Countdown: (8) So close!

If I were an auctioneer, I could quickly list everything we’ve been working on: seatingweddingrogramceremonyreadingsmenussongchoicestablesignsohmy!

Lots of little details, but it does feel as though it is all coming together. At this point, we are mostly tweaking and finalizing everything. That said, we do have to finish the tweaking and finalizing.

I’ve had a chance to relax a little. I shipped my shower presents and received them on Tuesday in the mail. I planted my new Italian herb garden, mixed in my new red bowl and watched tv under the tree-blanket that my friend made for me. Tonight I’m going to make one of the brownie recipes from my new collection of friends’ recipes for a potluck dinner tomorrow night.

Yesterday and this morning haven’t been filled with pensive thoughts. Mostly, I have work to do for my day jobs (there are a number of them.) Yesterday I started tutoring two new students (one MBA grad and one UM undergrad) in Italian. They found my listing on the UM Language Resource Center list of tutors. I’ve also been grading writing papers from two online classes.

Tonight we are going to be saying goodbye to a poet-friend who lives in town and is moving west. Then, our last wedding-dance class. Looking forward to breaking in those new shoes. Luckily, the heels aren’t too high (I could never be as tall as my fiance’, so I might as well make sure I won’t trip at the wedding.)

Tomorrow I am presenting at the Rochester Writer’s Conference. The copies are ready and so is my syllabus. I present from 10 – 11:15. It is about an hour away from Ann Arbor, so I think it will be an early morning. Oy. The subject of the conference is “Make More Money with your Writing!” I hope to learn something new.

With this long to do list, I gotta run…

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Countdown: (21) Bachelorette Party

Today is the bachelorette party. My maid of honor, who I have renamed the “Chief Wonderful Woman,” or “Chief” for short, has planned an amazing day for me at the Brooklyn Botanical Garden and then dinner in New York City.

Instead of traipsing through the gardens in the middle of the most poetic borough (home to the Brooklyn Book Festival), I am lying in my childhood twin bed blogging. I am trying to avoid getting sick. My body feels like a stone; I am exhausted from so many things, as you might be able to guess. 

The Chief, Mother of the Bride and I decided to cut the day short and start with dinner, which sounds great. I feel terribly guilty for not being in tip-top shape, but I’d hate to get anyone sick at the shower tomorrow. How could I let myself get sick and infect my favorite (female) loved ones? 

The Chief worked closely with me to plan the bachelorette festivities, which I really appreciated. I had strict rules about what not to include (strippers, penis straws, etc.) Otherwise, it was mostly up to her. She worked closely with some of the local bridesmaids (who I call the “Wonderful Women”) and it sounds like a beautiful evening! I can’t wait.

For tonight’s festivities, we decided to invite very close female friends who are local to NYC. I think the very hardest part of the wedding planning has been the various invite lists. As a shy one, it is important to me to have small, intimate groups. Even so, I love many people from different parts of my life for different reasons. 

It was hard for me, who is not only shy, but also a feminist, to decide to limit the invite list to only women. I have male friends who I care about and my fiancé had a co-ed bachelor party, which I didn’t mind (especially since it also didn’t include strippers or … I don’t even want to guess that else it could have had…)

Maybe this shy feminist is slightly more traditional than she realized. It sounds special to gather together as women and celebrate this new step in my life. Planning the wedding, almost like studying abroad and encountering a new culture, has helped me to consider parts of myself that I hadn’t necessarily thought carefully about before.

So here I am, waiting in bed until the evening. As the Italians say, I’ll be “brava.”

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