Doggone It

This week has been exhausting and I just don't have it in me to write a blog, so I'll leave it to our furry child, Ramsey to share this week. Enjoy.

Hey there. I'm Ramsey, named after chef Gordon Ramsay--one of my mom's was into the show Kitchen Nightmares when I was born. I'm a three year old black lab. I like to eat, wag my tail, run, eat, lick, wag my tail, then repeat.

I live for adventure. I love my family, especially my mom who takes me for rides in her truck. I am free as a bird in her truck. Sometimes she even lets me run in the woods. I was born to be in this family. They recently brought home this little girl--she's cute and drops so much food on the ground that I look past the tail pulling and trying to ride me like a horse. Life is good.

This is me and my little sister on 4th of July. She doesn't have fur, but we still love her the same.

I like when they take my picture. I've been told I'm handsome, whatever that means. 

Last Saturday my mom took me for a ride in her truck. I was so excited. We were going down the Highway and there were so many smells and sights that I leaped towards them and broke my chain. The last thing I remember was hitting the ground and my mom running towards me on the road. I had to go to the doctor, at least that's what my little sister kept saying.

There were lots of nurses and doctors and my mom's cried, a lot. Then they gave me this stuff that made me dream of chasing deer and bunnies and I slept for a long time. When I woke up I heard this guy with a mask telling everyone it was one of the worst open would fractures he's seen. I guess the guy is good at playing board games because they called him the jigsaw puzzle master--I had eight pieces of bone in my leg and he put them back together again.

I finally got to go home yesterday and all I could think of was eating scraps off the floor, playing fetch, running next door to poop on the neighbors lettuce, and laying in the sun with the other furry child in our house, Simba. He's a cat. Something tells me I'm supposed to eat him, but he's just so good at snuggling... 

My excitement was short lived when my mom put me in the laundry room and told me that's where I was going to have to stay--for six weeks. I don't know how long that is but by the look in her eyes, it's a long time. I've only been let out to go pee. Even then I have to be on a leash. Things are gonna get awkward when I have to take a poop.

I think they'll let me have visitors. Perhaps one of you could bring some bacon, and a lock pick. 

Love and licks, Ramsey

Practically Magic

In the year 2000, I got my first apartment at the age of twenty with Melissa, a girl who worked at an Italian restaurant. She was a few years older than me and had a fun outgoing personality, the kind that made you want to be spontaneous and adventurous.

Her back sported a tattoo of a dog wearing a confederate flag. Oh--and she had once been a stripper.

I was just on the eve of having my first serious relationship, I was in college, I worked at Border's Books--you get the picture, we were different.

I'm pretty sure she was an alcoholic with big emotional problems (think faked miscarriage) but she did mean well and was a loyal friend--except for taking off with the apartment deposit money a year later.

She introduced me to people who were unlike any of my other friends back home in suburbia and I had life changing experiences during the time we lived together--some good (think best night of your young life mixed with euphoria and the giggles) and some ugly (think sobbing on the floor, mascara running down your face).

She once told me a story about how the owner of the strip club she worked at had been slow dancing with his wife to Prince's "Little Red Corvette," when someone came into the club and fired shots, killing his wife.
Who has stories like that? I thought that only happened in the movies. She could have been lying but I heard her tell the story on multiple occasions.

She took me to my first strip club, and I don't remember anything because I was three sheets to the wind (always wondered where that saying came from). The one thing I do remember was a Russian man asking me to come to his car--pretty sure I dodged a bullet there.

For those of you who have seen the movie Practical Magic, you will remember a scene where they have Midnight Margaritas. That was the kind of things she made me do, only hers were combined with running through the sprinklers. She was the Gillian Owens--sexual, daring and rebellious, to my Sally Owens-- practical, reserved, and cautious.

I learned a lot from my experiences with her and that life we created in our little Sacramento apartment. She made me push my comfort levels and try new things. She also got me to pick up smoking menthol cigarettes, a short lived experience, and the worse hangover to date. It was one of those times in life that seemed magical, but was pretty dark.

I found her on Myspace years ago and she apologized for the things that happened but when I wrote her back she never responded. She had a boyfriend or husband, not sure, and a baby girl. I just checked my old Myspace account and her last name has been changed and she lives in Albuquerque, New Mexico. I doubt her kid(s) even have a clue about half of the things she's done in life--which probably goes for the majority of us. Her stories give the term "a misspent youth" a whole new meaning.

In retrospect there are many things she guided me through; valuable life lessons that you can only learn by doing and experiencing. As dysfunctional as we may have looked from the outside or in hindsight, we were just what the other needed at that time in our lives. There's a reason opposites attract--she helped coax out my inner siren and I calmed the chaotic seas inside her.

Don't be afraid to take the path less traveled my friends, and always put the lime in the coconut and drink them both up.

Girls

Girls can be down right mean to one another. The "you can't play with us," starts as young as Preschool. Girls can be their worst enemy and can be each other's worst nightmare. I can remember being in the second or third grade and walking out on the playground when out of nowhere a little girl maybe a year or two older than me, decided she didn't like the look of me and yanked me to the ground by my hair. That was my first experience with a serious mean girl.

As a Women's Studies major I have done a lot of research, contemplating, reading, thinking, speaking, and writing, on this topic. I could, but won't go into who is to blame, the list it too long and most of you would stop reading because we've dealt with it or heard about it our whole lives. If you really want more answers or need girl friend advice, visit the Friendship Blog. I think we have bigger things to worry about and pitting women against one another or talking about how "bitchy" we all are--it only adds fuel to the fire.

For example, did you know that California women only make 85% of what a man makes for doing the same job? Now that's something we should be focusing on. I think we let petty things get in the way of real issues and if we as women, the majority mind you, grouped together to tackle problems that all women face, we would not only be happier and healthier, but less inclined to claw the eyes out of the woman next to us.

I think a lot of things boil down to confidence. I think we are all born with confidence and for some people it gets "knocked down" or worn away by life, other people, and certain experiences. I have always been fairly confident in my abilities. Don't get me wrong, there are days when I allow others to tell me my dreams are made of pipes, but I still dream them. For instance, my dream is to one day own my own Tea Shop. My families running joke is, "You might as well open up a Smoke Shop, since its' a pipe dream." Joking aside, they would support me no matter what. (*I plan on charging them double as retribution.)

There's a great article on confidence over at the Tiny Buddha. It is not only a reminder on how to build confidence but how to live the life you want.

If you're too lazy to click the link, I'll summarize:

• Know your strengths and weaknesses
• Trust your Capabilities/Believe in yourself
• Expect Success
• Take risks
• Learn to Receive Praise

It's never too late to be the person you have always wanted to be. Treasure your true friends and cultivate friendships with the women in your life that you respect and trust. Be kind to one another and for all the ladies reading this, don't judge other women. You have no idea what kind of day they have had, or what road they've had to travel. I have found that when a woman seems to be glaring at me, the best response is to smile. Once, a woman with "poop lip" (a face scrunched up in disgust, as if smelling poop) was staring at me and my smile stopped her. She smiled right back.  I don't think she even realized she was making that face, but my smile made her change her whole demeanor. 

"Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you have imagined." -Henry David Thoreau

Keep Calm & Marry On

June 26th 2013 was a big day for my family. Our daughter ran away in Safeway and they had to announce her name over the PA, asking her to come to customer service. I don't know if they've met a three year old but that tactic was not going to be successful. Luckily a friend found and returned her to me. The San Francisco Giants also got swept by the Dodgers—that was a hard pill to swallow.

There was also this other little thing that happened. The Supreme Court decided that it was unconstitutional to deny same sex couples the right to marry in California. I think it had a little something to do with separation of Church and State—you know, not allowing one religion to dominate an entire counties set of beliefs—but I've been a “bad” Catholic lately, so I could be wrong.

I have been fortunate to have supportive people in my life, people that continued to love me even after I came out. Some of them have even gone above and beyond and are crusaders and champions for gay rights, people who  aren't even gay themselves, yet see the need to speak up and aren't afraid to do so.

Our phones and emails were fairly quiet all day. No one called to say, "Congrats," or "Wow, what a momentous day!" I got an email from a friend of my little brothers who was so excited he had to email me, the only "married" lesbian he knew. His enthusiasm and genuine appreciation for equality was extremely touching.

I think most people forget or don't fully understand what it's like to be denied a right that seems so basic. Our families threw Alissa and me a fabulous wedding in 2010, and although it wasn't "legal," it was a wedding in every sense of the word. That was their way of saying they believed in our love and our rights.  

I have lost some "friends" over this battle for gay marriage. For the most part it all boils down to religion. They believe that it's wrong for same sex couples to marry, that their religion and morals can't permit it. I am totally okay with that. Why? Because everyone is entitled to religious freedoms.  You may believe in one God and religion, and someone else another. That doesn't mean that your beliefs are more important.

Your religion can choose to not accept gay marriage, but your religion doesn't get to make decisions that legally deny someone the right to marry. Your church has every right to ban gay marriages to take place within their walls, but that doesn't mean it can ban people from marrying elsewhere.

Why couldn't we be okay with saying, "You can have your marriages in your churches, we will have ours in the churches that allow same sex marriage, or on beaches, in homes, City Hall, etc." and be done with it? I will never understand the argument that says marriage is between a man and a woman because my religion tells me so, therefore it's the law. Yes, it may be the "law" in your church, but one can’t be so narcissistic to think their religion has the power to create laws for the rest of us.

Should atheists be denied marriage as well?

I'd like to share the story of my friend Tom Paniccia, an openly gay Air Force sergeant who spoke up in a Senate Committee hearing in 1993 regarding Don't ask Don't tell. He appeared on Good Morning America and fought for equality.  The guy had gumption and wasn't afraid to be who he was.

Tom and I worked together in 2004 on a job with the State of California. There we met Jamie, a Pastor’s son. Tom and Jamie became very close and eventually Tom became the Outreach Coordinator of the church where Jamie’s dad was the Pastor, and in turn, the Pastor became a mentor to Tom. Unfortunately this Pastor told him that he had to live a life of celibacy or be turned away from God.  Tom followed the strict guidelines of the church and tried to be a model member of the congregation, torn between who he was & who the church told him God wanted him to be.

Tom killed himself in 2007.

Our actions and words have power. When we deny someone equality or shame them for being who they are, we send a message that it's okay to treat someone as an "other," as "second class." The suicide statistics in the LGBT community, especially among its youth, are staggering.  Let's try to live with a little more compassion and a lot less judgment. 

Here’s to you Tom, Courtney Puffer, & all those that took their lives or lost them tragically, just for being you. May you rest easier knowing that today we live in a better world. 

Note: If you are gay and have thought about suicide, there's help out there & people just like you. Check out the Trevor Project and It Gets Better. 

Brown Santa

My partner who works for UPS works hard-not like most of us who can troll the internet, catch up on Facebook, or play Candy Saga Crush (a game I have yet to let myself succumb to) from our desk jobs. There’s no coffee “meetings” at Starbuck’s or lunch dates with an old friend for her. She goes in at 9am, and comes home whenever she’s done delivering packages. When she’s not driving, she’s running through town, trying to meet her time quota and rearranging her truck on her lunch break. From 9am to usually 7pm, she’s running nonstop.

I would collapse from exhaustion around stop 2. I’d probably just roll up to a house or office, throw open the doors and honk the horn. If that didn’t get a response I’d chuck the package out the door, hope it landed safely, and forge the receiver’s signature as I sped away.

One day while I was checking Facebook statuses from home (not work, just in case any of my employees are reading) I saw a friends post who said he couldn’t wait for “Brown Santa” to arrive with his package. By that he meant the UPS driver clad in brown that brings him packages. I instantly fell in love with the idea and as soon as Alissa walked in the door I said, “Brown Santa is home!” For most of us who are expecting a package from UPS it’s because we’re eagerly awaiting a present or a coveted item we found on Etsy (I shamelessly plugged my own shop, but this place really is great for finding all sorts of awesome items). Perhaps in the future we can all see our driver as a jolly bearer of gifts rather than some peon that is late in delivering packages. 

Check out this funny video done by UPS driver, Ken Jones from Springdale, Arkansas:

However, some people feel the need to give “Santa” an earful or make outrageous demands, such as, “Walk these ten fifty pound boxes all the way across my chain drugstore, even though there’s a designated drop off post,” or “Wait here while I rearrange my stock room to make room for these fifteen boxes. You’re not in a hurry, right?”  My all time favorite is “I know I ordered this package C.O.D, but I’d like you to sit here and wait for me to open it up and see if I really want what’s inside.”

Do you expect this of the real Santa? Do you stand by the chimney at night and tell the big guy you’d like to open the presents before he floats away on reindeer to see if it’s what you really wanted? I mean that would be nice, but not the Christmas spirit.  Granted the difference is you paid for the items being dropped off by UPS, and the driver is a real person (Well so is Santa but don’t tell anyone I still believe).  Shouldn’t this be even more reason to treat the drivers with kindness?

So the next time you see that UPS driver running by, give them a smile. If your package doesn’t arrive on the day that you expected, remember that they have no control of the weather in Atlanta or that accident on I-5. Instead of waiting to pay for the C.O.D or asking what’s in the package (Do you expect them to have x-ray vision?) just pay up, sign the board and say thank you. The longer you take, the longer my family has to wait for our Brown Santa to come home, delivering love and hugs, or in my case, dinner!

This customer was so excited for this final part they were waiting on that they took a picture of their UPS driver. Don't forget, drivers love to be remembered around the Holiday's. Last year "we" got the best homemade cookies I've ever tasted. Lucky for me, Alissa doesn't like Oatmeal in her chocolate chip cookies. 

Ghosts

I have never understood people who treat service workers as people who are less than, that for whatever reason they do not deserve your proper respect and appreciation. Maybe my understanding comes from having been raised in households that owned and operated small businesses.  Perhaps it’s because I have been working since the age of fifteen and have had a slew of menial low wage professions along the way.

While attending Humboldt State University in 2001, I got a job at one of the coolest places in town to work, The Minor Theatre. 

Houdini himself even performed there, the trap door is still intact. This was the place where the cool kids slung popcorn that the hip natives could sprinkle yeast on that was provided complimentary. The cashier’s could let in their friends and were privy to “Midnight showings” of all the new releases.

I was the janitor.

I got to clean up after the midnight porn shows, scrub the urinals, check the mice traps and for a special treat every once in awhile I got to run petrified from the 1914 three room theatre, equipped with a balcony, sure that I had just seen a ghost. (Side note: The place really is haunted. Several people have claimed to see a little girl in white in the balcony seating.)

The best day was when I was enthusiastically (out of fear, not the joy of cleaning) climbing the stairs of said balcony and smacked my head on a speaker. It knocked me out cold; I fell flat on the walkway, luckily avoiding any chairs.

The next thing I knew I felt a sharp pinch on my arm, almost like a tiny bite. It shocked me awake and as I collected myself I couldn't help but think it was that little girl in the white dress, making me come to. I cleaned by myself so who knows how long I would've laid there.

I wasn't so scared after that day, although some probably would've quit, I felt like we had a mutual understanding after that. I would allow her to stay there and scare the shit out of people and she would let me work in peace, even come to my aid if need be. I ended up in the ER that night with a concussion and the ligaments in my neck torn, but that’s another story in itself.

This is opening night in 1914. My favorite are the two girls in white hats. I have looked at this photo so many times I feel as though it's a family photo.

One day I was mopping the tiles outside and a man stopped to ask me a question about a movie that I didn't know the answer to so I told him, “I don’t know, I’m just the janitor.” To which he replied, “You’re not just the janitor. Your work is important too.” It made me stop and think about the roles we all play and how a little kindness can go a long way, especially to those who do the jobs that most don’t want.

I eventually became a concessionaire and then a cashier and even started to be trained as a projectionist. The tales were all true. There was drinking, parties, wild nights, and popcorn with as much yeast as I wanted! The best part was that I made lifelong friends with some of the most interesting people.

Moral of the story, people who clean urinals are people too, please aim wisely. 

Flawed

I like to look at my family as a little matryoshka each of us represents a different doll, a different layer, and we all fit together as one. There’s our daughter Sophia, age three, my partner Alissa, who works for UPS, and me, a Preschool Director. Of course there’s much more to us than just what we do for a living. One of those layers is Foster and Adoptive Parent. Our journey through hell, err, adoption started for me in 2007, and together in 2008. Now, I don’t mean this as a deterrent to adoption, it has been the best thing that has ever happened to me, hands down. It’s the journey itself that, should you choose to accept, should end with knighthood or sainthood. I’m not joking.  Make a bronze statue of my face and erect it on a monument.

Normally I’m pretty modest, you don’t catch me talking about the sacrifice and heartache we’ve gone through, we just simply foraged ahead, like so many others.  Some might think stupidity or naivety kept us going but I like to think of it was unrelenting optimism and hopeless romanticism.

What I think my sculpture would like & what they'd probably give me.

Our first love Lia came to us when she was one month old. We went to court to establish de facto parent rights nine months later. She was the best baby I have ever met, and working with infants each day, that says a lot. She slept through the night, rarely cried, and was generally a happy baby. Except for the days she came back from visits with her biological parents. On those days she came home fussy & agitated, sort of like Roseanne Barr during her show Roseanne, not Roseanne the Macadamia Nut farmer.  I’m guessing it was from the 8oz bottle they would insist she needed to eat even though she only drank 4oz bottles and had already eaten before every visit.

The overburdened social worker aid that was actually doing the job of the social worker would comment on how fussy she would be during visits and assumed she was generally an unhappy baby. The social workers in Fort Bragg, which I’m guessing are like most departments, only care about one thing, reunification.  A court date was set to determine if Lia should remain in foster care or be reunified with her bio parents. We came with our paperwork, prepared hopeful that things would go our way and Lia would not be placed with her bio parents who, just take my word, were unfit.

While waiting in the same room as her bio parents, the mother’s lawyer said that her “pee test” had come back dirty. Halleluiah! We knew she was back to drinking and doing drugs, and this proved it. The mother made all sorts of excuses, “Oh I did have a glass of wine at Christmas,” and, “Maybe it was the Nyquil I took for that cold.” We walked into the courtroom, our foster daughter’s attorney and the social workers sat on one side and her parents and their lawyers on the other. When it came time for the social workers to give their opinion on whether or not Lia should go back to her bio parents, this is what they said, “We believe they have taken the necessary steps and the child should be placed back into their custody.”

Hearts broken, no, shattered.

I do not know what these “necessary steps” were. I’m guessing they are along the lines of…

1.       Abuse the system.

2.       Continue to live as you have in the past; drugs, alcohol, etc.

3.       Get a job, but no one will check on you a week later to see if you’ve kept it.

4.       Continue to receive welfare even though your child is no longer in your custody.

5.       Learn how to manipulate everyone around you.

I wish I could say this story has a happy ending for our little Lia, but alas, her father was just arrested for raping a young woman who was living with them.

The foster care system is flawed to say the least.