Tanabata 2018 (Photos and Script)

Quick update: Hannah went to the ER and got her gallbladder out on 7/7! Yay! Without health insurance the cost of the surgery is enough to purchase a new vehicle! Boo! But we are so poor that the hospital is writing it all off... so yay again!

Because Hannah's gallbladder decided it wanted to jump ship on Tanabata, we pushed back our annual celebration to the following Friday the 13th. This is totally my jam. I get pretty super excited over three celebrations: Yule (and Christmas Parties), Halloween/Samhain, and then Tanabata. There are other various things that get me really excited but these are my set big Holidays. For those who might not know what Tanabata is: it's a Japanese Star Festival celebrating wishes and love. I'll include the play I wrote for the celebration at the end of the blog post - but for now, behold all the pretty things:

My favorite sushi! Vegan and delicious.
This was my share item for the potluck. I brought 6 packages.

We strung a rope across the yard to represent a bridge across the Amanogawa (Milky Way) River.
Below the bridge is our Altar. 

Overview of the Altar. The long packet in the middle contained consecrated wish strips called tanzaku.

Another view of the Altar. 

We burned this absolutely lovely Japanese incense.
(Not very Shinto, I know but we loved it and it appealed to our witchy sensibilities!)

Hello Kitty Lantern decoration for the bridge.

A long view of the Amanogawa bridge.

These were Hannah's balloons that mom and I brought her for after her surgery.
We offered them up to the Amanogawa as well.

I had lots of different decorations for people to try and mostly people did the lanterns,
but someone did the pretty dangling rhomboid chain. I love it!

Here's a view of some participants and a sweet goblin child with red glowing eyes.
She's a mini-me. I love her!

Check out the exciting crystal ball in this picture!

Just a fun shot of the Altar.
You can see Orihime really close and in the distance is Hikoboshi.

I love this fox. He's guarding the tanzaku.

Excellent close up of the after festival treats!

Rachel of Lavender Moon Bakery provided two cakes to represent the lovers
 and Hannah baked Milky Way (Amanogawa) cookies!

                                                   

Across the Amanogawa

A short play for Tanabata

Retold by Amanda LaFantasie

Narrator: A long time ago, in a Kingdom in the Sky, there was a beautiful princess called Orihime. She was a very talented weaver and seamstress and she made the the most beautiful robes in all of the Sky Kingdom. Her father, the Sky King, was very proud of her and praised her often. For many years Orihime weaved in happiness, but as time wore on, her smile began to falter. The King noticed his child’s diminishing mood and grew worried.

King: I’ve watched you working these past few weeks. You look sad, my child. Do you no longer enjoy weaving?

Orihime: It’s not that. There is nothing I love more than weaving and bringing joy to those who wear my garments. But I’m lonely. All of my sisters have married and moved away to live with their husbands and I miss them.  

Narrator: This got the King thinking. Perhaps it was time that his treasured daughter should also take a husband. So he journeyed across the great Milky Way River, the Amanogawa. There he searched for a man honorable enough and brave enough to marry his precious daughter. He searched until he was exhausted. He went to the field where the Sky Kingdom’s best cows grazed on the finest grass. As he walked among the cows he rethought his plan. After a while, a young cow herder named Hikoboshi approached him.

Hikoboshi: I hope I’m not bothering you, but you seem troubled. Is there anything I can do for you?

King: Only if you can find me an honorable man worthy of marrying the most beautiful girl in the kingdom.

Hikoboshi: I’m very sorry but I don’t know anyone like that. I’m all alone now that my brothers have taken wives and left their herds to my care.  

King: You mean you watch all of these cows by yourself? Doesn’t that get stressful?

Hikoboshi: Not at all. There’s nothing I love more than tending the cattle and keeping them safe.

Narrator: The King asked Hikoboshi many questions and, in the end, invited him to dine with the Royal family in the Sky Palace that night. The cow herder hated to leave his cows but knew it would be rude to refuse. So he made his way across the Amanogawa to the Sky Palace. The King made sure to seat Hikoboshi next to Orihime and before the night was through the princess found something she loved more than weaving, and the cow herder found something he loved more than tending his animals. In no time at all, they were married.

[King ties a ribbon around their clasped hands]

Orihime and Hikoboshi: I will love you until the stars burn their last flame.

Narrator: With each passing day their love for each other grew. Over time they forgot about things like weaving and cow herding. Soon the fine garments of the Sky Kingdom became tattered and torn, and the prized cows across the river began to wander. They left their safe field and traveled on rocky, dangerous ground. They ate grass that made them sick and many of them died.

King: Orihime, you’ve neglected your duties far too long. Look at my robes! They’re in shambles. I’m the Sky King and yet I look a beggar. Get back to your weaving and sewing!

Orihime: I’ll do it. But please, allow Hikoboshi to sit with me as I sew.

King: Absolutely not! Hikoboshi, you must leave at once and go back across the Amanogawa and tend your cows.

Hikoboshi: I’ll do it but I won’t leave Orihime behind. Please, let her come with me and join me as a cow herdess.

King: No. I forbid it. She will stay here and weave and you’ll return to the fields. Your King commands it.

Hikoboshi: I’m sorry, Your Majesty, but if she stays, then I stay.

Orihime: I won’t be alone again, father. If Hikoboshi must go across the river, then I have no choice but to follow.

Narrator: The argument continued until the King had no choice but to remove Hikoboshi by force and banish him back to the field across the river. To make sure that his daughter stayed in the Sky Palace and did not run away to join her husband, the Sky King destroyed the only bridge between the two banks. With a mournful heart, Orihime resumed weaving and sewing. The Sky Kingdom dressed in fine garments once again, yet somehow they were less radiant than everyone remembered. Across the river, Hikoboshi returned to herding the cattle. They regained their health, yet somehow the beasts were less impressive than they’d been in the past.

King: I had to do it. They cared only for each other. They didn’t care about the kingdom anymore. If I’d left them alone we’d all be naked with no milk and no meat. The kingdom would fall into ruin. Wouldn’t it?

Narrator: Orihime worked diligently. But she never smiled anymore. The King didn’t want to recant on his order but he couldn’t stand to see his daughter so miserable. After a long time he came to a decision.

King: The kingdom cannot do without its best weaver and its best cow herder. But, because they cannot do without each other, I will allow Orihime and Hikoboshi to see each other one day each year. On the seventh day of the seventh month, I will order the magpies of the sky to fly down and form a bridge between the banks of the Amanogawa. That is how they will meet and part.  

Narrator: And so, every year after the King’s proclamation, the lovers met on the seventh day of the seventh month. Sometimes the princess would travel to the cow herder’s side. Sometimes the cow herder would travel to the Sky Palace. But always, when the time came for them to part, the King’s magpies would seek out and carry the displaced lover back to their own bank. Many years and many meetings later Orihime’s weaving resumed its former brilliance, and Hikoboshi’s cattle grew into extraordinary beasts. But what they were most proud of was the vow of love they had managed to keep despite the river that ran between them.  

FIN

The Surgery (not as glorious as 'Repo: The Genetic Opera' would lead you to believe)

So I haven't posted in a long time. About three months actually. Things have been difficult for me emotionally. Hannah and I have been fighting to get her a hysterectomy for a long time and the beginning of this year things finally started happening. She's written about much of the experience over on her blog and she's done a great job chronicling the stress and pain she's gone through. And now I want to express a little of what I've gone through as well. 

It is not easy to see your loved one suffer or be jerked around and treated poorly by those in the medical field. Hannah's suffered extreme vaginal bleeding for 8 out of the 9 years we've been together and as a result has been anemic as fuck. For those out there suffering from anemia, I'm so sorry, because it is shitty. It's more than just feeling fatigued. It is a condition that can permanently harm the sufferer if not controlled. In some cases, anemia (low hemoglobin) can lead to heart attacks and death. It's no joke. But for many, many years doctors looked at Hannah and said, "take iron," and sent her on her way. Well iron helps a little but no amount of iron is going to help when you're bleeding through 10 plus feminine pads every fucking day. This became the norm. I started to just accept that this was how it would be forever. But then at the very end of 2016 we learned that it didn't have to be this way. We got in to see a gynecologist and hysterectomy was suddenly on the table. 

For all those years we the frogs sitting in a pot of slowly warming water. But starting in January we finally saw the bubbles of boiling water and panic set in.

Things got worse. Suddenly and terrifyingly. Hormones, hemorrhaging, a trip to the ER, blood draw after blood draw, biopsies, pre-cancerous cells, an irregular EKG, so many doctors, so many ups and downs, a trip the Cancer Center and finally a date for the surgery, February 22nd. But then that date got pushed back. So then March 1st was to be the day. And February 22nd to March 1st was the longest week of my life. I cried every day, had panic attacks, felt a sort of premature loneliness creep over me as if I was preparing for Hannah to die. This was supposed to be just a run of the mill hysterectomy but all of the things around it (the alarmist verbage, the 5 wishes of a dying patient document which I had to sign, the mention that Hannah's weight made this a 'risky' operation) made me feel like Hannah was going to go to sleep and never wake up again.

But she did wake up again.

We arrived at the hospital at about 5:30am. During her pre-op I was allowed to sit with her. She was so nervous. So was I. We chitchatted a little and I told her everything was going to be alright. She wore a bind rune and a drawing of the four elements on her back and I no for a fact that these things worked their magic on both of us. I did cry a little with her in pre-op but mostly I was a silly, fun, strong fiance. The doctor came in and told us that she was going to make five incisions and sent in her robots to do the deed. Well, after she left, I told Hannah that essentially she was going to have Voltron inside of her, which meant that her uterus was Zarkon, which suddenly made surgery kind of epic and perhaps a smidgen less terrifying. She was prepped and taken in for surgery around 7:30 and by 9:30 the doctor herself came out to tell me that Hannah had done well and was in the recovery room. She said that they'd let me go and see her after a little while and that Hannah would be coming home that day. It was surreal. Just like that the surgery was over. It was as surreal as when you wake up in a different country for the first time and really realize where you are. 

There was a moment in post-op recovery that I broke down a little. I was leaning over Hannah, holding up her cup of water so she could drink from the straw. I saw a little crust at the corner of her eye like the salt left from an involuntary tear. I remembered the line in the '5 wishes' thing about "I wish for a warm wash cloth for my face" as a comfort requested by someone near death. Even writing about right now makes me cry a little. Such a small request with such a huge implication. And I just looked at her and imagined how this all could have ended up differently and how thankful I was to the gods that she was just groggy and thirsty and not fading away forever. She saw my crying and playfully, sleepily said, "you really are a wimp." Guilty a mother-fucking charged. I own it. I'm a wimp and I'm really, really happy that the surgery is over and we can start looking toward a future free from the daily worry, emotional and physical pain, and intense fatigue.

She's lying on the couch right now, struggling between medicinally induced sleep and the desire to stay awake and cuddle with me. In about four hours I'll wake her so she can take another pill. So far, aside from some pretty bad aching and a touch of nausea, she's actually doing amazing. I am still afraid to leave her alone. I've seen her shift from doing perfectly fine to sobbing in the bathroom within seconds, so I still want to have someone at home with her while I'm away during this next week for work. But on the whole she's just fantastic. 

And on the subject of fantastic, our friends and support network have been absolutely stunning in their kindness and consideration. I can't even begin to write or verbalize my thankfulness. I am touched beyond words and I know that had it not been for our friends and family, I would be completely lost right now. Thank you to the many who have made Hannah and I feel so very special and loved.