I put everything on my Google calendar. I have to, because if it’s not on my calendar, I forget. It’s as simple as that. Quite often I forget even if it’s on my calendar because I forget to look at my calendar. Sigh.
But the good news is that my Google calendar has the ability to give me reminders. And a week ago yesterday, I got a reminder from Google that in exactly one week, it would be Bill’s and my wedding anniversary. The sad news is that if I hadn’t gotten the reminder from Google it is quite possible – highly likely, even – that neither Bill nor I would have even remembered our anniversary yesterday. Most days I can’t tell you what the date is anyway. That makes it official that Google knows more about my life than do I.
It’s actually taken significantly longer to forget my anniversary than it did for my first marriage. In that case, the very day of our SECOND anniversary, I suddenly realized that it was, in fact, our anniversary. That should have been a clue right then and there and I should have saved time and filed divorce papers. Our SECOND anniversary.
Despite the fact that we have now been married 24 years, I remember the day as if it were yesterday. I was scared and excited and happy and discombobulated, all at once. I knew I was marrying the right man this time. My family was all in town for the ceremony, all of them having some sort of role in the wedding. I was having the wedding of my dreams, even though it was a small affair.
By 10 o’clock, my sisters, my step-daughter, my nieces, and I had already had our nails done and our hair styled in ways that were wholly unfamiliar to us. So much hairspray that we needed to remind ourselves to stay away from potential sparking situations.
Somewhere around 11:30, my son Court, then nearly 12 years old, came into our kitchen and said, “Mom, what’s for lunch?”
Gulp. I had forgotten about lunch, and so we quickly ordered pizza. Such is the wedding day of someone getting married for the second time. I probably had pizza stains in the corner of my lips as I walked down the aisle.
My wedding had a Victorian theme. For the past 24 years, I have been apologizing to my sisters, my step-daughter, and my nieces for the dresses I chose for them. They were pink. Pink like Pepto Bismol is pink. Not only would they never wear the dresses again, they had to clench their teeth when they wore them the one-and-only time….
I didn’t have a professional photographer, and a friend took rather informal shots of my wedding. As you can see, my step-daughter and my two nieces are stuck in the back of the photo, barely seen behind the men. I don’t know why we thought this was a good idea, but at the end of the day, there is now no absolute proof that these three were wearing those Pepto Bismol dresses. Plausible deniability. It’s all good.
You can also see, if you look closely at the photo, that my niece Jessika (the little girl to the right), who recently graduated from college with a degree in environmental engineering, is carefully and thoughtfully shredding her little bouquet. My-friend-the-photographer was taking his sweet time trying to set up the shot, and I really thought my mother was going to kill him. “Take the damn picture, will you?” I heard her saying under her breath through clenched teeth. “Before there is nothing left of the bouquet.”
So now Bill and I have been married 24 years. He spent the day working on his car and painting. I spent the day getting my hair cut and watching Zootopia which I rented from Redbox. We had a wonderful dinner at McCormick and Schmick’s last night and were in bed at our regular hour.
Just wait until next year – our Silver Anniversary. That anniversary won’t require a nudge from Google. But after spending our 25th year of marriage cleaning and tossing out all of the things we have acquired in a quarter of a century, I hope to heck that no one thinks I need a silver vase.
Nana's Whimsies 