Outrageous Weddings

II don’t actually have an outrageous wedding tale because I can’t remember attending a single wedding that wasn’t absolutely divine. I do, however, have some uber-outrageous wedding info.

In a 2018 study that polled 3,000 American knot-tiers, the average price of a 100-guest wedding was $33,391. No wonder the weddings I attended were divine.

Ye Gods!  I repeat: $33,390.

That’s half the down payment for a $333,000 house, the price of a new SUV, or roughly 6,000 pairs of shoes.  Worse, the average wedding price tag is actually down from the 2016 average—by nearly $2,000.

So what do today’s I-Do’ers get for all that cash?  Well, most of the money goes toward you, the guest. Over half of the thirty-three Gs goes toward the venue ($16,000) and the catering ($71 per person or $7100 for 100 of us). When you add over $4K for the reception music and $750 plus for cakes, that set of matching wine glasses you bought for a gift looks rather chintzy, huh?

I’ve made arrangements with my lovely daughter to help with her with a house down-payment if she elopes, but if you have an offspring ready to go into wedding debt, there are some things you can do to avoid that second mortgage.  Obviously, you can have a more intimate wedding with less attendees, but if you still want the 100-plus guests, you can host the wedding in Mississippi. At an average cost of $15,581, it’s the cheapest state in the Union for unions.  Bama isn’t far behind at a mere $17,766.

Of course, you’ll want to avoid the most expensive states for wedding places. Surprisingly, New York doesn’t top the cake-toppers.  With an average tally of $35,477, the Big Apple is

only the 5^th most expensive and only ranks 4^th in the race for most weddings per year. Like me, you probably thought, “If NY doesn’t cost the most, California must be ringleader.”

Wrong. California is only the ninth most expensive place to host nuptials.  Hawaii actually tops the debt-inducing list at $39,078 followed closely by New Jersey with a wedding invoice of $38,049—which makes you wonder, why don’t they go to New York and save $2,500.

Another thing you can do is avoid Saturday weddings.  Scheduling the big event for Friday is much cheaper than Saturday and Wednesdays are cheaper still.  Besides, who doesn’t love a weekday wedding (eh, sarcasm).

The biggest question, is why do we (as a nation) spend so much money on weddings?  Are we guests at fault because we compare the second-rate $25,000 event to the $40,000 reception we attended last month? Are we expecting too much of young people starting out in life? I think so. I don’t know about you, but that backyard barbecue with Bud Lite is looking like a lot of fun—just don’t charge me $16K for the barn. 

A Funny Thing Happened...

By Robin Weaver

A couple months after my husband died, a well-meaning friend suggested a book might help—a self-pubbed collection of grief memoirs written by my friend’s friend. Somehow, I managed to don my polite face, while I inwardly cringed. And re-cringing. And cringing again.

First, nothing was going to help but time; I had accepted that. During that period, the only way I could get through my day was to play happy music and pretend my grief didn’t exist (in full disclosure, a lot of Ben & Jerry’s was also involved).  Yet this friend wanted me to read about more death? I already knew I wasn’t alone in my experience, but to this day, I don’t really understand how people think hearing about another tragedy can possibly make another person feel better.

You can relax, I’m climbing off that soapbox. 😊 But on to the next… Second, (and I repeat: “Second!”) he wanted me to read a collection of memoirs? By an untrained author? Was he nuts? Maybe my friend was trying to kill me.

Anyway, I accepted the book with a semi-smile, and promptly donated it to Goodwill.  Only a few months later, at a music festival (yes, the music actually helped 😊), I met the memoir author. And formed an instant connection. Not only because we had a shared widowhood experience, but because Mary is actually one of the coolest people alive.

Even so, I still couldn’t read her book.  My philosophy is to never intentionally do something that’s going to make me sad. And knowing the author would make Mary’s pages even sadder.

Only Mary decided to turn her Loss World Monologues into a play. And I was asked to participate.

“Say what?” It’s like these people don’t even know me. What part of I can only handle grief with humor did my friends not get? Even worse, haven’t they heard my squeaky voice?  And even though I can get loud with the best of them, squeaky voices do not project.  Not to mention my acting experience is zero.

Not being able to say, “NO,” or even no, or “I don’t think so,” I auditioned, thinking I’d finally found my way out.  Only I didn’t realize (THEN) I had a major advantage—I could memorize quickly. In hindsight, I might have flubbed a few of those lines.  More important though, I had lived through the subject matter.

Anyway… I somehow survived the three months of rehearsals; rehearsals which entailed hearing (and speaking) about the despair that follows the death of a spouse. Despair I felt but didn’t want to acknowledge. And before you ask—no, it didn’t help. After every rehearsal, I’d go home and play Bon Jovi and Def Leppard at earsplitting volume. That helped.

What did help was the lasting friendships I formed, especially with the Mary. When we were celebrating the end of a successful show, someone jokingly asked, “When are you and Mary going to write the sequel?”

I replied honestly, I can’t do this weepy, but if you want to do a comedy, I’m in?”

One of Mary’s monologues detailed her boy box—a cigar box that she used to keep the cards of guys who asked her out out after her husband died. After ten years, she had a lot of cards.

Thus, The Box Box was conceived.  😊

The ebook is scheduled for release April 9^th, and the print book will follow shortly.  If any of you in the RTG world would like to be a beta-reader and provide us some feedback, we’d love to send you a free electronic copy.

Until then… Happy Wednesday!

    What would you do if the undertaker’s son made a pass at you?

At your husband’s funeral?

    Jana Byrd stuffs the cougar-hunter’s card into a box and forgets him.

As she struggles to focus on one-day-at-a-time after her husband’s death, Jana acquires several dozen cards from wanna-be-lovers, friends-seeking benefits, and the occasional nice guy.  All the cards remain in the Boy Box, until Jana’s friends decide they should all date again and decide to draw names from the box.

    Forty-something Jana scoffs at the idea of seeing other men.  She’s still in love with her five-years gone soulmate and chats with him daily.  

Her BFF Nanette Meeks is equally appalled by the dating scheme.  How can she possibly date again after her ex-husband divorced her to marry his bimbette-a mousy little thing barely out of her teens?  What man can be trusted? Other than her former spouse’s younger brother?

    Faith Chanton, a former Miss Georgia and jet-setting preacher’s widow, refuses to be thwarted by her friend’s dating resistance.  She demands the four ladies draw cards from the Boy Box and “get back out there.”

The hot blonde, with loads of charisma and an even bigger bank account, shouldn’t need a Boy Box card to have men worshipping at her temple.  Only the man she seeks doesn’t exist – one who walks on water and is deliciously devilish in the dark.

    Faith’s dating enthusiasm is buoyed by Sapphire Bellona, the youngest of the group.  She exudes the overconfidence that only occurs at age twenty-eight, and believes she can have any man she wants. Sapphire is continually mystified when date number two never happens.

    Only nothing is as it seems.  Will the friendships endure as the four women start the arduous journey of dating after death, divorce and bra fat?

The Perfect Santa

By Robin Weaver

I know I've posted this a couple times, but it's Christmas...
And this story is about my Gramps--one of my all time favorite people...

The Perfect Santa

 

I hadn’t seen him in almost forty years but there he was, waving at me from the cover of a greeting card.  Perfection.  He bore no hat on his bald head and his beard flowed fat and fluffy.  A magical twinkle glimmered in one eye while the other closed in a saucy wink.  Just the way I remembered him.  I’d been five when I'd first seen him, but I remembered every detail with vivid clarity.

My mother and I moved into my grandfather’s old farmhouse after my parents separated. We displaced my mother's twin sisters when we put our bed in their room.  As a result, the tension in the house hovered like another person in the too full house.  Mother harbored angry feelings toward my father, my aunts routinely expressed anger about having to share a room, and I missed my dad.

Living in a house with three women, I had too many bosses so I spent most of my days outside, trying to hide in an effort to stay out of trouble.  They constantly reminded me that Santa would bring me nothing but a ‘sack full of switches.’ It was only natural that I wouldn’t be looking especially forward to his visit.

That December, the weather roared into our rural area, uncharacteristically cold and bitter.  I felt more excited about wearing my new fur hat than about any visit from Ole St. Nick.  The prior Christmas, I'd found a sweater and a set of paper-dolls under the tree.  Those old presents couldn’t compete with my new fuzzy head-piece with its big shiny sequins.  I loved to skip into the sparkling lights the sun created when it reflected off the sequins.  My father had sent me the hat.  Naturally my mother hated it, but it didn’t matter.

My hat was not my only source of entertainment.  When the house became unbearable, I’d escape to the barn and amuse myself.  I’d become a master chef, creating amazing pies and cakes out of mud and corn kernels; I’d be a major-general, leading my troops to victory against hordes of Nazi soldiers; or, I’d imagine myself a fairy queen, turning dandelions into roses with a single swish of a twiggy wand.  I possessed an active imagination, which I hid carefully because my mother didn’t appreciate my flights of fancy.

I might hide my activities, but I never lied because Gramps said I must always tell the truth.  I idolized my grandfather and followed him to the fields whenever I could.  Not only did he never scold me, Gramps often provided a buffer between the three screeching women and me.  He’d whisk me away just in time to avoid a spanking or he’d show me a new baby calf and let me help with the milking.  Best of all, he told the most wonderful stories.  At least once each week, he’d take a break from the rigors of farm life to sit by the fire and tell me a tale.  I would sit in his lap, mesmerized by his voice and the characters he imitated.  Even my teenage aunts often stopped doing teenaged things to listen.

One night in mid-December, Gramps finished his latest story about a ‘giant toe.’ I’d started to sweat because the fire crackled and I still wore my new hat.  Gramps just sat there instead of going to bed like he usually did.  My aunts, who were still in high school, went to their small room to do homework and my mother hadn’t come home from her second-shift job at the factory.  Just Gramps and me.

“So, Teensie, what do you want Santa to bring you?”

I took off my hat and concentrated intensely on a sparkly sequin, trying not to cry.  I wasn't sure how to tell Gramps about the switches.

When I didn’t respond, Gramps asked, “Teensie, what’s wrong with you?”

“Santa won’t come to see me, Gramps.  I’ve been bad.”

He started to laugh but stopped abruptly when he looked at my serious face.  I'm sure he feared I might start sobbing.  He put on his straight face and asked, “And just what have you done that’s so bad?”

“Well, I wrinkled Aunt Judie’s throw rugs and I got finger prints all over the coffee table after Aunt June dusted it.  I got mud on my new shoes and I wore my hat when Mama said I shouldn’t.”  I spewed forth, a litany of my transgressions.

I stopped rambling long enough to wipe my nose on my sleeve. “And, Gramps.  That’s just stuff I did today.  I can’t even ‘member all the stuff I did yesterday.”

He stared at me for a few seconds and I just knew he thought I would get those switches after all.  Maybe he'd feel bad for me and we could have some chocolate milk on Christmas and just forget about ole Santa.

He finally said, “By-the-By,” That was one of his favorite expressions but I had no idea what it meant.  “Teensie, you must try to mind your Mama and your aunts, but you must also remember, Santa looks at your heart, child.  He only cares that your intentions are good.”

I looked up in wonder.  “You mean?”

“Yep.  Santa doesn’t care about throw rugs and coffee tables.  He wants you to have a good heart and do your best.  Have you done that?”

“Oh, yes.”  I began to feel pretty good.

“And have you told any lies?”

“Not a one!”  Then, I felt really good.

“Then I’m sure Santa will bring you something nice.”

I hugged Gramps and went happily to bed.  I didn’t sleep though. I sat up under my covers and tried to imagine what Santa might bring.  If I stayed away from the rugs and coffee table, maybe my aunts would help me make some chocolate oatmeal cookies for him.

I tried to imagine Santa eating that cookie, but I didn’t know exactly what he looked like.  I knew he had a beard, wore fancy red clothes, and came down the chimney, but additional details were sketchy.  I finally fell asleep trying to remember to remind Gramps that we must put the fire out on Christmas Eve.

On December twenty-fourth, my aunts and I sat around our Christmas tree eating chocolate and biscuits.  Mama and Gramps had already gone to their rooms and Jingle Bell Rock played on the old radio.  I hummed along, cutting paper dolls from an old catalog.  Aunt June looked up from her photo album and asked. “Shouldn’t you be going to bed?” 

“I’m not sleepy.  Besides, I have to make sure the fire goes out.”  Both aunts snickered. 

June went back to her album and Judie stuck her head back in her magazine that had a picture of a man and a woman kissing on the cover.  I was cutting out another dress for my paper-doll when something in the window caught my eye.  There he was.  Santa!

His bald head shown in the darkness and I wondered if I should loan him my new hat.  He had rosy cheeks, a long glittering beard, and the brightest red coat I’d ever seen.  I quickly looked at my aunts to see if they’d seen him, but they were still absorbed in their photographs and magazines.  I looked back at the window.  Santa held his finger to his lips and winked at me. Then, just like that, he was gone.  I checked again to see if my aunts had noticed but they were still doing teenage things.  After a quick check of the fireplace to make sure there were only coals, I ran to bed and pulled the covers over my head.  Christmas would be wonderful.  I had seen Santa.

As years passed, memories of that Christmas Eve faded.  The greeting card brought them all

back.  I purchased the card and thought about Gramps as I drove home.  We moved away when my mother re-married and my aunts got jobs in the big city after they graduated.  I’d been sixteen when Gramps died, all alone in the old farmhouse.  I’d gotten my driver’s license the day before but never had a chance to tell him.  There were a lot of things I didn’t get to tell him.

I stood by his grave and tried to tell him how much I'd miss him, but I couldn't speak.  I knew Gramps understood.  He always understood, and his understanding made me believe in myself.  I whispered a prayer of thanks.

As I addressed Christmas cards, I took a break and called my Aunt June.  After we talked about the kids and the weather, I asked her about that Christmas, “When I was five, was that Gramps who dressed up as Santa?”

“What are you talking about?”

“That Christmas when I was five, there was a Santa at the window.  Was that Gramps?”

My aunt was silent for a few seconds.  “No one ever dressed up as Santa.  Even if we could have afforded to rent or buy a Santa Claus suit, your mother would never have allowed it.  You know that.”

“Are you sure?”  I persisted.  “I’m sure I saw a Santa outside the window.”

“I promise you.  While we lived in the farmhouse, there was never a Santa.”

Oh, but there was!  After I hung up, I looked out the window.  It had started to snow and once again, I believed.    ----------------------------

As promised, my 12 Days tree...

Happy Holidays, Everyone!

R

Out of the Mouth of Babe...the Blue Ox

By Robin Weaver

Okay, this month's theme is "out of the mouths of babes." Or at least it was when I created the first draft of this piece.  I might be the only person blogging about babes, but you know I still have to put my spin on the topic.  So, I thought I’d talk about a big, big babe—Babe, the Blue Ox.

As a child, the legends of Paul Bunyan were my absolute favorite tails, err tales. The stories were the epitome of tall tales, and my early reading preference might explain my life-long love for the ridiculous.  According to the legend, when Paul was born, he was so big it took five storks to deliver him; the Mississippi River was created because a tank of water Paul carried sprang a leak; and, as an adult, the pipe he used was so huge, he needed a shovel to pack in his tobacco (obviously, the surgeon general will have something to say about that).

But still… You can’t make this stuff up.  Well, okay, someone did, but you see what I mean. So where does Babe come in? Obviously, a man the size of Paul Bunyan can’t simply have a dog, right? So, when Mr. B spots a spunky little ox frolicking in the snow, he just has to take him home.

Side note: oxen are working animals, typically castrated bulls, even though they can also be cows.  Ignore the confusion and suffice it to say: it’s pretty much impossible to find a baby one. But let’s not go down that cattle trail. We are talking about an animal snacked on thirty bales of hay, wire and all. According to the tales, it took six men with pick axes to floss Babe’s teeth.

The best part (just my opinion, but it should be yours 😊) is Bessie! Babe caught a glimpse of a pretty yeller calf daintily chewing her cud, and…hold the milking machines! We got us a case of love at first sight, Babe refused to work until Paul purchased Bessie. Uh-oh…Bessie isn’t a free heifer. Guess that’s a story for another day.

Bessie grew to the appropriate size to be Babe’s mate (again, I say mate, ignoring that castration thing). Bessie was so big, her long yellow eyelashes tickled the lumberjacks standing on the other end of camp when she blinked. And yes, that cowhide did make her butt look big.

A big blue ox and his feisty little cow with yellow lashes—too cute, huh? So why aren’t these tales still in favor? Why isn’t there a Disney animated feature or a My Little Ox action figure?

Probably because the Ikea generation doesn’t understand lumberjacks. Logging is a thing of days gone by.  Heck, there might not even be a 2x4 in that ginaormous Ikea maze.

Even so, the tales of Paul Bunyan are worth another look.  Here’s a link to a cute story that will appeal to your children and to us kids-at-heart. http://americanfolklore.net/folklore/2010/07/babe_the_blue_ox.html

In the meantime, happy logging.

R