Time to make the Doughnuts

Every weekday morning I wake up at 6:18 AM when Christine’s (hereafter known as Dubs, since I never call her Christine) alarm begins to beep and the cute lump next to me groans like it just walked into a door.  I open my eyes, reach over and turn off my alarm, which I set nightly only as a back-up and which hasn’t needed to alarm us for months, and generally think to myself “Time to make the doughnuts.”  I used to say this aloud, and still sometimes do, but Dubs doesn’t really take kindly to light-heartedness in the morning.  I get up, hit the toilet, pull on a Phish shirt, and head to the kitchen to begin the process of making 2 cups of tea.  Through all this, that cute lump is still generally laying like a lump, groaning still, cursing the heavens for making work start at 7 AM rather than a more comfy time like noon.

With the water heading towards a boil, I sit down to a big bowl of cereal while noises begin to escape from the bedroom and bathroom.  The cute lump has become a sleepy but moving figure, and the groans become things like “Ughh, stupid work.  Why’s it so dark out?!”  The cereal eaten, I check my emails, pull up the news, finish the job of making tea, and say goodbye to Dubs at the door.

That’s how my first 20 minutes go every morning, and I couldn’t be happier.  Point of all this?  I’m a man who likes his routines.  I ride my bike the same route every day to my office.  I like to eat a PBJ sandwich every morning about 30-45 minutes after getting to work.  I went months last year eating a Subway footlong every lunch at work (until I realized that despite paying only $5.44 daily for a nice hearty meal, I could do better bringing my own edibles).  Dubs and I take the same walk every day through Balboa Park on our lunch.  Every morn I’m tempted to say “Time to make the doughnuts.”  (It now occurs to me that a lot of these routines focus on food and drink; that’s fine with me).

So as this is a blog about a wedding, it begs the question: how will my routines change once we’re married?  Well for starters I’ll have a shiny ring to contend with (size 8.5, tungsten carbide most likely – I was hoping my finger would be a manly size like TEN or something but the lowly eight-and-a-half will have to do).  I’ll have to remember to call Dubs my wife rather than my fiancee, which is great since wife has far fewer syllables and isn’t a silly French word akin to “baguette.”  But the basics will remain the same.

I’m luckier than Dubs, who will have a lot to contend with after our nuptials.  I won’t have to remember to sign Fitzgerald instead of Wiest on the self-checkout card kiosk at Ralph’s.  I won’t have to contend with two rings on a single finger.  I won’t have to contact organization after organization to tell them that my last name has now switched and no, I’m not Irish, my husband is.  I won’t have to buy a new hairbrush after my last one dropped in the toilet…well perhaps that one won’t become a routine, but it sure was funny.

Changes for me?  One of these days I’m actually going to buy myself a doughnut.

Stand By Me…or Not by Christine

After John proposed, I’m pretty sure the first thing I did was call up my best girlfriends and John’s two incredible sisters and ask them to be my bridesmaids before I even said yes to the sweat-beaded, heavily breathing John (just kidding, love, but you were so nervous, and rightfully so). As soon as he got up from bending down on that dirt scuffed knee, I instantly began dreaming of poufy princess dresses with tulle wrapped around me like a white pumpkin, I think a castle was involved, and obviously, my nearest and dearest ladies who I would honor with being my maids for the day. Did I say maids? I meant bridesmaids, of course. Anyway, they would be my lovely sugar plum faeries who would stand with me at the altar lined up behind me like pretty knickknacks all in a neat, uniformly-colored row. I even took a couple of them to David’s Bridal and had them try on different Easter egg colored dresses (I love you, ladies, and thank you for indulging me) as I paraded around in bridal dresses that cost more than two months of my rent. Needless to say, I needed to rethink my Disney princess expectations, and I needed to do so pronto.

As time progressed, John and I realized the truth of our budget, and we decided to have a more intimate (a nice way of saying “cheaper”) affair complete only with our closest family and friends. As I began to jot down my invite list, I soon realized that a majority of the guests I would be inviting would be standing next to me during the ceremony. We wanted our guest list to be under 50 people (at most) and I planned 6 to be standing by my side. That meant John would also have to have 6 flanking him as well, which equaled a grand total of at least 25% of our guests standing with us. John knows how much the women in my life mean to me, and I think he pouted a little with crinkled, puppy dog eyes when he looked at me hesitantly and said, “Do we have to have bridesmaids and groomsmen?” After the steam dispersed from my ears and my face returned to its normal color, I’m pretty sure I calmly replied, “Yes, darling,” and we returned to planning a small, elegant, perfect event even without bridesmaids (and groomsmen, of course).

So, although this decision may not sound so significant to some, it was to me, and I felt a profound amount of guilt uninviting my carefully selected (actually, it was pretty darn easy) bridesmaids. I went as far as carefully crafting a letter to John’s sisters apologizing for my lack of foresight to casually bringing it up to my girlfriends, and in some cases, I’m not sure I even brought it up at all. So, for those maids who already know, and for those who are hearing this for the first time, I’m sorry. I apologize for not dressing you up in vibrant colors and girly fabrics and parading you around proudly. I really did want to, but I guess we always have the bachelorette party for that…

(Side note: In reality, John does not wince when he asks me questions, and he is not at all the pansy I may have portrayed him as. Thanks, John, for letting me portray you as a pouty puppy in this entry and as Robin Hood in the last. I love you).