* Bachelorette party time! 15 girls in my house! Alot of yummy food. One spastic cat + 10 conversations at a time!!

*Freezing cold breezes during an early morning photo shoot with my bro, sis-in-law + 2 adorable small people. :D

* Deja vu... decorating the bride & groom's toasting glasses. Just like I did for my sis's wedding 8 years ago!! :D

* Answering client emails in an afternoon break.

* Recruiting the groom & best man for vegetable chopping.. food prep for the rehearsal dinner. They were surprisingly skilled at chopping things! This may or may not be related to their animal-skinning skills. Hahaha!

* Switching tables at the rehearsal dinner because (a) the bride & groom looked lonely and (b) we were hungry, wanted to eat sooner & their table could go first and (c) I wanted another delicious chocolate cupcake.

* SO. MUCH. Starbucks.

* Watching the almost-groom and a groomsman wrestling/boxing/fighting on the night before the wedding. "Don't break his face!" "Don't break his arm!" "Don't hurt him!"

* The tower of bridesmaid-prep on the wedding morning! Sis-in-law doing hair on sis doing hair on bridesmaid while I am doing said-bridesmaid's makeup. :D Hilarious!

* Hanging out with friends from Virginia, New York, North Carolina, Wisconsin, Texas & Pennsylvania.... Weddings bring all the people here!! :D

* Running back-and-forth, back-and-forth between the bride & bridesmaids' room and groom & groomsmen's area on the day of the wedding, camera in hand....with wedding rings, wedding dresses, props, and lenses everywhere. :)

* Spontaneous dancing lesson with the groom.

* Last minute powerful prayer with the bride & bridesmaids.

* The ceremony... in which I was SO nervous about singing their wedding song that I nearly couldn't breathe. Singing in weddings is like necessary evil. It's such an honor that you dare not say no, but there is a paralyzing fear of messing up and ruining the greatest day of someone's life.... and despite playing a grand piano and singing in a huge room with NO MONITORS, it wasn't awful. :) It definitely could have been better, but oh well.

* Slowly and painfully pulling burrs off of my bridesmaid dress... consequences of outdoor photos of the bride & groom and my rather physical kneeling/walking/moving style of photography.

* Making jokes with my groomsman (as usual) to endure the awkward walking-in-while-everyone-stares thing.

* Random conversations with lovely friends & family in between uploading photos. :)

* Bowling afterparty in a floor-length bridesmaid dress. Yes, I did fall down once--flat on my back. But apparently, it was a "graceful" fall. :D

* Bowling first game = very BAD. (score - 35!).. Bowling second game = not so bad (score - 120!). I need to bowl more often! :D

* Spontaneous afterweddingafterbowlingparty WITH bagel bites + ice cream, an out-of-tune guitar, Apples 2 Apples, and a Mac computer. Honestly, you can't get more fun than that!

*Church at the reception hall.. echoe-y acoustics reminded me of the early days of our church, meeting in a martial arts academy. Actually, I kinda miss those days. God did some great things then!!

* One very lame and very hilarious youtube video. That kept resurfacing in our jokes. "You are really dumb! For real!"

* Day-After-Wedding Picnic at my parents' house. 30 people. LOTS of family, food and a killer unfinished game of Yahtzee.

Going to SLEEEEP on Sunday night.. * Sigh* Sleep, oh how I've missed you!

NYC Weekend Lessons Learned:
1. Times Square Church. Best thing happening. :)
2. Never talk and walk through a Metro gate at the same time. Pain & bruising will follow.
3. Good deeds are possible in NYC.
4. Take the Metro WHENEVER possible. Wherever you're going really is farther than it looks.
5. Don't stand too close to the street performers. You never know what they might do to you.
6. If they got skills, throw 'em some cash. They gotta eat, too.
7. Walk fast and purposefully, looking like "a million bucks" and people think you're a New Yorker.
8. If you don't know, ask somebody (who looks like they might know). There's no shame in asking.
9. Eat outside always.
10. What is common sense to you is not common sense to everyone else.
11. Order anything quickly and succinctly. And smile. This goes a long way in customer service.
12. Try new food ANYTIME you can.. you cannot eat like this at home.
13. People-watch in the Metro. You'll laugh for days.
14. Trust your spiritual discernment. It was probably right.
15. Being introduced to someone and saying, "ooooh, you! I totally facebook-stalked you the other day!" is way creepier than it sounds. :)
16. Buy food, clothes & purses on the street. Don't buy watches or guns. :)
17. Ignore anybody who asks for money.
18. Carrying a camera does not make you a tourist. Carrying a point & shoot camera and taking pics of yourself in front of landmarks? That makes you a tourist.
19. Cash makes life easier.
20. Listening to native New Yorkers argue over how to get somewhere is hilarious.
21. Drink Starbucks. Everybody else does.
22. Knowing someone from the city is a priceless thing.
23. Before traveling, know where you're going, where you're staying and how you're getting there. Anything less is stupidity.
24. Rockefeller Center at night = magical.
25. Road trips are the best times for spiritual conversation. :)

And there I was. A white girl. In a Colombian restaurant. Surrounded by people of different ethnicities than me. I looked around the table and smiled.
Three black, five Hispanic, one Asian, three white. All happy, joking, laughing. Some people had known each other for many years, some for a few years and some I had just met moments before.

Racial unity is not silence. It's not about ignoring the obvious. Oh no, I heard more racial references that night then I've ever heard before.. "Dude, you were my first Asian friend!" "... Puerto Ricans!" "It's cuz I'm black, isn't it?!" Seeing who we are, noting it, liking it, even poking fun at it in a light-hearted manner... That's racial unity.

When I looked around that table, yes, I saw different ethnicities. But I saw them because each ethnicity is a part of each person's individual identity. Every varying tone of skin color, the neighborhood each person grew up in, their native tongue or accent or language differences, every country, every single thing about them that could possibly be related to race.... it all adds up to the person that they have become. Completely unique of another. You may partially "describe" someone according to their race, but you never fully define them until you have known them. In conversation. Noted their sense of humor, their deep convictions, their passions and greatest dreams. Sure, my first thought upon meeting someone might be "Hmmmm, that's one fine-looking Latino..." (I'm single, y'all, I can think that!! However, I am not shallow enough to pursue someone based on looks. I'm simply being observational.)

You may "describe" me by my race --- white.
You cannot "define" me by my race. There's so much more to me than meets the eye.
You see a white girl.
Could you know that I love Mexican food? That I'm overtly passionate about Pentecostal theology? That I play piano so hard my fingernails break? That my entire life, I've never seen my parents treat another person differently because of race? Could you know that I despise shallowness and modern art annoys me? Could you know that I cry when writing songs? That I adore meeting new people, but sometimes shyness tries to paralyze me?
And I just tried to think of stereotypical white things and totally blanked out. Haha! Whatever you think a white girl would be, I'm not so sure it's true. I am who I am. I am not a stereotype. Describe me as white, no problem. Just don't define me as white.

And I will do the same for you. It takes me about 30 seconds to go from noting that someone was Hispanic or black or whatever... to maybe thinking he had nice eyes or a firm handshake... another 5 minutes to note that he was rather intense or has a good sense of humor or that we disagree about key theological issues... and another 15 minutes to note how he interacts with other people.
(again, I'm an observer/discerner by nature + single & looking = this is what I do).

Back to that night at the restaurant... ya know the only time I felt slightly out-of-place? When the waitress started speaking Spanish to me and I didn't understand it...
And that was totally non-race-related. I was just jealous that I'm not bilingual!



* PS - my blog returns for some sporadic posting about personal/spiritual/random/non-business stuff.