a holiday; consequently, yesterday I did exactly nothing except make a pan of biscuits which we ate with various jams and jellies, and the requisite gallon of hot, strong coffee.

And now here we are in the babyhood of Twenty Eighteen, a year in which we have two weddings on the calendar before Mother's Day.

I hope it will be a good and profitable year for you too, full of love and laughter and all manner of familial delights, unfailing faith, new gifts, new glories, and the sweetness of dreams come true.

And that is all for now.

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Happy Tuesday :: Happy New Year