Random Musings

Around Casa Bob y Carlos, we divvy up chores and responsibilities: for example, I take care of what goes into the cats, while Carlos handles what comes out of the cats … from either end.

Carlos kills the bugs … I take care of snakes. Now, we don’t have a lot of snakes around here — that we see — while we do have our share of bugs so that might seem a little lopsided. Until Tuesday night …

Sitting in the living room, chatting with Carlos, I noticed a reflection on the window of a cat’s tail — I assumed it was Consuelo because it’s her favorite window. Oddly enough, though, there was no cat, just a tail which, upon closer examination, I realized was a smallish — two feet long, maybe — snake climbing up the screen. He seemed to be channeling Carol Ann from Poltergeist as he appeared to be ‘going into the light’ of our table-lamp and when I lowered the shade he kinda wandered off.

While all this was going on, Carlos was freaking … Oh my god … we have to move …. Where is it …. It’s poisonous.

I wanted to slap him to snap him out of it but he relaxed once the snake was slithering away until … it reappeared on the front door — it’s kind of a French door with small glass panes — and was slithering up toward the porch light.

Again: Carlos.Freak.Slap.Almost.

I suggested going out and killing it — and for those of you that think that might be cruel, give me your address and when I get another snake at the manse, I’ll trap it and mail it to you — and Carlos kept saying it would bite me and I would die … seriously.

I ignored him, and armed with the tools of the trade, I turned on all the outside lights and found the snake resting on the wall above the porch light. Using one specialty tool — for you laypeople, I call it a ‘rake’ — I scraped the snake off the wall and it began slithering away. I’d hoped to use my other tool — AKA ‘the shovel’ — to cut the bastard’s head off but he was a quick little "slitherer" and escaped. A few minutes spent spraying some Snake-Be-Gone along the front of the house — it smells a little like Red Hots — and all was fine and dandy, though Carlos wasn’t sure he would ever open a window again.

But, now I know that my snake-removal capabilities are needed, I will, for the rest of my natural born days, keep reminding Carlos of the Night I Raked A Snake Off The House.

Point: Bob

[photo source]

Maybe it's just me, but there are times when I cannot tell the difference between Ellen Barkin, Edie Falco and Lorraine Bracco.

[Barkin, Falco, Bracco]

In LGBT news … Democratic, of course, Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, of New York, has announced plans to introduced legislation that aims to eliminate anti-LGBT bias in adoption. Her "Every Child Deserves a Family Act" would "prohibit adoption organizations that receive federal funding from discriminating against adoptive or foster parents based on their sexual orientation, gender identity or marital status."

Right now, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Michigan prohibit gay couples from jointly adopting while four other states restrict same-sex couples from using the second-parent adoption process.

I caught Rihanna on SNL last week and she was amazing.

I mean, she was singing, and then, when she took the microphone away from her mouth, and stopped singing, you could still hear her voice. It’s like she’s a ventriloquist and the audience is her dummy …

How.Does.She.Do.That. #LipSync

Notorious RBG, AKA Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg presided over the marriage of Michael Kahn, the longtime artistic director of the Shakespeare Theater Company in Washington, and Charles Mitchem, who works at an architecture firm in New York.

She’s officiated at same-sex weddings before, but what made this one special was that when she pronounced them husband-and-husband — ‘by the powers vested in me by the Constitution’ — she gave a sly look and added a little emphasis on the word ‘Constitution.

I loves me some RBG, and so did the guest, who applauded wildly at her remarks.

Kanye perfumed at the Billboard Music Awards last weekend and was censored for most of the song due to, well, f-bombs and such. And when you add in that there was so much smoke on the stage and that you could barely see Mr. Kardastrophe, well, it was my favorite performance of his ... ever.

Couldn’t see him; couldn’t hear win.

Down in Louisiana, after a House committee rejected a bill that would have legalized anti-LGBT discrimination, Governor, and Ain’t-Never-Gonna-Be-President Bobby Jindal issued an executive order that bypasses the state legislature and makes it legal to deny service to The Gays.

I could go on, but I’ll just keep it simple:

Fuck you, Bobby Jindal. You’re done.

I have a double Hot Men Alert …

While perusing a little HGTV the other morning, I came across Candice Tells All. I like her design sense, but I also noticed that she has a new carpenter, Roger Morin, who is hunky and hot and really fills out a pair of Levis. Plus, he builds stuff … dream man.

And then, that same day, I came across a photo of new It Boy, well, It Man, actor Matthias Schoenaerts, at Cannes.

Yum; hot, with an accent? I’m sold.

[Morin, Schoenaerts]

Reverend Matthew Makela, an associate pastor at St. John’s Lutheran Church and School, who, according to their website, enjoys, “family, music, home improvement, gardening and landscaping, and sports” — as well as being one of the most anti-gay pastors around — has resigned following the revelation that Minister Matty had a Grindr account, used for bisexual and gay men to arrange hook-ups.

Uh huh; the homophobic pastor is a self-loathing, closeted, lying, bigoted homosexual.

I’ve always said, the more homophobic you seem, the more homosexual you just might be.

[photo source]

Speaking of hypocrites …

Josh Duggar — one of those reality kids form that woman who cannot do anything other than get pregnant and hate The Gays — was investigated for child sexual abuse several years ago after his own father, Jim Bob Duggar, told authorities he saw his son, 17 at the time, leaving a young girl's bedroom and learned that "something inappropriate happened." 

Jim Bob brought his son into the Arkansas State Police Station and spoke with a state trooper about the inappropriate contact with a minor, but the trooper didn't follow up on Jim Bob's statement because … who knows, except that same trooper was later convicted on child pornography charges and is currently serving 56 years in prison, so, um, yeah, there’s that.

Three years later, the Arkansas State Police finally brought the case to the Crimes Against Children Division however, the statute of limitations ran out on the case, preventing Duggar from being further investigated.

The ironic part? Josh Duggar is the executive director of FRCAction, the lobbying component of the anti-gay Family Research Council that routinely accuses LGBT people of child molestation.

Hmmmm. Pot.Kettle.Pedophile.

[photo source]

Random Musings

We have certain rules in our house:

1] I take care of what goes into the cats and Carlos talks care of what comes out of them—no matter which end.

2] Carlos kills the bugs. Now, I will kill a bug if Carlos isn’t around, but if he’s home, well, I call on him.

Now, apparently, I am in charge of snakes. The other night, after dinner, Carlos took Ozzo out to the backyard. I was in the living room when I heard him say, loudly, ‘Bob.’

‘What?’

‘There’s a snake out here.’

I go out onto the deck and look down at Carlos standing on the lawn and pointing about a hundred feet away from where he saw a foot-long snake—although I think it was smaller because Carlos tends to exaggerate snake size, ifyougetmymeaning.

He wanted me to get a shovel and scour our 1-acre-plus lot at night for a small snake and kill it. I refused, and simply suggested he come inside and let it go, but his fear, albeit real, was trending toward the irrational.

‘There might be hundreds out there.’

‘What if they come in the house?’

‘We have to move.’

Luckily I didn’t have that shovel or ….

Down here in South Carolina, where it’s not the heat, it’s the stupidity, some folks, most folks, just love Senator Lindsey-Not-Gay-Graham.

But, the GOP senator is facing a tough primary from a number of Republican challengers who believe he is too 'liberal' … Let that sink in … and one in particular, Nancy Mace, has taken to ‘gay baiting’ the 58-year-old lifelong confirmed bachelor.

Mace has called Lindsey a ‘Nancy Boy’ in a recent Tweet, which she then attempted to delete but, being from South Carolina, was too dumb to realize that once a tweet is sent out it is out there for the public.

But don’t worry about Miss Lindsey. She apparently has some $6 million in the bank and a comfortable lead, but that don’t stop folks from a’talkin’ ‘bout her.

So Beyoncé got her hair cut.

That’s news? 

Apparently it is these days, though, I think, the story shouldn’t have been that she got her hair cut but that she had her weave removed.

The International Olympic Committee [IOC] has a long-standing rule about political demonstrations and they have confirmed that they will likely enforce that rule at Sochi should any pro-gay protests be made by the athletes. 

Under rule 50 of the IOC’s charter: ‘No kind of demonstration or political, religious or racial propaganda is permitted in any Olympic sites, venues or other areas.’ The penalty for violating Rule 50 can be "disqualification or withdrawal of the accreditation of the person concerned without appeal."

Yup. If you say ‘gay’ in Russia, you could be jailed, and if you say ‘gay’ and the IOC gets wind of it, they will disqualify you and strip you of your medals.

It’s good to be gay, no?

I am in love with Downton Abbey, though I was heartbroken when the dreamy Matthew Crawley was suddenly killed last year. 

So, this year, in an effort to mend my wounds, it seems the producers have lined up some serious Man Candy for my amusement; from top to bottom: 

Julian Ovenden plays aristocrat Charles Blake, while Gary Carr is set to play American jazz singer Jack Ross, and Tom Cullen plays Lord Anthony Ginningham.

Like I said: Man.Candy.

After the demise of DOMA we are learning all the ways in which those same-sex couples will be affected by the changes.

One, well, I don’t like it, is that new policy guidelines established by the Social Security Administration will limit benefits to only those same-sex couples who live in states with marriage equality. 

So, those of us who marry, legally, yet live in a state that does not yet offer full equality, will not be entitled to Social Security Benefits.

But, in response to the DOMA death, a majority of federal agencies — such as the Department of Homeland Security and the Office of Personnel Management — have chosen to look to the laws of the state in which a couple was married as opposed to the state of the couple's residence in order to determine marital status.

So…the march goes on.

Last week the winner of Food Network Star was announced after an hour-long clip-show; I felt no need to recap that.

The winner was milquetoast Damaris Phillips. She was the most mainstream of the three finalists, and one destined to be groomed to take Paula Deen’s place but ….

The Food Network aired the results show at midnight, Eastern Time, which says to me, even they aren’t that thrilled by the outcome.

Ten weeks of trials and challenges and the news comes out in the middle of the night.

Things have gotten so bad out there in San Diego for Mayor, and :::cough cough::: ALLEGED sexual harasser Bob Filner that several business in the downtown area have posted signs in their windows saying the mayor is not welcome in there establishments.

The latest business to follow suit: Hooters.

And that is no joke. In a statement posted on Twitter, the company said restaurant acted on its own: "Our Hooters Girls in San Diego have spoken. Not a corporate gig, but we support our girls."

Hands off, Mayor.

Oh, and you Obama Haters?

Yeah, the government has reported a $97.6 billion deficit for July but noted that the country remains on track to post its lowest annual budget gap in five years.

July's figure raise the deficit to $607.4 billion, but that is 37.6% below the $973.8 billion deficit for the first 10 months of the 2012 budget year.

The Congressional Budget Office [CBO] forecasts the annual deficit will be $670 billion when the budget year ends September 30, far below last year's $1.09 trillion. It would mark the first year that the gap between spending and revenue has been below $1 trillion since 2008, AKA the W Years.

Snap. Oh, and shut up.

Ebony magazine created a series of covers following the Not Guilty verdict in the George Zimmerman trail and lotsa conservatives were all up in arms about it, threatening to boycott the magazine and cancel subscriptions.

Ebony magazine was nonplussed:

Get Those Mother Effin' Snakes Out The Mother Effin' Saturn

Quiet weekend in Smallville...but, hey, that's Smallville.

On Saturday, Carlos was going to take our recycling, the garbage, and lawn and garden refuse, to the recycling center. See, they don't pick up our garbage and recycling at Casa Bob y Carlos because, while we live in Smallville, we don't live in Smallville. We are outside the city limits and, well, you take care of your own trash out here.

It's really not so bad. The recycling-refuse-garbage center is a hop, skip, and sashay down the road, so it's usually done quickly. And if we lived in Smallville, the plus of having them pick up our garbage would be weighed down by the excessive taxes one pays to live in the city.

There are hotel and restaurant surtaxes; entertainment taxes; tourism taxes. You get taxed for wearing white after Labor Day, or not having enough mint in the julep. So, we take the outskirts of Smallville to save a penny or two, and to be able to slip into a pair of eggshell shorts in October if we so choose.

So, now, back to Carlos and the recycling. He uses my car, Leonora, a lovely white Saturn--hmmmm, I wonder if I'm allowed to drive her in the city after Labor Day--because his car can't handle the bins and boxes and trash cans and clippings. He loads up Leonora and off he goes; quick trip and then back home to gather up the bundles of branches and sacks of leaves and lawn debris from the last yard duty session, and off he goes again. Without a hitch.

But, back at home, it is while he is cleaning out Leonora, getting rid of stray leaves, twigs, etc. that have fallen off the bundles from the back of the car that a tiny snake crawls from the leaves and slithers across his hand.

The scream was heard all the way into Columbia. Dogs everywhere perked up their ears. people thought it was a tornado alert.

Nope. Just Carlos and some mothereffin' snakes in the mothereffin' Saturn .

Some smelling salts and a large broom later, the little snake had slithered back into the yard and Carlos seemed to be coming down. That is until Round-The-Way-Gay Neal asked about the big snake in the car, because, if there's a small one, a big one can't be too far away.

Carlos fainted.

On Sunday, Carlos and I, along with Round-The-Way-Gays, Neal and David, went up to Charlotte for a CostCo pilgrimage, with a quick stop at Trader Joe's for some delicacies. We stopped in at Senor Tequila's--and you just know that name appealed to me--for an incredible lunch, and fun stories. It's a small place, but the waiters are cute, with sexy accents, and food is amazing, so it's a win-win. A little ceviche, a little Ropa Vieja--Spanish for "old clothes" though it makes a tasty lunch--and chiles and cheeses and tortillas.

Then it was on to Joe's for some curry sauces, swordfish steaks, wine--always wine--goat cheese....you know, the everyday staples. But if you've never been to Trader Joe's, you do not know what you're missing. It's like an upscale, gourmet grocery store, with incredibly reasonable prices, and new stuff every week.

It's a gem.

After stowing away those treasures, we went off to CostCo for our more mundane groceries. Carlos and I stocked up on industrial sized containers of bleach, laundry soap, enough Kleenex to last a year, and Oatmeal for the rest of the decade, along with fish and chicken and cheese and bread and and and....

David and Neal got a small sense of Carlos and shopping carts when he whizzed by them on the back of our cart, followed quickly by me, shouting, Stop! NOW!

I'm still looking for an adult sized leash to put on him when we go out in public, or, failing that, a life sized rubber snake to keep around the house.

You know, just for kicks.