Back now. And married, too! Strangely enough, not much is different, with a few subtle exceptions:
- our kitchen is a bit more well-equipped from the wedding gifts
- I get to wake up every morning next to a beautiful woman
- our apartment is an absolute mess from all the moving boxes
- I suddenly have a little free time, because there’s no more wedding to plan
- I don’t have to say goodbye to Mindy at night any more.
The wedding turned out wonderfully, if a bit hectic (all the “usual” last-minute wedding preparations, plus the emotional strain, plus moving Mindy’s stuff into my apartment, plus the wonderful-but-tiring opportunity to host 6 out-of-country guests (bridesmaides, plus the parents-in-law, plus my sister-in-law-in-law (err, my brother-in-law’s wife… what’s the name of that relationship?) ). It was Mindy’s parents first time in the states, which meant it was the first time our parents met, and also the first time that I got an opportunity to really host them. That last bit was really good–the opportunity to host them. In the past, I had always been visitting them, which meant it was them driving me around, them treating me to good restaurants, them cooking for me. I find it hard, generally, to serve Taiwanese parents. (don’t misunderstand, the hard part is not in finding motivation to serve, but in getting them to let you serve them. From my ?? perspective, the parent-child relationship is so fixed that it’s almost awkward for them to receive care instead of giving care). However, now that they were on my home turf, heh… I finally got to treat them at restaurants, drive them around, cook for them. It was wonderful to be able to return the love, finally.
But man, that last week before the wedding was hectic.
More later–hopefully plenty of pictures, an itinerary of wine tasting (the blogosphere was disappointingly uninformative on good santa barbara vinyards to visit), and santa barbara food.