Ooh nifty! I have watched some of those TED vids before, I just hadn't realized it was a Thing.

A couple I'm acquainted with were married by their best friend in a Darth Vader costume. He did not pay to become a minister of the universal life ministry or anything. They did no paper work. I'm not sure they actually married. Then again they staged a wedding and present themselves as married with apparently the intent of being married. In Texas (which is where they are) that may still legally constitute common-law marriage. However seems like an awfully frail reed to hang the rights that come with marriage on. She put him on her health insurance, and if he ever has a serious claim I'll bet the insurance company uses this to fight it.

Ha! Now I'm curious which song it was.

I don't remember. I'll have to ask my brother, because I would bet folding money that my mom doesn't know either.

I walked down the aisle to Trumpet Voluntary which was the same song that Princess Diana walked down the aisle to.

Go on. Be surprised.

Awww, I've been to a lot of weddings that use Trumpet Voluntary, and I think it's really pretty!

I love it very much. It was gorgeous cause we were outside, in the late afternoon, in the summer, with wildflowers and such around us....

This may sound like a stupid question, but -- did a trumpet actually play it? Because I've been to weddings that use Trumpet Voluntary, but on an organ. Which isn't quite as grand as it ought to be.

Yes, but not a live trumpet. It was a recording.

Trumpets aren't alive, Aims, no matter what Em tells you.

Have you never been to Wonderland, young man?

Tep, I think it's great that your mom went for The Pogues.

In good news for a change, I finally got up the guts to call Amoeba Hollywood and see if the CD I'd consigned on Sept 17 had sold. It had. "Oh, this is strange. We ordered two more from CDBaby. We don't usually order from CDBaby." So while I'd rather they had called me and consigned more directly from me, someone at Amoeba felt strongly enough to want to seek out distribution for my album. Which is great.

That is great. I assume you followed up with more for them, right?
 
And thank you, Windsparrow. I definitely am dealing with the fallout from the suicide prevention seminar, but I think it was a great opportuinty, and I expect it to be powerful tool, yes, in my work. We run a small nonprofit that is a traveling music school. We go to places on the Navajo and Apache reservations and teach music to the kids, using music as a way to live out a little love to them. We work with a lot of marginalized youth from a marginalized culture, so suicide is a high risk. This past six weeks or so there were five suicides in one local town, three in another. In a neighboring county a couple of months ago, there were 38 attempts; 17 youth, and a total of 17 completed. So it`s a huge, urgent problem and I`m grateful to have had the training available, although I am extremely wearied by it. The SO is doing a good job of looking after me, though. So I`ll be all right, but will just take some time to process.