Journal of No. 118

Last weekend, I flew out to Florida for my cousin's wedding. Whirlwind tour, had a great time.

Photos from the trip.

Six years ago, a Methodist minister performed the wedding ceremony for his gay son. He told his superiors and didn't hear anything from them, so we went ahead with it. Only recently has a parishioner complained, leading to a trial by his church. In support of him, 50 Methodist ministers solemnized the vows of a gay couple.

Cheers to the (many) religious people in favor of marriage equality!

Update: Guilty.

Had a great time. Saw lots of friends and had good long chats with some that I haven't had the chance to in some time.

The rev left a pregnant (so to speak) pause after his call for marriage equality. I was too timid to cheer, even though I got a few cheers when I left a similar pause the last time I officiated.

Karen looked lovely, the girls looked excited, Ian was rocking the tux, and Brian had a superfluous fork in his hand as he gave his toast. Perfect.



More photos

Dr. Pookie and I flew up to the Bay Area Saturday morning. We also had my mom along. This was something of a great event, as Mom had not flown for more than a decade. But with our stalwart aid, she was able to make it to LAX, through security and onto the plane. It's a quick trip up and after landing in Oakland we got to the rental car kiosk and, since they were out of the midsize car I had reserved, we were ushered toward the premium option, a Mercury Grand Marquis, a truly astonishing beast, "one of the last "traditional" American full-size cars still available for retail sale". All the modern conveniences, and yet styled as though it were 1975. The thing has twice as many cylinders as any car I've ever owned, and slalomed along the road like a full ton of Detroit steel. The whole trip was about 60 miles, and I put 5 gallons of gas in it before I returned it, so you do the math.
( yes, I run off at the mouth as usual )

flickr set

The groom-cake doubled as a battle mat:

randbot mentioned something about one of the Enigmaversary photos being perhaps the earliest picture of dark_of_night. To outdo it, I present this exhibit. This photo was wedged into a book as a bookmark, and has probably been there for well over a decade. It fell out recently when Rebecca started rereading the book. It's like a weird time-capsule. Click on the image and check out the flickr notes. It's weird knowing that I still have some of that stuff.
In particular, I'll mention the poster thing in the upper right. It stirred a memory, but I couldn't quite grasp it. All I could see was a yin-yang symbol. Was it maybe something that came with Jordan Mechner's Karateka (which spawned Prince of Persia, which spawned many more Princes of Persia). No.... After locating the Mother of all Apple // game lists, I finally figured it out:

Moebius: The Orb of Celestial Harmony. I still have that headband, too.

Wow!



Oh, and here's a more recent picture of Becca, taken by the_undertow at the wedding. Click for more bigness:



She's got the same cute smile! Aw!

photo courtesy of aaronjv

( Quick (?) Recap )

Some of you dear readers were skeptical of Katrina victims blowing their FEMA money on handbags and strippers. Some of the reports have been substantiated, but I think it's clear that these are atypical cases.
( bla bla bla )

Last week a couple packages arrived. One from my grandparents, and one from Becca's grandmother. The one from my grandfolks had some of grandpa's tie pins, including a nice Egyptian one bought at the Tut exhibit in the 70's. There was also some jewelry made by grandma for Becca. I'm glad grandma and the other Red Hat Ladies get together and play with beads and wires and things, but I hope she wasn't intending this to be what Rebecca wears for the wedding. Not that it's hideous or anything, but it really doesn't quite match the theme. The box also contained some Disney merchandise that was being regifted. It's a good thing they already bought us china, because a regifted set of four Mickey Mouse-headed cheese knives really would not have done as a wedding present.

In contrast, the package from Becca's grandma was full of old family treasures and guilt. An ancient box for calling cards or CDV's. A little gnomish doll of great sentimental value to a departed female ancestor. The least tattered of Grandpa Lease's remaining monogrammed handkerchiefs. And a delicate French teacup and saucer with handpainted violets. When she decided to give us the teacup (her letter reads) she first put it away out of sight in a cupboard so that she could get used to not seeing it any more. Augh!

Sunday we were visited by Dad and Lois. Rebecca has asked Lois to handle her make-up for the wedding, so a trial run was undertaken. Lois's little travelcase for make-up resembled a steamer trunk in size. It was pretty impressive. While Dad and I watched some football, they got busy with the spackle and trowels. But it certainly turned out nicely, with even some slight visible reminders of Rebecca's actual face.
Afterwards, the four of us met up with Craig and Jaime at Jerry's Deli and had a good lunch. From there we hit Robinson's Beautilities so people could scope out costume ideas and peripherals. Dad and Lois once again announced that they're on the lookout for some leatherbound books (for decorative purposes only!) so I steered them toward Sam: Johnson's, which is close to Robinson's. Then we headed back for home and left them to their browsing.

The grandparently packages also spurred me into some long-delayed activity. Namely, genealogy. Rebecca had once computerized her lengthy geneaology, but it was lost in the great crash of the 199-something or other. I knew it was a sore loss, and with the continuing deluge of heirlooms from Grandma Lease, it was getting more and more difficult to keep track of what came from whom. So working in secret, I have now restored her family tree.
I've gone through just about all of the data in her genealogy folder, but looking online, there is a cornucopia of additional information out there on the Strong family and its many descendants. My collector-urge to be complete is warring with my sanity at this point. I will merely point out a couple of Rebecca's distant cousins who are also direct descendants of Elder John Strong. Indeed, they're a little closer than that, since Preserved Strong is a direct ancestor of Becca.

By adding our hairy baby, Changeling, I've linked my family tree to Rebecca's and now have the unenviable task of trying to add a little more detail to my own family. I've got some good info on my mother's mother's side. And a little bit on the Tice side, which hopefully I can work back until I can join it up with 4. Hans Matthias (4) Theiss, who was the first 'Tice' to come to America, settling in the area where there are still some distant Tice relatives living to this day.

Furious activity all weekend long, it seemed. Partially instigated by ants, who have located more tiny cracks and holes in our ancient house than I can believe. They have fiendishly come up with back-up plan after back-up plan. Earlier this summer, we had sort of a detente in place with the ants, but it seems that the cold war is hotting up.
Saturday morning, we poked around a bit in the area near the Culver Hotel, where many family members will be staying for the wedding. Had lunch at a nice French cafe near the Washington Building. Saturday evening featured duelling birthday parties: with ladyeuthanasia (Happy Birthday!) getting the short end of the stick as far as our presence was concerned. But it looks like she had a great time even without our illlustrious selves. We ventured into the wilds of Outer Arcadia for margaritas and karaoke chez McInnis. I even caught a glimpse or two of the increasingly mythical Cheryl.
Sunday was full of more ants and chores, followed by dinner at San Gennaro, which is unwittingly vying for catering duties at the wedding. The food was good, but not as good as what we had last weekend at Antica Pizzeria. Unfortunately, Antica seems reluctant to offer catering info.
Later, we went to the Tut exhibit at LACMA. Although the exhibit has been (rightly) badmouthed for being expensive and having only a limited selection of pieces from Tut's tomb, it was still very worth while. Some of the more interesting things were from Akhenaton's reign, including this piece, demonstrating Akhenaton's wacky new sun-disk religion. There's also a nice bust with the exaggerated features that demonstrate his divinity.
From Tut's tomb, there's plenty of really beautiful crafted items. But the old boy himself and his sarcophagus, are still back in Cairo. Nevertheless, they had some nice animated displays that showed the elaborate Russian-doll layers of his sarcophagi.