Holiday giving

We survived the holiday.  It was touch and go a few times, but we made it.  The very best part?  Walking dogs at the animal shelter at 6am on Christmas morning.

My girlfriend volunteers at the county animal shelter, walking and bathing dogs, and occasionally driving them to a new shelter or rescue outfit.  Her regular walk day is Saturday, at 6am.  It's the shift called potty walk for very good reason.  So, with the holiday falling on a Saturday, we weren't sure how many people would show up.  I offered to go with her and help out.  It's overwhelming but the dogs are so damned grateful to get out of the kennel for a few minutes.

We took them little chunks of cheese and various dog treats.  They were wonderful, adorable and heartbreaking.  T knows that she can't bring anymore home, but she would love to.  It's hard not to!

It was definitely the best part of the day.

Holiday Greeting Cards

Does anyone send holiday greeting cards anymore?  Also known as Christmas cards?  Do you?

I remember when my bff, Lisa, lived with us and between her set of friends and acquaintances and mine we had dozens and dozens of cards.  Not a day would go by in December without a card or several in the mailbox.  I have a box of small, gold colored paper clips that I used to string together and pin up along the wainscoting.  We would hang the cards along this shiny garland.  In the heyday of cards we would have the whole living room swagged with holiday greetings.

This year, I have received five so far.  Five.  Sadly, one of them is from the store where I bought my bike!  It's pretty, though, so I'm keeping it up.  There are too few to string up the paperclip chains so they are sharing the mantel with some other decorations.  There's plenty of room for the five of them!  In the old days, only the photo cards were on the mantel.

In case you were going to ask, yes, I did send out cards.  Not as early as Miss Georgiana, whose card arrived the day after Thanksgiving, but early-ish in the month.  

Is this just a thing of the past?  Are the days of sending cards made of paper through the postal service over?  If so, that's kinda sad.  It's a holdover from the time before email.  It's hard to display an e-card on the mantel.  

THEY ARE DRIVING ME CRAZY!

Partly, I think, it was the way I was raised.  My parents didn’t fight much and never in front of us kids.  They may have been tense around us occasionally, but there was never shouting, or even bickering for that matter. 

And, then I was married to a crazy man for several years and learned more than I ever should have about fighting.  And running.

So, to me, when there is shouting and slamming of doors and attitude and petulance and throwing things and bad behavior; to me, it signals the end.  It means that we are on that one way path to goodbye.

Mind you, this was between T and the teenager.  I can’t blame it all on the teenager, either.  But, it’s her family and she is surely used to the way they are by now.  I’m the innocent bystander in this latest round of family drama. 

I’m tired of it.  I’m tired of their family histrionics.  I’m tired of it affecting my life.

I’m being supportive of my partner, and attempting to help her get this kid through her freshman year of high school.  And, when the kid misbehaves and drama ensues, I am being supportive of my partner by explaining things like consequences.  Behavior X results in Consequence X.  A parent must be consistent and reasonable in addressing behavior.  Tell her what the consequence of her behavior is and then stick to it.  Once the kid has chosen to behave badly there is no room for negotiation. 

T is just at the beginning of this rough voyage through parental waters.  I hope her ship doesn’t capsize.  I hope I don’t throw them both overboard.  I have been tempted.

A Holiday of Sorts

My daughter came for a visit last weekend.  Being the lowest on the seniority list, she couldn’t get either of the official holidays off, so we celebrated last weekend instead.  It was fantastic to see her.  It definitely wasn’t enough time, since she was only here Friday through Monday, but I’ll take what I can get.

She and I spent most of Friday running around shopping and getting stuff together for our little family holiday.  I don’t know what to call it ~ it wasn’t Thanksgiving, and it wasn’t Christmas or Hanukah (or Kwanzaa, for that matter).  It was too early for the Solstice.  I’ll have to settle on Zoe-mas. 

On Saturday we had dinner at my parent’s house.  My mentally ill brother was there, which is very rare.  He came over because, like the rest of us, he loves and misses the Kid.  She is such a ray of sunshine that even the depressed feel cheery.  We opened up gifts and had pie and it felt very festive. 

Sunday we did a few things that she wanted to do in Portland, like a visit to Powell’s (surely one of the best bookstores of all time).  We walked the dogs, and petted the cats, we played a few games with the teenager, and basically just enjoyed each other’s company.  Went back over to the grandparent’s house to hang out with them again. 

Then on Monday, she was gone. 

Not surprisingly, I’ve been depressed all week.  T thinks that if she can be relentlessly cheerful around me I’ll ‘snap out of it.’  She doesn’t understand but I know that she is motivated by compassion.  I told her (fairly gently) that it would be better to just leave me alone to wallow in it for a couple of days and I’ll recover.  She likes to solve things though, so that’s hard for her. 

We’ve got a busy weekend coming up.  On Saturday I’m subbing for a friend who is out of town, then another friend is having her 40^th birthday party.  We’re getting our tree on Sunday.  I guess we are still getting ready for Christmas, although the part that matters to me is over.  Oh, I’ll suck it up and act appropriately, but I confess to feeling indifferent to the rest of the holiday season.

It doesn’t help my mood that it has been dark and rainy since the Kid left.  We had some lovely crisp, sunny days while she was here, but it’s been raining hard ever since.  Just the weather for a bout of depression.

Sorry to be so gloomy, but my usual Pollyanna nature is hiding under the covers and refuses to come out.

More Adventures in Lesboland

If you are a lesbian who has lived in Portland during the last 15 years, chances are good that you have checked out a bar called The Egyptian Room, commonly known as the E Room. 

It’s a dark labyrinth of a bar, with a room for karaoke, a room for dancing, a room for video poker and pool, a room for special events and a full service bar in every room.  There are big bull dyke bouncers at the door and snarky, aloof bartenders serving drinks.  Attitude runs rampant at the E Room.

Well, I should say that attitude ran rampant at the E Room.  It closed a month or two ago, leaving the Portland lesbo crowd with one less watering hole.  It has been transformed into something called “Weird Bar.”  Apparently the owners decided that the lesbian crowd could not sustain them any longer and wanted to open it up to all ‘weird’ walks of life.  I won’t bore you with the details of the fallout that caused.  Suffice it to say that many lesbians are looking for a new place to drink.

I was never a fan of the E Room and only went there on rare occasions.  Too much of the aforementioned attitude.  Too many youngsters and their dramas.  Too dark and stinky and… sticky. 

Last weekend T and I took a chance on a gay bar that is right around the corner from the house.  It is decidedly male.  I’ve been in there a couple of time over the years, but the service and attitude were very hostile to women and who needs that?  But, it was Saturday night and we wanted to go somewhere quiet and have a drink and hold hands.  We had walked to a local restaurant and wanted to continue our evening on foot and not have to drive or take the bus downtown.

We went in to Joq’s and the first thing I noticed was that it was a lot cleaner and had undergone a makeover.  We were greeted warmly by the bartender and even though we were the only women in there we didn’t feel awkward at all.  The guys weren’t unfriendly but left us alone.  Well, all except the one straight guy in the place.  He said hello, which I responded to, but then he wanted to challenge us to a game of pool, which we were not interested in playing.  After I turned my back towards him he shut up.  For a while.  A bit later a couple of younger guys came in and were sitting near us.  Mr Irritating Straight Man said hello to them and then asked them if they wanted to play pool.  They declined.  Then he said, “You’re weenies.  You’re just a couple of weenies.  Weenie, weenie, weenie.”  The bartender was in the back and didn’t hear any of that, but we heard it and my brave and beautiful girlfriend called him on it.  She looked over at him and said, “That’s not a nice thing to say.  You need to stop.”  When he started to argue with her, she said, “Just leave them alone.  They don’t want to play pool with you.  And don’t call anyone names, it’s not nice.”  What a champion!  She made a couple of friends that night.

Bus-bians

I rode the bus in to work late this morning.  I will spare you the scenes of domestic drama that necessitated the lateness; suffice it to say: the teenager.  At any rate, it meant that I was riding with a completely different set of passengers.

A pair of young lesbians got on and quickly surveyed the seating choices.  There were no spots with two seats together.   As they came to the back of the bus, one sat down in an aisle-side seat and, rather than sit across the aisle from her girlfriend, the other one stood right next to the first.  It looked very chivalrous, as if she were protecting her gf from a potential random encounter.  It might have been just that she liked leaning in and getting a little extra closeness before they had to start their day.  At any rate, it was pretty sweet and it made me smile.

Of no importance whatsoever

I don't care which way the toilet paper goes on the holder: over or under, doesn't matter to me.  What bugs me is when the last square or two of tp doesn't come off the cardboard tube neatly.  Now, that is irritating.

0prah and Gay1e

Ok, I’ll admit it, sometimes I like to watch 0prah when I get home from work.  Not all the time, but she often has interesting guests and she’s just so… out there.  I’d watch Ellen if I could (gotta support the team), but she is on too early. 

This week, 0prah devoted a couple of shows to the camping trip that she and Gay1e took to Yosemite.  As they were heading into the pop-up trailer at bed time, Gay1e said something like: this will add to those lesbian rumors! We got a chuckle out of that.

I’m of two minds on the whole 0prah and Gay1e thing.  Here’s what I think:

1) They are gay and 0prah is building up to the big reveal at the end of this, her final season.  She has been having a lot of openly gay people on the show talking about coming out.  She could be preparing, laying the ground work, getting her audience ready.  But she could also be building compassion for others, participating in her own way in the ‘It Gets Better’ movement.  I mean, 0prah has been an advocate for the gays for a long time.  But, why?  Because she is a good and accepting person or because she is gay but can’t risk her reputation?  Could go either way, right?

2) They are not gay.  They are best friends who have lived together, traveled together, had all kinds of adventures together but, because they are single, middle-aged women, well, they must be gay.  This attitude is prevalent and it makes me mad.  Why can’t two women just be friends?  Why can’t two middle-aged, single, lifelong pals be just that… friends through thick and thin, but not lovers.  My best friend of over 35 years is straight.  We have lived together, traveled together, had all kinds of adventures together but never been lovers.  How can this be?

I used to try to explain to people, when they assumed that Lisa and I were girlfriends, that no, we were just friends.  They would say, “Oh no, I didn’t think that!” while their faces said, ‘why is she hiding it?  It’s obvious that she’s gay’.  Well, yes, I am gay, but my best friend is not.  Too bad for her, but that’s how it goes.  Even my own grandmother assumed that Lisa was my girlfriend, which was sweet in an accepting kind of way, but incorrect. 

So, two women who choose each other’s company over that of a man’s are suspect.  How dare we not need them!  The patriarchy is threatened by all of this woman power stuff.  How tedious, how tired, how last century is all that?  Didn’t we already fight that battle?  Yes, we did, and we still are fighting it, and we have never won and it’s not over. 

What am I trying to say here?  Well, first of all, I’m saying that I don’t care if 0prah and Gay1e are gay.  I hope for their sakes that they are and that they can come out but that’s just my pro-gay bias.  Mostly, I am trying to say that old patterns of thought need to change and people need to quit judging by whatever archaic standards they were taught in the previous millennium.  It’s time to stop with the attitude folks!  I’m not going to go into my feminist diatribe ~ but believe me, I could!  I am just fed up with this old, useless crap.  Women can be friends with each other and it has absolutely nothing to do with men.  Don’t get your feelings hurt fellows, it’s just not about you all the time.

Blog Blast for Peace

Dona Nobis Pacem

From my family to yours...

Helen meets Mr Darcy

Our friend Chris rode her new bike over last weekend to watch a football game with us.  Look how pretty Mr Darcy is!  He and Helen look very well together!  That's Helen on the right, with the basket.

They both have the green/brown color scheme, and they are almost exactly the same color!

We like our bikes!