AKA, I’m totally old.
Upon finding out that the Captain and I had my mother’s house to ourselves this weekend (long story), I immediately asked the Captain what he wanted to do.
He responded, “Scrabble.”
I counteroffered, “How about TV?”
He accepted.
We are now on the couch, watching the Disney Channel.
Heaven help us.
Merry Christmas - at least for another hour. I hope yours was a peaceful, enjoyable holiday.
The title of this post comes from a new application on Facebook, and even though I said I’d write more about food, I’m taking the time to reflect on what’s been a truly remarkable year. The Year in Status app takes a selection of your status updates from the last twelve months and combines them into a lovely image on your Facebook page. I saw a few of my friends’ “Year in Status,” and I thought I’d try it myself to see what I’d get.
The result was funny and poignant. I had a bunch of status updates that clearly betrayed my love for food. “The Snappy Dish has discovered the palliative effects of Oreo cookies…” “The Snappy Dish’s afternoon turned a corner when I bought myself some M&Ms…” “The Snappy Dish hopes the Captain wins another cake at work tomorrow like he did yesterday…”
Other status updates showed a clear difference between the period of my unemployment “The Snappy Dish was hoping my first appearance on AboveTheLaw would be my wedding announcement, not my lay-off announcement…” and re-employment “The Snappy Dish is EMPLOYED. With BENEFITS!”
And still others were neat markers of current events. “The Snappy Dish thinks a joint session of Congress is all well and good, but it’s just not the same without Teddy…” “The Snappy Dish’s favorite email so far has been from Facebook, ‘The Captain said you two are engaged.’”
It’s been a whirlwind year. The lows felt unbearably low, the highs monumentally high. I did a lot of living in 2009, it turns out, my thirtieth year. Just yesterday the Genius remarked to me that his 2009 was pretty good, though the second half was better than the first. I couldn’t have agreed more.
Or been more thankful.
Over the weekend, I ready very closely and carefully browsed through some bridal magazines I’ve been sitting on. With all the Christmas planning, holiday shopping, and oh, working, I hadn’t been able to sit down and take a good look at anything I had bought. Thankfully, Mother Nature stepped in and stripped me of any intention I had to be productive on Saturday. While two and a half feet accumulated outside, I sat on the couch and contemplated reception music.
Now, bridal magazines are a terrific resource, and I’m glad I have the ones I have. I really wouldn’t have thought about the tone we’d be setting with a particular invitation, for example, but thanks to what must be the last healthy limb of the publishing industry, I now know that guests will infer from the look of the invitation what kind of ceremony to expect. And other such relevant information.
But I am also a thinking woman. I know to cast a critical eye upon what lies before me. To wit: Brides provided in its “Entertainment” section a suggested reception playlist. The playlist included…”All the Single Ladies.”
I mean, really?
Raspberry cream cheese breakfast muffins
Boston, MA December 2007
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Washington, DC December 2009
(I suppose one difference is that the streets in Boston are plowed…)
The Captain and I hosted a Christmas party last week and it was a jolly good time. A great group of people came over and we had lots of fun, as well as lots of food. The biggest compliment of the night was when one of our guests, a senior in college, told us he’d been fasting all day in anticipation of our party. Can you believe it? A twenty-two year-old dude who voluntarily went without food just so he could eat more of ours? I’d never been so flattered.
Here’s a quick look at what everything looked like:
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Ready for the holiday
Snow makes everything look prettier, doesn’t it? I found our wreath at the neighborhood Whole Foods, and I’ve been half-amused, half-horrified to see that a good number of our neighbors have the same wreath. Walk down the street and you’ll see – we all shopped at Whole Foods. I’ve written before about how the Captain and I have become a terrible cliche, but I swear, from the look of the neighborhood wreaths, you’d think we were actually trying.
At least we still have a television. (more…)
Last week, I called The New York Times to cancel my subscription. [FN1] Not because the paper’s become aggressively liberal (because it has, sometimes even to my annoyance), but because I wanted to cut some costs. I shoved aside any feeling of guilt or betrayal and uttered the words, “I want to cancel my subscription.”
And…I didn’t cancel my subscription. The paper cut me a deal that made financial sense and allowed me to preserve my weekly ritual, borne atop my parents’ kitchen table decades ago, of reading all the Sunday news that’s fit to print.
It couldn’t have been better-timed. Last Sunday’s Modern Love was a provocative defense of marriage that ought to be read by every couple planning to be married. Just a few pages over, however, was a truly nonsensical piece about how brides today hoard wedding gowns. They buy multiple gowns not because they have to, but because they’re so obsessed with finding The One that they need six or seven. Which makes each of them just The Fraction, if you think about it.
The point is, the juxtaposition highlighted to me the great divide between weddings and marriage. Little girls, myself included, fantasize about our wedding days from the time we are young. Even I, who until last week had never even heard of a sweetheart table, had at least considered, during various stages of life, the make-up of my bridal party. Rarely had I paused to think about how my husband and I would get along after all the thank you notes had been written.
But I do remember one particularly enlightened moment. It was during law school, when I was wondering when the Captain would hurry up and propose already. I was moving to California, and I didn’t know when I’d be coming back, but I wanted a ring and I wanted it yesterday. It didn’t make any sense for me and the Captain to get engaged, but I was terribly impatient nonetheless. And yet. One evening, as I sat on the couch with my Captain, I thought to myself, “Do I want a wedding, or do I want to be married?” If I’d wanted to be married, the Captain and I could have gone down to City Hall and signed some papers. But I didn’t want to do that; I wanted a wedding.
And that’s how I knew I wasn’t ready to be married. I wasn’t itching for a life-time commitment, I was itching for a big fancy dress. I had to be a little more patient – and it has worked out wonderfully well.
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FN1. Yes, I subscribe. To a newspaper.
Me: Captain, you’re gonna be my husband.
Captain: That’s the plan, isn’t it?
Me: Oh my goodness!
At my law school’s alumni holiday reception…
President of the Alumni Association: Can I say hello? It’s so good to see you. So, tell me how everything is, with the economy.
Me: I started off at a big firm in California, and then I was laid off.
The person next to me: I was deferred. I don’t start work until September 2010.
Nice.
Earlier this week, Secretary Geithner graciously took pictures with Treasury staff at our annual holiday reception. A little bit before it began, I trotted over to the Cash Room to get in line, and I wasn’t the first one to get there. A great collection of men and women had already arrived, and they all were dressed in their Photo-with-the-Secretary Best. They looked a lot like…a job fair. A bunch of suit-clad, eager-looking individuals lining the halls of the Treasury – it was either a job fair or a line to see Timothy Geithner.
It makes sense, really. If you’re nerdy enough to get a job at Treasury, you’re nerdy enough to dress up – and wait in line – for a chance to see the Secretary.
Clearly, my kind of place.
