Thursday, April 3, 2008

It Must Be Spring


Golly. Yesterday's post was so grim. Sorry. Really. I don't know what came over me.
But today's another day and I'm not thinking about death as I sit on my back porch, the dogwood by the train track still in full-bloom glory shining through the mist.
It's spring here for sure and the mosquitoes are back in full and the last few nights I've heard the deepest rumbling chorus of frogs in the swamp behind us. It SOUNDS like they've got enough members in that men's choir to eat every mosquito on earth but I guess they don't because every night before bed my husband spends at least ten minutes, jumping around the room with a folded-up newspaper whacking the hell out of the ones on the wall who have crept in and are waiting to suck our blood as we sleep.
Last night he got so sprightly with that newspaper that the smallest dog, Zeke, ran out of the room and hid in the hallway, thinking that surely the giant man would come after him next.
Ah- the rituals of spring. The birds mate, the flowers bloom, the goats next door give birth and my husband whacks mosquitoes.
It's all good.
The wedding is now only ten days away and I'll say it again- we are not ready. I still haven't bought shoes. At the bridal shower, I told my daughter's future mother-in-law that if she went barefoot, I would too.
I believe she thought I was joking.
But no, I wasn't. I was drinking, however. Which doesn't negate the fact that I was trying to broker a no-shoes deal for real.
Of course shoes aren't the only things we haven't gotten yet, but we're getting there. My second-oldest child who is a bridesmaid just found her dress yesterday. I made the mistake of calling her and asking if she had a glue gun while she was shopping for the dress. We needed the glue gun for a whole different project that Lily was coming out to work on that night which involved one-hundred flower pots, ribbons, and heart charms.
"No, I don't have a glue gun!" my daughter said with a bit more hysteria in her voice than lack of a glue gun might require.
I made the mistake of asking if she could go buy one and she said (screamed), "Yes, yes! I can go buy a glue gun!"
"Honey. You sound stressed out," I said. "Are you okay?"
"No. I AM stressed out. And you are stressing me out more!"
For this child, that was like a full-on-breakdown Mama cussin' but it just tickled me that she'd come back at me the way she'd done.
"It's okay," I reassured her. "Don't worry. We'll get along without it."
"Okay!" she said (screamed).
She called me back about a half hour later to apologize.
"I'm so sorry. I'd been trying on dresses for three and a half hours and..."
"Say no more," I said. "I'm surprised you didn't reach through the phone and rip my throat out."
And we laughed and I pondered the way this wedding has got every one of us caught up in the whirlwind of planning and execution and if we don't keep a sense of humor about it, we're all going down.
So Lily and her man came out last night and I fed them and they finished up the flower-pot project and then my husband and her almost-husband went outside and kicked the bamboo which is another spring ritual. We have some terrible-bad bamboo and if you don't kick those new sprouts coming up they will turn into fourteen foot stalks overnight. It's like a horror movie.
I'm really developing a huge respect for this fella, this man Lily's marrying. He ties bows on flower pots and he kicks the bamboo and he really, really loves my daughter and they're being so pragmatic about plans for buying a house in a good school zone and besides that, he has really pretty eyes, sort of like Elvis and maybe I'll get a grandchild with eyes like that.
It's spring. We're having a wedding. Some of us may not be wearing shoes but that's okay.
Lily's got a man who is willing to take on the responsibilities of marriage and future children and I've got a man who smacks the mosquitoes and kicks the bamboo.
Who could ask for more?

5 comments:

  1. Kickin the bamboo. Had that been the title of the blog, I would have thought an entirely different subject was about to be discussed. Nice post, hang in there!

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  2. Damn it! That should have been the title of the blog! Argh.

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  3. There's no law against changing a post title!

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  4. Oh, and those elusive shoes. Barefoot is the new slingback, isn't it? If not, it could be. ;-)

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  5. The bride seems to be keeping it together, but after all, what's she got to worry about - the Mother of the Bride is the most important person in the bridal party, followed by the sister of the bride/bridesmaid!

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