In Honor of Pride Week...

It's The Equality, Stupid and Hooray for Macy's

New York Gov. David Paterson told his state agencies that he wants them to begin recognizing same-sex marriages performed in states and countries where they are legal. Acording to a May 14th memo, he told state agencies to revise policies and regulations to recognize same-sex marriages performed in California and Massachusetts as well as Canada and other countries that allow gays and lesbians to marry.

This means that if I lived in New York, my marriage licence from Canada would be legally recognized. Wifey and I would no longer be second class citizens, unable to file taxes together, finally able to have our mortgage in both of our names. Finally able to have family insurance coverage rather than two single plans. I could go on and on, but you already know. It's rather trite at this point to continue to list the reasons over and over. I get so sick of hearing the hate spewing people say things like (using my best redneck voice here) "those gays want special rights, dammit". There's nothing special about wanting EQUALITY. We just want to be equal to our heterosexual counterparts. Enjoy the same benefits, rights, and liberties that they enjoy. No more, no less. Equality. That's what it's all about.

At this time, Connecticut, New Hampshire, New Jersey , and Vermont permit civil unions, and California, as we know, recently passed same-sex marriage. At this rate, who knows, maybe my children will see a world in which their mommies are free. Free to be married, share custody, have access to healthcare under eachother's plans, file taxes jointly, you know, all that stuff you heterosexuals take for granted. It could happen. We are living in the land of the FREE after all.

and, check out this little gem :

it says "First comes love. Then comes marriage. And now it's a milestone every couple in California can celebrate."

Hooray for Macy's! They get it. Well, maybe they just understand that traditionally queers have the disposable income that our hetro-counterparts don't. You know, we don't have so many kids to feed and clothe and send to school so, there yah go. And in today's market, of course they are going to pander to those with extra cash to spend. Who wouldn't? But hell, they are surely going to loose some of their customers, you know the ones, "I ain't shoppin' at Macy's no more if they gonna cater to them queers"
Anywho - I wish I could get married all over again just to register with *sigh* Macy's, sweet wonderful Macy's! Ok, here's the deal-e-o on the Macy's registration. You get two drop down boxes, each one gives you a "bride"," groom", or "partner" option! Sweet. Right now, I so effin' HEART Macy's!

The Fourth Turning - Revisited

So I'm re-reading The Fourth Turning, by William Strauss and Neil Howe. If you never read it before, or haven't read it since '97 or so, I urge you to pick it up, revisit it, and spend some time digesting the brilliance of these two historians.

In 1997, Strauss and Howe predicted that by 2005 America would encounter "a sudden spark (that) will catalyze a Crisis mood. Remnants of the old social order will disintegrate. Political and economic trust will implode. Real hardship will beset the land, with severe distress that could involve questions of class, race, nation and empire."

Sound familiar? 9/11? Today's housing market? Gas prices? U.S.led wars in Afghanistan and Iraq? Dissent? Presidential approval rating lowest in decades? The U.S.dollar is worth less than some third world countrie's currancy today, need I go on?


How did a couple of historians predict, with such accuracy, the climate of our great nation in the wake of 9/11, the war on terror, the recession that "is not", the housing market crash, etc. at least 4 years prior to it happening? They explain, in their book, their theory about cycles in history and how they repeat with predictable accuracy. They map out for us how they have for generations and define each cycle, each pattern, and identify the archetypes associated with the rise and fall of each cycle.

History repeating itself, but in cycles that can be mapped and predicted.

In other words, the cyclical view of time believes that which is old will one day be new again. Though mostly forgotten by our post-modern, urban contemporaries, a simple example of cyclical time is the turning of the seasons. Winter to spring, spring to summer, summer to fall, and back to winter – which is both old and new again. This cycle continues throughout centuries, never failing, never skipping a beat. Seasons may be different, one spring may be more rainy than another, but they come in sequential order, time and time again.
Likewise, according to Strauss and Howe, within the social realm, there are social seasons as sure as there are climatic ones. This book explains them, defines them, and shows us how to predict with a meteoriologist's dopplar radar accuracy, when the next "storm" will hit.

Funny how we tend to heed the warnings after the fact. I am revisiting The Fourth Turning and finding that I more fully understand the concepts today than I did 10 years ago. Is it age and maturity? Or experience of the past 10 years that enable me to read it today with new eyes? Either way, I am getting more from it today than I did back then, and I propose that you will too. No worries, it's not all gloom and doom. Strauss and Howe show us how to change the course of history in the making. This book is about empowering us to see patterns so that we can take control and make the changes necessary to ensure a better future for us, our children, and our children's children. That's a lesson worth learning, isn't it?

My memorable Memorial Day & WWC - Penultimate & Entrance

I had no sooner settled into the sofa to finish watching The Brave One. It was Saturday morning, I had just paid my lawn guy for a freshly mowed yard and referred him over to my neighbors house (not the urban jungle house, but our friends, who live a couple of doors down). Suddenly, I heard a shrill scream coming from the cul-de-sac. The Wifester and I looked at each other and simultaneously said, "What the hell is that?!" Before we could look out the window a hard BAM! BAM! BAM! on our front door followed instantly by our friends' voices yelling, no, screaming our names in a sheer panic alerted us to the fact that the scream was directed our way and trouble was just outside of our living room. I tore the front door open to see their panicked faces, shock and horror, trembling hands waving in the air while M said "Come quick! Come quick! He cut his fingers off! HE CUT HIS FINGERS OFF! OH MY GOD, HIS FINGERS ARE GONE! ¡Probrecito!"
It only took a second for me to realize the lawn mower was no longer running and that this was gong to be the very ugly beginning to everyone's Memorial Day weekend.
I ran across the cul-de-sac with the girls and into their back yard to find one of the assistant workers standing there, hand shoved into a bag, looking a bit lost. I quickly assessed the situation with him and realized he was not fully in shock, but probably headed that way, distant, aloof. You know, for a man who'd just cut off his fingers, he wasn't bleeding as much as you'd imagine. Of course, he was holding his wrist very tight, so that may have been slowing the circulation. Regardless, I expected to see a lot more blood. Not that it wasn't there, it was, just not quite as much as I expected.
OK, now here's the first thing I just don't get. No one had called 911 yet. Someone cut his fingers off and no one called 911. I suppose it was panic, and the first thing that anyone thought was to get the nurses. I used to be one, The Wifester is one and the first instinct was to get us. But still, 911. It's like the first thing we do when when people sever limbs or digits or nearly die.  (edit: turned out they couldn't find their phone, you know, they slide in between sofa cushions and hide from time to time)
So here I am, trotting over calling 911 trying to tell them what's happening and where, all before I even arrive at the scene. Once I get there, the first thing I see is the injured man with his hand in a bag of what I assume to be ice. Did I mention that none of the guys speak any English? Thank god M, one of the girls from the house that this happened at, does because my Spanish is deficient, at best. The 911 operator is asking me how many fingers have been severed, I'm looking in the bag at his bloody stumps to see, and honestly, I don't want to look to closely. I see lots of blood on what looks like the first three fingers and tell them it looks to be the first three fingers. They asked if the fingers were found, I look into the bag again, and upon seeing three blood covered nubs, I told them yeah, they found 'em all. Then I looked around and realized everyone is still looking around on the ground. I asked "What are yall looking for? The fingers are right here aren't they?" Nope! See, as it turns out the bag was frozen whole okra, it was the quickest thing that they could grab, and the "fingers" I saw, well, that was just blood covered okra (can you say YUCK!)
Needless to say, I don't think I'll be having okra anytime soon.
Oh, the next thing I don't get is that as we're waiting on the ambulance to arrive, 911 tells me, "Ma'am, the ambulance for La Vergne is currently dispatched on another emergency, we've sent one from Smyrna, so it'll be just a few more minutes." It took over 20 minutes for the ambulance to get here. We could have had the poor guy to the hospital down the road quicker, although, they are not really equipped to handle that kind of situation and the ambulance ended up taking him to Vanderbilt in Nashville, who is. But really, is there only one ambulance for my city? Really? We have, according to the 2006 census, a population of 25,278. One ambulance for what has to be at least 26,000 people by now? I feel so safe. So we're standing on the front porch with the police who got there quickly, I'm still on the phone with 911, his hand is in the bag of frozen whole okra, and plop, there spills out blood covered okra looking ever so much like fingers. One officer is spazzing out saying "if that touches me, I'm gonna puke" and here comes P with another bag, this time a ziploc bag with ice and a piece of finger. It was like some demented horror fest right here in the suburbs. Who needs Stephen King when you have immigrant gardeners who don't heed the warnings on the side of their lawn mowers?
Needless to say, the fingers were not saved, even the one that was found relatively intact. The mower does a mulching number. He's lucky he still has a hand at all. He did turn the mower off, but it seems that as he was clearing a clump of grass, the blades were freed and then continued their rotation. I suppose that is precisely why that label on the side of the mower says "Never place hands on or near mover blades" in English, Spanish, French, and German. Poor guy. He thought since it was off, he was safe.
Oh yeah, and after the poor man was loaded up into the ambulance, and the police cleared out, the remaining two workers went back to work! They told our friends, "we finish your yard, then we go" She told them it was fine to leave it unfinished and just go on to the hospital, but they said no, they wanted to finish their job.
Now THATS some work ethic.
I know people who won't go to work when they have PMS, this guy's uncle just mulched his fingers in a lawnmower right in front of him and he went back out there and finished up the job.
Amazing.
Needless to say, that was the penultimate experience I wanted to have launch our Memorial Day weekend.
Which brings us to Tink's WWC words for this week.
Penultimate & Entrance
No worries, I didn't take photos of bloody stubs for my WWC, I promise. Nor of bloody okra.
If you want to join the WWC posse' mosey on over to see the well rested and recently vacationed Tink, of Pickled Beef and she'll show you how.

Penultimate:
Before the finger mulching incident happened, I thought that cleaning this closet out was the penultimate thing I'd want to do on my holiday weekend. I was wrong.

Also before the finger mulching, the penultimate thing I expected to see was the urban jungle finally disappeared this weekend! (And without any loss of limbs or digits, yay for them!)

Entrance

the entrance to a very yummy beverage


flowers make the entrance to mi casa welcoming and inviting

sure, Mr.Ebola virus looks cute and cuddly, but you'd be sadly remiss to allow him entrance into your body!

Friday Blooms

The weekend is upon us and THANK GOD for that! My neighbors STILL have not cut the grass, and it has reached the point of being as tall as the fence in their back yard. Sad. The grass is taller than their front porch. The day before yesterday, as I stood outside watering my flowers, talking with Wifester, said neighbor sat on his front porch step smoking a cigarette. I don't get how you can sit on your ass and look at grass like that and not do something about it. When I lived with the Party Boys, we partied. We stayed out till 4am drinking, consuming mass quantities of illicit substances, wreaking havoc all across town, and quite often, being subdued by Nashville's finest. Yet, with all of that going on, we were still able to get up on a Saturday or Sunday afternoon and cut the damned grass. One time, our lawn mower was broken, so one of the party boys, J, got a brilliant idea, mostly triggered I'm sure, by the fungi he'd been eating for the hallucinogenic effects...His chemically altered ingenuity lead us to take hedge trimmers and get on hands and knees and cut our grass. Oh, we did it alright. We were a threesome of madness out there on the lawn, gigantic scissors in hand, laughing our mind-altered asses off, but we did it, and our lawn looked nice again. One time, we pawned movies that we no longer watched so that we could pay someone to cut our grass. Yeah, we were those people. Hey, I don't claim to have lead a perfect life. I've lived a life. But I've kept my lawn from becoming an urban jungle, even in midst of being in the house of "The Party Boys and Lesbot Too".

All I'm saying is if we could keep up with our yard, so can they.

Ok, enough about that. Here's some good stuff from MY yard. I took the pup out this morning for her morning potty and SURPRISE! My lily has given me such a beautiful bloom! Just look at this!

Ahhh... that makes me feel better. Then I noticed, just behind it, another bloom. This one the wife picked out. I'm not really sure what this flower is called, I just know it's pretty. I have yet to plant it, it's sitting there in the pot we bought it in, I'm gonna dig a hole and plant it today when I get home. I'm sure it'll be happy. I've placed a nice trellis for it to climb. Here's wifey's pick:

Today is full of prizes for me, not only did my garden give me these lovely blooms, but I only have to work a half a day, then I get to go get my hair cut! YIPPPPPEEEE! Annnnnnnd... best of all.... 3 DAY WEEKEND!

I never saw such a thing when I worked at the phone company. I never saw such a thing in retail, in nursing, or at the hotel. This is a whole new world for me, and quite frankly, I'm loving it. I am basking in the glory of a nice cushy job with perks that are perky and incentives that are
motivating rather than condescending.

That's it for today, my job awaits...Have a great weekend yall, and be safe!

WWC - Regret & Pure

OK,so it's a day late, and a dollar short, but hey, that's kinda the story of my life. School has had me crazy,(not that I wasn't already) and in fact, I was a bit behind on some homework and really needed to get that up to date. Now I have a nice long weekend coming up and I'm sooooooooo happy for THAT. Sometimes I get myself into more than I know how to handle, and this has been one of those times. I'm learning how to balance and juggle everything that I have going on right now, but these things take time to get a handle on.
That being said, my WWC is late, and pretty much fully taken via my cell phone this week. Again, it was difficult to pry the good camera away from the wife when we were out having fun, and when we weren't out having fun, I was either at work, working, or in school, being well, schooled.
Speaking of being schooled, Tink, of Pickled Beef, schooled us all on the pleasures of running nekked through the woods, but maybe she skipped the day in which they taught us about the gargantuan alligators that reside in the woods in Florida...
Oh well, she made it back, without becoming tasty alligator snacks, and hosted this week's WWC with the words Regret and Pure.
Here's my interpretation.

Regret :
I regret to inform you that my neighbors STILL have not cut their grass...

look! it's all the way up to the top step already! ri-friggin diculous!

Me, displaying regret:

and I bet these guys regretted landing in this web (my one and only opportunity to pry the camera from the wife's hands)

Pure:

The Ani Difranco show was pure joy for me
Sunny-dog looks like she's in pure heaven when she lays her head on my pillow


purely for fun, what if the wife and I could make a baby?

Alright, yall, that's all I got this week. I know, I know. Soon I'll be back in the game with a ferocious vengeance, but for now, I must focus on school and work and getting my Green La Vergne group up and running…sigh.

WWC is so fun, if you think you want to join in and play along, go see Tink, she'll show you how.

Oh, and don't forget to drop by the WWC Flickr page too!

Next week's words are Penultimate and Entrance! OOOOH, those otta be fun!

all apologies

I have been so wrapped up with school work and gardening that I haven't had a chance to post my WWC, sorry, yall! I'll see about gathering some photos for it when I get home tonight and post it pronto!