One or Two or Three of My Favorite Things

I submitted my grant proposal online last night. It wasn’t due until Friday, so I’m feeling pretty grown-up about the whole thing.

If only I could translate some of that adult-level having-my-shit-together-ness into patience. It’s been 18 hours and already I have the urge to check the website to see if they’ve made their decision. June is going to be a very long time in coming.

Not to mention July 13. Can't we just do this wedding thing and move on with our lives?

Must we choose a cake flavor and style and menus for two dinners and two breakfasts and pick out shoes and jewelry and a photographer and a dress for my person of honor and music for the procession and the reception and flowers and more flowers and still more flowers and outfits for the boys and a dress for my mom and a sleeping arrangement for all the guests and a way of getting all the food and cake and flowers halfway up a mountain?

Was this wedding thing really my idea? Why on earth would a person for whom every tiny thing does matter—a person fond of saying that god is in the details (even though she’s an atheist) and who uses only high-quality wrapping paper and cloth ribbons on birthday and Christmas presents and keeps her art supplies in old Ball jars that she bought not in small part because they say Pat’d July 14, 1908 and she met her fiancé on July 14—how the hell could such a person take on planning a wedding and delude herself into thinking she could be low-key about it?

This morning the issue was lemon curd.

I myself am a fan. A big fan. I have a family recipe for the stuff and make it on special occasions—or, more accurately, when I make lemon curd the day becomes a special occasion. It’s smooth and creamy and tart and completely delicious.

When Dr. Fiancé put me in charge of “artistics,” I of course assumed the cake fell under my purview.

I did some web research and visited my favorite Seattle bakery and tried a slice of “European style cake, ivory in color with a rich delicious flavor that is accented with thin layers of homemade lemon curd and fresh raspberry preserves.” The flavor was indeed delicious—rich and buttery but not too heavy, thanks in part to the light, refreshing zip provided by the zesty lemon curd accent—and my work was done. So simple. So easy.

Too easy.

This morning on our daily walk Dr. Fiancé said something about how next weekend when he’s in Vegas with his boy friends and my mom’s in town from Iowa, she and I can do fun wedding-planning stuff “like choosing a cake.”

“I already chose the cake.”

“The one with the lemon curd?”

Uh. Yeah. The one with the lemon curd.

It turns out Dr. Fiancé, who has eaten my insanely tasty lemon curd on numerous occasions and declared it to be quite tasty doesn’t like lemon curd.

A crabby exchange ensued, the kind I’m sure our neighbors appreciate us having within earshot of their homes. “Is the cake one of your two things?” Dr. Fiancé asked in a tone that can only be described as pointed.

Oooh. Guilty. I’ve tried cashing in my “TBD” on the style of Dr. Fiancé’s tux, the number of attendants, the decorations at the inn and in the church and on our persons. And now, the cake.

Dr. Fiancé says he doesn’t care about the cake one way or the other—the lemon curd one is fine if it means he doesn’t have to add “taste cakes” to his to-do list. I, however, am not wild about the idea of feeding my chosen mate, the love of my life, the father of my future children a sugary morsel of desert symbolizing the sweetness of our union only to have him make a face and spit it out or fake a smile as he gags on one of my favorite things.