White (and spotted) Christmas

This year's Christmas is my last one before I get married. That lends everything an air of even-more-than-usual significance, as I wonder when I will next be among my family at Christmastime.

However, this Christmas has so far refused to cooperate with the sentimentalism I'm attaching to it. It will be a white Christmas for sure -- the first one in my memory (here, I mean) since I was five. When I woke up this morning it was snowing hard, but I wasn't surprised: we have been pretty much snowed in since last Wednesday. My dad has managed to make it out for church, to pick me up from the airport, and to get groceries, but now the roads look even worse. Apparently the Department of Transportation refuses to salt the roads because it is bad for the environment, and they are using rubber-edged plows so as not to damage the roads, but these pack the snow rather than scooping it away. Downtown, police officers are covering their beat on foot, because of the very real danger that they will slide down the steep hills and into the bay.

I always wanted a white Christmas as a child, but the state of the roads never occurred to me. This year, there is no way we could get to midnight Mass like I wanted to, and I am only hoping that daytime Mass won't be impossible too. Getting a Christmas tree, something that my mom has finally agreed to without any fuss, is also not going to happen.

The other trouble of the snow is that we have not been able to get Joseph to the doctor. He was recovering from an ear infection when suddenly he got a fever again -- and spots. The most likely diagnosis is the measles, though we are not sure. On the phone, the doctor said there was no point in trying to get to her office, since there's not much you can do for a virus. All we can do is try to keep the germs away from the baby -- a mammoth task. Luckily we older ones are either vaccinated or have had the measles. But all the younger four are still at risk.

>sigh< Yes, this will definitely be a Christmas to remember. But don't think I'm complaining. I remember some of our nicest Christmases involving unexpected problems. There was the Christmas we couldn't afford a Christmas tree, and put all our presents under a potted plant. And the year the roads were icy, and we had to leave our car at the bottom of the hill, with the Christmas tree tied on top, while we walked home. The year I was at boarding school for Christmas, coming home for only three days once Christmas was over -- and during those three days Joseph was born. And other holidays too -- like the Thanksgiving I had the flu and got some unexpected bonding time with my dad when we both stayed home from the feast and watched football together. My seventeenth birthday, when my brother and I got lost downtown trying to get to my party, and it was 100 degrees inside our non-air-conditioned car, but we played the Kitaro album and made up fantasy stories to go with the songs.

No, I can see that a few years from now, we'll pull out the pictures of Joseph looking like a leopard and us decorating the windows and the banisters, and we will smile, saying, "Wasn't that a Christmas to remember?"

Christmas Lights in Old Town

This little walk I took to take a few pictures in Old Town (well, all right, it was an hour-long walk, and I took about 75 pictures) was a wonderful stress-reliever. I needed it, between the end-of-quarter stress at school and the I'm-getting-married-in-just-over-six-months stress in the rest of my life. I'm this weird mix of busy, anxious, and excited that leaves me pacing around the apartment, ignoring all my responsibilities, and then suddenly grading twelve book reports and doing all the dishes.

Here are the fruits of my photo-op.

The view down Center Street. Yes, I did have to stand in the middle of the street to take the picture. But it was quite safe.

I have always loved it when people do trees like this, with shining trunks and a web of lights in their almost invisible branches.

City Hall. I have photographed this building dozens of times now, with several different sunsets. It stands out well against them -- and also without them, as you see.

Okay, here's the beginning of my clock obsession. Prepare for many more clocks. I am not sure why I like clocks so much. Perhaps it is because they are so very round and white. Perhaps it is because every picture you take of them is of a slightly different scene, because they move. But there is just something that makes the street with the lights completely different from the street with the lights and a clock.

This one is special because it has not only a clock, but also a flag unfurling in the light wind that was going by. There's something about knowing that a moment before or after would have been a different picture.

"One luminary clock against the sky"

The same clock from the other side, near the pavilion where there's an ice skating rink.

I love this picture. I had to take many to get it right. Maybe it's the circle within the square that does it. Or maybe it's the light shining out of it -- like the moon. I just don't know, but I like this clock.

The train station, all decked out. With the ubiquitous water tower. I do not understand why this town needs so many water towers. In my regular walks to the grocery store or Old Town, I see three water towers without traveling a single mile.

These are two pictures I've been trying to get for a long time. Don't the gates rising and falling look like fans? And the red light lines are dotted, because the lights were blinking. Again, maybe I like these pictures more because of the effort it took to get them. There's a lot of waiting for trains it takes to get even one take of the picture -- and then you find the shutter speed wasn't slow enough, or the aperture was too big, and you have to wait for the next train. Or you just finally get lucky when you're photographing the train station -- which is what finally happened, after all those times running outside when I heard the train whistles.

This one was intended to be symbolic. Doesn't it look like the lighted trees are there to decorate the Nativity scene? Actually, they are reflected from City Hall, across the street. I don't know if City Hall put up their trees because of Baby Jesus. But it doesn't matter what they intended -- there they are, all the same.

Recent pictures

More pictures: these from around my house, plus two from the airport when I was going home for Thanksgiving.

Autumn

Here are some pictures I took this past fall. This batch is from the day I went down to Christendom for Homecoming, and ended wandering around by the Shenandoah, looking for good pictures to take. I think I found a few! (I actually took over a hundred. But these are the best.)

I had to shrink them down a good bit to reduce their file size. The original pictures were very clear and vivid. I am so grateful to my grandpa for the camera that lets me take pictures like this. I am getting more and more into photography these days.

Ideas so far

I know a lot of people think obsessing over wedding dresses is silly. If you do, skip this post! Some people have asked, so I thought I'd post the ideas so far.

My maid-of-honor is going to be helping me sew the dress. Actually, she's doing all the work. I am "helping" in an "advisory" sense, i.e. making all the decisions. Somehow she is generous enough to be okay with this.

So, she and I have been pattern hunting, and here's the best of what we've turned up so far. Nothing's decided yet, but here's what we're thinking.

The dress: like the picture on the left, only --

with the sleeves from this dress . They will be out of a sheer fabric like in the picture, only not blue of course.

The veil. This one I am really sold on. I really like the drop veil style. The front part is pulled back over the head later on, and it's held on with a (presumably quite secure) hat pin. I am undecided as to whether a tiara would help or hinder that staying-on process, and also whether it would look good.

Thoughts? All right, girly conversation over. Anyone who's been scrolling quickly by with lots of eye-rolling can come back now.

Engagement story

I promised a long time ago that I would put up the story of how I got engaged. I'm sorry I haven't done it before, but life has been extremely hectic lately, with a lot of grades coming due, and me being sick. But here it is -- with pictures.


It happened on a Friday when nothing else was going on -- October 17th. John had been talking a few weeks before about coming down that weekend, but he seemed to have changed his mind, so I was feeling a little down. The night before, I had it firmly in my head that he would come after all, but by the time I was at work, I realized I was mostly getting my hopes up for nothing. He was not going to come, and now I would be all disappointed.

During 7th period, I saw I had missed a call from him, so as soon as school was over, I called him back. "Where are you?" he asked. "At school, cleaning the classroom," I answered. "Well, then, call me back when you're home; there's something I want to talk to you about," he said.


So I finished up the classroom and headed toward home. As I was walking out by the front of the school, I saw John sitting there near the parking lot, along with a bunch of kids who were waiting to get picked up. He just looked up and said, "Hi."


He walked along with me toward my house as far as the parking lot, but then started steering me toward his car. "Where are we going?" I asked. "On a picnic," he said.


It was a beautiful drive off to the park he had picked out. The fall colors were everywhere. After a short while we got to the park and got out of the van. He pulled out of the back of the van a picnic basket and his book bag. I took the bag, to free up his hands to carry the basket. He started laughing to himself, but when I asked why, he said it was nothing. (I found out later it was because the ring was in there, and he was laughing at the thought that I was carrying it and didn't know.)


We wandered off along the trails, passing some school kids and a little pond. Then we found a picnic site and got set up. He had everything in that basket: a loaf of bread, a jar of pickles, a tomato, some cheese, some tuna, a knife to cut the tomato, paper plates, napkins -- everything. When John does a picnic, I guess he wants to do it thoroughly. I like that. The sandwiches were great (John does something special with sandwiches -- I think it is because of the fresh ingredients). Then we put the basket aside and decided to continue walking for awhile.


Eventually we came to a clearing by a creek. This whole way I was just babbling about this and that -- the relative merits of Justin Hayward as compared to the other Moody Blues, and my day at school. He was mostly quiet, a little distracted. But when we got to the creek, he sat down on a log beside me. He started to talk a little about this and that, about our relationship and so forth. I thought, "Oh, he's not so distracted anymore; that's good."

Then he said, "I have a question." He had said this a few times along the way, with a few different questions he'd wanted to know the answers to, so I didn't think much of it. Then he slipped off the log and onto one knee. "Will you marry me?" was the question.

John says that at this point my mouth dropped wide open and my eyes got really big. (Actually, he did a pretty funny impression -- I wonder if I really looked like that.) Gathering my breath and picking up my jaw, I said, "Yes, I will," and then started hugging him and laughing and everything like that. At that moment, I do not think I could have been happier. He was happy too. At that point, a train went by on the tracks across the creek, and I waved at the train like I used to as a kid. I thought, "All those people are riding home from work; they don't know that we're going to get married!" Around then, I remembered that I was holding the box John had put into my hand when he had asked the question. "Can I open it?" I asked, feeling like a little kid with a Christmas present. It was beautiful -- very John, but also very me. Not like any old person's ring -- our ring.







After awhile we walked up from the creek, talking about plans and how we felt and things like that. Periodically I would give a little jump and a shiver, thinking, "Wow! We're going to get married!" John would laugh at me, saying it was unhealthy to be that excited. But I didn't care.

When we got up the hill a ways (where cell reception was better) we started calling people. My own parents weren't home. His mom was thrilled and was very welcoming to me. When we got to the picnic basket, we picked it up and took it to the car. As we were putting it back into the back of the van, John pulled out one last thing -- a bouquet of roses. The ride back seemed even more beautiful than the ride out had been. We passed a church -- St. Clare, my confirmation saint -- and tried to get in to make a visit, but it was all locked. So I made a little visit from outside.


Once we got back home, we bumped into Olivia talking to one of the other teachers in the parking lot. She saw John and the roses, and her eyes got big, because she knew how much I had wanted him to come down, but didn't know he was going to do it. I couldn't help myself -- I held up the ring. She squealed and made a lot of surprised exclamations before running off to buy champagne. John and I went inside, leaving the front door open and standing talking in the kitchen. A moment later the screen door swung open and in walked a priest -- Fr. Thompson. "Heard someone in here needs a blessing," he said. So John and I knelt down and got a blessing. Fr. Thompson left again after chatting for a little bit, calling over his shoulder, "I'll do your pre-Cana, if you want!" He has been looking for people to do marriage prep with.


A minute after that, there was a knock on the door. I opened it to find some of my students -- ninth-grade girls. Fr. Thompson had sent them to ask what was going on. I told them, and they squealed and hugged me. (For about a week after that, I was all the girls' favorite teacher, and they wanted to hear every detail.) Then they went away, and Olivia came back with two bottles of champagne and a cake.


We called up Sean and Andrew, who showed up quickly, and Olivia made chili. Sean had brought another bottle of champagne, which was the only one we got into that evening. The rest of the evening was spent in my favorite way -- food and companionship with friends. Olivia took a lot of pictures. During the evening, I kept calling people and being called by others. John's sisters all had to congratulate me, and I finally was able to get ahold of my parents, who were happy for me. I even got to talk to David! I had them put the phone on speaker so I could talk to Joseph (they were all in the car, and could reach the phone all the way to the back seat). "I want to marry John, what do you think?" I asked. He answered, "Actually, I would really like you to."

So -- pictures of our evening:

Zoo Day

These are some pictures I just remembered I had from our zoo trip in August. A bunch of my friends in the area got together and went to the zoo in Washington, DC.

Matt and Chris imitating a statue labeled "Interdependence," or something like that.

Hanging out outside of Cold Stone Creamery, where we stopped after seeing the elephants and everything.

I was behind the camera for this one. We have Betsy, Matt, Syd 'n' Sean, and Andrew.