a shower on the upper west side

I went to my friend Diane’s wedding shower last night. It was held at her mother’s house in one of those high-rise condos on West End Ave in the city. This weekend is an alternate shower at the Mother-in-Law to be’s house in NJ. I sense dueling alfa Mom stuff here. I didn’t ask. Diane and I have been friends for about 10 years. She used to date my ex husband’s brother. So as someone said at the shower we “ditched the guys and stayed friends”. Diane seems pretty straight and a like a typical girl. When you first meet her, you wouldn’t think we would likely be friends. But she is awesome and has a great sense of humor and is super motivated in business (she owns a successful motorcycle school), and is non judgmental and we get along really well, although I hardly see much of her we are both so busy.

I had not been to a shower in a long time and forgot that this was the subdued family tea party type of thing. There was a lot of family there, I didn’t know anyone there other than Diane. I met everyone, mothers, aunts, sister-in laws, grandmas and a couple of her friends. I grabbed a crystal cup and ladled in the spiked sherbet punch and grabbed a chair. A woman sat down next to me and we started talking. She looked almost exactly like Sandra Bernhard, and her personality mirrored the character Sandra played in the movie The King of Comedy. I pictured myself as Jerry Lewis looked, duct taped to the chair as she went on and on about what, I can not tell you…  something about her sister being a born-again Christian and that her gay son was living with her and working at the Gap and that she is into juicing, straight vegetables every morning, yada yada. She was actually very nice even though later she smacked me in the funny bone with her ring when I gave away a hint when we were all playing a wedding shower game. Diane had to guess what her husband to be (Joe) would answer to certain questions posed to him in advance, a-la Newlywed Game style.

Before the shower I couldn’t figure out what to get her for a gift. I had looked on her registry at Bloomingdale’s and wasn’t sure if shower/wedding etiquette dictated that I was to bring a registry gift to the shower or that was supposed to be for a wedding gift. I could not b’elieve the stuff on there: Michael Fina pattern china, Donna Karan silk sheets in pewter, $250 pillows, tons of All-Clad cookware and Le Creuset bakeware… I couldn’t find the answer on marthastewartweddings.com so I asked my sister-in-law and she said to bring a shower gift geared toward the bride at about $30. Since I think of myself as a damn good gift giver, I went on-line and bought her a $100 gift certificate for The Brooklyn Kitchen, redeemable for cooking classes or upscale kitchen ware. I felt it was a thoughtful gift and something she might actually do, being that the place is a few blocks from where she works. I never had a shower or a registry. Most of my best friends live scattered around the globe and I would have wanted them there, I also hate the attention, especially all of that kind of girly attention. We didn’t do a registry because our wedding cost way more than we had to spend on it and we needed the cash. We were that couple ripping open cards on our wedding night in order to pay the band, and writing checks asking people to please wait a few days to cash them. Looking back we don’t regret it, we loved our wedding and were glad we chose to have the fun wedding we wanted instead of getting stuff. I told myself that we would collect some vintage pattern of china as it was more our style anyway. Something 50’s.

So when Diane opened her presents they were indeed things from her registry. Now I am not the most feminine of women, and I really don’t think I am materialistic at all. But man were those towels fluffy! I can’t cook, I don’t even like to cook and I was getting all excited about her presents as she passed them around. Holding up and admiring the cutting boards, and opening and closing the shiny tongs.  No really, I am fine with my Rachel Ray set… but does Le Creuset now make their stuff in black?! How cool would that be to pair it with pots in Caribbean blue? What would I possibly need these pots for? Making mac n’cheese, frozen ravioli? I even found myself salivating over her shiny new All Clad slow roaster, big enough to take a bath in. It would take up over 50% of my available counter space and we don’t even eat meat! It is the most impractical thing I could own next to a lawnmower. Diane told me all about the time she needed a recipe for Moose Chili and I thought of Sarah Palin and her love of Moose Stew and I thought I may be psychotic and or possessed with some other personality other than my own to be INTO this discussion. I was acting like a woman who just loved domestic life. Who wanted to wear one of these sexy aprons sold on etsy. Who made a moist pot roast, who smiled as I disinfected, and who’s socks were whiter than white. But oh those pewter sheets! … they were so shiny! And her pillows so fluffy. That gravy boat was so adorable. I had no idea I was having female bonding time and I was relating to these women on a level I don’t think I ever had before. The woman with the green wool skirt suit with the ruffled shirt, sensible shoes and a hairy mole on her face said that her gift had a theme. It ended up being “something to drink, and something to eat”. I found myself smiling as if to say “now isn’t that clever”. I really thought so at the time. I was really enjoying these women’s company and I really did have a lot of fun with the whole thing. I think I just surprised myself at how much of a girl I was. And it felt good to think for a short time that women make their men happy by cooking for them, and that it is our role. And that married life was just that simple. Diane was a total sport too. I caught her using the words “honking” and “mother of all” when referring to her slow cooker. Diane said that her fiance only ate meat when she met him, so this gift from the mother-in-law was quite the passing of the torch.

There is nothing wrong with getting nice stuff. I prefer to give a list of things I need to my family around Christmas and my birthday. But if you are going to look around my house and decide what you think I need or think I need replaced, I would prefer to be asked about it first. I prefer a cool thoughtful gift actually, preferably one thing of quality over a quantity of things of less quality. I do not like the mentality that it is a sin to spend money, however the addiction is met when tons of things are bought at TJ Max and Marshalls just because they are on sale. (THEY ARE NOT ON SALE FOLKS!!!) Maybe this Christmas ill add a silver wine coozy to my list of desirables, and the fluffy towels in “bone”.  Tom laughed at me last Christmas because I was going to ask everyone just to donate money to a charity in my name instead. There is no way my family would have gone for that. The record world have scratched and the party-goers would have stopped dancing. You can not upset what is and will always be. Tom knows that I prefer tickets to something, a trip or a class as a gift over something physical. But I guess I like nice things as much as the next girl and I should just admit that maybe I am just picky.

Diane liked her present though. We planned on taking the cooking class together. She said that we should bring a bottle of wine, and I said that maybe we shouldn’t take the class on “chopping” then. I should really learn to cook. I frightened everyone at a Memorial Day picnic a few days ago with the story of my macaroni salad fiasco. I tried to reassure everyone that I didn’t reincorporate anything that fell on the floor back into the mix. For Diane’s shower we were to bring our favorite recipe and add it to a homemade book of “tried and true” favorites. I thought about including my repertoire of cold cereal, toast and popcorn, or some white trash favorites but decided it wouldn’t be that funny. So I put in a recipie for Zucchini Bread I like to use. It really does last about 2 hours in my house before it is demolished, so it wasn’t something I pretended to make anyway. Sandra next to me put down her recipie for juice and put it in the “Starters and Sides” section misinterpreting “starter” for “breakfast”. All that time in a room of women talking about food and domestic stuff made me want to throw a Tupperware party (do they still have those?). Maybe a bento box party instead (did you know there is a bento box community? And lots of great bento blogs like Lunchinabox.net?). The next thing you know ill be wearing pearls and mopping in my heels cooking a Tofurky in the oven. Or ill get crafty and make something with a hot glue gun, fabric strips and some Styrofoam balls. It could happen.

Diane and Joe’s wedding is in Vermont. I wonder if they will have Moose as one of the meal choices? I look forward to dancing with grandma and the hairy moled aunt. We have bonded and can now unashamedly rip it up knowing that we all secretly pined over a tea service and some tongs together.