Wow, Six?!? Happy Birthday, Emeline!!!

Happy Birthday to Em!

Happy birthday, Emeline!

The good news: I'm finally awake.

The bad news: it's 15:28.

Shir, I'll trade you--I was supposed to get up at 430 this morning, and was woken up at 330 and couldn't sleep after that. Now it's 545 and I really hate already being on a plane at this hour. Grump grump grump.

There is nothing wrong with getting married later in life.

SERIOUSLY!

Happy Birthday, Em! yay for 6!!! Such a great age.

It snowed every winter when I was in London. But that was usually not until January, and then only for a little.

Happy Birthday, Emeline!

A few additional thoughts, P-C.

Deciding who to marry (or whether to marry) may be the most important decision you ever make. You'll be committing to spend the rest of your lives together. True, some marriages don't work out -- but if there are any children, you'll still be connected to each other for a very long time.

You're going to have to live with the person you marry. You're going to have to make the joint decisions with her. Not your parents -- YOU. So you need to be comfortable with your wife. Your parents, not so much.

People haven't been saying much about your comments on Doctor Girl. I say, if you're interested in each other, see where it goes. If waves are made, so be it. (And for what it's worth, I'd bet -- let's see, I have a couple bits of lint in my pocket -- that your parents wouldn't be too upset with you finding a wife they consider ethnically acceptable in an unorthdox way, in light of your brother's relationship.)

Has anyone ever done everything 'right' in the eyes of a parent, lover, etc. and then enjoyed endless peace in the family?

I did the "right" things in my parents' eyes for a long time. But other family conflict developed. And the moment I did anything "wrong," there was a huge blow-up.

I was the Golden Child in my family for a long time. Straight A student, got into a very good college and law school, and so on. My younger brother felt a lot of pressure to live up to my record (especially in a small elementary school where we shared quite a few teachers). And he decided not to. We fought constantly as kids, and after a certain point, he fought with our parents a lot as well. At one point, we ended up in family therapy -- which people like us Just Didn't Do in the mid-70s.

My parents reacted very badly when I came out to them in the early '90s. That was eventually patched up (though I didn't speak to them for about 2 years), but my mother in particular took a dramatic shift to the political right in the '80s and '90s. After 9/11, she started saying some very ugly things, includingn attacks on people not of her political and religious beliefs. Attacks that I took personally. And when I told her so, she again reacted badly.

Eventually I cut off contact because I didn't like how angry I got whenever I spoke to anyone in my family. (The main ones keeping in touch were my mother, and the even more rabidly right-wing cousin who's advocated for a military coup in my presence more than once.) That was about 7-1/2 years ago. Some family members send cards for my birthday and Christmas, but I don't open most of them because I don't want any contact on their terms.

ha! We just got our first wedding check made out to Bob and Lisa BobslastnamethatIamnottaking. And we don't have a joint account set up yet. Uh oh!

ha! We just got our first wedding check made out to Bob and Lisa BobslastnamethatIamnottaking. And we don't have a joint account set up yet. Uh oh!

Welcome to my world.

Welcome to my world.

I know! Fortunately most people either know or should make a good guess that I'm keeping my name. Also, a lot of people have already given money gifts through our honeymoon registry. Which, I know some people may consider tacky or whatever, but we think pretty much rocks. Money just goes into bob's paypal account. Hope he'll share with me though!