Dog days

Stella and I were looking desperately at each other during the heat of the day when I snapped this yesterday.  If she had an IPhone, she'd have a similar pic of me in the chair on her blog (coming soon - "Hey, you gonna eat that?" a blog by Stella...)  We both ended up eating ice cubes while lying down on the tiled kitchen floor.  

Welcome to Sunnydale. This is how it's done on the Hellmouth.

Oh, I had forgotten just how wonderful this is.  It's like staring at the Grand Canyon...sniff...

50 Shades of Hey, anyone else see a problem here?

OR:  How Twilight and its plagiarized progeny reflect and perpetuate a hostile cultural climate toward women*

Yes, I made this.  That's
how enraged I am.**

Earlier this week, I got an email from my homegirl Kris with the subject "Too good not to share." Now Kris has a special window into my head (enjoying the crazy view, Kris?  Don't mind those midges buzzing around.) and usually knows that I'm going to find something just as funny, interesting, or enraging as she does, so I was pretty excited to check out what she was sharing.  The email contained two links:

1. Text from Dog (which is so, so funny) 

2. Jennifer Armintrout's chapter-by-chapter recap of 50 Shades of Grey.

Now, I should start by saying I haven't read the whole book, let alone the whole trilogy.  I had no interest in reading it, in spite of the fact that everywhere I go, people are completely devouring it (not literally, thank god, especially since so many are reading it on their Kindles).  Some of these people were from the target demographic: adult women on the train, some of the women I work with, some of my friends' moms, wives, etc.  But others were a surprise, like my colleague from the science department who is a middle-aged man  reading it during his ridiculous daily commute between the Bronx and Queens.  Regardless, I still didn't feel like reading it for my own reasons, mostly that I knew it was originally a Twilight fanfiction and I have a lot of problems with Twilight to begin with.  (For a more detailed analysis and breakdown of my feelings on Twilight, check out my old blog where you'll learn that I couldn't even finish it for many of the reasons I'm about to unpack.  You'll also learn that I designed a blog with a font and background combination specifically designed to blind the reader, and that 3 years ago, I was in a way better mood and have since progressed into a full-on rageaholic, a la Ron Swanson in this picture.)

This pic will also serve as your daily Swanspiration.  You're welcome.  

Also, I should tell you that I don't think I'm above either erotic or YA fiction for entertainment (or analysis, clearly).  One book on my summer reading list is D.H. Lawrence's The Rainbow, which is supposed to be pretty hot, and I have become as obsessed with Suzanne Collins' The Hunger Games trilogy as any teen girl currently braiding her hair all cool and taking up archery for fun and profit.  Lots of my girlfriends read bodice-rippers for fun, and I give my brain some candy with the Sookie Stackhouse novels and don't care who knows it.  I also read all the Harry Potter books as an adult and still have dreams influenced by The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe and Coraline.  So I mean it when I say I love me some well-written erotic fiction and some good YA literature.  Hell, I don't even have a problem with fanfiction.  I read a ton of that stuff in college, mostly Buffy the Vampire Slayer fanfic.  I even wrote some goofy stuff with my buddy Morgan.   My beef is not with the genres, rather how the genres are being used in these cases to  characterize women and girls as passive, brainless creatures devoid of any sense of self or agency.

That said, I was definitely up for reading Armintrout's recaps, because it looked like (and turned out to be) a much better, followed-through version of what I attempted to do with Twilight on my old blog a couple of years ago.  (Armintrout clearly has a stronger constitution for this stuff and a better ability to finish a project she starts.  She's also a published romance novelist, so there's that as well.)  It started out as a hilarious diversion, reading this blog.  Armintrout is quick with the snark, and takes E.L. James to task for her incredibly poor sentence and paragraph structure and complete lack of characterization, and she does so with a razor wit and some very clever remarks. (What can I say?  Jokes about subject-verb agreement just tickle me.)  I love her writing style, and the images she chooses to accompany her text are awesome.  I not only laughed, but screamed out loud several times reading the chapter-by-chapter breakdown and commentary.  In her recaps, Armintrout naturally includes some extensive block quotes from the actual text, so the link above has a great deal of the original source material.  And as the recaps of chapters go on, while still hilarious, they get more and more alarming in the text sampled and in Armintrout's own analysis, with which I largely agree.

It seems that the book that's captivating a nation of women, that's allegedly firing things up in the bedrooms of millions of housewives is really just a play-by-play of an abusive relationship between a sociopath and a stupidhead (sorry for the 6th grade name-calling, but I do love me some alliteration.)  That women are embracing the character of Christian Grey as someone they'd not only wanna bed, but someone they'd want to wed, is as nauseating to me as the fact that to millions of teenage girls, Edward is like, totes the most  awesome boyfriend, OMG.  That either of these douchecanoes is being elevated to the status of the ultimate dream guy is really a huge problem for me.

Oh what's that, you say?  It's only fiction, it's only a story, it's totally harmless? I'm clearly too prudish, stuck up, not cool?  Here, meet my homegirl Valerie.

Stupid Miracle Max doesn't see the problem with these tired tropes.  

It's not harmless.  To me, it works both ways.  It's reflecting some piss-poor attitudes about women's sexuality in which they are supposed to be played, not act as a player.   And in turn it's also perpetuating them, because both stories end up with the heroine snagging the alleged hero and supposedly solving all his problems and living happily ever after.  Only by playing into this twisted tale and being a completely helpless, hopeless individual lacking in any self-esteem does she arrive at what the author thinks is a happy ending.  Satisfaction is only achieved vicariously through healing the wounded hero (with her love! oooh!), becoming what he wants, and ultimately being possessed by him.  I mean, really, what the hell.

On the Twilight level, Bella is one-dimensional and insipid.  And maybe that's strategically done so that every kind of teenage girl can relate to her, but we have to rely on what other characters say about her to form an opinion because she doesn't really act.  And everybody around her seems to think she's so awesome, and I really never saw her do anything so awesome to merit this.  She mostly just sits around and bitches about the lack of literature in the library and how waahwaahwaaaah, she is too pale and skinny and how could anyone ever think she is pretty and oh my god shut up. (Oh man, just thinking about it irks me, and it's been years. Still, shut up Bella! God!)  And all the boys are just nuts about her because, I don't know, I guess guys love a girl who complains about everything and thinks she's better than everyone around her?  I know this book is supposed to be fantasy, but I have an easier time suspending my disbelief about the existence of vampires and werewolves than I do about this twit being so goddamn irresistible to everyone around her, because she doesn't actually like anyone or say or do anything in a friendly way.

And I have the same problem dealing with the characters Ana and Christian in 50 Shades.  I mean, clearly they are Bella and Edward, except now their interactions include 100% more nudity and about 60% more leather.  It's no secret that the book is allegedly about a BDSM relationship, but from what I've read of it, it's really more about a stalker who wants to control every aspect of a woman's life.  Oh yeah, and this woman happens to also be a horrible, horrible person. Let's look at a few of the things he does:

• He tracks her cellphone to find her.
• He shows up at her job unannounced and buys a bunch of rope and duct tape (y'know, for the murderin'.)
• He buys her a laptop and blackberry so she can keep in constant contact with him
• He freaking shows up in Georgia uninvited while she's visiting her mother (He lives in Seattle, by the way. Or Portland.  I don't know. Whatever. WEST COAST.)  This is after she dramatically tells him she needs space.  Way to not give her space, Douche.

Ana's just like Bella in that everyone around her talks about what a strong and amazing woman she is, but she shows none of these qualities in anything she does.  All she ever does is complain about how much everyone around her sucks and how intriguing Christian is.*** Oh wait, she also flushes all the time and bites her lip a lot.  (And now that I think about it, she doesn't even really like Christian all that much.  She claims to love him, but she doesn't talk about him the way you'd talk about a guy you actually like.  Y'know, what his interests are, whether he likes baseball or what kind of stuff he likes to do.  Apart from spanking.)  Her "foil" (if the novel had that much structure) is her friend Kate, whom Ana actually really seems to dislike.  (She's fine with living off of Kate's wealth, though.)  When Ana gets involved with Christian Grey, Kate also gets involved with  Christian's brother Elliot.  While Ana and Christian have this twisted Dom and sub thing going on CONSTANTLY (not just in the "Red Room of Pain," like, gimme a freaking break), Kate and Elliot actually seem to like each other and function as a normal couple.  Of course Ana finds this all disgusting and whorish of Kate.  Kate actually kisses Elliot in public, (gross, amirite?) invites him on vacation with her family (while Christian shows up uninvited to Georgia all "Hey whassup, I'm totally not here to murder you.") and while it is implied that Kate and Elliot are sleeping together, whatever kink they're into is their business, and you get the feeling that outside the bedroom, they do things that normal couples do.  Like hit up the design exhibit at the MoMA, or go to Ikea, or whatever. The point is, they act like actual people who like each other.  But the author uses Ana to completely disparage Kate at every given opportunity, so we the audience are supposed to be like, yeah, Kate sucks!  It's so much better to have a raging psychopath stalking and manipulating every iota of your existence.  Romance!

Also, Kate enjoys her relationship.  Ana seems to hate that Christian can provoke all sorts of physiological responses in her.  Y'know, because it's wrong for women to actually enjoy anything involving sex.  Wrong, wrong, wrong.  Oh and this is Ana's first relationship because no man has ever interested her.  Meanwhile, Christian's had partners in the double digits.  I'm tired of this trope.   You're tired of this trope.  Your momma is tired of this trope.

E.L. James also completely disregards laws of physics and human physiology when describing intimate moments between them.  I guess it makes sense in the original fanfic where Christian was Edward,  and y'know, a vampire.  But as Armintrout points out, humans have something called a refractory period.  Look it up, James. (And I really don't need to hear from her fans about how their boyfriends are just like Christian because A. I don't wanna know him if he is, and B. You're lying.)

Also, I think E.L. James really undershot it when she decided that bondage was going to shock the hell out of everyone.  I know this is supposed to be "mommy porn," and really, that description is misleading and kinda makes me want to vomit, but if she REALLY wanted to shock people, she'd make Christian Grey someone who could only get off by being covered in chum and then doing it in a tank full of sharks.  Or maybe like that James Spader movie where they have to be in a car crash to achieve sexual congress. Then I'd think Grey was freaky.  I mean, Criminal Minds and SVU have really desensitized people.  Taboo just isn't as taboo as you think it is, James.

It was a second email that really inspired this essay.  This morning, my homegirl Erika sent me this:

And that's what really brought it all home for me.  Like I said earlier, I was really into Buffy back in college, and I'm currently very into True Blood.   The difference is that vampires aren't exalted or confused with human men, let alone IDEAL human men.  They're supernatural and dangerous.  And not sparkly.  Buffy was created in 1997, at the tail end of a decade that was really focused on young girls getting in touch with their inner badass.  There was the Riot Grrrl movement, Bikini Kill, Hole, and yeah, I'm gonna say it, even the Spice Girls got on board with female empowerment.  Bella, on the other hand, hit her peak about a decade later, after a serious backlash (yes, I broke out the Susan Faludi for this post) against female agency.  Buffy was a flawed individual, but at the end of the day she was a 3 dimensional character who was active in her friendships and relationships and had no problem taking care of business on her own.  (Sookie Stackhouse is also deeply flawed, but again, also a complicated character whom I'll save for another essay.)  Buffy was supportive of her best friend, enjoyed quality time with her mom, and fell in love with a guy while being cautious about getting mixed up with him because of his romantic past and oh yeah, the fact that he was a vampire.  She actually even killed her boyfriend once to save the world.  Bella just whined a lot.  In fact, from what I hear, that's pretty much the whole second book.

So we've really gone downhill when it comes to examples of strong women in popular culture and literature.  A few years ago, the school librarian had a book discussion with the students with a focus question "Is Bella A Strong Woman" and I really had to grit my teeth and restrain myself (not in a 50 shades kind of way) from sticking my head in the library and yelling, "SHE'S NOT!  END OF DISCUSSION!" because I liked that my students were reading something other than Chocolate Flava when I confiscated their books.  But it's gone from bad to worse since then, because this isn't just about girls getting crappy ideas about relationships, it's about grown-ass women perpetuating them.


Sigh.  I think I'll watch some Buffy on Netflix.

*Yes, this is an unwieldy title, but this is my blog, not The New Yorker. Plus, I was gonna call it "Spanker?  I don't even know 'er!"  Happy now?

** It was either make this image or go back to playing my two least favorite single apartment-dweller games:  "How long can I ignore that laundry pile before it falls over and kills my cat?" and "What the hell is that smell and where is it coming from?"  Hey, wait a minute...
***Armintrout actually discusses a whole lot of red flags in the book that point to classic hallmarks of an abusive relationship.  It's actually not even funny.  

Daily Swanspiration

"Crying: Acceptable at Funerals and the Grand Canyon."

I disappoint Ron very often.  I mean, I'm very often at the...Grand Canyon.  I go to the Grand Canyon or a funeral when I'm tired, or angry, or murderous. 

Like right now, I just got to the bottom of my slurpee, and discovered a giant fly in it.  And promptly spiraled out of control and almost ended up in the Grand Canyon.

Swanson Pyramid of Greatness

My (non-human) girls

Bitches be crazy.

Kitties be lazy.

Blood's thicker than mud

I hang out at my parents' place a lot.  It's usually a win-win because I get a meal out of the deal and they get the satisfaction of visual proof that I'm eating (ok, this is more of a win for my mom.)  That's not all, obviously.  We actually enjoy each other's company and provide one other with hours of entertainment - at least by our family's standards.  For example, there's my mom and her growing ability to make technology work for her.  Sort of.

Ever since email had become a thing that people in offices had and she figured out how to hit forward, I've been getting lots of messages involving prayers, cartoons of sassy old ladies, and silly pictures of cats.

Like this:

And this:

Um, who has a cat and a copier in the same location?

A big leap happened last year when my mom learned to text.  She sent me one, but as I was at work when I read it, I was slow to respond.  So I got an email a couple of hours later, with the subject line reading "Did you get my text?!?"  Welcome to the world of texting, Ma.  People here leave you hanging and generally act like jerks.  Or worse, they are witty and cool in this world and disappointingly flat in the real one.

So a couple of months ago, I accompanied my folks to the AT&T store to update their phones and act as interpreter for any fancy tech talk they might encounter (they didn't really need me there, they were fine but whatever, blah blah blah filial piety...) Being equipped with a fancy new phone, my mom decided to show off her mad skillz by texting me a picture of the calendar I made her (out of pictures I took - so meta)  for her cubicle at work.  And she hit a small snag.

Moms can figure out how to scream at you in so many ways.

Speaking of phones, she gets really frustrated playing with my IPhone.  She was super excited to show me a website she discovered and tried to pull it up on my phone, but kept getting all frustrated when she'd touch an icon in the corner and a bookmark menu would come down or she'd open or a new link or other annoyances that prevented her from her goal.  Mind you, while she's doing this, she's moving it closer, then further, back and forth to get the right visual distance because she has inevitably taken off her glasses to see it better and it's this whole hilarious juggling act that I cannot adequately describe.  But it was worth it, because in her web surfing she has stumbled onto something damn hilarious and I spent the rest of the evening scrolling through the images and laughing my ass off. 

This guy Steve Melcher over at this gem right here created a daily comic strip where he takes a painting - and often a famous or historic one - and gives it a new title.  So simple, so brilliant.  So damn funny.  Like the one she sent me today: 

Or this guy, with whom I have something in common:

And my personal favorite: 

Seriously, go through them all.  There are so many recognizable paintings re-appropriated for hilarious purposes.  And you'll learn something, too.  Like I learned that the Dutch masters are depressing, the Flemish are freaky, and there are more paintings of the Annunciation than you can shake a stick at, if that's your thing. This guy's a genius and I'm jealous I didn't think of this first.  

UPDATE:  Here's his blog.  http://thatispriceless.blogspot.com/

So back to hanging out with my parents.  It being Friday, and a stormy one at that, we kicked it old school with pizza and a movie.  Back to the Future III was on, and even though lots of people hate on it as the worst part of the trilogy, my mom and I like it because we both dig Westerns.  My dad had arrived at this point, and he's on the other end of the couch playing with the dog and not paying a whole lot of attention.  At one point he looks up at the screen and asks, 

"Hey, isn't this the movie where they all sit around and fart?"

Pause.

"No, no, Dad, that's Blazing Saddles."

My mother is laughing hysterically and she tells him we're watching Back to the Future III.  Having not hit the nail on the head the first time, and the fact that that my mom was still on the other side of the room, he was back to playing with Stella before taking in that last detail.  Because a minute later, he sees Michael J. Fox on screen and says,

"Hey, isn't that the guy from Back the Future?"

Well that was enough for me and my mom and we both lost it at this point, and now Dad's in on the joke, because he sees Christopher Lloyd and says, 

"Hey, isn't that the guy from Taxi?"

But he's laughing before he gets to the end of the question. It's almost as indescribable as when my mom futzes with her glasses and my IPhone, and he does it all the time, so if you've met him, you've seen this.

Then we all tune in to the Stella show, because it's better than anything on T.V. (though with her gas reserves, she'd fit in with the cast of Blazing Saddles just fine) and she's just crazy and goofy and it's obvious that she and my dad are just nuts about each other.

Dad with his baby girl.  The other one, with four legs.  I have just the two.

Why yes, that's my brilliant father putting his arm in a pit bull's mouth.

Clearly he and this dog have a special bond.  So special, in fact, that he asked me the other day if I thought  my mother was jealous of the dog and how much he loves her.

"Seriously, Dad?  No."

I told my mom about this and she thought it was pretty funny.  Also, no.

After hanging out with them for a while, my dad drove me home and bought me a black and white cookie at the diner on the way.  Awesome, right?  We listened to Cousin Brucie, which I liked, because sometimes when he drives me home he makes me listen to Frank Zappa, which, ok, fine, but this is my dad we're talking about so it's not your ordinary Zappa (whoa, that word pairing doesn't make sense) but the REALLY weird stuff.  And he tells me stories about concerts he's gone to, which brings me to my wrap-up.*  

Since I titled this post with a line from a Sly and the Family Stone song, I'm ending with a link to a seasonally appropriate tune by the same band.  Yesterday was the first day of summer, and it always makes me think of one of my favorite songs:

*If you ever meet my dad, maybe he'll tell you about the time he saw Sly and the Family Stone at the Apollo Theater.   That's right.  The guy feeding his arm to a dog.  That guy right there.

Happy summer, 3 people who read my blog.  Sorry, 4.  Hi Ma!

Baby Elephants

The Biology Regents was today. Because I proctored* it for three hours and then subsequently spent five hours grading it with my colleagues, I need to decompress. I turn not to booze or recreational substances (well, aside from this black and white cookie I'm about to make disappear) or anti-gravity pills to make me forget. I turn not to wild outlandish behavior to distract me from my troubles. No. I turn to baby elephants.

 

I love this baby.  I love how she seems to think that everything around her is just so freakin' awesome.  I also love how they're totally doing Elephant tai chi at about the one minute mark.



The baby in the following video sneezes (god, so cute) and freaks out, but it's hard to tell if it's the sneeze that scares it or the obnoxious laughter from the tourists recording the video that freaks it out.



Plus, um, did you see how the mom looked at the camera?  Did we ever hear the adage about elephants and how they don't forget?  She is gonna remember that crap, laughing tourist jerks, and she's gonna hunt you down.  When you're 80.**

This video is a baby elephant getting a bath in a kiddie pool.  There are no words.


I mean, he's just so overcome with joy that he has to run out for a minute and take a break from it all.  And then run back in.  Also, Damn, that pool is taking a beating and not giving in.  My friend with a 4 year old could use something like this.

The next video actually scared me a bit until the end.  Spoiler: baby's ok.  But he slips in the river at one point and his mom is trying to get him out and she and all the adult elephants start trumpeting and panicking and getting really upset when it looks like she might not be able to pull him out.


I get emotional at stuff like this.

Finally, here's one more baby.  Again, no words.




 *(Did you know that there's a special circle of Hell reserved for bad teachers where you have to proctor for eternity? It's true. Dante didn't include it in The Inferno because it was TOO BORING and worse a fate than even Paolo and Francesca deserved.)

** Read Water for Elephants . No need to watch the R Patz movie.  In it, there's an elephant named Rosie (yes, I'm biased to like her already) who never forgets.  She just waits for the right moment.  This Rosie could learn a lot from that Rosie.

Raising a dork: nature or nurture?

My parents just had some major work done on the house.  It's a pretty old house that requires some upkeep, so a friend of the family who happens to be a contractor basically moved in for almost a month and sanded, stained, and polyurethaned ALL the wooden floors and repainted all the rooms in the upper 2 stories.  Every time I went over to walk The Stella or hang out with my parents, I felt like I had inadvertently stumbled onto the set of This Old House.  I was waiting for Bob Vila to pop out from behind the piano and duke it out with Tommy Silva for the title of best home renovator.

The place looks really beautiful now, but all that work generated about a metric ton of dust that settled all over the place (no joke, Stella somewhat resembled Pig Pen as she tore through the living room).  So after proctoring the big fat stupid Earth Science Regents and wanting to claw my own face off from boredom, I headed over to have pizza with my mom and help her excavate the living room a little bit.

While unearthing the furniture, we flipped through the channels for something to have on in the background and stumbled upon Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, or as mom and I like to call it "Lord of the Rings: The Great Schlep" and figured that this particular Tolkien-fest would be the perfect backdrop to some tedious housework.  My mom is a Tolkien NUT, and she was in charge of raising me, so what happened next is hardly a surprise, but it did make me wonder whether there's a specific gene for dorkiness (dorkishness?) or whether one is inculcated into Dorkdom by current members.

Mom and me about 13 years ago.  We both of us have greyed a bit since this pic was taken.

So we hit a stride with the cleaning during the battle at Helm's Deep.  One of the best threads in that scene is the competition between Gimli and Legolas over who can kill more, so this translated to a contest between Mom and me over our furniture dusting.  While dwarf and elf yelled "17! 19" my mom and I would yell out what we finished cleaning:  "Lamp!" "Piano!" "Coffee table!" "Cat!" (Sorry Ma, you're the dwarf in this analogy cuz I'm taller.  And I'm wearing my hair like Legolas right now because my bangs are way too long.  Did all the elves decide to grow out their bangs at the same time?)

At this point, I'm thinking we should enroll in an Elvish immersion course to solidify our status as super-dorks.  We're already amped up for The Hobbit this summer, (ETA: apparently December for Part I of III) where, by the way, Sherlock and Watson reunite as Smaug and Bilbo, respectively.   

Between this and our penchant for misreading signs, I have to wonder whether the cause is blood or environment.  Maybe it's a little from column A, a little from column B.  I guess the world will never know.

And neither will Bob Vila.

I guess they thought that DJ'ing while kids were murdering each other was kinda inappropriate.

"It's like a whole friggin zoo. In my arms.  Made of balloons."

This actually made me not completely hate Jean Claude Van Damme.
(If the embed doesn't work, it's here.)

Though I'll never hate him as much as Abbey.  See her glare at him...

This is from years ago - you can tell because Abbey is currently WAY fatter and I  actually have a tv stand now.  

Hurricane Season, Rainbows, and a love/hate relationship with June

Well, the season really began on June 1st. Hurricane season also works as quite a nice metaphor for this time of year if you're a teacher.  I kinda wish a hurricane would hit my classroom and blow away all the work I have for the next two weeks.  Hell, it looks like one already hit my desk.  Either that or an Office Max threw up all over it.

(I cannot stop listening to Florence and the Machine lately.  This song in particular.)

When I was 10, Hurricane Bob hit Montauk when my family and I were staying out there on vacation.  We rode it out in the main building of the old-fashioned family motel where we were staying, and even though it was scary to see the ocean going nuts just on the other side of Route 27, it's one of the most memorable vacations I've ever had.  And after the storm passed, my family went down to the beach with the other families with whom we passed the day behind taped up windows, and maybe I'm romanticizing the past (and  I really don't think I am) but I remember it being one of the most beautiful evenings on that beach with the surf still churning and the sun setting and shells and driftwood washed up from all the action.  (And I write this with the caveat that my family was lucky that this is the memory we have of hurricanes while others have lost a lot more than one day's vacation 21 years ago.)

Anyway, metaphors: wreckage, detritus, new beginnings.  My life right now.

Keepin' it classy: barefoot at toughcookienyc's nuptials

Speaking of new beginnings and weather phenomena, my homegirl over at toughcookienyc.com got married last Sunday, and I was blessed to be part of the celebration.  Earlier in the day, a sudden cloudburst accompanied by dramatic thunder cut short the photo session for the bridal party, so we ended up hiding in a greenhouse (I bet there's a great pic of that) and bolting for various cabs before the wedding.  But during the final blessings in the ceremony, the skies cleared and a big fat double rainbow appeared over the East River right outside the big picture window in our room at the Water Club.

No rainbow in this picture, but still awesome.  This is before I went barefoot .  

I added my own contribution to the day's waterworks at that point.  If you're gonna have big enthusiastic  downpours on your wedding day, the least the universe can do is provide you with some color and light at just the right moment.  Timing really is everything.

So here's to a beautiful and auspicious beginning to my newlywed buddies, and to a salvageable year's end for me.  Hope I can ride it out without sustaining too much damage.