Writing

one year ago today

One year ago today we had a small group of close family and friends over to watch us get married and help us celebrate.  I don’t think that it is a stretch to say that it was one of the best days of my life.  Looking back on that day… it was perfect.  There is not a single thing that I would change or do any differently.

One year ago tomorrow we got on a plane and flew to Maui, and the night we landed we drove up to the top of Haleakala to watch the sun rise.

on top of the world

This is our favorite picture of us together.  Some random stranger took it for us shortly after the sun rose over the cloud cover.  (Thank you random stranger, you did a great job!)  We’ll be back there someday.

Happy anniversary, John.  This has been an awesome year.

I love you!

Percival with Jellybeans and Great-Grandma's Candy Dish

For Christmas this past year, my Grandma gave me one of her antique glass pieces.  This piece, in fact.  A yellow, covered candy dish that her mother (my great-grandmother) had owned and that my Grandma could remember being used around the house when she grew up.

I like antique glassware, and I like antique glassware that has a family story attached to it even more.

The dish is on display on my coffee table (the cats are very good about leaving it alone) and is usually filled with pistachio nuts.

When my folks visited last weekend, they brought John and I an Easter basket with Paska, Kolache, sausage, red horseradish, some chocolate, and a bag of pink and yellow and cream colored Jelly Belly jelly beans.

I decided that I wanted to be festive and put the jelly beans in the candy dish.  Then I decided that I liked the way that the late-afternoon light looked coming through the living room windows and shining on the glass, and decided to get out my camera.  Then Percival came by to see what was going on.

Too cute.

Here is one of the dish sans kitty.

Candy dish and jelly beans

Take a shot of Jameson Irish Whiskey and add it to a pint of hard cider (I like Hornsbys) and then enjoy.  That’s a Johnny Jump-Up, and that was the only thing that I did on Wednesday to acknowledge St. Patrick’s Day.

On Friday, John and I went down to the Dublin Pub in the Oregon District to hear Fin Tan play, since we are friends with 3/4 of the band.  We know all of the songs (and they like to provide sing-along sheets with the chorus of all of the songs in their sets since they are a very audience-participatory kind of band) and I like to sing along, even if I can never actually hear myself sing since we tend to sit as close to the stage as possible.

A couple of times during the show there were announcements that the Dublin Pub announced intended to open at 5am on St. Patrick’s Day and would be offering a “breakfast and beer” special.  I tend to think of St. Patrick’s Day as the national holiday of frat boys.  I don’t enjoy crowds and I am not much of a bar person on a normal day, but St. Paddy’s is one of the days where I do not think that I could be paid enough to set foot in a bar.  Too many people wearing green, with shamrocks painted on their faces, being stupid, and drinking too much of all kinds of faux-Irish drinks.

Hence the Johnny Jump-Up in the quiet and comfort of my own home.

Just say no to green beer… really.  Because nothing says “St. Patrick’s Day spirit” like a Budweiser with some food coloring in it.