the world is your acorn

The night before the wedding The Little Red Haired Girl and I decided we wanted to have a rehearsal dinner, we wanted it to be a Chinese banquet, and we wanted invite everyone. Never people to disappoint ourselves, we did what we wanted. Back in June, The Little Red Haired Girl, Lady Ebony, and I went on a tour of Chinese banquet facilities in the Boston area, trying one menu item at each restaurant. Even though we thought something in Chinatown would be fun, the obvious choice ended up being Royal East in Cambridge, right between Central and Kendall. The manager, Otto, was really nice, and the soft shell crab app that we tried was amazing.

So, after some deliberation about the menu, here’s what we ended up with:

1. Cold Platter

2. Seafood with yellow chive soup

3. Double lobsters (in the picture there’s also a tofu dish that was for non-seafood eating folks)

4. Crispy double squabs (note the look on our faces)

5. Steamed whole fish

6. Hong Kong steak

7. Sauteed pea tendrils w/ crabmeat sauce
8. Longevity noodles
Plus fresh fruit for dessert.

Somehow no one (that I know of) managed to get pictures of the last 3. Too full and lazy by then, I guess. All the food was fantastic, and exactly what I had imagined and been telling The Little Red Haired Girl about for years. Otto and his crew at Royal East also did a great job. We didn’t have to ask for much, they handled vegetarians and fish allergies easily, and service was efficient and professional. We were so impressed and grateful, if we lived there we’d be regulars at that restaurant. So freaking good.

I’m married now.

The Little Red Haired Girl and I have been reading a lot of poetry this last month or so, trying to find appropriate readings for the wedding ceremony that we both really liked. I thought it might be nice to have some Chinese poetry, so I took a couple of books out of the library. We didn’t find anything we really liked, but we did find some that we laughed hard over, imagining including them in the ceremony:

Impromptu on a Hangover
P’i Jih-Hsiu
I block out the midday brightness with a screen depicting dark woods,
burn a stick of heavy incense, nursing my hangover.
What’s this? As evening comes, I’m ready for a drink again!
Beyond the wall I hear the cry of someone selling clams.

Words of the Newly Wed Wife
Wan Chien
The third day I went into the kitchen,
washed my hands and made the soup.
Not yet sure of my mother-in-law’s tastes,
I sent some first for my sister-in-law to try.

The other day I got a package in the mail. The timing was such that it could have been a birthday gift or a wedding gift. The return address was from a friend of The Little Red Haired Girl’s mom, so we guessed that it was a wedding gift. Although it was confusingly addressed to me. She opened the box, and discovered a card inside that said it was an engagement gift for me. So I opened the gift inside, and found a framed photograph of The Little Red Haired Girl at age 6 in the bath. Weird but hilarious. Not sure where we’ll hang it. In the bathroom? What’s appropriate? Even better, we turned the photograph around, and found this:

I’m sort of tempted to display that side instead of the photo itself. Is there a way to show both?

I’m in NC hangin with Superheroes for my birthday weekend. Yesterday we went bowling in Raleigh at a place that still scores on paper. I think the place might be called “Bowl.”

Well, The Little Red Haired Girl finally did it. She finished her master’s thesis, which means that we spent the last week up in Boston attending Commencement activities (and spending some time with wedding planning while we were up there).

Highlights of commencement:

• We watched the broadcast of morning exercises from a lecture hall, which was fantastic. We were out of the rain, we could see the stage, and Diana Eck and James Anderson did a great job commentating (wish I could find a picture of them)
• Sandwiches from Lee’s Sandwich Shop between Graduation and the commencement address
• J.K. Rowling’s commencement address was phenomenal. She was witty and intelligent and interesting, expounding on the benefits of failure, imagination as empathy, and the importance of acting as a result.
• Dinner at Carlo’s Cucina