In which I feel like a narcissist

(Which is sort of moot, this being a blog and all.)

Anyway. Last month, my mom and Grandma threw me a gorgeous shower at a local mansion, and asked everyone to wear hats. It was an adorable theme, and I got some sweet gifts. I hadn’t blogged about it yet because I was waiting on the pictures from my photographer, who came to shoot us for about an hour. Much to my great delight, he had the pictures ready yesterday– and here are some of my favorites:

Um, ok. I make this face a lot. I am, probably thanks to (and much to the great chagrin of) my mother, a terrible eye-roller. Like, to the point where she would say, “Don’t roll your eyes at me!” When my back was to her. Moms are magic, aren’t they? Anyway, now it is something I do to convey strong emotion of any kind. In this case, joy. Or maybe anticipation, who knows.

Between my mom and GP’s mom, who made the trip across the country to come to the shower. Bet you can guess who is who!

Seriously, how cute is my Grandma? If you answered, “Quite,” then you are correct.

Here, two thirds of my bridal party are seeking shelter under my enormous hat. (Notice that they both wimped out and are wearing fancy headbands.)

The only bouquet I will ever throw, because I think that it’s sort of a mean tradition. At the wedding, we’ll be giving the “toss” bouquet to the couple in attendance that’s been married the longest (might be my aunt and uncle, or maybe even GP’s parents!).

Finally, all the ladies together! I am usually sort of “meh” about group photos, because invariably someone is blinking or making a weird face…but this one ended up very nicely, I think.

This Guy

He offered to guest post, and I nearly spit out my wine. “You would? Really? That would be so awesome.” I do, at times, feel like I can only say so much about how annoying I find Taylor on the Rachel Zoe Project and post so many pictures of my kitchen experiments. So get excited, friends– GP is at least nine kinds of fun.

Whether he’s expressing frustration (but still appears to be smiling) at a lousy crossword clue…
Being terrified on a theme park ferris wheel (there’s the smile again– what gives?)…
Taking in a 3D movie about bugs, that happens to be narrated by Dame Judi Dench…
Or just taking a break and enjoying a good old-fashioned game of ball-in-a-cup (yes, that’s what that blur is)……he is generally pretty good times. Bonus: he knows all my secrets, and will probably tell them to you if you offer the right combination of booze and salty meats. If you have questions, ask ’em, and if not…well, get excited, because who knows what the hell he’ll end up writing about.

Easy as 1, 2, 3

Three years ago yesterday, I arrived (a couple minutes late, of course) at what would end up being my last first date. It was a date that lasted eight hours, and didn’t end with a kiss (yes, I still occasionally get razzed for that). What did follow this marathon date were innumerable emails, texts, phone calls, and late-night viewings of dvr-ed Futurama…oh, and then, about a year and a half later, there was a marriage proposal. In Paris. Because we are jerks like that.

So, how does one celebrate an anniversary that falls just a month before one’s wedding? With Ina Garten recipes! And champagne! Observe…

There were gifts! But don’t be fooled– this box contains socks and t-shirts. Oh yes, the romance is still very much alive.
See? You send the man to the grocery store on his way home from work because you forgot to get blueberries, and he comes home with flowers. Win!

The pre-dinner libations: whiskey sours, Ina recipe #1. Totally worth making the simple syrup and squeezing the fresh lemon and lime juice. Also, very pleasantly boozy. Not pictured: pigs in blankets– a snack that I find generally pretty gross, but GP loves. Compromise, y’all!

The dinner! It was my first time making any type of steaks at home, but the Safeway guy assured me these ribeyes would be delicious (and they were, with just a little salt, pepper, and olive oil)– oh, and on top? That would be Ina’s Provencal butter. So worth dirtying up the food processor. Also pictured: not-fancy-at-all, previously frozen fries, and broccolini with balsamic vinaigrette.
And for dessert? Ina to the rescue again (with even more butter) with a summer fruit crostata. So, so easy and delicious, especially because I was able to find some gorgeous peaches at the market. Because we were celebrating (because nothing says happy anniversary like dessert and a West Wing episode), there was some Gloria Ferrer Royal Cuvee. Fanciest Tuesday night. Ever.

This guy…I think I’ll keep him around. Also, I think I’ve discovered how Ina has kept Jeffrey around for all these years– pump him full of butter, and his heart will give out at anything faster than a brisk walk.

What I’m loving right now…

This is one of those posts that begins composing itself in one’s head a good two or three weeks before it finally gets posted. Not to say that the quality of the writing is that greatly improved, but it does mean that I really, truly do love these things…

New Sephora acquisitions: I am always so excited to make my final selections after loading my basket with a ton of “maybe” items. When I get home, I find myself tearing open the (pretty, pretty) packaging and using whatever I have purchased. Case in point– went with MaGP when they were in town a couple weeks ago for my shower (which, ok, I am lame and haven’t talked about or posted pictures…but I’m waiting on our photographer to send me the pictures!), and bought a Jurlique sample pack (am totally in love, convinced that I need to buy products that include a nearly-$70 “herbal recovery gel,” oh yes I do) and Laura Mercier Magical Flawless Skin Set (or something like that, seriously, they should let me name their products). Got home and headed straight to the bathroom for face-washing and makeup-putting-on. Pure magic, I tell you.

West Wing. Period. I don’t know where the hell I was when this originally aired (high school? Gah, what was I watching instead of this?), but I am so happy to have it in my life now. We have borrowed seasons 1-4 from one of GP’s friends, and burned right through them. I’m downloading season 5 right now, and…oh my god, you guys, I am in love with AMERICA! And Josh Lyman, and, yeah, a little bit with Will Bailey. But that might just be residual Jeremy-love from my Sports Night watching (another Sorkin show, quite lovely, really. With Peter Krause, so…bonus!).

String cheese. Where have you been all my life, low moisture, part-skim mozzarella? Never leave me, ok? (Remember that time I gave up cheese for Lent, even though I am not the biggest fan of Jebus? Wasn’t that just awful?)

How little time there is until The Wedding. Ha, you thought you’d be able to get through a single post without me mentioning it? You, my friend, are a fool. Because I have only one month and three days left, and I. Am. Ready for this thing. I am tired of making decisions, and already of chasing down the seven delinquent RSVPs, and tired in advance when I think about how ridiculous all the little things that we have to do before we can just Be Married are. But that’s why we do them, right? Because we are convinced that, at the end of the day, it will be worth it. And I know it will.

Um, not to go back to something as silly as television, but I am more than reasonably excited for all my shows to start! I am filling the void with Bravo reality programming (I am more of a fan of old raisin-faced Rachel Zoe than I thought, though I want to throw Taylor straight into a swimming pool, Melrose Place-style) and new Project Runway (my favorite so far? Shirin.), but I have already re-watched the Glee pilot once (and am not above watching it again), and can’t wait for new seasons of 30 Rock and The Office. Too bad we have to wait until January for more Lost…

Twitter! I am so late to the party on this one that it’s a little silly to be so up in arms about it, but…I am. In my boss’s absence, I am co-manning the library’s Twitter account, and let me tell you, organizational Twitter accounts, especially in our field, are fricking boring. Mine, I promise, is much more entertaining. It is much as I thought, very similar to my Facebook status updates, but more conversational. I still can’t believe that there aren’t more younger Twitter users–I believe there was a quote in the NYT article about Twitter where a teenager said that Twitter seemed “more, like, professional,” and I say to this teenager…what? I am sort of living in fear of any potential future employers (who we will assume lack much of a sense of humor, for the sake of argument) discovering my tweets. Professional, my ass.

Also. Get excited, friends! I took GP out for dinner last night to mark a birthday that officially means he is in his Late Twenties, and the blog came up…and he offered to do a guest post. So. Get! Excited! It is likely to be wedding-or-mawwage related, but will be completely different from my constant oh-my-god-I’m-going-to-kill-someone wedding rantiness. Anyone have a question or two for him? I’m sure he will be happy to oblige…

The Best-Friend Problem

Warning: this post starts mushily, and will end even more so. For the faint of heart, click away now!

Ok, so for the same reason that I do not have a favorite color (I am not nine years old), I do not really have a “best friend.” I don’t want my friends to think that they have to compete for my affection (because you know there would be fistfights if they did), and each friendship is so different that I wouldn’t even know where to begin choosing a “best.” A related problem to this is that I am fairly uncomfortable even using the term “best friend”– I don’t describe anyone as such, and can’t really bear to say that I am “marrying my best friend.” Just like “journey” and “soul mate,” “best friend” sort of makes my skin crawl. I can’t explain it…and, because we are writing our ceremony with a lot of help from our awesome officiant, I don’t have to. What I do have to do, however, is find adequate words to express what we’re feeling. Commence brow furrowing!

And then. Last night, amid cheers and agonized cries brought on by the beginning of college football season, GP turns to me and says, “You know how you are trying to find another way to say ‘best friend’ for the ceremony? What about…constant?” He assured me that he was about 40% joking, and it may have been the combination of beer and cheap riesling responding, but I was instantly won over. Sure, it is a fairly dorky term from a television show. But! People who know it in the context of Lost are likely to smile along, and people that don’t know the connection are likely to still “get it” and appreciate the term for its own, non-sci-fi-tv-show-related, meaning. Right? Is this a terrible idea? Because right now, when I look at our ceremony and I look at this clip, I feel like it just…fits.

Ta-da!

Here is The Hair! I just love my hair girl so much– she offered to do a second trial when I do my highlights later in the month, so I will get to be Dr. Awesomehair one more time before the wedding…

P.S. Thanks for being sympathetic to the Bride-Beast behavior. It definitely made me feel less like a crazy person. 🙂

Big hairy deal

(Yeesh, the word “hairy” grosses me out more than I thought. But there it is.) In the name of not having such a venomous post up at the top for more than 12 hours, let’s talk about The Hair Trial! It’s happening this afternoon, and you know there will be pictures…

And if you’re sick of wedding things…sorry! There’s only about a month left, then we can all breathe a big sigh of relief. I mean, excitement. Nah, I sort of mean relief. Whatever. I can get back to blogging about food and whatever it is I used to talk about.

The bride-beast

So, here is why I am a faux-bitchy bride: we are having an “adults-only” wedding–with the single exception of one of my cousins who is five years old (her two younger siblings will be hangin’ with the babysitter on Wedding Night). I thought we would be able to avoid the ol’ Surprise Additional Guest trick by addressing invitations only to those people we were inviting to the wedding, but there were of course a few add-on boyfriends and plus-ones. (For what it’s worth, the add-ons were all people that we’ve met, and there are only two of them, so I feel ok about them coming.)

Enter the friends of GP who have one-year-old twins. They live on the other side of the country, they have “misplaced” the invitation that we sent to them (which, p.s., was addressed only to them), and emailed GP to let him know that they were “planning on bringing the girls so that everyone could ooh and aah over them.” CUE THE TEARING OUT OF HAIR. First, we aren’t having more than this one child at our wedding. Second, we didn’t invite your– surely delightful, but who can say for sure– kids. Third, (and this is where I sound like the crazy bitch that I usually am not) we are not having our wedding for people to be able to gasp over how adooooorable your kids are. Believe it or not, we’re having a wedding so that we can publicly display the promises we will make that day. Not so that we can meet your fricking kids.

I hate being in the position of Bitchy Bride Who Clearly Hates Your Kids and Only Wants Her Wedding to Be About Her (or BBWCHYKOWHWBAH, if you want to be brief about it), and I hate that there is no “nice” way to resolve this. GP drafted an email telling them that we aren’t planning on having any super-young kids at the wedding and would gladly help them find a babysitter, so we’ll see what happens. I’m sure these friends are nice and all, but I’m worried that all I’ll be able to think when I meet them is, “Oh, nice to meet you, Mr. and Mrs. Entitled Parents. You are so, so ridiculous.”

/end rant. Feel free to call me a bitch.