The Continuing Saga of Suzanne and Ian

Don't let's be the kind of family that fights about who gets to kill themselves next.

2009-09-08T18:17:00.000-07:00

"My parents had their first date at church. It consisted of walking side by side for three whole beautiful blocks to the gravel parking lot where my father said to my mother: Well. And my mother said: That's deep. ...

Should we go inside? That was my dad wondering. He often wondered. Of course, said my mom. We've come all this way. Three blocks only, said my dad. ...

They went inside. They split up to go to their respective sides of the church and listened as the elders, one by one, cast their votes. At the end of the evening, there were three fewer members of the church.

That's all I know about that, my mom told me when I was a little kid. I don't know what they'd done.

Jesus H., Tash said, your first date was a shunning? What did they do, I'd asked my mom. Oh, brother, I don't know, she said. I never really paid any attention. But I pressed her. I was six or seven. What did they do, I asked. Just guess. Well, she said, they may have been fooling around, I don't know. Fooling around how, I'd asked. Oh, she said, misbehaving. Kissing. Just fooling around. And then what happened, I'd asked. They couldn't be a part of the church, she'd say. That's right, Mom. And then? Their families weren't allowed to speak to them, she said. And? I'd ask.

This was a bedtime ritual. I dug the shunning story. I couldn't wait to hear it. What a gem. It completely reinforced my belief system of right and wrong. And everyone had to stand up in church and publicly denounce them. Yeah! I'd say. Denounce them! I'd always loved the sound of that.

And everybody was sad, I'd say. Right? Yes, everybody was sad. It was a very difficult position to be in not only for the person who was shunned but for the people who loved them. God especially, I'd say. Right? Yes, God especially. I loved that hook. Even though he was the ultimate punisher, he got no satisfaction from it. It hurt him, but it had to be done. I thought that was damn heroic.

But Nomi, she'd say, there was always the possibility of forgiveness. Remember that. I didn't like that part. It muddied my crystal-clear waters. But probably not, I'd say. Probably not.

One night my mom said she'd had enough of that story. She didn't like it any more and wanted to tell another one. And they lived like ghosts in their own town, right, I'd ask. No friends, no family. Floating around. Bound for hell, right? Crying all the time? Hey, Mom! For fooling around? Right? She'd make up excuses to leave my room. Oh, Dad needs help choosing his shirts for next week, she'd say. And gently close the door."

A Complicated Kindness, by Miriam Toews

Thrilling News For Everyone!

2007-05-08T16:13:00.000-07:00

Yes....yes, it's true.

Everyone rejoice!

We have HAD the thank you notes in our hot little hands, half-done, as one of those projects that you keep meaning to get back to, that occasionally haunt your dreams and make you question your own competence and decency as a human being.

We got them out and worked on them on our first anniversary trip, to make them special; here I am writing one:

Ian and I worked on them together; I loved the idea of him writing thank-you notes to MY side of the family, and vice versa, as a gesture of family unity, but we settled on assigning him the people who wouldn't form--or completely revise--their opinion of his intelligence once they saw his hopelessly bad spelling. After that, sometimes we decided by who had the more meaningful thing to say, or by who had the funnier idea.

And they were almost done, I'd say, oh, six months to a year ago. Then I got distracted by other projects and completely daunted by the idea of recollecting the addresses that were obsolete. It's amazing how many of one's acquaintances MOVE in a year! Or MIGHT have moved....

Now, originally, I was all determined to be competent at this. At first, my idea was to open a gift and immediately write the thank-you note, and not open any present we didn't have time to write the note for.

Ha! We moved in and realized all the things we didn't have: dish drainer. Mop, broom, dustpan, buckets. Plunger. Enough pots and pans. Dish soap. Shower curtain. About 50 other things that we needed urgently. And we realized that we'd better open the presents so that we didn't buy duplicates, and providentially we had been given some cash and Target cards, and dashed out and bought those things. Totally wrecked the great system I had read about in the etiquette book.

Then, when we were about 80% finished, I kept postponing because I never seemed to have the money for all that postage. I finally realized that I was doing this and went out and bought a roll of 100 stamps.

Then I realized that the careful list I'd kept of who gave us what was incomplete. I experienced agonies of shame at the idea of approaching people eight months later to ask them what we should be thanking them for, and made Ian and my dad do it.

That was when I began to realize how many addresses we would have to recollect. And we wanted to distribute announcements at Oaks Park, where we met, and mail everything at the same time, and as long as we got them out within the year we weren't TERRIBLE people, right?

I forget why we didn't finish last summer, actually. It would have made sense, wouldn't it?

Anyway, this spring I have been on a tear of efficiency and finishing the thank-yous was DEFINITELY on my list. And then yesterday I went to the post office to mail some postcards and learned from my favorite postal clerk that STAMPS WERE GOING UP TWO CENTS ON MAY 14!

Now, you can't exchange stamps and pay the difference to get the correct 'wattage'. Maybe the post office is afraid that someone will make a killing exchanging forgeries, I don't know. But I was about to have one hundred 24 cent stamps on my hands that would be worthless without one hundred 2 cent stamps that wouldn't fit on the little cards!

So thank the post office for your cards, in more ways then one! They are the straw that finally broke my back. I was NOT going to be buying a whole extra set of two cent stamps and cramming them onto my cute little postcards. It was time for this to be DONE. I sat down at 6:30 last night and worked on them straight through till midnight, worked on them at my desk when it was slow at the office, and then over lunch. I went to the post office today for more stamps and they are going to be done tonight! I slept 5 1/2 hours last night and my shoulder is sore now, but they are going to be done!

DONE!!! HAHAHA!

Oh, sweet rapturous release!

Hopefully some of those very thank you notes [and announcments--better late than never, right?] brought you to our blog. Write us a message and let us know you were here! We'll be ecstatic, trust me.

So, some recent highlights:

Two weeks ago I volunteered at Outdoor School for the first time in 5 years. It was wonderful.

This week I will be going to spend a week with Lindsay Person [of TWU fame] and help out with her new baby, Zeke! Everybody's having all these babies all the time [among my friends, six to date, all BOYS!] and it's clearly time for me to be useful.

And next week, on Saturday May 19th, 7 pm, Steffie and I will be having a joint birthday party at my house! Ian has taken on clearing space in the basement so people can dance. There will be cake and probably games and rootbeer and regular beer and EVERYTHING! YEAH!!

Oh, I'll be 27. Stef will be like, 25. Congratulate her on achieving oldness, by the way. It will make her feel good!

Here's us when we were not old:

Oh, Ian wants everyone to know that Saturday Morning Football is now twice a week; 11 am Saturday, and now Thursdays at 4 pm at 12th and Stark. For more info:

http://www.myspace.com/saturdaymorningfootball

For more info about Ian, harass him to write an entry on the blog!

My New Addiction: The Marvels and Joys of LibraryThing

2007-01-09T20:14:00.000-08:00

Hello~

You want to see what I read, don't you? Of course you do!

And you want to know basically every book in my personal library, and see them categorized and alphabetized by title and by author?

And you want to know what books are on my Wish List, so you can plan ahead for birthdays and Christmas?

And you want to know what books I don't have via the Search option, so you can surprise me with a book you think I'd like?

And you want to share the same with me?

Wait no longer, but go straight to LibraryThing! Or, to my account directly.

I have waited for YEARS for something like Librarything. I don't know about you, but sometimes I buy books that I don't intend to read again anytime soon, just for reference. If the book isn't on my shelf, I will have completely MADDENING times where I try to recall exactly where I came across X piece of vital or fascinating information. If I want to completely remember a book, I need to buy it.

And how do I remember which books I own, when I come across a nice second-hand copy of a book I want? Perhaps other people can remember easily if the copy they read last was theirs or from the public library--but not me.

Also, I have always been afraid of losing my books in a fire or through some other catastrophe and not being able to remember titles or authors so I can find them again. When I left for college I had exhaustively typed up and printed a list of all my books, which of course took hours of typing and walking back and forth between the bookshelf and the computer, only to find that not only was the list quickly out of date, but the technology was as well--who uses floppy disks anymore? Who can find their old ones? Are they still readable? Can you find a computer that can read the program you used? Also, where was I going to store this disk so it wasn't damaged in said catastrophe, a safe deposit box? And reorganizing it, whether by author or title or category, was a total pain.

Now, too, I can easily add a note to a book I own whenever I lend it out--if I wonder where it is, I can go check the tags I have assigned to it, such as "Lent To Marisa".

So I have a lifetime Librarything account. The first 200 books are free, and a lifetime membership is only $25. Or you can try it out yearly for $10.

Books are incredibly easy to add--it's like a Google search: you just put in a few keywords and titles pop right up. If you like it simple and direct, it's that easy. If you enjoy tinkering around, or pottering, or whatever, you can make the book cover they show match the cover of the copy you own, or add complicated overlapping categories, or look at other people's book reviews or collections.

If you read, and you know me, you should start a Librarything account, too. I want to be inspired by what you are reading. I want to know what books I can get you for Christmas. I want you to be able to replace your library after a flood or monsoon.

Or go look at MY library. Look at my book categories, or the authors in my collection, or my overall collection. Laugh at my nostalgic kick, the biggest category in my library. Based on my favorite books, see which books I'd be least likely to own--or most likely, if you are not of a contrarian state of mind. Or look at the collections of other people who share a lot of books in common with me.

You know, this probably sounds incredibly pretentious, or nauseatingly whimsical--but one of my favorite things about Librarything is that I can add in books that I plan to read [I always mark them as 'Not Read' until I get to them], or that I love and don't yet own: I think of it as my 'spiritual library', though I suppose 'virtual library' might be more accurate--certainly more pragmatic.

So take a look, and tell me what you think.

Our Christmas, 2006

2007-01-09T18:36:00.000-08:00

Hello, all~

For Christmas this year, Ian and I gave each other a terrible, terrible cold. A knock-you-flat insomniac cold.

I personally believe I got the worst of it [she says in the manner of a wilting, sighing southern belle, with the back of her hand pressed pressed to her forehead]. First, Ian was sick all through the time I was working overtime and then trying to clean the house, and by December 21st I had contracted it.

Miraculously [or, thanks to a combination of the awesome recuperative powers of the Devil's Smoothie and my own propensity for overwork] I was well for one day, the day of our Second Annual Christmas Party, which was loads of fun. [All you who were not able to make it, make a mental note for next year; anyone who might come to town in last December next year should certainly keep us posted, as well.] We had Everything! Ian's masterful arrangements of fruit, cheese, and chocolate....coffee and cocoa....tree decorating....gift exchange....trace amounts of Peppermint Schnapps....a rousing round of The Game Of Real Life...and, to top it all off, a real live baby, provided by the occasion by Kelly-Shane and April. Gavin stole the show with his general unfussiness and willingness to be held by everyone and anyone.

So it was a lovely night and we stayed up together until nearly two AM. This last part was a hideous mistake, in afterthought, because, though I went to work the next morning at 10 am, I was almost delirious by the time I drove home at 3 pm. I'd taken the next day off of work so we could attend the morning Christmas Eve service at Montavilla, and go over to spend the night at Marisa's house, but I was too sick for both of those things [and anyone who knows me and my nomadic habits knows I'd have to be pretty miserable to feel that I'm better off at home]. So Ian drove me to work Christmas morning, and picked me up and brought me back to his mother's house, where stayed awake long enough to eat breakfast and open presents, and spent most of the rest of the day asleep in a chair. That evening we went home for Christmas Evening Together As a Couple, which consisted of me falling asleep on the couch while Ian cooked dinner, and falling asleep again afterward at about 8:30, and calling into work the next day. Like I said, it was a miserable cold!

It was definitely disappointing to miss certain special times. Melissa and Morgan had come to visit the West Coast with Grove, and we were all going to go to Saturday Market [where Melissa and I used to hang out on weekends in high school] for the Festival of The Last Minute, but I missed it. And on OPB Christmas Eve they have a tradition of a burning log, that we like to watch with Marisa, Ian's mother. It's like having a fireplace in your living room, and for some reason it elicits great excitement when a phantom hand appears, Monty Python and the Holy Grail-like, to put more wood on the fire or rearrange it with the poker. It was a bit ironic, too, because last year didn't go the way I had planned at all, and I later realized that my expectations were unrealistic with us both working full time throughout the holiday season. My mother has always either been homemaking or working a school job with holidays off, and the extra time makes a huge difference. So this year I had planned not to take any overtime after December 15th, and to wrap presents, decorate, put up the tree, make cookies, all that fun festive routine, only to have sickness pre-empt that.

However! There was improvement in several ways--for example, Ian got me presents this year! [Last year he didn't quite have Internet ordering figured out, and nothing ever arrived. And he thought the money was already gone from his account and therefore spent it all, so he couldn't re-order.] And we made gingerbread houses out of graham crackers [well, Ian made a Gingerbread Temple of Doom] with the kids--Emerald, Josiah, Lily, and Noah ; and the girls and I made an excursion to The Grotto's Festival of Lights, while Ian was sick. It was originally going

to be the four of us, but we had some fun girl-time bonding out of that.

We are also on the way to making the soundtrack to Amelie part of our Official Christmas Music [anyone else plan for music to hold memories of a certain time? I like to buy a new CD when something new happens in my life], crab is definitely our Official Christmas Dinner, and we hope to be on the path for local renown for our delightful Christmas Shindigs, and Marisa finished our 'wedding outfit scrap Christmas Stockings'--I'll get a picture to post at some point.

And we gave and received some wonderful gifts [doesn't it feel good to hit on the perfect gift for someone and then wait in anticipation?]. Among the fabulous gifts we received: I got another pendant from Deenie and Daniel, an undersea-looking one with a swirling amber background and some pale-green knobbles around the sides; a framed collection of photos of me growing up with our family, from my mother, and, believe it or not, a completely addictive series of graphic novels called Fables, from Jake. They are a modern-day continuation of the major fairy-tale characters we all grew up with, who have escaped their besieged Homelands and are living disguised in a secret enclave in New York. I still have a bit of my nerd heritage [Ian has a great deal more, and even trumpets it proudly, but is so charming that he carries it off] but I have never been interested in graphic novels--it sounds rather off-color, doesn't it? But this series is absolutely riveting. And seeing Melissa and Morgan again--and getting to meet Grove--was a major highlight.

So that was our Christmas. And if the Rocking Horse doesn't run away with the chocolate cake, when it ought to put it to sleep in the cat's cradle for the gold fish, (and if her mother sends me some pictures) I'll tell you next how Lindsay's baby shower went!

In the meantime, this entry needs another picture! Here's me when I was 12. Or 13. Doesn't it give one hope?

Thanksgiving with S'mores and Rutabagas? Making Our Own Traditions

2006-11-28T19:41:00.000-08:00

Hello,

It has been awhile, but I am plugging away again, revitalizing the blog for the holiday season, so I can send out a cheerful e-mail reminding you to check us out.

How was our Thanksgiving?

New and different. We had a multi-family celebration! Ian's former roommate Eric [you can see him in the wedding pictures; he's the groomsman with the ponytail] bought a house this fall. He and his houseful of new roommates [including Ian's sister Anna] hosted Thankgiving this year. This consisted of:

Eric [and his parents and sister]
Anna [and her mother, her brother Ian and his wife, Suzanne, and, later, her sister Kirsten with our neice and nephew, Emerald and Josiah, in tow.]
Deenie and Daniel, married couple who add a cachet of domesticity to the house, and whose claim to fame is Jubilant Glassworks [if you see me wearing a glass pendant, they made it!]

In fact, here's me wearing one now.

Both Daniel and Deenie's mother were a big hit with Josiah.
Chelsea, the newest roommate, who dropped in periodically between her other engagements to sneak a piece of macaroni and cheese from the bowl [to be fair, we were all doing this!]

I've always wanted to do something like this--unite friends and family for a holiday. I've felt for a long time that the people who you are closest to are the ones you should spend holidays with, and that our holidays should acknowledge that our communities are made up of friends as well as family.

I'm also a big fan of making new and unique traditions. It's something exciting about being newly married--what we do for these first few holidays will start the path that future holidays will take [if we ever have kids, I expect it will be another fresh start!]. Later I will post a more complete list of our emerging Christmas traditions; for now I will just mention that our traditional meal is a crab dinner, our Christmas stockings are handmade by Ian's mother from leftover scraps of our wedding outfits, and that this year we will listen to the Amelie soundtrack on Christmas Day.

Sometimes you can intentionally create a tradition or a memory; other times they just happen, and your attempted creations fall flat. For example, from this year's Thanksgiving, I will remember Eric's spirited recounting of his three week stay at a chimpanzee orphanage in Africa. Did you know that people adopt chimpanzees illegally as babies because they are so darn cute, but by the time they are six they are several times stronger than you are and tearing apart your house? It was a fascinating conversation.

I will also remember Deenie's fabulous Eggplant Parmesan. While I like turkey, it turns out that I could go vegetarian and not miss a darn thing on Thanksgiving. That and the macaroni and cheese [from scratch!] were sumptuous.

I will also remember, unfortunately that both of my attempted traditions were rather a flop. Instead of cooking yams, I decided to roast rutabaga. We've cooked it before: rutabaga is a root vegetable that cooks up rather like potatoes or carrots.

These are rutabagas.

You can slice it and steam it, or grill it, and once it is thoroughly cooked it is delicious, and quite naturally sweet. We've usually served it simply, with a little salt but for this special occasion I marinated it in lemon juice, cinnamon, and nutmeg, put it in the fridge overnight and baked it the next day.

And it was wholly inedible--it came out bitter. Perhaps next time I should add the lemon juice afterward? Hmmm.

Also, Eric's new house has a fireplace, so I suggested that we do S'mores, which everyone originally thought was a great idea. I went to some length to get the firewood, and Ian and I brought all the fixings. Unfortunately, the fire smoked and we had to leave the front door open, and all of the adults [I do not include myself in this] determined that pie was far more up their alley. Emerald had an irritated throat already and so stayed away from the fire. Josiah and I made several S'mores each, and Ian and Daniel each appeared for a single marshmallow. Not an overwhelming success. [However, all the leftovers will do well if we get together and build gingerbread houses with the kids some time in December, as we hope to do. By hook or by crook....]

Suzanne

PS. Can you tell that I was a little strapped for suitable images to go with this post?
PPS. I do have a tour of our home to post; I may do that soon.
PPPS. Sorry it has been so long for anything substantial. I've been reorganizing our photographs, and it broke all the links!

Freecycle Offering Two

2006-09-15T13:12:00.000-07:00

Here is the gold recliner I am offering!

Freecycle Offerings

2006-08-30T12:42:00.000-07:00

Hello~

You may see on the right-hand side of the blog that I have listed a link to Freecycle.org .

Photo of "Kids/Teens Punky/Foofy Jewelry that I'm too old for"

Take a look--the purpose is for communities to communicate about exchanging goods they no longer need to keep them out of landfills. It is also a wonderful way to get rid of a possession that you care about and want to go to a good home. I've been freecycling for almost a year now, and have been able to receive many necessary goods and to help many people by giving away things we no longer use.

This post today is to show pictures of a couple of items that were difficult to describe.

Photo of "The Fountain"

And never fear, we will be posting the saga of our 1st anniversary trip and our finally, finally issued thank-you notes and announcements [yes, we know, and we beg forgiveness!] within a week or two.

And, finally, to tide you over:

A picture of Ian

Suzanne

Timothy and Renata's new baby, Owen

2006-06-19T20:38:00.000-07:00

Hello~

Better late than never, I always say! Here's a post.

owen and new best friend

Timothy and Renata McNeely had a baby: Owen!

[Tim and I go way back as buddies from TWU. Oh, and I crashed his wedding. Renata I know mostly by repute; our mutual friends all raved about her, and so though I wasn't at TWU while Timothy and Renata were dating I was able to be thrilled for him from a distance. Someday, hopefully, they will be in the Pacific Northwest again and Ian and I can visit them or have them stay...I'll have to look up an E-how on 'Babyproofing Your Apartment'!]

You can see more pictures of them in Scotland, and Owen as he grows, on their Flickr site, which I have listed under "Links".

Here are the first pictures, including Owen with his birth present from me, an alien bunny, handmade out of a recycled cashmere sweater. [And we all say "YAY, for local artists!"]

Also, I have included ere is Timothy's and my discussion about what parenthood means to him and Renata:

depression-era boxer

Suzanne: Are you getting any hints as to what Owen's personality is like yet? My mom says she knew I was a strongwilled kid the night she brought me home and I screamed and screamed just because I was MAD that I was all alone and I wanted to be with them.

Timothy: Sleep. We actually sleep. Owen is just awesome for only getting up about once in the night, feeding, and heading right back down again to sleep. Now and again he does stay up longer, or fuss just a bit too much, but mostly he sleeps, so we sleep. It's great, and certainly not the only way it could have gone. But if I'd have to guess Owen's personality right now, I'd like to guess, with the evidence at hand, that he's pretty easy-going like his mom, and thus he sleeps very contentedly. He's regular as clockwork so far, being up every four hours or so -- five in the night -- with a 20 min feed, an hour or so awake, and two and a half hours plus of sleep again. Great great baby.

sleeping

Suzanne: Well, your impressions on --good Lord--"Fatherhood" would be something else. Or heck, just "Parenthood." What a fascinating and incomprehensible state, to my mind. Adulthood has utterly, completely, arrived.
One thing about parenthood that alarms me slightly is how you will never sleep as soundly again. You know what I mean. To generalize, I think that when you get married, you realize that this person is the one, the only one, that you are wholly and utterly unprepared to lose. Losing a parent--sad but probably inevitable. Losing a sibling--really tragic. Of course. But still not like losing the best friend you talk to everyday who knows you better than anyone. To be really cliche, I think for most of us being married means knowing, if all the people you loved were drowning, who you would try to rescue first.
And then--a kid. Someone you love in a way that is, while different, as powerful as what you feel for your spouse. Someone who will one day have to be prepared to lose you, but someone you desperately hope you would never be prepared to lose. Divided loyalties on that whole 'everybody's drowning!" thing. And so often, it's just sudden. People talk about seeing their kid for the first time and just falling in love. It's so risky. (So much more can devastate you. I know I'm not ready for it at all!) But then of course there's the 'being in love' thing, the 'deliriously happy thing', the 'I'm so thankful I wouldn't trade this for anything in the world!"

So this is what I've heard/read/surmised about parenthood. What's Your take on it?

Timothy: As you said, I fell in love with him right away -- but could you really see me doing anything else. I mean, he came out, and I jumped up and down, and just began crying because I loved him and Renata so much -- not blubbering, by the way, just crying. I actually really like your drowning metaphor (may it always remain so), and I think it works like this with a baby: because each of you love each other and would likely try to save each other drowning, and because you'd certainly also try to save the kid, out of mutual love, you save who you both love (the kid) first, as an act of love to each other, and a part of the vow that, while on one level, your marriage is prior to the child, the helpless one comes first. Honestly, and I don't think I could have said this before knowing him, I'd save Owen first, and it'd absolutely break my heart, but it'd be the right choice -- and the same would go if Renata had to choose, I think. It's weird, really, but I think that choice is made as soon as they come into the world -- just as the choice of spouse first is made when you marry. All this, and yet I'm a really strong believer that the marriage relationship has to take priority in the family -- if the marriage doesn't work, the rest ain't got a chance. Yet I'd save the kid first. Back to the personality thing, Owen is either easy-going and yet strongly practical like his mom, or he's got a veneer of easy-goingness because he's actually like me: easy-going if everything's going my way, most of which it is in his case. I think we'll just have to wait and see. As to the parenting thing in general, you can't beat it. It's really really cool, and yet it's really really tiring -- even with a good baby (you're just putting out so much love it can be sapping) -- and really really strangely rewarding (even when the kid can't hardly smile in thanks yet). I recommend it. I am totally in love with Owen and can't imagine life without him. The rest I'm still processing.

the proud parents

Suzanne: How is Renata feeling, post-birth? Always nice to hear a contemporary speak on this issue.

Timothy: Renata is doing great. She's just so happy to be with the little one and have him and enjoys almost every minute of it -- the occasional crying, however occasional, does take some patience. She is a really content mom, I think.

At This Time Last Year: Circus Attempt One [Ill-Fated]

2006-04-20T15:11:00.000-07:00

Sometimes Ian and I like to take his [now 'our'!] niece and nephew out. It's fun to be the bestowers of special treats, and they are great kids--precocious, funny and all-around good company. Josiah is affectionate and winsome; Emerald has been sarcastic and darkly humorous since she could talk. They're both very bright--Emerald competes in Lego robotics, and Josiah learned to read from 'Calvin and Hobbes' cartoons. And they especially adore Ian, who is a living, breathing jungle gym who plays Blanket Monster with them and invents elaborate stories for them about the adventures of one 'Captain Geduselah'. So we enjoy spending time with them...and, it's a bit of an unreal feeling for us. Like being 'parents for a day' without the same sense of responsibility. We have learned, however, that it takes both of us to keep track of even one of them for an afternoon.

Let me start by telling you about last year's attempt to attend the circus, so you will have the proper background for this year's outing. Last year, the Shriner's Circus came to town, and I thought it would be just a wonderful idea to take Emerald and Josiah [then 11 and 7, respectively] to see it. After all, who doesn't love the circus? I had picked up some of those tickets that the Shriners leave for free at local businesses [they advertise free adult admission or $1 off a child admission]. I suggested it to Ian, and he thought it was a great idea too. We were off!

We worked it out with Kirsten, Ian's older sister and the kids' mother [they live in Oregon City and Kirsten was a bit dubious about driving into Portland proper], to meet at a halfway point, at a MAX station. I did an internet search on the Shriners to find out what the cost would be, since the tickets didn't specify, and found nothing--no website, no schedule, nothing. A little fishy, so we called the kids and said that if we got to the circus and it was too expensive that we would take them to the zoo, or to Saturday Market, as an alternative. We were prepared!

Last year was made even more exciting because Christa and Mitch [my college roomie and her husband, who sang at our wedding, see pix on the Wedding Extravaganza entry] called and said they would be in town that weekend. FABULOUS! But now what? We couldn't just call the kids and say 'Too bad, maybe next year,"--and so Mitch and Christa graciously agreed to be part of our family outing. They even drove down in their minivan [no, they don't have kids--they just like to be hospitable; and living in Seattle, it's a cheap way to go downtown with friends as a group and park. It's also great for transporting their music equipment. But I digress.]

Unfortunately, the plan was off-kilter from the beginning. Kirsten was late to meet us with kids in tow [I don't recall why, but it was some miscommunication which obliterates blame or, at least, spreads it equally] and the circus had already begun before we met up. So, once we had collected the kids, we all piled into the van and went downtown to Saturday Market. We wanted each of them to be able to purchase something there [and thought giving the kids each a spending limit would keep nagging to a minimum]....I believe the limit we set was $15 for Josiah [whose birthday it was] and $5 for Emerald, who was not having a birthday but of course would have more fun with some money to spend. We all split up for a while--me taking Josiah, Ian taking Emerald, and Mitch and Christa wandering off to do that delightful newlywed thing.

Josiah almost immediately [as in, within 5 minutes] picked out a large metal spider made of, I don't know, nuts and bolts and various eating implements welded together in a nominally clever way. I was dubious--it had no actual use [rather like a garden gnome] and seemed like a particularly cumbersome item to carry around for the rest of the day. Would Kirsten be thrilled to have this thing in her house? I had hoped, too, that the shopping process would be drawn out a bit, so we would have some time to look around, enjoy, browse, people-watch, what-have-you. But Josiah was insistent that he was interested in owning nothing else that the market could possibly have to offer, and begged for it so continually after we left the booth that I let him have his way.

Emerald was another story altogether. It turned out that Emerald was the Wrong Age. If you are not young enough for silly little toys and not old enough [or girly enough] to be interested in exotically scented handmade shea-butter soap, the Market doesn't have a whole lot to offer you, at least in the price range we set. I was insistent that we needed to stay within her limit--both out of belief in maintaining limits and out of necessity of staying within budget.

When Ian and I traded charges, however, and Emerald conveyed her disappointment to him, he cheerfully doubled her spending allowance. And no, he didn't have any cash on him, [insert eye-roll here] so I was not delighted with his willingness to tinker with the budget when I found out later on. Furthermore, the raised limit was not actually helpful: Emerald saw nothing that she wanted until she discovered the hand-carved wooden Puzzle Snakes, made up of almost-identical links which have to be assembled in the exactly correct order to create the snake; she was desperate to have one. They started at $12 or so. Feeling the ground slipping out from under me, I reluctantly agreed that we could buy her the smallest one. Unfortunately, the smallest one was just enough to tantalize her; she needed more of a challenge, she and the booth owner agreed. The next size up was $25, which I absolutely couldn't agree to--even if we had had the money, to be fair we would have needed to raise Josiah's limit as well; after all, he was the one who actually had a birthday. I encouraged her to find something else; this suggestion was not as inspirational as I had hoped, however. I ended up assuring her that we could go 'somewhere else special' if she couldn't find something here.

Speaking of the birthday boy, Ian and I traded back, and I was kept busy adjuring Josiah that there were many interesting things to see and that we had all come to spend some time here, and that I had let him have what he had asked for, and so he was to be patient. We stopped to look at the booth with beautiful carved lanterns made out of recycled tin. I thoughtfully reached out and touched one, having forgotten momentarily the vigilance that must be maintained at all times when keeping company with a seven-year-old. Josiah, observing that touching was clearly allowed, reached out and touched one as well. One with a candle in it.

Of course, he burned his finger and screamed bloody murder. Passersby turned around to see what sort of extraordinary abuse was being wreaked on this child. It was an absolutely appalling noise. So I grabbed him up in my arms and ran for the water fountain, whereupon I was informed by a suddenly dignified Josiah that he did NOT need to be carried, thank you, he could walk. So we trotted briskly to the water fountain and held his finger in it.

Josiah felt that he needed ice, and that I should leave him by the train station stop with his finger in the water in order to fetch some. Now, I would assume that on my own I would never have considered leaving a seven-year-old where anyone could come along and bundle him onto a train [or anywhere alone in public, really]--but I certainly had my mind made up for me before I even had the opportunity to ponder it. Kirsten has taken a few hard knocks and is very, very protective of her children. When we first called to invite the kids out, she had made it abundantly clear:
We were not to leave them alone for even a moment.
They were not to go to the bathroom alone, or even to go in the bathroom while an opposite sex attendant waited outside.
We were not to be separated from them for any length of time for any reason.
[She had also sped us on our way when she dropped the kids off with further strongly-worded admonitions to the same effect.] I inspected Josiah's finger and there was no blister, but he was adamant that he must have ice. We resolved this by calling Christa on her cell phone and directing her to the food court so she could bring us a cup of ice. While we waited, Josiah would get tired of holding his finger in the water and take it out. After a moment it would be painful, and he would scream and I would tell him to put his finger in the water again. As it turns out, this was a faithful preview of what the rest of the afternoon was to be like.

I judged this to be a good time for us all to meet for lunch. Small boy can sit and hold his finger in a cup of ice, and be distracted by food! So via the miracle of cell phones, and some searching for Ian and Emerald, we were all able to meet up at the food court. Emerald needed to go to the restroom and instructed me firmly that I was not to let her go alone; I advised her dryly that abandoning her had not been in the plan. Upon arrival, she favored me with her opinions on restroom stalls with short walls and those which had condom-dispensing machines. I explained that the short walls were because we were downtown, and it was important for the market security to be able to ascertain that no one had gone in to use drugs in a locked stall. [Emerald is one of the few kids I know who is unfazed by this sort of thing.]

We returned to the food court, and Emerald wanted to know what special thing we were going to do next since there was nothing she could get at Saturday Market. After a hasty consultation, with Mitch and Christa, we settled on the zoo.

We arrived, of course, just as the zoo was closing. It was rather a frazzling experience, particularly as Josiah had let his [second!] cup of ice dribble away, and had thoughtfully finished emptying it out onto the ground just before getting in the van. About 10 minutes into the trip to the zoo he recalled that his finger was burned and underwent agonies of pain, sobbing in utter panic and flinging his hand around frantically to cool it; we made an emergency detour to a McDonald's drive-through for a cup of ice, which--fortunately for my social conscience--we managed to finagle without paying them 25 cents for the cup [sometime in the future I will do an entry on Companies All Ethical People Should Boycott. Stay tuned!]

So, as I was saying. We arrived at the zoo to find it closing; most importantly, the gift shop was closed. Where on earth were we going to find something for Emerald? Ian suggested one of his favorite places, The Japanese Garden. Both the zoo and the Japanese Garden are in Washington Park; and the Japanese Garden has a gift shop! [How on earth had we ended up creating these consumerist priorities? Who on earth goes to the Japanese Garden for the gift shop, for pity's sake? Where had we gone wrong?] Also, I think we were all hoping that the garden would exert a calming effect and that we could have some quiet, quasi-adult time.

Emerald, fortunately, was now the Right Age for her surroundings, and was very observant and quiet in the Garden. [In the gift shop, miraculously, in the minutes before it closed, we found an nifty calligraphy set. Marisa--Ian's mother; Emerald's grandmother--does beautiful calligraphy and we both thought it would be nice for Emerald to pursue that interest in her company. The board was $15 or so, but at that point I was just thankful to have found something. She and I were then able to join everyone else on their tour of the garden.]

Josiah, often a thoughtful and contemplative boy, was not in a mood to be so that day. He set a brisk pace for us, chattering constantly, hushing cooperatively when asked to, for 30 whole seconds at a stretch. He wanted to race away out of sight, so one of us always had to hold his hand and endure a steady pull with intermittent yanking, ever forward. He also gradually emptied out his water cup, despite several admonitions to take care of it, and reminders of what had happened when he had discarded it before. He told us irritably that he would be fine, and continued to strew it around carelessly as soon as we weren't looking.

We made it through the garden--in record time!--and loaded up into the van. I was able to chat with Christa for the first time that day; she told me about the earrings she had bought at Saturday Market, and we were nearly having a normal adult conversation when, just as the traffic gelled and set into place, Josiah recalled that, yes, his finger was burned. Much terror, much hysterical handwaving ensued. Ian and Christa and I exchanged anguished looks, and Mitch exhibited the extraordinary patience of a soldier in a war zone who has nobly decided to defend his country to the death. What were we going to do? Josiah was clearly anguished and miserable, and perhaps too young to be expected to be responsible? In any case, even if allowing him to 'experience the consequences of his actions' was not too harsh, it was going to be an utterly unnecessary penance for the other five people in the van.

I wheeled around in my seat and eyeballed him sternly. "JOSIAH," I said, "your finger is FINE. It has been HOURS now. The only time it starts to hurt again is when you remember that you burned it. When you have something else to interest you it doesn't hurt at all. So stop thinking about it, and it won't hurt!"

"Okay," he snuffled, sounding very sad and doubtful, and I thought, "Wow, that's a lot to ask. How is he going to distract himself? What can I do to distract him?" I thought frantically for several seconds.

"All right, everyone!" I announced cheerfully. "This is our new game! Let's look out the windows and find something that begins with 'A'!"

We played this game until the moment we arrived in Oregon City and opened the van door to return the children to their parents. Then the four of us went off to McMenamin's, where Ian and I decompressed and thoroughly questioned our own sanity and competence, and where all four of us reflected with satisfaction on our currently childless states.

PS. There is a happy ending: I remembered the puzzle snake and we gave one to Emerald for Christmas this year!

Sinus Infection, Episode Two

2006-04-14T15:00:00.000-07:00

The scourge of January and February is back with a brand new appearance in April!

And I am feeling a little energized from the buzz of anxiety that accompanies a sinus infection, so I am here at the library to print a copy of the recipe for the Devil's Smoothie.

My dear friend Melissa [see the photos of the wedding party, or look at her online journal, listed in the sidebar] is a highly organic, health-conscious woman. I would really like this all-natural solution to do the trick for me.

I am also fresh from a rejection from Outside In, where they had too many people either less well-endowed with shelter, or who were sicker than I, to allow them to see me. They did suggest a place that will take 5 days to check my income level and will charge me $90 for the first visit...or the naturopathic clinic for a two-week wait. Unfortunate for me...but I know they did what they could.

So, the plan is to rest, rest, rest, and take more vitamins, drink more water, take more echinacea, and try to beat this nasty bug that has had me in a chokehold since Wednesday morning.

And maybe it's all for the best--maybe I'll kick this on my own without antibiotics. That would be cool. [My dad doesn't think so...he talked me into going in today. Usually I wait until I get better and relapse once or twice, so I don't feel so guilty going in.]

Also, Kimmy [here's the pix of Kimmy with kitten and jeep!] is supposed to text me the name of her nifty doctor, who does NOT take insurance. She went in to him with a horrible sore throat [turns out she had strep]--and while she waited for the results of the test, he covered her with a blanket, turned out the lights, and said and read nature poetry to her. I think she said it was $75 for the visit and her meds...but if he takes a credit card....

So I am rambling...forgive me.

More posts to follow in the future. Not tonight though. I'll be taking a nap, and preparing for the big workday tomorrow--or even, the big weekend. Technically, we are booked for a wedding, a easter-egg and underwear dying party, Easter dinner at 2 with Ian's mother and at 5 with my parents. So we will see what happens with that.

Ian's Birthday Was Yesterday!

2006-04-10T19:19:00.000-07:00

For Ian's birthday I gave him: a cassette walkman [for listening to books on tape from the library], a coffee press, and an old Starbucks apron of mine to wear in the kitchen when he cooks. Also I took him out to dinner, and Stef, Kimmy and Marisa came too. We ate at Nicholas' restaurant [the ones who catered our wedding.] We had actually intended to go to Habibi,[the second-hand [unconfirmed!] word on the street is that the family who owns Nicholas' has a rift, and the guy we are friendly with went off to start his own restaurant] but it turned out to be a bit of a fiasco. A co-worker had given me the business card for Habibi--it was oval, and green, with raised lettering. Looked very classy. So I called them on Saturday, and spoke to Mazen, mentioned the catering of the wedding and that it was Ian's birthday, and asked to make a reservation for 6 people, for 7 pm on Sunday. [Nichola's doesn't accept reservations, so you usually have a 30-45 minute wait outside under their heaters, watching traffic whiz by. But the Habibi's card looked more upscale, and the restaurant was downtown, so I wanted to be safe.]

So, on the day of, everyone else carpooled and arrived before me [I had taken an overnight overtime shift and slept all day] and could not for the life of them find a store at the address where it was supposed to exist. Ian got very tired of waiting blindfolded in the car for his surprise, and manuevered from the back seat to press the horn with his foot. Repeatedly. Finally, Kimmy spotted the green 'Habibi's' sign in the corner of the window of the Long Island Pizzeria. The name of Long Island Pizzeria was still stencilled on the plate-glass door. We peered in, in disbelief, and saw that the counter had one of those glass cases that prominently display pizza-by-the-slice. Oh, and it was closed. It's always closed on Sundays. Why they accepted my reservation at all, let alone on for a day we were closed, is a mystery that we continued to contemplate until we lost interest.

So then it was back to Nicholas'.

Post your birthday wishes to Ian and he will be thrilled!

Anybody want to vote?

2006-04-07T17:30:00.000-07:00

This blog must have a more dramatic planned-to-posted ratio than most, considering all the thinking I have been doing about it in the past month--in fact, in the past three months. I borrowed my dad's digital camera and took pictures of everything I could think of, pretty much, from Our Library to Great Dinners We Have Eaten. No, really! We found trout for $3.99/lb!

Here are some plans for the blog in upcoming weeks [months? nah, weeks!]

I am working on an entry about fatigue and how I've been dealing with it; this was a heavy topic for me, January through March, and one of the reasons I haven't posted much.

We cleaned up the WHOLE house, [well, except for the kitchen! we'll have to borrow the camera again to take pictures of the kitchen] and took pictures for a virtual tour of our home. This will include pictures of certain pending creative projects.

With Tim and Renata's okay, I will post the official announcement and pix of their new kid! You can also visit their Flickr site, which I have a link to in the sidebar. [Note: Tim, Renata, and I all went to TWU together, for anyone who likes context.]

Have you ever played Silent Football? It's the best game ever. I, as Madame Dictator, will lead you through the rules. Be prepared--if you lose, you may have to apologize for "any inconvenience that your existence may cause" before every statement. Or you may be demoted from "Mr. Grove" to "Serf" or "The Serf". Or someone else may be granted the privilege of kissing your date. So play to win! The guidelines will be here for you, in THIS SPACE! Yes, it's true. There will be pictures of me doing all the silent football moves--including the thwap, which is difficult to capture on film.

Ian does plan to do a post at some point, including perhap--but not limited to--reflections on his football prowess. Here is a link to his Saturday morning football's MySpace account: http://www.myspace.com/saturdaymorningfootball. Yes, it's obvious...but no labor of elucidation is too great for you, the reader.

Also: Dreadlocks, and dread maintenance. You will see picture of me doing Ian's hair. [He's too macho to do anything so sissy for himself.]

Also: My hair. I had it felted, and you will see how I do my own maintenance. The process is similar to Ian's, but the result is different.

Book Reviews! Currently I am reading Class by Paul Fussell, which was written in the early '80s and frequently refers to The Official Preppy Handbook, of which I have a treasured copy. [They tried an update/knockoff a year or so back with The Hipster Handbook, but it didn't really take.] Though Fussell is interesting, and some of his observations stand the test of time, other observations sort of make him look like a jerk. And, of course, much of it is dated. However, as an 'untouchable' subject it may be interesting to approach. I'm still thinking about it.

A second book review may be forthcoming--a His'n'Hers, no less!--of Stealing Jesus: How Fundamentalism Betrays Christianity.

And, OH, yes! Our visit to the circus! We took Emerald and Josiah [our niece and nephew] to the circus last week, and it is a whale of a tale. The short version: don't ever take your kid [or anyone else's!] to a Shriner's Circus. Details at 11.

More ideas to come....?

Oh, and many thanks to Alex for posting that in his opinion he is supportive of me having opinions and, in fact, that I should have my opinions, of which he approves, posted on this blog. It shall be done!

Commemorating my first sinus infection with no insurance!

2006-03-02T14:18:00.000-08:00

Hello, all~

Apparently the nasty head colds I have had in succession through all of January and February were in reality one on-going sinus infection!

So this post may not be as scintillating as usual. I'm still feeling somewhat out of it.

But I wanted to share with you, dear readers, what one does in Portland when one needs antibiotics and can't afford to go to the doctor.

I have been careful ever since I was booted off my parents' insurance when I was 22 to find employment that would give me insurance. To hell with those independent small businesses, and Hello, Starbucks! Hello, AAA! I haven't had the traditional early-twenties sense of invincibility--as many of you know, I've been sick a lot. Often mysteriously, sometimes seriously, fairly frequently. Anyone interested in the gruesome details probably already knows them, so I will refrain from mentioning them here.

Anyway, after pondering it for awhile, Ian and I finally made the decision that I should go to part-time. Last year I ramped up my insurance coverage from the less-expensive Kaiser Permanente HMO to Providence, which costs twice as much, but let me choose a doctor. At Kaiser the doctor lets you get about 30 words out of your mouth before they just stop listening. If you are lucky you convinced them to prescribe you something before they hit their saturation point.

Even after a year of improved care, however, I have been dealing with fatigue and anxiety, and existing on the very edge of my sick-time limits at work. While we didn't want to give up our insurance, we both knew that I really needed a rest in order to regain the health that I had never fully regained after my freshman year of college. Anyway, there's the background of our choice to give up our health insurance. Hopefully it's enough to assuage the conscience of any acquaintance who might otherwise feel the need to remonstrate with us for this decision. Never fear, I've let you off the hook.

And, of course, Murphy's Law being what it is, we both had to get sick over New Year's. Sudden nasty cough and mysterious fever--Ian's went to 103 degrees. Presumably this left me no resistance for the sinus infection that then elected to take up long-term residence with me.

So, what to do?

First, of course, I attempted a regimen of every [well, say half] of the naturopathic remedies known to man. Quantities of orange juice. Liquid echinacea, liquid goldenseal, washing out my head with salt water, 'Wellness' pills to build up my immune system, lots of rest. [Later on I will do a post just about 48 hour Zap a Cold and the Devil's Smoothie, which can often conquer illness, and which I swear by, as a general rule.] All these efforts were for naught, however, and when in mid-February, a sore throat and congestion returned suddenly, in the middle of an afternoon when I'd finally thought myself to be on the upswing, I knew I would need an antibiotic.

So I did a google search on "sliding scale clinics Portland Oregon" and found a couple of lists of "community clinics." Many of the options were for categories like, "Slavic adults and uninsured adults on Thursdays 7-9 pm."

There was one close to my home, in North Portland, but it only accepted patients under 21. Another one, on 39th & Division, was also close, but then I saw that it accepted only "patients living within designated service area in SE Portland." I--unfortunately, for this purpose--live in NE Portland. Still another helped only residents of the West side [downtown] or the homeless. Another was open on Thursday evenings for dermatology and podiatry only.

So I looked at a couple of the more mainstream-looking ones; regular doctor's offices that also accepted sliding-scale. They at least were available 40 hours a week instead of one Sunday a month The first one, a clinic called Rosewood, said they could "start the process," when I called them first thing Wednesday morning. I asked hopefully if there was any way they could fit me in today, thinking that at worst it wouldn't be till early the next week. "Oh, no," the receptionist said disinterestedly, "the earliest opening we have is in mid-March."
"But I need urgent care!" I said.
"I'm sorry, it always takes at least a month to process," she said.

So I called a second clinic, the Portland Adventist one. I was born at Portland Adventist, and for some reason that gave me high hopes. The lady there was friendlier but explained that they certainly couldn't fit me in before mid-April.
"There's no way?" I said. "I'm pretty sure I have a sinus infection, and if so I've had it for nearly 6 weeks already. And it's only getting worse."
"Maybe you could try Rosewood?" she said.
I told her about the wait at Rosewood.
"Well, how about Outside In?" she said.
"Yeah, I was going to call them next. Thank you," I said.

I had decided that Outside In was a last resort. I knew a little about them--early on in college I had considered volunteering for them, but their application made such a point of needing to be pro-choice [at the time I was unreservedly pro-life] that I wasn't sure I would be a good fit. I knew, too, that they had been wonderful to a friend of my sister who had been homeless in her late teens. But I knew their primary focus was homeless teens, and providing needle exchanges and so on, and I just didn't feel that I had the right to be there, claiming their time when they were helping people who were in straits considerably more dire than mine.

I read the guidelines carefully: "Focus on Homeless, Youth & IV Drug Users. Clinic will serve anyone who is low or no income, uninsured with an emphasis on people under 30 yrs of age." I still felt embarrassed. Did I count as "low income"?--I make a fair amount more than minimum wage.... I decided that I had had enough cold-calling for the day and waited for Ian to get up, so he could call them for me.

The person who answered the phone at Outside In told Ian that it was slower in the mornings, and that if they thought we made a lot, they'd just charge us more according to the sliding scale of $0-$40. He said that the homeless took priority over anyone with a house to stay in, but that they could probably look at me today.

So we went in.

I was expecting everything I'd been warned about with sliding scale clinics--general dinginess and crankiness, and that you wait all day in the hopes they will fit you in before they close.

But the experience was incredible.

The waiting room was clean and cheerful; and the form I filled out was something else! I've never seen anything so ....politically sensitive... in my life. It wanted to know what gender I was born with, and what gender I identified with now, and what pronoun I preferred to be referred to as [he/she/ze/other__________]. I had no idea that a bureaucratic form could be so cautious and respectful. It also wanted to know where I was living, or had lived, in the past year: couch hopping with friends, in shelters, on the street--it had about 10 or 15 options, the last one being: "owning or renting a residence".

I didn't have to wait long. The orderly who took my blood pressure was friendly, and made eye contact and real conversation. When I asked why blood pressure has two numbers, he explained the difference between systolic and diastolic pressures. Systolic is the higher number, the first beat of the heart, pumping blood through your whole body. The second, quieter beat [you know how the heart goes 'BA-bum, BA-bum'], just pumps blood through the respiratory system where it can pick up oxygen. Who knew, hey? He was friendly and joked with me, and he sympathized, talking about similar symptoms he had experienced.

The doctor, too, was really fabulous. She made eye contact, she listened carefully. She gave me as much time as I needed to ask questions and answered them thoroughly. She also check in with me on other issues, making sure I was not in an abusive relationship, not depressed, that I had protection against STDs--and when I said I was married, she sincerely apologized for not having seen that on the form! She told me that I could come in for my yearly gynological checkup at their office, and that there was reduced-fee drop-in counseling on Mondays if I needed it. She questioned me about whether I was experiencing depression.

In short, it was a medical experience where they treated me as a whole person and not like a hypochondriac who exaggerates half her symptoms and should be whisked through as quickly as possible.

They gave me a 10 day antibiotic that worked wonders.

And incredibly, they didn't charge me a thing. (I made a donation anyway.)

~I should note that I have been writing installments on this entry since the middle of February. I started it while I was still sick, and finished it today! Hopefully this will shed light on any time discrepancies.~

Guest spot: Sarah Shook got married in September!

2006-02-17T17:37:00.000-08:00

Hello, everyone! You will hear from me soon!

But in the meantime....

The lovely Sarah Shook became Sarah Wiens, married to Christopher of the same name.

Observe:

All of us juggernauts are thrilled to pieces for them. Feel free to post your congratulations...this will encourage Sarah to visit my blog!

Suzanne

Police Chase!

2006-02-08T12:37:00.000-08:00

On Sunday night Ian and I were driving down I-205 southbound, heading towards the bowling lanes in Gladstone [to meet up with Jake, of wedding-toast fame, and his brother Josh, of courting-Maggie fame/shirt-stripped-off-by-Stefanie fame--see the wedding post in January], while carrying on a spirited discussion about our love-hate relationship with Oaks Park.

Casually, Ian said, "I think that car's door is open." I squinted at the car ahead of us, one lane to the right, where a light seemed to be hovering to the side of a sedan. The outline of the car door was hard to make out in the dark, but after a moment I realized that Ian was right, that the light we were seeing was the one from the inside of the door.

I thought of the time years ago when my aunt had been driving her minivan down the highway with her kids in the back seats. My four-year-old cousin somehow managed to open the door to the van, and no one noticed--not even his much older brother, sitting next to him--until the police pulled them over to ask about it. So I assumed it was the back door and had been opened by a child. I waited for the parents to notice and close the door. But they didn't.

I began to wonder how the door could be open wide enough for me to see the light. Wouldn't freeway speeds cause enough wind resistance to hold it closed? And how could they fail to notice that the door was open?--this wasn't a minivan, it was a small sedan.

"They haven't noticed that the car door is open--do you think we should pull up beside them and honk or something?" I asked.

"I don't think we want to get that close," Ian said. "I think they know it's open--and they're fighting!"

"What do you mean, fighting--how can you tell?" I asked impatiently, still focused on the car door.

"Look inside the car," Ian said.

I peered through the darkness and realized that I could, in fact, see the figures in the car--and their heads were jerking back and forth, each into the space above the other person's seat. Then the car swerved, and righted itself. Ian immediately sped up and passed them; I turned around to watch for the sedan to pull off at the next exit.

And they didn't pull off. Then the car swerved again.

"I think they're still fighting--and they didn't pull off! I think we should get behind them and watch to be sure they do," I said.

"I don't know if that's a good idea....if they swerve too far they could jackknife and block the lane," said Ian.

We waited a few moments, and again the car swerved. We were unable to tell, looking back, if the car door was still open.

"This is dangerous! And they're still not pulling over! Do you think we should call 911?" I asked.

"Maybe we should....yeah," Ian responded.

I found my phone and dialed--"All operators are busy. Please hold for an operator." --while Ian slowed down and let the car pass him again. As we watched, the woman in the passenger seat put her sandaled foot out of the car door; it hovered inches from the ground. "Oh, $%@&!" I exclaimed. "Honey, look, she's trying to get out of the car!" I glanced at our speedometer--we were going 60 and we weren't passing the blue sedan--it wasn't slowing down. Then a 911 operator answered.

"Hi, I'm on I-205 southbound and there is a car in front of us that is having an altercation. They have been swerving and now her door is open and she is trying to get out of the car--now the door is closed--she's hitting him now! The car is swerving--now it's straight--"

"Which exit are you at?" the operator cut in.

"Exit 14, we're coming up on the mall, Clackamas mall...maybe they'll take the exit.....they're not, they're still driving! Oh my God, she's got her foot out the door again!"

"I'll have to transfer you," the operator said.

"Okay--"

"Please hold."

Moments later--"Hi, this is police dispatch,"

"Hi, I'm on I-205 southbound, just past the mall! There's a car in front of us--we've been following them, we can see blows being exchanged--right now I think she's choking him, his head is jerking back and forth and they're swerving but he's not pulling over!"

"Just a moment, I'll transfer you," she said.

I held again, for over a minute. Ian and I continued to watch the cycle repeat--the woman would open the car door and stick her foot out--her head would disappear. Then the door would close and the woman would attack the man--the car would swerve--then the door would open.

An third operator answered. "Hi, you are on the highway? What's going on? Where are you now?"

"Hi, we're still following a car that has a couple in it who are having a fight. Her door is closed right now, but they've been swerving, and they won't take an exit."

"How long have you been following them?"

"I'm not sure, but it took us several minutes watching them before we decided to call when we were passing the mall, and we just passed exit 12--oh, God, the door's open and she's got her foot out of it again! They're slowing down this time, they're going 40 still though--"

"What's your name?"

"Suzanne Griffonwyd--" and I spelled it.

"What does the car look like?"

"It's brown, maybe blue? I think blue. It's a sedan--"

"Can you see the plate?"

"Yes--" I gave her the plate number.

"What does your car look like?"

"It's a champagne sedan--a '93 Toyota Camry."

"Can you keep following them?"

"Yes."

"Let us know if they take an exit--where are you now?"

"Coming up on exit 9, and they are in the exit only lane, but they might swerve out of it--no, they're taking the exit, and they're turning left--" I said, as the blue car cut across three lanes with solid white lines. As we followed, it then cut back across the three lanes to the right "--no, now they've swerved right, they're turning right."

We followed the car as it turned right and sped up Hwy 99E.

"I think we see you--turn on your flashers!"

"Ian, turn on the brights--I mean the flashers---turn on the flashers--" and I slapped excitedly at the dashboard until I hit the button.
Immediately three cop cars that were lined up in the left-turn lane for the highway turned on full sirens and lights and pulled a U-turn, racing past us and cutting between us and the blue sedan, which quickly signalled right and pulled into a Firestone parking lot, down a narrow driveway parallel to the road.

Ian followed slowly, but as he inched the car forward alongside the driveway entering the parking lot, preparatory to turning into it, he was almost clipped by two more police cars that raced in, lights flashing.

"Stay on the line, we need to take your contact information," the dispatcher said.

"Sure," I said.

We got out of the car and leaned on the hood. I felt shaky and drained. The driveway that the blue sedan had taken sloped downwards, and we couldn't see anything that was happening. Another car pulled into the lot and a girl got out of it and asked what was happening. We told her, and she said that she had seen still more police cars on the way.

After a few minutes another cop car pulled up, and the man in the blue uniform took our names, phone number and address.
*****************************************************************************
The next day, I called my brother-in-law, who is applying to be a police officer, and asked if there was any way to find out what charges had been filed. He said no, and cited some privacy act from 1940.
"Not even anonymously?" I said. "All we want to know is what we actually saw--at first we thought it was a domestic dispute, but the more we talk about it, we think it might have been a kidnapping." Ian had pointed out that trying to get out of a car at 60 miles an hour, and refusing to pull over even when someone is physically attacking you and trying to get out of the car, seems like pretty high stakes. And I think normal arguments ebb and flow--I would have expected to see them stop moving; when Ian and I have a fight, we shout and calm down, shout and calm down, until we sort something out. I would tend to think that an escalated, physical fight would also work along the same lines, though I've never witnessed that kind of domestic dispute.

"It was the Gladstone police, if that makes a difference...don't the police post briefs of the situations they've encountered?" I asked.

"No, there's no way of finding out."

So, we may be destined not to know; my google search for 'car door open i-205 02/05/06 police' was fruitless.

Overall, I think the most disturbing aspect of the whole incident is what it took for someone to call 911. Other cars must have seen what we saw, especially when the woman started to try to get out of the car. She actually had to risk her life trying to escape before we called 911...and no other car seemed to try to follow them. What if that had been me--or any woman I care about--or even don't care about, for that matter? What is the likelihood that someone will call 911 for them--or me?

It is hard to know what to do. I told my sister about the incident, and she reminded me of her first apartment, where the couple in the unit beneath them got into horrible fights. Often, she said, she would lay with her ear pressed to the floor, trying to determine if the fight had gotten physical and if she should call the cops. It was especially hard because there wasn't always a clear victim--often the woman would start the argument by shrieking something nasty.

I think from now on, though, I'm going to err on the side of calling 911 instead of hoping that a situation resolves itself.

What will the Saga talk about? Your Input Appreciated!

2006-02-01T14:03:00.000-08:00

Hello, all, and it is good to be back on the podium again!

Now that we have posted about the wedding, a question has emerged: Where to take the blog?

There are so many important aspects of day-to-day life that one just can't discuss; it might be psychologically fascinating, but I can't tell you about an argument with my mother or a worry I have about a friend, for example. This site is different from a mass e-mail because anyone could read it. My mother reads it. My future employers may read it. Unscrupulous people could read it [and God willing, they will even get a chance to, if I get enough hits to appear when Googled!]

I was cautioned about this by my friend Melissa, who has run her own online journal Awakened: Treading the Dawn since 1999. She warned me that family members tend to get very upset if you discuss politics, unless they agree with you in all particulars. She shared a harrowing story of a reader who had attempted to use her journal against another person for a malicious purpose.

I then considered Darren and Jen's blog; they have a lot of amusing musing and philosophical reflection. But they also have Benno, who is the ultimate excuse for a blog. Unfortunately for my blog I have no plans in that direction until about 2200 hours on my biological clock, so that option is not really going to fly for me.

So here's what I have so far.
1. My creative projects. I just finished a year in the ceramic studio and Ian's and my dishes are being fired this week! I have bowls--lots of bowls--and some mugs...belated wedding presents for at least two of you [Hi, Lindsay, hi Sarah!]. I am making a set of lamps out of an old USSR-era globe, a coat tree out of a Christmas tree stand, a decoupaged end table out of a piano stool; and I want to learn to knit. So I can post fun pictures of all that stuff.

2. Noncreative projects. I just downloaded all the Red Cross stuff about Being Prepared for hurricanes, earthquakes, terrorism, whathaveyou. Apparently Oregon has the Cascadia fault, which was "believed to be benign"; however,"No other fault in the conterminous United States in the lower 48 states is believed to be capable of producing a magnitude 9 earthquake"! Yippee!
Well, luck favors the prepared... So, I plan to have the first aid kit, the flashlights, the wrench to turn off the water, the three days of food, all that jazz. I may post links to the pages and show pictures of the kit when I am done. Interesting? Colossally boring? You be the judge!

3. Featured Guests! Lots of you don't have a blog, but mutual friends would still love to see what you are up to! Here's your opportunity. I will always ask for permission before posting an e-mail from you, never fear.
******************************************************************************
Today's featured guest is Chris Rae! [He says he might even provide me with "a sordid picture of me looking all menacing on a camel"!] So, here was Chris' e-mail, since we don't have a picture yet:

Suzanne, Ian, hello...just got a quiet minute, locked in my office with 20K$ in sudanese 2$notes, can't fit it in the safe and the finance guy is out for breakfast...this country is bizarre, I actually withdrew 40, and all the bank gave me was 2$notes...so yes, countries, you are both in america, I presume, happily married(awesome! hadn't heard you were even engaged), were did you land? Oregon? just found out that tomorrow, we are going to celebrate our 3rd official new year this month. two was hard enough, but a 3rd, again, this place boggles the mind... and the people, ah Ian I think you'd really appreciate the look, giant billowing victorian night gowns(a la scrooge) and what some would call 'towels' atop the head....I call them turbans, generally white and huge, sometimes pink or yellow(which goes nicely with the jungle camouflage and camels)...oh, how about some details, I'm running an emergency relief operation for samaritan's purse(uncle billy graham's fundamentalist son's relief agency), here in south sudan, lots of staff, lots of white landcruisers, lots of indescretions that will remain unmentioned lest uncle graham has the computer tapped(lord knows the gov't does)), deliver food to 120,000 displaced people(almost-refugees), water and sanitation activities, education stuff, one base 3 field sites, a fleet of beasts of burden(including a billy goat and a camel), yeah, and I'm friends with all the cool international relief workers, even the french! yeah, landcruisers, 2$ bills, and towel heads...I'll be back in vancouver come mid-march, will be pretty mobile, maybe we could get together and drink beer or something, maybe in seattle, maybe somewere else...
thanks for contacting me, though, its hard to stay connected now that we aren't all chumming around in college!
all prossima vista
C

4. There's more but the computer is going to log me off! So I'm posting now!! You post too, and tell me what you'd most like to hear about.

Wedding Extravaganza

2006-01-17T20:52:00.000-08:00

Kimmy and kitten; this was at the grand barn clean-out two days before the wedding. She's standing with her pride and joy.
[Not the kitten, silly--the Jeep!]

Not only is Rebekah fiesty, she can sing and dance too!
She's also a member of an obscure religious sect that firmly believes that if you take a picture of someone who is talking on their cell phone, you steal their soul away. You may notice later that there are six bridesmaids and five groomsmen. That's because after Ferdinand [my lesser-known brother] took the picture, Rebekah used the cane to beat him to death.
Fortunately Chris' soul returned to his body in time for the wedding.

Until I saw this picture, I had no idea Chris and I were so close.

Why are you all glaring at my uncle? Does the camera make him look suspicous or something?

Christa and Mitch sing us down the aisle to "When I'm 64".

Chris shouldn't flirt with the minister, but he has no shame.

The great thing about April? Her photogenicness radiates out to others nearby!

Me and some of my best lifelong friends. Sometimes I'm staggered by how blessed I am. Clockwise from bottom left:
My soon-to-be sister-in-law Anna [rhymes with piranha], and longtime confidante; Anna has it together!
my beautiful sister Sharon;
Lindsay and I have been friends for eight years now--when she's not taking the corporate world by storm she is building herself a greenhouse or profiling local artists for the newspaper.
Me;
Maggie [the redhead, in case you've lost your place] and I met when we had to share a man our sophomore year of college. It takes three classy people for the best friend, the girlfriend, and the boy to all cuddle together. She is now in New York studying for her Ph.D. Someday I will visit her and let some of the glamour rub off on me.
Melissa. Melissa and I have known each other since grade school. She is an astonishingly good person who has built a beautiful life for herself, like the proverbial phoenix rising from its ashes. She inspires me. [Also, she's rolling her eyes as she reads this, because she's modest, and because she disapproves of melodramatic cliches.]
Kimmy and I met in high school. She's got incredible levels of energy and is the most athletic woman I know. And she's single! Seriously, someone needs to snap her up. She's studying to be a teacher. And she's tough. She will fight you and she will win, even if she has to tear your beating heart right out of your chest with her bare hands: a woman after my own heart.

And they are all so beautiful that you get a second picture! Here you can really see their outfits. I asked everyone to pick out a dress--or top and skirt--that they felt pretty in and knew they would wear again. For color guidance I sent out pictures of leaves I'd collected from my yard; I had planned to just use paint chips, but they don't make any that matched the leaves and grass I brought in for comparison. I made a scarf for each bridesmaid so they would have a unifying element, and asked them to wear the scarf how they wished. Lindsay tied hers in her hair, and Melissa used hers as a sash. I love how everyone has a chance to let their personality come through in their clothes. Much better than those matchy-matchy polyester prom dresses.

Here's me with the boys! From left to right, Matthew, Chris, Eric, Jake, and Josh. Matthew is my brother, Chris is my brother-in-law, Eric and Josh were Ian's roommates in the Boy House [Josh is currently in some obscure eastern European country that used to be part of the Soviet bloc, on his year-long Bahai mission trip], and Jake is Ian's best friend since early high school.

The whole sassy lineup, boys and girls together. Kimmy is showing the most leg. Josh doesn't count because his kilt is supposed to be that length. To be fair, the ankle that Melissa is flashing would make her scantily clad by Victorian standards.
Note that the boys all have white bowler hats, and canes, gold bow ties and cummerbund, and spats. Ian drove all over town to find the spats.
For anyone whose planning a wedding, here's my opinion. Let the girls do what they want. You can trust the girls. They will plan ahead and come out looking beautiful.
All I asked the guys to do was to be sure they had a white button-down shirt, black pants [or kilt, if that's what you habitually wear--see? I was flexible! I was the anti-Bridezilla!] and black dress shoes. That's it. That's all.
And the girls, of course, had their outfits picked out well before the wedding. They had called me up of their own volition to discuss options they were considering. Maggie e-mailed me links to Anthropologie. Anna and Lindsay asked me to come shopping with them. Kimmy had a hard time finding the right outfit, but we still found hers a week before the wedding.
But the guys?
Well, my brother Matthew was 17 and had my mother to superintend him; [Matthew has added an indignant note to share his side] and Chris, of course, was in Sharon's capable hands. So we were batting .400:
The MORNING OF the wedding, around 10 am, Josh came downstairs and said, "Hey, anyone want to come shoe shopping with me? I don't own any black shoes."
Eric popped his head out of his room. "Did someone say shopping? I need to go get a white shirt and some black pants."
Jake then woke up and said, "Oh hey, can someone lend me some money? I spent all of mine to get here and I don't have black shoes or a white shirt or black pants."
So then they all thought they should go hit the local Goodwill and see if they could find any bargains. Ian called us girls to advise us of this plan. After a hasty and indignant conference we clustered around the phone and unanimously announced that the boys had had MONTHS to acquire these items in a budget-conscious way. Having squandered this opportunity, they were to go immediately to the Fred Meyer's two blocks away and purchase the clothing new. Stef, utterly appalled and fighting back tears, volunteered to take charge of this enterprise. Ian stayed on the phone and brokered a compromise. He had to firmly instruct the boys and put Josh in charge of the shopping expedition with strict orders to only hit the classier second-hand stores, like Buffalo Exchange and Red Light. If they found nothing suitable there, they were to proceed immediately to Fred Meyer's. He then disclaimed responsibility and went out to play football. Yes, he really did.
The men did find SOMETHING wearable--though Eric ended up with a very tight pair of black polyester pants that, well...did wonders for his derriere. One of the bridesmaids had the presence of mind to physically prevent Jake from approaching me to gloat that after they had bought pants at Buffalo Exchange they had stopped at Goodwill to compare prices and that he could have saved two bucks.
SO. If I ever, Ever, EVER get to dictate the choices of clothing for a group of men ever again--you all get to rent tuxes. HA! Expensive tuxes. With ruffles all down the front of the shirt. And with, I don't know, extra buttons or ribbons or whatever else it is that makes men's formal clothing so proverbially uncomfortable. And if it's in the summer, I'll make you wear suit jackets, too!
Note to any girls getting married: It's too late for me ladies, to provide these gentlemen with just desserts. But it's not too late for you! Stand firm in retro-feminist solidarity and remember that the few have spoiled it for the many. Shoot when you see the whites of their eyes! Don't let them get away!

The classic shot. Look for it on a thank-you note near you! [I'll get them out to you, I swear.]

The toast. This was probably the moment where Jake describes me as, "Suzanne, who makes a hell of a bride..." Jake made it his personal goal to get all conservative Christian progenitors out of their respective comfort zones. Some of them aren't as easily shocked as he likes to think, of course.

Daddy and his quartet, The Envoys, roamed from table to table to serenade us all. Here you can see, from left to right: Waynne, who sings baritone, my daddy, who sings bass, Ben, who is first tenor, and Jerry, who sings lead. Jerry Angell and his wife Myrna generously allowed us to have the wedding in their field and the reception in their barn, and helped enormously with the planning and set-up.

Notable personages in this photo include Gabe and Tennille! You can also see The Envoy's accompanist Fran Maynard is on the end, next to her husband Tom. You can also see Jake's parents, Rosie and Cliff Bihl, on the right.

Isn't my brother-in-law dashing? In the dim background, you can see my cousin Tom, Aunt Marilee, and Uncle Greg. Uncle Greg took a number of the pictures I'm posting here.

My family. If you've seen Zoolander, you will recognize Ian's expression as Le Tigre. The woman to the right of me is my Aunt Naomi, Dad's sister, and mother of Rebekah. [Uncle Merideth and my cousin Ben were unable to be present, and so sadly are not pictured.] Uncle David, Dad's brother, is behind me.

Ian's family. We don't know why Josiah chose this moment to roar like a lion. See, Josiah? This is why we can't have nice things.
Also note: Josiah has taken the length of McDonald tartan that was used to handfast us together at the end of the ceremony and made it into a necktie.
Ian's grandma Merilyn is to the right of Marisa, and Kirsten and her husband Leroy are behind me.

Ian and his little sisters, Briar and Brigand.
[And we all say HOORAY, for feminist power names!]

Ian manhandling Emerald and Josiah, his niece and nephew.

Ian's stepmother Cricket feels most truly alive when she has a camera in her hand.

More fabulous people! Starting from left: Tim and his wife Renata, my dashing Uncle David; Randy, my youth pastor since I was twelve, is at the head of the table. Alex has something in his mouth. Megan is peeking out around Paul's enormous cranium.

Brigand and Briar wander through the labyrinth we ceremonially walked during the ceremony. Ceremoniously.

Ian and ALL his sisters! From top left, clockwise: Anna, Kirsten, Lori [honorary! best friend of Kirsten--though don't they look alike?], Briar, and Brigand.

Everyone needs one good goofy shot.
This is also a great chance to show off our outfits. My dress was lovingly handmade by Ruth, Ian's mother Marisa's best friend. [Ruth is also the mother of honorary sister Lori in the previous picture.] Ruth took my ideas and the medieval dress patterns I'd collected and synthesized them into something unique and fabulous. The white overdress comes off for dancing. My headwreath is also of note because Marisa wove it for me by hand.
Ian's outfit was made by Simo Silk, from Pike's Place Market in Seattle. He loves the style of a Chinese formal suit, and chose gold because it is a joyful, celebratory color. Sadly, the pants did not survive their night of revelry and the seams split in multiple places. Marisa is using them to make Christmas stockings for us.

Emerald just doesn't trust you. And frankly, we can't blame her.

Melissa looking wistful.

Part one: "Sigh. He's smart as the dickens....what a shame about those leftist values... He'll come around though; he's still young."

Part two: Hmm.... why is Ian's dad staring at me so fixedly? Too bad about those right-wing/libertarian values...he's such a smart guy.... But no doubt he'll mellow with age." [Meanwhile, Josh is on the left pontificating about neo-Keynesian agrarian economics.]

Did I already post this picture? Note the knife in Wally's sock. He's very alert to take down any conscientious objectors.

This was my special wedding-day face. No one remembers seeing it before or since. Also, I'm tragically and bizarrely allergic to some paternal relatives.
[Grandma, this is a joke. I'm not actually allergic to you and Grandpa. Mom made me promise to put this caveat in because she thinks you won't approve of my joke...]

There were like five different pictures of the four of us together, and in every single one, Ian and I look really bizarre and Wally and Heather look adorable. Oh, and they just got engaged before Christmas. Congratulations, Wally and Heather!

When Alex busts a move, he really busts a move. Go Alex go! Meanwhile, on the left, Josh continues his courtship of Maggie, and they dramatically tango off toward the ever-expanding horizon.

Sharon and Chris perfect the obscure but celebrated 'stationary dance.' They hope one day to be featured at Madame Tussaud's.

Part one: The old yawn-and-stretch trick.

Part two: Isn't this move a movie theater exclusive? It's strange to see it successful in broad daylight.

Part three: "You have to be smart and keep watching their feet, because sometimes they stand on their tiptoes and cheat." --Dr. Seuss
Ian's dad re-establishes dominance.

Ah, Rob. He wanders the world, making thoughtful toasts at weddings and causing women to compete for his affections. Oh, and Rob? Ian wants you to unhand his sister. At once.
He reluctantly acknowledges that he has no jurisdiction over Brenna, but warns you not to try him too far.

A Rob Sarah Suzanne moment.
In the background, Maggie is continuing her courtship of Josh. Hmmmm....I wonder why he is holding his shirt in his hand instead of wearing it?

Oh....maybe that's why.
On my caller ID, she now comes up as "Stef, That Whore." For Christmas, we made a 16x20 of this shot and taped it to her parents' front door. She added a delightful element of scandal to the reception.

"It's raining men
Hallelujah it's raining men, Amen
I'm gonna go out
I'm gonna let myself get
Absolutely soaking wet!" --The Weather Girls

Our cake toppers. Do you recognize the Barista and the Philosopher Cynic? Note that they are handfasted with a piece of plaid ribbon.

Tim and Renata and Maggie. At this captured moment, they are the only people at the wedding who know that Renata is pregnant! [Tim and Renata's baby is due in March. All of us here at the Continuing Saga are waiting agog with bated breath for the advent of the McNeely progeny. So post some more pictures on Flickr, guys!]

Alex and Megan; Alex is once again suave and collected. But beware! He could bust a move again.....

We talked about it, and none of actually knows who that woman on the left is.
Seriously. Never seen her before. But boy, is she having fun!

April coaches the ordinarily straitlaced Marisa to loosen up a little.
Ruth--who made my dress--also made Marisa's overdress. It coordinates with Ian's: gold detailing, mandarin collar, and frog fastenings.

Aww, kissing on the dance floor.

Adorable picture of Ian, resized

2006-01-17T19:51:00.000-08:00

Isn't he delightful, folks? This is a picture from a month before the wedding at his mother's birthday/4th of July picnic.

He has dreadlocks now. If you are local, you should drop by Braganza Pearl Tea at Clackamas Town Center and get him to show you.

How We Became Griffonwyd

2006-01-12T11:29:00.000-08:00

My bouquet and the name change announcement card.

The card explains in the small print that we have thrown off the mantle of the patriarchy by BOTH changing our names [yes, I was Suzanne Blake, and he was Ian McDonald--or to be more specific, Suzanne Joy Blake and Lucas Ian McDonald] to an Anglicized version of his mother's maiden name of Gripenwaldt. [I got to choose the spelling, and yes, any hypothetical children will just have to live with it!] We pondered it for quite a while. Neither of us liked the symbolism of me giving up my name for his, or him giving up his name for mine. We momentarily considered the Blake-McDonald hyphenate, but hyphenates are not sustainable. What happens when Tate Britain Blake-McDonald marries Charisma Person-Jenrich? Furthermore, Ian's father got remarried to Cricket Blake, and their family is now a Blake-McDonald [or, McDonald-Blake?] hyphenate. Ian's little half-sisters had already explained to him that he couldn't marry me because I was related to them, being a Blake.

So then we considered going with a whole new name. Ian, tongue-in-cheek, suggested Zanzibar. Not realizing that he wasn't serious, it was suddenly borne in on me that I had unknowingly wanted to be Suzanne Zanzibar all my life. Ian was rather taken aback the next day when I enthusiastically supported his new suggestion, and it was back to the drawing board.

Then we talked about how he had in the past considered going back to his mother's maiden name. While we were just dating, I thought it was a fabulous idea. I mean, what a catch, a sensitive, feminist guy! Now that we were engaged, however, I realized that Gripenwaldt was almost unpronounceable, unspellable, and from that awful gutteral language, German.
[Yes, I'm allowed to say that; German is the only identifiable aspect of my mixed-bag Caucasian heritage.] I definitely didn't want to be Suzanne Gripenwaldt. But then we moved on to Ian's plans to own a coffeeshop. He's always wanted to call it Griffinwood Coffee. We realized that some form of Gryphonwood would be perfect--Something old, made new, and borrowed! [Note the blue Griffon in the picture.] We decided to become Griffonwyd.

Now, how did we pick the spelling? Originally, I was for Gryphonwood, because of the fantastical correspondence of Griffin and Sabine, which captured my imagination in high school.

But Gryphonwood looks too much like "Cottonwood". It just didn't work. And it was LONG. So we tried "Gryphonwyd". And it looked great, and was shorter by one letter, but no one had a hope of pronouncing it. But I liked the Welsh/Old English look of 'wyd' and so I searched for something that would make it manageable for day-to-day use. And 'Griffonwyd' seemed the most attractive of the lot. Furthermore, it got NO hits on Google, which meant that we were fantastic and original. I mean, who wants 'Griffinwood' with 782 hits?

So, on to the next step: the legal name change. Turns out it's a pain in the tuckus for the man to change his name. If he had changed his name to Griffonwyd before the wedding, I could have just changed my name to his, but sadly we weren't that organized. To change your name in Oregon, you have to fill out an entire packet of paperwork and make several trips to the courthouse. You have to fill out and post the notice that you plan to change your name on their special bulletin board. You have to pay them about $105, and you have to come back for your court date, where the judge can deny your name change if they wish [and keep your money anyway! Fortunately they didn't wish.] Then you have to post the announcement of your name change for two weeks before it becomes official. During this time, anyone who wants to can lodge a protest against you changing your name! [Ian says when he is old he will hang around the courthouse and go into those hearings and lodge protests on the grounds that he objects to change.] I made at least three trips to the courthourse, and Ian, who kept forgetting his court date, made about five. It takes a month or so, if you do it right the first time.

When I came home and announced that my named was finally, legally changed, [after months of discussing this whole process either with them or in their hearing] my dad stared at me for a moment and then said, "I thought you were kidding! You really aren't changing to McDonald?"

Finally, the pictures

2006-01-11T15:55:00.000-08:00

Me, at birth.

Me at my 3rd birthday party. I LOVED this suit with the butterflies. I'm pretty dubious about the cameraman, though.

Me and my little sister, Sharon. I would have been five, I think, and she would have been just turning two.

At last! The infamous picture that will get Ian involved with this ....online journal.

Me and Stef together at an end-of-summer Oaks Park shindig. So, who's hair is sassier?

Me and Ian with some of the world's most fabulous people: Paul, Zeke and Cheryl!

Hasn't he improved, folks? Sigh.... I actually have two excellent pictures of him by his lonesome, looking spiffy, but neither of them are the right size to post properly. So you have a picture with me in it, too.

And while we're at it, he really was a precious kid:

yep. precious.

and this is what he looks like in the morning!

He did have an adolescence, however:

To be fair, I did too:

COMING SOON: WEDDING PICTURES!

Hello From Suzanne

2006-01-10T14:08:00.000-08:00

Hi,

It's two pm and I've been tinkering with this thing for the last two hours. It's been fun, but playing around with the code is tricky. I keep making mistakes and having to make guesses at how to fix them.

Playing around with the colors, particularly, may have been a mistake...though I really wanted some orange to liven things up. Every time I make a change, to see it I have to save it, which takes several minutes. Let me know if you get eye strain and I'll change it back to the default settings. At some point y'all are going to get pictures, but now it's a little much for me to contrive.

Anyway, on to other things. Today is my Friday! I now work 5 hours a day, Sat-Tues, starting at 5-7 am.

News in my life: my parents are selling their house and moving, so I'm kind of losing my sense of 'home'. It takes a long time to build that, so it will be awhile before our apartment has the same comforting feel to it.

This was my initiative, to do the .....ahem, online journal.... and I'm trying to convince Ian to post semi-regularly too. He doesn't like to be tied down. So let him know that you want to hear from him.

Oh, shout-out for Ian:
FOOTBALL, EVERY SATURDAY AT 11 AM AT THE CORNER OF 20TH AND BELMONT!! BE THERE OR YOU'RE A GIRLY-MAN.

You know.... I need a nap.

Oh, hey, I just figured out pictures. Here's me, at birth.

Ooh, and I just figured out something!! If I publish THIS picture of Ian, he'll post right away in return for my taking it down!!

Hmm.... I don't know if this picture thing is actually working yet. We'll find out when I save this, I guess.

Backstory II: Suzanne recounts the proposal

2006-01-10T13:30:00.000-08:00

The proposal can be best described in Suzanne's own words, from the e-mail she sent out to apprise her friends of it: It was terrible! Yesterday I succumbed to temptation and had an ice cream cone for dinner. It was messy and sticky, and I fell asleep in the car, as is now my habit. I had a plan that Ian would arrive at his house soon and then we would make dinner. So it's after 7, and I'm conked out and Ian's sister Anna comes and knocks on my window. "You forgot your cell phone here yesterday; I didn't realize you were here...Ian called and wanted you to meet him at Powell's at 8." I was cranky. I wanted to go to the gym after eating dinner, and it closes at 9. And he was supposed to come home to help his mother rearrange some furniture. So I complained to Anna and thought about not going, and she told me that he sounded kind of depressed. Then I remembered that the last time Ian had wanted to meet me at Powell's, he had had a really bad day, and I hadn't had my cell phone so I didn't get his messages, and he'd eventually gone home really disappointed. So I knew I HAD to go, and I grumbled about that. "Maybe if I go right now, I cleave right away." I was still only half awake, and couldn't remember how to get to Powell's from West Linn. So we talked about that, and I tried to wake up and be less cranky, coming down from an ice cream dinner and up out of the naptime ether. I invited her to come with me, and she said no, she had some cleaning to get done, and she wanted to take a shower. 'Shower...' I thought. 'I need a shower...' "He can't propose tonight, I'm all sticky. I need a shower. I told him he couldn't propose unless I had taken a shower." "Maybe you should come in and take a shower here, then, just in case." "No, what I really want is dinner. If I get there fast, we could go to the Indian food cart and then go work out, and THEN go home and shower." So finally I started driving, around 7:30. On the way I called Stef, who had called me earlier, and cheerfully complained some more to her, and justified the peanut-butter and chocolate double-scoop dinner. She mentioned that she'd been doing some cleaning and was going to sell some books, so she might as well drive down now and meet us. We discussed our plans for the future, entreprenurial risk, and Ian's talents and our philosophies regarding financial security, and then met in the parking lot. She walked in with me and said she'd meet us in the coffee shop after she sold her books. So I ambled over to the coffee shop and met Ian, who was there with our friend Josh, and a chessboard between them. I asked them with great suspicion if they were just starting a game, and when they said no, I said okay and went to retrieve some Doonesbury books I hadn't read from the humor section nearby. I came back and smacked Ian in the shoulder with one of them, and told him that my blood sugar was low, and it was HIS fault because his mother had had seconds the night before and there hadn't been enough for a good lunch. Then I asked Josh what he had been doing, other than watch us be cranky and domestic, and we decided we'd go for food later. I tried to bury myself in my book and recharge so I could be properly social and fully awake. Then Ian wanted to talk about his problems. I really didn't want to, I just wanted to zone out. I reminded myself firmly of how Ian is always a good listener for me, and asked him what was bothering him. He said he was still feeling bad about the C he had gotten in art history. I forgot sympathy and said, "But you procrastinated on the paper for two weeks. This is something you can change in the future, you know that!" Then he said that we'd been fighting a lot, and that made him feel depressed, and I felt all bummed out. "Well, sort of," I said, "but I thought we had sorted that all out....". THEN he said that we didn't really have any money. "Well, No," I said, getting annoyed. "We're poor. So what? We're always poor. Why do you want to worry about it now?" "And I'm frustrated because the plans for the proposal aren't working out, it's been impossible to get everyone together. I guess I might as well just do it now." He started to slide off his chair. I was horrified. "NO! No! You have to do it right! You are NOT allowed to propose out of depression!" I said, trying to pull him by the arm back onto his chair. That didn't work, and now he was on one knee. "No!" I said. I had this image of my proposal being like a huge rock that's about to roll off a cliff. I mean, you only get one proposal, it's not like you can say the next day, "That wasn't very cool, can you try it again?" Likewise, once that rock rolls off the cliff, that's the point of no return. It's never going to be back up on the cliff again. I had to stop the proposal before it was too late! So I tried to get up out of my chair and walk away. You can't propose to someone who is not there, after all. But he had my arm and I would have had to yank really hard to get away. All this time I was trying to be quiet and inconspicuous. I had an eye on the people the next table, they all seemed to be turning, just a little, but all at the same time...were we making a scenen't want to disturb the other people in the coffee shop because Ian was trying to propose out of hopelessness. But--why did one of them have a guitar? And where was Josh going? All of a sudden about six people stood up and surrounded the table and burst into a five-part harmony to the Beatle's When I'm 64. I was really disoriented. Someone else came up behind me and tapped me on the shoulder, and when I turned around he proffered three white roses. Everything at this point is kind of a blur. I recall that they altered the words: "Will you still need him / Will you still feed him / When he's 64?" and I think I announced, "Yes!" I looked up a couple times and tried to take in all these people. And I immediately smacked Ian in the face with the flowers as retribution for the practical joke. "But I didn't SHOWER!" I said indignantly. I recall doing this more than once, but the roses made it home in one piece. Stef came in and clapped, and the coffee shop stared, and someone at random in the line took a picture and Josh videotaped the whole thing. Ian said, "Do you wanna get married?" and I said "Yes!" or "Of course!" or something, and waited for him to put the ring on my finger, but he just stayed down there with the box, looking goofily happy, so I finally put it on myself. Then there were kisses appropriate for public consumption and everyone shook hands with us and a Powell's manager came over and asked if I'd said yes, and when I said, "Yes," they gave me a $20 gift card and congratulated me and asked for Ian's name. And we stayed in the coffee shop for awhile and then drove to Ian's house where he cooked us curry and then went to sleep.

Backstory: How We Met

2006-01-10T12:12:00.000-08:00

This is from our wedding website:

HOW THEY MET
Ian and Suzanne met and became friends at Oaks Amusement Park in the summer of 1999, where Ian supervised in the kitchen and Suzanne was a ride foreman. During these times they were both dating other people.
They had several deep conversations about their relationships, religion, and philosophy over the next two summers, but Ian intentionally kept his distance because he knew he could be interested in Suzanne but he was committed to the relationship he was in at the time. Suzanne knew that Ian had been dating his girlfriend for two years and figured that they were basically engaged, and considered him a nice, 'safe' friend that she occasionally went to for boy advice.
In the spring of 2001, both Ian and Suzanne thought of each other with regret at lost opportunity. Ian had broken up with his girlfriend but didn't expect to see Suzanne working at Oaks Park that summer, as her romantic relationships there had ended badly. Suzanne had been musing over who to spend time with when she was home for the summer, and suddenly wished that she had gone to Ian's housewarming party the previous summer, instead of wasting her time trying to salvage her relationship with her deadbeat boyfriend. She suddenly realized that Ian could easily become her best friend, but that she didn't know how to find him.
When Suzanne did return to Oaks Park that May, she and Ian were delighted to see each other, and Ian immediately began suggesting that they should go and hang out. On their first date [retroactively described, as neither of them admitted what it was at the time] they sat and talked for hours on a dock, about their families, desire to travel, life philosophies, faith, world events, and their previous romances. They then walked over to Bellagios Pizza, where Ian treated Suzanne to lunch because he happened to have the cash, blissfully unaware that had they gone Dutch at this crucial early moment she would have put him in the 'nondateable material' category.
While on the dock, Suzanne had had a sudden realization that she could fall in love with Ian, which horrified her and which she immediately squelched, quite successfully, for about three weeks. She had sworn to all of her university friends that she wouldn't date any more carnies from Oaks Park, and proceeded to agonize Ian with mixed signals for the next month.
Ian "asked Suzanne out" in June at the Rose Festival in Portland. She had expected him to kiss her first, and that she would then tell him that a summer romance would ruin their friendship. His direct approach threw her off so dramatically that she said yes, and in a state of total joy they both immediately sat down,cross-legged--right where they had been standing--and started babbling about how happy they were. Looking back, sitting down together in the middle of the sidewalk was no doubt a highly effective roadblock for the crowds at the Festival, but neither of them noticed it at the time.
Suzanne didn't allow Ian to kiss her for several days.