Thursday, June 30, 2022

Bobservations

This is the boys sharing a carrier as we visited the vet last week for their blood tests. Both are aging—Tuxedo is 17 or 18, maybe even 19, while Max is 16 or 17—and have kidney issues that required a special diet.

The blood work came back and Tuxedo’s numbers are very good; he’s active and east and drinks and pees and sleeps … it’s a cat’s life you know, but MaxGoldberg …

Max’s numbers went way up. Max doesn’t like the special diet, nor did he like the medication that was added to his food. Max isn’t doing well, and as our vet told us, we should just make him comfortable and let him do whatever he wants. The other night he slept with his head tucked under my chin and my arms wrapped around him. Carlos and I realized that Max is the only cat we’ve had since he was a kitten, and so we will do whatever makes Max happy and comfortable and loved until Max decides his next steps.

He’s a good boy, he’s a loved boy, and isn’t that all that matters?

I think Tuxedo should join Liz and Adam is running the January 6th hearings, because he ain’t playing either.

Former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson testified this week that Thing 45 was so incensed that then-Attorney General William Barr dismissed claims of widespread election fraud that he threw his lunch at the wall in the West Wing dining room.

Picture Joan Crawford in a really bad wig and a fat suit. Hutchinson says she walked into the dining room and:

“I first noticed there was ketchup dripping down the wall, and there was a shattered porcelain plate.”

She wasn’t too upset because, as she added, there were “several times throughout my tenure with the chief of staff that I was aware of him either throwing dishes or flipping the tablecloth” like he’s a Real Housewife from New Jersey?

l was looking for a new summer look and stumbled upon this one but wonder if I need to carry a mini-mower with me.

And how do I water it?

Fourth of July is this weekend, a time when we celebrate America’s battle for freedom, and remind ourselves of how free we … Oh, wait, never mind. I think I’ll sit this holiday out since it’s been decided women aren’t free in this country.

Last week Carlos had a meeting with DHEC at a new Puerto Rican restaurant called ‘a Fuego’ in Columbia. A few days later he took me to it, because he said it was so good, and he was not wrong. He showed me a menu, with all sorts of good things on  it, but one name leapt out at me: Mofongo.

I haven’t had mofongo since we lived in Miami. It’s made from mashed green plantains—so it’s more savory than sweet—and has garlic and herbs mixed in it.

Delicioso; as were the Empanadas. We’re going back for lunch after a doctor’s appointment on Friday.

Rudy Giuliani says the ALLEGED assault he suffered during a campaign appearance on behalf of his son at a Staten Island ShopRite should result in the ALLEGED assailant being prosecuted:

“This has to stop!”

The former Mayor of New York insisted that he “could have been killed” by the slap on the back had he fallen, and says his shoulder is still hurt and that he had trouble sleeping Sunday night as a result.

Perhaps some alcohol, Rudy? You’re going to need it because that ShopRite worker, Daniel Gill, walked free from court after his charges were downgraded.

If you’ve seen the video you’ll understand why Rudy Karen Giuliani’s assault was seen as more of a slap on the back.

It was barely twenty years ago, after 9/11 that Giuliani was dubbed America’s Mayor and now he’s become Thing 45’s Whipping Boy and America’s Drunk Uncle.

Sachin Bhatt was born in the Midwest to Middle Eastern parents and is an actor, singer, and opera singer, but that’s neither here nor there. I have two questions: Would You Hit It? And Would You Hit It Hairy or Smooth? Or Both??

Wednesday, June 29, 2022

Architecture Wednesday: Classic Pueblo-Style Home in Santa Fe

Oh yes. I could live in this house and I could live in this town.

This 3,011-square-foot, three-bedroom, three bathroom beauty is located in Santa Fe’s historic Eastside neighborhood and evokes the traditional Pueblo-style architecture—sometimes called Pueblo Revival—of the American Southwest, which takes direct inspiration from Native American pueblo architecture and are often constructed from adobe and feature flat roofs and stuccoed walls.

Brick floors and traditional vigaslarge, rough-hewn wooden ceiling beams—are found throughout the home and the living room features one of the home’s five kiva fireplaces with a long, connected bench, known as a banco.

In the dining room French doors on either side offer direct access to the outdoors, as well as allowing a cool evening breeze to enter the home, and there’s another kiva fireplace that partially encloses the kitchen at the far end of the space. The updated kitchen features Wolf and Sub-Zero appliances and white-painted cabinets and open shelves with zigzag details match the bright, plastered walls.

A peaceful library with another cozy fireplace and a wall of built-ins and French doors screams a glass of Pinot and a good book on a WINTER’S NIGHT.

The principal bedroom has its own fireplace, as well as French doors on both sides of the room, as well as an en suite bathroom. There are two other bedrooms, and two bathrooms, each with beautiful tile-work and colorful sinks..

At the rear of the home is a large courtyard with a sheltered patio and yet another outdoor fireplace, perhaps for living outside as weather permits.

As I said, I live for the beams and the brick floors and the colorful tile and that outdoor space and all those cozy nooks and fireplaces.

Tuesday, June 28, 2022

Meme Dump

Really Herschel Walker? Really?

Goddess, I just adore Herschel Walker. He’s the gift that keeps on giving, every single time he opens his illiterate lying Republican yap.

The other day Herschel went after Stacey Abrams, the Democratic candidate for governor … what was he thinking! … because she had said:

“I am tired of hearing about [Georgia] being the best state in the country to do business when we are the worst state in the country to live.”

Abrams was specifically talking about Georgia’s problems with mental health treatment, maternal mortality, incarceration rates and wages, but Herschel heard none of that and decided to release a statement:

“If you don’t believe in the country, leave and go somewhere else. If it’s the worst state, why are you here? Why don’t you leave—go to another? There’s, what, 51 more other states that you can go to?”

I guess when Stacey was listing the ills of Georgia she might have mentioned education because the guy running for Senate doesn’t know how many states there are in America.

And then there was the following week, when Herschel was talking about Jesus, and found a way to compare himself to Jesus because they both … wait for it … it’s epic … suffer from multiple personality disorder:

“I tell them all the time. I say, dude, I tell them. Do our lord Jesus Christ have a mental illness because he said he’s the father, the son and the Holy Spirit? To me, those are three different personalities. So we’re not so much different than he is.”

Walker, in his 2008 memoir, Breaking Free, said he suffers from multiple personality disorder.

So vote for him Georgia, because if he wins, you’ll get a lying hypocritical pig as Senator, and all those other personalities he has to offer.

Like Jesus. Really.

Monday, June 27, 2022

Fifty-Three Years Ago Today

Originally posted June 27, 2009

It was fifty-three years ago, a lifetime to some of us, a minute to others, but it marked a turning point for what would become the LGBTQ+ community. It wasn’t the first time our community fought back—there was the Cooper Do-nuts Riot in 1959,  the Dewey's Restaurant protest in 1965,  the Compton's Cafeteria riot in 1966, the Black Cat Tavern and New Faces, The Patch in 1968, among other—but Stonewall marked one of the loudest, times that gay men and trans women stood up en masse and said, ‘No. We will not be treated like this any longer!’

The weekend of June 27-29,1969 began what is the modern-day gay movement. To be sure, there were gay and lesbian activists before that weekend, but the confrontation between police and demonstrators at the Stonewall Inn in New York City lit a fire in the hearts of the LGBT community like it had never been done before.

And like any good story, there is controversy surrounding the Stonewall Riots; there are arguments and differences over what happened, how it started and how it ended. But the fact that we all need to remember is that it did happen, and it should continue to be a rallying cry for the LGBTQ+ community today, as we continue the march toward equality in the eyes of the law, and in the eyes of America.

Friday, June 27, 1969: the world was mourning the death of Judy Garland. Could it be that the death of one of the most famous gay icons was what sparked the fire of the modern-day Gay Rights Movement? Many people have speculated that Garland's death did indeed push the gay community into the streets of New York that night, but it was also hot in New York that night, and some say it was the heat that fueled the crowd into action, into reaction. I think maybe it was both, Garland's death and the hot summer night; or maybe it was just that the gay community had finally had enough of being told what to do, what not to do, and how we should live our lives. Whatever the reason, it was enough. Finally, enough.

In the early morning hours of June 28, police officers raided the Stonewall Inn, a small bar located on Christopher Street in Greenwich Village, as they had done on other occasions. Although mafia-run, the Stonewall, like other predominantly gay bars in the city, got raided by the police periodically.

Typically, the more "deviant" patrons—the queens and butch lesbians, especially if they were black—were arrested and taken away, while white, male customers looked on or quietly disappeared. The bar owners would be levied an insubstantial fine—a sign of police corruption and collusion between bar owners and police—allowing them to reopen for business the following day.

On this night, the charge at the Stonewall was the illegal sale of alcohol. The raid began as they always did: plainclothes and uniformed police officers entered the bar, arrested the employees, and began ejecting the customers one by one onto the street. For some reason, however, the crowd that had gathered outside the Stonewall, a somewhat campy and festive crowd, began to cheer as the patrons were pushed out of the bar. But soon the mood changed; it was Judy Garland's death, or the summer heat, or the fact that the summer of 1969 was a particularly busy one for police raids on gay bars. Or maybe it was watching drag queens and lesbians being pushed and shoved and kicked into paddy wagons. Whatever it was, the on-lookers lost their patience. No one really knows who threw the first punch; some say it was a drag queen, some say it was a rather butch-looking lesbian. But someone defied the police that night; someone had finally had enough.

The crowd, now numbering several hundred, exploded. People began hurling coins at police officers, then they moved on to rocks and bottles, whatever they could grab. The police, at first stunned that the normally docile and shamed homosexuals would react in such a fashion, soon began beating the crowds with nightsticks. This group, however, was too angry, and was not going to be pushed around, or down, any longer; the police officers were forced to take refuge inside the Stonewall.

 

As news spread throughout Greenwich Village the crowd grew ever larger; many residents, some gay, some not, ran down to the Stonewall Inn to join the fight. Lighter fluid was squirted inside the bar and someone tried to light it; others grabbed a downed parking meter and used it as a battering ram against the front of the Stonewall. Someone began chanting "Gay Power!"

The riot-control police unit arrived to rescue the trapped officers and break up the demonstration, though it took over an hour before the crowd dispersed. To taunt their attackers a group of drag queens began to sing at the top of their lungs:

We are the Stonewall girls
We wear our hair in curls
We wear no underwear
We show our pubic hair
We wear our dungarees
Above our nelly knees!

 That first Stonewall Riot ended the morning of Saturday, June 28, but the fight was far from over. That night a second riot broke out and the crowd now numbered in the thousands, filling the streets in the name of Gay Pride. They marched to the Stonewall Inn and waited for the police to arrive; and they did, in the early morning of Sunday, June 29.

For over a week, though in smaller numbers, protests and demonstrations continued in Greenwich Village. There was finally a sense of what could be accomplished by banding together, by being out, by being seen, by being heard. By being angry. It was a new day.

A month after the riots, the Gay Liberation Front [GLF] was formed. Radical and leftist, the GLF was one of many politically focused lesbian and gay organizations formed in the days following the riots. The number of lesbian and gay publications skyrocketed as well, which led to an even greater sense of community. The LGBT community was no longer strictly marginalized in United States society. Now, out and proud lesbians and gay men were developing their own communities in cities across the country.

Since 1970, marches have taken place in New York City—and all over the world—every year on the anniversary of the Stonewall Riots. In June 1994, hundreds of thousands of people converged on New York to celebrate Stonewall's 25th anniversary. In 1999 the United States government proclaimed the Stonewall Inn a national historic site. The following year, the status of the Stonewall was improved to "historic landmark," a designation held by only a small percentage of historical sites.

Stonewall, while not the first protest, is our Plymouth Rock. It's where the gay community landed and came together and began the march toward equality. Stonewall was our first glimpse of a new world where we weren't alone, we weren't all that different, where we belonged.

It makes no difference how it started. The death of an icon; the summer heat; a sense of frustration. It makes no difference who started it; drag queens or lesbians; coin tossers or rock throwers. The difference is that it happened.

As I said, no one really knows who started the riot, or how it all started, but we do know that a great deal of the credit goes to Marsha P. Johnson, a drag queen who frequented the Stonewall Inn, and fought back and fought for our community before some of us were even born.

Fifty-three years ago today.

As we saw last week, no rights, no laws, are safe with this radical rightwing Supreme Court. While the justices say they won’t come for LGBTQ+ rights, or marriage equality, we know them to be deceitful. What we once thought was settled could be lost to us unless we stand up, speak up, shout out, show up and CAST A GODDAMNED VOTE.

The march goes on …