» Weddings

quakers
Not many people get to go to a quaker wedding, but I got to when I was 21 - a friend of mine from high school had done a year abroad at her university in Florence and had met an Italian gelato-scooper with carpal tunnel syndrome (and thus he was not prospering in the scooping profession, being out on medical leave, and all) and fallen madly in love and he proposed before she returned to the USA.

The family plans the wedding. The first hurdle is that the authorities are suspicious of letting an Italian enter the USA to get married - must just be after a green card, of course. So he's denied entry. So the two of them fly to Canada and get married there first in a civil ceremony, as this apparently makes him less suspicious.

The quaker church is like a square arena - pews up all four sides. The couple getting married sits in the middle and lets those around them get "quaked" - moved to speak by god - whereupon many relatives and friends stand up one by one and say obviously very rehearsed (and sometimes written down - so much for the quaking bit) things to the pair, which the bride mumbles translations to the groom, as our scooper hasn't taken on much English yet.

The thing about quaker weddings is that while you invite your guests, any old nutter who normally attends services there is also welcome to attend. So there are a few people there that the parents of the bride recognize but don't actually know. During the ceremony, one of said nutters stands up and begins:

"Your love reminds me of a stump in my grandparents' backyard..." and continues to blather on for about 10 minutes about playing around this maggotty rotten old stump. Comparisons to a tree, what with growing, and branching out, and allusions to "family tree" I would understand, but "rotten old stump" conjured up some different images and I had to have a bit of a coughing fit to cover up my bad behavior - my whole row was giggling away madly.

While the poor bride spoke fairly good Italian, "stump" hadn't really been covered so she lied and summarized more along the lines of tree for the scooper.
(Sat 16th Jul 2005, 2:44, More)

» DIY fashion

Leggings are the devil's fashion item
When I was about 7 or 8, there was a show on television called "Punky Brewster" about a chipper wee orphan living with an old man who was the totally inept police chief in all the police academy movies. I don't remember them being related on the show, so in retrospect, it was probably a bit of a skeevy premise. Anyway, our title charachter was forever wearing multicolored leggings and short skirts layered together. When done by a professional 80s stylist, this comes out looking fabulous to an 8 year old. When said 8 year old generally is happy to throw on whatever her mother puts out, and is not particularly involved in the clothes shopping, leggings are an unknown creature. So I tried to emulate the look by piling on a T-shirt, a sundress over that, 2 belts around the middle, and 2 pairs of sweatpants on underneath - one with only one leg on, trying to stuff the other one in around the waist to achieve the 2 different colored stocking look. My mother nearly pissed herself laughing. Was too embarrassed to admit what I was trying to emulate and removed all the excess layers. Took years before I discovered what ACTUAL leggins were and why perhaps sweatpants had not achieved that same skin-tight effect. More bonus points to Mum for not telling me 5 years later when I was rabidly wearing leggings and long shirts together to middle school that I was far too fat to be doing that. No young love for me. I think even though the fashion magazines say the leggings are totally back this year, I'll be avoiding them just to be on the safe side (though I am about 50lb lighter than the last time I tried to wear them at age 12, so I guess that's something).
(Fri 25th Aug 2006, 2:06, More)

» Crappy Prizes

July 4
This past 4th of July, my department had a work party with watermelon-carving contests and door prizes. Even though I never made it to the party, my name got pulled for one of the prize buckets. Which contained fireworks you set off yourself. As I work for a hospital, and in the sort of of area that takes care of people who've recently blown their hands off doing dim things anyway, it seemed an odd sort of thing to be giving out.
(Fri 5th Aug 2005, 2:43, More)

» Hidden Treasure

step-grannies don't understand proper insulation at all
My grandfather and step-grandmother used to live in a very nice house on a small island off the coast of New England. When my grandfather died back in the 80s, she eventually took things out in preparation to sell the house. Having some shortcomings in the area of common sense, she decided an excellent way to store things would be to erect a floorless aluminum shed across the road in the woods and put stuff in it, and then securing it with your common hardware store masterlock.

After many years go by, she finally gets around to asking my father and I if we can bring our truck across on the ferry so she can finally get everything off the island as she has now sold the house. We get there and tramp into the woods to see this rusty, tilted creation that we get to salvage. After the lock is wrenched off (I'm impressed it was still there to begin with) we are overcome with the fantastic mold smell and the asthmatics among us use inhalers. Entry is heartbreaking as half the shed is lovely old books that are totally ruined due to moisture and mold. One corner of the shed is actually dry, and we find some books that have survived, some clothes that were fashionable in the 70s and - a perfect steiff bear (the kind that goes "Raaaaaaaaaaaanh" as you tip it backwards) just like the one I had as a baby, but much larger. I claimed it immediately lest she decide to store it in another moldy place to see how it fared for the next 10 years.

Length is justified - been lurking for ages.
(Wed 6th Jul 2005, 21:55, More)