I Got Them Wedding Blues - Part Two

I remembered again tonight why I talked my bride into a small family only wedding in the back yard when we got married 36 years ago. It was all those picky little etiquette things that no ordinary amount of common sense could possibly get right.

I picked up the mail tonight and saw it included a "regrets" RSVP from our next door neighbors. We see and talk with them almost every day. They're good neighbors and nice people. We have left our house keys with them when we're going to be gone in case someone needs to get into the house. We pick up their newspaper and hold it for them when they're going to be gone. The Wives consult each other on plants. The Husbands consult each other on how to get out of yard work. We are completely friendly with each other -- no formality.

So, I remarked to The Wife when I brought in the mail, "This is odd, Joann sent us a 'Regrets' in the mail."

The Wife looked at me uncomprehendingly, "So?"

"Why would she mail us her regrets instead of just tell us, or hand us the card?"

Indignantly, "That's not how you do things."

"We didn't mail the invitation to them instead of handing it to them, did we?"

"Of course."

Sigh.

The mail man literally goes from our mailbox to their mailbox. But I doubt that he is allowed to just pick up the invitation from our box, drive 20 feet and put it in their box. No, Emily Post would object. He has to pick up the invitation, take it to the processing center five miles away, dump it in the postmark machine, sort it, take it back out to his truck and then drive past our house to the neighbor's house and put it in their box, reversing the process when they RSVP. Anything simpler would be impolite.

Sheesh.

Jeremy and Lydia -- A Looong Time Ago

I have enjoyed getting acquainted again over the last several months with one of my readers, Lydia, from Boston whom I knew nearly 30 years ago when she lived across the street from us on Anita in Grosse Pointe Woods, MI. I don't know her email address and we have communicated by leaving notes on each other's blogs. Last night, I was looking at a scrapbook The Wife is compiling for Jeremy and Bomina and came upon this picture. With the blog turning Jeremy-o-centric for the next several weeks because of his upcoming wedding in Korea, I thought it appropriate to share the picture with the world, but particularly with Lydia. On the chance that she doesn't remember, the people in the picture, from the left, are: Jeremy, Shannon, Becky (not the Anonymous Becky who sometimes comments on this blog) and Lydia. The picture would have been taken sometime in 1978 or 1979.