Hooky, Holy Man, and a Hole in the Ground

Playing Hooky

Last week was beautiful here in St. Louis. Cooler weather settled in and windows across the city long closed to conserve conditioned air suddenly opened again. Each morning, those last few moments of sleep were rendered glorious by a cool breeze and songbirds.

Norah and I took some evening walks, but over all…I just didn’t feel I was getting out there and appreciating the blissful weather. Sitting in my windowless office seemed a pitiful way to repay the atmosphere for its kindness.

Friday arrived and Moonshot and I made plans to have lunch together. The plan was simple: get picked up at work, ride to a nearby restaurant, eat, get dropped of at work…continue day as normal. However, while eating her Taco Salad, Moonshot told me that she had been very tempted to bring a change of clothes for me so she could try to talk me into going to the zoo for the afternoon. She had , however, convinced herself that I would refuse to leave work. And normally, she probably would have been right…but as mentioned…it was just a beautiful day and I owed it to the Universe to get out and appreciate all the meteorological goodness going on.

So we finished our Mexican food and headed on down to the zoo. Now, I may have mentioned this before, but I love the St Louis Zoo. Not only is it one of the best zoos in the country…it’s free. Walk in, stroll around, walk out…costs ya nada. My hats off to the fine folks of my fair city for continuing to support this fine establishment. Anyway, we spent an hour or two hiking about looking at various animals that were extra active…seems even they were not immune to the joys of cool weather. And even though our impromptu trip meant I was the only person there in dress slacks and had no camera to capture the sights…I was enjoying my time with my wife and daughter too much to care. Ok…that’s not true. I cared about the lack of camera…and may well have mentioned it a few dozen times during our wanderings. But my point remains valid.

The last time we trekked to our zoo was about three months ago when Elsa and Taltap visited. On that trip, Norah showed very little interest in the animals and chose to either play with a toy in her stroller or sleep. This time she was alive with curiosity. Elephants astounded her. Penguins delighted her. The horn of a black rhino held her rapt gaze for long minutes and the sight of hippos entering and leaving their water was like magic to her developing mind. She giggled and stared was able to convince us she needed a stuffed penguin of her very own. She hugged it and squealed merrily for the rest of the trip.

I returned to work to finish out the last hour and a half of the day, so I didn’t even have to feel too guilty about taking an extra long lunch. Ah…if only every day could be zoo day.

The Power of Norah’s Cuteness and a Holy Gren

There is much joy in the House of the Gren these days. Our good friends Taltap and Elsa are getting married. You may not realize how significant this statement is since you don’t know our friends, but they’ve been together for 11 years and have made no moves toward wedlock. Taltap didn’t agree with it for philosophical reasons and Elsa was content. However, Elsa’s one stipulation was that if they decided to have children…they would have to be married first.

So…here we are. Two of our closest friends who said they wouldn’t get married unless kids were on the way shortly have spent time with our daughter and quickly opted to tie the knot. Now, they haven’t laid the blame for this development at the feet of Norah’s cuteness yet…but as a horribly biased father, I can’t see how the two are unrelated.

Moonshot has been asked to serve as matron-of-honor in the backyard garden ceremony set for mid-August. Norah has been invited to stand with her Mommy and both the Gren ladies are quite excited about it. And me? Yes, even this lowly gren has a role to play in the beautiful day our friends have planned. I get to pronounce them man and wife.

See…when Moonshot and I got married in 2004, we opted to have my old college roommate / Moonshot’s brother-in-law, FreddyJ, perform the ceremony. He got ordained online through the Universal Life Church and it was a truly wonderful aspect of our wedding. Clearly, Taltap and Elsa liked the idea as well and now karma has reared its head to foist this responsibility on me.

Don’t get me wrong…I’m honored and thrilled and I wouldn’t trade it for the world. At the same time…it’s a bit intimidating. I’m hoping I can live up to the task.

What's truly strange about this is that I thought it was rather unique that the minister and the matron-of-honor in our wedding were married. However, this exact relationship will be played out again...by the very same original bride and groom that started the trend. So, Taltap, next time Elsa is asked to be matron-of-honor...just go ahead and explain that you'll need to perform the ceremony. It's clearly some sort of newfangled wedding meme and you'll probably get seven years bad luck if you don't pass it on.

This weekend will find Moonshot and I in Minneapolis visiting these very same soon-to-be-newlyweds. I can only imagine that a great deal of the conversation will revolve around planning for the quickly-approaching date. The ladies plan on going dress shopping and we gentlemen plan to roam the city while we wait…cameras in hand, killing time and practicing our photo hobbies. As an extra bonus, this leisure time was Elsa’s idea…so our city-roaming free time has been pre-approved.

And the Little Lutine? Well…she’s having her first sleepover. Gramma Panache and Grandpa Husker will be watching her over the weekend. It’s one of the major reasons we’ve been working so hard to train her to go to sleep without our constant rocking/soothing. Partially for our own peace of mind and partially for Moonshot’s folks’ sanity.

I’ll keep you posted on all these developments. In the meantime, however…congratulations to Taltap and Elsa. I just can’t express how happy I am for them.

Culvert Ops: Update

During lunch on Wednesday, my network admin and I completed the journey promised earlier. I haven’t written anything, nor taken a close look at the pictures from the trip…but I just wanted to let those of you who have been biting your nails in anticipation for the conclusion that Culvert Ops II is in post-production as we speak.



Sincerely,

The Reverend Moksha Gren