walking amongst the mortals

I went to two showers yesterday. One baby shower and one wedding shower. The first shower was noteworthy for two reasons. One, NOTHING was homemade--not the food nor the gifts. No knit baby booties or blankets or cross stitches decorations for the baby's room. I thought this was strange, but then again what I do I know I have mercifully been spared from showers for most of my life. It was a couples shower and I was one of the few non-couples without children there. I wanted to drop off my thrifty yet thoughtful shower gift, which sadly was not homemade, but it was a high quality piece of children's literature so just about a good as homemade and eat some food before I dashed off to my next shower where there was the promise of no children and alcoholic beverages. I quickly became sick of all the toddlers ruining the shower for me and certainly their parents. I mean really, eat your pizza or don't (sit on the chair or don't, pet the doggie or don't... you get the idea) but realize that NOBODY cares either way so stop fussing about it 2 yr. old girl sitting behind me.

I do not like toddlers and neither does my friend Annie. I think she's very rationale and also very polite because she's from the South and they know about manners down here so I do not feel badly making this important declaration thanks to my dear friend. Anyway, I don't like toddlers and my fear of having them in my house and knowing I'm supposed to love them when all I want is for them to get the hell away from me is the main reason I resist engaging in serious discussions about family planning with my absentee husband.

Back to the showers. The second shower of the day was a Mardi Gras themed wedding shower in rural Texas. My other lovely friend Mitsi accompanied me to this shower and helped me immensely with navigation since at one point the road ended because in rural areas I guess this happens. I know it happens in rural WI so I have deduced it happens everywhere since it happened here too. We arrived at the shower about two hours after it began. We were greeted warmly and given a beer (thank you God) within seconds of our arrival. I enjoyed minor celebrity status simply by being "Ray Lynch's wife". Several folks were brought over to meet me a soon as I made my identity known. All seemed to agree that Ray is lots of fun and very nice. Even the sweet grandfather of the groom was roused from his dinner to walk over using his walker (he was wearing his West Point jacket since it was like a frozen rainy tundra yesterday) to tell me what a nice man my husband is. The drunken bride trapped my friend Mitsi (a former middle school Spanish teacher) with the intent to impress her with her well pronounced Spanish. It's her party and she can do what she wants, right? We ate many homemade treats and thoroughly enjoyed the Zydeco band. It was hard to not take note of the extremely handsome guitar player/singer whose name is either Dwayne or Leon depending on who you ask. I do hope they'll be free in May of 2010 for one large graduation party who's theme with be "Is there a doctor in the house?" One of the 63 hosts of the shower demonstrated his many talents by making the gumbo and playing his broom with the band as if it were a guitar for us all for nearly one hour. The groom's little brother informed Mitsi and I that he was a sophomore at one of my alma maters (Roll Tide Roll!), but promptly corrected himself and said actually that he will be a sophomore next year. He might have misspoke as a result of one of the five keg stand I observed him engaging in. Before I go I must mention the matron of honor. She informed us that she was married I believe three times during our brief (yet somehow it seemed far too long) conversation. She didn't want to be snotty or anything, but her husband is an engineer at NASA. The bride was so glad that the matron of honor could be there or she would not have been able to go through with the shower because she NEEDED the matron of honor's face to be the first face she saw when she walked into the party. Yet more indisputable evidence that what they teach you in Sunday school is TRUE... All God's creatures have a place in the choir.