It's Loverly

(New post on the wedding blog. Not much more to say over there, but a few little updates and responses to comments.)

Have you seen the movie Young@Heart? If not, please do. It’s a touching documentary about the Young At Heart chorus, a senior citizen chorus from Northampton that happens to sing rock and roll songs. The story of the group and its members is inspiring (and pretty funny, too).

I just read that Fred Knittle, a member of the chorus, died yesterday. Fred had one of the most memorable moments of the film, when he sang Coldplay’s Fix You on stage at the Academy of Music. The song was supposed to be a duet with his friend Bob, but Bob passed away shortly before the show. Fred does the song solo, and it is one of the most heartfelt performances I’ve ever heard. I’m posting the clip of him singing Fix You below. Thanks for giving us this moment, Fred.

under the tree
Originally uploaded by nicolemperle

11:11 PM Christmas night, sitting around the living room with Dad, sister, and husband. Fire is roaring, opened presents strewn around the tree, cookies and chocolates out on the coffee table.

It’s been a good day. Hard at times– the first Christmas without my grandmother and Patrick’s grandmother. I think we all found ourselves in moments where we just really missed them. We muddled through those moments and enjoyed the togetherness (and a darn cute toddler to keep us all entertained). Lots of laughing, plenty of eating, all around warm and relaxed.

Our first married Christmas meant spending the whole holiday together- no more splitting up between houses or separate Christmas mornings. It meant two stockings for each of us (one at each house), and a new level of belonging. My favorite part was experiencing it all together.

Merry Christmas.

We recently received a few little video snippets from our wedding, courtesy of our wonderful photographers. We didn’t hire a videographer, so seeing these little bits as they trickle in is a lot of fun. I’ve posted a handful of the videos on Flickr. You can see them here.

This video is me dancing with my dad. My dad picked the song we danced to, and didn’t tell me what it was beforehand (I had no idea until the moment it came on as we walked on to the dance floor). He chose “You are my Sunshine” (the Sara Gazarek version), which was the song he sang to me the day I was born- and has been singing to me ever since. I was surprised when the initial song came on, and then surprised again when the song faded into “My Girl”. It was very sweet, despite my lack of coordination– I’m glad I had these moments with my Daddy-o on such a whirlwind day (and his choice of songs was perfect).

I was up until 2:00 this morning attempting to put together a Blurb book of our wedding photos for our parents, who are chomping at the bit for actual physical copies of our photos and thus can’t wait for the one that’s coming from our photographers. We won’t get the Blurb book in time for Christmas, but if I can manage to send it in tonight we might get it by the weekend after Christmas, which is acceptable, right?.

While Blurb’s software is very user-friendly, the whole thing is taking for-ev-er. The high-res photos, plus a not-so-new computer have made the process painfully slow, which has made me grumpy.

I’m about to sit down for another many-many-hours of delight working on this thing, and I’m not stopping until it’s done. Or until I’m rocking back and forth staring at the walls and muttering nonsensically.

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Photo: one of our wedding photos by Upstate Photographers.

It sounds like things continue to be rough in the Albany area, which was slammed with an ice storm Thursday night in to Friday morning. My parents are on day three with out power, and they’ve been told it won’t be restored until Wednesday. There are lots of trees down around the house– Dad spent the day today sawing limbs and trying to heat the house with the fireplace to prevent frozen pipes. They’re staying with my aunt and uncle a few towns away until the electricity at their house comes back on.

Part of me is a little sad to miss the excitement, although I know it’s not all fun and pioneer games. From what I’ve heard, many suburbs are experiencing a sense of community this weekend that they’ve maybe never had before. My mom spoke to more neighbors today than she has in the 12 years they’ve lived there. It’s one of those ‘good coming from bad’ situations– and Ice Storm ’08 is sure to become the stuff of legends! I’m glad to be warm and ice-free in Western Mass, but I can’t help but feel a little bit jealous when my parents share their tales of survival! (I can’t help it– I grew up reading The Boxcar Children and Little House on the Prairie!)

Meanwhile, we spent the weekend here getting into the Christmas spirit. Last night was Art Walk, dinner with friends, and a viewing of that holiday classic, Christmas Vacation. Today we baked loads of cookies and put up our Christmas tree (the first tree we’ve had since 2005– our last apartment didn’t allow real trees. Boo). It’s just so nice to spend time in our own home.

(Photo by Patrick of our newly-hung lights. And that little guy isn’t our actual tree– just the little place holder.)

We did not get snow (sad), or ice (good) like our neighbors to the north, east, and west. The Valley seems to have sheltered us this time around, and we’re just left with a lot of slush and mud. I’m glad we have power and clean roads, but I can’t believe we haven’t gotten any real snow yet. Update: Check out Ice Cream Diaries for some photos of the weather today in the rest of New England vs. the Pioneer Valley. (I’m on my way to stop in to Mt. Tom’s for some eggnog ice cream to bring home. And I probably won’t be able to resist the gingerbread or the Festivus ice cream, either.)

This weekend is the only one between Thanksgiving and Christmas that we’ll spend at home. All the others have us driving to Albany for one thing or another. So far we’ve made plans to clean (desperately needed), bake (really want to), and shop (no other time to do it!). I’m also hoping to fit in some couch time and some crochet time. Did I mention the photo books I have to finish? Oh, and tomorrow is ArtWalk Easthampton. And Winterfest at Eastworks.

Weekends really need to be longer than two days.

p.s. Some new posts on the ole wedding blog. I received a few very sweet comments this week so I figured I’d finish writing about a couple things before fully moving away from Prom to Altar.

In case we needed another reason to support our locally-owned (and loved) Faces over the new Urban Outfitters on Main Street, Northampton– Julia sent over this New York Magazine article about Urban Outfitters’ pulling an ‘I Support Same Sex Marriage’ t-shirt from their shelves.

“Printed T-shirts are a staple item for Urban Outfitters, but in a rare move, the company yanked one from their California shelves last week. Tara Littman of Support Shirts designed the shirt in question, which features the statement “I Support Same Sex Marriage,” clearly a hot-button item in the Proposition 8 state. Less than a week after it first arrived in stores and online, the shirt was gone.”

The page linked to above links to some other articles on the same topic.

Something tells me Northampton won’t like that attitude very much.

photo by me, the Faces window display last December.

This video for ‘Winter Song’ by Ingrid Michaelson and Sara Bareilles is adorable. It’s a beautiful song and the animation is both melancholy and sweet. I especially love the part where the girls go sledding.

(Fun fact: Ingrid is the friend/roommate of a high school friend. I’d adore her music either way, but the two-degrees thing is neat.)