lesbians, tractors and AIDS

I've spent the first day of 2008 ~ a year I know is going to be a good one ~ at home cooking chicken mole enchiladas and tomato florentine soup. And I've read from start to finish a marvelous book by this woman, Catherine Friend, a writer who fell in love with Melissa and turned into a farmer.

The book ~ Hit By a Farm ~ was a delicious treat. I laughed out loud and cried just enough. I love the way Catherine writes about her relationship with Melissa, with honesty and frankness and love. It's a book I randomly picked up off the library shelf because a glance at the cover reminded me of my old dream of living in the country.

I sometimes think I've missed my calling and really belong out in the hinterlands raising chickens and milking goats. When I bought this city house, I fully intended to keep a couple of goats and chickens in the back yard, with the plan of making cheese and building a chicken tractor to keep the bugs out of the garden beds.

After reading Catherine's account of life and death on the farm, I'm rethinking that for the 100th time, but the book was a delight and it was an extra treat to find that the farmers are a couple of gay girls with a bigass tractor. In my dream, the tractor's a spiffy little Kubota, but these women have got a honkin' big red monster and I've now got a bad case of tractor envy.

And then there's this Post of the Year thing for which I was unknowingly nominated and, surprisingly, won along with another blogger called Little Red Boat. It was quite a surprise to drop by Joe's and see my name practically in lights. Sweet. The post was an old one from April called piano music. I mention it again only because it honors my friend Wayne, who loved and lost his Ronnie to that fucking disease. So now I've confessed and that is that and a big thank you to the Post of the Week folks. Thank you.

And the last good thing is this: I know we are going to prevail against these thugs who have seized control of our government. It is not hopeless, it will be frustrating and frightening but I am certain that this will be the year things change for the better and we will rid ourselves of the likes of George Bush and his band of zealots.

i love lesbians and other random thoughts

It is still too fucking cold. I hate this damp chill. The contrast between the warmth and sun of Mexico and this horror is unbearable.

Coming home to little dogs is truly one of the greatest pleasures of life.

Finding the aloof and dignified cat in a very affectionate state is sweet.

Folks I met from Canada and Mexico and Panama and Peru and England and France also think Bush is a cretin and a thug. Not big news, but comforting. I asked everyone to have their countries send well armed covert ops people to rescue us.

I love lesbians! I found myself in need of help before we departed Mazatlan. In just an instant of looking around the terminal for assistance, I was suddenly surrounded by a trio of helpful gals who conspired to rescue me with a peso. Sweet, funny, no nonsense middle-aged dykes who left me feeling a bit melancholy for my activist years in the women’s movement.

Mexican butter rocks. And coconut LaLa yogurt is fantastic.

There is nothing quite like freshly caught shrimp, quickly boiled and iced down and served with a tongue-burning cocktail sauce thick with horseradish. Nothing.

No matter how nice the accommodations, hotel beds suck.

The average American we encountered in Mexico well deserves the pejorative gabacho. What a bunch of clowns: so rude, obnoxious, cheap, condescending.

Men who grow wide expanses of pubic hair should not wear teensy thongs on the beach unless they’re willing to wax. Or at least trim. Ick.

Snorkeling in rough water can cause a buoyant woman to crash hard into a rocky shore where escape entails a heroic struggle between incoming waves and undertow. To avoid broken bones and drowning, the only solution is swimming like hell under water, thus risking a close encounter with razor sharp coral. That the coral is razor sharp is evidenced by the gouges across my formerly pristine tummy. I am now waiting to see if the legend proves true: that coral will sprout from my wounds.

I was born to live a life of leisure. I don't know how I ended up with this one.

Blogger friends and pals can be missed as severely as "real" ones.

okay

This is different. Have to figure there's a rethuglican behind it, given the recent shrillness about bands of marauding lesbians recruiting innocent young girls and attacking straight men. "National underground network of women, lesbians . . . " Not only that, but they're poor women. Oh. My. God.