Medicinal Pizza

I am delighted with my daughter's marriage.  Really.  But you have to admit that it's a traumatic experience.

I think I had been pretty cool about it, in other words, totally denying that it was at all traumatic.  But one has to admit that even if one is delighted with one's daughter's choice of spouse and feels totally included in the celebration, there are meanings that go beyond any of the wonderful things that a wedding may symbolize.

For one thing, when your first born weds, it means you are older.  It also means you are now the extended family.  There is what you might call a seismic shift (pardon my drama) in the makeup of the world.

I was really not that much in touch with the dramatic change for two reasons.  First, and let me just say this one more time, I was really totally happy with it.  Secondly, there wasn't a damn thing I could do about it if I wasn't.

Oh, and the most obvious I guess is that my daughter had been living away from me as one half of a happy couple for some seven plus years now.  I figured I should definitely be over it by now.

But as I woke up that morning, and before I gained consciousness, I groaned, "Oh my god," scaring my sister nearly half to death.  "What's wrong?!" she asked as she leaped out of bed.  "My daughter's getting married today."

But then the day flew by as we all knew it would, and the wedding was awesome and the reception was definitely one of the best parties I had ever attended.  It was about 11:30, and for some time I had been aware that the two aunts and I were the only ones of our generation who were holding down that fort.  Much as I was enjoying the antics of the ever more drunken younger bunch, it was time to leave.  That, or tag along on the bar crawl at midnight.

Still doing fine, I left my newly inebriated son in the hands of the not-entirely-trustworthy new bride, and we three headed back to our hotel.

Once there, the elephant in the room (which had actually been a dinosaur at the Orpheum Children's Museum reception) could no longer be denied.

There was a hole in my heart that could only be filled by a pepperoni pizza.  "I need a pizza," I whined.  After I had said it a few more times, my sisters understood that not only did I need a pizza, I was incapable of actually accomplishing that goal myself.  So, as family does in times of crisis, they did the telephone book research, and took it in stride when I griped about plebian options like Papa Johns and Dominos, finally finding a nice local option that appeared to be open late.  And as loved ones will do when your heart is breaking, they even made the call.

And that pizza turned out to be exactly what I needed for my broken heart.

How to Use a Clutch

My brilliant and talented daughter was married last weekend.  Whereas I had been the type of needle-worker that would attempt to precisely copy a pattern and still end up with arms of two different lengths, my daughter made her wedding dress.

 And flowers for the Bridal Party.

 Also, in what I have determined to be a lifelong obsession with getting me to use a smaller pocketbook, she made me what I have learned is called a clutch.  As in you can't let go of it or it will fall to the floor.

I know, it is beautiful.  But this is what I have carried around for the last decade or so:

You can carry a laptop around in it, or if you choose not to, it will hold nearly everything else you might think you need.  I have been challenging people for years to ask me for something they need and see if I am not carrying it.  After agonizing over its not looking classy enough to carry for my son's Harvard Commencement, and thinking about all the things I would have to carry along with a smaller purse, I just decided I would have to risk being mocked by the elite and was glad for it.

But the clutch was beautiful.  And Antoinette looked so excited when I opened the gift.  And she set me up by saying, "I thought I should give this to you before the wedding so you could wear it."

What was I to do?  I considered what would fit into it, folded up the pages on which I had printed my reading, carefully worked it in and then took it out because it was too big.  Then I neatly stacked a dozen neatly folded tissues which I could pull out individually during the ceremony.  And, well, that was it.  I thought I'd leave my other bag in the trunk of the car.

My daughter had bought a nice enough clutch online.  It was larger and less delicate than mine, and she stuffed as much as she could into it, had one of her bridesmaids help her close it, and we headed to the elevator, en route to what I understand they call "first look," the photo session wherein the groom gets to glimpse the bride before the ceremony in order to take pictures, but they have to do it in stages and when they are photographed together pretend it hasn't actually happened.

In the elevator, running late, the bride realized she hadn't left her room key with the bridesmaids, and then that she couldn't call them to tell them because she had left her phone in the room.  While she was in the midst of this process of discovery, items began to fall out of the clutch, even before she accidentally turned it upside down.

After that was settled, and in the car on the way to the photo session, she realized that her phone wouldn't fit in the clutch, and got a bit snappy with me when I attempted to suggest things that she could remove that she absolutely had to have.  Finally, with great dramatic insight, she said something to the effect of, "Oh, fuck this, I can't use this thing," and removed the items that had been stuffed into the clutch and threw them into the full sized pocketbook that had been sitting empty in the back seat.

I believe there must be a god whose sole purpose is to prevent weddings from happening.  This is why things go wrong in the days leading up to the event at a rate that cannot be explained by logic or statistics, and the things that go wrong increase in size and number as the moment draws near.  This is also why, if you make it to the actual ceremony, everything from then on is perfect.

So when we got to the Arboretum, which in Illinois in June had actual flowers recently planted and in bloom, and which flowers had not been ripped out by the recent wind and torrential rains, it stood to reason that the rain that had been predicted for two hours after the ceremony instead was imminent and at that moment being heralded by thunder.

Frantic calls, to proceed to Plan B and then to let others know.  A drive to drop off the bride at the amazing Orpheum Children's Theater, where the reception was to be held, now also to be the setting for the ceremony itself.  And a crazed run to the hotel to change and pick up father-of-the-bride.

Which is how I ended up with an exquisite clutch with neatly folded tissues and a few pages in hand for my reading, and, under my seat, my trusted carry-all, which held camera, envelopes with tips for staff, and ended up carrying gift envelopes.

I did "carry" the clutch, but mostly it sat at the table under my camera case, because you can't hold it and carry drinks and hors d'heuvres, or carry it and take pictures, or even carry it and dance.

I thought that I might, for the next very special occasion, take a big safety pin out of my all-purpose bag, fasten it to my dress and wear it as a brooch.

Les Miserables, Or Aren't We All?

I broke down and watched Les Miserables on DVD.

I had mixed reviews of the play when I saw it on Broadway in 1998.  I was with my daughter, who was 11.  We were planning on moving from Long Island to South Carolina the following year, and it was our Farewell to Broadway trip to the city.

What I remember most was that the play was too long.  I have as good an attention span as the next fairly cultured person, but I was impatient with the stupid morality of Victor Hugo's time.

But the movie was different.  I got caught up in it.  The music was phenomenal.  The acting was grand.  The children were breathtaking.

Sasha Baron Cohen, of course, stole every scene he was in.

What surprised me most was Russell Crowe's portrayal of Javert.  And the fact that he has such a sweet, pure voice.  Which he used to convey his tortured mind, the pure evil that comes from pure thoughts, unfiltered by charity.

The play wasn't as interminable as I recalled.  And yet, to the minute, I reached the point where I had had it.  There they were, the dead had been mourned, Cosette and Marius about to live happily ever after.  This was a state totally unacceptable for Jean Valjean.  At that point, he decides he can have no part of a happy life with his beloved daughter.

Damn that loaf of bread.

So he runs off, Marius bound not to tell.  And then it appears they watch Valjean ride off, both apparently too overcome with the emotion of the scene to run after him and ask what the hell he is doing.

And this is where I lose it.  As Jean Valjean is taking far too long to die, I would like to help him along.

When I was a child, my mother, along with everyone else's mother, watched the daytime soaps (Back then, there were only daytime soaps.).  She cleaned house fearlessly, played games with my sister and myself, visited neighbors, but between noon and one o'clock, my mother watched her soaps.

I tried to watch soaps for awhile, but I found that I kept wanting to yell at the actors for doing such stupid things.  "You know he loves you, for God's sake, just tell him you're pregnant!"

But no, soap operas represented the same need for interminable torture and misery as Hugo painted for us in his aptly named tale, but which he did with better music.  Is it a human need, to suffer and sacrifice, and while you're at it bring everyone down with you?  I think not a need, although we certainly do it.  And we do crave watching others suffer through their own moral twistings.

So Jean Valjean, now on Blu-ray, will continue to drive people insane with the masochistic need to make others suffer through his absence.  An agonized man who even needed to be persuaded to heaven.

At least Javert jumped.