And Lips Every Year

 

My mother-in-law is an absolutely wonderful person.  She’s awfully far away and I miss her.  But to tell the truth we didn’t see her very often when we were only hours away in Beijing either.   She wasn’t able to attend our wedding, twenty-four years ago, but to allow her an indelible point of engagement for the big day, we allowed her to choose when it would be. And yes, it needed to be in the next little while as my fiancé was here on an engagement visa, predicated on a quick consummation. 

 

My wife’s mom’s from rural Shandong and she is very traditional in some things.  We suggested she pick the day.  I was told she was consulting people.  Wow.  What would this yield? We were told that the most auspicious day to be married in the month of March would be the eighteenth.  As I recall, it was a Tuesday, that year and it was wildly inconvenient for all my pals to come and fete me and my bride there in Boston, during the middle of the week.   It was only with a bit of time that I realized she’d chosen the stock number of luck in her neck of the woods.  “One”, “eight” can be pronounced yao ba. That is homophone for “I want to prosper.”  Looking out for us, she would have the powerful mnemonic near our minds and lips every year. 

 

So, our anniversary is always the eighteenth.  This is always one day before my dad’s birthday and it is forever the day after St. Pat’s.  On our twentieth we went to Venice, which was wonderful, but here at our twenty-fourth, during the middle of the pandemic, neither of us are inclined to do much.  We agree to take out at the solid Italian joint up in Gardiner, Lombardi’s. 

 

Later, in Lombardi’s reception room, I was told mine would be right up.  A dude came it.  Was served.  Left.  She went back into the kitchen and yelled at her colleagues.  I took a walk around the plain, empty dining room.  How odd it will be to once again pile into a tight environment and enjoy a dense environment?  I was finally brought my boxes of food and I paid them cash, as they asked for and headed back out to the car.  It was my turn to play tunes for the ride home and listened to “Public Enemy No. 1” from the first album and tried not to sing along with every single word.   We’ve got a lot of food for dinner.

 

 

 

 

Thursday, 03/18/21