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Coming In April, 2023

"Tropical Depression," the final episode of the "Equal and Opposite Reactions Trilogy," will be released on APRIL 27, 2023 by Black Rose Writing.

"Equal and Opposite Reactions" http://amzn.to/2xvcgRa
and the sequel, "Hail Mary" https://www.amzn.com/1684334888
Available on Amazon.

A few months ago I posted a blog about the random pieces of art hanging and sitting around my house and their random origins (see https://www.ailantha.com/blog/art-in-the-family).
Among the pieces I mentioned was this one, which hung in our home when I was growing up and which one of my siblings - or it could have been myself - christened "Goiter Guy." *

"Goiter Guy" was made of ceramic and cardboard on wood, and was made by one of my father's artist friends. (Though my father was a doctor, he hung with an arty crowd). The piece depicted a person with a swelling on their neck as described in an ancient manuscript by the Roman poet Juvenal. (Or so goes the story connected with the piece).

The artist made the picture in honor of my father, who was a distinguished endocrinologist and whose specialty was diseases of the thyroid, one of which diseases, purportedly, was the cause of the thing on Goiter Guy's neck.
Here's an old picture of a painting of my father that I believe still hangs in the halls of Thomas Jefferson University College of Medicine, where my father taught.

Anyway, when the time came for my siblings and me to see to the disposition of my parents' house and all the things in it, Goiter Guy was destined to be among the disposed of, as none of us wanted him. For one thing, the tip of his hat had broken off.

However, Goiter Guy was saved from what likely would have been an indignant terminus in some landfill when one of my daughters decided that she wanted him, broken hat and all.
My daughter wanted him, but as it turned out, not right away; alas, there was no room for him in her current digs. She asked me if I would keep him until she had a space big enough to hang him.
And so for over two years Goiter Guy sat in an upstairs closet in my house.

But then a couple of months ago while I was roaming through the contents of the closet it hit me: Why keep Goiter Guy stuck away in the closet? Though my daughter may not yet have a wall on which to hang him, I do.
But first I needed to fix his hat.
One of my neighbors, a talented home-improvement artiste who owned a tile cutter, offered to help me. I needed only to supply a piece of tile and a template of the piece I wanted replaced.
I looked around local supply stores and online but couldn't seem to locate any place where I could purchase a single tile in close to the same shade of glazed Fiesta blue as the Guy's hat.

I decided to see if I could get away with making his hat a bi-colored affair by replacing the tip, not in the same blue as the rest of the hat (which I couldn't find anyway), but in a cream color to coordinate with the cream in his robe,

...this shade being conveniently close to the color of my kitchen tiles, of which I had a few left over from when the new backsplash was installed last year.

Having my material now at hand, I proceeded to cut a hat-tip template from a piece of cardboard.

I then gave the cardboard template and a tile to my kind neighbor, who cut a wee little triangle from the tile which I glued onto the top of the hat with rubber cement then outlined with a black Sharpie, so as to resemble all the other ceramic pieces that the artist had outlined in black.
As it turned out, Goiter Guy's new off-white hat tip skewed just a bit, but rather jauntily, I thought.

So Goiter Guy, after two years-plus in the closet, was ready to hang again. I found a nice spot for him in the dining room,

...where I hung him a few days before my daughter and her family arrived from Los Angeles for their Christmas visit, and from where he oversaw the numerous holiday festivities.

One day during their visit my daughter shared with me that one of her daughters told her that she hoped that Grammie and Grandpa (myself and my mate Tom) would never sell our house because when she grew up she wanted to move into the house.
"Tell Grammie and Grandpa to never change a single thing in this house," my grand daughter told her mother. "Except for Goiter Guy. They can get rid of him."

* It has been recently pointed out to me that Goiter Guy might in fact be a Goiter Gal. Yeah, I think this could be true.

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Yo, Joe―Do More Speeches!

2/8/2023

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COMING OUT IN APRIL, 2023

"Tropical Depression," the final episode of the "Equal and Opposite Reactions Trilogy," will be released on APRIL 27, 2023 by Black Rose Writing.

"Equal and Opposite Reactions" http://amzn.to/2xvcgRa
and the sequel, "Hail Mary" https://www.amzn.com/1684334888
Available on Amazon.

YO, JOE―DO MORE SPEECHES!

Last night I, probably along with many of my fellow citizens, tuned into President Biden's State of the Union speech expecting to be considerable underwhelmed. What a surprise when old Joe grabbed that speech and knocked it out of the park!
There he was, looking cheerful and relaxed at the podium, warming up by joking and making friendly with Republican House Speaker Kevin McCarthy and even saluting Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell.

The President then hit the ground running on the state of the economy, reminding us of his not insignificant accomplishments during his first two years: the passing of the infrastructure bill, construction of the Ohio Intel chip factory, investments in the social safety net, affordable health care legislation, prescription drug price reform, legislation to fight climate change and promote clean energy, a minimum 15% tax rate on wealthy corporations, and creating more jobs in two years than any other president created in four years.
He talked electric vehicles, conservation, gas prices, manufacturing, a billionaire minimum tax, cracking down on wealthy tax cheats, banning non-compete clauses, passing a "Junk Fee Protection Act" to ban those sneaky fees that airlines, hotels, ticket vendors and others add on to the listed price of their goods. He talked China, immigration, democracy.
The President showed empathy to those Americans suffering hardships, heartbreak, injustice. Over and over he asked us to let him finish the job. He riffed and spoke off the cuff and from the heart.

There was no question that Joe Biden was crushing this State of the Union. He was energetic and in the zone. He looked good. He looked presidential. But the absolute show-stopping pièce de résistance of the night came when he brought up that there were some Republican members of Congress who, instead of making the wealthy pay their fair share in taxes, wanted to balance the budget by cutting out Social Security and Medicare. This brought cries of indignation from the Republican side of the room.
Marjorie Taylor Greene, of course, channeled her inner middle-schooler and began calling the President of the United States a liar.

But then in a few brilliant moves Biden not only maneuvered the Republicans into publicly standing up for the preservation of Social Security and Medicare, but checkmated them into giving him a standing ovation in the bargain.

It was priceless.
And of all the takeaways from Joe Biden's aced State of the Union address last night, to me the most obvious one was this: He needs to do what he did last night more often. Give more speeches. More press conferences. More televised events where he gets out in front of an audience and reminds us what he's accomplished and what he strives yet to do. If Joe Biden wants the nation behind him as President, he needs to keep speaking to the nation as he did last night.

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Bye-Bye, Balloon

2/5/2023

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Coming Out In April, 2023

"Tropical Depression," the final episode of the "Equal and Opposite Reactions Trilogy," will be released on APRIL 27, 2023 by Black Rose Writing.

BYE-BYE, BALLOON

Alas, the journey of the wayward Chinese balloon is over. Yesterday afternoon it sailed off the Carolina coast and out over the ocean where American fighter jets popped it.

It's likely that U.S. Navy SEALS are now combing the sea to recover the balloon's parts, the sum of which will surely not equal the balloon as a whole. At least not in our imaginations.
Fess up, everyone: Who hasn't been enjoying the Chinese balloon story? All right, it's serious business, I get it: this was some kind of Chinese spy gizmo and it invaded our airspace (which is ours, not God's right?).
But, come on, people, if we're telling the truth, who didn't find the whole thing funny and whimsical? Who didn't chuckle picturing a big white Chinese balloon floating over Montana?

As if out of a scene from "Nope?"

Next thing we heard the balloon was floating over the Carolinas, and, really, who could keep from cracking up over that tweet sent out by the Sheriff of York County, South Carolina?:

And even better were some of the responses the Sheriff's tweet generated:

In fact, witty folks were quick to create an abundance of funny internet balloon memes, such as this one starring Homer Simpson:

And then there was last night's hilarious Saturday Night Live skit.

In truth, who among us wasn't hoping the balloon would float over their neighborhood along its way?
But the now the Chinese balloon is down and our bit of fun is over. Now we have to sit back and watch American and Chinese leaders bicker and posture and toss back and forth macho threats and hostile language and ramp up world tensions, as if things aren't already tense and bad enough, and scare us all to death. And instead of being able to enjoy the good laugh we had over the Chinese balloon, all 326.7 million Americans now have to to be enraged against all 1.393 billion Chinese and they against us. All so a few alpha males at the top can engage in a club-swinging contest.
But then, most of the world's trouble and suffering come from a few alpha males at the top who need to engage in club-swinging contests.
They sure know how to spoil our fun.

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It's Time For We The People To Repeal The 2nd Amendment

2/3/2023

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COMING OUT IN APRIL, 2023:

"Tropical Depression," the final episode of the "Equal and Opposite Reactions Trilogy," will be released on APRIL 27, 2023 by Black Rose Writing.

IT'S TIME FOR WE THE PEOPLE TO REPEAL THE 2ND AMENDMENT

Now, everybody knows that what's preventing American lawmakers from passing effective gun safety laws in this country is not the 2nd Amendment, the 1791 wording of said amendment being open to a number of 2023 interpretations:

No, what everybody knows, whatever their side on the gun issue, is that the 2nd Amendment is just an excuse that lawmakers use so that they won't have to address the scourge of gun violence in this country, as taking any meaningful action would jeopardize their copious flow of cash from the National Rifle Association and the gun manufacturing industry.

It's time to take this excuse away from them.
Everybody knows that the Founding Fathers didn't really mean that any enraged, mentally deranged man with mass murder on his mind should have the right to own an arsenal of assault rifles with which to massacre his fellow citizens,

...so that members of Congress could make a fortune by allowing it.

And if the Founding Father's did mean that, well this concept now needs correction, as have others of the original concepts they wrote into the United States Constitution. By way of joint resolutions of Congress or state legislatures, we've amended our constitution over time to outlaw slavery, give women the right to vote, ban alcohol, then repeal that ban when it proved not to our national taste.
So there's precedent for adding and repealing amendments to our constitution.
It's time for We the People to demand the repeal of the 2nd Amendment and that it be replaced with sensible gun safety laws. Otherwise how can we enjoy life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness,

...if we risk these things every time we enter a public space?

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Non-Occurence At The Multiplex

1/30/2023

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COMING OUT IN APRIL, 2023:

"Tropical Depression," the final episode of the "Equal and Opposite Reactions Trilogy," will be released on APRIL 27, 2023 by Black Rose Writing.

NON-OCCURENCE AT THE MULTIPLEX

Last week my hubby Tom and I went to our local multiplex for an afternoon showing of M3gan,

...the oh, so fun horror (but not horrific) flic about an A.I.-infused doll who's 'way too smart - and smart alecky - for everyone's own good.
Much as I ended up enjoying the movie, before it started I had a somewhat unnerving - and thought-provoking - encounter.
Probably because it was the middle of a Friday afternoon, the movie house was pretty empty and Tom and I were the first to arrive in the theater where "M3gan" was showing. After we settled into our seats in the back row I decided to hit the restroom before the movie started.
As I was walking down the hallway towards the restrooms, I crossed paths with a man walking in the opposite direction, towards the theaters. He was a young white guy, looked to be in his twenties, tall and lanky, slightly scruffy hair, slightly scruffy beard, wearing a slightly scruffy baseball cap, slightly scruffy jacket, jeans and hiking boots. As we passed I smiled and said "Hi" and he smiled and said "Hi" back, this being the Ohio way when two people pass each other in a public place.
But as soon as we passed I was hit with the thought: Young, slightly scruffy-looking white guy walking by himself down the hall in a movie theater...
My mind started ticking away: He wasn't wearing a backpack, but what if there was an AR 15 tucked into the waistband of his jeans? What if he was headed to our theater? What if he got Tom before I got back? What if after I got back he stormed into our theater brandishing his AR15? There was only Tom and me in the back row...the rule is hide, run, fight, but there'd be nowhere to hide or run...I envisioned Tom and me dropping down behind our seats, then me quickly crawling to the end of the row, where I'd suddenly spring out into aisle, hopefully take the shooter by surprise and ram into him, knocking him backwards and causing him to tumble down the steps and drop his gun. I'd then grab his gun and hit him with it.
When I arrived back at the theater the shooter wasn't there, only Tom and a group of four young people seated a few rows in front of us. I breathlessly told Tom about the scruffy young white guy in the hallway and my plan for in case he turned out to be a shooter and came to our theater. Tom sighed and said that they guy probably wasn't a shooter, but just an ordinary young white guy dressed like young white guys dress, taking a bathroom break like me and heading to the theater to rejoin his friends and watch "Avatar."
Turned out that Tom was right about the guy not being a shooter. He probably was just an ordinary young white guy heading back to the theater to watch "Avatar" with his friends.
But here's the point: What kind of a country do we live in when a 71-year-old lady can't go to the movies without worrying about shooters? And scruffy young white guys can't go to the movies without worrying about old ladies worrying about them being shooters?
We know what kind of a country we live in. And yet I keep going to the movies. And dreaming on.

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A Rock On My Heart

1/26/2023

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Three nights ago while I was sitting at the kitchen table my husband Tom called to me from the family room where he sat at his computer.
"Another shooting," he said. "At a mushroom farm near San Francisco. Eight shot, seven dead."
My immediate response was...nothing. Not anger. Not outrage. Not grief. It was strange. It was as if I'd been struck by mental and emotional paralysis. I couldn't even dredge up anything to say about this horrific news. I felt out of words. After a few moments I managed to say, rather half-heartedly, "That's terrible."
How can I explain it? It was if it it were too much effort to feel anything. It was if there were a rock on my heart that I didn't have the strength to lift.
Less than 48 hours earlier eleven people had been gunned to death at a dance hall in Monterey Park, a community a few miles east of downtown Los Angeles. They were older people, mostly Asian, people in their 50's, 60's and 70's, murdered by a 72-year-old madman with an assault rifle. They were people's parents and grandparents and they liked to go out dancing. And now they're gone.

As are the seven people who used to work at the mushroom farm.

As are all the men, women and children in this country who've been indiscriminately slaughtered by men brandishing assault weapons. And as will be all the men, women, and children who will continue to be indiscriminately slaughtered by men brandishing assault weapons.

It occurred to me that the rock I was feeling was hopelessness. Hopelessness that there was anything I could do or say or feel that would make any difference in the epidemic in this country of random mass shootings by men with assault weapons.
I've written letters to my representatives. I've written letters to my local newspaper.
I've gone to protests calling for a ban on assault weapons.

I've taken part in sit-ins in congressmen's offices

I've written dozens of blog posts calling for better gun control.

I even wrote a protest song.

But what does anything I do matter? What does anything any American citizen says or does matter when our lawmakers, the only ones who have the power to end the violence by passing sensible gun laws, won't do anything because they're in the pockets of the gun lobby?

Congressional and Senate Republicans kill every bill calling for the ban of assault weapons,

...and they've stopped even pretending that they care about the lives that are taken away by gun violence. After the last two shootings within this past week they haven't even bothered to offer their phony old pious "thoughts and prayers" pablum. I suppose they believe they don't need to bother anymore. They must know how hopelessly worn-down people like me with rocks on their hearts are.
And yet the other day as I was driving home from the supermarket listening to the news on the radio I heard that President Biden has again called for an assault weapons ban.
"Oh, thank you," I said to the radio. And the rock lifted a millimeter.

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My Near Brush With The Facebook Bot Police. Or Maybe Not?

1/21/2023

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COMING OUT IN APRIL, 2023:

"Tropical Depression," the final episode of the "Equal and Opposite Reactions Trilogy," will be released on APRIL 27, 2023 by Black Rose Writing.

MY NEAR BRUSH WITH THE FACEBOOK BOT POLICE. OR MAYBE NOT?

A few days ago I was unwittingly on the verge of being nabbed by the Facebook Bot Police and hauled off to Facebook Jail, that nether state in which one is banned from using Facebook for some infraction for a period of time, maybe a few hours, maybe a few days, or maybe, if one has been especially and repetitiously incorrigible in one's postings,

...indefinitely.
Or maybe I wasn't a hairsbreadth away from Facebook Jail. Maybe what I posted wasn't in its context offensive to the Facebook community standard after all. Or maybe it was offensive and the bots, if they are insidiously efficient, will find what I posted (and soon afterwards deleted) floating somewhere around the vastness of the internet, where stuff can be created but not destroyed, and get me yet.
In truth, I don't actually know what my standing in the Facebookverse is at this moment. If anybody knows exactly what it is that one gets Facebook jailed for, I am looking for enlightenment.
Anyway, here's my tale:
A few days ago I posted on Facebook my previous blog, which was about a WWII spy novel I'd recently read, "Crosswind" by Karen K. Brees.

I found this book fascinating because of its subplot, which involved Adolph Hitler's little-known plan for a master race of Aryan plants in tandem with his plan for a master race of Aryan humans. (See https://www.ailantha.com/blog/crosswind-adolph-hitlers-plant-army).
I came up with the idea of photoshopping a swastika onto a photo of a garden and using it as the cover picture for my blog post. Here's what I came up with:

I thought it was a pretty snappy picture, and when I posted my "Crosswind" blog on Facebook, this picture showed up with it on my timeline.
About an hour after I'd posted the blog with the Nazi garden picture, one of my daughters called me.
"You might want to take down that swastika picture from Facebook," she said. "If the bots catch it you could end up in Facebook Jail."
"Facebook Jail?" said I. "It's not like I'm promoting white nationalism! Don't the bots know from context?"
My daughter replied that she didn't know if the bots knew from context. If they did I might be all right. But if they didn't I might be Facebook toast. She said that she wouldn't bet on the bots getting context. Rather she imagined their bot-radar making a beeline for that swastika. And me.

So I quickly switched out the picture of the swastika garden for a picture of the book cover:

And I head not a peep, snap, crackle, or pop from the Facebook bot police.
Still, I wonder if I'd left that swastika garden picture up, would I soon have gotten the Facebook hook? Or might the Facebook bots be more perspicacious than we understand?
Which is also a scary thought.

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"Crosswind": Adolph Hitler's Plant Army

1/17/2023

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COMING OUT IN APRIL, 2023:

"Tropical Depression," the final episode of the "Equal and Opposite Reactions Trilogy," will be released on APRIL 27, 2023 by Black Rose Writing.

"Equal and Opposite Reactions" http://amzn.to/2xvcgRa
and the sequel, "Hail Mary" https://www.amzn.com/1684334888
Available on Amazon.

"CROSSWIND": ADOLPH HITLER'S PLANT ARMY

It's common knowledge that Adolph Hitler had an insidiously demented plan for a master race of Aryan human beings. But who knew that he also had a plan for a master race of Aryan plants?
Who knew that the Nazis were fierce ecologists with a commitment to protecting nature from what they considered to be inferior non-German vegetation?
Who knew that "Blood and Soil," the rallying cry of the white supremacists at the 2017 "Unite the Right" monster rally in Charlottesville, Virginia,

...was the rallying cry in Nazi Germany to promote racial purity and to raise those who lived in rural areas above those who worked in cities?
Who knew that in the Third Reich pure-blooded Germans were believed to be rooted in the land and the soil while Jews, on the other hand, were said to be rootless city-dwellers, human weeds that needed to be pulled from society as relentlessly as vegetative weeds needed to be pulled from a garden?
Who knew that German plants were seen as the superior species over all flora, and therefore not only did all non-native plants need to be eradicated from the landscape of Germany, but that once Hitler's armies had conquered Europe, all non-German plant types in the Third Reich would be ripped out and replaced with "German" plants, and a master race of Germanized plants would be in ascendance alongside a master race of Germanized people?
Who knew that Hitler was drafting plants into his army?
Much as is known about the preposterous notions promoted by Adolph Hitler and embraced by his followers, who knew that this irrational mindset included the Nazification of plants, as well?
With all we know about Hitler's Nazi Germany, who actually knew any of that?
I didn't. I didn't know any of the above until I read "Crosswind (The World War II Adventures of M16 Agent Katrin Nissen Book 1),"

...the latest novel by Karen K. Brees.

   "Crosswind" is in fact a WWII spy thriller, but with a fascinating twist: the protagonist, an undercover wartime agent for Allied intelligence in the early days of Adolph Hitler’s blitzkrieg across Europe, happens also to be a Yale professor of botany, a Danish-born woman named Dr. Katrin Nissen.
When a key German operative working for the Allies suddenly disappears, Dr. Nissen is dispatched to Berlin to find him under the guise of attending an academic conference on Plant Sociology, a Nazi construct to the effect that in nature plants form communities among their own kind and seek to weed out foreign or undesirable plants and that, following the dictates of nature, society likewise has an imperative to eliminate foreign or undesirable human beings. Under the banner of "Blood and Soil" the botanists at the University of Berlin are required to present this doctrine as science, just as all German scientists are now required to bend their findings so that they fall in line with Hitler’s ideology.
A mysterious string of seemingly accidental deaths among the University botanists, inexplicably missing and misplaced research materials, and the ubiquitous presence of the Gestapo everywhere from the city streets to the halls of academia, create an atmosphere of fear and danger which Katrin Nissen must carefully and surreptitiously negotiate in her search for an agent who seems to have vanished into thin air.
  Now, while I was reading this book, much as I was enjoying the story, I nonetheless found the whole far-fetched plot line about Nazi Plant Sociology so unbelievable that I wondered if the author had made it all up. Turns out she hadn't.
"Blood and Soil" was in fact a key Nazi slogan and the logo of  the Reich Ministry of Food and Agriculture,

....and the superiority of German plants really was part of Hitler's ideology with the eventual Germanization of all nature part of his master plan.
Though Karen K. Brees's "Crosswind" is a suspenseful page-turner full of quick turns and simmering intrigues, it was the amazing history of Nazi plant ideology in which the espionage story is wrapped- and which I never knew about - that most captivated me.
"Crosswind" is a terrific read and I recommend it. It will surely light up your brain cells and provoke your thoughts. Here's the Amazon link:
https://www.amazon.com/Crosswind-Adventures-Agent-Katrin-Nissen-ebook/dp/B0B9SP87TW/ref=sr_1_1?crid=1M2OLHTH12MR4&keywords=crosswind+karen+k.+brees&qid=1673983312&sprefix=%2Caps%2C127&sr=8-1

References:
https://journals.openedition.org/etudesrurales/9153

https://www.jstor.org/stable/43695164

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Prince Harry...Who?

1/13/2023

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COMING OUT IN APRIL, 2023:

"Tropical Depression," the final episode of the "Equal and Opposite Reactions" Trilogy," will be released on APRIL 27, 2023 by Black Rose Writing.

"Equal and Opposite Reactions" http://amzn.to/2xvcgRa
and the sequel, "Hail Mary" https://www.amzn.com/1684334888
Available on Amazon.

PRINCE HARRY...WHO?

Though I haven't yet watched the Netflix series,

...or any of the TV interviews,

...I have, like the rest of the conscious world, been following the saga of Harry and Meghan.

Still, for all that I've read or heard about the ex-royal couple,

...I still have one question that I haven't seen addressed anywhere: What's Harry's last name?
Is it Windsor? Sussex? Markle? Does he even have one? Do any of the British royals have one? What name do they put on their drivers' licenses? How do they sign their credit cards?
Of course they probably have someone to drive them anywhere they'd like to go and buy them anything they need, so it's likely they don't need those sorts of nuisances in their lives.
So my guess is that Harry probably doesn't have a last name per se. I'm guessing it might be like what I used to tell my piano students:

"We only need our music when we don't know what the notes are."

Maybe last names are the same principle: We only need one when everybody in the world doesn't know who we are. Which isn't the case with Prince Harry: Everybody in the world knows who he is and what he looks like. I mean, would anybody mistake this face for anybody else?

...especially if it were attached to the name "Prince Harry?"
Still, if he and Meghan are intending to stay here in the States, as it appears they are at least for a good while, he might find that he'll need to write something other than "Prince Harry" on the forms the IRS will surely expedite to him in order to collect their share of the multi-millions he'll hoover up from his newly-released book.

In this case he probably really will have to figure something out vis-a-vis the last name situ. Maybe he can get some advice from Lady Gaga.

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Stacy's Bridal Shower

1/10/2023

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COMING OUT IN APRIL, 2023:

"Tropical Depression," the final episode of the "Equal and Opposite Reactions" Trilogy," will be released on APRIL 27, 2023 by Black Rose Writing.

"Equal and Opposite Reactions" http://amzn.to/2xvcgRa
and the sequel, "Hail Mary" https://www.amzn.com/1684334888
Available on Amazon.

STACY'S BRIDAL SHOWER

This past Saturday, January 7, Tom, Theresa, and I drove north from Columbus to Amherst, a scenic small-town exurb of Cleveland,

...for the shower of my niece Stacy, here with her fiancé, Mike.

Before driving off to meet-up with his brothers, Tom dropped Theresa and I off at the shower venue, the Amherst Historical Society,

...where one learns upon enter the charming foyer that one is in the Sandstone center of the world.

The shower was held in the events space, where Mike was a good sport about staying and joining in the festivities.

Stacy with her mom, Mary Jane.

...and with her mom, sister, Audrey, and nieces.

The food was prepared by the mom of the bride with side dishes and assistance provided by family members and friends.

We started with yummy appetizers,

Especially tasty among the apps were the "Caprese Salad," cherry tomatoes toothpicked to a daub of pesto and a square of mozzarella sitting in a coating of balsamic dressing,

...and the "Cowboy Caviar," a savory mix of beans and chopped veggies,

...(which I, for one, preferred by far over the fish-egg kind).

There were also fruit drinks and mimosas available at the bar,

... which was tended by our friendly, capable, cute servers,

...with some occasional adult assistance.

While we munched on our hors d'oeuvres,

...we took the "Would She Rather" quiz, guessing what we thought the bride would prefer.

After we'd all filled in our sheets Stacy and her assistant read the answers.

To everyone's surprise and amusement, my daughter-in-law Emily, who'd just met Stacy for the first time that day, won the prize for getting the most right answers.

Next we dove into the entrées, over-the-top delicious chicken salad croissants and quiche made by Mary Jane,

...and some also delicious salad sides.

Then we played another game, the Wedding Shoe Game.

We guessed our answers, and afterwards Stacy and Mike sat upfront with their shoes in their hands. As they were asked the questions, they held up the shoe of the one that they thought fit the question.

We then had dessert, cake,

...and cherry almond streusel pie with a side of whip cream, which I brought.

(Some of the guests tried a spritz of whip cream on their cake and became instant disciples of whip cream on cake).
Then Stacy and Mike opened their gifts.