Jun
11
Just minutes after finishing last night’s blog post, in which I was grumbling about the silly cat antics around here, I turned the computer off and turned around to let the cats in off of the balcony. There had been a stranger cat who had jumped up, and my two cats sort of freaked out. This has happened before with no issue, they just like to sit out there and show it is their territory. In fact, sitting on the balcony is completely normal for both cats, without problem, for the last year. Except not last night. The damn cat jumped off the balcony and escaped. Actually, she followed that little visitor.
I spent a few hours walking in circles around the village and building calling her name. I did see her, but she hid in the bushes and wouldn’t come. Just then, a few drunken men came up my tiny path. They said good evening and then proceeded to climb the little fence between our parking lot and France, and that worried me a little, since the douane is so close. And because they were drunken men and I was alone and this is Switzerland, but come on. So I went to bed. Then this morning I set out a new thing of food, only instead of in front of the building, I put it on the balcony, and a few hours later (not while I went looking again of course) the little hussie jumped back on the balcony.
She must have known that I was supposed to go get the pill for her spaying operation TODAY!!!!!
Jun
10
The problem with this gray weather, which is no doubt affecting everyone’s mood by now, is that it leaves me lethargic and unmotivated at a very precarious time. It is less than two weeks until my wedding. I hope to have everything done for the wedding by Friday night, before people begin arriving this Saturday. Now is not the time to slouch, and yet I am completely depressed by the weather. Depressed as in weighed down, submerged in a cloudy mental haze, finding it difficult to move, to accomplish, to look forward. Thank goodness for this day.
The clouds moved off sometime over night last night, like cattle looking for better pasture, and left behind an empty blue sky. Just in time. Though the pummeling of thunder can now be heard in the distance, and I took a very uncharacteristic but equally necessary nap this evening before dinner to the sound of rain, I feel halfway recharged now.
Even with the sun, I didn’t feel like going to work out today. The carrot at the end of the stick this morning was the thought of the eighteen cheeses Jonathan ordered for the Cheese Course at the wedding. (I’m driven to the gym not by the white dress hanging in the closet, but by a physical desire for mass amounts of cheese - am I officially integrated yet or what?) I imagine most brides feel the most motivated just before the wedding, giving their workout that final burst of energy and dedication. I, on the other hand, feel lazy. At least I think that’s what this feeling is. I realize that people are going to arrive soon, that there are things I want to get done this week, and suddenly I feel like staying in my pajamas for the rest of the week. I am not considering my weight, nor what my dress will look like. I’m considering what a full week of going to the gym looks like and for the first time I think "Boring." Or, "Why not just stay home and make extra crafts?" I guess in my own weird way, canceling appointments, ignoring the gym and staying in my pajamas makes me feel like Saturday - the first arrival for the wedding - will come faster. Maybe it is a natural reaction to an unfamiliarly packed schedule and wanting to pare down my list to the "necessary" as I am not used to the stress. Maybe it’s just laziness. I really want to sit on my balcony and read a book.
To be honest, and this is probably reflected in how little I write about the subject, I am not stressed about the wedding. Except for the tie fiasco, and a few surprise encounters with a part of myself that dislikes relinquishing control so deeply that I began to wonder if I have a second personality, it has been great fun. And we all know how I feel about lists. This event has allowed me to create an entire book of lists, which I browse through "for fun" when I am bored. I have enjoyed the list making, the idea generating, the idea bashing, the deleting, the sawing, the carving, the printing, the licking, the sponging, the carting, the maneuvering, the wrapping, the tying, the cooking, the twirling and above all, every little check in a box. I am not particularly concerned about things going wrong at the wedding. Something might. More than one thing might. However, with a mother known to move mountains, a best friend who saves abused children from crack houses on a daily basis and fifty other able-bodied adults in the near vicinity, I am not too worried. I trust people. My mom will fix things because she is my mom, and the only thing that I have asked my MOH to do so far is to pay a lot of money to come here and to bring us a rubber chicken, so I don’t feel guilty calling on them. Clearly, it may rain. We have a back-up plan. Too bad, but what good would fretting do? If this week’s rain doesn’t let up I may try googling some arcane tribal dance for invoking drought, then drive myself up to the top of that mountain that I know exists somewhere behind my apartment building behind the wall of cloud, where I will perform said dance , dressed in costume if so required. Fret about the weather, I will not do.
What is stressful, and leads to my groaning about having to work out, is the daily business of life on top of this wedding planning. The cat was in heat again and pissed in the dryer. If that weren’t bad enough, she then pissed in each of the drawers of our Armoire - except my underwear drawer, thank goodness. (She also pissed on two blankets and on Jon, while he was under the covers in bed). So, I need to get her pills from the vet for the operation she will be having shortly, and devise an ingenious strategy for drying eighteen loads of laundry without a dryer or drying lines. There’s also the bus pass to renew, the groceries, dry cleaning, gym, maintenance appointments, the incessant brain-cleaving noise of the power drill carving through the concrete floor of our building in an effort to thwart the flooding of our basement caused by all this fucking rain. You know, life. I take it as a practice run for having a house and babies, and am making sure that I do go workout, and that I do not curl up into a tiny, lazy ball in Jon’s pajama pants and a book and bar of chocolate in hand.
I suppose that what little stress there is inside of me was apt to leak out at some point, and so one would forgive me for very slowly and clearly insulting a Migros worker in French this morning. For what it is worth, she deserved it. That was a guilty pleasure, and I sort of feel impressed that I have reached the level of French that I can express my irritation and bewilderment at Swiss Customer Service. I’ve decided the stress I feel is the uncomfortable feeling of being so distant from Jonathan in the days just before our most important event. He works in Zurich all week, so Thursday and Friday nights have been consumed with going over our respective lists: "Did you do X, Remind me to Y, You bought how many kinds of cheese?!" etc. The weekends have been good, but busy every single day, and we’re just never alone. There’s the constant pull to spend time with his family, to spend time with new friends here who are not invited, to spend time with Swiss friends who want to throw us parties. We finally had to schedule a date night for last Friday with the express agreement that we would not discuss admin. tasks, our lists or the subject, EXCEPT to discuss how we were feeling about the marrying of one another. Again, good practice for babydom.
Though the tasks are aplenty, I have managed to reflect. Having this wedding in Switzerland, as opposed to the United States, is clearly the best choice. First of all, in discussing finances with married American friends, it is clear that it would have cost us much more in the States. The actual totals for each aspect would probably have been cheaper, however the number of bills would have been far greater. For our wedding here we are blessed to have friends and family taking care of, as favors or gifts, the reception flowers and decoration, the photography, the ceremony music, the DJ’ing, and the belly dancing. Additionally, I am only human, and in Switzerland I have had the luxury of distance, ignorance and the blessing of perspective to counter many of the lures and temptations of the wedding industry. I would like to think I would have been able to avoid and dismiss as many "unnecessaries" as I have here, but I cannot know for sure. Surely some extra money would have been spent in the throes of wedding planning in the United States, although be it on customized flip flops or a rehearsal dinner, I do not know. The other blessing is that I have done this whole thing in French (save for the tasks completed stateside obviously). Sometimes French was neither my mother tongue, nor the vendors, and still we seem to reach an understanding. It has required that I do relinquish control, that I trust strangers, and that I give up any ideas of "perfection." I don’t mean to say that I give up the idea of having my "perfect" goals for the wedding, but that I realize and give up the idea that such a perfection even exists. That happened very quickly.
I am not sure what exactly my bouquet will look like, or what the food will taste like. I have to trust, and to decide that is scary, because clearly the food could turn out shit. The bouquet could be horrendous. What will I do? Would it have been better to argue with the caterer for a tasting, or to have pushed the florist to somehow create a bouquet mock-up for me in advance when she had neither photographs nor flowers in her store? (As Jon coached me from the beginning, this is a little town, businesses run on reputation of delivery, not on stock photos in advance.) This is part of the adventure, and I am glad that I am letting it be one, though I honestly cannot say why I am. I guess because it’s a challenge, and a chance to do things a little differently, just like all of living here has been.
Finally, just something like eight days before the wedding I woke up this morning with a new clarity about the wedding being so soon. This is really bizarre. Weird, weird, and more weird. Don’t laugh, but that is the feeling. Not fear, not nerves, just WHOA, this is WEIRD. I, me, this person I know, shall be
taking part in my own wedding in less than two weeks? I realized this morning that I am about to do a Very Big Thing in the very near future. When have I ever felt this before? Maybe never.
Two weeks? I must postpone it. There is so much to look forward to. I am too busy planning. I want to slow time down so that I can catalog all that is to come. I am determined to taste every amuse-bouche, feel every hug, catch Jonathan’s eyes a thousand times. I’m not ready for it to be over: for the planning to be done; for the cake to be cut; for the music to die; for the dress to be off. For people to be gone. I am very ready for the feeling of being married, because I have no idea what it will feel like, and that makes it the closest thing that I have to doing drugs. I can honestly say I am not nervous. I am at one with the cold feet. I anticipate that I will shake in fear at 3:58 p.m. However, I cannot imagine myself not fearing such a large, risky, unknown decision. To not fear it would be unnatural to my personality. To not go for what I feel with conviction, without explanation, would be equally unnatural of me.
If you are at all interested, and I think this is the only time that I have put one of these lists on here, here is my list for this week:
Write Vow
Pack for wedding
Pack for Italy
Groceries for stuff fo 2 days in between because grocery stores are not open on sundays yee haw
carve 18 wine corks into cheese card stands
create and print program
finish itineraries for about 8 diff. people
confirm flowers, caterer, ceremony chairs
gawk at very last minute, never before mentioned 300 franc bill for chairs at ceremony site
figure out train schedules for people
make name tag for one random person who decided to tell us very last minute of presence after the rest have already been sent to neuchatel in a water proof bag, annoying me to no end
kill the cat
finalize ceremony outline
finalize cats taken care of
list of photos to the photographer
ask MOH to bring us a rubber chicken and big plastic cups for the keg because these dixie-cup swiss cups aren’t gonna cut it
translate directions for cortége
Jun
9
Can you read French? I just found this, which is an old email response from friends our age, which we received to the wedding invitation. When you learn to write French, along with the pesky tu/vous thing, you learn that French is an extremely polite and formal written language, even among friends. This level of writing is beautiful, and is touching. It is also awkward, as I feel the formality imposes a sort of distance in me, which I find bizarre. In writing so beautifully, and formally, perhaps they mean and feel quite the opposite? Perhaps they don’t even notice.
Chère Jessica & Cher Jonathan, C’est avec joie que nous participerons à la célébration de votre union en juin prochain, ainsi qu’aux réjouissances et festivités qui suivront. A n’en pas douter, cette journée si particulière restera gravée d’instants mémorables. D’ici là, nous vous adressons encore nos meilleurs voeux pour l’année 2008 et vous souhaitons de passer d’excellents moments à l’organisation de cette fabuleuse journée. Cordiales salutations.
Translation:
Dear Jessica and Dear Jonathan, It is with joy that we will participate in the celebration of your union next June, including the festivities and merriment to follow. Without a doubt, this day will rest particularly engraved in memorable instances of the life. Until then, we address you (or send you) again our best wishes for the year of 2008, and we wish you to pass excellent moments in the organization of this fabulous day. Cordial salutations.
My American said either, "Yes, can’t wait." Or "Yes, can’t wait to get my drink on." 
