Magical Elixirs

Usually Dr. Fiancé doesn’t have to work in the emergency room on Saturdays, but every so often he does, and today was one of those times. I woke up feeling absurdly sad and anxious and borderline despondent even though last night we hosted our most successful social event to date—an after-work happy hour that lasted until 9pm. Four couples joined us under the wisteria in full purplebloom glory over our back deck to eat cheese and olives and help us rate four wines we’re thinking about serving at our wedding. I took a sip of each, and it’s a good thing we had nine other mouths on the job because to me all but one wine tasted like ammonia with a hint of dandelion stem and overtones of skunk cabbage.

Maybe the four tiny sips of wine were enough to trigger my pregnant self to experience the kind of post-drinking depression formerly brought on by four large glasses, or maybe the stress of planning a wedding and remodeling a house and having a high-anxiety mate and a medium-high-anxiety self and being pregnant all at the same time was simply reaching an inevitable apex.

But! What better thing to do when you’re feeling sad and grumpy and tired and unattractive and unloved than drive to a suburban wasteland to a bridal warehouse to shop for a wedding dress? And not just any wedding dress, but one that will flatter a five-and-a-half-months pregnant figure.

Whoops, was that my last shred of self-esteem that just flew out the car window?

After learning that even at a suburban wasteland bridal warehouse one must have an appointment to try on bridal gowns, I plodded across the parking lot to Old Navy to buy some pants with an elastic waistband because what better thing to wear when you’re feeling sad and grumpy and tired and unattractive and unloved than pants with an elastic waistband? Unfortunately they were having some kind of major sale, and the line, which must have been at least 100 people long, wrapped around the entire store like a serpent hissing at me to jusssst ssssssssslink back to my housssssse to sssssssssit on the ssssssofa and feel sssssssorry for myself.

So I did—but not before stopping for doughnuts, which went a surprisingly long way towards cheering me up.