we flew out to arizona for my stepsister's wedding at the beginning of the month. she's the last member of my immediate family and stepfamily to marry, a detail most of us don't think about very much and a couple of us think about so intensely that i imagine one of those movie scenes where a bunch of buzz-cut, midcentury-ed-harris-y dudes in a control room applaud a wall of monitors and slap each other's backs and shake hands with cigarettes dangling out of their mouths, and also they are all simultaneously jane austen characters. the wedding was in sedona, a place joe and i lunched in with my in-laws maybe 15 years ago that i am old enough to consistently associate with axl rose and stevie nicks' fajita roundup. it was very scenic! we didn't see very much of it, as we drove up from phoenix midday on a friday and decamped in the early afternoon on a sunday, but i appreciate why people associate it with vortices and very much appreciate that it's home to the flagship location of the rock store i favor when we're meeting joe's family up in flagstaff. my stepfamily is...colorful, and i've spent a lot of time on the metaphorical and literal treadmill over the last year thinking about what i would or wouldn't say to the estranged member of it who crashed my grandmother's memorial service during the first trump administration (he served in that one and is serving in this one, and though he is too stupid to be effective at much of anything i resent quite energetically the way others have stooped for him); that time he and his wife approached me and, off guard, i chatted politely with them. joe feels very strongly that i should hold my tongue in person for the sake of the mutuals i esteem, and i feel that's how we slide into fascism and fantastize about picking pieces of his equine teeth out of my knuckles. one of my sisters and i talked about this at length and she was going to wear a rainbow pin to wedding events to telegraph, among other things, her disinterest in engaging; ultimately she did not, but her sons and i did. i couldn't tell you if someone told the garbage relative that i wasn't interested in interacting with him; i moved to the other side of a few rooms out there in arizona, and ultimately i'd decided that if i had to say anything to him i would just say no.
my father gave a speech the night of the rehearsal dinner, which was maybe a big deal or maybe not; we met the bride when i was in my twenties and she was barely a teen, so i think there was a lot more riding on how everyone else moved through that event than on how i did. i love her, and i'm glad for her that she's had someone other than her own terrible father to help her figure out how the world is put together; i'm proud of him for standing up for her in ways said terrible father couldn't or wouldn't. i think my empathic imagination is respectable, but i don't have any idea what it would be like to be her, not really. when she was in college she got a tattoo on her instep that says INHALE / EXHALE, but thanks to the dodgy script and, you know, this universe's dodgy script it appears to read INHALE WHALE. that's what i think it must feel like to be her; inhale whale. at a post-rehearsal reception she told me very sweetly that i was welcome to take molly with everyone at the afterparty the next day, and i leave it to you to decide whether or not that is something i did. speaking of choosing one's own adventures, the sister who pussied out of wearing a pin to wedding stuff (i kid, mostly, she is a kinder person than i am) got this bracing library book in which one of the decision-tree outcomes was getting enslaved by christopher columbus, a work that could be in some peril now that the administration is purging public collections. i am rooting for the woke choose-your-own-adventure book; hopefully someone sneaks it to the little girl whose horse-faced dad is dead to me, a towheaded little sprite who skipped down the aisle at the wedding with her anti-vax mother, who sported a slit-to-the thigh, sheer and boned layer cake of nude tulle like the onlyfans tooth fairy.
Showing posts with label weddings. Show all posts
Showing posts with label weddings. Show all posts
06.13.12
i do try to avoid photographing and talking about things here - though the fact that i'm an inveterate, indiscriminate hoarder is obvious and kind of unavoidable, you don't need to hear all about the dominos and plastic animals and moist towelettes and bits of icelandic licorice i carry around the city - but naurnie got me all worked up when she posted about her day-to-day jewelry. mine is very meaningful to me as well, you see, and it would be a great shame if, say, a crocodile ate one or both of my hands and you never saw it (i saw romancing the stone several dozen times in the eighties, so that was my primary concern when we bought my engagement ring, easily the fanciest thing i've ever owned: what if a crocodile makes off with my hand?). and so.
the silver cuff ring at top is from a tibetan shop on union street in san francisco; i bought it to replace a similar ring from a kiosk in the garage in harvard square. the script is a six-syllable mantra associated with the bodhisattva of compassion. it's particularly handy as a hook for the rest of my daily pieces, all of which are removed and set aside on a regular basis (some people sleep in their engagement and wedding rings; i remove mine when i eat chips).
the white gold band perpendicular to the cuff is my wedding ring, part of the late, amazing tobias wong's diamond project; it came in a little plastic bubble from a grocery-store toy machine. i also have one of tobi's diamond-embedded dimes, but i can only wear it once every week or so; i'm allergic to the nickel-copper blend (if we are ever in a superhero battle royale, you can defeat me with costume jewelry).
the platinum solitaire framed in the tobi wong ring is my engagement ring, by henrich & denzel (compliant with UN resolutions 1171, 1173, 1306, and 1343). the modern bezel setting suits me and my interest in playing with cats without putting their eyes out, and the jeweler is really understanding when joe and i come back in to have our rings polished up after feats of strength or especially nasty manual labor.
10.24.11
back from san francisco and little sis's nuptials; stay tuned for additional reports of kilts and vuvuzelas, of feats of strength and sororal piety. i spied this at the post-wedding get-together at zeitgeist, one of our old haunts down by the spca. i do, sticker, and i will.
i finished the magicians on the plane ride out to california and have been taking notes for ye olde post-halloween book chat (do stop by!). i'm thinking, to quote sis's wedding invite, black tie optional, party pants mandatory.
back from san francisco and little sis's nuptials; stay tuned for additional reports of kilts and vuvuzelas, of feats of strength and sororal piety. i spied this at the post-wedding get-together at zeitgeist, one of our old haunts down by the spca. i do, sticker, and i will.
i finished the magicians on the plane ride out to california and have been taking notes for ye olde post-halloween book chat (do stop by!). i'm thinking, to quote sis's wedding invite, black tie optional, party pants mandatory.
06.14.11
{storm front from the train; joe in our hotel's murderous hallway; man-eating koi; the ceiling at sixth & i; that with which we oompa loompa; teeth; afterparty; lincoln's waffle shop; the national portrait gallery}
the good news is that our friends' wedding in washington was a smashing success. the bad news is that almost anyone can trick me into dancing these days.
{full photo set here.}
{storm front from the train; joe in our hotel's murderous hallway; man-eating koi; the ceiling at sixth & i; that with which we oompa loompa; teeth; afterparty; lincoln's waffle shop; the national portrait gallery}
the good news is that our friends' wedding in washington was a smashing success. the bad news is that almost anyone can trick me into dancing these days.
{full photo set here.}
06.10.11: the dirty dozen {packed for a wedding weekend in washington, dc}
01 stink
02 three pairs of heels
03 four wristwatches
04 coiled green rubber snake
05 bananagrams
06 biggie was right
07 essie trophy wife and chinchilly nail polish
08 the travelin' domino
09 jenny yoo "ella" in capri blue silk shantung
10 the essential daryl hall & john oates
11 bikini
12 equipoise
01 stink
02 three pairs of heels
03 four wristwatches
04 coiled green rubber snake
05 bananagrams
06 biggie was right
07 essie trophy wife and chinchilly nail polish
08 the travelin' domino
09 jenny yoo "ella" in capri blue silk shantung
10 the essential daryl hall & john oates
11 bikini
12 equipoise
imaginary reading group discussion questions
01 have you been a wedding attendant? how many times?
02 is it acceptable to wear more than one watch at once?
03 which nail polish do you prefer?
04 have you ever gone fountain hopping? would you?
11.19.10
my swiss guard of kazoo-playing boys notwithstanding, we had no music at our wedding ceremony. had we scared up a suitable english boom box, we'd have had this.
my swiss guard of kazoo-playing boys notwithstanding, we had no music at our wedding ceremony. had we scared up a suitable english boom box, we'd have had this.
10.13.10 {go team wedding, baby jo edition}
wedding DIY is a beast to document; i was across the country as jo, her friends, and my mom did most of their prep, and for the final 72 hours i juggled photos of making things with, you know, making things. also tacos.
wedding DIY is a beast to document; i was across the country as jo, her friends, and my mom did most of their prep, and for the final 72 hours i juggled photos of making things with, you know, making things. also tacos.
mom needed something to trim the hat box in which she was giving chris and jo part of their wedding present; ten minutes and a stack of vintage book-guts later, she'd made this. (i had to mail the first part of our gift, a c.1970 ice bucket shaped like a diving bell, so i defaulted to our family's other traditional presentation method, which is to make a creepy tuneless noise and gift a thing with no wrapping at all.)
aisle garland with hand-punched paper and fishing line, wound and wound for days and days prior to our arrival; "i made it long enough to go up and down the hallway six times," said mom. someone might or might not have been lifted from the ground by their lapels on saturday when they told her the garland had slipped from the bucket and gotten too tangled to use down on the beach; i wasn't there.
i was around in plenty of time for the table numbers; jo freehanded the shapes, em lined the cutouts with rubber cement and wax paper, and i painted like a helper monkey. long night, night 2 (my mother hand-sewed the rolled grass runners in the background in that craft dungeon shot; they were too wide to load into the sewing machine).
the best man, justin, is a vintagemaster; he spent a year collecting mystery objects in and around los angeles. each of the eighteen tables had (hand-sewn, pocket-folded napkins, vials of sea salt, wee menus tucked into each napkin, and) a collection of spyglasses, scales, hurricanes, candlesticks, orbs...especially candlesticks and orbs. i believe we had three glue guns going at once (to turn the sticks into pedestals for terraria and more succulents).
justin also brought in mason jar lights for the hallway between the cocktail patio and the reception hall; kate, maid of honor extraordinaire, secured them to the ceiling. i can take or leave fashion tape, but i love a woman with an electric staple gun.
10.12.10 {go team wedding, baby jo edition}
day I, 0800h: after a late-night arrival at wedding HQ, we awaken to grueling weather and an atrocious view. it is excruciating.
day I, 0800h: after a late-night arrival at wedding HQ, we awaken to grueling weather and an atrocious view. it is excruciating.
day I, 1000h: an argument concerning the proper way to hollow out a vintage book that is to be hand-painted and planted with succulents (and who should do so) yields my favorite mother-of-the-bride quote of all time: "look, i'm stronger than you, and i can fuck up my hands."
day I, 1200h: joe realizes his main duties will be to shop for food and alcohol and to stay out of the way.
day III, 0900h: i discover that the shortcut to an amazing bridal party makeup session conversation is to ask one's artist about her work in special effects. mine (chelsea) had just wrapped a film about cyberattacks and survivalists, so we got to skip over the magic of marriage and girliness and talk about continuity with bruises and gunshots ("most of the wounded died pretty quickly, so i didn't have to advance them too much from day to day"), blood sources (unlike my college roommate the stage blood factory, chelsea preferred to purchase stuff called myblood), and plausible vomit (one of the actors had to puke onscreen, so she had to whip up something that both looked right and wouldn't taste horrible*). i wear false eyelashes for the first time.
day III, 1500h: as solo prep shots go down indoors, the bridal party turns to taking running starts and whipping tiny green apples** into the ocean from the balcony, a pastime which is significantly more popular with the throwers than it is with the purchasers of the throwers' engagement and wedding rings.
day III, 1630h: the wedding party arrives for a shoot at turk's. formalwear and our giant box of bouquets confuse local barflies; we tell them we're carrying a body. i sip my shot instead of cowboying up for photos, for i am a mean old lady. an order of onion rings is tucked in the flower box.
day III, 1730h: a girl i've known since she was six reads the same wallace stevens poem paul read at our wedding in england. my baby sister is married.
day III, 2000h: stanford beats usc with seconds to spare. the bride's family gloats.
*apple juice, oatmeal, and mashed banana, if you were wondering. the vomit i mocked up as a child to try to get out of school, by contrast, was bread crumbs and vinegar, since i merely had to point at it.
**rejects from the Tiny Caramel Apple Dessert Project, a popular but grueling wedding craft that was farmed out to professionals at the eleventh hour. (we still had to provide the apples, which was a bit weird.)
11.23.09
101 in 1001 {II}: 038 cook with 12 ingredients I’ve never used before [ongoing]
07: dahlia tuber. joe and i were nosing around a vegetable stall at the union square greenmarket a few weekends ago when one of the younger farmers turned to us. "those are dahlia tubers," he said, gesturing to a bin of homely potato-ish things at my hip. they're totally edible." i quizzed him: best raw or cooked? (raw.) how much would i need? (not much). what did they taste like? (floral, which...i guess i should have seen coming.) were they expensive? (no.) did they keep well? (sure, you can slice pieces from a single tuber all winter.) sold! i plucked a fist-sized fellow from the bin and brought it home, where it languished in the crisper until last friday. then, in one of my Ill-Advised Late-Night Baking Fits, i made this.
dahlia bread (adapted from plantlady2's gardenweb post)
- 2 eggs
- 1/2 c vegetable oil
- 1 c sugar
- 1 c grated dahlia tuber
- 1 tsp vanilla
- 1 1/2 c flour
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 2 1/2 tsp baking powder
- 1 tsp cinnamon
preheat oven to 350 degrees. in a medium bowl, beat two eggs until light and foamy, then discard a quarter of egg mixture. add oil, sugar, dahlia, and vanilla, then mix until combined (don't go crazy, but you want a homogeneous mixture). combine and jumble up dry ingredients in a second bowl, then add to first bowl and stir together only until blended. pour batter into a greased loaf pan and bake for approximately one hour, or until surface is golden brown and fairly firm (i started checking at 50 minutes and took my loaf out at around 55, as i recall).
joe had already gone to bed by the time the bread was out of the oven and cool enough to eat, but our friend jacob (in town from iowa and perpetrator, as it happens, of some of my all-time favorite dahlia arrangements at his wedding last october) was brave enough to try a piece - and liked it! i did as well, actually: it was crumbly and fragrant, and the little silvers of dahlia added a mysterious note of spiciness (it was, in fact, quite floral) that paired well with the cinnamon. the original recipe called for baking soda, which we left behind in our hell's kitchen refrigerator and hadn't yet replaced, so i subbed in additional baking powder without cutting down any of the other ingredients; i think the lower pH of the resulting batter was rather nice. pounce on dahlia tubers if you see them, internets! you'll intrigue house guests and feel like a faerie queene at the breakfast table.
101 in 1001 {II}: 038 cook with 12 ingredients I’ve never used before [ongoing]
07: dahlia tuber. joe and i were nosing around a vegetable stall at the union square greenmarket a few weekends ago when one of the younger farmers turned to us. "those are dahlia tubers," he said, gesturing to a bin of homely potato-ish things at my hip. they're totally edible." i quizzed him: best raw or cooked? (raw.) how much would i need? (not much). what did they taste like? (floral, which...i guess i should have seen coming.) were they expensive? (no.) did they keep well? (sure, you can slice pieces from a single tuber all winter.) sold! i plucked a fist-sized fellow from the bin and brought it home, where it languished in the crisper until last friday. then, in one of my Ill-Advised Late-Night Baking Fits, i made this.
dahlia bread (adapted from plantlady2's gardenweb post)
- 2 eggs
- 1/2 c vegetable oil
- 1 c sugar
- 1 c grated dahlia tuber
- 1 tsp vanilla
- 1 1/2 c flour
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 2 1/2 tsp baking powder
- 1 tsp cinnamon
preheat oven to 350 degrees. in a medium bowl, beat two eggs until light and foamy, then discard a quarter of egg mixture. add oil, sugar, dahlia, and vanilla, then mix until combined (don't go crazy, but you want a homogeneous mixture). combine and jumble up dry ingredients in a second bowl, then add to first bowl and stir together only until blended. pour batter into a greased loaf pan and bake for approximately one hour, or until surface is golden brown and fairly firm (i started checking at 50 minutes and took my loaf out at around 55, as i recall).
joe had already gone to bed by the time the bread was out of the oven and cool enough to eat, but our friend jacob (in town from iowa and perpetrator, as it happens, of some of my all-time favorite dahlia arrangements at his wedding last october) was brave enough to try a piece - and liked it! i did as well, actually: it was crumbly and fragrant, and the little silvers of dahlia added a mysterious note of spiciness (it was, in fact, quite floral) that paired well with the cinnamon. the original recipe called for baking soda, which we left behind in our hell's kitchen refrigerator and hadn't yet replaced, so i subbed in additional baking powder without cutting down any of the other ingredients; i think the lower pH of the resulting batter was rather nice. pounce on dahlia tubers if you see them, internets! you'll intrigue house guests and feel like a faerie queene at the breakfast table.
11.04.09
say what you will about beautiful families, adoring dogs, and cottages left intact after dragon attacks, but from where i'm sitting, the very best greeting at the end of a long day comes from a stack of boxes from the oxford university press.
ALL YOUR WORD ARE BELONG TO US.
say what you will about beautiful families, adoring dogs, and cottages left intact after dragon attacks, but from where i'm sitting, the very best greeting at the end of a long day comes from a stack of boxes from the oxford university press.
ALL YOUR WORD ARE BELONG TO US.
10.26.09
we concluded a truly epic wedding season this saturday with the union of our lovely jersey barbecue hosts, megan and patrick, and a wild celebration in west orange. say what you will about the less lovable parts of the garden state, but it was in its glory this weekend: i actually didn't mind our getting a bit turned around on the highway en route to the reception, as it bought me another fifteen minutes of roadside leaf-peeping. joe and i also broke out our "name that (meowed) tune" time-wasting game, so four fifths of the car* spent the last bit of the drive to the manor meowing "we are the world" as soulfully as we could (judd really outdid himself on the cyndi lauper and michael mcdonald parts). a long weddingless winter is on the horizon, but we have my little sister's wedding in the hazy future to sustain us: baby jo and her excellent boyfriend, chris, got engaged this past friday, and they tell us their first dance will be "as the world falls down." if she rocks sarah's ball gown (a distinct possibility, as she's getting her MFA in costume design), i can die happy.
we concluded a truly epic wedding season this saturday with the union of our lovely jersey barbecue hosts, megan and patrick, and a wild celebration in west orange. say what you will about the less lovable parts of the garden state, but it was in its glory this weekend: i actually didn't mind our getting a bit turned around on the highway en route to the reception, as it bought me another fifteen minutes of roadside leaf-peeping. joe and i also broke out our "name that (meowed) tune" time-wasting game, so four fifths of the car* spent the last bit of the drive to the manor meowing "we are the world" as soulfully as we could (judd really outdid himself on the cyndi lauper and michael mcdonald parts). a long weddingless winter is on the horizon, but we have my little sister's wedding in the hazy future to sustain us: baby jo and her excellent boyfriend, chris, got engaged this past friday, and they tell us their first dance will be "as the world falls down." if she rocks sarah's ball gown (a distinct possibility, as she's getting her MFA in costume design), i can die happy.
*george was the holdout. in his defense, he was driving.
08.17.09
is Wedding Afterparty* Photographer a thing? i would like to be that thing.
is Wedding Afterparty* Photographer a thing? i would like to be that thing.
*receptions are marvelous as well, don't get me wrong.
08.05.09: the dirty dozen {twelve useful things}, part II
04 via the sacramento bee (via my mom), a recipe for homemade ginger beer! gaining the ability to turn things in our apartment into ginger beer makes me feel like a modern-day rumpelstiltskin, except for the part where your guessing my name would make me screech "the devil told you that! the devil told you that!" and tear myself in two* (god, the brothers grimm are excellent).
05 via 101 cookbooks (via jen, who knows a thing or two about marathons), marathon cookies. quoth jen,
06 via david lebovitz, absinthe cake.** you guys, my contribution to the last jersey barbecue of the season will be epic.
04 via the sacramento bee (via my mom), a recipe for homemade ginger beer! gaining the ability to turn things in our apartment into ginger beer makes me feel like a modern-day rumpelstiltskin, except for the part where your guessing my name would make me screech "the devil told you that! the devil told you that!" and tear myself in two* (god, the brothers grimm are excellent).
05 via 101 cookbooks (via jen, who knows a thing or two about marathons), marathon cookies. quoth jen,
keeping in mind that they are not actually cookies but rather are healthy, cheaper-than-clif-bars, make-big-batches-and-freeze post-run snacks, they are pretty darn good. i recommend them, and don't be put off by the fact that the recipe calls for beans. seriously. recommended tweaks: double or even triple the amount of dates it calls for, don't be shy with the lemon zest, and don't forget the aniseed like i did.kooky japanese tea cakes have desensitized me to the sweet bean thing; i am intrigued.
06 via david lebovitz, absinthe cake.** you guys, my contribution to the last jersey barbecue of the season will be epic.
*speaking of tearing one's self in two, joe and i saw about five minutes of U2's rattle and hum on cable the other night - specifically, the five minutes when they perform "bad" and bono's wearing these terrible high-waisted pants with suspenders up around his ears. "i'd had no idea robin williams was in U2," joe said. "i was about to say that," i replied.
**did i ever mention how we smuggled two bottles of absinthe (one french, one czech) back with us after our honeymoon a few years ago? i was very proud of us, though i am a terrible liar and would have spoiled everything if we'd actually been questioned at customs. we were only the second-best smugglers of our wedding party, actually: my mother developed a complicated system of band-switching that enabled her to spirit a bunch of cuban cigars back to california. she actually wrote bogus letters home about how sad she was to have had to leave the real things behind: amazing.
imaginary reading group discussion questions
01 is it us, or is bono really channeling mork in that rattle and hum clip?
02 would you eat absinthe cake?
03 have you ever smuggled anything? were you successful?
07.09.09: time for pie
(note: jane austen, zombie, and goat selection spoilers herein)
my only significant quibble (if there's such a thing) with (jane austen and) seth grahame-smith's pride and prejudice and zombies is that, in the second to last illustration, elizabeth is pinned to the dojo floor by a dagger with lady catherine de bourgh's ninjas in lifeless heaps on either side of her; according to the text, the ninjas aren't dispatched until elizabeth escapes while lady catherine is admiring one of the bennets' antique katanas. a little sloppy, guys.
there are also a handful of inconsistencies in the official name of the irish seminary (kilkenny? kilkerry?) for crippled clergymen to which wickham retires with lydia after mr. darcy "beats him lame" - but these things slip through the cracks every now and again, and the book is great fun either way. marjorie garber told my austen class (long ago when the earth was flat, in the summer of '98) that clueless was her favorite version of emma; along, well, sort of analogous lines, i think this might be my favorite pride and prejudice (though my zombie bias is strong, for sure: i always snicker a bit when someone offers to send me their headshot here at the magazine). a few best-loved gobbets:
[at a midtown art store checkout counter]
1: so if you were giving someone a birthday cake...would you put this goat on it, or this goat? [places figurines on counter]
2: well, what kind of cake is it? chocolate?
1: actually, it's really a birthday pie. a key lime pie, ten inches.
2: that's small. that one... [gestures to mountain goat]
1: ...could overshadow the pie?
2: yeah. and key lime, so it's green...with brown and white...yeah, the small one. with the little beard.
1: great!
how are you, internets? what news of your undead, your betrothals and pie-times?
(note: jane austen, zombie, and goat selection spoilers herein)
my only significant quibble (if there's such a thing) with (jane austen and) seth grahame-smith's pride and prejudice and zombies is that, in the second to last illustration, elizabeth is pinned to the dojo floor by a dagger with lady catherine de bourgh's ninjas in lifeless heaps on either side of her; according to the text, the ninjas aren't dispatched until elizabeth escapes while lady catherine is admiring one of the bennets' antique katanas. a little sloppy, guys.
there are also a handful of inconsistencies in the official name of the irish seminary (kilkenny? kilkerry?) for crippled clergymen to which wickham retires with lydia after mr. darcy "beats him lame" - but these things slip through the cracks every now and again, and the book is great fun either way. marjorie garber told my austen class (long ago when the earth was flat, in the summer of '98) that clueless was her favorite version of emma; along, well, sort of analogous lines, i think this might be my favorite pride and prejudice (though my zombie bias is strong, for sure: i always snicker a bit when someone offers to send me their headshot here at the magazine). a few best-loved gobbets:
(chapter 1)in news of the living, yesterday was joe's birthday (and our little cat got to come home, hooray!). it was time for pie.
It is a truth universally acknowledged that a zombie in possession of brains must be in want of more brains.
(chapter 7)
"Can I have the carriage?" said Jane.
"No, my dear, you had better go on horseback, because it seems likely to rain; and they spring so easily from the wet earth."
(chapter 51)
Elizabeth looked expressively at Lydia; but she, who never heard nor saw anything of which she chose to be insensible, gaily continued, "Oh! Mamma, do the people hereabouts know I am married to-day? I was afraid they might not; and I passed William Goulding, whose curricle had been overturned and horses devoured, so I was determined he should know it, and so I let down the side-glass next to him, and took off my glove, and let my hand just rest upon the window-frame, so that he might see the ring, and then I bowed and smiled like anything. He yelled after us - something about his son being trapped; but oh! Mamma, I am sure he saw the ring. Oh! Think of how the news will spread!"
[at a midtown art store checkout counter]
1: so if you were giving someone a birthday cake...would you put this goat on it, or this goat? [places figurines on counter]
2: well, what kind of cake is it? chocolate?
1: actually, it's really a birthday pie. a key lime pie, ten inches.
2: that's small. that one... [gestures to mountain goat]
1: ...could overshadow the pie?
2: yeah. and key lime, so it's green...with brown and white...yeah, the small one. with the little beard.
1: great!
how are you, internets? what news of your undead, your betrothals and pie-times?
11.26.08: craft interlude {sew, very old one}
jacob and megan are one of our favorite couples in the whole world, so it went without saying that we wanted to really rock their wedding present. jacob was kind enough to feed my perpetual need to discuss event DIY by supplying me with some of his planning details, and one of my favorite touches was how they were going to use charley harper's "redbirds and redbuds" (with harper's estate's permission) on their programs. i was going to try to hunt down a print, but as it happens, the stitchin' community goes nuts for harper (no surprise there, since modernist stuff lends itself so well to needlepoint grids). i scored an authorized canvas on ebay,* built a frame and dry blocked with some thumb tacks, sewed like the wind - and underestimed project time by almost two months (did i learn nothing from the sockshund?). as with the sockshund for baby james, however, the story has a happy ending: i'm jazzed by how the project turned out,** and long autumn nights of stitching haven't soured me on needlepoint (i'm back to working on the stag beetle i started two years ago).
secret project: concluded! DIY: huzzah!
jacob and megan are one of our favorite couples in the whole world, so it went without saying that we wanted to really rock their wedding present. jacob was kind enough to feed my perpetual need to discuss event DIY by supplying me with some of his planning details, and one of my favorite touches was how they were going to use charley harper's "redbirds and redbuds" (with harper's estate's permission) on their programs. i was going to try to hunt down a print, but as it happens, the stitchin' community goes nuts for harper (no surprise there, since modernist stuff lends itself so well to needlepoint grids). i scored an authorized canvas on ebay,* built a frame and dry blocked with some thumb tacks, sewed like the wind - and underestimed project time by almost two months (did i learn nothing from the sockshund?). as with the sockshund for baby james, however, the story has a happy ending: i'm jazzed by how the project turned out,** and long autumn nights of stitching haven't soured me on needlepoint (i'm back to working on the stag beetle i started two years ago).
secret project: concluded! DIY: huzzah!
*i prefer to design my own (this was actually the first time i've worked with someone else's plan instead of freestyling), but i had a deadline - and i liked the fact that this canvas had the estate's blessing.
**though i will never let someone budget fiber for me ever again; i ran out of medium brown 433 on my very last night of stitching and nearly had a nervous breakdown.
10.17.08: the dirty dozen, part I {charm city}
01 maryland is serious about its crabs. i knew this before visiting baltimore, much as i know that florida is serious about its oranges and california is serious about its avocados, but the mania is more intense than i'd expected it to be. jacob and megan hooked us up with utz crab chips* in our "welcome to weddingfest!" guest bags last weekend, lexington market is like a giant dark offering to a lovecraftian crab god, the vegetarian buffet at the wedding reception featured crab cakes,** maryland drugstores sell crab-shaped cheez-its...it was incredible.
02 amtrak, in turn, is serious about its quiet cars, where passengers who chat loudly, use their phones, or play bleepy-whoopy handheld video games are killed and (quietly) eaten by other passengers. joe loves quiet cars for his work-related jaunts between new york and DC, and i love them because you can feel passive aggression crackle up and down the aisle, and people who get worked up for no reason are hilarious. i think the lady sitting across from us on the way to baltimore was fake-working just to have an excuse to sit there and hiss at people when they entered the car (she actually preempted noise). i could feel young skywalker's anger, and i basked in it.
03 baltimore's national aquarium is crowded. sure, it was silly of us to go on a sunday over a holiday weekend and expect anything other than hordes of children, but yowza! i am a tough aquarium audience, having grown up with regular access to the monterey bay aquarium and steinhart aquarium, so it took me a while to really get my fish on - though i do appreciate how maryland answers california's touchy-feely dolphin pools with a colossal, open water ray and shark pool (with one stately green sea turtle. L: "i wonder how he lost that one flipper." J: "probably living in a pool full of sharks."). we escaped the crowds in the basement frogs! exhibit, where the disapproving little tomato frogs reminded me that it's alright to be a curmudgeon.
01 maryland is serious about its crabs. i knew this before visiting baltimore, much as i know that florida is serious about its oranges and california is serious about its avocados, but the mania is more intense than i'd expected it to be. jacob and megan hooked us up with utz crab chips* in our "welcome to weddingfest!" guest bags last weekend, lexington market is like a giant dark offering to a lovecraftian crab god, the vegetarian buffet at the wedding reception featured crab cakes,** maryland drugstores sell crab-shaped cheez-its...it was incredible.
02 amtrak, in turn, is serious about its quiet cars, where passengers who chat loudly, use their phones, or play bleepy-whoopy handheld video games are killed and (quietly) eaten by other passengers. joe loves quiet cars for his work-related jaunts between new york and DC, and i love them because you can feel passive aggression crackle up and down the aisle, and people who get worked up for no reason are hilarious. i think the lady sitting across from us on the way to baltimore was fake-working just to have an excuse to sit there and hiss at people when they entered the car (she actually preempted noise). i could feel young skywalker's anger, and i basked in it.
03 baltimore's national aquarium is crowded. sure, it was silly of us to go on a sunday over a holiday weekend and expect anything other than hordes of children, but yowza! i am a tough aquarium audience, having grown up with regular access to the monterey bay aquarium and steinhart aquarium, so it took me a while to really get my fish on - though i do appreciate how maryland answers california's touchy-feely dolphin pools with a colossal, open water ray and shark pool (with one stately green sea turtle. L: "i wonder how he lost that one flipper." J: "probably living in a pool full of sharks."). we escaped the crowds in the basement frogs! exhibit, where the disapproving little tomato frogs reminded me that it's alright to be a curmudgeon.
imaginary reading group discussion questions
01 what's the saltiest thing you've ever eaten?
02 are you, like joe biden, a fan of train travel? what about the quiet car?
03 which aquarium exhibits reign supreme? i went frog this time, but i'm normally an eel girl, as eels look like grumpy old men.
*which do not contain crab, as it happens, but are seasoned as crabs are. they are, as of this post, the saltiest thing i have ever tasted: i could feel myself dying a little more quickly for hours after i ate a bag (and i say that as an unrepentant MSG enthusiast).
**also crabless - made of zucchini, i think, and really tasty. hats off to you, gertrude's!
10.16.08: baltimore
jacob and megan get the first and only kidchamp thoughtful wedding music award: henceforth when i think of their nuptials, or of surrendering to my thirtieth birthday, or of baltimore, i'll think of their first dance. it's one thing to mist over when you hear your own song; it's quite another to react that way to someone else's. gah, that extra glenns youtube link (up in this post's title) is doing it to me again: the DJs in love, they are lethal.
i have decided that being a groomswoman is much more fun than being a bridesmaid: at one point, i thought i was going to wear a boutonnière and carry a bouquet, it was a great excuse to go out and buy a little black dress (that i would now like to wear every day), and i got to skip extended primping and watch television with joe, david, and jacob at guy prep HQ, née our room ("should we turn on sports? yeah, we should probably turn on sports."). i had to duck out to the balcony with a new yorker when the groom changed clothes, but otherwise, i think everything worked out: most male attendants don't have multiple lint rollers, and girls have much nicer tweezers and scissors. also, putting my arm around a bridesmaid during the vows wouldn't have been nearly as fun. married groomspeople, internets! the cuteness is unstoppable!
the cuteness was kind of unstoppable in general, really. joe started sniffling before the wedding coordinator gave us the cue to cross the patio, and by the time jacob and megan turned to each other under the chuppah, the whole wedding party was crying with happiness. watching those kids get hitched was rocktober in its purest form.
jacob and megan get the first and only kidchamp thoughtful wedding music award: henceforth when i think of their nuptials, or of surrendering to my thirtieth birthday, or of baltimore, i'll think of their first dance. it's one thing to mist over when you hear your own song; it's quite another to react that way to someone else's. gah, that extra glenns youtube link (up in this post's title) is doing it to me again: the DJs in love, they are lethal.
i have decided that being a groomswoman is much more fun than being a bridesmaid: at one point, i thought i was going to wear a boutonnière and carry a bouquet, it was a great excuse to go out and buy a little black dress (that i would now like to wear every day), and i got to skip extended primping and watch television with joe, david, and jacob at guy prep HQ, née our room ("should we turn on sports? yeah, we should probably turn on sports."). i had to duck out to the balcony with a new yorker when the groom changed clothes, but otherwise, i think everything worked out: most male attendants don't have multiple lint rollers, and girls have much nicer tweezers and scissors. also, putting my arm around a bridesmaid during the vows wouldn't have been nearly as fun. married groomspeople, internets! the cuteness is unstoppable!
the cuteness was kind of unstoppable in general, really. joe started sniffling before the wedding coordinator gave us the cue to cross the patio, and by the time jacob and megan turned to each other under the chuppah, the whole wedding party was crying with happiness. watching those kids get hitched was rocktober in its purest form.
imaginary reading group discussion questions
01 been to any weddings lately?
02 have you ever been part of ye olde jewish wedding chair-lift? i was all excited about that, but apparently it happened while i was in the bathroom.
03 are you a weeper?
10.06.06
the dirty dozen: october doldrums edition* [part 3]:
009 my cold-weather thing is, apparently, buying a frivolous stuffed beast; i am a ten-year-old. last year it was yul; this year, it's - shame! - a starbucks halloween creature.** i'd post a picture (as it's quite cute, naturally), but i promised myself that i wouldn't pull the trigger unless i successfully pitched a lifestyle story at work; since i failed there, i decided that it shall be hidden until said successful pitch.
010 at the other end of the spectrum, there's absolutely nothing wrong with buying swag to pay for a dog's cancer treatments, especially when the swag says I [HEART] TRIPODS. behold the 'i heart tripods' blog, and the story of lulu the three-legged dog. give her all of your money. go on.
011 the ladymag had a four-way surprise party yesterday morning for me, a fellow newlywed, and two very pregnant coworkers. the format pleased me, as my card-and-massage-certificate-opening shared stage time with baby swag praise and another bride's stories. i still choked when it was my turn to talk, though, which is fucking frustrating: i've made peace with the fact that i'm no longer the full-of-herself teenager who could speak in front of a thousand people and wear 8" platforms to class without batting an eye, but it would be nice to talk to a few dozen benevolent colleagues without losing my voice. i think of situations like those whenever someone argues that medication alters one's authentic personality: what if the other me is the one i'm supposed to be? i'm not unhappy now, not at all, but i know that if i decide to pharm it up again someday, i won't flinch. suck it, tom cruise.
012 celebrities v. giant inflatable rats, the worldwide fug edition.
woo woo, haylie duff! semi-famous siblings shouldn't count, you say? i spend enough time over at go fug yourself that passing miz duff on the way home from work (wearing black leggings, no less) is, honestly, up there with the q&a with james carville a few weeks ago.***
rats: 3.5
star: 8
the dirty dozen: october doldrums edition* [part 3]:
009 my cold-weather thing is, apparently, buying a frivolous stuffed beast; i am a ten-year-old. last year it was yul; this year, it's - shame! - a starbucks halloween creature.** i'd post a picture (as it's quite cute, naturally), but i promised myself that i wouldn't pull the trigger unless i successfully pitched a lifestyle story at work; since i failed there, i decided that it shall be hidden until said successful pitch.
010 at the other end of the spectrum, there's absolutely nothing wrong with buying swag to pay for a dog's cancer treatments, especially when the swag says I [HEART] TRIPODS. behold the 'i heart tripods' blog, and the story of lulu the three-legged dog. give her all of your money. go on.
011 the ladymag had a four-way surprise party yesterday morning for me, a fellow newlywed, and two very pregnant coworkers. the format pleased me, as my card-and-massage-certificate-opening shared stage time with baby swag praise and another bride's stories. i still choked when it was my turn to talk, though, which is fucking frustrating: i've made peace with the fact that i'm no longer the full-of-herself teenager who could speak in front of a thousand people and wear 8" platforms to class without batting an eye, but it would be nice to talk to a few dozen benevolent colleagues without losing my voice. i think of situations like those whenever someone argues that medication alters one's authentic personality: what if the other me is the one i'm supposed to be? i'm not unhappy now, not at all, but i know that if i decide to pharm it up again someday, i won't flinch. suck it, tom cruise.
012 celebrities v. giant inflatable rats, the worldwide fug edition.
woo woo, haylie duff! semi-famous siblings shouldn't count, you say? i spend enough time over at go fug yourself that passing miz duff on the way home from work (wearing black leggings, no less) is, honestly, up there with the q&a with james carville a few weeks ago.***
rats: 3.5
star: 8
*i shouldn't be bored, since october is easily my favorite month. we have a remedy (we have?): henceforth it's rocktober.
**i don't actually hate starbucks; i quite like clean bathrooms, and the word on the street is that they treat their employees quite well. i simply prefer to purchase beasts from people who make them by hand (like beth, whose critters are gorgeous).
***however, i do not consider haylie duff my boyfriend.
09.29.06
we at kidchamp labs find it most heartening that, in his newborn blog, zyzzyva's howard junker discusses both robert mapplethorpe's ass (enraged the nea) and his lunch (tepid, near a rat). so very many bloggers hit you with what they think or what they eat. high/low, huzzah! and welcome to The Internets, howard.
good things happen when the wedding registry gets cleared out.* i was worried that we'd end up with his-and-hers nighties or bride and groom outfits for the cats,** but phil hooked us up with seasons 1 and 2 of veronica mars. i'm so excited about my upcoming utterly sedentary weekend*** that i just don't know what to tell you.
we at kidchamp labs find it most heartening that, in his newborn blog, zyzzyva's howard junker discusses both robert mapplethorpe's ass (enraged the nea) and his lunch (tepid, near a rat). so very many bloggers hit you with what they think or what they eat. high/low, huzzah! and welcome to The Internets, howard.
good things happen when the wedding registry gets cleared out.* i was worried that we'd end up with his-and-hers nighties or bride and groom outfits for the cats,** but phil hooked us up with seasons 1 and 2 of veronica mars. i'm so excited about my upcoming utterly sedentary weekend*** that i just don't know what to tell you.
*good things, that is, in addition to our getting all of the fun stuff on it. i still find that kind of shocking.
**that's a lie - bride and groom cat outfits would be awesome. [aerosmith] jude looks like a lady... [/aerosmith]
***i won't just be watching television, mind - there's a new needlepoint project afoot.
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