Tales of the Burbs

Halloween Recipe #4 - Meat of Feet

2011-10-30T21:00:00.000-07:00

It's been about a million years since I posted to my essentially defunct blog. But these pictures were worth preserving longer than a facebook posting.

So here goes - another Halloween recipe to go along with the infamous Kitty Litter Cake (which my family now begs me not to make each year), and my tasty, but messy, Halloween Cake Pops, or the drippy Pumpkin Cake. (Looking back on it, wow is that cake a mess! But it tasted good, and if you used firmer or colder frosting, I'm sure it would come out fine.)

Anyway, on to today's Halloween Recipe.... behold:

Meat of Feet!

To recreate the Meat of Feet you'll need:

2.5 pounds ground beef or turkey (I used a combo since turkey alone can be pretty dry)
1/2 cup bread crumbs
1/2 cup milk
1 egg
1 package onion soup mix
3 garlic cloves, minced
anything else you like to throw into your meatloaf
ketchup or bar-b-que sauce
breadsticks
cashews, almonds or other nuts

First, mix everything except the ketchup, nuts, and breadsticks together into a large bowl.

Next, reserve about 3/4 of the meat mixture aside, and divide the rest into two equal portions.

Now, shape the portions into feet!

Roughly lay them out in oval shapes on a lightly oiled, foil lined baking sheet, and then mold them till they look like feet! Don't forget the top of the ankle!

Next take the reserved meat mixture, divide it in half again and with each half, roll into 5 individual balls, one slightly larger than the rest. Apply 5 toes to each foot. You just sort of push them against the foot, and they stick.

Now, push the nuts into the tips of each toe for a toenail. Gross isn't it?

Here they are, both ready to be popped into the oven. Yummy!

Next, brush bar-b-que sauce or ketchup on them to your liking, and pop them in the oven.

Bake at 350 degrees for 90 minutes, or until a meat thermometer reads 160 degrees.

After you take them out of the oven, break a breadstick in half, and shove it into the ankles, so the broken end is pointing up. Dress with ketchup or bar-b-que sauce.

Voila! Meat of Feet.

Here's what my daughter thought of it:

Surprisingly most of the family enjoyed it (everyone except the kid above) despite it being served at the exact point during the Rocky Horror Picture Show when Frank-N-Furter and guests sit down to dine on Eddy. :0

Enjoy! It's a super easy meatloaf recipe, and perfect for a Halloween Potluck, or a quiet family Halloween dinner. :)

Perhaps you could serve these with the Kitty Litter Cake at the same meal? Perhaps if you're having a guest over that you hope never returns to your home?

Living out a Dream

2010-05-28T10:30:00.000-07:00

You may know that I've been taking bass lessons for a while now. Growing up I always had a desire to play guitar or bass, and over the years there were many stalled attempts at guitar lessons, but I never stuck with it. Shortly after the girls were born, and Laura started spending all day, every day, at home with them, she kept herself sane by teaching herself to play guitar. I was amazed and impressed (and still am) that a stay-at-home mother of twins could also find the time to learn guitar! As it turns out, it was a great way to entertain two little babies!

Fast forward a couple of years and I mentioned to Laura that maybe I ought to try out bass finally. And what did she do? She bought me a bass and amp for Christmas! And she found me a teacher! Not just any teacher, but the fabulously talented Scott Beynon, who just happens to live around the corner. So with Laura's example (and kick in the butt) I started taking lessons.

Taking up an instrument for the first time as an adult is intimidating. I'd always wanted to, but never succeeded, so I felt like I wouldn't be able to. But Scott is a very understanding and patient teacher, and I'm pleased to say I've progressed. My first big thrill was being able to play along to my favorite David Bowie and Clash songs. High School dream fulfilled!

But there was one more dream - to actually play in front of an audience. Any audience. Just to say I did it. Keep in mind that I've never performed anything, in front of anyone. Ever. Not a school play, not a skit (well maybe there was that short embarrassing number at a Gap department meeting once, but I've done my best to block that out), not a song, not a recital in elementary school, nada. So for me, this was a big deal - a big dream, even if the audience was small. I have so many musician friends (many of whom are bass players ironically) who have performed many hundreds of times, and do perform regularly (Hi Ilhan, Doug & Terilynn - I'm talking to YOU). Comparing myself to their experience and is more than a little intimidating - but they're still my inspiration.

Well I am excited to write that last weekend I got to live out my dream. Scott asked me to perform with him at a local fundraiser to provide the entertainment while people ate and reviewed the auction items. Perfect - no one would be focused on me! A nice, low pressure, debut.

And you know what? I DID IT! Forty-mumble-mumble-something years old and I played my bass in front of actual, live, people. I can't even describe how awesome it felt. As in, REALLY, REALLY awesome. I can't recommend doing something that you're afraid of enough - - What a THRILL!

Below is proof - I'm pleased to share with you a song from my public debut. I'm not claiming to be great - but that's not what it's about. For me it's about trying and DOING something I never thought I could or would do. And to passing that lesson on to my daughters.

(And Ilhan - I dedicate this song to you - you posted the video of the original on facebook the same day I learned to play it!)

This was filmed at the SOS/Meals on Wheels Second Annual Luncheon in Hayward, CA. SOS/Meals on Wheels delivers 550 meals daily to homebound seniors, and delivered 164,000 warm nutritious meals in 2009. It was a privilege and an honor to provide the entertainment for their fund raiser. Thank you for the work you do with Meals on Wheels Scott, and thank you for the chance to play with you! (Scott has played with Van Morrison and with David Bowie's keyboard player (only 2 degrees of separation!), among many, many others. And now he can say he's played with me too.)

Plus, the crowd made me feel really young. :-)

Egg Salad Sandwich Anyone?

2010-05-27T06:58:00.000-07:00

Wow things have been so busy around here that I haven't posted anything on this blog in ages. For example, I never posted any of these Easter pictures:

Is it wrong that these eggs are still in our refrigerator? Yeah, I thought so too.
Happy Easter.

Christmas in March

2010-03-14T18:12:00.001-07:00

It finally stopped raining!!!! As my Mom would say, we were starting to grow webbed feet around here! A weekend without rain, and none in the immediate forecast led to two weekend activities - Spring Cleaning (but remind me why it takes the sun coming out to make us spend the day inside clearing cobwebs & dust bunnies?) and Christmas! What, you think we're a little late? Well, yeah. We usually are. :) What I meant was, we finally put together the trampoline Dad & Nancy got the girls for Christmas! Woo hoo! And they even spent more time on it than Laura and I spent putting it together, so that's plus. They spent over an hour on it, and then came in saying "We're tired and STARVING!" Another plus! Yea Grandma & Grandpa! Perfect timing for Daylight Savings Time, hopefully they won't have any trouble going to bed on time tonight! Merry Christmas!

Christmas in March from Stacey Bursch on Vimeo.

Taxes? I'll take a double share, thanks.

2010-03-06T16:55:00.000-08:00

Today was a productive day, I replaced my broken tail light and replaced my head light bulb that was no longer shining bright. I also finished and filed my taxes, both Fed and State. Refunds will be on the way soon. Terrific, right?

Almost. Why? Because every year when I do this, I have to look at the quantitative and indisputable difference for our family because we can't get married. Because of that, I pay 20% more Federal taxes. Twenty percent! My Federal tax refund would nearly double if I could file as "Married" instead of "Head of Household." I can't even express my frustration and anger at this - its so monumentally unfair.

Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow!

2010-02-09T20:34:00.000-08:00

We took the girls out of school for a couple of days last week and spent a wonderful 4 day weekend in Lake Tahoe. It was an awesome trip (once you disregard the world's hardest mattresses at the "Firelite Lodge"). The weather was nice, even though we got snowed on a bit. Crowds were minimal, especially on Sunday & the drive back on Highway 80 was as clear as could be - amazing for a Sunday. Was there some big sporting event on TV or something?

JUST KIDDING. We knew it was Super Bowl Sunday, or as Sophie calls it, "That holiday where we watch sports and eat whatever we want all day long - not Thanksgiving - the other one." I didn't tell her she was missing it. She'll ask about the "Snacking Holiday" sometime in April...

The good news is that no one got hurt, and the kids LOVED skiing. The bad news is that the kids LOVED skiing. They're ready to go back next weekend, and the weekend after that, and after that, etc... I'm predicting a very expensive family hobby starting up here. Oh well - we've been looking forward to taking them skiing since they were born! Our first attempt at lessons when they were 4 didn't turn out so well - they were just too little and didn't have the interest or the stamina. But now - they're loving it and doing great! Can't wait to get back to Tahoe! Here are some clips from our trip. Zoe's in the blue jacket, Sophie's in the tan one.

8 Years Old

2010-01-14T07:00:00.000-08:00

How can it be that my little girls are already 8??? I don't how it happens; I keep telling them to "think little thoughts" but they just keep growing.

If I had to sum up the last year, it would be the year of lost teeth! I can't even count how many there were this year, but I'm guessing that each kid has a small fortune in their piggy bank from the Tooth Fairy. It was also the year that Zoe got glasses, the girls joined the Marlins Swim Team, Zoe played soccer, and Sophie used every waking moment to draw detailed pictures on whiteboards. Oh and boys called over Christmas break. BOYS. Oh yes they did. (Don't worry, we told the boys we moved. It worked until the girls went back to school.)

Happy 8th Birthday Zoe!! Happy 8th Birthday Sophie!!

Here's what you looked like when you were 7.

In the blink of an eye...

2010-01-13T20:25:00.000-08:00

I can't believe my little babies are going to be 8 in just one day. Where does the time go??? I'm working on some photos from the last year, but here's a link to the post I wrote about their first year. Man, it's really amazing how much they've changed! Happy Almost-Birthday Girls! Here are the slide shows I did last year, showing them at every birthday: from their first ever pictures on the day they were born, on up to #7.

Prop 8 is back in court

2010-01-12T23:10:00.000-08:00

In case you haven't been watching the news on this, Prop 8 is back in court, this time in the US District Court. Here's a quick summary of the case & it's status. The constitutionality of using an amendment to revoke marriage rights of a minority of CA citizens is once again being challenged. The US Supreme Court ruled that no cameras would be allowed in court (although they may change this decision), so most of the updates and news is coming from spectators who are tweeting and liveblogging the trial. I'm following @NCLRights and @AmerEqualRights on Twitter for live updates from the courtroom. If you're not into Twitter, you can still see all the updates here.

Interesting stuff, and the Plaintiff's Witnesses' arguments seem overwhelmingly convincing to me, but, you know, preaching to the choir and all.... I don't know what to think about this latest challenge - happy to have another chance in court, but nervous at the very real potential for yet another devastating setback.

Here's a daily trial tracker of all the court proceedings. Maybe it's time to dig out my "No on 8" shirt again.

What do you think, should I reply to this email?

2010-01-07T05:00:00.000-08:00

I received this email yesterday. Do you think it's legit? Maybe I should reply, huh?

I am Captain. Matthew Stamford with the United States Marine Corps (USMC). Hard to believe but, I have $900,000.00, found at the start of Operation Khanjari on July 4, in Poshteh Afghanistan. I need to move this money out to a safer place. Can I trust you to receive it on my behalf upon its evacuation from Kabul? send me a reply mail on matthew.stamford@hotmail.com

At least one of them cut Santa a break this year.

2009-12-14T21:27:00.000-08:00

Dear Santa, again...

2009-12-08T18:20:00.000-08:00

I have only two comments. One, thank goodness for that last sentence. Two, if anyone has come across such a remarkable stuffed dog as this, you might want to let Santa know, because Amazon has 3,141 results under "plush dog" and NOT ONE is black with brown spots over it's eye. NOT ONE. White with brown spots, brown with white spots, but no black with brown spots. I'm thinking a rottweiler is the closest thing I've seen.

Sophie was particularly single minded too, there is no wiggle room for Santa in that list. That's the only thing she told him she wanted when she sat on his lap too.

So, I'm just saying, Santa might need your shopping tips. You know, in case the elves are busy.

Dear Santa

2009-12-07T07:12:00.000-08:00

Hi Santa -

Merry Christmas Santa! Say, I know you're busy, but I just wanted to thank you for clearing up that little quality control problem you experienced last year in the letter writing department. My girls are getting ready to send you their letters, and we wouldn't want to have the same experience as last year! Expect their letters soon!

We'll leave out the milk & cookies! Say Hi to Rudolph and the Mrs. for us!

Love,
Stacey

Gay Math

2009-11-05T19:38:00.000-08:00

Dad - this is for you.

I love this blog post about how to figure out how long it will take until the gay-rights proponents outnumber the opponents. Problem is there, there's no answer posted.

It's Prop 8 all over again. Sigh.

2009-11-04T06:34:00.000-08:00

Maine voters repealed their gay marriage law yesterday. Reading about it is opening a fresh wound. A wound called Prop 8. I watched the news yesterday and the twitter-verse, everyone was so optimistic. The initial results were so close, when I went to bed the No votes were ahead by a slight lead. I'm so disappointed to find this morning that it passed 53% to 47%.

Laura and I were talking about this yesterday morning and Sophie wanted to know if we could get out our No on Prop 8 signs and go protest on the street again. "No, it's too late for that honey," I said. I feel defeated. Again.

“All, too, will bear in mind this sacred principle, that though the will of the majority is in all cases to prevail, that will, to be rightful, must be reasonable; that the minority possess their equal rights, which equal laws must protect, and to violate would be oppression.” - Thomas Jefferson

"Democracy is not the law of the majority but the protection of the minority." - Albert Camus

Halloween Cake Recipe #3 - Pumpkin!

2009-10-30T17:00:00.000-07:00

No where near as cool as the kitty litter cake, but this will serve for any standard Halloween event. We're going to make this guy.

First, make 2 bundt cakes, box variety is fine of course! It's even OK if you need to borrow a bundt pan (thanks Debbie!), because, seriously who has two of those? And who wants to bake 2 cakes in a row in one pan? I know I don't have that kind of time.
After they cool, place one upside down on a cake plate, like so.

Dump your frosting in a bowl and tint it bright orange, then frost the top of the first bundt.

Put the second bundt on the first, right side up this time.

Keep sneaky 7-year-olds away from the frosting. That smile? That smile says, "come on...just one spoonful?"

Frost the whole thing, being sure to pull stripes down the side. You, know, pumpkin-like. Dump some more frosting in a small bowl and tint it green. Take a paper cup and put it over one hand, and frost the cup. I squished it a bit at the top to make it look less like a cup, and more like a stem. I highly recommend you use a stiff frosting for this. I choose "Fluffy White" (what the heck is that anyway??) and it was much too soft and runny to make this cake perfectly. Choose or make a stiffer frosting.

Where was I? Oh yeah, frost the "stem". I put 4 toothpicks inside the opening of the bundt cake at the top to support the cup, then place it inside the hole.

Last step, use some black icing to draw the face. I also added candy corns for teeth, which I liked, but the frosting wasn't stiff enough to support them, so I ended up having to remove them. Either way, it's a nice halloween cake. Happy Halloween!

Halloween Cake Recipe # 2 - Cake Balls!

2009-10-29T21:00:00.001-07:00

Right off the bat I will admit that this recipe is no where close to last year's in terms of Halloween-grossness. However, this one is definitely more of a crowd-pleaser, instead of a crowd-grosser-outer. So if that's what you're going for - I got rave reviews for these tasty cake balls. Granted, all of the tasters were either under the age of 10, or drunk, so take that for what it's worth. But I guess that means that whether you're hosting a childrens' party or an adult-only party, either way, these are a winner.

I've made these cake balls three times. The first time to test them out and see if I could actually do it. They passed the family taste test, so the second time, I actually made them for guests. And I took photos of the process so I could share them here. But you know what? I forgot to take any pictures of the final, finished product! I had all the steps documented, but not the final picture. Daaammmmn. So then I had one more potluck to attend, so I had to make them one more time, just so I could get the final pictures! Only the the last time, 2 days before Halloween, the store was completely sold out of orange, green, and black melting chocolates. So.... enjoy purple and white. Here we go...

Start with a box cake, and tub of frosting. Ok, yes, you could make these from scratch, but.....who's got that kind of time???

Bake the cake according to the directions, the shape of the pan you use doesn't matter. Neither does the type of cake. Red Velvet is what was in the original recipe, but I couldn't find that. In fact, I don't think I've ever had a red velvet cake. The color would have been cool, but I don't know what the flavor is. So I used chocolate.

Cool the cakes, and then dump them into a large bowl. Go ahead, do it.

Use a couple of forks and crumble them up into a big pile of crumbs.

Keep crumbling.

When it's all crumbled into fine crumbs, then you want to mix in the entire tub of frosting. I used vanilla only because I thought it was going to be overwhelmingly chocolaty if I used chocolate cake, frosting and coating. But you use what you like. I dyed one batch of frosting red, that made the end-result a lovely blood-red. But white is fine too.

Mix it together till it's a gooey mess.

Then start rolling out little walnut-sized balls. Cake-balls. Get it? I used a cookie scoop to start it out. Lay them out on a cookie sheet, or tupperware, something that has enough room to lay them out.

I used wax paper to make sure they didn't stick.

Then, stick lollipop sticks into them all. Wait, did I forget to mention the lollipop sticks? Whoops. Good thing I don't do this for a living. I bought a pack of lollipop sticks at Michael's. That's where I got the melting chocolates too. Wait, what? I forgot to mention those? Damn it. Keep reading. But before you do, stick the cake balls in to the freezer for a couple of hours to help them firm up for the next step.

OK, you'll need some of these too. Melting chocolates. Any color.

Melt them according to the instructions, in a glass bowl over boiling water in a pot will do just fine. They say you can microwave them, but I didn't try that.

Here's an important step that's not on the bag - add 1.5 TBSP of cooking oil to the melted chocolate. It makes it shiny, glossy, and spreads more easily. Trust me on this. I saw Martha Stewart do it, so it's OK. Really.

Now, you're going to coat the balls in melted chocolate. You can dip them, but I found the sticks tended to come off. Dipping them and spooning chocolate over them seemed to work pretty well.

After you coat them, put them on a piece of tinfoil so they won't stick.

Here's an important point. Lay them on their sides, and don't let them touch. Otherwise, this will happen.

Let them cool at room temperature or pop them in the fridge for a while to harden the chocolate.

Now, decorate! Aliens:

Anyone, anyone? Bueller? It's a one-eyed, one-horned, flying purple people eater! Of course.

Dracula

Plate full of cake balls!

Ghosts

There you have it. Cake balls. Happy Halloweenie!!!

Oh and in case you're wondering about my polka-dotted fingernails? I'm Twister for Halloween...but that's another story...

To give credit where credit is due, I swiped this entire recipe off of Pioneer Woman. So there. But she's a good cook, and I am not, so proof that I can make these ought to give you the confidence to try them yourself. Here's her version.

Halloween - a Retrospective

2009-10-21T07:08:00.000-07:00

2002 - What a cute little bunny and elephant! I remember thinking how heavy they were - what a wimp!

2003 - My little cuddly teddy bear and stinker the skunk!

2004 - Princess Fiona and Donkey, what else?

2005 - Pink Fairy and Pumba (from Lion King)

2005, again - Whoops, these don't fit any more

2006 - Batman and Princess

2007 - Puppy and Skeleton

2008 - Home-made Werewolf and Blue Ninja Fairy Princess.

2009 - ????

Why Pets Hate Halloween

2009-10-20T07:00:00.000-07:00

OK, I could have just emailed these around...but this is much more fun. What more needs to be said?

Crafty! Halloween Edition - How to Make a Spider Nest!

2009-10-16T15:00:00.000-07:00

It’s no surprise that I love Halloween. I really love Halloween. After Christmas, it’s my favorite holiday. To prepare for the festivities, I’ve got a few new crafts and special recipes planned, which I plan to share here.

First up - a super-cool and extra-creepy, Spider’s Nest! For around $10 and an hour of your time, this project is guaranteed to freak out any arachnophobics (that would be me) as well as any small children in your house!

To start, the cast of characters: Elmer’s white glue, 3 yards of cheese cloth (I bought mine at a fabric store, they had it in a box on a shelf; $1.79 / yard), one large balloon (I used a balloon made for punching, it was extra large, and very sturdy – purchased 3 for a dollar at the Dollar Store), lots of paper towels for clean up, plastic bowl for glue mixture, plastic spoon for stirring, bag of plastic spiders.

First step – blow up balloon.

Next – pour a bunch of while glue into plastic container, and mix with water to dilute it. I wasn’t exact with it, and used about 60% glue and 40% water.

You do need to mix it thoroughly though. I recommend enlisting a 7-year old for this task.

Next, cut the cheese cloth into strips. Mine were approximately 3 inches wide (a quarter of the width of the cloth) and 8-12 inches long. I started off with much longer strips (18 inches) and they were very hard to work with, shorter is definitely better with this.

Dip the cheese cloth into the glue mixture. Pull it out, and squeeze it between your fingers to get rid of the excess glue.

Put the balloon in a plastic bowl, large enough to hold it, and start draping the cheese cloth strips around and over the balloon.

Continue draping the strips around the balloon. Don’t cover every inch; you want to leave a small hole at the top and bottom, as well as some small holes scattered around the balloon in random places.

Do not allow the 7-year old to lick the spider’s nest.

Continue wrapping the balloon, overlapping pieces of cheese cloth until it’s nearly covered. Uniformity is not desirable here, some places should be thinner than others.

When the balloon is nearly covered, you’re ready to hang it to dry. Because this was a punching bag balloon, it came with a large rubber band, convenient to hang it with.

Here’s a tip I didn’t get a photo of. Do not hang your balloon outside to dry! Why, you ask? Do you remember 7th grade science? Yes? Well then, what does air do when heated? It expands, right? And if cooled? It….anyone? anyone? Bueller? Bueller? It....that's right, it contracts!

It happened to be a very cold night when I did this project, and, not remembering 7th grade science, I hung the balloon outside in case the glue dripped. You know what happened? Yes, the glue did drip on the deck, but what was worse was that the cold air caused the air molecules in the balloon to contract, and when I came out in the morning to check on it, the whole thing was shriveled up and looked like a football with most of the air let out of it! I untied the knot in the balloon and tried to re-inflate it, but then it popped! At this point, I was glad the balloons came 3 in a pack, and pulled the popped balloon out of the cheese cloth shell, which was still pretty soft. Then I shoved a new balloon into the cheese cloth and blew it up. It actually worked and the project was saved! However, then I had to tie a knot in the new balloon which was covered in slippery glue, and kept sliding off my fingers. It took more than ten tries to get the damn knot tied again. So what’s the lesson in all this? Do not put the balloon outside to dry! Hang it somewhere inside, but put something under it to catch the dripping glue; I recommend a plastic bag.

Moving on. 24 hours later, the entire thing should be dry. Mine shrunk and wrinkled quite a bit. I don’t know if this was because of the outdoor adventure, and replacing the balloon mid-way through or not, but I liked the effect.
When it’s entirely dry and hard to the touch, either pop or deflate the balloon. Then, make your oh-so-willing 7-year old model the spider nest.

You’ll be amazed at how hard the glue drys everything.

Next come the spiders. I bought a pack of 36 for around $2. What a deal.

Have I mentioned that I absolutely hate spiders? I do. It’s amazing that I made this project. Especially ones the size of these plastic ones – nothing is worse! Maybe doing this project is therapeutic or something?

Be sure you don’t neglect your children during this involved project. It’s important to ensure they have proper nutrition. Like ice cream drumsticks. That’s a dairy food, right?

Stick the spiders into the nest, stuffing their little plastic legs through the hardened cheese cloth, like so. If they won’t stick on their own, a glue gun comes in handy.

Now comes the extra-creepy part! Tie some spiders to fishing line, and tie that to the nest. I shoved a long piece of mono-filament through a hole in the nest, and then tied a spider to that, then let it fall back through the hole, so there was a spider on the inside of the nest anchoring the line of spiders hanging outside the nest.

Once you’ve used all the spiders, inside, outside, and hanging from the nest, position it somewhere super creepy. Ours is hanging above the dining room table for now.

We plan to add more spiders to the ceiling and the line hanging it from the ceiling once it’s in it’s final position.

Try it at home, it’s really spooky! Enjoy!

My Babies

2009-09-30T07:00:00.000-07:00

Getting ready for bed tonight I sang the girls a song, and Sophie started to sing along. I told her I liked it, and that I didn't hear enough baby singing in our house.

Yes, they are 7 years old and we still refer to them as "babies." Yes, I know they are not babies. But they're still my babies even if they're not technically babies, right? Plus, how many of you got to refer to your "babies," plural? Out of my 6 loyal readers, I think none of you. Come on though, look at these faces. This is how I think of them, and probably always will. My babies.

Man, they were round weren't they? No wonder people used to remark "Those babies never miss a meal!"

I always liked saying "babies," plural. "I have to get home to my babies." "Gotta go, I have to feed the babies." "Have to take the babies to the doctor." I always really liked that. It made people think. Just like when someone I don't know well, asks how old my children are, and I say "seven." Without fail, they look at me, pausing patiently, waiting for me to give them another age. They either get it pretty quickly and say, "Oh, you have twins?" or they look at me blankly and never get it.

It's almost as good as when the babies (see, there I go again) were born and I sent out links to the newborn pictures to friends. One (don't worry, I'm not naming names) wrote back with an obligatory, "Your baby is adorable, congratulations!" So I wrote him back and asked him which of my twins he thought was cute.

Anyway, we've asked the girls if they mind that we still call them "the babies," and they don't mind. For now at least. I'll take that for as long as I can. And I'll keep thinking of them like this, in their "let's line up all the toys" phase.

I was a little worried about them having OCD, but it seems to have passed. I couldn't get them to line anything up neatly now, no matter how I bribed them.

So, back to getting ready for bed. Laura and I sing, but the girls don't sing much. I don't know why.

But tonight Sophie said, "Sometimes I sing at recess when I can't decide who to play with."

"You do?" I asked.

"Yeah, like when I promised Dorian I would play Star Wars with him. And I promised Spencer I would play tigers with him. And I promised Jordan and Zoe I would play Werewolves with them...I have so many friends, and I just can't decide who to play with, so I walk around and sing."

Well now, what a conundrum. What a problem to have at 7 years old - so many friends to play with you can't decide who to join! I hope she always has such problems!

But about the wandering around the playground singing to herself...if that keeps up till middle school it will probably take care of the problem of having too many kids to play with!

I love you Soph - sing away!!

Is it too soon for Halloween??

2009-09-17T05:00:00.000-07:00

Yes, I'm aware that September has barely begun, school just started, and it's still summer weather outside. But none of that will stop me from getting excited about Halloween. Next to Christmas, it's my favorite holiday. What's not to love about dressing up, scaring people, all the candy you can eat, and a good excuse for a party?

I've grown especially fond of Halloween potlucks, and creating ghoulish Halloween dishes. Texas Chainsaw Chili? Count me in! Bar-b-qued Bat Wings? Yes, please. Feet of Meat? Well, even I'm not sure about that one.

But let me take you back to last year, and my winning potluck dish. Seriously, if you haven't read this recipe for the world's best Halloween cake, you should; it's unbelievably awesome in it's Halloweenie-ness. And here's the proof that I won the potluck.

I don't know what I'm making this year yet, but it's guaranteed to be ~~good~~ devilishly awesome. Just wanted you to know I'm thinking about it; I hope you are too!

Oh, and if you want to make the Feet of Meat shown above, I'll spare you the completely-not-Halloween-related results you get by googling "Feet" and "Meat" together and just give you the link to the recipe here. Seriously, don't google it at work. You've been warned.

Seven Going on Seventeen

2009-09-09T17:20:00.000-07:00

Holy Crap. On Saturday I caught my seven year old wearing eye shadow. Let me repeat that for you. My seven year old. Eye shadow. Which seven year old? One guess.

Yep, this little rascal. SEVEN YEARS OLD.

On top of that, two days later she thought it would be nice to go to bed smelling like me, and took a bath in my perfume. When I came upstairs later, I could smell her from the kitchen. I could barely get close enough to pull the covers over her after she fell asleep. In the morning, she actually tried to deny it! Ummmm, honey....you stink. You can't get out of this one. She says, "wait, I forgot..." Uh huh. Right. Sure you did.

Oh help me when she's 13!

Happy New (School) Year!

2009-09-01T19:03:00.000-07:00

Today was the first day of the second grade! I can’t believe how fast the girls have grown. Weren’t they just in pre-school?

There are still only 20 kids in the class (thankfully) 12 of whom are girls, and 5 of those are at soccer practice together twice a week. Sophie goes to practice, and we make her run with the team, but she really didn’t want to be on the team this year, so we didn’t make her. She would have liked to have been the mascot, but the under-8 teams just don’t have that position yet. I feel bad for the teacher with so many little girls who are friends all in one class. Six of these kids were all in kindergarten together too, plus there’s another from the swim team, and 2 kids from 1st grade; it’s surprising that there’s anyone in class the girls don’t already know. This teacher has her work cut out for her!

And then, after dropping the kiddos off, a bunch of us mommies went to get some coffee to break in the new school year. It was great company, and I was glad to be able to join them this year!

Born to Be Wild

2009-08-24T04:00:00.000-07:00

OK, so my kids are 7 years old and don’t ride bikes. Yes, most kids do learn by the time they’re 5. So, mine haven’t. So what. Between 5 and 6 we were able to blow this off; not every 6 year old had it down. But now, at 7, and going into 2nd grade, well, as far as I can tell, every one of their peers can now ride a bike.

It’s not like we didn’t want them to learn, we did! Just. Not. Enough. See, we live on a busy, hilly street; so riding in front of the house is out. And until recently, the only close park with a proper bike path was also pretty hilly. Plus, the girls just weren’t all that interested in taking the training wheels off. Add to that the speed with which Zoe gets frustrated with herself when she can’t do something, and well, we had a perfect recipe for procrastination. Until now.

I decided it was time. I buckled down and determined to stay patient through the crying, the whining, the wanting to give up (not to mention how Zoe would handle it). And you know what? It WORKED. Two days at the park, two different *techniques, the promise of an ice cream sundae (with extra hot fudge of course), and voila! BEHOLD! Not so much as a skinned knee or grass stain in the process either. I’m really, really, proud of Zoe! She stuck in there and worked through her frustrations to see it through. With each little bit of progress she got more excited, and stuck it out. And even when she fell, she got right back up again with no hesitation. She really got it faster than I thought she would, and now I wish I’d tried this last summer!

Zoe Learns to Ride from Stacey Bursch on Vimeo.

One down, one to go. Stay tuned.

*Day 1 was the old-fashioned running-behind-the-kid-pushing technique on flat ground. We made progress, but I could tell she wasn’t really trying to balance much. Plus, I was completely exhausted. I have no video of day one, because you can’t run, and push, and keep the kid from falling, and video-tape at the same time. Day 2 we went to a grassy hill, and I took the pedals off her bike. We pushed the bike up the hill and let her practice riding it down, just steering and balancing. Once she could go from the top of the hill to the bottom without stopping, I put the pedals back on. And the first run down the hill with the pedals is what’s on the video, her first, real solo ride!

Happy Birthday Mom!

2009-08-13T21:32:00.000-07:00

Wait, is that me & my mom, or me and Sophie? Must be me & mom cause Sophie stopped wearing dresses when she was 2. But the resemblance is uncanny...

Here are the girls at about the same age (almost 5).

And here are the girls last week at camp... And yes, Zoe does have blue hair. Before we left camp she had a hot pink streak on the other side too. That part of the resemblance is uncanny too, isn't it? I liked the blue, it matches her eyes so nicely.

We all wish you a HAPPY BIRTHDAY MOM!!!
Love,
All of us

What I did on Sunday

2009-07-19T23:17:00.000-07:00

A week ago Laura & I decided that it would be a good idea to give the girls the own rooms. Their room is awfully cramped, and we were starting to feel guilty having one room dedicated to an office while they were stacked up like sardines. Oh, and also, all the home-staging shows we watch always advise people to make their bedrooms look like bedrooms so potential buyers visualize it that way. We figured for the sake of being able to eventually sell our house, so that we could buy one with four bedrooms (so the girls can have their own and we can have an entire room dedicated to an office) we’d sacrifice now by letting them spread out into their own rooms. So we gave up an office, so we can get an office. Go figure.

First was the fight over who got the new room. Then there was the fight over who got stay in the old room. When it became clear to them that although I was willing to move all this furniture around, I was not willing to paint for this move, somehow that resulted in a happy decision for all that Zoe would move into the office and Sophie would stay in her room.

Today was moving day. Behold the before and after pictures.

Office – just after I started pulling stuff out to begin moving:

Office bookcase.

Shared room – before. And yes, this was a pretty typical day for their room.

Before…

Zoe in her new room, it’s starting to look a little better. She was afraid we were going to leave our great big desk in there…

And, after… Zoe’s actually in bed already. And let me tell you how much easier it is to make her bed without having to climb a ladder! Making a bunk bed is a nightmare. Needless to say, we’re quite happy we bought bunk beds that convert to two single beds.

Closet, after. No more big bookshelf.

We left the sleeper sofa in her room because the girls are the only ones who really use it during sleep overs, so now Zoe has her own couch. Such a big girl.

And here’s Sophie’s “new” room…much better for her too!

Ok, so perhaps I forgot to clean that mirror before taking the picture. Or maybe I thought about it, and said screw it – I’m way too tired to windex!

So where’d we put all of our office stuff? Well, it’s not all put away yet, but (obviously) I got the computer hooked up at least, and the desk back together. And the great thing about moving it all downstairs is this wall of cabinets next to the desk. With a little rearranging of those, we were able to hide most of the clutter from the office. Not too bad…

Now If only I could capture a picture of the way my back felt before and after. Ouch.

Drainage Day 3

2009-07-02T21:24:00.000-07:00

Concrete form in place:

Concrete poured:

That’s the cleanest my basement has ever been! (And yes, I realize that's not saying much.)

Drainage Day 2

2009-07-01T21:06:00.000-07:00

In which a big trench is filled not with fish and water, but with perforated pipe and gravel, and an enormous hole is dug for the sump pump. Exciting stuff this home maintenance, isn’t it?
Here’s the trench under the stairs:

Digging in progress:

Hole for the sump pump. I can't tell you how happy I am not to be doing this work myself!

Construction workers are getting younger and younger, aren't they? And cuter too.

Prepping the gravel:

Sump pump container, backfilled with gravel:

Gravel in place. Sophie's finally realized that fish aren't really going in here.

And that's it for Day 2. Stay tuned for the exciting details of Day 3 in which Concrete is poured! A sump pump is installed! And Stacey chokes while writing a big fat check for the least exciting home improvement project EVER!

Minor construction...

2009-07-01T07:24:00.000-07:00

Do you remember my basement? Good, because I managed to not take any “before” pictures before the drainage guys started working. Here’s what’s going on in my basement this week. It’s meant to stop the water that leaks in during the winters. Hope it works!

For the record, jackhammers in your house are not fun.

Day one

Laura was slightly alarmed by the big trench in the floor. I told the girls we were going to fill it with water and put fish in it. Sophie believed me. Zoe however, said “Mama, you’re just being facetious.” That’s my girl.

In other news...

2009-06-26T09:00:00.000-07:00

...the girls couldn't go to swim practice on Thursday due to an AFR. Don't know what an AFR is? Me neither until we got the email from the swim club. Why it's none other than an Accidental Fecal Release in the pool. Yes it is. No, I am not kidding. It's got it's own sanitized sounding acronym and everything. Is that better than just coming out with "a kid pooped in the pool"? Really, is it? Poop is poop, no matter what you call it.

Apparently it required closing the pool for the day to dump untold amounts of toxic chemicals into the water to disinfect it. I'm sure tomorrow it will be like the pools used to be - back in my day - when you swam for an hour and then couldn't smell for a week due to the chlorine burns in your nostrils. Eh. The girls will be fine. Builds character.

No word on who the AFR offender is. I'm sure Laura will get the gossip at swim practice tomorrow about which little urchin accidentally doodied in the pool. If not, we could start a rumor I suppose.

And yes, I realize this is the first new information I've posted here in two weeks. Yup. Doody in the pool. Never a dull moment here in Castro Valley! You missed me didn't you?

MJ and Farrah??

2009-06-25T21:30:00.000-07:00

Wow two icons from my youth passing in one day - one from the 70's & one from the 80's. I have such clear memories of them being present / on TV all the time when I was young.

I LOVED Charlie's Angels - (who didn't?!). Man - Farrah's hair - we all wanted Farrah's hair, didn't we? And then later, much later, it became a joke to have a "Farrah doo" - but even then, who wouldn't have loved her hair? It's sad she had to suffer so long.

When I was really little I also LOVED the Jackson 5. I had their big album - "Do Re Me - it's easy as 1,2,3" Loved them! I wasn't so much of a Michael fan later (I must be the only person on the planet who didn't own the Thriller album) but I certainly always thought he had incredible talent. His is of course also a sad story, I can't even imagine what happened to him in his childhood to make such a lifetime quest out of transforming himself so completely from his roots, and to develop such inappropriate relationships/behaviors with children. I feel for his children and wonder who will take care of them.

These icons passing makes me feel OLD, and sad. I hugged the girls a little tighter today when I got home.

6 down, 44 to go....

2009-06-06T09:50:00.000-07:00

Timeline of Gay Marriage....(when they're actually available)

1. Massachusetts - Nov, 2003
2. Connecticut - Oct, 2008
3. California - May, 2008
~~3. California - Nov, 2008~~
3. Iowa - April, 2009
4. Vermont - Sept, 2009
5. Maine - Sept, 2009
6. New Hampshire - Jan, 2010

In case you can't keep track - you can always check whether you're allowed to gay marry - it's based on your present location.

No more Mr. Nice Gay

2009-05-27T17:37:00.000-07:00

This is such an excellent piece, such a great response to the horribly disappointing CA Supreme Court Decision yesterday. Read and share...

CA Supreme Court Decision coming...

2009-05-22T16:54:00.000-07:00

The CA Supreme Court today announced that it will issue a written opinion in three cases challenging the constitutionality of Proposition 8 on Tuesday, May 26. The opinion will be available at 10 a.m. here: http://www.courtinfo.ca.gov/opinions/

Gavin Newsom asked CA Supreme Court to delay announcement on Prop 8

2009-05-20T14:54:00.000-07:00

Isn't this interesting... it's from www.Towelroad.com, which I found through Twitter. I LOVE Twitter (and this site is a must-visit companion to Twitter).

Now the likely dates for the CA Supreme Court to release their decision are Tuesday, May 26 (because of the holiday), Thursday, May 28, or Monday, June 1.

Exclusive: SF Mayor Gavin Newsom Asked Court to Delay Prop 8 Ruling

Confidential sources close to San Francisco City Hall told Towleroad's Corey Johnson that the California Supreme Court was prepared to release its opinion on Proposition 8 tomorrow, but decided to delay the ruling after a call from Mayor Gavin Newsom.

Newsom"Newsom reached out to the Supreme Court and asked them to hold off releasing their decision so it did not coincide with the White Night riots," said our source.

As mentioned earlier, a ruling Thursday would have fallen on the 30th anniversary of the San Francisco riots, which were set off when the court handed down the most lenient decision possible (voluntary manslaughter) against Dan White for the murders of supervisor Harvey Milk and Mayor George Moscone. The ensuing riots in San Francisco on May 21, 1979 caused hundreds of thousands of dollars in damage.

I'm not feeling good about the fact that the Mayor is worried about riots.

Why gay marriage needs to be legal EVERYWHERE.

2009-05-19T20:03:00.000-07:00

Just read this. So incredibly sad and WRONG. Nothing else to say really.

California Supreme Court ruling on Prop 8 is likely to be announced on 5/21, 5/26, 5/28 or 6/1.

And this via Twitter...SFPD staging baracades in the Castro today - anticipating a ruling this week? Or just a big American Idol party?

You can get a text alert 24 hours in advance when the decision comes down. Click here for the NCLR to text you...

Total Chaos

2009-05-08T04:00:00.000-07:00

Vermont, Massachusetts, Iowa, New Hampshire, Maine, yeah, yeah…I’ll get to that AMAZING news about 5 states now enacting gay marriage eventually….but first….this!

The girls’ first swim team time trials and practice swim meet!

Don’t they look too cool for school!

Clearly we haven’t received the official uniform swimsuits yet…

Check out this fine backstroke form.

And I’m no expert, but that looks like a mighty fine butterfly for a 7 year old!

I have no idea how they did overall. Zoe took second in her heats in freestyle, butterfly and breaststroke (which looked exactly like her butterfly). Sophie…tried REALLY hard – and swam much faster than she ever has in practice. And she didn’t come in last! So there’s that. Perhaps it was the sundaes we promised them at the Ice Creamery this weekend if they tried their very best? Nah…couldn’t be.

Oh - and life lesson learned for future swim meets (and any other time) I will never buy a Little Ceaser's pizza again. OY - my stomach! :(

You say tomato, I say...

2009-05-06T23:39:00.000-07:00

Zoe: We're raising worms in our classroom!

Me: Worms?

Sophie: Yeah, and they're going to turn into butterflies!

Me: Oh, you mean caterpillars?

Zoe: Yeah, calla-pitters. That's what I said.

New Glasses

2009-04-29T07:52:00.000-07:00

We're home from vacation - more about that later. Right before we left, Zoe picked up her new Disney Princess glasses - check them out! She looks awesome!

Monsters vs. Aliens Part II

2009-04-15T20:00:00.000-07:00

Not to be outdone in legos, the Monsters vs. Aliens theme continues.

Reminder, here are the Real Monsters.

And here is the kids' version. B.O.B. and Insectosaurus are dead-on, aren't they? But just in case you couldn't identify them, at least the girls labeled them.

Monsters vs. Aliens

2009-04-14T20:00:00.000-07:00

I love my kids lego art - the girls are amazingly creative. I can't wait to get them to Legoland!

Here are their latest creations.

Have you seen Monsters vs. Aliens yet? If so, these will look familiar....

Movie creatures------------------>>>>

Lego versions. Here we have the full cast: Ginormica, B.O.B., Dr. Cockroach, Missing Link, and Insectosaurus. Proportionally sized too.

I have to admit, B.O.B. is my favorite.

Happy Easter!

2009-04-13T20:13:00.000-07:00

It's called a spa.

2009-04-10T19:26:00.000-07:00

Zoe: Why does that sign say Men's Warehouse?

Laura: Because that's the name of the store. They sell men's clothes.

Zoe: Only man clothes?

Laura: Yes, only man clothes.

Sophie: Well is there a Woman's Warehouse?

Laura: No, but there ought to be.

Sophie: Well that's not fair!

Zoe: Yeah! Since they don't have one for ladies, they should make a.....Fancy..... Ladies..... Relaxing...... Place! That's much better than a warehouse!

Yep, kid needs glasses

2009-04-09T20:10:00.000-07:00

At least she's got style too! Check out those stylish spec's she picked out!

Marcia, Marcia, Marcia!

2009-04-08T21:00:00.000-07:00

At the girls' last annual checkup, Zo failed the eye exam and the Dr. said she should see the Optometrist. Her appointment is tomorrow. She's been fine about it, including the possibility of needing glasses. Even said she pick out some cool ones with skulls on them. Until going to bed tonight when she suddenly got nervous about it.

"Glasses? I might really need glasses? Oh no!"

All I could think of was this Brady Bunch episode. Unfortunately I can't find the whole episode...

Gay Marriage Redux

2009-04-07T20:24:00.000-07:00

I want to repeat a quote from one of the articles on Iowa's ruling yesterday:

Iowa lawmakers have "excluded a historically disfavored class of persons from a supremely important civil institution without a constitutionally sufficient justification," the justices wrote.

To issue any other decision, the seven justices said, "would be an abdication of our constitutional duty."

I'm just so utterly pleased with how strong yet simple their stance was, really impressed. As in - FINALLY A COURT SAW THROUGH THE RELIGIOUS BS AND GOT IT RIGHT.

From Matt Cole's article on the Huffington Post I quote:

What sets the Iowa opinion apart is a passage near the end. After dealing with the arguments the state offered to justify the exclusion of same-sex couples, the Iowa Supreme Court addresses head-on what it says is the "unspoken" reason many support the exclusion: religious opposition.

The Court says that while many oppose marriage for religious reasons, religion cannot justify a law excluding gay people from marriage. "State government can have no religious views," the opinion says, "either directly or indirectly expressed through its legislation." "This proposition," the Court goes on to say, "is the essence of the separation of church and state."

That proposition ought to be obvious, but in the last 25 years, it seems almost to have disappeared from civic discourse in America. It took guts for the Iowa court to say what virtually no other government official has been willing to admit. By bluntly pointing out that religion has driven much of the debate, and reminding other courts and legislatures of their obligation not to enshrine religion in law, the Court gave a deeply practical rationale for insisting that marriage exclusions either be based on rigorous logic and evidence or be struck down. And it is that down-to-earth honesty that will, I believe, make this a deeply influential opinion.

And then today! Yippee, we followed Iowa with Vermont! Vermont is the first state to have the legislature legalize gay marriage vs. the judicial process. What a day! Perhaps (do I dare hope) soon we'll see a similar ruling in California? Three days in a row of good news would be most welcome!

And in other news - this amusing article: Rick Warren Lies About Prop 8 to Larry King

Are you kidding me?

2009-04-06T20:10:00.000-07:00

Laura and I can get married in Des Moines, but not in San Francisco. And all this time I thought we were living in the gay mecca of America. Turns out we were wrong. Apparently Cedar Rapids is the place we should have been living. Maybe we'll move and open a gay and lesbian B&B catering to wedding crowds. Go figure.

The dark side of energy conservation. Literally.

2009-04-02T16:28:00.000-07:00

For future reference, in the dark, Kid's Crest and regular Crest look exactly the same. They do NOT however taste the same. Fruit punch sparkle toothpaste? Not good.

Also for future reference - that container of carmel syrup in the back of the pantry that seems like a reasonable substitute on your vanilla ice cream when you run out of chocolate? Be forewarned - just because it's caramel colored, doesn't guarantee it's actually caramel. And note - sugar free maple pancake syrup, while surprising, is not entirely horrible poured over vanilla ice cream. Whew knew?

Updates

2009-03-31T23:37:00.000-07:00

There's been a lot going on for me at work lately. That's primarily the reason why I haven't posted much to this blog lately. I purposefully don't write about work here since it's a personal blog, and well, frankly I don't want to get dooced. Let's just sufice it to say that sometimes being part of management is infinitely harder than being part of the rank & file. Tough communications this week, tough discussions, tough changes going on. Tough to hold the team together through all of it, keep the focus and keep motivated. I can't wait for this week to be over.

And because all this was going on, it makes perfect sense that this would also be the week that Sophie got a stomach virus and puked all over my arm. And bed. And slippers. And bathmat and hallway rug. At midnight. And then again at 2 a.m. And 3:00. And again at 4:00. On the day that I needed to get up at 5:00 a.m. for meetings. Laura took over the 9 a.m. through 11 a.m. puke o'rama shifts.

And it's also the week that swim team practice starts. Of course.

Did I mention that I can't wait for this week to be over? Oh, and it's only Tuesday.

The good news is that although Soph is still sick, she's now keeping food down, so getting somewhat better. And at least Laura, Zoe and I haven't gotten it. Yet anyway. It is only Tuesday though.

leprechaun

2009-03-18T04:00:00.000-07:00

Yesterday Sophie was dressed in green from head to toe. This is of course entirely appropriate for a grade schooler on St. Patrick's day - you know, there's pinching and all if you don't.

I don't know why, but I nibbled on her finger.

Me: Hmmm. You don't taste like a leprechaun. You're not minty at all.

Sophie: Noooo. Leprechauns don't taste minty.

Me: They don't? What do they taste like?

Sophie: Chicken.

drobo

2009-03-17T04:00:00.000-07:00

Well, I went and did it. I bought a drobo - backup/storage robot to back up all of our photos and other files. I'm quite happy I did - I feel much more secure having redundant backups, especially of our photos. In addition to the drobo, I also bought a portable external hard drive to be used as an offsite archive. I intend to back up to that once per month and then store it offsite in a safe deposit box.

First lesson of the drobo - high speed USB 2.0 definitely makes a difference over regular USB. To be frank, I wasn't really aware that my iMac had both a high speed USB port, and a "regular" USB port. So, first question is why did they even put in USB 1.0 ports if 2.0 were available? The new iMacs have 4 USB 2.0 ports + 2 more on the keyboard, and 1 firewire400 and 1 firewire800 port. Serious envy.

Once I got all the geek-gear from Amazon, I made my first back up to the stand alone hard drive, and by luck, plugged that drive into the high speed USB port. The back up of 190GB of data took a couple of hours (4 maybe?). Then I set up the drobo, and started the same back up process to it. But I'd plugged the drobo into a regular USB port. I turned it on around 8:00 p.m., and by 8:00 the next morning it had only backed up 30GB onto the drobo! Clearly something was not as I'd expected. After checking all the manuals to ensure it would be OK, I paused the backup, put the drobo in standby mode, updated the drobo firmware, and then plugged it into the high speed USB port. And in 1 hour it's backed up twice as much as it completed in 12 hours on the "regular" USB port. So for future reference - high speed USB absolutely makes a difference over regular USB!

Next stop, Radio shack to see if I can get a proper cable to connect the drobo firewire800 port to the firewire400 port on my iMac. This is entirely feasible, I just need the right cable. Once I have that, then future backups should be even faster. The drobo came with a cable to connect from firewire800 to firewire800, and firewire800 didn't even exist when I bought my iMac, so it definitely doesn't have a port for it. Have I bored you to tears yet? Who's still reading? Raise your hand.

Anyway, I'll get some pictures of all this soon (cause one of you is still reading and cares....). Fun with technology.

Swim Team - is it summer yet?

2009-03-16T04:00:00.000-07:00

I signed the girls up for their Swim Team on Saturday - the Chabot Marlins! Looking forward to this, it's their first season. At least I think I'm looking forward to it! Laura's not thrilled about practice every single day; at least it's only 45 minutes for the kids in their age group. The girls are excited about being on a team with all their friends - it seems like half of their class from Kindergarten last year is on this team.

In addition to being on the team we joined the swim club too - which includes tennis courts and of course a nice pool. We're looking forward to spending a lot of time there this summer.

I think I'd better head off to Costco for industrial-sized tubes of sunblock!

The fight begins again...

2009-03-04T14:12:00.000-08:00

Tomorrow the California Supreme Court will begin hearing oral arguments to repeal Proposition 8. You'll remember my complete saga following this story.

Tonight, thousands of opponents of Prop 8 are gathering around California for a candlelight vigil.

Here we go again.

Album Covers

2009-03-03T04:00:00.000-08:00

Ok there's this new meme going around. I've seen it a couple of places now. Usually I skip these, but I like the idea of this one.

The idea is to make your fictional band's new fictional album cover, following these easy steps:

Go to “Wikipedia.” Hit “random” and the first article you get is the name of your band.
Then go to “Random Quotations” and the last four or five words of the very last quote of the page is the title of your first album.
Then, go to Flickr and click on “Explore the Last Seven Days” and the third picture, no matter what it is, will be your album cover.
Use Photoshop or some other image editor to add text & make it spiffy.
Post a link to your band's album cover here in the comments!

Somehow I don't think this is really going to be my album cover:

Taxes

2009-03-02T04:00:00.000-08:00

Tax time again. Every year I get a knot in my stomach doing my taxes.

It's not because I owe money. I usually work out my W-4 each year so I get a refund, so tax time doesn't result in dread of having to actually right a check, thank god. And it's not so much the paperwork, although it is a hassle to check, double check, and triple check everything, Turbo Tax allows me to wiz through it all fairly quickly.

No, what kills me about doing the taxes is in inequity of it for gay & lesbian couples. Fortunately for us, California actually treats our Registered Domestic Partnership as a marriage, and allows us to pay taxes as if we were a legally married couple. This is great, because it equals a larger refund, and is a huge benefit over living in a state that does not do this. However, in order to file this way in turbo tax, here's what I have to do:

Prepare and file Fed taxes as Single / Head of Household. Note refund amount, let's say it's $100
Save Fed taxes as a new file, and change settings to Married Filing Jointly.
Note new Federal Refund amount - if step 1 was $100, now it's $235!
Skip ahead to State Taxes, prepare & File State Taxes, all the while looking at that box labeled "Federal Refund = $235"

You see I don't get this larger refund amount. Oh no. I just get to look at at. I would get the larger refund if the Federal Government considered us married. But they don't. And so each year I pay a LOT more in taxes as a result. And let me tell you it's significantly more than my example amount of $135!

So I have to look at the larger amount the entire time I prepare my state taxes, grumbling the whole time about the injustice of it. There it is - Turbo Tax rubbing it in my face. And when I get to the end, Turbo Tax kindly offers to file this Federal return for me. "Would you like to have your non-existent almost 2.5 times larger refund direct deposited into your checking account in 8 days?" It mockingly asks me. Um, YEAH I WOULD. REALLY.

I am pleased that at least California's got it right, even if our marriages aren't legal, at least Registered Domestic Partners get some of the tax benefits of marriage. Nothing like being "kinda equal."

Hrmpf. I'm going back to my grumbling.

First Dances

2009-02-26T04:00:00.000-08:00

I'm sorry for the poor sound quality of this video, but I couldn't bring myself to dub over it with better quality song, or you'd miss the fine rhythm displayed here. Ah, my dancing beauties - they've got some moves, huh?

How is it that my tiny babies are old enough to be dancing at a school dance? I'm still stumped by this. What's up with dances in elementary school anyway? I never went to a dance in elementary school. Junior high marked my entry into the awkwardness that is school dances. When did they move them back to grade school??

The first time I remember really getting into a "dance" wasn't at school at all, it was going roller skating at the local roller rink. Roller Disco Skating that is. Rod Stewart - Do you think I'm sexy?, anything by the Bee Gees, Saturday Night by the Bay City Rollers - those were the fine songs we skated to. This was about a year before I discovered LA's growing punk & new wave scene on the radio and traded in all my Shaun Cassidy records for Wall of Voodoo, Missing Persons, the Go Go's, Police and David Bowie. But before all that, I loved roller disco! I had my own skates - made from Nike tennis shoes, and skated many junior-high Saturday nights away.

Wow just writing about this reminds me....I'm sure you remember the musical masterpiece by Olivia Newton John and ELO, Xanadu? (Yes, I did have that album too. And I watched the movie way more times than I'd like to admit. I'd like to think it was just because I thought Olivia Newton John was hot though, not because I was a total dork. In reality I'm sure it was a bit of both.) I'm pretty sure there are no pictures of me dressed for these skating evenings, and that is as it should be, because I'm certain that either leg warmers or suspenders (or both?? oh lord, please let there be no pictures!) were probably involved. But in case you've forgotten the glory of the 1980 roller disco mania, enjoy a refresher. Imagine, me, dressed as Olivia in the video (yeah, right).

You have to admit, Olivia Newton John was hot.

No, I didn't fall off the face of the earth....

2009-02-25T04:00:00.000-08:00

I'm still here, and everything is fine; thanks for asking! (Hi Mom! Hi Dad!)

Just been busy, busy, busy. Busy with work, busy playing video games on rainy Sundays, birthday parties, school dance, 100th day of school shirts (yes we had to draw 100 items on 2 shirts), and just general stuff.

Your regular programming will resume shortly. Thank you for your patience.

Public Service Announcement - Outlet Covers

2009-02-10T04:00:00.000-08:00

Last fall we had a "minor" electrical fire. It's time I finally posted about it here, because Laura's pretty tired of seeing the evidence laying around the office, waiting for me to take pictures of it. Plus, I feel obligated to share this so you can be aware of the potential danger.

Start with one, very well intentioned Safety Outlet Cover. Please ignore gross spots on safety outlet cover, it was after all in use for 6 years before it caused any trouble. And with twins, well, who could possibly be bothered to scrub spots off of outlet covers for goodness sake! Here's a link to a new one - not that I'm suggesting you buy one. Just so you can see what they look like clean.

We installed a couple of these around the house when the girls were little, to keep them from yanking plugs out of sockets, and from sticking things in the electrical sockets.

And then we plugged things in behind them, attached the protective cover, and forgot about them. For 6 years. Then one day last fall, we smelled smoke. Not enough smoke to set off the smoke detector, but enough so you could smell it. It smelled like burning dust, like the first time during the winter that you turn the heater on, only a little stronger. But we couldn't place it. The smell came & went, and although it was disturbing, we couldn't identify it's source.

Until one day, Laura bumped into this outlet safety cover, and jarred it loose. We thought since the girls were 6 now, I would probably be OK to remove the cover, so rather than try to tighten it, we removed the cover. And this is what we found behind it:

Apparently the power brick / transformer thing we'd plugged in behind this "safety" cover had come loose. The metal of the plug was resting on the plastic of the outlet, and every time we turned this particular light on, the metal got hot and started to melt the plastic and burn the dust, etc... that had settled in there.

Here's a shot of the offending power brick after the safety outlet had been replaced with a regular outlet. Amazingly, the power brick was completely undamaged.

I went ahead and hired an electrician to replace the outlet, because I was afraid there would be more extensive damage to the wires behind the outlet that I couldn't see. Fortunately there wasn't. So.... if you've got any of these types of covers in use anywhere in your house - I suggest checking them on a regular basis, and definitely NOT plugging any heavy brick-type plugs into them!

Moorish Idol

2009-02-06T04:00:00.000-08:00

I totally forgot to post this photo from the trip to the California Academy of Sciences. Lovely close up of a moorish idol, isn't it? So nice of Sophie to ad lib into the photo like that.

I'm not sure I've ever seen a fish with rabbit ears before. The kid was quick too, just whipped her hand in there at the last second as I was clicking the shutter. Going to have to keep an eye on that one.

Anyway, the moorish idol (yes, that's what the fish is called) is not to be confused with this "moreish" idol. "Moreish" being Kiwi for "I just can't get enough of...." You know - the things you shouldn't like - but can't help liking anyway? Ha ha, get it? Ok, yes, it is a bad pun. I'll stop while I'm behind.

A little bird told me...

2009-02-05T04:00:00.000-08:00

Conversation yesterday morning:

Me: I'm so tired this morning.

Zoe: Why?

Me: This crazy bird was singing outside my window. ALL. NIGHT. LONG. I thought birds needed to be quiet at night so cats and raccoons wouldn't find their nests. He NEVER stopped singing.

Zoe: He must have found his true love, and wanted to sing about it.

I now feel completely guilty for having homicidal (bird-o-cidal?) thoughts about that bird.

I'm a total geek

2009-02-04T04:00:00.000-08:00

Today's post is about blogging, and what a geek I am. I fully admit it. I embrace my inner geek. If you don't believe me, read on.

The two most exciting things I read today are 1) how to make an animated label cloud for this here blog, and how Drobo works. I realize most of your eyes just rolled back in your heads just now. Well maybe except Dad's (Hi Dad!). Sorry to geek out, but I have to share what I found.

First, I found this description on Blogger Buster of how to make the "label cloud" on my blog animated, and interactive. What is a label cloud you ask? Scroll down in my blog, check out down the right hand side. Not all the way down, about half way. Go ahead, I'll wait. See it? Down there below the Tweets and the Archieves? The Tag Cloud - the thing that's spinning around. It wasn't spinning yesterday. Today it is. Cool huh? Frankly I don't know the ~~coding~~ magic behind it, I just followed Amanda's instructions on how to modify the Widget, and voila, animated label cloud. Sweet.

What's the label cloud for anyway, you ask? Good question. Hover over it, give a spin, find a word you like and click on it, and it will display all of my posts on that topic. For instance if you click on India, you'll find all my posts from my trip last year. Or click on Tooth Fairy and find waaaaay too many pictures of kids' missing teeth. The only difference now is you have to catch the label in the spinning cloud. Trying to keep things interesting for you. You're welcome.

Second, I've been considering photo back up options for a long time now. (Well, if I must admit it, ever since I had that catastrophic hard drive failure a few years back, but we don't talk about that.) I have an external hard drive and daily, weekly and monthly automated back ups (Hi again Dad - thanks for the external drive!). But, and here's the thing, the hard drive on our mac and the external drive are filling up. They're not full yet - but with the rate we I take pictures, I can see this happening before too long. So once they're both full, then what? More external hard drives? How many more? And what about off site storage? The external drive will protect against my computer failing, but what if....the office floods, or something? Offsite storage is the key, right? Keep a monthly back up in another location. But that's hard too, you can't back everything up to DVD, besides DVD media is not full proof. I've been uploading photos to Flickr too, that's somewhat of a backup, but I'm certainly not going to load EVERY picture there.

So, I was really excited to read this post about how a prolific photographer, blogger, and geek handles his photos, back ups, and is planning for offsite archival as well. It's all about the Drobo baby. While I'm not excited about the prices, I agree that photos are literally price-less, so perhaps should just cough up some dough? This Drobo back up thing seems pretty slick, easy to use, easy to expand, and can be extended with an offsite version too. Pricy though.

As they say, there are 2 types of people, those who have lost data, and those who will...which do you want to be? Hmmm, I'll let you know what I decide.

That Bowl Holiday

2009-01-31T10:09:00.000-08:00

We've watched less and football as the girls have gotten older. You'd think it would be getting easier to occupy them with something long enough to watch a football game now and then, but for some reason, it just seems harder. As a result, I haven't watched a single game this year.

That doesn't stop us from being excited about SuperBowl. (Who's playing anyway?) And even the girls are excited about it. Why you ask, are the girls excited about it? Because around our house, SuperBowl is known as "That bowl holiday where we eat all the snacks."

Yep, that's what SuperBowl means to us, a holiday of junk food. A huge, plentiful array of artery-clogging snack foods.

To prep for this momentous holiday, Laura took the girls to Safeway to prepare. They stood in awe in the potato chip aisle. "We can have anything we WANT? REALLY??" Yup. For one day, all the snacks you can eat, and hot dogs for dinner too!

Happy Super Bowl!

California Academy of Science

2009-01-27T04:00:00.000-08:00

On Sunday the girls, Dad, Nancy, Alex and I went to the NEW! And IMPROVED! California Academy of Science in San Francisco. Our first successful trip since it reopened in September last year. I say successful, because Laura & the girls and I were turned away the week after Christmas because they were sold out! It’s an extremely popular place. We vowed not to come on a weekend or holiday again, but since Dad & Grandma Nancy offered to take us for the girls birthday, we decided to take our chances and brave it on a Sunday anyway. The crowds were very large, as expected, but we got in (thanks to pre-purchased tickets). And we only got a parking space because we arrived 30 minutes before the museum even opened. Laura didn’t feel well and stayed home, and probably would have felt worse in the tight crowds. At times we felt a bit like, well, sardines.

It was truly amazing though; thanks Dad & Grandma Nancy for taking us!
The new aquarium exhibits were spectacular and huge.

The 3 story rainforest exhibit was amazing too, and none of these photos do it justice.

That big fish there…is at least 3 feet long.

The whole rainforest is covered in these skylights.

Here’s a particularly fine photo:
That butterfly is bigger than my hand. Or Sophie's head. Practically. Well, almost.

Another finely composed and focused shot, don't you think? Yes, that poison dart frog is so easy to see, isn't it? Unlike the butterfly, this frog was smaller than...well, smaller than most butterflies.

Touring just the rainforest takes at least 30 minutes, and it’s probably at least 85-90 degrees inside and, as you would imagine, incredibly humid. Of course it was 40 degrees outside where we waited in line before the museum opened, so we were a little overdressed for rainforest weather and started to wilt by the end of it. As demonstrated here:

And yes, that is an official seven-year-old eye roll by Zoe. ENOUGH with the pictures Mama! I’m melting!!

All in all, a terrific Sunday; I look forward to going back to the museum many more times!

Tooth Fairy, AGAIN?

2009-01-26T23:14:00.000-08:00

Dear Tooth Fairy –

I’ve got an extra room if you want to just move in for the next year or two. I’m just saying, because you drop by so often, it must be exhausting, all that flying, carrying teeth, carrying all that money around. What do you do with all the teeth by the way? My kids want to know, as we discussed extensively here.

Anyway, let me know if you want me to make up a shoe box or something for you to sleep in one night. On second thought, that might be a little creepy.

Nevermind.

Love,
Stacey

Before:

After:

Perhaps the Tooth Fairy is getting a little old?

Every once in a while I feel like I have this motherhood thing figured out

2009-01-21T04:00:00.000-08:00

Have you ever tried to feed Sophie lunch? Since almost all my readership is made up of family members, I'll take that as a yes from most of you. And for those who haven't...well, trust me, it isn't fun. The kid eats 4 things:

tuna,
fish sticks,
chicken nuggets
plain pasta

I call it the beige diet. Well OK, maybe it's a little exageration, she also eats

soup,
bean (only bean, no cheese) burritos,
hot dogs,
french fries
cheese pizza (the only time she'll eat cheese at all)
and...and...and nothing, that's the end of the list.

OK, what is wrong with this list in terms of school lunches? 8 of the 9 items on her list taste like crap cold. Seriously, I don't even blame her here, cold fish sticks? Ewww. And the ONLY item that is good cold you can't feed a kid every day cause of the mercury content. (Yes, that would be the tuna.)

So, what's a mom to do? Buy her lunch tickets and let her buy a hot lunch that's what. But that can only go on so long. I know she only eats the cheese pizza, and has no veggies or fruit whatsoever. So I've been searching for a satisfactory lunch box meal. PB&J? Nope. Kid likes neither peanut butter nor jelly. Lunch meat sandwich? Nope, won't eat them. Cold pizza? Nope.

But a week ago I had a genius idea. What if I shredded up cooked chicken, really small, mixed it with mayonaise, and called it tuna? What if?? So I tried it. And you know what? She LIKED it! Miracle! TAAAAADAAAAAA! Ding, Ding, Ding, little Mommy bells go off. And to top it off, Zoe likes it too!! A double winner!!!

So for the next 10 years I'll be making Sophie chicken salad sandwiches (in pita bread mind you, she doesn't like any regular bread, except for the end/crust pieces, weird) and calling them tuna pita sandwiches. And I'll wink at Zoe, and she'll know what she's really having.

And someday Sophie will read this and say, YOU LIED?? About my sandwiches???? And I'll fess up and say, "YEP! But I prefer to call it creative parenting."

Finally

2009-01-20T04:00:00.000-08:00

YES WE DID.

I'm so thrilled today has finally come, I don't have anything more to write.

Well, except this -

Get to work!

Thank you Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

2009-01-19T04:00:00.000-08:00

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.

I believe that tomorrow's inauguration of Barak Obama as the 44th President of the United States of America is evidence that we are living Dr. King's dream. Not in all places, at all times, and in all instances, and there is progress to be made, certainly. But in the 45 years since Dr. King spoke those words, what a remarkable change. Barak Obama's parents couldn't get married in 19 states when Dr. King spoke those words. Tomorrow he will be the President of our nation. This revolution is due in large part to Dr. King's actions, words, and dedicated life, and to those he inspired to continue his work. So for that, thank you Dr. King, thank you.

Now, how long before gays and lesbians can get married in all 50 states? How much longer after that before a gay man or lesbian woman is in the White House? I expect to see the first in my lifetime, but I don't know about the second. Will my children see that milestone?

I have a dream that all grown gay and lesbian children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by who they love, but by the content of their character.

And I hope that the nation is the USA.

We may have to move

2009-01-17T11:42:00.000-08:00

I can't describe how happy on the successful landing of Flight 1549, and at the pending inauguration. I'm thrilled that 2009 is starting off on such high and hopeful notes!

I do have to share this EXTREMELY ALARMING story however. To me, it is the most horrific news of 2009 so far. Continue reading if you dare, but I warn you, it's extremely disturbing and includes a photo. Taken from the Castro Valley Forum website:

Unusual 8-Legged Visitor Pays Visit to CV Family Christmas Eve
By : Robert Souza : 1/6/09

After home returning from Neighborhood Church on Christmas Eve, Steve George and his family had an unexpected visitor. But it wasn’t Santa Claus.

“We took a few blankets with us and when we returned, my wife unfolded one of them and felt something underneath,” George told The Forum. “It was a pretty good sized spider, and pretty unusual to see a spider that size around here.”

Thinking on his feet, George trapped the spider with a plastic cup, and did some arachnid homework on the Internet.

Known as Zoropsis spinimana, the spider George caught is a native of Northern Africa and the Mediterranean coastal countries. Males of the species reach a length of about 10 mm while females can reach up to 15 mm.

Like most zoropsid cribellate (spiders that spin a wooly-appearing tangled mass of finer threads instead of a single sticky-thread strand), spinimana is a wandering spider that does not build a web, but hunts freely with a unique arrangement of two rows of eyes that are more equal in size than other spiders.

“Each time we get a range extension is exciting for us,” said expert Darrell Ubick of the California Academy of Sciences, Ubick has been studying the spider’s migration and how the species has been settling in the Bay Area for the past 10 years.

This was the first sighting in Castro Valley. So far, Zoropsis spinimana has been encountered in Oakland, North Berkeley, San Mateo and San Francisco, since its arrival the U.S. in 1995.

Ubick believes it probably traveled to the Bay Area with a furniture shipment or in a vacationer’s suitcase. The Zoropsis spinimana appears to be harmless and is normally found under rocks and bark on forest perimeters, where it hunts for prey during the night. Since the spider cannot survive in harsh climates, human houses where temperatures are moderate and food crumbs can be readily found are preferred.

OMG did you read that last line???? Here is the horrifying picture!

AAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRHHHHHHHHHH.

Honey, call the movers.

Happy Birthday Sophie! Happy Birthday Zoe!

2009-01-13T23:41:00.000-08:00

Happy, Happy, Happy

7th Birthday!!!

Happy Birthday Sophie!!

Happy Birthday Zoe!!!

Busy, busy, busy

2009-01-12T22:32:00.000-08:00

Turns out that getting ready for double 7 year old birthday party trumps scanning dozens of photos and making slide shows....I hope to resume slide shows after their birthday. Stay tuned...

2003 A Year of Double Diaper Duty (Doody?) in Review

2009-01-08T22:14:00.000-08:00

I am highlighting each of the girls 7 years in the seven days leading up to their 7th birthday. Today's highlights are from 2003, in which our little darlings are 1 year old, learn to walk (14 months for Zoe, 16 for Sophie!) and get into all kinds of mischief. Sophie starts turning everything she finds into a hat. Zoe calls Sophie "Sosie" and Sophie calls her sister ZoEEEEEEEE.

This was also the year where we became the parents of twin toddlers, not twin babies. We experienced the challenges of two toddlers. Like chasing Sophie through the park and swooping her in the air, only to have her slip out of Laura's hands and crash on the cement. But wait! As if we didn't already feel like the world's worst parents, while we were checking Sophie for damage, Zoe climbed onto the bench next to us and decided to nose dive off the bench for fun. We left the park quickly before someone called Child Protective Services on us. Sophie was fine but Zoe had to get a CAT scan from that little adventure.

Oh then Halloween. First trick-or-treating ever, at my office. Great fun. The next day Zoe shoved a mini M&M up her nose. Another trip to the hospital for her...again, she was fine, of course. But it was a busy year chasing babies! Enjoy the pictures!

Welcome to 2009! Let's Review 2002....

2009-01-07T23:56:00.001-08:00

Ok, so 7 days in 2009 and this is my first post of the year. What's up you ask? Well, just a little thing called the birthday month. 6 weeks early those little girls arrived, making me have to deal with their birthday a mere 20 days after Christmas. Who's got time to take down the tree, the lights, the decorations, AND assemble 4294 Lego pieces into various Star Wars ships, AND plan a birthday party, AND go to work, oh yeah, and keep up this here blog? Not me, that's who.

Now we're down to 7 days to their birthday, 7 days to their 7th birthday...so I thought I'd count down to number seven. So following is Year 1 in pictures - can you believe they weighed only 4 lbs each? It seems like just a minute ago.

Indiana Jones & the Alligator Temple

2008-12-29T17:08:00.000-08:00

3 hours of extreme, focused, and highly serious Lego construction - condensed to one minute and 22 seconds for your viewing pleasure. It's just like you were here.

And we only have 9 more Lego sets to build. Oy. Good thing I took the week off.

Merry Christmas!

Are you there Santa?

2008-12-24T08:47:00.000-08:00

Dear Santa,

I know you're really busy today, but I felt compelled to write. First of all, my whole family really appreciates that you and your helpers take the time to write back to little children who send you their wish lists. We know that with all the toy building, wrapping, merry making, and reindeer care-taking, you and your staff are awfully busy. Which is why you must have hired some new elves this year to help with the letter writing.

That's what I wanted to write you about, to let you know that you have a little bit of a quality control problem in the letter writing department. I'm guessing that you have some new helper elves, or perhaps a new Letter Department Supervisor there? In any case, someone there at the North Pole is letting quality slip just a little bit. I've enclosed a copy of the letter my daughter (that's daughter, not son) Zoe received this week, for your reference.

First there was the mistake of confusing Zoe for a boy. We thought, OK, the elves mixed up and sent us somebody else's letter. Perhaps there is a little boy named Zoe out there. But we continued reading, and Santa, I'm sorry to say, but my first graders spell better than this elf. Tryed? Helfers? We knew it was serious when he spelled your name wrong.

I was certain you would want to be informed of this very unusual and uncharacteristic slip in quality at the North Pole. I'm sure you'll be doing some letter-writing and spelling skills-building workshops in the new year for your new staff.

You must already be on top of the situation though, because later the same day, we received the real letter you sent, special late delivery by the post office too, that was a nice touch. Zoe was VERY relieved to get the real letter from you, thanks for following up.

As always, the cookies and carrots will be out tonight for you and Rudolph. Travel safely, and Merry Christmas!!!

Love,

Stacey

On the Third Day of Christmas, My True Love Called to Me....

2008-12-23T07:09:00.000-08:00

"We've got 3 stopped up sinks, 2 sick kids, and a bro-ken washing machine!"

I kid you not, she actually called me to say that. And well, to be precise, it was 6 days before Christmas. When does the 12 days of Christmas start anyway? 12 days before? 12 days starting on Christmas? I suppose I could just google that and find out, huh?

Anyway. 6 days before Christmas and the washing machine gives up the ghost 20 minutes after 3 sinks completely backed up. Oh. Goody. Surprisingly, none of these contraptions spilled a drop of water on the floor, so I suppose that's the silver lining. But let me tell you, on the Friday night before Christmas, the last thing you want to be doing is shopping for new washing machine. Ugh. I mean double ugh. I'm trying to avoid the mall as it is. Appliance shopping during this madness? PLEASE NO.

So Friday night I get on these here interwebs, sign up for a month's subscription to Consumer Reports, and quickly identify a suitable washing machine that won't break the bank. Then I go shopping for it online. Home Depot has it. They can deliver it too. As soon as NEW YEARS EVE. Or, alternatively, I could pick it up in the store in as little as 19 days. Um, who's got that much underwear that they can go 19 days without a washing machine? Not ME, that's who. So I call Lowe's. Not only do they have it, they take my order over the phone quickly and efficiently, with no excessive hold times, they even call me back twice, and each time within 5 minutes. Everyone on the phone is knowledgeable, efficient, and pleasant. And the only reason I'm writing that is because it is so unusual, which of course, it shouldn't be. To top it off they can have it delivered on SUNDAY. The Sunday before Christmas. And I called them at 7 p.m. on Friday night. Isn't that incredible?? So we have a new washer.

On to the plumbing. I call a local guy - big shout out to Dennis at Turbo Plumbing! I'd give him a link, but he doesn't seem to have a web page. Too busy plumbing I guess. I called Dennis at 7 p.m. too, got his answering service. He called me back within 10 minutes and said although he hadn't planned to work on Saturday, he would. And he came at 10:00 the next morning. Now he did show up first at our neighbor's house up the street. Our lesbian neighbors. Those lesbian couples on our street they all look the same. But Amy redirected him, and he came, snaked out the drains, installed a new cleanout, and left. Great guy, Dennis is. If you need a plumber in Castro Valley, he's your guy. (Don't know what it cost yet....he hasn't sent the bill yet.)

Washing machine - check. Stopped up sinks - check. Sick kids - 2 doses of children's Nyquil - and off to bed with you! Check.

Time for some spiked eggnog for the mommies!

Happy Christmas!!

Lows and Highs

2008-12-20T11:31:00.000-08:00

On Election day my complete elation at Obama's election was tempered by the overwhelming, crushing defeat that was Prop 8. This protester captured my feelings exactly.

Since the election I was reconciling with the defeat, happy at least that the decision would be fast tracked and go to court as early as March.

But then. Obama picked Rick Warren to give the inauguration blessing. Rick Warren. He actively campaigned FOR Prop 8. But it's not JUST that. Warren, in an interview with Beliefnet.com, has since equated allowing loving same-sex couples to get married with redefining marriage to permit incest and pedophilia. And now President-Elect Obama, MY President, who purportedly supports gay rights, has given this guy a national platform from which to preach.

Now I'm all for the "let's disagree, agreeably" approach. I get it. I get holding conversations with people you disagree with. If you don't communicate, how can you ever change? But. But - he could have done that in a less prominent way rather than at the inauguration. AND he needs to make a strong statement on Civil Rights. Gay Marriage is the THE Civil Rights Issue of our time. It is critical that he address it, and address it well. With leadership and courage; not baby steps. Check out this post which states it so well. SIGH.

BUT WAIT. THERE'S MORE. Ken Starr - KEN STARR - becomes the attorney for the Yes on 8 people AND petitions the court to OVERTURN the 18,000 gay and lesbian marriages that took place this summer. UGH. I'd love to crawl under a rock until President Obama takes office, but then, oh wait, yes, there's that Rick Warren at the inauguration issue again. AAAAAARGHHHH.

I didn't even want to write about any of this because I was feeling so disappointed by it all. But then....THERE'S MORE. Gavin Newsom is a personal hero for me because of the courage, foresight and leadership he showed in 2004 in enabling gay and lesbian weddings in San Francisco in the first place. He just said "this isn't right" and made it happen. Well, I have a new hero today. Jerry Brown, who initially said that as Attorney General of California he would support the law if the voters passed it, on Friday stated that he and his staff have determined they CANNOT support this law, and have ASKED THE CA SUPREME COURT TO OVERTURN IT. Taken from AP below....

"Proposition 8 must be invalidated because the amendment process cannot be used to extinguish fundamental constitutional rights without compelling justification," Brown said.

The authors of the state Constitution, he said, did not intend "to put a group's right to enjoy liberty to a popular vote."

"It became evident that the Article 1 provision guaranteeing basic liberty, which includes the right to marry, took precedence over the initiative," he said in an interview Friday night. "Based on my duty to defend the law and the entire Constitution, I concluded the court should protect the right to marry even in the face of the 52 percent vote."

Asked about his change of position, Brown said Friday evening that since his initial comments the day after the election, he and senior lawyers in his office had looked closely at the court's precedents and at the recent marriage ruling and concluded they couldn't defend Prop. 8.

"We have a conflict between the amendment power (through voter initiatives) and the duty of the Supreme Court to protect minorities and safeguard liberty," Brown said.

Fundamental rights in the state Constitution, including the right to marry that the state's high court has recognized, "become a dead letter if they can just be amended" by popular vote, Brown said.

EXACTLY what we have all been saying. So YEAH Jerry Brown! You've pulled me out of the political doldrums! Thank you for doing what's right and for showing leadership on a Civil Rights Issue. Hopefully President Obama will take notice.

Dear Sophie

2008-12-17T04:00:00.000-08:00

Whoa. That's COOL. I am quite certain that I never received a personal letter from Santa as a kid. This is of course in response to Sophie's letter to Santa.

Last year Zoe got a printed letter from one of Santa's elves; but this, this is the man himself.

You've got to hand it to him; Santa is GOOD. Sophie is SOOOO holding it over her sister that she got a personal letter from Santa, and that he has something special just for her in his sack.

And wow am I wishing I hadn't let them mail their letters to Santa a week apart. Cause, um, what if Santa gets busy and doesn't have time to answer any more letters? Or if say, Santa's handwriting or stationary changes? Or if the elves write back instead? Or if no one writes back?

Note to self: force children to mail Santa letters together forever more.

AGAIN with the Tooth Fairy!

2008-12-16T04:00:00.000-08:00

This is getting ridiculous!

This one's a little graphic. And it's quite surprising that Sophie's smiling so much considering her fear of blood. We told her it was bleeding, and she didn't care. Looking forward to the Tooth Fairy loot I think.

Tooth Fairy redux

2008-12-11T04:00:00.000-08:00

Ok, this Tooth Fairy business is getting serious. It's hard to keep up. I missed posting about the last two visits, which took place in October and then the night before Thanksgiving. Zoe's last tooth involved much hand wringing, sobbing, tears, cries to "Pull it out! No don't!" all in one breath. And that was just me. You should have seen Zoe. The Tooth Fairy must have known, because she left 2 gold dollars this time, instead of the usual 1. Or perhaps she's just adjusting for inflation?

Because I know you want a play by play of this exciting action, here's what you missed.

We called her Snaggletooth.

And now, sans tooth.

First front tooth missing.

And here's "after" number two. The night before Thanksgiving.

What a smile.

Ok Mama, I'm tired of showing you my teeth now. Leave me alone.

Just one more, k?

Dear Santa I bin reely good

2008-12-10T04:00:00.001-08:00

Dear Santa,

If you hear of any really good sales on Star Wars Legos or Indiana Jones Legos (or Spongebob or Castle or any other Lego sets) - could you let me know?

P.S. I been really, really good too.

Love,

Stacey

Can't Slep

2008-12-09T04:00:00.000-08:00

Sophie couldn't sleep the other night. I came home late from work, she'd been in bed for a while, but kept getting up saying she couldn't sleep. We kept sending her back to bed. Lather, rinse, repeat a half dozen times. She was getting more and more upset. Finally we caved and let her sleep in our bed, where she continued to cry and whine for a while more. When we finally came to bed, this is what we found there.

A note.

Notice her fine spelling skills.

The note was right next to this.

Yard work

2008-12-08T04:00:00.001-08:00

Ok, so maybe the mushrooms on my lawn weren't exactly the size of dinner plates. Or maybe that one disappeared....I SWEAR there was a huge one there last week. Anyway, I finally decided to get out in the back yard and do some much needed maintenance. So here are the mushrooms from my lawn (you know you wanted to see them).

This photo right here - it gives me the willies just looking at it. Blech! And no, that is NOT my hand. I made Laura get rid of them.

Ok, so then I took a larger look at the lawn. Did I say lawn? I meant enormous bed of pine needles and oxalis weeds.

So I mowed it. I'm pretty sure that the last time I mowed the lawn was the week before Halloween. Is that bad? Oh well. Looks better now, doesn't it? (Please ignore the long extension cord that I couldn't be bothered to remove from the lawn before taking this photo.)

Now, on to other things. Remember this tree?

This is what it looks like now. #$*&! tree. And no, it did not drop all those leaves into that nice neat little pile. That pile came a price. The price of "I'll let you have 2 Oreos each if you sweep up those leaves for me."

But the kicker is that the tree is no where NEAR done dropping those leaves; it still looks like this.

Well, technically there are 2 trees in that picture, but still. I'm going to have to buy another bag of Oreos to keep up with this mess.

Oh and cleaning up those leaves and getting rid of them...wait, did someone say it's 5:00? Cocktail hour? Excuse me, I have to go inside. New Belgium Brewery's newest brew is waiting for me in the kitchen. Have you tried Trippel (pronounced Triple)? It's goooooood. The leaves will have to wait.

Prop 8 the Musical

2008-12-06T11:45:00.000-08:00

I know, you thought I was done posting about Prop. 8. I had to share this though.

See more Jack Black videos at Funny or Die

Dear Santa

2008-12-04T07:52:00.000-08:00

I did my best to darken this up so you could read it. But in case you can't make it out:

Santa can I Ples have this.

from Sophie

I bin good. Mac Sur you mac it big.

Trust me Sophie, he will make it big.

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas

2008-12-03T04:00:00.000-08:00

Traditionally we bust out the Christmas decorations on the day after Thanksgiving. With the Christmas decorations come the Christmas toys. Special toys that are only out until just after New Year, and then get tucked away again until next year.

Last year, with the girls off for their first ever Thanksgiving week holiday, we decided to break out the toys early, so they could play with them while they were home from school. So now we have a new tradition.

I think it's a toss up who really likes these toys most, me or the girls. My next most favorite is the Playmobil nativity set, which inevitably ends up merging with these. What, you don't have an Abominable Snow Beast or Rudolph in your nativity scene?

Who says we don't have seasons in California?

2008-12-02T04:00:00.000-08:00

Thanksgiving has come and gone, as has the turkey, and nearly all of the post-Thanksgiving turkey soup too. (Don't ask how I managed yet another party at my house with no photographic evidence - perhaps it was all my bar-tending that kept me distracted?) Anyway, Fall is full swing in my backyard - meaning the big tree in the picture (someone told me it's a pepper tree?) has turned completely red, then yellow, and is now dropping leaves all over the backyard.

The girls took it upon themselves to sweep them up on Sunday. And then of course jumped in them, scattering them all over the yard again.

However, I'm not nearly as concerned about that as I am about the dinner-plate-sized mushroom growing in the middle of my lawn. Eww. Ick. It's been raining a little, once every 3 days or so. Just enough to keep the lawn too wet to mow down the giant fungus. Which I suppose is probably the exact wrong way to take care of it, as I'm sure it would scatter fungus spores all over the lawn. But if any of you know how I feel about mushrooms (and I'm sure many of you do...) you'll know that I'm not coming any closer to that huge monstrosity than getting behind the lawn mower. Maybe I could handle a shovel. Maybe. Perhaps tomorrow morning I'll use my telephoto lens from the deck and take a picture of it to show you exactly how gross it is.

I know you're looking forward to that aren't you?

What makes a girl a girl...

2008-11-24T04:00:00.000-08:00

Sophie: Mama, you know how girls can drive straight with their knees, and no hands?

Me: Yeah....

Sophie: Can boys do that?

Me: Yes. Girls and boys can pretty much do all the same things.

Sophie: Except girls are tougher than boys.

Me: Yes. Yes they are.

Sophie: There are just three things that make girls and boys different.

Me: Oh yeah, what are they?

Sophie: One, girls are tougher than boys. Second, their privates are different. And third, one is a girl and the other is a boy. See, three things.

Me: Yes, exactly right.

Solution to GM's Financial Crisis

2008-11-19T04:00:00.000-08:00

I don't claim to know anything about GM's financial crisis, but I do have a question. First some background reading. From GM's 3rd quarter earnings announcement:

GM reported a net loss of $2.5 billion or $4.45 per share for the third quarter, blah blah blah.... reflecting dramatic sales declines across the industry driven by unstable market conditions, instability in the credit markets and dramatic retraction in consumer demand, blah blah blah....

Then, this from Chevron's 3rd quarter earnings announcement:

HOUSTON (AP) -- Chevron Corp. said Friday its third-quarter profit more
than doubled on the back of record crude prices, blah, blah, blah.... The San Ramon, Calif.-based company, the second-largest U.S. oil company, said it made $7.89 billion, or $3.85 a share, in the three months ended Sept. 30, blah, blah, blah.... Revenue shot up 43% to $78.87 billion from $55.2 billion.

So, um Congress....how about Chevron bails out GM? Since GM won't really make any hybrid cars, it seems only right. Oh yeah I know they make a hybrid Chevy Tahoe. It gets an amazing 21 MPG and can be yours for only $54,000. I can't imagine why it's not competing with the Prius (48 MPG, and $21,000 base cost).

Since GM is reliant on Chevron's output...it seems only right that Chevron use it's unprecedented profits to keep GM in business. What do you think?

Pictures from the National Prop 8 Protest (11/15/08), Oakland Style

2008-11-18T04:00:00.000-08:00

The Oakland protest was smaller than I expected, probably 400-500 people, but with the kids in tow, that was fine - I don't think they could have handled the crowd of thousands in SF. Plus with such a small crowd, it was actually very personal. Two of the protest's organizers personally thanked us for coming to Oakland vs. SF. As one said, "You know San Francisco is going to be fine - but we need to make a showing here too."

We wore our custom-made "Castro Valley parent voting no on Prop 8" shirts, and no less than 5 people came up to us and thanked us for being there, and for wearing the shirts. They were either CV residents themselves, or former residents, or had gay or lesbian friends from CV, and were happy to see us.

The girls held up well, despite having just finished a soccer game at the completely unreasonable time of 8:30 a.m. on a Saturday morning. The heat was hard though, it was easily in the 80's on Saturday, a little hot for marching and standing around.

I was so impressed with the creativity of the protesters, and their home made signs. Below are some of my favorite shots from the protest. Enjoy.

Feeling a bit better...

2008-11-14T04:00:00.000-08:00

">This writer said it so much better than I did. Her post gave me hope, and made me feel better, which is a big deal since the election.

And then yesterday she added this. Ahhh, deep breath. Feeling better.

I'm really looking forward to the protests on Saturday too. Much more so than soccer at 8:30 on Saturday morning. Blech. At least it's the last game of the season - yea! And Sophie will be playing goalie for the first, and probably last time (she hates soccer).

Please join us on Saturday if you can!

%$&*! Prop 8

2008-11-13T04:00:00.000-08:00

Just in case you don't yet know how Laura & I feel about Prop 8...well a picture is worth a thousand words, right?

Yep, that's our wedding rings on our middle fingers. The picture is in response to her post about how she feels about Prop 8, and her request to share pictures.

So if our picture is worth a thousand words, then the 143 pictures on her site are worth 143,000 words. All of them saying "Fuck Prop 8!" 143,000 times!

Join the impact! National Protest on Saturday in 80+ cities - join us to protest hate!

“To sin by silence when they should protest makes cowards of men."

2008-11-12T04:00:00.000-08:00

The Prop 8 Fight is not over people!

NOW is the time to mobilize! Well, specifically, this Saturday is the time to mobilize. But you must spread the word NOW!

Saturday, November 15th - the biggest national protest in our country's history will be taking place in 80+ cities, in ALL 50 states simultaneously! Some international locations are participating as well.

Over a million visitors have hit the site www.jointheimpact.com since it was launched just 6 days ago.

10:30AM West Coast
11:30AM Mountain
12:30PM Central
1:30PM East Coast

If you are local to me, the closest protest will be at Oakland City Hall: 1 Frank H. Ogawa Plaza, Oakland, CA @ 10:30 AM. More info available on Facebook, or by clicking the links above.

If you haven't seen it already, watch this moving piece by Keith Olbermann. He says it so much better than I can. Then decide if you can give up a few hours on Saturday to stand with us.

Will you join us on Saturday, where ever you are, and stand up for equal rights? Will you spread the word for others to join us?

“To sin by silence when they should protest makes cowards of men.” - Abraham Lincoln

“All, too, will bear in mind this sacred principle, that though the will of the majority is in all cases to prevail, that will, to be rightful, must be reasonable; that the minority possess their equal rights, which equal laws must protect, and to violate would be oppression.” - Thomas Jefferson

"Democracy is not the law of the majority but the protection of the minority." - Albert Camus

"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." - Benjamin Franklin

"Give to every human being every right that you claim for yourself." - Robert Ingersoll

Truck Drivers

2008-11-11T04:00:00.000-08:00

On the way home from work I passed an 18 wheeler with a handmade sign on the back of it. Curious, I drew closer to read the sign. It read:

Ladies, Ladies, Ladies -
It's a long and lonely road
Be a flirt!
Unbutton your shirt!

"B" cups rock!

Ewwww. And ick. As I passed the driver I could see him waving at me, he must have seen me slowing to read the sign.

So I showed him what I thought of his sign, and gave him a look at my anatomy. A loooooong look.

At my middle finger.

By the way, I won the Potluck competition...

2008-11-10T07:45:00.000-08:00

with the award for "Most Gross Dish!"

But, uhhhhh not too many people tried the cake. Here's how much came home with me. Not even my kids, who helped make it, would try it. Oh well, I made it for looks.
Here's the proof.
How will I top it next year???

I know how to really "protect" straight marriage from the heinous threat of gay & lesbian weddings.

2008-11-07T04:00:00.000-08:00

It's a simple plan really. If the "protect marriage" folks really want to preserve straight marriages and prevent gays from marrying, they should have written a different proposition.

They should have proposed that we issue one marriage license to a gay or lesbian couple for every straight couple that divorces in California. One straight divorce = one gay or lesbian wedding.

Want to stop the gays from marrying? No problem! As long as the straight folks focus on their own marriages enough to keep them together - no gay weddings. But, if you screw it up and get divorced, then Bam! another gay couple is getting registered at Crate & Barrel for their spring nuptials. And it's All. Your. Fault.

That ought to keep the gays out of the chapel AND the straights out of divorce court. Win/Win, right?

Maybe I'll email that idea to the Catholic & Mormon churches.

You've got to love the ACLU

2008-11-06T04:00:00.000-08:00

Here's the most promising input on the Prop 8 issue that I've read. The good news is that there is precedent for this type of argument succeeding. The bad news is that this issue is going back to court, again.

Legal Groups File Lawsuit Challenging Proposition 8, Should It Pass (11/5/2008)

SAN FRANCISCO – The American Civil Liberties Union, Lambda Legal and the National Center for Lesbian Rights filed a writ petition before the California Supreme Court today urging the court to invalidate Proposition 8 if it passes. The petition charges that Proposition 8 is invalid because the initiative process was improperly used in an attempt to undo the constitution's core commitment to equality for everyone by eliminating a fundamental right from just one group – lesbian and gay Californians. Proposition 8 also improperly attempts to prevent the courts from exercising their essential constitutional role of protecting the equal protection rights of minorities. According to the California Constitution, such radical changes to the organizing principles of state government cannot be made by simple majority vote through the initiative process, but instead must, at a minimum, go through the state legislature first.

The California Constitution itself sets out two ways to alter the document that sets the most basic rules about how state government works. Through the initiative process, voters can make relatively small changes to the constitution. But any measure that would change the underlying principles of the constitution must first be approved by the legislature before being submitted to the voters. That didn't happen with Proposition 8, and that's why it's invalid.

"If the voters approved an initiative that took the right to free speech away from women, but not from men, everyone would agree that such a measure conflicts with the basic ideals of equality enshrined in our constitution. Proposition 8 suffers from the same flaw – it removes a protected constitutional right – here, the right to marry – not from all Californians, but just from one group of us," said Jenny Pizer, a staff attorney with Lambda Legal. "That's too big a change in the principles of our constitution to be made just by a bare majority of voters."

"A major purpose of the constitution is to protect minorities from majorities. Because changing that principle is a fundamental change to the organizing principles of the constitution itself, only the legislature can initiate such revisions to the constitution," added Elizabeth Gill, a staff attorney with the ACLU of Northern California.

The groups filed the lawsuit today in the California Supreme Court on behalf of Equality California and 6 same-sex couples who did not marry before Tuesday's election but would like to be able to marry now.

The groups filed a writ petition in the California Supreme Court before the elections presenting similar arguments because they believed the initiative should not have appeared on the ballot, but the court dismissed that petition without addressing its merits. That earlier order is not precedent here.

"Historically, courts are reluctant to get involved in disputes if they can avoid doing so," said Shannon Minter, Legal Director of NCLR. "It is not uncommon for the court to wait to see what happens at the polls before considering these legal arguments. However, now that Proposition 8 may pass, the courts will have to weigh in and we believe they will agree that Proposition 8 should never have been on the ballot in the first place."

This would not be the first time the court has struck down an improper voter initiative. In 1990, the court stuck down an initiative that would have added a provision to the California Constitution stating that the "Constitution shall not be construed by the courts to afford greater rights to criminal defendants than those afforded by the Constitution of the United States." That measure was invalid because it improperly attempted to strip California's courts of their role as independent interpreters of the state's constitution.

In a statement issued earlier today, the groups stated their conviction, which is shared by the California Attorney General, that the state must continue to honor the marriages of the 18,000 lesbian and gay couples who have already married in California.

What Now?

2008-11-04T21:46:00.000-08:00

I'm totally numb, and exhausted. The elation I feel at Obama's historic win is countered in equal measure by the outlook for Prop 8. 10% of the polls are in and it's winning 54% to 46%.

What now? I don't know. I really don't.

It was encouraging to hear Obama specifically include gays in his speech. I wish he'd come out publicly against Prop 8 much earlier in the campaign.

Going to bed. Numb and exhausted.

Tomorrow, day 2 of Jury Duty.

Hey gays - you can't get married, but you're OK to sit on a Jury and judge the innocence or guilt of a member of your community. Sigh.

6:00 a.m. UPDATE: 92% of votes are in and it's 52% to 48%. We're down by about 360,000 votes.

Go Vote

2008-11-04T04:00:00.000-08:00

No on Prop 8.

That's all I have left to say today.

If you don't know where to go to vote, you can find out here.

Local Rally in CV was GREAT -

2008-11-03T04:00:00.000-08:00

I have to admit something. I've been feeling incredibly helpless about Proposition 8. Despite what I've done (donated money, put up signs, put up more signs when those were stolen, blogged about it, emailed friends & family, blogged some more, had shirts and hats made for friends & family, and worn mine till it was ripe (and then I washed it, and wore it some more), donated more money, blogged more, etc...), I am truly afraid none of it will be enough. My friend Vic said the same thing to me today, and this post describes exactly the same feeling. I really have a lot of fear; and I don't know what I will do, or how I will cope with it, if Prop 8 passes.

This is sort of what I equate the feeling to. Do you remember October 3, 1995; the day OJ Simpson was acquitted of the murder of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman? I remember that day vividly, gathered around the TV in the gym at work, with 25+ other co-workers, mostly women, anxiously awaiting the verdict. And then it came. Like a collective punch to the gut you weren't in the least prepared for. I lost my breath. I lost my words. Then there was anger, deep, deep anger. Followed by an overwhelming feeling of being let down. Let down by the judicial system, and by people, Californians. As I contemplate Prop 8 passing, that feeling is rising up in me again. Only this time it's even more personal. The Simpson acquittal was a blow because the injustice seemed so obvious; this would be a personal blow. It would be the only time California voters amended the state constitution to take away rights, my rights, instead of expanding them. Not merely passed a law, but amended the state constitution. About me. Holy shit. You can't get more personal than that.

I can't help feeling that I should have done more. Specifically, that I should have had more personal conversations. That I should have canvassed my neighborhood, and talked personally with my neighbors.

When it came down to it though, I didn't want to know if my neighbors were going to say to my face, "I DO want to take away your rights." I have to live on this street for a loooooong time (unless I discover oil in my backyard, or win the lottery) and I don't think I could take walking and driving past my neighbors' houses knowing for certain how they felt about my rights. I was afraid talking to my neighbors would make me feel worse, and for a long time.

But here's what I did do. I read through my email on Sunday, and all the wonderful comments my new readers have left (Hi new readers!!!), and I looked for something I could do, something that would make me feel better, not worse. I found out from a member of Our Family Coalition (who just happens to be a former Castro Valley resident herself) that there was going to be a rally in Castro Valley, of all places, later in the afternoon. I talked to Laura and she was in. So we set to work making signs, sending emails, updating this blog, and making phone calls. I also made a quick trip to the Hayward Democratic Headquarters for more No on 8 signs, and they had plenty - I took a big stack!

At 4:00 we went down to the busiest intersection in Castro Valley (CV Boulevard & Redwood Road) and stood their with our home made No on 8 signs. At first it was my family of four and one other lesbian parent from the girls' school. Then 1 more person joined us. He'd read about it on Twitter - MY twitter post! Wow, a complete stranger, another No on 8 supporter, who lives basically down the street from me, came down because of my

Twitter post. Cool. Then 2 more joined us.

Then the Yes on 8 crowd arrived. 10 or so people, kids in tow, all neatly dressed (as if just from church) with home made Yes on 8 signs in English & Spanish. When they walked up, I couldn't not confront them. I just couldn't. I looked one man, a father, in the eyes and I asked him:

Why do you want to take away my rights?

How will taking away my rights protect your marriage? Really? How do my rights impact your marriage?

I'm actually glad that at that moment Laura sent me to the car for something (a jacket?). She didn't know I was talking to them, it was just coincidence. The man wouldn't answer me. Wouldn't say anything at all. I went to the car, retrieved the necessary item and came back. From that point forward, I decided it was better if I ignored them.

Over the next 40 minutes many others joined us, we spread out to the 4 corners of the intersection, and most importantly, we received 75% of the positive support from the cars passing by! One of my daughters thought up and made a sign that said "Don't Be Mean To My Family". The other one wanted to write, "You should let gay people marry!" but our markers were running out, so she opted for an 8 in a red circle with a slash through it. The girls marched, and danced, and counted how many people honked for us, and how many people honked for the Yes on 8 folks. Even they could tell we had the vast majority of the support!

You know what the Yes on 8 folks did then? They left. And we continued to rally and wave our signs, and shout for our rights for another hour. At least 20 people were there, half of whom were there because of my small, last minute, efforts to recruit volunteers. My neighbor, the fellow lesbian moms, a mom from my kids' soccer team (and her mom, her kid, and her niece), someone who read my twitter post, and someone who I think, read about here on my blog! (Who are you?? You talked to Laura; I'd love it if you left a comment!) were all there, because I took action. A small action.

If everybody did what I did - which really wasn't much at all compared to the time so many have devoted to the cause - but if everyone did one small thing - imagine the impact. Imagine the turnout! And don't think that the small effort doesn't matter. It matters more than ever. I quote:

We are in a statistical tie. This will come down to a handful of votes. Think Florida, year 2000, hanging chads, 300 some-odd votes turning the tide of a national election and, as we well know, history. For this reason, at this point, EVERY SINGLE VOTE COUNTS. Everything you can do to ensure this message gets to every possible California voter in your reach MATTERS.

So, in light of that, I do feel better. I've reached a few, and they've reached a few. If you're of a like mind, please pass this post on to someone you know. It matters. It matters a lot.