Accidental Husband Test

So the Fiancé and I have only been engaged for a few weeks now, but we've been together for years. He has proven his mettle time and again. He’s supportive, he’s loyal, he’s hilarious, blah blah blah. Pretty much all of his prior awesomeness has now been trumped by the Accidental Husband Test he passed this weekend.

Photo from Etsy. (Seriously)

This is a story of puke, y’all. If you can’t handle a little vomit in a story, you may want to skip this entry. (But I promise not to get too graphic. I’m no Daniel Tosh.)

Any time I have to get on a plane, I get motion sick. It sucks. But the good news is, I can usually head it off by taking some preemptive Dramamine, and thereby keep the motion sickness to mild headache and avoid getting to the serious-nausea stage. However, when I woke up at the godforsaken hour of 5 AM to head to the airport, I woke up with a migraine.

Not. Good.

I rarely get migraines; they’re a remnant from an awful car wreck I was in a few years back. Thank all that’s good and holy, they're not the norm for me - but when one sets in, it’s unforgiving. We’re talking throbbing, disorientation, nausea, utter misery. A migraine usually means calling in to work. Staying in bed. Which is not an option when you have to get on a plane. To go wear a bridesmaid dress in someone else's wedding.

So I drag myself out of bed. The Fiance helps keep me propped up as we take the dogs outside, and then he schleps all the luggage outside. I take some migraine meds. My friend Rachel arrives to take us to the airport. I manage to keep it together for most of the car ride, but I can tell things are about to get ugly.

Please let me make it to a toilet please let me make it to a toilet please let me make it to a toilet…

Rachel pulls the van up to the drop-off curb at the airport. I say, very quietly, “I’m sorry, but I’m going to throw up,” and then open the van door and keep my word, all over the sidewalk.

I’m not proud.

Rachel’s look of pity was a sight to behold. I must have looked really, really pathetic. But then I felt better. I thought it was over.

Then came the plane ride. The puddle-jumping, turbulent, stuffy-hot-miserable-get-me-out-of-this-hell plane ride. In order to avoid the truly unfortunate details and cancel the suspense, let's just say I threw up, into a flimsy airline barf bag, seated less than six inches from my future husband.

My future husband, who kept his hand on my back the whole time and told me it would be okay. Who pointedly ignored the lady across the aisle and her disdainful look. Who later described the incident to the friend who picked us up from the airport as "the most discreet bout of getting sick you could imagine. It was practically graceful."

Now that's how you pass an accidental husband test.

He's a keeper, y'all.

My Sister Lives in a Van

I promised good characters in this adventure, right? So here’s one. My little sister (seven and a half years younger than I am, far for more freckled, much better metabolism) and her boyfriend live in a van. 

For real. So does their dog.

Van Dog. (Dog van Dog?)

They used to live in an apartment, but earlier this year, they decided to take their show on the road. Literally. They sold most of their stuff, bought a van, and started driving around to see the country and peddle their music. With their powers combined, Van Sister and Her Boyfriend form a band called Scuttlebuggs,and they recently released an album. It’s great and you can listen to it for free! Even better, after you listen to it, go ahead and pay the few bucks it costs to download your own copy. They live in a van, people. They need your dollars.

Here are some additional pictures of said van, in case you need some proof:

Bed van Bed...

Sister van Sister...

Can you spot the Toilet van Toilet?!

Recently, they headed down South, including through our neck of the woods, so all members of Scuttlebuggs (dog included) stayed with us for a few days. The stories they shared of their couch-surfing and van-sleeping adventures made the Fiancé and I feel really, really dull by comparison. While we’ve been living in a rental townhouse with sad old carpeting, they’ve been shacking up with Sexual Libertines in New Orleans! Sharing camping space with toothless ex-cons in the Ozarks! Sleeping in Walmart parking lots and going for days on end without showers!*

This is not the first time my sister and her dude have done something crazy. And had it work out. You should ask them about the time they spent 6 weeks trekking through Cambodia, Laos, Thailand and Vietnam. Or the time my sister basically inadvertently landed a national Walgreens voice-over gig - yeah, she's the voice in this spot (and several others):

Basically, as my brother says, the sis and her dude are magical-fairies, and things just don't work the same way for other people as they do for those two.

That's my sister. Who lives in a van.

Van Sister and Her Boyfriend were officially the first family members to see us post-engagement. They brought a bottle of champagne, and we toasted with mimosas all of the good times and giggles and potential madcap antics ahead. Because with a supporting cast like this**, you know this show is destined to be epic. Or at least marginally bizarre.

My sister's boyfriend (Boyfriend van Boyfriend)
gives The Fiancé  & me two thumbs up.

*This is 100% true, but in this instance rather than feeling dull by comparison we felt squeaky clean. Sparkly, even.

**Seriously, fun and fascinating as Van Sister and her boyfriend are, they’re not the only colorful characters in our pack of friends and family. And we’re not actually all that dull ourselves… 

What's an Off Season Bride? I Am!

Hello. My name is Beth, and I am an Off Season Bride.

OMG in the middle of typing,
I still get thrown by this thing.

How am I "off"? Let me count the ways:

1) I'm a decade behind most of my friends. I'm a 30something first-timer to this bridal-thing. Since most of my peers got married 5 to 10 years ago (or more), I've been to many a wedding, and been in several. Rookie Bride, but Veteran Bridesmaid. Practically a professional. In fact, I once spent a full week in a bridesmaid dress; more on that later. The point is, I'm already realizing that this whole bridal-thing is something that I'm not only doing later than a lot of my friends, but also something I'm experiencing in a very different way now than I would have in my twenties. For better, or worse - but hopefully, mostly, for better.

2) We're having a late winter wedding. To clarify: NOT ON OR NEAR VALENTINE'S DAY, Y'ALL. But a late winter wedding. Which technically makes the wedding "off season," too - which is super awesome for venue and flight prices, bee tee dubs.

3) I am an indie-artsy-theater-nerd-writer-girl/native Midwesterner, who (due to life being hilarious) will be getting married in Mississippi, under a chuppah. Enough said.

4) My fiancé and I have already been together for about six years. Which means a lot of folks have made jokes about our timing being off (though, after much debate, I think our timing is spot-on; more on that later, too). It also makes me feel weird that a year and a half from now, we will celebrate our "one year anniversary" as we approach 8 actual years of being together, and, like, 6 years of folding each others' underwear. How does that work?

5) Speaking of the fiancé, did I mention he's a stand-up comedian? Yeah, for real. People actually marry comedians. (Though to be clear, he does have a day job - where he gets to drink at the office... where I used to work...) The thing is, he's awesome and makes me laugh every day. And also uses me for material sometimes all the damn time. And you know what they say about payback.

All things considered, especially when you throw in my future husband's and my collective lack of mushy-inclinations, I think I qualify as off, bridal-y-speaking. Probably some of you out there do, too. And then I'm guessing there are you others who want to watch my off-kilter escapades the way you watch reality television, cracking open a bottle, picking favorite cast members, and hoping someone cries or mud-wrassles or flips a table before it's all over.

No promises. But Honey Boo Boo Child is, frankly, a little threatened by me.

OH! One final thing I should make clear. This blog is not an advice-site. I am claiming zero wedding expertise (other than when it comes to being a reasonably-kickass bridesmaid). This is a story-sharing, celebrating, venting, writing-so-I-don't-freak-out site. It's a journey.

So c'mon, let's (b)ride.