Aaron and Maria Got Married!
This is sorely overdue. I was trying to catch up with homework before I posted it, but it's Wednesday already and I may as well just do it, because eventually it'll be too late and I'll feel silly doing it.
Anyhow! Aaron and Maria got married! This was an event which I was enormously excited about and consequently very stressed out about (the two states of being are hopelessly entwined for me), but it ended up being completely lovely and all in all this weekend was probably one of the highlights of the last several years.
The weekend started with the aufruf, which J and I went to. We got kind of lost getting over there, which was actually sort of fun in a weird way, driving around Oakland with the map I hastily snatched from my car, exploring backstreets and wondering how we were supposed to get to the other side of the freeway. We did manage to make it in time, and the aufruf itself was very sweet. As we flung candy at Aaron and Maria, it suddenly occurred to me how grown-up they suddenly seemed. Everyone seems to be doing that, 'cept for me...
Also, I continue to feel rather awkward at formal religious services, partially because I've attended so very few of them in my life. As an added bit of awkwardness, to soothe my nervousness I reached out for my mantra which sometimes helps... then remembered it's got the name of a Hindu deity stuck in the middle of it, which seemed kinda wrong to be contemplating in a synagogue, so I had to put it away again.
After that there was a lunch and they ran out of chairs so Maria, Aaron, J, and I hung out on the stairs and reminisced in a general way about Stanford and the years since. Then we retired to Aaron and Maria's apartment, I finally met their cats, and the woman came and braided J's and my hair. I was fairly anxious during this whole process, since I was one of those attempting to run interference and make sure both Aaron and Maria got to the larp on time, unawares, and without inviting anyone else, and it kept looking like they might get any one of a handful of people to come to the "SGS party", which would have made lots of trouble for the GMs. But somehow it all worked out, although Maria and I ran into nasty traffic on the Bay Bridge (a span I'll admit I didn't really want to be inching across on the anniversary of Loma Prieta) and were consequently rather late.
The larp was a lot of fun too. We were all supernaturalized versions of ourselves (except Aaron and Maria, who were just themselves, but had all sorts of cute love-based abilities), so Black was a robot from a future where there was only Apple, Inga was a Valkyrie, Peter was a planeswalker, and I was a time-lost tinker's daughter from a steampunk dimension where the sun never set on the British Empire. So I guess I was just myself too. As usual I managed to do something completely appallingly ruthless in the name of a higher ideal, in this case inventing a machine that stealthily teleported people's blood out of their bodies so I could use it to reverse the magic spell keeping Aaron and Maria apart. I'm a terrible person. But love triumphed, the dimensions were reconverged, and we all lived happily ever after except the ones who declared blood feuds on each other. It's about par for the SGS course. :)
The next day was the wedding itself. I was supposed to get there early to help with set up, but due to hideousness with the buses (to hell with all buses, they universally suck) ten minutes before the wedding was supposed to happen I found myself stranded in a completely random and not terribly great neighborhood. Fortunately Matt came and rescued me, because he's really nice like that, and we made it in time for the ceremony. The ceremony itself was beautiful. A lot of it was in Hebrew, so I only understood bits, but seeing it finally happen was overwhelming enough. I almost cried. I didn't, but I almost did. Oh, oh, and Maria looked so elegant and beautiful in her dress, and there was beautiful music, and the chuppah was amazing. Afterwards I got to be one of the witnesses on the ketubah (I think that's how that's spelled), which I was deeply honored by. I also helped clean up the broken glass, 'cause that's what SM friends are for. ;) Then we all took a zillion pictures of Frauen and SGSers and such, and then we went to the reception.
The reception was lovely too, although by then the emotional currents of the weekend were starting to fade and I was getting pretty sleepy. Peter delivered a touchingly sincere but still rather humorous best man's speech, and Maria and her grandfather danced a polka. Later there were board games, which I found rather amusing. I played a bunch of Apples to Apples with Die Frauen, ein Herr, Lou, Peter, and J. And then we all went home.
This post ended up not being very coherent, I'm afraid. And there's seemingly a thousand things that I want to say, have wanted to say since Sunday, feel the need to say... but, as tends to happen at times where it actually matters, I can't find the words for them. So you get these ones instead. Apologiae.
The short version is, the wedding was amazing, I'm so glad I got to see all you out-of-town folks again, and I am so happy for Aaron and Maria that I can't find the words to express my joy.
Anyhow! Aaron and Maria got married! This was an event which I was enormously excited about and consequently very stressed out about (the two states of being are hopelessly entwined for me), but it ended up being completely lovely and all in all this weekend was probably one of the highlights of the last several years.
The weekend started with the aufruf, which J and I went to. We got kind of lost getting over there, which was actually sort of fun in a weird way, driving around Oakland with the map I hastily snatched from my car, exploring backstreets and wondering how we were supposed to get to the other side of the freeway. We did manage to make it in time, and the aufruf itself was very sweet. As we flung candy at Aaron and Maria, it suddenly occurred to me how grown-up they suddenly seemed. Everyone seems to be doing that, 'cept for me...
Also, I continue to feel rather awkward at formal religious services, partially because I've attended so very few of them in my life. As an added bit of awkwardness, to soothe my nervousness I reached out for my mantra which sometimes helps... then remembered it's got the name of a Hindu deity stuck in the middle of it, which seemed kinda wrong to be contemplating in a synagogue, so I had to put it away again.
After that there was a lunch and they ran out of chairs so Maria, Aaron, J, and I hung out on the stairs and reminisced in a general way about Stanford and the years since. Then we retired to Aaron and Maria's apartment, I finally met their cats, and the woman came and braided J's and my hair. I was fairly anxious during this whole process, since I was one of those attempting to run interference and make sure both Aaron and Maria got to the larp on time, unawares, and without inviting anyone else, and it kept looking like they might get any one of a handful of people to come to the "SGS party", which would have made lots of trouble for the GMs. But somehow it all worked out, although Maria and I ran into nasty traffic on the Bay Bridge (a span I'll admit I didn't really want to be inching across on the anniversary of Loma Prieta) and were consequently rather late.
The larp was a lot of fun too. We were all supernaturalized versions of ourselves (except Aaron and Maria, who were just themselves, but had all sorts of cute love-based abilities), so Black was a robot from a future where there was only Apple, Inga was a Valkyrie, Peter was a planeswalker, and I was a time-lost tinker's daughter from a steampunk dimension where the sun never set on the British Empire. So I guess I was just myself too. As usual I managed to do something completely appallingly ruthless in the name of a higher ideal, in this case inventing a machine that stealthily teleported people's blood out of their bodies so I could use it to reverse the magic spell keeping Aaron and Maria apart. I'm a terrible person. But love triumphed, the dimensions were reconverged, and we all lived happily ever after except the ones who declared blood feuds on each other. It's about par for the SGS course. :)
The next day was the wedding itself. I was supposed to get there early to help with set up, but due to hideousness with the buses (to hell with all buses, they universally suck) ten minutes before the wedding was supposed to happen I found myself stranded in a completely random and not terribly great neighborhood. Fortunately Matt came and rescued me, because he's really nice like that, and we made it in time for the ceremony. The ceremony itself was beautiful. A lot of it was in Hebrew, so I only understood bits, but seeing it finally happen was overwhelming enough. I almost cried. I didn't, but I almost did. Oh, oh, and Maria looked so elegant and beautiful in her dress, and there was beautiful music, and the chuppah was amazing. Afterwards I got to be one of the witnesses on the ketubah (I think that's how that's spelled), which I was deeply honored by. I also helped clean up the broken glass, 'cause that's what SM friends are for. ;) Then we all took a zillion pictures of Frauen and SGSers and such, and then we went to the reception.
The reception was lovely too, although by then the emotional currents of the weekend were starting to fade and I was getting pretty sleepy. Peter delivered a touchingly sincere but still rather humorous best man's speech, and Maria and her grandfather danced a polka. Later there were board games, which I found rather amusing. I played a bunch of Apples to Apples with Die Frauen, ein Herr, Lou, Peter, and J. And then we all went home.
This post ended up not being very coherent, I'm afraid. And there's seemingly a thousand things that I want to say, have wanted to say since Sunday, feel the need to say... but, as tends to happen at times where it actually matters, I can't find the words for them. So you get these ones instead. Apologiae.
The short version is, the wedding was amazing, I'm so glad I got to see all you out-of-town folks again, and I am so happy for Aaron and Maria that I can't find the words to express my joy.