Someone asked me if Amin was a Muslim.
He is.
Then they asked what kind of a wedding ceremony we were going to have. (If you're not friends on Facebook you might not have heard this news, but Amin and I are engaged and planning a wedding in October.)
I said "a non-denominational one."
Which prompted him to ask if I remember the wedding vows in the movie "Serial" with Martin Mull which was set in Marin County in the late 70's.
I remembered the movie because for some reason my sister Nancy mentioned it a few months ago too, but I didn't remember the wedding vows, until I looked them up online. The Internet is so handy that way.
I'm sure ours will be somewhat similar.
Kidding! Of course.
Reverend:
Fellow members of the human community, this is the wedding of two separatenesses.Martha:
You-ness, One-ness, Us-ness, We-ness.
Yours-ness, My-ness, Our-ness, Happiness.
Now, I want to know where your head is at.Bill:
Thank you Martha for pushing my button.
Thank you for wanting me to participate in your life for I am an asshole and being an asshole is neither good nor bad, it just is.Reverend:
I think that says it all. I now announce you pair-bonded for as long as your relationship continues.
The title could be applied to my life, but it's the name of a highly recommended movie that's been sitting in my Netflix queue for months now since "True Blood" ended.
Not wanting to watch a scary movie alone, I didn't watch "Let The Right One In" until this weekend when Mark was in town for the Symphony.
I loved this movie.
The main character was both innocent and jaded. It was creepy and sweet, beautiful and gory. Smart, intense and also oddly funny at times.
It could be a teenage coming of age movie, an intense moody Ingmar Bergman film, a lost season of Twin Peaks or a quirky horror-comedy like "Shawn of The Dead". It's got moments of each.
One thing's for sure, this is much more than a vampire movie, but it's also a damn good vampire movie.
The WSJ on Tuesday was full of goodies about hearts and love.
I believe it.
Researchers have known about this non-heart disease type of heart attack since 1983, so it's not new news. I suppose those romantics at the Wall Street Journal just thought we should know the latest findings ahead of Valentine's Day. That way if anyone wants to break up with anyone who really loves them, they will be fully aware of the risks.
My friend Sharon brought this champagne to my party last night and I have to say, assuming it holds up to a second tasting as well, Collard-Picard might have displaced my former favorite champages: Veuve Clicquot or Perrier Jouet.
It's less expensive too!
Here is what the K&L website says about it.
This new husband and wife Champagne house is the product of two venerable Champagne families. Olivier Collard is the grandson of the great Rene Collard in the village of Reuil, one of the most respected and venerable recoltant-manipulant's in all of Champagne. His wife, Delphine Picard, is the cousin of Chantal Gonet of Champagne Phillipe Gonet in Mesnil. Their heritage gives them access to some of the best fruit in the entire Champagne region. Olivier's vineyards are in the western valley of the Marne, were the Meunier is king, and there is no family with more mastery of this native-to-Champagne plant than the Collards. Delphine's vineyards are in the hallowed, pure chalk soils of Mesnil-sur-Oger, the most famous of all the Grand Cru's for Chardonnay.
This blend leans to the husbands' side as it is composed of 80% Meunier and 20% Chardonnay. The base of this wine is 2004, which is fermented in stainless steel with no malolactic fermentation. The reserve wines are aged in giant foudres (1000 liter or larger barrels) to encourage some contact with oxygen but to avoid flavoring the wine with barrel spice. This is a fresh Champagne with a straw color and a subtly pear like nose from the Meunier. On the palate it is round and full, with plenty of richness. The finish is where the class of this bottle really comes out- it is long and full of unmistakable minerality from the top class Chardonnay that went into the blend. -Gary Westby, K&L
eHarmony believes that the challenge of establishing a healthy enduring relationship is first and foremost the challenge of examining yourself.
I agree. Making a commitment to
self-discovery and personal growth is the only way to know how to be with anyone else. You can't change anyone but yourself. You can't really know anyone except yourself. And neither thing is easy to do.While I haven't yet found my last love, I have to say that eHarmony is a very good site for finding a life mate. An estimated 2% of ALL marriages in the US are the result of people meeting through eHarmony. That's pretty amazing actually. eHarmony, for several of it's faults past and present, did come out of scientific research about personality and compatibility.
The other day I noticed a link on their site with the headline "20 Questions You Need to Ask Yourself". I thought it was a good list.
It reminds me of a post I wrote a couple of years ago with a list of marriage check-up questions.
Can you answer all of these self examination questions? Easily? Are there some questions you resist answering, even to yourself? Are there answers you don't like? Are there ones where you know you're not telling yourself the full truth?
1. Who are the most important people in your life, and why?
2. What is the one dream for your life you most look forward to achieving?
3. Who has the capacity to make you angrier than anyone else in your life, and what in particular does he or she do to make you so angry?
4. Who has the capacity to make you feel loved more than anyone else in your life, and what in particular does he or she do to cause you to feel so lovable?
5. How do you feel about yourself—physically, emotionally, mentally, and spiritually?
6. When do you feel inspired? How does it feel when you are inspired?
7. What is the most important thing in the world to you?
8. If you had one day to live, how would you want to spend it?
9. When do you feel most afraid?
10. If you could accomplish only one thing during the rest of your life, what would it be?
11. What bores you? Why is this?
12. How important is money to you? How much time do you spend thinking about it?
13. What is the role of God in your life? Do you believe there is a God, and if so, what is God like in relation to you?
14. What three interests are you most passionate about?
15. Who is your biggest enemy, and precisely how and why did this person become your enemy?
16. How important is food to you? Do you feel disciplined when it comes to eating?
17. Does the idea of being married to the same person for the rest of your life sound appealing to you—or not so appealing? What is there about it that you would especially like or not like?
18. Do you consider yourself emotionally healthy? In what ways are you especially healthy, and in what ways could you use improvement?
19. Do you argue very much with the people closest to you? How does it usually turn out?
20. What specifically would you like your closest friends to say about you at your funeral?
I noticed there is one topic they didn't touch on and that's sexuality. I'd add a question about that too.
I don't write here all that much anymore so I don't remember if I mention it or not, but I'm hosting a monthly Book Club meeting for alumni of my college in the Bay Area.
Our goup in on the Peninsula is a little different than the other groups (one in San Francisco, one in the East Bay and one way up north somewhere), in that we seems to like a quirkier read than the other groups.
After the first book, which was picked for us and we almost universally hated, we've ventured our own way, picking the next selection at the current meeting. Our most recent read was a graphic novel. No words at all in fact. And I loved it. It's haunting, emotional, strange and beautiful. Very unexpected.
The group left a couple of hours ago and I'm exhausted from picking up, so I'm not going to give any book reviews, but if you're curious, here's what we've read so far and what's coming up, including what we eat to accompany the wine and discussion. I wasn't too sure about taking on always hosting this thing, but I'm growing to enjoy it more each time. And it's forcing me to read again, which seemed to have gotten lost as one of my favorite activities.
Our first book. We had middle eastern food to talk about how much we didn't like almost anything about this first selection.
Next up was a selection from an author who also went to school at Carleton. We had Vietmanese food and were much happier discussing this immigrants story.
Pulling the thread of "strangers in a strange land", memoir and the challenges of translation from the first two books, the next two selections were a fun romp imagining what would happen if the Greek Gods were alive today and living in a run down house in London, and the beautiful graphic novel, "The Arrival."
The next couple of selections coming up also rather odd choices. I'm not exactly sure what to serve on these upcoming meetings, but I'm sure reading them will inspire me to think of something.
"When angels speak of love they tell us it is only by loving that we enter an earthly paradise.
They tell us paradise is our home and love our true destiny."
bell hooks
Thanks to Kitty, I have some new books to add to my reading list.
Sometimes technology empowers me. Things work smoother and faster and I can write, connect, watch, create and generally do and be more, as result of magic of technology.
Then there are times when technology thwarts me at every turn. Things break, slow down or just become ridiculously complicated. When that happens, technology can suck the energy out of just about every task big and small.
After months of everything working relatively smoothly, I seem to find myself thwarted by machines, captive to electrical conundrums, bogged down by bad connections and generally wading through the muck of technology gone wrong.
The televisions have had memory cards replaced, firmware upgrades and new panels installed. The cordless phones have taken to randomly deciding to let me know who's calling or not, as it pleases them. The programmable thermostat seems to want to decide for itself when the heat should go full blast or completely off. Bulbs in my bedroom and the backyard refuse to power up and provide light. My Blackberry's trackball has developed a sluggishness and a stickiness that makes me suspect that some of that nasty green goo from Ghost Busters is oozing just behind the faceplate.
But the most vexing problems are with my computer and its relationship to programs and the Internet. It's slow. Really realley sl-o-o-o-o-o-o-w. Which is maddening enough, but it loses things. It forgets things. It doesn't want to connect to sites and people it should connect to. It misbehaves, acting like it doesn't care to help me do the things I need and want to do. This defiant, sluggish laptop was purchased in May of this year.
I've tried all the usual (but not extreme) remedies that those of us with an above average comfort level with personal technology know to do in these situations. I've tried them two and three times or more.
It might be time for more drastic measures. But before I go that far, one of my business partners offered up his "Technology Cleansing Ritual".
I think it might be worth a shot.
When you are in the snowy cold of Minnesota, take your laptop, remove any jewelry and do the following:
1. Gather freshly cut parsley and place it in a pan of distilled water. Let it soak for nine minutes. Sprinkle the water throughout the house while visualizing a calm environment.
2. Go outside, face Seattle and chant the following: I will uphold the Redmond creed. High in spirit, I shall succeed. Power of the Elements Five, will help my data stay alive. From grains of earth to the moving air, past the burning fire that magic flares, flow with water, lakes, and streams; around the spirit's aura and dreams. Keep my karma high aloft and let me play with Microsoft.
3. Avoid eating any liver or organ meat for one month.
You should be good to go!
J
“To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket- safe, dark, motionless, airless--it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable.”
“This is one of the miracles of love: It gives a power of seeing through its own enchantments and yet not being disenchanted.”
Dizang asked Fayan, "Where are you going?"
Fayan said, "Around on pilgrimage."
Dizang said, "What is the purpose of pilgrimage?"
Fayan said, "I don't know."
Dizang said, "Not knowing is most intimate."
The Book of Serenity, Case 20
This kind of intimacy is real intimacy. No gap. No
ideas about who this is or what that is. Just being one, right here, right now, complete, whole, undivided. Just this.
This intimacy is the heart of Zen practice.
Who knew Coolio had a cooking show? On the web, but still...
This video is in pretty poor taste, but it's funny and it is hands down the best way to make a delicious turkey.
Here's our bird from last year coming out of the fryer. Yum! Last year I made two turkeys, a roasted one and a fried one. The roasted one was great, but this year, there's only one way the bird is getting cooked. Coolio style.
Mark asked me what the Holidazzle Parade was and so I thought I'd show him. It's a Minneapolis tradition and even though I've been back in my hometown for the past several Christmas seasons, we've not made it downtown to see it since I lived there. Maybe I will go this year, assuming it's not several frigid degrees below zero or I can find a nice warm spot in the skyways.
Holidazzle Parade - Meet Minneapolis photo
Originally uploaded by meetminneapolis
Change is Good
