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Sunday, October 24, 2010

Weddings are pretty great.

Yesterday I worked my third wedding for my internship. I'm loving it so far. Even if I miss my weekends.

Being involved in someone's wedding is a really interesting experience. When you've got that coordinator name tag on, you become intimately involved with the entire operation and therefore the entire family and bridal party. It is ultimate people-watching. While our brides and grooms have been so different and great to work with- what I have really loved is meeting their families and friends. I meet, work with, and observe these people on the day of their sister's/brother's/son's/daughter's/grandchild's wedding. Their emotions are high and people react so differently. There are proud sisters and jealous best friends and relieved mothers (one said to me at rehearsal: "this is the last daughter. They're all married. I've done my job." Funny way to see it, I thought. A little 'Mrs. Bennett' even. But it occurs to me that a lot of people still feel that way) I also love watching the way two whole families interact. The ability of a Michael Jackson song to unify a group of people is pretty impressive. Journey also does the trick.
It's very easy to forget that people live in completely different ways. That seems like a silly thing to say but I forget often that even people who live in the same country or even the same region, with roughly the same socio-economic status and even the same ethnic background often view the world/live their lives in so many different ways. You get to learn a lot about people in observing the way they celebrate things-especially a marriage. For some it is a very formal recognition of commitment. For others it is a party about love. While working these weddings I've been thanked repeatedly, I've been ignored, I've been hugged, I've been treated like 'the help', and I've also been pulled onto the dance floor by the bride and groom. I guess the point of this, if there is a point, is that people are really interesting, and different, and intriguing, and I feel very lucky to be able to interact with them on a day that is so important to them.

And with weddings on the brain- enough about people. Here is one of the most wonderfully styled weddings I've ever seen. I'm just so in love with it. I want to pause it and walk around inside like they do in Big Fish.
I've also come across some fantastic wedding party photos today. I adore a creative/unique wedding party- especially when they all look genuinely happy.



And also, umbrellas and parasols are wonderful.

Thursday, October 21, 2010

I love my ducks


and the fact that I can count on them every week for a mood boost.

And also, the matte black helmets are I think as sexy as a football helmet can be.

Jelly Shot party anyone?

This is awesome. Thank you NOTCOT

Jelly Shot Test Kitchen

Thursday, October 14, 2010

Eating Animals

I'm currently making my way through Jonathan Safran Foer's book, Eating Animals. Because he usually writes fiction, I find his book to be much more enjoyable than other books I have read on the topic of food choices. There is a voice. There are also, however, facts. Facts upon facts upon facts.
The most important point and the one that I have not seen addressed nearly as clearly and as well in other books covering similar topics is this:

The forgetting that people must do in order to eat meat.
People must purposely avoid the knowledge of what happens to their food before it becomes food in order to continue justifying it to themselves (or to avoid confronting the issue all together). This includes my best friends, my parents, and most of the people I respect. Most people refuse to read/watch/listen to things that will tell them about their food because they know that if they knew, then making the conscious decision to continue eating meat would go against their ideas of what is right and moral.
It tastes good and it is familiar. To know, and to be forced to consciously confront the issue of what that taste and familiarity costs, would be inconvenient. To face the idea that your food used to feel and think and suffer (as it certainly did. 99% of the meat consumed in the US is produced on factory farms. Every single animal on those farms suffers every day) in a real and honest way makes most people extremely uncomfortable.

Here’s the rub- if you are knowingly evading the knowledge, then you are knowingly choosing to participate in something that you think is wrong. If you felt good about the choice, you wouldn’t have to protect yourself from the reality of it.

If you're not willing to think about that- think about this:


Antibiotics.

We have to get prescriptions for antibiotics from our doctors because if people used them too much, then we'd build up a resistance too quickly. The idea is to only give them to the people that really need them so that we can use them longer.
Factory farming necessitates that animals be fed antibiotics preemptively, routinely. The conditions are so terrible and the animals have been bred/genetically modified into such distortions of their natural selves that they CANNOT survive without a constant stream of antibiotics. And then we eat them. Human resistance to antibiotics is skyrocketing because of this practice.

Epidemics.

If you’re still reading at this point, then maybe you’re willing to think about this a little more. Get a hold of this book. Read the chapter called Influence/Speechlessness. Be afraid. Be very afraid. Seriously.

Shitwater flavored Chicken

Part of processing 99% of the chicken you eat (the chicken they sell to you at Red Robin and the chicken your grandma makes you for dinner) is to cool the dead chicken after processing by submerging it in water. ‘Farms’ use this practice (despite how gross I’m about to tell you it is) because it allows the carcass to absorb water, therefore making it heavier and increasing the profit.
Fun Fact: Feces are considered a ‘cosmetic blemish’ by USDA health inspectors. So, when the machines used to slaughter and dismember your dinner hit the bird’s intestines and feces are released into the inside of the bird, the health inspector sends it on down the line and into the cooling tank. It’s fine, the damage is only cosmetic. The water in these tanks has been deemed ‘fecal soup’ because of all of the filth that comes off of the chickens and floats around in the water. This is the water that the farmers want absorbed so that they can get higher prices. Afterwards, they will douse the bird in chlorine in hopes if disinfecting it and then inject it with MORE liquid- usually broth or flavoring- to make it taste the way you expect it to and to further inflate the weight and therefore the cost of the chicken.

Done preaching for now. I’m not going to sass you if we go to a restaurant and you order a fatty cheeseburger. I’m not perfect. I’m just saying that if you’re willing to eat it you should be willing to at least know about it.

Tuesday, October 12, 2010

Someday

I will be able to afford beautiful vintage gowns from Xtabay and I'll feel so pretty I'll hardly be able to stand it.






Monday, October 11, 2010

Dear Joey,

It is 3:30AM. I have been on my feet, working for free, for 15 hours now- on 4 hours of sleep(because you were whining and kept me up). I came home, expecting some accidents because I had to leave you at home so long. I was feeling really guilty about you being all by yourself all day. And then I felt even more guilty when all I saw was one pile of Joey crap. 15 hours and only one pile of crap. No puddle to clean up. I was ecstatic. I was thinking, Joey Monster I love the shit out of you. Then I went to grab my newly washed comforter so that I could go to sleep. It's wet. In fact, it's urine-soaked. So are all of my other blankets that were sitting underneath it. Melissa is the only other person with a key to my apartment and she is in Bend so I know she didn't pee on my blankets. That just leaves you. And since when do you get up on the couch to pee? This was deliberate and malicious, Joseph. I'm hurt. So now I'm loading up laundry at all hours of the night and bundling up like I'm going camping since you peed on ALL of my blankets.
Nobody deserves this, Joey. Probably not even Hitler.

No I take that back. He's probably on the short list of people who deserve to have every single blanket they own pissed on and find out at 3:30AM when all they want to do is sleep. It is a very fucking short list.