Chance of Showers.

Yesterday C and I had a surprise long-distance shower, which his mother and sister had organized. (Now that I think about, they called it a surprise shower but it wasn’t much of a surprise since we hung all the decorations and put out the snacks ourselves. The actual concept was somewhat of a surprise to me, since I never imagined such a thing in my life, but there’s a lot of stuff around weddings besides the wedding itself that I never imagined, like Jack and Jill parties and bow hats, for instance.)

Anyway, C’s mom and sister contacted everyone we’d sent wedding invitations to and asked them to send shower presents. Meanwhile they sent us a big box of decorations, a bottle of wine called “Menage a trios” (which I have to say is a funny choice for a wedding shower), lemon biscotti, cookies, cheese straws.

Last week my sister K and her middle son, my nephew A, who is 12, came to visit for his spring break. I can’t even remember the last time I got to spend so much time with K, my baby sister who is in her forties now, 2 marriages, 3 sons, the oldest a sophomore in high school.

K did an internship at Viacom in the late 80s when she was in college and I was living with my first long-term boyfriend in Fort Greene. She stayed with a friend a few blocks away, and I saw her frequently. Near the end of the semester, she got a job offer but decided against the entry-level-5 girls-in-an-apartment-in-a-shady-neighborhood-because-that’s-what-you-can-afford-but-it’s-New-York life, finished college, moved to Louisiana, got married. We’ve stayed very close but our lives are very different now and we don’t see each other enough.

It was a wonderful week. The weather was perfect, cool and sunny -- it was supposed to rain later in the week but never did. Broadway shows, fancy dinners out, the Empire State Building. My nephew is 12 and not easy to impress, but he fell in love with New York a little. I think Dim Sum in Chinatown kinda blew his mind.

Other wedding news: we finalized the liturgy (our minister, a Unitarian Universalist, gave us a big binder of suggested language, from which we cut and pasted what we liked), and mapped out the procession, recession, etc. Our RSVP date has come and gone. I think the number of guests is a little over 60.

We confirmed plans with the woman doing the flowers. Peonies, white lilacs, iris, grape hyacinth, tulips. Forsythia, if she can get them. Spring came so early this year.

We confirmed the menu for the cocktail hour and dinner after the ceremony.

In non-wedding news, my co-writers and I signed a new option on Lizzie Borden with a new group of producers. We’re making plans for an August production. More details soon.