Where the dirty deed was done!
Where our parents were absolutely no help, however, was in footing the bill. That was all up to Rick and me, and we were not exactly rolling in the dinero! About the only positive thing I can say about the ceremony itself is that it mercifully clocked in at about 10 minutes, though even that seemed like an eternity. Rick didn’t even bother to shave, and galumphed to the altar wearing a tuxedo T-shirt at least two sizes too small for him! Boy, I’ll never forget the look on Father Kelleher’s face—Rick was lucky he wasn’t excommunicated on the spot! As for me, well, I wish I could say I fared a lot better, but I didn’t really. I was poorer than a church mouse on government cheese, and the wedding gowns I had tried on at the consignment and charity stores the weekend before were all too tight. So your blushing bride had no choice but to march down the aisle in a lime-green, circa-1980 prom dress “generously” donated by my stepsister Monica. Magical, huh?
The reception was held among a few picnic tables at Granite Grove State Park, just a stone’s throw away from a dried-up lake bed where Rick burned old mattresses with his buddies for kicks. Our DJ was a tinny old boom box and a few cassette tapes! My mom didn’t bother to attend the wedding. And she was the parent who was the most vocal about our becoming man and wife, though she was divorced (bitterly) from my dad and couldn’t stand the sight of Rick! Also, not five minutes after walking me down the aisle, my father ditched us to dine on steaks at his favorite supper club with Rick’s dad.
It gets worse! I sat at a picnic table with Rick’s senile grandmother, and, when she wasn’t looking in my direction, I tried to sneak peeks at my teeny wedding ring that only fit my pinky. You see, the ring was the wedding band of this same grandmother; the family snuck it away from her when she wasn’t looking. I tried my best to enjoy the funny-tasting double-decker 9 Quinceanera cake. (At least it somewhat resembled a wedding cake. It was the fanciest thing the bakery had on hand at the last minute—otherwise they would have sold us a plain sheet cake.) Meanwhile, Rick and his boozy buddies engaged in—I kid you not—piggyback fights. You know, that game the rowdy boys played on the playground in sixth grade? Question: Do any of you longtime marrieds still dream about your old wedding and wake up in a cold sweat?
Later that night, in the “Afternoone Delighte” suite of the Romanticabins Motel, as I sipped sparkling cider, sat on a ceiling-mounted swing decorated with plastic flowers, and watched a blotto, pantsless Rick alternately whimper and snore on the heart-shaped bed, I made another vow that day: to never, ever, even when it seemed like life was hurling flaming cow-chips at me from every direction, lose my faith in true romance. This princess may not have felt much like a queen that day, but she would some day.
That’s a major part of why, after much deep contemplation (and nearly breaking my imagination bone!), I’ve come up with an absolutely amazing wedding-dress design for myself. Admittedly, it will be a big expense, but the shoe box in which I’ve been squirreling away spare change (don’t tell Rick!!) is starting to get hefty! And already I’ve found a person who has promised to create my dress for me: no, not Vera Wang, but my buddy Fulgencio! I met him a few years back while working in the data-entry department at SouthCentral Insurance, and boy is he a supportive friend! When I first described the dress to him, he let out a shriek and said, “Girl, if you actually manage to put the cash together to buy the materials, I will slave day and night making it free of charge. Just shackle me to the sewing machine and whip my [tushie] if I start to nod off!” You see, besides being a complete peach, Fulgencio is a gifted costume designer—he makes gowns for whom I like to call his “dress-up friends.” And get this—these dress-up friends are guys who like to wear women’s clothes!! Ah, well, to each his own! (Personally, I can’t fault a guy who wants to look like a girl, since I look like a girl, too. I call it having good taste!)
Fulgencio!
My dream wedding dress has a lot of details, but these are the most important:
1. First, it would be made of only the richest silks, satins, and lace of snow-white so blinding, you would have to wear ski goggles to look at it! No in-between shades like cream or ivory, and certainly no lime-green!
2. The skirt is wide and billowing and supported by a hoopskirt underneath. I love hoopskirts because they swoosh around so gracefully, and immediately remind me of Scarlett O’Hara and Gone with the Wind, the very apex of romance!. Plus its fullness will make my waistline look small in contrast! Not only that, if I have to go to the bathroom, I can just lift up the skirt and turn it inside out as I seat myself in the stall. (See, I’ve thought of everything!)
3. Big, puffy sleeves! Sleeves need to return to wedding gowns. They look like shapeless toothpaste tubes these days. Bring back the opulence!
4. Swarovski crystals and seed pearls everywhere you rest your eyes! (Hmmm…wonder if you can load a Bedazzler with precious gems?)
5. A cake frosting–inspired sash around the middle of the skirt, gathered with bows accentuated with diamonds! (The goal is to not only resemble Scarlett O’Hara, but a beautiful wedding cake and a capitol building, too!)
6. A lace veil secured with a priceless diamond tiara. I don’t necessarily expect to own the tiara, so I figure the local Jared can lend me one, just like Harry Winston loans jewels to the stars for the Oscars.
7. A 20-foot train, decorated with my initials and ideally carried down the aisle by at least half a dozen multicultural children.
8. As for shoes? You’re probably thinking sky-high Jimmy Choos or fairy-tale glass slippers, right? Wrong!
Pink high tops! Surprise!! I thought I’d throw in a little fun to bring all the dazzling glamour a bit down to earth. I’m a regular gal at heart, after all. Besides, I’ve rarely worn high heels, and I don’t want to trip and fall into the eight-foot-tall wedding cake I’ve planned, too!
Phew! I get dizzy even thinking about this incredible work of art! Traipsing down the aisle in that show-stoppin’ jaw-dropper, I figure it won’t really matter what Hubby Rick wears. If he wants to put on the shredded remnants of his old tuxedo T-shirt that he keeps in a sack of oily rags in his pickup truck, he can go right ahead! Heck, maybe I’ll just renew my wedding vows all by myself! Because I will be walking, breathing proof that true romance still lives…and thrives!
Things About Jean that Bug the Shit Out of Me, by Hubby Rick
Lovin’ from Jean’s Oven
No. 2: Ooey Gooey Choco-Cocoa-Mocha Cupcakes with Raspberry Filling and Coconut-Cream-Cheese-Cola Frosting!
Another in-Jean-ious recipe that will have you wondering how such wildly varied ingredients can add up to one absolutely droolicious cuppycake recipe! Of course, you won’t wonder for long—in seconds you’ll lapse into a helpless cocoa-coma!
For cupcakes:
1 cups flour
¼ tsp. salt
½ tsp. baking powder
¼ cup unsweetened cocoa
2 squares unsweetened chocolate
4 tbsp. butter
2/3 cup light brown sugar, packed
2 eggs
1 tsp. vanilla
1/3 cup whole milk
½ cup strong black coffee, cooled to room temperature
(That’s where the “mocha” comes in! Genius, huh?)
For raspberry filling:
1 10 oz. package frozen raspberries, or 1½ cups fresh
raspberries
¼ cup water
¼ cup granulated sugar
2 tbsp. cornstarch
1 tsp. lemon juice
For frosting:
8 oz. cream cheese
½ cup (1 stick) butter
6 tbsp. cola (Again, your eyes don’t deceive—cola! And no diet cola allowed! Jean Teasdale never cuts orners—or calories!)
2 tsp. vanilla
3½ cups confectioners’ sugar
1 cup flaked coconut
First, preheat your oven to 350º F, whip out your handy-dandy 12-cup muffin pan, and line the cups with paper cupcake liners
. (Preferably decorated with cute kitties or bunnies!)
Second, prepare your raspberry filling. Combine all the ingredients in a saucepan and stir over low heat until the filling comes to a boil and thickens. Remove saucepan from heat and chill in the fridge while you prepare the cupcake batter.
Now, sift the flour, salt, baking powder, and cocoa into a bowl and stir until blended. In another saucepan, melt the squares of unsweetened chocolate, butter, and brown sugar over low heat, giving it a good stir. Once it’s all melted through, remove the saucepan from the heat. Pour the mixture into another bowl, then add the two eggs and beat gently. Now pour in the vanilla, milk, and coffee, and stir until combined. Add a little bit of the liquid mixture to the dry ingredients, stopping to stir it all together. Pour in a little more liquid mixture, and stir again. Keep doing this until you run out of liquid mixture and everything is combined.
It’s nearly time for your oven to make happy little cuppycake friends! But before you do anything else, retrieve the raspberry filling you’ve already prepared from the fridge. Here’s the real fun part—time to load up that muffin pan. Spoon enough batter into a cup until you’re just short of the halfway mark. Then add one spoonful of the raspberry filling into the center of the batter. Cover the filling with one or two more spoonfuls of batter, until the cup is three-quarters full. Keep doing that for each cup. When you’re done, pop the cupcakes in the oven and bake for 30–35 minutes.
As your cupcakes bake, work on the frosting. Beat the cream cheese and butter together until it’s one big delectable pale yellow mass. (I know it’s hard, but please, resist the urge to devour it!) Add the cola and vanilla and mix. Now pour half a cup of the confectioners’ sugar into the sifter, and sift into the frosting batter. Stir until the confectioners’ sugar is completely combined. Repeat this step for each remaining half-cup of confectioners’ sugar until all of it is combined. Donezo!10
When your cupcakes are baked, remove them from the muffin pan and let them cool for an hour or so. After frosting each cupcake, sprinkle the top with coconut. And you now have 12 amazing Ooey Gooey Choco-Cocoa-Mocha Cupcakes with Raspberry Filling and Coconut-Cream-Cheese-Cola Frosting. Inhale!
Sheesh, Writing a Book Is Hard!
Is it bad that I’m not even halfway through this book and already straining for topics? Believe me, I’m as surprised as you are, especially considering the massive amount of time I’ve put into this puppy! But I’m coming to the rather disturbing realization that maybe all my preexisting wit and wisdom, so lovingly recorded in my trusty Lisa Frank notebook, might not fill an average-sized book. I don’t understand it. I really thought I had enough material. Why wouldn’t I? It always seems like I’m scribbling something down. After all, I’m rarely without my notebook and something to write with, usually a six-color pen. And yes, I use all the colors, even the hard-to-make-out orange! (I just had another horrid thought—what if I’m unwittingly repeating myself and forcing my readers to re-read words I’ve already written?)
I hope I can come up with more things to discuss. But after chocolate, cats, shopping, and hubbies who can be real stubby, I ask you, what else is there to talk about? What else is there to relate to?
I have to keep soldiering on. I have to commit to this thing. After all, it’s probably too late for me to do a complete 180 and, like, write in the character of an ax murderer, right? Maybe a few of you wouldn’t mind, but it simply wouldn’t be convincing. It would leave too many loose threads. Plus I think I’m way too beloved among my Jeanketeers to inexplicably change into an evil person, even if it would be strictly fictional.
Perhaps I shouldn’t be telling you this, especially since you’ve read this far already, but sometimes I get these sneaking thoughts that I shouldn’t be writing this book. That it doesn’t have a solid reason to exist. That the premise is too thin. That no one cares about my recipes, or how I maintain my hairstyle, or what color my part-time parachute is. Or what if I’m not digging deep enough? I thought I was pouring my heart out on these pages, but what if I’m not being truly honest with myself? They’re dark, sinister thoughts, I know, and defeating and counterproductive ones, too. But I can’t help but wonder if they’re right. Then I start to worry if these are the types of thoughts people get shortly before they have a nervous breakdown or do something desperate. Did Erma Bombeck ever suffer nervous breakdowns? Did she ever dangle her kids from penthouse ledges? Oh, of course not. I’m sure she had her act together. Unlike me. This is just stuff out of my brain—it isn’t supposed to be hard work! So why does it feel like it?
Oh, snap out of it, Jeannie! Don’t be such a Fretful Francie! Try to see the big picture. People just want me to entertain them and make them laugh. Yes, I must keep that in mind. Fear not, Jeanketeers. I may have hit a little snag, but I’ll get my mojo back. (Maybe, if I’m lucky, Erma Bombeck’s ghost will visit me one night and give me some great ideas. That would be kind of scary, admittedly, but also very helpful.)
What Is a Friend?
A friend is someone who shows up with a triple-layer mocha-coconut-fudge cake with cherry filling and says, “It’s your birthday”—even when it isn’t!
A friend has your back…and front, and sides, and hopefully waist size, too! (So you can share clothes!)
A friend is familiar with everything you do. You could quiz a friend on the most intimate details of your life, from who your first crush was to what section of the banana bread you consider the tastiest.*
If she cannot answer these questions, then she is not a good friend.
A friend understands and accepts your need to make ghosts out of Kleenex, even when it isn’t Halloween.
A friend’s love is unconditional (and on hot summer days when your electricity has shorted out, air conditional!).
A friend will come over to your apartment at 3 a.m. and stun a bat with a broom for you. Then, because you feel upset and guilty about it, at dawn she and you will stage a funeral for it in the vacant lot near your apartment building.
A friend lets you cry on her shoulder. (She doesn’t even mind if you absentmindedly wipe a visible streak of snot across it, too!)
Catsitting? Not a problem with a real friend.
A friend never stares at you for a good long minute, then asks, “Have you ever considered waxing your upper lip?”
“Or your sideburns?”
“Or your nostrils?”
Your friend would be proud, nay, honored, to wear your face on a T-shirt, if necessity dictates.
A friend can also have four paws. (Preferably declawed!)
Or a friend can have buttons for eyes.
A hot-water bottle can be an amazing friend.
Some of the greatest friends can be ones you’ve never met face-to-face. I am speaking, of course, of friends on daytime television. Among my greatest pals through the years: Rosie O’Donnell, Oprah Winfrey, Hoda Kotb, the Snuggle Bear, the lady announcer who read the Community Calendar on WMBL-TV in the mid-1980s, Gary Collins, and Nancy from Sewing with Nancy.
A friend, I hope, is you!
But if you don’t consider me a friend back, that’s okay too.
(P.S. In case you don’t consider me a friend back, I hope there is at least one special friend in your life who meets all or most of the above criteria. And if there isn’t, find one! Your new friend could be as close as the nearest Build-A-Bear Workshop or your TV screen!)
(P.P.S. Um, why don’t you consider me a friend?)
My First Column from (Gulp) 1990!
Jean’s Note: As I mentioned before, my association with The Onion newspaper stretches back two decades! It all started on that lazy summer day in 1990 when, having recently graduated from high school and dating not-quite-Hubby Rick, something told me to enter the annual “Fill the Third-to-the-Back Page of The Onion” contest. And guess who had the winning entry? Yep, it was the first (and so far only) thing I’d ever won, too! I used my $50 grand prize to—no lie—buy my very first Precious Moments figurine!
&n
bsp; As if I wasn’t already elated enough, days later, a call came from Onion Women’s Preoccupations Editor LeeRae Boggs asking me for more columns! (She said I captured the voice of “confused girls transitioning to womanhood” well.) The columns later developed into the “A Room of Jean’s Own” feature we know and love today. The rest, as they say, is history! (Well, no one really says that, at least not to my face. But this inaugural column is pretty historic to me!)
* * *
If you’ve been around and about our humble little burg, chances are you’ve seen a pleasantly plump, bespectacled young woman bopping down the street. Nothing special in that, I suppose…until you realize this same young woman is literally bopping—in a pair of deely boppers!!
I confess, my fellow citizens—I’m that deely boppers gal. Allow me to introduce myself—my name is Jean Speidr, Grissom High Class of ’89 (Go Orbits! Blast off to State!), and I’ve just completed my 24th straight day wearing these rad little bouncy antennae!
Yes, you read right! For over three weeks, these crazy things haven’t left my cabeza except when I wash my hair. I even sleep with them at night—I simply secure the sides with hair tape and put cotton balls between the top section and my head so it doesn’t chafe, and presto! Slumber has never been more wonderfully wacky!
The Onion Presents a Book of Jean's Own! Page 7