Forever

What with my son living abroad, he occasionally gets mail at our house. What with him being on the hop this month, from London to Austin to Vegas to Austin to Delhi and eventually, I hope, to Baton Rouge before heading off to London, it's difficult to know whether to hold on to the mail or forward it on. It's also hard to know whether to forward it to Austin or London.

Why couldn't I have had a child who stays put?

He got a wedding invitation in the mail today. I haven't opened it, but it says, "Wedding of N--- and S-----" on the front, so I assume it's a wedding invitation and not a warning to stay away. The return address is "U______ and V____ families,  Camino Esquina, Tuscon, AZ". I only mention this information because the names are obviously Indian (Asian, not Native American) and the street name is of course Spanish. That is one of the many reasons why I love this country. 

The invitation (or death threat, we really haven't established which yet) is in a 6" by 10.5" cardboard envelope embellished with silver and gold leaves, sealed with a sticker monogrammed "NS", and then sealed in cellophane, so I can't steam it open. Is this the newest thing in wedding excess? On the one hand, I'm happy these friends are doing their best to bolster the economy. On the other hand, my son and his friends seem to issue invitations to all the other events of their lives via Facebook. Perhaps that's how they save up the money for extra large wedding invitations.

The address on the front, however, was obviously printed on a computer onto a standard Avery mailing label and stuck onto the cellophane wrapper. I don't know whether the families ran out of money for calligraphy or ran into Postal Service rules. My hunch is the latter.

I note it also cost two "Forever" stamps plus an additional 1 cent stamp to send. The "Forever" stamps have a wedding motif - white roses sitting atop a traditional looking invitation. I like the idea of "Forever" stamps of any kind for a wedding invitation.

I have notified my son of this invitation through all the channels I use to contact him with important news, in hopes that one sticks. The usual channels are Facebook message, email (work and personal), text message, and leaving a message on his voicemail. One of them usually gets through. If they all get through at once, I'm nagging. I'm a mama; any communication from me is automatically dubbed nagging.

That will be true forever.