Red Flag Infraction

I hate my wedding.

Me. 

It hasn't even happened yet and I hate it. I have been through venue after venue. (estimating about 75+, actually visiting 10.) I have been to 6 cake places. I've been to 3 different bridal salons.  I've made so many phone calls I've lost count.  I've spent hundreds of hours on the computer researching, doing the math, calculating our budget, guest list, gathering pictures and deciphering themes. I have spreadsheets, pdf, psd, abc123. I've been on the hunt for wedding toppers, bouquet flowers, hair accessories, invitations, table toppers and shoes. I've read at least 5 different books front to back about planning my wedding. And after all of this, I've got NOTHING. Goose egg. Big fat zero. I'm farther away than when I began almost 4 months ago.

There are so many considerations, nay-sayers, exceptions, minimums, maximums, constraints, time limits, and special circumstances, that I can't even pick a napkin color without a red flag being thrown! I get nothing but why we can't, with no suggestions or ways to make it work.

And everyone has a damn opinion. My mother, who always has an opinion but gives it lightly, has flat out refused some of the decisions I have made. My friends have been no help with appointments or research. Wedding colors, venues, budgets, caterers and yes, even my beloved wedding dress, all have been shot down. All the while, my guest list gets bigger and bigger. I am all alone in this and I'm being crushed under the weight of it all.

I can barely remember those happy, warm, fuzzy kitten feelings I had at the beginning of all of this. "Yay! I get to pick whatever I want! I get to plan a big party for all the people I love most! Yay!" Sitting on a couch while my favorite music played, sipping a martini in a beautiful Galina wedding gown, while my favorite people relax and enjoyed themselves. Sounds lovely, doesn't it? Yes. Yes it really does. It did.

I just want to get married! I just want to marry the man I love the most in the whole world. Is that so hard? Yes. Apparently.

I'm so tired of it all I want to throw up my hands. I give up! You win! No dream wedding for me! No romantic happy moments for that girl! BAD! BAD BRIDE!

(Commence the throwing of rotten fruit at the girl in the white dress.)

Can you see my nipples through this nipple bra?

I took this picture the other day at Victoria's Secret.

So much for that elusive secret...

Wedding purgatory

I'm setting all the wedding stuff on fire.

Say bye bye rejected wedding favors (3.95 each) and aur revoir to left over wedding invites (2.00 each). Adios wedding mags and print outs and all the other crap that I though would be perfect. But then Aunt Milly thought my steampunk wedding invites were 'too depressing'. My mom thought that my first dress was too sexy so I took it back. (1940's floor length lingerie with hand sewn beading and applique.) We've changed the date to suit other people needs, changed venues and I'm tired of it.

 

I feel guilty tearing up all these expensive wedding magazines that my mother paid good money for but I need to do it. I am over it.

I mourn for the lose of my wedding. I hate to be a girl about it but it was something that I've been looking forward to since I was old enough to consider marriage and now I can never have it. Now, all I want is to be married.

I daydream not of my lovely wedding but of sitting in Europe with my husband, finally married, enjoying a coffee and people watching. Bring it on! Let's kick this pig! But not literally.

Escobar's Hippos

Pablo Escobar was a dick.

Take my word for it. Pablo Emilio Escobar Gaviria wasn't just a drug lord and criminal. He was a giant asshole who did some pretty messed up things. And he had it all. In '89, Forbes ranked him 7th wealthiest person in the world. He offered to pay off Columbia's national debt on 10 billion. Cash. Cars. Girls. Hippos.

He was born Dec 1, 1949 to a peasant life. Hustling and jacking cars soon lead to work as a body guard then kidnapping for large ransoms. By his early 20s he was making millions and according to his brother, they spent $2,500 a month buying rubber bands to wrap the giant stacks of money. And when the 80's rolled around and a sudden and urgent need for cocaine enveloped the country, Escobar really made a killing. No, really. He assassinated political figures, judges and even blew up planes.

So far, drug dealer and murderer... Now add child rapist. At 26, he married at 15 year old girl. Then, we can add yet another asshole label to it all for what he did to his animals.

At some point in all this crazy, he bought 7 square acres of land and built an expanding compound. A mansion, pool, and a zoo. Giraffes, zebras, ostriches, camels, even an elephant. But we will get to all that soon...

After escaping prison, Escobar was shot on a rooftop whilst running from police. And that's where he died. A day after his 44th birthday, Colombian National Police caught up with him (and his bodyguard known as 'El Limon') and it all ended there. (technically, a shot to the ear ended it...) His family believes that when cornered, Escobar killed himself via a bullet through the ear. No one knows for sure.

Escobar's land was given to low income families and the rest was left to rot. The animals had been left to starve and many died of exposure.  Except the hippos. They actually thrived. Normally, hippos are slow to reproduce. (Hence they are a vulnerable species and illegal to hunt.) Male hippos don't reach maturity until about 7 years old. Females only ovulate usually during the wet season and only ovulate again 1 1/2 after giving birth. But when in a hospitable environment with no enemies and little distraction, they multiply like rabbits.

4 hippos turned into 30 in as many years and they took over the compound. And that's where they are today. Hippos are aggressive and expensive to move and the Colombian government can't pay to have them shipped to a zoo. In the summer of '09, one hippo had to be put down after wandering off the compound and threatening to harm locals.

Don't you just love the idea of hippos sleeping in a million dollar mansion? I do. And I love a good example of nature taking over all things, eventually.

If you want to learn more about Escobar and his Scarface fame, check out "The Accountant's Story" written by his brother Roberto. Or check out the NYTimes article about the latest development here.

A sane man in an insane world

Hope...

I'm sorry but I don't want to be an Emperor - that's not my business - I don't want to rule or conquer anyone. I should like to help everyone if possible, Jew, gentile, black man, white. We all want to help one another, human beings are like that. We all want to live by each other's happiness, not by each other's misery. We don't want to hate and despise one another. In this world there is room for everyone and the earth is rich and can provide for everyone.

The way of life can be free and beautiful. But we have lost the way.

Greed has poisoned men's souls - has barricaded the world with hate; has goose-stepped us into misery and bloodshed. We have developed speed but we have shut ourselves in: machinery that gives abundance has left us in want. Our knowledge has made us cynical, our cleverness hard and unkind. We think too much and feel too little: More than machinery, we need humanity. More than cleverness we need kindness and gentleness. Without these qualities, life will be violent and all will be lost.

The aeroplane and the radio have brought us closer together. The very nature of these inventions cries out for the goodness in men, cries out for universal brotherhood for the unity of us all. Even now my voice is reaching millions throughout the world, millions of despairing men, women and little children, victims of a system that makes men torture and imprison innocent people. To those who can hear me I say "Do not despair".

The misery that is now upon us is but the passing of greed, the bitterness of men who fear the way of human progress: the hate of men will pass and dictators die and the power they took from the people will return to the people and so long as men die, liberty will never perish...

Soldiers - don't give yourselves to brutes, men who despise you and enslave you - who regiment your lives, tell you what to do, what to think and what to feel, who drill you, diet you, treat you as cattle, as cannon fodder. Don't give yourselves to these unnatural men, machine men, with machine minds and machine hearts. You are not machines. You are not cattle. You are men. You have the love of humanity in your hearts. You don't hate - only the unloved hate. Only the unloved and the unnatural. Soldiers - don't fight for slavery, fight for liberty.

In the seventeenth chapter of Saint Luke it is written " the kingdom of God is within man " - not one man, nor a group of men - but in all men - in you, the people. You the people have the power, the power to create machines, the power to create happiness. You the people have the power to make life free and beautiful, to make this life a wonderful adventure. Then in the name of democracy let's use that power - let us all unite. Let us fight for a new world, a decent world that will give men a chance to work, that will give you the future and old age and security.

By the promise of these things, brutes have risen to power, but they lie. They do not fulfil their promise, they never will. Dictators free themselves but they enslave the people. Now let us fight to fulfil that promise. Let us fight to free the world, to do away with national barriers, do away with greed, with hate and intolerance. Let us fight for a world of reason, a world where science and progress will lead to all men's happiness.

Soldiers - in the name of democracy, let us all unite!

Look up! Look up! The clouds are lifting - the sun is breaking through. We are coming out of the darkness into the light. We are coming into a new world. A kind new world where men will rise above their hate and brutality. The soul of man has been given wings - and at last he is beginning to fly. He is flying into the rainbow - into the light of hope - into the future, that glorious future that belongs to you, to me and to all of us. Look up. Look up.

-Charlie Chaplin, The Great Dictator