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.)

today to learn that I know an actual living, breathing creationist. Who is under the age of 80. And is convinced of the high quality of the education that led to that belief. (I think indoctrination would be a more accurate name for it, but whatever.)

I have a hard enough time trying to comprehend theists, really, anymore (although it’s the actual, corporate, religions that disgust me, while theism tends to just bewilder me), but trashing all of the science of the past 150 years or whatever it is, deciding that you know better than Charles Darwin?

How does anyone do that?

I had an eye doctor’s appointment the other day, sent by the guy who checked my prescription. Because my pressure was high (right up there at the high end of normal). OK, I don’t know the first thing about glaucoma, so I looked it up on the wikipedia, and got fair enough scared. My baseline testing appointment isn’t for more than two months, so I guess it’s not something I’m really in imminent danger of having trouble with my eyes, but still.

So I asked the Main Distractor, “Honey what would we do if I go blind?!”

And he answered me, “I guess we’d get another dog.”

OK, I opened up my credit card info online this morning to find the last straw of weirdness.

Last Monday, I was charged four times for the day’s parking charges by Impark. (My credit card company won’t lift a finger for me. Yay CIBC! that’s why I love you!)

Last Friday, I was charged twice for boingo mobile wireless access for my iPhone. (Boingo fixed that right up, kudos to them.)

This morning, I was charged twice for our hotel in California. (Telephone all over North America to no avail, we now try the e-mail route. Why do I have to put myself out all over the damn place to fix everyone else’s mistakes, by the way?)

No wonder my available credit seems to be melting for no apparent reason.

Free Will Astrology for Leo:

KFC is test-marketing a flamboyant new menu item at selected restaurants in the U.S. This remarkable delicacy is an exotic sandwich that consists of bacon, two servings of cheese, and special sauce, all held together not by bread but by two slabs of fried chicken. I nominate this spectacular creation to be your earthy metaphor of the week. In accordance with the astrological omens, I hope it inspires you to head out to the frontiers of extravagance in both your spiritual affairs and your romantic life. The coming days will be an ideal time to pray to both Christ and the Goddess while making love, for example, or to get sandwiched between two delicious devotees while meditating naked, or to perform a boisterous ritual to invoke emotional riches with the help of a genius of love.

Save the Words, from Oxford Dictionaries, dedicated to preserving the arcana of the English language, a subject dear to my heart!

I’ve adopted obarmate.

Look it up.

I have had four random strangers with realllllly long gmail addresses subscribe to this blog.

I’ve deleted them on principle, since I don’t know them, and it’s easy enough to bookmark the blog if you have an overwhelming interest in it. Subscription doesn’t confer any posting or editing powers or anything.

If there’s some reason you want to be subscribed, random strangers, comment and tell me so

Actually, it’s even weirder if you consider that there’s nowhere to subscribe on the page, that I can see.