My Cousin's Medium-Sized Syrian Wedding

Last Thursday I presented the second half of my seminar about my sabbatical efforts.  I guess it went OK, but I'm glad it's over.  Also on Thursday the first full-sized Chick-Fil-A opened in Peoria.  I heard it was pretty busy.  Katie and I stopped there on Friday night and it was still busy.  I think part of the popularity, based on various conversations I overheard, was due to people eating at other Chick-Fil-A places (mostly in the south).  On Saturday, the family and I attended a wedding for my cousin up in Chicago.  It was been nearly 2 years since I have been there, and the first time Katie ever saw the city during the daytime (she was impressed by the big buildings). My cousin married into a Syrian family, so the wedding was a good opportunity to broaden my cultural horizons. I was reminded of "My Big Fat Greek Wedding" and Karen was reminded of "Bride and Prejudice." The half-hour ceremony was at St. Odisho Church (the denomination was the Assyrian Church of the East).  Much of the ceremony was not in English, we wound up near the back, and people stood the whole time, so I cannot offer extensive details, but I did notice there was very little iconography on the walls except lovely script over the altar, and at one point both the bride and groom wore crowns.  Afterward, in the receiving line, an older lady threw coins at the bride and groom (as opposed to the rice I had at my wedding).  The reception was an interesting fusion of Midwest and Syrian traditions.  There were two musical acts that alternated sets - one was a loud, talented rock band playing a variety of mostly 80's anthems.  The other was a trio (drummer, keyboardist, and singer) that sang Syrian songs. The Syrian songs were really long (like a very extended remix) - there was basically one or two songs per set.  Some saw the singer actually stop singing, take a quick call on his cell phone, and then resume singing during one song.  Dancing to these types of songs typically consisted of everybody joining hands and dancing sideways in a long snaking line (sideways bunny hop).  The people near the front of the line actually had some steps that they followed, but where I was toward the back it was basically a shuffle.   Our room was under the ballroom, so even after we retired for the evening we could still hear the music (and later on the vacuum cleaners).  We all enjoyed the wedding, and I got to see some people that I have not seen in a long time.

October Weekend

Lot of church-related stuff this weekend, but we did other things like Katie's dance class.  The leaves have been turning and falling. The rain let up before the weekend and the weather warmed up, so we were able to rake up some of the thicker wet leaf deposits.  I temporaily decorated one of our pine trees with leaves.  I also taught Katie the basics of playing checkers this weekend.

Lincoln Presidential Library

My parents are visiting this weekend (Happy Anniversary to them).  Today we went to Springfield to the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum.  As we have heard, the museum is quite good and modern, with very good multimedia.  Comparisons to the Bob Bullock Texas State History Museum were inevitable.  They are similar, but the the Lincoln musuem was smaller - in fact we spent less time there than I had anticipated. The statues we posed with represent the Lincoln family before traveling to Washington for the Presidency. After that we made a quick visit to Lincoln's tomb and rubbed Abe's (bronze) nose for good luck.

20th Anniversary of Our Engagement

Twenty years ago, on the day of the wedding of our friends Jim and Jill Kaeder, I asked Karen to marry me.  It was before the wedding, at her apartment at UW-Green Bay (she was in her last year there; I had just started grad school at Northwestern).  Here is our engagement photo. I've been pretty blessed.

Fall Fossils

Did a fossil hunt for a couple hours this afternoon.  The wood had some pretty spots.  Having not hunted this particular good location for Pennsylvanian plants for about a year and a half, I was hoping that a bunch of new fossils would have worked out of the creek bed.  The creek bed was dry, but the dead leaves and dust made hunting challenging - can you spot the fossil in the picture?  However, when I took the dusty fossils that I found back home and cleaned them up in water I found a couple nice surprises, including a sizable bark impression.  I'm guessing it's something like Lepidodendron, but the leaf scars are small, less than a quarter inch long.

Pretty leaves

It's Fall Break at Bradley, and we kept things very low key, focusing on catching up on things.  Some of the leaves in the area look quite pretty.

Oh deer

Yesterday as I drove home I passed a yard that had 7 deer in it.  Today as I drove home I passed another yard (near the first that had 5 deer). No racks.  The camera was out of reach both times. I guess bowhunting season started yesterday, so we'll have to be careful. 

Today marked the passing of Dorothy the goldfish.  We bought it about 11 years ago.  I vaguely recall Kris calling it "da-da-dee". Then, when it got too big for our tank, we passed it along to some friends.  Dorothy went on and wiped out the the other fish in that tank, tolerating no rivals as it reigned supreme in its little empire.  Apparently we never took a picture of the goldfish. :*)

Got my name in lights this week, see: http://www.bradley.edu/inthespotlight/story/?id=96b71938-ee8a-4615-a06d-d04080208b2b.

I saw a heron fly over and alight on a chimney on a house in northern Peoria.  It reminded me of the image of a stork delivering babies.