So do you know what a promposal is? I didn't until a couple weeks ago when the mother of one of my piano students filled me in on the phenomenon. Apparently the promposal is the contemporary ritual required of a young man who wishes to invite a young lady to his prom. A promposal is generally a well-planned public event, though it can take the form of anything as simple as a cleverly worded and artfully presented note passed from inviter to invitee to an elaborate work of street performance complete with props and involving considerable expense as well as a cast and crew of dozens of friends and/or family members of the young man doing the inviting. But whether spectacular or small-budget, a promposal has become de riguer, and the trend is that the bigger the production the better. It's like a marriage proposal not only in the infinite and inventive variety of forms it can take, but in that it's the male who is supposed to do the promposing to the female, whose prerogative it is to then accept or reject the promposal. From what I understand, for a girl to prompose to a boy would be as untoward as a woman getting down on one knee before her man, offering him a ring and asking him to be her groom. Here are some examples of local promposals I've learned of since I started asking around: - One night a boy lit a ring of candles in the Rocky Fork Kroger's parking lot as a setting for his promposal. Someone saw the fire and called the police, but the girl said yes. - A boy painted his bare chest blue with a white question mark and promposed to his intended during class with the collusion of the whole class and the teacher. The girl said yes. - One boy offered his intended a shell painted with the question, "Shell we go to prom together?". The girl's answer was not known, but this promposal was considered by the person who told me about it to be of such poor quality that no self-respecting girl would accept. - One boy's promposal involved a flash mob in his intended's honor, complete with the standard videographer - promposals are as a rule are videoed , potentially to be put on YouTube. The girl whispered "no" in the boy's ear then ran off in tears with her friends. The boy was devastated, sobbing with his head buried in another guy's shoulder while the rest of his cast and crew huddled around him in sorrowful consolation. This part of the failed promposal was also videoed. - One boy was so stressed out and daunted by the thought of having to come up with a promposal that he decided to forego the prom altogether. I can see that becoming a trend. I'm sure there are enough recipes for promposal disaster to fill a cookbook. But to me the irony is this: Promposaling is something the boy is supposed to do, but in reality that sort of activity is a girl thing, right? I mean, girls are the ones who love planning imaginative little surprises for each other; look how they love to pass each other notes, decorate each other's lockers, make each other cup cakes, make each other posters, bring each other stuffed animals, do these things on birthdays, game days, recovery-from-break-ups-with-boyfriend days, any old occasion will do for girls to whip up a sweet little event. For most boys this whole event planning thing is alien territory. Which is why, as I've been given to understand, there's often a mother, sister, or female friend involved in planning a boy's promposal for him. You ask me, I'd be willing to bet that the idea of the promposal was conceived by the girls then hoisted upon the boys, who've subsequently raised it , with the girls' approval, to the level of a high-stress, high-stakes competitive sport. Thus I believe that if the madness is ever going to end it will be upon the girls to band together and say to the boys, "no more promposals, guys, just ask us". Anyway, all I can say is that I'm thankful that my children came of prom age in a simpler time. As did Tom, of course Ironically, I'm the only one I don't have a prom picture of, only this one my mom snapped before my date and I left my house. I know we did have a photo taken at the prom, but I think I must have tossed it, probably because my prom night turned out to be the worst night of my life. Or so I thought at the time. Tune in tomorrow for the devastating details. :)
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My brother Joe clowning around with Barbara at our parents' 25th wedding anniversary And with Ann I think I was around 6 years old when I heard the word for the first time being bandied around by some older boys in the long wide concrete alleyway that ran behind our block of row houses and divided our block from the next block and served as our community playground. I went home and ran the word by my mother, who locked my heels on the spot and warned me never to use that word again, that it was a very bad word, and how that word would hurt Barbara, Barbara's husband PS and her sons, Robert and William, who were the lights of her life. That word would also hurt Barbara's friend Ann who sometimes came over with her, as well as Ann's daughter, a little girl around my age whom I'd played with a time or two. Did I want to hurt Barbara?, my mother asked. No, I replied, feeling guilty for even having heard the word. Then, said my mother, I was never to use that word. Ever. And I never again did. Ever. (To this day I cant' bring myself to say the word, or even to write it in this blog. Which is not to say that I'm not capable of belting out one or another of all the other bad words on those rare occasions when one of those words might be warranted. Just not that word). And though you'd think I'd have learned my lesson from my mother's reaction to my first and only use of that one word, I continued to come to her for guidance on the truth of other negative racial stereotypes as I heard them. And always she set me straight with the same question: How would Barbara feel if she heard you saying that? Do you want to hurt Barbara? So I leaned at an early age the consequences of subscribing to racial sterotypes: They could hurt Barbara. And, by extension, my mother. Because I knew that my mother loved Barbara. Though at the time it was nowhere on my young radar, I look back now at the improbability that in the 1950's a white doctor's wife and her black household helper could have been best friends. I look back with even more wonder at how they worked their friendship around the employer-employee situation; though maybe it was just one of those very auspicious situations where each party was so equally satisfied with the work-for-pay transference that it just never became an issue between them. Or maybe Barbara and my mother were just two friendly, outgoing, funny women, one the daughter of a washer woman from Scranton, Pennsylvania and the other a farm girl from Georgia who were so drawn to each other's hearts that they just naturally slid by the obvious obstacles of race and social standing. Barbara and my sister-in-law Debbie at my wedding My brother Jimmy dancing with Ann at my brother Joe's wedding Barbara died about 25 years ago of Altzheimer's . By then it had been many years since she and my mother been in a business relationship; now they were just two old friends, one grieving for the other who was slipping away. I believe Romaine was the last among us siblings to see Barbara before she died. She told me the story of how one night she was sitting in her house during a storm and she kept hearing a light tapping. Though she assumed the tapping must be a tree branch, she went to her door and looked out the peephole and saw Barbara standing there wearing a beautiful green and gold turban. She pulled open the door but there was no one there. She called my mother and told her about the vision, and my mother was convinced that Barbara was trying to send Romaine a message that she wanted to see her. So the next day Romaine and my mother drove over to visit Barbara at her home where PS still cared for her. Though she didn't seem recognize Romaine or my mother, they all sat together on the sofa for a while. That was the last time Romaine ever saw Barbara. The last time I saw Barbara she still knew who I was. I was in for a visit from Ohio, and all I remember of our last conversation was that I was showing her an afghan I was crocheting made with a big broomstick loop. Barbara liked the broom stick loop so much that she asked me to make her a sweater of the same texture. I told her that I didn't know how to make a sweater, that all I could crochet were scarves and afghans, but that I'd make her a scarf or an afghan. Or both. I offered to let her have the one I was working on when it was done. But Barbara wanted a sweater. She was sure, she told me, that I could make her one, so I told her that I would. But I never did. My broomstick loop afghan that Barbara wanted made into a sweater Sometimes a thought begets a memory, and thinking about race issues in the 1960's portrayed in "The Butler" brought me back to memories of my own childhood in the 1950's and 60's. Not that there were any race issues in my life that I knew of. There was only my happy little existence with my parents and siblings and neighborhood friends and, of course, Barbara. I remember the first time I met Barbara. I must have been about four years old, and I remember her coming through the front door of our Barnett Street row house into the living room, crouching behind a chair then popping out at me, which made me laugh. So, of course, she did it again. Which made me laugh again. I don't remember how many times Barbara had to pop out from behind the living room chair to win me over, but I believe I must have been won over pretty quickly, as I can't remember one minute of ever not having loved Barbara. I never thought to question why Barbara suddenly came into our lives when she did. It was only years later when I was an adult that I learned why Barbara came, when my mother started talking about the time that she, as she called it, "went off the deep end". What my mother was going through is now well known as post-partum depression, probably brought on by having had my two younger brothers within 18 months of each other and coming home from the hospital with no one there to help her with the cooking, laundry, cleaning, and care of a newborn and three small children. But a couple of older neighbor women, though they didn't know the medical diagnosis for my mother's problem, knew well enough what she was going through, and my mother credits them with saving her life. Now, let me stop and point out that those were the days when an urban Philadelphia neighborhood of row houses such as ours was a socio-economic mix; my father was a doctor with a practice in our basement and we lived across the street from an undertaker but next door to a Planter's' Peanut factory worker who lived next door to a fireman who lived next door to a handyman. Therefore one neighbor might be able to hire a house cleaner while another might be a house cleaner. This is the closest I could get to a photo of our Barnett Street neighborhood in Northeast Philadelphia: our next-door neighbor, Rosebud, standing in our front yard on her first communion day. Can you see the marquee of the movie theater at the end of our block? This is me as a baby, not in our yard, but in a yard a couple 'hoods over. Anyway, on one particularly dark afternoon for my mother one of these older women, the undertaker's wife from across the street, prevailed upon the African American woman she'd hired to clean her house that day to instead go over and help my mother. That was the day Barbara came into our life.
From then on Barbara came over every Thursday morning and took care of us all day long while my mother had a day out to herself. I likewise never thought to ask where my mother went every Thursday. What difference did it make? On Thursdays Barbara was our mother. And soon, our mother's life support. Besides every Thursday, Barbara began coming more often. She was the only babysitter we ever had from then on. It seemed that for every family occasion, or every family emergency, Barbara was there, working not so much for my mother as with my mother. She and my mother often cleaned our house together, sewed together, cooked together, always talking and laughing together. Sometimes Barbara would come over just to talk and have a cup of tea. Sometimes my mom would go over to Barbara's house for a cup of tea. Sometimes I would go, too. And when my mother brought her fifth baby, my sister Romaine, home from the hospital, this time Barbara was there to help her, to keep her from falling into that dark place she'd been after the birth of her previous child. One of my favorite childhood stories is of the day Barbara for some reason needed to pick up Romaine from school. When she arrived at the classroom door asking for Romaine the teacher asked my sister who this person was. Now, Romaine was only 6 years old and didn't exactly know who Barbara was, other than that she was, well... Barbara. She knew that Barbara wasn't our mother...but might she be our grandmother? (We didn't really know our grandmothers, so little Romaine wouldn't have had a clear idea of what one looked like, or how old one had to be - Barbara was only a few years older than our mother). Anyway, Romaine took a guess and told her teacher that Barbara was her grandmother. But, really, what did 6-year-old Romaine know about racial differences? What did any of us know about race back when we were that young? And even at that time back in the 1950's and 60's when I first started becoming aware of the color line, I never thought of Barbara as being someone different from us, or us from her...except when I started learning in the school yard, on the playground, even from the mouths of adults, that there were special words, insults, and jokes that some people of my color used to hurt people of Barbara's color. To Be continued tomorrow... A year behind everyone else, I just saw "The Butler", the movie about the son of a poor Georgia field worker who became the butler who served presidents from Eisenhower through Reagan.
I was really moved by the story, and amazed. I was amazed by a scene of a 1960 Woolworth lunch counter sit-in in by black and white college students from Fisk University in Nashville, Tennessee. Now, of course, this wasn't the first time I'd ever heard of the lunch counter sit-in across the South in the 60's; but it still amazes me, less that the students had the courage to walk into the store and sit at the counter than that there were people in that Woolworth's who were so morally outraged and self-righteously angered by a group of peaceful young people trying to order lunch that they felt justified in screaming at these students, emptying the ketchup and mustard bottles on their heads, throwing sugar and hot coffee in their faces, attacking them, throwing them to the floor, and finally watching them being roughed up and dragged off by the police. The movie also showed scenes of murdered Freedom Riders, civil rights protesters being attacked by police dogs and with fire hoses, and the famous photo of federalized National Guard troops protecting two black students as they entered the University of Alabama amidst a jeering crowd. It amazes me that things used to be that way. That people used to think the way they did. And yet there were people in this country, millions of them, who believed with all their souls that racial segregation was God's will and that any action was permissible to preserve it. They believed that equal rights for people of color was against the laws of God, man and the natural order of things. People can be taught to believe in the most unjust, most unkind, most primitive and just plain most ridiculous notions. People can be taught to believe in anything. And yet if I had been brought up in the South in the first half of the 20th Century, how do I know what my beliefs would have been in the early 1960's? Would I have been someone who could have broken through the dogma I'd been taught my whole life and supported integration and the civil rights movement? And even if I'd supported the civil rights movement, would I have been brave enough to take a public stand? Those were, after all, dangerous times. Civil rights demonstrators got hurt in the South. They were killed. I don't know what my beliefs or actions would have been had I lived in that time and place. But I do know what my beliefs and actions are today. Below are photos of myself and Theresa at a demonstration in downtown Columbus protesting the firing of a gay teacher from Bishop Watterson High School. For Claire and Miguel's wedding last week in the scenic Old West town of Wickenburg, Arizona we booked all the guest rooms at the Best Western Rancho Grande. It's an attractive place with Spanish style adobe buildings in sage green, yellow and clay red with pretty Spanish tiles along the walls When we arrived the rooms were neat and clean and the beds made up with fluffy down comforters and colorful Indian blankets folded across the bottom of the bed, with matching decorative pillows. They were nice rooms. And the complementary breakfast was really good, the bagels and pastries fresh and plentiful, chilled fruit salad, cereal, yogurt, eggs and pancakes. The pool was lovely. The WIFI was quick. They gave us the very reasonable price of $65 per night for our rooms, and the location was great, right in the middle of town and within walking distance of anything there is to do or see in Wickenburg. So what's my beef, already? Okay, my beef with the Best Western Rancho Grande in Wickenburg, Arizona is this: the staff. Were they rude? No. Unfriendly? Not exactly. Helpful? Well...it's not that they wouldn't eventually come around to taking care of what you needed if you happened to need something...it's just that there was this sort of grudging attitude about doing it for you. For example, the second day of our stay, which was the day before the wedding, we left in the morning and when we returned to our room at 4:00 pm it still hadn't been cleaned. When we approached one of the cleaning personnel about the situation we were informed that there were just so many rooms to clean, and did I still want my room cleaned? "Ummm....yes?" responded I. And the room was in fact cleaned and the beds made by 8:30 pm when we returned from the rehearsal dinner. That same night my 93-year-old mother couldn't get the door to her room opened. Nobody could. It was jammed. So my sister went to the desk person and asked him for help. The desk person was an older guy, about my age, who'd been friendly enough up until now. But he made it clear to Romaine that he did not appreciate being bothered over this recalcitrant door. However after letting her know this he did haul himself up and came over and fixed the door. The worst offense to my knowledge, though, occurred on the day of the wedding, Several weeks earlier I had called the hotel and asked if they had a room or an area where I could bring in and serve a lunch to the wedding party and a few others, about 20 people, at about 11:30 on the day of the wedding. Sure, I was told by the young-sounding lady I spoke to, just use the breakfast area and the lobby, no problem. Was there any charge? I asked. Nope. Did I need to reserve the place? Nope. I could just go and set up whenever I wanted to, no problem, this friendly young person assured me. And yet when the day and time arrived there was a problem. An attitude problem, not with the nice youngster with whom I'd spoken - that owner of that friendly phone voice was in fact nowhere to be found - but with the older lady, about my age who was the actual desk presence that morning. I stopped by the desk about 9 am to check that it was still okay to use the breakfast area for our lunch. It was not okay. Not with this gal. She was clearly miffed that someone other than herself had given me permission to use the breakfast room. She began lecturing me with a pained smile about how the area had to be cleaned, then once it was cleaned it had to stay that way until the morning, she could get in trouble with the board of health, she didn't know who told me I could use it, and so on and so on. I assured her that we would clean the place up when we were done. That wasn't the problem she said, still with the long-suffering smile, though she didn't explain what the problem was. Then she gave an exasperated sigh and said, okay, if they could get the place cleaned up by 11:30 we could use it, but come and talk to her first. Now, here I was, a dozen things to do that morning, all my tasks balanced like a house of cards so that if one was pulled out all the others were likely to fall into a chaotic heap. And here was this lady threatening to pull out the main card. "Just come and see me when you need the room," she sniffed. That was at 9am. At 11:30 we returned to the hotel lobby with all the party trays, sides, and drinks we'd ordered for the lunch, and the hungry crowd was starting to mill in. I checked in with the still stiffly smiling desk warden and was informed by her that the kitchen clean-up wasn't yet finished and the lobby still needed to be vacuumed. This was 2 1/2 hours after breakfast was over. And it wasn't a big lobby. At this point I showed a bit - okay, a good bit of pique at the whole situation. And - abracdabra - the lady turned from desk warden into Mother Teresa, suddenly all friendly and helpful. Now we could use the eating area, she even came out from behind her desk and helped us push the tables together. Then the lunch was set out, the guests were fed and happy, and all was well until Mother Teresa reverted back to the smiling desk warden, strode into the middle of the room and firmly announced that we needed to keep our voices down. For who? I don't know. There wasn't anyone else in the lobby except for us. And her. After lunch Tom stayed behind and gave that eating area the most conscientious cleaning it's ever had in it's life. But should he really have had to vacuum the lobby? Anyway, he did. End of story. So, was this lunch altercation annoying enough to cast a blight on my happy beautiful day? Not at all. It was just annoying enough to make me kvetch about it here in my blog. EPILOGUE: If I ever return to Wickenburg (which Tom and I hope to do) would I ever again stay at the Best Western Rancho Grande? (Sigh). Yeah, I guess I would. It's the only hotel in town. And they do serve a great breakfast. 8) And we did have a good time!
Monday morning, probably about the same time that Miguel and Claire were at Miguel's mom's house having breakfast and cutting into the last of the left-over wedding cake, Tom, Tommy and I were on our way from Phoenix back to Columbus. The real breakfast of champions, right? And just for the record, those chocolate cookie straws were filled with chocolate cream. Though our planes left at about the same time, Tom and I and Tommy had to part ways on the hotel shuttle, as Tommy got off at the United terminal while Tom and I traveled on to the US Air terminal. Which is to say that Phoenix Sky Harbor is a big airport, with four rambling terminals. And a mountain view The size of this airport came as a surprise to me the first time I flew into it last year. For some reason I was expecting a western version of Port Columbus.
Which is not to denigrate Port Columbus in the least: It may be a small airport, but, hey, it gets me anywhere I want to go. And it's easy to get around. And easy to park at. And I spend so much time there that it feels like home. I also didn't imagine Phoenix being a whole lot bigger than Columbus. Turns out it is. In fact, I looked it up, and Phoenix is the largest state capitol in the nation and the 6th largest city, with a population of almost a million and a half. I guess it's one of the telling signs of the vastness of Phoenix that when back at the hotel at Wickenburg the day before I met a resident of Phoenix who was singing the praises of the city. But when I asked him what we might do there with a few hours to kill in the afternoon he was suddenly at a loss. It must have been the same as asking a New Yorker what to do with an hour or two in New York City. What the heck can you do with such a small amount of time in such a big city? Whereas if someone asked me what to do with a couple of hours in Columbus I'd have suggested a stroll through German Village or the Short North or the Arena District or one of our parks or Easton Town Center. Our options are more limited here but everything's relatively close and accessible. Which gives the impression of there being lots to do in Columbus. Anyway, I guess that's the sum total of what I know about Phoenix, since we never did make it into the city, having opted for our sweaty foray into the Hassayampa River Preserve instead. But we didn't really mind missing Phoenix. We were just as happy hanging around in the air-conditioning or the pool of our cheap luxury hotel. The morning after the wedding started off with a 9 am brunch at Dulce's house - yes, the same Dulce who worked like a dynamo the day before on the wedding! Alas, the mother of the bride needed to sleep in so I hung around the hotel but the report was that it was a really good brunch: Fruit, bagels, spreads, Miguel's mom made a posole, a soup made of pig's feet and hominy. And a special vegetable version for Claire, a vegetarian, with mushrooms instead of pig's feet Miguel stirring the posole Now, as Claire pointed out, she never would have thought that anybody would have wanted soup at 9 am in 90-degree heat, but she said that people were loving that soup! After brunch people began leaving, heading to the airport or to the road trips that some had planned while out here, or to home, wherever that might be. Tom, Tommy and I planned on spending the night in Phoenix since we'd be flying out early Monday morning. On the way out of Wickenburg, though, as we passed the Hassayampa River Preserve, Tom decided he'd like to hike around a little, so we drove up into the preserve and hiked for about an hour, breaking the cardinal rule in those parts that at this time of year you only hike early in the morning before the heat reaches the 90's - or in our case, as we didn't start out until 11:00 am and returned a little after noon - 100 degrees! Needless to say, we were hot when we returned to the visitor's center and were exceedingly grateful for the refrigerator full of cold water they kept there for naive and over-heated city slickers like us! The staff worker at visitor's center said this is the last weekend anyone will even be allowed to start a hike after 9:00 am. Tom and Tommy hiking along the river bed, such as it is. This is the only spot where the Hassayampa River flows above ground, though it looks more like a mud puddle than a river. The rest of the river flows beneath the desert. (Sounds like a metaphore, doesn't it? A river flowing beneath a desert?) Anyway, this place is considered an oasis in the desert because there's about an inch of water flowing above the ground and there are some trees and greenery. To us, though, used to our lush midwestern flora and fauna, it all looked pretty sparse and scruffy. See that little bit of green water? That's the river. As we climbed up the mountain away from the river the landscape reverted to desert After we finished our hike we continued on our way to Phoenix stopping along the way in the town of Surprise for lunch. At my suggestion we ate at Uncle Bear's Grille Paw Bar, where Theresa, Phill and I ate on the way in. Tom and Tommy also agreed that it was a great little eatery (though I'm guessing it's a chain). When we arrived at our hotel, the Holiday Inn and Suites near the Phonix airport, and saw our room, which I'd booked online, I had a sudden clench of fear that maybe I'd booked the wrong room at the wrong hotel: the bill for the room I booked for the three of us came to $101 total. This did not look like a $101 room in a $101 hotel: The lobby The fountain outside the lobby. Looks like a rock creature, doesn't it? Photos of the courtyard and the pool area: Our suite was pretty fancy, too, and the rooms were huge: Which made me worry that maybe instead of having ordered an $85 (before taxes and fees) suite I'd ordered a $285 (before taxes and fees) suite.
But no, I double checked and $101 total it was. It was just a darned nice $101 hotel suite. And surely the nicest hotel room any of us had every stayed in in all our lives. ( I once was in a nicer hotel room - 'way nicer, in fact - but I wasn't staying there. I was just visiting the person who was staying there. In fact, it's just now occuring to me that the story of what I was doing in that uber-fancy hotel room is probably grist for a future blog). The Wickenburg Country Club with the tables set up for Claire and Miguel's wedding reception. My jobs for the day of the wedding were: 1. Make the 6 boutonieres for the groom and his men 2. Make two more bouquets, one for the flower girls (my three-year-old granddaughter Makayla) and one for the junior bridesmaid (Miguel's' nine-year-old niece Brisa) 3. Go to the Wickenburg Country club and set up the centerpieces on the tables 4. Add extra flowers to each of the 54 centerpieces 5. Set up the table numbers 6. Make sure the center pieces for the 12 patio tables - mason jars full of green aqua beads lit up by little submersible LED lights stuck inside the beads - were ready to be set up. 7. Make sure everything that needed to be at the country club for the reception was there. 8. Get the flowers and boutonnieres over to the church. 9. Have a lunch for the bridal party and a few others (about 20 people) set up in the lobby of the hotel by 11:30 10. Take down the lunch and clean up the lobby area by 1:00. 11. Take the left-overs from lunch to Miguel's mom's house for later consumption. 13. Walk Claire down the aisle with Tom 14. "Lasso" Claire and Miguel together with a long crystal rosary during the wedding ceremony, a Mexican tradition. 15. Take as many pictures as possible But, as always, I got by with a little help from my friends and, of course, family. A couple of the country club staffers artfully folding the napkin. My sister-in-law, Louise, running around behind the table. Lolita, Dulce and Miguel's brother Victor standing in the background working on the wedding cake. While I made the boutonnieres my sister Romaine made the two bouquets and Louise , my mom and Romaine (after she finished the bouquets) touched up the centerpieces. Dulce set up the table numbers and set up the seating charts and the table numbers. The seating charts were in the frames. Dulce's idea, very cute. My mom, at 93 years old still always ready to jump in and do whatever needs to be done Miguel's mom, Lolita, made the wedding cake. Here she's putting it together with help from Miguel's brother Victor. Miguel checking to make sure it's centered. The aqua-bead centerpieces on the patio I want to stop here and give shout-out to Miquel's sister-in-law, Dulce, wife of his brother Carlos, who is the head cook, event planner, and general doer of just about everything at the Wickenburg Country Club. It was she who organized the reception and put together the menu, then oversaw the food preparation the day of the wedding - in fact, over saw the preparation of everything the day of the wedding! Dulce is one capable amazing young lady! Wish I'd thought to run after her while she was running around and gotten her photo! But of course, her hand was in everything you see in all the photos. After we finished at the country club my brother Mike with his wife Louise, my sister Romaine and my mother (also Romaine!) took all the bouquets and boutonnieres over to the church while I drove back to the hotel to meet Tom and set up the pre-wedding lunch for the bridal party and some friends and family. Lunch in the hotel lobby. I ordered a meat and cheese tray, vegetable tray, potato salad, rolls and cookies from the local Safeway. Pretty standard-sounding stuff, but I swear, these were the most beautifully prepared trays I've ever seen, with attractive little garnishes like olives and peppers placed around the trays. The rolls were soft and fresh and, in truth, theirs was the only good store-made potato salad I've ever had! Of course, on the other hand I do wonder if everything looked and tasted so good because I was so happy. After lunch it was time to get ready for the wedding. The plan was that Claire and her bridal party would walk the short block from the hotel to the church. Just chillin' in the hotel lobby a few minutes before the walk to the church Groomsman Tommy, bridesmaid Theresa in the background Junior bridesmaid, Miguel's niece Brisa Then finally after all the racing around we were there in the church for one final quiet moment... Then the big moment. It was a wonderful, beautiful wedding, part in English, part in Spanish. Except for the organ entrance and exit music ("Here Comes The Bride" & the exit music that goes with "Here Comes The Bride". Nobody uses those old traditional songs anymore - it's all "Pachelbel Canon" these days, but you forget how pretty "Here Comes The Bride" acually is), the music was provided by a guitarist and his daughter who sang and played the cello. They played mostly tradtional Spanish songs but also, per Claire's request, did Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah". A couple of Mexican traditions were incorporated into the wedding Mass. Romaine brought up the arras, or gold coins, in a small box. Miguel and Claire took the coins from the box and shared them with each other, symbolizing that from now on they will share with each other everything they acquire in life. Lolita and I then "lassoed" Claire and Miguel together with a rosary lasso. While the guitar-cello duo played and sang "Hallelujah" Claire offered a bouquet to the statue of Mary and Miguel offered a bouquet in honor of his dead father. There was hardly a dry eye in the church at that moment. Claire, Miguel, the witnesses and the priest also signed all the marriage documents at the altar during the ceremony. The newlyweds Maria, Claire, Tommy, Theresa My mom After the wedding there was a shuttle waiting at the hotel to begin bringing guests back and forth to the country club for the reception The Reception Our greeter/"bouncer" at the country club. No joke! In a small community like Wickenburg everyone knows when there's a wedding and wedding crashers are not unheard of! The beautiful wedding cake and cupcakes made by Lolita There was a display of photos of Miguel's parents and Tom and me on our wedding days, ...and a fantastic mariachi band that played before and during dinner. Before dinner there were hors d'oeuvres served on the patio. Besides the salsa and chips shown here there were seafood-stuffed mushrooms, veggies and dip and chicken pieces. Views from the patio Part of the Panera Posse The dinner made by Dulce was a buffet, beautifully presented and delicious. This is Tom's plate. He went with the chicken and mushrooms. There was also pork seasoned with Rosemary and sage which I had, along with the chicken -both were wonderful! After dinner the dancing started out on the patio. Miguel's brother Carlos was the DJ, though from time to time his other brothers, Victor and Luis, stepped in to take over. The music was a variety of Latino styles, raggaeton, which sounds kind of like hip-hop; salsa; zapeeteado (guys stompin, girls swirling skirts); and cumbia (chucka-chucka rythmn). Thanks to Miguel for explaining the different styles to me. It was all fun, wonderful music and great to dance to. For their first dance, though, Claire and Miguel chose a beautiful song called "These Arms of Mine" by Otis Redding One more shout-out to Dulce: After working on the wedding since 7:00 am that morning, cooking the food and then serving the food at the reception, around 9:00 in the evening Dulce reappeared all dressed up and beautiful and ready to party the rest of the night away - before supervising the cleaning up after the reception was over!
It was a beautiful day and a beautiful night. Friday, May 2 Claire and I went over to Miguel's mom Lolita's house to finish the wedding bouquets, Miguel's Mom's house ...while Lolita, a baker. worked on the wedding cake. After the flowers were finished I came back to the hotel and made the flower-pot candy bowls. Guests continued to arrive throughout the day. My sister Romaine my and 93-year-old mother, also Romaine The rehearsal was 5:30 at St. Anthony of Padua Church After the rehearsal was the rehearsal dinner in the church hall. About 60 people came. Including my brother, Michael and his wife, Louise. Here's Romaine, me,my Mom, and Michael A delicious Mexican dinner was provided by Miguel's Uncle Chuey, owner of El Ranchero restuarant in Wickenburg. Miguels' grandmother, Aunt, Uncles, his mother, and cousin Pepe My mother. Miguel's family's beautiful yard, full of sand, cacti and desert plants and trees. Wickenburg, Arizona Yesterday we stepped from our plane into the Sky Habor, and it was hit the ground running! We'd planned that Tom and I, Tommy, Phill and Theresa, though on different flights, would all arrive within an hour of each other, then rent two cars and drive from Phoenix to Wickenburg, with a stop along the way in Surprise, Arizona, (the closest shopping area for Wickenburg. the two towns are about 40 minutes apart) for lunch and to pick up some last-minute wedding supplies. But Tommy's plane from Columbus was late so he missed his connection in Huston and would be delayed another three hours. So Theresa, Phill, and I took off and Tom stayed behind to wait for Tommy. Our first stop was at the Walmart in Surprise to pick up candy for the candy stations at the receptions (can't have a reception without candy stations!) and something to put the candy in. Phill came up with the great idea of flower pots, and - what serendipitous luck! - we found the perfect ones in Claire and Miguel's color - sage green. Then it was time for lunch. At the Surprise shopping center we had two options: an Applebees or a place called Uncle Bear's Grille Paw Bar. As Phill pointed out, we could always go to an Applebees, but when would we get another opportunity to eat at a place called Uncle Bear's Grille Paw Bar? So Uncle Bear's it was. It was a dog-themed place, with photos of all kinds of poochies on the walls. The food was really good: Theresa and I had a walnut chicken salad sandwich with tomatoes, lettuce and avocado and really hot steak fries on the side. Phill had barbequed chicken fahitas, which he also really liked. Then we left Surprise for Wickenburg. The Arizona landscape was all cacti and desert plants and palm trees, with brown mountains off in the distance. A very dry and exotic-looking vista for us mid-westerners. Wickenburg is a tiny town in the middle of the desert, but it's very pretty and scenic, as it's a tourist town, a stop-over for people on their way to Las vegas. It has cowboy motifs and interesting little shops selling western things. As soon as we arrived at our hotel in Wickenburg, a Best Western with adobe walls in shades of sage green and maize with ceramic tiles painted with Spanish scenes on the walls and a red tile roof, Phill and Theresa concked out for a power nap, but I took off to meet Claire and Miguel. We met at the CVS to pick up a few necessities then stopped at the Safeway for some desserts for the big dinner that Miguel's mother was throwing that evening. Then we headed over to Miguel's mother Lolita's house, which was already full of family who'd arrived for the wedding, as well as boxes of flowers, ribbons, and mason jars for the center pieces. So Claire, Lolita's Aunt Maria, and I rolled up our sleeves and dove into the flowers and began putting together the center pieces, ...while Lolita and her mother Nina fixed the dinner of fish. Everybody got a whole fish, head, tail, bones and all! Prickly pear salad made from the prickly pears on the cactus in their yard,beans and shredded cabbage. Everything was delicious! I, of course, brought the desserts We ate dinner in Lolita's back yard Some of us spoke only Spanish, some only English, some of us spoke both, but it was a wonderful evening for all! |
"Tropical Depression"
by Patti Liszkay Buy it on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BTPN7NYY "Equal And Opposite Reactions"
by Patti Liszkay Buy it on Amazon: http://amzn.to/2xvcgRa or from The Book Loft of German Village, Columbus, Ohio Or check it out at the Columbus Metropolitan Library
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May 2024
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