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How is it my home state gets things right, while California gets it so wrong? Did the church money overlook Connecticut?
“It shows me that public opinion is really changing,” said Robin Levine-Ritterman, the first in line at City Hall in New Haven to get a marriage license with her partner of 17 years, Barbara, who already shares the same last name as a result of their prior civil union, as she clutched red roses.
The official start of gay weddings, a month after the state’s top court struck down a gay-marriage ban, underscores a steady expansion of gay rights in the U.S. Northeast in sharp contrast to California’s November 4 vote to ban such marriages, which sparked weekend protests by thousands.
Government by proposition, referendum, and initiative is great up to a point–but sometimes you need a neutral and bipartisan judiciary to tell the people crafting illegal and unconstitutional laws, well, when they’re crafting illegal and unconstitutional laws.
Go see it. Definitely worth a matinee.
1. Replace all the belts on your car plus an oil change: $104.51
2. Replace the two oxygen sensors on your car because of a check engine light 9 days later: $259.00
3. Replace the entire exhaust pipe that severed itself violently from the vehicle frame due to 5 1/2 years of New England rust and road salting 22 hours later: $421.34
4. Aside from routine maintenance, having no other repair costs (jinx?) on your car since it’s purchase in November 2000: Priceless.
5: Realizing that as much as I adore using Seattle Metro bus service day to day, that I feel naked not having a car for just four days after having one continuously since about 1996 (literally, each day not counting vacations to mass-transit heavy cities): Aggravating as all hell.
As transcribed in the early period of the ’00s, by Andy “J Metropolis” Khouri (w00t, thank you Wayback Machine!); note this is from before we were actually married, and still lived in Connecticut:
Andi:
Andi doesn’t even know where she came from. Her long term memory was lost in a bizarre celery accident, and most of the night she was soft-spoken and shy, keeping to herself and reading comics in the corner. (except when she was making out with other chicks).
Mine:
Joe — or “Joe Sizzle,” as he is known — actually created the internet. He explained this to me in a very clear, unslurred voice, and he did so for many hours. I honestly did not have the mental capacity to grasp exactly how he created the internet, but trust me, he did. It’s his, and we all owe him a little piece of our souls. I hope that by honoring him here, he will forgive me for my sins and allow me to continue using (abusing?) his property. Before Joe created the internet, he was a regular little kid in 1950s Colombia, riding his scooter around town with a slingshot in his pocket and a twinkle in his eye. On October 25th, 1955, Joe was struck by lightning. He survived, and there was absolutely no change in his body, behaviour or in his thinking. On October 25th, 1956, Joe slipped in the shower and hit his head on the toilet seat and lapsed into a coma for forty years. On October 25th, 1996, Joe woke up with the idea for the internet, even though by then it had already been created. It’s a real shame. Today Joe lives in Connecticut with his girlfriend Andi and lots of comic books.
Until lift off.
Sounds like we have a peacock somewhere outside our apartment. WTF.
The night before last night, Mojo skulked around the apartment, alternately growling and running away from open windows and the screened in door to the porch, from the moderate ruckus of the neighborhood fireworks. Last night, she was even worse off, and looked pretty scared all evening. When someone a building over from us let off what sounded like a quarter stick–I don’t know if it was for sure, but it was loud as Hell and scared the crap out of us, let alone her… she immediately ran and hid behind the toilet in the bathroom all night long. Now, tonight, on the 4th, we’re going out, and it’s going to be even more insane.
She never really had to deal with fireworks in her previous neighborhoods. In Ansonia, there just wasn’t much in the way of fireworks happening, except for one time when our downstairs neighbor went berserk and practically set the street itself on fire (cops nipped that one right in the bud). In New Haven, the neighborhood was just too quiet. Rich old people didn’t try to blow things up so much. This neighborhood in Magnolia is very, very quiet, but it seems like everyone wants to be a pyrotechnician the past 48 hours. Poor kitty.
My first coffee subscription delivery has arrived! Be afeared, oh yes.
For those not in the know or unlucky enough by geography to not know, go here. They are probably the only corporate brand I actually “I LOVE YOU” for. They’re just that tasty.
- Today, Dunkin’ Donuts is America’s largest retailer of coffee-by-the-cup, serving nearly 1 billion cups of brewed coffee each year.
- On an average day, Dunkin’ Donuts sells more than 30 cups of freshly brewed coffee each second.
I’ll bet you that about 90% of that is just in New England. All of us there or from there that I know that drink coffee are just stupid for this stuff. I think they must drug it to make us obediant.
I love Seattle weather sometimes, it totally reminds me of home. When I’d be in California, or down South, the weather often felt static. It’d stay the same for ages. In New England, it’s not just a stereotype–it feels like the weather sometimes changes on a dime, hence the old joke about coming back in five minutes if you don’t like the weather. Fifteen minutes ago it was bleak, gray, raining, and raining at a good clip. Now the sun is shining in, the sky is a rich blue, and the air is still. I love it.
The last really big one, back home. Final accumulation was about 34″ I think, this was in 2003. God pwned Connecticut.
It’s worth noting that all the snow you see right here fell in something like 90 minutes…
Its funny, I thought my wife was always exaggerating how nuts people get over snow out here. Back home we barely blink or merit it’s discussion unless it’s 12″+. The whole house was going NUTS last night and today over this… plus half the Internets in the NW is apparently on suicide watch. This is the bulletin:
THE NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE IN SEATTLE HAS ISSUED A HEAVY SNOW WARNING…WHICH IS IN EFFECT FROM 6 PM THIS EVENING TO 9 AM PST TUESDAY.
SNOWFALL TOTALS OF 4 TO 7 INCHES ARE EXPECTED TONIGHT AND TUESDAY MORNING. THE HEAVIEST SNOWFALL AMOUNTS WILL OCCUR OVER THE HIGHER TERRAIN CLOSE TO HOOD CANAL…AND THE LESSER AMOUNTS WILL OCCUR OVER THE KITSAP PENINSULA ALONG THE SHORES OF PUGET SOUND. SNOW SHOULD CHANGE TO RAIN AND TAPER OFF AROUND MID-MORNING ON TUESDAY.
A HEAVY SNOW WARNING MEANS SIGNIFICANT SNOWFALL IS OCCURRING OR IMMINENT. SIGNIFICANT AMOUNTS OF SNOW WILL MAKE TRAVEL DANGEROUS. ONLY TRAVEL IN AN EMERGENCY. IF YOU MUST…KEEP AN EXTRA FLASHLIGHT…FOOD…AND WATER IN YOUR VEHICLE IN CASE OF AN EMERGENCY.
Now the really funny thing is, I totally get why people here utterly crap themselves over this finally. Back home, we get 4″-7″, the kids go sledding, everyone drives to work, maybe the kids get a day off from school, if it’s icy too. More likely a 90-minute delay or 90-minute early dismissal. But the extent of “big hills” back there would be something like Booth Hill in Stratford. That’s *a* hill. Two routes up it. Maybe the big one by Sikorsky, coming down onto Main Street/111. Like every single city block in downtown alone has hills like that, or bigger. Oops. And apparently here the snow is usually the big fat slick rainy sort of snow, the kind that’s generally a pain to drive on anyway. Add in that all the hills are like a 45 degree angle or some damned insane thing like that… yeah.
EDIT: outlying regions or something (I don’t know them all yet) are getting 4″-7″, the city is getting up to 2″. Still, driving down a hill like Queen Anne in 1″ of wet snow? Eff that.
We drove from Butte, Montana to Seattle and arrived late last night. I’m sitting in my in-law’s living right now with
We’re already starting to nose around classified ads on Craiggs List and in the Seattle PI, looking for apartments. We’re thinking (in order of preference), 1. Ballard, 2. Capital Hill, 3. West Seattle. Ballard, I think, I would prefer the most, or West Seattle, if it’s close (or vaguely close) to the water and Elliot Bay. Up next, though, after the Internets are up and running at the inlaws is to pick out a good self storage place. ABF says that our stuff will arrive as planned on either Monday or Tuesday, so we’ll likely be loading it’s contents into storage on Wednesday next week. After that… Andi’s job hunt, and looking for our own permanent lodging. Adjusting to life out here. I’m feeling pretty tired and out of sorts, still, after the pure chaos of the two weeks before we left (packing, Furio’s death, you name it) and the past weeks’ driving.
We’re going to move the mattress in the spare bedroom on the first floor up into the finished attic, so everyone in the house has a bit more privacy (both our in-laws, and us). The spare bedroom will then serve as a sort of ad-hoc office for me, while we’re here for a while. Mojo is up there now, with her food and litter. Andi’s parents have a cat of their own, a crotchety old indoor-outdoor girl named Gabrielle who is wildly territorial. Mojo, from previous experience, does not play well with other girl kitties. So, we keep them separated, but my mother in law wanted to let Mojo down from the attic for a bit to explore the house (Gabrielle was outside). So far, our little girl seems to be adjusted fairly OK, but cries a bit when we’re not with her, especially since she’s alone without Furio. We slept downstairs last night, but will be upstairs from now on. It’ll be a bit easier on her, then. Plus, we’re going to setup Andi’s own PC upstairs, so that I’ll have less distractions in the office while working. It’ll be good for Mojo, that way, as well.
Sitting here, in this house, is a bit odd. I’ve never had a good family life before. My parents, as parenting skills go, were monsters. I’m still, along with people who knew me through that, amazed that I’m not utterly fucked up from it. I have no idea why I’m not. But this… this is just surreal, and I feel like I won the lottery. Sitting around the dinner table with Andi and her parents last night, sitting around the table this morning with Andi and her mom, just chatting over coffee… yeah. I’m feeling like the luckiest guy in the world right about now.
About the rest of the drive, yesterday: what else can I say about the Rockies, and then driving through the Cascade Mountains? Brilliant. Utterly, singularly brilliant. We are going back. I haven’t seen even 1/10000th of what I want to see out in that country. Also, new cool amazing thing: the Columbia River Gorge is just unearthly in it’s beauty. Once we get into proper shape, again at long last, I have every intention I think of hiking that amazing place.
It’s also apparently monsoon season here in Western Washington, but it’s just a bit gray outside and pleasantly cool–not too unpleasant, at all. If this is what it’s like most of the time through autumn and winter, I can definitely get used to it.
I was looking out the window JUST now, and I saw a brown van–a big one–slow down very suddenly in front of the house. Then a big honking blue van comes out of nowhere from behind, and slams into it from behind. I don’t mean a love tap. I mean he fucking plowed into him as if he didn’t even touch the brakes. Then, they both just SAT there. No one got out. I was thinking I should go down, and was in that few moments where your body can’t really catch up to the rest of the activity your mind is taking in through your eyes.
Then Blue Van began spinning it’s tires. Very, very hard, to where they were smoking. That’s when I thought that maybe I shouldn’t move away from what’s happening. Next, Brown Van rolled forward. Slowly, very slowly, at about five miles per hour, towards the curb about forty to fifty feet away. Still, no one got out of the vans. Then Blue Van began to spin it’s tires again, even more aggressively. Finally, Blue Van accelerating like mad from a dead stop–it had to be a neutral drop, or close to one. He was an inch away from slamming into Brown Van again, when he suddenly swerved alongside of him, to the point at which there couldn’t have been anymore than a foot of clearance between their side windows.
Then the yelling:
BLUE VAN: You fucker!
BROWN VAN: (can’t be understood)
BLUE: Don’t you God damn worry! Fuck you!
BROWN: (can’t be understood)
BLUE: Fuck you! I’ll see you tonight!
Then Blue Van accelarated like mad again, and tore off down the one-way street parallel to mine, but he went the wrong way down it! Next, there was a huge squeal of brakes from that street, which is out of my view, and I thought he was about to hit someone head-on. But no–a moment later I saw the man finally, wearing a gray tank top and khaki shorts. He came sprinting down the side of the town’s small library (which is in between my house and the one-way street), pointing his finger and screaming.
All the while, Brown Van is still in the exact same spot.
BLUE MAN: Fuck you, you fucking faggot! Fuck you! I’ll kill you!
BROWN: (can’t be understood, but much louder)
BLUE MAN (alternately shaking his fist and pointing): Oh yeah? Yeah? Yeah? I’m coming! I’m coming to kick your ass you fuck! Have a nice holiday!
Then the Blue Man ran back to the Blue Van, laid another strip while yelling some more, and continued on down the wrong way on the one way street. The man finally got out of the Brown Van, and he’s wearing a red t-shirt, making him the Red Man. Red Man is walking in the street now, talking on his cell phone and to some lady who was walking her kids during this whole show out front.
I’m going to miss this town.
