The complications of the interfaith family

Erev Shabbos I was over to my folks' place for dinner. It's Pesach. It's also a Friday during Lent. We had fish and potatoes with salad. It was good--but it was also, more or less, the only option available. This is what happens when pious people of different faiths get married to each other.

The fella is not pious--he's almost piously not pious--but he will still expect a chocolate bunny and some form of nice treyf dinner for Easter. I suppose I will have an artichoke. (If some rabbi with too much time on, I'm sure his, hands has discovered that artichokes are not kosher l'Pesach, don't tell me, okay?)

Wedding plans are coming along, although I have to say that I am feeling like a slug when I look at the progress that AidelMaidel is making on hers. We have a rabbi, and also, almost certainly, a place to have the wedding. We now need a caterer, music, and I need to get the two of us dressed. We also need to choose a ring, get a chuppah, uh, flowers...

One thing I've decided I DO want for the wedding, or rather after, is that I really want to do the thing where you save the bits from the glass the groom breaks and have them embedded in a nice Lucite cube suitable for displaying on your mantelpiece. I don't know why this has such a deep appeal--OK, I do, it seems like the epitome of slightly schticky grown-up middle-class settled-down-ness, and I WANT it. Does anyone have a Lucite cube company to recommend?

Wedding customs are strange things. A few weeks ago I was getting a lift with a coworker and her wife, who teaches at another school in our area. These ladies, you need to understand, are both very opinionated individuals, and they were both married once before. The subject of freezing one's wedding cake for the first year came up. (Clearly this cannot be a very old custom.) Coworker (CW) had not done this for her first marriage. Coworker's Wife (CWW) had something to say:

CWW: "You didn't freeze the top layer of your wedding cake? No WONDER your marriage failed!"

CW: "It's stupid! And look who's talking!"

CWW: "Hey, I was married for ten years, and not all of it was bad, only the last three or four. Because I froze the cake!"

CW: (Bronx cheer)

Balabusta: "Ladies, please, shlom bayit, shlom bayit, CW, the traffic, the traffic is merging..."

But still, I'm going to risk it. We're going to EAT the cake, and assume that we'll bake more during our marriage...