The Wedding Album: Part 1

Doesn't that make it sound like Max and I are in a band and we've recorded an album? I tell you, if we ever do form a band, we're ready. We've got a list of dozens of great band and album names. Band name case in point: Fat Like Esther Lerner. And it's got the perfect tiny story behind it so we'll have something funny to say to Letterman in the 7.5 seconds available for chatting after we play on the show. Who cares if we don't really know any instruments?

The first batch of wedding photos are up on Picasa Web. They're mostly from the disposable cameras that we handed out to everyone for use during the weekend, plus there are a few form some of the family's digitals. So I can't really claim responsibility for any of them--and there are some truly stellar shots up there. I may be organized, but I'm not that organized, so they're not really in any particular order. But they're good to the last drop.

Happiness is Teal Blue Cream Cheese Frosting

It's a well known fact that I can't cook. At least, it's well known to the people who have listened to me complain about how I can't cook. Can't explain why, and it's not like I haven't tried to learn and people haven't tried to teach me. Although I think it has something to do with patience, timing, and trust. Every so often, I'll whip out a totally edible dish. And I'm just fine at chopping vegetables and preparing ingredients so that Max can cook something totally tasty--Max, by the way, never uses recipes or measuring spoons. He actually knows how to season to taste. I'm impressed every time.

But I can bake. Nothing super fancy, but I can make cakes and cookies and frostings and tasty treats like peach tartine. I can make pies and rugaleh. I can also make the dessert of the hour, cupcakes. If desserts have personalities, cupcakes are the San Francisco hipster who live in the Mission or Hayes Valley and have all of the cutest bags and shoes. Oddly, I don't hate them for that. Cupcakes were deserving of my adoration long before I painfully discovered the concept of "cool," and I will be baking and eating cupcakes long after pirates go out of fashion and cupcake shops stop popping up all over Manhattan.

The cupcakes I made on Sunday were moist and yellow, and topped with pale teal blue cream cheese frosting. They were not diet friendly or low-anything, and they were delicious. I think I'll go have one right now.

My boyfriend and I went to Gualala and all I got was this new last name

I'm still too overwhelmed to give a really good report of the wedding. We're back in Foster City and getting to see a lot of our out-of-town friends and family one last time before they return to their homes. And then there's all of the Ikea furniture that poor Max has to build. Poor, poor Max.

I'm expecting there to be 1,000 + pictures when all is said and done, so it will be a while before I get an album up on Picasa Web. I know, tortuous. I thought I'd post a few of the real good ones to tide you all over, but it's too hard to choose. But here's a photo of one of the best parts of the weekend:



Mmmmmmm, she smells like taffy.

I'm still reeling from the whole thing. The weather was amazing, and it was a really terrific group of near and dear ones. Small enough to still be intimate, but big enough to be undoubtedly festive. We really got to use the whole 3 days to catch up and spend quality time with both friends and family. And even though we pretty much broke just about every rule the Sea Ranch has, it was a virtually stress free weekend and wedding. Which still totally amazes me.

The dogs were SO WELL BEHAVED, thanks in no small part to LDB and Heffe who spent a lot of time tiring them out with hikes and stick fetching in the ocean while Max and I meeted and greeted and went on our seemingly endless rounds. It was also a grand opportunity for everyone to meet Samson, by way of touching my belly and making baby talk to it (I'm not complaining--it was freaking awesome.). Samson liked it too, as evidenced by his kicking and movement pattern becoming totally ramped up over the weekend.

The ceremony itself went off utterly hitchless, and my hair looked so damn good thanks to MEH and her magic hands. I won't lie to you; tears were shed, although no vows were flubbed. And Ozzy decided that he would do his patented back-scratch-rolling maneuver in a nice patch of sunny grass, center stage of the chuppah, about half way through the ceremony. Which was, of course, totally freaking adorable.

Then there was the food. And the parties. And the BBQ. And the volleyball. And the beachy sunsets. This will definitely take a few installments.

dks

I'm back from the wedding, complete with a new last name! How exciting. I won't say much in this post, as I am totally and utterly exhausted, but I will say that it was THE PERFECT WEEKEND and everything went wonderfully. It was the best wedding ever, and we have the best friends and families and dogs ever. Pictures and musings shortly. Big ups to my ridiculously helpful friends from Portland, San Antonio, San Carlos, Brooklyn, Minneapolis, and beyond.

Take my sanity, please

Wow, it's really almost time for the wedding. Family and friends started arriving from out of town today, and the chaos has begun. It won't be in full swing until the middle of next week, and by then, I do believe I will have gone bananas. Once the actual celebration starts on Friday, I'll be nothing but smiles--surrounded by friends and family with no prep left to do. But this week it's kind of overwhelming, getting the finishing touches on seating arrangements, flowers, and various bits and bobs. Even for such a small wedding, there are so many little details! And I suppose we didn't have to move into a new place during the same week. Or buy a new car. Or a new bed.

It's been challenging, but it's totally worth it. I am SO EXCITED for this wedding, and I love love love our new place. The transition from Dublin to Foster City has actually gone really smoothly. We kind of treated it like how one treats swimming in Fall Creek in Oregon: close your eyes, hold your breath, and jump in. Then pray as hard as you can that your lungs don't seize up from the freezing cold water. If you just stick your toe in before you jump, you'll never succeed. It's all or nothing, and this week has been an all week.

Other news: my good buddy Tiny Trousers appears to be on the mend! We here at Extra Super Fantastic wish her and her mom all the best.

Life in HD

So here I am, sitting in my new home, blogging from my new laptop, watching our new HDTV, 2 clean dogs curled up next to me. You could say I had a real good weekend. The new place is awesome; it's really coming together nicely. We had 2 sets of extremely helpful parents on hand, and everyone was just great. I've never moved in and unpacked so quickly before, including our marathon trip to Ikea and Best Buy on Sunday morning. and not to mention the fact that I can't actually lift anything! It may not be San Francisco, but it feels really good.

Let's just not discuss the fact that it's now less than 2 weeks until the wedding. Gulp.

Off to the dog park now--these hounds deserve a reward for their good behavior.

New digs

No more apartments for us. Oh, no, we're moving on up. To a townhouse. Mmmm, fancy. We found a nice place in a nice neighborhood that is, sadly, not in San Francisco. We'll be in the proper burbs, where we can afford a yard and a garage and more toilets than you can shake a stick at. Max's commute will be cut in half which will give more time to run around fetching me things like McDonald's french fries and obscure imported root beer. Lucky, lucky, Max.

Expect hilarious anecdotes of moving and going through our storage unit in the near future. and maybe some pictures of the new place. To hold you over for now, here are some pictures of the time a few weeks ago when I went to the Kwik-E Mart in Mountain View with Rosa and Dave.

Coming up for air

Mmmmmmm, a conglomoration of life changing events and it's not even August yet. Weddings. Babies. Returning to the US. A dog with an inferiority complex. Finding a home. New job. Old job. Let me say again that I AM NOT COMPLAINING, I am simply making excuses for my lack of blogging. This is so much fun, and I love being home and seeing my family and the weather--holy crap this weather. Long live global warming. Just rest assured that my usually more-frequent-than-this blogging schedule has been usurped by dresses, veils, flowers, bassinets, cake, and a crazy mixed up shepherd. And occasionl cat-naps in the sun.

Medium sized update

So I went up to the Sea Ranch for 3 days last week to get my bearings in regards to the wedding. The wedding that's in exactly one month. Ahem.

The verdict: boy did we pick the right place to start the rest of our lives together. Thanks to mom and dad's scouting skills and their intrepid ability to test fancy restaurants for us in our absence, the food will match the beauty and the intensity that is the Northern California coast and redwoods. And that's really what a wedding is all about, right?

Once again, I'm torn by how happy we are to have a nice, simple, intimate (aka "small") ceremony, one that's more or less devoid of stress and time-intensive decisions about tablecloths and seating arrangements, and my desire to share this wonderful place and this wonderful event with all of my nearest and dearest. Thankfully, our friends and family understand, and they support our decision. And that makes me feel less torn.

On to the story of Ozzylocks and the Three Deer. Well, there's no story really. There were these three deer grazing outside our house, and Ozzy watched them and made deeply primal growly noises. As if, Oz. They have horns, buddy. Horns.



Nanna, of course, had more important things to worry about. Like all of these sticks! Who left all of these sticks lying around here?? How am I supposed to fetch ALL OF THESE STICKS???



Other business: Max will be home in 2 short weeks! The movers will come to pack up the rest our belongings in Dublin in a week or so, then I get my best friend back, my bringer of milkshakes and not-so-secret Degrassi TNG watching pal. Life is good.

Other other business: the AIDS Walk went really, really well last Sunday. Extra super fantastic THANK YOUs to everyone who supported me by donating. I met my fundraising goal, and was able to take part in something really special and helpful to my community. I walked the whole 10K with team captain Laura and her dad, not to mention my four-legged cohorts. Oz and Nanna did splendidly, and were incredible tuckered out by the end of the weekend--three days chasing sticks in the ocean, multiple trips to the dog park, and one heck of a long walk through a fog-filled Golden Gate Park. I think they've finally forgiven me for leaving them for a year.

Mini Update

I am still here--busy with work, and a fabulous pre-wedding fact-gathering mission to the Sea Ranch. More about this later, and pictures of Ozzy's not-so-close encounter with a trio of deer.

One other thing: big hugs and warm thoughts for my good friend Tiny Trousers (and her ever loving mom). Who knew an Australian shepherd mix (or whatever the lying sack of crap at the pet store said you were), who is almost certainly part mountain goat, could get herself stranded on the dusty crags of my heart and mind for so long? Well, I guess I knew.

Back in California

It's good to be home. The dogs are finally starting to remember that I'm the pack leader, which means I get followed around a bit more, and when I wake up in the middle of the night to pee (like, 6 times) I can hear Nanna snoring away on her pile of dog beds. It's always hard the first few days when I come home; the cats hardly come near me and the dogs sleep down the hall with their "real parents." But a few days of cookies and trips to the dog park bring back the natural order of things pretty quickly.

We're heading to the Sea Ranch tomorrow to finalize some wedding details--you know, silly stuff like food, alcohol, and ceremony locations. Even though we're having the smallest wedding known to man, there's still planning to be done and food to be tasted. I got my 30 weeks pregnant wedding dress recently, and I absolutely love it. When I tried it on I felt like a knocked up Cinderella. It's very chiffon-y and flow-y and white--all the things a wedding gown should be, but with a little extra room in the right places. Plus the dress weighs less than 2 pounds--Samson and I will be very comfortable on the big day.

Chances are that I won't be blogging quite so much over the next few weeks--it's just a hunch but we'll see.

The cat came back

Just not the very next day. Six days later, actually. And the word on the street is that he's in one piece, and rather famished. This wasn't the first time Miru ran away. Wasn't the 2nd time either. Or the 3rd. But he's back, safe and sound, and that's what matters.

I'm enjoying my last few days in Dublin, and by "enjoying" I mean packing, organizing, planning, and list-making. Good times! Of course I'll miss Max, but really, this will be the shortest length of time we've ever lived apart from each other. And I'll get to replace one Max with 2 dogs and 2 cats (thankfully).

We had our 23 week OB appointment and scan yesterday. Samson got a great report from the midwife: "Size appropriate for gestational age. No evidence of any structural abnormality." Those are the two best sentence fragments I've ever read in my life. Except for maybe "Salt water taffy half off," and "Kittens free to good home." There's nothing like a box of kittens.

Breathe through it

I went to prenatal yoga today. No crying this time--not from me, anyway. The classroom is on the deliveries floor, and there was this weird, high pitched moaning noise throughout the class today--it was hardly noticeable. The midwife who runs the class spent a lot of time today telling us about natural birth (yeah, right) and how yoga will help us learn to breathe through the discomfort--not pain, mind you, discomfort. The entire class became skeptical because by the end of class--you know, the part with the relaxation, feel your body filling up with warming light, blah blah blah--the high pitched moaning next door had become full on screaming. Pain-filled screaming. Was she breathing through the discomfort? It was pretty comical though, like something out of Will and Grace or Seinfeld. Who knew yoga needed a laugh track?

The Varro's visit to Ireland has been immortalized by the Lomo, which happily decided to function last week. Pics are on Picasa Web. No embedded slideshow, I decided I didn't like that feature all that much. Here's a good one though:



I will miss our little Irish roadtrips. Ireland is a lot like the Sea Ranch, though, so there's a number of Irish-ish road trips coming up soon. But with dogs!

Summer Showers

I passed a shoe store today with a window display advertising "hip festival fashion"--wellies. Back in good 'ol California, festival-wear (at least in my day) consisted of tank tops and flip flops. Or, being the San Francisco Bay Area, hooded sweatshirts and sneakers. But rarely did one need to wear full on rain gear to Lollapalooza or Coachella. Maybe for the Bridge School Benefit in late October, but never to a summer festival. Here in soggy Ireland, summer music festivals mean ponchos, rain boots, and wet, muddy camping. There have been a few weeks here and there, last summer when I first got here and earlier this spring where the weather here was heavenly--warm and clear with air that smells like fresh cut grass and mild humidity. Couple that with the super long days (sun now sets at 11 pm!) and you've got the potential for an amazing place to live.

Now ask me about how I got caught in a rain shower on my way home from lunch today. Not the warm East Coast-y kind, but the cold blowing-in-off-the-Irish-Sea kind. My pants and sweater are still hanging on the bedroom door, drying out.

The Varros Come to Ireland

They came. They saw. They drank Guinness. We had a wonderful week with our New York friends, the Varros. The weather didn't really cooperate, but that didn't stop us from doing all of the fun Dublin stuff. We also took a 3 day road trip to Galway and Bunratty Castle and to County Kerry--Sarah's ancestral home (she was a Sullivan until last October). We saw sheep and cows and goats (oh my!) and enjoyed our fair share of Irish goodies and full-car sing-a-longs. Pictures!



That, my friends, is Picasa's fancy new slideshow embedding feature. Pretty cool! I like to embed things within other things. Like embedding pigs into blankets, or jalepenos into poppers. Mmmm, snacks filled with other snacks.

Baby update: we have have movement! Unless it's some kind of weird prolonged bout of gas, I've been feeling Max Jr. squirm around for 2 weeks now. It feels a lot like riding a roller coaster, specifically the part where you go down a big drop and your stomach follows you down a little bit slower than the rest of your insides. But just slightly and only for a second. It's really quite amazing. Nothing like the hiccups and acrobatics that I'm sure will start in the months to come, but enough to bring a smile to my face when I'm just sitting there minding my own business and he reminds me that I'm not alone.

Other than that, it's time to pack it all in here in Dublin. Moving (part one) is less than 2 weeks away, and there's much to do. So I'd better get doing.

I don't know whether I can handle this weather

Stupid rain. Stupid, stupid rain. It's been raining all week, anywhere from hot and muggy rain a la the East Coast to cold pelting rain that makes me frown. Our good friends the Varros are coming to Dublin on Saturday to visit for a week, and there's a lot of rain in the forecast. I've only got 3 1/2 weeks left to complain about the weather, so I guess I'd better get busy.

I wanted to post a song that sort of fit this weather-induced mood I'm in, but I couldn't find an online version (to purchase or otherwise, including iTunes) of the one I had mind. So here's a link to a place where you can listen to it. It's from a Channel 4 Radio ad that plays on our UK TV channels regularly, and it makes feel kind of gloomy-happy.

And here's another song that kind of works for my mood today, too.

Halfway there!

Today marks the halfway point in Baby Samson's stay in the Hotel My Belly. 20 weeks. Unbelievable. It really illustrates how time flies. I mean, really.

Last night we had dinner with 2 really nice American and American-Scottish couples. Between the 2 of them, they had a 2 week old, a one year old, a two year old, and a three year old. Max and I sat there, smiling, as babies slept and pooped and ate, and toddlers ran around giggling and being kids, and everything less than 3 feet high was pulled, grabbed, thrown, chewed on, hugged hidden, and eventually handed to Max for evaluation (the kids, they LOVE Max. Big time.). It was kind of like some sort of glimpse into the near and near-distant future for us. And it was only a little scary. Mostly it was 4 adorable children, smiling and learning and playing, and 4 happily exhausted parents, exchanging knowing smiles as I kept thinking to myself, "Wow. Wow wow wow wow wow. Wooooooooow. Wow."

I'm too sexy for just about everything

This commercial has been on here for over a month, so I have no idea why I only thought about posting it today.



Round two of the Turkey pics are up. Underwater cameras, action sampler, fish eye, all the plastic and artsy cameras.

Learning how to breath again

I had my first prenatal yoga class at lunch today. I've done yoga a handful of times throughout my life; there was the kundalini yoga class when I was 15 at the rec center. Verdict: it made me fall asleep, and was basically a vehicle for the instructor to sell his goofy relaxation tapes. More recently, one of my coworkers got me to join her for a drop-in class a couple of times last year. Verdict: ouch! Yoga hurts my arms!

This class is all about the breathing and various pelvic stretching. At 19 weeks, I am the least pregnant in the group; most of the women are 30 weeks and up, a few are 26-28 weeks. I was the only one who didn't really need the pile of pillows that were placed at the head of each yoga mat, not that I didn't appreciate them. I was also the only one who could lie on my back for the relaxation portion at the very end of the class. That's when the weirdest thing happened.

The midwife leading the class instructed us to breath in, thinking of all of the good and loving things in our lives. No problem--I've got lots of good and loving. Then she told us to breathe out, pushing out all of the stress, all of the tension, the negativity, the disappointment...and I lost it. I started to cry. I wasn't bawling, in fact I don't think anyone noticed, but I couldn't stop the tears from coming, streaming down the sides of my face into my ears. I'm not one to bottle things up. I cry pretty regularly, I tell my loved ones when I'm bummed out or pissed off, I've always considered myself pretty much fully in touch with my feelings. So why was I so surprised at this outburst? Why did I have this extreme reaction to breathing out the sadness? It was really weird, and caught me totally off guard. I wonder what there is in my life right now, today, that I'm not dealing with?

Turkish Delight

We had a wonderful week in Turkey, a great last hurrah as my days of living in Europe, and flying at all, come to an end. What? What's that you say? You want to see pictures? Well, I'll have to see what I can do about that. Let's start with 42 of the 143 pictures from the digital camera, and I'll follow up later this week with the 6 rolls of film from various Lomo, action samplers, and underwater cameras. Yikes!

Highlights:

Seeing our friends from Israel. Since none of them will be able to make it out to SF for the wedding in August, we invited everyone to join us in Bodrum for a pre-wedding celebration. Remember, these are the same people who engineered and produced the famous zombie engagement of 2005, so it was no surprise when they surprised us with a mock wedding on Friday night, complete with a rabbi, a priest, and Elvis. It was terrific--and good practice for the real thing! Only 74 days!



Boat trip on a Turkish Yacht. We spent all day Saturday cruising around the Aegean Sea, snorkeling, and soaking up the sun. It was my first time snorkeling and I had such a blast. The water wasn't the most tropical, most of the fish were pretty much sand and water colored with a few blue or orange guys swimming around. But between the snorkel mask and my contact lenses, I think it was the first time I've ever actually seen underwater. It's a whole new world, and I want to live in that world all the time. And then there was the ice cream boat at one of the snorkeling stops. Genius!



Turkey is also the land of meat on a stick. I've eaten enough kebabs in the last week to last 2 lifetimes. And the cherries! The had these really big, juicy cherries at our local fruit and veg market, plus every restaurant and mini market and grocery store has cherry juice--the ice cream vendors on the beach promenade even have cherry ice cream! I got my fill of my favorite fruit flavor in all of it's various forms. Delicious.

Then there was the Hamam (Turkish Bath). What a weirdly fun experience! We skipped the sauna portion of the bath on account of baby Samson, but the soap massage was out of this world and the oil massage was to die for. The whole thing was made even more hilarious by the super friendly Turkish guy in a skirt and a Beckham jersey who dried us off after the soap massage. What a surreal time that was.

It was hard to come back to Dublin, especially considering that the weather was crap yesterday, but it's kind of nice to be back. I'm in the home stretch now, only one more month until I go home. I'm starting to get bigger, and next week marks the half way point in my pregnancy, so it will be great to get back to the Bay Area and be able to start the next chapter of my life. As much fun as I've had living in Europe the past year, I'm ready to be somewhere that we can stay for a few years, to have the dogs and cats back in my life, to go back to the office, all that stuff. Not that the next year will bring anything resembling peace and quiet, I realize that. But it's going to be such a great thing to start our new family, and I can hardly wait.