It's a small world

Had I been a boy, my name would have been Jacob Wayne. For purposes of this particular story, the Wayne part is of interest. You see, the day I was born, as my parents were rushing to the "hospital" (another story for another time), they decided that they would give me their good friend Wayne Schwandt's name as a middle name since it was his birthday that same day.

Of course my name is not Jacob Wayne. However, Wayne Schwandt and his wife at the time, Ann Schwandt, remained friends with my parents and even visited us in Germany in the early '80s.

When I was telling my dad a few weeks ago that I was going to a wedding in Bellingham, Washington, he brought up my almost-namesake and remembered that Wayne Schwandt once lived in Bellingham, Washington, he even made it big, got himself elected to the City's Development Council or some such thing.

Anyway, that's neither here nor there. I was in Bellingham over the weekend for my good friend Mike's wedding. His bride and her family are from Bellingham and I must say, it is a really nice little town. Very pretty. Especially when the rain stops and the sun comes out.

The wedding was lovely. The ceremony, although a bit long, was very enjoyable and entertaining. After the ceremony the bridal party (of which I was a member) went around Bellingham and found really beautiful locations to take photos. One such location was an old run-down Boilermaker's building. The bride used to work for the Boilermaker's Union. That's how she met my friend Mike during the 2008 presidential campaign. The building was really neat, old wood, rusty siding, big metal doors in a green that matched our dresses perfectly. And, even though it was supposed to storm and rain all day long, the sun came out for the pictures and it was simply beautiful.

The reception was at the Ferry Terminal. It's a fairly standard ferry terminal but there is a room upstairs with windows overlooking the water and the view of the sun setting was breath taking.

When I walked into the reception area, I stopped to get my name card of the name card table and the ends of my pashmina caught a line of name cards and, like dominoes, a whole row of name cards fell flat. Oops! I hurried to pick them all up and put them back in order.

As I was setting down name cards, I saw that I held in my hand name cards for "Wayne Schwandt" and "Ann Schwandt" and I thought, "impossible!"

So I finished putting all the toppled name cards back in place and went to find the bride's father, Dean. Dean and I hit it off immediately when I had arrived the day before. He's a retired federal judge and was delighted to meet the "lawyer that Mike lived with" who drove all the way from Oakland. (He also kept taking pictures of me saying, "give me that smile again!") So, I said to Dean, "Dean, tell me about Wayne Schwandt."

He as a little perplexed but humored me, giving me Wayne's basic resume: served on the City's Economic Development Council, elected to several public positions, long time friend of the family, the bride went to school with Wayne's daughter. I asked if he was from Oregon. Yes, indeed. Then, as I was about to explain, Dean turned around and gestured to the man coming up the stairs saying, "Wayne, I'd like to introduce you to Katy McKenzie" not knowing exactly why he was doing it.

Wayne had a quizzical look on his face and so I said, "Kirk McKenzie's daughter" and his face lit up in a mixture of shock, surprise, and elation. "Holy Cow!"

Anyway, the rest of the evening was a blast. I got reacquainted with Wayne, met his new wife, also got to spend some time with Ann and their daughter Mullane. Mullane told me that just last week she had found the journal she kept before their trip to visit us in Germany when her mother made her learn a new German word every day.

The bride, by the way, was very confused as to why I was hugging and talking to her best friend from high school and also that friend's parents. When we all explained there were laughs all around. All of my table mates at the reception were old friends from Columbus and when they heard the story, they did two things: 1. They all agreed "Leave it to Katy McKenzie to know someone at a wedding in Bellingham, Washington!" and 2. they all called me Wayne for the rest of the night.

And fun was had by all.

Pictures of me and Wayne and me and Ann & Mullane.

I don't like mornings like this...

Generally, I've never been much of a morning person but I've gotten used to the fact that I do, in fact, have to get up every morning and so I do. I have my morning ritual which includes the usual, shower, brush teeth, put on make-up, get dressed, etc. but it's mornings like today that make me realize that I really like my morning ritual. More importantly, I like my morning ritual to be quiet.

I guess that's no surprise for someone who has apparently become very sensitive to noise in adulthood. Don't get me wrong, I'm not looking for complete silence here. I've gotten used to the sounds of the neighborhood, the kids getting to the school across the street, the (very) frequent trash pick-ups, neighbors yelling for their kids to get in the car to go to school, etc.

But every once in a while, my neighbor's landscaping team shows up at 8:30am. This is right when I'm sitting down at my desk with my first cup of coffee of the day and start reading through the news, emails that came in over night, etc. It's supposed to be a pleasant time of day.

Here's what it means for the landscaping crew to be next door:
1. chatting & laughing among the crew while they wait for their boss to arrive (totally ok with me and not that unpleasant of a sound. Only problem is that it is happening directly under the window I am sitting next to!)
2. revving of some motor-powered thing, apparently to make sure it works at full power and at low. I can't figure out what it is, either a leaf blower or a wood chipper or something in between but it's very loud and annoying
3. my neighbor's valiant efforts at Spanish as she tries to communicate with the crew who only speak and understand Tagalog and some English, which means she just keeps getting louder and louder, especially over the noise of the motorized thing
4. one of the crew's hacking cough and the accompanying intermittent hawking of phlegm and spitting, which is just kind of disgusting.

Finally, at 9am they begin their work, which brings with it a whole other slew of sounds which I am mostly fine with other than the continuous revving of the motorized thing and, with it, the smell of exhaust that fills my apartment.

My conference call this morning is going to be simply delightful.