Wedding

Things I Remember About My Wedding Day, 12/96: I loved my hair, although with my roots my hair looked brown in all of the photos I wish someone had told me about eyebrow waxing No one was paying attention to my sister’s kids while we got ready upstairs, so her daughter never ate that day.  [...]

The Day Before the Big Day

I lay there in my sister’s king sized bed, the bed she normally shared with her husband, wide awake. It was the night before my wedding; I was spending the night at my sister’s house and getting ready there in the morning.   R was at my condo with Zach and my father, and would get [...]

Registering

“Do you really think we need a waffle maker?”  I raised my eyebrow at R, who held the scanner clutched carefully in his grip as if he was afraid someone might take it from him at any moment. We were registering for wedding gifts.  Having watched my sister and her friends all go through the [...]

Cautionary Tale

“Are you ready?” I asked B, from outside of the dressing room at the bridal shop. B, my sister’s friend with whom I’d developed a friendship with myself, was having a final fitting on her wedding dress.   It was early September, and the wedding was in a week.  We were spending a lot of time [...]

Gym Rats

“December?  Really?”  My sister looked over at me from her Stairmaster, next to the one I was climbing into nowhere myself. She had met me at the gym that afternoon; if I raced out of school at dismissal, I had enough time to get in a fast workout before picking up Z at the after [...]

Engaged

“Where have you been?” I asked R, as he settled down on the sofa next to me.   It was the day before Easter, 1996. I knew what he’d been doing, of course.  It became obvious to me when my sister stammered out a not very well played lie as I called her house during my [...]

Movies and Popcorn

Zachary was upstairs for his nap.  It was a quiet, gray Saturday in January, as most of them are in southeastern Michigan. My mother and I were happily curled up on the sofa together, chatting our way through an afternoon of movies in cable.  I’d popped some microwave popcorn and we were sharing the bowl [...]

Will I Ever See You Again, Will I?

Rick Springfield’s “Will I?” The tension was palpable and made us quieter and more introspective than we had been for his entire visit.  As I turned my car off of the highway and onto the exit for Metro Airport that weekday afternoon, I felt a mixture of apprehension, fear and worry. I should have been [...]

Two Days

We were playing with Zachary  in the pool at Ray’s parents’ house.  He and Todd were hot and sweaty from lifting boxes and moving them all around for the last two days.  The warm August humidity was hard for the little ones too; Dawn and Todd’s place was not air conditioned.  With Ray’s parents only [...]

Rings and Things

I looked down at the ring he was holding out to me. “You can’t be serious,” I said in response. It had been three days.  We’d spent every possible minute together, Ray and I.  I still had a few summer classes to wrap up down at the university, but otherwise, we were inseparable.  We stayed [...]