EOY08

Once again I will resort to bullet points in order to discuss a lot of things that have happened in a (hopefully) concise fashion. One thing I hate about blogging is that when you're doing semi-interesting things, you generally don't have time to or don't feel like writing them down. I no longer make New Year's resolutions, but maybe I should make one about "bullet points" posts.

Anyway...

*Tomorrow L'Ailee and I get "re-married" in Massachusetts. It's no big thing, and we don't feel the excitement we did about our first wedding. (To answer the inevitable question: It was legally invalidated by judges in Massachusetts, but now out-of-state residents can marry there and the State of New York will recognize it. Thank you, Governors Patrick and Paterson.) It's very nice to be able to tie up that legal loose end, though. It will just be us and whoever's working at the county clerk's office.

* We regretted a few things about our wedding. She grew out her hair and augmented it with extensions made from, as she said when she admitted feeling guilty about this, "some poor Asian woman's hair that I just threw away." I wore contacts, blinked my way through the wedding because they bothered my eyes, and really wished I'd worn aqua instead of lavender. So tomorrow we will duck into a bathroom and change into pretty dresses that would not nearly be warm enough for the train ride to Massachusetts. Hers will be a silvery gray, and mine will be aqua. Her head will be shaved like usual, and I will wear my glasses. It feels kind of right. We're glad that what we wanted to do over again after 4 years related to our appearance and not, you know, *us*. We hope hope hope that we will *never* have reason for another do-over.

* L'Ailee's best friend is a cabbie. He usually works New Year's Eve, of course. The last time he got it off was our wedding. He got it off this year, and he and his fiance will be celebrating with a huge, Russian-style New Year's Eve party that we absolutely are not permitted to miss. They usually come to our home, so it will be nice to go to theirs instead. They're being so cute about hosting a party for once. L'Ailee's really looking forward to it, too, and she usually hates crowds.

* We are both supposedly on vacation until January 5th, but we both got called in to work today, her to teach an aerobics class, which she hates, and me to pitch in on some end-of-year stuff that cropped up even though I thought we had it all handled. Hell, I know that nobody in the history of the world has ever had it all handled in mid-December, but damn it, I really tried! Oh, well. We can't afford to be labeled uncooperative, not right now. We want to be helpful and as close to essential as possible!

* Yesterday (sorry to jump around like this), we played ice hockey. This was my first game of ice hockey ever. L'Ailee taught me fundamental moves ("You don't have to move like Sidney Crosby.") by having me play a few games of street hockey with her and some of our friends. She's also the one who taught me how to ice skate. And...I really have to brag about this...I SCORED A GOAL! Two assists and ONE GOAL! I was so proud of myself, it didn't matter that my goal was incredibly ugly and I accidentally did a full split on the ice just minutes later. I knew L'Ailee was good, but she amazed me. Three goals and about a kajillion assists, and that's with time spent in the penalty box for fighting! Our team won, of course. Walked all over the other, 6-1. I bragged that she could save even the suck-ass New York Islanders single-handed if they'd let her, and she got upset: "You could at least say that I belong on a *good* team." It took me a few minutes to convince her that this was a complement. Buying her some tasty designer cocoa helped.

* Nobody up here wants to hear about what we did in Florida. The snowstorms might have made them a little testy. They especially don't want to hear that it was hot even for Florida this time of year. Oh, well, I can blog about it.

* It was good! On Christmas Day, Thakoon's Target line came out online. L'Ailee had told anybody who wanted to give her anything that she only wanted Target gift cards. (Not me, of course. I'm discussing that gift in a later post.) My mother was frankly amazed that anyone would shop on Christmas Day, even online. My brother and I were amused as she sat at the hotel computer, snatched up almost the entire line, and paid with a neat little stack of gift cards.

* Christmas Eve was with my family. At my fundagelical aunt's house. Oh, Gods. Her husband-and-wife youth minister neighbors who had gotten upset with us last year were stinking up the place this year, too. I tried to remind myself (and my brother, and our wives) that they were her chosen family and she saw them more than she saw any of us. That only helped a tiny bit. They had real interesting theories about same-sex marriage, and atheism, and my darling wife's hairstyle or lack thereof. This led to real interesting debates. Thankfully, my cousins wanted her to teach them more martial arts moves, and we played street hockey, and we danced. L'Ailee's cousin, who is married to one of my cousins, was there as well.

* We found a real debate-killer for the next round of War on Christmas bullshit, though! See, their very large Assemblies of God church had a Nativity-and-lights display. The 18-year-old cousin is a very good carpenter already, and he built the wooden parts of the Nativity scene himself. Of course everyone had to go look. (My brother didn't, not because he is an atheist, but because flashing lights still bother him a bit after his eye surgeries.) There was a "suggested donation" of $5 each to walk through it all, I guess to offset the power bills. It was very lovely. Back at my aunt's house, the youth pastors wanted to start something about the atheist sign at the Washington State Capitol. L'Ailee and I quickly pointed out that they had just personally seen a Pagan and an atheist who had no problem with a Nativity display in its rightful place, such as a church, and who even donated $10 to the church. It was the best $10 we've spent in a while, because it shut them the fuck up. I mean, it was nothing more controversial than cookies and the weather for the rest of the night.

* What else? Well, we watched my sister-in-law graduate from college! We were so amazed at how crowded it was for a December commencement. Mine was very sparsely attended, but then again, our schools are different. On the 21st, I celebrated the Winter Solstice with my former coven. Basically, we used ritual to express our hope that metaphorical light would return and the metaphorical darkness would leave us all, and then we sat and talked and ate too much. It wasn't nearly as big-deal as Samhain, but I did enjoy extra time with my friends in Florida.

* I hope everyone experiences a return of the light. And Gods, I'm so glad to be home!

Still feel like reading? I have links:

Arianna Huffington lists things she'd like to forget about 2008. I can't disagree with a one.

This site has been around since 1995, and we are amazed that we haven't seen it. Well, I only got into hockey to "repay" L'Ailee for getting into NASCAR, and she doesn't use the Internet that much. But now we're going back as often as possible. Hockey-fights.com. It has video, polls about who won, commentary, everything. My man Eric Godard can *throw*! Her beloved Detroit Red Wings have the absolute league low for fights. Fun ensued when I said that this might be because "they don't want to ruin their manicures." (Yes, and she still wants to re-marry me! Amazing, huh?)

The Culture Wars are Still Not Over Long, depressing, still worth reading.

Some presidents were actually worse about civil liberties than Bush!

Finally, one hell of a silver lining: Earthquake recovery's going slowly in China, but new couples are forming *fast*!