In Spite of The Rapture

This couple was clearly ready for anything as their wedding was on a day of the "Final Judgement". But the only judgement that was cast upon them was the uniform agreement among the guests -- that Brooke looked stunning.

Brooke and Scotty knew each other for a long time even before they started dating. They both ride dirt bikes and hang out with the same crowd of friends. But one day, at a bike show, Scotty decided to make his move. He invited Brooke to go for a ride with him. They were inseparable ever since.

Before Scott took Brooke's hand in marriage, he promised Brooke's son Davis to love him like his own son and care for him.

And then he took Brooke as his wife...

Turquoise was the color of the day. The bridesmaids told me that finding turquoise shoes is more difficult than it seems.

The groomsmen were styling in turquoise as well.

... and Marcie Lynn of Marcie Lynn Photography and I worked like bees to capture all the fabulousness. Thanks Marcie for having me!

Brooke was clearly getting all the attention she deserved. The bridesmaids both wanted her to look at them.

... and Scotty bonded with his new son Davis.

The Benicia Camel Barn Museum was the venue. To my disappointment, there were no live camels, only the toy ones.

Every table was decorated with a different photo of Brooke and Scotty.

First dance:

You can view few extra photos in the below slideshow:

I will end this post with a symbolic photo of a water bottle. Bride's and groom's friends -- Diablo Valley Survivors Motorcycle Club attended the wedding. The Survivors are a clean and sober motorcycle club. Any kind of mood altering substance is strictly forbidden in the club, and therefore there was no alcohol at the wedding.

Wishing Brooke and Scotty all the love in the world, because love will always prevail. In spite of The Rapture. 

The Impression of White

I'm dressed all in white, sipping coconut milk from a young coconut, and thinking. There is a trend. It's in every store. It's white. White clothes, the hot new white iPhone, white lounges, white everything. Perhaps now is the right time to put your money into stocks of bleach producing companies.

I have been thinking about why I have this sudden urge to wear white, and why is the whole world doing the same. Why white? Why this year? Why is apple coming up with white iPod at this very moment? How did Apple know that white will be so trendy?

Wikipedia says:

White is a color, the perception of which is evoked by light that stimulates all three types of color sensitive cone cells in the human eye in nearly equal amounts and with high brightness compared to the surroundings. A white visual stimulation will be void of hue and grayness.... An object whose surface reflects back most of the light it receives and does not alter its color will appear white...

So white is not a color of light, it's the summation of light intensity across the visible spectrum. TV displays use only three primary colors of light to create the impression of white. The RGB coordinates are (1.0, 1.0, 1.0).

In symbolism, references to white are often related to purity, cleanness, and innocence. That explains why doctors wear white, why office workers are "white collar" workers, why we bleach our teeth, and why the brides (virgin or not) wear white as well.

We use clothing for social signalling. Wearing a luxury brand item signals the world that we are at a certain solvency level (there is an interesting book on this topic, called "The Luxury Strategy" where you can read more about this social stratification technique). Perhaps wearing white signals that one is pure and innocent. Does the demand for white clothing mean that the world is striving to get cleansed? Cleansed of what? Is this white craze an attempt to de-clutter our lives and simplify our looks? Or is it something that was pushed onto us by clothing manufacturers? Where did this trend start? 

Want to Crash at My House? Have a Skill?

I have a great advice to all of you who are being asked to host friends in your spare room. Charge them! Not with dollars. That would only make you a housekeeper and it would probably also violate your lease agreement. Have them pay with their skills instead!

We hosted a couple of friends from Prague last week. Our internet was flaky due to an old firmware in our wireless router. It bothered everyone. Including our guests. After they had to restart the router for the millionth time, they had enough and decided to fix it. Excited about the newly found source of free labor, I complained to my guests that Brad hadn't been able (capable?) of installing our new Egyptian lamp. I did not even have to ask. I came from work the next day and this is what I saw:

Our guests told me about a service you can use in Czech Republic. It's called "Hourly Husband" and you basically call a number and schedule a handyman come to your house. I was told that many of such orders are quickly followed by cancellations. Women force their husbands to install or repair things in the house by calling an hourly husband. The real husband then feels emasculated (and even worried that the hourly husband might have a six-pack), and gets his act together. Brilliant idea!

Good evening everyone. I have to go now... my husband just prepared a dinner.

Will I Go to Jewish Heaven?

When I see a silent person, I often wonder what she thinks of. I wonder if her mind is as busy as mine, I wonder if her thoughs jump from subject to subject in the same patterns, whether we worry about the same general things, or whether we even share the same exact thoughts (shallow or deep).

Right now, I am sitting in a front row of a San Francisco shuttle bus that is covered with dead flies. I am silent. But my thoughts are racing, as usual. There is nothing fluid about them. We (writers, bloggers) always aim for a fluidity of narrative, but I can not possibly write about this stuff in a narrative. There is no way I link these unrelated thoughts in a way that would make any sense. So why do these thoughts come into our minds in this order? How does one subject end and another random one start? Perhaps there is a link between them. A link that makes complete sense for a fraction of a second and allows one to transition from one topic to another... all in one's head.

Here is a small insight into my mind -- few of my thoughts as they come. There is a technical term for this style of writing, but I really don't feel like looking it up on Wikipedia.

1. I am thinking of the recent episode of the Real Housewives of NYC, about how Sonya said that Cindy needs to follow "pecking orders" in NYC society.
2. I am thinking of how many similar disasters come out of my own mouth, whether people remember them, how many potential friends did I already loose thanks to saying the wrong things at the wrong time. Or looking at someone in a way that makes people feel insecure, or ignored. You often have only one chance to give people an impression of who you are. Saying one wrong sentence might kill a potential of a life-long friendship between two people, even if they are very compatible and would be great friends had they met in a different settings.
3. Right now I am worried. About the guy next to me who is pretending he is not looking at my laptop screen but he is.
4. I just shrunk the font size of the text I'm writing and I barely see it now. I hope the snoop next to me is now unable to peek at my personal (!!!) stuff.
5. He continues to peek. I am looking his direction to let him know I know. Our shoulders are almost touching, it's pretty weird to look towards the person sitting right next to you. It seems like he got the message.
6. He is looking forward now, so I can probably stop obsessing whether the snoop sees what I'm writing or not.
7. I wonder if I'll ever find good platform heels I can wear during my commute, walking to/from the shuttle stop. The difference between the front of the platform and the heel needs to be less than 2.5 inches. Is very hard to find such shoes and once you find them, the shoe is usually too ugly, too wide, or does not have an adequate arch support. It's like searching for the perfect perfume. There is none.
8. I wonder how come there are no companies that would take a mold of your shoe and design the perfect dress shoe. There are plenty of places that make you a custom insole, but a woman can not fit an insole into a dress shoe, or a sandal. Most shoes are really poorly designed and try to please everyone, which is impossible to do. We get custom tailored suits, but we wear shoes made for a generic foot. Strange.
9. The shuttle is passing by San Francisco airport, and I wonder whether my house guests cleaned up my place for the party they are throwing tonight. It is the first time someone else uses my place as a venue for their party. All I hope is that I get to have fun without doing any kind of cleanup.
10. I just realized that the Pandora station I am listening to is not mine. It's Brad's and it's awesome. He is and always will be way cooler than me. I'm ok with that. Some people are born cool.
11. I was born with black curly hair on my back. Seriously. I was two weeks premature, strange long noodle-shaped infant with black hair both on the head and the body. I am now ash-blonde.
12. Wonder how much longer my grandpa will live. His health is deterriorating rapidly and I don't know if I will ever see him in person again. It takes 22 hours to travel to him.
13. Missing Fluffy, wondering what she's doing, whether she is curled into bublik (her favorite sleeping position) somewhere on a pillow right now.
14. Why do I need to go to bathroom everytime I'm on the bus? The Starbucks toilet next to my shuttle stop might do it but I wish I can hold until I get home.
15. Wonder if there are any guests at the house already. I am trying to introduce a single girlfriend to a guy at the party tonight, hope it goes well and I go to Jewish heaven.
16. Don't remember who told me about this (perhaps the jewy Ethan), but apparently even non-Jews can go to Jewish heaven if they match three couples that end up marrying. I have two couples under my belt already, and need one more. I really want to go see what the Jewish heaven looks like. :)
17. This snoop next to me is totally looking at my screen AGAIN!!! I am appalled. I am giving him another "I see you" look. But why does it bother me? He might read this online later anyways.
18. The shuttle is arriving and I will loose the internet connection soon. Hitting save button.

The party went well. The house was clean, the guests were nice, and my single girlfriend and the bachelor exchanged contacts. A Jewish guest told me the Jewish Heaven is an urban myth. I guess I won't go there after all.

Postscript

Because no post is good without a picture, here is a photo of Ethan, who told me about the Jewish Heaven.

Ladies, Ethan is single. He wanted to make sure that the ladies know that he has a Masters degree, a dog, and that he is very very jewy. Send your bios to petra@petracross.com and I will forward them to Ethan. 

I'd like to know if I your train of thoughts is similarly random, or if you think in very different patterns. Will you share a bit about yourself?

How I Met My Man

The commute was always the same. At 10:30am I ascended up the stairs onto the floor my office was located at, and headed straight through one of the many lounges Google is so well known for. It was a warm September day, I was wearing black leggings, a short white t-shirt dress, and my favorite 3 inch Tsubo heels. I was a sorry looking 5'7'' tall 105 pound skeleton of a woman whose whole world collapsed just a few weeks earlier, when a loved one betrayed me. In six weeks, I shed 20 pounds, monthly periods, and an appetite. I lived on chocolate and blueberries, which my good friends fed me in fear of loosing me completely.

As I was passing by a white couch, I recognized a familiar face of a friend (another Slovak engineer). He sat on a couch next to some bearded guy. I stopped for a quick chat, catching up. He had some great news (he just got married) and I had some not-so-great news. People would feel sorry for me when they heard what happened, but this guy saw the glass half full. "So that means you're single now?", he asked. "Okay. This guy next to me is single, and he is a really great guy. I know him and I swear to you, he is a great great guy. Do you want me to hook you up?" he said (in Slovak, of course). I moved my eyes inconspicuously to the person to his right and checked out my man for the first time.

I remember him vividly. Brad was looking down at his laptop, having no idea we were talking about him. He was wearing red buddhist praying beads around his neck, disheveled hair and a gnarly long beard, but I noticed his built up body and masculine shoulders right away. After about two more seconds of scanning I nodded and said "He is pretty cute".

Little did I know, Brad asked my friend about who I was and whether I was single right after I left the lounge.

When I got to my desk, I checked out Brad's photo on the company intranet. And what I saw gave me a funny tickly feeling in my stomach. I get this feeling to this day.