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Things I Love: *Goofy Grooms *Crafty Brides *Sassy Redheads *Fluttery dresses *Laughter at Wedding Ceremonies *Adventurous People (hey, let's go hike out on those rocks over there) *Marble Cake *Hip Mamas *Wallet Chains *Peonies & Ranunculus *Chris & Jillian's Taste in Music (Cat Power for a first dance and the slideshow theme song for a last dance- that's our lady of total insanity, your love and mine- Bjork if you can't tell) *This picture:  (click!)(As you may or may not know: AVR's wedding band has lyrics from this song engraved in it)
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 I'm a large, so it's a little different than the small: 2 heads romaine, 2 heads red leaf, 2 heads chicory, 2 pounds sugar snap peas, 1 bunch carrot, 1 bunch turnips, 1 bunch mustard, 1 bunch chard, 1 pound broccoli, 1 bunch arugula, 1 bunch radish and 1 bunch pak choi. Yay Vegetables that aren't salad greens. :)
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I went to futureme.org last year and wrote myself a letter that I just got...I'd totally forgotten about it:
Dear FutureMe, Well, today is June 9th. You just got back from Maine last night where it was foggy and you could see your breath. Here today, you can feel yourself sweating the water as you drink it. The dogs are panting on the living room floor and your garden is just getting going. It's Monday.
You graduated from photo school on Friday and now it's just you and the business you started in 2005 and...a wing and a prayer. You nearly tripled your receipts between 2006 and 2007 and you paid for school out of pocket. You have a hard time being proud of yourself, but everyone around you tells you all the time. So you remember that.
Also significant, you think your girlfriend will propose sometime this fall. You're pretty sure of it. You talk openly about marriage and she hints about rings. Is your dress done? If it's not too hot, you should put it on and twirl around in it.
I wish for you at this moment - health, love, success, and a gorgeous garden. I hope you got yourself that pop-up greenhouse and started everything early. I hope you've raised your prices. I hope you have started gathering frequent flier miles. I hope the dogs know how to sit and to lay down. I hope you still manage without a "job." Most of all, I hope you're happy.
Love, PresentMe
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AVR and I decided to keep it simple and have one song for each side of the processional...rather than one for her people, one for her, one for my people, one for me. Not sure what she's picked yet (or if she's picked yet, we have time) I had been thinking about doing Sarah Vaugh's version of The Best is Yet to Come...but I her lyricism in that song is a little..droopy sounding(?). And hers is my favorite version of it. Lately I'm thinking of a song called Love and Kisses that Ella Fitzgerals sings. It's got a long musical intro, which I like.. and only a real small handful of lyrics, which I think if timed right would be my entrance. Also the lyrics are totally gender neutral, it's not sad, and it's pretty up-tempo...which is a hard to find combination in the genre. There are a lot of let down and sad songs, and lots of found my man songs, and a bunch of lovey slow songs...but this one, fits the bill. If you want to listen to part of it, it's here on amazon. The lyrics say (as best I can transcribe): Love and kisses, never misses making a heaven for two. With a tender sweet surrender coming from somoene like you. Your perfection to affection creates a perfect design. Love has bound us, sure has found us planning a future divine. No indecision, I know that my vision is clear when you are near. No need for sunlight for you are the one light I see so real to me (?) Love and kisses, that's what bliss is: loving whatever you do. Full completeness, whispered sweetness, coming from someone like you. We haven't talked about it yet, but my vote for the recessional is Dinah Washington's version of Destination Moon which starts out with a little trumpet flare and is also gender neutral...I'd toyed with suggesting it as our first dance, but I think it's too slow. More amazon listening.Tags: 091909 I hear: Love And Kisses-Ella Fitzgerald
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So in December, AVR, FMIL and I went scoping out the hotels in the Brockton, MA area. We'd decided to check out three hotels the Residence Inn by Mariot, the Holiday Inn, and the Country Inn.
The Residence Inn was easy, checked off, and room block made.
The Holiday Inn smelled like...mold....so we decided to go on to the Country Inn.
We liked the Country Inn and so called the next day to make a room block---for our wedding--- of 140 guests-- 90% of whom are coming from out of town.
I called and left message after message to no response. I finally called the front desk and asked what else I could do and they gave me the manager's cel number-- he picked up the phone and said, "Yeah, what do you want?" Which took me aback...and then we had this conversations about blocking rooms and he said that he'd have to call me back. Which he didn't. Then I sicked AVR on him and she finally got him on the phone and he said that he couldn't do anything "this far in advance" (9 months) and to call back in March.
So March rolled around, we called back...and again....and again...and finally I had AVR call and she got hold of him and he offered us $5 off the room rate (the Holiday Inn had offered us $20 off of theirs) and told us we had to know today how many rooms we were going to need...they couldn't give us a flexible block like other places had or had offered.
So she called and told me this...and I decided to call corporate because they didn't seem to be handling us well and I wanted someone else to know about it.
So I called corporate, told them what was going on, told them I suspected that we were being treated in such a way because we are gay. They lodged the complaint and then gave the manager 48 hours to respond to us. About 5 days later we heard back from corporate that the manager had said that - hotel industry wasn't really hurting due to the economy and they didn't need to give us a discount and we are really just small fish..and mid-September is peak foliage time so there will be a lot of leaf peepers...which peak foliage is in October, we have 140 guests, and I'm sure that there will be a lot of leaf peepers this fall....or not.
So then corporate said he had a week to get back to us and then they would follow up. This was almost a month ago. So AVR called them today and they said that the Country Inn Brockton had "declined our business" - and she said that she really felt discriminated against and they said "that is between you and your lawyer."
I am totally, totally totally shocked.
Now we have to find a new hotel- there are a couple places like a super 8 and a motel6-- but I want to be able to offer my friends something nice. I mean we could also consolidate all of the guests into the Residence Inn- but it's suites and I don't want my friends to have to get a whole suite if they don't need to. I also don't want to put all of our eggs in one basket.
Ugh, stupid stupid stupid man.
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