First Rose of the Summer

This is the first rose this summer from the climbing rose vine along side the garage. By the looks of things though, it will have plenty of company soon! I've been fertilizing it and that, along with the good (if cool) weather this spring seems to have helped it immensely. There are already several dozen buds on the vines. I'm just concerned that the trellis I put it on is already too small for it - and it's only the second summer. This vine itself grew so much at the end of last summer - one branch in particular grew more than 3 feet in a week - that it's likely to look like man-eating plant from that musical whose name escapes me at the moment...

As glad as I am to see the rose vine blooming, I'm really excited to see what happens with the climbing hydrangeas. I have two of those, one on either side of the climbing rose vine. Neither of them bloomed last year because of that freak snow storm in mid-April. The plants themselves survived, but not in good enough condition to bloom. So this years blooms will be the first time blooming. I have no idea what to expect. Both plants are doing well. One needs to be worked into the trellis better than it is, but I'm going to wait a few more days for my arthritis flare-up to pass before I try that. Stooping that low for that long doesn't seem like a good idea.

The regular hydrangea bushes are doing quite well. One is bigger than the other and has more blooms, so I think they must do better in a shadier area, because that's the only difference I can see.

I'll be sure to post more pictures as thing continue to bloom. I love the warm weather.

Truisms

Arthritis is just as yucky as migraines are.

Jelly Bean update

Well it's official. The jelly beans are gone. (sniff, sniff). They'll be missed.

But I want to make sure that everyone knows that Husband finished HIS jelly beans BEFORE I finished mine. Two whole days before, in fact.

So THERE! Real MATURE!

Attention Obamacons!

Senator Clinton said some very inflammatory things today. Here's a quote from the Huffington Post: "My husband did not wrap up the nomination in 1992 until he won the California primary somewhere in the middle of June, right? We all remember Bobby Kennedy was assassinated in June in California. I don't understand it." (emphasis added). I think it's pretty clear what she's suggesting, so I wrote to her via her US Senate address. I urge you to do the same. Go to the www.senate.gov website. Look for the section that says "Search for your state" Click on NY, then Senator Clinton. You have to go through all this rigamarole, because her campaign website doesn't allow users to send email.

Here's my email to her:

"I am absolutely APPALLED at your comment today about how "We all remember Bobby Kennedy was assassinated in June in California. I don't understand it." I understand it Senator. This is clearly a not-so-subtle plea to some nut-job out there to do your dirty work and kill Senator Obama.

It angers me that I have to write you about this. I voted for your husband in 1992. I decided not to vote for him in 1996 because of his decision to sign the so-called Defense of Marriage act in 1996. I thought then, and still think now, it was a craven act of political opportunism. But despite that, I supported your husband throughout his second term and after. During the impeachment hearings and long afterwards, when your husband was a laughingstock,I stuck up for him.

But that all stopped when you he campaigned earlier this year in South Carolina. The blatantly racist comments that you both made were unconscionable. I had already decided to support Senator Obama by then, but if you won the nomination I would have gladly have supported you. But with the two of you were so dismissive of him and his campaign, I could stand no more.

Now this. You should be ashamed of yourself. You are a professional public speaker and have been for 35 years. You cannot claim, without totally destroying your own argument of experience, that you didn't mean it that way or couldn't have forseen how others would take it. If 35 years of experience didn't teach you that about public speaking, what are the chances that those same 35 years trained you to be President.

You are a disgrace to Democratic Party and I urge you to apologize to Senator Obama and stop your presidential campaign."

I must be a bigger geek than I realize

I've been reading a lot of news websites about gay rights in general since the CA Supreme Court decision on gay marriage. One of the other issues for many gay people is gays in the US military and the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" law. That law is usually shortened to "DADT" on websites.

Invariably I read that to myself "Defense Against the Dark Arts" first, before going NO WAIT! Does that mean I'm a geek first THEN gay?

If so, why don't I work in the computer field?

Truisms

Cats don't talk because they don't NEED to. They can make themselves understood quite well, thank you!

California Supreme Court decision on gay marriage

I've been involved in the gay marriage issue for a long time. As a member of the Pittsburgh Friends Meeting (Quakers) back in the early 1990's, the issue was one of the central questions of the meeting at the time. I won't go in to details (it took several years to get to a place where everyone felt comfortable. And explaining the Quaker method of making decisons would be a book all to itself.), but it finally culminated in re-writing the book that Meeting used for Meetings for Marriage. I was asked to work with the group of Friends re-writing the book. I can't tell you how honored I felt, since these were all people I greatly admired.

But getting TO that point was long and laborous, not to mention necessary. From a Quaker perspective, a decision can't be made unless there is not one single person in the Meeting who would stand opposed to that decision. As I'm sure everyone has seen for themselves over the last 5 or 6 years, marriage is something that many people have strong feelings about. Changing the institution riles some to the point of being irrational - on ALL sides of the issue. And if it took this long in a Quaker Meeting - individually some of the most liberal people you will find - imagine how long it will take the rest of the country! Change will come, but it will come slowly.

That being said, the CA decision is a big step forward. Especially because what they based their decision on was equal protection. They didn't proscribe a particular remedy, only that the remedy the legislature comes up with must treat both heterosexual and homosexual couples equally. It is entirely possible (and recommended, from my perspective) that the CA legislature will decide to call all committed relationships that have been legally sanctioned "civil unions" and let churches decide for themselves whether or when to call a couple's union a "marriage."

Readers of this blog may have gathered for themselves the level of commitment I have with my partner, since I refer to him as "husband". And, living in Ohio, we live in a state that has discrimination written into its constituion, when it comes to same-sex marriage. We don't feel this discrimination on an everyday basis, of course. If we did, why would we stay? But there are real ramifications of not being able to get married, and we have both felt them in the past.

Both of us have had other partners before entering this relationship. And both of us had that partner die. In my case, because my first partner wasn't out, I had to pay his estate back for the down payment for the house we had just bought together. I had to pay this back, without his income to help pay the expenses of owning a home (and his income was twice what mine was). I was working and going to school, living in a house I couldn't afford and trying desperately not to go bankrupt and lose the house. I managed, barely, but it took me 11 years to dig out of that financial mess. A mess that a married straight couple wouldn't have had to worry about, because current marriage laws protect them.

My husband, on the other hand, has not one picture of his late partner - a man he spent 10 years of his life with. His parents demanded all of his belongings after he died, because after all, why would he want them? It never crossed their minds, I'm sure.

So I guess I've seen both sides of the issue - people of all kinds who support same sex marriage and people of all kinds who don't. The time will come when this won't be an issue - either for government or for religions - but we aren't there yet. Honestly, I doubt that I will live long enough to see it. I'm not saying that because I'm pessimistic, but because I've seen how long real, lasting change can take. The thing to focus on though, is that things ARE changing for the better.