More wise and timely advice

Juan of Juan and Maria's Empanada Stop and I were discussing how to get his terrific food into our wedding brunch on Sunday. All is in readiness.


As he explained that he'd look for a final payment when we pick up the meal, I offered,

"Not to worry. I will be writing a lot of checks that weekend."

"Speaking as a married man," Juan added, "It is not the last check you will write, my friend."

TWIL and I hit the Opinion page, Somerville Journal

Somerville -

To the editor:

For eight years I thought that living with the woman I love was the same as getting married. A long stint of work in the South convinced me that our declarations of unending love were not enough. I wanted to marry. It was easy to ask; she said yes. Only then did I learn that marriage is different. Friends and family and all the institutions we call “society” line up behind you. No one questioned my right to do it. And a river of good wishes and generosity pours our way. That’s just one more reason I support marriage rights for everyone. It’s different than commitment, civil union or any other half-measure, no matter how well intentioned.

The differences of marriage are crucial. No one knows you better than your spouse; you want them to make decisions with you, for you, in life’s most important moments. That’s his or her right. I don’t want it any other way. Same with my assets. Same with the respect and sense of shared experience that married people recognize in one another. You know what I’m talking about. It’s different. Please don’t support a vote about the rights of other citizens, which could turn marriage into a separate, unequal estate just for straight people. We’re not better. We have no grounds to discriminate against those who just want what you want — to marry the one we love and exercise the legal rights that I once took for granted.

John Roberts
Whitfield Road

Go Postal

It just goes to show you. You can't think of everything.

Yes, it was cold when we planned the invitation design and cold when we dropped the first bunches in the mail. And there was a stamp on the RSVP envelope that was sure to get it back to us. No more. Postage rates have gone up and $.41 is the new $.39. You'll need one of these - the two-cent, make-up rate stamp. Sorry for the inconvenience.

That way we'll be sure you RSVP reaches us. I bet it will anyway, but you know what Type As we are. If we don't know whether you're planning to attend, and maybe you mailed the envelope, but the government recycled it because it had insufficient postage - why not, it's just personal property, just a wedding - you know we're going to be on the phone with you on July 16. Better safe - two cents safe - than sorry?

Location Changes, small but significant

We have found a great place. Leonard Berstein was right (West Side Story); there's a place for us.

First, for the rehearsal dinner gang, we're moving indoors to the dream house we've rented. Same time, but better location. Come with your toasts for an informal barbeque among the trees. Here's an example.

And therefore, the after-wedding brunch will be at the scene of the crime and where the extremely patient and generous Lee and Fran live, or will until we spoil their reputation in the neighborhood on Saturday 9/1.

You can see all the changes reflected in the Wedding Geography link in the side bar (right).

A couple of notes about reading the map.

1. Ignore the Main Street address at the top of the page. It's the address of the Del Monte and I do not know how to prevent it from displaying.
2. By clicking on links in the left column of our Google map, a pop-up window is displayed on the map. It tells key facts you need to know about the location.
3. I've added general directions using a kind of triptych line between start and end points, but if you know me, you know that you should stop and buy your own map once you get off the highway. I'm a pathetic guide. Consider yourself warned.
4. If you have questions or have discovered errors, don't look at me. No seriously, let me know if you find errors or recommend corrections.

Looking forward to seeing you at all the new familiar places.

It's Official

We're engaged! Okay, the newspaper announcements in our hometowns were published some weeks ago, but the first great thing about visiting Rochester and Auburn is that we got the raggedy newsprint clippings into our hands.

For whatever reason, the Auburn Citizen didn't acknowledge the existence of my mother, Jean Roberts, who is still very much with us - oh, very much indeed! All of you with psychoanalytic backgrounds, talk amongst yourselves. The rest of you might remind her at the reception that, in the face of the local daily's fact-checking failure, you're glad she's back from the dead.

Many more Rochester anecdotes to come.

Dear Dick: Go ahead. Buy it.

Some more advice for my friend, Dick - remember Dick? - who will marry in October.

Dear Dick,

Here is the cycle of wedding planning. You begin with a couple of images of intense emotion, even drama, in your imagination. That’s love and commitment prodding you with the sharp stick of risk. So you gamble on happiness. Intoxicating is the only word for it. The first dramatic moment – asking her to marry – goes off almost as hoped. Your expectations rise. You don’t notice them bouying you up, but they do.

What you imagine, what you feel, and what you can effectuate – see how they come together? Then come wedding magazines. Dick, I’m going to confess this so that you can come out, too. If TWIL’s appetite for these magazines was voracious, I never refused to flip the pages. I’d look at anything “bridal” printed on slick paper. Full of beautiful women rapt with emotion in elegant settings, they were full of great ideas. There, I said it. I tried to fight off writing that phrase, but no. I mean it. There’s the Spanish-inspired wedding accented in hues of sangria and and blood oranges. As the sun sets, the revelers carry on under crimson light and unending joy. It could be us. I could be you. Total cost of the magazine wedding: $80,000. Courage, man.

You’ll soon learn, Dick, what every wedding vendor wants you to have learned months ago. You can buy happiness. I resisted this, manfully, in every way. But listen. I haven’t become a drunken sailor on shore leave, but I’m converted. Go ahead and buy it. The happiness, I mean. But keep in mind that “happiness” is a cheap word. Getting a parking space or getting my way; these make me happy. That’s just, you know, human nature seeking it’s own level. I’m talking about “good fortune.” To be favored by the fates and gods and circumstance to find yourself with joy and honor and humility at once. Most people have the chance to be happy – fortunate – once or twice in their lives. And Dick, your wedding is one.

Here’s how it works. When you have spent all you can afford and others have spent great sums in gifts or travel or both, you will have nearly nothing left over. Reflect for a moment. The wedding is over, the tent comes down, the people go home, flowers die, memories fade (or are erased in the latter half of the reception), and you have, well, signs and symbols of the day. Rings, photographs, and souvenirs, such as the program. (And of course you have all those great gifts, many of which disappear into daily life – the pot, the waffle iron.) You can buy happiness if you do not focus on the things you’re buying.

When everything is past you will have bought a moment of time that cannot be repeated. Never again will these friends see you cracked open like a nut full of love and hope. And that meal? (Funny how anything less than $100 per serving begins to sound like a great deal, isn’t it?) This ancient experience of sitting down with the clan to share your excess out of affection, no other meal will be like this. They will not hear your vows again. They will not raise an eyebrow at some cute cousin or stylish aunt and reflect that youth and hope comes around again, and pronouce that it’s good. And conclude for a day that living, just living, is pretty damned good.

Only you can do this. Bring them in, show them love, sit them down to feed them well, and invite them to lose their senses a bit. Go crazy on the dance floor. Laugh until you cry with her dad, your mother, the brothers. Spend what it takes to bring all these base elements together and the catalyst that changes them to gold. It’s in the air, between beery breaths and perfect dusk. It’s good fortune’s inspiration granting more than you asked for.