Point #44-A match made in Disney…

The amount of time that has passed since I last posted is downright embarrassing, but I have semi-good reason: I got married! Now don’t worry…all the groovy crafty things I have been talking about for the wedding were used or will still be used for the upcoming more public nuptials. However, my husband (almost six months on, I am still enjoying saying that) and I decided to take the plunge in a private (sort of) ceremony at (drumroll) Disney World. Furthermore, we decided to make it (descending scale slidewhistle) on the downlow upon Disney’s magnificent (clown horn)…monorail? Yup. You read that correctly, my dear readers: monorail.

I will explain.

We have been planning this wedding in one form or another for ages, seemingly no closer to our goal than when we started. One obstacle or another cropped up, leaving us frustrated and just wanting to get it done. But a trip to City Hall seemed no more appealing. One night, I was having a bad time of things with various drama with family and friends, and was clinging to Josh, knowing that whatever else was going wrong in my life, that I felt secure and complete with him. I looked at him and said, “Can we please just get married soon? We’ll do the big wedding later, let’s just run off and get married.” Without hesitation, he said “When?” “Soon…just…soon.” “Do you want to run away to Disney and get married there?” Now it was my turn to show no hesitation: “Absolutely.”

We decided on a few weeks, just about six, hence so as to be able to plan a tiny honeymoon, or “Minni-moon”-I’m so funny- for the same weekend. We resolved to tell no one save for the extremely few people we were inviting, our families, and a select number of others. Those select others were really for practical purposes, so in essence, no one knew leading up to the big day. We teased what was to come in the form of an ambiguous countdown that wasn’t really a countdown and the occasional monorail reference. This included a clip of The Simpsons singing the Monorail Song…this song remains embedded in my brain to this day when I go on the monorail.

Oh yes…the monorail.

The discussion naturally came up as to where this lovely event would take place. I won’t lie. This was not an “authorised” happening. Look, weddings at the Diz are wonderful and magical and awesome and can easily cost more than a house. Even the little getaway type weddings start at five large and that was for about the number of guests we were looking at…so a thousand dollars a guest. I don’t like anyone, including myself, that much. Given the whole point of the venture was to save money, I couldn’t see it. And here is the plain truth: I drop a lot of money at the House of Mouse and the annual pass we ended up getting (more on that later), I think made it worthwhile to them. They didn’t have to do anything, and we dropped cash the whole weekend. Win/win. So with our need to be covert in mind, where to have the very short, non-intrusive ceremony? The beach at the Polynesian was discussed and was pretty much the plan initially. Beautiful, romantic, bar nearby, and of course the fireworks from the Magic Kingdom. Perfect. We would just need to find a sufficiently secluded spot so as not to be marched to Disney jail in the process. We would never escape.

**Edit for the benefit of some of the people who have commented on other forums about this *coughDISBoardscough* This is a humour blog and I exaggerate for the sake of comedic effect. I did not think we would be thrown into any pokey, Disney or otherwise. We actually got the lay of the land before doing this, and given that we selected a place that was not where official Disney weddings would take place, there was no problem with us doing this. **

We planned and planned and still my worries about doing this on the beach persisted. I truly didn’t want to disturb anyone or cause a fuss; I just wanted to get married discreetly. I was on the verge of saying, let’s just get married in the room of our off-site hotel and then enjoy the Minni-moon at the parks the next two days. Then Josh had a brainstorm. He fully expected to be shut down and me utterly poo-poo the idea, but he greatly underestimated my desire to be weird.

What if we just got all dolled up and sidled onto the monorail to Epcot? Do it early enough and we could still hit the bar at the Poly for a drink and the fireworks, and then head to Atlantic Dancehall for our “reception”? Not only was this idea a) less intrusive for hotel guests and b) less likely to cause the aforementioned toss into the Disney pokey, but also c) wicked freakin’cool! Who gets married on the monorail? We do, suckas.

The day arrived and after the flurry of getting ready and making our way to the Polynesian to park (ssh, don’t tell) to walk to the TTC (during which my bozo friends and soon-to-be-husband kept singing the Monorail Song), we assembled at the monorail station to wait for our mobile chapel to arrive. We JUST missed the infamous “TRONorail” (one monorail adwrapped to advertise the new TRON movie), but that was ok. Monorail Yellow rolled up about five or ten minutes later; I could tell the wait was a little nervewracking for Josh, who, unlike me, has never been married before. We got a few congratulations from monorail cast members at the platform seeing our very obviously celebratory clothing. I wore a purple Renaissance festival type dress, my hair in twin buns, each adorned with a tiny tiara, ribbons trailing behind, and held a handmade bouquet made of sheet music. Josh wore a purple button down shirt, with a matching boutonniere. We accepted the congratulations without further commentary, not mentioning that we were about to do the deed on their monorail.

All prettied up!

Getting ready together and a jump start on the smooch.

We all scrambled into a car, and our friends, including our friend Joy, who is both a ULC minister, as well as a minister of the Church of the Latter-Day Dude (I swear I am not making this up), all got places on the bench seat while we took places standing in front of them, holding onto the poles so our married life did not begin with us tumbled in an undignified fashion on the floor. We had been concerned about the sound in the car, and I had planned to do the deed during a stretch where the “monorail spiel” goes quiet for about 4-5 minutes. We were pleasantly surprised to hear that the speaker was uncharacteristically out and so the volume was low enough that we could be heard over it.

The ceremony itself was the most basic, straightforward one I could find…with a few additions. We vowed to love, honour, and cherish each other, taking each other’s hands and standing clear of the doors as long as we both lived. After Joy pronounced us husband and wife, by the power vested in her by the state of Florida and Mickey Mouse, we had the traditional kiss…to the enormous cheers of the other monorail riders. I foolishly thought we were still managing to be discreet, but apparently even in a loud, crowded monorail, the words “Dearly beloved” and the presence of a bouquet is enough to make ears perk up and heads swivel. The rest of the ride was spent giggling and hugging, and trying to remember every little detail as we zipped along the track. We circled Epcot and then got off at the station. Amid congratulations and smiles, we wandered around the monorail station, taking the opportunity to change our Facebook status on our phones (beginning a flurry of “WHAT THE….??????”s on our Walls. After travelling back to the TTC, it was a quick restroom break, a photo op or two, and then back to the Polynesian where we signed the marriage certificate, had a drink, and settled in to watch the fireworks. Those fireworks will forever be associated with that day for me. My new husband made a beautiful toast to the four friends who were with us, and we headed over to Disney’s Boardwalk to grab some food and party at the Atlantic Dancehall. Josh went over to the bakery and grabbed a tiny cheesecake to serve as the world’s most wee wedding cake. We even sliced it bridal style and flicked a little icing at each other. The drinks at the Dancehall were relatively cheap and strong (like me!) and the music was awesome, which is too say “bad”, but in the best possible way (“OMG! It’s Ke$ha! WOOOOOO!”). I made the huge mistake of telling Josh to pick our first song; he asked the DJ to pick the cheesiest 80s song he could find, so our official first song was “Girl, You Know It’s True”. This was not ok. 🙂 Thank God we had already unofficially danced to “Say Hey (I Love You)”.

Exchanging vows on the highway in the sky.

Cutting the cake.

We partied for a few hours before returning to our cheapie hotel and getting some rest before our wonderful Minni-moon that weekend. The adventure was just beginning…

For more pictures, go here.

Point #42- You Can Learn a Lot of Things From the Flowers

These flowers sing, yo.

This is one of the few “wedding crafts” I actually have completed and I thought I would share. Things are coming together pretty piecemeal, which is good considering we have no official date set for the shindig yet. But when the mood strikes me, I do whatever I feel like doing, much like life in general, and so here, view with amazement and wonder my musically themed roses.

Music is very important to me, and to my fiance’, and when I determined that I do not want the hassle of fresh flowers, nor the potential mess of dried/preserved ones, I chose to eschew the silk route and go with something a bit different. I have seen lovely tutorials for sheet music roses before, and as I often do, I gave it my own touch and created a very simple bouquet that is utterly and completely me. The only thing that would be more apropos would be if I could toot the damn thing like a clown horn and frankly there is still time.

Here is the basic rose tutorial. I just added a touch of paint to mine, lightly so as not to lose the obvious sheet music awesomeness of the roses. I used coral and light copper paints on three of them, and a darker copper wash on two, with a soft gold shimmer over all. First I painted them the desired colours, and then went outside and sprayed them down with a clear coat of spray paint. Then I swore blue buckets as the wind whipped the spray paint merrily into my eyes. Then I went inside and got annoyed with Josh for proposing to me and thus causing me to make roses and thus spray myself in the eyes. Whipped some floral tape around the scrawny little copper stems on which the roses are wrapped, wrapped all five stems together and piccolo! a bouquet! I wrapped the resulting single stem with a very pretty sage green satin ribbon and secured it with tiny sequin pins. A few more purple and green ribbons tied around the top of the stem and I have no more stupid bouquet to worry about. Well played, me.

See?

And…OOOOHH:

Pow!

These things would kick the crap outta Alice. I got ninja flowers.

***This post is part of The CraftyChica’s Valentine’s Day linky party!***

Point #25-Yard Work, or How I Fought Off Zombies and Lived to Tell About It

Continuing off of my most recent post regarding home repair, it must be stated that certain things one must do to maintain a pleasant home are less than appealing. I live in an apartment and this is so; I cannot imagine the drudgery involved in owning an actual house. The late, great Mitch Hedberg said it best when he said “I shop at The Apartment Depot…just a bunch of people wandering around a warehouse saying ‘I don’t gotta fix shit!’ ” How very true this is. However, there are some things that cannot be avoided.

I am lucky enough, even in the renting of a modest apartment, to have a small backyard, fenced in and with enough expanses of dirt in which to plant to make me happy. I was happy. Then summer hit. I don’t get it. I moved in last summer and the yard was fine, even with rain and sun and all those things that make Florida that sort of place where produce spontaneously appears in your laundry. I can only assume shade from the now absent tree created a less welcoming environment for huge weeds and determined vines to wend their cunning way through my neatly tended beds, because this summer, Viet Nam. Every time I go back there I expect to find Alan Alda weeping over a chicken. Ok, mixing up of our hilarious Asian land wars aside, it’s gotten a bit…lush out there. So I did what any reasonable person would do. I ignored it like mad and hoped like hell the rats didn’t move back in.

I shall digress a moment. Months ago, for quite an extended period of time, I had a rat problem in the back yard. I had seen them occasionally and honestly they were sort of cute and didn’t bother me. Then I started noticing my plants being eaten, especially the flowers. When they were finished with the flowers, they started in on the plants themselves. I had to draw the line when they ate a soy wax candle I had left on the windowsill. I will spare all of the ways I attempted to humanely rid myself of them, save one, because it’s kind of hilarious. I was told they hate Irish Spring soap. I found some small bars at the dollar store and figured what the hell, I’ll give it a try. Shortly before dusk, I laid out pieces of soap amongst my plants and sat where I could quietly observe. What I observed was a rat jump down off of the fence, pick up a chunk of this allegedly hated soap the size of his head, and scurry off with it determinedly clutched in his mouth. The next morning, the apparently delicious soap was all gone. Bastards. Ultimately, the neighbour did what I refused to do and set out poison. No more rats.

So anyway, now I have a jungle growing back there and no clue what is lurking there. Rats? Snakes? Viet Cong? Who the hell knows. But I don’t have any napalm and the patio itself is being overrun. So I borrowed a weed eater from my good friend and set to work.

Last time I wielded a large power tool of some kind was my sister’s pressure washer. If you have never used one, I highly recommend it. It is fun to the point of illegality. At least the way I was using it, for while to the outside observer I was merely washing a SWEET rug I scored by the trash in my alley one day (seriously! An Oriental rug whose only issue is that some kid had gotten gum on it, which pressure washed right out) in my mind, I was blowing away aliens with my ENORMOUS ray gun, merrily shouting “Yippie ki-yi-yay, motherfuckers!” again mixing my movies metaphors. I was locked in a battle royale with unseen enemies of our planet, especially that little pink blobby one…down there…in the cornerrrrr, GOTCHA! HA! Take that, Gum Clingons!

It should come as no surprise then that when I took that weed eater to my own tiny corner of the Congo that I was not slaying weeds with a “Grass Hog” brand trimmer. I was mowing down zombies with a chainsaw. Next up: obtaining a chainsaw.