It’s that time of year again: The time when, even though I am overcommitted with work and family obligations and have been totally slacking off in the the blogging department, wow did this sentence get too long for me to even pick up where I left off before I started the parenthetical. I should really eat breakfast and get ready for work. Do you ever feel like you have trouble finishing things? It’s like that time when I started to put on my pants when the doorbell rang and I…
I have yet to put my link in the NaBloPoMo blogroll, though I plan to today or tomorrow. But first, I wonder if I could have your help. You see, new this year, we can select categories for our blogs. Two categories, even. From among those on this list:
Crafts
Humor
Entertainment
Education
Shopping
Health
Parenting
Politics
Religion/Faith
Sex
Hobbies
Medical
Photography
Cooking/Food
Psychotic Ranting/Anonymous Foaming
General
So, if you had to pick two from that list to describe this place, I’m guessing you wouldn’t pick Sex and Religion/Faith. Which two would you pick to describe this place?
If you have a blog of your own, which two would you pick for yours?
Five years ago today, John and I stood before a room full of our friends and family to express our commitment to each other, exchange rings, and celebrate our love.
We didn’t get married that day, though. This was a day of ceremony and festivities to supplement our rather unceremonious entry into the state of legal marriage almost 5 years earlier.
The reasons for our 1999 wedding-that-wasn’t-quite-a-wedding are a story for another day, and one that I have briefly told before.
While we had planned to have the wedding ceremony soon after the legal marriage, it wasn’t until 2004 that the pieces finally fell together. Meanwhile, in May of 2004, Massachusetts became the first state to legally recognize same-sex marriage. We were very pleased with this news, and I feel real pride in my adoptive state about this issue.
John and I are not exactly religious. (This may actually be an understatement.) As such, we don’t belong to any church or other religious organization. However, as religion is an important part of the lives of many people who are important in our lives, I wanted to have our wedding be at least spiritual, if not overly religious.
When it came time to pick an officiant for our own wedding ceremony, I also wanted to find a person who supported marriage equality.
I remember driving past Unitarian Universalist churches displaying rainbow flags and messages supporting same-sex partners. Living in rural Massachusetts, in an area where churches and even some homes will sometimes display sayings of hellfire and damnation, it made me smile to see the progressive messages so boldly and proudly displayed.
Not only did the UU church support marriage equality, but members of the Unitarian Universalist church fought actively to bring about the legal recognition of same-sex marriage in Massachusetts.
Choosing a minister from a Unitarian Universalist congregation seemed a clear choice, and it was one that I was very happy with.
Our wedding ceremony added something to our relationship. To have a joyous celebration that we shared with our friends and family, a public acknowledgement of our commitment, was a rite that I appreciated in ways that are hard for me to pinpoint. Our legal marriage, on the other hand, added things to our relationship that are easy to identify. The possibility of being able to share a health insurance policy, for a start. Plus many other rights and benefits:
There are over 1,400 rights that come from being legally married in the eyes of the government. (source)
I am happy to be married, both for the symbolic union with the partner that I love, and for the benefits that this union affords us.
I am also happy to live in a place where couples are not denied the right to marriage based on their gender.
1) My mental age is 12.
2) The videos I show Phoebe and Theo aren’t that far off from Sesame Street after all.
3) I should be extra careful sending emails with silly youtube links late at night.
4) The autofill function for the address field in my mail program is not always my friend.
5) Especially since my spouse and my advisor have names that start with the same 2 letters.
6) I am lucky that my advisor has a sense of humor.
This task was completed as part of the Monday Missions. This week’s assignment was to post in the form of a tanga or a nonnet. Like Painted Maypole, the illustrious MM taskmaster herself, I put together a tanka tanga. And like Painted, I’m also hoping I’ll get around to trying my hand at the nonnet.
Welcome to the latest edition of the Just Posts, the monthly roundtable of posts on topics of social justice and activism hosted here and at Cold Spaghetti.
I have a confession to make. Putting together the Just Posts is hard. I don’t particularly mean hard work, though the act of putting together the list of links and formatting and checking links and so forth is a bit of a chore. Chores I can manage. What I really mean is that putting together the Just Posts is hard on me. Especially my monthly attempt to actually write with seriousness about issues that are important to me. You see, I blog primarily to be creative, to have an outlet to play with words, and to express my silly side. I think about serious issues a lot, mind you, but when it comes down to it, I find writing about serious things to be both mentally taxing and emotionally draining. One problem is that there are a daunting number of issues that I think about, each one of them even more daunting in its complexity. Another problem is that I am a slow writer. The more serious the topic, the more carefully (and slowly) I choose my words.
That being said, I truly appreciate it when others choose to write about topics that make a difference to our world. Reading such posts inspires me. Hearing your voices speaking out edifies me. Knowing that others are also reading motivates me. The individual posts we write may not move mountains, but our efforts combined are part of a powerful force for positive change.¹
I’ll finish up my ramblings here by offering up one of my favorite protest songs from the late, great, legendary Bob Marley: “Get Up, Stand Up.”
Don’t give up the fight.
And now, the all important list: The September Just Posts.
Thanks so much for reading! We really appreciate your support. And not just appreciate it. We need your support to keep the Just Posts going.
If you have a post in the list above, or would just like to support the Just Posts, we invite you to display a button on your blog with a link back here, or to the Just Posts at Cold Spaghetti. If you would like to have a post included next month, you can find out how to submit posts and all sorts of other stuff about the Just Posts at the information page.
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¹ This seems a good time to mention that Blog Action Day is coming up, a day when thousands bloggers around the world speak out on a common topic. This year’s theme is Climate Change. The big day is tomorrow (October 15th), but there is still time to participate. I haven’t yet committed to writing, but I certainly expect to do some reading.
A Spanish toast: una tostada con mantequilla y marmelada
Our trip to Spain was full of adventures. We traveled by train, by bus, by air, by boat and by foot and had one rather scary taxi ride. We saw historic landmarks and breathtaking scenery, an ancient palace and some masterpieces of modern architecture, and many more things that I’ll hopefully tell you about soon. Among my favorite memories of the trip, however, are the calm moments we had just enjoying sitting still for a little meal.
In Sevilla, we stayed in an apartment located in a little pedestrian square. A perk of this particular place was that the owner also owned the little bar/cafe down in the square, and breakfast was included in the nightly rate. (I’m ever-so-grateful to az, who helped us pick this place, from among a dizzying array of apartment options.)
Breakfast was served from 7 a.m. till noon. After the first rather stressful morning (during which we found that it didn’t work too well to actually have breakfast downstairs due to the difficulties of wrangling small children out the door before their breakfast, combined with the rush of people breakfasting at the hour of the day coinciding with our ability to get the small children out the door), we found that it was very pleasant to sit outside for a late-morning snack.
The included desayuno consisted of a beverage (such as coffee or cola cao, the Spanish version of hot cocoa), plus fresh squeezed orange juice, and a “tostada.” The tostada was a toasted mini-baguette, which we could get with various toppings. A couple of times, I had my tostada with tomato and olive oil, a popular and tasty Spanish breakfast. Mostly, though, we would get mantequilla y marmelada (butter and jam). The toast was always fresh and hot, and the butter was so sweet and tasty that I rarely added jam. The coffee was excellent, as was the orange juice.
A view of the cafe tables set up in the square.
The square was shaded by little orange trees.
The window where we'd order and collect our breakfast. We did, however, need to be cautious as we walked from the cafe window to the tables, as you never knew when a moped might drive along the sidewalk in front of the cafe.
Phoebe and Theo.
Phoebe enjoys the last drops of her hot chocolate.
Theo enjoys his crust of bread.
Here’s a little movie of Phoebe and Theo down at the cafe. I warn you that nothing much happens in the movie, but it captures a bit of one of those pleasant mornings.
If I could, I’d go back there in a heartbeat. I’d raise my glass of fresh-squeezed orange juice in a toast:
To the pleasures of a tasty mid-morning snack, sitting in a little outdoor cafe, in a little square, on a beautiful day, in a charming old Spanish city.
(Actually, I probably wouldn’t actually say all of that. But this post was inspired by this week’s Monday Mission, which was to post in the style of a toast. I chose to post about toast.)
