Happy New Year! (I am tired already!)

I can't believe it is 2009. Where did it all go, the time I mean? 2009 is going to be a big year in our family. Kiki will graduate from high school, Chizz & I will celebrate 25 years of marriage (possibly) and I will have a momentous birthday. I am not going to say the number out loud or write it down but let's just say the number has a zero and another number that may or may not be a prime number somewhere in it. Yikes!!! My mother has old children!

Well, I am hoping that everyone's 2009 is a great year, regardless of whether you are old or not!

Hugs.

My Kids Torment Me!

So ever since my very rude encounter with a deer, (read about it here), I have had a slight deer phobia. It mainly manifests itself when we are driving at night on the dark roads around our house. Or more specifically when Chizz is driving and I am in the passenger seat. I always caution him to drive more slowly, so he can stop in plenty of time should any deer magically appear in front of our car. It has caused some tension in our family. Mainly because as Kiki & Chizz have both pointed out, my car was stopped when the deer hit it. You can't go any slower than stopped. True, true.

But I think it goes a little far when Kiki chases me through Pottery Barn or World Market or Target with deer ornaments. You don't see me chasing her with too small Uggs or used up Starbucks cards. I guess that is just because I am more mature and I can deal a bit with my phobias.

I think, however, she crossed the line the other night at dinner. In fact it was Christmas Eve. We were sitting down to enjoy a festive holiday meal. The family was waiting at the dining room table and I was busy getting some last minute items for the table. This is what awaited me at my place when I sat down:



It is one of my reindeer candlesticks with a little warning. Just rude, I tell you. Rude.

Sing-a-long

See more Jack Black videos at Funny or Die

I love this video. Apparently it is causing quite a stir in the conservative community who apparently find its portrayal of the religious backers of Prop. 8 "offensive" and "rife with inaccuracies". Hmmmm. Apparently what goes around, does come around.

Who Says?

. . . .there is no fall color in California? This is a picture of one of the Japanese maples in our backyard. And it is probably a day or two after its prime. Usually the fall color in our backyard, the Japanese maples, the liquid ambers and the Chinese pistaches, times perfectly with Thanksgiving. We have dinner in our living room with all the windows and it is a bit like having dinner in the forest. But this year the trees are a bit off. It is December and we still have a few trees that a few days from being their most beautiful.

Okay, Fall done - now to Christmas!!!

Take That, Wendy!

Okay, car in shop. Preliminary estimate in. I am not worried, it was just a deer - not a moose. How bad can it be? Oh bad. $6500 bad. The insurance company estimate and the body shop estimate were off by a few hundred dollars, but abra-cadabra! That difference is going poof! And Wendy & Chizz are only responsible for the deductible. As I have said many, many, many times before (but for many, many, many other reasons) - "Thank God for insurance!" Because of the holiday, my baby will not be home for Thanksgiving. In the meantime I have to make due with the rental "car". I use the word cautiously because it is pretty awful. When was the last time you saw roll up windows in a car? I didn't even know you could get roll up windows still!! I am thankful I wasn't in this car when the deer hit me. I am fairly certain this car would have disintegrated.

For those of you keeping score, Wendy - 1, Deer 1.

Take That, Bambi!!

I hit a deer. Well not me exactly, my car. And to be precise, the deer hit me. I was picking Kiki up from school at about 6 p.m. and we were driving on a road very close to our home, when 2 small female deer ran in front of me. I wasn't going that fast so I was able to stop in time and didn't hit them. I was stopped for about 2 seconds when a third deer, a buck, came crashing out of the bushes and ran right into my stopped car. He bounced off my headlight and ran off in the same direction he came from. No one was hurt, except my car. Apparently a deer crashing against the headlight is not good for it. Who knew?

So I spent yesterday driving back and forth from my dealer to the auto body shop. At first, I thought the damage was relatively minor and the dealer that I bought the car at (only a few short months ago!) told me that they thought they could do it. But once I got there I was told there was too much body work that needed to be done. Like I haven't heard that before! Oh well, so my car is now at a body shop waiting to be worked on. The insurance adjuster has to go by and hopefully they will agree with the body shop as to the extent and cost of the damage. But I am fearful, you know how stubborn insurance adjusters can be! At least I know how stubborn they can be.

Karma may be a bitch in this case. I will let you know.

So Close

I have quite a bit to report on (Halloween, the breakup of the commune, the great college touring road trip) but not today. I am in a bit of a hurry because we are leaving on the aforementioned road trip in about 3 hours and as usual, I am running behind.

But I wanted to drop a quick line about the recent elections. It is interesting to me that in one election we show how far we have come as a nation, where we are able to judge other people by the content of their character and not the color of their skin (hmmmm where have we heard that before?) but in the same election, we show how far we have yet to go. I was hoping that Prop 8 in California (and other similar ballot items in other states) would be defeated but I was disappointed. It saddens me that in this day and age, after all we have been through as a nation and the crises we are in the midst of currently, we still have the energy to discriminate so blatantly. I was hopeful that I would see this end in my life time but I am beginning to lose faith in my fellow human beings. I am not quite sure they are smart enough, kind enough, Christian enough to do the right thing.

In Europe and many other countries, the government has gotten out of the "marriage" business. Every person , regardless of skin color, religious affiliation, social status, sexual orientation, goes to the local government agency and "registers" their union or their partnership. After a few words by the local government official (like a justice of the peace) in charge in the jurisdiction, the couple is considered legally "hitched". If after this exercise, the couple wishes a religious ceremony of some kind they go to their church, synagogue or temple, and have another ceremony. It would be up to the religious group to decide if the couple met whatever criteria the group has set up in order to sanctify or bless the relationship. The end.

I don't understand why we don't do something like this in the United States. We profess to be a country in which government and church are separate but that is not the case, in reality. Our government needs to get out of this issue. Don't get me wrong, I am a big fan of marriage. Been married for almost 25 years. My marriage is not threatened by 2 loving, committed, consenting adults who want to legalize their union. I have known gay couples who have been together for 30 or more years. They only want the same legal rights and benefits that I have. Straight people have had the institution for thousands of years, and we haven't done that well with it. What is the current statistic of marriages that end in divorce, 40% or so? We need gay people to help our numbers a bit. Marriage isn't threatened by gay people, we straight people are threatening it. As long as we continue to let stupid straight people get married as a "joke" (i.e. Britney Spears), get married and divorced within 4 months (Renee Zelleweger), have 107 day marriages (Lisa Marie Presley and Nicolas Cage), or a 9 day marriage (Cher & Greg Allman), apply for a marriage license while still married to your first wife (John McCain), I don't think we have any place to keep gay people from the tradition. In fact, given the mess we have made of the institution, I am surprised any self-respecting gay person would want to be affiliated with it.

I am convinced it will happen someday. And I hope when future generations look back on us, they aren't too embarrassed by our ignorance. I don't know though, I sure am.