And On Back to Springtime

Maybe it’s all the sunlight and the shock of springtime greenery after these (admittedly mild) winter months, or maybe it’s that wedding planning is very soon going to turn into wedding-happening, but these days, I feel like I’m coming out of a fog, as if I’ve been hibernating and am just now starting to be back in the world.

What happened to February? I asked Mr. WholeHog recently. I don’t  remember it. It passed in a flurry of rain and wedding invites, days spent unpacking in the East Bay and desperately missing SF. I realized how overwhelmed I’d become when my mom said, “The wedding is going to be fun”. Until that point, I hadn’t  allowed myself to even think about it being fun. It was just something that needed to be done.

But I’m happy to say that today, at least, I feel giddy. Maybe it’s that all the wedding stuff is nearly done and I feel lighter without that to-do list haunting me. Some people talk about being depressed after their weddings but at this point, I am so looking forward to getting back to our life: to hikes and camping, to cooking and trying new restaurants, to exploring new neighborhoods and planning our fall trip overseas.

Or maybe I’ve got spring fever. The trees on my walk to BART have transformed from skeletal to lush. Certain blocks in our tree-filled neighborhood glow with new-growth-green. There’s just no way to watch plants seemingly erupt from the dirt and trees explode into blossoms not see this time of year as a fresh start.

The farmers market is always my best seasonal reminder but each year, I’m surprised at how early spring produce arrives. In early March, when the trees were still bare, the market was full of  asparagus, fava beans, artichokes and pea shoots. Amazingly, this weekend brought the first strawberries of the year.

With the move and the wedding, our meals have often been simple, but all this bright new produce has led us back to some of our favorite recipes from one of our very favorite cookbooks, The Zuni Cafe Cookbook.

Truly one of the cheeriest-looking dishes is Zuni’s take on carbonara: those bright Marin Sun eggs make for such a sunny dish, speckled with Fatted Calf bacon and green fava beans (instead of peas). With the asparagus, we turned once again to Zuni for the super easy pancetta, asparagus and rice soup. The artichoke recipe takes the most time but it’s worth it: halved ‘chokes are massaged with salt and oil and nestled in a bed of yellow onions, lemon, mint and olives.

Of course, the promise of free time and the good food of springtime help boost ones mood but let’s be honest: a healthy dose of giddiness is just a drink away. And we’ve been doing a lot of drinking these past few weeks (all necessary wedding preparation, I can assure you).

May I suggest that if you are going to procrastinate on one part of your wedding, put off deciding on your wine. We’ve spent many of these pre-wedding nights getting looped on wine. (A taste is not nearly enough to make a decision. You’ll want to know if you like this wine after one glass, and what about after two?). One night, we ate pizza with sparkling wine. I loved that.

The extra wine consumption feels indulgent and decadent and yet the wedding makes this one of the few times in life when drinking can also be considered productive. How can you decide what wines to bring to your wedding unless you try them? So try them all. Try them often. And try them late.

All This Action, No Satisfaction

Last March, a week before Mr. WholeHog and I got engaged, my cousin had her first child, Andrew.

Because Mr. WholeHog and I had been together for so many years, I thought our engagement would be secondary to Andrew’s arrival, but one of my aunts response to our announcement made it clear that my family could handle more than one happy announcement: “First Andrew, and now this, ” she wrote.

This past weekend was Andrew’s 1st birthday party and with it came a reminder about how sweet this all felt a year ago.

In the past few months, I’ve  begun to understand the sighs I heard from my married friends and family members when they reflected on planning their weddings. “I’m just glad I don’t have to do that again,” my cousin said when her sister got engaged. Her sister, a few months before her wedding, told me that she was “really looking forward to the day after the wedding.”

At the time, these comments seemed sad to me. Shouldn’t this be a joyful time? I’d thought. But now that I’m in their shoes, I understand. The planning portion is a challenge, and not particularly joyful at this stage.

I even had a nightmare about the wedding last month. In my dream, the ceremony wasn’t planned, the guests were confused and Mr. WholeHog and I were there in front of everyone, feeling like a stand up comedians who aren’t getting any laughs. It’s stressful right now and the long wedding to-do list can feel overwhelming.

But at least during this trying time, there are pre-wedding celebrations that distract you briefly from the planning and the worry (can we truly pull this off?!). When you are full of self-loathing about putting so much off until the last minute, it helps to be surrounded by people who don’t care a bit that you’ve procrastinated on some fairly major elements of the wedding (like, say, the ceremony).

My wedding shower helped me remember what our wedding is all about: celebrating with friends and family. My family is always ready to party and they essentially create a party where ever they go. My sister planned my shower and she said her strategy was to “keep it simple because the family will fill in the rest.” And they did.

Over dinner and wine last month, my married friends became what Meg at A Practical Wedding calls ‘wedding graduates’ — people who’ve been through wedding planning and lived to tell about it. They told funny stories about their weddings (one friend was dropped on the dance floor by a clumsy dance partner who tried to ‘dip’ her during a swing dancing song) and they also gave sensible advice ranging from “I wish I hadn’t worried so much about what other people would think” to “Ask the photographer to get pictures of you with your friends”.

And during those times when I don’t have family and friends around to distract me and the number of things still left to do starts to weigh on me, I think about what a friend told be about child birth: that when you think you can’t labor anymore, that’s when you’re almost done.

Police Blotters – February 2009

• 10:28 p.m. — A caller reported a fake cat in the roadway.
• 5:32 p.m. — A caller said that someone egged her home, and had previously left a bag of fecal matter on her porch.
• 10:17 a.m. — A woman reported someone was tormenting and belittling her.
• 1:32 a.m. — A woman reported her neighbor was being loud, and when she confronted him, he became irate and started yelling he “wants to kill the dog and go to state prison.”
• 3:01 p.m. — A woman said she was assaulted earlier, and 20 pairs of jeans were stolen from her house the previous night, along with her identity.
• 2:43 p.m. — A man reported neighborhood children whistling very loudly.
• 8:18 p.m. — A woman reported her neighbors were on her property staring at her.
• 8:49 a.m. — A caller from a middle school reported a man came to the school at about 7:30 a.m. and kept insisting he needed to see teachers that he had more than 20 years ago. He was “shaving and brushing his teeth in the office.” He was told he could not be on campus during school hours.
• 1:31 p.m. — A caller reported their marijuana had been stolen.
• 2:28 p.m. — A caller reported his wife was acting “crazy” and had pulled his hair.
• 4:54 p.m. — A caller reported a man they did not know with multiple tattoos on his left arm was passed out on a bed in a second-story room. Responding deputies arrested the man for resisting arrest and trespassing.
• 9:52 a.m. — A caller reported seeing a dark sedan with a man strapped to the hood with a fire hose. The vehicle could not be located.
• 11:26 a.m. — A woman reported her neighbor tried to run her over with his wheelchair.
• 9:39 a.m. — A caller reported a man in a cowboy hat and a duster was yelling and screaming.
• 8:39 a.m. — A man reported his caretakers were threatening him with “a fist” and “a fork.”
• 4:33 p.m. — A woman reported a man took photos of her and her husband while they were shoveling snow. The man threatened to show the photos to the Social Security Administration because the couple is on disability. She said the man refused to help them shovel the snow and was trying to set them up. She said she was using a “pooper scooper” to shovel the snow.
• 4:51 p.m. – A caller reported her neighbor pushed her and took a cigarette. The parties were advised to stay away from each other.
• 5:46 p.m. – A man reported a neighbor who regularly “peeled out” in front of his house and “flipped him off.” The caller informed law enforcement he believed the neighbor had loosened lug nuts on his tractor.
• 9:55 a.m. — A caller reported he would be shooting mistletoe out of a tree at 10:30 a.m.
• 10:25 a.m. — A woman from Minnesota called to request a welfare check on her sister. She said she called her wheelchair-bound sister and all she heard on the line was panting. The sister was contacted; her husband had answered the phone and thought it was a telemarketer, so he left the phone off the hook while working out on his exercise machine.
• 3:51 p.m. — A caller reported a silver four-door vehicle was heading toward the highway with a woman on the hood who appeared to be in an argument with the driver. The woman, who was blonde, was last seen taking off her clothing.
• 3:52 a.m. — A woman reported her daughter came to her in spirit and reported she was in a traffic accident.