2. I'm writing a paper for next month's conference. It's due to my working group tonight. I have so much else on my mind at the moment that it's really hard to force myself to care and turn out a quality product. I said to Penn last night, "Why does this even really matter? I only wanted to go to this conference so I could apply for a travel grant to add to my resume. I got the travel grant, so my mission is already accomplished. If I don't decide to get a job right out of school, or if I can't get a job right out of school, I probably won't go back to this conference for at least five years. Probably most of the important people in the group who will read this paper will be dead by then, so if this paper is awful, who cares?" (Penn pointed out that this is a terrible attitude to have toward my work; I responded that, seriously, there are a bunch of ancient men in the group so I sort of have a point.)
3. Marrying into Penn's family is great, but there are occasional bumps in the road. We're trying to plan the menu for the rehearsal dinner. Penn made the mistake of sending the restaurant's rough draft version to his mother for feedback. Her response was that we should consider our guest's palates and that "lots of people will turn up their nose" to the items. Which would make you think that we're offering the guests, like, cow tongue and seaweed-wrapped octopus, right? But do you know what's on the rough draft menu? A pot pie made with lamb. Pork loin. Fried fish. Carrots. French fries. Spinach artichoke dip. The most unusual item on the menu is butternut squash soup, which I suppose isn't everyone's cup of tea, but it's not exactly exotic. And, admittedly, because the restaurant is a British pub they describe one side item as "mushy peas," which is charmingly British but not very appetizing. (I actually meant to warn Penn to just change that item to "peas" before he sent it on to his mom.) Still, we purposely picked a restaurant that wasn't "out there," knowing that some of Penn's relatives aren't particularly adventurous. I thought we'd struck a great balance between sophisticated and relaxed, and the restaurant is chef-driven (which will please my family) but serves basic British pub fare (which will please Penn's). We're trying, in other words. We know that Penn is sort of the black sheep of his family, in the sense that he has a tendency to be more open-minded and adventurous, but sometimes I forget exactly how carefully we have to tread when running new ideas by his family. My fear is that this is just the tip of the iceberg in terms of things I think are perfectly normal but that will utterly shock Penn's family as they come to light. It's all about baby-steps, I guess. We'll add roasted chicken to the menu (that's completely innocuous, right?). I'll try to remember that not everyone was raised by a restaraunteur. Compromise. (Also, I know Penn is occasionally just as baffled by my family, so it all evens out.)
4. Our wedding invitations just arrived! I'm going to go open the box and make sure they printed correctly. Hooray!
No comments:
Post a Comment