salience
May 26, 2010
We found out two weeks ago that my brother is going to be deployed (most likely to Afghanistan) much earlier than we anticipated, in July 2011. El prometido and I had initially planned to get married in October of next year, but I didn't want to get married without my brother standing up at the altar with me. It just wouldn't be the same. So, we moved our date up to before his training would start, in April 2011. This is of course, right in the middle of Lent/Easter, so it was quite the challenge to find a date. That, combined with the fact that St, Patrick's has one of the most ridiculous set of hoops one must jump through to secure a slot, made for a very eventul four days. Nevertheless, we persevered (even through getting our certificate of freedom executed by two churches in each Cambridge and New York City within a 12 hour period), and we will be getting married on 30 April 2011!
It was tough meeting with our priest many times and going through this process with Ryan so far away, I had really looked forward to him being here with me. It's a once in a lifetime experience, you know? I was able to take pictures with my phone of the priest actually writing us down in his book. St. Patrick's is very traditional, and this calendar is a huge volume. Our priest set it down on his desk and it sounded as if the weight of the free world had just fallen from his hands! I felt very privileged to have a spot, even if Ryan and I will be one of seven couples married in the cathedral that Saturday (next to last, if you're curious).
I might have mentioned this already, but one the girls I play clarinet with in Manhattan Wind Ensemble told me she had lost a lot of funding for her senior English program that she teaches at a Brooklyn high school. Her school is in a high poverty area, and she was about to start panicking: how can one enforce a curriculum without the proper books? I had yet to make my annual contributions to the runners I work with, who are always doing some sort of race or another for charity, so I opted to send a donation to her kids instead. It turned out that my donation was all she needed to buy her books! Flash forward to a few months later, and I come home from work one day to find a large package of hand written thank you notes from her students!! It was the sweetest mail I've gotten in a bit, that's for sure.
And finally, one of my pseudo uncles has been in and out of the hospital recently with what the doctors think are kidney problems. He asked that we not travel to see him until he was sure they wouldn't keep bringing him back into the ER, so I sent him a small stuffed moose to keep him company instead. He sent me a picture on my phone of him and the moose, which made my day.
A picture summary, if you please:
It was tough meeting with our priest many times and going through this process with Ryan so far away, I had really looked forward to him being here with me. It's a once in a lifetime experience, you know? I was able to take pictures with my phone of the priest actually writing us down in his book. St. Patrick's is very traditional, and this calendar is a huge volume. Our priest set it down on his desk and it sounded as if the weight of the free world had just fallen from his hands! I felt very privileged to have a spot, even if Ryan and I will be one of seven couples married in the cathedral that Saturday (next to last, if you're curious).
I might have mentioned this already, but one the girls I play clarinet with in Manhattan Wind Ensemble told me she had lost a lot of funding for her senior English program that she teaches at a Brooklyn high school. Her school is in a high poverty area, and she was about to start panicking: how can one enforce a curriculum without the proper books? I had yet to make my annual contributions to the runners I work with, who are always doing some sort of race or another for charity, so I opted to send a donation to her kids instead. It turned out that my donation was all she needed to buy her books! Flash forward to a few months later, and I come home from work one day to find a large package of hand written thank you notes from her students!! It was the sweetest mail I've gotten in a bit, that's for sure.
And finally, one of my pseudo uncles has been in and out of the hospital recently with what the doctors think are kidney problems. He asked that we not travel to see him until he was sure they wouldn't keep bringing him back into the ER, so I sent him a small stuffed moose to keep him company instead. He sent me a picture on my phone of him and the moose, which made my day.
A picture summary, if you please:
lasaliente, 16:38
