haste to the Wedding #1

RPH #10

“haste to the Wedding”

The family referred to is mine, though I am, in law, a step.

This is the loving truth for which I am eternally grateful.

“When one is getting married, one should not be clear eyed and organized. That’s what mothers and sisters are for.” This a law of the Medes and the Persians.

A year and a half ago, I met, all too briefly, Megan, the fiancée of Gregory. I found her smart, funny and well able to deal with our family’s answer to Josh Lyman. In February, Philip and I received a “save the date” card for their wedding and responded in an adult and calm manner: Oh, Yes, Please!” The actual wedding invitation was, although very pretty, pure gravy. Travel planning is one of the joys of my black heart and I went right to work. Finding flights and buying leg room kept me happy for a couple of hours but then, that’s all I had to do. I didn’t need to find a room or even rent a car, because the bride and groom had done it all! This is against the law of the Medes and the the Persians.

(We need, very briefly to talk about the difference between a Boeing and an Airbus. The rational Philip claims that it ain’t the plane but the configuration inside the plane. I, on the opposite side, don’t care. Last summer, when we went to the UK, we rode both planes and I’ll take the Airbus. On our flight to the wedding, we luxuriated in livable space, especially the 6’2” Philip.)

Our flight left at 7am so after a 3:30 wake up and the dither of packing, we got to Oakland International too early. The flight was as good (see above) and all we needed to do was figure out how to get from Dulles to Arlington. Ah, Dulles International Airport, way the hell out in Sterling VA and hard to get from or to. We asked Traveler’s Aid the way to Arlington and they, very nicely, told us about Super Shuttle but sent us in the wrong direction. All was forgiven once we were in the shuttle and on the road. I learned to drive in L. A. and I never, ever, want to drive in, or even around, the Beltway.

The nuptials were held in Arlington, VA where the smarty pants couple reserved rooms at a lovely Sheraton not a full mile from the church. They got a really good group rate and threw the reception at the same hotel. (Greg and Megan ignore the Medes and Persians whenever possible.) After checking in and dropping luggage in the room, we elevated back down to the lobby in search of dinner. As the doors opened, a wonder materialized before my eyes: Michael, the father of the groom. He was in a hurry to the bachelor party because, as the best man, he needed to be there. But, there, across the lobby was Emilia, sister in law extraordinaire and in need of supper. Having her to ourselves, for even a little time, was just wonderful. After making the first stab at catching up, we toddled, almost comatose, to bed. Our room had a spectacular view from the Air Force Memorial, across the wide Potomac, to the Capitol Dome. The Washington Monument was obscured by a lovely tree, thus I didn’t have to contemplate that overblown eyesore every time I looked out the window.

haste to the Wedding #2

As both clans collected on Friday, some of us became tourists. The siren song of the Hirshhorn & the National Gallery enticed us to the Mall and the free hotel shuttle to the Metro made it easy. We popped up on the Mall like the White Rabbit, right next to the Castle and a short walk from the front door of the Hirshhorn. Now, I can talk about paintings forever, and have to be restrained. But, trying to describe the plastic arts, especially sculpture, is beyond me. Suffice to say that the Hirshhorn Museum is the most important collection of modern and contemporary sculpture (large and small) in the whole wide world. If you don’t care about sculpture, come and see this collection. If you already love sculpture, you already know. After communing with the plastic arts of the 20th century, we meandered to the National Gallery.

The house of pictures, in fact, the family album of the United States of America, this is the National Gallery. A huge edifice, built in 1937 by the W. P. A. during the Great Depression, the one that made our grandparents so tight with money. I limited myself to the American Gallery, where I could commune with some of my favorites, Winslow Homer, John Sloan and, especially, John Singleton Copley. I love Copley, his art is great and fragile at the same time. His portraits of our founding generation are evocative and telling. There is John Adams, the old Congregationalist, who never really understood the separation of church and state. And his great friend and nemesis, Thomas Jefferson, looking all abstemious and mild. Copley was a great portraitist from the shoulders up, but, bless his noble brow, he couldn’t paint the human body. There on the wall is his whole family, with legs that are too long and arms that come out of nowhere. Stick with the close-ups John, ’cause anatomy ain’t your thing.

Part of the fun of huge collections is seeing stuff you didn’t know was there. The fine People of Boston MA have loaned to our nation the final iteration of the Robert Gould Shaw Memorial by August Saint-Gaudens. It is not only the finest piece of plaster casting I’ve ever seen, it is the largest. This stunning bas relief represents Shaw and his Massachusetts 54th Regiment, marching toward certain destruction. The 54th, of honored memory, was an all black volunteer unit, led by the bluest blooded Boston Brahmin. This piece is both heroic and heartbreaking. Fighting for abolition and liberty, these men were sent on a suicide mission, and went. Freedom is a cruel master.

We had very specific instructions to be back at the hotel and ready to dine by 6:30. Since the whole wedding party and many guests were staying at the hotel, it made sense to get all of the folks invited to the rehearsal dinner together in one rented transport. It really did make sense. You may think that herding kittens or Unitarians is hard, but you don’t know. Somebody is still in their room, somebody isn’t answering their cell and one grandma is still in transit. Finally, all the Unitarian kittens were on the little bus and off we went, into the warm night, headed toward barbeque.

That which is called rehearsal dinner has long since ceased having anything to do with the wedding rehearsal. It is party thrown by the groom’s family the evening before the wedding, and ours was a hell of a party.

Cozies

Racketty Packetty House #9

cozies

I see you every day, hard working, kid loving, community caring people with not enough time for yourselves. Yesterday you all were perfectly manifested in a lovely, tired young mommy of 5 week old twins. All she wanted was something she could read in short increments, a story that would keep her company but not break her heart. There are places in our lives for powerful literature, tales of loss, betrayal and deepest sorrow, novels which examine the bitter and dark places of the human condition. But, sometimes, we need stories that will just keep us company by introducing us to small communities where common life is lived with one or two surprises. These are the books that I call cozies.

Cozy is a very valuable and under-appreciated word. Its origin is unknown, perhaps Norwegian, and its first known date is 1709 meaning: warmth. As a noun it is a covering for a teapot, of either padded or knitted fabric, intended to keep the pot and thus the tea warm. In our post-modern, cynical world, cozy is a suspect term, disingenuous at best and delusional at worst. Well, too bad, because sometimes we need a good cozy to relax us and knit up our frazzled nerves. We need stories of community and difficult relatives and the small comings and goings of basically good people.

Although most cozies are mysteries, there are prominent exceptions in regular fiction. Maeve Binchey weaves tight, clear eyed tapestries of small Irish communities dealing with the friction between traditional and modern life. Circle of Friends is her most famous but Scarlet Feather and Whitethorn Wood are every bit as good. On this side of the pond, the great Fanny Flagg, who does not write fast enough, tells small stories about home towns that call through the years to those who leave. Flagg’s work always carries a single punch that shakes up the reader and pulls the whole book together (dang she is good). Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe is Fanny’s best known book but Welcome to the World Baby Girl and all of the rest of her all-too-small oeuvre are Southern treats of the highest quality.

Sometimes, in the genre of cozies, old glories can be regained. Regency Romances can be absolutely terrible, hackneyed with little dialogue and badly drawn characters. But the colossus who invented the genre has returned to remind us just how good Regency romances can be: Georgette Heyer wrote from the middle 1920’s till the early 1950’s and hers are without question the funniest and most lively, with the best drawn characters, of any romances ever written. They are true comedies of manners and Mme. Heyer is second only to Jane Austen in her language. About three months ago a customer and I were bemoaning the absence of Heyer on the open market. I went to the computer and found a miracle. Harlequin, who owns the Heyer rights for the US market, has put out a full, unified edition in trade paperback. What larks, to have the great master back.

For most readers, a true cozy is a mystery. Although Jane Marple may appear cozy to the uninitiated, with her garden and her knitting, don’t be fooled. Dame Christie has one character refer to Miss Marple as Nemesis, meting out justice without mercy. Besides, Christie isn’t happy unless at least three people are dead.

The true cozy is a small mystery, only one corpse and an amateur sleuth to unravel the tale. Cozies come in series and almost always have a female protagonist . Relationships is a hallmark, with the heroine accompanied by a group of friends and relations, willing to help, often getting in the way and continuing from one book to all others. Cozies may have important male characters and the finding of true love by our central character is often a secondary theme for the series. Unlike the gumshoe/shamus mysteries of Chandler/Hammett et al, the women of cozies have jobs and often small businesses that bring them in contact with a larger community. Most of these books take place in small towns that can support the tea shops (Laura Childs), bakeries (Joanne Fluke), quilting and knitting emporia (Mary Danheim) and book stores (Lorna Barrett) that makeup the cozy universe.

In one very fanciful series, a young mother and townie is aided in her investigations by very helpful and loving ghost (Nancy Atherton.) If the setting is a city, our intrepid amateurs stick to one neighborhood where everyone knows them and they can always find parking . Cozies are idealized us, working and living and by the way solving dreadful murders.

This is why we love cozies. The lives of the heroines are not too much different from ours. They are brave and smart and loyal and have friends who love them. They also fight the good fight for justice and often mercy. Lost treasures are found, bad marriages end and the dead find rest. These books are perfect for beaches and pools and any little space of time you might have to yourselves.

Please, enjoy.