The fine art of pinning

Sorry folks, as if any of you are reading, but I've been without a computer. Once we three computers. Then there were none. A friend is trying to fix our old computer, but that will require a new motherboard. Mother what?? So I keep waiting to post pictures. Doing a blog on a work computer feels deviant enough.

We've had a bramble in front of our house for nearly a month now. It's all the debris and limbs that were broken during the ice storm. I've got a tree out there. The pile is larger than my car. The birds are loving it. Brush and limbs, plenty of things to scoot around on and catch. Hopefully the mice are NOT finding a home it in. But my neighborhood is slowly coming together. The city crews have been in the boulevard clearing out splintered and broken limbs from the top of the gazebo and fountain.

We've been in full tilt wedding planning. After spending the morning trying on various styles of undergarments at the bridal store, I finally something that would work, and dropped my dress off at the tailors for alterations. That was scary. That must be what people feel like when they leave their children at daycare for the first time. I've had that dress in my care for several months. Occasionally I get it out and try it on. I check on it, is it still in the closet...yes.

So when I left it with Kim Hoa, I felt like I had left an arm at her store.
"I call you in two weeks," she said as she whisked the dress away.

"Oh, ok. Thank you."

These were our parting words as I left the dress in her care, wondering about the state of her insurance. Whether they had smoke detectors in the shop. If those old sewing machines she worked on were subject to burning up in a huff. Kim Hoa is a small Asian woman. She wears a white coat, like a nurse...only for garments and ill-fitting pants. Her shoes were Velcro sneakers that probably came from a huge discount store. Her eyebrows were painted on..that's where I see as she pins me, talking with a thick accent and pins in her mouth. I realize in my heels that I'm taller, way taller, than she is and I'm staring right at her eyebrows. When I walked in with the dress, she showed me a tiny dressing room in the front room of her shop.

"Ask me if you need help," she said.

I stumble around to put the dress, for nearly the fourth time that morning. Finally I come out, shoes, proper undergarments, except for a black bra hanging out. It looks great, and I'm a little melancholy that nobody else is here to see it, except a 10-year and her mom waiting to have jeans altered.

"Oh, you need to have cups in," she says. "Take this off, so we can see."

With that she unhooks my bra and I pull out from the sleeve of the dress, like I'm changing for middle school gym, but I'm in the front of her shop.
"Ummhmmm. Yes, this is too big."
More pins. I cringe. Please don't snag the beautiful dress.

It's on this day, however, this lovely unseasonable warm day in January that I realize, I'm getting married, very soon and it's going tobe pretty. The cake will taste sweet and the bubbly will go down without a hitch. The dress, the groom, the cake. That's all I really need, well and of course a few shots afterward.