Ellemental

I’m 36 years old.
My mother still gives me an Easter basket every year.

This year, nestled in the bright yellow plastic grass, amongst the Hershey Kisses and Mini Peanut Butter Cups, was a container of Hope in a Jar facial moisturizer.

Well, the 2005 Bridesmaid Beatification Project has come to an end.

In a very few short hours I will hang my bridesmaid dress in the back of my car, double check to make sure I packed the proper undergarments (since the 2005 Bridesmaid Beautification Project apparently didn’t include NEARLY enough stomach crunches), and head to Philly for an April Fool’s Day wedding.

I spent an agonizing week last week waiting and waiting and waiting for the seamstress to call and say that she was finished with the dress alterations. She had the dress for 6 weeks to put in a hem and add 2 hooks and eyes. SIX WEEKS. Although I called and followed up, she just kept telling me she’d call when it was ready. I called her YET AGAIN on Tuesday and told her that I’d be there for the dress that evening whether it was done or not (giving me a whole 24 hours to find a new Express Seamstress.) “Oh, I finished over the weekend. I was going to call you a little later to let you know it is done.”

Later? How much later? After the wedding is OVER??? After I have a stroke??? Cripes, woman!

I never realized that you can’t spell seamstress without s t r e s s.

Sometimes, where I was in past years is exactly where I am this year, too, and the words are still absolutely perfect. This is one of those posts:

March 2003
When I was growing up, my grandparents had specific yardwork roles. My grandfather was the mower of the lawn, my grandmother was the planter of flowers and weeder of gardens. Every year, my grandmother took a little more liberty with her gardener role and planted more and more flowers. The square garden in the middle of the back yard kept getting bigger and bigger, filled with lillies, black-eyed susans, moon flowers…never manicured or designed…it was a wild tangle of all different breeds of flowers, and yet it always worked – the flowers worked well together. Once the square garden couldn’t be expanded anymore, my grandmother started planting tulips everywhere – around the birdbath, around the trunk of every tree, along the shrubs that ran the length of the yard and separated our yard from our neighbors.

It was a ritual, as sure as the tides: every fall my grandmother would lovingly turn the earth and plant the bulbs, mentally noting where each one was located. Every spring, during the first lawn mow of the year, my grandfather would cut off at least half of the new tulips because they hadn’t been there the year before. Then the yelling would start. “Why don’t you watch where you’re mowing?” “Why do you keep planting those godforsaken flowers everywhere? It makes it hard for me to mow.” On and on, until my grandfather was able to alter his mowing pattern and spare the rest of the tulips. He never stopped grumbling about them though – even after the spring was over and the tulips were long gone for another year.

Several years ago, after his first stroke, my grandfather spent several weeks in a rehab hospital. It was springtime. During one visit, he looked out the window, then looked at my grandmother with a big smile (the first REAL smile in quite some time) and asked if the tulips were blooming yet.

Every fall I turn the earth and plant tulip bulbs. Every spring I wait impatiently through the crocuses and the little grape hyacinths for the tulips. They are starting to come up now, and they’re everywhere…even outside the designated planting area. It’s going to be a good spring.