{"id":952,"date":"2011-02-10T21:54:39","date_gmt":"2011-02-11T02:54:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thelifeliterary.com\/?p=952"},"modified":"2011-02-27T08:19:34","modified_gmt":"2011-02-27T13:19:34","slug":"from-the-brides-fathers-notebook-day-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.thelifeliterary.com\/?p=952","title":{"rendered":"From the Bride’s Father’s Notebook – Day 2"},"content":{"rendered":"

From the Bride’s Father’s Notebook, Day 1<\/a><\/p>\n

December 21, 2009<\/p>\n

At Breakfast<\/span><\/p>\n

We ate breakfast together this morning, eggs, bacon, toast.\u00a0 My bride was raised with a strong sense of the sanctity of hot toast.\u00a0 It’s a well-known, well-worn drill in our house: toast pops up, snatch it from the toaster, slather butter, cut down the middle, serve.\u00a0\u00a0An early\u00a0memory of my then future father-in-law was the urgency with which he performed this procedure, quickly, flawlessly, bim, bam, boom, done.\u00a0 I remember toast frequently left over which someone (usually the strapping, young, still slender gent engaged to his daughter) eventually ate.\u00a0 My wife has inherited this hot\u00a0toast gene which exerted it’s influence this morning.\u00a0 She made a good breakfast of eggs, bacon, and toast and served them up.\u00a0 One thing you need for a well-timed toast, hot egg and bacon breakfast are people who are ready to eat it.\u00a0 I was pleased she whipped up an excellent breakfast so quickly, but I worried we hadn’t given our future son-in-law enough advance warning to be ready for the perfect plate.\u00a0 He did make it to the table, though a crucial minute or so after it was ready.\u00a0 I only mention this because I wondered what he made of all this.\u00a0 He knows us pretty well by now even though he hasn’t ever been an overnight guest.\u00a0 I don’t think it bothered him, but I can imagine he was bemused as I was at my fiancee’s father all those years ago.\u00a0 Yeah, I can take this on, I bet he was thinking, but oh my, how interesting.\u00a0 There were two extra pieces of toast, halved, on a separate plate on the table.\u00a0 I ate three of the four though I’m not, for obvious reasons, as svelte as I was when I cleaned up almost 29 years ago.<\/p>\n

Tux Renting <\/span><\/p>\n

Completely excruciating!\u00a0 We took David to a men’s clothing store, a large national chain that also rents tuxes.\u00a0 I watched him, the center of attention, trying on non-tux jackets of various sizes to determine his.\u00a0\u00a0 Finally, the women (bride, mother of the bride, store clerk) asked the man (me), who has been dressing like this and earning a living for nearly 30 years now, if it fits.\u00a0 It was a pleasure to step up to the mirrored plate and say: “curl your fingers around the end of the coat,”…check…” is it tight through here?”…no? check…”now button it”…good…check.\u00a0 “Yes,” I authoritatively asserted, “this is definitely his size.”\u00a0 O.K., so I participated, but that involvement didn’t sort out the competing feelings\u00a0 (am I needed or not, valuable or incidental, sage or dunce?) I’d been feeling for a while now and that have been especially noticeable since the young couple arrived.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

It Takes Work to Look Good<\/p><\/div>\n

Once they determined the size, round two began with them looking through\u00a0 scads of available tux jacket styles in that size.\u00a0 At long last they found the perfect model for only $45, a deal for him and yet a completely decent choice, style-wise.\u00a0 Didn’t look to my eyes like bargain-basement fare.\u00a0 The most excruciating part was waiting and waiting and waiting for signing papers, studying receipts, memorizing what comes next, all overseen by the friendly, overly thorough clerk.\u00a0 The one consolation was hanging around with a beautiful woman who, like me, I suspect was also feeling a bit peripheral by that time.\u00a0 My wife, my friend, I wouldn’t want to go through any of this without you.<\/p>\n

Washington Tour<\/span><\/p>\n

Later in the day while the ladies were shopping, I took David for his first tour of Washington.\u00a0 It was fun and comfortable.\u00a0 I remember both fearing, a little, but also liking my father-in-law before I had proved myself as an able provider\/husband\/father and was still a (I felt this way, at least) skeptically viewed interloper making off with his youngest daughter.\u00a0 I wonder if my daughter’s intended felt similarly?\u00a0 I drove him up one side the National Mall and down the other and explained how balanced our founders attempted to make our government.\u00a0 That route takes you by the three centers of the three balanced powers plus provides an opportunity to see how one of those, the legislative, is itself balanced between population count (the House) and simply being a state (the Senate).<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Going to visit Abraham<\/p><\/div>\n

He mentioned he wants to take his parents to the Smithsonian.\u00a0 Our tour let me show him at least eight or more places which could fit that description.\u00a0 After driving around (and getting stuck in D.C. traffic), I took him to see Abraham, not the founder of the Hebrews but the re-founder of our Republic.\u00a0 We also saw that tragic, powerful gash: the black-stoned Vietnam War Memorial.\u00a0 I was grateful for the conversation and comfort level between us. \u00a0 After a long ride home via the mechanic and some shopping, we all had a well-deserved flop into comfy seats for the perfect meal after a day like this: spaghetti, wine, broccoli, and in front of a movie.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Looking back from Abe's Welcome Mat<\/p><\/div>\n

From the Bride’s Father’s Notebook – Introduction<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

From the Bride’s Father’s Notebook, Day 1 December 21, 2009 At Breakfast We ate breakfast together this morning, eggs, bacon, toast.\u00a0 My bride was raised with a strong sense of the sanctity of hot toast.\u00a0 It’s a well-known, well-worn drill … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[40],"tags":[72,60,1077,41,88,42],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thelifeliterary.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/952"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thelifeliterary.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thelifeliterary.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thelifeliterary.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thelifeliterary.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=952"}],"version-history":[{"count":22,"href":"http:\/\/www.thelifeliterary.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/952\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":999,"href":"http:\/\/www.thelifeliterary.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/952\/revisions\/999"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thelifeliterary.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=952"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thelifeliterary.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=952"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thelifeliterary.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=952"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}