My mother-in-law-to-be, Mildred, in a pain in the backside. She’s the epitome of bad mother-in-law. She’s always sticking her nose into our business, feigning curiosity when actually she’s just a control freak and wants to assert her superior opinion. Now that Gareth and I are planning our wedding she’s always asking me all these questions, implying that I’m not prepared enough, and then when I give her my answer she acts like the thing I’ve chosen is the worst possible option. She has to criticise everything from the reception booking to the stretch limo hire in Melbourne.
At first she didn’t like my choice of reception. She said it was too far from Melbourne CBD. Then she didn’t like my choice of food because it was vegetarian and she said that vegetarian food is too “povvo” for a wedding. Then she was unhappy with the seating arrangement because I’d put her next to old uncle Billy who stinks like BO. She’s actually asked about my dress a few times but so far I’ve managed to change the subject. The last thing I was is her butting in and making me change my choice of dress. It’s a very beautiful dress that I inherited from my late mother. I know that Mildred won’t like it cos she’s a cow. But I’m going to wear my mother’s dress. Forget her!
I just hope she doesn’t ask us about our vows.
So while I wanted a horse and cart, Mildred wanted us to get a wedding limo hire. Near Melbourne, she said, limos are affordable and much cleaner than horse and cart. I acquiesced to the limo hire, I’m not too fussed, I like limos anyway. I just wish she would stop imposing on this wedding.
What goes into the perfect weekend? I’ve been thinking about this recently while writing my book Weekend Philosophy. In it, I postulate that the ideal weekend is a paradox. It requires a duality of experiences that might seem to conflict but in fact bind together like yin and yang. Hence the perfect weekend must at once be both soothing and exhilarating, rejuvenating yet satisfyingly exhausting. This is the type of weekend that we can only strive for in our lives, achieving them in rare special moments that live on in our memories for years to come…