The maid of honor was her sister, Natalie. Natalie’s a pyrotechnician at the Hollywood Bowl (I’m not kidding) and I could only find one photo of her in a bridesmaids dress.. (She’s with my nana.)

Her speech was quite inline with the exuberance of this photo. And without further ado -

The speech!

Hi everyone! I’m Natalie, not only the Maid of Honor but Lolly’s beautiful younger sister.  We have been waiting for this day for a long time and I couldn’t think of someone better for my sister.

When first hearing about the engagement, the scariest part was knowing I had to write a speech, and that my sister couldn’t help me.  I thought this is going to be awful, I can’t write a speech without Lolly!

She’s my other half, but now she has found a new half. But I realized, that’s Ok. We can be thirds!

Andrew, thank you for putting up with my sister—and me—and making her happier than I’ve ever seen.

• Lolly wasn’t always this spunky feline you see before you.  She once was my 2-year-old big sister with blonde curls, treating like a baby doll always begging my mom to feed me.  Five years later, I was in kindergarten and had a very cool older sister in 2nd grade. One day while celebrating Ryan Jusko’s birthday, his mom brought in cupcakes to share with everyone in the class.  A few minutes later, Mrs. Jusko realized that Lolly wasn’t eating her cupcake and asked to see if there was a problem. Lolly’s response was “I’m saving it to share with my sister.”—It’s really hard to maintain this physique when your sister is shoving food down my throat. But even at such a young age, Lolly never thought about herself.  She was always looking out for me and made sure to always make me feel included or speacial.  And let me tell you how cool you are being the only kindergartener with a cupcake at recess!

• Lolly set the tone in our house, of always looking out for others.  She never cared that I needed to dress exactly the same way and do exactly the same things.  When it included the most atrocious Easter hats Cindy insisted we wear, even those were cool because Lolly had one too.  She taught me to be kind, patient, and try my best no matter what.  Following the perfect older sister was NOT easy.  She had the perfect grades and perfect attendance, and all I had was my perfectly large mouth!

• When Lolly first came home from college, she could only talk about this super cute boy in her math class.  My mom asked “What’s his name” Lolly said “Andrew” Cindy said “Andy” Lolly said “Andrew” Cindy said “Drew” Lolly said “No just Andrew”.  The rest of the break was dedicated to figuring out a plot to get his attention away from the other females at Harvey Mudd.  There were not that many of them—most are here.

• The first time I met this alleged Andrew was their winter break when he came for a visit to the Simoni Compound.  And as usual, with people in and out of our house at all times there were many interrogations.   Leave it to one of my friends to make the situation completely awkward, call him a keeper, and ask when they are getting married, and here we are 5 years later.

• It wasn’t until they were dating when he came to Sunday night dinner.  Our family is—unique.  Family dinner is like family initiation.  Andrew’s first Sunday night dinner was one that we will never forget.  While Aunt Suzy was flipping through bride magazines, Aunt Nini was asking about his future plans and his intentions with Lolly.  And then there is Grandma Marcia who didn’t care to learn his name, but decided that he would be called Christopher Robin.  Now, whenever she asks how or where the two of them are, she says “How are Lolly and that darling boy Christopher Robin?”.  He apparently passed the inanition, and made it into our hearts.

• When Lolly first met Andrew’s family, this was the welcome she received.  [hold up sign] [read: Welcome Lolly! Hooray Lolly’s Here!].  This wasn’t even the half of it.  Even though it was freezing outside, Andrew’s parents planted a garden of flowers they named “Lolly Flowers”.  Every night they would cover the flowers with a blanket so the frost wouldn’t kill them before Lolly arrived.  How awesome is it that they actually took the time to do this! The Pietropaolo’s would never take the time to do this.  You walk in, are expected to learn about 30 names, eat dinner, say goodbye to 30 new friends, and leave.  I’m so happy that the La-Motte-Mitchels have welcomed Lolly with open arms and an open heart.

• The first time I knew when they were going to get married was right when Lolly moved to San Diego.  Because Andrew had a later starting date, he spend the first few weeks down there with her to help her get settled.  Being the annoying little sister, I somehow found my way to her apartment, barging in, and taking over as to be expected.  While Lolly went to work, Andrew had the honor of spending the entire day with me, and wasn’t he lucky! As I awoke up from my slumber at about, well, noon he had cooked me breakfast and then made fun of me that it was actually lunch. He’s always making fun of me.  As we sat and chatted, he was explaining to me about all of the shopping they had done.  He said “We went and bought these plates, and I picked out glasses of us.”  When I actually thought about what he said “WE” and “US”.  Buddy this is MY sister and I am the only WE and US in her life.  But from that moment on, I knew that he was the one! I couldn’t think of anyone better to join our family.

• 2 years later can the phone call about the proposal, I flipped.  I got off the phone and I started screaming!  My roommate came running downstairs, and she thought I’d hurt myself.  When I told her what had actually happened we started shopping for engagement rings, only slightly sidetracked picking out our own instead.  Now, I have the biggest mouth in the family and keeping this a secret was not the easiest thing I’ve ever done! The second person I told was my Nana, and lets face it, she comes in a close second to me with her secret keeping capabilities! Although we were both about to explode, we knew that this was an important secret to keep, and that fact that we both did speaks not only to us and our love for them, but of our hope for their relationship.

• So now, please raise your glass with me to my to celebrate their love and our love for them.  Cheers!

Once upon a time, I set up Emily and Tyler and they got married and now they have an adorable little baby, and *I* have overconfidence in my ability to set people up. So, upon sending an AMAZING set up email today…I decided I should pull one out from the archives. They didn’t fall in love and have babies like Ty and Em, but…you certainly can’t blame my email. It’s the 2nd best set up email I’ve ever written.

So without further ado.. (names changed to protect the innocent)

Subject: Allow me to e-troduce…

Chuck, Daisy

Daisy, Chuck

Daisy, I met Chuck 2 years ago at a bar while I was mumbling out loud about football and we became fast friends. He’s a true water sport guy – spends the year mentally training for his annual outrigger race in Hawaii. He also misses my yearly fleet week party because he plays in his HS’s annual alumnae water polo game. (I know. Red flag. Missing Kristen’s party? Priority problem!!!!).

Chuck – I met Daisy at a bar in Menlo Park over salmon tacos and girly conversations. Since then, she’s moved around the country but has recently joined us in SF. We reconnected while both in a cowboy-themed wedding where I was a reader and dance enthusiast. Most recently, Daisy knocked it out of the park in a 1920′s flapper costume at an NYE party we both attended. While only one of us could win the ‘best acting’ award for the night (me), her enthusiasm and sparkly headband made me wish there was a best costume award.

Hey! What are you doing next Thursday? Did you know the California Academy of Sciences has a $12 entry fee, a DJ and a pretty fun nightlife scene every Thursday night? Let’s all go!!!! Shoot. I’m busy. OK. Just the 2 of you then.

:)

-k.

And I *could* give it to one of my friends, but you see…I’ve decided instead to try to make someone’s life ACTUALLY better with this ticket. And, since Burning Man celebrates radical self expression…I am radically self-expressing-myself (did that sound strange?) by saying:

 I am giving the ticket away for a radical act of selflessness and kindness

What do I mean?

Well, just…leave a comment saying what selfless *thing* you will do for someone(s) else that you can prove before the event! I’ll just…pick one and it’s all yours!!!! I mean…these tickets are selling for like $350? And what is your time worth? How badly do you want to go? How many hours of serving the homeless do you want to commit to?

I’d love to see something creative and out of the box. Do something really nice for a friend, or someone in your community who could use a little love. Or…be the spark that inspires a real change…somewhere. If you poke around on this site…I think you’ll see the kind of thing that gets my motor running. I think Ze Frank’s chillout song is one of the most beautiful and creative/non-Jesus related acts of selflessness I have ever seen. I also think this guy has got the right idea. And…the homeless need love too, especially in SF. Feel free to throw in some soup kitchen hours if that is where your heart is.

Rules:

1. You CANNOT sell it if you get it.
2. You have to somehow be able to prove that you did it…that’s on you.
3. If you’re not in SF, then you’re paying for FedEx

Actually, 30 approached me quite steadily giving me time to prepare.  That turned out to be great news, as I generally find a little trauma in everything that touches my life – however – hitting this milestone passed with much fanfare and little angst. PTL.

As PART of the fanfare, though – I showed up at work to quite the display! Muchos flowers, balloons, 2 cakes and some of the most cleverly photoshopped images I’ve ever seen! Operating under the direction of:

“she loves knitting, Justin Bieber and Jesus”

Our graphic designer Ben (tactfully skipping over the Jesus bit) photoshopped my head onto a bunch of images and they were hung all around the office for me to discover. These, of course, were just too good to keep to myself.

There is something really amazing about working with people who are willing to give you an extra dose of love on your birthday. I appreciated this so much!

Naturally, the wheels start spinning. Dancing, of course, would be the plan…

Britney? Too predictable.
Eye of the Tiger? Too rambunctious.
Ah. An obvious choice.

So…after two emails.
And a diagram…

We present…

Sadly, I was too busy directing traffic to dance at the beginning, and whe the applause started…well…best to leave the dance show on a high note!

For those who didn’t make the immediate connection, we had some inspiration. :)

Instead of providing something of real value…here’s a few you can just print out and stick places for people to be pleasantly surprised when it’s not a lamesauce marketing message.

Enjoy!

Click on one to enlarge it in it’s own magical window!

I WIN you stupid jerk hard drive that took an hour to get out. I OWN YOUR FACE!

For my birthday…I always think I’m going to do something honorable and noble…but then I remember that I want to go to a bar and have people say splendid things to me and give me funny cards. And let’s face it – 30′s next and you’re all invited to my party.

Well…I do, however have quite a few friends who are more amazing & less selfish than I. For example, Floyd (who I am posting about with out permission!) realizes that 29 is an nbd (pronounced N. B. D.) birthday, so he just…gave it away. (I didn’t give away my 29th) And for his birthday he’s invited aye’one to donate to Goodwill!

In his words:

While hanging up my new threads from Santa

Look at that friendly chap.

this year I got to thinking….here I am with a closet full of clothes, (much of which I never wear anymore) collecting dust when they could be going to a much greater use.

So, in lieu of doing a birthday shindig this year I thought I would reach out my community and ask that we all rummage through our closets for some old clothes that we could donate to a worthy cause.

GOAL: To donate… 150 lbs. of clothes over the next 7 days to the Goodwill. (Week of Jan 10th – Jan 16th)

Now…ain’t that a sweet idea?

And I put the whoooole computer back together, except for these screws because I couldn't figure out where they went

Hey Floyd...I uh...got you 3 screws! HAPPY BIRTHDAY!

Turns out: Goodwill is all stoked on electronics donations & recycling

So…here I am…trying to figure out how to yank the hard drive out of my computer that I haven’t to donate with the DVD player to bump up the poundage for ol’Floydie Floyd. (yes I know he said clothes, but I assume that’s because he had no IDEA you could donate your 60 lb computer!) Anyone getting to their local Goodwill (or…anywhere) to donate this week? Let me know!

An hour later…OMG.

Floyd. You better appreciate this.

I just became a computer technician for you.

The concept of the Apocalypse Team or…Desert Island Dream Girl (or boy) is this:  It’s the  concept that, if you had to pick 10 people to be stranded on a desert island with (potentially indefinitely), who would they be?

About my favorite answer was (from a guy)…

9 gay navy seals & “as many women as can fit in the life boat.”

(so more like 10ish)

I cant’ decide mine. Probably someone with raw nature skills (obviously Ed), someone who has like…ANY experience killing live game (cousin Peter?), someone with a lot of muscle in case I need to eat them (sorry Jeff), a female health professional (Lisa can save lives AND cook AND be my bestie!)…but the last few, I don’t know!

I figure most people have a few open spots, and I plan to sliiiiide myself in there.

That said, I spend an unreasonable amount of time finding things to tally to my Desert Island Dream Girl list to make me more valuable “just in case.”

I can’t cook. I’m not plucking your chicken.

But…I maintain that creativity and attention to birthday details are IN FACT necessary for survival. About 3 months ago, when I decided this was my desert island calling, I suffered quite a bit of grief when I announced that I had spent a solid 4 hours reading a blog post about hand-making paper bows.

And today. I heard the sentence.
“WE GOT THE GIFT WRAP BUT FORGOT TO GET A BOW!!!”

TA-DA! 1 point desert island dream girl!

Ok…Who’s on your team?