Vexing, Perplexing and Sweet

I'm tackling the room-block part of wedding planning. For some reason, I expected this part to be easy. I'd read it was a snap: Call hotels, ask them for a number of rooms to be set aside for the weekend of your wedding, sign the papers they send (for some reason, they all want to send papers), and wah-LAH (like my French?), you'll have rooms at nice (or at least nice-ish) rates for your guests. Turns out I'm having to deal with all sorts of strange bureaucratic weirdness. Nobody seems to want to sent aside time to show me rooms (I'm also looking for a wedding-night suite). They just want me to show up, which makes my antennae quiver mightily as I can see myself hearing the line "That room is booked, so we can't show it to you" repeated endlessly. And one place told me I had to guarantee that half the rooms I asked for would, in fact, be reserved, occupied and paid for by my guests, implying I would be liable if that didn't happen. I sent an email back asking if they would agree to simply release any unreserved rooms back into the general reservation pool 30 days before my weekend, like all the other nice hoteliers do. We'll see what he says.
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Before my sweetie and I met, I'd pretty much gotten over the idea that one day I'd be married. I figured I'd be the single, world-traveling auntie who'd never know the inside of a bridal gown. So the idea of having a bridal shower was even more remote a musing for me. I've only attended one bridal shower, and that was when I was 22. I don't even remember what happened. But my dear friend Donna and my godmother Helen are getting together to throw me a shower in mid-January, so party time approaches. At first I was perplexed. Apparently, a theme is called for in these things. A theme like "linens" or "kitchen" or (eep!) "lingerie." (I chose "kitchen.") The reason a theme is needed is that people expect to bring you gifts (why gifts need to follow a theme is another puzzlement that I think is just a woman thing I didn't get training in). The gift thing is weird when you're in your mid-40s and don't need much. I registered, but kept it on the small side, and emphasized with both hostesses that what I'd really love is for people to bring family recipes so I can make a cookbook. I'm hoping that's what people do--and I plan to bring my digital camera so I can get their photo to go with their recipe.

Besides hanging out with my favorite people, it looks like I'm going to get one of my best-loved treats. Donna said cake was called for, and asked for my favorite kind. I said "cream puffs!" And she said "Well, you can't have 'Congratulations April and Bob' written on cream puffs, but if that's what you want, that's what we'll get." So now I'm looking forward to this shower thing like an addict looks forward to a hit. Doesn't matter what else is going to happen, I'm going to get my Beard Papa fix--something that hasn't happened in months. Donna said they'll likely have games, just to get my goat, but that they won't humiliate me too much. I don't care what they do to me; they can make me construct a bridal gown out of damn toilet paper if the want. I'll have choux pastry and vanilla custard waiting for me on a sideboard, and a big smile on my face.