Pink Asparagus

So disgusted.

And embarassed.

Gah.

Go listen, I’ll wait.

Clearly Senator Renfroe did not attend the same oration classes our President did. My goodness. My dearly departed Speech Coach in high school would have had her hands full with his stammering and what-I-mean-to-says. Spit it out already man: You’re a hate monger.

Mr Renfroe does represent a more conservative part of our state. But not the the most conservative. Greeley is a nice sized college town located in northern Colorado. It’s a ranch town. It’s predominitly White (80.4%), has a lot of families (>25% of the population is under 18), only a quarter of the adult population have college degrees. Fine. It’s conservative. That does not give Senator Renfroe the right to stand on the Senate floor and say that a) I was put on the planet to help my husband and give him children ONLY and b) align gays & lesbians with murderers.

Gah.

I went looking for the Golden Rule because I too can quote scripture. Instead I came across an article from a debate in Sept 2007 where each of the Democratic candidates was asked their favorite bible verse. Now Veep Biden had an answer that I think refers to Senator Renfroe

Senator Joseph R. Biden Jr.: “Christ’s warning of the Pharisees. There are many Pharisees, and it’s part of what has bankrupted some people’s view about religion. And I worry about the Pharisees.”

Granted, I had to look up Pharisees. Jesus said they are like

whited sepulchers, which indeed appear beautiful outward, but are within full of dead men’s bones, and of all uncleanness.

I think Biden was warning us of Senator Renfroe. Jesus too. Thank you jeebus!

And if your knickers are knotted, go here and tell Senator Renfroe what you think of his hate speech.

Since school was closed on Monday to reflect on the birth of Presidents Washington and Lincoln, we took the three day weekend opportunity and headed to the mountains.

I do not like to drive in the snow.

I do not like to drive in the snow when visibility is < 10 feet.

Luckily that was only a little bit of the trip up. We went to Glenwood Springs to sit in the mineral filled, spring heated, outdoor pool.

We stayed in the very old, very beautiful Hotel Colorado.

The Hotel Colorado is supposedly the birthplace of the Teddy Bear. The hotel’s lobby was huge and inviting, it was the sort of lobby that guests are supposed to lounge in. We played a lot of Uno there.

On Monday, Peter drove back to Denver to go to work. The kids and I took the train home, ending at Denver’s Union Station.

I remembered to bring all sorts of things … but not a charged battery for my camera. I bought disposable but haven’t had them developed yet. Maybe there’s a good picture our two in there. Other than that glitch it was a glorious weekend. We just hung out together. No doing chores, no running errands. The kids were great on the train, they even took a nap!

Nothing says punk like tulle and denim.

KellyGO reminded me (and all of you too) that it’s Freedom to Marry week. She took it upon herself to start a conversation with three people about why gay rights matter. I decided to be one of those three. And now I’m telling three people.

Our friends, our family, our pastors, our teachers, our neighbors are being denied civil liberties. It is not gay rights, it’s civil rights. The right to marry. The right to visit your loved ones in the hospital. The right to go to jail when they lie on the income taxes. The right to put both parents names on a birth certificate. Recently a friend married her life partner. Yet, she does not have the same rights I do. She was not given the automatic right to change her name. She cannot tell the hospital she is the spouse. It holds no meaning to the government. If people truly want smaller government let’s start by getting it out of our bedrooms and our uteri (boy, that’s a rant for another day).

Consider the rights that LGBT folks do not have. And now remove gay from the sentence and replace it with black. Is it alright? No? Replace it with female. Is it alright now? No? There’s a reason for that. It’s because it’s wrong. It was wrong when interracial marriages were against the law, it is wrong the same-sex marriages are against the law.

Since Valentine’s Day is coming up, here’s a little video to make you feel all lovey-dovey.

“Fidelity”: Don’t Divorce… from Courage Campaign on Vimeo.

Hat Tip: Dorothy Surrenders via Lesbian Dad

I’d love to have you come over for dinner, but can you Bring Your Own Chair?

We enjoy entertaining. So much so that we purchased a dining table that can seat 12. Twelve. I don’t know 12 people. And really? It’s moot. I couldn’t commit to the chairs that went with the table when we bought it. So, right now we use the 4 chairs from our previous table. And as you can see from the picture above, if we do want to have people over we break out the folding chairs and (egads) some plastic chairs from outside. The lawn chairs are too wide, even with the other leaf we’d never get 4 more of them around the table.

I want to have real, indoor furniture for our guests. But I cannot commit. I have analysis paralysis. What if I find the chairs I like cheaper somewhere? Then I’m just mad I over paid. What if I find something I like better? What if …

See?

And! Why can I not buy an oval table cloth in lengths longer than 84?

Here’s Elliot rocking his new hooded towel to take to the pool this summer. It’s a pretty simple project if you have a sewing machine. I used one bath size towel and one hand towel (for the hood). The ‘E’ is cut from a wash cloth. Given that it’s nearly dragging the floor now, I plan for him to get a few years wear out of it.

Some finer details: I used monofiliment thread on a zigzag width 3 length 1, this results in using lots of thread. The towels are Target clearance (I actually bought them last year and just never got around to making it). The hood is the hand towl folded in half and sewn up the back (after some guesstimate trimming for approximate head size). It results it a pointed hat whcih I thought was fine but caused Elliot to pull the hood to far forward, so I flattened out the top (yeah, that makes *total* sense).

The ‘E’ is totally free-hand. I know, you can hardly believe it right?

Audrey’s is coming soon.

Promises of reducing fine linnes and wrinkles. We’ll see.