wedding related...

every body has a dream about what their wedding will be like. for some, its glitz and glam with large halls dripping with flowers, three course meals, men in tuxes and women in ball gowns. for others, its a justice of the peace, a close friend, and a SURPRISE! announcement. for me it was always a tropical beach, the wind blowing a fun colored cotton sundress and the waves rolling in. it was definitely barefooted, warm, and tiny. in lieu of registry, i would ask only for cash, to buy a shack on a beach somewhere tropical.
that dream is not to be.

As it turns out, it will be a december wedding, mostly likely in the rain. i will undoubtedly have to wear a shawl (or a blanket) over my pretty white dress (yes its white) to stay warm. The wedding will be indoors, with hor deurves (however you spell that). And, we are registered at crate and barrel and REI. maybe someone will buy us the tent from REI and i can pretend it's a beach shack. essentially, my whole fantasy got smooshed because of this graduation/alaska/everyone lives so far away thing. i suppose its become less about me and more about throwing a nice party for the people we adore.

more importantly than my woe-is-me rant above is that i'm also planning on making most of the flowers origami style. So if you have patterns, etc, please comment with a link. I want to make cool arrangements and am open to suggestion.

Stolen Story---or alterntively, i'm a story pirate.

Once or twice i have mentioned going off to barbecues at Shane and Hannah's house. They live in South Seattle, in a nice little cottage home with a perfect front yard for having too many people over and roasting dead animal of all varieties and occasionally veggie patties/tofu. the neighborhood is like a lot of neighborhoods in this city--two blocks one way will get you castles over looking the lake, with automatic gates and personal arboretums. The other direction will get you derelict, run down, and depressed....a land where your car WILL get broken into or just not be there when you get done eating the aforementioned dead something.  The home is inhabited by a zoo of animals, including Trapper the dog and Hoolihan the cat (who will spend hours pouncing on things). It usually reeks of good company and hospitality--dinners or bbqs are never just dinners or bbqs, they are celebrations, fiestas, ur so money parties, or Hanukkah extravaganzas. They always remember the names of the randoms who turn up--and inquire about them even long after the fact (Dus).

I tell you all this to paint a picture because i don't really have one of my own today.

Yesterday, when they awoke, the residents of said casa discovered that the home had fallen prey to a cross-bow attack. No, seriously, someone shot the house with a crossbow. One side of the house borders a road and the other an alley. The "Dungeons and Dragons Gone Wrong" style attack (Shane's words, not mine) drew a rare 'wow and i thought i'd seen it all' (the real words were something like i'm never going to see this again, but i can't remember so i'm making something up) from the cop who arrived to inspect the damage.

So, beware Seattlites, there is a crossbow bandit running amok in south seattle!! and to the rest of the world, rest assured, the level of hoodlum-geekdom this requires can only be obtained in the land of MS, Amazon, Adobe, and the Google outpost.

Adam's adventure, Chapter 2

Jaime took this picture last weekend. Feels like ages ago.

upon arrival in whitehorse, I received this text:

this drive is fantastic. in the last day i have seen 15 black bears, 14 buffalo, 5 caribou, 3 moose, 2 grizz, and one deer, coyote, red fox, dall sheep (u keep track of this stuff when ur alone).

Also, a rock thrown from a passing truck shattered the driver's side window of the car---only the heavy black tint held the window together and kept it from shattering. Now, for the rest of the drive it is covered with a shower lining and a prayer.

The adventures of Adam, Part 1

its been two days since he left. I figured it was time to start updating the world about where the heck he is.

today's mid day texts involved the following:

1. me learning that wherever he put his tent, it rained and then snowed overnight.

2. i made a map. purple is where he was last night. A is where lunch was (i think), and orange is the direction he's headed in--now on the ALCAN highway.

3. I'm hoping he'll make it into the Yukon today.

a little lost

I have to admit i'm not sure quite how i got here. I've been so independent for so long that it's more than a little confusing to me to suddenly find myself feeling set adrift simply because Adam's gone to Alaska. i spend a lot of time staring at my phone--waiting for it to ring (it won't, he's somewhere in the wilds of British Columbia) or beep (again, text unlikely due to said remote location). it's awkward feeling.

everyone is appropriately sad for me. trying to be helpful and loving and invite me to things. unfortunately, all the love kinda makes me feel more alone....like a little lost stray cat or something. the worst part is that i know we made the right choice. there just aren't options here for us in the legal field and the rapid offers in Anchorage confirmed that decision, but i wish it didn't mean seven months apart. theknot.com kindly reminded me of exactly how much time we were going to have to be apart this morning....thanks, stupid site.

The highlight of my day was a truly unexpected surprise. shortly after arriving at a luncheon for work i noticed my friends Shane and Hannah were there. Come to find out that Hannah was actually being awarded a 2010 Voices for Children Award for the amazing research work she does for early childhood education!! What had been a chore i had to do suddenly morphed into a place i was really grateful to be! http://www.childrensalliance.org/news-events/voices-children-awards-luncheon

• Hannah Lidman, who serves as senior policy associate at the Economic Opportunity Institute, and is a passionate and effective advocate for early learning. Her leadership on the Early Learning Action Alliance campaign to give more kids access to preschool, and her efforts to protect funding for existing early learning investments have made a real difference for Washington’s youngest learners.

Congrats, Hannah!!

updates...with some help from Lissa

i offered her a guest blogger spot--and promptly got turned down...so instead i'm making her sit with me while we write this recap of the past few days adventures.

Evening 1: at the airport, i acquired not only the Tansik parentals, but one Mace Rosen, who was on layover on the way home to Beijing. Indian food and much catching up ensued. no photos were taken.

Day 1: we dropped off one Mace Rosen at the airport following a very yum brunch at http://www.portagebaycafe.com/ and headed out to the peninsula. Parentals were on a retirement spot site search. Stop one was Forks:  population 3100 and 1.5million twilight related things. In spite of the potential to live with vamps and werewolves and the really beautiful scenery, parentals regrefully decline as they are "looking for a spoon not a Fork" hahaha...uh.

Day 2 Stop 2:  Other peninsula sites...so many possibilities so little time.  Clear skies permitted Lissa's number one goal--see big snowy mountains.  Back to Seattle via ferry...so cool for folks who never get to travel by ferry (well, hardly ever travel by ferry). Also, an ill fated trip to the outlet malls...alas nothing useful.

Day 3: Wedding shopping. Mission accomplished, everyone has something to wear. Went to dinner with Adam's folks on the water in Edmonds. Apparently, they can afford to live here, but it's a city so booo.

Day 4: Graduation....

We found adam before the ceremony to get a few pics in the fancy schmancy juris doctorate get-up.

The faculty did their thing....and then it was time!!

and with the other set (his) proud parents:

Yay for gradumacated.

gratefulness

after finding this article today about how much the lawyer job market sucks from the Wall Street Journal, i am beyond grateful for Adam's job and the sense of security it gives us.

Read the article. Then hug your nearest law student.

the census people called again.

you know, i really honestly, truly, with my whole little black heart thought that after i yelled so profusely last time the census would never call again. i was certain that they wouldn't want to inflict that disaster on yet another hapless government worker. really, i was just convinced my tax money should not be spent to annoy the shit out of me.

wrong on all counts.

after the fourth time they called this morning, i decided i needed a new strategy. One of my partners in crime came up with a 'genius' solution (as he safely can from China where no one annoyingly calls you to ask about how many runaway babies live in your apartment)

Partner in Crime: u should tell them 2 polish people, 10 illegal hispanic migrants, and a (i was about to name a terrorist group, but for the love of god don't wanna end up on a no fly list) all live in ur apartment and hold u hostage, forcing u to take in the strange runaway babies and the people from the homeless shelter 2 blocks one way or the halfway house next door.

hmmm. nice idea dude, bad plan....can only lead to more questions and asking of why i lied on the census, because these people OBVIOUSLY cannot use their brains and figure out the facetiousness of it all.

i've decided the proper solution is everyone's favorite "you've got the wrong number". 

Alternative ideas, dear readers, stalkers, or obliged members of the familia?