Stuff

Wedding Photos are finally online. These pictures taken last August by the staff of London, Ontario's Crystal Wedding Chapel. Note that we weren't lying about getting Elvis to sing.

Only one person has written to say that she'll be coming to my New Years Eve shindig. Are the rest of you (are there more of you?) just silent? I won't be buying much beer, I guess. (No, it's not in danger of being cancelled. Many of Ellen's friends are coming.)

Christmas

Ellen and I went down to San Jose for xmas with my family. She went willingly, god bless her. Ellen is really nifty.

We went to Brother Bob's house. Also in attendance were: my brother Paul, my Uncle Chuck, friends of my late mother: Bunny and Seymore, my Dad (Ed) and my Dad's um friend Danielle.

I hardly talked to my uncle. He's doing some car racing this year, but not much and I don't know when. Talked to my brother some. He's not dating anybody, gave up his consulting buisiness due to a shortage of clients. He re-wried the electricity on his house.

Bunny and Seymore report (ok, mostly Bunny reporting) that they're not well and that they haven't done anything fun lately and have no hobbies. Seymore has a wound on his foot, which is healing. Bunny says I look so much like my mother and went on at length how angelic my mom looked on her deathbed.

the assertion of an angelic appearance is true. The progression of her ilness was such that worries and pain ceased. not that I enjoy being reminded of such things. Nor are the holidays entirely stress-free to start out with.

My dad smiled a lot. More than I've seen him smile for maybe . . . ever. He told several amusing stories about when he was in the army. Ellen said, "I like your dad. He's really cool. He smiles a lot." It was pretty cool to see him seem so happy.

Brother Bob says he attended three funerals in the last week. Distressed, but otherwise doing well, I guess. He seemed happy to have everyone over and made outstandingly good food.

the person with whom I spoke most was Danielle, who I had never met before. She is a former "Volunteer of the Year" with the Women's Philharmonic. She goes to the SF symphony regularly with my Dad. My Dad has season tickets. She is also Yoyo Ma's Masseuse, something she talked about at length, relating how she sent tapes of farm animal sounds to his children. And in what circumstances the farm animal sounds were listened to. If you need the dirt on farm animal sounds in the Ma household, she's got it.

she's a new music fan, which is certainly a good thing. the world needs more fans of new music. Especially ones that buy CDs. I got her a CD of Meredith Monk and was worried that she would already have it, but she wasn't familiar with Monk, so I was safe.

She also talked for a long long time about how her deceased husband was a Southern Baptist minister and how fundamentalists are spiritually awesome, even if polically bad. She's a catholic and a fundie. She doesn't like progressive churches because in those churches god is like Santa Claus: always good. She helped out with Billy Graham's crusade and helped organize three of his local stops. I asked her, "what does spirituality mean if it's working for evil?"

My brother stood up suddenly. My dad asked him why he was standing up. My brother said, "it's 9:00."

Danielle considered the evidence against Graham and conceeded that he was indeed working for evil. She then started talking about the bad way the Southern Baptists treated women and started talking a lot about how some women in the 70's were so committed to feminism that they actually came out as lesbians but, even though they tried, they just couldn't bring themselves to . . .

My Dad stood up. It's a bit after 9:00.

I said. "Indeed. some people are bisexual and some people are not." And thought, "I can't beleive I just said 'bisexual' in front of my Dad.'"

Danielle started explaining that queer issues (she didn't say "queer" she said "homosexual" as some would-be liberals are wont to do) were even more important to her than women's issues with the Baptists.

I stood up, explaining that while I did tend to run later than the rest of my family, it was time for the 9:00 standing.

She went on further to me about women who just couldn't bring them selves to. First talking to me (when I suddenly got very interested in the pomegranites that were out around Bro Bob's house) and then at length to Ellen who very politely nodded.

Ellen is so cool

And so, Danielle seems very nice and certainly has interesting things to say. Plus she's a maseusse and my Dad seems happy, which is very good. I'm happy to see him smile so much.