And So They Were Wed
We made it to California and back in three pieces. It was a good trip.
He did it — my youngest cousin Kevin got married, tied the knot, signed the papers, bit the dust*.
It's sort of funny - I'd seen my cousin only 3 times between 1992 and 2004 but I still have a cousinly pride and attachment to him. I've done less with him than some people from church, but I claim him more.
The wedding was held on the Mendocino Headlands. Kevin and Gretchen stood not far from a cliff's edge, waves breaking over the rocks below, wind blowing through the trees, birds chirping. It was pretty neat. They took some of the family pictures on the edge of another cliff - there were no casualties.
The reception was in the Mendocino Hotel, which was built in the 1800's. It was a good time - making connections with relatives, laughing, etc. (My immediate family was among the last to leave - oops! But that's no surprise - it's pretty standard for us - and I'm actually not ashamed of it as long as it doesn't put anyone out.)
Much of highway 20 from Williams (on I-5) to Fort Bragg (where we stayed Saturday night) is very scenic. It's a "bit" on the wine-dy side but definitely a sight to behold, with fabulous wildflowers, treed hills, suspended fog, and farms. I had a strong desire to stop and take a closer look at the wildflowers.
Some people have a strong bias against California and/or its inhabitants.
I was born in California, have a certain love for the state, and wish people had a better view of it. They should not label Californians based on the small section of land that is the coast with its overpopulated cities and poorly-mannered drivers. While I suppose the majority of California's population belongs to such areas, and while I suppose that those areas receive the most publicity, there is another side to the state. The Californian towns I have lived near have been quite nice (Springville, Nevada City, and Alturas) - people would do well to take such towns into consideration when formulating a label for the state.
Ah, well, it doesn't really matter all that much, I guess.
* Not intended negatively
He did it — my youngest cousin Kevin got married, tied the knot, signed the papers, bit the dust*.
It's sort of funny - I'd seen my cousin only 3 times between 1992 and 2004 but I still have a cousinly pride and attachment to him. I've done less with him than some people from church, but I claim him more.
The wedding was held on the Mendocino Headlands. Kevin and Gretchen stood not far from a cliff's edge, waves breaking over the rocks below, wind blowing through the trees, birds chirping. It was pretty neat. They took some of the family pictures on the edge of another cliff - there were no casualties.
The reception was in the Mendocino Hotel, which was built in the 1800's. It was a good time - making connections with relatives, laughing, etc. (My immediate family was among the last to leave - oops! But that's no surprise - it's pretty standard for us - and I'm actually not ashamed of it as long as it doesn't put anyone out.)
Much of highway 20 from Williams (on I-5) to Fort Bragg (where we stayed Saturday night) is very scenic. It's a "bit" on the wine-dy side but definitely a sight to behold, with fabulous wildflowers, treed hills, suspended fog, and farms. I had a strong desire to stop and take a closer look at the wildflowers.
Some people have a strong bias against California and/or its inhabitants.
I was born in California, have a certain love for the state, and wish people had a better view of it. They should not label Californians based on the small section of land that is the coast with its overpopulated cities and poorly-mannered drivers. While I suppose the majority of California's population belongs to such areas, and while I suppose that those areas receive the most publicity, there is another side to the state. The Californian towns I have lived near have been quite nice (Springville, Nevada City, and Alturas) - people would do well to take such towns into consideration when formulating a label for the state.
Ah, well, it doesn't really matter all that much, I guess.
* Not intended negatively
posted by Claire at 20:35
1 Comments:
Claire,
I happened upon this post as a followup to your most recent blog entry....
I, too, enjoy the relaxation associated with diving for truffles. My friend, Ben, a rather stout, Gerber's Penguin, always said, "If it's not black and white, it's not a penguin." And I soooo agree!!! Ben was an Alaskan ornithologist's radical dream!! So creative, so debonair, so, so, well, so.....penguin!!!! I'll never forget the day he lay, rigormortified, the tragic victim of an undecided reverse-albino, black polar bear, one of only 8 to 10 million, still alive in the wild!! That little smirk, so familiar to me and yet, so, so, dead, permanently frozen into the permanently frozen bill, permanently frozen into the
permanently frozen corpse, permanently frozen into the permanently frozen landscape. It made me feel so, well, cold, I guess. “Ben Pen,” as I always called him in warmer, more alive times, was always there for me, er, well, at least he was always there. On that ice flow, there was nowhere else to go. And ours was a special relationship....Me with
my selfness and him with his selfness. We were always one complete, cold self, half penguin, half human, on an even colder iceflow, drifting on into the future, to a time that was different from the one we, in our complete selfness, had just experienced a moment before. Poor little Ben, whose little waddle complemented perfectly my little stagger, will never be the same again, er, now that he is dead. But I must go on, the human half of our union....only the white portion will move forward. The black and white in life will remain in a gradually more obscured past. Things will no longer be clear. Without the black to complement the white, there can be no complete understanding of what it means to live with a penguin named Ben. And so I, and my iceflow and my little dead, frozen friend, will continue drifting on into the future, no longer able to be objective about anything. Yes, indeed Claire, diving for truffles is fun. Thank you for allowing me to respond to your very well thought out, well put, grandiose, and pulchritudinous post. May the cold, shiftless winds of the Arctic be forever with you.....
By the way, do you have a brother named Matthew Varney?
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