Friday, August 12, 2011

Brand New Suit?

I was super excited to get home today to find a Citibank credit card early fraud warning alert message for Jon on our answering machine. I think this means he was successful in purchasing a new suit for the wedding! Either that or his wallet was stolen at Nordstrom Rack. Best man Josh Kamensky texted me a picture of Jon in a black Sean John number around 3:30 or so; he looked pretty dapper. I like the idea that he'll be wearing the clothing of a rap mogul to our wedding.

Thursday, August 11, 2011

Enjoy the Wonders of Los Angeles!

The lovely Morgan has permitted us to re-post this great list she made for a friend's wedding blog some months ago. It is a great overview of places to visit, eat, and drink, many of them on Los Angeles's East Side, in neighborhoods roughly adjacent to the one where our wedding will be. I would also like to recommend the Uprights Citizens Brigade Theater in Hollywood as a great and cheap place to see improv and stand-up. One of this city's great natural resources is its comedic talent. Full list after the jump.

Wednesday, August 10, 2011

Carving: A Traditional Sculpture



I'm thinking about Eleanor Antin's work Carving: A Traditional Sculpture as I think about my unfortunate wedding dress situation (thanks, Esteem Dry Cleaners of Pasadena!) and in general the cultural pressure on brides to look perfecto. The following is from Wikipedia; I think, write, and edit art stuff all day long and so am consequently too lazy at the moment to write something about it myself. I got to know Antin's work when I helped edit the WACK! Art and the Feminist Revolution catalogue for the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, in 2009, and I think she's pretty cool.  Description after the jump.

A Word about the Registry

Many of you have been asking whether Jon and I will have a wedding registry, and it’s something we’ve been back and forth on over the last few months, because we do understand it makes things easier for guests who don’t want to guess at what we have or need or want for our household.

The thing is, though, that we are kind of old. And we’ve been living together for five years already. Just those two factors, alone, have resulted in enough towel sets, wine glasses, flatware, throws, salt and pepper dispensers, and pillowcases for a small encampment. Seriously, we are two people, and we have, at last count, 15 towels. When I was 30, I decided to invest in a few sets of very nice Reidel wine glasses because I didn’t know if I’d ever be married and I didn’t want to wait. When Jon was in his early 20s, he invested in a set of pots and pans so precious that I am forbidden from using a metal whisk or spatula while cooking for fear of scratching them. (I’m not kidding. You’d think a restaurant quality set of pots and pans would be able to withstand, like, common kitchen utensils, but apparently this is not the case. Either that, or Jon is just being anal. Either way, you get the point.) It is the amassing of these decisions through the years that has resulted in the accumulation of more stuff than we really know what to do with.

This is not to say that we don’t have items we want to purchase for the house, but they tend to be expensive things that are not appropriate as single items on a wedding registry. I desperately want to purchase a dining room table, for example, before I turn 40. And after the great power surge of 2010 left us without a stereo receiver, it is time to update our sound system. And, wish of all wishes, Jon and I want to take a nice trip together after the wedding. Fact: we have only ever traveled to Baltimore, Chicago, Florida, New York, Vegas in our seven years together as a couple. I will let you guess which trip was not family related.

It goes without saying that the most valuable gift you could give us is coming to our wedding, and we know that many of you are traveling great distances at great expense to be here with us, and, truly, that’s enough. But, since some of you have been asking, the second most valuable gift you could give us would be a donation to our honeymoon fund. And, after some poking around the web as well as discussions with other recent marrieds who have gone this route, we have decided to forego the online middleman (many of whom charge fees) and ask that such gifts be sent directly to us. We have chosen the Dutch Antilles, of the coast of Venezuela, as our destination—specifically Bonaire and Aruba, islands that promise to offer relaxation, scuba diving, and freedom from hurricanes during the months of September and October. We are planning to leave a few days after the wedding, spending five nights in Bonaire and seven nights in Aruba. We are very much looking forward to marking the beginning our marriage with this new adventure, and we are hoping the trip will set the tone for the rest of our years together, years that will be partially drenched in sun, seawater, and rum-based drinks.

Much love,

Liz & Jon

Saturday, July 16, 2011

ABC, or Visions of White Sand Dancing in Our Heads

It's been a while since posting, and we're happy to report that many of the bigger logistics are nailed down: we have a lovely venue at the Eagle Rock Center for the Arts; we have a great menu planned by the wonderful non-profit Homegirl Cafe (affiliated with Homeboy Industries); we went strictly commercial for our equipment and our bartender, but it's all in place.

As we've been working on all of this, and as we continue to plan the rest of the festivities, we're frequently bouyed by thoughts of our honeymoon.  Believe it or not, other than family trips or a Vegas weekend, the two of us have never taken a real vacation together!  So we're tremendously excited by our plan to go to the islands of Aruba and Bonaire in the Caribbean, off the coast of Venezuela.  (We'll have to return at some future time to Curacao, the "C" in "ABC Islands.")

What will we do while we're there?  How long will we stay?  Will we be fluent in Papiamento by the time we come back?  We don't know any of this yet, but we're looking forward to finding out.  We're planning on taking scuba lessons because Bonaire reportedly has some of the world's best diving.  And we're looking forward to some hard core sloth on Aruba's beaches.

If you've been to these islands and have tips for us, we'd love to hear them!  And we'd very happily accept contributions to our honeymoon fund!  (We are looking forward to -- nay, need -- this trip more than we need, say, any china!)


(Note: Our ABC Islands are not to be confused with this or this.)

Friday, June 10, 2011

Access

I have almost certainly broken the cardinal rule, but MS Access is up and running.  I can justify using Access because the songs table makes the DB relational.  You are all now records.

Which reminds me to remind you: help us put together a playlist!