Congratulations to Anna and her new husband Clem! The Snook and I went to their wedding yesterday at St. Andrew’s Cathedral in the city. I have to say, walking into a beautiful cathedral and hearing a band playing U2 behind the altar is a unique experience! It was a beautiful ceremony and I was happy to be able to share it with them. (Did I mention their great taste in music? Even the hymns were rockin’.) And even though the wedding was very different from my own, I can still respect that it was exactly right for them. Anna is honestly one of the nicest people I know, and I hope she and Clem have a wonderful life together.

How does your garden grow? Very well, thank you!
Check it out… We got a path! Ma and Pa Snook were in town this weekend so they came over today to help us with a few projects. After Snookums and his Pa made the necessary trip to Bunnings, they got down to work. We now have a shiny new tap halfway along the side of the house, which will make it much easier to keep all the plants watered. They also brought us loads of plant cuttings from the Snook homestead, including four elkhorns which they wired to trees. (Evidently we’re supposed to stuff banana skins behind them for food? This Midwesterner sometimes finds rainforest plants a little scary.) After the in-laws headed home, Snookums and I headed out to do some hard labour. He finished digging out our path while I hauled rocks and bags of sand. We lined the path with a fabric weed mat, then covered that with river sand. Then we laid down pavers reclaimed from the back garden. A couple bags of white gravel were added to fill in the gaps. I think it looks nice! Much better than the old tree trunk discs rotting in the grass.

My veggie patch is going gangbusters. I took some photos…
Wow! Check out how far my veggies have come since I planted last month. Last weekend I staked the tomatoes and the peas. Everything is flowering and getting ready to fruit!

My eggplant has a couple beautiful purple flowers on it.

A pea pod! An actual baby pea pod!

Beans! I have very slender baby green beans!

My two pumpkin plants. No flowers yet, but they’ve grown a LOT in the past couple weeks. It can’t be long now.

Barack Roll. Okay, so I know the whole meme is really played out… but that made me laugh and laugh and laugh. (Link courtesy of the Snook.)

Mmmm, compost. This morning as I headed out for my run I stopped by the Peace Park to chuck my rotting jack-o-lantern into our community compost bin. When I lifted the lid, a visible cloud of steam rose into the air. I could feel the warmth from inside. I knew they were supposed to get warm, but I’d never seen it in action before!

Obama Victory Cartoons from today’s newspapers. There are a couple negative ones in there… but they’re drowned out by all the AWESOME. (Link courtesy of PCJM.)

I’m plugging GoGet car share over on the Life in Chippendale blog. It’s just such a great idea, and I’d like to see it succeed and spread to other neighborhoods.

Vote Lando Calrissian!

Happy birthday to my brother Anthony, who not only turned 26 today… but just announced that he and his wife are pregnant with their second child! Congratulations, brüder!

It’s over! It really happened! And WHOA, Obama is suddenly AHEAD IN INDIANA. I’m starting to get teary.

Three hours later: Good grief. Still waiting on final results from Indiana. But with more than 99% reported… we’ve so got it. I’m so proud. I have to call my Grandma.

Five hours later: Well, CNN may not have called it, but 538.com did. INDIANA GOES DEMOCRAFT FOR THE FIRST TIME IN 44 YEARS! I wouldn’t have guessed it at all. I was telling people all day that I considered it a moral victory just that it wasn’t a blowout. (After all, Bush did carry the state by 20 points in 2004.) I’m so happy to be wrong, and I’m so, so proud to have been part of this. It would’ve been easy not to bother this year. It was tempting to say, “My vote won’t count anyway.” The cynical voice in my head told me that absentee ballots are rarely matter. But you know what? 23,000 of us Hoosiers made the difference. We did it. Way to go, everybody! Somewhere my great-grandpa Tony is smiling.

There are a lot of people in the office still recovering from yesterday’s Melbourne Cup revelry. Myself included.