I can’t believe that it’s October and we are still in the grips of this pandemic . I know I said I was going to write more, but its really hard to churn out anything of substance for me these days. I have to put a cap on the amount of drivel I actually publish. Sometimes I have good ideas and then they flop in the planning stage, or the surf gets fun and I just completely forget what it was I wanted to write about in the first place. There is always a daily does of trash to read in the surflog if you’re really hard up. At the very least I thought I would compose a little something on what has been happening or lack there of in my life since April.
Like everyone I got dumped into the “shelter in place” prison that was my apartment and limited sphere of influence. For me I decided that included my surf spots, considering I pretty much keep to myself anyway and do my best to stay away from people with or without a pandemic. Pretty much all I did was surf and hang out. It kind of felt like summer vacation back in high school.
As far as work went, like over thirty million other Americans I was shit out of luck. My career, being a chef, event manager, kitchen manager, etc. was basically destroyed. All large scale events were canceled and then banned by the government, which was where I made the bulk of my money. Resturants, always my fall back were forced to do take out only and then very limited seating after that, translation; very little cash flow meaning no jobs. Like the masses I got onto the government unemployment. Thanks to the extra $600 they added a week I was actually doing pretty good financially, especially when one considers that there was no place to spend it and gas was cheap!!!
Life was almost alright except for the fact that I was suppose to get married on April 17th. Initially my wife and I had this elaborate wedding planned with 180 guests and all the works. Trump kept saying he was opening everything up April 12th. Being the gambling man I am I held to schedule despite the pleas and arguments from everyone around me. The reality of the situation for me, being in the industry was that with all the cancellations if we were to cancel too it would be sometime before we could re-organize. One doesn’t just re-plan a wedding on the fly after all.
In his classic fashion since election day Trump let me down and the quarantine continued. At that point I was left holding a bag of goods and no where to sell them so to speak. My life has been faced with adversity from day one and I was not about to let anything even a so called global pandemic stop me from achieving my goals. Lets flash back a moment to when all this Covid 19 crap started to get out of hand.
I got some inside information that the county of Santa Barbara was about to eliminate issuing marriage licenses. This was back during the first week in March. I quickly grabbed my now wife, but fiance at the time and we ran down to the county clerks office literally on the last day to get a license for the duration of quarantine. If we were to be unsuccessful the marriage would have to be postponed. Luckily my calculations were correct and we got the license unopposed.
The next issue was finding a justice of the peace, a venue, a hair stylist and photographer all willing to take a risk. The photographer was easy and actually one of the reasons we were able to persevere . My good friend Ryan and surf photographer way back when I was still a professional surfer was on my guest list and the day I was ready to pull the plug on the whole thing he sent me an email stating that he couldn’t get his plane ticket refunded and was coming no matter what. I told him it was all good as long as he would shoot the photos and help us stream the wedding live over the internet so all of our friends and family could watch.
The venue, which will remain nameless was provided as a big favor to my bride and I. We knocked on several doors before we found a Justice of the Peace. In the end my wife’s sister had a friend who’s sister was licensed and she agreed. Hair and make up was done by a long time friend of mine and actually a high school friend of my wife, whom I had met years before meeting my wife, small world. Thank you Brittany. The guest list we kept to the government mandate of 12 people, our wedding party and my wife’s parents.
Due to strict regulations up in Santa Cruz Gabe my only grooms man, next to my best man Bizarro was unable to attend. I had a tuxedo in a very tiny size that needed to be filled. Luckily around the same time I got the bad news about Gabe, one of my Clarks Surfboards team rider and friend AJ happened to be over my place picking up a used board to ride. I sized him up with the tux and a grooms man was had. Now the wedding party was balanced 2:2 for the photos.
We decided that for the stream we were going to do the entire program of the wedding, just compressed, or as I sold it “sueded” like in the film Be Kind Rewind. It would consist of the ceremony, a toast to the people at home, our first dance spun by DJ Curley who was nice enough to come set up an play the music for our song: September by Earth, Wind and Fire, though we danced to the Marcela Mangabeira bossa nova version for elegance, we cut the cake, a small tres leche from The Rose Bakery on the West Side and signed off. Besides almost tripping on the carpet and then my wife’s train during the dance it went off beautifully. For a small little honeymoon, cause let’s face it everything was closed, we got a room for two nights at the Bacara in Goleta.
It was a bit of a wild ride but now here we are husband and wife in our sixth month of marriage. I lost my $1200 deposit that I was suppose to get back from the Tent Merchant, that they never sent me and have since gave me quite the run around. Whenever things get back to normal and you need rentals don’t go with the Tent Merchant in Santa Barbara. They are overpriced anyway. Another couple of hundred was lost on other miscellaneous items. In the grand scheme of things it’s only money.
My wife had 180 wine cork keep sakes she was making during her mandatory arts and crafts time (it kind of got like the nursing home in Happy Gilmore towards the end there.). I think the first thing we did was throw those things out in a fit of anger. We got married and though it was not what we had planned our small intimate affair was in a lot of ways more special and romantic. It took a lot of drive motivation and love to pull it off. Thank you to everyone who watched online and shared this special day with us.
The ironic part was we were one of the first couples to do one of these small COVID weddings that has now become just about the standard for weddings in 2020. Looking back I don’t think I would have had things go any other way. Things in Lisanti Land never do quite go as planned. If it did it why read about it. Ultimately what it came down to is that I am just happy to be married to my wonderful wife Adela Lisanti and knowing she is there makes everyday just a little bit better.
If you want to watch our magical Covid19 wedding web cast feel free to on the below link.
Surfing Ruined My Life 