Mathematically Romantic

I’ve often told my students that math is everywhere.   This week I found it somewhere I never expected to.

One of my co-workers got married on Monday, they’d been together for 6 years, living together for a few years now.  They both wrote their own vows and during his he was talking about the ups and downs of their relationship. 

Then he said something like “but if you look at the trend line of those ups and downs, it’s by far on the up side.”

Trend line.  A mathematical construct, and a romantic way of saying although he realizes no relationship is perfect, that theirs is a very good one.

Now I can use “when you’re romancing your beau” to my “when will I ever use this” repertoire.

And I thought it would be weird.

Three teachers at school are getting married and I decided to give them Home Depot gift cards.  I thought it was going to be a weird wedding gift, but decided that anybody can use something from Home Depot.

Well, I was wrong.  Not about everyone needing something from Home Depot, but about it being weird.  They actually had 2 different gift cards especially for weddings.

So I bought one of each (Yeah, three teachers and only 2 weddings, you figure it out) and now I can stop thinking about explanations for why I picked such an unusual gift.

I went to a garden party to reminisce with my old friends...

Saturday Writer and I went to a backyard wedding. It was for the son of one of the teachers I worked closely with at Writers school. It was a great, and very un-traditional, wedding and a testament to good neighbors. The wedding itself was right next door in the neighbor's back yard, the reception in the groom's parent's back yard. Their neighbors opened up their yard and their house for the party, which flowed between the two back yards. It was cool.

The wedding was great, the pastor was in his 20's and the ceremony itself was a well blended cross between traditional ceremony and stand-up comedy. The music at the reception was an exercise in contradiction, from the traditional incredibly romantic choice for the first dance & the dance with the parents (of whose titles I know not), intertwined with songs like the theme song to "Married With Children" and "Every Rose had it's Thorn". The food was great, and, well, they had Corona, need I say more? (Ok, for those of you who don't drink - it's a darn good beer). The company was awesome, it was wonderful to see so many (ok, it was only 5) people I worked with at the old school, and some of the students I taught. The only downer: I learned a lesson on not putting my elbows on the table. Seems there was a bee that was as interested in my food as me, and when I rested my arm on the table he was right below it. Yeah, he was mad, I got stung and now he's dead. But 3 days later my my arm is still swollen, and itches like an SOB. Ah well, it was still quite worth it.