On Thursday Kate and I met at noon to do a little walk-through at the Arts Center -- kind of touch base, look at the layout with the new exhibit, etc.  The woman who is handling our rental is new -- not the one we saw originally.  We talked about some things we planned to do in terms of decorating...and she basically said no to everything.  We found that we couldn't hang anything...at all...and we had planned to, well, hang tons of fabric, stars, twinkle lights.  All of a sudden we were picturing a bare space...plus, right as you walked in...in the center of the foyer where we were doing the cocktail hour, was a piece of art featuring an old bike with a postcard rack on it...the postcards were part of the art.  Well....we knew that we could have any kind of art for the wedding...but given that we couldn't drape the thing in tulle...it looked like a problem.  Plus, it was on a little platform and I could see people tripping...with the red wine.  I asked if it could be moved...no.  Then a room we planned for seating 40 is filled with a major piece and can now only seat 10.  So all the seating has now changed.  BUT...she went to check on a few things before we left, and they decided that the bike could be moved, and we could do some hanging....whew...when we left we basically had everything we wanted.  But, during all the "no's", Kate and I just kept looking at each other...on one hand, it would have made the decorating really easy...none to do.  So, we were glad to survive that little drama.

Thursday evening we had our Amnesty group's Christmas party at one of the member's home -- we wrote holiday cards to lots of people imprisoned across the world, including my Filep and Yusak.

Yesterday I also ran to the fabric store and got a yard of plain black material -- like the wedding tablecloths, and I tried to make a little sample table, using white paper plates, then the centerpieces, candles, rose petals....and it looked really nice.  Kate came over and saw it, and I think we can finally start to picture it all.   All we need now is GOOD WEATHER for all our flying family -- they need to make it in....and if leaving is a problem, oh well -- more time together for all of us.