Sickeningly cute favor idea

Oh look, a broken promise.

Since the modern strawberry is a cross between Fragaria virginiana (the mountain strawberry, found in Northern California) and F. chilensis (Chilean! You would never guess!) we should have lots of strawberries at the wedding.

This is the result of the stupid poster- I had trouble believing there was a Virginian plant growing in my meadow (there is!) and I was reading about its range. And then I needed to type about something other than data entry for a while.

Oh also my grandmother was named Virginia. Oooooo.

When I was three, I helped fold laundry by stacking all of the washcloths. When I was five, I was allowed to fold napkins, handkerchiefs, and dishtowels. Now I am 27, and my repertoire has not expanded at all.

Pa-rum-pa-rum-pum

I forgot to mention my visit to the Conquistadors. It went well, in that there were no fights and got to study at the feet of the ceviche master. It went poorly in that they play Christmas music ALL THE TIME. I saw the basement- heck, after eight years, a girl gets to see all sorts of exciting things. After beholding the neatly wrapped, labeled, and arranged chaos, I hope they live forever. It's the size of my college apartments, and it is full of things. Said things include at least 100 neatly collapsed and stacked boxes.

There can always be a secret raffle

I've been posting and talking a lot on weddings recently. It has been occupying prime brain real estate and fret cycles- when I cast around for topics it is close to the surface. This was a little awkward while I was hanging out with old friends, partly because I used to date half of them, but mostly because weddings are very boring.

Now as of tomorrow I will be shifting focus to throwing together a poster on meadow restoration. I expect it to go very badly so you all can expect frequent updates here. Also I will probably go to the gym every day- anything to resist career building. However, my main point: last wedding planning post for a while. Even I'm bored of this stuff.

I've been complaining freely about my mother- her wedding can be summed up as city hall, park, potluck, jeans, special brownies, best volleyball game ever. It is thus not fair that her dreams for my wedding are, in the words of Amy, "grand". I proposed some stupid things as decoys- leaving the reception in a hot air balloon and a handmade silk dress- and she agreed. I suggested a barbecue at the rehearsal dinner, or lawn games at the reception- and that is ridiculous.

Certain parties have suggested that I should cut her out of the wedding planning. Said parties indicate that their fledgeling event planning business would be only too glad to pick up the slack- for a reasonable price.* I've been using possible recrimination as my reason why this is a bad idea- this is a lie. My mother has planned more events than you can shake a stick at. Some of them have been unmitigated disasters, but most of them have been very nice. I think one result of all those blasted fundraisers is a nice sense of perspective. We might be a little confused about hosting an event without a raffle, but I think we can come to an accord on the detals. That is to say, I hope I can wear her down.

The other reason my mother is so very involved because she has some kind of crazy intuition- an uncanny sense of how future events will unfold. For example; last night there was a power outage. She had emergency candles ready, of course- but she'd also planned an elaborate dinner that just happened to need only one working burner- and she'd pulled the camp stove out of the attic when she decorated for Christmas. I want that on my team.

*Sadly, these people are also on Team Grand. Or Team Grand and Tacky. My notes from our first meeting have a lot of asides saying "consider compromising your principles". Of course, there are also a lot of notes saying "This is stupid. Ignore." Lawn games, people. Really good cake. Dancing. If we get that right, no one will care about table favors and seating arrangements.

Yes I know I built a castle out of table favors at the last wedding.

I have a wedding with plans and notes. And I just wrote a post without a single reference to the groom. It can only decay from here.

I'm visiting SeNor C...

and these are all things he's said to me in the last few hours.

"Sure, you've lost weight, but it's probably all muscle mass."

"Holy balls, are you wearing an actual bra?"

"You may think triggering my neuroses is amusing, but I assure you that this is not so."

We missed each other sooooo much! It's actually kind of disgusting.

My Dad used to tell bedtime stories with the Prodonata- which is technically in the Carboniferous period.

I went to a dinner party last night with a few people I can't help but think of as "the cool kids"- they were 6-10 years older than me when I was a child, and always seemed the epitome of the glamour of early adulthood.

I worked very hard to suppress the bouncy ebullience of a child who gets to hang out with all the older cousins. I got the invitation by being exceptionally pathetic, so that's on theme. However, I've just discovered that I was going off on the Devonian to a geologist, and that I was wrong about something. I've written him a note- nothing makes friends better than apologies for misrepresenting vertebrate evolution.

All of this is because I don't have enough to do

I'm a full contact Facebook user. I have stupid Zynga flash games out the wazoo, I stare blankly at the photo albums of people I will never meet, and I keep track of all the causes my friends join.

So I guess sending someone who lived in the same building freshman year a bouquet of fake flowers or some imaginary cell phones is encouraged. (Hi, Mafia Wars friends! I need the Ace of Clubs!) Many people do the uneasy half laugh when they recall the long afternoon where they clicked through the photo album of their high school boyfriend's roommate's church group's river rafting trip. I like to think of it as research on the good social groups.

The problem is if someone- not even a close someone- joins a interesting cause, I will read that cause's Facebook page. And then any relevant Wikipedia articles. And then any recent news stories. Then I'll check the whole thing out on snopes. Two hours later, I'm immersed in old textbooks on water law and wading through the text on the congressional website. Also, I know where the honorable gentlewoman from Connecticut got her master's.

I take it back. That's a problem. That's my problem. But crossing the invisible social boundary by surprise rebuttals is not encouraged on Facebook. (Much like real life!) The poor people who are on record as opposing HR875 really just clicked "support" to get it out of their inbox. It's like my support for ShastaBoyz Productions- based entirely on peer pressure. They don't really want to debate their decisions with me. :(

This is the other side of my boundaries post. Heaven forbid you reach out to your social network in a time of trial, but I would love to argue with you about... well... Food safety. Labeling GMO. Grammar. Global Warming. Proper respect for humans. Sturgeon's Law as it applies to the Singularity.

So hey, I joined the gym. I think that will help with the spare time. A little.

Would anyone want to discuss the Food Safety and Modernization Act of 2009? I am chock full of information on the topic, and I want to justify my support for the bill. I'd also like to chat about my gut feeling that Monsanto is not quite evil enough to outlaw vegetable gardens. Oh, and that a woman with a master's in sociology from New England is probably not going to support outlawing farmer's markets. Just the merest inkling. A supposition.

Do y'all have anything for me to research? Anything productive?