Weddingbee

Be warned, my friends. Executing the following plan of action could lead to a significant other who enjoys eating sweetened condensed milk out of a tub, claims that all sausage is vile other than that found in Poland, and might possibly allow you to live in Europe some day where you will be able to visit fabulous countries like Croatia and Austria by taking the train.

Step 1: Learn how to say his name.

Mr. Avocado and I lived right next door to each other (I could walk out of my apartment, around the corner and knock on his door) from July of 2005 to April of 2006, yet we only have one memory of each other. I knew his roommate J and asked J to come over one day to take a look at my computer. Mr. Avocado came along and complimented me on my limited computer skills. I blushed and thought he was sweet. I am assuming that we went so long without interacting because I was nervous I would pronounce his Polish name incorrectly. Read more…

I read this article in the New York Times with great interest, as family and gender is an issue about which I am rather passionate.

Much of what the article touches on is the inequity in the amount of house work two fully employed partners do at home. The results discussed in the article suggest that when both a husband and a wife are employed full time, women still end up spending twice as much time as men on housework. (For same sex couples, this disparity does not exist). It then goes into some of the implications about why that is the case, and it really got me thinking.

Mr. Dahlia and I try and split things 50/50 as much as possible. But my job (full time grad student, part time instructor) is a lot more flexible than his job is (8-5 in IT). This is especially true in the summer, when I work as a research assistant and am working on my own research- I can pretty much work whenever I want to, so long as it all gets done.
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Picture courtesy of www.daria-snadowsky.com

Before I dated Mr. Hummingbird, I went out with about 12 different people and of those dirty dozen, as I affectionately call them, I really only seriously dated three.

I met the first of the three back when I was a senior in high school. I was 17 and fasttracking so I could graduate early, so I was reasonably smart when it came to academics. However, what I wasn’t smart about was relationships and as a result, I ended up in what I would probably call the worst relationship of my life.

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My parents are divorced.

I’m not unique in this fact. I don’t even have a sob story to tell about how my life was ruined, and in fact I had a happy childhood during which my parents never fought. Both my mom and my dad are now remarried, and in the end I got an extra (both awesome) set of parents out of it, not to mention a brother, sister, and a slew of cool step-relatives. So I’m really not here to complain. But the truth is, sometimes having divorced parents sucks.

There’s the obvious split up holidays, which I’ve mostly gotten used to, but still manage to have a yearly mini panic attack over. There’s the awkwardness that is unavoidable at events with both sets of families. There’s the question of what to call my brother and my sister- really my step-brother and half-sister if you want to get technical, but those titles seem so weird to me and we’ve never used them. And at the moment, there is the huge bummer of not having my mom and dad sitting together, smiling proudly at my wedding.
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Mr. Pineapple and I dated “officially” for 8 months before he proposed. The first time he introduced me to someone as his girlfriend was 5 months before he proposed. I never thought that I would be dating my boyfriend for less than a year before he became my husband-to-be, but once we were there it felt like perfect timing.

Since Mr. P and worked together before we started dating, we got to see each other’s true colors long before a first kiss. I was a stubborn manager of a residence hall desk and he was my supervisor. If one of my employees didn’t show up for work and I had to sit at the desk from 4-8am, no excuse was good enough. Immediate probation. Mr. Pineapple on the other hand was the good cop who would convince me to give them another chance. I would get distracted and doodle during Mr. P’s meetings and there was the one time we had to call him and remind him that he should be at work with us rather than watching the Steelers.

The desk services team out for dinner in 2005.

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Since planning the wedding, Mr. Canary have put our social lives on hold due to the lack of two things a) time and b) money. And since I am the first of my friends to get married, I still have that lingering fear that all of them will think that we’ve become that married couple who spends their weekend visiting Home Depot and nesting. Truth be told, we have visited Home Depot fairly often since we’ve moved and need to fix up our new home.

Prior to the wedding planning and Mr. Canary making the big move to New York so that we were finally living in the same city together, I was free to do whatever on my weeknights. Although I was in a serious relationship, Mr. Canary lived three hours away so we talked every day via the requisite phone calls and emails, but aside from that I had a pretty open social life. I often missed Mr. Canary terribly and the only way to ward it off was either to work more and when not working, see my friends as often as possible. Sometimes, we’d make big elaborate plans and other times, we had no plans at all other than hanging out at each other’s apartments gabbing.
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Not long after we booked both venues, the band and the caterer, Mr. Cream Puff told me that he thought our wedding was “too grand.” He was having a mini-freak-out about the size of our wedding, and it caught me totally off guard. To me, our wedding is pretty modest–we’re aiming for 130 guests. Apparently Mr. Cream Puff would be more comfortable with a smaller wedding–think 20 people–and he didn’t tell me until we’d already put down a bunch of deposits.

So I had a mini-freak-out. After all, this wedding should be representative of both of us, not just of me. However, we were in a position monetarily where we would lose out on thousands of dollars if we backed out for a smaller wedding. And the fact is, I’m not sure how we could get our guest list below 120 people, period. My family + Mr. CP’s family = 109 people, and that’s with none of our friends–not even those closest to us. We are both very close with our families, and the idea of leaving any of them out seemed like pure tragedy to me.

I consulted my friend Kathy, who was recently married. She told me that her husband-to-be had a very similar freak out before their wedding. She reassured me by telling me that her husband eventually got over it and actually started to look forward to the wedding.
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There is a scene in Sex and the City where Charlotte is preparing Shabbas dinner with Miranda and Carrie. Miranda warns Charlotte not to be overeager about her future with Harry. Charlotte passionately replies, “It’s beshert! It’s meant to be!”
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I’m completing my last rotation before I graduate from Optometry school in a Veterans Hospital. My passion in my field is kiddos, so I was pretty sure before I started that I was going to hate this particular placement. And to be honest, I will be happy to get back to what I love. But in the meantime I have to say I’ve met some pretty interesting old guys!

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Mr. Peacock and I are one of those “opposites attract” couples. Here is a quick list of the ways in which we differ:

• He went to all public schools, I went to all private schools
• He is the youngest of four, I am the oldest of four.
• We vote for different political parties
• He is a White Sox fan, I am a Cubs fan (as any of the Chicago readers can attest, this is a big deal)

Sitting in the Bullpen Bar at the Cell/Comisky. Crosstown Classic, June ’05.
I saved my “gear” for the game, but took no pictures!

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