A Longer Word For Joy

The last wedding rehearsal I attended, I had to stand in for the bride during the fake vows. The bride's father and father-in-law to be (they were both ministers) were both performing the ceremony. My friend Shawn was slated to perform the requisite reading of sappy love poetry (Donne, I believe, someone else had to do the Corinthians verses) and we'd already gotten into a fender bender on the way to the rehearsal, gotten lost, realized we were way overdressed for the event, and now had to endure the last part of the evening in a small-town church with a bunch of nervous people who were trying to learn their roles. Shawn and I knew the bride, a beautiful girl who was marrying a total stranger to us, a man who did not like us upon our first meeting (we met at Christmas and their cat was threatening to knock over the huge tree and drank Mountain Dew out of his bowl -- his one big trick that we fixated on given the lack of conversation) and kept introducing us as the writers, the way someone might say leper or whore.

I had never heard the superstition about not going through the rehearsal before and wondered if the bad luck might get on me, the stand-in. Lord knows, I looked the part, all dressed in black and standing before God, promising my love to a man I didn't know. Hey, I'd done that before except my dress this time was much, much better.

Michelle's Spell of the Day

"Martini is a longer word for joy." Clara Bow

Cocktail Hour

The End of Summer

1 part vodka
1 part cranberry juice
1 part grapefruit juice

Serve over crushed ice.

Benedictions and Maledictions

Happy Fall!