Ringless again

V and I have had what could be called a tumultuous past. While we both knew right away that this was "it," we really weren't prepared for the realities of putting together two rather set-in-their-ways adults who both had over-packed baggage and (at the time anyway) factors such as foster and bio kids/grandkids whose needs and behaviors would lead to conflict between us.

Within 3 months of our meeting, V. proposed and gave me a ring - a beautiful diamond in a platinum solitaire setting - and only a few weeks later we had a very meaningful commitment ceremony, just the two of us in a suite overlooking the ocean.

But life happened, and just over two years after we met it looked like we wouldn't make it, and I took the ring off. Much of the next few months were touch-and-go (very often seeming like "go" was our only path), but after a year of hard work and hard choices, it was clear that things with us were back on track.

It just didn't feel right to just put my ring back on, though. There just seemed to be too much pain associated with it, too much to remind me of taking it off and giving it back. So, with the help of a friend who is part of her family's jewelry business, we had it remade. They were able to use the same band, but instead of a high solitaire, they created a semi-recessed setting for the diamond, flanked by two beautiful sapphires which I love.

I was thrilled. It felt so good to be wearing my ring again, to have it "recreated" to honor the changes in our relationship.

But, foolish girl that I am, I tend to think that nothing bad can happen no matter how much I abuse things, and sometime during all the work involved with our move to our new house last summer, I lost one of the sapphires. And sentimental fool that I am, I kept making excuses to not get it repaired just because I didn't want to take it off my finger again. So yes, for over a year I wore a ring that was obviously missing one of its three stones.

Now that we're "re-engaged" though, it was definitely time to get this taken care of. After a much needed sharp poke from my friend, I finally took it off and mailed it to her today. I feel naked, and in just the two hours since I've had it off I've already had one panicked "oh SHIT where's my RING?!?" moment.

I'm looking forward to getting it back. I've asked my friend to figure out a band that matches it while she has it there, since we want to give her family our business once we're ready to buy our wedding bands. And I'm certainly glad to know without question that THIS time, my ringless state is definitely very temporary.

The courthouse IS available!!! But...

...it's probably too small. The woman I talked to at the historical society office said that she really didn't think it could hold 50 people, but that I could make arrangements to look at it. I remember peeking in the windows and seeing benches, and as I'm remembering it, we might even be able to put some guests in the "jury box."

Or I may have lost far too many brain cells and if I looked at it again I'd see that it obviously could hold no more than 30 people, tops.

Oh, and the cost?

"Whatever you'd choose to donate to the Historical Society for our coming to open it for you, and for the cost of the electricity and such."

Of course we'd still have to find a place for a reception, but still, I think this would just be so cool...

Going to the courthouse and we're gonna get ma-a-aried

I'm currently fascinated with the idea of seeing if we can somehow rent the old courthouse here in out beautiful small town, to use for our ceremony. It was built in 1791, moved in 1837 to make way for the present courthouse then restored in 1976 and is the oldest wooden Courthouse still in use by the court system (on occasion).




Since it's related to what V does for a living, and my parents were married in a courthouse, and we'd love someplace unique and just a lot more US for this wedding, I'm really thinking about checking it out. The worse they can do is say no!

"I Will Survive" is not a wedding song, and other sage advice

An online friend who is busy planning her own 2008 wedding posted this to her private blog recently, and gave me permission to copy it here. There's some very good advice and a couple of good chuckles!

I just came home from my good friend's wedding, in which I was a bridesmaid, and I have a list of things I learned in regards to planning my own wedding, both good ideas and things to watch for.

GOOD IDEAS

• Her bridesmaid gifts were monogrammed tote bags with three things inside -- a picture frame with pictures from her bachelorette trip, a personal gift for each bridesmaid, and a smaller matching bag which contained wedding day essentials like safety pins, clear nail polish, dental floss, mints, and the like -- but each of us had only a few of the items, so we had to work together if we needed something. It was a great idea and came in VERY handy! We also all got special padded shoe inserts made for heels, which saved my feet.
• She reserved an extra room for her and the bridesmaids to sleep in the night before the wedding so she wouldn't be in the bridal suite until she was married.
• They totally personalized the reception without a care as to what people would think. They are Star Trek nerds, so each table was named for a place or other important thing from Star Trek and they entered to the theme song. It was so cute and personal!
• The bride had her cousin do everyone's makeup as her wedding gift, so we all got similar colors and styles and it was all done at the same time.
• They had a head table but were not the least bit anal about the bridal party getting up and visiting other tables, so I got to hang out with my fiance and with my brother and his wife, who had come in from out of state.
• The couple had a friend man (woman?) the guestbook table with a Polaroid camera. The guests signed large index cards, then the attendant took a photo and attached it to the card. All the cards were placed in a keepsake box the size of a recipe box.
• Both the bride and the groom made a point of inviting the other's attendants' significant others to their night-before gatherings (so my fiance hung out with the groom, and one of the groomsmen's girlfriends hung out with the bride and bridesmaids)
• The bride made available walking maps of the town and indicated her favorite places to walk, eat, and shop so the guests could have fun if they came in early or stayed later the next day.
• The bride is asthmatic, so she had amazingly gorgeous wooden flowers custom made for the wedding. They were more original than silk and so classy. Also, she had me keep her inhaler in my cleavage (nowhere else to put it!) just in case she needed it, but I'd imagine a groomsman's pocket would work just as well.

THINGS TO REMEMBER

• Make sure you have your veil with your dress, or ready to take to the hair salon. Hers was accidentally left in the original dress garment bag, which was crumpled into a corner of her all-packed-to-move apartment and we couldn't find it for over an hour. Panic and tears ensued and the veil was wrinkled.
• Double-check that everyone you hired is still working for their respective companies a few times leading up to the wedding. Apparently, the couple's officiant quit and did not bother to notify her clients. They only found out because the company's receptionist noticed they were supposed to have a final meeting before the run-through (this would have been the fourth meeting they would have had with her!) Luckily the original officiant's assistant stepped up and did a FABULOUS job, but it was stressful.
• If your venue is outside have a plan in place for inclement weather, even wind -- the bride's veil was blowing everywhere and almost came out of her hair, and the chuppah (Jewish wedding canopy) almost blew over. And the bridesmaids in their strapless gowns were very cold, especially standing for photos. The hotel did provide heat lamps, so that was good. The veil could have been tacked somehow to her dress, but the MOH had to hold it down for part of the ceremony to keep it from blowing away.
• No matter how much you like it, Gloria Gaynor's "I Will Survive" is not a wedding song. Double-check the DJ's or band's playlist. On the same note, make sure your DJ/band leader knows the difference between a hora and a Greek circle dance (if necessary, of course).
• Have a plan in place for food the day of the wedding, breakfast and lunch. Even if you're not hungry, the bridesmaids will be, and you should eat something too. We had to figure out that stuff on they fly, and while it worked out it would have been easier to have it planned beforehand. Also, if the bridesmaids are dressing in rooms other than their own, make sure they have their own keys to each room!
• On a similar note, prehydrate the day of the wedding but not too close to dressing time. Use the bathroom before putting on your dress (especially if it's heavy!) and encourage your bridesmaids and flower girls to do the same. The bride was meticulous about this and it helped very much.
• If the photogapher is doing something you don't like or is rushing you, speak the hell up. And if a bride and groom from a previous wedding (her venue had three weddings that day!) is hogging the prime spots, speak up. It's your day.

Now, THIS was fun!

Just in time for Halloween: The wedding dress horror show.

Dress Frenzy

Yes, obviously I've been looking at dresses, most of which I'd never consider buying, but just to get ideas in case I don't stick with the dress I have.

This one is very close to my ideal realistic-fantasy dress (as in, one I wouldn't need to morph back into being a size 8 20-something) -- wide V-neck, simple A-line chiffon skirt; just make the bodice a little simpler and chiffon, and add some loose sleeves. Oh and make the price just a couple hundred bucks. Yeah, right. If I could just find a pattern something like this, I could potentially have someone make/modify it for me, but there's no way I would pay to have it made by a real custom dressmaker (not that there's one around here anyway!).

Warning

When I am an old woman I shall wear purple
With a red had that doesn't go, and doesn't suit me.

From the poem "Warning" by Jenny Joseph

I was reading this poem (among others) last night (as poetry soothes me, and I sure need some soothing these days), and I'm now having this strange compulsion to get married in dress made of or trimmed in purple, and wearing a red veil and red slippers. After all, I will have been 50 for all of a few weeks by the time we do this, shouldn't I somehow celebrate that as part of our wedding?

I'm wondering if there are enough women in this area to start a "Red Hat Femmes" group, open to all but specifically catering to lesbian women, and I'd include transwomen as well. Despite the silliness of it, I like the Red Hat Society. No, actually I like it BECAUSE of their silliness. I'm too lazy right now to go to their site and find out the exact language, but I know from a red-hat coworker that the whole purpose is to celebrate your age, be silly, have fun, and be rid of responsibilities. It's not a group to do fund raising (I originally typed "fun raising" which I guess would have been appropriate!) or good deeds to give back to the community; it's a group to dress up in outrageous outfits and hats, and laugh with other women of a particular age. And I for one think that's a damn good reason for a group like this, particularly for a generation raised to believe you were supposed to exist to serve everyone else in your life (and I'll include myself and other baby-boomers, even if we spent our young adult-hoods immersed in the 60's/70's feminist movements).

I'm 18 months and 8 days from my 50th birthday, but I don't think it's too soon to consider what I want to be doing then.

Bridal wear lust

I'm seriously in lust with both this dress and headpiece:



















Now if I were only actually young, thin, and ethereal enough to pull it off.

Show me your STD's

I see variations on this request all the time on wedding-related boards.

Every time, I have this evil urge to google a pic of some ugly lesions on someone's naughty bits from some medical website, and post a link.

So far, I have resisted the temptation.

Unless my body is overtaken by the bridezilla virus or someone manages to convince me that there is a really good reason to waste paper, postage and money on mailing out formal or witty/cutesy "save the date" notices, the best folks are going to get is an email or phone call.

What do textbooks have to do with this wedding?

It's textbook season right now, with a veritable explosion of textbooks because of all the recent changes in Microsoft software.

(this is wedding related, I promise!)

Textbook publishers are evil. They charge the students outrageous amounts for a textbook, then deliberately make tiny superficial changes to the book every year or to so that the used volumes will be worthless and more students will be required to buy something new. They bombard faculty with textbooks that often have nothing remotely to do with what we teach, or even worse they completely ignore the list of criteria that you provide for what you'd like to review (Anything Linux after 2005, advanced Access and Vista classes only - no basic, and don't send me anything on other Office products was my request this year.) You should have seen the crap they sent me, not one book meeting those criteria.

If it's a book I can use, I will keep it, as an addition to my Linux reference library, or a book that we actually use to give a student who I know is working hard but barely able to survive financially. But the rest? Amazon.com, baby. I sell them as new (which they are), I don't sell books marked "Instructor version" as so many others do, I try to be thorough in my descriptions of dents and marks. And in a good season, as this one is looking to be, I'll easily make $500 or more.

I have received over a dozen in the past week, and have so far sold and shipped three, for a total profit of $135.

Now you'll see how this is wedding related.

That money is going into my personal saving account, to sit until the start of our holiday break, at which time I hope to go in for my first laser treatment for these damned capillaries all over my face. I think I'll have them zap this mustache while they're at it. The dr. said it would take several visits and I presume that there is some burning look to the face after a treatments, so I don't want to do it while I'd be in class. So I'll spread them out - one this winter break, one summer, then one again the next winter break. And the greedy overpaid textbook manufacturers will pay for it, though through them I'm earning my profit on the backs of the students' that they're ripping off. I think I'll just have to find a way for my conscience to deal with it.

The Mail Room Guy keeps saying that he'll start bringing me books from a stack delivered to faculty who are no longer there, for me to sell. What a haul that would be! I'll pull out any we use on campus to give to students who need them, and sell the rest. Hell, if the stack's big enough we could fund half the wedding.

Wasteful corporate bullshit funded vanity.

About dancing

Writing that last post about dance music caused me to reflect on the prominent place that dancing holds in my life and in V's and my relationship.

First, dancing saved my life. Seriously. I was one of those depressed queer kids who wasn't as much suicidal as I just simply calmly accepted that I wasn't going to be around for very long because I was too different, too broken, and I could never just be myself. Then a beautiful man named Isaac, a GI stationed on our base, decided to start a dance troupe for anyone who was interested. We did interpretive dances to songs from J.C. Superstar, African-inspired dances, Broadway-style bouncy numbers. But the important thing was that Isaac had a way of pushing us, of not accepting any less than our best and yet accepting that "our best" was different for each of us. He radiated self-love and self-confidence, and he didn't give a rats ass about being so different from everyone else - he was small, Black, didn't hesitate to wear caftans all around the base for a month when he had some surgery which made wearing pants difficult, he coached the cheerleaders, he was passionate about dance and music. He didn't "fit in" with the rest of the GI's, that's for sure, but he didn't care. He was who he was, and he taught me to love dance and most importantly, he did something for me that gradually allowed me to love myself.

Fast forward then through years of sweating it out on the dance floor, of being told countless times, "you don't dance like a white girl," of cranking up the music to dance around my house, of two-stepping becoming almost an addiction after finally escaping an abusive relationship. Music was the ultimate healing drug to me.

When I chose to convert to Judaism, I was allowed to choose my own Hebrew name, and I chose Chaya Mechola. Chaya means life, and Mechola means dance, and I can't imagine one without the other.

Then when I was considering the possibility of putting myself out there again, of looking for love (though I honestly thought I was looking simply for some comfortable companionship, having mostly given up on the idea of real love), there were many things that were non-negotiable in who I'd consider, including no substance-abusers, must love kids, and MUST love to dance. And not just your standard sway and bounce dancing, either, or "sure I like to dance, so let's go to a club". I wanted someone who could and would do couples-type dancing with me, who would grab me away from cooking or reading to slow dance or salsa, someone who would lead to my natural-affinity for following, someone who didn't just dance in my general vicinity but who truly danced with me.

And, lucky me, I found that in V.

"Let the music play..."

"He started dancing and love took us into a groove, as soon as he started to move..."

That's always been one of my all-time favorite dance songs (Shannon, 1983), and you can bet I'll be out on the dance floor shaking my booty to it at our reception.

Yesterday was mega-cleaning day, which actually gave us a unique opportunity for an important wedding-planning task: Start listing music that we'd like to play during the reception. I want to plan on having two cd's/40 songs of "background music" for while we're eating, and three cd's/60 songs (maybe even 4/80) of dance music. I figure even if we end up hiring a DJ instead of just doing our own CDs, we're going to want to make sure that she has everything WE want to hear. We alternated between "Party Favorites" and "Classic Disco" on our digital cable music stations, and just kept writing down songs we liked as they came up.

Of course, we also kept stopping to dance but that's a good thing.

I'm hoping that other folks will ultimately help us out, so if you read this blog, please please PLEASE add a comment with some song suggestions. We know mostly stuff like disco, oldies, Motown, classic R&B -- you know, old fart's stuff. I'd love to have more of a variety, so if you have some favorite "shake your booty" (or "sway with someone you love") music that has
lyrics that are consistent with this being a wedding (no breaking up, or "I hate you" songs... duh!), I'd love to have your suggestions!

Here's the link to my music list, and where I'd like you to add your suggestions. You don't have to register to comment, but please let me know who you are!

Is it time for a change?

I'm seriously considering changing my name. I've been mulling over the idea for quite a while, and I've not at all decided yet but at the moment it's leaning that direction.

Even though some folks warn me that it's a pain in the ass, I'd hyphenate. I haven't lived with this name for 50 years to just completely walk away from it. And there's a nice rhythm to our two names together: Chaya Victor-Ramirez (not our real names, but you get the idea). And the cool coincidence is that our actual two last names made up the name of the doctor who delivered me and signed my birth certificate, like "Dr. Victor Ramirez."

As much as all my 1970's feminist indoctrination screams at me to not take his name, there's a lot that feels really good about it. I'm not even totally sure why - I mean, I NEVER remotely considered taking my legal husband's name when I got married for the first time, so why now, at this age, do I want to go through the hassle of it? Well, honestly, the hassle of it is one of the big factors that sways me towards not changing it. Social security cards, drivers license, deeds, bank accounts... OY! It gives me a headache just to think about it. Not to mention the fact that if we could actually be LEGALLY married, the name change process would be a quick rubber-stamp process, but nooooo, I have to go to court, petition the judge, give a reason that the judge has to agree to, swear that I'm not trying to break the law or hide from creditors, and spend $$$ to publish a notice for a full two weeks in the local paper so that anyone who thinks it's a bad idea for me to change my name has a chance to challenge it. Straight girls don't have to go through that shit.

(Of course, it's also a bit weird and amusing and frightening that I'd have to do the name change through V's court, and they could potentially even need to pull in a judge from another county to make the decision if the judges here think there's too much conflict of interest involved, and that judge might end up being some conservative assclown who is pissed at having to drive an hour just to hear some queer girl talk about wanting to change her name to match that of the cute butch in uniform standing nearby...)

But I'm really liking the whole level of commitment that goes with changing my name. Which is a bit weird because V really doesn't want to consider changing HIS name, but I'm feeling totally ok with that (for now anyway - another factor towards not changing it is "will I resent later that I did it and he didn't?").

What feels totally anti-feminist and yet totally right to me is that one of the big things in the "for" column is how much it would mean to V. I waited until after I was at least leaning clearly on the "change it" side to tell him that I was considering it, even though he'd told me long ago that he didn't want to consider changing HIS name. I asked him, "on a 1-5 scale, how much would you like it if I changed my name to Victor-Ramirez?" and after hemming and hawing through some guilt about how that wouldn't be fair to ask that if he's not too keen on changing his own name but maybe he could consider it and would be ok with it, I finally got him to answer the damn question about his feelings and he said, with great enthusiasm and a HUGE smile, "a TEN!!!"

I'm guessing/projecting, but I think that he went through so much rejection and loss in his early life, followed by so much presumption of the immanence of rejection and loss in his later adult life, that it's a Seriously Really Big Deal to him that I'd publicly display THAT level of commitment to him. And I'm leaning towards thinking that maybe that's a very special wedding gift that I'd like to give to him.

Plus at least with a Latin part to my last name, it would make at least a little bit more sense to folks in this very brown heavily south-American town as to why my granddaughters call me "Abuela."

This one takes the cake...

In my quest to look at ways to display several standard round double-layer cakes and decorate them with flowers, I've come across a concept that just really "takes the cake": Faux Wedding Cakes. Apparently there are folks who choose to have a fake cake made, which costs several hundred dollars or more, which is there just to put on display at the reception. The real cake that's served is a bunch of sheet cake from the kitchen.

Put this seriously in the "WTF?!?" category for me.

When Bridezillas smell blood...

Despite the frequency in which I encounter it, I'm constantly startled and astounded whenever I come across online communities that tolerate or even actively support groups of its members that clearly feed off of attacking other members. It seems to be an equal-opportunity phenomenon, which I've encountered in such disparate communities such as those devoted to mothering, renovating old houses, and conversion to Judaism.

I'm not sure why I should be surprised to find it in a site dedicated to wedding planning, but I suppose I was. Silly me, constantly presuming that people will generally make at least a token attempt to be reasonable and kind to each other.

What I understand even less than groups of folks being intentionally mean towards others, is the willingness of the folks who run the communities they're in to tolerate this behavior. I'm sure The Knot (which someone I know has nicknamed "The Snot" which is quite appropriate except for a few small corners of humanity and helpfulness I've found there) would never want to advertise itself as "the place for mean-spirited bullying nasty-ass women to gather on the pretense of wedding planning in order to find fresh blood for their daily feed" and yet there's no question that's what much of it has become.

I have just never understood the apparent thirst for blood that these types of bullies have. Some even clearly pride themselves on it, putting things in their "sig lines" to indicate their pride in being considered a bully, referring to themselves as part of a "Mean Mama Posse," things like that.

Why?!? I just don't get it. Why in the world would someone pride themselves on being mean?

Of course I sometimes drift off into, "well, maybe their lives are rough and powerless in a way that they can't admit to and can't control in real-space, so they go online to vent their frustration and grab this misguided inappropriate type of power online." But my sympathy generally never lasts for long, and for the most part I believe that most of these women are just mean spirited bitches who would be nasty and ugly no matter where they were.

It's not something that at this time in my life affects me personally, in that I don't take those kinds of attacks on me as personal and I don't cower in the face of them (though I'm learning when it's useless to continue arguing with a bunch of hyenas that are craving blood and gore and tears), but I've seen them attack folks who are less able to understand that it's not about them doing something wrong, it's about a reckless and juvenile bully's quest for her (or his) latest fix, and that just pisses me the hell off.

At The Knot, my activist gene is tingling, and I'm considering trying to gather up the email addresses for most of their major advertisers and posting to try and get women to write to complain about The Knot's tolerance for this kind of bullying. Will it really do any good? Most likely not, but it might make The Knot take notice, at least for a moment, and it might help other women there take a stronger stance against the bullying they're having to endure.

Ivón takes charge!!

So there is hope for me not having to drag every little thing out of V: Today we had lunch and he announced that his coworker and our friend T., the one who is so good with flowers, is not only VERY enthusiastic about helping with the flowers, she plans to plant as many as she can in her own huge yard for us to use for the wedding.

Not only that, but another one of his work friends, O., is a really good "every-day" baker and she wants to take on making our wedding cake. I had a tiny moment of hesitation since though her cakes are delicious they're generally not professional-looking, but as I just typed into my to-do list, I'd rather have an obvious home-made cake that's delicious and made with love than a fancy bakery cake any day. I'm still having a wee bit of hesitation since V. and O. tend to go up and down in their work friendship, but it's not as if we'd be left without any options if a few weeks before the wedding we had to come up with an alternative. Heck, as far as I'm concerned we could get some yummy regular ordinary double-layer cakes from a good bakery, decorate them with some flowers, and put them on some nice cake stands and that would be more than sufficient.

BTW we already have a cake topper: I don't even remember where it came from, but someone a long time ago gave us a porcelain bride/groom topper that actually looks like it could be us. We doubt seriously that the groom was supposed to look like a bio woman in formal butch drag, but it does, so it works! ::grin::

But of course the big news is that V's taken initiative on things!! Yay! So I just made him officially in charge of the cake: He gets to choose flavor, design, whatever.

Two more wedding agreements.

V. enthusiastically agrees that our granddaughters should be our only wedding party. We hadn't really talked about it before, but I'd just been presuming it all along.

And this next one makes me feel a bit obsessive-bridish but here goes:

Sometime before the wedding (as soon as I can afford it, actually), I'm going to start working on getting all the little spider veins in my face removed. When I'd asked a dermatologist about it, he said it would take 2-3 treatments that would cost around $300 each. I feel extremely guilty about spending that kind of money on something that's pure vanity, but what used to bother me just because of how it looked has, for the past several years, really bothered me a lot more because of what others might thing: Apparently, the little red capillaries all over my face are characteristic of someone who is a severe alcoholic.

But as guilty as I feel about spending that kind of money on vanity, V. really feels that I should do it because of how much it bothers me, so I'm gonna. So THERE.

Betty and Mack: A love story

Betty was just a teenager when she moved away from home. While she'd always been someone who was outgoing and made friends easily, it was still hard for her at first to be living somewhere without her family.

But less than a year later, Betty met Mack. Mack was as shy and reticent as Betty was outgoing and sometimes demanding, but it wasn't long before Betty had her first teenage crush on him. She didn't get to see him that often, but she made a beeline for him whenever she saw him, and soon it was clear that the feelings were mutual.

Over time, Betty and Mack were able to spend more time together, and they began to form a very special bond. There was certainly no one else who could make Mack smile the way that he did when he got a special look or touch from Betty - or a loving thump when he wasn't giving her the attention she wanted from him.

After a while, Betty and Mack became an inseparable pair. There were so many thing stacked against them that could have made it not work, but they've now managed to stay together for over 30 years and through 3 moves that each required them to be separated for a while, including one in which they were apart for over a year.

Even after thirty years, the love they have for each other is still clear to anyone who sees them. They're both in their late 40's/early 50's, but Betty still blushes and grins at his name, and Mack's normally sober face still breaks into a huge smile when she touches him.

Betty has cerebral palsy and is significantly mentally challenged. Mack is independently mobile but has severe brain damage. Neither of them have any verbal language skills, and they each only have very minimal alternate communication skills, though Betty knows a few signs, and was able to tell us that she was crazy about Mack. But what they do have is a deep abiding love. They live together as two of the residents of a group home for severely disabled adults, and for almost three decades it's been part of their families' and treatment plans that they should not be separated.

Betty is V's younger half-sister.

Here is a picture we took this weekend of Betty and Mack:

Flower power!

And yet another wedding blessing falls out of the sky for us.

It turns out that a coworker of V's and the person who he considers his only real friend at work is very talented at flower arranging, loves doing it, and would love to put together the flowers for our wedding. We mainly just want vases of local seasonal flowers on the tables, including as many from our own garden as we can reasonably plant and use, but still that takes someone with an eye for and the patience to get just the color, height and texture combination, get everything trimmed up nicely, etc. She could also do a couple of larger arrangements to decorate up near the chuppah, depending on what we decide to do.

So far this is too easy. Could this be a bad thing?

Meeting the In-Laws

V.'s been mostly estranged from his dad for many years - decades, really - first because of the "unmarried mom" thing then of course for the queer thing. But when V found out that his dad was now in a nursing home and asking for him, he decided it was time to go up there.

It was actually a wonderfully healing weekend. Neither of us were sure of what to expect, but though V's dad isn't one to be demonstrative or be much into conversation, things went well, and by the end of our visit on Sunday, V's dad surprised the hell out of V and reached out to shake my hand goodbye then spontaneously pulled me forward to share a cheek-kiss. V was in shock, in a good way.

We also stopped by to visit V's sister, and that was so sweet. She was SO happy to see V, and very loving and affectionate towards me.

There was another start to a sweet reunion as well: We went by several of the places where V used to live in the area, and he was shocked to see that one old church building next door to one of his old houses was not only still standing (he'd been told it had been torn down) but it was actually being renovated. That church building was hugely significant to V, because it was occupied by an art colony of hippies who we now realize through our research were quite well known, and in fact were featured in a recent "Summer of Love" exhibit at the Whitney. But the main thing is that the people there were open to V hanging out there for long periods of time, coming over whenever he wanted to, and using their home/commune as an escape from the abuse he was suffering at the hands of his step-mother next door. The woman in the main couple who lived there made a huge difference in V's life, not just through her kindness and teaching and guiding V through all kinds of things, but also by very actively attempting to intervene whenever she saw V being treated abusively. Through talking to the folks who were there doing the renovations, V was able to confirm their names (he had an idea but wasn't sure) and by late that night once we were home, we'd located a way to contact them, and V sent a very moving thank you letter to that woman, for all that she did for him over 40 years ago. From everything we read about the direction her life took, I hope and mostly expect that he'll receive an equally warm and deeply healing letter back. I haven't mentioned this to V yet, but since this woman is not TOO far away (in Virginia), if she and V begin to correspond regularly, I may suggest that we ask if she would consider officiating at our ceremony. While I'd love to have a rabbi or rabbinical student officiate the Jewish ceremony that I really want, it would mean even more to me to have someone so very special to V do this very special thing for us. And from everything I've read about her, including the still-active spiritual center that she and her husband founded in AZ after they left NY, I could be very happy with someone like her officiating at our wedding even if there wasn't that connection between her and V.

Anyway, back to the in-laws. Our plans now are to visit up there every month or so, which is going to be a hit on our budget that we do NOT need, but it will be a very necessary expense. We're going to try and find a hotel with a kitchen so that we can fix most of our meals, even if all we do is bring stuff already fixed from home and heat it up, since eating out for two days almost doubles our cost for the weekend and isn't the healthiest thing to do anyway. I figure we can eat a big breakfast/early lunch before we leave home on Saturday, bring stuff for a nice relaxing dinner Saturday night and a substantial breakfast on Sunday, plus then make sandwiches and other [hopefully relatively healthy] finger-foods for the trip home. We also discovered a Trader Joe's that's right on the way, so we could pick up stuff for meals there as well, plus restock for the month.