Shaking the Dice Cup

Posted on by Sarah A. Hoyt

Years ago, when life had been an unremitting shower of cack, we’d take a day off and go to Denver and have dinner at Pete’s kitchen.  This was known as “altering our luck.”

Perhaps it was the psycho-somatic effects, but usually afterwards things improved, stuff we’d long hoped for happened, and we felt better about life in general. Perhaps it was our perspective that had changed.

Now life hasn’t been that bad, but there have been aspects of it we’re been less than happy with.  Mostly the fact that over the last 12 years I keep getting sick to the point that it finally stopped the writing (and the reading!) cold about two years ago.

Part of the decision to renew our vows before our assembled friends (and fandom) was to have that effect of shaking the dice cup and seeing if we could get a better combination.  The other half was that we’d never had a wedding for US with OUR friends.  Our first wedding (civil ceremony) was half a dozen people, at the York County court house.  We spent the rest of the day helping my sister-in-law move.

Our wedding in Portugal, the religious ceremony, was massive.  It was in fact too massive, including relatives who had flown in from across the world and whom I hadn’t seen in my cognizant life.

The end of it is that we never had a ceremony before our friends and the people who are in our life, more or less constantly.

So we decided we wanted one.  We wanted one for our 25th, only, you know, as these things happen, we were so broke we didn’t even come to Liberty Con (where, in the age of the interwebs, we get the largest concentration of our friends.)

Which is why we decided to do it this year, even though with rent and mortgage we are ALSO broke.  But it’s also because we’re taking the opportunity to fix the health issues we know about, and because the tenor of our life and family life is changing.  We only have Robert with us another month or so, and his brother wants to move out when the house sells, which means we’re somewhere between a month and a year (we don’t know when the house will sell) away from being empty nesters and completely rearranging the pattern of our lives.

And we wanted a promise to help us with it.  One of the reasons I’ve always said marriage is different than living together is because a promise taken before the people who matter to you has weight and heft, and you’ll hesitate to break it.  (Not that I wouldn’t, anyway, since oaths matter.)

Which brings us to–

Yesterday we renewed our vows before the assembled attendees of Liberty con who were here early and wanted to watch.

As usual, we had planned everything and had attendants… and then we forgot them.  We shared a joint ceremony with Cedar Sanderson and Sanford Begley, who were not in fact renewing but doing this for the first time.  And the whole thing took about 5 minutes.

In retrospect, the ceremony we came up with was very Libertarian, self-administered each of the couples speaking to each other.  And then we leaped two by two over a replica of Lady Vivamus, from Glory Road.

At the last minute Cedar changed her dress to green, which means that together we were Christmas, not patriotic, but we had red and white and blue bouquets (thank you Toni Weisskopf) so it still counts as the first ever Usaian wedding.  I think.

I’m assured the dress of provocation was all that.  I might put it back on for the reception today at 8 pm.  If you’re around Liberty con walk down the party room hallway (room 10 something) and you’ll find us.

And let’s hope that the shake of the dice cup works, and the next few years everything comes up right, or at least better.  Let’s hope this is a good omen as we enter a new phase in our lives.  Let’s hope it is, at least, no worse.

Dum Vivimus Vivamus.

93 thoughts on “Shaking the Dice Cup”

    1. By the side of a train. Let’s be accurate and dispense with any train wreck allusions anyone may come up with.
      L’Chaim!
      And YeeHaw!! (that’s the Texas salutation)

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      2. OR we can scrape together money and send one person with a GoPro strapped to their head, and an earpiece with all the contributors on Skype…

        “No, go back to that booth.. no, not that one, the other one…”

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  3. Sorry about the dress change :) I could have sworn I’d emailed you, but the gremlins also ate emails to Peter about vows, so…

    The Wedding Reception will be in room 106 in Building One at the Chattanooga Choo-Choo beginning at 8 Pm and although the major participants will be leaving for panels about 10, everyone is welcome to mingle until Midnight, when my children turn into pumpkins.

    Sarah, thank you for sharing your ceremony with Sanford and I.

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          1. Good shots. :-)

            …ever have that instance when you try to type and suddenly everything is off by one key? I think I need more sleep. :-o

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          3. Colorwise, y’all were a great match with that locomotive. Well done!

            …
            I wondered why that carp was getting bigger and bigger. Then it hit me.

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        1. Just remember: Balaklava =/= Baklava =/= Balalaika. The last time those got confused much weeping, wailing and gnashing of teeth ensued.

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  4. Those of us who could not get there – PICTURES! (I will nag…)

    (And, I don’t think you meant “wouldn’t” there…)

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      1. Oh noes! I must travel to that evil place.

        Ah well, some things are worth sacrificing one’s virginity for…

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  5. Congrats to both couples! Live Long and Prosper! Err…

    Or sumfin’…

    But that does kinda work as a wedding congratulation I think.

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  10. — “Part of the decision to renew our vows before our assembled friends (and fandom) was to have that effect of shaking the dice cup and seeing if we could get a better combination.” —

    I’m sure you didn’t mean that to suggest spouse-swapping, or polyamory…but…but…but…

    (tee hee)

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  14. Congratulations to the happy couples. Hope to one day meet you all in person.

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  17. Just one more person who wants to give best wishes to both couples.

    (1) Remember the good times and forget the bad.

    (2) If you figure out how to do (1), please share your secret with me.

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    1. Speaking as someone who will be celebrating a 30th anniversary in August;

      The way to remember the good times at least as well as the bad is to savor them when they happen. Those of us who, for whatever reason, live int the therapy subculture tend to chew over bad days, sometimes for weeks. And there are resins to do that, in moderation. But it makes doing the same for good days important. If, after a bad day or a fight, you spend time discussing what went wrong, and how to adjust your interactions, then when you have a good or a wonderful experience (whatever the opposite of a fight might be), sound some time savoring it and discussing what went RIGHT and how to incorporate that into your daily routine.

      It sounds like it would suck the life out of the good times, but once you get used to it, it doesn’t.

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      1. I’ve never been hitched, but I have another piece of this puzzle to add. Make a conscious decision that you are going to be happy today and that today is going to be a good day. Once you make the decision that today is going to be a good day and that you are going to laugh at all the crap that comes your way, you will be happier and you will have a better day – it worked well enough on me that people I worked with noticed and commented, even to the point of thinking that I was a morning person (I’m not, I stay up too late reading books or playing computer games, and my bed is too warm and comfy to want to get out of at any time of day). Once you form that habit, it will help carry you through some really dark spots, plus it will give your spouse something else to hold on to as you both go through bad stuff together.

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        1. For work, I realized that every single day you work with other people you are going to have to deal with at least one jackass. And if you are lucky, it won’t be you.

          Seriously, any job I’ve ever had with lots of people, somebody has been a jerk every single day (with rare and appreciated exceptions). And when you catch yourself doing it you quickly realize that, for the most part, they can’t help themselves. And that makes it soooo much easier to live with.

          The worst case is when the Jerk is the same person, every single day. I’ve had that. You start thinking about where to dispose of a body. This jackass not only wasn’t a self-starter, but if he ran out of stuff people had told him to do, he would become destructively bored. As in, chinning himself on the displays until they broke, or skipping-rope with the vacuum cleaner cord so that it frayed.

          The worst part was that I learned enough about his background to understand WHY he was the way he was, and it didn’t help. Family dynamics dictated that he was the designated Loser. He could have been walking on water and raising the dead, and it wouldn’t have been good enough for his vile family, so he had just flat given up.

          I still had homicidal fantasies about the silly sonofabitch.

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          1. Which is why I have to work single-person contracts whenever possible. My temper is around Keith Laumer levels.

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  19. God bless both couples!

    (And how does one forget one’s attendants–unless they were cats or they were in the wrong aisle or on an isle or something?)

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    1. My guess is that she forgot the plans, not the attendants. I did sit there trying to parse it a couple of times…

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    1. Not to be confused with the chant I always did after I jumped:

      “One-thousand, two-thousand, three-thousand, four-thousand!”

      Fortunately, I always felt the opening shock before finishing my chant. Otherwise, I would have had the rest of my Airborne life to deploy my reserve parachute…. ;-)

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      1. Heh; I went to a family reunion last evening of my great-grandfather’s people. As far as I know that last time I had been was the night of the first date I had with my wife. She wasn’t feeling welling (I started to say she was feeling peaked, but I’m not sure how to spell it); but the girls went so I was able to tell my cousin how that hot date for which I cut out early from the last reunion turned out. (I told that to my wife before I left; she laughed; and as Ivan Vorpatril says, “If she laughs, you win.”)

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  26. FWIW Pictues have been posted in the FB group Sarah’s Diner. Credit goes to someone else for taking them. I couldn’t make it. They’re pretty cool though.

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  27. Mazel tov to you, Dan, Cedar and Sanford. Sorry I couldn’t be there to stand witness.

    Don’t roll snake-eyes.

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  28. What’s the over/under on how long it tales Vile770 to turn this into an anti-same sex marriage screed? Any side bets down on most likely out-of-context-quote?

    I want to place my marker on “We spent the rest of the day helping my sister-in-law move.”

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  29. The green dress and the red dress both appear to have harmonized with the bridal train, so that’s good.

    And I guess every time you jumped, you did the Locomotion. :)

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  33. Congratulations to you and Dan and to Sanford and Cedar, too!! This will be the moment that things turn around. I can just feel it! And thanks to Dr Mauser for sharing his fabulous photos.

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  34. You were the first Usaian wedding… you are, alas, not likely to be the last.

    In any case, may God bless both the happy couples, and preserve you in perfect joy and peace.

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  38. My husband and I are hitting that same point in our lives. Not quite there yet but kids are at the moving out stage (the first one is getting married in July) and I’m registering for my last semester and then I’ll have a degree. I also have a job, which I hope will continue toward a “career”, so I’m going from a stay at home mom to a working woman without children (sort of). I sometimes think we ought to move to cut down on driving but we’re getting the house (slowly) rearranged the way we’d like it to be, or at least I now have a concept of how I’d like it to be. All my life I’ve just lived with whatever was there when we moved in.

    It’s sort of a weird transition going on to be sure. But sort of fun, too. I never understood why anyone would renew their vows but the way you explain it, Sarah, makes sense to me. I can really see how it marks something new, and I never could see that before.

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  40. I’m embarrassed it took me this long to say this but honey, if you want to keep the marriage happy, the dice cup isn’t what you should be shaking.

    Unless “dice cup” is a euphemism I’ve not heard ere now.

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  42. Congratulations to both happy couples! Hold onto the Joy of the day, and may y’all share water and drink deeply of each other through all your lives. My beloved and I hit the 40 year mark in March and through the good times and the bad we can hold on to each other, lean on to each other, limping boldly into the future whatever it may hold! Indeed, Dum Vivimus, Vivamus!

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  44. Aaaaand I’m just reading this, so I may be the last, though loudest, to wish CONGRATULATIONS!!!!! to all the happy couples and their dice. May your rolls always bring you joy.

    Of dice.

    Yeesh.

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