Guests started arriving while Brendan and I were getting ready (in separate rooms). Our contingent of helpers ushered people in, had them sign the guest book, and add tags to a world map to show where they were born, where they live now, where they first met one or both of us, and a place they’d like to go where they have never yet been. We still have the map with most of the tags intact, and I know at least one guest has since fulfilled her travel wish.
The greeters then pointed them at the bar, where they could enjoy two custom cocktails that Denise had designed for the occasion (above is my Aunt Harriet, doing exactly that).
In June 2023 we visited Singapore, first time for both of us. One of the attractions strongly recommended by my classmate Lauri, who had lived in Singapore for years, was the botanic garden. It was indeed worth the visit, especially for its huge orchid garden.
One area within the orchid garden is dedicated to Singapore’s tradition of developing custom orchids in honor of international leaders (mostly) and a few celebrities such as Amitabh Bachchan. There were orchids named for Joe and Jill Biden, Barack and Michelle Obama, Australia’s Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, Kamala Harris, and even Mike and Karen Pence. The Trumps were conspicuously absent. Perhaps, even in very polite Singapore, a plant named in honor of Trump would have been ripped out or peed on.
NB: Singapore is full of signs about what you can and can’t do (especially can’t), including in the botanic garden.
Japan does bathrooms better than anywhere else, including public toilets.
Singapore – June
We went to Singapore (first time for both of us) because Brendan was co-chairing a SREcon, but we took some extra time to sightsee and get together with friends and fellow alumni of Woodstock School.
I’m doing some electronic file cleanup today, and ran across a piece of writing my dad must have sent me years ago but I have no recollection of reading.It’s an interesting window into the lives and attitudes of my grandparents and great aunt and uncle, all of whom I barely knew.
. . . a small piece of meat, bone, and gristle went flying out the kitchen window.
‘What was that your threw out? I asked.’
‘A piece of somethin’ that floated to the top of the gumbo, why?’
‘Shape a little like a banana with a little bone inside o’ it?’
‘Yeah, but so what?’
‘You idjit! That was the penis bone from de possum we trew in de gumbo!’
‘Animals do not have a bone in their dicks, Uncle Louis.’
‘Louis! You see now what you’ve got the boy doing with your filthy language?’ said my mother still in her housecoat.
As part of my childhood love of animals (stuffed and real), I somehow became aware of Steiff, the German manufacturer of iconic stuffed toys and inventors of the original Teddy bear. They sold a huge range of animals of all sizes and species, most of them about as realistic-looking as it was possible for a plush toy to be. We once visited the equally iconic toy store FAO Schwartz in New York, which sold a vast collection of Steiff toys, including giraffes and elephants that towered over me, and tigers I could probably ride on. I yearned to own a Steiff animal.
They cost hundreds to thousands of dollars even 50 years ago. I couldn’t imagine what kind of family could afford such expensive toys, but we certainly couldn’t. I saved up my allowance and, on a future trip to one of Pittsburgh’s fancier toy stores, was able to buy this little guy. I vaguely recall that it cost $12? This was about 1972, so we’re talking $90 in today’s terms, an amount I would now hesitate to spend on a stuffed toy.
I felt him to be so precious that I never played with him much, nor even gave him a name. Poor little chap, he was not part of my busy community of toys. But he has stayed with me all these years.
