Seline and Dylan's wedding, highlights

I've been wanting to post about the goodness of Celine and Dylan's wedding for a while, but every time I sit down to do it, I think of too many good moments to write about, decide it will take me hours to do it, and then give up. So, instead, I'm going to post a few of my favorite photos with little captions.

We were immersed in the Arizona heat from Thurs night 'til Monday morning, and when it was all over, and we were saying goodbye to Seline and Dylan on Sunday night (late), we couldn't believe it had gone by so quickly.

Here we are at Elizabeth and Matt's house, around the corner from Seline's house. We were putting flowers in Celine's hair, doing up her bouquet, and feeding her hors d'ouevres and margaritas. That's me, Shelley, Celine, Kelly, Vera, and Elizabeth.



Celine was a beautiful glowing bride:



But she wasn't used to dealing with the paparazzi:



They said their vows in their backyard, lit by fairy lights in the trees:



After the ceremony, the guests gathered at tables under a big white tent in their backyard, to feast on a pig that Dylan's cousin roasted in the ground (there were lots of yummy vegetarian options, too, but the pig is the best food story - o, except for the cakes, but I'll get to those):



Celine and Dylan were both beaming with happiness:



Celine's brother Rene and his wife Nicole started the tradition of asking guests to sing a song about love to make the bride and groom kiss. Celine and Dylan asked guests to do this, too, and it resulted in a great mad rush of guests standing up to sing song after song. Here are Celine's mom, Huguette, and her mom's sister and cousin singing a French love song:



One of the three (!) wedding cakes was the French traditional croquembouche, which basically means mouth crunch cake. It was a spectacularly tall golden confection, a giant cone of cream puffs stuck together with spun sugar. Wow. It tasted at least as good as it looked, which is saying a lot.



The happy couple fed each other cake, of course. These are some of my favorite pictures from the whole wedding:







There was lots of wine,



and live music (provided by the groom, no less!),



and at the end of it we were totally worn out,



and also full of the feeling that the world is a wonderful place. We had such a good time catching up with old friends, meeting new friends, and most of all, seeing two people we love looking gloriously happy. Life is good.

s&b

We just had an s&b meeting at my house. Susannah brought a project she was working on the last time I had s&b in Vancouver, 5 and a half years ago. There were tea and brownies, ginger biscuits and banana bread. Jen learned how to cast on, Katrin tried to remember how to crochet, Shelley cussed out her laceweight shawl, and Kathleen's cabled mittens made me want to try out a cable pattern myself. It was good - I missed s&b. No one bitched as well as Alexandra, but, then, that's a lot to ask. 8)

I am still waiting to hear the final word on the new job - the director submitted my new job description last week, and was told that it would take them about a week or two to process it so they can make me an offer. I'm holding my breath!

Douglas went 'dirt surfing' on the Sunshine Coast today (it's on the mainland, but you have to take a 40 minute ferry ride to get there), and he's just beaming with joy about how good it was. He's glad he's found some friends to mountain bike with, and he still can't get over how pretty it is here....

Miraculous

I time travelled on my way to work yesterday. How do I know? I ended up in the 19th century. Let me explain.

The receptionist quit last week. They haven't hired a temp to replace her. Instead, they have temporarily demoted the woman who used to do the job to receptionist again. Yesterday she had a dentist appointment, which meant no one would be around to answer the phones. I was told that "the ladies in the office usually answer the phones," and asked to step up and do my bit.

I replied that although I do not have balls, I'm not a lady, and therefore do not qualify. I still ended up answering the phones.

At least The Job is good blog fodder. Enjoy it while you can (I am, o, am I ever) - earlier this week the director e-mailed me the description of my soon-to-be-new-job. We're waiting for HR to do some paperwork. Keep your fingers crossed for me!

Coyote

We saw an urban coyote on our dog walk the other night! Douglas wrote about it on his blog, so I won't duplicate it here. A coyote! Wow!

My Secret Identity

I haven't talked much about my job since I got it. That's because it's perfectly odious, and I can't talk about it without cussing. I try to avoid the subject. Particularly on my blog. I somehow feel like I should stick to the positive here. I wonder why that is?

So, I'm a proofreader at a civil engineering office. To pay our astronomical Vancouver rent, I spend my days reading and correcting 40-page building code reports written by men whose first languages are Romanian, Mandarin, Bengali. The grammar isn't pretty. Nothing about the office is pretty. It's a monochrome wasteland that reeks of toner. I had wondered what engineers do. Now I know, and I wish I didn't.

When I'm there, I feel like the odd one out in a sci fi movie, like I need to hide something about myself so I don't get chewed up by the machine that detects difference. Like I have a secret identity. These people don't even know what gels or primers are. Imagine!

Last week I found out that I'm not the only one with a secret identity. One of the guys with an office near mine has always seemed like the odd man out. He's a hugely tall, jovial guy who listens to loud music on his headphones. He's middle-aged, but he looks like he thinks he's a kid someone's let into the boardroom by mistake. He doesn't seem to love his job as much as everyone else does - he sometimes leaves early, and doesn't obsess about architectural drawings. I put it down to his being in sales.

He mentioned he was taking a week off, to go fishing. I overheard him say he was going to the Queen Charlotte Islands. The Charlottes are possibly my favorite place in the whole world, so of course I had to ask him for more details. He was very vague, and rushed off without saying much. I figured he was in a hurry right then, and asked him again later, and mentioned that I had been there to collect moss. He raised an eyebrow, and I ended up explaining my story, complete with biology degrees and trip through Latin America in a hippie bus.

Somewhere in the middle of my story, he started to look shamefaced. At the end, he said he couldn't lie anymore, he wasn't going fishing after all. Instead, he was going to spend time at a recording studio, producing music for a young songwriter who's just starting out. He pulled a chain out from under his tie to show me the peace sign dangling from it, and said in a hushed voice that he didn't want anyone to know he's a hippie.

We agreed to keep each other's secret identities hush-hush.

I promise an installment about Seline and Dylan's wedding very soon! We're still working on the photos, and I can't post without photos...