Candy-Coated Is Forever

It's official.

Tiffany and I are getting married.

Yes, yes, I know. It's been months since I proposed and put a ring on it. But that all seems a little flimsy now that Tiffany's cousin put a picture of us on hundreds of pink and white M&Ms and served them at an engagement party in our honor.

Forget all that stuff about melting (in your mouth, not your hands), nothing says forever like having your joint-likeness on pieces of candy-coated chocolates.

I didn't even know engagement parties existed until I became engaged. I'm not sure if that's because the few married friends I treasure didn't have engagement parties or if it's because the few married friends I have treasure me so little they didn't invite me to their engagement parties, but, in any case, I did not know what they were.

I knew about showers, bachelor/ette parties, and weddings.

At first, I was nervous about the engagement parties our families threw for us (we wanted to get married to throw a party for all of them!). It turns out they're wonderful. Mostly, when Tiffany and I tell people we're engaged, all anyone wants to know is when we're getting married. Never mind that it took eight years to get where we are.

But an engagement party is all about gathering to celebrate the incremental marital accomplishment of asking (and answering). We're lucky to have so many people we love and who love us back cheering us on.

Also, I feel especially grateful to have leftover bags of candy with our faces on it.

Coconutty

If you've never had an older brother, you probably can't understand how it is that I came to be stuck about 25 percent of the way up a palm tree on Saturday.

But perhaps you will enjoy the story anyway.

The simple answer is my brother and I were celebrating Mother's Day with our mom in Miami and we all wanted to drink some coconut water... you know, the kind they devote entire shelves to in grocery stores.

Brandon says he drinks the magic stuff a couple times a week, whenever he finds a tree low enough to shake down the fruit.

We thought we had found such a tree on one of our walks down the beach.

"Maybe you can climb up, Rebecca," Brandon said.

"I don't know," I hedged, shading my eyes as I peered up the branch-less trunk.

"Yeah, it may be a little too tall," he agreed.

If you have an older brother, my post could end here. You know Brandon's response is the answer to how I came to be stuck up the tree. If you don't have an older brother, here's what you missed:

If an older brother says you can't do something, that means you have to do it. Even if he's right. Over the almost 32 years Brandon and I have shared on the planet, this rule of siblinghood has caused me to be: much too far out in the ocean, accidentally upside down in the air on snow skis, and generally much tougher than I otherwise might have been.

On Saturday, it was obvious to us all as soon as I began my climb that I could not make it up the palm tree. What was apparently less obvious was that I also could not get down.

"Oh well," Brandon said, starting to walk away from the base of the tree.

"Help," I said.

But it was too late. I had already begun the painful slide down, scraping off what seemed like crucial parts of skin on my inner thighs, inner calves, and the tops of my feet.

But I didn't cry. And if you don't know why, you obviously don't have an older brother.