Baked Alaska from Ici (mine looked a bit bloodier inside--inner layer: raspberry rose, outside layer: strawberry--so I clipped this from the website). It was so much better than I had even dared to dream! Thank you, husband, for listening and remembering when I talk about the things I love. You're the berries.
2. this Cabot cheddar commercial
3. a slightly less attentive husband (not all gifts are good)
4. ample TV time with which to upload the dreaded wedding pics
And by dreaded, I hope you know I really mean beloved. So heartily beloved, in fact, that their absence from this blog has given me great pain and kept me from moving on to less weighty matters of posting, such as the lemon icebox pie I made this weekend and my opinion of twitter. I mean, it's been 6 months! Nobody cares anymore! But I can't let it go, so here in short order is Part One: in which our hero Cameron Cunningham goes from sleepless completion of a midterm lab write-up, to wedded bliss on the lawn of the Los Angeles LDS Temple. Photos courtesy* of Jorge Ambrocio and Barbara Cunningham (much love to them both).
*I know there were more of you taking pictures that day. We'd love to see them sometime!
I'm watching the Giants/Rockies game with Cameron, rooting for San Francisco--which feels very unnatural (but it'll keep Colorado further from my Dodgers' slowly eroding place at the top)--and since Cameron's laptop is sitting close by on the couch, I thought I'd root through his picture folder to see if I could find something provocative to post.
Success
Nice to know his previous roommate was on the other end of that camera.
But today, distance and situational impotence provoke me to turn here--a corner of the interwebs I'm sure hardly anyone visits anymore except in the hopes of seeing wedding pictures (which I promise will come one day)--to tell you what I can about my parents.
First. They're the kind of parents who said swears even when we were young. They're the kind who told us at young ages that they were deviant kids, and who described to us with a glimmer in their eyes (sometimes a wink, sometimes a tear) their forms of rebellion. They're the kind who really really couldn't wait to give us the sex talk because more than anything they loved to watch us squirm. They're the kind who didn't leave the room to have a fight. And I start with all this because I think it's important to point out that they are flawed, but in that rare way where they never expected us to think that they weren't.
Second. The most important thing they've taught me: they would always love me, more than anything, no matter what.
Third. Some key things I've learned about them (by watching and testing, as all kids do...)
They're honest--more honest than the vast majority of people I believe I've met in my adult life.
They mean harm to no one. Not a soul. Ever.
They're learning as they go.
They believe, above most things (but not all), in the inherent humor of all situations.
Behind those big mouths, they feel things very very deeply, both for themselves and for others.
Fourth. The most important thing I think I can say to them right now: I believe in you.
Since there's nothing I can do to stop the hurting, I thought I would at least stand for the truth and declare the unassailable fact that John and Lynn Forester have only ever tried to do what they truly thought was right, and when they've failed (as all do) it's been the result of all-too-common human frailty, rather than malicious and selfish plotting. I've never been more proud and grateful than in this moment to have been lucky enough to be their daughter.
The summer Tyler and Leah got married I dated a guy whose best friend had just published his first book, Breeding Between the Lines: Why Interracial People are Healthier and More Attractive. Clearly my first niece proves his thesis. And so, on the eve (hopefully--she's 8 days over now) of the birth of Rachel & Jorge's daughter, I say huzzah for immigrants and adoption and hope and endurance and the clash and mixing of cultures. It's a big beautiful feathery colorful skyfilled world, and somehow it seems to keep creating more things in it for me to love.
