For better or for worse

For better: EM and I celebrated fifteen years of marriage a couple of weeks ago. In honor of this occasion, I decided that the time had finally come to put our wedding photos in an album. What can I say? I'm good at starting things. Not so good at finishing them.

Until I set foot in the photo lab to get the process underway, the negatives had resided in a manila envelope inside a giant plastic box along with a thousand other photographs. Along the years, I had hauled that box out of hiding and stood ready to evacuate with it when the need arrived -- which so happened, last October 21st. (Coincidentally, the sixteenth anniversary of my mother's passing.) The teenage girl at the lab looked at me in disbelief when I told her how old the negatives were. I was hoping that her reaction stemmed from the thought that I looked so young, she couldn't possibly imagine me being married for so long. But it wasn't. She thought I was demented for making such a request and processed them under protest, letting me know that I would probably be disappointed with the end result because of all the wear and tear.

By some miracle, the proofs came out brilliantly. Ha! So much for those negative negative comments. It was awesome to see all the photographs of friends and family members who had gathered along side us such a long time ago. Some, sadly, were no longer with us. Some, we had lost track of and some -- like our ex-dentist -- we no longer spoke to. (Why? Because he ate one of the live goldfish from my wedding cake and then made out with someone -- not his wife -- in front of our rabbi! But I digress...)

I thought I would post a picture of my surreal wedding cake. The heart of which had been cut out to make room for a fish bowl. I thought the goldfish would bring our marriage good luck... so far, so good.

For Worse: I thought that Jack should dress as a sushi handroll for Halloween this year. I thought it was an inspired choice since he loved Japanese food so much (and since I came up with the idea). When I told him what I had planned for him, he burst into tears. He cried that he didn't want to be creative, that he only wanted to be normal. EM decreed that as a punishment for traumatizing his son by trying to make him wear that sort of get-up, that I should walk the talk and dress up as the handroll. Oh, yeah? I accepted the sentence. I embraced it. It took some thought, some foam, a mound of packing peanuts, hot glue, green felt, and a lot confidence. I worked hard on it. I modeled the costume on the day and Jack asked, "Where's the fish, mom?" And I said, "I'm the fish, Jack!" At which point he answered, "Yep, you're going to embarrass me."

Nevertheless, I showed up for the classroom party and then for the parade. I found my friend, Jill, dressed as the gingerbread man and we hung out together, eating subway sandwiches and talking about potential pilates classes. We had a blast.

When EM opened the newspaper the following Thursday, he blanched at the picture of me and mumbled something about humiliation... It's a good thing he didn't see it earlier, or we might not have made it to our fifteenth anniversary.

Jack wouldn't pose for me so I have no photographs of his road kill costume and Makena threw a tantrum when we attempted to dress her up as a pink poodle, so I'm all you've got.

I'm thinking that next year, I'll be a sexy Christmas tree.

Is- still married.