Presenting: Party A/Party B

Here we are: A & B













California is now "allowing" same sex marriages. This law doesn't apply to my marriage, but it made for a cool application form.

No longer is there a line for "husband" or "man" and "wife" or "woman"

We are now Party A and Party B

I got to be Party A.
Here's the official document (thanks Leanne)












Though we got there right after the office opened, we were not the first Party A&Bs for the day. There were two men in line and they had brought in a copy of the Siskiyou County News with a front page story of the first couple in Siskiyou County to get their marriage certified.

The Party A and B in front of us looked a wee-bit confused when the clerk pulled out a booklet with a typical bride/groom picture on the front that was basically a "how to be married" pamphlet. She prefaced her presentation of the book with, "The State of California requires that I present you with this pamphlet."

When it was our turn we of course, ran into the "oh my god, there's no code in our database for American Samoa, there's one for Puerto Rico, Guam, CNMI, Area 51, The Moon, but nothing for American Samoa."

In an example of exactly how it would NOT have worked in Samoa, the clerk got on the phone with someone in the state government, who added Somoa (yes spelled like that) to the database. Then five minutes later, they corrected it to Samoa (spelled correctly). Wow. We were so impressed and happy. The clerks were happy because we weren't pissed with them as would other customers to their office in a similar situation. Living here definitely makes you appreciate efficiency. Sure there are glitches everywhere you are in the world, there are um just "different" ways of dealing with them.

As we were waiting for the database engineer to Google American Samoa (seriously that's what the clerk told us he was doing, and thus the Somoa (didn't he get the "did you mean SAMOA?" query?) I imagined how this would have gone down in American Samoa, "OKA (uh, oh). No code for American Samoa in the database." Followed by long, blank look, indicating this is your fault and you should do something about it now. Then, "Can you come back tomorrow?" Or "Go home. We'll call you when it's fixed (no call, ever)." Or "How about we use the state code for Alaska? That's close." Then, "No? Ok. We can't get you the certificate then. You can't get married. Fa." You think I'm exaggerating? You ask ANYBODY, Samoan or palagi and they will attest that this could have happened.

Another "funny" story related to our marriage certificate (hi, Jim!):
I get an email yesterday from Markus, subject line: "not married yet", but with "I still love you in the body of the message" to take the sting out of the situation I presume.
What The!
When you do your marriage certificate the clerks make you sign the thing in their office. I think they are afraid you might have one too many at the wedding (perhaps confusing the "Party A" and "Party B" not as a title but more as a command), sign the wrong name or something, scratch it out, and write something else. This usually voids a legal document. They allow the officiant to sign their name at the time of the ceremony, they are, after all, the person "doing" the wedding.
And, of course, the officiant won't have had one too many because, well, he's the "serious" guy at the wedding. The "official" dude. Sometimes even religious and stodgy. Well not our officiant. PAAAARTY!

Apparently, the clerks office does not take kindly to: The Universal "Search" (scratch out) and replace with "Church", and will reject your marriage license in this case.

It's interesting that our officiant did not email both of us, but instead emailed only my "husband" . . .
(hmmmmmmm, perhaps my reputation precedes me"-said in the manner of John Stewart)

Apparently, we are still married in the eyes of the Universal Search but until our officiant does his paper work (hopefully sober this time) we don't have the papers to prove it. Good news, though we'll still be "married" on July 6, 2008.

And along the lines of officialness, names etc. I will be Ms. EliZabeth Weltin (not to be confused with Mrs. EliSabeth Weltin, Markus' mom). However, I will not change my name officially until we are off-island. I refuse to relinquish my passport while I am in American Samoa, as the idea of not being able to get off the island if I need to makes me want to run screaming for the hills. And, if you have some official documents in one name and some in another there is much, much, much confusion here which I'd like to avoid.

Here's a funny random photo that says it all, which I got in Mount Shasta (this was NOT staged-well, ok, I did turn one of the bottles around so you could see the label). Addendum: The bottles are Vodka and MD 20/20 (a.k.a Mad Dog, a.k.a Bum Wine).