Hear that? It's opportunity marching away....

I'm bummed at the moment.

A local band called The Online Romance messaged me through Myspace and said they're looking for a French hornist for some recording sessions and wanted me to join them. I was like HELL YES!!!!! Then... wait, dammitall, I got rid of my horn! Waaaaaaaaaaaaah! I've been so majorly down all night, now.

I like their sound too, very much the Northwest Indie sound (think The Decemberists). And I would LOVE to record! That would be so frickin awesome, total dream come true, you know!

But it had to be on the French horn, which I gave back to my college in May. Broke my heart to see the thing go, too! I had to tell them, sowwy, no hornie...

Wait, that sounded REALLY WRONG!

I didn't tell them that, honest! I said I'd love to, I like their sound, but I have no French horn of my own (I did not say "horny", honest!) but I have a mellophone and a trombone and a trumpet, so if they ever needed those I am SO there!

Chance #2 of becoming a recording musician, flushed down the drain.... :/

Okay, that's my sob story for the night.

They Say It's Your Birthday

Rocking out to Beatles right now, looking at all the pretty pictures in my comments. Thank you, everyone (early, on time or late).

So... one year older (and deeper in debt). I feel no different. In fact, I had to ask my husband how old I was. 26? 27? 28?

Honestly, you don't pay attention to your age after 21. Up until then, you can't wait to be older, to be 16 and drive, 18 and legal, 21 and drink. After that great initiation of inebriating yourself into adulthood, age is of no further concern. There are no special perks of reaching 25, or 27, or even 29.

Thirty is another issue. At thirty, you enter a new phase in your life, that "thirtysomething" decade where the rebellious stupidity of teenage years and the laid-back optimism of your twenties is replaced with something heavier, a mortality which does not reached most people until then.

I'm not ready for that phase yet. Me and my mortality are good friends, but I don't like to visit him often. I'll let that association simmer another three years.

For now... wow, 27. So flat sounding. That's like asking someone where they went for vacation and they answer "Delaware." You reply with "oh, cool" and think what a lousy place to be.

But 27 isn't all too bad. You're not 30 and feeling aged, you're not 21 and wondering what all the fuss was about, it's just a damn beer! You're at a youthful point in your life where things are more settled, life is wonderful, maybe there's a special person in your life... or maybe you're having fun looking for them. For me, I have a loving husband, a caring family, wonderful friends, supporting associates, and I STILL WANT A KITTY!!!

Doesn't look like I'll be getting one for my birthday, either.

Wedding

Alright, got a few wedding pics now. Here's just one.



That's the family sash I'm wearing. It was part of the ceremony, a Scottish tradition, hanging of the family tartan. I wore it the whole day, even though it kept wanting to fall off. Now when we go to Scottish festivals, I can wear my sash and show I'm a part of the clan.

And you can't tell that well here, but that dutch crown braid turned out beautifully. Shelly did an amazing job with my hair. Everyone said it was one of the prettiest, most unique weddings they had ever been to. And I had fun, which is what counts.

2006 - Better Days

It's 2006. I give a wish out to the world, and Johnny Rzeznik summed it up best:

I wish everyone was loved tonight
And somehow stop this endless fight
Just a chance that maybe we'll find better days.

So take these words and sing out loud
Cuz everyone is forgiven now
Cuz tonight's the night the world begins again.

May everyone take this new beginning and make better days for the whole world.

Peace!

Back In The Game

Hey, been a long time since I posted anything serious. I got married and all that, just a tad busy. Everything turned out great!

That's our engagement picture to the right, taken in Laguna Beach by Matt's dad. He's an awesome freelance photographer. Everyone thought it was some store-produced professional job, not US!

I don't have pictures of the wedding on my computer yet, but I'll put some up when I get around to it.

So, lately I've been playing wife. We've got a nice little one-bed apartment in the downtown area, but it's not too bad of an area. We just spent our first Christmas together as husband as wife. Not too much. We went to his parents' house, had a great dinner, and got some nice gifts, mostly more stuff for the house.

Wedding Preps

Well, one month before the big white dress day. Wedding jitters haven't hit yet, but I'm expecting them to any day. Matt and I will be going up to Portland for our honeymoon, checking out our new home, then a trip down Hwy 101 and the raw beauty of the Pacific Coast.

I know I won't have time to keep this updated, although there will be lots to talk about, I'm sure. I'll start back with posting after the wedding is over.

Rascally Wench of the RenFaire

Well, I finally got around to attending a Renaissance Faire, after obsessing over them for years. It's always been too far away, but now it's just over the hill. So, I donned my dress and Matt wore his new kilt. We made quite a dashing couple!

One thing that caught my attention was the bawdiness of the songs. In history class you don't get the true feel of what the Ren times were all about. You hear about castles and knights and artists and playwrights, but there's little for the senses. You don't smell the Renaissance times (and trust me, it was so hot and dusty, by noon there was quite a smell). And you don't hear it. There's a sound to Renaissance faires. Not just the language. There's the harp and pipe, the nasal of the sackbut, the strumming of the lute, the drone of the bagpipes, and the bouncing lyrics of the songs... songs that are risqué while still presuming to be peasantish and simple.

I have a favorite group called the Brobdingnagian Bards. They're in Texas, so I've never seen them live, but I caught their music on download.com and instantly went wow! Please, if you want to know what Renaissance music is like, check them out. I have some of their CDs, and they have free songs to download, too. Now, whenever Matt wears his kilt, I start singing "Donald, Where's Your Trousers."

Another great RenFaire music group who I saw yesterday was The Merry Wives of Windsor. These girls (and guy musicians) are not only lovely and talented, they made me laugh until my corset hurt! You've gotta love songs called "The Bartering Whore" and "I Live to Give My Husband Grief." I warn you only this: these songs are not something to play to your children!

Then there was of course the beer, the sonorous language, meeting the Queen, working on my genuflect, drinking beer, the jousting, the jugglers, the beautiful costumes, someone dressed at Captain Jack Sparrow (and damn good!), the tasty beer, the magicians, the gypsies, the who-needs-bloody-utensils food... did I mention the beer?

One lesson I learned, and a hint to anyone thinking about dressing up for the RenFaire: corsets are not for the faint of heart! I've worn corsets before, but this was pure torture! It reached over 90 degrees yesterday, and I thought I was going to pass out. I had to keep sitting to catch my breath.

Everything was great otherwise. Matt got some training in sword mastery. I just wish I had thought about pulling out my camera, catching a shot of him swinging around that huge claymore! He was in heaven! I couldn't help but think of medieval phallic symbols and hum one of those Windsor wenches tunes.

I'm definitely going again next year, even if it's bloody hot again.

The Bermuda Triangle

A little background. Things in my room disappear and reappear way too frequently. I mean, they will vanish and reappear smack dab next to me.

Well, I was looking for my W-2 forms to finish up my tax returns. I did the State taxes already, but lost the Federal forms. So, still unable to find the forms, I decide, what the heck, I'll do it online.

I knew I filed my W-2 forms in my top drawer, where I put all my important papers. So I look. Not there. I just cleaned my top drawer too (looking for something I knew was there, and never did find it until a week later)! I get my little sister, and we look everywhere for these stupid forms. I tell her about things disappearing, and she says she knows, Dad has complained about it too, losing tools in my room just to have them reappear exactly where he knew they were last (see this past post).

Well, I'm freaking out because many hours have passed and no sign of the forms, and taxes are due in four days. I checked the drawer multiple times. Finally, I complained about it to Matt over IM, and he asked if I just shout "I give up," maybe whatever is hiding my stuff will give it back. That worked once, looking for a necklace. I had cleared my piano seat totally off, knowing that's where I left it, then shouted "Forget it!" in frustration. Thirty minutes later, the necklace was laying in the middle of the cleared piano bench.

So, it worked once, I try it again.

Hour later, I look in the drawer.

Nothing.

My sister suggested I start looking in places I know I would never, ever put it. Well, one instantly comes to my mind. My vanity desk. I keep the mirror lid down all the time, usually piled with crap on top, so I never put anything inside in. I clear off the lid and open it.

There, in the middle of the vanity, are my W-2's.

I screamed with frustration.

Someone is getting a kick out of doing this to me.

A little perspective

It's been raining nonstop for a while here, and my neighborhood has started flooding. We live in the bottom of a valley, and my street is one of the major roads coming down off the hill, so it can turn into a real river. I spent this evening sandbagging our front door and garage.

Now, I usually gripe and complain when I have to go out in the rain and put heavy bags of sand up, making our house into a miniature fortress. But as I hunched over the sand pit with my shovel and a wet bag, I thought of the people in East Asia, people who had no warning, people for whom some foot high wall of sand would have been no security.

Perspective!!!

I stopped grumbling instantly. I think other families filling bags with me thought the same thing, because it was surprisingly quiet.

So what if a few inches of water seep into our house. Who cares if the carpet gets wet. At least we'll have a house in the morning! And our lives!

Going Celtic

Wedding plans are really moving ahead. Matt and I decided to go with an indoor wedding (since Nature just isn't cooperative) and he says he wants to wear the kilt, which means my nautical, cliffside wedding ain't happening. That's fine, I have the inklings of a Celtic wedding in my head now.

Imagine: Loreena McKennitt's angelic voice with a bagpiper and the boys in kilts, the girls in Renaissance peasant dresses, me with my hair done in a dutch crown braid, ivy and streamers.

Ooooh, getting excited!

Now to balance his father's Scottish heritage with his large Jewish family on his mother's side. Oy ve!

Voice, Update

Okay, I googled "Kerry Dwin" and started trying all sorts of other spellings, until it suggested "Ceredwin."

Ceredwin was a Celtic moon goddess. After what I just saw, I'm even more creeped out... and intrigued.

Voice Part 3

Okay, weird weird stuff is going on now.

Yep, that voice was back. But this was way different.

I had waited to hear her for two nights, and it seemed like nothing again last night. So I asked out loud, "Were you real? What are you?"

I was sitting up in bed, my back against the wall, my feet stretched widthwise. Suddenly, I saw something on my ceiling. I looked up and saw the whole frickin' roof peel back. I swear, I would have screamed, except I couldn't. I saw the stars, the clouds, everything.

Suddenly, there was a black hole, darker than the night sky. I saw something like electricity pulling at its edges, like... I don't know, like it was peeling back space itself. Very sci-fi. Then I saw these weird shapes. You know the stories of fairies and elves and goblins? They were like a mixture of those, sort of whitish yellow, fuzzy around the edges like they were out of focus, and they were dancing and just... frolicking is the best term I can think of. This whole scene is still crazy in my mind.

Honestly, I have never done drugs, never even smoked a cigarette! This was not an LSD flashback or something. This really, truly, swear-on-a-stack-of-holy-water-drenched-Bibles honestly happened.

Anyway, out of the center of this pitch black hole came a single woman's eye. I don't know how I knew it was a woman's, it just felt that way. This was no burning eye of Sauron, mind you, although it was way creepy. Her eyelids were the darkness, her iris was blue, like a dark evening sky. However, I felt like she was peaceful just by the way the eye looked at me.

She then said, "I am Kerry Dwin. You heard me sing."

Okay, I was ready to crap myself at this point. I was saying to myself, "This has to be a vision, if it was real everyone in the house would have heard her!" I was very frightened, but I sensed she was waiting for a question, like the questions game we played before.

So I asked again, "What are you?"
She replied, "I am that which I am."

Hold the phone! I know that quote. Bible, God speaking.

I told her, "That's the answer of a deity."
The eye blinked... blinked! Weird.
So I asked, "Are you a god?"
She said, "Not in the way you imagine it." She suddenly said, "I'm scaring you. You aren't ready. You will be soon."

And poof, ceiling was back to normal, no weird yellow critters, no starlight, no booming voice.

I have no clue what to think about that. I'm still wondering about what it means. I drew a picture of what I saw.

Voice Part 2

Okay, I thought I should follow up on this voice in my room. I heard her again last night. This time I was sitting on the floor, truly meditating, watching a candle burn and watching the flame. I like doing that, it draws all attention to the flame so my mind thinks on other things peripherally.

Anyway, I heard that song once again. I started singing along with her, and she stopped. Then she started talking to me, like I was right there, just a lady she met in a room. I asked what she was, and she said she'd tell me later (creepy or what). So I decided to test out what she knew. I asked how was the afterlife, figuring she was a ghost. She said that that wasn't my true question. Okay, she was right. I asked my true question: is there an afterlife? She said I would come to know if I kept my mind open.

She went from singing lady of the night to frickin' Delphic prophetess.

I asked a bunch of questions. I can't remember them all. I do know I asked if I could ever regain the ability I had as a kid to dream of the future (I rather miss my deja vu days). She said that it was in my reach, but I should not worry about it. Then I felt her leave. I can't explain it, it was just, poof, I knew she was gone. Real weird crap going on in this room!

The Voice In My Room

I heard the oddest voice last night. I've been trying to meditate again. I do that off and on, especially when stressed. So anyway, I was sitting up in bed, leaning against the wall, not doing any weird chants, nothing like that, just enjoying the utter silence, when I heard a voice, quiet unmistakable.

I got up and turned on my light, looked all around, but there was nothing in my room. It was about 2 am, so everyone was asleep. I turned off the light and sat back down. Then I heard once again, clear as a bell, a woman's voice. So I figured, what the heck, I'll see if it answers me.

"Hello?"
"Oh, you can hear me?"

I kid you not, it answered like that!

Up again, lights on quickly, looking in the closet, out the window, everywhere. Nothing.

I laid down again, and I was thinking, "Nothing like this has happened to me in a long time." I waited about ten minutes, and I heard her again, faintly. I realized I kept hearing her singing. This was the song.

Water, Earth, Wind and Fire.
To be with her is your desire.
Earth and Wind, Fire, Water.
Dance with her, you shall not falter.
Wind and Fire, Water, Earth.
You were her before your birth.
Fire, Water, Earth and Wind.
The cycle shall begin again.

I tried calling out once more, but she ignored me, or at least I got the sense that she was purposely not answering. It was way late; I wasn't about to call out loudly.

Her chanting song has been in my head all day.

Happy Birthday To Me

Why not enter this little detail.

I've now live a quarter of a century on this planet, and I've learned that I don't know much about it at all, which is a good lesson to learn!

Also (must be an I'm-getting-older thing) I made a list of 30 places I want to go before my time comes up. Actually, I had this list already, two years ago I made it. I expanded it now. From the original list, I already visited three areas: Bryce Canyon, Washington D.C., and I just got back from Santa Catalina Island, although I could have spent a week on that place.

Problem is, I could keep adding to this list. Perhaps that's something I should do. Instead of crossing off destinations and trimming it down until one day I have it to zero, I should cross them off and add new places. Even if it's merely going to see Disney World. Rather pales in comparison to Machu Picchu and Notre Dame Cathedral, but still a place I wouldn't mind going to see.

Announcement

Well, my boyfriend finally popped the question yesterday. Only took him six years and one month. But hey, at least we got a wonderful time together, no kids to worry about, no worries about who cleans the dishes, just nice wonderful dating and fun.

And it was a romantic proposal, at the beach, where we go every year for our anniversary. That's where he asked me out too. He has an entry about it as well.

The Vanishing

Okay, this just creeped me out, so I had to write about it.

Mom, Dad, and I were trying to put together my dresser, which has had a broken bottom drawer for years. We finished it and put it in, everything worked, we're cleaning up, Mom sitting on the piano bench, me and Dad down on the floor. Dad's gathering his tools back together, but he couldn't find the pliers. They were left smack dab in the middle of me, Mom, and Dad. We looked all over the place in a 3x3 foot area. We cleaned it bare!

Finally, Mom gave up the search and left. I got to my feet, ready to leave too. Then, while straightening my pants, I happened to look down.

The pliers were at my feet! Dead in the middle of us three, perfectly open view.

All three of us swore they were not there just a moment before. They were not buried nor even obscured, and there was no way I could have been sitting on them, they were in the middle of the floor, right in the center of where the three of us had been positioned. It's like a Bermuda Triangle.

The whole thing gave Dad the chills. Even Mom couldn't explain it. My boyfriend had one explanation:

Poltergeist!

Gee, I'm gonna sleep great tonight!

Fireworks in Suburbia

First, I'll explain that, in my city, fireworks are totally illegal. You can get fined for even setting off Whistling Pete's. Because of this total ban on the sulfuric favorites of 4th of July celebrations, I know nothing of fireworks.

On the other hand, my boyfriend's hometown allows some fireworks to be shot off, and his block has a firework show every year, with chips and hot dogs and beer for everyone along with some no-quite-legal fireworks. And he used to work the fireworks stand the local high school marching band put up, so he learned a thing or two about the different chemicals used, if for no other reason than it was a cool, geeky thing to learn and... well... Matt's always been the geek of my life, he was no different as a teenager.

But they have one rule: no fireworks in the park. So when I wanted to get away from the noise, I suggested we take a walk down the street to Teewinkle Park.

No such escape. There were more fireworks being set off at the park than any of the small cul-de-sacs we passed walking there. Dozens of families had come.... and so had the police.

Took them a while to arrive, I must say, but they chased the majority off with a stiff warning, while Matt and I watched with laughs during our romantic walk through the pines and around the lake. And so they packed up and left.

And then came more. In came the helicopters, who flew around checking out the local parks to inforce the law. Just strange to see such militant enforcement over something meant to be done in fun and for patriotic expression. And so they left. And yet more came after them. These late comers got the actual fine. Poor guys, no warning at all, they just thought to stay at home a little later.

Fireworks simply do not belong in suburbia. So where do they belong? Good question, one I do not have an answer to. Something explosive, meant to be used in warfare, should not be wrapped as a flashy toy and set in the hands of four-year-olds, or suburban dumbheads.

I Done Kilt It

Okay, title isn't as clever as I hoped.

Anyway, Matt and I had a great anniversary. He loved the kilt and tried to wear it. I must say, he looked darn handsome in it! We went for a nice Italian dinner and a walk along the beach. After six years, he's still a romantic!

Not much else to say.

May all your walks be like slow strolls on moonlit sands!

Art of Tea

I just tried a new tea, Royal Mandalay Chai, a vanilla chai latte. Now, I'm a tea drinker mostly, and I do love chai, but with the sudden revival of the teatottler, hideous mock-ups are arriving on the American shores, teas that the British would have turned their noses up at and the Japanese would have been offended over. And we drink it. Why? Hell, my bottle cost $0.59! In a capitalist country, why not!

These "teas" showing up on the market are a discredit to the true art of tea.
"Art of tea?" you may ask.
Yes, there is an art to it.

I patiently learned how to brew a good cup of green tea, and I don't mean the American style pop-teabag-in-water-shove-in-mircowave routine. That makes a horrible concoction we are forced to think is tea. I mean loose leaf sencha (excellent brand of green tea, healthy, full of flavor but subtle, and at least it's not in a baggy). Once you try a good cup of sencha, it is difficult to go back to drinking other teas. I now only use my Lipton teas to mix Kava with. I like chai when I'm in a playful mood, but nothing beats ending the day with a cup of sencha. That is something you can't get from teabags and sugary powders.

I've also experimented with herbal teas, mostly for health, not as actual drinks. Chamomile tea if I can't sleep (although Kava is replacing that), mint tea for upset stomach (often with fresh mint I grow in the window), raspberry tea for... um... feminine trouble.

But these generic teas, like this Royal Mandalay my mom bought me....

Sure, you might be able to get it cheap, sure it takes little or even no preparation at all, but isn't part of the enjoyment of tea in taking that time, five minutes out of the day, to properly brew the tea, make sure it is not too strong or too weak, watch the tea leaves, enjoy a moment of reflection?

That is the art of tea.