The Princess Veil

This is a short story I wrote recently called "The Princess Veil". I haven't written many short stories so of course I am a feedback/comment whore and beg you call to critique me.

She saw herself in the mirror, basked in white light and lace – almost ethereal - almost feminine. She had to watch it. She couldn’t stop staring. Surely, this was going to be the best day of her life. Surely, this day that she had painstakingly planned every single second of, would be the most perfect day ever.
It was always difficult to make everyone happy. Weddings are like that. Everyone has their own agenda. But, the books all said that this is “her day”. All about her. Funny that when someone else is paying and someone else is doing all the inviting that anyone thinks that the day is YOURS.
Oh but this day was hers.
Sometimes she thought that people underestimated her. Maybe they underestimated her intelligence, her wit, her cunning nature – whichever – but no one gave her as much credit for being a manipulative bitch as she quite deserved.
The wedding, which was all her idea, was to take place in 2 weeks time. Her dress had come from the dressmaker’s today. Of course, her mother bragged to her friends, she couldn’t “buy off the rack”. This nugget of information was doled out as a piece of hoity-toity one-up-man-ship. But, it was really a matter of necessity rather than privilege.
Her giant butt would have never fit into even the largest wedding dress known to man. She smiled to herself as she laughed at her own joke. She wasn’t the fattest woman to have ever lived but she gave that woman a good strong run for her money! And, as butts went, hers was a giant one.
She was built with a big bubble butt she often thought she could set things on it – like a shelf. Maybe a vase or nick-nacks! But this dress was very kind to her ass.
It was white lace over-laying white satin with a hoop type skirt underneath. It was just heaven and made up for a multitude of her past sins (fries and gravy, pizza, cake….etc.).
Now, today, she didn’t have the FULL effect but, in the mirror, she could see enough of the extras in her minds eye to know that this dress would be beautiful on her day. (Hiding her ass.) But she’d need her brand new good girdle with the extra panel in the back to make it just right.
She planned on doing her short mousey hair with a slight wave. Just combed flat with that slight wave to sit underneath the princess headpiece. There was a veil – but a short one. Nothing for her to trip over.
And pearls. She would wear her grandma’s pearls.
She had met someone. She was getting married.
She, as well as everyone else, had assumed that her life would take her nowhere exceot for the twin bed set in her room in her parent’s house for the rest of her life. She wasn’t a spinster but she wasn’t fresh out of high school like her girlfriends had been when they got married. When someone asked, she said she was waiting for just the right man. IN truth, that she actually did was wait for a man.
That was her only option. To wait for a man. No matter what her head told her on a regular basis or what her body betrayed her by thinking of its own accord, that was her option. It was her only path to take. And she did.
Now, in 2 weeks, she’d be headed down the aisle of the Park United Church. It wasn’t a fancy church by any stretch of the imagination – very 1950s minimalist décor but nice nonetheless. They would decorate it with paper flowers – crepe paper roses. Blue, of course, everything would be blue. She’ planned it all.
She would hold her head high at precisely 11am on Saturday the 6th of June and she would hold tight to the arm of her father and march down that aisle. Her fear of tripping and falling on her big fat face put to rest by her flat serviceable footwear hidden under the giant poof of a skirt that hid her butt that was hugged in by her girdle that smoothed out her belly and the smooth belly definitely made her boobs look bigger but just in case she was holding flowers in front of it to make everything definitely look perfect. It was all going to be perfect.
She knows – just now – looking into the mirror that the ceremony will be a tear jerker. Partially from everyone’s relief that she was getting married at all and partially from the thrill that she, was getting married. And who didn’t cry at weddings, right?
She’d chosen just the right blend of bridesmaids. Her sister-in-law who was a complete and absolute bitch was her maid of honour because it was the “right” thing to do. But really, she was 7 months pregnant and it didn’t suck to have someone fatter than you to draw the attention away from your own belly. And since her sister-in-law always looked so incredibly horribly awfully sour, it would make her look sweet in comparison – right?
Then there was her friend and her cousin. Both were miniscule, tiny little people - so much so they looked like children or elves. No worries there. They didn’t even look like women.
All three were wearing lovely blue dresses. The colour of robin’s eggs or the sky. It would be just perfect – along with her all dressed in white that they were just so blue.
After the ceremony she arranged that there would be a luncheon tea in the basement of the church with sandwiches and dainties, punch, tea and coffee.
Oh, it was unusual to have a wedding luncheon. Highly unusual – which is why it appealed to her mother’s sense of grandeur. It was an eccentric choice – a sophisticated option – another illustration of why SHE was better than her mother’s friend’s daughters.
That wasn’t it really at all now, was it?
She couldn’t bear the thought of anyone looking at her. She definitely couldn’t bear the thought of dancing in front of people. She couldn’t bear the thought of dancing at all. Looking in the mirror she though that, in retrospect, this dress would have swirled quite nicely around the dance floor.
But, the luncheon eliminates the need for a dance. Voila. She smiled at herself and her devious manipulation, curiously not reflected in the mirror.
Calmly, through a haze of diazepam, she visualized the day one more time. Dressed, photographed, aisle, ceremony, luncheon, escape.
Then, she would be married. Then SHE would be married. Then she would be MARRIED.

Riding on clouds with lollipops and kittens and springtime and sunshine

I have been in the best mood this week.
I'm even going to go out on a limb and say AWESOME MOOD! (Those of you who know me well know I never use that word....)
I'm smiling at people and once, maybe twice, I think I actually giggled.
Its odd really.
Out of character for me to be happy with 8 feet of snow on my fucking lawn. Once again, may I remind you, that I hate winter with a white hot burning passion that knows no boundaries....
Also, I have a chest infection. Yes again. No I haven't seen the doctor. Why? Because I'm convinced that is where I GOT the chest infection from! It will go away eventually and if not, well, I just don't care cause I feel great.
AND even odder little known fact - there is no diet pop (including diet coke) in my house. Not one. Sure I have the occasional one while I'm out and today I had 4 cups of tea, but I am shaking my addiction.
While we are on the subject of addiction, I am doing exceptionally well with the cheese monkey. I would never hurt an animal but I think this monkey is packing his bags and getting ready to move on - no need to actually kill him. Its simply mind over matter.
Yep, I can smell the stench of mouldy windows and see the beginnings of a thaw in the universe. Today, I saw sun. Okay well it was in a photo from last summer - but I remember what it feels like.
My article for Canadian Newcomer Magazine comes out at the end of the month. I'll post it here. For those of you who are unemployed newcomers to canada I'm sure you'll find it all kinds of fascinating!
My next assignment for them (yes they like me and I am on the "preferred freelance writers" email list) is on summer cultural festivals called "Seeing the world in your own backyard".
I also wrote a short story that I like. I'm not sure whether to post it here or not. For once its not about me. At all. It was fun to write though and I like it I just haven't shared it with anyone (read: Dan) yet and I'm hesitant to just push go and shove it out into the world unprotected.
Spring is going to change my life people. Are you with me?
There are so many good things in my life today.
*grin*

Plumbing Update

After 2 days with no water, I was convinced my family would start pooping in the yard and melting snow for drinking water.
None of us had showered.
To update, I had an exploding bathtub tap. This was followed by a flat tire (unrelated but also annoying) and another exploding tap.
I booked and then cancelled the plumber (I had to get my flat tire fixed!)
I drove, in a blizzard, all over the GTA (Greater Toronto Area) looking for parts.
I FINALLY found said replacement parts at a Plumbing Warehouse 10 minutes from my house.
And I wish to officially give the Moen faucet people a peice of my mind.

So Moen people, it doesn't MATTER if your replacement parts are FREE if no one can FIND them to replace them. It doesn't make logical sense to give out FREE replacement peices if no one can make a whole bloody tap because there are 6 peices and they can only find 4! Its a stupid system and you need to change it.

But, I digress.
I fixed the taps.
Both of them. Not a plumber - not a man. Me.
My husband says its because my father was an electrician that I have the "skilled trades" in my blood. Perhaps. I just think its because I am a true renaissance woman.
I can knit and sew and even crochet and embroider. I've built a fence, fixed several toilets and now replaced some taps. I make soap and tie ribbons and bows and I move furniture. Hear me roar.
I mean sure, the taps work backwards to the general "righty-tighty, lefty-loosey" rule - but they work!
So now we are bathed and clean and laundering things.
You're welcome family.