Manufacturing Content

Coming down

In my pre-wedding blog-abstinence, I actually started about a dozen wedding related posts.  Most were deemed too gushy, too cutesy, or too close to the things I wanted to say to K on the wedding day itself and were scrapped, or chopped up and used in this post…

One of them was about a comment that K made in the week leading up to the wedding about how she was “Christmas excited” about it.  The significance of this is that K lives for the yuletide.  If you’ve been to one of her Christmas dinners, you’ve had a taste of this.  Since she worked at Christmas stores over the holidays as a student, and grew up in a house that was a Christmas store for at least three months of the year, I can understand where this comes from.  And I’m thrilled that the idea of getting married to little ol’ me can solicit the same level of feelings. 

Just call me Santa.

K has been in tireless and unstoppable party-planning mode for the last year.  In fact, it started exactly one year before the wedding date as we sat in what would become our venue and made a guest list, which hasn’t changed much since.

A casual observer would only guess at the amount of effort she’s poured into the day since that starting gun went off – but I’m well beyond being a casual observer.  I know how much she cared about it, and that her mind has been writing lists, checking things off, and planning for every single contingency, non-stop.

Now, granted I had only a limited vantage point on the wedding day itself, but I would have to say that it paid off.  The day went off without a hitch – unless you count us getting hitched (haw-haw). 

As we know, after all the presents are unwrapped, and the stockings removed from the chimney, the post-Christmas blues start to set in.  Sadly, this is where my little holiday season metaphor starts to fall apart.  Despite stubborn jet-lag and coming back to work after two glorious weeks off, I’ve never felt better, and K is more relaxed that I’ve seen her in months.

And in case you need more good news, Christmas is already just around the corner!  In fact, the malls already have their hideously early decorations and displays up and running.  Ah, ‘tis the season, ‘round and ‘round we go.

D.

Turkey for Thanksgiving

You know, I’ve never properly had a Thanksgiving turkey dinner.  Sure, there have been close calls such as Pietro’s noble attempt at student cooking in ’05, which will be forever known as the “pureed potatoes incident”. 

Not that I’m complaining, mind you. 

Thanksgiving dinner in my childhood home was always a culinary adventure, and I would inevitable show up to school on Tuesday morning with envy-inspiring stories of “duck a l’orange” or “braised lamb”, owing to the fact that a) we were a family of four, and cooking a whole turkey would mean eating leftover turkey for weeks and b) my dad’s a Swiss chef, and “turkey and gravy with all the fixins” is just not in his repertoire. 

I merely bring it up as a moderately clever segue into the best Turkey experience ever.  In fact, even the Thanksgiving part is merely incidental.  What I’m really trying to say here is that the best Thanksgiving turkey ever was actually honeymoon in Turkey. 

Dinner on said occasion was chicken, stuffed peppers, tuna casserole, salad, and a variety of melons for desert, prepared by the crew of our Turkish Mediterranean cruise, enjoyed in the company of two other Canadian couples, and one Turkish economist.  Over delicious Effes beers, we gave thanks to being on a sunny boat cruise instead of in the rainy fall of Canada, then we probably talked politics for a few hours before falling asleep to the gentle rocking of the boat on the calmest, clearest water in the world.

I had visited Turkey before, at the tail-end of my “Finding Myself European Tour 2001”.  At 5 am this morning, when jet-lag woke me up, I re-read my old travel-journal entries from my time in Turkey.  It’s incredible how much a country can change in seven years. 

But equally incredible is how much a person can change.  And for that, for finding my wife, and finding new strengths in myself through her, I am thankful.

D.

Songs for a Fall Wedding

This mix CD was part of the long string of wedding favours and special touches that K and I prepared for our guests.

1. Let’s Never Stop Falling in Love – Pink Martini
2. World Container - The Tragically Hip
3. The Builder
4. Don’t Forget - Martha Wainwright
5. Our Life is Not a Movie or Maybe - Okkervil River
6. I Found a Reason - Cat Power
7. Start a War - The National
8. Cinder and Smoke - Iron & Wine
9. We Will Still Need a Song - Hawksley Workman
10. Wolf Like Me - TV on the Radio
11. You're Pretty Good Looking (for a girl) - The White Stripes
12. Nothing in This World Can Stop Me Worryin’ ‘Bout That Girl - The Kinks
13. To Be Alone With You - Sufjan Stevens
14. Wildflowers - Tom Petty
15. Beach Day
16. The Crane Wife 1 and 2 - The Decemberists

Also, now playing on the side-bar, are the first round of photos from the wedding. Enjoy responsibly.

D.