Airborne elephant watch

Google fetched this from someplace unsafe-looking called wn.com. Apologies for not crediting anybody. Forellenhof is the name of any number of hotels where Deutsch wird gesprochen and I suppose you can order trout—Forelle—from the Gasthof menu.

Yes, it's time to think once again about one of those news stories Thomas Friedman would not be able to imagine even in his most fevered vegetably-induced trance state: another prankish pachyderm sighted among the clouds, this time back in Tunisia, where they say elephant-gliding first got its start.

You can ignore the Times's Friedmanesque headline—"Tunisia Faces a Balancing Act of Democracy and Religion", like Religion, weighing in at 500 pounds, in this corner, and in the other, fresh from a championship bout in little Myanmar, you get the picture—and go straight to the story.

It turns out that the democracy and the religion are mostly struggling "ach! in einer Brust", in the same breast, and not really struggling, either, because they're actually fairly comfortable with it, that is a majority of Tunisians so far think of themselves as both little-d democrats and big-M Muslims at the same time and fail (of course they're not smoking whatever Tom is) to see any contradiction. Almost like Baptists, or somebody.

Not that everybody is entirely on board. There are your liberals, as usual, the ones who won the revolution but lost the election; and there are your Salafis, the ones who think that elections are not from God; and they tease each other a lot. The liberals are not listening to me, which is not that much of a surprise, and they're more worried about movie censorship than about breakfast for people who don't know where they're finding lunch, and if they want to start winning elections, they need to think about those priorities; and the Salafis are in my humble etc. kind of creepy. And somebody is really going to get hurt, I'm afraid. But most people won't, and things in general are going to keep chugging along. Try to enjoy it!

 


Abusive language

Wouldn't want these young Memphisites to get the wrong idea about George Washington, would you? From the Memphis Commercial Appeal.
 1. Tennessee Tea Partiers are concerned about the way slavery is presented in local history textbooks:
what's in your kid's textbook may be giving them [sic] a negative opinion about our nation's founding history....  "My biggest concern is that important information is being omitted, which creates a negative light on our Founding Fathers," said Tea Party activist Brian Rieck. (WYCB Television, Bristol, VA; h/t Great Lakes Liberal at Kos)
So they'd like the state legislature to do some editorial work on the texts, just [jump]
to show how deeply committed they are to liberty and small government and all that. And what information exactly is being omitted?
"Slavery is of course portrayed in the textbooks nowadays I'm sure as a totally negative thing. Had there not been slavery in the South, the economy would've fallen," Rieck said. Rieck told News 5 without offering that balance, the Founding Fathers, many of whom were slave owners, could be slighted for their contributions in the eyes of students.
Now, I don't think the textbooks would be denying that slavery had an economic function, with the implication that George Washington owned slaves simply because he was a mean man. Of course I haven't looked (it looks like Mr. Rieck hasn't looked either, with his "nowadays I'm sure"). But is he really calling for them to assert that the enslavement of and trafficking in human beings was like the curate's egg, "good in parts"? (I guess it kept down the wage-price spiral by not having any wages...) Is he really afraid that they are being cruelly unfair to slavery, giving it a bad reputation and hurting its feelings? And here I thought that Tea Party was all about our sacred Freedom.

2. Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Gennady Gatilov warned that
"The Western draft Security Council resolution on Syria will not lead to a search for compromise," Interfax quoted Gatilov as saying. "Pushing it is a path to civil war."
Civil war? That sounds awful. You might have people getting killed in the streets! Oh, wait...
Mr. Gatilov had better be telling the truth, because if he's not, these guys could be in danger! Photo by Anissa Helou.


3. You may have heard about the New York City Deputy Commissioner of Police for Public Information, Paul Browne, who has been saying some things about the anti-Muslim propaganda film The Third Jihad: that only a few officers ever saw it (over a three-month period it was shown at a site for counterterrorism training, on a continuous loop, where it could have been seen by some 1,500 officers); and that footage in the movie of Commissioner Raymond Kelly must have been ripped off an old interview, because the commissioner never spoke to the film makers (Browne himself arranged a 90-minute interview for them).

It seems that this has been going on for a long time, and it's not just Browne, either—it's becoming a departmental habit (Browne is still very much on the leading edge, though). Councilman Jumaane Williams, who was handcuffed and arrested at last September's West Indian Labor Day parade (Browne said force was necessary because a cop was punched, but no cop was in fact punched—just making it up once again), had something to say:
"This is far from the first time that he has displayed his penchant for questionable judgment, continual misrepresentation of events or blatant lying," Williams, a freshman Democrat, said in a public statement. "If this is the standard that the deputy commissioner wants to continue to represent to the taxpayers that afford him his salary, then it is time for him to be removed."
 And our mayor? What did he say?
"Anybody that knows Paul Browne knows he gives you the facts always as he knows them at the time, and later on, if he finds the facts that he gave you are wrong, he's not shy about standing up and correcting himself," Mayor Michael Bloomberg said Monday. "He is as good as you could have representing the city or representing the police department. We're lucky to have him."
Which is so pathetic it doesn't even deserve to be called a lie. It's just a reflex.



Ikhwan to be loved by you...

Ishak Md Nor, 40, (2nd L) and his two wives, Aishah Abdul Ghafar, 40, (C) and Afiratul Abidah Mohd Hanan 25 -- both members of the Obedient Wifes Club -- laugh with their children after the club's launch in Kuala Lumpur June 4, 2011/Photo by Samsul Said (Reuters) from Faith World. No, you will not see any titillating photos in this post. Any you see elsewhere are not authentic.
Morning Edition had a story this morning about an organization founded in Kuala Lumpur last year under the name of the Obedient Wives' Club, now claiming 800 members in Malaysia as well as branches in Singapore, Indonesia, and Jordan, promulgating what they claim to be the Qu'ranic way of relating to a husband. I have to tell you, they didn't report the half of it, much of which is accessible through a Wikipedia article, including the fact that the sex manual they published in October was entitled Islamic Sex: Fighting Against Jews To Return Islamic Sex To The World. However it is not the case, according to the members, that it recommended a man's having group sex with all of his wives; rather, it merely mentioned that "a man who has reached the highest spiritual capability can have sex with all his wives simultaneously, spiritually."
Mohammad Inaamulillah Bin Ashaari, son of the founder Mr Ashaari, with his four wives, Rohaiza Esa, Ummu Habibah Raihaw , Nurul Azwa Mohd Ani,and Ummu Ammarah Asmis at the “Ikhwan Polygamy Club Family Day” in Rawang, north of Kuala Lumpur. From Biyokulule Online, Somalia.
The book itself was banned in November, and the Malaysian government is keeping a close eye on the ladies, who were workers at the Ikhwan Coffee House in Bukit Bintang (Fine Dining, Spiritual Harmony), which is a property of the Global Ikhwan Group ("a company whose businesses include bread and noodle factories, a chicken-processing plant, pharmacies, cafes and supermarkets"), which was a property of the late Mr. Ashaari Mohamad (died May 2010), founder of the heterodox Al-Arqam sect, which is also banned. Also, I think they are probably suspected, with some justice, of being the same ladies who founded the Ikhwan Polygamy Club in 2009, a club which has apparently not been banned, but is less active than its sexier younger sister.

What they are being investigated for is revealed in today's Telegraph: they are suspected of having
violated [Malaysian] religious laws with a morality campaign that describes the Prophet Mohammed as a role model for "sacred sex".

 Move over, Salman Rushdie, you innocent! I hope this gives you all some idea of the stresses a "moderately Islamist" government can come under, and for once I don't even mean to be sarcastic. The idea that is necessary to "fight against Jews" to "return Islamic sex to the world" is not very comfortable, even though the Malay polygamists here do not look threatening and clearly have all the Islamic sex they need in any case.

Anyway, all I really wanted to say about the story, before I acquired all this excess information, was that when I was listening to the NPR version—not fully awake, to tell the truth—I heard two things that are not in their published transcript: one, which I fear was real, was a parental warning that the subject of the story might not be suitable for younger readers; the other, which I am pretty sure I must have dreamed, was that the membership of the club was suspected of having a satirical intention.

That's the second time this week I am imagining some kind of conservative gesture to be satire (the first was with the 10,000 leftists threatening to join the Likud party), and I woke up with an idea for a post suggesting that there was a general international phenomenon of living satire, growing out of Billionaires for Bush and Stephen Colbert, but I'm pretty sure now, awake, that this is not the case.




1929 recording of "Kashmiri Song" (Pale hands I loved beside the Shalimar...)

Immaculate contraception (addendum)

Just in case it wasn't clear:

If anyone's religious freedom is affected by the rule requiring employers—except for a very narrowly defined class of religious organizations—to include coverage for family planning in their employees' health insurance, it is not America's Catholics, but a much smaller class of people, the CEOs of Catholic hospitals, colleges, and charitable foundations.

I think of them, rightly or wrongly, as America's Catholic bishops; that is, as a relatively small number of elderly and largely virginal men who have never had and will never have a reason to ask their doctors for birth control pills themselves and have extremely little experience of those who have (let alone of a girlfriend missing a period). It is their tender consciences that revolt at the thought of paying for insurance that pays for family planning for others, including Protestant, Jewish, Buddhist, Muslim, and nonbelieving employees, not to mention those Catholic employees who defy the papal edict, which is virtually all of those who are or ever have been sexually active women (yesterday I said 99%; today's Times says 98%).

A pompier Temptation of Saint Hilarion, by Dominique Louis Fléréol Papety (1815-1849) from Ze Last Chance Garage du 78.
In New York State since the effective date of the Women's Health and Wellness Act in 2003, every health care plan that covers any prescription drugs must also cover family planning, by law. Catholic Charities sued against the provision and lost every round of appeals, up to the US Supreme Court, which declined to hear it. Thus it is settled law that such provisions do not offend religious freedom.

Worrying about those tender consciences is 1% thinking; these people are not exactly martyring themselves for a cause. They haven't shut down Catholic Charities yet, or Fordham University, on account of the New York State Women's Health and Wellness Act. Do you know why? Because they don't really care that much. So forget about it.

Weekend recap!

This weekend had a little bit of everything...and it was pretty awesome. Though unfortunately, getting my butt in gear this morning was really unpleasant. 

  1. Thursday, after a long day of work followed by a meeting with the Big Brothers Big Sisters Young Professional Association where we are planning an awesome March Madness event, I finally made it home to turn around and head out to Melt. This was the first time I had been back here since the night on my engagement, which was pretty awesome :) And the Hot Italian, with those amazing fries and coleslaw, made for a pretty fantastic meal!

2. Friday was a short day of work though insanely busy as we were one of the hosts of The Celebration of Youth Mentoring. Around 100 people joined together to talk about Youth Mentoring in Cle...and it was awesome to see all those groups in one room!

3. We headed to Lakewood to celebrate the engagement of one of my old roommates and close friends. Honored I'm going to be included in their big day and can't wait to help her get into planning :) As if planning my own isn't enough!
My old roommate and I...after lots and lots and lots of beer  wedding talk
4. Saturday was the extreme lazy day- started partially out of necessity (two bottles of champagne to start the evening followed by countless beers). After a nap, I proceeded to not do anything. The fiance and I watched almost an entire season of Justified. SO GOOD.

5. Started off the day by heading to Ohio City for lunch with my cousin at Bon Bon Cafe and Bakery. Between the breakfast taquitos and chocolate french toast, the two of us left some happy ladies

6. From there, we headed to Dredger's Union for the Boutique Bridal Bazaar. While I have most of my vendors already secured and ideas of other things I need to do, I was able to find some new ideas and learn about some different vendors in the area.

7. I got home from downtown, amidst a 30 minute snow-storm and received a call from my brother to come hang out. The highlight of this visit was definitely taking my niece out in her new sled. She LOVED it. Kept giggling and trying to put her hands in the snow. We bundled her up pretty tight and dragged her around the yard.
Adorable. And wrapped in three blankets!
8. After cuddling with that adorable baby, I headed off to B Spot with some friends. A Lola burger and fries, plus an overabundance of pickled everything, AND a vanilla milkshake with Kahlua and vodka later, we were all stuffed and happy. 

It was a great weekend :) Catching up with old friends, spending time with the fiance, and plenty of napping...seemed like a great weekend to me! And next weekend...we're heading to Columbus for some family/friend time and Athens for our engagement pictures (and some chilli cheese fries/bloody marys...no not together.)

Immaculate contraception


Speaking of Times columnists, the Apostolic Nuncio to 42nd Street, the Right Rev. Ross Douthat, is having a terrible time dealing with the horrors dealt out by the Obama administration; this time, the awful prospect of the rules announced last week by HHS secretary Kathleen Sebelius for the Affordable Care Act, requiring employers to provide health insurance covering family planning services with no co-pays, including the dreaded "morning-after pill", which some of those Jesuits regard as an extra-sneaky way of getting an abortion. There's an exemption, but oh, my, [jump]


the White House has settled on an exemption that only covers religious institutions that primarily serve members of their own faith. A parish would be exempt from the mandate, in other words, but a Catholic hospital would not.

Ponder that for a moment. In effect, the Department of Health and Human Services is telling religious groups that if they don’t want to pay for practices they consider immoral, they should stick to serving their own co-religionists rather than the wider public. Sectarian self-segregation is O.K., but good Samaritanism is not. The rule suggests a preposterous scenario in which a Catholic hospital avoids paying for sterilizations and the morning-after pill by closing its doors to atheists and Muslims, and hanging out a sign saying “no Protestants need apply.”
Well, but, the thing is, that's not actually what the rule does; it's about insurance provided by employers to employees, and the exemption applies to
employers such as churches whose primary purpose is to inculcate religious beliefs and that mainly employ and serve individuals who share those beliefs. [my emphasis]
The reason that the hospitals, colleges, and charity conglomerates don't qualify isn't just that their clients--patients, students, aid recipients--may not belong to the religion paying the bills, but that their employees don't. The hospital doesn't buy insurance for the patients, for heaven's sake, it's the folks  emptying the bedpans, and filling out the forms, and making the diagnoses, and of course they want contraception, including the 99% of Catholic women who use birth control.

Thus the sign Reverend Ross fears might be hung out the door is really designated for the back door—it's about no jobs for atheists and Muslims and Protestants and Catholic women who can't live with the idiotic rules.

And what the Church is asking for, by this argument, is anything but religious freedom—they want to enforce their unenforceable mandate, and they are demanding federal help in doing it.
Thomas Nast, "No church need apply". Harper's Weekly, May 8, 1875.
A revised version is posted at Daily Kos.

Really, Tom Friedman...

...whose blog, as you know, presents the Times columnist's electrifying insights in all their unspeakably raw grandeur, as they arrive to him before the Times copy editors bleach them out and turn them into something they are intellectually and emotionally equipped to deal with, is celebrating at the Davos conference and one of the aspects of his celebration is a brand new Twitter feed.

Also, don't miss his insider take on Davos, taken while he was "a guest of King Bhumibol’s at the week-long Davos para-party which one gets to by transporter beams."

I'm a non-Tweeter myself (he tweets not, neither does he spin; and yet Solomon in his glory...), and his website is distinctly unfriendly to comments (a clear sign, if you're a doubter, that this is the authentic Tom), so I have been unable to make any contact with him and engage in some of that feisty ferment of idea exchange on subjects such as the flatness vs. fatness of the world, the Airborne Elephant Watch, and so on. And I'm probably his biggest public fan—possibly the only one. And yet he still hasn't blogrolled me! Any of you Twitterholics care to take a stab at finding out why?

Mustache ring. From Paper Airplane Design.


Just a shande

So they say whenever Netanyahu gets a divorce, he gets together with the wife and the lawyers and says, "Listen, let's talk without preconditions; I'm the most ethical man in Israel, I'm prepared to make incredible concessions if you negotiate in good faith."

"Okay," says the wife, "no preconditions. So what's your position?"

"Well, I get to keep all the money, and all the houses, and all the stuff."

"What? are you crazy?"

"In the first place, it's my money; and then I have to have all the houses, so I have somewhere to keep the stuff."

"And how come you have to have the stuff?"

"It's a principle of mine."

"And that's not a precondition?"

"Of course not, it's not the same thing at all. You know me, I'm a man of principle and I would never impose preconditions."

"But seriously, if you get everything, what are these incredible concessions you're prepared to make?"

"Are you kidding? We get a divorce, I was going to let you move out and fuck other men!"

I really meant to try to drop the thugs of Likud as a subject for a while, but then I caught this from yesterday's Times: [jump]

Israeli negotiators told their Palestinian counterparts this week that their guiding principle for drawing the borders of a future two-state solution would be for existing settlement blocks to become part of Israel, an approach that the Palestinians rejected as unacceptable.
This is a "guiding principle"? So what's on the table? Are they offering to declare that contrary to popular opinion Palestinians actually exist? I doubt it, because then they could have "existential questions" too; after all, if you think the 1967 borders are indefensible for Israel, what do you think about a West Bank map that's virtually nothing but borders, a lacework of paths between islands woven around the settlement walls?
The evolution of the shape of Palestine, found here. Gaza is of course now back to its 1967 size, while the West Bank is further dwindled.
In other news, the proposals of the Trajtenberg Committee, convened to offer some solutions to the problems highlighted by the protests in Israel last summer which some likened to an "Israeli spring" joining other pro-democracy movements in the Middle East, continue to develop.

The affordable housing plans got a little sidetracked from their original goals when housing minister Ariel Atias decided to allocate housing on the basis of more for families with more children, meaning more for the ultra-Orthodox or Haredim who vote for the minister's Shas party; the committee's recommendations on relieving the terrible unemployment (the employment rate for Haredi men is 37%, for women 49%) underwent an odd sea change, in which all proposals relating to Haredim disappeared. Well, Haredi men can't do military service, or take nine-to-five jobs, it would distract them too much from their Torah study; and the women have to take care of the kids, who keep arriving. It's another guiding principle.

And Netanyahu seems to have agreed that there should be an election some day, but under the guiding principle that his party is supposed to win, because some (satirically-minded, I hope) leftists under Gil Kidron are planning to join Likud—hopefully 10,000 of them—in the hopes of taking over the primary (where turnout in Israel is apparently as pathetic as in the US, or even more—so crazy it just might work!).

So it's just guiding principles everywhere, as far as the eye can see!

It's the principal of the thing



The New York education world is buzzing with the news of a study ostensibly showing that small high schools are better than big ones, carried out by Gordon Berlin and Howard Bloom of a nonprofit firm called MDRC, funded by the Gates Foundation, and "proving" the correctness of the path followed by the Bloomberg administration over the past ten years, of shutting down those awful old failure mills and then filling the buildings with these little boutique schools, the School of Armenian Studies, the Renaissance School for Future Hipsters, the Cupcake Academy, where all the math and science classes are keyed to understanding the life cycle of the cupcake,  and so on.

And does it, actually? There's no telling in any proper sense, [jump]
since it hasn't in fact been published, but only delivered, apparently in oral form, to the New York Times reporter that got the byline, Winnie Hu. We don't know what schools were involved except that there were 105 small ones, "mainly in Brooklyn and the Bronx." The population studied was 21,000 kids who applied (i.e., whose parents applied for them) to these schools from eighth grade from 2005 through 2008 and were either admitted by lottery (about 40% of the total), or not admitted, in which case they went to one of the (unidentified) big ones.

Some of the results are illustrated in the table at left; the small-school kids graduated at a definitely higher rate than the big-school kids, and got better scores on their English Regents exams (for non–New Yorkers, these are the hoary old things established by the state Board of Regents many decades before the federal government started talking about "accountability"), suggesting a higher degree of readiness for college. On the math Regents, not so hot. Further, 41.5 of the small-school students got Regents diplomas, compared to 34.9 of the other group.

Now these figures apply only to the cohorts applying in 2005 and 2006; the others haven't yet had their full four years. We don't know anything about the subjects except for the authors' assurance that the results hold "regardless of race, family income or scores on the state’s eighth-grade math and reading tests." We can guess that all of the students (or their parents) preferred the small schools in advance—because the students rank the schools in the application, and then get the highest-ranked one that accepts them.

We also know that nobody was optioned by any of the selective schools, but that there were such kids in the small schools they went to, because only a portion of the kids in such schools are selected by lottery. But they had won the lottery and were in a school that they had in a way chosen, and were with a cohort of students who actually were chosen; and they're new, as well, exciting, and focused on their weird little boutique themes. While the big schools in the sample were clearly those that are not selective at all, to which you go because nobody else wants you (most of the best public high schools in the city are among the biggest, but they are also the most selective). The former were set up by the study design to succeed and the latter to fail.
“This study shows conclusively that our new small high schools changed thousands of lives in New York City, across every race, gender and ethnicity — not only helping them graduate, but graduate ready for college,” [schools chancellor Dennis] Walcott said. “When we see a strategy with this kind of success, we owe it to our families to continue pursuing it aggressively.”
What kind of success? It shows nothing of the kind. It shows that if you commission a report to give you the results you want, and have it reviewed by the officials who want them instead of by academic peers, you can get it.

Why does Bloomberg, why did his erstwhile chancellor Joel Klein, love the idea of the small schools so much that he's willing to perpetrate fraud for them? I think I know, as a matter of fact. The clue is in a famous remark by the playwright David Mamet, in an interview he gave to Leonard Lopate on WNYC in 2007 (the audio is here, with the particular passage at about 7:20 to 7:45):
What's wrong with the movie business is what's wrong with any successful business: General Motors starts out with 15 companies of guys in their garage making cars, some of them get successful and some fall by the wayside, the ones who are successful buy each other out and the original guys who were making cars are gone, and they start bringing in managers, and the managers say what managers always say: You know what we need? More managers.
The same applies when a mayor decides that the city needs to be run like a business—it needs more managers too. So when you close down a high school of 2000 kids and replace it with four boutique operations, you quadruple the number of principals, the number of APs, the number of flunkies that report to them, and so on.

You also lose a little—economies of scale. You lose variety and richness and the chance to make friends with people different from yourself; you lose the range of different languages taught and different sports to play and different performing organizations to work in and electives in English and science and math.

I know of one very prestigious and selective little high school in Queens in a hideous office building with no gym, where kids have to walk blocks at lunchtime just to get someplace where they can have some exercise, and another on the Upper West Side where they couldn't afford the foreign language offerings required by the state Regents so decided that all the kids could take four years of Spanish online. But oy, do they have management!

5 years

5 years ago, we made it Facebook official. Whether or not this was actually the date where we really began dating (I may have been really stubborn for a few months saying I wasn't ready for a relationship. Really? So dramatic in my sophomore year of college), this is the day I know as our dating anniversary. Next year, it won't mean quite as much- considering we'll have a wedding anniversary (there is also the engagement-versary). Little does he know, we're going to celebrate all of them ;)

Our very first picture together...prior to being "official."

A much more recent picture from a friends wedding
It's been a pretty awesome 5 years, and I'm excited for many more!

Decisions, Decisions

If you ask anyone who knows me, they would tell you that I'm pretty much the definition of indecisive. If I have a decision to make, large or small, I will first ask 19 different people (co-workers, anyone who happens to be on facebook or gchat, my parents, my fiance). I will then still have no idea what to do, and stress and analyze every. single. detail. And once again beg my fiance to make the decision for me. 

This weekend, I had my wedding dress fitting. Somehow, choosing my dress was easy...well kind of. Choosing my shoes was a whole other story (which of course ended when I didn't think I could get them anymore because I was so indecisive, but realized that I needed them). But the part that I struggle to decide on was the alterations. Did the length look ok? How is the train? Which way should I bustle it? Stupid (expensive) decisions...that thankfully my sister-in-law and cousin were able to make for me.

Needless to say...I hate decision making. Everything about wedding planning, and growing up, and moving, and making huge purchases, and spending money...I hate it. And I would always prefer that someone tells me what to do. As discussed in my last post, figuring out where to live and when to move there has been our main conversation lately. And I know this is going to be one decision that I'm not going to be happy making! Luckily, since this is the decision that affects both of us...I don't have to make it alone! YAY!

So last night, I spent hours browsing apartments/houses, as well as honeymoon locations. At one point, I had no less than 12 tabs open at the top of my browser- half of them for honeymoons, half for rentals properties. Oh and there may have been a few for animal rescue shelters. Not only am I not indecisive, I get distracted easily....and I really want a puppy. That is one decision I'm not too concerned with.

This one. Yep...I want him.
Paw and Prayers



Where Oh Where to live

As we're finally in the year of the wedding, one of the main topics of discussion is where we will live. The fiance and I have never lived together. We spend significant amounts of time together, mostly at his house (this was also true in college), but our names have never been together on a lease.

There are a few reasons for this, but mainly I always knew I didn't want to live together before we got married. Not really a religious thing, though growing up in the Catholic church, that may have played a tiny part of it in the back of my mind (oh Catholic guilt...). But I didn't want us to live together and get settled in to a point where marriage wasn't at the forefront of our minds.

All that being said, we're engaged now and in full wedding planning mode, so now it's time to consider where to live. Location isn't actually that much of a debate. We currently live about 1/2 mile apart. This location is a pretty decent central point for each of us to go to work. My office is downtown (east side of) and his is way far east side of Cle.

The ongoing debate, however, is apartment or house. As in should we keep renting or buy a house. We are both clearly on a side on this one- though fully understand the other and are open to what works out. Personally, I'm sick of renting. As in completely fed up with throwing my money into something I don't own, when I could potentially be putting the same amount towards a mortgage of a house I own. Fiance is a little less comfortable with the idea of purchasing a house...between obscene student loan payments (insert curse words to Direct Loans here) and just the overall fear of a huge purchase like that. 

I'm also scared somewhat shitless at the thought of buying a house...but my desire to have our own space and find somewhere where we can really build a home together kind of outweighs that fear. 

At this point there is no clear answer though. All we know is we want to find our home (whether renting or buying) in the April-June time frame.  The last thing I want to do is finish wedding planning, have a wedding and have to deal with moving in together right away. There is nothing quite as horrible as the whole moving process...besides paying student loans.

2012 has a lot to live up to

So 2011 was a pretty awesome year. And by pretty awesome, I mean it was completely amazing. Early on in 2011, my niece was born...and if you have looked at a single entry in this blog, you can tell that I'm a little obsessed with that little one. Doesn't hurt that I'm her godmother...and that she is insanely cute. She's also a hilarious little diva which might from the fact that she is insanely spoiled loved...and she knows it.
Serious attitude.
The fiance and I took two vacations in 2011- a week long trip to San Francisco to visit my family in May and a few days in Orlando (actually a work trip for him...I just took advantage of the free room at a Disney resort with 5 pools- Thank You Progressive!).
On the beach in Cali
We had a year full of weddings...7 to be exact (that doesn't even count the 3 I couldn't make it to). It was fabulous to watch some of our closest friends get married and to be with them on their wedding days. Lots of good food, drinking and dancing (sometimes too much of the drinking....and, let's be honest, the dancing).
See? Too much drinking...and dancing.

And apparently, after attending 6 weddings with me, the fiance decided it was time to pop the question himself! Which happened at the end of October...in a perfect, cheesy, romantic, perfect proposal!
Gives me goosebumps every time!
The year was wrapped up back in the place where most of it started- Athens, Ohio! Where I met my fiance, where my brother met my sister-in-law, where 4 of the 7 couples whose weddings we attended met each other. What better place to bring in a new year than in the greatest city in the world? ...Ok at least top 10.
Hello Court Street, my dear friend :)
And now we're in 2012. My niece will be turning 1 in just about a month, hopefully many more vacations, and spending time with amazing friends. Oh, and you know, getting married!! Don't know if September 29th can come quick enough :)

Happy New Years all!
Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...