Eggs, tantrums, and royal weddings

Charlotte's Easter basket

So the bunny with the gentle smile, and more candy than one should reasonably give a two-year-old awaits my granddaughter Charlotte today.

To be fair, there are also three books, so I am not completely giving the basket over to tooth-destroying sugar treats. Hey, she brushes with her Thomas the Tank Engine toothpaste and her Elmo toothbrush.

It seems strange to not be doing more for the holiday, but Lotte will stop by with her entourage to say "hi," pick up her basket, and be on her sugar-high way. And that's enough.

Charlotte at her second birthday party,
with her "Pincess Fog" cake.

I complained in print for years about wanting to kidnap other people's children for Easter egg hunts, egg-dyeing sessions, and frilly dress shopping. This year, although I have a granddaughter of my own, I am buried under a mountain of ungraded papers, a mother recovering from knee-replacement surgery, travel plans for my daughter's Rhode Island wedding, and my other daughter's problems with trying to give Charlotte a baby sister.

It was enough that I got to raid the Easter aisles and compile a basket for my blonde imp, although the last thing she needs is candy.

It feels like she has been a "terrible two" for years. The strong-willed behavior coupled with her increasing awareness of the unfairness of life has left us all exhausted, as she throws temper tantrum after another and refuses to nap.

But, oh, the sunny little smiles and heart-melting sweetness that come out after the stormy behavior, make up for her outbursts (I think). She is very solicitous and worried about other people ("What's wrong, Mom Mom?" she asks), and genuinely wants to help.

Prince William and Kate Middleton. 

This spring is a crazy time. We have another royal wedding this week, and everyone is waxing nostalgic about Prince Charles and Lady Diana, reflecting on the marriage that began with such promise and ended tragically. Actually, as we know now, Charles stood at the altar professing undying love and devotion to his socially suitable bride while he was in love with someone else less suitable. 

Speaking of Camila, have you seen the Graham Norton promos for the royal wedding? Hysterical! He says that Camila has already picked out the frock for the nuptials, a lovely blue off-the-shoulder number, and then shows a racehorse wearing a blue blanket.

It's mean, yes, since Camila can't help not being as pretty as Diana, but that's what she gets.

So Charles and Di were doomed from the start, which hopefully will not be the case with Prince William and Kate. I'm not as heavily invested in this, since it's like other people's children getting married, but I may DVR it.

I got up in the middle of the night last time in my San Francisco apartment, drinking endless cups of coffee and participating in the communal flush that dropped water tables all around the globe. Now I shudder when I look at Diana's dress. It was so 80s.

For a look inside a not-quite-arranged marriage, but a instance of someone marrying up the social ladder, read "Snobs," by Julian Fellowes. He's the man who wrote "Gosford Park" and "Downton Abbey," and his description of the in's and out's of the British aristocracy will make you even more grateful you are an American.

I heard on NPR that between 1890 and 1910, forty percent of the English aristocracy married rich American heiresses in order to shore up crumbling estates and family bank accounts, since any fortune a single woman had went to her husband.

A key plot point in "Downton Abbey" is that the American's wife's money is getting entailed away from her children to some distant cousin of her husband, thanks to the byzantine British inheritance laws.

These daughters of Astors and Vanderbilts and other hyper-wealthy American industrialists were called "dollar princesses" and included Diana Spencer's great grandmother, Frances Work.

I was saying last week that I believe that if Princess Di had lived, Elton John would have asked her to be the godmother of his new baby, and yesterday, I found out who the real godmother is: Lady GaGa. Elton said that under all the make-up and crazy outfits is a plain girl who loves her mother and dad.

Elton and his partner are of course, invited to the royal wedding. And speaking of Elton John.....

Elton who????

Flowering dogwood and hush puppies

The brick gateway to Oakland Cemetery in Atlanta, GA, founded in 1850.

It may be odd, but my family spends a lot of time in graveyards.

The first stop on any family vacation is a trip to the local cemetery. We go to outdoor movies at Hollywood Forever, tromp through the myriad types of final resting places in Colma, CA, and I have a long list of famous writers, poets, musicians and actors whose graves I want to visit.

When my kids were little, we hit the burying grounds in Jacksonville, Oregon, a National Historic Place, (yes, the whole town), and spent a few hours wandering around. Then we went into the museum, and were able to read about the town's residents whose headstones we had just seen.

The marker of Margaret Mitchell Marsh and her husband, other Mitchells are on the back side. Devotees have left Mardi Gras beads, pennies and rocks, a custom adopted from Jewish funeral tradition.

So when I go to Atlanta, I knew that I wanted to see where Margaret Mitchell was buried. Not that I am such a big fan, but Gone With the Wind is iconic Americana, and I read Peachtree Road, by Anne Rivers Siddons. In the book, a young women has sex on the Pulitzer Prize winner's grave, and she and her friend speculate about how shocked the dead woman would have been about it.

Jasper Newton Smith oversaw work on his own mausoleum built in 1906. The artist gave him a cravat, and Smith, who hated neckties, made him chisel it off. He moved into the space in 1918. 

The Richards mausoleum, built in the 1880s, is the final resting place of Robert Richards (1830-1888), who opened the first bookstore in Atlanta before going into banking. In the background is the skyline of Atlanta.

What I didn't expect was that Mitchell would rest in such a lovely Victorian garden cemetery, and that it would be so exclusive. It's not that only the rich rest there, because there are plenty of paupers as well, but rather that all the plots were sold by 1884.

According to Phil Hulst, the volunteer in the gift shop, there are still about 15 interments a year at Oakland, usually in family plots, although the City of Atlanta owned some of the spaces.

Retired educator Phil Hulst volunteers
at the Oakland Cemetery Gift Shop.

There are many distinct areas in the cemetery, since the South was still segregated. There is an African American and Jewish section, as well as a potter's field and an area for Confederate soldiers, with rows and rows of identical headstones under the shade of flowering dogwood trees.

In the center of the cemetery lies the Lion of Atlanta, a huge stone lion with a spear in his side and the legend "Unknown Confederate Dead." It was donated by the Atlanta Ladies Memorial Association to honor Civil War casualties.

The whole place is beautiful in the spring, a riot of flowers, flowering dogwood, huge magnolia trees (not flowering yet), and shrubs. It is quiet, even though it is bordered by a main thoroughfare on one side. Hulst tells a woman who is slightly scandalized by the fact that Oakland is the site of many weddings, that it is a Rural Garden Cemetery, and that Victorians saw cemeteries more like parks.

Hulst is quick to point out that these folks who choose to be married in Oakland are not goths, or people into the occult. Actually, they are probably more interested in history.

–––

The Lion of Atlanta, erected in 1894 to honor the
Unknown Confederate Dead.

I wandered around for about four hours, using the cellphone tour of the African American sections, and admiring the foliage and the variety of markers. I saw many headstones carrying symbols I had only seen in books, like Stories in Stone: A Field Guide to Cemetery Symbolism and Iconography. 

The marker of Willie Wayne Farris,
aged 22 months. The stump is a symbol
of a life cut short, the dove of purity and peace.

I was sweating in the warm spring air from the humidity. I leaned up against a stone wall, and pulled my hand away quickly. It has been years since I lived in Texas, and I had completely forgotten about chiggers, those obnoxious, almost microscopic bugs that are everywhere in the South.

Beat, I decided to go across the street for dinner before catching a cab back to my hotel. The Six Feet Under pub was jumping on this Friday night, with a huge selection of draft beer and funky decorations. I sat at a counter that had a view of Oakland. The fried shrimp basket was great, and the waitress was surprised when I asked to substitute hush puppies for their freshly made potato chips. 

"You already get four hush puppies. You want eight?" she said incredulously. I told her that where I came from, we don't have hush puppies, and I need to get my fill while I'm here.

I'd love to go back, because Oakland does a variety of events at the Cemetery. "Tunes from the Tombs," a weekend of music and spirits, is a fundraiser for the Historic Oakland Foundation in May, and "Sunday in the Park: A Victorian Festival" where people come dressed in period costume is in October. Halloween weekend, there are tours, where volunteers dressed as people buried at the cemetery tell visitors about their lives. Go to www.oaklandcemetery.com for more information.

The Six Feet Under pub, with Oakland Cemetery headstones in the foreground. The shrimp
and hush puppy basket is amazing. (Apologies to Huell Howser.)

Atlanta from the 31st floor

The view from my suite at the Marriott, and my soon-to-be-defunct MacBook. Not only do I have a sentimental attachment to this particular one, they don't make the black MacBooks anymore

I was checking into the Atlanta Marriott Marquis this week when the desk clerk told me that since I had asked for a king-size bed and they were all out, she was upgrading me to a suite.

Truth be told, I didn't give a damn whether I had a king-size bed or not; I just said that because I was traveling alone. One person, one bed. Makes sense, right? Oh, holy hell, this room was fabulous. I could have had a party, except I left my friends and my lover at home.

Of course God (or Spirit, Yahweh, Goddess, the Force, the Universe, etc) gives with one hand and takes away with the other, so the last day of my trip my MacBook died, taking every photo I shot of the beautiful Victorian-garden Oakland cemetery. I'm going to try to get them back and do a whole other column on that, but not today.

My office in the suite. A wet bar is opposite the desk.

I was in Atlanta for the 2011 Conference on College Composition and Communication, so luckily my computer didn't die until the last day, because I needed it. The hotel, which is akin to LA's Bonaventure in size and scope, was crawling with decidedly unfashionable people reading books in the corners when they weren't chatting with colleagues or drinking over-priced beer in the lounge.

I love my fellow composition teachers, but really, we are a dowdy lot. If you thought corduroy jackets with patches on the sleeves were something you only saw the "The Paper Chase," think again. Mid-calf flowered skirts and sensible separates are apparently de rigueur for the professorial set. Oh, and eyeglasses, lots of eyeglasses, of course. All that reading we do weakens our eyes.

A public art project brought in statuary from Zimbabwe
that line a hallway at Hartsfield-Jackson airport.

The airlines probably did a land-office business in overweight baggage charges on our return flights. The publishers were handing out review copies of textbooks, the National Council of Teachers of English were selling books, and I took reams of notes. (I could have just said the NCTE, but that also stands for National Center for Transgender Equity, so one must be careful.)


I was lucky, I stopped acquiring books at just the right time; my case was 36 pounds on the scale in L.A., and exactly 50 (the limit) on the way back. Only 14 pounds is pretty good. To steal an expression from Alcoholics Anonymous, when it comes to books, "One is too many, and a 100 is not enough." Once you start, it is difficult to stop.

Atlanta was lovely, and the people were all so nice. (Except the taxi drivers, I only had one who was a native speaker. The rest were surly foreigners.) Beginning at the airport, Atlanta was charming all over. There is an art exhibit in the Transportation Mall, "Zimbabwe: A Tradition in Stone." It was my reward for not getting on the subway tram to baggage claim. I had to walk forever, but at least it was interesting. By the way, if an airport has gone to the trouble of building a subway, take it. That means it is a loooong way to baggage claim.

The terrace seats restaurant at Turner Field. I can guarantee I'll never sit here again.

Turner Field.

The first night I was there, one of publishing companies sponsored a buffet dinner and open bar at Turner Field, the home of the Atlanta Braves. They have an arcade-like area near the entrance with electronic batting cages and a pitching game that tells you the MPH of your fastball. Needless to say, this non-athletic teacher didn't try it; I don't like to play games I suck at. I killed at the in-flight trivia game, but baseball? Not so much.

Statue of Hank Aaron near the entrance to Turner Field.

My head started playing Tim McGraw's "I Like it, I Love It," where the song's persona is complaining that he's so wrapped in his new girlfriend, "I ain't seen the Braves play a game all year..."

I can see why people like ballparks. This one had a museum, and was very pretty, but once you're there, you gotta watch baseball. That's the downside, as far as I am concerned.

The next afternoon, I caught a cab to Oakland Cemetery and spent about four hours wandering around the huge mausoleums and crypts of Atlanta's famous and rich. That's my idea of being outdoors.

I went, of course, to see the grave of Margaret Mitchell, author of "Gone With the Wind," but ended up seeing so much more. The cemetery, which had all its plots sold by 1884, is segregated, with whites, blacks, Confederate soldiers, and Jews each in their own area.

Phil Hulst, the volunteer on duty in the visitor's center, is a retired educator with a lovely Southern accent. He told me that this year is the 75th anniversary of the publishing of "Gone With the Wind," and next month will be full of celebrations like this. That figures, I'm always a day late and a dollar short. Hulst directed me to the African American section, where a grant has helped them do a free cellphone tour.

You dial a number, then punch in the number on the sign in front of the grave. The narration tells stories, like that of Dr. Roderick D. Badger, a prominent black dentist who was the son of a white plantation owner and a black slave. His work became so popular with both races, that white dentists banded together and tried to get a law passed to prevent him from practicing.

On the way back to the hotel, my one English speaking cabbie, a young black man, expressed surprise that I could spend all afternoon in a graveyard, I explained the African American Voices project and how inspiring it was. He was intrigued and said he had lived in Atlanta his own life and didn't know anything like that existed.

I only wish I could have seen more of Atlanta: it seems like a very cool place. I especially would like to have that suite back....

Long-distance wedding plans

My two lovely daughters, who are two years and two weeks apart and squabble like toddlers. On the left is the elder and Charlotte's mom, and on the right is the soon-to-be-married younger who lives in New York state.

My two daughters, like many siblings, are obsessed with fairness. Each of them at some point in their lives has been convinced that I love the other better and do more things for her.

They swear that they have grown out of this, and it is no longer an issue, but I doesn't seem that way to me. And sometimes, those complaints are valid. I am not doing nearly as much for my younger daughter's wedding as I did for my older one. Monetarily, it's a wash; I gave the younger one the equivalent amount of money.

But in terms of sweat equity, the situation is nowhere near the same. My younger daughter is getting married Memorial Day weekend, and I haven't written about it yet, probably because I don't have all those things that I had to take care of for Charlotte's mom driving me insane.

It is no one's fault — the fact that my kid is 3,000 miles away in Long Island, and getting married in Rhode Island means that I can't be as involved. In some ways, this is a good thing — ask the other daughter — because I am a terrible procrastinator and perfectionist. (They actually go hand-in-hand, I procrastinate when I'm afraid I can't do something perfectly.)

My kid trying on wedding dresses at Rossana's
Bridal Cottage. This dress was not a favorite,
but it is a better photo of her than the others.

Buying a wedding dress is way less nerve-wracking than waiting for your mother to finish sewing yours (I was still sewing the morning of the wedding, and never did get the bustling loops in). And having a mom who frets over every single tiny detail and doesn't know how to keep her mouth shut about things she doesn't like can be tiresome.

I am famous for annoying my kids by saying things like: "Are you really wearing that?" or  "Don't you think you should do such-and-such? or "Why don't you try it this way?"

I guess I always assume that when I point out the error of their ways, they will do the right thing. That's what my father used to do, and it worked for him. (Most of the time, anyway.)

It works better on the older one, but the little one (if you can call 5'10" little) usually just does what she pleases, and gets annoyed that I tried guilt-tripping her.

She has been living in San Francisco for the last five or six years, and it has been difficult to have her so far away, but she managed to make it home for holidays, plus a few other times, and if we were really desperate, we could always drive up and see her.

The bride-to-be making the family proud by
winning a beer-drinking contest at the first
Lemon Leaf Oktoberfest.

The argument, when her winemaker fiance took her all the way to Long Island, was that she would still make it home the same number of times. Considering the new highs in airfares, we will see how that works out. One can't just jump on Southwest for 45 minutes, and there is the pesky jet lag to deal with.

That distance made my sewing her wedding dress well nigh impossible. Crossing a continent for fittings might be okay for the girls with deep-pocketed fathers we see on "Say Yes to the Dress," but we are po' folks.

I felt bad about the dress, and I wanted to sew her something, so I am making her pale pink silk lingerie. I have learned one thing about the garment district: it is a whole lot easier shopping there when you don't know exactly what you want.

I wanted a particular weight of silk and the perfect lace to complement it. That necessitated combing blocks of fabric stores and about eight different trim shops to find the lace I had envisioned.

I finally found the perfect stuff, and a rhinestone comb that may or may not suit her wedding up-do. I also have to make a flower-girl dress for Charlotte in the interest of cost cutting, and three yellow sashes so they will match the other girls (the groom's twin nieces are also doing flower-girl duty).

My baby and her fiance at Charlotte's first birthday party March 2010.

Considering that my daughter and I have the capacity to watch back-to-back "Say Yes to the Dress" and "My Fair Wedding" marathons, and we've been talking about her wedding since she was in middle school, it is a little sad that I can't be more involved.

But I am glad that her future mother-in-law is a nice person whom my daughter likes and gets along with. She took my daughter to get her wedding dress, helped her pick the venue, and is being helpful in a number of ways.

Ultimately, all that matters is that my daughter is happy on her wedding day. Because of the cost, she will not have as many of her friends and family there as we had hoped, but her nuclear family will all be there, along with Charlotte. Charlotte is a party all by herself, so what more can you ask?

I get a kiss from my daughter on my wedding day. Charlotte's father is on the right.