Is It Spring?

It's been a hard winter. You want to know how I know that? Because I actually kept scoping what the groundhog said on 2/2, like that's an accurate weather prediction. However, desperate for spring, I bought into what the little rodent said. And it appears, although with some hesitation, spring is on its way.

But that's not what you came here for, is it? You came here for something exciting, and, finally, I have something exciting to talk about. Wanna hear?

So my friend, Helena, is getting married for the 3rd time, which is, I'm sure, a charm. Although, given Helena's track record, maybe not. Helena and Mike are getting married on 3/17, the luckiest day of the year according to their ancestors, who were all Irish. They are getting married at 3:17 on the dot, too. However, that's about it. I think Mike wanted to go all the way with the "We're so lucky to have found each other" theme, but Helena convinced him to not go overboard with it. It promises to be a nice wedding, and one that, I'm sure, will be quite memorable.

Why, might you ask?

Because Helena is friends with Ann, Ann's Jerk, and Amy, Ann's sister who is now married to Ed, Ann's ex-fiance who left her at the altar for his current wife, and because she's invited the whole crew to her nuptials, that's why. I asked Helena if she'd told Mike about Ann's wedding disaster and the aftermath, and she said she had. His response? "There's no bad luck they can bring on us! Look, they're all happy now." Helena's gleeful take on the whole thing? "This is going to be effing fantastic! Wanna take bets on who swings first?" That's my friend, always looking for entertainment wherever she can get it.

And she might get it. Amy and Ann do talk, even though Amy stole Ed from right under her bridal nose, but everyone knows Ann is incredibly vengeful and holds grudges forever, and even though she's happy working on her "relationship" with The Jerk, she still has a score to settle with Amy.

If you read the Bridesmaid Sort Of posts from a while back, you might be wondering what happened after Ann and The Jerk's embrace. Well, it was kind of like that scene in An Officer and a Gentleman where Richard Gere carries Deborah Winger out of the factory, except Ann's a bit heavier than Deb and The Jerk is waaaaay older than Richard Gere, so it looked like too stumbling drunks half carrying each other out of a crowded bar. In short, though, Ann decided to give The Jerk another try, even though he's technically married to a new wife. He and Ann are "dating" until he and the current legal Mrs. Jerk work though their conscious uncoupling. I swear on Gwyneth Paltrow's pink Oscar de la Renta dress that I'm not kidding...they are consciously uncoupling like she did with Chris Martin, or at least doing their version of it. What it amounts to is that The Jerk is getting steady, um, attention from both Ann and Mrs. Jerk, and he's never been happier. Ann thinks she's going to win back her ex-hubby from the trophy hussy who stole him, so she's thrilled--to get The Jerk back and to get revenge on Mrs. Jerk. And Mrs. Jerk thinks she's going to convince her errant spouse that he's just having a mid-life crisis and wants to sow some seeds, which is, ironically, what Ann told him when he confessed he'd been sleeping with his dental hygienist, who became Mrs. Jerk, for six months. She thinks he'll come running back to her younger arms and fuller breasts, but Ann is giving her a run for her money, or rather for The Jerk's money.

So there you have it. Helena and Mike's wedding is going to be center stage to Ann and Amy's showdown, while Ed and The Jerk stand around sipping bad wine and comparing sisters. Hopefully, Helena and Mike will take it all in stride, and, if we're lucky, everything will go off splendidly.

I hope your spring is shaping up to be as exciting as mine promises to be. Happy Reading!

Always a Bridesmaid...Sort of--Part 3

I think I left on in my last post by saying something like, “What could possibly go wrong?” in regard to my friend Ann's wedding.

As it turns out, a whole lot more than you think. Remember, I had reconciled my fate as a mid-life bridesmaid, one who had to wear a lemon yellow taffeta dress and put up with her friend’s bridezilla ways as she recreated her first wedding to replace any memory of it.. I figured the only way to get through the whole ordeal, which is what it was rapidly becoming, was to just mind my own business, hustle down the aisle using my bouquet to hide my droopy boobies, hope the minister talked fast, and pray none of the doves would poop on my head. 

Simple, right? And again, what could possibly go wrong? I mean, it’s not as if I was in charge of releasing the doves or cuing the choir, was it? Nope. Just had to lead the bride to her groom and stay on my feet without my breasts flopping out of my top. And that did happen...

Before I get to the end of this little tale, I have to tell you about the nice young man who had been assigned to be my escort. This kid, at seventeen, was the most well-mannered child I’ve ever met. He could have been a real jerk, given he was assigned to walk an old fart down the aisle instead of a younger, prettier bridesmaid, but he was always polite and nice, making small talk as needed during the rehearsal and being helpful whenever his parents asked him to help out his Auntie Ann with something. I think he’s the son of one of Ann’s besties and so got selected to step in, probably to make the numbers of groomsmen to bridesmaids work out correctly.

Anyway, to have a kid that young be so patient with Ann’s demands (we ended up walking down the aisle three times until Ann felt like we got the cadence of the music just right with our steps), was truly inspiring and made me feel better about deciding to just roll with whole shebang.

And I would have, if the whole shebang had actually taken place, but, well, we didn’t quite make it to the “I do” part. It was nothing really dramatic, as you would imagine, like on the schmaltzy movies where someone stands up during the “if anyone objects” part or where another man or woman comes running in to claim the bride or groom during the ceremony. Not quite that dramatic. However…

The big day arrives and we all get to our assigned places and everything proceeds as planned. I walk down the aisle with Junior in my lemon yellow catastrophe, and four bridesmaids later, Ann majestically strolls toward Ed to the strains of a choir singing something like Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring. She gets to the altar and we’re all standing there and Ed, who hasn’t taken his eyes off Amy, suddenly gets all misty. We all think it’s because he’s seeing Ann in her wedding gown, circa her first wedding to The Jerk (yes, she even had her dress re-made to reflect her first wedding). But as it turn out, he’s all misted up because he’s eyeballing Amy, who has been the object of his affections for some time, we later discover.

Well, THAT turned out to be a surprise.

So, Ed is blubbering as Ann walks up. She takes her place beside him and Ed, the “nice” guy, suddenly looks down and starts yammering about how he feels about Amy, who is standing there with a grin that is half incredulous and half thrilled. Ann is standing there trying to figure it all out as this disaster unfolds, and I—the one who just wanted to get through it all without making a fool of myself—made a fool of myself.

As soon as Ed started giving too much information about his infatuation with Amy, I started cackling. Then I started guffawing. Then I became the bridesmaid who couldn’t stop laughing despite the discomfort of everyone else in the venue. So as all this drama is happening, I’m standing there in my lemon yellow prison giggling like a middle-schooler or a maniac while Ann is facing the most humiliating experience of her life.

On the bright side, after Amy and Ed left Ann at the altar in tears, The Jerk, who ended up attending without his new spouse, ran up to embrace Ann and comfort her. This was the longest embrace in the history of embraces, and I laughed the whole time. I have no idea where The Jerk’s wife was, but I’m guessing her future holds discussions about the speedy dissolution of marital property.

I guess the moral of the story—since I’ve not heard any good gossip otherwise—is that you should never miss the opportunity to be a bridesmaid, if anything but for the sheer entertainment factor.

Happy Reading!

Always a Bridesmaid...Sort of--Part 2

Well, folks, the saga continues. The wedding is a mere few days away, and the lemon yellow monstrosity looms large in my closet after the last fitting from hell. I’ve reflected on why this whole second wedding thing bothers me so much. At least Ann’s second wedding thing. Lots of people get married more than once. Lots of people choose to have elaborate ceremonies for each of their weddings. But how many of them choose to have their second mid-life wedding on the same day as their first wedding, invite the ex-spouse, and continue to insist upon the greatest spectacle in weddings this side of the Mississippi?

This is where my post gets a little sad. I had a heart-to-heart with Ann. Or more like a heart-to screeching shrew. Maybe it wasn’t my business, but, honestly, things seemed to be getting a little bit out of control, what with the doves, the choir, and the pictures that had to have the same exact amount of people in them as the ones taken the first time around (which is why, I suspect, I was offered a bridesmaid role) so they could reproduce the poses from her first wedding. I got the sneaking suspicion that Ann wanted to obliterate her first marriage by having the wedding of the century more than she cared about the impending marriage with Ed. I’m a romance author, so naturally, I’m worried about the second marriage, because, believe me, the first one was toast, and I'm kind of an advocate for the happy ending or at least the potential for one.

Maybe I should have waited until the fitting was over, but after the second time the seamstress huffed at me about my sagging breasts, I was not really in the mood to be pro-“let’s do this thing!” no matter how gleeful Ann looked as she texted someone while I shifted uncomfortably in my dress. I guess I was a little miffed she didn’t defend me, considering my breasts have always been a little on the saggy side and she knew it but let the seamstress continue to berate me and then kind of joined in…kiddingly, of course. So I just asked her a couple of reflective questions.

“Ann, why are you doing your wedding the way you’re doing it?” I asked, holding my breasts up and twisting as the seamstress poked me with pins. Again.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, why did you invite The Jerk? Why is it on the same day as your first wedding? Why are you using the same poses in the pictures as you did the first go around? Why don’t you just elope and be happy with Ed?”

Well, let me tell you. Not one of these questions went over very well with Ann. Her face turned red, and she screamed something about me being a bitch and huffed out of the dress shop. I guess that was my answer. The seamstress also took the opportunity to express her disdain for my abundance of belly fat and apparent bad manners by standing up and rolling her eyes.

“That wasn’t very nice. If you were a real friend, you’d be happy for her,” she commented, even though no one had asked her opinion and she didn't know Ann, Ed, or The Jerk. She even sniffed as she turned to get more pins.

“One more pin sticks me, and it’s your job,” I cautioned her, trying really hard to not totally explode. I mean, I could be writing, for Pete’s sake, instead of dealing with this drama.

She totally sneered at me, the very definition of smug. Amateur.

“Jessica loves me and my work,” she said, smiling a more than necessary bitchy smile. “She’ll never let me go.”

“No,” I countered, “but Adam will. He owns the majority share in this shop, and if I say you go, you will go, if you know what I mean. Got it, honey?”

Now, you must know that I’ve never even met the shop owner’s husband, let alone done anything with him that would encourage him to take my word over his wife’s; however, he is a notorious flirt and has a penchant for digging older chicks. Everyone in town, including the Seamstress Ratched poking me with pins, knows this. She stared at me, trying, apparently, to discern from my expression whether I was lying or not. She couldn’t, so she decided to err on the side of caution.

“Whatever,” she groused. I tore off the dress and handed the ball of lemon taffeta to her, because I figure that my bridesmaid gig is over at this point. I’m pretty sure that Ann will never talk to me again, and, right now, I don’t care. My friend is on a path to self-destruction destined to hurt those around her, and I can’t stop her. My only recourse is to go to Ed, who is so damn…nice.

But, alas, this is not to be. Ann called me the next day, all apologetic with all kinds of explanations. She insisted that she still wants me in the wedding and that she just was under a lot of bridezilla, er, bride, stress when she called me a bitch. She still didn’t give me a really good reason for why she seemed to be re-enacting her first wedding, but then Ed called later and we chatted and he seemed sincere in his belief that despite Ann’s desperate need to validate their love with a wedding that is basically an attempt to obliterate any and all memories of Ann’s special day with the The Jerk so many years ago, she loves him more than cooking. Given that Ann owns her own catering business, a business she started after her divorce from The Jerk, I’m letting myself buy into the faith he has in their love.

So, here we are.  It’s just a few days until the wedding that won’t end all weddings but will certainly replace, at least for Ann, the day so long ago that she said “I do” to a guy who ended up doing her wrong. I have no idea if my dress fits, and I couldn’t care less, as long as Seamstress Ratched got all the pins out. I figure my bouquet will hide any issues with my droopy boobies, and this is really none of my business anyway, is it? All I have to do is get down aisle, pose for some pictures, and be happy for two people legalizing their love.

What could possibly go wrong?

Always a Bridesmaid...Sort of--Part 1

I’d hoped to announce something exciting like that my lastest WIP is done. But it is not. You want to know why it’s not? 

Because of dress fittings.

What kind of dress fittings, you may ask?

Bridesmaid dress fittings.

That’s right. I’m a %#$% bridesmaid. At my advanced age—I’m a grandma!—I somehow manage to succumb to the fate that I’ve avoided for all these years (I think. I may have accidentally been one, but I'll explain that later). Truthfully, I’ve not avoided it on purpose, but I’ve just been really happy to not be asked to stand up in line with six other of the bride’s besties wearing some taffeta monstrosity chosen for its correlation to the wedding color and theme. I love dresses—you KNOW how I love dresses—and some bridesmaid dresses can be kind of ugly.

Mine is.

Before I get into that, here’s how I got wrangled into bridesmaid-dom. My friend, whom I will call Ann so as not to out her as the bridezilla that she has become in mid-life, got divorced about five years ago. It was a traumatizing event complete with infidelity, harsh accusations, failed couples therapy, soul-crushing dating experiences, and everything bad you’ve heard about that occurs during rancorous divorces. As Ann's friend, I tried to be there for her, and it was heart-breaking to see her emotionally distraught journey.

However, fast forward to one of the nice stops on that journey—Ed (again, not his real name). Ed’s a helluva nice guy. He’s someone you’d want your daughter to marry if she were a fifty-ish divorcee.  He’s just a pleasant man who loves Ann to the ends of the earth, and to see them together is wonderful. I’m sure their marriage will be super duper, as Ed likes to say, if we can just get past the wedding, which is where I come in.

Ann and I have been friends since before she married The Jerk, which is what she lovingly calls her ex-husband, who is also still a friend of mine. It was one of those things where we all hung out together and enjoyed life, friendship, and whatever the future would hold. Many in our group of friends was pretty laid back. We liked to hang out a lot on the beach. I mean, a lot. We’d have intellectual discussions and make plans to save the world. Some people played volleyball; some ate whatever was cooking over the fire. There could be several activities going on all at once, and people sort of drifted between them as the spirit, or the glow from their beer, moved them. This relaxed chaos was so prevalent that it could happen that a wedding would be going on right next to the group discussing Tolstoy or water birthing, and if you stood up to go to the bathroom at the wrong time, you might end up a member of the wedding party without even trying. This may have happened to me once, but it was pretty painless (I think I yelled woo-hoo and then two people kissed and the officiant stumbled away to get some clams), so it didn’t bother me. I was kind of a hippie sort, so whatever.

And now here we are, some years and a couple of kids and grandkids later, and I find myself set to traipse down the aisle in a lemon yellow—it’s lemon, I swear by all that is holy—strapless dress (Strapless? At my age? Even if gravity didn’t hate me…really?) on the arm of some seventeen year old who is not my husband in front of--get this--three hundred people. I didn’t even know she knew three hundred people! Hell, I don’t know three hundred people, at least not that I would invite to a wedding.

I agreed to be a bridesmaid because my friend excitedly asked me, as a lifelong friend, to be a part of something special to her and her life’s journey. I thought she meant a small gathering of her closest pals watching her and Ed agree to share everything, including his Stars Wars action figure collection, not an event to rival a politician's announcement for her presidential candidacy. However, as the preparations for her big day progressed, I realized that she wanted to have a big fancy wedding that included as many people attending as being in the actual wedding party. When I asked her why, she explained that she, as she put it, “wanted to get it right this time.” If by “get it right” she means have a lot of people in one place at the same time watching old ladies trying to keep a their breasts from flopping out of strapless dresses while she pledges her undying love to Ed while white doves fly around the church and a choir sings “their” song in the background, then, yeah, I’d say she’s on the right track. If she’s talking about having a successful marriage wherein two people create a life for themselves and their family based on love and friendship, then I’d say that, no, her love caboose derailed somewhere between "I really do love Ed" and "I'm still angry enough at The Jerk to have a wedding that will wipe out all the memories of the wedding I had with him before he dumped me for someone else."

Well, that's the first part of this saga. I'm sure it's going to gets worse before it gets better. Why? She invited the The Jerk and his new wife to the wedding, and they've RSVPed that they are coming. Yeah, my first official gig as a bridesmaid is going to be VERY interesting. Until my next installment of Oh, This is Bad, This is Very, Very Bad...

Happy reading.!