The Greatest Show On Earth

My day went on as planned. Boy Scout pancake breakfast. Arranging temporary housing in my mixing bowl for the fish my daughter won at the firehouse carnival. My brother fixing my lawnmower. All part of a countdown to our departure time for the weekend I’d planned.

Along the way, I got a call from J. It was finally here – and finally hitting home how terribly unnatural all of this felt. I had to agree. He was attending a huge family event without a vital part. Perhaps his heart.

I lamented again that this was not what I would have chosen, but could not have made a different decision. He agreed that he would not have done differently had the shoe been on the other foot. (It never would be…my sister would never do something this socially retarded.) J. couldn’t hang this on his sister entirely though. She was not in control. Em was.

But I can fault her for not reeling in the runaway bride. “J. she let her daughter send them completely into debt. Debt they don’t have enough life left to recover from! She spent what equates to Timmy’s entire college education."

And then the most incredulous thing of all came out of J.’s mouth. “Oh, they don’t pay for college. The kids have to pay for college themselves.”

Say WHAT?

“You mean to tell me that they will not pay for the most important investment of a parent’s life, but have willingly gone into Ivy League debt for a 5 hour party? Now that you’ve said this out loud, does it make any sense to you at all? 'I won't contribute one cent to the development of your mind, but I will shell out a king's ransome for canapes and calla lillies.' How do they actually form those words without hanging their heads in shame? And think about it. Timmy gets screwed twice.”

It didn’t matter. The deed was done. I hope the other two daughters didn’t have any high falutin' wedding plans swirling around in their little up-do heads.

We changed the subject. I asked if he had Brill Creamed his hair and donned the peach man-blouse. No, but he’d ditched his original navy suit idea in favor of a stylish, fashion forward look with a knocked out tie and high end shoes. The missing critical accessory was me on his arm.

I was hating this.

We were still on the phone when he pulled into the church parking lot. The scene of so many events. Christenings. First Holy Communions. Confirmations. My wedding. My father’s funeral. And now this.

A moment later he recognized another car in the lot and let fly with a couple of hand picked expletives. Sandy’s car. Oh goody. Something else to show restraint about. It just kept getting better.

And then a second after that, the groom and his groomsmen arrived – in a trolley bus that looked suspiciously like the Drunk Bus favored by high-risk DUI candidates at a nearby beach town. And then as if on cue, the girls circled the lot in a similar trolley. No stretch limousine for Em. No, a limo's smoked glass was intended to conceal the identities of the passengers, protect them from the leering eyes of other drivers. No, Em was like a Hollywood newcomer, craving the attention, putting on a show, pretending she was not.

I am not sure why the trolleys came as a surprise to me and J. Every party Sheila had ever thrown featured the Trolley caterer – complete with choking fumes, overcooked green beans, sticky baked ziti with bland sauce, and of course the obligatory red bliss potatoes. Why break with tradition now? We’ll have to explore Sheila’s fascination with choo-choos from a more Freudian point of view later.

The girls circled Em’s elementary school yard and came to rest near the guys. There was music playing and all seemed to be in good spirits. Chuck was shaking his considerable groove thing to a song playing on his trolley when suddenly Em showed the first observable sign of ball-and-chain-dom. She furrowed her perfectly waxed brows and pursed her glossy pink lips and made an “Oh no you won’t!” gesture surely meant only for Chuck to see. He continued to smile, but immediately stopped busting a move. Another groomsman razzed him loudly enough for J. to hear. “You can’t see it, man, but that chain is getting shorter and shorter, pal!”

J. and I ended our call so he could go in and walk his mother down the aisle. I told him I loved him and to be careful not to get poked in the eye with his mother’s little pointed hat. He called me a smart a** and promised to call when the knot had been tied.

By all accounts, the ceremony was lovely. The bridesmaids were regal, especially J.’s girls. The groomsmen, handsome and gentlemanly. J. read his intercessions sincerely in his meant-for-radio voice, all of them personal and meaningful to the families. Not a dry eye in the house. Except for Em’s. She had the practiced smile of a supermodel. All teeth. No gums. Dead eyes. It was after all, a performance.

If you listen carefully, you can hear the calliope music.

Wedding Bells

The Big Day.

It finally arrived. And shockingly, the world did not actually stop spinning on its axis. The angels didn't weep tears of joy. It still smelled like mulch/manure in my neighborhood and the lady across the street had allowed her recyclables to blow all over the block once again so they could collect in everyone's flowerbeds. Pretty much a day like any other.

Well it was for me, anyway.

Somewhere across town, a spoiled, self-centered 25-year-old was rising and shining, thanking the Blessed Mother for a beautiful day (I can only imagine the wailing and gnashing of teeth had there been so much as a whiff of precipitation...) and then remarking on her last poke at the snooze button, last piece of toast, last case of halitosis as an O'Malley. Aaaaaawwwww!

And several miles in another direction, J. would also be rising and shining, feeling more dread than anticipation. He'd have to go, smile for pictures, shake hands politely, remark what a lovely bride Em made, how the beauty of the day was outshown only by the vision of his sister's family, and speak his intercessions with conviction. Gagging on bile the entire time.

I'd had a wicked, wicked thought. He could do all that but what if he arrived looking completely ridiculous and straight-jacket ready?

I suggested he let me do his hair...a deep part just above one ear, and all his wild curls Brill Creamed into submission across the top of his head, where they can no longer be tamed and spring out in unruly defiance on the opposite corner of his scalp. Of course he'd first dress in the brown, plaid, polyester, wide-lapeled suit he'd have picked up for a 10-spot in a thrift shop near the projects. It would surely smell like moth balls or cedar, (the cedar making it a familiar childhood guinea pig olfactory trigger). It would be lovingly paired with a peach man-blouse, a pilled polyester tie in some kind of clashing stripe, and the finishing touches: a white pleather belt and white patent leather slip-ons, a la Pat Boone. (it's all about the accessories!) He could complete the look with square heavy rimmed glasses for an extra touch of class. He might even consider reading the intercessions like Jerry Lewis. Heeeyyyyyy, laaaddddyyyyy!

Girl can dream, can't she?

I am sure the day will go off without a hitch. Em has worked hard and I hope for the continued safety of all the folks who will be held hostage by her all day that it all goes well. Models of decorum. Visions of rare beauty. OK, it wouldn't kill me if the flower girl has one too many Shirley Temples and barfs on the dance floor during the Electric Slide.

I will not be there to take observant note of the details or the disasters. My story will be entirely second hand. I will be off enjoying the company of my children on the kick-a** weekend I've planned for them. They will never know the myriad events that led us there.

No wedding bell blues here.

Bon Appetite!

After an hour or so of J., his girls, and the remaining cast of thousands making painstaking trips down the 10th-of-a-mile aisle, unwilling bridesmaids meeting unenthusiastic groomsmen, repeated uninflected readings of "love is patient, love is kind, blah blah blah" and queries about who presents this woman, everyone retreated to the relative safety of their cars to trek to the oddly awkward social convention known as the Rehearsal Dinner.

I had a colleague once who referred to the rehearsal dinner as "when her family and his family get together and sniff eachother's butts." Ew. It was heinous enough without adding anyone's butt to the equation.

I am of course, sitting out this ritual as well. Not in the bridal party, not coming to the party, a party of one, really.

During one of J.'s readings of the intercessions, his guardian angel interceded on his behalf. Something at work had come up and he'd have to miss the dinner. Lord hear our prayer. So his girls went it alone, the teen leading the way for the tween and piling into Sheila's family's cars, not yet dripping with tin cans and streamers, to make their way to a nearby strip mall for franchise Italian food and, well, butt sniffing.

Oddly, they were seated with people they'd never met, but took their places and waited for their meals to be microwaved, reconstituted and warmed to perfection. I was imagining the menu - a bountiful array of dishes renamed for the occassion; Chicken Caccia-Chuck, Eggplant a la Em, and perhaps Mickey and Minnie Mousse for dessert.

The event, from all accounts, seemed to go as smoothly as anyone would have expected, saving one ill-tempered guest with way too much Chianti and an insufficient sense of humor.

But there was one show stopper.

After the dinner plates were cleared and coffee orders taken, the chef proudly wheeled out an elaborate three-tiered cake. A three-tiered cake decorated with the likenesses of a dozen or more Superheroes.

Even now I am unable to adequately comment at having to have written that last sentence.

Even though the cake had a few folks undoubtedly wondering if there was a 9-year-old celebrating his birthday on the same night, it would somehow explain the bizarre choice of honeymoon locations and at least a few of the famous couples being used to identify the tables at the reception.

I can't imagine what other surprises await the wedding guests. Maybe at the double-ring ceremony we'll learn that Chuck's wedding band is actually a Secret Decoder Ring.

My Spidey-sense is tingling.

Up, up and awaaaayyyyy!

Bridget Loves Bernie

It was coming like the dawn. A big, pink, frothy, meringue of a dawn. With the sickening perfumey stench of wedding madness.

The Bachelorette Party a safe distance behind us, and sufficient time having passed for all hangovers, twisted stiletto-clad ankles and red faces to have healed, there is very little standing between Em and Chuck and holy matrimony.

First up, the rehearsal.

I look at it like a pregame show. It is probably the first time Em and Chuck will actually devote a single synapse to the thought that this is really happening. This is their life about to change. The trolley is leaving the Land of Make Believe (next stop Hellacious Acres?)

So they’ll rehearse for the wedding. Has anyone bothered to rehearse for the marriage? I am sure they’ve discussed who will cook (Chuck) and who will clean (Chuck, again) and who will do laundry (Chuck, one more time) but what about the rest of it? The things that I am sure they have subconscious expectations about that may or may not be met? What happens when that train jumps the tracks? Who prepared Bridget and Bernie for all the guff they'd deal with? (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bridget_Loves_Bernie)

What will happen when she finds that, let’s just say, his collection of videos includes a few that Mommom must never find that arrived in brown paper? Or her frantic desire to have kids right this minute is met with adamant NFW opposition? Or he continues to eat like a Viking and begins to look like the Big Fig? (www.youtube.com/watch?v=UyI3IL46yq4) Or she cuts her hair short and butchy a la Demi Moore in Ghost now that the wedding up-do is no longer on the checklist? (www.movieactors.com/.../demi_moore_photos.htm) How about the clicking sound his jaw makes when he eats that drives her batty enough to envision jamming one of the pickle forks she received as a shower gift into his carotid? What if her inability to re-cap anything – toothpaste, olive oil, nail polish, aspirin (for all those headaches) makes him want to snap her little manicured fingers off? I am sorry, Pre Cana doesn’t cover this material.

Em and Chuck will be saying their I Dos in the same church where Lars and I said ours. It is a beautiful, marble-filled church with a very long aisle, perfect for a bride’s entrance. It is humbling in its grandness – in a way I’ve always thought you should feel when entering a house of God. Humbled before Him.

The rehearsal could be a very humbling experience for Em. As she stands in the back of the church wearing her pink dress and holding her bouquet of shower gift ribbons, she will face the overwhelming reality that for all the anticipation and excitement, with all the planning finally coming to fruition, the next day, as it is that night, it is still just Chuck at the end of the aisle…with his overly long pursuit of an academic degree, his unwarranted smugness, and his alarming resemblance to Morocco Mole. (uncyclopedia.wikia.com/wiki/File:Morocco-mole.gif )

It is still just Chuck. And this is as good as it will ever get.

Bachelorette #1, Please Come Out!

It is one thing to be a woman of conviction. A woman of conviction can be counted on to have done some research. To have guiding principles. To have a moral compass. And a political affiliation.

Not to be confused with a woman of opinion. A woman of opinion is more likely to have probed an issue no further than the pages of People Magazine. To be guided only by her personal proclivities. To be of malleable moral fiber. And may not see the point of voting.

Em, I am coming to realize, is in the latter category. In fact, she may be the de facto Chairman of the latter category.

Nothing demonstrated her membership more so than the Bachelorette Party, which was a tipping point for many of the Raspberry Sherbet contingency. The bridesmaids had so many articles of incorporation to abide by that they could barely peaceably assemble. But they must. Every bridal tradition must be specifically adhered to, or there will be life-sized Hell to pay. And lets be honest, two of the eight (yes, EIGHT) bridesmaids live under the same roof as the bride. Unless there were plans to go over the wall by dark of night, Em’s sisters were going to have to live and breathe this particular shade of pink no matter how noxious the fumes.

For all her pontificating about the immorality of alcohol consumption and that she could never, ever teach in a public school with all those unruly Godless children running about and their amoral parents to contend with, she chose Holy Saturday, yes, Easter Eve, for her Bachelorette fete. So on the holiest weekend of the year, with the foundation of the Catholic Church eclipsing the most reverent period on the Jewish calendar, she’s going to trot out her Bachelorette-ness for all the world to see? Why? Because nothing quite expresses one’s piety like Cosmos and strip clubs? Skip the seder, ditch the rosary beads, load up the beer bong and let her rip!

I can see it now – dress the size of a stick of gum. Adorned with a veil fashioned from condoms. Wearing a sign that reads (when the misspellings are translated) “Kiss me, I’m the Bride” and drinking frothy libations from a mug that looks suspiciously like male genitalia.

And to make matters worse, it was planned to take place downtown. No fewer than forty-five minutes of highway driving away. And why? These are suburban gals. Bumpkins in the big city. Prime candidates for purse snatchings and public transportation SNAFUS and getting lost in true Hansel and Gretel fashion. At least one should be carrying a homing pigeon in her handbag.

But what sent me truly sailing over the edge of reason was the feigned, half-hearted attempt to include J.’s girls, but not really.

For a large portion of the planet’s population, this is a holiday weekend. A family-oriented day with a traditional family meal. And like all holidays for the divorced set, complicated and unrelenting in its demands.

J.’s girls by settlement agreement spend Holy Saturday with their mother and her family. Under penalty of contempt charges. (Talk about a cross to bear) In a rare moment of concern for another person’s happiness, Sandy offered to allow her family’s celebration to be infringed upon, so that the girls could at least partake in the chaste, pre-alcohol-soaked dinner plans. But the chosen – no, mandated – time, location and transportation logistics forced their exclusion. (At least a "no kid" Bachelorette Party makes sense) But again, the plans for the party, like those for the wedding, ensured that only those truly welcome would be able to attend. Who wants to be responsible for a tween getting home when there are Belly Shots to be consumed?

I maintain a theory that the party was so planned for one more added bonus feature. That being that the next day, while all were assembled at J.’s mom’s dinner table for Em's last holiday as an O'Malley (Aaaaawww!) she could go on an on with no end in sight about the prior night's festivities.

I will not be there to bear witness. Allelujah!

So Let It Be Written

After careful deliberation, I decided not to collaborate with Mom on my approach to this latest drama. Not that I didn't value her opinion - it was just that Mom didn't always have such compelling allegiance to social norms, and her advice could lead me astray. I might be jumping from the fire, not into the frying pan, but directly into Hell itself.

J. was in favor of the "let's see where this goes first" approach. My toes were figuratively right up to the edge of the abyss so I was a little concerned, but he knows his mother better than I ever will, so I decided to let him captain the good ship Loony Bin.

And then out of nowhere came the letter bomb I'd feared a few days earlier.

Evidently feeling like the spoken word and insults had failed to adequately articulate her opinions, and perhaps that she was becoming too easy to hang up on, Witchiepoo committed her full on bitch fest to writing, and sent J. the nasty-gram of the millennium.

The note was chock full of vitriol and hateful thoughts of me, brimming with accusations and condemnations of J. and went on for what appeared to be at least 1,000 words in that prim handwriting restating the rationale for the "no kid" model adopted for the Big Pink Frowse Fest.

I did not read it. J. suggested that what I did not read could not incite me to go riding off on my Huffy bike to carry out a head clunking spree.

There was one statement he shared (only one was deemed uninflammatory enough to be repeated) that made me think that it was just one more peice of Kool-Aid soaked propaganda attempting to degrade our stance on the wedding. She'd noted that Em and Chuck had "made an announcement two years ago that it would be a no kid wedding."

Who makes an announcement like that?

It would be like announcing "We're getting married and until we do, we are going to continue to practice safe sex." Or, "We're getting married in April, and we'll both be wearing underwear that day." Completely without relevance.

But writing it made it so. So let it be written, so let it be done.

The Mothers-In-Law

My drive home was frantic. I had set some existential wheels in motion and then gotten behind of the wheel of my car. The 2,000 pound bomb. Driving in a haze of emotionally fueled distraction is second only to driving asleep, at least from a hazard-to-one's-self-and-others perspective.


I accelerated and screeched to a halt and swerved and swore and apologized half-heartedly all the way through town to my block. The sight of Marnie leading a game of neighborhood-wide kickball gave me a small sliver of hope that life might go on in some familiar, if not warped, way.


My son saw my car and trailed me to the curb - pulling an envelope out of his hoodie as I stepped out. It bore my first name only, in the prim, parochial school, ruler-beaten into compliance penmanship I'd recognize anywhere. J.'s mom's.


After shaking away the fleeting panic that I'd just been handed a letter bomb, I opened it to find not a nasty note, but her copy of my house key.


Had she done it again? (Better check on the parakeet.)


I asked my son what she'd said when she'd delivered it.


"Nothing, Mom. It was between the doors." I was still going to check on the parakeet.

I was shocked at how much this skirmish bothered me. I am not accustomed to being the pariah. What's worse, it is not at all my tradition to lose favor with anyone. And I had no inclination toward fretting about a mother-in-law.

Lars had been no prize spouse but one problem we didn't have was his mother. She lived across the country and was so blatantly disinterested in her children that the scant few obligatory phone calls at holidays and birthdays could remain breezy and superficial. This one got a hair cut, that one learned to ride a bike, you should see my rose bush this spring, oh look at the time, better run, the laundry won't fold itself!


This would be different. Not only did we have something to fight about, we had actually fought about it. And instead of being a Caller ID-ed phone call gone to voice mail for a while, J.'s mom was local and ever present. Lurking in every local establishment. Envoys in every bar and restaurant. There were holidays to avoid, and birthdays, and graduations. It would never end. Hell, I could run into her anywhere. The dry cleaners. The car wash. The chiropodist.

I needed back up. I needed someone who'd dealt with a tough old Irish mother-in-law. Maybe even a wicked, embittered, envious sister-in-law. I needed (gasp!) my mother. I needed a plan for how I'd handle the next time Witchiepoo took the Vroom Broom out for a spin in my neighborhood.

It was risky business letting Mom in on the big brew-ha-ha. Mom was as fierce a defender of her cubs as any. Maybe more so. But Mom hasn't exactly built a reputation for taking prisoners and then obediently observing the Geneva Convention. Mom's killer instinct was on auto-pilot. She'd make Joan of Arc stammer. Subtlety was not her strong suit. It may not be in her wheelhouse at all.

If I sought her advice, and dared to tell her the story, and telegraphed that I was even a smidgen unsure...she might just take matters into her own capable, bitch-slapping hands. I'd already said words I couldn't take back. Mom would willingly napalm anything that remained standing.

Tempting.