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It's a foolish bride who shows no fear at a horde of Preacher's Privateers... I worked very hard for this wedding in the month leading up to the big day. Not as hard as the bride & groom, of course, and not as hard as Palaver the best man, but pretty damn hard. It wasn't just a matter of co-ordinating the first plane ride & week-long vacation in little Blake's young life (although that alone was absorbing enough to convince me that Napoleon's ulcers were well-earned). It wasn't just a matter of finding a snazzy outfit that would allow me to breastfeed at will. It wasn't just finding a suitable, non-registry gift (even if I'd wanted to tone down the unique, the registry was pretty cleaned out by the time I heard about it). No, it was the groomsmen projects! Holy fuck, can Dirk and I ever bullshit up a storm of time-consuming projects! I'm not saying that I was in it alone - he spent almost every spare moment before he left seeking out strange toys & gifts for the bachelor party, and it became normal to get calls at 2 p.m. that started, "uh, should I get sailor hats for the entire wedding party? Hi, it's Dirk, by the way." Still, it fell to me to design & create the 8 individual theme t-shirts (personalized for each member of the party, plus one for my consort & one for my Blake), and I was blazing my own trail of hard, hard work. Thus I was very relieved when Wednesday arrived. Time had run out, and I was free to just pack & go. In fact, I feel compelled to mention that it was the most successful packing operation of my married life. I think this was because we wrote a huge list & packed in shifts to accommodate the Boy's class schedule - the two of us don't pack well together, as I'm a classic over-packer and he's a classic under-packer. This leads to many needless debates over the necessity of various objects, and it can get pretty rancorous. Packing separately was a dream. The airport was pretty dreamy as well. We had arrived with the worst scenarios in mind: Blake would poop through his clothes, or eat the tickets, or start ceaselessly screaming. He was an excellently-behaved baby, although I must point out that he nursed almost continually. And it wasn't like that cute "newborn nursing continually," either: he would nurse for five minutes, get distracted, pull off the breast & play for 10 minutes, before begging & squealing for the breast again. I was all psyched to nurse him during takeoff to protect his delicate inner ears, but he got bored with the breast as we taxied down the runway and he spent his first takeoff standing in his father's lap. He was fine.
After 2 solid hours of outrageously charming behaviour (he flirted shamelessly with the attendants, who threatened to take him home), he fell asleep in the Boy's lap. I can't believe I worried so much. He was an ultrapudding. Dirk was waiting for us at the airport, and we gleefully exchanged notes. He was as pleased as punch that the t-shirt idea had come to fruition, but I made him wait to see the shirts. We had an immediate two-fold mission: first, get a locking clip for the car seat (or we may as well just carry Blake on our laps), second, get me something to eat. The second objective was compromised by the fact that a new smoking bylaw in Edmonton prohibits restaurants from serving both minors & smokers (and especially not smoking minors!) The first 2 funky bars on Whyte Ave sent us packing, and we were about to retreat to Arby's when we were accepted at the Two Rooms Café. This was a lucky break. An 80's soundtrack & a funky menu made it clear that we were in the right (smokefree) place. I fuelled up on a huge tuna sandwich while Dirk showed me the galleys for that night's songbook. I found a number of small typographical errors (while somehow managing to miss the incorrect date on the first freaking page!! shit!). Then we headed over to the Syngens, our host family for the wedding week of wonderment. Full disclosure here: I was put out when Preacher called & told me that we wouldn't be staying with Martha, the bride. I had been all set to be at the centre of things, and who cared that she was in the midst of moving out and it would be inconvenient for her? Who cared that we didn't know her as well as we would have liked, and that two days before her wedding was the worst possible time to get personal? Who cared if the Syngens, with their three kids & fully functioning house, were best set up to handle the unique challenge of a new family on the road for the first time with an infant? Centre! Centre!! Besides, what if I didn't like Sula? She sure talked a lot on the phone. Maybe I'd secretly hate her kids, or maybe she'd bombard me with terrible parenting advice. Maybe her babysitter would be a wild-eyed teenager who would feed my precious firstborn Dairy Queen sundaes instead of formula. Maybe the Syngen kids would pester me for access to Blake like my cousin's daughter pesters me, i.e. without pause for breath or food. Were the three of us - the sleep-deprived, jazzed up, strangers in a strange land three of us - in for 6 days of Introvert Hell? I was surprised when I met Sula. She was small. And energetic. And her hair was really really blonde. Somehow I'd pictured her as a fast-talking but slow-moving suburban mom stereotype. I was very serious as she led us around the house, desperate to take in all the new information and not screw up as a houseguest. (My parents hate being houseguests, so I've had to learn everything as an adult. I'm always self-conscious and it sucks.) I was daunted. I don't think I cracked a smile, even when Sula told us that she and her husband Philip had taken a good look at the inflatable mattress and decided to give us their bedroom instead of baby Boudicca's room. Yes, our outlandish family bed habit got us a fabulous upgrade. Stunning. (As I said to Preacher later, "you have some friends.") But I was still a bit wary. I was somewhat mollified by her speech to Elaine (5) and Edmund (3), her two oldest: "Blake is an only child, which means that he has no brothers or sisters. You are not allowed to carry him around like Boudicca. You can't wrestle or play rough games with him. Got it?" They nodded solemnly. Our next stop was Agamemnon's condo. We spent the next few hours snacking, talking & showing off Blake while Dirk ran around doing last-minute things for the bachelor party. Preacher was just coming off a rather disastrous lunch with his family; it had started off badly when his mother tried to make him go to dinner instead of the bachelor party, and disintegrated from there. They had wanted to go somewhere nice, but, well...Preacher's nice and his family's nice are two different animals (and those animals aren't on speaking terms.) It was embarrassing for everyone. "You know all the herbs and garlic & stuff? Tell the cook to leave those off & just put on some barbeque sauce." Finally it was time to take Blake back to the Syngens to meet his first babysitter. As I ran around getting ready, I fretted. What if Blake didn't sleep? (It was already 2 hours past his bedtime, and he was showing no signs of sleepiness.) What if he woke up in the middle of the night & freaked out when a total stranger came to comfort him in his unfamiliar playpen? (He almost never sleeps in baby jail when he's at home.) What if he wouldn't drink his formula? (Even when my parents babysat, he showed a distressing tendency to reject the artificial stuff.) I had nothing but bad news for the poor teenaged babysitter. To make matters worse, I was bombing around in striped tights, a novelty t-shirt, purple lipstick & a tiara - hardly the picture of responsible motherhood. Elaine's friend from next door: "Where are you going?" Later I would regret this outfit, but it seemed like a good idea at the time. The bachelor party wasn't an elaborate affair as these things go; in my family there are endless fundraising games of poker and there's always the popular strip-club stereotype to contend with. (Who falls for that sexist shit, anyway?) Where it was elaborate was in the storm of projects Dirk had envisioned and I had helped midwife into the bar that night. The central conceit was 'Preacher's Privateers,' a corruption of the good old Stan Rogers classic 'Barrett's Privateers.' There were t-shirts for the party with naval names & the slogan 'it's a foolish bride who shows no fear at the horde of Preacher's Privateers!'. There was a huge naval battle flag supplied by Sula. There were sailor hats to go with the t-shirts. There was a songbook of traditional & nostalgic drinking songs compiled & printed by Dirk (so we would never need to remember a sea shanty in a drunken pinch). And of course, there was the parody song written by me, the Boy & Palaver in one sweltering night & day. I was particularly proud of the song, as it was not only amusing, but also told the story of Team Groom from their assembly, to the defection of Poet to Team Fatherhood, to my invitation, to the final gathering that night. Click through & check it out!
And yet every cool idea in the world was merely a backdrop to the main event: Preacher & Palaver drinking more than was previously thought humanly possible. I also drank more than my fair share, but found that it made me melancholy. Half way through the night even the waitress was asking me if I was having a good time. Ironically, it was much like those historic nights in Ein-stein's: lots of beer, a few good friends, and at least one huge sadness. At least the cause of my mood was a new one: I felt guilty for leaving Blake with a stranger and too old to be dressed so foolishly. And just so I could be contradictory, I also felt sad that these nights of foolish consumption were behind me in my new life of respectable married motherhood. Oh, and I was also tiffed that both Preacher & Palaver blamed me for the huge error on the first page of the songbook: Palaver had typed the wrong month and this was somehow my fault as the proofreader. Not. Fair. But when have they ever been fair, especially when drunk? As I used to say in first year, 'oh that's just Preacher. He says things like that.' Oh well. At least I didn't start crying in the bathroom. When we got home, everything was fine. Blake had slept & drank & slept again, with none of the devilish screeching in which he occasionally indulges. As a bonus, I had spent enough time with Sula & Philip to relax somewhat in their presence. Always a good thing when you're drunk & melancholy & squatting in someone's bedroom for a week.
As you can well imagine, the excesses of Thursday night necessitated a long period of recovery. When we finally woke up on Friday morning, I had a vague plan to go visit with Preacher & Palaver, but by the time we got them on the phone, it was clear that they needed to suffer in peace. Palaver was vomiting repeatedly (thanks to several shots of tequila consumed late in the evening) and even if we'd had more motivation, we didn't have a car at our disposal. Before she left to run errands, Sula told me about the nearest take-out counter and the nearest wading pool, so I was set up for my day of lethargy. Not that I made it out to the pool (see above, re: lethargy). No, we spent most of the day napping in turns and eating terrible take-out chicken.
By the time we got to the rehearsal, we were all mostly recovered. "I am as delicate as the Rose of Sharon," said Preacher when I asked after him, and he would not elaborate. While Preacher & Martha hammered out the final details of the ceremony, Dirk & I cracked jokes and stared at the beautiful church. I was somewhat apprehensive about the small fans trained on us; the Boy has a distressing tendency to run up to fans and scream, "EXTERMINATE! EXTERMINATE!" into the rotating blades. (What can I say, he's a man who enjoys his Dr. Who.) I made a mental note to warn him that such behaviour in the middle of Preacher's wedding would result in an instant divorce. Wedding rehearsals tend to be pretty deadly, which is more or less the point: you rehearse so you can have fun at the big event. But this one went by a lot quicker than usual. Maybe it was because I was laughing on the sidelines with Dirk, or maybe it was because Preacher & Martha have officiated at enough weddings to know the entire litany by heart. Or maybe it was because I was in Edmonton, the Promised Land. At any rate, we were soon done and it was time for the church hall supper. (I'm not being snarky. I love church hall suppers!) The Boy joined us for supper, having left a sleeping Blake in the capable hands of the Syngens' teenage babysitter. I warned him about the fan issue, which he accepted gracefully. And the evening and the morning were the second day.
As is traditional, the female members of the bridal party got up too early on the wedding day so that we could get our hair styled & shellacked. Don't think that I got out of this because I was on Team Groom; I had just as much reason, nay, more reason to get a professional style on the big day. After all, I've been mired in the hell known as "growing out my hair" for months now and on my best days I barely get past "ratty." (As I wrote to Martha in the weeks leading up to the wedding, I "need[ed] to be transformed from ratty to acceptable.") To this end, the Boy packed up Blake and a bottle and went to be my proxy in Team Groom for the morning. While we were getting out hair prettified, the boys were in charge of eating greasy diner food and watching "Clueless." They get the worst jobs, I swear. Returning to our heads for a moment, this was also the appointment wherein we would discover if Elaine's self-haircut could be fixed so that she could look suitably angelic. And I suppose that we were there for the other people in the party. (Do I really have to pay attention to people who aren't me?) Despite the early hour and my inability to drink coffee, I have to say that it was undoubtedly worthwhile as we were one fabulous crew leaving that salon. Martha - sophisticated & glowing like a 40's film star. Sula & Fran (the maid of honour) - elegant & lovely. Elaine - angelic. As for me, I had been blessed with a huge, bouffant Elizabeth Taylor 'do, which perfectly matched my snappy mod dress and increased my wind resistance by at least 50%. As my stylist was finishing, Martha wandered by the chair. "Oooh, you have been changed from ratty to acceptable." I had a moment of panic until I remembered my email. "Told you." The stylist was amused. "You must be really good friends for her to say that." Not yet, I thought. But one day. After we were made beautiful (or at least our heads), we headed off for breakfast. Unfortunately, the restaurant that had accepted Martha's 10 a.m. reservations didn't open until 11. (??) We ended up at the Two Rooms Café again, where I got to try their tempting breakfast menu and found it even better than the yummy tuna sandwich I'd gobbled two days before. During brunch, we discussed engagements and engagement rings, as everyone but little Elaine was either married or about to be married. (By the end of the day, Elaine & Dirk would be the only single members of the wedding party. I suggested that they get married to one another to correct this imbalance, but no one listens to me. Which is as it should be.) I got to tell the story of Elaine's reaction to my rock. Elaine: Martha has an engagement ring. Me: I have an engagement ring, too. See? El: (looks at my little wee rock obediently, yet scornfully) Martha has a diamond. (I giggle, unable for the moment to convince her that my little rock is also a diamond. I think.) After brunch I was dropped off at Preacher's apartment so that I could get dressed and assemble with Team Groom. As I sat on the couch nursing Blakers (who'd been a trooper that whole mommyless morning), I had another conversation with Preacher about my boobs. (Fortunately, this one didn't end with a year of stony silence.) Me: I love these tanktops. I got them for $7 dollars at Old Navy. (Oh, shut up. Everyone loves a bargain. - ed.) They also show off what I like to call my sudden C-cups. Preacher: They're very nice. (pause) I mean the tank tops. Me: I know what you meant.
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