Curiouser and Curiouser

A big part of my wedding planning process is Offbeat Bride, and I love that site like crazy. It's an excellent resource, with things like My Little Pony boutonnieres and Kill Bill-themed bridal party shots letting me feel like it's okay to not have a cookie-cutter (or even reasonably normal) wedding. I was worried about the budgeting, but apparently, serendipity is taking care of that for us.

The venue fell into our lap. It's a place I never thought of, since I spent so much time there as a child, but we stopped by while elenuial's parents were in town, then asked if it was available for weddings and if so, open on our date.

Yes. And you get both floors. And a full kitchen. And a lit fireplace. Oh, and it's 1/5 the price of most other venues. Are you a RI resident? Yes? 20% off. And it's on a Sunday? 15% off of that.

Catering is also going surprisingly well. One of the caterers we're meeting with did several weddings in my family, knows my father, and is happy to cut a deal as WELL AS delicious (the food, not the man).

But those are two things I really wasn't as invested in.

The one thing I was really fussing over was the photography. As a photographer (admittedly, total amateur), I'm super picky about who I want doing this thing. After all, this is the one day in my life I'm allowed to be this choosy, right? I looked at literally hundreds of wedding photographers, none of them catching my or elenuial's attention. Especially those that only had traditional weddings in their portfolios - we're going to go weird, and we want someone to rock that. Plus, wedding photography is goddamn expensive. For a decent photographer on a moderate package budget, the prices range from 3-5k.

I showed him Photo Pink, based in NYC, and we both agreed that we really liked the team's work. They're fun, and manage to do "pretty" and "weird" in the same shot.

That same day, they announced a contest on Offbeat Bride where Photo Pink was offering a 75% off wedding photography packages prize to winning weddings between January and March 2011. My heart jumped, then sank when I saw the deadline. Still, the criteria was "offbeat," and I figured that giving it a shot couldn't hurt. I sent them an email asking if they'd consider a May entrant, and got a response of "Depends. Show us what you got."

Half an hour of typing and describing our Japanese/Scottish nondenominational, gender-neutral, completely recyclable dance party wedding with an officiant who's been dead for 220 years- potentially with a time-travel theme - later, I sent it off and hoped for the best.

Just now (one day after sending it in), I got an email from the head photographer saying that she'd absolutely love to shoot our wedding personally, and would be happy to do the full works for $1k flat, more than 75% off her usual rate.

So a really top-shelf photographer at cheaper-than-cheap price?

Holy.

CRAP.

I'm waiting until elenuial comes home but man, if he agrees, we'll have the awesomest photographer in the world and THE singular biggest worry I have will be erased.

Knock on wood for the caterer to pan out.

Lately in my life, there have been a lot of new people and a lot of getting to know said new people. And re-bonding with preexisting people.

Though I've noticed something.

They all come back to jingsaw somehow.

Seriously. Like, two degrees of separation. Or less.

It's freaky weird, man.

On the subject of cities to move to, between myself and elenuial. We've gone from San Francisco to New York to Anchorage (where he would bring a club for the baby seals, very important later on) to Seattle to:

"I could move to Mexico city. Standards of living are lower."
"Yes. Yes, they are."
"I could take my savings and live like a king!"
"Except that you don't speak spanish. Only I speak spanish."
"That is why it is essential that you be my queen."
"Worst marriage proposal ever."
"I still have my club."
"Second worst marriage proposal ever."

xD Love.

I love hognoses. And you don't even have to like snakes to find this cute.

Someone needs to set this to music.

So, I noticed this a few days ago, but never thought to ask.

Since when is there something in Worcester that looks suspiciously like a great big wind turbine?

-H

Today I got my first animal-related injury.

I have a huge freaking gash scrape from being latched onto by a crazed evil robot hermit crab.

At least he didn't break the skin. Found out later that if he had, I'd have had to get a tetanus booster.

Who wants hermit crabs as pets, really? Usually "crabs" refers to something that people generally don't want.

-H

One of the other animals we carry that are part of the skink family are Schneider's Skinks, much smaller than the yellow-lined plated in the enclosure above them. As with all insectivore lizards, we alternate food to give them a more varied diet. This takes place on their Mealworm day.

S: (flail against glass)
H: (opening cage) You're excited. Breakfast! I don't know how well you take to being hand-fed, but we'll try a -
S: (nom)
H: ...Well, that answers that. Hey, C*! He sucked it down like spaghetti. We're good.
S: That's because YOU STARVE ME. (flails)
H: You eat just fine. I know this. I have to feed you guys every day. Speaking of which, where's your brother?
S: I ATE HIM.
H: (checks tag) He's at the vet.
S: BECAUSE I ATE HIM.
H: Nice try. Now, do I even have to wiggle the mealworm, or do you just -
S: (nom)
H: I think you just eat whatever's put in front of your face. (looking up at yellow-lined) Why can't you be more like him?
L: I'm a majestic predator. I only hunt.
H: I made it run around the cage for you!
L: I could see the tongs, you know. That's not really hunting.
H: Whatever. You can go for weeks without eating. One day won't kill you.
L: ... (nom)
H: Was that so hard?
L: It's squishy. Why aren't you showering me with praise and thanks for saving your job?
H: Scaly little malcontent. (back to skink) Now that I think about it, there are still crickets in your cage! If you're so absolutely starving, why didn't you eat those?
S: Because that requires effort.
H: ...
S: Give me a mealworm!
H: No. No more bugs until you eat what you have in there.
S: But... But...!
H: I can't feed you until your other food is gone. It's a rule.
S: That you just made up?
H: NO. EAT YOUR CRICKETS.
L: I'll eat his crickets.
H: You won't even eat your mealworms!
L: That's because you don't make them interesting enough.

I feel like a mom with 78 fussy, whiny two-year-olds.

On the plus side, we now have four chinchillas at work. One that came in the other day was a little guy - shy, but nosy. If I cup my hands together, he can sit easily in my palms. He almost doesn't need both.

And I found out something interesting about the yellow-lined plated: when they shed, they don't lose the top layer like most snakes and other reptiles do. Instead, his scales just fall off. Like cat hair. So as I picked him up, there was a little rain of what looked like mica falling into his cage. I brushed him off, and even more fell. The downside of this, however, was that as I cleaned his cage and he sat on my shirt, I was covered in what looked like glitter for the rest of the day. =/

I'll post about the 20 bearded dragon hatchlings we have later. <3

-H

I give you this.

And of course, I mean "like" in that special way.

-H

EDIT: Fixed the link.