Tuesday Was a Very Very Good Day

Courtney’s parents came into town yesterday and dropped off a whopper of a present — a pottery wheel and a kiln! They bought the pieces for an amazing price from a friend who received them as gifts but only used them once. Because Courtney and I are both pottery-making freaks. this was about as good a present as we could ask for. The wheel and kiln are sitting in our garage (aka ZhuVien Studios), and we’ll certainly be putting the wheel to good use (Courtney is probably making vases as I type this). The kiln is a bit more complicated. It needs its own circuit, and we need to set up some sort of ventilation system to pipe out the heat and fumes. Chances are we’ll just store it away for now and wait till we get our next house (hopefully in a couple years) and find a place that would lend itself to a kiln room.

We got the wheel yesterday afternoon, but we didn’t use it yesterday because there were more treats in store for us. The woman who coordinated our wedding reception at the Hilton-RDU at RTP invited us to be guest speakers at a monthly meeting of event planners. The focus of the meeting was multi-cultural weddings, and we were asked to talk about our wedding, which incorporated American and Chinese elements. Considering that the meeting was held at the Melting Pot, we were only too happy to oblige them in exchange for free fondue. It also coincided with our four-month anniversary, so it was a nice way to celebrate. We had some free drinks and a three-course fondue meal. Some of the people at our table left early, so we actually had an extra plate of sweets for dipping into the chocolate fondue dessert. The audience also seemed to really enjoy our presentation and were very interested in the Chinese elements we had, such as the tea ceremony, the satin guest cloth, and our Chinese wedding outfits.