{"id":855,"date":"2010-09-06T12:23:57","date_gmt":"2010-09-06T17:23:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/zimmerscope.com\/Verbisaurus\/?p=855"},"modified":"2010-09-06T12:23:57","modified_gmt":"2010-09-06T17:23:57","slug":"marriage","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/zimmerscope.com\/Verbisaurus\/2010\/09\/marriage\/","title":{"rendered":"Marriage"},"content":{"rendered":"

Friday, 03 September 2010<\/strong><\/p>\n

Following a 14-year tradition, my mom took Jennifer and I out for dinner this evening for our anniversary. It\u2019s been 10 days since our anniversary, but my mom, to her credit, purposely does not bother us during the few days surrounding our anniversary, as she figures we might be doing something special (often we are). Also, she wasn\u2019t even in town until two days ago, so she couldn\u2019t have done this much sooner anyways.<\/p>\n

I noticed that these mom-sponsored meals are probably getting more expensive for her, even taking inflation into account. For our first couple of anniversaries, my parents were still married, and so they took us out together. Once they parted ways, my mom continued to take us out for dinner on her own bank account. For the last few years, she\u2019s had to pay for Owen, too, and soon Isla will be ordering food, too.<\/p>\n

We ate at T.G.I. Friday (Thank Ganesha It\u2019s Friday). I ordered a salad and a side of mashed potatoes. I really was in the mood for a baked potato but \u2013 get this \u2013 Fridays does not have baked potatoes. Hm. That\u2019s weird. I mean, they have fries and mashed potatoes, so why can\u2019t they just bake one of those potatoes instead of just frying or mashing it? I suppose they probably get their potatoes pre-fried and mashed.<\/p>\n

Saturday, 04 September 2010<\/strong><\/p>\n

Today was taken up largely with the wedding of a co-worker. I\u2019m sorry to report that I did not officiate this wedding, but happy to report that I did not videotape it, either.<\/p>\n

This was the second Catholic wedding I\u2019ve attended. Like the first, it lasted about an hour. Despite its length, however, it would appear the typical Catholic wedding has about as much practical content as the 10-minute wedding that I performed back in July. I\u2019m not saying that to take a slam on Catholics, I\u2019m saying it because, and I think all those Pope-lovers will agree with me, there\u2019s an awful lot of pomp and tradition in there.<\/p>\n

There were several readings from scriptures, for one thing. The first one, from the book of Tobit, was at least pretty and poetic. The others, including one from Romans, were only marginally applicable to marriage. There were a couple of songs in there, and a candle was lit. The biggest time consumer, however, was when the high priest alternated between English and Pig Latin and between normal voice and theatrical voice. He performed a magic show, in which he turned wine into blood, then he invited people from the audience to come and drink it. I think he passed out Cheez-its, too.<\/p>\n

Mercifully, the priest didn\u2019t crack any jokes about the length of the ceremony. However, he did say that many couples, when reflecting on their wedding day, will note that they remember precious little about the ceremony. My guess is that the reason for this is that Catholic weddings, like Witness weddings, are merely carbon copies of each other and so, after years of attending so many such ceremonies, one\u2019s own tends to blend in with all the others.<\/p>\n

All in all, here\u2019s how the wedding broke down:<\/p>\n

Traditional and ceremonial stuff (that had no relevance to the marriage): 35 minutes<\/p>\n

Pretty stuff (that made the ceremony classy\/special): 15 minutes<\/p>\n

Advice and practical words for the new couple: 8 minutes<\/p>\n

Legal procedures (done to ensure the marriage was legit): 2 minutes<\/p>\n

And here\u2019s how the wedding I performed broke down:<\/p>\n

Traditional and ceremonial stuff (that had no relevance to the marriage): 0 minutes<\/p>\n

Pretty stuff (that made the ceremony classy\/special): 2 minutes<\/p>\n

Advice and practical words for the new couple: 6 minutes<\/p>\n

Legal procedures (done to ensure the marriage was legit): 2 minutes
\n<\/strong><\/p>\n

Sunday, 05 September 2010<\/strong><\/p>\n

We\u2019ve had a string of very full days lately. For the first few weeks following Isla\u2019s birth, there were many days where we didn\u2019t even leave the house. Then there were several days of doing just one thing (like grocery shopping, or bringing Owen on a playdate with his preschool buddies). But during the past week, we\u2019ve had lots of stuff everyday: doctor\u2019s appointment, my mom in town, getting our haircut, a wedding, and other random things.<\/p>\n

Today we first had to drive up to Jennifer\u2019s parents\u2019 house to pick up our son. He slept over there last night while we partied the night away at a wedding reception. Then Isla had some more visitors this evening. Well, they came to visit all of us, I think, but the main reason was to see the new baby. Owen received the Rock \u2018Em Sock \u2018Em Robots game, which is sure to be a hit (pun intended) as it combines his love or robots and games with his love of making noise.<\/p>\n

Tonight, I suggested we watch a movie (our latest Netflix), but Jennifer said she was too tired. Owen watched a documentary on Volcanoes, and then we turned in for the night.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Friday, 03 September 2010 Following a 14-year tradition, my mom took Jennifer and I out for dinner this evening for our anniversary. It\u2019s been 10 days since our anniversary, but my mom, to her credit, purposely does not bother us during the few days surrounding our anniversary, as she figures we might be doing something […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-855","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-current-events"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/zimmerscope.com\/Verbisaurus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/855","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/zimmerscope.com\/Verbisaurus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/zimmerscope.com\/Verbisaurus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zimmerscope.com\/Verbisaurus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zimmerscope.com\/Verbisaurus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=855"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/zimmerscope.com\/Verbisaurus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/855\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":856,"href":"https:\/\/zimmerscope.com\/Verbisaurus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/855\/revisions\/856"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/zimmerscope.com\/Verbisaurus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=855"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zimmerscope.com\/Verbisaurus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=855"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zimmerscope.com\/Verbisaurus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=855"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}