People are people, so why should it be...

I was going to blog about our awesome Memorial Day weekend barbeque, full of friends and family and copious amounts of grilled things, but there is something I have to get off my chest first, and barbeques (as much as I love them) seem kind of small and unimportant compared to this. Most of you reading have probably heard me say this exact thing in some form over the last few days and months and years, so my apologies, but with everything that's been happening over in California the past few days, the power of equality compels me.


Most people seem to be opposed to same sex marriage for one of three reasons, or a combination of both.

1: It weakens/destroys/belittles the institution of marriage.

2: It is anti-Christian, not natural, and will piss off the big guy in the sky.

3: It will destroy families, communities, and life as we know it. Three year olds will experience the horror of being exposed to alternative lifestyles! Teachers and doctors and police officers who are men could have husbands at home! Your female co-worker could bring her wife to the company Christmas party. Ocean will rise. Baby angels will cry. So on and so forth.

Is it possible that all these things could happen? Well, anything is possible. One of my Dad's favorite replies to our childhood "what if" questions was "What if Martians land on the roof?" Still, I can't predict the future, but I'm going to guess that none of those things will transpire, because they're all ridiculous.

So how about this: let's give it six months. Hell, how about a year even. One year for the 18,000 same sex Californian couples to live their lives married.

We give it a year and we take a look a round, and we see that marriage is still as awful and wonderful as it ever was and we heteros are doing a good enough job sending it to hell in a handbasket anyway.

We'll figure out that God hasn't smote us all to smithereens yet.

We'll figure out that the private lives of people who love each other is neither any of our business or anything to be concerned about. Then Californians can say, to the slight majority that voted for Prop 8: "Hey look, you were all wrong! Everything's okay. Gay people are still the same as they always were and life is the same as it always was. Let's vote again!"

Then they vote, gay marriage becomes legal, equality triumphs, and our grandchildren look back on this era like we now do on the time when black people and white people couldn't drink from the same water fountain: with disgust at the sheer ignorance of the situation.

I'm not seriously advocating that the marriage equality battle be put off for six months or a year, because I think this issue should be pushed on to the highest courts of our nation as soon as possible. I'm just trying to apply a scientific method to this issue, since logic and humanity don't seem to be getting through to some. If you're a person who honestly cannot accept that same sex couples should marry because of some personal moral issue, you are entitled to your opinion. If you think that some awful harm will come to our families and our nation as a result, here's your chance to see that your hypothesis will be proven incorrect. Soundly. If you discover that the facts don't support the sky-is-falling fear mongering that's being perpetuated, aren't you then forced to rexamine your initial opinion?

I'm just sayin'.

There are a lot of issues that I have extremely strong opinions on, and I've never shied away from debating someone who supports an opinion different from mine. I can honestly say that with almost every single issue - the death penalty, abortion rights, the war in Iraq, you name it- the person with the opposing viewpoint has always had an argument that (for at least a moment) caused me to pause. I've often thought to myself "Damn, that's a good point. I can see why this person believes what they do!"

The exception to that rule is, and always has been, same sex marriage. Not one person has ever presented an argument that gave me pause. I know many same sex couples, some of who are married. I know that marriage is about love, not bigotry. I know marriage is about committment, not fear in a lifestyle different to one's own.

I can only hope that one day we are all able to embrace that idea, and that as our nation sheds its propensity towards the idea that separate but equal is just or fair.

oh, bop, fashion.

I got tagged by Kate of Passyunk Palance and Wooly Bully fame to give my 5 fashion Always and Nevers, so I will happily oblige. Starting with my Nevers, because we might as well get those out of the way, eh?

- Shorts. I don't have anything against shorts on (most) other people, but when you're built like someone Peter Paul Rubens would have immortalized in a painting, they just don't work. Also, although at five foot seven inches I'm not by any means a short woman, I'm 80% torso and my legs and rather stubby. Shorts make my gams look like two really pale sausages coming out of their casings. Not a pretty sight.


- Pantyhose The necessity of pantyhose has always been lost on me. I will rock a pair of nice black tights in the winter if necessary, but nylon stockings are a whole other issue. In addition to itching the crap out of my thighs, they always seem to look too shiny and tan for my taste.


- The Tiffany's chain link bracelets I know a lot of people who have these bracelets, and if you are one of them, I'm sorry to say this, but I think they're so ugly. They look like something Criss Angel would wear around his neck, or something a junkyard dog would be chained up with. Not for me.

- White high heels No. No. No. Not after Memorial Day. Not before Labor Day. Just no.

- Any shirt that is shaped even remotely like this one:



And now for my Always:

- Flip flops. Once February rolls around, I'm ready to replenish my flip flop collection. Considering they're 2 for $5 at Old Navy, it's not too difficult or costly a task. If I need to step it up a little, I slip on a pair of these:


or my absolute favorites:



- I have to go with Kate and second her love of sundresses. Anything lightweight and breezy,knee length, preferably sleeveless with a v-neck, because boatnecks aren't very flattering on me.

- My disdain for shorts covers the typical capri as well, because I always seem to picture them tapering off just below the knee and giving my lower half a cello-like shape. Instead, I like 3/4 length pants, or pants that end just above the ankle. I think they have a classic summer look to them and they make me want to take a stroll down a beach on Cape Cod.


-Kate, I'm with you again on cardigans. I have several no-frills cardigans in enough colors to match pretty much everything. No pockets, no weird ruffles. Just a bunch of small buttons and infinite possibilities. I love to pair them with sundresses when it's still a little chilly in the evening, and they're great for work attire too.


-Bobby pins. I'm trying to think of a way to describe my hair in its natural state, but I just hate being mean. Without considerable manipulation, it's 1/3 straight, 1/3 way, 1/3 curly, and 100% out of control. I know this is my father's fault, because my Mom is a friendly Irish lady with silky straight blonde hair and my Dad is mountain stock from questionable ethnic genetics. Please see photographic evidence, below:




Although I usually take the time to tame the beast with cremes and flat irons and sheer WILLPOWER, most weekend I let it do it's thing and use an assload of bobby pins to manipulate it into some semblance of style.

Egads, my updates are becoming rather sporadic, aren't they? I'd love to say that I haven't been posting because I've been outside, enjoying the weather by sitting on our new patio set and using my new citronella candles and eating dinner off my new outdoor plates and outdoor placemats and drinking a mojito out of my new outdoor tumblers, but sadly this isn't the case. All my awesome new outdoors-related stuff has been untouched while the weather continues to be craptastic. Oh well. Maybe next weekend?

On a happier note, The Great Bedroom Remix is slowly crawling towards the finish line, thanks to my acquisition of several hand screen prints from Jen Skelley's Etsy shop. It was hard to narrow it down to just a couple pieces, because all of her work is so adorable. My bird obsession reached new heights with the exotic bird Gocco prints, so although I intended to order just one, I ended up with three. Please forgive the sloppy photography. My battery was on death's door, and I really wanted to get these pictures uploaded.





And did I mention that I also got a monogram to boot? How cute is this?



In other bedroom related news, during the span of a week I also picked up two white ceramic trays for the nightstands, because I hate when our books and things are just thrown around all willy nilly. I'm sorry, what? OC...what? I have no idea what you're talking about.

Anyway, one of these trays set me back twelve bucks at Homegoods, while the other was picked up for me by my savvy mother-in-law for a quarter at a garage sale, and they're both exactly what I was looking for. God, I love bargains.





And since I've already clogged up your screen with pictures, why not one more? Here's our new bathroom faucet, which my husband bravely installed himself last weekend. It turned out to be a bitch of a project, because our home's previous owner unnecessarily crazy-glued the crap out of the fixture and all it's nuts and bolts. After a few hours of faucet-hell, I started hearing words that I thought were reserved for that poor little girl in The Exorcist, but it's done now, and it's gorgeous.

About that time Crystal Pepsi made me popular for a day

In 1993, I wasn’t exactly the coolest kid on the playground. I was eleven, and I had horrible pimples, big glasses, crusty braces decorated with pink and purple rubber bands,and a giant nose that grew before most of my other body parts. The frizzy remnants of a home perm my Mom gave me were still visible on my nappy head. I went to Archaeology Camp in the summer and read novels during class that I carefully concealed inside my textbooks. I spent my free time writing a newspaper that I distributed for a dime to friends of my parents. I tried unsuccessfully to start a neighborhood library out of my father’s toolshed. I went to roller skating parties sponsored by my school, just to sit at the snack bar and secretly hope my crush would ask me to skate. I was a nerd. You get the picture.

Miraculously, one day in the cafeteria, I became the center of a lot of attention.

This time it wasn’t because I spilled soup down my blouse or started choking on milk that came out of my nose. No, that day was different. That day my Mom packed Crystal Pepsi in my lunch.

Kids that hadn’t acknowledged my existence for four years suddenly asked to hold my unopened, light blue can. My Mom had wrapped the crap out of it in tin foil, and I made unwrapping it part of the melodrama. My classmates anxiously waited my first sip, and once I finally obliged, everyone wanted to know how it tasted.

I remember taking advantage of one of my few moments in the public eye, and adding a little saoir faire to my sip. “Ahh,” I said, licking my lips, “it’s even better than regular Pepsi!”

In my mind, I envisioned myself as part of Crystal Pepsi’s latest commercial – Van Halen playing in the background, my metal-glinty braces smile lighting up the screen, a satisfied “AHHH!” being my trademark slogan.

My fame was short lived. Within a few days, everyone who desired it had their own can of Crystal Pepsi at lunch, and I returned to spending lunch laughing on cue at other people’s jokes to make it look like someone was talking to me.

Eventually, Crystal Pepsi was gone forever, a victim of poor sales. Let me state for the record that I was a huge fan, and I probably would have spent a shitload of cash on the stuff had I not been eleven years old with no discernable income. I thought Crystal Pepsi was the jump off, but apparently very few other people shared my opinion. Pencilheads.

The scary part is that some of the people who liked Crystal Pepsi ten years ago still have a hard time getting over its demise. In addition to numerous fan pages, there is also a petition to Pepsi to bring the beverage back on the market and (get this) you can also buy bottles of Crystal Pepsi on E-Bay. I’ll bet that'll make a tasty snack. If I won one, I’d be sure to eat it with a thirteen year old bowl of Bill and Ted’s Excellent Cereal.

Tubular.

Let's all get up and dance to a song that was a hit before your mother was born...

Isn't my Mom just too freaking cute? It's entirely possible that I was dropped off at the doorstep by gypsies, because I don't see how this tall, blonde, slim, tan, graceful woman could have given birth to my plump, kinky brown haired, pasty white ass. On this Mother's Day, I salute the woman who spent countless hours in labor to bring all ten pounds and nine ounces of me into the world. Yes, you read that right. Ten pounds. Nine ounces. I was sort of like a little gurgling holiday ham. With hair.

My Mom is the absolute greatest, and although everyone thinks their Mom is the bees knees, I hope that when I one day have my own kids I can be everything to them that my Mom has always been to me. She was the Mom that would open up the backyard to all the neighborhood kids, serving popsicles and telling stories, complete with character voices. She was there cheering me on when I attempted to play soccer (badly), dance ballet (out of sync), play basketball (again, poorly),and learn piano and violin (disasterously). She was there in the audience for school plays and awards cermonies and mock trial rounds. She encouraged us to be creative and kind, she would put little notes in our lunches telling us she loved us and hoped we were having a great day. She would draw hearts in open faced peanut butter sandwiches and take us to parks for picnics. She took us to libraries and musueums and movies and nature centers. She taught me everything I needed to know about life and unconditional love, and then she let me free into the world to find my own way, all the time without judgment, but always there with a shoulder to cry on.

What I'm really trying to say is that my Mom has been the inspiration for the kind of woman I've wanted to be for the last twenty-seven years. Even though she's a thousand miles away this Mother's Day, she'll be on my mind the whole time. I love you Mom. Here's to you.


* Adorable photo of my Mom taken by my cousin Scott on Mom's last trip to Texas. Scott has Angelman Syndrome and is showing the world his point of view through the lens of his camera. I'll try to post more of his pictures in the future. They're fabulous!

On Top of Old Smokey

That sweet little angel food that I made for my hubby's 32nd birthday last week is about the most exciting thing that's happened since I last posted. It has rained for the past nine days, and it is beyond the point of depressing. Our backyard looked like the depths of Papua New Guinea, and while I'm sure it's a lovely and exotic place to visit, it's really not ideal for a nice suburban rancher.

This morning, I woke up to the sun, and immediately got worried because I thought maybe it was the Apocolypse. What is this bright burning bulb in the sky? How did it get there? How long will it stay?

Not long, unfortunately.

Jeremy mowed the rainforest this morning, and I ate lunch in the park across the street from my office. Everyone I encountered seemed to be in such a good mood, and can you blame them? Friday! Sunshine!

I was psyched enough by the sunny afternoon to skip out of work a couple hours early, planning to come home and have some beers on the deck with my husband - the man who has put up with my rainy day blues this whole time.

So, I pull into the driveway, get changed, grab a beer, open the front door, and get greeting by a gust of wind and a cold drizzle. The sun, the source of my myth-like admiration just hours ago, has now dissappeared behind some stormy gray clouds. Of course. OF COURSE.

So I'm here on the couch, watching the Game Show Network. I'm still having that beer, because at this point even something as serious as liver disease couldn't keep me from this beer, but I'm back to being somewhat surly as I think about how much my ass misses that porch chair right now.

On a happier note, I'll leave you all with a conversation I had with my husband last night as we were falling asleep. This is why I love this man.

Me: Did you ever make prank calls when you were a kid?

Him: Sort of.

Me: What do you mean, "sort of?"

Him: Well, I used to call up QVC and play "Amazing Grace" and "On Top of Old Smokey" using the keypad on the phone.

Me: Seriously?

Him: (like this is a normal thing that everyone does) Yeah.

Me: How old were you?

Him: I don't know. Ten or eleven. Or twelve. I don't know.

Me: Why?

Him: Because I was bored.

Me: Didn't you have any friends?

Him: No. No I didn't.