Today at the mammography screening clinic at the cancer centre. It’s not as dire a place as it might be, but basically it’s a place of little eye contact and private thoughts.

The waiting room is crowded; a tech has called in sick and another has gone home sick and they are running behind. Every seat is full, and there are a few women standing. It’s a variety of Vancouver: different ages, ethnicities, and so on. The women go, one by one, into the several rooms for their date with a machine; they return to the waiting area while the film is processed so it can be assessed as being a good picture. Then they are either released, or asked to return for another image.

I go, am squished and positioned and told to hold my breath (I’m good at that; ask any of my ophthalmologists), and return to the waiting room. One woman puts hand lotion on. The woman next to her scolds, “Go wash that off!” she says; we are not supposed to have lotions or creams as they can interfere with the equipment somehow. Or perhaps just get the boob shelf all sticky, I don’t know.

Admonished, the lotion lady scuttles to the ladies’ room and washes her hands.

The scolder looks at me and says, “You’re not 40!”

I return her look. “I am. I’m more than 40. And if I were younger, it would mean that I had a history.”

Pause.

“Well. You don’t look 40.”

“Thanks.”

And I am released.

So the other night, I was riding Enzo down Main Street, after an unsuccessful hunt for espe handbags. Thought to myself, “Self, wasn’t the new Andrey Durbach/Chris Stewart restaurant supposed to open one of these days?”

Well, my self was correct, and being as there was an empty parking slot right out front of Cafeteria, I hopped off and popped in to say hello to some of my favourite people in the world. I had a chat, took a look around, saw that there was a spot prawn and salmon sashimi dish and Dungeness crab tortelloni on the menu, and called my Main Distractor to say “Let’s EAT!”

I did stop back home to change out of my scooter togs, but we were back, salivating, in an hour.

It’s called Cafeteria, and there are no tablecloths and no printed menus. The menu is instead on a felt board, easily adjusted to suit the whims of the chef, the market and the season. The “starter” small plates (including soup of the day, a Caesar salad, an asparagus and chorizo dish, and mushrooms á la façon du chef) are largely under $10 (the sashimi dish being a worthwhile exception—the Main Distractor just INHALED that baby), and the “mains” are under $20. Options included chicken schnitzel with spaetzle, pot-au-feu, the Dungeness crab tortelloni which just blew us away, red snapper and a duck breast “steak et frites” that looked like it came with polenta fries.

Wines come in at three price levels: $30, $40 and $50, with some available by the glass, and there is also a specials board for wine, ranging from $35 to $70 a bottle when we were there. There is also beer on tap (Red Racer) and Big Rock cider by the bottle (that’s a good BC alternative to Strongbow, by the way; nice and dry).

The space is clean and bright, with enough room between tables for my large posterior to easily enter and exit the banquette (ahem).

I did enjoy eating at Ping’s, but there’s no comparison. The menu is straightforward, concise, and oh, so Durbach. Not kawaii like Ping’s, but I have a limited tolerance for kawaii in relation to food in any event. Conversely, I appear to have an unlimited appetite for restaurants operated by Chris and Andrey. We’ve missed Parkside dreadfully this past year and l’Altro Buca as well.

Cafeteria is on Main at 11th Avenue; they don’t take reservations. They’ll be serving dinner daily from 5:00 pm. You may very well find me and the MD chowing down OH and I will probably have an espe handbag, since I ordered a couple online this morning and they’ve already shipped

This reads like promo material, doesn’t it?! but I just love it so, I can’t help it.

Pic taken by my Main Distractor.

Ilya!

Sorry to be so silent…the holidays were a furious rush followed by a week of wandering amongst the ruins of Chichén Itzá, Cobá, and (spectacular) Tulúm, punctuated by lots of delicious Mexican food (oh, the guacamole we ate!) and a little poolside and beach lounging, and driving from here to there. Aside from the mosquitoes, it was a blast!

We got home to rainy Vancouver, and it feels now like it was months ago. Le sigh!

We have a fairly full agenda in upcoming weeks of music and dining, not to mention our four-month wedding anniversary and then off to New Orleans for honeymoon part 2/Olympics avoidance.

I need another two weeks of vacation–travel is such a damn pain in the ass right now.

Health care of some sort may pass, although it will be a poor and distorted reflection of what most civilized first-world countries provide their citizens.

Sarah Palin has found her natural home–amongst a passel of second-rate pseudo-journalists and snake-oil salesmen. I wonder how many actual analysts Fox will have to employ if they want anything approaching actual analysis to pass through her lipsticky lips–and then how many writers and explainers and coaches to try to get her to express it coherently…that could end the economic recession right there in one fell swoop!

A few pics later, perhaps.

that I put the wrong date (as in, an impossible date) on our wedding announcement cards that went out. I have Wednesday September 29, instead of Wednesday, September 30.

Such a great proofreader am I!! I can only suppose that I was referring to my watch in early October, which would have been off by a day until I adjusted it?

Ha!!

I feel so neglectful…negligent I suppose is the word I’m looking for

I’ve been tweeting, but things have been busy (Shonen Knife concert, Flogging Molly concert, Skinny Puppy concert, I’ve been cooking a fair amount, stuff like that).

We got our vaccinations for our honeymoon trip at Christmas (we’re going to Mexico! yay! v exciting, I haven’t been in years, and I’ve never been to the Yucatán peninsula at all, v interested to see the archaeological whatnot). Also got flu shots, hope they work as advertised.

We’re finalizing our plans for our Olympic-time trip, we have our New Orleans hotel set and will book our air soon. We hear bit by bit of people who may join us, and that’s really exciting! if you read this regularly and you were not aware of the trip, and think you might care to join a rag-tag assortment of friends and family from ALL OVER, yay! drop me a line so I can let you know about dates and such. I mailed invites to everyone whose address I had that I thought might come, essentially, but there are a lot of addresses I don’t have (and people who didn’t answer my pleas for same).

Meanwhile. WTF is with these fucks trying to stop the healthcare? and Stupak, who the hell do you think you are?! Fox News, we can tell the difference between two separate marches on Washington, DC, neither of which was as big as you said it was…And they can scarcely give Sarah Palin’s book away, lol. $9 each for hardbacks! HUGE profits there!!!!!!

Need Christmas gift ideas for my fam, if you can think of anything good please let me know. I’m not adding to Sarah Palin’s sales figures, either (not even for the FIL, who will probably read it).

Going to roast a chicken and some potatoes, and I’m considering making a pecan pie, seeing as I have these nice pecans in the cupboard. Of course I could just stuff my wee chicken, couldn’t I. Oooh.

So last weekend was a couple of things…it was my company’s annual junket, where they treat us to a weekend at Whistler, which is always nice. In addition, Sunday was the MD’s and my 18-monthaversary, so we took the opportunity to go for a nice dinner on the Friday up there.

We’d been talking about getting married at some point, being as we both agreed it was what we intended to do. I posited January 1, 2010, as being a nice date, easy to remember. Symbolic, bla bla bla. I had also decided that it would be nice to get married on Bowen Island, since I lived there for a time, and it’s the place I think of when I think of my dear departed Gram, who would, I think, have liked the MD a lot. So Monday, I drafted an email to one of the marriage commissioners on Bowen to ask her whether she might be available on January 1, and showed it to the MD. He responded, yeah it’s good, but don’t send it yet.

That day started fair but turned torrential, with crazy rainshowers. I didn’t have my raingear with me, so asked the MD if he could come and pick me up at work so I didn’t get drenched on Enzo on the way home. He did. We stopped for groceries, and then on the way back to the house, I said, so, January 1 is too soon for you to commit to, huh? and he said, well, no, not really…how about this weekend?

When I picked my jaw back up (happily he was driving), I said, well sure, and we discussed why the sort of sudden decision, and he said what I had said to him on occasion, that we know we want to get married, what are we waiting for, really? had sunk in. While I might have been able to get into the whole big wedding planning thing, he wasn’t keen on it, and both of our friends and family are so damn scattered about that it would have been v difficult to corral them (not to even mention, expensive as hell, and our friends aren’t any richer than we are), and I think really he just didn’t want to spend the next three months listening to me discuss the details and options that one has when one has three months to plan a wedding. So.

Looking at the dates and the weather, we arrived at today: September 30, 2009 (09/30/09 in American) since the only other sunny day foreseen was Sunday, October 4 (and I simply couldn’t take THAT’S A BIG 10-4 jokes for the rest of my life).

That was Monday. We talked about it around 6:30 or 7, I made dinner, we ate, we went and got our license. I started emailing commissioners to see if we could find someone to marry us at such short notice.

Tuesday morning I got up early and found and ordered a great outfit to wear. We talked about rings. I had done some research online (that’s a shock to you, no doubt) and we had actually looked at some diamonds together on the weekend, and at lunch time I went to a couple of stores and saw what was available and at what price. Sent him pics, and Tuesday after work we met up and went shopping. 5 emails to different commissioners later, I got a response! (there were a few later responses, as well, but when you have a two-day timeline, you go with the first responder.) We were set for Wednesday, although during the day, not in the evening as we’d originally hoped. The MD got himself a couple of new shirts, and we got our rings. We had hoped to get our next-door neighbours to be our witnesses, on the fly, but the daytime timing meant that wasn’t going to happen. In spite of intending to keep ALL friends out of the loop, so as not to favour any over any others, I went to the internets to see if anyone was able to come and be our witnesses. Carey and Lise jumped into the breach, commendably, and also took some pics. I hope I look OK in them

Wednesday, I went to work early, and asked my boss if I could have the afternoon off, to get married. He was extremely gentlemanly about it, and not only gave me the afternoon off, but congratulated us and cut us a nice cheque for a gift.

By 11:00 a.m., I was getting very antsy, wondering where my clothes were. Got on the online help, found that 2/3 pieces were on their way, scheduled for delivery by 5:00 pm, the other piece wasn’t shipped as they didn’t have the correct size. DAMN YOU, INTERNETS!

Went to the mall again to see if I could possibly find anything resembling either the third missing piece or something to replace it, or even something altogether different, since my pale options were basically nonexistent: I wear a lot of black and red, people. I look good in it. Nothing out there.

Got some Pol Roger at a wine store. Stopped in to get some flowers, stuck behind a lady ordering flower delivery to an address she didn’t have. Ai.

Back to the office. No clothes. It’s nearly 2:00, the wedding is at 3:00, Plan C it is.

Had held it all together basically all day but the prospect of getting married in a black dress somehow just sent me over the edge, I have always been vehement about the impropriety of wearing black to a wedding (if you’re a woman). I’m a superstitious person, there it is. Had a mini breakdown and I suspect basically every bride goes through some of that. It could have been much worse. The MD was able to cuddle me back to a semblance of normalcy. I got dressed in my awesome black birthday dress, and put my face on, our witnesses were nice and early. Lise was able to lend me a little cute pin to pin my lace (which is good cause otherwise I was going to borrow a pair of the MD’s boxer shorts )

I put the boutonniere on my MD and tied the ribbon on my hydrangea (which would have looked really cool with my originally-planned outfit).

The commissioner came, set up his stuff, married us, speaking of jungles of passion and oceans of tranquility, I cried like a baby, he had us and our witnesses do all our signing, and was on his way. We were done!

We had some Champagne and started facebooking and tweeting LOL…things are a little more casual when you get married in your living room.

Skyped with the MD’s mum, spoke to and skyped my parents, etc.

Dinner at l’Altro Buca, courtesy of the bride’s parents, bless ‘em.

It’s been a lovely day, and I stopped to tell you all about it lest I forget some of the details.

Good pics to follow, but here’s a start:

rings