i feel just like peter mayle, only i don't think i'm making any progress.

With all of our talk of two-month marks and the stresses of August, I didn't even realize that it was September. But maybe that's a good thing, isn't it? Amanda is probably right - we are reasonably organized and we are being pretty efficient. We're looking ahead at the final month to our wedding with no illusions. We are prepared to face it together. Just 36 more days, then a big party (with, you know, a ceremony and some minor speaking roles for both of us), and then we are off on our honeymoon, free to relax is Montreal.

IF ONLY WE KNEW HOW TO RELAX IN FRENCH!

Suddenly, September isn't quite enough time to accomplish everything we need to, which now, in my mind, consists of gaining conversational fluency in French.

In high school, I took French for four years because it seemed like a better way to meet girls than Spanish class. I traveled to Paris and Rennes and watched Beethoven dubbed into French with the young daughter of my host family. And I understood it. I continued studying the language when I went to college and there I plateaued. In intermediate classes it felt like we were covering the same rudimentary grammatical rules ad nauseum, but to move up to the next level of courses meant translating 50 pages a night of A Remembrance of Things Past. At a certain point, the classes became far too much work for a non-major - nightly essays, five days a week of instruction time, conversation circles, presentations. "Patrice," the professor would say, "we need more majors like you - those literature courses are when the language really gets interesting." I dropped French that year. I planned on keeping up with the language on my own, reading Tintin comics, convinced that the classes weren't all that useful. "Study abroad?" I'd think," I'll just go somewhere English-speaking."


After returning from an American art school in Florence, I began to realize what a mistake it had been to abandon French. While I was Italy, I'd seen the result of an American education exclusively in English. It was bleached-blonde girl wearing her boyfriend's ASU sweatshirt and throwing up outside of the American bar across the street from Piazza Santa Croce. I was terrified - I couldn't be one of them, I was meant to be a polyglot. Remembering how easily French once came to me, I decided to audit an intermediate class, hoping to refresh my skills.

On the first day, the underclassmen around me passed the time until the class began recounting their high school boarding experience in the south of France. When I'd taken intermediate French my Freshman year, most students couldn't count past 17. As an icebreaker, we were supposed to say something we enjoyed eating that began with the same first letter as our first initial. Do you know what I said?

Je m'appelle Patrice, et j'aime manger du pizza.

There was no way I could blame that on just having lived in Italy. It was the only food I could remember. I slept through class the next day.

What can I say now?
Desole, je seulement parle un peu de francais.

* * *

Feeling ahead of the game, back in June, Amanda and I set out our plans for learning French. We'd listened to tapes before we went to Italy, and while we did struggle the first few days, we at least learned to yell "fire!" in a melodramatic Italian accent. I said I'd dig up my old conjugation guides and grammatical dictionaries and we could practice with one another. Amanda's idea had something to do with unlocking the subconscious learning zones of your brain, where language flowed intuitively. It also involved a bottle of wine for each practice session. After a few nights of rousing Amanda out of her early evening, French lesson slumber, we kind of let it slip. And now we have 36 days left.

The other day, I did a Google search for a campy image of an old "Learn French Quickly!" kind of ad, that I would put as the image for this post; something we could all laugh about. The image above is what I found and it in no way comforts me or soothes my nerves about my lack of French proficiency. Okay, deep breath, I recognize some of the words, right? Eat with pleasure ... without .... fatigue ... the good sausages ... of the ... prodigal pig? What the hell does that mean? There is no way I will ever be able to follow French directions if I can't even explain why the pig is so bountiful.

Understanding written words will probably be the least of my problem in Quebec, a province that has made a case for separatism on the basis of linguistic differences. From what I understand, Montrealers have surmounted much of the former divide between Anglophones and Francophones, but even if the two languages coexist in relative harmony, Quebecois French is a separate dialect (a basilect, in fact, since I spent so much time on Wikipedia today) known as joual, that developed pretty much independently from continental French since the 1600s. There goes any academic French that may still be lingering in my brain.
Additionally, the province has the Office québécois de la langue française, a governmental department that patrols signage and storefronts, ensuring that English does not eclipse written French either in order or size. Tirer must appear first and in larger letters than Pull on doors. Yes, they have english on signage, but I'll probably have to bring along a magnifying glass to find it.

So I am clearly in the right mindset for a honeymoon, eh? We could have gone to Hawaii and lounged on the beach, our lips veritably playing with the sounds of the Hawaiian language - words that are far from being essential to getting around on the islands. But no, I wanted to go to a city that will probably be waist-deep in snow when we arrive. I now spend my breakfasts studying my old textbooks and grammatical guidebooks. I whiled away most of a slow afternoon at work quietly reciting the name of a Montreal ice cream place to myself, trying to understand the bilingual double-entendre. Havres aux glaces. Havres aux glaces. Havres aux glaces. My tongue felt clumsy against the roof of my mouth with the -re sound. Late in the day, I found this demo of a natural-sounding online vocalizer that AT&T is developing. I listened to the pronunciation. That's it? Have a glass? I could have figured that out just by looking at it. Maybe I have less language troubles than I think, so long as I can figure out a way to have this program do all of my speaking for me. Still, if that's Montreal's idea of a pun, maybe humor won't translate.

portland fauna.

Before we get too far, you probably shouldn't consider this to be anything at all like a primer on Portlanders. Just like this blog offers our highly selective take on what makes our Puddletown great, this is just our view of the folks we run into regularly around town. Look at it more as a heads-up for what to expect, a way to fit in with the locals. Or it could be a cautionary tale. Depending on your point of view.

Everyone in town has a project - most have more than one. Geeking out about your favorite obscure subject is de rigeur, as is indie craftiness. Projects lead to collaborations (because anywhere you go, you are bound to see at least three people you know from somewhere). Collaborations lead to grand schemes. Grand schemes lead to booze. Booze leads to food. That's pretty much the trifecta of local interest - discipline-defying projects, food, booze. And there is pretty much a festival for each of them. The best combine all three. That's why we headed out to the annual Adult Soapbox Derby (not adult like strip clubs - though in Portland, its not a bad idea to ask first.) Art cars careening down Mt. Tabor past throngs of jeering, drinking Portlanders. Some crash, others collapse mid-course, and some lazily roll down the hill (because they are shaped like taquerias).

But walking around, it is pretty easy to feel that Portland has embraced its stereotypes enthusiastically (while still maintaining a standoffish distance of aloof irony and too-cool apathy). Bikes, tattoos, beer, babies, dogs, hipsters (and a heady dose of d.i.y.-daredevil recklessness). Hell, in my mind, there are much worse stereotypes.


PDX Adult Soapbox Derby '07 from stumptownpanda and Vimeo.

Counterpoint.

In the true spirit of one who is about to pledge her love and support to a certain P-erson, I would now like to contradict everything that certain someone has been saying for the past few months.

Well, not everything.

We're getting married, it is true. We (Patrick) did make all of those invitations that you now have in your hands/on your fridge/framed in your living room. We (Patrick) did want to have a summer wedding after seeing those admittedly dapper suits the Decemberists wore. And we (Patrick...okay, me too) did get the hell out of the country when the two-month-mark rolled into town.

However, I would just like to say that we have done it all with, I think, a lot less stress and heartache than one stereotypically associates with planning the "happiest day of your life." I read Harry Potter the entire time Pat printed those invitations. Wedding planning has not barred our participation in an assortment of fine activities (Exhibit A: the Decemberists concert). As for going to Vancouver...the nightmarket was a much stronger pull than panic about the wedding was a push. Things have been busy, yes. But, things are always busy during this time of year, it being summer and all - that glorious time of year when the excessive sunshine makes everyone shockingly social.

The fact that at times this summer I have wanted to draw back blissfully into wintry hibernation has stemmed only in part from the wedding planning. When it comes down to it, I have actually been enjoying the process, enjoying the planning - and I like being with Patrick now more than ever. I may be going out on a limb here, but I would say Patrick has been having a pretty good time as well.

The reason I feel the need to write this is that people have been asking me lately (more and more as the wedding gets closer) how things are going, whether I am nervous or even panicked, how I am dealing with the insurmountable stress that planning this wedding must certainly bring. I find myself falling into the role everyone seems to expect - making faces and talking about how much work it has all been, how crazy it is making me and how I will be so glad when it is all over. I actually have to stop myself from saying these things, because the truth is, I don't feel this way at all.

If I have learned anything during the wedding planning, it is that the wedding industry has created the self-perpetuating monster that is the modern-day-wedding. When did we decide that a couple has one day to show the world how exciting, romantic and glorious their relationship is (and that they must show this by throwing the most lavish party possible and making themselves miserable along the way)? Seriously, treating the wedding as the ultimate measure of how happy a couple is and how successful a marriage will be is akin to expecting winning the title of Prom Queen to decide your future happiness and popularity. I never did win, so I guess you can say I'm a pretty hopeless case at this point.

For the record, I would just like to say that this wedding will not be the end all be all snapshot of P and my relationship, and I couldn’t be happier about that. It will, however, be a pretty great party. Now bring on that sangria; it is August, after all, and I think I'll have another glass.

nightmarket.

perhaps a little too much wedding.

Maybe it is a bad sign that when we go to a concert now, all we can think to say to each other is, "We should have had a summer wedding - those suits look so damn dapper!"

we'll have plenty of time to take care of that later...

an improvement over our earlier to do lists

A and I went to a friend's wedding recently (as in, "over a month ago") feeling pretty good about where we were at with planning. At the very least, I was feeling good and blissfully ignorant and Amanda's list-making had been worn down by my regular rejoinder of "we'll take care of that in August." August, I imagined, would be a month when our only concern would be passing the pitcher of sangria while we leisurely took care of all those remaining details surrounding the wedding. Between our quickly filling-calendar for July and the inevitable stress of September's one-month mark, August became the receptacle for my procrastination.

Now, this wedding was the first that we had attended since we had announced our engagement; our first in-action look at what we were up against. Until this point, much of our planning had been based on the gauzy, soft-focus romance of how we remembered our friend's weddings (drawn exclusively from our blurry snapshots and champagne-addled memories). Here is what I remember from most of our friends' weddings:

There was food. It was held somewhere. I'm pretty sure they ended up married.

When you boil it all down, wedding's are just overblown, formal, expensive parties, right? If that was the case, then we had nothing to worry about. Our two main priorities had been securing the event space and the caterer and did we accomplish them? Handily. Promptly. Now top my glass off and make sure some of those boozy orange slices make it in.

Then we arrived at our friends' wedding. What started off as a night of Amanda making awkward introductions between me and people she had forgotten she had gone to grade school with, quickly devolved into an evening of conspiratorial whispering between she and I, dissecting their ceremony and reception:
"They have programs, is that on our list?"
"How far are we on compiling music for the reception?"
"Do we need a separate bouquet to toss?"
"Shit, they have, like, a dozen cakes! Maybe we need more cakes?"
"Look at the bride and groom - we won't get to sit the entire night of our wedding!"
"We won't get to eat!"

Great, the two things we had actually taken care of in advance would go unused by us. Meanwhile, everything that all of our guests would be expecting was still waiting to be taken care of in August. Damn, I just spilled my sangria all over myself.

We chose to get married when we did partially because it seemed like the right length for an engagement. We had seen so many of our friends have l o n g engagements with drawn-out waiting periods in the middle. We thought seven and a half months was short enough to be efficient, but long enough to take care of everything. If I could reschedule everything, I would have a one, maybe two month engagement. Like ripping off a band-aid, it would hurt and then it would be done with. And isn't that just the kind of lovely metaphor more wedding's should aspire to?

As I've said before, the wedding industry is huge and maybe a little bit evil. It's really quite easy to get overwhelmed by all of the details that, somewhere in our history, have been incorporated into our cultural idea of the perfect day. While originally we'd been overwhelmed to the point of catatonia, we have found that you can just as easily be overwhelmed into taking on too many projects. Most nights we spend making favors and invites, calling for various appointments and drawing out elaborate play-by-plays of the ceremony. Which reminds me to say that you should never look at wedding books - they overwhelm couples directly into that Martha Stewart automaton mentality. I really think that if we had maybe glanced at even one more wedding book "for ideas," we would be sitting on our living room floor this very minute, trying to figure out how to make individual birch-bark wrapped boxes to hold hand-picked and home-perfumed rose petals for our guests to throw. At least our place would have smelled nice. But I don't think I would have been able to find our to-do list under all of the birch clippings and glue-guns.

two colors = two printings

And these are the photos from round two. After this, I just have to put A to work cutting out and assembling the parts. For hours.



























It actually is a lovely color on the cards. Really.