Potsdam, NY.2

Potsdam, NY

Canton, NY

Only a couple of weeks into married life ourselves, Francisco and I took a trip to upstate New York (almost to Canada) for Salinger's wedding.

Canton, NY and nearby Potsdam, where we stayed, are little villages with a mix of rundown buildings and lovely old architecture. It definitely had a New England feel.

They are tiny towns so there wasn't much to do other than walk around and take pictures. Which happens to be one of my favorite things.

The weather was a blissful break from the DC swamp.

This is the little Baptist church where Salinger got married.

The wedding was simple and lovely. (And it was a delight to notice some similarities in our weddings--Salinger and I never discussed wedding details, but accidentally picked some of the same things. This isn't actually too surprising since, as my freshman roommate, Salinger was influential in developing some of my own aesthetic preferences.) It was immeasurably relaxing and peaceful to be a guest at a wedding after previously being the main event.

Quote

From NK's wedding toast:

"As the traditional wedding ceremony insists, not everything we stay to find out will make us happy. The faith is, rather, that by staying, and only by staying, will we learn something of the truth, that the truth is good to know, and that it is both different and larger than we thought."

--Wendell Berry

Monsoon Wedding

As Miss Self-Important noted recently, there really is a very small number of decent movies streaming on Netflix. (I've watched more terrible Netflix movies than you can count.) One of the decent ones is Monsoon Wedding. I was introduced to this movie a million years ago by Myrrh and Gold (was that really only six years ago?!). In honor of our own recent wedding, I introduced Francisco to it. (This was the night before enjoying a South Indian feast with NK at Woodlands Indian Restaurant in MD, also highly recommended, particularly if you have South Indian best friend-in-law. DC is not really the place for Indian food, so when you find a treasure, you have to hold onto it.)

Monsoon Wedding, like Bridezillas, follows a family through the last several days of wedding planning. The similarity ends there. An Indian family welcomes back members who have been living in America; the bride in an arranged marriage rethinks her ended affair with a married tv star; the bride's cousin relives childhood abuse; and the wedding planner engages in his own romance. What results is something real--the good and the bad and the ugly are all there together. It's a film that doesn't shirk from difficulty and complication, but that ultimately affirms the love and commitment and family.

Friday Phone Dump

It's been about a thousand years since I took pictures off of my camera, so you're going to have to suffer through a lot. From my drive home from St. Louis:

In the midwest, you sometimes pass giant crosses by the side of the road. 

Francisco's neighbor's lovely yard: 

Technically, it's now my neighbor, too.

My favorite bookstore. What would this blog be without a photographic update from Capitol Hill Books?

This was outside a barber shop:

Pretty sure I would never pick a haircut from this poster, even if I were a guy. 

A tree grows in Rosslyn:

The view from Francisco's (incredible) balcony during #1tomatolover's trip to DC:

 The much hated wedding board:

This was how Stearns and Mama Leopard and I organized the wedding. Mama Leopard wanted to burn it ceremonially at the bonfire, but it was still holding information that we needed. She burned it several days later.

I'm not really sure if anyone took a picture of just my bouquet (Hopkins?), so I quickly took one with my phone the next day, just in case.

While we're on the topic of the wedding, here's a shot of the reception site (the next day):

My great-aunt crocheted Francisco an afghan (the one she made me was green):

I love gifts like this! 

Here's the old Quaker prison in Williamsport, which is now a nightclub: 

Sadly, I've never been dancing there.  And a Williamsport parking garage, inspired by the Guggenheim (just kidding):

And one of 14 great dive bars in DC (technically it's in NoVa):

A Random Assortment

~ The Fug girls riff on Samuel Taylor Coleridge.

~ "Talking Female Circumcision out of Existence":

All of the successful methods have one thing in common ... : “You must allow the community to decide for themselves rather than condemning,” said Gebre. “To make people understand the harm that comes to their children you can’t come in and tell them ‘you are doing bad and must stop.’”

~ Muriel Spark on love (via Maud Newton):

Being in love is something like poetry. Certainly, you can analyze and expound its various senses and intentions, but there is always something left over, mysteriously hovering between music and meaning. 

~ "Chantilly baker gives disabled workers ingredients for success."

Corpse Flower.2

Of course, I had to go back and see it after it bloomed, too. (I use the word "bloom" loosely--I don't think it's technically a flower--I think it's actually a flower-like thing.)

As with anything in DC that's free, there was a line out in the hot sun to get in. As a result, I never smelled the flower: the rotting corpse smell (which, I think, comes and goes) was utterly indistinguishable from the smell of hot, sweaty tourists pushed together to get close to it.

Corpse Flower.1

DC's recent Corpse Flower Bloom watch vied with the Royal Baby watch. Okay, not really. (Somehow I was obsessed with the Royal Wedding, but immensely less so with the Royal Baby. Although I love the birth-to-naming delay--it really holds peoples' attention.)

The Titan Arum opens infrequently (once every 10-ish years) and briefly (for 24 to 48 hours) and purportedly smells like rotting flesh to attract the insects that pollinate it. The Botanical Gardens had one just on the verge of blooming and did some great advertising. In fact, I got so tired of waiting for the thing to bloom that I visited it when it was still closed up. Hence, these pictures. (You could even watch it on a live webcam, and watch it I did.)

On Weiner, Et Al.

In which I say nothing about virtue and the legislator. 

What I'm really concerned about at the moment (as is the case whenever I read Tocqueville) is the democratic mob. The democratic mob always seems to want to have someone's head and seems to be placated these days by a resignation. The democratic mob has the shortest attention span imaginable and seems to be okay with people resigning for their indiscretions and reentering politics a couple of years afterward. I'm really not sure what the rationale is--it's as if because a politician resigns (even if it's for something he did several years earlier), everything is made better. 

My questions with this policy: Will a politician be made to resign twice for the same offense (if new instances of the indiscretion emerge later)? Will a politician be allowed to continue his offensive behavior later if he's already served his time (his resignation-ment) for his offense? (I mean, really, I'm surprised that politicians could be so stupid as to continue the resignation-worthy behavior, but it seems that stupidity knows no bounds.) Why is it alright for the offender to resign their position and immediately get a new one? (Here I'm thinking of Larry Summers leaving Harvard to work for the U.S. government.) What exactly is the point of the resignation? To have the people feel like the politician is making nice with his wife? (Are we really so naive as to think that that is happening?) To convince ourselves that he has changed and is, a year or two later, a better, more virtuous character? (Are we really so naive as to think that that is happening?)

Twitter

I dropped my phone (pretty thoroughly) in the humus.

Thankfully, it survived.

Wedding Reflections.7

After the reception, we went back to the bed and breakfast where we were staying. We were exhausted and hoping for a quick nap. However, several of our close friends were also staying at our B and B, so instead we visited with them for a bit, before heading out to the after party--a bonfire at my parents', complete with hot dogs and marshmallows. The bonfire was perfectly peaceful and relaxed, with everyone wearing more comfortable clothes and sitting by the fire.

Then back to our bed and breakfast, where we enjoyed a lovely family-style breakfast with friends in the morning before mass. I doubt you'd find a better breakfast anywhere in Williamsport--from the fancy fruit salad, complete with local black raspberries, to the hearty meats and delicious potato/onion/roasted red pepper dish, which I clearly need the recipe for.

After church, we met up with Elizabeth Bennett and her boyfriend, who came all the way from Slovakia. We took them to Donna's, a breakfast place well-loved by my family, that I haven't been to since I was a little, little girl. There, they got to try some delicious Pennsylvania scrapple and have pancakes that were the size of the plate. Then we headed over to the Bullfrog Brewery, Williamsport's microbrewery, to try some local beer. Of course, we ran into plenty of wedding guests who were brunching there to live jazz (sadly, a bit loud--the jazz, not the guests).

We send goodbye to Bennett and her beau and headed back to the reception site to help just a little bit with undecorating, before opening some wedding presents with my parents. We were hurried because a big storm was on the horizon. Wedding presents are so much fun--from a year-long pass to the Philadelphia art museum to a lovely Slovak painting.

Then we headed back to DC--it was the longest drive ever through traffic and rain. But there was a beautiful rainbow shooting up out of the trees and a gorgeous sunset. And we finally made it home, where Francisco carried me across the threshold (which was a little tough, since the doorway is narrow, but he's very strong and managed it well).

Wedding Reflections.6

After the wedding, we greeted everyone in a receiving line at the back. I wanted to have the chance to hug everyone right away; I'm glad we did it--otherwise there was no way to ensure that you even got a chance just to say hello to everyone there.

We stayed in the church and took some family pictures. That seemed as slow as molasses to me--I had been through hours of pictures already and just wanted to get over to the reception hall to celebrate with everyone.

Francisco hates being the center of attention and didn't want to be announced when we arrived at the reception. He just wanted us to slip in and join the party. It's a bit silly of us to think that would've worked, though--everyone clapped as we walked in (of course, I don't mind being the center of attention). We got to visit with lots of people, but never long enough. It's agony to me to be only able to talk to one person at a time.

Francisco and I danced to our first dance, which I think very few people realized was named after me. It turns out that the song we chose is quite a long song. Then, I danced with my father, and Francisco danced with his mother to "What a Wonderful World." I'm pretty sure that's the first time I've danced with my dad, and I wasn't about to pass up the chance; he's quite a dancer: who knew? I also got to dance with my grandfather to "Unforgettable," which we played in honor of my other Poppop, who died last summer. I got to dance with Jim and Chip, friends from L'Arche. And I got to dance with my uncle who read at our wedding and my little cousin, Peter (4), whose birthday it was. He exclaimed to me: "I invited someone to my house!" Indeed, it turns out he was setting up his own after party at his pool with all the pretty girls. And Mrs. Lawrence dancing was one of the highlights of the reception--I think she calls it a combination of dancing and musical theater. Whatever it was--it was great, and people loved it.

Francisco and I fed each other whoopie pies (although just in front of my mother and Diana, who took pictures--not a big to-do). I remember I ate a pulled pork slider--which was really more of a full-sized pork sandwich (we're a bit like Texans in Williamsport: it's hard for us to make small-sized food). Other than that, I never saw, nor tasted any of the food (food I spent months coordinating). Thankfully, I did manage to make it to the bar.

NK's toast had a wonderful quotation on love and marriage from Wendell Berry; Sayers' toast had a wonderful memory of skinny dipping at college. The reception was lovely with Hopkins' flowers everywhere. The only sad thing was that it was really too hot to use the enormous back porch at all. And I wish we'd made them turn the air conditioning down to about 30 degrees.

Wedding Reflections.5

We had a little bit of time to hang out in the parish hall before the wedding. At that point, we realized that we'd lost one of the little flower girls (who now calls me aunt)--I'd forgotten to tell her where to meet for pictures. She made it to the church just in time. That and finding a cup so we could have some water were our biggest problems. Well, that and the fact that I never found a moment, until late that night, to give Francisco his wedding presents.

I hadn't shed a tear at all until just before I walked down the aisle. I realized, when I was about to go down the aisle, that I hadn't seen my mother since early that morning. At that moment, the only thing I wanted was to give my mother a hug, but she was already seated in the front row. After that, I was just choking back tears. I was glad I had my father's arm to pace me (slowly!) down the aisle--I was only thinking, as I walked, how nice it was to see all my family and friends there smiling (I think I forgot to look for the groom!).

I think my and Francisco's favorite part of the wedding was the mass, and perhaps especially the music--our friend, Mrs. Lawrence, agreed to cantor. Since only some of our friends are Catholic and were familiar with the hymns, and since the wedding was small and the church was enormous, she was a bit like a soloist. And it was lovely (although I was slightly distressed because I had no hymnal, and so wasn't able to sing along). Francisco and I love the music we picked--Love Divine, All Loves Excelling and Ubi Caritas especially. Listening to Mrs. Lawrence sing was such a beautiful wedding gift.

It was also a treat to have a friend marry us: Fr. O.P. came up from a conference he was organizing in DC (he usually lives in NYC). His homily was wonderful, if not light and flowery: it was all about love as crucifixion (as if Francisco and I could even manage to be any more sober about marriage!). He said that the sacrament of marriage was instituted on the cross. And he even quoted T.S. Eliot's "Little Gidding": "A condition of complete simplicity / (Costing not less than everything)."

I looked out in the audience a bit (I guess you're probably not supposed to do that). It was wonderful to see so many friends--some arriving a bit late. Francisco must have glanced into the audience, too, because when he saw one of our friends, he was just fighting back tears for a while, too. And it was wonderful to be so close to the altar for the eucharistic prayer. After that everything's a blur--I remember Francisco struggling to get the ring over my knuckle; both of us were a bit confused when the priest told us to join our right hands; I remember that Francisco kissed me well when the moment was right (there was no "you may kiss the bride"); I don't remember walking back down the aisle at all--thankfully Stearns shoved my bouquet back into my arms.

Wedding Reflections.4

The wedding morning I woke up an hour early. I was incredibly annoyed--I had set my alarm for 8:30, and that's when I'd wanted to wake up. It takes a lot for me to not sleep to my satisfaction, but there was a lot to do: I had to finish packing and carry things out to the car. And then, while Francisco was enjoying a lovely breakfast with our friends at the Herdic Inn (of which I'll probably never stop being jealous), I had my hair and make-up done. Thankfully, it was as painless as possible--a friend came to my house and fixed it all up (my hair and make-up), while Diana buzzed around taking photos. It was lovely to be around such nice people and old friends that morning. I put my jewely on, and then had to take it off and fake putting it on again for the pictures.

After picking up Francisco and NK, we drove to Gypsy's house to pick up the very beautiful bouquet and boutonniere that Hopkins made. Hopkins had a hard job: Francisco prefers white wedding flowers; I like brightly colored ones. He likes elegant hot-house flowers; I like wildflowers. Hopkins integrated both--white roses and Queen Anne's lace; lots of whites and pale colors and greenery, with a few little bright pink wild roses. It was lovely to see the side-of-the-road thistles on the edges. They added a local kick to the bouquet.

Gypsy and her mother and her daughter came down to say hello (they all live in one fairy tale house). Miss Gypsy was super shy at first, but when we turned to leave to meet the photographer, she decided that I needed to come upstairs to play. "I have toys," she said, as if that point would be sure to seal the deal. Sadly, the photographer was waiting.

NK was the perfect best man. He drove us all around, cooled off the car for us in advance, and helped with every little thing. He even served as a secondary, meta-photographer with his iPhone. He also made fun of us, where appropriate.

I love our photographer: he was calm and patient and kind. He was #1tomatolover and Ilana's physics teacher in high school, which is how we found him. Every once in a while, while he was photographing us, he showed us a picture that he particularly liked, in order to keep up our spirits after hours of photographs and show us that it would all be forth it in the end. He accommodated our wishes as far as possible and just couldn't have been nicer to work with. The only thing I noticed at the end of the day is that he more or less had us repeat the same three poses every time--first we had our arms around each other, then we turned to look into each others' eyes, then we stole a little kiss. Then, a new location and repeat. We stopped at Alabaster, our favorite Williamsport coffee shop, as part of our photo shoot, since we love coffee shops and fell in love in one.

Wedding Reflections.3

Our rehearsal was pretty smooth, I think, thanks to Fr. O.P. being super calm. I think it was also a mere half an hour or 45 minutes. Aside from Francisco's brother and Ilana getting a little turned around (he put his arm through hers), it was all straight forward.

Afterward, we met up at the Herdic House (where Tina Fey had Christmas dinner one year). Francisco and I love the main dining room there. It was lovely and delicious and hot! (I guess that's what we get for having a wedding in July, but air conditioning has been invented, and can just be turned down, can't it?) It was wonderful to have friends and family gathered together--I hadn't seen Cummings for three years! We met up with Dillard and Cardigan on the patio for drinks afterward. At the end of the evening I was utterly exhausted, and Ilana drove us all home.

The toasts were a lot of fun. Just after NK introduced the fun, Mama Leopard jumped up. The jist of her toast was a thank you to Francisco for marrying me. She explained how my friendship with Diana was the sole result of her prayers ("I prayed for her to have just one friend.") And how she used to thank my college friends for being friends with me (she actually used to make them snacks to thank them). And now she's grateful that someone was (finally) interested in marrying me. Hopkins toasted us to the tune of a Laurie Colwin novel (Happy All the Time). Francisco's brother sang Francisco's praises; Francisco's whole family made me feel incredibly welcomed into the family. Everyone made fun of how much I talk.
Fair enough.

Small Points

A) I love my students: Yesterday before class started, I arrived to a discussion already in action about whether or not humans can be virtuous. Today, I dismissed class, but told them they didn't have to leave; they stayed five minutes class ended to continue to talk about the problem of the tyranny of the majority in contemporary society.

B) I love tea with old roommates: Lots of talk of weddings and babies. And it's useful--somehow the marriage license made its way back into my hands at the end of the wedding, but I didn't realize that there was anything I had to do with it. Frankincense told me that there is, indeed.

Wedding Reflections.2

On Friday morning, Francisco and I started our morning at the Lycoming County Courthouse, where we applied for a wedding license. Pennsylvania has a three day waiting period for wedding licenses; they kept insisting to me that it would be fine, just come in the day before and they'd waive the waiting period. Nonetheless, I was a little nervous--what if a different person was working and wouldn't waive the waiting period? They refused to give me any approval in writing, so we had to trust them. Thankfully, there were no problems. As part of our application, the deputy recorder asked us if either of us were "weak-minded, insane, or of unsound mind" and if we had been institutionalized in the last five years. Also, she asked if we had any sexually transmissible diseases. Definitely the most anachronistic part of the day. Really, Pennsylvania, can't we reword the wedding license questions and bring them into the 21st century?

Next, Francisco and I went to get his ring resized. Francisco insisted that the ring fit just fine; I thought it was falling off his finger. The kind jeweler had to calmly explain to Francisco that the ring needs to be a little tight so that it doesn't fly off when it's cold out or his hand gets wet. So they sized it down for us while we waited. Poor Francisco: he's a little freaked out by the fact that he has to wear a wedding ring--I think it makes him feel like he's choking. I remember the look of panic on his face when we went ring shopping several months ago and he tried on a test ring--he started pulling it off with all his strength immediately (this is probably the reason that we originally ordered the wrong size).

This reminds me: almost without exception, the vendors that we worked with in Williamsport were extraordinarily friendly. They weren't perfect: our rental place called the day before the wedding to say that they'd promised to rent us more cocktail tables than they owned, which was a bit annoying. However, I couldn't really fuss at them: the women there had spent countless hours showing me all their wares, letting me revise my order, and giving me other wedding recommendations.

We spent the next several hours Friday setting up, with friends and family dropping by to help cut up grapes and rolls and watermelon and to help with all the other last-minute tasks. Diana and her sister and sister-in-law dropped by; all super eager to do whatever they could to help. Hopkins came by and then ran off with Ilana to explore the fields near my parents' house for flowers to add to the bouquets.

Wedding Reflections.1

Francisco's and my wedding happened thanks to tons of people, but thanks especially to Mama Leopard, who catered the whole thing (even through sickness--she went to the hospital for, I think, the first time since she gave birth to Ilana; okay, okay, it was just the urgent care center, but still), and Stearns, who spent three weeks before the wedding in Williamsport, sewing me the prettiest veil ever, listening to me rant (by far the hardest part of the job), and going to Sam's Club 800 times (and endless other tasks). I love my friends and family and my mother's friends and church, all of whom chipped in. There's something wonderful about the collaborative wedding--it feels really old-fashioned, like a barn raising. Gypsy made coleslaw; Diana photographed the reception; Hopkins arranged the flowers. But, boy, it was so. much. work. This is why I'm a teacher and not a wedding planner--it was not my favorite kind of work. A break from academia was nice, but by the end I just wanted to read a journal article or teach a class.

The wedding weekend started with a family dinner--all of Francisco's relatives who had already arrived came out to my parents' home for a Fourth of July picnic, followed by congregating in downtown Williamsport for fireworks. Almost all of his family had difficulty finding Williamsport, which made sense, but made me feel terrible. I also felt bad for pulling his family from humidity-less California to muggy PA in July. But his family did love the "fireflies," as they called them (to us, they're lightening bugs). And the food--my mother is quite a cook--there were snap peas from the garden and there was chicken from the grill and chocolate mint dessert, to name a few things. After the rehearsal dinner, one of Francisco's aunts said to me, this dinner was good, but your mom's was great.

Wedding Details

One of the dearest wedding gifts that Francisco and I received came a couple of days before our wedding from Gypsy's mother-in-law, who used to teach my siblings and me art classes when we were little.

She made us Springerlies--German biscuits often served at weddings. These were almond flavored and delicious as well as lovely.

My siblings and I went blueberry picking a couple of days before the wedding, so that we would have some blueberries to serve to our guests.

Blueberry picking is one of our favorite Fourth of July traditions.

I'm always the slowest at fruit-picking.

We watched the fireworks from the top of a parking garage with lots of relatives.

This is a lovely sunset that we drove by on the way back to DC after the wedding. (On that drive home, we also saw the very bottom of a rainbow meeting the ground, which I've never seen before, but didn't manage to take a picture of.)

#1tomatolover

One of #1tomatolover's many contributions to the wedding was his homemade root beer. He picked this up lately, following in our Poppop's steps. Although, as my father noted, we're all sure he would rather be making actual beer.

One of #1tomatolover's most intriguing culinary choices of late is his homemade chocolate-covered coffee beans: