A Practicing Italian

So from my previous posts about my sister's wedding, you may have guessed that I'm not Italian. Nope, I'm an American. My sister and I like to say that we are about as American as it gets. My dad's family came across the plains in covered wagons. They moved to California from Virginia to escape the Civil War. But we were Yankees (fought on the Union side) and I even have an Uncle Sam who died in a battle outside of Atlanta towards the end of the Civil War. He has my dad's clear blue eyes and chin dimple. My mom came to the US on an airplane.

To make a long story short, my dad met my mom in post-war Japan, they fell in love and got married in Japan. After about a year of paperwork, legalese and finally, favors and evidently, a congressional act, my mom was officially allowed to enter the country and became our mom and an American citizen. We never knew we were different. We didn't know everyone else wasn't like us. We grew up in San Francisco. My parents had a circle of friends whose wives were Japanese and whose kids were a mix. Usually, the dads had been in the service and they could be Greek, Finnish or Danish. For us, that was normal.

I don't think it was until I got married, and I was the first sister to marry, that we realized that there was this thing called tradition, that we didn't know much about. Our mom didn't know American tradition. In fact, since her own mom died when she was 13 years old as a result of injuries she received in a bombing raid, she didn't know lots about Japanese traditions either.

I suppose that is why I find cultural traditions so fascinating. For my sister's wedding, we had to adapt tradition because we just didn't know enough (or maybe start early enough) for her wedding to be traditionally Japanese. When her dresser asked her how many kimono changes she was going to make I started to laugh because I had been to my cousin's wedding in Japan and they change their clothes a lot during the ceremony. But, in all fairness to us, the Japanese have changed their cultural practices. At my cousin's wedding, the bride first wore an all white uchikake, then changed into a more colorful one, then ended up wearing a traditional American wedding dress with flowing train. The cake was beautiful and a prop (no cake to eat just looked like a 3-tiered wedding cake with lacy white frosting). They did a candle lighting thing together, and everyone, separately, sang a karaoke song for the bride and groom. We all made a toast to the bride and groom with real champagne but no one drank it! Evidently, they don't like champagne and that was fine. Just all the more for me! But, when I turned around and sat back down, all the champagne was gone! Hauled off by the waiters!

So, when traditions can be traced back centuries and even for thousands of years, I think it is worth the effort to honor them and keep them alive when possible. But, I realize that we are not all the same. And that having a mom from an old country makes me different but in a good way. Yes, there was drama about the wedding but it was handled and the bride decided that if she just looked nice and the food was good she would be happy and both came true. So in the end, my sister's wedding was just lovely and the guests enjoyed themselves and a good time was had by all.

So, segueing back to the post title, while I may not have been descended from Italian relatives (what about people with last names like Greco, Tedesco or Lombardo, they don't have those last names without good cause), or even Catholic, I like to say that I'm a practicing Italian.

So here are the 10 Italian Words of the day:

1. ipoteca - mortgage
2. risparmio - savings
3. tirchio/a - fiscally conservative
4. preventivo/a - estimate (please don't confuse this with a preservativo)
5. assumere - to hire
6. stipendo - paycheck
7. saldare - to pay up/off
8. pagamento - payment
9. affitare - to rent (a house) affito - rent
10. noleggiare - to rent (everything else) noleggio - rental/charter

bonus phrase:

Un buon affare - a good deal!

The Wedding, Part 4

So, the flower girl recovered her composure, the ringbearer was a rock of responsibility and I think someone told them that Grandpa had candy in his pockets waiting for them at the end of the aisle! They zoomed by in a blur... and performed like troopers.
Of course, we have no photos of bride walking down the aisle here because her face was so puffy from her crying... or in the receiving line... As my Dad is not too churchy, the bride and groom kept the wedding vows short and simple. The minister was charming and gracious and even put his tie back on when we went outside to take more wedding photos. Oh, here it is all done, the groom kissing the bride.
See the silly, deliriously happy look on the bride's face? Yep, made the whole wedding.

Who couldn't be happy for her?

Then, it was time to chow down and have some of that cake!

So, back to the usual theme, the Italian words of the day:
1. matrimonio - wedding
2. sposa - bride
3. sposo - groom
4. gli sposi - the newlyweds
5. marito - husband
6. moglie - wife
7. anello - ring
8. patrimonio - heritage
9. benedetto - blessed
10. brindisi - toast

The Bride - Wedding Part 3

Here is the bride! She is being fussed over by her professional dresser. Thankfully, she hired a "dresser" to get her in her wedding kimono. When, she first decided to get married in a kimono, I was to be her dresser along with being the wedding photographer, assistant florist, seamstress and whatever else needed getting done. (There's some good English.) She mentioned someone needed to vacuum the chapel after the ceremony ...

But as the wedding date got closer and closer, we (I) couldn't figure out how to tie the obi which is the sash or belt that goes around the waist. My sister bought a video, we had books and eventually we found a Youtube video on the web. We spent a good part of a day trying to figure this out and discussed kind of loudly, each one of us, how it should be tied. Although everything we read never said it, the obi needed to be folded in half, with the fold on the bottom and the obi acting as a large pocket for the fan, and ceremonial knife. (Don't even ask me about the ceremonial bridal knife, to protect the honor of the bride's new family. We spent alot of time looking for one and all the Japanese ladies we asked thought we were, um, well, nuts. She finally bought one, but I think it's a letter opener!)

BTW, kimono just means clothes. Each style of kimono has its own name depending on if it is an unlined summer kimono (yukata), a bathrobe/pajama kimono (nemaki) and is dependent on sleeve length and occasion, a furisode is the most formal kimono for unmarried women with long flowing sleeves. Here is the bride in her uchikake which is an ornate wedding coat with a long trail. The uchikake is worn like a robe without obi over another kimono, called kakeshita that is tied with the obi. My sister's kakeshita is made with shibori fabric which is a Japanese tie-die.

Then there is the "boat". That is what we jokingly called the white bridal hat. Yes, we went from store to store in San Francisco, San Jose and websites asking if anyone had the "boat". My sister just wasn't going to be happy unless she looked a little more authentic although, we didn't follow a lot of the Japanese customs. We couldn't find zori or sandals to fit her americanized feet and they are not very comfortable to wear. We couldn't find my mom's zori and, I think she threw them away because they just hurt too much to wear. Finding all the gear we needed, and we were not even sure that we had all of the gear was just too difficult. We finally decided that it was okay. We were a blend of cultures and the wedding would also be a blend of our cultures.

But, while we were in San Jose buying the an under-kimono, yes, she is wearing 3 layers of kimono, well 4, if you consider the under, under kimono, she picked up a business card of a lady who did hair and was Japanese. After some frantic calling on my sister's part, she made an appointment to bring all of her stuff and do a trial run. Her name was Sachiko, which is the name of my mom's best friend and amazingly enough, she was from a town in Japan next to the town where my mom was from. She asked us our family name and the deal was done. She was going to fill in the missing parts of my sister's wedding gear and do some sewing and bring it all when she came to do the hair, dress and makeup.

And, she had the boat! After, she had dressed my sister and tied her obi, she wanted to know if my sister wanted her to do the hair and makeup. Then, she hauled out this huge case with a proper wig and all the combs and decorations. My sister waivered. But, after Sachi, put the wig on her she got this big smile on her face from ear to ear. Oh yeah. It was happening. When we were done, we hugged Sachi goodbye and breathed a sigh of relief.
A side note: The Japanese consider the nape of the neck the sexiest part of the body and unmarried women expose there bare, naked necks while married women wear there collars so that their necks are covered up. Unmarried women also wear their kimono with long sleeves and married women cut the length of their sleeves down, so as to not drive the men wild. Of course, this tradition is from a long time ago. But then, my sister wanted to honor tradition. I don't think that until that day when I saw how happy my sister was, that I realized how much her wedding meant to her. (I know, duh!) Here they are, the bride and groom, getting ready to march down the aisle, one last practice run with the music before it all becomes official.

Wedding, Part Two

My younger sister decorated the party favor table. She did a beautiful job. We filled the little bags with Japanese candies, seven (7) of them. We're not sure what the Japanese tradition is. But, we followed Italian tradition and they require seven. Oh yeah, and you can see the bulldozers in the background. (Editors correction: when I re-read the post from Shelley of At Home in Rome, it was 5 and not 7 candies that is the Italian tradition. Oops!)

My only reqret is that I didn't take a photo of the entire room before the guests arrived because it really turned out nicely. But, I was taking photos of the bride and groom back at the chapel and I couldn't do everything and they haven't invented self-cloning yet.

And, the chocolate cake is our favorite. My sister first ordered one for the 90th birthday party of our great-aunt seven years ago (Yes, that made her 97 this June). It is chocolate cake with chocolate ganache frosting and fudge between the layers from Olde Tyme Pastries in Turlock. The bride and groom hauled it to Monterey and it was appreciated by all.

A Thousand Cranes

A thousand cranes was the theme of my sister's recent wedding. She is a woman of a certain age and it was not her first marriage. But, she wanted her wedding to be special, different and to honor our mom who is no longer with us.

Yes, we made all these origami cranes. We figurativly. Mostly my niece and my sister's future daughter-in-law. All with the most beautiful washi (Japanese paper). We're not really sure that we made it to the thousand origami cranes ... even though I hosted a crane making party for the bride. Cranes are supposed to bring good luck and my sister wanted for us to share in her good luck in finding someone to love and marry.

The wedding chapel was large, there was not going to be a large wedding party to sort of fill the stage, as it were so we decided we needed a focal point so all people would notice were the bride and groom. Keeping with the Japanese theme, the groom decided he could build a tori gate to frame them, then decided he couldn't, then decided maybe, he'd better. (My sister said, I was getting sort of bossy, but hey, it paid off! Someone had to crack the whip.) Here they are assembling it in the chapel under the watchful eye of the groom's grandson. We also did the flowers for the reception room. Notice, the orange construction barrier in the background of the photo below? The country club forgot to tell the bride and groom that the grounds would be under construction during their reception! My sister handled it well. I don't think people really noticed.

Flower girl having her own mini-meltdown.

Yes, flower girl, I've known how you feel.