It Was a Dark and Stormy Night

With the wedding only 71 days away it has not escaped my notice that we have yet to mail invitations to any of the people we hope will attend. It isn't that I've forgotten about it, it's just that I honestly haven't had time. Point to Ponder: Exactly how nuts does your life have to get before you reach the point of not having time to invite people to your own wedding? I know, I know. Our life is insane. Or more precisely, I am insane.

Happily, my friend and chief guardian angel Carol called a couple of days ago and offered to help if I would take an afternoon off work. Yesterday was the day, so I ran around the office like a headless chicken all morning, then took off around 1 PM to meet Carol at my house. We dug in with a vengence and just about the time we started cranking out invitations a storm hit--a big, powerful electrical storm with torrential rain and very strong winds that had the big trees in the yard swaying at very worrisome angles. There were sirens going off and lightening strikes crashing all around, and it got dark and ominous, and the power flickered on and off several times...and then the power went off and stayed off.

Morley was downtown until late evening, so it was just Carol and me who sat waiting patiently for the lights to come back on. We waited, then waited some more, and then we lit a bunch of candles and waited some more. No power. So then we did the only reasonable thing we knew to do in those circumstances: we drove to the store to buy a bottle of wine so at least we could sip wine while we sat in the dark.

After Morley got home the three of us sat in the dark for awhile before we figured out that when the utility company tells you your power will be restored in 45 minutes, what they really mean is "sometime tomorrow". We gave up our vigil and went to bed around 11 PM, and the power came back on early this morning which apparently is precisely 45 minutes in Public Utility Company time.

Today we awoke after a not-so-restful sleep in a stuffy house in the deep South with no air conditioning, and after we drank a pot of coffee and got dressed, and after I put out a fire at the office (What? you think I can be out of the office without something falling out of the ceiling? Fat chance), we dove back into the invitations. Another storm rolled through but it wasn't as fierce as the one before so the power stayed on and the air conditioner cranked cool air, and by late afternoon we had all the invitations finished and ready to mail (insert clip of Mormon Tabernacle Choir singing Hallelujah Chorus here).

The weight that lifted off my shoulders when we finished that last invitation was just indescribable, but there's more: we also went to the alterations lady to have my dress taken in so my girls won't fall out if I raise my arms above my head on the dance floor, plus we nailed down a couple of other things that needed nailing down.

And tomorrow Saint Carol will continue to pull my fanny out of the fire when we sit down and write the Mother of all Wedding To Do lists with timelines, and deadlines, and task assignments, and everything. If I wasn't marrying Morley, I might just marry Carol.

PS You don't think there's any kind of cosmic message in it storming the entire time we worked on wedding invitations do you? No? Okay, that's good to hear.