Month: September 2001

OK, so I lied. It’s the weekend and I’m blogging anyway. :) The christening was lovely, the dresses fit perfectly, the party after was great, and I took about 90 pictures…some of which I’ll have to post eventually! The drive down last night was rather uneventful. But it was very strange – maybe it’s just because I didn’t grow up seeing the WTC towers on a somewhat daily basis, but as we were driving over the Tappanzee bridge, and later over the Whitestone bridge, I couldn’t visualize where they belonged. I never realized how out-of-place they were, but they really stood out among very short (relatively speaking) buildings. The Empire State building was the tallest building out there, and it didn’t even really seem that tall. I’m a little sad that I can’t remember what it looked like without seeing a picture – and that I never thought to take a picture as we crossed those bridges. On the other hand, I guess it might keep me from taking things for granted so much from now on. It must be late, I’m getting melancholy – time for bed!

NY, NY
Well, it’s going to be a strange journey this weekend. We won’t be anywhere where we have a direct view of “Ground Zero”, but we also won’t see the familiar skyline while we’re driving… But, it’s for a happy event, and I’m going to try to focus on that. We’ll find out tomorrow morning if those dresses fit. Gulp. I have seven rolls of film with me (all Kodak, of course) and my digital camera – those poor babies are going to have about a million pictures taken of them tomorrow. Especially if the other 99 guests take pictures too! This weekend I’ll have an even better excuse not to blog – I’ll be in the car most of the weekend, and I’m actually not bringing my laptop with me!

I think someone was trying to send a message today. Something like “Don’t go to work!” My drive in was rather eventful this morning – first I got stuck behind a slow-moving tractor. On a road with a double-yellow line. (I do live in the boonies after all). Then I ended up behind a van-style bus which needed to back into a driveway. When I got to the one-lane tunnel, several cars were coming through from the other direction. And just as I turned a corner, a herd of deer (ok, only three) jumped out barely 50 yards in front of me. And all that was before I got on the expressway and had to deal with rush-hour traffic, construction and an abandoned car in the middle of three lanes right about where the left lane ended. This is what happens when I drive myself to work instead of carpooling with Denis. No fahrvergnügen for me today.

Check out my new leaf banner in honor of fall! I made it myself, from a picture I took of a window cling. It only took three hours in photoshop – maybe I should keep my day job! :)

Raindrops are falling on my head
…and the shower is over. Sigh. That was a lot of fun – I’d managed to prepare enough of the food ahead of time that I wasn’t trapped in the kitchen the whole time. The games turned out great! One of them had teams creating bridal gown fashions out of toilet paper. I just might have to post some pics. :) Denis has dubbed me “Iron Chef” for the quantity and quality of food, although there is no possible way I could have ever cooked all of that in one short hour, even with assistants!

And one of the christening gowns is 100%, completely, utterly done!!! Well, except for sewing in one of the tags I just got today which say “Handmade with love by Aunt Sarah”. They’re pink on cream with an icon of a little puppy wagging her tail. OK, maybe it’s silly, but they’re adorable. I just have to hem the other dress and sew the buttons on it. In other not-entirely-unrelated news, we decided not to fly down to NYC for the christening. Not out of fear, but we’re worried that the flights might get delayed – on the way down, that would be very bad. Besides, with two hours at the airport and almost two from when the plane boards to when we land, it’s only a couple hours more to drive. So, we’ll maybe fly down for Christmas (although I truly hate flying during the holidays) or sometime early next year. When we have more time. :)

Not to cram in too much in one blog, but since I’m already blogging anyway… I’ve been searching for a flag for, well, 10 days now, with no success at all. I have been completely obsessed with flying a flag – something I’ve never wanted before, not even for 4th of July or flag day. I’ve briefly toyed with the idea of sewing one (just go ahead and make wisecracks about me being Betsy :P ) until I thought about embroidering or appliqueing 50 stars – that wouldn’t ever happen in this lifetime! But this need is something I’m trying to understand, why I suddenly feel compelled to own one. At first I worried that it was just the “hot toy at Christmastime” syndrome. But that can’t be it – right now seeing a flag makes me a little weepy. I think this article, written by someone who sounds like she might be around my age, may sum it up best. All of a sudden, it feels important to me to show that I am a United States citizen. And if flying a flag is the best way to do it, I’ll continue my quest.

Wow, that’s a long blog. Oh, well – if you’ve read this far, you deserve a gold star! :)

Bravo
I just want to say, even though I didn’t vote for President Bush (and when forced to choose sides I lean a lot more towards being Democrat than Republican), that was one heck of a speech last night. I know, he didn’t write it, but that’s not the point. At the very least, he approved it as the message he wanted to send to us and to the rest of the world. It’s obvious that he’s not going to go and indiscriminately bomb the already devastated Afghani people, which was something I was a bit worried about. And it’s also obvious that he’s not going to just turn the other cheek. All in all, I’m feeling pretty comfortable about our current leadership. Which is a big surprise even to me!

I listened to the speech while baking pumpkin cookies. Mmmm. Except the recipe yielded a lot less than I remembered, so I can’t totally pig out on them before the shower or I won’t have enough. Next time, I’ll quadruple the recipe instead of just doubling it. It’s a good thing I doubled it, or I’d have to make another batch before tomorrow! I also made artichoke dip and pepper-filled peppers. I finished the spinach phyllo triangles the night before. I’ve just got the last minute things like pasta and punch to make tomorrow. Poor Denis is so disappointed that guys don’t come to bridal showers – I’m making all this yummy food, and he’ll just have to hope there are leftovers. :)

Over the Rainbow
This morning I saw a rainbow on my way to work. It was very distinct, with every color rainbows should have, even green! <tangent> When my brother was about 5, he tried very hard to convince us all that green couldn’t be in a rainbow because it was never in the colors of a sunrise or sunset. Pictures in books, my rainbow music box, even prisms couldn’t dissuade him from that belief. I’m not sure what finally convinced him, but we’ve never let him forget it! After all, what are siblings for? </tangent> Anyway, back to the rainbow, some part of me can’t help but wonder if it was God’s way of telling us that everything would be alright somehow. I guess we’ll just have to wait and see.

Baseball
Last night was strange. We watched baseball. It was hard to watch it – the players weren’t all that into it, the fans really weren’t enjoying it, and the announcers kept reminding us during the whole game how everyone’s hearts weren’t really in the game. Then why play? Why go? I, for one, thought that it was marvelous to be able to watch something other than the news for a few hours. We’ve watched the tragedy unfold countless times on our TV screens, sat there glued to the set waiting for one more scrap of information, one last glimmer of hope that it wasn’t as bad as all that. It’s been a week. Reality is starting to settle in, that this really happened, it wasn’t a nightmare, it can’t be undone. We’ve had to move on, go back to work, take care of our families and our affairs – with precious little time to mourn the loss of lives and of innocence. An escape from that reality, even for just a few hours, is not a bad thing. And to me, baseball has always seemed like time out of time – not unreal, but another reality entirely (think Field of Dreams). So I will unashamedly watch baseball, and weep when they sing the national anthem (and not just because they’re singing out-of-tune, I swear!), and wave the flag in my head (I still can’t find one anywhere in Rochester). I will give my husband and my puppy extra hugs every day, and thank God constantly for my family and friends. And I will never forget what happened on September 11, 2001. (And I will try very hard to come up with a more light-hearted blog one of these days – this has, though, been great therapy.)