Thursday, July 07, 2011

Topics, topics, who's got a topic?

I could write about how hot it is here, and how everyone else in my family would like that to mean all air conditioning all the time, but the stale smell of the air conditioning combined with general cooking smells that will not dissipate, plus the fact that air conditioning makes me frozen, added to the fact that parts of our house get a really good breeze makes me less than amenable to this plan. Which earns me a lot of dirty looks, I suppose, but it turns out I give just as many, when I come out of my non-air conditioned room to find that the rest of the house is iceberg cold. It's a game we will continue to play all summer, unfortunately, because the heat doesn't really bother me, and it seems to really bother everybody else. Humidity bothers me, asthma wise, and I have no choice then but to fall back on the A/C. Heat itself, however, because I am very low on the physical activity meter (& also a lot lower in the room physically - heat rises), doesn't mean all that much. Sun, humidity, all of the main accomplices of heat - we are enemies, but heat & I are kind of buddies.

(I recently told Zack that I have experienced a dramatic increase in my levels of sweating - "Usually, aside for fevers, I am not a sweat-er" I told him. "No: You're more of a jacket" was his completely straight-faced response. Zack is so pathetic, he can't help but be adorable, sometimes. Even if I have now been waiting four days for his substitute nurse to call me back - I don't like that substitute nurse very much.)

What else is going on here - OH YEAH - a big huge shower. Even though it is not really all that big or huge; it just feels like it because there are a lot of details and secrets and planning and crafts and last minute things that I hate, but you can't cook for a party three weeks beforehand, unfortunately. That's this weekend, in case you were wondering. I have no doubts that it will turn out to be lovely, but the anxiety of getting there reminds me that I would - despite awesome organizational and DIY-skills - make a poor wedding planner.

I always get nervous before parties, and can't really nail down what the anxiety is about (aside from things just completely falling apart). I know I am not truly anti-social, but there is a huge part of me that is introverted, and definitely socially awkward. I long to be one of those gracious hostesses who doesn't search for the right thing to say that makes people feel welcome, or who knows how to blend different groups of people together seamlessly, but longing for it unfortunately does not make it so.

In response to a previous query, I thought I'd tell you that we've decided on two games for the shower, neither of which require much of a spotlight or too much intense participation (which I am not sure we can count on from our guests) - a "How Old Am I?" guessing game, with pictures of the bride at various ages and stages, and a "Design a Wedding Cake" coloring thing that has so far only been hilarious in the number of ways my sister and I have miscommunicated about it.

Originally, I'd read something about creating cakes out of Play Doh, which I thought sounded like fun and was different enough that not everybody would have played it a million times already (toilet paper dress making, I'm looking at you!) We decided to scale it back a little, I think mostly because not everybody here is a big Play Doh fan (boo hiss: Play Doh is awesome!), and do models instead. I told my sister that there were cake templates that we could use, and then people could decorate their own and have SisterCh judge which was best. Now, what I was talking about was doing little Styrofoam models of cake - actually called 'cake templates' (the kind people use when they're learning to frost cakes) with real frosting and what not - still kind of messy, but silly enough that people were having fun. But what SisterJ (the matron (ha!) of honor) heard was templates - like a paper drawing of a cake, that we would then have people decorate. So I went out and bought 20 pastry bags, and the look she gave me when I took them out of the bag was as if I told her I had decided that I would wear my underwear on the outside of my clothing from now on. In the interest of space and cleanliness, we decided to go with the coloring page version of the game, and I'm hoping it will still have enough silliness in it to make it fun and worthwhile.

I'm off to finish printing the pictures for the How Old Am I game, as we speak, so wish me luck. Let's hope whatever any of us wind up doing this weekend will be fun and fruitful!

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