It’s day 6 and things are going well.  I still haven’t taken up smoking and I suppose that, alone, is a very good sign.

I got home from work yesterday and joined my MIL on the porch.  She was so excited to see me as she sat quietly in her chair - still in her house robe with a cigarette in her right hand.  She jumped up and handed me a piece of paper but turned it over because she didn’t want me to read it yet.  Then she went on to say something like, “I will only talk about this once.  I don’t want to upset you and I do know it still hurts.  But I really feel that next year when I’m baaaack, there’s going to be a baby girl in this house and I’ve been sitting here imaging her running around the yard, full of attitude.”  Then she said something about how much she likes the spelling of my name and that, to her, it carries a lot of “spuuuunk”.   I think what she means is that I can be a brat and that a tantrum and stomping feet are just a few “no you can’t(s)” away.  …not unlike this future little girl of ours.

Then she hands me a list.  It’s a list of about 8 girl names.  It starts out Bali, Cali, Hali and goes down through the alphabet.  I read through them and thought they were all very cute.  She keeps talking me through them and telling me the difference of each “little girl” with a particular name.  One of them was sassy when we asked her to come in for the night.  The other one wouldn’t eat her dinner.  My favorite was “Kali” but mostly because it’s the nickname for California and you all know how much we love ourselves some California.  This is the list.  And yes, this is her real life handwriting.

Remember, she had written this while we were at work.  - with that question at the bottom.  And she even signed it because if we happen to use one of the names, she wants the credit.  I love her. 

But the kicker of this whole thing is that she already knows this little girl’s name.  We’ve told her a hundred times.  It’s never changed.  She just doesn’t like it.  In fact, she doesn’t like it enough that she sat in her chair all day and tried her best to talk me out of it.

But I’m not sold.  Maybe she’ll tempt me with another tomorrow.  I’m easy. 

Or maybe I just want to blog about another handwritten note.

So far so good.  Mostly.  We’ve had a few too many lectures about how busy we are and how we “spend too much time fighting for” our rights.  We also spend too much money and don’t call her enough.  But I supposed it’s typical for your parent to say things like this - especially when they only see you once a year.

Cristy took her to a benefit on Friday night and we both took her to another last night.  Both times she was able to dress up and both times she was showered in compliments.  She loves every minute of that kind of attention.  If she knows she has to be ready by 6pm, she starts putting her “face on” at noon.  It’s not that she sits there that whole time but between cigarette breaks, it really does take that long.

Here are a couple of pictures with Cristy sitting at her make-up station.  (also my dining room table)  Any of you who know me, know that “stuff” just doesn’t exist at my house.  She tests my patience but that’s just the story of my life, right?  (kidding)

I really can’t explain this woman to you in a way that doesn’t make me sound like I’m making fun of her.  Maybe I am a little.  But mostly, I love her.  I love that you can sit and watch her while she doesn’t see you and see that she’s just doing her best and meaning well.  But besides that, there’s also this craziness about her that you can’t really imagine until you see it in person.  (& those of you that have/did, please vouch for me) 

Here’s a recent conversation.  And I’m not kidding.

Her:  My nephew has done this crazy thing fa’evva.  Well, not fa’evva because…

Me:  (in my head, “Oh Lord, here we go.”)

Her:  I don’t know how long fa’evva is but I imagine that it’s as long as what I’m thinking about - maybe five or six years or so. 

Cristy:  (in her head, “what’s the crazy thing?!)

Her:  Or maybe not that long because I don’t really remember things the way I used to… 

Me:  (in my head, “seriously let’s get back to the story.  What about this nephew?)

Her:  When you get old like me, time just starts slipping away or what’evva.  I don’t know if your grandmother has the same problem but I’m telling you, I ne’vva remember things anymore.  Well, not ne’vva…

Cristy:  (in her head, “What were we even talking about?  Please, for the love of God, let’s get back to the beginning!”

Her:  Sometimes I remember things but a lot of times I just don’t anymoe.  When you get old, a lot of things change.  A day will go by and….

…and then she’ll get up and say she’s needs to pour another cola and head out to the smoking porch.  We still don’t know what happened with the nephew. 

And God knows we’re not going to ask.

She’s baaaack…

Cristy’s mom came in Wednesday night and unpacked her three very large suitcases (but down from 5 last year) into her room.  She stayed up until 1am that first night - just getting settled.  By morning we had a rearranged bathroom and my dining table was full of make-up cases.

You have to love her.

The day she came, Cristy emailed me a copy of the grocery list she sent.  It was my job to gather these things so they’d be here when she arrived.  It went something like this.

1 Whipping Cream

1 Folger’s Can Roasted Coffee

1 bottle of Palmolive

1 sm blue mint listerine

4 boxes of dollar tissues

4 12 can boxes diet dr pepper

Random.  It’s obvious that she doesn’t eat.  She drinks coffee & diet dr pepper all day long and smokes (no kidding) an average of 10 hours a day.  She’ll eat if you feed her but other than that, she’s lived quite well on this diet that would surely kill an average human.

She only comes once a year and we’ve already heard the lectures about how Cristy doesn’t call her enough.  She’s very lonely and it makes me sad to ever think of my mom that lonely.  She lives in Houston and her life is slower than anything I could imagine.  She craves what she calls, “visiting” and it can last (and did last night) for four hours.  We just follow her from outside to inside over and over again. 

Last night she showed me a trick.  First of all, the first thing she did when she saw me at the airport was look at my ring.  She’s very BIG about diamonds.  So last night she asked if she could clean my ring for me.  I’ve only had it a couple of weeks but who knows?  Maybe it was dirty.  So she fills a cup 1/2 full and then drops a polident pill in the cup.  After it stopped fizzing, in went my ring.  Weird, I know.  But it totally worked!  It was beautiful!  Who knew polident was good for cleaning teeth and diamonds.  And another trick?  She puts 2 drops of palmolive in her bath water every day and it makes it so it doesn’t leave a ring in the tub.  Now I can’t imagine she’s dirty enough to leave a ring anyway but we tried it with Yeager (who always leaves a ring) and it worked! 

Our weekend is full of activities and she brought me to her room last night so she could plan what she’ll wear.  I tried to tell her that nothing was really that dressy but everything she pulled out glistened and she’ll top it off with gold & pearls.  She’s unreal.  In a good way.  Most of the time.

Happy weekend.

A long time coming.

Man ‘O Man.  My brain is twisting and turning of late and I’m going to just spill it over here for a second and maybe do something a bit larger in a more appropriate place.

Last week, Chicory over at An Accident of Hope wrote this.  She followed it up today with some equally worth while reading but the jist of it all is that there’s another case, like mine, rising up in the ill-minded soup that is the Utah Justice System.  I was aware of this situation before reading her post but once I saw it in type, I just felt like I had been kicked in the stomach and reminded that it’s not just Gray.  It’s not just Maddie or Randy.  It’s many, many children from this point forward that will go on living in this “what if” scenario and it makes me cry.  It literally just makes me cry for them.  And I don’t know what else to do.  And since crying doesn’t help, I feel … helpless.

This particular person who has taken away her child’s parent is an attorney who represents other people’s children - trying to get them back with parents who have lost them due to such things as drug addiction or criminal behavior.  Something is just really wrong with that.  And even worse?  She has hired the most anti-gay, anti-humanity person as her attorney who just happened to also represent the mother of her.  And from what I hear, she’s doing it because she just “didn’t realize how hard it would be to share a child with another person” - to have her child share a mother/child bond with another mother.  Sick.  Too late, right?  Actually, no.  Because when you are the “other mother” who gives birth, you have that extra little pinch that’s more like a dagger and something in you tempts you to do the most wrong - the wrong’est - thing you could ever choose to do.  And once you choose it, you become part of a disease that will haunt you & your child always.  But you do it anyway. 

I don’t understand it. 

I have stopped talking about this for a while.  I know I have readers who are going through life like me and sometimes I regret sharing the “bad news”.  I want to talk about Gracie every day but I know it’s sad and I know you don’t want to think about losing your kids.  And I want to remind people what can happen if they close their eyes for just a few minutes but no one wants to think about losing their partners.  But I can’t stay quiet right now.  A friend told me recently that most of her (gay) mommy & me group has split up.  It’s been a hard year for gay parents in this town. 

Another couple broke up about six months ago and contacted me about what to do.  I don’t know them but I advised them, that moment, to go to mediation and set up a visitation schedule.  Get it signed by a Judge while you’re both thinking straight.  Do the right thing - now.  It’s been six months and they haven’t done it.  And now one of them has a new girlfriend who doesn’t want the other mom in the picture.  And now that mom is questioning “what is right for her kid”.  God, when does it stop?

I’m just tired of it.  I wish we could all just scoop up together and remember when things made sense.  And that even if we can’t stay together, we don’t leave our children and no one takes them away.  And there are no threats and no fear.  And not one parent with more power than the other.  And even if there was, they wouldn’t use it in such an awful way.  I realize I’m preaching to the choir but really, how do we hold these moms accountable?  What do I do?  What do you do?

And I wish there were more of us to talk about it because sometimes I need to talk about it too. 

…you should all be so lucky.

She’s gone.  She actually left early enough that I’ve spent all day missing her a bit.  We had a great time and she makes a great house guest.  (in case any of you are thinking of having her over)

We picked her up Friday and I barely gave her an hour before we invited our best girls over to hang out with us.  We all crossed the street for dinner (after a few too many cocktails already) and I believe we ended the evening around 1am and enough great conversation to last me a while. 

I’m not sure when we took these pictures but for some reason, she was trying to teach Cristy how to pose like an Irish, Italian, Taiwanese, American.  I’m not sure if she got it but I think she was close.  Either way, Cristy doesn’t like yellow.  Or does she?

 

Molly loved her too.  And you might think that Molly loves everyone but jbeeky has this thing about sitting on the floor and Molly thinks it’s all about her.

After we took her to the airport, we headed to C’s softball game and they kicked some yellow shirt butt.  (after a little prodding)  Then, because we were all depressed about our house guest being back at the ocean, we headed up to a soggy dog park to take Moll’s mind off of her. 

All in all, perfect.

The dog days of summer.

In just a few hours, I’ll be picking up jbeeky from the airport and I’ll most certainly have stories to share when she leaves.

Have a great weekend everyone!

No match.

Last night we attended a reception for the gays at the Governor’s Mansion.  I’ve never actually been inside before so I was really looking forward to seeing it.  It was born in 1904 - 8 years AFTER my house.  It’s giant in every way and I imagined lots of dark molding and ornate carpets. 

No match.

The wood was sort of “oak” colored and seemed very 80’s.  One of 1st ladies back then accidentally burned the place down and maybe that’s when the ugly wood came.  The dining room had an awful mural with cows and elk and layers of grass.  It should have been the den.  The Parlor had butter colored furniture with seafoam colored walls - like a nursery for grown ups.  All I could think of was what I would do with the place if I lived there, had a zillion dollars and happened to be the Governor.  Then it made me dream about transferring all the neat things back to my house.  The ceilings were all amazing.  Some with gold leaf and others with etched art.  The moldings were like mazes and way up there - around 15 feet.  I love old houses. 

But, again, no match.

You can sit on all the furniture at my house.  You can even spill on the floor - as long as you miss the rugs.  And me.  You can touch the photos and you’ll never smell “old man”.  We have nothing “old man” in our house.  You can’t get lost.  It’s about a fifth of the size of the mansion.  You don’t have to go through guards to get to my front door.  But I might not answer.  And we (meaning Cristy) serve tasty beverages, not over sugared punch. 

I choose mine.

I also choose my wife over his wife, my daughter over his daughter(s), my dog over his dog, etc. 

He’s got nothin’ on me.

So maybe it’s the excitement of my upcoming weekend.  Maybe I’m happy to be home after so much traveling lately.  Maybe it’s the 3 prank phone calls at midnight but for some reason, I cannot sleep. 

Have any of you seen that commercial that talks about restless leg syndrome?  I know, creepy.  But I think I have it.  Maybe.  I’m not big on self-diagnosing but sometimes I feel like my legs want to keep moving when I don’t.  I have no idea if that’s a symptom of this mysterious ailment but with a title like that, it has to be!  I just lay there trying to get them to be as tired as I am.  And they take turns bothering me.  Last night I layed heavy blankets on them, one at a time, to weigh them down but I was quickly reminded that it’s 100 degrees here and blankets are not helpful when trying to sleep.  I’m exhausted.  My head just thinks and thinks and by morning, I have redecorated my entire parlor and landscaped my whole front yard.  I try to relax and relive a vacation or a dream but I still can’t sleep.  Any ideas?  Alcohol?  Medication? 

Poor Cristy.  God must really love me.  Or maybe she was just really bad in a past life.  She is so patient and I am so not easy.  I wouldn’t go as far as saying I’m high maintenance - more just a pain in the ass.  But I’m honest about it.  I’m very vocal when I need attention.  At least I don’t keep her guessing, right?  I think it was around 2am that I softly asked, “are you asleep?”  - knowing she was.  For God’s sake, everyone was.  She said “no”.  I proceeded to tell her about our new yard.  She fell back to sleep but I kept talking.  I think I eventually allowed the conversation to continue in my head but either way, she was a great listener. 

We’re having dinner tonight with a very pregnant KJ.  (You might want to head over there and see how big those babies are getting.)  Cristy reminded me that they gave us all the leftovers last time so we should be nice and return  the favor.  But I thought I could post this today and maybe she’d see it and feel badly for me and my very tired state and make sure I had enough snacks for a midnight treat.  Yes?  They were nice enough to accept our invitation before she pops so I guess I can be nice enough to send some magic shrimp home with them.  Whatever.  I’m tired.  And I’ll be SO bored when all the world is sleeping…  Poor, poor me.

Enough rambling.  I need to go to work. 

I’ve realized, it’s easy to type with your eyes closed.

Not really.  But we’re back.  It was hard to leave, for sure.  Every minute was perfect but I definitely had my favorites.  Thanks to all of you who gave us such great ideas.  We enjoyed almost every one of them. 

San Fran is a great city.  The history, the art, the wharf….it was amazing.  Right after we left the airport, we headed to the water.  We stopped at Pier 39 and had a wonderful dinner at the Franciscan over the water.  I’ve never been there so even seeing Alcatraz was pretty amazing.  We walked around the Pier for a bit - which could be compared to Dins*y Land.  We also did a bit of the “gay thing” in Castro and I wasn’t really impressed.  Maybe I’m not as gay as I thought I was.  I wanted there to be more history.  I did inhale a nice bloody Mary at Harv*y’s and took some time to appreciate the movement there.  But it wasn’t long before I was craving the water.

That first night was my first ride over the bridge.  What a spectacular sight!  I held my arms up like we were on a roller coaster.  It was stunning.  And it took us over to the most beautiful canyon.  We drove along and watched the marine layer tumble down the hills like cloudy boulders.  I’ve never seen anything like it.  And it was chilly.  It would hit you and wet your hair.  We had a speedy little Kia and kept the windows down the whole way through Marin County. 

We stayed somewhere between San Fran and Sonoma, along a hillside.  The deer even followed us - just like home.  The place was a little condo(ish) so we were able to have fresh cherries, strawberries and cold savignon blanc after dark.  It was perfect.

Can you see that baby deer above my head?

oooh, they’re cute!

There were amazing little towns along the way that will easily hold my dreams of retirement.  Sausalito & Tiberon were our favorites.  The architecture of the homes on the water and hills were like anyone’s dream get-a-way.  We didn’t want to leave.  Did I say that already?

We made big plans to watch the fireworks over the bridge.  We drove down the canyon, hiked up a hill to join the locals, froze our booties off and then it got cloudy and we couldn’t see anything.  We laughed all the way home.

This was our view for the fireworks that…weren’t.

This is me frozen…just above my booty.

We spent a good amount of time at the wineries and it was definitely my most favorite.  If we go back, I doubt we’ll spend any time in San Fran and all the time up North.  The scenery is unbelievable.  I kept thinking, “people really live here?”  And we’d drive up to these little local wineries that make only a few thousand cases a year - and they were willing to share!  Can you stand it?  We bought a couple of bottles - one of which we enjoyed last night and the other that we’re willing to share with our best girls this weekend.  We walked around a vineyard and picked lavender for the car/ride home.  We could taste the grapes in the air and smell the fresh fruit all the way back home.

It was perfect.  Really.  And we didn’t want to come home.  Really.  We pinched ourselves a few times and just stood still with the fact that we’re legally married and legally honeymooned. 

 

And the luckiest girls in all the world.

I think of you every day.  Almost every moment.  I find myself talking about you like I still know every move you make.  I imagine you dancing with dirt on your feet.  - my princess who isn’t afraid to tackle the nearest playmate or mommy.

It’s summer and wherever you are, it’s hot.  Your face is glistening and your hair is full of snarls.  It’s probably cut short so it’s easier on your mom.  You want another bath today or more time in the pool.  You have always been a water baby.  I bet this is your first year of swimming lessons and every time she picks you up, you show her a new trick.  She is so proud of you.

I’ve had three dreams of you just this week.  All of them have filled my heart because when you saw me you ran to me - like no time had passed at all.  The look on your face was magical and I knew in an instant that I wouldn’t lose you again.  One time was at your grandma’s.  The other at a Church.  And the other, a grocery store.  & just like that, I was yours to keep.

I had to pull the car over the other day on my way home from work.  I was remembering a time when I had to leave you and you cried out for me.  “mommy, please don’t go.  I miss you.”  Even now, it hurts me so much to hear your voice in my head.  It killed me to leave you that day - every day.  I have deep wishes in my soul that you don’t remember to miss me.  But I have other wishes that pray that you do.

You can take these words to bed with you and hold onto them at night
but they cant erase the emptiness and make everything alright
Your laughter and your tenderness will never disappear
No matter where you are tonight a part of you is here with me

I want you to know that no matter what happens in my life, every step, you are always here with me.

I love you, Gracie.