Prenuptual

Do you know that Rogers and Hart song “To Keep My Love Alive?” Lorenz Hart’s witty lyric, “I’ve been married and married and often I’ve sighed, I’m never the bridesmaid, I’m always the bride” always reminds me of me.

Sadly, I have joined the likes of Liz and Ava and Lana and Gloria. (Swanson or Vanderbilt, choose your era.)  Marriage serial killers all.

And yet I’ve never been a June bride.  So in honor of this most traditional of nuptual months, we are gathered here together so you can attend my wedding.  Modesty- and decency- forbids me from mentioning which number.

It all started when Nick and I suddenly found ourselves living in what used to be the family ski condo in Snowmass, Colorado.  I was forty-five, Nick was just sixteen and together our combined judgement skills were equivalent to that of a dope-crazed, adrenaline-addicted snowboarder high on Jagermeister.  Mom’s thought processes had gone bye-bye.  Nick was the boss now.

I was a loose cannon.  An accident just waiting to happen.  Suddenly single and stunned by the year’s unthinkable turn of events.  (In June 1996 I was still married to my husband of twenty years.  On August 28, 1996, I was divorced.)

But the turmoil must not have showed because men still called and asked me out.  And my teenage son was now forced into the unwanted role of social secretary for one very messed-up mom.

Nick was up to the challenge. (Only one guy snuck in under Nick’s radar.  Mostly by hiding from him.  When Nick was at home, he would be elsewhere.)

But for the most part, Nick was large and in charge, and he dealt with my popularity in a way that Freud would have approved.

First of all, he neglected to write down the phone messages.  (Ah, the good old days before cell phones.)  Or he would erase the answering machine.  And if stuck with having to actually take a phone message for me, he would always always insert the word “loser” in front of any guy’s name lucky enough to make it past his first line of defense.

As in “That loser Jon called,”  or “That loser Tom called.”

Every phone message had the L. Word stuck in there.  Nick had gone on record about how he felt about these would-be suitors, and that was the end of that.

Until Mike walked in.

We had all known him from before the divorce.  (For those of you who haven’t had the pleasure yet, please read my post “Bread and Salt” December 30, 2012.)  And when I mentioned to Nick that I was going to start seeing Mike socially he turned to me and said, “He’s a lose… he’s a lose…..he’s a really good guy.”

His lips could not pronounce the L. word.  Nick liked him.

Mike felt the same way about us- and Andy, our adorable Scottish terrier.  And soon we all decided to make it official.

Mike threw himself into the wedding plans with a touching sensibility.  Whereas I was thinking “Tiffany’s” for the invitations, he went out and bought artsy, raw materials for the project.  He hand-crafted each and every one. He spent weeks on these things.  (I got to drip the hot wax on the envelopes.)

He also chose the venue.  He was sentimental about the turn his life was going to take, and he wanted to celebrate it in a place that reflected his love of nature- and proximity to a good bartender.

(Mike had invited so many Irishmen to our wedding that the guest list rhymed.  Hannigan, Brannigan, Flanagan, Cleary, O’Leary, O’Toole, O’Doul.  It sounded like a chorus of “Macnamara’s Band.”  The only guest on the list without an O in his name was my friend Eddie, and Mike re-dubbed him Edwin O’Glickman.)

And Mike wanted his parents and his three brothers to attend.  He owned a place outside of Lake Placid.  He loved the water and wanted to get married by a ship’s captain.  He thought Raquette Lake was the prettiest in the Adirondacks.  I wanted whatever he wanted.

So the Adirondacks it was.

(For a brief and shining moment we actually thought about getting married in Ireland.  The Barry Fitzgerald-soundalike officiant we spoke with was a John Ford repertory company in himself.  But no one could make it except Nick who said, “Right on, Dude.  I will be coming for the Guinness.”)

At the end of ski season, Nick, Mike and I packed up Andy and we drove to Chicago.  The drive was marred by a sudden spring ice storm that sent hundreds of sixteen wheelers careening off the road in Nebraska, Nick’s incessant blasting of De La Soul, and the fact that my son and I both smoked non-stop like chimneys and it was way too cold to open the car’s windows.

Poor Mike.  (Concerned readers: Don’t bother emailing or commenting.  Neither of us smokes any longer.)

But even after the test of the strength of his love and devotion that this car trip turned out to be, Mike still wanted to marry us.  We dropped Nick off in Chicago and headed east.  Nick and Natasha would join us later at Mike’s place the week of the wedding.

We did manage to stay in Chicago just long enough to introduce Mike- a serious fork- to Mr. Beef, Portillo’s, Superdawg, Due’s, Gibson’s, E.J.’s Place, Walker Brothers and Beinlich’s.  (Oh, and my parents.)

A few days later, there we were at Mike’s folks’ home in upstate New York.  Like way upstate New York.  Almost Canada.

The purpose was two-fold.  I was going to meet my new in-laws and Mike was there to pick up his beloved Siberian Husky, Killarney.  I was nervous.  Would everybody like everybody?  And more importantly, would Killarney eat Andy?

Tune in next time for the ceremony.

Now help yourself to the hors d’oeuvres while you wait.  They’re delicious.

I wrote them myself.