Engagement Ring 101

I thought it was sweet when, the first night after I got my engagement ring, I took it off, placed it on the bedside table, and got in bed, only to hear Rick ask, mildly exasperated, "What are you doing? You're not supposed to take that ring off! Ever!"

How sweetly naive, I thought; he must think that whole "wearing the ring for the rest of your life" thing was literal. How cute (and reassuring, that he'd never slept with a married woman before). But seriously, I thought, who doesn't take her ring off for bed or to shower or to go to the gym or play contact sports?

Apparently I'm the idiot.

I first learned this when I mentioned Rick's "cute" reaction to my grandmother. She quickly set me straight. You never take that ring off! she instructed me. To underline the point, she told me of how she had lost her engagement ring when she took it off at Rockaway Beach and it fell into the ocean.

(Luckily she had insurance on it and they used the money to build a back porch. But that's not the point.)

So you're supposed to wear it to bed? I asked her.
Yep.
What about in the shower?
Uh-huh.
When you're doing dishes?
(Apparently this is cause for some debate - some women do remove their rings for dishes.)

Rick later also allowed that perhaps it would be wise to remove the ring while playing contact sports, if I have a tight pocket. And my grandmother instructed that I turn it inward if I'm in a bad neighborhood.

I'm not sure I believe all this. Doesn't common sense tell you that it's ok to take off a ring if you have a safe place for it, like the nightstand? I mean, it could put some unsuspecting sleeping fiance's eye out. And can't you allow for some sort of discretion about when to wear the ring and when not to? (Like, maybe not to the beach?) I'll admit that I've been caught staring at the ring like a moron a couple times in the past few days, but surely my judgment hasn't been so far compromised by Bridal Syndrome that I can't be trusted to put it in a safe place. It's not like I have to sew my mittens to my winter coat or anything (though come to think of it, I guess I did misplace a couple pairs this winter).

I love my ring, which I find almost troubling given my complete ambivalence toward jewelry before this. But it's a little strange to think of never taking it off. It's almost strangely suffocating, in a completely misplaced sort of way, like I've grown a new (beautiful, shiny) appendage. That's kinda weird.

So, you married types out there, any thoughts? When do you wear your ring and when do you take it off?

Mrs. X

For those who don't scroll down to the fringes of the blog too often, there's an excellent discussion/rumble over last name changes and the implications here. Way to go, Charlin and T-Perl!

The Real Ring

It doesn't come in delicious candy flavors, but on the bright side, it probably won't attract ants when I'm 60. So I guess it's a keeper.

Early And Often

Only one more day to vote on our celebrity couple name! It appears from the tallies so far that Ariick and Harrielle are neck in neck. Which I think means that our one loyal reader is undecided and keeps alternating votes.

Cast your ballot today!

Thoughts of the Day

Now in numbered form!

1. David Paterson admits he cheated on his wife. Turns out, his wife cheated on him too. What the hell is wrong with people? Is this marriage thing a joke?

2. I guess not if you're Heather Mills. Da-amn.

3. I've gotten used to the wedding-related price tags so much that my eyes no longer bug out so much when I see all the digits. But then today I got an email from one place that got me all bug-eyed again. In addition to the mandatory costs, like the $18/hour parking valet, there is the standard per-person food cost. Cost? $225 a person. Then again, I probably shouldn't have looked past the $24,000 site rental fee.

4. Meanwhile, while pondering bridal gowns (and how unexcited they make me), I was even more startled by the wording on one price tag. $895 each. Um, ok.

5. My secret plan to convince Rick to elope seems to be gaining steam. Ssh...

Adventures In Registry, Part I

Why registering hasn't been made into a horror movie yet is beyond me.

Or maybe I just hate shopping more than the average bear.

In any case, yes, we went a-registering today. (Why we're registering 18 months before we get married is also beyond me. This you will have to take up with my future husband, who lobbied for the trip.)

Our first stop, at the state's only Crate & Barrel, was fairly uneventful, though I might say fairly stressful if you a) don't feel particularly moved by variations on the white plate or b) are terrified of turning quickly and knocking over a whole display of glassware. Not that that applies to anyone here.

(Though I will say this: whoever invented those zapper gun thingies is a genius. It definitely kept at least my boy interested amid an endless parade of glassware.)

Our second stop was a lineny/beddy-type store mentioned in Team America: World Police's hit song, "America, Fuck Yeah." This is where I'd set our horror movie.

I am a big fan of this store. I've moved five times in the 3.5 years since college, so I've spent quite a bit of time in the chain's various tristate locations, nearly exhausting a supply of 20 percent off coupons. I thought I knew what I was in for.

Enter the registry guy. I'll call him Lloyd.

At first Lloyd seemed like an annoyed salesperson, fulfilling his duties to act interested in the engaged couple. After taking care of some technical issues, he launched into the obligatory "congratulations!" (is every wedding-related vendor obligated to begin every conversation that way? I don't think my dad has even used that word yet). I sort of felt bad for wasting his time and was fully prepared to nod my head until he gave us the scanner gun and let us zap items at our leisure.

Instead, Lloyd suddenly launched into guilt-trip wedding planner mode. For a non-Jewish, non-woman, he was mighty impressive. First he wanted to know our wedding date.

Me: We don't have one yet.
Lloyd: [Looks befuddled.]
Me: We haven't set the date. We haven't found a place yet. Can we just say the month?
Lloyd: Most people have a wedding date. That's like the first thing people do.
Me: Well, uh, we want to find a place first and then set it.
Lloyd: Ok but the computer needs a date.
Me: Can we just make one up?
Lloyd: You will need to update it as soon as possible. Because your guests will look at the registry and see the date and need to know.
[Note to potential guests: If you do not receive an invitation by sometime in the middle of 2009, you are not invited. Don't go looking at our registry for wedding info.]

We solve that bit by agreeing to a fake wedding date. Peace restored.

But only until he asks about China. Do you need information about China?
No, we say. We're not interested.
What, he asks, you're getting it from your parents?
No, we say; we don't need China.

Awkward pause.

I won't get into our other conversations with Lloyd, about such topics as the small notes you can include in your invitations to inform your unsuspecting guests where you registered (we refused them) and which brands of knives were preferable. Or the unfortunate combination of a registry that asks too many questions (like parents' names) and a family like ours, which appears to result in a registry in which every single word (including our home address) is spelled wrong. Look for us under Baker-Harisan.

So we were off, zapper gun in hand, to conquer the world of cutting boards and duvet covers and neck pillows.

But sure enough, every 10 minutes or so, Lloyd popped up. Are you not buying gadgets? he'd wonder. What about glasses? He did this under the guise of giving us back a new, corrected printout of our registry, though each one had more errors, which I think was just a pretense for coming back to nag further. What about bakingware? Have you considered that?

Anyway, I say all this not to pick on Lloyd, who I'm sure was just doing his job per company policy. It's just that I now have images of a slightly disapproving salesman jumping from behind every Pyrex display, ready to pepper us with questions about whether we've considered the latest in bed skirts.

The Cover Boy(-in-law)

Meet my future brother-in-law! (On sale now!)

Birthday Blog

"I can't wait to pay off the national debt!"

We interrupt this regularly scheduled blog to say Happy 1st Birthday to my adorable nephew Colin!

At Least She Kept The Wall

Eliot Spitzer is making me rethink this whole name-change thing.

I'm not implying that Rick has any kind of predilection for high-priced call girls or that the future of New York state is weighing heavily on my prematrimonial conscience.

But his wife is.

I'm hardly alone in being far more interested in Silda Wall Spitzer than in Eliot and his apparent soft spot for expensive sex. Here's a smart, high-powered, accomplished woman, who gives up her career for her husband's political ambitions. Sure, she also raises three children and she has her own foundation to run. But I'm pretty sure no one wonders which of the Spitzers gave up more for the other's career.

I'm not judging her for this. I don't know her or anyone who does, and for all I know, she never really liked practicing law or being a busy working mom.

Not everyone is so restrained. Linda Hirshman writes on Slate that the "Silda Spitzer Lesson" is, simply, "Don't quit your day job." The longer version would be that she's a casualty of the "opt-out revolution." "Like all revolutionaries, the opt-out revolutionaries often wind up bleeding on the barricades," Hirshman writes.

Fair enough. But isn't that in some way saying that the root of her wrong decision was in trusting her husband?

I don't plan to give up my day job anytime soon, children or not. But at some point in most two-career couples' relationships, someone ends up sacrificing for the other. It might not be as extreme as giving up a path to managing partner in favor of political wifery, but it's usually not an easy or equitable compromise either.

This is, I suppose, basically what marriage is, giving up the primacy of yourself as a self-contained independent being in favor of some sort of joint enterprise, a whole you create with another person that means more than you. It's trusting someone else as much as - maybe more than - yourself, sacrificing for him not because it's for him but because on some level it's for you both.

That leaves you very vulnerable. But can you do it any other way? If you zealously guard your independence and self-reliance, aren't you on some level failing to make a basic commitment to the other person?

Which leads me to changing names. Sure, it sounds trivial compared to matters of feminism and trust and commitment. But it involves all of them. If I take my husband's name, I am giving up one symbol, however superficial, of me. Sure, it's not giving up a career or anywhere close. But it's still giving up something of my independent identity and taking part of his, in a way that he doesn't have to reciprocate. (Thanks to Charlin, for nailing this point...maybe the hardest part about the name-change decision is that even if it's a woman's choice, it's still a sexist assumption.)

I wouldn't be marrying Rick if I had any inkling that he could possibly let me down. But I can't imagine that Mrs. Spitzer (at least she kept the "Wall") and a long list of other wives didn't also feel that way once too.

HR 544: I Do

Utah legislative intern proposes to his girlfriend on the floor of the state capitol. Legislators wonder if they must vote on the answer. Hilarity ensues.

The First Official Wedding Poll

(Hopefully with more accuracy than the presidential polls.)

Our early-stage wedding planning has come up with the following: We will be married sometime in the late summer/early fall of 2009, somewhere in Connecticut or New England.

We're also doing it on a Sunday, thanks to the religious proclivities of a healthy segment of my family (no travel, etc., on Saturdays).

Which leads us to a bit of a quandary. Do we expect people to come to a Sunday wedding in (in most cases) another state and take off the next day of work? Or do we plan it for a holiday weekend (aka Labor Day)? How much of an inconvenience are you allowed to create to get married? Or do people expect to travel and maybe miss work to see friends or family get married?

If you wonder why this is even a question, you're obviously on the bride's side. You see, dear friends and family, Sept. 6, 2009 (besides being my brother's anniversary) happens to fall on a Sunday in that sacred time of year called football season (or, in my future husband's case, Jets-induced agony).

So, in the interest in polling the masses, please weigh in and identify with any of the following (I'd suggest comments, at least until I can figure out how to get a poll up on blogger):

_ If you get married on a non-holiday Sunday, I won't come to your wedding

_ If you get married on a non-holiday Sunday, I'll come, but secretly resent you for years

_ I love missing work, so please get married on a Sunday, anytime!

_ Screw religion; get married on a Saturday to avoid missing a football game

_ Screw football; get married on the Sunday before Labor Day

_ Get married at Giants Stadium

_ How 'bout Memorial Day?

(And for kicks)

_ Hillary

_ Obama

_ McCain

_ Gravel

Somebody's Getting Married

The Muppet planning style is highly underrated.