It’s still Monday here in Santa Cruz and early for Tuesday Mewsday, but on Tuesday I will not be blogging. I will be getting married. We’ll have a simple civil ceremony with lunch with family beforehand and dinner with friends afterwards. After years of believing this opportunity might not come in our lifetimes, we don’t need frippery or fanfare. We have each other and we have the opportunity to commit ourselves to marriage, with all the work and rewards that will involve.
But let me take a moment now for frivolity and paint a picture for you. If this were a fairy-tale world, with magic charms and talking animals and all sorts of other possibilities, I would don a gown with an immensely long train, ending with small satin bows along the hem. Each bow would be attached to a taffeta mouse, stuffed with the finest catnip, with whiskers embroidered in silver and pearls for eyes. And as I walked down the aisle, I would be followed by dozens of prancing kittens, their little heads wreathed in flowers. They would leap over one another joyously as they scampered after those catnip mice, then would settle down in a circle around me, washing their paws and curling up for naps as the ceremony began. At the reception, we would carry them about in baskets, giving them to our guests: “Here, have a kitten! Have two!” And everyone’s lap would be filled with lively bits of purring fluff, so we wouldn’t be able to rise for the toasts, but would make them from our seats. After all, it’s wrong to disturb a kitten—even for a wedding.