Thursday, March 19, 2009

Deaths, weddings, births, and ploofs - four life milestones

Things that are on my mind recently:

How I am far more bothered by people dying relatively young in accidents (Natasha Richardson, of course) than by people dying of old age or dying of diseases. Accidents are unpredicatable and scary, but there's not much you can do to prevent them. I do my best to prevent illness and disease, but short of encasing myself in a bubble for the rest of my life and never being able to experience the world again, I'm just going to have to chance it. I'm really sorry for her family, though.

How even people who consider themselves to be nonconformist and easy-going can get all worked up about wedding planning, especially when looking at other people's wedding porn (tm Ariel of Offbeat Bride). I confess to being this way myself to a small degree, but knowing the constraints of time, budget, and space, I never let myself get too worked up over stuff other people were doing for their different and/or unusual weddings. Ours, quite frankly, ended up being far more traditional than I expected but there were enough quirky touches to make it our own, I think. I remember posting on Hillary's blog while she was still working out the last kinks of wedding planning, trying to reassure her that honestly, nobody will notice if the flowers aren't exactly what you were hoping for. And you won't notice, either. It's hard to look back and think that reassurance from anyone who's already gone through the whole wedding rigamarole would have helped matters for me, because you don't really know until it's all over. I hope my comment way back then helped Hillary, and I hope that in the hypothetical future when I am hypothetically doing things for weddings, I'm able to impart a bit of serenity.

That I know a whole lot of people who are currently in the last stages of gestation and will be giving birth soon. (JT, holla!) Am currently working on yet another blanket for an April arrival, and will probably do a hat and booties or something for a friend due in May because I just don't think I'll want to be doing blanket knitting once it really warms up.

That we just went through the warmest, dry-est winter I can remember since I moved to Denver. We've hardly had any snow at all and it's been mostly in the 50s and 60s for all of February and March. What the hell, Colorado? Where's all my snow? I only got to see ploofs ONE TIME this year. ONE TIME ploofspotting is not enough for my necessary ploof quotient. WHERE ARE MY PLOOFS? (I do realize that having written this, the universe will hear my hue and cry and we'll get another March blizzard that dumps 2 feet of snow downtown or something.)

And tonight, we're having an out-of-town friend over for dinner who we haven't seen since New Year's Eve of - 01 to 02 I think? Should be fun!

4 comments:

Hillary said...

your comment DID help!
before I started wedding planning I was totally one of the "wedding planning? no problem!" people. except that it was a problem. everyone got so involved and it turned into such a gongshow and I remember having such a meltdown because when did I become someone who cared about flowers? I look back at it now and laugh because seriously, flowers? who cares?
hope you have a lovely dinner!

Monkey McWearingChaps said...

I was very upset over the Natasha Richardson death too and it made me think about how I back out of things when they require me to take actions that scare the crap out of me to begin with. Ferinstance, I was thinking of going to either Angkwor Wat or Laos when I go to Vietnam next year. Guess who's backing out because overland travel would be too time consuming and I'm scared of flying, in general, and worried about safety in those countries in particular??

I mean, I'm being ridiculous-if I'm in the area I should go to Angkwor Wat. But I'm scared of having to fly to it.

Anonymous said...

For what it's worth, you were one of the most serene brides I've ever known, and especially at the eleventh hour, when I imagine it's more common for brides to completely lose their shit. It was so refreshing to watch you actually enjoy your wedding.

Crafty Mama said...

I always feel terrible about accidents....my heart goes out to Liam Neeson and their children. As far as when old people die, I work with the elderly and I've become desensitized to the point that I try not to get close to any of my tenants. Because I've made that mistake before, and when they passed away I was devastated over the losses of "friends" who were like grandparents to me.

I liked what you said about wedding planning! The craziness does tend to snowball. I got married nine years ago and I tried my hardest to just keep saying "As long as everyone has a good time, I'm happy." It really helped.