#10 Canterbury Road

Weddings, Honeymoons, and Folding Chairs

I have developed a daily ritual upon arriving to work each day: grab my CongressDaily AM publication at the door, log onto my computer (and inevitably type in the wrong screen name and password, as both have changed recently for the first time in four years), and run through my favorite blogs to see if anyone has posted. Since #10 Canterbury Road is tops my list of Web Favorites, it is always first, and though usually a quick read (what, did we decide that after writing two or three 10-page papers a week in Oxford we no longer obligated to write anything for the next five years? :)) it is my favorite place to see a new post. I decided that I cannot let Zack carry all the weight of this blog on his shoulders anymore, and must post something to relieve him. Even if, like Ryan says, I can only write about normal daily life for so long without boring myself and you.

I have had, of course, a rather extraordinary past few weeks and am still getting used to my new name. Last week, during a breakfast speech to the Idaho Credit Union League, the Congressman introduced me as "Malisah Johnson." It took both of us a few moments before we realized that this was all wrong (and he realized that he didn't actually know my new name after all!). Jason and I are settling into marriage. After almost a month and a half, we finally have all our new dishes put away and have two functioning bedrooms (as opposed to one room to sleep in and one room to fill with boxes, piles, and everything else we didn't have a place for). We would love for any and all of you to come hang out with us...though if you all came at once it might be a tight squeeze. Nor would we have anywhere for you to sit--we recently decided to get some new living room furniture, and in our fear of having two sets of couches in our one tiny living room, we quickly got rid of the old...and now the new will be here in approximately two to three weeks. Oops.

Our wedding was beautiful and perfect and a blur during which I couldn't stop smiling, and I occasionally feel the need to curl up on a folding chair (?!?) and watch the video and look at the pictures, just to make sure it really happened. It was beyond lovely to spend two weeks in Idaho with my family beforehand and have a little time to spend with them getting to know Jason's family. We had an Italian feast at my parents' home afterwards, with twinkle lights and opera and homemade cake and reportedly delectible food (not that I got any--am still bitter). I've attempted to attach a picture of us, about to cut into our pretty, crooked, delicious (if I do say so myself--perhaps my cooking skills have improved since Oxford "how many things can you make with rice"?) home-done cake--just to share the moment with you.

We spent our honeymoon in Croatia having the most gorgeous time (and sleeping a bit too much). Dubrovnik was the bluest blues and the greenest greens and orange roofs and roman arches, and a few needed history lessons from my husband who was paying more attention to world history during college than I was. Go there, I tell you--go! We also spent a day in the coastal town of Split, which started out as a palace for the Roman emporer Diocletian and is still a pretty freakin' cool place for history buffs. If I've managed to get my pictures on board here, you will be able to share in my utter appreciation for the place.


I will stop blogging on and on. It is fall and I think of you all a bit more than usual, remembering how we spent the first autumn of the millenium crunching through leaves on library walks and making that transition to sweaters and jackets together. I have been thinking frequently lately that I don't love my job, but today I walked back from a really pleasant lunch across the Hill and the weather was crisp and bright and the Capitol shone white and astounding as usual, and I thought, "Hey, what is there not to like?" In fall, very little.

I hope you are doing well. And don't let this blog be used only for momentous days like weddings and travels and "catching up" (though all of these are a must!). Let's use it also for keeping up, for perfect cups of tea and funny lawyer jokes and sudden clarity of thought and really good books (by the way, Laura, I didn't end up loving "The Virgin in the Garden," though I did push through to the very end. I tried to come up with laudable praise, but all in all it was just long and painful. Let me know if you find it any better.). I often fear that I have nothing interesting enough to say for a blog entry (and after this long ramble you may quite agree), but I eat up each of your entries hungrily.

Love,
Missy

posted by Missy Small @ 9/27/2005 08:11:00 PM 7 comments

New contact info

Hey folks,
Here is my information if you wish to reach me. Should remain current during the next three academic years. Hope to hear from you. Classes have started and things are going well so far. I'm enjoying being out here, meeting good people, and have already gotten started on watching baseball games. New Jersey Transit was free for college students this past week, so a big group from the seminary took advantage and went to the city for a Mets game, etc. I am looking forward to visiting New York on a regular basis and learning my way around.

Zack Shaeffer
Princeton Theological Seminary
SBN# 384
P.O. Box 821
Princeton, NJ 08542

mobile phone: (714) 328-6196

posted by Zack @ 9/18/2005 06:41:00 PM 0 comments

Home again

... both in the sense of me being here, and revisiting the blog subject of a month ago.
I have been moving around a lot since Oxford (once a year, like clockwork), and each time there is a break at home in between one place and the next, for a a week or two, or six this time around.

I like the little details that remind me I'm here: getting cut off two or three times on every freeway journey (indeed, making freeway journeys and driving at all); readily available quality Mexican food (there was one on St. Aldate's in Oxford, but the lamb fajitas didn't sound quite right); the Angels causing me stress as the pennant race heats up; the contrast between all the stereotypical blonde 'California girls,' by the beach trying to get as tan as possible by revealing all the flesh they can get away with, while in my neighborhood the Vietnamese women wear long white sleeves and wide-brimmed hats, and carry parasols to stay as pale as they can. For the first time in my life today, I went to a proper Vietnamese restaraunt in Little Saigon, only a mile away from my parents house. The first time I had that cuisine was with Missy in DC, even though my town and the two next door make up the largest Vietnamese and Cambodian community in the country. A bit of finding the undiscovered character of the place you have always lived and taken for granted.

There are things I don't like as well, since afterall I moved away for a reason. Aesthetically, I like living in places where the architecture has some character, as opposed to the strip-malls and stuccoed subdivisions block after block after block in an unending grid in the area that invented sprawl. I hate that you can't get around here without a car, although public transport elsewhere has its frustrations too.

I love California (greatest state in the Union, in my extremely biased opinion, Nicole), but LA/OC is not my cup of tea. But I love my parents, and I love being back at the house I grew up in. This is a great life, with good food, cheating on my vegetarian diet (it's a special occasion afterall, and my parents can afford the farm-raised, natural diet, humanely treated variety), wine with dinner (the ubiquitous and obtrusive cases of which are an amusing, on-going mini-spat between my parents), sunshine, a bit of grass in the back, and the too-energetic dog busy pulling unfortunate opossums off our seven-foot back fence. This is home, but already now the childhood home that I can only remain in so long as an adult (or a proximate one, at least). This is a temporary life, afterall. I am not going to again live with my parents permanently, but I wouldn't want to move back to the area and live in some bland apartment either. It is nice to relive this life periodically, but it only works as a respite between seeking out a 'life of my own.'

Now I finally have a chance for a real do-nothing mental vacation after finishing my dissertation and helping to extensively remodel another house my parents are renting out. I got to do very manly things like bust up concrete with a sledge and a rotohammer, and lift heavy objects. It was very satisfying. Afterall, let's face it, 'manly' isn't an adjective by which I am often described, so I need to take those opportunities to flex my skinny muscles where I can. We took a trip to San Francisco last weekend, my first time there in years, and I must say it's one of my two or three favorite cities anywhere. I got started with some books that weren't for my dissertation and are actually fun to read (novels!), and am gearing up to move out east again next Wednesday. Hope to see some (or all) of you who live out that way. I am more than willing to travel as far as Northern Virginia or Boston for that purpose. Cheers, and I will be thinking of you all.

posted by Zack @ 9/02/2005 01:25:00 AM 0 comments