So, why do I like weddings?

I guess I like the idea of a big party where you invite the people you love, look beautiful and have a great time. At your wedding you can say, I want my party to be like this, down to even the little details. I love that it’s a party that all your people make an effort to attend. In a perfect world all my loved ones would be able to drop everything and fly to every single potluck, birthday, new years eve party I host, but alas, that is not the case. A wedding is the one event (other than a funeral) where people really really make an effort to attend. Please RSVP and they arrive ON TIME! I love that part. And I love dancing to cheesy music at wedding dances.

Another positive note about weddings, is the speeches. While sitting through a terrible speech is, well, terrible – a wonderful speech is special. When in our lives do we take the time to say, “you are awesome for the following reasons, I love you and I am so honoured to be able to celebrate with you”? I find wedding speeches very moving, I always cry even when I barely know the couple. It is a very special and rare thing to have an occasion to talk honestly about the deep emotional relationships we have with our friends, family, and partners.

I guess that brings me to what some might consider the most obvious reason to like weddings and that is celebrating the relationship you have with the person you are marrying. I haven’t always seen the value in this part. The way I see it, being in love isn’t a magical thing that happen to us, it’s something we grow and work on. Meeting a person that inspires you to do that work may be magical, and the feeling of falling in love is magical, but being in a day-to-day relationship has its ups and downs. I don’t think having a wedding (or the paper-work attached marriage) necessarily makes doing the work any easier or any more inspired.

The older I get and the more I talk to people who are married the more I see that for some people there is value in making your commitment to a person public. One of my good friends that is married said that after she was married she didn’t feel much different about her relationship to her husband (she was as dedicated as always) but she said everyone around her (and society in general) seemed to give more weight to her married relationship than her dating one. People gave their relationship space and recognition. When they were dating choosing where to place the holidays was a struggle, each family seemed to think they deserved to have their child for all holidays. Once they were married – although both sides still wanted the couple to attend – they were given more slack for making decisions and sharing holidays between the families. All of a sudden, considering her husband above all else was regarded as a valid choice.

I realize now that what a wedding means to you, in terms of your relationship with your spouse, is a personal thing. Some people want God to witness their union, others want the community to witness and support the union, for others it’s about family, and for some it’s about making those personal commitments public. I think for me, if I were to get married, the wedding vows would be a public declaration that I intended to try harder at this relationship than I have ever tried at anything in my life. But I am still not sure if I need to make that commitment public. I see just as much value in making these commitments privately as you work through the challenges of life. Every day you wake up beside someone you love and decide to try to make it work- that’s why you put the toothpaste cap back on for them, why you close the cupboard doors to avoid annoying them, why you remember to put an extra cookie in their lunches- you don’t have to do these things, but you do.

Comment to this post and I will give you 5 subjects/things I associate you with. Then post this in your LJ and elaborate on the subjects given. This came from crys79 , who associates me with:

The Shop Easy – Oh, Shop Easy! The Clarence Ave Shop Easy is/was the grocery store on the corner of Clarence and 12^th in Saskatoon. I worked there for years (maybe from 2001 to 2003? or 2004?) during my undergrad. It paid crap, the owners were racist, it smelled like smoked meat but it was an easy job and close to my house(s) so I stayed there. During my tenure at the Shop Easy I worked with two difference gals who I ended up becoming friends with and then living with (JoElla the first year I worked there and then Chanelle in my last year). During my time in Saskatoon I never lived more than 5 blocks from that place (other than those 6 weeks at Chad’s parents place). Do I remember the Shop Easy fondly? No so much ... Do I remember it? Like it was yesterday.

Sociology – I have two degrees in Sociology (as soon as I finish revising my thesis anyway). I remember learning what Sociology was while I was in High School and thinking, wow, that sounds really interesting maybe I will be a Sociologist. I took my first Sociology class in the first semester of undergrad and I was hooked. The fact that I met one of my best friends in that class was just a bonus! I loved my undergrad years; I was co-chair of the Sociology Undergraduate Students Association, I sat as the Undergrad Rep for the Department, I spent my one term “off” between my undergrad and masters working in the Sociology department for one of my profs (shout out to the Schizzels yo!), I found the discipline utterly fascinating. Even though my masters degree taught me that I don’t want to be an academic (and I don’t really think of myself as a Sociologist) I am still proud that Sociology is “my” discipline. Plus, without Sociology I would have never met Dorothy Smith, one of the greatest and most inspiring people. Dorothy is the main reason that Feminist Sociology exists.   

Cooking – I am glad that people associate me with cooking. I love to cook, although these weeks away from Tim have taught me that I much much much prefer cooking with and for people than by myself. Although, I did have a delicious beet, carrot & ginger salad on quinoa for lunch today – but that is another story for another post.  I have attempted/thought about/pipe-dreamed about making my livejournal a food blog many times but it never works out. First, because I am too lazy (and untalented) to take food photographs. And second, because I am not a good enough writing to make it interesting. It doesn’t matter, no matter what I do I am always going to enjoy talking about food (in person, on my blog, in my sleep) and eating food.

 
Tim – How do I feel about being associated with Tim in my top 5 ...? Well, there is a time when I would have thought that being associated with my boyfriend through my livejournal was lame. Likely there are people who will read this who will think it is lame. Nonetheless, I am not embarrassed of it and it is not lame. Being associated with Tim through livejournal does not mean that I am just some girl who yammers on about her boyfriend on her lj (if you think that feel free to stop reading now and never come back). Talking about Tim on lj is about being happy, it’s about being in a healthy committed relationship, it’s about valuing the time I spend with my partner and then talking about the things that we do together. In my life, the things I do with Tim are important, because Tim is important and because I am happier with Tim than I ever thought possible. Another thing that I want to mention here is that Tim isn’t just some guy. Tim is one of the most passionate, dedicated, well grounded people that I have ever met. Honestly, he makes me a better person. He is going to practice Environmental and Aboriginal law. He has taught me so much about how to live better and how to be conscientious of the Earth and other people. He’s smart, funny and caring. He is also a damn fine Scrabble player.

Victoria – Is Victoria home? Who knows? I don’t necessarily feel like I know Victoria the way I felt I knew Saskatoon. But, on the other hand, Victoria has a lot of good things to offer, for example the ocean, proximity to hiking and camping, bike routes, fish and farmers markets, good restaurants, moderate temperatures. Getting to know Victoria and the people in Victoria has been fun and I don’t feel as though I am finished yet. I am really enjoying being in Victoria right now (well, not exactly right now because Tim is in Vancouver). I like my apartment, I like my job, I have some good friends. Victoria is a good place to be now. I am open to going other places (other cities, other provinces, other countries).

Homemade spring rolls and potstickers in my freezer!

Clean fridge!

Clean bedding!

Partially clean house!

Shined up my kettle!

Making stew for supper!

Ba-am!
 

I have accomplished one of the ambitions of my adult life! Haza!
Yesterday afternoon I met up with Marnie in Chinatown. Less than $20 later we had all the fixings for spring rolls and pot stickers.  One more stop at the local butcher (Marnie’s local butcher near Estevan village in Oak Bay) for some ground pork and we were ready to roll. And roll we did! By the end of the night we had made over 60 appetizers. We had both veggie and pork spring rolls as well as pork pot stickers. We tried a couple and they are all delicious. Now, I am so excited to have homemade hors d'oeuvres in my freezer! Yesterday was a pretty great Valentine’s day for me.

Last night after I came home from Marnie and Jareds place I check my email, read a little and went to bed – just like I would most Saturday nights while Tim is playing poker. Then, at 5:00 am I woke up. After a few minutes of laying there I realized that my body has probably become used to my Saturday night routine - falling asleep without Tim and waking up at some ungodly hour when he comes home. The latest he has ever gotten home is 5:30am and when he is that late I usually wake up before he gets in. I guess that is what happened last night, except he wasn’t really at poker, he was in Vancouver.

Today while running errands downtown I saw:

 1. A man carrying a huge garbage bag full of recyclables riding his bike the wrong direction down Fort Street. He was weaving in traffic. He looked like he didn’t want to stop because he might spill his load.

 2. A man pushing his shopping cart down the middle of Cook Street, just like he was a regular vehicle in traffic. I gave the second man a look, a smile and then a wave. The smile he gave me back was the warmest thing I’ve felt all day.

 This city needs to wake up. Homelessness and poverty are huge problems. I don’t know what the solution is but it sure as hell isn’t ignoring the problem, or arguing about where all the homeless people come from.