Bearshorty's musings

So this morning, at breakfast, Bear and I had that conversation with his mother we were not really looking forward to and just as we thought she would prefer a rabbi not cantor although what she really wants is a priest. She also was giving up all kinds of bizarre reasons about living in the city and if we thought about communing. She really doesn’t want him to leave home, I think. Seriously, coming up with some story of a big guy who was beat up in Brooklyn on the way to see his girlfriend and then when I, puzzled at her point, mentioned that I lived in the city for a long time and felt pretty save, she points out that it would be safer for me as a girl? Both Bear and I were very confused by that and then later laughed about it a lot because that was just such a ridiculous thing to say.

After late breakfast, Bear drove me home. There was a brush fire close enough for us to smell it near our house and we could see it pretty far away. Thankfully, it wasn’t anywhere near my house but just led to traffic.

I made hot dogs and plaintains for lunch that Marianna gave me on Saturday. It was my first time making plantains and I did burn them a little – but they were still very edible.

I finally got my new laptop that worked today and then I spent about 5 hours to setting it up, transferring all programs and documents, downloading all programs. At least all bookmarks for Firefox transferred. Transferring iTunes library was probably most frustrating. Here is hoping that Tosh works well this time. I’m getting very cynical about computers. New settings – purple color for the Windows and new background – Hogwarts from Orlando instead of botanic garden. I should make a folder of pictures I can rotate as a background. I’m crossing my fingers that this laptop lasts longer than my last one.

I had to put together the Colonialism Powerpoint in school because my laptop doesn’t want to work for longer than one hour before flickering. The LCD screen is really going. My Dad will ask around how much repair shops would charge but I think I will be buying a new laptop this weekend to my chargin. Sony definitely will not fix it for less than $500. I will not buy a Sony laptop again, that’s for sure, because three years is not long enough for this breakdown.

In much more fun news, well for me, today at Black Circle DJ Fest, my Harry Potter fic went up. It is my first story from Sirius’ perspective.

After school, we also drove to the mall so I could order Bear’s ring. There was a sale at Macy’s today that the salesperson told up last weekend about. So that is done.

What the Hell? I’m sitting here crying over everything wedding related again. And I’m mad at myself for getting upset. I think I figured it out – this is a cultural difference in how we see a wedding. Laurie, Bear’s brother’s girlfriend emailed me about how much a ceremony is important and a city hall ceremony just won’t do. She wanted to contribute $300 for us to have a ceremony since it is the main “Event” and the restaurant is just an afterthought apparently. Not in a Russian wedding – the whole day matters including the restaurant. Why do people want to put their five cents in?

And also Bear’s mother wanted us to change the date from a Sunday to perhaps a Friday, since Bear’s godmother has to drive back early that day for her children’s first day of school. No! Since when do we have to poll every guest to make sure they are comfortable with the date. We already have the invitations and I don’t even care if she offered to compensate us. If she wants a religious ceremony, it has to be a Sunday, since you can’t have a Jewish one on Friday or Saturday. And Sunday less people actually need to take a day off than Friday. Argh. We’ll made sure his godmother is part of the day – he has to pick me up at 1 or so – it will not just be about the restaurant in the evening.

Around the middle of the day, I stopped being upset and crying over all this stress and just got mad. I am compromising a reasonable amount but some things I will not do.

Other than that fun time, I actually had a pretty good day. I read National Geographic and other readings and I took a one hour walk because it was so warm and lovely outside.

Folder review was today – My director actually complimented to me several times that I was doing a great job (and she heard before that I was good) - which is always great to hear. I didn’t actually finish grading all of the papers, so I’m not always that great – I just presented those I had concern about. I did finish all the midterms for Writing class last night and I did get up at 6 to grade papers. But I will need to grade more over Spring Break together with history midterms for two classes and one response paper. Grading doesn’t end. On better news: Spring Break – no teaching next week. Yay. And I’m happy Folder Review is done. Those matter in future hiring decisions.

We went to Costco afterward and I got bottles of wine for Passover – that is coming up in a month already. How are we a third way into March already?

I found the best way to sit and fold and stuff all the invitations. I put episodes of “Angel” and “Buffy” to watch on the laptop and then just folded. We actually have three extra invites, which was unexpected. Oh, the “Angel” episode was the one about the stalker guy whose eye and hands could separate from his body and it is one of the creepiest. It is even creepier the second time.

( Grimm S1E14 )

My screen keeps being jumpy and I’m really worried for my laptop right now. I did all the virus scans and it is all clean. It might be the laptop monitor or a loose connection or something. It is not jumpy all the time but it is not the Internet itself since the whole thing is jumpy. I did back up of everything to external hard drive today, just in case. My lovely laptop is only four years old, it really should not fall apart yet.

Invitations we ordered came today. That was actually exciting. The paper is a little thinner than I expected and I will have to fold them all in four. But the gold lettering in the front is very nice.

Last week has been a little crazy with the grading and now I need to catch up on my blog. So some entries for the week, mostly for really boring and uneventful days, will be just on my blog and not on reading pages to spare the inundation. I’m just happy to get through this week.

I have a wedding dress! I really can’t believe that I will wear something so very expensive even thought it will be a gift from my parents. (We are paying for everything ourselves so they wanted to at least get something). Even thinking about the price makes me cringe a bit and shake my head. But the dress is beautiful and I’m just going to appreciate my parents for it.

So my original plan was maybe look around and rent something. Or buy something online or at a cheaper type store. Mama and I decided to look around some shops today – we went to a Bridal Store that was everything but the dress. And I asked about prices for invitations there – way too much - and definitely getting something online. Bear is in charge of those anyway.

Anyway, we then drove to a Wedding Salon. When we came in, the salespeople were upstairs and we were just looking around, being a little overwhelmed. Mama, in her typical fashion, hated everything on sight and didn’t even want to stay. She just wanted to pick something online and nothing hanging on the mannequins appealed to her. But I did want to try some stuff on so I insisted we stay. I wanted to see different fabrics. Finally, the salesperson, Aurora, came down. I’m sure Mama’s demeanor did not fill her with confidence. I filled out a card and tried to find words to describe what I wanted. Mostly, non-puffy, non-princessy, more simple and elegant straight down dress. I really don’t like showy. Out of my very vague description, she pulled out about five dresses and I started to try them on.

The first one I tried was actually the one I ended up ordering. I tried on maybe five dresses and the choice came down between two. The satin ones were too heavy and this fabric was much lighter and seemed more appropriate for summer. I tried those two dresses a few times for comparison.

As I was trying out and modeling the dresses, Mama got really into it. She was even smiling and being all friendly by the end, which is pretty unusual. She is not an easy person to please. And in the middle of trying out the dresses she decided to just order it these, especially since all alterations were included. Unexpectedly and luckily, Mama and I, through this whole process of looking at style of dresses, actually liked very similar styles so we both liked the dress. And while I didn’t really want a veil, she picked one that looks pretty simple and got that too. And a hair piece.

The only thing we wanted extra on the dress was the straps since I’m not really a fan of completely sleeveless ones.

As I’m writing this, I’m just sitting here shaking my head again since I still can’t believe how much that cost. I keep telling myself to breathe.

So here is a link to the dress. It looks even better in person. Just picture the straps with it.

Mama was looking at wedding dresses online for the last week. I think she got obsessed with it a little bit. She was looking at this online Chinese website that I’m a bit weary off. Lots of people did not have good experiences there although some were fine. Since I actually need two dresses, one, more formal, for the reception and one, more summery, for the city clerk’s office, and since Mama is so stuck on it, I might end up ordering the summery, cheaper one online to try the website out. And if the dress is messed up or it doesn’t work well, it is not a lot of money. So I’m thinking of this compromise to indulge her bit.

Everyone just wants to put their two cents in into this wedding; Bear and I constantly need to emphasize what we want and fight against other people’s opinions. We are paying for this wedding and it is our wedding! Mama even suggested a song for us, after I let her listen to the song Bear and I agreed on like 9 years ago, which she didn’t care for. (“Stand By Me” by the Pretenders). Seriously.

Bear’s Mom is very Catholic and she is getting upset at our plans for City Hall wedding for the legal portion of it. The reason we decided on city hall in the first place is, first of all, it is the cheapest and easiest option, and, secondly, it will be as neutral on religion as possible. Neither of us feels like we need a religious sanction at all. Marriage is a social contract to me. But I would, for example, love a chuppa wedding and everything but that would cost money and I want to be sensitive to his religious family. But to her, I think, any religion would be better than no religion. And she is using some emotional blackmail in a very passive aggressive way by threatening not to come unless there is a religious blessing of some kind. She is not really going not to come but argh. They have a family friend who is a priest and I wouldn’t mind terribly if he just did the blessing but it all is driving me crazy.

( Downton Abbey )

I finally got to Staples to buy my Roster book. My old one finally run out after eight years. I haven’t been teaching all the semesters or at full load and some classes were not included. Still it feels weird to start a new one. I was pretty much working on my Luther lecture and Powerpoint today and doing some comments on the close reading assignment. My students all seem capable of understanding the main concept in the paragraph I gave them to read, but they can’t seem to understand the 15th century quote in its historical context – or show that the quote referred not to modern technology but to introduction of the printing press. I’m so going over that in the discussion on Tuesday.

I was looking at some wedding books again and they just irritate me for the most part. So I will just buy a $1 notebook and use that to plan everything and use internet for occasional guidance. First up, our parents are getting together this Saturday. Mama invited Bear’s parents over. Bear and I will have to serve as conversation starters/buffers. I’m thinking of various topics of conversation we could introduce. In our thirteen years of dating, our parents met once, very briefly in college, a month into it. And they talked on the phone once when Bear was visiting me in London during the 2005 terrorist bombings. And mostly they send each other food/treats for the holidays and fruit baskets during illness. But not really long sustained conversations. We’ll see.

I finished the Stephen Fry book. I enjoyed it a lot even when it got to be a little long at some points. But I do love the way he writes. And it was a good view into the world of British comedy in the 1980s. Now I can focus on reading the slave narrative "Interesting Narrative of Life of Olauda Equiano" that I assigned my class. I need to read all the books for class first before I pick up a fiction book for fun. I did put a Book List on my journal page to keep track of the reading and everything I want to read this year. I’m trying to be realistic about it (and fanfic does take away a lot of my already scarce reading time).

Season 2 of Downton Abbey continues to be lovely. It is a great cap to Sunday.

I finally left the house today to go be social with my friends. It was pretty cold out so I bundled up and Papa gave me a ride to the train station.

We met up at an Indian place that we went to in October. We were supposed to meet at 1pm and I got there at 1:20 (It took me two hours to get there by public transport) but, of course, everyone else showed up at 2pm. I do hate that sometimes: I always show up early or on time and when I’m running late, like today, I get stressed about it even knowing that I will be earlier than others. By 2, I was starting to get a little upset too, but then everyone showed up all at once and I could calm down. I forgive my friends too easily. (At least Bear was legitimately late because he was being super helpful and he volunteered to pick up Marianna and her family in his car since it was so cold for a baby to stroll anywhere). At least I could wait inside the restaurant and read there a bit before just getting food. The food was delicious. It was a buffet and after eating a nice big place I couldn’t even bring myself to get anything more – I was pretty stuffed. I didn’t even have dinner after – just some ice-cream and tea in the evening.

After the buffet, we all (Marianna, Adama, Yeva, Bear and I and little Galya) went back to Marianna’s where we pretty much hung out and played with Galya a lot. She is seven month now and she is a great baby. She is not fussy and she stares at everything very intently. She loved all the attention and didn’t mind being passed around at all. She is already sitting up by herself and she started to mumble. And she is trying to stand up a little bit. She is just very adorable. I still can’t imagine the energy Marianna and Adama spend in taking care of her but I’m very happy to come and play with her for seven hours.

On the way home, Bear and I talked some in the car about the wedding and we are thinking late August so that we would have to summer to plan. I need to make a list of things we need to do like guest list and restaurant choice.