Gusts of wind have certainly been howling at the beach and on TV.
With the line of hurricanes blowing by and the string of partisans blowing smoke on the tube it’s been quite a few weeks.
Of course, my favorite storm was Hurricane Fay, spelled correctly at that. Bonnie and I had a glorious time listening to all the reports (Fay is intensifying; Fay is boomeranging; Fay is heading for Guantanemo!) but as the saying goes, it’s all fun and games until somebody gets hurt. I was gearing up to have great fun at Hurricane Fay’s expense, not to mention columnist Fay’s expense when I heard that the storm had killed a lot of people. Ditto for Gustav, Hannah and Ike. Suddenly it’s not such fun anymore.
Which is just as well since there are sooo many other things to focus on from the past few weeks.
Speaking of forces of nature, I have to mention the passing of Del Martin, one of the true pioneers of lesbian rights. She and her partner of 55 years, Phyllis Lyons, started the very first lesbian rights organization in this country, the Daughters of Bilitis – named for a fictional friend of Sappho. As a couple, Del and Phyllis reminded me so much of my friends Anyda and Muriel, also together over half a century before they both died in 2006. I have to laugh, because Muriel always said that the term Bilitis sounded like a terrible disease and she wanted no part of it.
Together, Del and Phyllis wrote the book Lesbian/Woman published in 1972. I remember lurking in the dark, outside the Lambda Rising Bookstore in Washington, D.C .in 1978, screwing up my courage to go inside and buy the book. While the picture of 1972 lesbian life wasn’t pretty – women’s softball, seedy bars in bad neighborhoods and butch/femme partnerships, Del and Phyllis were the first to tell me that long-term lesbian relationships did actually exist and that a satisfying life might be possible – even without playing softball, god forbid.
The sadness of Del’s passing was assuaged a little knowing that she and Phyllis were invited to be the first legal gay union in California. A photo of the 80-somethings cutting their wedding cake looked gorgeous on the front pages of newspapers across the country. In a statement after Del died, Phyllis Lyons said, “I am devastated, but I take some solace in knowing we were able to enjoy the ultimate rite of love and commitment before she passed.” Amen.
The political conventions were forces of nature on their own. I almost lost my mind listening to pundits babbling about the speeches, even stooping to babble during the speeches. I was forced to turn to CSPAN just to get some peace and quiet.
Leaving the subjects of the economy, universal health care, the economy, the Iraq mess and the economy aside, let me just focus on the potential for gay and lesbian equality, relative to the two parties.
Um, Barack and Joe are our friends. They want to get rid of that stupid “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell”, favor making it illegal to discriminate against us in housing and jobs, and actually believe we should be treated equally – including making certain we have the same rights as married couples whatever the convoluted language turns out to be.
With the dismissive back of the hand, McCain and especially Palin are against civil unions and equality rights, and think discrimination against gays in jobs and housing is just fine. Not to wish Cindy or Mr. Hockey Mom any harm, but I wonder if John or Sarah will ever have to sit, crying in the emergency room and considered to be scum, kept from visiting their critically ill loved one? Just asking.
And how about Hillary? What part of the line “Were you voting for me or what I stand for?” don’t the gay women threatening to vote for Sarah Palin understand?
In the annals of “cutting off your nose to spite your face,” this is a doozy. Let’s elect a woman who doesn’t want women to have a choice regarding reproduction even if it’s rape or incest; a woman who voted to take back partner benefits from Alaskans; a women who wanted to ban books from the library; a women who supports “Don’t Ask”; a woman who wants to teach creationism in public schools and a woman who, despite compelling evidence to the contrary, thinks Abstinence Education works. Good God, it’s Phyllis Schlafly in mukluks.
One bright spot can now be found weeknights at 9pm on MSNBC. Rachel Maddow, an incredibly bright, insanely clever, terribly attractive young lesbian now has her own left-leaning TV news and commentary show. I know she will be preaching to the choir, but watching her made me smile, cheer and realize I am not alone in my views. In fact, I finally understand why a brigade of dittoheads loves to listen to Limbaugh. Well, at least this is one for my side.
Meanwhile, at three in the morning when the White House phone rings with a crisis, do you want someone to answer whose top credential is field dressing a moose? Did I say that with my outside voice????
I’m done now. Maybe the meteorologists were right when they described Hurricane Fay as a wide swath of gusting wind. Sorry if I’ve offended. But this election, not only is it the economy, stupid, it’s all the rest of the issues. And I hope people vote based on them, whatever their choice.
Thursday, September 25, 2008
Saturday, August 16, 2008
Too Darn Hot
I just got back from Phoenix, Arizona where it was 114 degrees at high noon. Everybody told us we’d be okay, it was dry heat. Please. You could fry a frittata on the bench in front of the hotel. I got third degree burns of the fritatta.
This was some fancy schmancy resort, with rooms going for $500 dollars a night in the season. That would be winter. In August, they say “Let the lesbians have it for a literary conference.” It’s practically free for a great room, great service and when you go outside, it feels like walking into a blow dryer.
The conference – Golden Crown Literary Society – celebrated lesbian writers and books published in 2007. And it was wonderful. I was invited to speak on the topic of humor, which historically, lesbians as a species are thought to lack. I started class with the old joke “How many lesbians does it take to change a light bulb?” Answer: “That’s not funny.” Fortunately, the crowd tittered.
Afterwards, at the gorgeous pool, staff took our food and drink order and we dunked in the cool water. We got out to eat, but two bites into the meal we got dizzy from the heat and settled for sucking frozen Margaritas through a straw while applying the frosty glass to our wrists. Two minutes later we had to violate the sacrosanct parents’ rule by not waiting the requisite half hour after eating before swimming. For the record, we did not get the oft-threatened cramps, but I nearly needed a tour of the local burn unit after touching the metal pool ladder. Three minutes after that we were back inside the hotel.
At 6pm (109 degrees) some sadist suggested a visit to the Wild West Tourist town on hotel property. We survived the four minute walk across the steaming desert parking lot, entered ‘town,” and immediately, got “caught” in a faux gun fight. Three suspected out of work actors, poor bastards, “killed” each other, winding up flayed out in the dirt.
Hoping I wasn’t next from heat stroke, we set off for the saloon, ducking into the air-conditioned “jail” on the way. The “sheriff” offered shot-gun wedding re-enactments for a fee. We decided not to ask for a same-sex shotgun wedding, unclear whether they had access to live ammunition.
Finally, we guzzled a beer and got the hell out of Dodge, both thrilled to be heading for A/C and being able to use the phrase “got the hell out of Dodge” literally. At the hotel, where it was now a balmy 106 degrees, I studied the architecture and wondered if the three-sided adobe/concrete entrance was supposed to replicate a PeePosh Indian pueblo oven. See the Mesquite grilled columnist stagger into the lobby.
At the Saturday night award ceremony and reception, we met and talked to readers and writers from all over the country. Bonnie was most amused by a reader of my books who looked at her and said “Gee, I’d pictured you as much more butch.” Neither of us knew what to do with that comment, so Bonnie just smiled. Then grunted.
Conference organizers had arranged for two Native American men to entertain us before the awards. One resembled a short, fat borscht belt comic in headdress and war paint while the other was a tall, thin man with a pony tail who did a beautiful Native American hoop dance. Following applause for the intricate dance, the performer told us he was an attorney, working on Native American human rights issues and likened their fight against discrimination to that of the gay women in the room. In the early 1900s the Gila River had been diverted by non-natives, causing entire communities to disappear from lack of water. Recently, a series of dams helped reverse that action, so the Maricopa tribe has its water back, along with mammoth casinos, draining dollars from the white man, which is eminently fair.
On Sunday, we left the hotel for a drive in our air-conditioned rental car up Superstition Mountain - a collection of hills, mesas, buttes and cacti I had previously only seen in TV westerns. I expected black and white. But no, it was all in living brown. The scenery was impressive, if a little scary. A sign at a scenic pull-off warned us not to put our hands anywhere where we couldn’t see them. As if I ever would.
The rutted dirt road wound up the mountainside, with nary a guard rail in sight and two way traffic comin’ round the mountain hauling boats, campers and head-ons waiting to happen. Neither of us has a fear of heights, but it was a hair-raising ride, worth it for the awesome canyon, gully and mountain views. We were warned to beware of wildlife, and although we kept a wary lookout, the wildest life we saw were several Geico spokesnewts running across the road. We did see the rare and gorgeous blooming cactus flowers – rare because only a handful of morons are stupid enough to visit the desert in August to see them.
Next, we visited a friend of Bonnie’s who lives in a terrific resort and retirement community for lesbians called The Pueblo in Apache Junction, AZ. Hundreds of women live there, only the place was nearly deserted because it was August and these lesbians have the good sense to go North for the summer. Bonnie’s buddy Marge was back to visit with us and show us around. Like Care Free resort in Florida, Rainbow Vision in Santa Fe and potentially the Open Door community here in Sussex County, more and more of these retirement options are springing up. Who’d a thunk it back before Stonewall.
Our final weekend adventure was getting home. Let’s face it, folks, air travel sucks these days. Between the complimentary CAT scan, an over-sold plane in Phoenix, and thunder storms closing the runway in Atlanta, it actually took us a half hour longer to get from Phoenix to Philly than it did to get home from a trip to Beijing.
In hindsight, for scenic views and lesbian literature it was a wonderful trip. And I learned a few things. 1. Calories saved when it’s too hot to eat are more than made up by life-saving frozen cocktails.
2. I have a new respect for the term “You’re toast.”
3. And when people say “It’s not the heat, it’s the humidity,” tell them they are full of crap.
Back in Rehoboth, the thermometer said 92 degrees. Felt like a cold snap.
This was some fancy schmancy resort, with rooms going for $500 dollars a night in the season. That would be winter. In August, they say “Let the lesbians have it for a literary conference.” It’s practically free for a great room, great service and when you go outside, it feels like walking into a blow dryer.
The conference – Golden Crown Literary Society – celebrated lesbian writers and books published in 2007. And it was wonderful. I was invited to speak on the topic of humor, which historically, lesbians as a species are thought to lack. I started class with the old joke “How many lesbians does it take to change a light bulb?” Answer: “That’s not funny.” Fortunately, the crowd tittered.
Afterwards, at the gorgeous pool, staff took our food and drink order and we dunked in the cool water. We got out to eat, but two bites into the meal we got dizzy from the heat and settled for sucking frozen Margaritas through a straw while applying the frosty glass to our wrists. Two minutes later we had to violate the sacrosanct parents’ rule by not waiting the requisite half hour after eating before swimming. For the record, we did not get the oft-threatened cramps, but I nearly needed a tour of the local burn unit after touching the metal pool ladder. Three minutes after that we were back inside the hotel.
At 6pm (109 degrees) some sadist suggested a visit to the Wild West Tourist town on hotel property. We survived the four minute walk across the steaming desert parking lot, entered ‘town,” and immediately, got “caught” in a faux gun fight. Three suspected out of work actors, poor bastards, “killed” each other, winding up flayed out in the dirt.
Hoping I wasn’t next from heat stroke, we set off for the saloon, ducking into the air-conditioned “jail” on the way. The “sheriff” offered shot-gun wedding re-enactments for a fee. We decided not to ask for a same-sex shotgun wedding, unclear whether they had access to live ammunition.
Finally, we guzzled a beer and got the hell out of Dodge, both thrilled to be heading for A/C and being able to use the phrase “got the hell out of Dodge” literally. At the hotel, where it was now a balmy 106 degrees, I studied the architecture and wondered if the three-sided adobe/concrete entrance was supposed to replicate a PeePosh Indian pueblo oven. See the Mesquite grilled columnist stagger into the lobby.
At the Saturday night award ceremony and reception, we met and talked to readers and writers from all over the country. Bonnie was most amused by a reader of my books who looked at her and said “Gee, I’d pictured you as much more butch.” Neither of us knew what to do with that comment, so Bonnie just smiled. Then grunted.
Conference organizers had arranged for two Native American men to entertain us before the awards. One resembled a short, fat borscht belt comic in headdress and war paint while the other was a tall, thin man with a pony tail who did a beautiful Native American hoop dance. Following applause for the intricate dance, the performer told us he was an attorney, working on Native American human rights issues and likened their fight against discrimination to that of the gay women in the room. In the early 1900s the Gila River had been diverted by non-natives, causing entire communities to disappear from lack of water. Recently, a series of dams helped reverse that action, so the Maricopa tribe has its water back, along with mammoth casinos, draining dollars from the white man, which is eminently fair.
On Sunday, we left the hotel for a drive in our air-conditioned rental car up Superstition Mountain - a collection of hills, mesas, buttes and cacti I had previously only seen in TV westerns. I expected black and white. But no, it was all in living brown. The scenery was impressive, if a little scary. A sign at a scenic pull-off warned us not to put our hands anywhere where we couldn’t see them. As if I ever would.
The rutted dirt road wound up the mountainside, with nary a guard rail in sight and two way traffic comin’ round the mountain hauling boats, campers and head-ons waiting to happen. Neither of us has a fear of heights, but it was a hair-raising ride, worth it for the awesome canyon, gully and mountain views. We were warned to beware of wildlife, and although we kept a wary lookout, the wildest life we saw were several Geico spokesnewts running across the road. We did see the rare and gorgeous blooming cactus flowers – rare because only a handful of morons are stupid enough to visit the desert in August to see them.
Next, we visited a friend of Bonnie’s who lives in a terrific resort and retirement community for lesbians called The Pueblo in Apache Junction, AZ. Hundreds of women live there, only the place was nearly deserted because it was August and these lesbians have the good sense to go North for the summer. Bonnie’s buddy Marge was back to visit with us and show us around. Like Care Free resort in Florida, Rainbow Vision in Santa Fe and potentially the Open Door community here in Sussex County, more and more of these retirement options are springing up. Who’d a thunk it back before Stonewall.
Our final weekend adventure was getting home. Let’s face it, folks, air travel sucks these days. Between the complimentary CAT scan, an over-sold plane in Phoenix, and thunder storms closing the runway in Atlanta, it actually took us a half hour longer to get from Phoenix to Philly than it did to get home from a trip to Beijing.
In hindsight, for scenic views and lesbian literature it was a wonderful trip. And I learned a few things. 1. Calories saved when it’s too hot to eat are more than made up by life-saving frozen cocktails.
2. I have a new respect for the term “You’re toast.”
3. And when people say “It’s not the heat, it’s the humidity,” tell them they are full of crap.
Back in Rehoboth, the thermometer said 92 degrees. Felt like a cold snap.
Saturday, June 21, 2008
The handwriting is on the wall
As it turns out, I’m not particularly Scrabulous. For a wordsmith, it’s amazing how much I suck at playing the online version of Scrabble.
I got into this frustrating cyber game as a consequence of my foray into the baffling and relentless world of social networking. And it seems to be taking over my life. Social networking is like an online social disease. I don’t know how I got it and it won’t go away.
It started when I got an e-mail invitation from a friend to join Facebook. You know me, I hate turning down invitations. Once I joined, I was instructed to ask all my friends to join as well. After days of adding myself as a friend to folks with Facebook pages and then inviting old and new friends to my own fledgling Facebook page, things started to spin out of control.
I began hearing from people from the great beyond – like back in college or even high school, plus I was getting invitations to become friends with people I didn’t even remember. It was the invitations to become friends with friends of friends that started making me crazy. I was so busy inviting friends to join Facebook and then My Space, I got confused and started inviting people to join My Face.
The next thing I knew, I received cyber Petunias from a site called Green Patch and was invited to send people cyber shrubbery to help raise money to save the rain forest. I tried to figure out how to forward flowers to a bunch of folks but at the end of the day I got so flustered I’m probably responsible for the loss of several hundred acres along the Amazon.
And speaking of Amazon, there’s a Facebook thing called Bookshelf, which somebody invited me to join. For the next several days I used every waking moment clicking on books I’ve read and writing mini-reviews of them so the Bookshelf geeks–whoever they are – will understand my reading preferences to recommend books for me. I checked off everything from Catcher in the Rye to Kite Runner. At one point, in the upper right hand portion of my screen appeared the words YOU ARE NOT READING ANYTHING RIGHT NOW. Of course not, you cyber poops, I’m filling up my virtual bookshelf and wasting time writing book reports when I could have been doing something productive like playing online Scrabble.
It’s bad enough when you put your hand in the Scrabble bag and pull out all vowels in a regular game, but when the computer sticks you with iiieeoa who do you bitch at? One afternoon the dogs found me screaming at my flat screen monitor and wondered if it had peed in the house.
I just got invited to spend time answering movie quizzes and writing movie reviews. This will be a great way to fill my time when I’m in the rest home, but right now there’s stuff happening in the real world and I’m sitting here writing a review of Spaceballs. Somebody help me.
I finally located the “cancel” link for the movie quiz thing and so far I have confined myself to joining just three Facebook groups – Saints & Sinners Authors (writers who participate annually in a New Orleans GLBT literary conference), One Million Strong for Marriage Equality (it can’t hurt), and Six Gay Degrees of Separation, which is a group trying to get one million gay people to sign up so it can make use of our cyber muscle to fight for our rights.
And in the middle of all this social networking somebody poked me. It didn’t hurt, but I had no idea why I’d been poked.
Apparently poking is the online equivalent of somebody sticking their index finger in your shoulder. On the other hand, cyber hugging, another Facebook activity, is less irritating but no more satisfying. Hugging should be a contact sport, dontcha think?
Then there’s the wall thing, where your online friends can leave you messages. I haven’t written on the walls since I was five years old. Okay you boomers, remember the TV show Crusader Rabbit where you got a plastic thing to put on the TV screen and you could trace the rabbit’s whereabouts? One day, with my burnt umber crayon I wrote right off the screen, onto the floor and up the wall. The parents were not amused.
But now, in my dotage, I’m being asked to write on people’s walls. If texting is the new phone call, writing on somebody’s wall is the new e-mail. Every day I get messages from friends who have written on my wall.
Naturally, I feel compelled to write back, since everybody can see your site and see who wrote on your wall and see the time when they wrote it and know if you have been prompt in answering or, instead, you are blowing people off in favor of your online Scrabulous game. The pressure to be responsive and clever is positively crushing.
Then there’s the “Fay is…” at the top of my Facebook page. You’re supposed to write what you are doing at the moment, but nobody writes “Answering this question on Facebook,” which is what they are all doing, because like me they are hooked on this idiotic social networking site. I can’t even write that I’m playing online scrabble because I had to forfeit my turn because I had all vowels again.
Frankly, I can’t be doing anything else, like reading the paper, doing the laundry or finishing my column, because these Facebook questions are requiring so much of my time. So once again I answer “Fay is…trying to keep up with Facebook…”
Oops, it’s my turn in Scrabulous. I get a whopping three points for the word “ass.” Yes indeedy.
Your move. And make it snappy. I’ve got to go write on several people’s walls, recommend some books, fill out a questionnaire about my taste in music, and see who else is friends with all my friends so I can add more friends and write on more walls and recommend more movies and…
Somebody poke me in the eye and get me off this Facebook page. My column is due by midnight tonight and I still haven’t started.
“Fay is ….panicking.” Somebody help her.
I got into this frustrating cyber game as a consequence of my foray into the baffling and relentless world of social networking. And it seems to be taking over my life. Social networking is like an online social disease. I don’t know how I got it and it won’t go away.
It started when I got an e-mail invitation from a friend to join Facebook. You know me, I hate turning down invitations. Once I joined, I was instructed to ask all my friends to join as well. After days of adding myself as a friend to folks with Facebook pages and then inviting old and new friends to my own fledgling Facebook page, things started to spin out of control.
I began hearing from people from the great beyond – like back in college or even high school, plus I was getting invitations to become friends with people I didn’t even remember. It was the invitations to become friends with friends of friends that started making me crazy. I was so busy inviting friends to join Facebook and then My Space, I got confused and started inviting people to join My Face.
The next thing I knew, I received cyber Petunias from a site called Green Patch and was invited to send people cyber shrubbery to help raise money to save the rain forest. I tried to figure out how to forward flowers to a bunch of folks but at the end of the day I got so flustered I’m probably responsible for the loss of several hundred acres along the Amazon.
And speaking of Amazon, there’s a Facebook thing called Bookshelf, which somebody invited me to join. For the next several days I used every waking moment clicking on books I’ve read and writing mini-reviews of them so the Bookshelf geeks–whoever they are – will understand my reading preferences to recommend books for me. I checked off everything from Catcher in the Rye to Kite Runner. At one point, in the upper right hand portion of my screen appeared the words YOU ARE NOT READING ANYTHING RIGHT NOW. Of course not, you cyber poops, I’m filling up my virtual bookshelf and wasting time writing book reports when I could have been doing something productive like playing online Scrabble.
It’s bad enough when you put your hand in the Scrabble bag and pull out all vowels in a regular game, but when the computer sticks you with iiieeoa who do you bitch at? One afternoon the dogs found me screaming at my flat screen monitor and wondered if it had peed in the house.
I just got invited to spend time answering movie quizzes and writing movie reviews. This will be a great way to fill my time when I’m in the rest home, but right now there’s stuff happening in the real world and I’m sitting here writing a review of Spaceballs. Somebody help me.
I finally located the “cancel” link for the movie quiz thing and so far I have confined myself to joining just three Facebook groups – Saints & Sinners Authors (writers who participate annually in a New Orleans GLBT literary conference), One Million Strong for Marriage Equality (it can’t hurt), and Six Gay Degrees of Separation, which is a group trying to get one million gay people to sign up so it can make use of our cyber muscle to fight for our rights.
And in the middle of all this social networking somebody poked me. It didn’t hurt, but I had no idea why I’d been poked.
Apparently poking is the online equivalent of somebody sticking their index finger in your shoulder. On the other hand, cyber hugging, another Facebook activity, is less irritating but no more satisfying. Hugging should be a contact sport, dontcha think?
Then there’s the wall thing, where your online friends can leave you messages. I haven’t written on the walls since I was five years old. Okay you boomers, remember the TV show Crusader Rabbit where you got a plastic thing to put on the TV screen and you could trace the rabbit’s whereabouts? One day, with my burnt umber crayon I wrote right off the screen, onto the floor and up the wall. The parents were not amused.
But now, in my dotage, I’m being asked to write on people’s walls. If texting is the new phone call, writing on somebody’s wall is the new e-mail. Every day I get messages from friends who have written on my wall.
Naturally, I feel compelled to write back, since everybody can see your site and see who wrote on your wall and see the time when they wrote it and know if you have been prompt in answering or, instead, you are blowing people off in favor of your online Scrabulous game. The pressure to be responsive and clever is positively crushing.
Then there’s the “Fay is…” at the top of my Facebook page. You’re supposed to write what you are doing at the moment, but nobody writes “Answering this question on Facebook,” which is what they are all doing, because like me they are hooked on this idiotic social networking site. I can’t even write that I’m playing online scrabble because I had to forfeit my turn because I had all vowels again.
Frankly, I can’t be doing anything else, like reading the paper, doing the laundry or finishing my column, because these Facebook questions are requiring so much of my time. So once again I answer “Fay is…trying to keep up with Facebook…”
Oops, it’s my turn in Scrabulous. I get a whopping three points for the word “ass.” Yes indeedy.
Your move. And make it snappy. I’ve got to go write on several people’s walls, recommend some books, fill out a questionnaire about my taste in music, and see who else is friends with all my friends so I can add more friends and write on more walls and recommend more movies and…
Somebody poke me in the eye and get me off this Facebook page. My column is due by midnight tonight and I still haven’t started.
“Fay is ….panicking.” Somebody help her.
Sunday, May 18, 2008
Love in the fast lane
I never thought I’d fall in love like this again.
Gleefully giddy and blushing when I think of her, I’m in the full throes of a mad affair.
Don’t phone the National Enquirer, my spouse not only approves, but she introduced me to her.
I’m in love with my car - head-over-heels about my previously-owned, gently-used six-year old BMW.
I swore off woman-car love in the disco era when my silver-blue 1964 Corvette convertible was hauled off on a flat bed truck, its back wheels having fallen off. We’d been together through thick (often) and thin (not so often), but the speed bump I hit that day ended it all. I’d known her most of my life.
I was there in 1964, on Lincoln’s birthday (when we actually celebrated Feb.12) picking up my mother’s new sports car. It cost a whopping $4000 and everybody thought my father was nutty for buying it for his wife.
By 1968 I was permitted to drive the car to college, 250 miles from New York City to Washington, DC. Sadly, I’d learned to drive in Manhattan, meaning I could parallel park like a champ but had never driven over 30 mph. You can imagine what happened when I hit the Jersey Turnpike. Eventually I lost count of the number of middle finger salutes I got for creeping along in the right lane.
It took me nine hours to get to DC and I arrived on campus shaken and needing controlled substances. Fortunately, in 1968, campus was awash with them.
I re-learned to drive in that sports car, and adored her, even as she fish-tailed away from stop signs, skidded in the snow, and, in her later years, required an entire roll of Bounty Quicker-Picker-upper paper towels stuffed above the visors to keep me dry on rainy days. It was true love.
Together, we campaigned, then cried for Bobby Kennedy and sat transfixed by the car radio as men walked on the moon. My love drove me to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue to march against the Vietnam War, honked for joy when Tricky Dick Nixon resigned, witnessed the dawn of disco and breathed her last just about the same time my heterosexuality did.
After that, my personal affairs turned happy, but I pined mightily for that car. What followed was a succession of unsatisfying relationships – a station wagon I called the Trashmobile; an old Dodge that was so broad in the beam I once ripped off the door handles on both sides getting into a parking space. Then I had some kind of American Motors contraption with no braking system whatever, sending me into wheelies at red lights.
Enter the cute little blue 1980 Chevette my mate drove when I met her. The very name Chevette, so near and yet so far.
By then I was out and proud, with Martina Navratilova telling me to buy a Subaru. What followed was a bout of serial monogamy, as I purchased one Subaru after another, winding up with a 1998 anniversary edition Outback. We were comfortable together. Not exciting, but a marriage of convenience.
But one day that damned Subaru turned on me, blew a head gasket and left me in the lurch. For a while I made do driving Bonnie’s Tracker, but it rode like a farm vehicle, skated across multiple lanes in the wind and was, to be honest, above me. So far, in fact, I had trouble climbing into the cockpit.
I couldn’t decide what kind of car to buy, and frankly I was not about to pay what it used to cost to buy a house for a vehicle that didn’t send shivers up my spine. “I want my old car back,” I’d whine and Bonnie knew I was talking about a 42- year-old Corvette.
One could be had, alright, but cost more than a new Lexus. Besides, the phrase “high maintenance girlfriend” clearly applied. And even if I could have paid the ransom for a mid-century Corvette, the thing would have added twenty minutes to my daily commute: ten minutes to get myself down into the buckets and another ten minutes to pry myself out. Those were the days, my friend, and they were over.
Finally, one morning we stopped at a used car lot where I spied a sweet little 2002 sea-foam BMW convertible. One look and I heard violins. I instantly wanted to load it into a U-Haul and have it move in with me. Surprisingly, its price tag was less than I’d pay for a new GM sedan and a loveless marriage.
So off we went, my Beamer and I, but soon I realized there were issues. I determined that my love and I needed prophylactics - protection from my over-stuffed tool and book-filled garage. A Beamer condom?
Bonnie and I headed downtown to find the next best thing: noodles. Not Chicken Lo Mein, but the Styrofoam noodles that keep me afloat in a swimming pool. At the store, we picked out several pink and purple perpendicular noodles and marched to the cash register. ”What kinky things are you girls up to?” We just smiled.
Back home, I stapled the noodles to the pertinent book shelve edges, blunting every possible surface where a car door could connect. I gave her wide berth.
Then I screwed my decorative Schnauzer plate to the front bumper, affixed the rainbow cling-on to the back window and off we went on our honeymoon. I may never be back......
Gleefully giddy and blushing when I think of her, I’m in the full throes of a mad affair.
Don’t phone the National Enquirer, my spouse not only approves, but she introduced me to her.
I’m in love with my car - head-over-heels about my previously-owned, gently-used six-year old BMW.
I swore off woman-car love in the disco era when my silver-blue 1964 Corvette convertible was hauled off on a flat bed truck, its back wheels having fallen off. We’d been together through thick (often) and thin (not so often), but the speed bump I hit that day ended it all. I’d known her most of my life.
I was there in 1964, on Lincoln’s birthday (when we actually celebrated Feb.12) picking up my mother’s new sports car. It cost a whopping $4000 and everybody thought my father was nutty for buying it for his wife.
By 1968 I was permitted to drive the car to college, 250 miles from New York City to Washington, DC. Sadly, I’d learned to drive in Manhattan, meaning I could parallel park like a champ but had never driven over 30 mph. You can imagine what happened when I hit the Jersey Turnpike. Eventually I lost count of the number of middle finger salutes I got for creeping along in the right lane.
It took me nine hours to get to DC and I arrived on campus shaken and needing controlled substances. Fortunately, in 1968, campus was awash with them.
I re-learned to drive in that sports car, and adored her, even as she fish-tailed away from stop signs, skidded in the snow, and, in her later years, required an entire roll of Bounty Quicker-Picker-upper paper towels stuffed above the visors to keep me dry on rainy days. It was true love.
Together, we campaigned, then cried for Bobby Kennedy and sat transfixed by the car radio as men walked on the moon. My love drove me to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue to march against the Vietnam War, honked for joy when Tricky Dick Nixon resigned, witnessed the dawn of disco and breathed her last just about the same time my heterosexuality did.
After that, my personal affairs turned happy, but I pined mightily for that car. What followed was a succession of unsatisfying relationships – a station wagon I called the Trashmobile; an old Dodge that was so broad in the beam I once ripped off the door handles on both sides getting into a parking space. Then I had some kind of American Motors contraption with no braking system whatever, sending me into wheelies at red lights.
Enter the cute little blue 1980 Chevette my mate drove when I met her. The very name Chevette, so near and yet so far.
By then I was out and proud, with Martina Navratilova telling me to buy a Subaru. What followed was a bout of serial monogamy, as I purchased one Subaru after another, winding up with a 1998 anniversary edition Outback. We were comfortable together. Not exciting, but a marriage of convenience.
But one day that damned Subaru turned on me, blew a head gasket and left me in the lurch. For a while I made do driving Bonnie’s Tracker, but it rode like a farm vehicle, skated across multiple lanes in the wind and was, to be honest, above me. So far, in fact, I had trouble climbing into the cockpit.
I couldn’t decide what kind of car to buy, and frankly I was not about to pay what it used to cost to buy a house for a vehicle that didn’t send shivers up my spine. “I want my old car back,” I’d whine and Bonnie knew I was talking about a 42- year-old Corvette.
One could be had, alright, but cost more than a new Lexus. Besides, the phrase “high maintenance girlfriend” clearly applied. And even if I could have paid the ransom for a mid-century Corvette, the thing would have added twenty minutes to my daily commute: ten minutes to get myself down into the buckets and another ten minutes to pry myself out. Those were the days, my friend, and they were over.
Finally, one morning we stopped at a used car lot where I spied a sweet little 2002 sea-foam BMW convertible. One look and I heard violins. I instantly wanted to load it into a U-Haul and have it move in with me. Surprisingly, its price tag was less than I’d pay for a new GM sedan and a loveless marriage.
So off we went, my Beamer and I, but soon I realized there were issues. I determined that my love and I needed prophylactics - protection from my over-stuffed tool and book-filled garage. A Beamer condom?
Bonnie and I headed downtown to find the next best thing: noodles. Not Chicken Lo Mein, but the Styrofoam noodles that keep me afloat in a swimming pool. At the store, we picked out several pink and purple perpendicular noodles and marched to the cash register. ”What kinky things are you girls up to?” We just smiled.
Back home, I stapled the noodles to the pertinent book shelve edges, blunting every possible surface where a car door could connect. I gave her wide berth.
Then I screwed my decorative Schnauzer plate to the front bumper, affixed the rainbow cling-on to the back window and off we went on our honeymoon. I may never be back......
Wednesday, April 30, 2008
"Get Your History Straight & Your Nightlife Gay"
I’ve discovered Philadelphia. It's not all about cream cheese.
I’ve returned from an immersion tour that included the best food experience of my life (and that’s going some), watching rainbow flags go up literally and figuratively, and being asked the quintessential “Provolone or Cheese Whiz?” It doesn’t get much better than that.
On the pretense that lofty topics like history and culture were tour highlights, we’ll start with the Philadelphia Museum of Art. In celebration of the 100th anniversary of the artist Frida Kahlo’s birth, there is a massive exhibit of her most important self-portraits and still lifes. Known for painting herself with that alarming unibrow and mustachioed upper lip, Kahlo was actually more attractive than her self-portraits – as noted in the fabulous photos from her personal albums along with the exhibit.
If you can’t get there, rent the film Frida, starring Salma Hayek – not only is there an unforgettable scene where Frida tangos with Ashley Judd, but you get a great look at Frida’s canvasses, too.
Bonnie and I did not jog up the museum steps humming the theme from Rocky, but you knew that.
For history, I checked out Independence Hall. The room is tiny, with tinier windows. And July 4th, 1776 was reportedly a scorcher. Let’s face it, our forefathers didn’t wear cargo shorts and crocs. John Hancock and the others may have scribbled their john hancocks on the parchment just to flee the sauna.
Over at the Constitution Center I walked among the life-size bronzes of the document signers and a cerebral film exhibit charting our nation’s quest for equality for all. I started to nurture a bad attitude, figuring that the equality quest would exclude GLBT Americans. To the curator’s credit, the march toward gay equality is noted and given weight, even if there is no resolution yet. I hope I get back in my lifetime for the last reel.
For more history, I visited the old Wanamaker’s Department Store which is now Macy’s (isn’t everything?) with its two story pipe organ and 18th century architecture. Coincidentally there was a sale and I turned history into shopping before you could say Give Me Liberty or Give me 30% off. I was, at least, using currency with Ben Franklin on it.
Later, we sampled Philly’s gay culture. We did the nightlife. We got to boogey.
For the Food Tour: We started in South Philly at Jim’s Steaks - a landmark since 1939. Sure, I’ve had Cheese Steaks, but I’d never been asked if I wanted Cheese Whiz on mine. I couldn’t go there. But the gooey provolone over steak and onions folded into a perfect roll is deservedly legend .
Going from the ridiculous to the sublime, Bonnie and I celebrated our 26th anniversary with brunch at the Rittenhouse Hotel. Truly, I have never had a more exquisite food experience in my entire calorie-clogged, thigh-bulging, restaurant-reviewing lifetime. Our young and handsome Philly boyfriends invited us to the Rittenhouse for the tour-de-kitchen marathon. The buffet had over 40 appetizers alone, including oysters, caviar, vichyssoise with lobster, foie gras ganache, escargot fricassee, shrimp spatzle and the unlikely winner, pineapple and Thai basil soda.
The main course took diners into the actual kitchen for a hot buffet of every kind of meat imaginable (and some slightly unimaginable) along with seafood, paella, venison sausages, Belgian waffles, Tuscan bread pudding, Brussels sprouts and, and. and….
For dessert there was a Liquid Nitrogen station, which, I initially thought was on loan from a dermatologist. No, the smoking stuff was for submerging coconut curry foam and dark chocolate to form divine confections.
We lingered over brunch for a record four hours, laughing at the stares and speculation as our fellow diners tried to guess if the boys were taking their mothers out for brunch, or Bonnie and I had rented them by the hour. We just smiled and sipped champagne. For a chaser we napped.
As I was leaving the hotel to come home, dozens of city workers in bucket trucks busily installed hundreds of rainbow banners on city lampposts. The annual Equality Forum is on the horizon and the whole community will be celebrating.
The City of Philadelphia makes a great commitment to their GLBT entrepreneurs and citizens, realizing just which side their tourism toast is buttered on. In fact the City recently launched the nation’s largest gay tourism marketing campaign, going after its share of the $54.1 billion gay and lesbian travel market.
Their slogan says it all: “Philadelphia:Get your history straight and your nightlife gay.”
The City of Brotherly (and Sisterly) love, indeed.
I’ve returned from an immersion tour that included the best food experience of my life (and that’s going some), watching rainbow flags go up literally and figuratively, and being asked the quintessential “Provolone or Cheese Whiz?” It doesn’t get much better than that.
On the pretense that lofty topics like history and culture were tour highlights, we’ll start with the Philadelphia Museum of Art. In celebration of the 100th anniversary of the artist Frida Kahlo’s birth, there is a massive exhibit of her most important self-portraits and still lifes. Known for painting herself with that alarming unibrow and mustachioed upper lip, Kahlo was actually more attractive than her self-portraits – as noted in the fabulous photos from her personal albums along with the exhibit.
If you can’t get there, rent the film Frida, starring Salma Hayek – not only is there an unforgettable scene where Frida tangos with Ashley Judd, but you get a great look at Frida’s canvasses, too.
Bonnie and I did not jog up the museum steps humming the theme from Rocky, but you knew that.
For history, I checked out Independence Hall. The room is tiny, with tinier windows. And July 4th, 1776 was reportedly a scorcher. Let’s face it, our forefathers didn’t wear cargo shorts and crocs. John Hancock and the others may have scribbled their john hancocks on the parchment just to flee the sauna.
Over at the Constitution Center I walked among the life-size bronzes of the document signers and a cerebral film exhibit charting our nation’s quest for equality for all. I started to nurture a bad attitude, figuring that the equality quest would exclude GLBT Americans. To the curator’s credit, the march toward gay equality is noted and given weight, even if there is no resolution yet. I hope I get back in my lifetime for the last reel.
For more history, I visited the old Wanamaker’s Department Store which is now Macy’s (isn’t everything?) with its two story pipe organ and 18th century architecture. Coincidentally there was a sale and I turned history into shopping before you could say Give Me Liberty or Give me 30% off. I was, at least, using currency with Ben Franklin on it.
Later, we sampled Philly’s gay culture. We did the nightlife. We got to boogey.
For the Food Tour: We started in South Philly at Jim’s Steaks - a landmark since 1939. Sure, I’ve had Cheese Steaks, but I’d never been asked if I wanted Cheese Whiz on mine. I couldn’t go there. But the gooey provolone over steak and onions folded into a perfect roll is deservedly legend .
Going from the ridiculous to the sublime, Bonnie and I celebrated our 26th anniversary with brunch at the Rittenhouse Hotel. Truly, I have never had a more exquisite food experience in my entire calorie-clogged, thigh-bulging, restaurant-reviewing lifetime. Our young and handsome Philly boyfriends invited us to the Rittenhouse for the tour-de-kitchen marathon. The buffet had over 40 appetizers alone, including oysters, caviar, vichyssoise with lobster, foie gras ganache, escargot fricassee, shrimp spatzle and the unlikely winner, pineapple and Thai basil soda.
The main course took diners into the actual kitchen for a hot buffet of every kind of meat imaginable (and some slightly unimaginable) along with seafood, paella, venison sausages, Belgian waffles, Tuscan bread pudding, Brussels sprouts and, and. and….
For dessert there was a Liquid Nitrogen station, which, I initially thought was on loan from a dermatologist. No, the smoking stuff was for submerging coconut curry foam and dark chocolate to form divine confections.
We lingered over brunch for a record four hours, laughing at the stares and speculation as our fellow diners tried to guess if the boys were taking their mothers out for brunch, or Bonnie and I had rented them by the hour. We just smiled and sipped champagne. For a chaser we napped.
As I was leaving the hotel to come home, dozens of city workers in bucket trucks busily installed hundreds of rainbow banners on city lampposts. The annual Equality Forum is on the horizon and the whole community will be celebrating.
The City of Philadelphia makes a great commitment to their GLBT entrepreneurs and citizens, realizing just which side their tourism toast is buttered on. In fact the City recently launched the nation’s largest gay tourism marketing campaign, going after its share of the $54.1 billion gay and lesbian travel market.
Their slogan says it all: “Philadelphia:Get your history straight and your nightlife gay.”
The City of Brotherly (and Sisterly) love, indeed.
Thursday, March 13, 2008
Anchors Aweigh, it’s Gay
I do not work for Olivia Cruises (the all-women travel company) and this article is not being written at the behest of Olivia Cruises. In fact, it’s an article I would have bet my Schnazuers I’d never write. And that’s because I was stupid.
All these years I wrongly thought that an all-gay cruise was great for red state closeted gals and others without the freedom to live like we do here in Gayberry RFD. Fun, yes, but Olivia cruises cost more than “regular” cruises to the same ports, since Olivia is the middle-womyn. I mega-stupidly dismissed it as a luxury I didn’t need.
Wrong, The Earth is flat wrong. You can’t put a man on the moon wrong. George Bush wrong. That wrong.
So why did I go? Fifty-two Rehoboth-area women were already signed up and we got a last-minute half-price deal, plus a discount for an obstructed view stateroom. “Do you mind a life boat blocking your view?” asked the sales rep. “ Um, let’s see, the ocean this way, and 1800 women are the other way. I can see the ocean at home.”
So from the minute I walked up the gangplank onto the gigunda ship docked in Ft. Lauderdale, I started learning just how criminally insane I had been. With Men’s Room signs covered with temporary letters marked Ladies, and the loudspeaker booming “Attention Women of Olivia,” the party commenced: mandatory life boat drill, Mai Tai cocktails, unpacking. Half the ship dined early and saw k.d.lang in the theatre, while the other half of us saw Margaret Cho first and dined afterward. Margaret Cho was hilarious but over-the-edge filthy. I don’t know whether she would have been better before or after dinner. Both headliners dazzled and outshone the one entertainment I remember from a “regular” cruise - a man playing Oklahoma on a saw. No kidding.
On that first night, we celebrated Olivia’s 35th Anniversary with a deck party. My eyes just drank it in – young hotties, older hotties, black, white, brown, abled, disabled, thin, not thin, singles, couples, drinkers, non-drinkers and a whole lotta Rehobos. I loved the music, laughing and sights - two women dancing in wheelchairs, lovers looking out to sea, partners rocking the dance-floor, singles meeting and greeting, waaay gay waiters delivering Pina Coladas, inked and pierced dyklets holding hands and middle-aged mamas stealing Anne Murray kisses in the moonlight.
I don’t know what hit me, but it was like walking into a 70s gay bar for the first time or seeing a hundred thousand revelers at my first pride march. Steeped in community, feeling freer than ever, I finally experienced what it must feel like to be straight in a straight world. On the Holland American Zuiderdam, radar was gaydar and the whole damn world was the L word.
The next morning, a day at sea, sealed the deal. Comics Kate Clinton and Karen Williams hosted a film about the 35 years of Olivia – not coincidentally, the history of the entire women’s movement. We laughed, cheered, met the staff, heard from entertainers Chris Williamson and Holly Near, and applauded for Capt. Margarethe Cammermeyer who took on the military after they asked and she told.
Bonnie, also a long-time skeptic, hopefully clutched her door prize ticket for the two-for-one cruises they would be giving away.
There were art auctions, spa treatments, hot tubs, casino madness, singles parties, couples massage, the requisite newly-wed, oldy-wed games, rainbow trivia in the lounge, barbecues on the deck and food, food, food, drink, drink, drink.
We spent some quality time with Rehoboth gals we often just clinked glasses with at Cloud 9. Sometimes we dined with our posse, sometimes with folks who started out as strangers. Every elevator ride, cluster of women in a shop or folks in rows in front or behind us at the theatre provided “Where you from? What do you do?” opportunities. Everybody smiled. Everybody had restless mouth syndrome.
While most of the fun took place on board, there were Caribbean ports. Grand Turk is a small island with a lot of jewelry stores for tourists. But Bonnie convinced me to ride a dune buggy. I've been out of the closet over thirty years but that day I actually earned my dyke card. Bonnie (driving) and I (in my helmet and visor) took off speeding in the open frame buggy. Did I mention rain? We rode through puddles and ruts, getting splattered and speckled with clots of mud the size of chicken fingers. After two hours I looked like a Jackson Pollack canvas.
In Tortola we took a ferry to another island, Virgin Gorda, where we went swimming amid glorious boulders, caves and rock formations. The surf was so rough (how rough was it?) that on my first foray into the ocean I got sucked up and surfed back onto the beach at 50mph, flat on my ass. Of course, being a lesbian group, girls came shouting. “I’m a nurse! I’m a nurse, I’m a nurse!”
None needed. Even the injured pride was fun. And the water was a blue I thought could only come from paint.
We sampled legendary Pain Killer shots at Pusser’s saloon with a couple of young gals we met, for an evening of splendid cross-generational story-swapping. Luckily, the ships’ crew lined the way back to the boat, so we didn’t stagger off the pier.
What would a gay cruise be without a theme night? Prior to launch our Rehoboth contingent learned of the Mad Hatter Party. Okay, we’d all need matching hats with a Rehoboth-like theme and which packed easily. Our crew found perfectly silly, flat-packable fish hats. Also, t-shirts announcing Women of Rehoboth on the front and “what happens on the cruise, stays on the cruise” on the back. While I am telling tales here, my lips are sealed with the really juicy stuff.
Suffice it to say, that the 1746 other women on the boat took notice of the women of Rehoboth and they all now know of the fantastic gay resort on the Delaware coast. We posed for a group photo out on deck one evening and did a 54-woman strong fish-hatted conga line in the disco on Mad Hatter Night.
I hated to dock back in Florida. We had a wonderful, wonderful time. We would have gotten our money’s worth at more than twice the price. Olivia is in the hospitality business and they do it well. So there. I was so very wrong.
And if you call Olivia and book a cruise, be sure to bring Visine. There’s only so much eye-candy you can take without back-up.
All these years I wrongly thought that an all-gay cruise was great for red state closeted gals and others without the freedom to live like we do here in Gayberry RFD. Fun, yes, but Olivia cruises cost more than “regular” cruises to the same ports, since Olivia is the middle-womyn. I mega-stupidly dismissed it as a luxury I didn’t need.
Wrong, The Earth is flat wrong. You can’t put a man on the moon wrong. George Bush wrong. That wrong.
So why did I go? Fifty-two Rehoboth-area women were already signed up and we got a last-minute half-price deal, plus a discount for an obstructed view stateroom. “Do you mind a life boat blocking your view?” asked the sales rep. “ Um, let’s see, the ocean this way, and 1800 women are the other way. I can see the ocean at home.”
So from the minute I walked up the gangplank onto the gigunda ship docked in Ft. Lauderdale, I started learning just how criminally insane I had been. With Men’s Room signs covered with temporary letters marked Ladies, and the loudspeaker booming “Attention Women of Olivia,” the party commenced: mandatory life boat drill, Mai Tai cocktails, unpacking. Half the ship dined early and saw k.d.lang in the theatre, while the other half of us saw Margaret Cho first and dined afterward. Margaret Cho was hilarious but over-the-edge filthy. I don’t know whether she would have been better before or after dinner. Both headliners dazzled and outshone the one entertainment I remember from a “regular” cruise - a man playing Oklahoma on a saw. No kidding.
On that first night, we celebrated Olivia’s 35th Anniversary with a deck party. My eyes just drank it in – young hotties, older hotties, black, white, brown, abled, disabled, thin, not thin, singles, couples, drinkers, non-drinkers and a whole lotta Rehobos. I loved the music, laughing and sights - two women dancing in wheelchairs, lovers looking out to sea, partners rocking the dance-floor, singles meeting and greeting, waaay gay waiters delivering Pina Coladas, inked and pierced dyklets holding hands and middle-aged mamas stealing Anne Murray kisses in the moonlight.
I don’t know what hit me, but it was like walking into a 70s gay bar for the first time or seeing a hundred thousand revelers at my first pride march. Steeped in community, feeling freer than ever, I finally experienced what it must feel like to be straight in a straight world. On the Holland American Zuiderdam, radar was gaydar and the whole damn world was the L word.
The next morning, a day at sea, sealed the deal. Comics Kate Clinton and Karen Williams hosted a film about the 35 years of Olivia – not coincidentally, the history of the entire women’s movement. We laughed, cheered, met the staff, heard from entertainers Chris Williamson and Holly Near, and applauded for Capt. Margarethe Cammermeyer who took on the military after they asked and she told.
Bonnie, also a long-time skeptic, hopefully clutched her door prize ticket for the two-for-one cruises they would be giving away.
There were art auctions, spa treatments, hot tubs, casino madness, singles parties, couples massage, the requisite newly-wed, oldy-wed games, rainbow trivia in the lounge, barbecues on the deck and food, food, food, drink, drink, drink.
We spent some quality time with Rehoboth gals we often just clinked glasses with at Cloud 9. Sometimes we dined with our posse, sometimes with folks who started out as strangers. Every elevator ride, cluster of women in a shop or folks in rows in front or behind us at the theatre provided “Where you from? What do you do?” opportunities. Everybody smiled. Everybody had restless mouth syndrome.
While most of the fun took place on board, there were Caribbean ports. Grand Turk is a small island with a lot of jewelry stores for tourists. But Bonnie convinced me to ride a dune buggy. I've been out of the closet over thirty years but that day I actually earned my dyke card. Bonnie (driving) and I (in my helmet and visor) took off speeding in the open frame buggy. Did I mention rain? We rode through puddles and ruts, getting splattered and speckled with clots of mud the size of chicken fingers. After two hours I looked like a Jackson Pollack canvas.
In Tortola we took a ferry to another island, Virgin Gorda, where we went swimming amid glorious boulders, caves and rock formations. The surf was so rough (how rough was it?) that on my first foray into the ocean I got sucked up and surfed back onto the beach at 50mph, flat on my ass. Of course, being a lesbian group, girls came shouting. “I’m a nurse! I’m a nurse, I’m a nurse!”
None needed. Even the injured pride was fun. And the water was a blue I thought could only come from paint.
We sampled legendary Pain Killer shots at Pusser’s saloon with a couple of young gals we met, for an evening of splendid cross-generational story-swapping. Luckily, the ships’ crew lined the way back to the boat, so we didn’t stagger off the pier.
What would a gay cruise be without a theme night? Prior to launch our Rehoboth contingent learned of the Mad Hatter Party. Okay, we’d all need matching hats with a Rehoboth-like theme and which packed easily. Our crew found perfectly silly, flat-packable fish hats. Also, t-shirts announcing Women of Rehoboth on the front and “what happens on the cruise, stays on the cruise” on the back. While I am telling tales here, my lips are sealed with the really juicy stuff.
Suffice it to say, that the 1746 other women on the boat took notice of the women of Rehoboth and they all now know of the fantastic gay resort on the Delaware coast. We posed for a group photo out on deck one evening and did a 54-woman strong fish-hatted conga line in the disco on Mad Hatter Night.
I hated to dock back in Florida. We had a wonderful, wonderful time. We would have gotten our money’s worth at more than twice the price. Olivia is in the hospitality business and they do it well. So there. I was so very wrong.
And if you call Olivia and book a cruise, be sure to bring Visine. There’s only so much eye-candy you can take without back-up.
Tuesday, February 12, 2008
Oh Come All Ye Fruitcakes
As you read this I am on my way back to Rehoboth from my very first Olivia cruise – a week in the Caribbean.
But I hardly needed the outsized (bad choice of words) eating/drinking fest that cruises encourage. This holiday season took the cake (that which wasn’t in my mouth) for the most calorie-laden, liquor guzzling, reflux-inducing stretch of bad gustatory behavior I have ever been a party to. Or to a party. Dozens of them.
I’m not complaining. Rehoboth is such a geographically small spot and there are so many community events it’s possible to enjoy several in a day. Don we now our big apparel.
In our house, the December bloat period started with Hanukkah Matzoh Balls and potato latkes. Fast away the old gas passes, fa la la la la, la la la la. On Thanksgiving weekend we bought a recumbent exercise bike, vowing to start our regimen immediately to keep pace with Christmas cookies.
The first thing Bonnie did after plugging the thing into the wall was trip over it, breaking two toes. Exercise out, comfort food in. As for me, I view exercise like drinking – not something to be done alone. Bring on the figgy pudding.
So there were cocktail parties, wine tastings and Christmas dinners. See the grazing fool before us Fa la la etc. And of all the wretched holiday excess I subjected myself to this season, a pair of events, like my thighs, loom large.
One Sunday we brunched at a friends’ home with Mimosas at noon, Mimosas and entrees at 3:30, and more Mimosas well into the evening. I’m amazed to report no hangover at all from the 8-hour champagne binge. I did however have a raging case of Acid Reflux from the f-ing orange juice. It’s a sad commentary about aging.
A second memorable holiday event was the Apple Pie Thrown Down baking contest. At a party of about 25 people, four contestants took the challenge. I was a judge. The authorities knew a carbohydrate professional when they saw one.
Three out of four bakers had great credentials, but the fourth bragged she hadn’t baked a pie in two decades (would that be humble pie?). Of course, it was a blind taste test. Wine withstanding, some judges were blinder than others.
To universal shock and awe, the winner was the person who had not had her paws in pie dough since 1988 and whose culinary repertoire consists of assembling field greens. Twenty five people with mouths full of pie suggested a vast right wing conspiracy.
After pie throwing came New Years’ Eve (O’er the fields we go, eating all the way) and more gluttony. Should old intentions be forgot and never brought to mind? Just how many Tums can a person take without calcifying? 10? 9? 8? 7?
Happy New Year! Let’s drink a cup of Maalox please and sing of Auld Lang Syne.
Bonnie and I resolved just about the same thing everyone else in town resolved: back to
sensible food and drink consumption. For yonder breaks a new and glorious morn. We hope.
Our vow was strengthened last week as we left an appointment and waited for the elevator. Soon, the wide doors opened to reveal several people already aboard. We stepped in.
As the doors closed, a booming recorded voice warned: “The elevator is now full.”
Now THAT was humiliating.
So its back to the stationery bike and lean cuisine. Of course, here comes Valentine’s Day, followed by our local Chinese New Year buffet, then the Rehoboth Chocolate Festival and let’s face it, I should really have my jaw wired shut. The only Throw Down I should enter is if it’s my fork.
The season of excess is over. Thumpety Thump Thump o’er the bills we go.
But I hardly needed the outsized (bad choice of words) eating/drinking fest that cruises encourage. This holiday season took the cake (that which wasn’t in my mouth) for the most calorie-laden, liquor guzzling, reflux-inducing stretch of bad gustatory behavior I have ever been a party to. Or to a party. Dozens of them.
I’m not complaining. Rehoboth is such a geographically small spot and there are so many community events it’s possible to enjoy several in a day. Don we now our big apparel.
In our house, the December bloat period started with Hanukkah Matzoh Balls and potato latkes. Fast away the old gas passes, fa la la la la, la la la la. On Thanksgiving weekend we bought a recumbent exercise bike, vowing to start our regimen immediately to keep pace with Christmas cookies.
The first thing Bonnie did after plugging the thing into the wall was trip over it, breaking two toes. Exercise out, comfort food in. As for me, I view exercise like drinking – not something to be done alone. Bring on the figgy pudding.
So there were cocktail parties, wine tastings and Christmas dinners. See the grazing fool before us Fa la la etc. And of all the wretched holiday excess I subjected myself to this season, a pair of events, like my thighs, loom large.
One Sunday we brunched at a friends’ home with Mimosas at noon, Mimosas and entrees at 3:30, and more Mimosas well into the evening. I’m amazed to report no hangover at all from the 8-hour champagne binge. I did however have a raging case of Acid Reflux from the f-ing orange juice. It’s a sad commentary about aging.
A second memorable holiday event was the Apple Pie Thrown Down baking contest. At a party of about 25 people, four contestants took the challenge. I was a judge. The authorities knew a carbohydrate professional when they saw one.
Three out of four bakers had great credentials, but the fourth bragged she hadn’t baked a pie in two decades (would that be humble pie?). Of course, it was a blind taste test. Wine withstanding, some judges were blinder than others.
To universal shock and awe, the winner was the person who had not had her paws in pie dough since 1988 and whose culinary repertoire consists of assembling field greens. Twenty five people with mouths full of pie suggested a vast right wing conspiracy.
After pie throwing came New Years’ Eve (O’er the fields we go, eating all the way) and more gluttony. Should old intentions be forgot and never brought to mind? Just how many Tums can a person take without calcifying? 10? 9? 8? 7?
Happy New Year! Let’s drink a cup of Maalox please and sing of Auld Lang Syne.
Bonnie and I resolved just about the same thing everyone else in town resolved: back to
sensible food and drink consumption. For yonder breaks a new and glorious morn. We hope.
Our vow was strengthened last week as we left an appointment and waited for the elevator. Soon, the wide doors opened to reveal several people already aboard. We stepped in.
As the doors closed, a booming recorded voice warned: “The elevator is now full.”
Now THAT was humiliating.
So its back to the stationery bike and lean cuisine. Of course, here comes Valentine’s Day, followed by our local Chinese New Year buffet, then the Rehoboth Chocolate Festival and let’s face it, I should really have my jaw wired shut. The only Throw Down I should enter is if it’s my fork.
The season of excess is over. Thumpety Thump Thump o’er the bills we go.
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