the 'rona

We are now a full week into Illinois's Shelter in Place to stop the spread of the COVID19 virus. To say I'm anxious is an understatement. We didn't hoard (ok, maybe I do have a couple more boxes of Triscuit and Wheat Thins than I normally keep) so I'm scared we won't be able to find toilet paper when the time comes that the 15 rolls we have left are gone.

There are people who are not taking the social distancing recommendation: staying six feet away from others and only leaving the house for necessary tasks like getting food or going to work if you're an "essential" employee. I wish I could say with certainty that every member of my family is following this advice, but I suspect my father--whose mantra is "nothing happens"--can't help himself. This is terrifying because, while he is 70+ and definitely at risk, my mother is immunocompromised from all the chemo drugs, and susceptible of getting very very sick if she gets it. That said, she's "essential." She works in the hospital and I'm trying very hard to convince her to retire. With very little success.

The local hospital is putting employees that don't have much to do right now (like outpatient mammography technologists) into a "labor pool," and sending them to do needed tasks around the place, like sanitizing and cleaning and picking up trash. At our community hospital there are nine cases of COVID19. I can't even keep up with these statistics. I think it's something like 85,000 cases in the United States at this point. The numbers don't really reflect reality because we aren't testing enough people.

There's so much to say about the political state of the world, but I'm trying to focus on how people are pulling together--my alma mater has come up with a ventilator they are putting into production very soon. The vacuum people, Dyson, also invented a ventilator and are getting 55K in production. Abbott Labs in the Chicago area invented a 15- or 13-min (depending on the result) test that is approved by the FDA and is getting out for use next week. Plus there are various therapies and vaccines that are in clinical trials.

H and I are working from home, as we are essential-adjacent, but we know people who have lost their jobs and are struggling. My brother, for whom I worry the most, is reluctantly staying home and working from home (also essential-adjacent) and probably withering from loneliness in his big old house alone, though he'd never say so. H's folks are also sheltering in place, the professors teaching online and the others working from home as much as they can.

We have the kids at home with us; our daycare shut down along with the shelter-in-place order. "Working" while the kids are home has been challenging at best, and I pray that our inability to be as productive isn't going to affect our employment. I realize how lucky we are to even make that statement, in light of how many people applied for unemployment this week--3.3 million--blew the previous record out of the water. I heard on the radio that unemployment is projected to hit 30 percent. It was 25% during the Great Depression.

These are strange and terrifying times. I can't recall how many times I've heard the word "new normal." But nothing about this is normal. We have tickets for the August 13 "Hella Mega Tour" at Wrigley Field concert featuring Green Day, Fall Out Boy and Weezer. We had been searching for a fourth person to join H, my brother and I. However, I suspect that isn't going to happen now.

Ro's kindergarten roundup was canceled in early March. She's supposed to start school in the fall, and we were planning to hurry up and sell our house, then buy another one in my parents' school district--ideally so she'd go to school next door to their house. I don't know what is going to happen now. Maybe she will go to the school near us and the trajectory of our lives will be much different than what we had planned. I guess that's the way things always go, though.

The thing that terrifies me the most is H or I getting this and leaving our children without a parent; flawed as we are, no one will love them as much as we do. I have recurring nightmares about this. Only slightly less frightening is that a loved one will get this and we will have to contemplate their suffering (or worse) without being able to be there with them. I've already started hearing about people losing grandparents without having been able to say goodbye. No one is having funerals anymore, either.

Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation's go-to guy about these things said that a highly contagious symptom-less upper respiratory virus like this is a worst-case scenario. Even worse than Ebola, because it's very obvious who has Ebola and you can only catch that if you're in very close contact with that person. They are finding COVID19 on surfaces of those cruise ships 17 days after everyone had been off of them. Not good.

The grocery and convenience stores are still open. The truck drivers are still making deliveries. Some people are acting like this is a staycation. People are cheering for healthcareworkers, who are starting to become infected and dying here, as they have been in China and Italy for some time. Things are going to get much worse before they get better. And yet, I'm hearing about people secretly meeting up to work out together or have game night with booze. Do they think they're invincible? They know enough not to advertise what they're doing, so clearly this is just selfishness, right? But because of their weakness we will all be trapped in our homes and there will be unnecessary deaths. And that makes me so mad. SO mad.

My biggest struggle is that those who are complaining about being stuck at home, or talking about online shopping or day drinking or hobbies aggravate me. It's not their fault, but I can't look at one more person mourning the high school seniors' lack of Prom or Graduation without wondering how bad the wailing would be if those promising youngsters were instead being drafted into a war. And those who are so incredibly inconvenienced by staying home getting together to work out and potentially spread this around further, they make me irate. Probably way more angry than I have any right to be. Unfortunately for them, I will be remembering those who joke around about being "an irresponsible human" and going out for drinks or dinner when we should have been staying home. I see them in a different light and it makes me sad, then guilty. Because who am I to be judging people? This is the stuff that keeps me up at night: Fear, judgment and guilt.

every day i'm studying

When I was a kid, my brother and I could pretty much opt out of anything (family obligations, chores, etc.) if we gave the excuse that we were hitting the books. Which was pretty awesome. But then when we came home with a 98 out of 100 my dad would ask, with a completely straight face, "What happened to the other two points?" So I guess it only worked if we actually studied.

I've been out of that game for more than a decade, and in tackling the tests and projects coming up for my job, I find myself right back to my old habits; begging off things to study then trying really hard not to be distracted by trivial things like organizing my socks. Here we are, the night before the first test at 8:30 p.m. and I still have to go over the last third of the book.

Sigh.

anger. pride. fear. relief. gratitude. guilt.

They say that when you're about to die, your life flashes before your eyes. They also say that when you're involved in very serious situation, you may find yourself thinking of something random instead of something important.

I don't know much about the first one, but during the car accident Friday night while I was hanging upside-down by my seatbelt and calling for my brother, I kept thinking to myself, "Wow, those people who made the movie Crash got that one scene pretty damn true to life!"

***

Let me start at the beginning. 

I had Friday off because I was working Saturday. Jon always has Fridays off because he works long shifts Monday through Thursday. He was doing his thing and I was doing my thing, and suddenly we were snippety at each other, over something so trivial I can't remember what it is. I was getting all worked up on the inside about how he has yet to help with the thank-you cards and if he had just admitted to me that he didn't really want to, I'd be annoyed but they'd have all been done months ago and I wouldn't still feel guilty and is he going to pull this with changing diapers and giving time outs and homework--omg am I going to be the bad cop for life!?! On top of that, I thought he was taking too long getting ready. He said maybe I should go without him and I stormed out the door without so much as a look backward.

I had never done that before. I tell the guy I love him at the end of every phone call even if it's a 2.5-second conversation to say that he's arrived to pick me up. I ALWAYS kiss him goodbye like I saw my parents do all those years. We've even stuck to the whole "don't go to bed angry" thing. But I had let the simmer turn into a boil and was so angry. It was inane. And I knew it even before the door was closed behind me, but was too proud to turn around.

***

I went over to my parents' house--I had wanted to set up the Christmas tree before my mom got home because she always complains that no one helps her anymore. I've put this thing together like six times; a 10-year-old could do it. She got home, shook her head and pointed out that the middle part was never going to fit in the stand no matter what I tried. I then assembled the entire thing in 45 seconds. I had been struggling with it by myself a whole hour--checking the phone every five minutes to see if Jon had messaged me.

I was upset about being angry and I just wanted to hear Jon's voice. My mom called me out on it as soon as she walked in the door, and later my dad said I didn't seem myself. He warned me that it was a full moon that night and to be careful (he says that a lot). I left to go pick up my brother from the airport. Apparently they assumed I went to get Jon first and wasn't going alone.

***

It was 20 degrees out. There had been a dusting of snow in the morning, more like a layer of fake cobweb that people put out during Halloween all over the grass and the trees. The streets seemed fine. I knew I was off because of the argument, plus dad's moon thing, so I was driving extra carefully at the speed limit. Plus this horrible thought kept creeping into my head, "Just watch, self, you acted like a fool and didn't say goodbye to him, what if you got into an accident? He'd have to live with that." I know that sounds like something people say after something happens, and I admit that I have these morbid thoughts ALL the time and nothing happens, but it really was going through my head the whole day. Stupid spotted tongue.

***

My brother drives a fancy car that beeps at him if he doesn't have his seatbelt on. Oh, how I loathe that sound, and I had to hear it every time he'd call me on speaker when he was driving in Alabama. HATE. I always lectured and yelled, but he would never put it on--something about how it chafes. Seriously, it's a really annoying sound, I don't know how he could stand it. I got out of my car when I got to the airport, hugged him hello and slipped my phone into my coat pocket as he was putting his bags in the trunk. On the drive home, we were discussing dinner, the new-but-really-from-Madelyn's-wrecked-car stereo Jon had put into my car last week and other random stuff. I remember noticing that my brother put his seatbelt on as we were pulling away from the terminal and being thankful I didn't have to nag him. 

Everything was normal. I was still driving at the speed limit. I was in the left lane, there was a semi tractor-trailer next to my right and the shoulder to my left. The truck seemed like it was coming closer, my car drifted toward the shoulder--was there ice there?--I pulled it back to center. I heard my brother yell my name as it swerved back and forth a couple of times before I wasn't able to regain control. We swung around and hit the solid concrete median head-on, and my little black Altima flipped over onto its roof and slid, parallel to the median. The scraping of top of the car was such a distinct and disgusting sound. It all happened in less than five seconds.

Everything was foggy. There was this rancid, chalky smoke in the air. I had glass in my mouth. The airbag had knocked my glasses into my eyeballs so hard the lenses were smeared from the inside and they were hanging down at a weird angle. I kept asking if my brother was ok over and over, until he yelled at me to snap out of it. He was surprisingly calm, asking if I was hurt handing me my purse. I couldn't get the seatbelt off, but he was able and fell into the crushed glass on the inside of the roof. Something like eight people stopped to help us, one of whom yanked the door open, and--I'll never forget this--said, "It's pretty smoky, we didn't want you to choke. Plus this car could catch on fire any second. You guys better get out NOW."

I couldn't get my seatbelt off. People kept yelling for me to turn off the engine, but I couldn't get the key to move. The steering wheel and dashboard seemed a million miles away, as if I were fully reclining in my seat with my hair sticking straight up. I had no concept of the space where my legs were. I pushed against the roof to hold myself up so someone could unbuckle me, I don't know who. I was staggering around and couldn't stop checking to see if my brother was ok. He crawled back into the car to root around for his phone while I was panicking that the car would catch on fire with him inside. A very nice man named Pete who was on his way home to Indiana from his job in Wisconsin let us sit in his car until the police came.

***

As I was sitting there, all I could think of was what kind of horrible person could let this happen with someone else in the car, especially someone I love more than my own life? My God, the things this boy has had to face, how hard he's had to fight for his life, and it could have all been gone in a second? My brother had a pretty bad laceration to the temple, his left eyelid was purple and swollen to ten times its size, there was a burst vessel in his eye that made him look like it was bleeding, his shoulder, neck and leg were hurting. My face was bruised from the airbag, I was sore here and there, and I had glass in my mouth. Neither of us wanted to go to the hospital, but I knew that I couldn't force him to go if I didn't too.

I called Jon. He's not stubborn in a fight like me, he answered. He didn't have a chance to say hello before I apologized. The poor guy didn't have a car, or I'm sure he'd be on the road before I got past the word accident. I asked him to call and tell my parents gently and ask them to get him and come to the hospital.

I don't dare imagine the agony my mom was in, trapped at home, knowing both her babies were headed to the hospital in an ambulance.

The firefighter who looked like a caucasian version of my dad when he still had a mustache was so kind. He got me some water to rinse and spit out the glass, he took me where my brother wouldn't see so I could cry a little, then he reminded me that we both walked away from what looked like terrible, horrible wreckage. 

I refused to go in a separate ambulance, so my brother was strapped to the stretcher and I was strapped to a board on the bench. My brother knows his very complicated medical history, but so do I--they were asking me all the same questions but I kept waving my guy off and interjecting in my brother's interrogation: "Don't use tape on him, only paper tape, he's allergic! And advil! He has a pacemaker! Be careful with that leg, he had surgery there!" I was incredibly annoying. My brother gave me a look and I focused on my own questions, which were done pretty fast. Then the tears started rolling. 

"If I see one more tear, I swear to God I'm going to punch you and give you a real reason to go to the Emergency Room," he said, and then asked if they could please get his suitcase and laptop out of the trunk--that's his work stuff.

Before we took off, the kind caucasian dad firefighter said Jon and my actual dad had arrived. But we'd have to see them at the hospital. I sniffled the whole way over there.

***

Again, as we were rolling into the emergency room of this foreign hospital, it seemed like a scene from a movie--for as much as they get wrong, they manage to get this stuff eerily correct. I didn't know where my brother was, and I was as antsy as you can be when you're immobilized on a hard plastic board with a C-collar around your neck. And then Jon came in the door. Later, my dad.

I was fine, essentially just knocked around and shaken up pretty badly. My brother has a few pretty big bumps--they did lab work and X-Rays because of his medical history, and we were there a long long time before they'd clear him to leave. It's always hard to explain what his deal is to new doctors, but I was so impressed by the how in command he is about everything. As much time as I spent worrying, he spent joking with the staff.

Essentially, we are both OK. It very well could have gone VERY differently.

***

Here is what I know:

• I am alive, typing this instead of lying in a hospital bed or a surgical table or the slab of a morgue.
• My brother is alive, and insisted on going to Wrigley Field today to upgrade his season-ticket seats, but his friend kept an eye on him. 
• It was one car vs. a median wall; no other cars were hit or hit us.
• The exact same accident happened down the way about 30 minutes before our crash.
• A lot of people in my life care about me--50+ Facebook comments.
• The car is completely totaled, but it protected me to the very bitter end.

My brother posted this on the FB:

"Wear your seat belts!! They save lives including mine. Last night."

I don't think I would have been able to go on living if the seatbelt hadn't saved my brother last night.

the ros I

Not a lot of Americans know that--beyond that stupid "red dot or feather" differentiation Jay-Z made famous in "Girls, Girls, Girls"--there are a LOT of different types of Indians. As you cross the border into different states, you may as well be in another country because each has its own language, food, clothing and customs. And that's not even taking into consideration Indians who have settled in different parts of the world. You know, like the Midwestern part of the United States. 

My mom and dad are from different places in the Motherland, so each brings their own wedding customs to the table. Where my mother is from, they prepare a bride and groom for their wedding with a haldi ceremony by having family members give their blessings then put turmeric paste on their skin (supposed to condition it and make you "fairer"). Where my dad is from, they do a Ros, which is the word for the coconut milk/paste they use to do essentially do the same, but with a lot of signs of the cross. Also, coconut makes your skin soft and smooth and your hair lustrous. And it smells great, too.

From wikipedia: "The Ros anointing ceremony, conducted one or two days before a wedding, celebrates the last day of virginity of the bride and bridegroom and involves the parents' blessing of the bride and groom, who are anointed with ros, a mixture of coconut milk and coconut oil, while a cross is inscribed on the bride's forehead."

I was so thankful to have my dad's sister and her family (husband, daughter, daughter's husband and their two kids) here for the wedding. We've never had a wedding over here, let alone a Ros. Without them, we would have been totally lost. They flew in from Mumbai and Dubai, respectively, and did a lot of shopping* for the wedding. Originally, they were going to buy my wedding sari, but while I'm sure I would have loved whatever they had chosen, I found one I liked here so I let them off the hook. My cousin found complementary jewelry for the set I was to wear, she had dresses made for the three flower girls (including her own 4-year-old), and also brought a bunch of other stuff for everyone. 


My aunt brought the sado I would be wearing to the Ros, a hot-pink sari that my cousin wore to hers in 2003 (I was there, too), and my paternal grandmother wore to hers, way back in 1942. It was pretty fragile. I was honored to wear it.

It's worn a different style than what I'm used to, so I needed a lot of help. Later, they added a garland of jasmine and some other flowers to my hair. You can't see it well, but I'm also wearing a long gold necklace that my grandmother had given to my mother. It's the one thing of hers that I have. 

If you've ever seen a Bollywood movie, there's pretty much always a wedding (seems to be the main plot point--and usually the climax--because after the wedding, there really is nothing else to life, if you believe the film industry). And in almost every wedding, there is a scene where the girl's family is beside themselves with sobby sadness because traditionally the girl goes to live with her in-laws so the family is literally giving her away. This is called the bidaai, and sometimes includes sad singing. We didn't have that at the wedding, because we were very busy breaking it down. Besides, Jon and I live about six minutes away from my parents and I'm still at their house all the time. They're going to have to do much more than bless our marriage to get rid of me that easily.


But that didn't mean there was no crying. 


My parents had to give us their official blessings. I have only seen my dad in tears twice before this. It's so unnerving, I freeze, not knowing what to do. On the day of my Ros, I was pretty much paralyzed. Both of them were a soggy mess, shakily making the sign of cross in front of me and praying for long lives of happiness for both me and Jon. And when I saw them crying, I lost it too. It was a sobfest. Poor Jon, he didn't know what to do either, so he took pictures. Thank goodness for my relatives, who made a few jokes and offered them a little solidarity; they went through this too with their daughter. If they hadn't been there, I don't know what we would have done. 


I'm glad we had this opportunity to get the major sobbing out of the way before the wedding. I gave both my parents strict instructions not to cry on my wedding day. And they did amazingly well. Most of the tears that day were streaming down my face.

*One of the times my aunt and cousin were shopping for my wedding stuff in Dadar, just ONE day before the 2011 Mumbai bomb blasts. SCARY. Thank God they weren't there one day later.

our song

Thank God for email. I have such a faulty memory, which is probably why I like to document everything. Apparently, Jon and I decided "our song" was Paul Simon's "Something So Right," over one of our daily marathon emails--we would essentially be having a triple-thread instant-message-like correspondence via gmail. Those missives are hard to make sense of later, by anyone else. Within that same message (which was on April 6, 2006), we were also discussing the latest episodes of The Amazing Race and LOST, and how unhappy we were with Libby, Lori and Dave. And some fratboys, apparently. The only downside to living together is that we still have these awesome conversations, but no way of preserving them or looking back to resolve disagreements later.

So what we would dance to during our first dance as husband and wife was a no-brainer:

The lyrics are so true of both of us. Which makes it even more amazing that we were able to find love from another person so different and so far away.

There was so much to pack into the reception. I wanted as much dancing as humanly possible, but I knew that neither Jon nor his mom cared for dancing. I would have loved to have dance to "Teri Pyari Pyari Surat" and then BROKEN IT DOWN halfway through, Mando-style with my dad, to "Galyan Sankli Sonya Chi" with the moves of his people. But that would take more time, and Jon's mom hadn't yet chosen what she wanted. In the end, we decided to combine the parent/child dance to one song that nearly everybody likes--we all danced out there at the same time. It's by a band that Jon's mom, my dad, and the two of us all love:

Of course it's the Beatles. I wish there were more bands out there that appease multiple generations at once. Our kids will definitely be listening to them, too.

For kicks, there's "Teri Pyari Pyari Surat." My dad loves that song, it's my nani's all-time favorite song, from her favorite movie, Sasural, and it plays every time my father calls my cell phone. I love it because it makes me think of him.

It loosely translates to "let your lovely lovely face never attract someone's evil eye," which sounds sort of silly, but some people believe that jealousy toward a successful/beautiful person/baby will end up causing some kind of harm to that person. The lyrics are both a compliment and a protective statement. Hindi just doesn't translate sometimes.

And bonus, here's a Bollywood-ized version of the Konkani classic "Galyan Saankli."

This is totally a Bolly-sampling of the original folk song trying to mimic the oldschool village-style dancing and outfits. The main phrase, "Galyan sankli sonya chi, ee poori kona chi" roughly--and I could be wrong, my dad is sleeping--means, "that girl with the gold chain around her neck, whose daughter/girl is she?" It's a CLASSIC.

It was the right decision: Jon and Mrs. M didn't have too much on the dancefloor, while my dad and I still danced our socks off the entire night anyway. Everybody wins!

no words for this thank you

You know how there are certain people in your life whom you don't see very often, but when you run into them at the grocery store or see them at a party, you can feel there's a deep and important connection? I have that with my godmother. Whenever I see her and the way she smiles at me when she sees me, it just seems very comforting, like that feeling you get when you show up at your childhood home after it's been awhile.

***

In August 1977 my father got on a plane to the United States from Kuwait, where he had been working. My mom had already been here a few months, and the two were getting married shortly after he arrived. Not much of that--the visas, the travel, the wedding--would have even been possible without my godmother, who (with her family) was their ally and their support through some of the toughest leaps of faith two twentysomethings can make: Leaving everything they knew and loved to make a life for themselves on the other side of the world.

***

Several years before that, my mom had come to the Dairy Capital of India to study nursing. She'd had to learn Gujarati and did so fairly easily, the superstar she is. Her feisty roommate kept things interesting, but there wasn't much to do outside of training. A bookstore nearby would rent books for a week, a per-book-fee-library of sorts. After awhile, my mom realized a girl who lived down the hall from her in the dorm was taking out the same books. They started splitting the cost and sharing the rentals. Soon they began hanging out, and it didn't take long for before they were great friends. A few years later, my future godmother went to America. And she invited my mom to come and join her.

***

On my mother's wedding day, not a single member of her rather large family was present. And, except for his bride and my godmother, my dad had only met everyone two days before. It was a foreign place where everyone spoke their second language, so far from the comforts of home. I can't imagine how scary that must have been. My mom said she cried the entire day. 

My godmother and her family arranged everything. It was a simple ceremony at the Bretheren Church in town (the first Indian wedding there, I believe). People brought food. My mom made her own wedding sari from white fabric, a bronze-brown/red/green border she attached and lacy appliques she sewed on by hand. And my godmother and her sisters were at her side the whole day. They helped her get ready, did her makeup and hair and pleated and pinned her sari, surrounding her like a warm, comforting circle, stepping into the spots her sisters would have had on such an important day. I have no doubt they wiped away her tears. 

I know this because they were there on my wedding day, too. They showed up early, armed with no-nonsense expertise and vivid memories. None of my mom's sisters were able to make it for my wedding, either (not for lack of trying, stupid Visas). Even though cc and pp arranged for coffee, breakfast snacks and bottled water for everyone, Mom mentioned to my godmother's sister, who was in the car and almost there, that she had a headache from not sleeping the night before and that auntie turned around, made breakfast and a thermos full of tea. She showed up with all that stuff, wearing the same sari she'd worn to my parents' wedding 34 years ago and a solid gold necklace with a flat, wide charm that spelled her name--decades before it became a trend in the '90s. My dad had them made in Kuwait all those years ago, and brought one for each of them two days before his wedding.

When the bridal party and I were beautified and ready to leave for pictures, I went back up to the suite to grab my lipstick. I opened the door and saw them all, half laughing and half crying, standing around my mom. Same warm circle, fussing with pleats and pins, cracking jokes. I could just see how it was 34 years ago.

***

After I was born, my godmother was always there to help. From what I've heard, she came over every day to help with the laundry, cooking and taking care of us while my dad was at work because my mom had surgery to remove the grapefruit-sized cyst they had thought was my twin (before ultrasound was so common). She even washed my cloth diapers (I was allergic to disposable). Later, apparently I would only eat if my godmother was feeding me. 

She is vivid in my memories. I can still feel the warmth of her hug, and remember sitting in her lap pulling on her long long fingernails. I remember her old house, on the street that has the same name as her oldest son; hunting around in the backyard for fallen walnuts and peeking through the posts of the banister; only liking drumsticks the way she made them.

***

I have only one regret about my wedding day. After an awesome performance by my godmother's sons, nieces and nephews as well as the speeches, I grabbed the microphone to say a few words. I started by thanking everyone for coming, some from as far as Hawaii and Dubai, not to mention my dad's sister and her husband from Mumbai. And then I turned to look at my parents. I attempted to thank them for all the sacrifices they made so my brother and I could have the amazing lives we have today, but I could hardly get any words out. And as soon as the tears came, my brain went blank. My voice started crackling and sort of faded out. Just like my mother, I cried throughout my wedding day, but my tears were from being overwhelmed by feelings. 

For months I had envisioned what I'd say at that moment; I'd allotted time to tell my godmother how much I appreciated everything she's done for me and my family, in front of everyone so they would all know just how amazing she is. I mean, there's a chance I wouldn't even exist without her--my parents could have lived out their lives on different continents. On top of that, her extended family was so generous with their time, their talents, their love. They gave me a gift that day that I have always dreamed of: A boisterous, big-family celebration. We're not even technically family, but no one could tell. I cannot express how much that means to me. When I had the opportunity, microphone in hand, I blew it. 

Later, in the disco-light darkness and bumping music, I found where my godparents were sitting and said the thank-you that everyone really should have heard in my speech. She said she didn't need for me to have said it in front of everybody. She knows how I felt, because I'm her daughter, too.

chandelier

To say I like Internet browsing is a serious understatement. I'm the type of person who will find a blog I like, and then go back to the BEGINNING and read every single post. Granted, because I have no time, this happens rarely, but I wish I could do it more often. So it's not an exaggeration that I spent a LONG time looking around the Interwebs for wedding inspiration.

Months before the wedding, I stumbled upon a photo of a beautiful flower chandelier. Granted, it was all fresh flowers and crystals, but I thought I could put my own spin on it, and not have to break the bank--or hire a professional florist. Of course I was going to make it out of paper.

Remember those paper and pipe-cleaner flowers we used to make in girl scouts back in the day? You know, the ones where you take tissue paper, fold it up accordion style and then pull apart the layers?

Yep, just your everyday gift-bag stuffing, all dressed up.

Jon and I were conceptualizing this chandelier for quite some time. He made a wonderful schematic, got the supplies (chicken wire, pvc pipe) from the hardware store and put it all together. He even made a wooden stand of sorts so make it easy to take the pipes apart and get them in/out of a car--there's one thing you learn after living in the Midwest for awhile: It can rain at any time, and at any severity.

Unfortunately, while he and my dad were assembling the pieces out in the backyard, a pvc/chickenwire piece got entangled in the drill, spun around sharp-edge out and nearly took off one of Jon's fingers--the fourth finger on his left hand. It was a deep and gory cut, but I thank God it wasn't worse. It healed before the wedding, and now his wedding ring covers the scar.

Looks innocent, but chickenwire can be deceptively deadly.

As you may remember, in August we were in the throes of paper-rose sweatshoppery. I was beginning to realize that even if I pulled 15 allnighters in a row (like that's even physically possible), I couldn't get everything done without some serious assistance. Lucky for me, I have fabulous friends who kept offering to help. I took them up on it, and threw myself a Sweatshop Birthday party.

Cc, pp, angel07, ri, mfm and a few others who I don't have cool blog-code names for (feel free to request one in the comments) Madelyn, my parents and my godmother came to my parents' house on my birthday and made 200-some paper flowers of all sizes in varying shades of blue and green, with a few hints of orange here and there. And if their manual labor wasn't enough, they brought me presents! Pp even brought her laptop and was sharing potential songs for the wedding playlist. She had to come later, but eb attached nearly all of them to the wire frame. We never would have been able to pull off such a feat in a week, let alone a day!

The venue for the wedding said we could only use magnets to secure our chandelier. Good thing my man is very handy and creative. The chandelier only weighed about 25 pounds and he ordered high-powered magnets--four did just the trick. 

 We positioned it around a *real* chandelier right above the center of the dancefloor.

I was very happy with the way it turned out. Sadly, the day after the wedding (as well as the day before) it was pouring outside, so we didn't even bother bringing it home.

This would be a much better picture if I didn't have to crop out so many beautiful faces (you know, to protect the innocent). We were going for a The Cosby Show season 5 "island" opening vibe.

Samosas, presents and ice cream cake (my mom always gets me an ice cream cake)? Check.
Being surrounded by awesome friends and family? Check.
Making something out of a random concept that Jon and I dreamed up based on something we saw on the Internet? Check.
Getting a big project done in one Sunday afternoon? Check.

The greatest birthday gift was being able to cross that chandelier off the list. It was so much better than I had hoped.

Best birthday ever.

If there's any doubt, give instructuons

For the end of the ceremony, we didn't want to use rice or bubbles--Jon's cousin did sparklers but we were getting married in the afternoon and they're somehow suddenly illegal in Illinois.

EB had an idea of using dried jasmine instead. I would already be wearing jasmine in my hair (a very Indian thing), so we thought it'd be a nice touch of continuity. So I bought a couple big bags of the dried stuff, some tulle in different shades of blue and asked my dad to make little bundles tied with ribbon for guests to throw as we walked back down the aisle as husband and wife. He got tired of it pretty quickly so my mom helped him get the job done.

On the day of the wedding, I assumed people would be told what to do if they didn't know already, but we were so busy, everyone sort of forgot. People held them in their laps, reverently. Not a single dried jasmine bud flew in the air that day.

After we got back from the honeymoon, one of my friends from work asked me on Facebook what those little bundles were about--if they had some sort of cultural or religious significance. I told her nope, people were just supposed to throw the stuff at us but it was an epic fail in our part for not having a sign or some kind of instructions.

They don't smell very strong, but if you sniff up close, there's a very nice fragrance.

I'm keeping one of these pinned up to my bulletin board at work as a reminder of how people are not mind readers and I have to make sure and communicate what I want or risk disappointment. Another reminder is the basket of 200 tulle bags of jasmine flowers sitting in the basement.

But not all of them went to waste. Pp's boyfriend has been keeping them in his shoes.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

diy flowers III

By far, the most torturous portion of the flowermaking ended when we could put down the floral tape, but we still had a lot of work ahead of us before we could get to the final product.

First, we had to open up all of the tightly wrapped flowers. Any lazy floraltaping was certainly discovered when the centers fell out or petals started falling off.

This was another stage where they were pretty nicelooking and we considered just leaving them that way. But we were too committed by this point.

Then, the painting--by watercolor. Madelyn and pp had a talent for this step and risked sore backs and stiff shoulders to help us get through it.

 There's a reason tattoos are used to identify criminals; they're pretty distinctive.

 

 This is pp. It's only fair to out her, too.

Coffee filters are very absorbent, but they also take a long time to dry. Jon devised a very complex "station" consisting of two folding chairs and some twine, but it worked fabulously.

No two were painted exactly the same.

Jon had always said he wanted the orange to be used sparingly throughout the wedding stuff, just a pop of it here and there. I like the way monochromatic looks, so we decided the flowers would all be tones of green-blue--one good thing about making faux flowers is that you can have any color at any time of the year, even roses. Everyone seemed to think that a little variation was nice, so the painting got purposely splotchier as we went along. Madelyn even went so far to paint a few of them orange, just for kicks. 

 

The orange ones were gorgeous, especially when wet.

After they were dried upside down, the petals were all sort of stuck together and misshapen.

 I love the way that texture looks with the paint.

So that meant re-forming them again. And topping that off with giving each and every petal a signature roselike curl.

Jon did the bulk of the curling, with help from a few people like my parents. I did some, but dang it wasn't my favorite part of the process by far. I'd rather tape, if that says anything.

 Everyone was right, the ones with more variations of color really were the best looking.

 

Mfm and Angel07 were INSTRUMENTAL in arranging these badboys into the vases. I won't bore you with all the things we tried before we decided on tulle and foam for innards, but there was plenty of discussion and trips to the store. Jon and I just prepped the vases for them, and these two went to work, making sure the dozen or so roses in each vase were secure and lovely to look at.

These two did a much better job than I would have. You'll see more of Mfm's work when you see our bouquets.

We thought it needed just a little something. So we added some orange ribbon. And then the ribbon wouldn't stay put, so we used some of the big return labels left over from the invitations to seal the deal.

 Doesn't seem like much to show for so much work, does it?

Oh my goodness, was this a labor of love. I will forever use this flower project as a yardstick against which I will measure the insanity of any other project I try to undertake. There is NO WAY Jon and I could have pulled this off (with seven days to spare!) without the love and support we got from our family and friends. Even the people who continually checked in with me to make sure I was on track were essential for me not to have lost my mind over this.

And I'm happy with the way they turned out. Which is something I never say.

How one of the finished pieces looked at the end of the night.

The materials for each of these centerpieces cost $7.00. That is a STEAL. If we paid my mom, my dad, Madelyn, cc, pp, mfm and Angel07, as well as myself and Jon $10.00 per hour (and that would be a very low wage considering the occupational hazards of tape, skewers, hot glue and sheer fatigue) that was spent on these, each of these centerpieces cost around $1,800.00 apiece. THAT IS A CRIME.

That said, I won't be subjecting my loved ones to this kind of torture anytime soon. I thank each and every one of them from the bottom of my heart.

Aren't you all glad I'm only planning on doing this once?

for Maxy and Belle: two dogs i feel like i knew

When my brother and I were kids, we really wanted a dog. Like ready-to-bargain-on-Christmas/Birthday-presents-really-wanted-a-dog. There were all sorts of promises about how we'd take care of it in every way ourselves and my parents would never have to worry about a thing. There's a chance my mom would have eventually caved, as she is wont to do, but my dad simply wouldn't relent. He always says that the pain of losing a beloved pet is just too much to handle. And that he never got over the sadness of his dog, Maxy, dying in his arms.

Maxy was an energetic golden retriever that my dad found when he was a kid in Bombay. Dad holds his hands out like the AllState logo to show us how he "raised that dog from when he was this big." He was completely my dad's dog, sleeping next to him every night, waiting for him at the door every day. And Maxy wouldn't obey anyone else. I see how attached my father got to our neighbor's dog here a few years ago, and I can only imagine what he must have been like with a pup of his own.

Unfortunately, back in the day Maxy kept getting into the neighbors' yard, digging around the flowers while my dad was at school. And one day he came home to find the dog vomiting and shaking uncontrollably. It was impossible for a 13-year-old to carry a full-grown golden retriever all the way to the vet, but my dad tried. And when he physically couldn't go any further, no taxi or rickshaw drivers would allow such a sick dog into their vehicle. So my poor dad did the best he could to make the dog comfortable where they were in the street, and he watched as Maxy died in his arms. From rat poisoning.

***
My brother's roommate, Mark, bought his grandparents' house in Mobile, AL, and while it's off a major road, the neighborhood has a lovely house-in-the-woods kind of feel. Almost everyone has a huge back yard, and the street is flanked with so many beautiful old, tall trees it's actually cooler because of all the shade. You can hear birds and crickets, and it's just a peaceful place to be.

A little less than three years ago, this small brown puppy came to the door. No tags, no collar. She just arrived and didn't show any intentions of leaving. Mark and my brother went around the neighborhood trying to find out if anyone had lost a dog; they may have even put up signs. No one ever came forward, and they started to suspect someone just dropped her in off the neighborhood in the hopes people would take care of her. So they got her checked out and gave her the necessary shots, and the little chocolate lab mix became their dog, Belle.

Neither one of the guys had ever had a dog growing up, so everything Belle did was a novelty, from the never-faltering excitement when one of them came home, to tearing up the laundry room and all the clothes in it, to the lazy weekends just playing in the yard. My brother was terrified of dogs when he was very little, so the loving tone he'd use to call her or coax her to do her business in the yard while he was on the phone with me was really sweet to hear. You only really get to hear him speak that tenderly when he's just had surgery and is high as a kite on pain medication. I know he loves that dog very much. And, while I'd only seen pictures, he talked about her so much that I feel like I knew her.

My brother is in some town 30 minutes west of Austin, Texas right now, working evenings through the weekend. Yesterday he sent me a text message that Belle had died. My brother can never just give the full story in one go, so after some prodding, I found out that Mark had let her out and when he whistled and she didn't come, he began to worry. Apparently she had wandered out to the street and was hit by a car. She probably heard his whistle and tried to make her way back, but only made it as far as the grass, where he found her, bleeding. Mark called a neighbor, took her in his arms and was rushing to the veterinarian when the neighbor looked down and said, "Mark, I think she's gone."

When I talked to him later, my brother said he's never been this depressed in his life. He said now he understands how dad must have felt, and other friends he's seen have to put their pet down after having them be a part of the family for years. When he worked in town, my brother came home during lunch to let Belle out and play with her. He said that sometimes Belle would pull his slept-in pajamas out of the hamper and into her crate to sleep on while he was gone more than a few days. And when he would leave for a project, he made a point to give Belle a special treat and a kiss goodbye before he went out the door. This time he had to take off mid-week when Mark was at work, so he had to feed her, let her out and he was in a hurry to get to the airport. So he didn't have a chance to say goodbye in the usual way.

It's true, losing a pet is brutal. Hell, I've been sitting here crying over this dog that I never even met. But is having one worth the pain? I think maybe it is.

everyone thinks their kid is the cutest

I don't have any kids. But I do think my parents are the cutest. I had Pandora playing on my phone during an especially crazy night at work. I had to stop and laugh when I got this text message:

I can sympathize; I've been trying to get three stars on all the Angry Birds levels for weeks. And now I feel guilty because I introduced him to the game. He's probably even more determined than I am to beat it.