Meeting the parents

One of the treasured (and by treasured, I mean “panic-inducing”) pre-wedding rituals is the inevitable meeting of the parents. Lord Kissington’s parents have met my mother a couple of times, but had not yet made the acquaintance of my father and stepmother. We all made plans to have dinner at my father and stepmother’s house. I was a bit anxious going into this. The Kissingtons are extremely normal (so normal it’s a little scary), and the Tiara clan… well, we’re not anyone’s definition of normal. For example, the Tiara homestead is a city row house that has become something of a shrine to Sir John Soane, the French Revolution, and Dante (if you are not familiar with Soane, see here). The soon to be former Kissington boyhood home is a very normal suburban home that isn’t a shrine to anything, although it does contain quite a bit of golf-related paraphernalia. The evening got off to a slightly shaky start. The Kissingtons were going to pick us up, but they arrived a half-hour early and came up to out apartment. This wouldn’t have been too bad, except that I had torn the place apart during my identity crisis just a few hours earlier (see previous post). We had about two minutes warning they were coming, so I did the fastest straightening-up job ever, and the place didn’t look all that bad (of course, I just threw everything into the bedroom). Dinner itself actually went quite well. Everyone seemed to get along really well, conversation never lagged, and they found enough things in common to get through the evening. All I can say is, phew. One more anxiety-provoking life episode over and done with.