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

Apparently a personal history including the Holocaust, Charles Manson, and being unable to accept one’s Academy Award in person is enough to give someone a free pass for rape, sodomy, and drugging children. 13-year-old children.

“What?!” you scream, outraged. “That’s impossible!”

Not if your name is Roman Polanski.

How is this a question, exactly? I don’t give a flying fuck who did what to you when, sexual assault of a child remains one of the most despicable crimes a human being (I use the term loosely) can commit. Fleeing the country before you can be sentenced of your crime, and going into exile (oh, woe is me, I am exiled, like a Russian aristocrat in the 1920s, have pity on me, just never mind that little girl I got all stoned and then fucked her little girl brains out, that doesn’t count; I suffered as a child during WWII AND my wife was murdered! I get to do pretty much anything I want now) doesn’t mean you can avoid the fact that YOU RAPED A LITTLE GIRL AND NEVER SERVED A DAY IN JAIL.

I’m sorry about your shitty life. I’m glad the girl has been able to move past it, I think that’s very fortunate for her. It’s still a crime against society, however, whatever some socialites may think.

Enjoying the nice weather.

Back on Enzo (got my parking back, yay).

Got some decent players for my hockey pools.

Planning on making an actual turkey in Mr Wolf for Canadian Thanksgiving (his first!) to share with some friends and neighbours. May try to bake a pie for my Main Distractor.

Heading to Whistler for annual junket this afternoon. May detour and show the Main Distractor Bowen Island on the way back, he’s never been.

Why I read him even though I don’t agree with every little thing he says:

The protestors keep saying that they want their country back. Sorry, my fellow small-governmenters, but this country is a democracy, and you didn’t lose your country, you just lost an election. You had your chance for eight years. You blew it, and you lost. What Obama is doing is what he was elected to do. The principled response is not a massive, extremist-riddled hissy fit a few months in, but a constructive set of proposals to build on universal care for a more market-friendly and cost-conscious system in the future. You have to win some political credibility for that; and then you have to beat the man you lost so badly to last year. That’s the civil and civilized way forward for the right. It also seems, alas, to be the one they are currently refusing to take.

(My emphasis.)