What an exciting week it must be for young legislators. Imagine the drama, the pomp, the being called to work on the Fourth of July when you could be out prowling barbecues for deep pockets and hot dogs. John Adams wanted the Fourth to be a solemn occasion, celebrated with songs and ceremonies. In a way, Americans have not disappointed. He wanted the President to be addressed in the most florid language, which would be funny now if we hadn’t elected a Connecticut good old boy to the newly created position of Imperial Potentate.

Also, I simply enjoy saying “potentate.” Some words are more fun than others.

Yesterday, my phone rang. Siobhan and I were sitting in my living room, fanning ourselves in the sweltering afternoon like extras in To Kill A Mockingbird because it didn’t occur to me until after Siobhan showed up that the air conditioner’s ON button works during the day, too.

Voice: Laur! Hello!
Tata: Hello, this is Tata.
Voice: Tata? I…hello!
Tata: Hello, Auntie InExcelsisDeo.
Auntie I.: Hi! Happy Fourth of July to you!
Tata: And to you, as well!
Auntie I.: I called your number by accident so I have a phone call to make now.
Tata: Do me a favor and have Sandy call me?
Auntie I.: Love you, sweetheart!
Tata: Love you, too. I’m hanging up now.

Most members of my family hear things I’ve said when they come out of other people’s mouths. For instance, last week I called asked Sandy to call me back at her earliest convenience, which after a few days was impressively late. It’s okay, though, because we are family and holding grudges is bloodsport. Christmas is always coming. In any case, a few hours later, Sandy called back.

Sandy: Whaddya want?
Tata: You wanted the URL where you could read about yourself. I wanted your email address. We all got wants.
Sandy: Am I going to read all about nuzzling up to your bosom?
Tata: I’d totally forgotten that! Also: I don’t have that picture. Wasn’t it on one of the table cameras?
Sandy: I think Tony has it.
Tata: Wow, it is somehow endearing and disgusting to think your brother has that picture of us. Well, a wedding’s full of surprising moments, isn’t it? Monday’s wedding story is substantially less full of swearing than Miss Sasha’s.
Sandy: Can I read that too?
Tata: You bet. It’s all linked up.
Sandy: I have tomorrow off. I’ll spend my day reading.
Tata: Good. Then you can spend your night stalking me with something sharp.

Now that she mentions it, Sandy’s right. The trip to Maryland was full of little moments I totally forgot last week when I was writing it up for horrified Posterity. A fine example:

Dad: What color is your hair?
Tata: Ya want me to read you the box?
Dad: No, I mean naturally. What color is your hair?
Tata: Oh geez, I don’t know. I don’t believe in repudiating the work of a lifetime.
Dad: How about you? What color is your hair?
Daria: Daddy! My hair is exactly as you see it and if my children weren’t here I’d call you some very naughty words.

Perhaps you had to be there. Dad was. He was laughing so hard I thought he was having an asthma attack. The morning after the wedding, Paulie and I walked out of the hotel at 7:30, stared at a nearly flat tire on the truck and found a Sears before 8 on a Saturday morning that was just opening. Believe it or not, there was a wait. Paulie lay on the ground, removing his specialized hub cap with his a paper clip and tenacity; I stood nearby, heckling and knitting. Yes, if Catskills comedians could use round needles, what sticky afghans our grandparents would have brought back from Grossinger’s. Wish I had a picture of that.

In other news, the Father’s Day gift I mailed to Dad went someplace else.

Dad: I like the board and the card is funny. But they were addressed to John Heatwole’s house. He’s a famous Civil War writer, sculptor, painter and cetera.
Tata: My stars, a girl could start a revolution, sending Father’s Day gifts to the wrong man. In fact next year, I think I’ll send Candygrams to the Republican National Committee.

Imagine that pomp and drama – all the way to divorce court. And I’m just the relentless, bitchy do-gooder to fight corruption with tissue and love letters.

Week 1 Tuesday Report

I fixed a spot where my giant rusty ice tongs whacked my bedroom wall and chipped the paint. Don’t. Ask.

The air conditioner on my bedroom floor came without little hardware pieces. I went to Home Depot for wood screws but since I could only guess what size fourteen of the damn things were supposed to be the odds weren’t my favor. I picked wrong. I have to go back and get No.6 wood screws. Damn it.

So. Minimal progress on the physical plant. I hope to do better this week.

On no morning since the hysterectomy did I wake up thinking, ‘Man…I really miss my uterus.’

In the universe, we are small and know so little. Even our largest problems can be seen from all sides, and from distances where they vanish into microscopic oblivion. In his book Local Knowledge, anthropologist Clifford Geertz cited an account by an earlier specialist of a man’s funeral and the journeys of his three wives to the funeral pyre. The early author’s opinion of what he had seen lacked ambivalence: three women had made themselves beautiful, walked to the ends of diving boards, leaped and burned to death. Geertz was not so sure: in their culture, this critical turning point in their eternities would make the journey into the afterlife easier and Geertz couldn’t say this belief was any more or less valid than any other.

As a modern American woman raised by hippies, hairdressers and opera singers, all of which fear flammable conditions, I can throw up my hands and say I don’t know what really happened there. Maybe those women died agonizing deaths for no reason. Maybe that was their ticket to a Heaven in which their hairstyles never budged. I don’t know but since I am mostly on the earthly side of Here And Now/Fluffy Cloud Afterlife line, I am inclined to say that anything increasing the amount of pain in which the living find themselves is utterly out of the question. The point is: my opinion on the matter doesn’t matter a whit, not one, because an objective reality is unavailable to me. Some people believe that after death, we understand everything. That’s just more speculation. Geertz was wise to say he didn’t know even if he were pretty creeped out by the horror of suttee. We, in our mortal forms, can only guess at what is really what. People who espouse certainty are simply not seeing how uncertain they should be.

Last week, money made an end-run around certainty.

Buffett told Fortune that he decided to start giving his money away now because he has been impressed with Bill and Melinda Gates and the work they’ve done through their foundation. And he decided it would be easier to give to a large foundation instead of trying to expand his own foundation.

“What can be more logical, in whatever you want done, than finding someone better equipped than you are to do it?” Buffett told the magazine. “Who wouldn’t select Tiger Woods to take his place in a high-stakes golf game? That’s how I feel about this decision about my money.”

That’s amazing. One of the richest men in the world said, “I don’t know, but I trust you. Here’s the biggest wad of cash in the history of charitable giving. Like, ever.” No, really:

The 75-year-old Berkshire chairman and CEO had been expected to leave his vast holdings of Berkshire stock largely to the Susan Thompson Buffett Foundation, begun by Buffett and his late wife. That foundation has given millions of dollars to hospitals, universities and teachers, as well as to Planned Parenthood and other abortion rights groups.

Buffett said he plans to give away 12,050,000 Class B shares of Berkshire Hathaway stock to the foundations, but he will have to convert some of his 474,998 Class A shares to complete the gifts. One Class A share, which sold for $92,100 on Friday, can be converted into 30 Class B shares, which sold for $3,071 Friday.

The gifts would be worth nearly $37 billion based on Friday’s closing share price.

Hot damn, I love it when rich people give it away, give it away, give it away now – not the evening-gowned charity event horseshit. I coudn’t find that more repulsive. I like when people consider themselves part of the fabric of problems and solutions and act without fanfare. Ironically, this gift would have been much more exciting if I’d never heard of it, but I have and the villagers rejoice – wheeeeeeeeeeee! – right? Not universally, no.

Gates and wife have been at the forefront of murdering children in females’ wombs. Now the Buffet donation will enhance all the more the abortuaries. In other words, more humans without self-defense will be discarded, their souls making their ways into the loving arms of Jesus.

And:

The Gates Foundation has given the Planned Parenthood Federation of America almost $12.5 million since 1998, including funds to persuade teens to support abortion and to lobby the United Nations to advance pro-abortion proposals, reported LifeNews.com

The foundation also has given nearly $21 million to International Planned Parenthood over the last seven years, where funds have been used to promote abortions in third-world nations and to set up pro-abortion family planning centers in South America, Africa and Eastern Europe.

Buffet[sic], whose wealth is second only to Gates’, has announced he will leave about 80 percent of his estate to the Gates Foundation.

Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of the pro-life women’s network Susan B. Anthony List lamented Buffett’s decision.

“It’s tragic that much of Warren Buffett’s billion-dollar attempt to improve the lives of people around the world is actually going to fund organizations that take the lives of unborn children and encourage others to do the same,” said Dannenfelser.

This particular online “news” source is about as reputable as a whorehouse blackmailer, but people read and believe it. So we have to regard it and see clearly what it’s saying.

“The tragedy of Bill Gates’ support of abortion and population control is that technology leads to development,” said Steven Mosher, president of the Population Research Institute, according to LifeNews.com

“Unfortunately, the developing world will grow old before it develops because of population control. Gates, in supporting population control, is out of step with other great minds who have viewed people as humanity’s greatest resource,” Mosher said.

At Microsoft’s 2003 annual shareholders meeting, Mosher’s group failed to win approval for a motion to stop Microsoft from directly contributing to charities, citing its support for Planned Parenthood.

I don’t like to think of myself as naive, but that takes my breath away. Steven Mosher sought to block Microsoft from donating to charities because he and his group don’t like what Planned Parenthood does. He is unable to see good works through his repressive ideology. Ladies and gentleman, I hope he doesn’t own a dog – and I hope he gets a better idea of what is worth doing in this life because unchecked his actions will cause nothing but suffering, principally to women.

So far, I have seen no response to these protests from the Gateses or Buffett. The blogosphere buzzed with snark and indignation. In general I think it’s well beyond time we started seeing short, sweet press releases like this.

Attention: Anti-Abortion Activists:
For decades, you have bullied, blasted and murdered decent medical professionals and frightened women with whom you have a difference of opinion, no matter what else you’d like to call it. I’m supporting reproductive freedom, and you can feel free to boycott me however you wish or protest my actions within the limits of the law. I don’t care. It’s my money, and I will spend it as I wish. If you’re offended that’s your problem. Go home and feed those homeless people you’re afraid ruin your property values.

In closing, I’d like to say it’s downright peachy that Buffett rhymes with Stuff it!

I could write these all day – and someone should because this past week, after decades as a politically active person, I became truly frightened by the escalation of rancor in our political lives. There is no excuse – no excuse whatever – for the Rovian decimation tactics pundits are applying to one another. There is no excuse for such barbarism as printing the personal information of activists because you dislike their politics. There is no reason whatsoever to shout “FIRE!” when the theater isn’t burning, and I’m truly sick of unbridled cruelty and whimpering cowardice passing for political discourse.

Because it isn’t.

Politics has never been a mannerly business, no matter what anyone who wants you to sit down and shut up says. To antagonize opponents, the Right is fond of the words “the angry Left.” After a lifetime of being patted on the head by old white men who still insist I can’t make my own decisions about my “female’s womb” you’re goddam right I’m angry, and if I weren’t angry, I’d be unconscious. In some cases, anger is a healthy response. In this case it means I’m not internalizing that paternalistic bullshit. And good for me!

Even so, anger will not advance conversation. In fact, I’ve come to the conclusion that shouting back is a big waste of time. Nobody’s listening. Nobody cares. Nobody cares about anything other than winning debates, even if it means losing one’s soul. As much as I would like to break every bone in Bill O’Reilly’s face because I knew Jeremy Glick when he lived in New Brunswick, that anger and that impulse helps no one. I propose the Good Granny Method of Diplomacy.

Has anyone tried sitting knee to knee with Ann Coulter when she’s screeching that hateful invective, looking her dead in the eye, holding her hand and saying very firmly, slowly and with compassion, “Sweetheart: no”?

Blabbity blab blabbity neener neener neener what about my money –

“Ann, no. You are hurting people. No.”

This method is not for the weak because it means actually touching terrible and nearly psychopathic people and sometimes that is quite icky. Listen, Grannies everywhere touch sticky children. It can be done! Someone somewhere has the magical power to look in Sean Hannity’s eyes and see a little boy who needs a time-out in the worst way. And about John Bolton – well, that’s a non-violent foxtrot for Gandhi-level dancers.

Maybe this is not for you. Maybe you aren’t ready to see past your own feelings to the Greater Good. I am uncertain I could do it. I am ready to try – maybe not near Bill O’Reilly. But maybe someday, when I see a more objective reality.

There’s more to it than my idle fantasies about how to treat bullies and relentless attention seekers. Anti-choice activists and neocons have forgotten something very significant about the United States of America – in fact, the thing that makes it unique in all the world. Our Founding Fathers – the very ones people who skipped history class refer to as Christians – knew the early settlers fled religious persecution in Europe then turned around and persecuted each other. A few generations later, before and during the Revolutionary War, colonists with differences of opinion did shit to each other that made the Manson Family rampages look like a PTA bake sale. The writers of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution were very much aware of a human desire for authoritarian control over each other. Our Founding Fathers intended to protect minority opinions, religions and lifestyles from the tyranny of the majority. What anti-choice activists choose not to observe is that most Americans want to be left alone to make these decisions for themselves – in fact, most people want to make decisions about their own lives without interference. The bullies outside clinics are a distinct minority. As much as I must tolerate their opinions and lifestyles they must tolerate mine, which in this case is Uterus-Free And Loving It! Mutual toleration is not just decent and mannerly. It’s the American Way.

Crossposted at Running Scared.

I have the almost unimaginably good fortune to live alone in a nice apartment in a sunny, tree-lined complex atop a cliff overlooking a slow-moving river. This afternoon, gentle breezes rustle the leaves, birds sing, traffic hums on the distant highways. Much of the Northeast is cleaning up after a lengthy series of paralyzing storms and floods but I am fine. My neighborhood is quiet. I can hear church bells ringing. The temperature in my living room with windows thrown open and curtains tied back feels perfectly lovely to my skin. It is the kind of afternoon one idly imagines when winter winds bite. I’ll be blunt: weeks ago, through the accident of meeting someone who mysteriously didn’t seem like a stranger, it dawned on me that while I was as happy in the here-and-now as I’d ever been all that happiness obscured the fact that I was damn lonely.

It was a shock. I mean, who knew that being so self-absorbed left time to think about anyone else? Obviously, I’d discovered a chink in my armor of selfishness. I’ve thought it over and I’ve decided to patch that hole with more Me. Yes: Me, Me and more Me. That’ll fix my wagon. So I’m proposing a new venture that’s much like my every other venture, only this time with your eyes on my progress and a finish line. I’m going to devote my July to solving a few problems, and you’re going to heckle Project Me. Don’t throw fruit because I won’t be replacing your monitors. Got it? Now then: today is 1 July. In four weeks, I’d like to see what I can accomplish through focused effort and accountability. I won’t lie about what I’m doing or fudge my results. And if I’m full of shit, you’ll let me know.

Goal 1
Through reasonably healthy eating practices and daily exercise, I would like to lose 1-2 pounds per week. I weighed myself yesterday. I will weigh myself every Friday morning – and only Friday mornings – and report back what I have gained or lost in Week 1, Week 2, etc. – because if you think I’m going to tell you what I weigh while I feel fat you are seriously smoking the good stuff. In any case, I will report the truth because lying about weight loss is like faking orgasms: what on earth could be the fucking point?
*****

Goal 2
I’ve been in this apartment since 19 August and boxes still sit in my bedroom, curtain rods lie on the floor and I’d like to finish the unfinished project of moving in. My bedroom air conditioner is on the floor as I await Sears’ ongoing efforts to mail me parts they can’t identify. I’ve received two packages of parts so far. The last one contained a piece I can’t identify and it plays no role in the installation of my air conditioner. I’m waiting for an envelope containing 24 screws. By the end of July, I want that air conditioner be up off the floor and installed, and I can do it. I’d like to put up the curtain rods and get curtains. I’d like to unpack the boxes. Sometimes we catch ourselves acting on our real motives, and I’ve caught myself redhanded: symbolically, if I unpack and live here, if I stay and make this place my own, I’m afraid it means I’ve decided I’ll be alone for the rest of my life.

Well, Sparky, that’s crap reasoning, and I want my subconscious to quit hedging bets. I’d like to live here because I live here, and fear be damned! I’m talking tough with Me! And I’m pretty sure in two out of three falls I can take Me.
*****

Goal 3
Related to Goal 1, I’d like to take at least one yoga class a week. I have to be just this specific with it because otherwise I will do what I’ve been doing: excercising without stretching properly. I know better. I’ve been an athlete and a dancer since 1968. I don’t know what the hell is wrong with me but I’m not stretching and an overweight middle-aged broad with arthritis has to do better. Taking a class means committing time, money and attention to the body and peace of mind. If I procrastinate, razz me with extreme prejudice. You know you want to…
*****

There are other things I’d like try but they can be incorporated into life as I go along. For instance: tomorrow morning, I’m going to bake banana bread. It’s a modest endeavor but I feel strongly that where I can I should make my own basic foods. I make yogurt every week. I make refreshing pickled cucumbers for those times when my brain is playing the I Don’t Feel Like Eating Healthy game. Anyway, I’m very excited about a Sunday morning that includes walking and running, and baking banana bread. I have cream cheese. Don’t call me, I’m busy!

I’m proposing Friday reports for Goals 1 & 3 and Tuesday reports for Goal 2. Those would be logical times in the cycle of my work and exercise schedules. And before we get all bitchy with each other, I’m only asking you to help me keep Me honest. You don’t have to do anything – unless you want to. Are you of a mind to make a change, for a month, and give yourself some progress toward something you want?

What do you want?

Once more, with feelin’: Monday’s and Barry’s wedding.

When RSVP doesn’t cut it.
Meet Daria – but never share dessert.
The tulle-draped horror of a family bridal shower. And pastry.
Miss Sasha’s First Anniversity and a link to the terrifying wedding epic.
Bad wedding, no biscuit!
The family migrates, the family is left behind.
Paulie signs on to a dangerous mission.
Miss Sasha Regrets…
Miracles Never Cease Ceasing
Some do “I do.”
Say “Secret Cheese!”
The longest week of my life was one five-hour evening.
Both post-y and script-y.

Remember: I’m not writing history. Don’t bother correcting facts or manners and don’t make me stab you with my shrimp fork!

Trout, who is just as guinea-wop-dago as I am, sent me a joke.

WHY ITALIANS CAN’T BE PARAMEDICS

Vinny and Sal are out in the woods hunting when suddenly Sal grabs his chest and falls to the ground. He doesn’t seem to be breathing; his eyes are rolled back in his head. Vinny whips out his cell phone and calls 911. He gasps to the operator, “I think Sal is dead! What should I do?”

The operator, in a calm soothing voice says, “Just take it easy and follow my instructions. First, let’s make sure he’s dead.” There is a silence. And then a shot is heard.

Vinny’s voice comes back on the line, “Okay…now what?”

Let’s say it’s the cocktail hour and we’re erring on the side of thoroughness. Paulie’s drinking Bombay Sapphire, as is Mom and I’m not so sure about the six-year-old. I drink crappy white wine until dinner so I don’t wake up face-down in the warm crab dip. For an hour, we tromp outside in the sweltering afternoon air. Photographers bark out a list of names. We assemble. We are dismissed. We get a drink. We drink it. Someone taps us on our shoulders. We tromp outside. Photographers bark. We assemble. We are dismissed. We get a drink. Because the temperature difference between inside and outside is a triumph of modern technology, being outside makes everyone look damp and wilted. Finally, our side of the family is dismissed for the evening and we spend the next forty-five minutes body-to-body with dozens of strangers in two small rooms of an old house. With fruit sculptures. I can’t explain that. There really is a warm crab dip but since there’s no place to put down a plate, guests balance drinks, purses and plates. It’s only a matter of time before someone wears a raspberry camembert brooch. Fortunately, Paulie, Dad and Darla enjoy heckling the snackers. Miss Sasha, who traveled from Florida without Mr. Sasha but with their housemate Irena, has either missed me very much or is attempting to form a symbiotic relationship with me in the nature of ivy climbing an oak. I keep finding a person attached to me. Someone should check her for Velcro.

Finally, we are herded like well-dressed cattle to a dining room overlooking the patio where the wedding took place. Miss Sasha sits at my left, Paulie to my right. Mom and Tom sit across the table, making us six. Other tables are composed of eight. Within minutes, music and speeches start. I switch to gin.

For the next hour, this wedding could be any wedding not in a church basement. The food is abundant and bland. The servers are wearing black pants and white shirts. The DJ plays nothing but classic rock, and when the twenty-somethings dance to Taking Care of Business I give up. We can’t hear each other talk. Daria resorts to charades at the next table. Auntie InExcelsisDeo moves from table to table, supervising, doting on the guests. Uncle Frank is so overjoyed his sentences lose consonants. There’s no wedding cake because Monday and her friends decided it would be more interesting to bake cookies. They must’ve been at it for a week. The table covered with cookies could feed the population of a South Sea island. In other news, the vulgar garter catching and releasing ritual causes me to pretend I’m in My Happy Place, which is Anywhere Else, With Gin. The only time the guests got up and packed the dance floor was when the DJ went holy and sacrilegious with Madonna’s Like A Prayer, by which time I was desperate to hear anything with a pulse.

At 10, the Fabulous Ex-Husband, Karen, Miss Sasha and Irena kiss everyone good-bye and leave for Pennsylvania. We say a lot of filthy words about the my former sister-in-law, who is a dreadful human being. Because it will make her head explode, I tell them to give her my best. After they’re gone, Paulie and I get bored and notice the cameras on the tables. We recruit Todd and steal cameras. Paulie puts an arm around kid without pants and Todd takes pictures. The kid says, “Uh…what?”

As the reception winds down, we are all invited outside to hold sparklers while the bride and groom depart. It’s 11:40, sweltering hot and a light rain is falling. The shuttle back to the hotel is full. Paulie and I get separated and a minute later when I see him he’s lighting fireworks for small children, which is so, so endearing! And then, everything goes wrong. I turn back to the shuttle. I turn back to Paulie. I turn and see the shuttle close its doors and leave. I turn and see the bride and groom skipping down flagstone steps surrounded by sparkler-wielding well-wishers. Everyone stops. Everyone is staring. The shuttle has pulled out of the parking lot, and that little bus-whatsis was everyone’s transportation, including the Happy Couple’s.

We all march back inside. The bar’s closed. The dining room is getting an industrial-strength cleanup. Paulie and I look at each other without the faintest idea of what to do. One of the bridesmaids is a lawyer and she is on the phone with the shuttle company, which has no intention of sending that bus back. Finally, a complete stranger I don’t even recall seeing during the course of the evening offers us a ride to our hotel. Since he seems sober and isn’t related, I assume he can be trusted. He drops us off. We peel off sweat-sticky outfits and chant, “What the hell just happened?”

You will be pleased to know that on the ride home, Paulie and I sang along with Tom Jones’s Black Betty and Ministry’s Jesus Built My Hotrod at the tops of our hungover lungs. The bus did come back. And the Catsitter said, “What the hell happened to you?”

We interrupt this droll wedding story for photos from the event. The identities of the merely related have been protected from public scrutiny through Siobhan’s judicious photoshopping.

The ceiling of Paulie’s truck is steel, glue and bits of foam.

Tom, Mom, Marguerite, Arnold and a bus driver to be named later.

A dozen of my relatives picked up cameras and ran to get a better shot.

Monday and Barry, introduced as “For the first time anywhere, Monday and Barry So&So” three times.

Monday’s sister Sandy is not actually a blonde. That is a trick of the light.

Dad and Miss Sasha hug.

Daria spins Tyler, Two.

Cousin Tony (Monday’s giant baby brother) and my brother Todd yuk it up. The resemblance is scary. We tell them apart by accident.

The Fabulous Ex-Husband(tm) and his fiancee Karen sat next to Dad at the reception. I got custody of Mom.

Auntie InExcelsisDeo with Dad, her brother. I caught them eying dessert.

Monday and Barry. They’ll make out great in the Witness Protection Program, where matching six-foot newlyweds are quite common.

For fun sometime: attend a family event and demand your relatives turn around so you can photograph their backs. Though Auntie InExcelsisDeo can’t follow directions she doesn’t issue, not a single member of my family argued with me.

Paulie and I put down our beers and walk outside as the shuttle bus arrives. My cousin Marguerite and her boyfriend Arnold – if we can call retirees “boyfriend” and “girlfriend” – coo, cackle and exclaim when they meet up in line with Mom and Tom. I walk up behind them and the cacophony begins anew. We are the bride’s only relatives on the bus, which becomes patently obvious when the other shuttle riders stand an average of six inches taller than Marguerite and me. I’ve never met Arnold and Paulie vaguely remembers Marguerite from some occasion years ago. At the bridal shower, Marguerite told us a story about Arnold’s amusing choice of timepieces.

Tata: Arnold, lemme see your watch.
Arnold: I wore the good one!
Marguerite: He wore the Casio!
Tata: Yeah, but it’s the formal Casio.
Arnold: We don’t go to a lot of weddings and we’re not living in sin, precisely.
Marguerite: We have our own houses.
Arnold: So, Tom and Lucy, where do you live?
Tata: In sin, precisely.
Marguerite: Domenica, you’re a card!
Tata: Thank you, dahhhhhhhhhhhling.
Arnold: Where are we anyhow?

This is an exceptionally good question because the shuttle has stopped after a sign that said MANSION. One thing strange to those of us from Jersey is that to get anywhere you have to drive ten miles on state highways. The roads have no names – just numbers. Though we know the site of the wedding has a name, for highway purposes we’re standing in the MANSION parking lot. Half of everyone I know is standing around, sweating. The Fabulous Ex-Husband(tm) and his fiancee Karen can’t wait to tell me everything.

He: Guess what! Guess what!
She: We drove in and parked ten minutes ago!
He: And after dinner we’re driving back to Pennsylvania for our nephew’s bar mitzvah tomorrow!
She: I’ve never been to a bar mitzvah!
He: We got changed in the car!
Tata: That is …awesome!
Stranger: Walk this way, please.
He: This way?
Tata: C’mon, Igor! The kids’re gittin’ hitched!

I follow someone I’m probably related to through a door, where an employee asks, “Are you coming in for the bathrooms? The wedding’s outside.” I say, “No, dahhhhhhhling. We simply lack direction in life.” Back outside, we turn a corner and –

Look! Paulie and I meet Dad and Darla. My sister Daria, her husband Tyler, their three children. My brother Todd. I didn’t know Todd was coming from Los Angeles! Miss Sasha and her roommate Irena. Around us sit other people who have played significant roles in our family life and a bunch of guests I’ll never pick out of a lineup, even after the reception. Paulie and I sit down in the same row as Mom and Tom, where we box in Daria’s three-year-old son between Tom and me. Sandro’s got Matchbox trucks and pennies. Paulie and I look around and spin back to one another with the same observation.

Us: That kid’s not wearing any pants!

Indeed, in the row behind us a kid has chosen the unique fashion statement of seersucker blue and white Bermuda shorts, a white t-shirt and a blue dinner jacket.

Paulie: He looks like the kid from Caddyshack! Obviously, I’m trying too hard, wearing a shirt with buttons.

Somehow, the dearly beloved miss some significant cue. Some of us haven’t taken seats yet when a bridesmaid walks past with a young man in rented clothing. Dozens of people murmur, “Whoops!” and rush for chairs. For the first time, we notice we’re sitting in a little glen with a rectangular pond at its center, a platform at the far end and Doric columns. A pack of young men in odd suits appear from nowhere. Bridesmaids continue streaming past us. It happens so fast Arnold says out loud, “Hey, quit sprinting!” Auntie InExcelsisDeo walks down the aisle. My cousin Monday is escorted down the aisle by Uncle Frank. The ceremony is brief and quiet until Paulie and I hear the words we dread: “The bride and groom have written their own vows.”

Few moments in life offer a chance for one’s family and friends to see into the vast mediocrity of one’s soul like poorly written homemade wedding vows. You promise what? And, for cryin’ out loud, what else? Sweet hopping Christ, you’re going to regret that in divorce court. If you’re contemplating such a revealing maneuver, by all means DON’T. Take the standard vows and bug out for the open bar, kids. Fortunately for dozens of people, the sound system tanks, and nobody hears Monday’s and Barry’s vows. I tug on Marguerite’s sleeve.

Tata: Is this wedding subtitled?

Don’t get me wrong: we love and adore Monday, the bride. She is a good person and during expecially difficult times for our family, even when she was very young, Monday demonstrated a character we could all be proud of, without question. At the moment, it is above 80 degrees and the clouds have parted after a three-day rainstorm, we are wearing uncomfortable clothing and it’s not like we’ve ever shut our mouths for more than a minute. Daria gives a reading and bursts into tears. Auntie InExcelsisDeo is crying her eyes out. Uncle Frank is teary. Monday’s sister Sandy’s tears interrupt the ceremony several times. I keep looking at Paulie like ‘Wha…?’

We all miss another cue and the marriage is suddenly legal, which we know because the bride and groom reach for one another’s tonsils for all their worth but everyone plays along since Monday and Barry are, like, really nice looking and who could blame them? The recessional music causes us all to chatter out loud.

Tom: What is that?
Tata: That’s Superman, right?
Paulie: I thought it was Star Wars but Superman is funnier.
Tata: So which is it?
Tom: I think it’s Superman.
Paulie: It is! It’s Superman!
Tata: EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!

Yes. I squealed with glee. No one noticed, and no one was wearing tights and a cape – that we know of.

One cue we don’t miss: the cocktail hour starts now!

A few weeks ago, I lay supine on my couch watching All My Children when I saw something I would never have imagined in a million years. Such is our training by the passage of time and the formation of assumptions that when I saw this truly small, truly strange detail in a show I’ve watched on and off since I was a teenager that at first I didn’t believe my eyes. Then I jumped up and ran to my television. It was true, I really had seen it. Maybe no one else noticed, and it certainly can’t be important in anyone’s scheme of things. The impossible thing was this: in a scene in the Pine Valley Hospital, Susan Lucci as Miss Erika Kane was talking to a villainous doctor when she reached into her handbag, pulled out a rubber band and tied her hair into a pony tail.

I almost swallowed my tongue. Paulie and I are standing in a hotel room in Frederick, Maryland at 5:40 in the evening. Let’s go back in time to 9 a.m., when the Catsitter calls.

Catsitter: Are you packed?
Tata: Nope.
Catsitter: I knew it!
Tata: I’ve got everything laid out systematically. My clothing is clean and rolled neatly. My cosmetics, goos and potions fill a grid system on the living room floor.
Catsitter: Why not jam everything into that tiny computer wheelie you drag around?
Tata: What, before I’ve played Concentration long enough to realize what I’ve already forgotten?
Catsitter: Rumor has it civilization has advanced and drugstores can be found in the wilds of Frederick County.
Tata: How would you know?
Catsitter: I’ve bailed out shoplifters. They have a newsletter. And I’m from there.
Tata: Oh God. Did you shoot your own leather jacket?

I can’t talk to the Catsitter. I’ve got important fretting, complaining and kvetching to do. Miss Sasha still has not called back with instructions. My apartment’s a wreck and I have errands to do. I pick up medicine for Larry, the little black cat bent on stealing your soul. He has an oral infection that requires medicine twice daily on top of his usual kiddie steroids so I can’t leave him for 36 hours. The Catsitter will arrive on an evening train and brave the Wrath of the Feline. It was kind, thoughtful and amazingly stupid of him to volunteer for this dangerous mission. I buy him BandAids and a bottle of bacteriostatic honey to fight infection. You know. In case. Then I shop for fresh fruit and vegetables because when I get back I’m going to be full of cream sauces and puff pastry and strong measures must be taken to fight off that Weekend Wedding Weightgain. Oh, no. I’m not going back to my Fat-Fat Clothes. I’m staying in Merely-Fat Clothes, damn it. By now, Miss Sasha still hasn’t called but Paulie Gonzalez has. He’s been detained by work, where he is busy saving the world, I kid you not. This gives me time to harass Miss Sasha, who still does not answer the phone.

Google driving directions hinted that our route would take 3 hours, 47 minutes. I laughed and told Paulie we needed 5 hours if it weren’t raining up and down the Eastern Seaboard, and we were facing some lame deadline at 5:45 about which I had precious little information except that it would somehow provide me with an excellent opportunity to fail miserably where the whole family could see me. Paulie said he’d be over at 11:30, which became 12, then 12:30, when he pulled up in front of my apartment in a fabulous and disreputable 1965 GM pickup that was red, then Paulie sanded about half of it down to black primer and welded to fix rust. The windows were open. There were makeshift seatbelts. He had to lift the passenger side door to open it from the outside after tossing my suitcase into the bed. I was immediately overjoyed.

The mp3 player in the dash cranked out Paulie’s and my favorite songs and we howled the classics at the top of our lungs. We have a mutual love of good, grinding noise. Kill the Poor and Fly Me To the Moon, windows open to the breeze and squeezing shut against the rain; sweat ran down our backs and rain splattered everywhere. When the first drops fell, Paulie pulled over and dragged my suitcase into the cab and a good thing, since I’d forgotten it by then. We stopped for gas often because the previous owner installed the gas gauge upside down, and if the tank were full the truck wouldn’t start. We encountered accidents, rain blindness, stop-and-go traffic a good part of the distance from Turnpike Exit 9 until Exit 4. In Delaware, the signs stopped agreeing with Google’s directions so we stopped and found out we were accidentally on the right road, which was a 220-volt shocker.

My dear friend Georg weeks ago introduced the idea of making soft blankets for shelter animals. There’s nothing to do in a long car trip but whine. I had and have boxes of extra yarn and piles of knitting needles. I can’t tell you how many drivers in traffic looked at Paulie’s antique and rusting pickup doing 90, blasting the Supersuckers and the Dropkick Murphys, saw me knitting pink fuzzy yarn and decided to up their dosage.

I would’ve.

Despite our best attempts to defeat the laws of physics, we ran into traffic just outside Frederick that just wouldn’t quit. My stomach churned. My stitches tightened. Paulie’s lips compressed with tension and effort. The fire suddenly went out.

Tata: It’s okay.
Paulie: What?
Tata: If we miss the ceremony because it’s in this hellhole at rush hour and traffic’s at a standstill – I just don’t care.
Paulie: Nothing we can do about it.
Tata: Right, so let’s not worry and when we get to the hotel, we see if anyone knows anything. It’ll be fine.

Under other circumstances, if I say stuff like this I should be xrayed for concussions immediately, and if the xrays come back clean they’re lying. We feel relieved and slap-happy when we check into our hotel and get to our room at 5:40. Paulie showers. I shower. We finally get Miss Sasha on the phone and learn about the 6:30 shuttle, for which we are miraculously early. We get beer while we’re waiting and we hardly know what to say to one another. Then something happens we would never have imagined in a million years of Erika Kane putting her hair in pigtails.

Paulie: To goddamn weddings!
Tata: Gaaaaaaaaaaaah.
Paulie: Look who’s on time for the shuttle.
Tata: Is that MY MOTHER? This isn’t a miracle. It’s one long ACT OF GOD!
Paulie: Yeah, well. Looks like God gets the Oscar tonight.

Miss Sasha: Mommy! I’m driving around Pennsylvania and Monday gave me jobs to do!
Tata: I’m sorry I changed Monday’s damn diapers…
Miss Sasha: What?
Tata: Nothing!
Miss Sasha: Okay, so did you leave the house yet?

I hold the receiver away from my head for a moment. Just to stare.

Tata: Sweetheart, you called my house.
Miss Sasha: I did! I’m so confused! It’s my job to make all the family phone calls.
Tata: Are you driving on – you know – actual roads? In a car?
Miss Sasha: Yes, I’ve got an ear thing.
Tata: Aha. So…why did you call me?
Miss Sasha: The wedding’s at 7 and the shuttle leaves the Courtyard at 5:45.
Tata: I’m not staying at the Courtyard. Does the shuttle stop at my hotel?
Miss Sasha: I’ll call you back!

Ten minutes pass. An hour. Two hours. I go out walking and running. When I get back, there’s a message.

Miss Sasha: Call me back! I have the information.

Fantastic. One phone call and I can be totally informed and confident of my ability to embarrass my family in a timely manner. I get voicemail.

Tata: Sweetheart, if you don’t call me back I’ll stalk my hotel’s bartender for gin and a straw!

It’s just the kind of threat she understands. She knows I’ll use a disposable camera to chronicle Paulie Gonzalez’s and my disreputable public adventures. And we have a blog! Hands up – who’s nervous? Even so, I call her on Paulie’s cell, because I don’t have one. The first time.

Tata: Miss Sasha, this is your mother –
Voice: Hello?

And CLICK! The second.

Tata: Hello?
Voice: Sasha’s not here right now. Can I take a message?
Tata: This is her mother –

And CLICK! What the hell? The third.

Tata: Hello?
Miss Sasha: Mommy!
Tata: The last two times I called someone hung up on me. Just tell me what I need to know and we can get on with this inspiring debacle. We just arrived and don’t stand a chance in Hell of making that 5:45 shuttle.
Miss Sasha: Take the 6:30. Aunt Daria has a portable closet full of clothing for you.
Tata: Too late for that. I brought a ghastly outfit and I’ll suck it up and wear it.
Miss Sasha: You’ll…what?

As I hang up, Paulie looks shocked, too. Sure, I’m vain but we’re on a hard deadline and if I’m not careful I’ll cave and track down Daria’s closet, which will cause us to miss the ceremony. In a moment of panic, I turn to Paulie and gasp.

Tata: Next time I get the bright idea we should go to an out of state wedding, let’s rent a hotel room, a ska band and five gallons of matzoh ball soup.
Paulie: With sushi and a UN translator, we could rule the world.
Tata: I’ll settle for surviving the cocktail hour without a subpoena.

Damn it, I hate weddings!